[Can’t Opt Out]

The aethernet screamed as the {Blood Ring}’s magic collided with it and Cade’s head, the sound splitting and silent across the world as it shattered apart. The aether wasn’t meant to move like this, wasn’t meant to have so much energy forced through it in such a singular moment—yet that was precisely what was happening.

Exactly what Emilia and this ancient ring, forged from the blood of someone long since gone from this world, were doing.

She had only heard the aether scream like this a few times in the real world, all but one time during the war. They had always been so overwhelmingly powerful—even from miles away, stationed far to the south, she and most of the members of her division had been able to feel the Corist in Luxor tearing the world apart to destroy their enemies, and during the final battle—

Emilia had felt the aether dying under her hands before, but it hadn’t been like this. It hadn’t literally been happening under her hands, more… helpfully adjacent to them. Far up in the sky adjacent. She had gone through the last decade wishing she hadn’t felt that rending so close—hadn’t been the one responsible for it.

Now, laying there, her core energy cracking through her as it instinctually attempted to keep the magic from backlashing at her, she realized that destruction had been so far away it was laughable that it had affected her perception of herself so much.

That moment was nothing compared to this—was nothing compared to the brief moment where magic ruptured through her and the aethernet and Cade’s body because it was just that: barely a moment. It felt like an eternity, time freezing as the universe tried to figure out what it would do with itself once a giant hole was blasted through it, and then Cade’s body was exploding. Blood and gore rained down on her, painting her with fluids she would rather not think about.

At least, as far as she knew, this blood wouldn’t become toxic within her. Hopefully, it wouldn’t do more than what the remnants of Cade’s {Blood Vial: Arrows} did: burn slightly, because more than a little was definitely getting inside her.

Emilia coughed, rolling onto her side to spit out as much blood and brain matter and whatever the fuck else she’d just gotten in her mouth. She wanted to puke. She really didn’t think that would help the situation.

Something thudded beside her, and even without looking she knew it was part of the boy’s lower body, the magic having not quite blasted him away in his entirety. She didn’t need to look. She didn’t need more nightmares, even if that’s precisely what this place was: a realm of dreams and nightmares.

The aether vibrated, a pounding beat, and then another. Emilia blinked, wiping at her eyes with a hand, trying to get stars knew what out of her eyes—off her eyelashes. The aether vibrated, another pounding beat, and when she finally managed to see again, Emilia’s eye’s flew wide.

The puddles of blood around her vibrated, as though something huge and monstrous were taking lumbering steps towards her.

Pound.

Vibrate.

Ripple.

Emilia swallowed, eyes taking in the surrounding carnage. It wasn’t anything new. The monster’s of war had shown her practically ever horror one could imagine. Usually, she didn’t get to see the brutalized bodies of the humans whose deaths her own hands had brought.

“Sorry,” she whispered to Cade’s blood. Hopefully, he hadn’t felt it and had now been taken out of the raid—allowed to return to their world a few hours early. She wondered why he had wanted to win. Based on the way he had spoken, it hadn’t seemed as though he simply wanted to win for the sake of winning a vacation on Ship’o Stars.

Everyone, she supposed, had their reasons for being here, some better than others. She had her reasons, and they were pretty good, in her opinion, even if she could have contacted Olivier or one of her other, rich and famous contacts to get tickets directly from the source.

Pound.

Vibrate.

Ripple.

Again and again the blood rippled, the only thing convincing Emilia that she wasn’t liable to be eaten up by some mystery monster the fact that there was no sound, no pounding footsteps in the distance of the room’s abyss. The pounding, the vibrations echoing through the room, was all aether.

Pound.

Vibrate.

Ripple.

The aether swirled around her, grasping at the blood. Maybe it was a consequence of blood being less magical here—neither Cade’s injuries nor her own had ever healed, and now she could feel her energy reaching towards the cut on her cheek, trying to pull it back together even as the aether tried to pull the boy’s blood out of her.

Disgusting. It was disgusting, and yet the only thing that had truly upset her was the blood and guts in her mouth.

Idly, Emilia scratched at her arm as Cade’s blood worked at dragging itself together. Payton was doing something, she could feel it. It was great timing, this random bout of empty apathy, although she hoped it didn’t last too long. She’d had additive black knots in the past, and she’d always left that state of mind more fucked up than when she entered.

Pound.

Vibrate.

Ripple.

Emilia released a long puff of air. This was boring and potentially a waste of time. Yes, eventually the blood might manage to gather itself up and form some kind of scary blood weapon, but who knew how long that would take.

She rubbed the sleeve of her shirt over her face, trying to remove as much of Cade’s blood as she could, before flipping herself up, blood splashing up her legs. Her shoes squelched every step, and digging through her bag for the maybe-{Blood Key} was difficult with her slippery hands, but she eventually managed to get it out.

Her head tilted back, staring up at where the door disappeared into the darkness. She was almost tempted to send a bit of energy squirrelling upwards, have it explode so she could see just how high the ceiling actually was. Almost. She still had no idea how much energy she did or didn’t have, and she wasn’t about to waste energy she might not have to sate her curiosity, no matter how much she wanted to—and she really, really wanted to.

“Maybe there’ll be light on the other side,” she sighed as she slid the key into the lock.

At first, nothing happened, and even when she sent an echo of her energy into the key it remained static. The aether behind her pounded and vibrated while blood rippled, but the aether around the key remained still and solid.

She was about to pull the key out, reexamine it to check if she was crazy—during her brief examination of the key, back in the Risen Guard building, she’d figured it was probably blood, but she could have easily been wrong—when a surge of power erupted out of the {Blood Key}, sending her soaring backwards. She landed with a wet splat in Cade’s blood, but when she pushed herself up on her elbows to glare back at the door, she realized she was much better off where she was now than by the door.

Sparks of liquid red cracked out of the key, the heat and power of them shuddering through the aether and burning her core even from so far away.

Shudder.

Shudder.

Spark.

Even the pounding of the aether around the blood stilled as the key’s magic overtook the room.

“Man,” Emilia muttered to herself as she watched the world spin while the key transformed itself, “I’m really lucky I didn’t try and use that thing in the Risen Guard building.” There would have been no hiding that she was trying to use the key to investigate rooms she probably wasn’t meant to be in if this was the way the thing behaved when used.

A flash of red exploded out of the key, Emilia flattening herself back to the ground in case touching it would result in her being decapitated. What a turn that would be! Beat the bad guy and almost get the door open just for a backlash to off her.

Emilia peeked up at the {Blood Key} again. It appeared to have calmed down, but she still approached it cautiously, crawling over the ground towards it. A hand reached up, twisted the key and—

Ancient gears ground together, the room shaking as the door opened. Luckily, Emilia was already on her knees; otherwise she definitely would have fallen over due to the veritable earthquake happening under her feet… or knees and ass, as the case may be.

Slowly, the doors opened, the slightest crack appearing and light shining in through—

Emilia yelped as magic surged into the room, heavy and oppressive. It collided with her and then the blood behind her. Near instantly, the cut across her face, which her energy had still diligently been trying to stitch up, sealed shut. The scrapes across her knees from falling, and all the new ones from her tumbling and rolling, burned slightly before they too disappeared, and behind her—

The world behind her torn itself apart. The blood across her own clothes and skin pulled off her, droplets bolting towards the hurricane of Cade’s blood and the magic curse of this world. If she had thought the hurricane of her own blood was intense, slicing the world apart to form her dagger, it was nothing compared to the destruction this much blood and life created. Slashes of blood slapped across the otherwise blank walls, leaving giant lashes across them. Droplets splattered across the walls and the floor, leaving giant divots in everything they touched and forcing Emilia to scurry out of the room, hoping the door wouldn’t give way under the magical assault.

It didn’t, thankfully, but when the storm had settled and Emilia poked her head back into the room, the opposite side of the door was just as scarred and battered as the walls and floor were. Far off, near where she had killed Cade, something red shone, and Emilia was forced to scramble over the rubble of the room to get to it.

Not it, them. Cade’s blood vial, along with a small, multipurpose tool, which she realized must have been the second weapon he’d pulled from his pants pocket to slice her cheek with. Next to them sat the new weapon—weapons. It was a collection of half a dozen needles, each the length of Emilia’s hand, all nearly weightless when she picked them up.

“Great,” she sighed to herself as she tucked the weapons into her now thankfully clean bag, the blood magic having helpfully cleaned her and her things up as it gathered Cade’s blood for the new weapon. “Just what I need, a weapon to remind me of Halen of all people.”

She twirled one of the {Blood Needles} through her fingers. They seemed simple, but given she’d killed someone to get them, there must be something else to them. On a whim, her mind still lingering on her former teammate and his own, skilful manipulation of needles of destruction, she sent one flying towards the wall. It collided with the wall and exploded, Emilia’s hair blowing back from the force of it.

“Okay, not a simple weapon then.”

Aether inside her bag rustled, and when she peeked inside, five needles had returned to being six. She fingered them lightly, wondering where the blood to recreate the sixth had come from—then again, an entire body’s worth of blood could certainly have created more than the first six needles, so perhaps the aethernet was hoarding the excesses to create more needles as needed?

That… was a highly disturbing thought. Blood magic alone was something most people considered wrong and immoral and dangerous, even within her own world, where few people ever experienced the true terror of blood-based skills. For the aethernet of this world to be capable of hiding blood within it…

Emilia shuddered as she stepped through the doors for the second time, actually taking in the new room this time. She steps halted as she entered the light.

“Oh, fuck.”

Stairs would have been better than this.

BlissfullyBroken

Mystery not-stairs room~