I latch onto the coin Clutter's carrying and yank. The air shifts, filling with noise and magic that careens directly at me without warning. I crush a purification and a shield just in time for the attacks to shatter on my defences. Fire and fists bounce off with equal roars, evaporating a strange amount of moisture in the air to create an impromptu smokescreen.

"Huh-wha?!" a stretch of empty space right behind me cries. "O-oh! Hi!"

"Yeah, hi," I chuckle. Another fist slams against my shield, creating a very small and thin web of cracks. "How'd this happen?"

Clutter makes a strange noise as he shimmers into view. "I'd say I don't know, but I have a good feeling I do. See all the steam?"

I nod. "Moisture in the… ah."

Now it's Clutter's turn to nod. "The air went from bone-dry to really sticky in an instant. About ten seconds later everyone suddenly noticed I was there, but that's it; the water didn't attack me. So the horizonguard must only be on lookout here."

"Good assumption. Let's hope it's right," I say as I drop Jumble's coin and flare it. She appears coated in words and static. "Horizonguard's watching this place, that's how Clutter got caught. Can you deal with whoever's out there?"

A barrage of impacts ring out against my shield as if to prove my point. Jumble furrows her brow and taps her knuckles against my shield in time with the impacts. Which are barely doing any damage at all.

She turns to Clutter. "How many of them are out there?"

He looks at her like she has two heads. "What happened to you?"

"Oh, this?" she motions at herself with a laugh. "I stopped being so giving. Tell you all about it once we're not being attacked from all sides."

Clutter slowly nods. "O-kay. There were eight people here to start with, and I saw ten or so more show up before you two got here. The smokescreen makes it hard to see anyone else."

That's the truth; my awareness can barely feel a foot out of my shield. The water in the air is stymying it somehow.

"Okay, about twenty. I can handle that," Jumble says confidently. She pats her book with one hand and smiles reassuringly. "Shelby, can you lower the shield for a second?"

I look back at Clutter. He clenches his fists in preparation and melts away into nothingness. That's enough of an 'okay' for me. I breathe in through my nose and summon two projectiles to work with, focus on my shield, but… instead of just destroying it, let's make it work in its last moments. A command surges into it, the salty structure shimmers with acceptance, and I lean forward a little.

My shield explodes outward in all directions, weakening severely as it grows. Shouts of surprise accompany weak impacts against an already weak shield, sending whoever was close enough to get hit by it scattering. Jumble lunges forward with a snap of static and a whispered noise. Her hand closes around a neck the instant my shield dies out fully.

A strangled gurgle chokes out of an unknown throat. Jumble's whispering static flows down her arm and onto the attacker like a swarm of buzzing flies. Before I can breathe their head is utterly coated in her magic, and everything below the neck goes utterly limp. A yell of battle and a flaming mace fall on Jumble at the exact same time.

Her static whispers a single word; 'useless', as she slams her free fist into the attacker's chest. Blood and viscera erupt from a wide sheared circle of skin on the attacker's back, flaps of cloth that used to be clothes scattering in the vile spray as it settles on a group of horrified onlookers. Jumble shakes her hand with a click of her tongue.

"Still not used to having all this back," she notes, completely unfazed by the corpse slamming to the ground at her feet.

I wait, ears ringing with tension as I wait for the group's response. They're just blurry shapes through the horizonguard's distortion. But they just watched one of their own die brutally and effortlessly. If they try to surrender, we'll–

My vision spins. A loud, wet crunch fills my ears as my awareness feels something appear on the side of my head. Everything goes black for a split second, and when it comes back, I'm standing a few staggered feet from where I just was. I reach up and feel at my head… and something sharp presses back at my fingers.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Bone. My skull. Shattered and piercing through my skin, if my awareness can be trusted. All the brainmatter in my brain sloshes around like thick soup, curling to avoid the spike that's still lodged right there in the side of my head.

"Engh," I mutter in confusion. "Why am I fine?"

I look to Pearl for an answer. She stares at me wide-eyed in disbelief. Well… one particular place on me. The side of my head. I lower my hand and get a good look at the blood… t-the… oh. That's not blood. It's black, shimmers like a star-filled sky, and definitely shouldn't be there. Because that's where my brain should be.

My attacker yanks whatever weapon is stuck in the side of my head free with a look of utter confusion on her face. I lazily turn to look at her. She grits her teeth and rears back her… mace? How many of them are using maces? Is this some kind of special medieval unit of the horizonguard's forces?

A different look of confusion spreads across her face as invisible forces latch onto her neck. Clutter bites down with merciless resolve, tearing half of the attacker's neck out in a single bite. She sputters out a gurgle of death, drops her weapon with a horrible clang, and reaches up as her life sprays away. I look her in the eyes, completely numb to the fact that I'm watching a living being die.

It's muted by the fact that she would've actually killed me a moment ago if my brain wasn't… shellraiser. That has a lot of implications I don't want to think about right now.

"Are you okay?" Clutter whispers as an invisible hand falls on my shoulder. "I shouldn't have let her get so close to you. It's almost like…"

"They're being summoned by the mists," I finish for him. "Yeah, we need to… whoah…"

The world spins as I try to stand on my own. A deep, rumbling thrum pounds against my skull like waves battering an eroding cliffside. Clutter silently takes a position to keep me upright.

"That did a lot of damage. Here."

A soft, suction-filled pop, then something presses against my lips. I drink a swig of the potion and grimace at the flavor, then nod in thanks as Clutter moves it away. The sounds of battle become far more clear as the liquid does its work knitting my skull back together; from the screams of the enemy to the staticky crack of Jumble's finishing blows. I can't tell how many of them she's leaving alive. But if they're still fighting after seeing this… then they're either desperate or stupid.

I flex my fingers and stand on my own. Clutter sighs in relief, then disappears into the mist. Barely two seconds go by before a blood-filled gurgling scream comes from his exact direction. Somehow, I expected Clutter to have a few more reservations about killing actual people. Right now I'm very glad he doesn't.

My awareness spikes. I barely have time to flare a shield before a spear slams into my chest. There was literally nothing there before. Now some asshole in full magical armor's standing in front of me like an overdesigned boss from a shitty video game. But I can feel them fully with my awareness now. Which means the horizonguard has a much heavier hand in this than I'd prefer.

A snarl tugs at my lips as the knight whirls their spear theatrically through the air like a gymnastics ribbon. It flows like one too, probably hinting at their Class. I couldn't give less of a shit about cryptic hints right now; Dani's getting further away by the second, and the horizonguard's definitely going to start giving him wrong directions so we can't find the tombs.

Spearmetal cuts the air with a metallic hum. I throw all my magical weight into my shield to deflect the attack, which sails off to my left. The knight stumbles for exactly one footstep before they catch themselves and pull back for another attack. I lunge in and press my projectile against their chest.

One gasp of surprise. That's all the knight gets out before their upper body is replaced with a devastating whirl of salt-infused obliteration. There's no bone, no chunks, just a gore-coloured slurry mixed with freshly ground metal powder staining the mists a violent silver-tinged red. Metal leg armor clatters to the ground, flesh still inside, and I spin up another shield so nothing can catch me off-guard.

Yet, somehow, the sounds of battle have only grown louder. Hell, it sounds like Jumble's taking on an entire army regiment on the other side of the mist. And my awareness just… can't break through. No matter how much focus I put into it.

"Solids," I mutter to myself in annoyance. "Can't see through damn solids. How much water's in the air to make it work like a solid?"

Pearl shakes her head. "It's the magic, not the concentration. I can sort of see through it, but it takes pretty much all my effort. I'm… going to try something. Maybe it'll work because… you know…"

She trails off, leaving the obvious left unsaid. My brain's pretty much all shellraiser. Obviously it wasn't like that when Pearl and Illumisia fixed me up, so something changed at some point. That's probably why my awareness is getting stronger; there's less human in me than there was three months ago.

A soft noise rolls through my mind. Not a whisper, or a hum, but… some kind of song. Almost like a lullaby. Pulsating masses of… something… throb inside of my skull like a dozen migraines fighting to be the one that makes me violently throw up and wish that my eyes were gone. I grimace and close my eyes as sensations flood in–far too many to be comfortable with, yet… my brain keeps up.

Pain. Colour. Pulse. Sound. Stab.

Aware.

My awareness flares.

And I can feel far too much.

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