33 loop 1, part 13

I woke up to the HUD pulsing at the edge of my vision. It blinked there, steady and obnoxious, waiting for me to admit I was awake. The magical equivalent of Finn tugging at my sleeve.

I was still floating a few feet off the floor. My neck hurt. So did my spine, my hip, my shoulders, my ass. Practically every part of my body ached, like I had just spent the entire night running. My wand had clattered to the floor at some point, and I swam through the air to grab it.

I was wrecked, but I had slept. I felt like I had managed to get a full night’s sleep for once.

The blue crystal pulsed when I picked up my wand. The HUD appeared in full. Three notifications were waiting for me, stacked on top of each other.

All of the levels were from the spells I had cast yesterday. Normally, it took a long while, dozens or even hundreds of casts to level up. But I had been nearing a threshold for all of my skills since the end of last school year. And I had cast more spells in the last twelve hours than I usually cast in a single semester.

The first one resolved itself with a small chime.

[LEVEL UP] Enchantment: Level 50.

I’d cast almost thirty enchantments, so it was no surprise that was the first level up I got.

The second chime arrived before the first had faded away.

[LEVEL UP] Manifestation: Level 25.

Apparently, food magic was an easy way to level up. It had certainly been a fun one. Who knew cheese-based crowd control counted as magical growth? There was nothing I liked more than effortless progress.

And then, finally, the third level up.

[LEVEL UP] Soul Magic: Level 25.

I stared at this notification. This didn’t make sense to me. I’d only cast, like, five soul spells, and that surely wasn’t enough spells to cross the threshold, right? Maybe the fact that [Soul Tether] had been running constantly also gave me a boost. But ultimately, I didn’t care that much. It wasn’t like I was planning on meditating again for a long time, especially since I’d just woken up with full mana.

I dismissed the notifications.

I double-checked my mana to make sure, but I was indeed on a full 278 out of 370. My mana pool felt solid, like a deep breath held comfortably in my chest.

The Keeper was where I’d last seen her—hovering near the desk, just like me. Whatever else I thought about the ancient soulbound person-book thing, she understood the value of letting someone sleep.

“How long was I out?” I asked.

“Around seven hours, give or take.”

Not bad. Seven hours.

If my internal clock was right—and it was always right—that meant the dragon attack would be in less than two hours. And Corwen and I were here.

Fuck.

Except nothing had stayed on script so far. Vex hadn’t been killed, Creed hadn’t been injured, and Kalin hadn’t summoned a shadow monster at breakfast like he had last time. Hell, as far as I knew, he hadn’t even picked up the orb. I had no idea whether the attack was still coming, only that I couldn’t afford to assume it wasn’t.

One thought led me to another.

“My uncle,” I said. “What’s his condition?”

“Unchanged. He sustained serious soul damage, and his mana remains deeply depleted.”

My chest went tight before the thought finished forming. The feeling spread down my arms until my fingers were numb. I wasn’t sure if Prime Minister Creed was still coming, or if Kalin was going to have his breakdown, but images of Finn and my uncle dying flashed before my eyes. So I closed them, grateful [Wideview] was inactive, which meant I had actual peace for once.

“There’s something else,” I said. My voice came out flatter than I intended. “There may be a dragon attack on the school today.”

The Keeper did not immediately respond. She drifted around the room in an orbit.

“I know nothing of a dragon,” she said.

“It’s a shadow dragon named Eirkedross or something.” I watched for a reaction, but she didn’t move. “A student named Kalin Tuffet is connected to it. He has some sort of black orb that he’s been carrying around, and I heard him whispering the name. While my uncle’s unconscious on the floor here, there’s nobody who can stop it. I need to go.”

But before I could leave, the Keeper said something that stopped me.

“I have not heard that name in a very long time.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“You know it?” I asked.

“I know nothing of the attack you describe, but I know what Eirkedross is.”

She drifted closer to the desk, and her pages fell open and began to flutter. Ink crawled across the paper and gathered into the shape of a dragon.

“Eirkedross is not a shadow manifestation,” she said. “It is something far worse. It is dark magic, given form through the consumption of human souls.”

The dragon thinned and broke apart. The page redrew itself into a dark sphere held in an open hand.