Young Writers Society

Another few minutes of walking the circumference led them to the shield door they’d been informed of. Cyrin was fairly sure the inside had to be sizable if they’d only gone part of the way around it. Every so often, another Bane or two would drift out of the walls, but it would leave them be after a few moments of watching them silently. He wasn’t feeling eager about confronting them later, and he could tell Mireya wasn’t either.

The door was a cutout in the ice wall, filled by a rippling, opaque barrier of magic. Mireya took a step to the side as Cyrin pulled off one of their gloves, wincing as the freezing air hit their bare skin.

“What kind of magic is it?” she asked, while he was holding a hand up to it.

Cyrin concentrated, frowning thoughtfully. He could sense two types of magic in the shield, but he didn’t even need to be a Minor Mage to tell what they were. The barrier seemed to be repelling his hand like a magnet, and it only pushed away harder when he tried to get closer. He also noticed a slight vibration in the air and the ground right by his feet, like there was a very tiny earthquake happening in the magic.

“It’s mostly Force,” he said. “There’s a tiny bit of Tremor in there too, although I’m not sure what its purpose in the spell is. It doesn’t seem to be enough to be threatening, at least.”

Mireya nodded. “So, they said we had to ‘burn’ through it. That could be literal and require Flare, or we try to deactivate it using Acid.”

“It’s probably going to take Acid,” Cyrin mused. “That will use up a fair bit of what I have, though, so I’ll try Flare first. It won’t make a difference.”

Mireya inched away as he flipped the MagicBox open again and separated a tiny cluster of magic from the wound-up ball. Flare was not only the least wasteful of the nine magic types, but it was also the easiest to use, which meant Cyrin could create a spell one-handed even when that hand was getting numb. It floated above his palm as he spun it around, rearranging the tiny glowing strands until he could snap his fingers and it turned into a fireball that warmed his hand. They moved it over to the shield, but the fireball only sputtered weakly against it, giving off sparks instead of burning the magic.

Cyrin sighed when it went out a few seconds later. “Well, that didn’t hurt any, but I guess it’ll have to be Acid.”

“I sure hope you have enough for getting in and out,” Mireya said, shivering. “Because I don’t want to be stuck in there.”

“Come on, you’re from Storm City too. You know it gets cold here.”

“The bottom of an ice pit that has never been subject to seasonal change is not the same as surface of a city where every room has a fireplace, Cyrin.”

Cyrin shrugged. “Fireplaces don’t stop blizzards.”

She did have a point, though, and the cold hit them even harder when they had to pull off their other glove to cast a harder spell. After considering, he removed somewhere between a third and a half of the magic he had left from his supply. He could see Mireya raise her eyebrows at the amount, but she didn’t say anything. It was going to take some work to get through this.

After cupping the magic in his hands, Cyrin first changed the type to Acid, then carefully altered the shape of it, turning it into a thinly spread but structurally strong web of what looked like glowing white thread. They then activated it in the same gesture that they sent it to the shield. This time, it appeared to work. The surface of the magic let out a hissing sound on contact with the Acid spell, seeming to corrode and disintegrate. He could now see a hole forming in the shield, and he caught a glimpse of an open room beyond it.

“How big does the gap need to be?” Mireya asked, watching it spread wider.

“Big enough for both of us,” Cyrin said, biting his lip. The spell was still doing its work, but he could tell it was already weakening. Normally, using that much magic in one spell would have huge effects, but there was so much magic in this shield. Even Acid couldn’t neutralize all of it. “I’ll wait, but you can probably step through now.”

Mireya tucked herself through it, just barely able to fit. He watched her stand up fully on the other side, then quickly take a few steps back. “Oh,” she breathed, her voice surprised.

“What is it?”

“You know what, don’t worry about it. Just wait until you get through.”

Cyrin frowned, but he had to turn his attention back to the hole in the shield. It continued expanding, but it was slowing substantially, and they knew it would start closing soon. They waited until it seemed like it wouldn’t get any larger before they slipped through, ducking and stepping through it one leg at a time. It wasn’t actually that tight a fit, which was good news for their exit. Cyrin stood up on the other side, just as the hissing of Acid on magic faded and the gap rapidly closed itself back up.

“So, what was it?” Cyrin asked, looking around before he saw it himself and blinked in surprise. “Oh. I see.”

Mireya was standing over a skeleton.

“I guess we aren’t the only ones to try and come down here,” she said as Cyrin stepped closer, frowning and leaning over the remains.

“They must have barely gotten through the shield on their way out before… getting caught and falling backwards.” He shook his head. “Who knows how old this is.”

“It’s just bones,” Mireya said slowly. “But this place is a freezer, and there’s nothing here that could decompose it. No insects, no fungi, nothing. So…”

Cyrin cleared their throat. “The Banes have teeth, don’t they?”

Mireya glanced up sharply, and they both shared a look full of disgust and horror at the idea.

“Well, I think the desire to not end up that way is enough to make me get out of here,” she said briskly, moving on to the room further in. “Don’t you agree? Oh, wow— look at this place.”

Cyrin followed along, and he was shocked that the skeleton had somehow gotten his attention first over what this place held. Rows and columns of displays stretched in a grid ahead and to both sides, each stand holding a different artifact or collection. There were still Flare lights, but most of the artifacts glowed on their own, shimmering with a pearly aura. He’d never seen this many of them in one place before, not even in an Alchemist’s or Artificer’s lab like Clarity’s.

“I better start recording for our client,” he breathed, unlocking his wrist communicator and setting it up to take a video.

“You do that,” Mireya agreed, taking a few more steps to stand among the artifacts, an expression of awe on her face. She took a few seconds to snap out of her astounded daze and work on pulling something up from her own communicator.

A holographic image of an antique painting popped into view above her wrist, and Cyrin recognized it as the one they had been shown by the entrepreneur who had hired them. The painting was a portrait of a young woman sitting in an armchair with elegance, seeming to look right at the viewer with a captivating smile. She was no doubt the subject, but Mireya was zooming in on her hand and pointing at a gold ring with a purple gem that was on one of her fingers.

“The Glory Ring,” Mireya said. “That’s what we’re looking for. It was said to have ended up here seven centuries ago, a while after the painting was commissioned and the wearer passed away.”

“What magic does it have again?” Cyrin asked.

“It only has Rationale. Something about making the wearer always alluring and charming. That girl looked really pretty, honestly.”

“Don’t go getting a crush on anyone who’s been dead for seven hundred years.”

Mireya winced. “Well, I try not to.”

Cyrin stared at the ring in silence for a moment before they briefly muted their recording. “I wonder what our guy wants it for. A proposal?”

“Or maybe he wants someone to propose to him,” Mireya said with a shrug. “I’m not really interested in his plans. I bet there’s a lot of artifacts here that are way cooler, and I can’t wait to see them all, so I’d love to start searching. There’s so much to go through.”

Cyrin nodded, unmuting the video again before they took a deep breath and stood up straighter. “Let’s get looking.”