Young Writers Society

The sigil swirled around them, the lines crossing through them, and each time Railyn felt something whispering to him.

He attempted to activate his aura, but to no avail. It wasn't... gone, but he couldn't reach it. He stumbled as he looked down and only saw darkness below him.

"Thane?!" He tried to shout.

“Railyn!” Thane shouted. She tried to reach out, feel his aura, not to take it, but just to know he was still there.

The sigil split open, a fissure on one end at the top... right where he started and ended the circle. All of a sudden, he felt his aura rushing back to him and he flared it to life, desperate to keep the sigil from breaking apart, because who knows what would happen then. He surged forward, his two fingertips alight with raw magic, and scraped against the fissure.

The sigil hardened and the break mended, but the sigil itself was still swirling and Railyn felt as if he was moving like he did in his dreams, both in movement and incredibly, infuriatingly slow.

Thane felt a sudden flare-up of magic, so strong she pulled back, mind feeling burned at the sudden spike. She couldn’t tell if she should add power to help him or take his away to stop the magical reaction. She felt stuck. She’d never seen something like this before.

Railyn pulled his fingers back, and upon further inspection, the brilliant blue light of the sigil's magic stained his fingertips. He reached back in his reading of the booklet, trying to find something that might be useful in whatever the heck was going on there.

His mind, thankfully for once, pulled up something that might have been useful. A force stop sigil, to stop something in its tracks, in case any calculations went wrong. Railyn didn't think anything went wrong, but of course it did! It always did!

He flared up his aura again, and widened his stance --which was very odd when there was no floor-- and quickly carved a diamond shape in the air. The magic went from brilliant blue to dark red, and the sigil circle copied it.

Railyn reared his arm back and punched through the sigil with an open palm, twisting it to the left. Magic pulsated around them, like a vibration that shook the very air. The sigil stopped swirling. It broke apart in even pieces and, with the force stop sigil, faded away, leaving the both of them in pitch blackness.

Thane blinked, catching her breath. “What did you just do?”

Railyn nodded, letting Thane know he heard her, but he bent down and let the pent up air fall out of his lungs. His back ached from tensing so much. "I stopped the sigil." He managed out.

“That was obvious,” Thane said dryly, trying not to show how rattled she was. “I meant, what did you just do with that sigil?”

"I don't know!" Railyn exclaimed. "If I'd known what I did, you think I would have done it?" He glanced around. He could see nothing. What was going on?

Thane said, “how should I know? You’re the one who drew the sigil.”

Railyn start to craft an awesome and totally scorching retort when deep rumbling stopped him in his tracks.

Suddenly, he felt something solid underneath his feet and he could see... well, still nothing, but it felt more... tangible than before.

"Did you feel that?"

Thane hissed, “Shh.” She was completely still. She was basically blind in the darkness, but she was used to that with her fog, so she was trying to ignore it for the most part. She reached out with her mind, trying to search for any other energy that might be around them.

Railyn took a step toward's Thane's whispers.

Thane hesitantly felt her foot along the ground, then said, “Can you hear me? We need to stick together.”

Railyn felt the tips of his fingers burn, and glanced at them. They were still cool-blue, like the sigil. He brushed them against his thumb, and they sparked.

The spark echoed with magic far stronger than he was capable of producing, and a wave of magic poured out from their spot. Railyn looked around. The darkness of where they were was revealed as the wave passed through them. The place looked like a hall, like some kind of thing Railyn would see in a museum. Long pillars, glossy floors and walls. No light, though.

Railyn didn't pay much attention to the decor, though, as the wave of magic passed through something just as dark, but more living than the floors and pillars. Railyn didn't see much, but he did see eyes. Many, many eyes.

And they turned to Railyn and Thane.