That was a mistake.
I’d never felt pain quite like what I felt in that moment. It spread from the middle of my back where the spider had hit all the way up and down my spine and into my legs.
I may have screamed.
My vision went red.
When I could see again, I felt Sera wordlessly slip a ring onto my hand.
I sent a surge of mana into it, felt the warmth spread across my back and legs in an instant.
It still wasn’t enough. I laid there for several seconds, tears forming in my eyes, before Jin managed to pick me up and throw me over his shoulder.
“We need to go.” To emphasize that, he began moving at a jog. Every impact he made against the ground sent another surge of agony through my back, only to be countered by a wash of warmth from the ring.
I didn’t know how long it would take the ring to do its work, but for the moment, I was more helpless than I’d ever been.
Glancing from side-to-side, I saw Sera and Vera moving along with us, and that Derek had busted nearly a dozen holes in the door. The pieces of damaged door were getting stuck on the webbing, so he was being forced to pull the stone pieces out before advancing. that was probably the only reason he hadn’t caught up to us already.
We passed by a newly-formed stairway, one that had soundlessly grown in the center of the room into a hole in the ceiling.
If the stairs had gone down, we might have nearly been safe, but nothing was ever quite that easy.
Jin carried me to the doorway of the next room. I couldn’t see it well from my angle, but I could tell it was open now.
“Vera, go back and get Corin’s sword. We’re probably going to need it.” Jin instructed her. I’d never heard him sound that commanding before.
“Got it,” she replied simply, running back toward the spider.
“What am I missing?” I asked. “What’s in the next room? I can’t see it.”
“You’re not going to like it.” Jin replied.
I winced as he shifted his stance. “Just tell me, we’re not exactly in great shape either way.”
“Statues shooting jets of fire.”
Oh, goddess resh it all.
I thought back to how both Jin and I had been ‘incinerated’ in the test involving fire-breathing statues and closed my eyes.
Last time I’d used Selys-Lyann to try to shield myself with ice, I’d nearly killed myself that way.
“There’s a door on the other side,” Jin continued, “But there’s also a central floor tile. I think it might be another stairway, if we can get there and trigger it somehow.”
I couldn’t think of a way I could get us there safely.
We all had barriers or a shroud, but if the flames were as intense as the ones in the test, our protection wouldn’t last very long. And Jin couldn’t possibly be mobile enough to dodge flames effectively while carrying me.
The demi-gauntlet? Useless here.
The Jaden Box? No one useful to summon and we had an anti-teleportation rune on the room anyway. Maybe the box would have overpowered the rune, but I didn’t have any good summoning options available either way.
Selys-Lyann couldn’t make walls of ice like Sera could. The aura was designed to cut and spread, not form barriers.
If she wasn’t so exhausted, if she was a bit more powerful, Sera could have made this trivial—
And maybe, just maybe, I could make her strong enough.
I tilted my head toward Sera, wincing at the renewed pain. “Sera, just how confident are you that we’re actually siblings?”
She raised an eyebrow at me, her lips twisting toward a frown.
“Asking for a good reason. I have a waterskin containing a liquid from the tower that I think is probably an enhancement elixir of some kind.” I closed my eyes. “Okay, not the time for secrecy. It’s how I got my attunement. I drank this water, I saw the goddess, and my attunement appeared. Then I saved some of the water and put a preservation enchantment on the waterskin.”
She lifted a hand to her mouth, and I heard the sickly scrape of ragged laughter before she broke into another fit of coughing.
“Anyway, the important part is that the preservation enchantment isn’t as brilliant as I thought. It contaminated the liquid inside with some of my mana. And drinking something with someone else’s mana in it is dangerous. Potentially fatal. But if we’re siblings, your mana type might be close enough to mine—”
Sera looked straight into my eyes, took a deep breath, and then extended her open hand.
I understood.
“The waterskin is in my belt pouch. I don’t think I can reach it.”
Sera moved to my side, opened the belt pouch, unstoppered the bottle, closed her eyes, and began to drink.
And, within moments, she began to glow.
I hadn’t turned my attunement back on.
As she continued to drink the fluid, her aura flickered yellow, orange, red, yellow — and began to spark.
She bent over forward, retching, but only threw up a mouthful of ichor.
And, as I watched, that ichor froze into ice.
Sera stood up, reopening her eyes.
They were ice blue without the faintest hint of white.
I’d never seen anything close to it.
Sera spun at the sound of another crack from the doorway, lifting a hand. “Wall. Wall. Wall.”
Her voice was strong again, unwavering, as the broken section of the doorway was filled with ice. More walls sprung up behind it, thicker than the ones she’d conjured before.
Sera turned back to me and shivered before speaking again. “We should go. I will forge a path.”
Sera took one more drink from the flask, grimaced, and restoppered it. Then she put it back in my pouch.
“Woah, nice work there, Sera!” Vera arrived with Selys-Lyann in hand and my other sword in her other hand. “That a mana potion or something?”
Apparently she hadn’t been able to hear the conversation from where she was standing. That was probably a good thing.
“Something like that,” Sera replied. “Corin, may I borrow your mana watch?”
I nodded and handed it to her.
Vera took a step back. “Uh, your eyes, Sera—”
“I’m fine for now. Wasn’t an ordinary mana potion.” She reached back to press the mana watch against her attunement mark. As she did, I got a look at it.
It was no longer a Summoner Attunement.
It was like nothing I’d ever seen.
Attunements always changed in complexity when they grew more powerful. Normally, it was just adding an extra line or shape to an existing design. This was a completely different style, and nothing like any one I’d seen. Not even foreign attunements.
She shivered again as she looked at the watch, then handed it back to me.
It read 968/112.
It hadn’t increased her mana capacity properly. She was filled with mana that her body couldn’t properly contain.
“Sera…” I started.
“I know, Corin. I’ll use it as quickly as I can.”
I balled my hands into fists. I couldn’t do anything else.
“Wall. Wall. Wall. Wall.”
“The way is clear,” Jin pronounced. “We should proceed.”
I reached into my bag and withdrew my etching tool again. “Bring me next to the door, then the rest of you get inside.
They complied. “Okay, turn me around so I can draw on the door.”
“I’m not sure we have time for this, Corin,” Jin noted.
“It’s going to buy us time.” I reached forward, and Jin grudgingly turned me toward the doorframe.
I scratched a rune I’d never actually powered before across a combination of the door and frame. It would only be whole when the door was closed.