"Singe my soul."
Damn!
"Why did I do that?"
Damn it stung!
"Why? Why? Why?"
Inhale…
"Why?"
Exhale…
The Monster Mage sank down against the wooden wall her back had slammed into. Her left arm shook in pain, poorly quelled by her right hand holding securely at her left wrist hard enough to turn her fingers white.
A poor choice of hers, but one that she did not know yet. A poor choice she made on her own, luckily, as the surrounding library could attest to. A very, very poor choice.
On top of the already-poor choice she had already made, that is. Books flapped inefficiently with their wide-opened spines as they came crashing down around her in a page-scattered half circle around the tortured shape of crystal magic that laid shattered and broken on the stone floor.
Shards of weak, fragmented crystal magic laid spread out inside the page-scattered half circle like a poorly made mosaic of shimmering color. At the end of the half circle sat the Monster Mage with heavy breaths through gritted teeth holding hard on her left wrist. Her breaths added to the decaying chaos of the fallen bookcases and stinging refracting from the shattered crystal magic flashing the sunlight managing through the dust thrown up in the air by the fallen-over bookcases.
Cter's mind wasn't on the pain in her left arm though, despite how much it asserted itself to be prominent in her mind. There was a certain dullness to it which only became less noticeable the more it pulsated warmly from her wrist. What was more on her mind was what was about to burst through the door at any second with either bows taut, swords drawn, or sleeves radiating.
The latter was inevitable due to how her magic laid shattered on the ground, exploded both physically and magically. Had there been any monster within the campus it would have been like a punch to their soul, so the Royal Mages must have felt it. Same could have been said for the taut bows and drawn swords too as Cter's ears were ringing with a disorienting volume to them similar to when she first visited Dr. Sallus. Everyone in the large, brick building must have heard what she did.
"Why did I do that?"
It was only due to the library door slamming into the wall she was leaning onto that Cter noticed that it had been flung open. A gust of wind followed it, sweeping across the library floor and turning the pages of the books which had landed upright in the half circle. There was cold to the wind.
"–er!"
Which meant that the magical punch had hit harder than the physical one.
Fog collected towards the half circle, diffusing the shimmer and colorful refracting of the crystal shards. There were no robe-covered legs following the fog into the half circle though, and Cter had to let her head fall onto her right shoulder to be able to see Terri through her recovering sight. As she did she felt viscous liquid shift inside her left ear.
Not comfortable.
"–etch a physicia..." Cter heard partly through the shifting liquid in her left ear from the Royal Mage of Ice. There was hurry to his voice which must have been prominent since Cter could hear it through her partial deafness. "–ter, what happe..." Terri asked her, but got nothing back. The blurry features of his face shifted, but he didn't move within the half circle. He stood as if frozen.
Cter chuckled lightly at the irony.
It stung a bit doing it.
"I'm fine," Cter said, hearing only half of it. The half she heard was enough for her to tell that she was lying. Her back felt uncomfortably flat and even the small motion of her rolling her head down onto her right shoulder had her feeling slightly nauseous. She meant to say that she was just gonna sit down for a breather, but perhaps she needed a bit more than just one. The dullness from her left arm made it hard to tell how she actually felt. Her thoughts in her head told her that she should be feeling worse than she was.
With the library in chaos around her and the fact that she felt shards of wood poking at her back with each breath she took something unplanned must have happened. Her breaths too felt like an action she had completely forgotten and had to relearn, sounding like a fish monster in a desert without any water anywhere in sight.
So maybe she shouldn't have tried to stand up as she only managed to fall back down again onto the stone floor onto her lumbar which again should have hurt more than it did.
So why didn't it?
And why didn't Terri get closer to her if his voice was so hurried in reaction to seeing her? Why didn't he go inside the half circle of books, pages, and crystal shards?
And just as curiously, why were there no crystal shards outside the half circle? Why was there a gap between the edge of the half circle and the fallen bookcases outside it? Why wasn't any of the Royal Mage's fog rolling inside the half circle?
"–ur barricade mag..."
Barricade magic?
Was that what Cter had been doing?
Hollow, glass-like thuds were knocked twice onto the air above the half circle by the Royal Mage's fist, creating water-like ripples that distorted him and the library around him. He must have seen it as well as he reeled back from the knocks with a startled crane of his neck.
"I'll get it," said Cter with some effort. "Step back a bit."
The Royal Mage didn't move.
"Step back," Cter repeated a bit harsher, having to swallow afterwards to soothe her throat, but again the Royal Mage did not move. "Terri," she finally resorted to cough out.
But he didn't move.
"Terri?" she tried again with the dullness soothing her throat. Her right-hand fingers had begun to tingle as well, getting through the dullness. If that meant that the dullness was moving around in her body somehow then she should try and get the attention of the Royal Mage as best as she could as fast as possible. "Terri!" she shouted.
And cutting her own ears in the process.
Cter heard her own voice echoing intensely like she was shouting into her own ears. Her head reeled back, touching hard at the ruined wooden wall behind her and blurring her vision again. Through the blurry she could barely see Terri knock again on the faint barricade magic, causing another ripple effect deeper than what his previous knocks did.
Yet still it didn't seem like he had heard Cter. Had he done that he would have said something in response, right? He would've tried to talk to her instead of knocking for her attention. Didn't he hear her? Was that why?
With a shake of her head, Cter regained some of her vision. The nauseous feeling from moving her head a bit too fast would have to wait though. She opened her mouth widely, talking slowly and loudly. "Can. You. Hear. Me?" She heard her own voice echoing close by again, and when Terri pointed to his ear with a denying shake of his head, it began to clear for Cter.
"Don't move," she heard the Royal Mage say fully, muffled by the thickness of the barricade magic at the rim of the half circle. "A physician is on his way!"
Cter nodded. It wouldn't be necessary since she could heal herself, but the dullness inside her made it difficult for her to realize that she could. Magic in general felt a bit...distant, to her. She still had it since the barricade magic was still there, so it must've been her hitting her head that had her feeling dizzy.
She could think somewhat clearly about that though, so perhaps she did not hit her head as badly as it would seem? Her neck didn't feel wet which was a good sign. She hadn't been thrown into the wall as hard as what the First Fusion did with her into the heart-shaped fountain at Clinic Hill. Still though, she felt on her aching back that the wooden panels had broken behind her. They must have caught her, saving her from the brickwork behind them.
"Thank you," she said to them.
She would need their help some more to help her stand up. There was one panel on her shoulder which she could lean onto, helping her push herself up to an unsteady lean against the shattered wall.
"No, don't–" Terri began before realizing that there was nothing he could do about it. He bit down angrily before huffing out a calming exhale. He took a step to the side, lifting up his head to look around Cter. "There is a sharp piece sticking out next to your neck on your left," he warned with a press of his sleeved finger against the faint barrier. A shimmering wake followed it as he dragged it up a bit. "And one just above your head."
Cter nodded with appreciation, finding a comfortable-enough angle to lean her weight onto the wall without slipping or stabbing herself on the jagged wood. Terri waited for a few seconds to make sure that Cter had footing and balance before tapping carefully at the barricade magic again. "Can you remove it?"
Could she?
The Monster Mage focused inwards to search for the feeling relevant to the magic. It was a bit dulled like the rest of her, and it took her a while to find her magic within her. Like rereading something she had written a long time ago sloppily and with leaky ink, she had to feel and feel again within her soul to understand what it was she was reading.
She had seen other monsters forget that their magic was still active before, but never really looked further into it which came back to bite her, it seemed. Again similarly to rereading something written a long time ago and sloppily to boot, it felt like the barricade magic wasn't...hers? That it had been made with a thought process that she did not recognize.
Maybe she hit her head harder than she thought?
Once she probed at the foreign feeling inside her soul though she began to recognize it. It gradually began to feel as her magic again, flourishing on her left arm with noticeable tingling. With a calm exhale to accentuate her magic with a physical action, she had the barricade magic fade away like the breath she exhaled.
And felt blowing back on her face?
The Royal Mage stumbled slightly as he did not see the faint barricade magic disappear. Only when his arms fell forwards did he notice, and was forced to take a sharp step to not fall with them. Books that stood on end and which had leaned against the faint barricade bowed down around his feet, widening the half circle slightly. "I'll heal you up before the physician gets here," said Terri with a green shine filling up the fog from his sleeved arm. He kneeled down carefully next to Cter, displaying his arm and intentions for the Monster Mage. "Might have to do some on your head, I'm afraid."
Cter was stuck in thought while Terri talked. "What?" jumped off her tongue as she was surprised by his hand nearing her. "My head?" As she asked the reflective question, the green-shining arm stopped, curling tentatively along with the Royal Mage's brow.
"Can you hear me?" Terri asked slowly, tilting his head forward so that his voice would travel further. "Can you..." His eyes widened, and his head craned back.
"Yes," nodded Cter. "Yes I can hear you." The Royal Mage did not react though. "I said I can hear you," Cter repeated with another nod, but no reaction as well.
He still couldn't hear her?
But Cter took down the barricade magic. He could pass through it. He–
A flick of a finger slapped against Cter's cheek, causing a flinch that had her reeling to the side with a baffled expression solidifying into disbelief plastered over her face. She looked to Terri, who looked to have been reeling even more than she had. "Why did you do that?" Her hand touched her flicked cheek. "Why did you do that?" she asked again with no animosity at all in her voice.
She was too confused to be angry.
Like…
Why?
Was it because of the war?
"I...uh..." the Royal Mage stammered while looking at his hand as if it had insulted his mother. "I thought… I think…" His eyes squinted, but it didn't help at all. "There's no barricade magic?" He blinked off his arm to Cter. "But surely..."
Barricade magic?
No, she just took it down.
"No, I..."
There it was again, that echo.
"I."
And again.
"Hello?"
And again.
Cter huffed a cough of air.
Which she felt bounce back at her face.
She snapped her left fingers, creating a crystal spike that grew from her palm.
Which flattened itself just above her palm against an invisible roof.
"Huh..."
It appeared that she was inside a cocoon of barricade magic.
"Alright..."
The Royal Mage's furrowed expression loosened. "You're inside a cocoon of barricade magic." Since he couldn't hear Cter he figured it on his own. "I see," he chuckled with relief. "Although you should probably take it down since I can't..." His furrowed expression regained itself. "Since I can't hear you?"
True, he had a point there. Why couldn't he hear Cter though? The barricade magic allowed for sound to get through since it acted as a wall, but he couldn't hear her at all. She could hear him though. Could hear him clearly as if there was nothing between them but air. He could touch her though. Could flick at her cheek. Did he do it to make ripples like he did when knocking on the barrier wall earlier?
No wonder he was so stunned when he hit Cter.
So what did that mean then? That Cter had a barricade cocoon around her that only blocked on one side? Blocked more on one side too? Blocked sounds completely. Blocked magic completely. She was still visible through the blocking side though otherwise Terri wouldn't have reacted to seeing her hurt like she was.
Wouldn't have seen her at all, even.
Did that make sense? For her magic and voice to be blocked but that Terri could still see her?
Kinda? Sorta?
Cter speaking and making magic was actively from her, whereas she didn't have to do naught but exist to be visible? It was the first explanation that popped into her mind. Explained too why her breath bounced back against the barrier onto her own face.
It would do for the moment.
"So it is a one-sided barricade magic?" milled Terri with his sleeved hand gripping gently around his mouth and chin. "If I can't hear you, but you can hear me? If your magic can't escape it? That must be the explanation."
Even though Cter knew why Terri repeated exactly what she was thinking it still felt a bit condescending that he did. What would be next? That he would say that she would need to–
"Maybe you need to dismiss it in an inside-out manner of sorts?"
…
"He can't hear you," Cter said to herself since she had the luxury to do so without Terri hearing. "He can't hear you, it's not his fault."
The Royal Mage cupped his hand around his ear. "No, I still can't hear you, Cter."
A weary sigh was reflected in the Monster Mage's face.
"He can't..."
It took another sigh for Cter to begin to focus inwards again. She scoured her soul, leafing through the dullness and itchy tingling within her to find where and how exactly the barricade cocoon around her worked. She tried first to feel at it close to where the barricade wall was, but it wasn't there. It wasn't the same as the barricade wall.
"Because it's keeping me inside?"
Hearing her own words echo loudly so close by had the idea solidifying more and more with her.
"And to hold in everything that my soul is connected with on one end it has to let through everything on the other?"
But why though?
And how did she figure that?
Cter looked around the half circle to try and scour for some clues, something to jog her dented memory. Apart from the barricade magic there was also her crystal magic lying in shards spread out inside the half circle. Why shattered though? Why shattered in a way that suggested that it had shattered with force?
Great force even as both the pieces close to the middle of the half circle and the pieces at the edge where the barricade wall was were in smaller pieces than between the two. That the shards were smaller in the middle were from it being the center of the shattering force, naturally. That the shards at the edge of the half circle also were in smaller pieces meant that they must have hit against the barricade wall and broke again, so to speak.
Was Cter trying to test the barricade cocoon? Was she forcing it to form by threatening her own life?
No, she wasn't that careless. There were still some paths she hadn't taken with researching the Soul Rainbow, so why would she have been so desperate as to risk her own life?
Something must have gone wrong then. Something must have happened that Cter did not plan for. Something that led to her losing control of whatever it was she was trying to do.
She looked around again. Maybe she'd find something else with her having given it some more thought? The crystal shards led her on a good path, so if she looked more into its pattern perhaps it would lead further? She had been doing similarly with her leads for researching the Soul Rainbow, so she had learned when she could trust her gut feeling on a lead.
Finer shards of shattered crystal magic in the middle and on the edge of the half circle, yes. What more was there?
Well...there was the fact that it was a half circle to begin with.
"Oh, good, you're here, Rasliela."
Why wasn't it a full circle?
"Did you see the physician on the way here?"
Was it a half circle because it continued out into the corridor behind her? Behind the shattered wall she was leaning her weight onto? Against the sharp, jagged pieces of broken wood forming almost a perfect, dented shape of her body.
"I sent a guard to fetch him, but it's been a while now."
And no shards?
"Also, you wouldn't know anything about barricade magic?"
No crystal shards embedded in the shattered wall?
"You see–"
It's a sheet!
Cter's sudden tilt up of her head startled the Royal Mage of Ice. "It's not a cocoon," she told to no one but herself. She was stuck between the shattered wall and a sheet of barricade magic! "That's it!" Her wide smile squeezed a drop of blood down into her right eye, twitching it close. It stung, but she smiled through it. "A sheet of one-sided barrier magic!" Like an invisible spider web keeping her stuck on one end. Cter looked to Terri with her revelation shining on her face, but he did not react the same.
Because he couldn't hear her.
Still.
"Oh, right..."
So she had figured out what the barricade magic was, so what was the next step? Tracing back why there was a sheet there at all? Since there weren't any shards in the wall it meant that the sheet was there prior to whatever had her crystal magic shattering.
A brief flash shot through Cter's memory of her standing at the middle of the half circle with an irregular shape of crystal magic hovering in front of her. Of how she added and added more to it, making it denser and denser, yet not expanding in size.
Was she restraining it with barricade magic? Was that what she was doing?
"Well ain't I glad that I decided to humor you by leaving you alone to your new findings," hummed Rasliela as she took in the storm-like aftermath with each of her cane's step crunching the spread-about crystal shards. "You whispered something about barricade magic before I left." She poked at the spine of a book with her cane, lifting it up a bit before letting it fall back down. "Containment I also heard you say."
"Oh?"
Another flash shot through Cter's mind and soul like a lightning strike.
"Oh..."
She remembered.
"Ah, I can hear you now, Cter!"
Although she wished that she didn't.
"Where does it hurt?"
Because it included what she remembered just before she forgot. What she remembered just before her experiment with trying to have one-sided barricade magic exploded in her face. It was a memory from when Cter lived with Idyll in Jarasevo, from when Idyll was still learning her cooking. "Shouldn't you let some steam out before it boils over or explodes in your face?" Cter had suggested to the fledgling Monster Chef as the blue monster had weighed down the lid on the pot cooking potatoes. "It won't be moister than normal if they all explode out the pot, you know?"
Cter's mind must have known that what she was doing with her barricade and crystal magic was wrong, for why else would it had dug that old memory up? Seems her soul did not listen to it though, for why else did she find herself in the aftermath of her magic exploding in her face.
Similar to Idyll's idea to make her potatoes moister, Cter read about it in the recipe book of how using a towel around a roast would keep it moist while still cooling off. It would keep in one property while letting through another. If it worked with food it would work with magic, and since Cter had barricade magic that would be a similar principle.
"I'll be careful with your head."
Cter squinted at the green glow caressing comfortably on her shoulder. "Thanks." She had just a short while to get her own story straight before the healing magic on her head would make her dizzy.
So what she decided after figuring that she could apply a similar restriction to her barricade magic was to test it. If she could have it so that her magic could pass in one way and not the other she would have figured it out. The simplest way to try that, to her, was to surround her crystal magic with barrier magic and continue adding more crystal magic inside of it until either she could not add more or her crystal magic could go through the barricade magic.
The experiment allowed her to either find a way to prevent something from entering through the barricade, or allow something to exit out the barricade magic. Either one would have allowed her to understand how to make barricade magic one-sided.
To heighten her soul's awareness of barricade magic she also put up a wall of it around her, growing it as she put more and more crystal magic into the ball of barricade magic which was her primary focus. It strained her magic to keep track of it all, but she had to push herself.
And she succeeded. Evidently she did.
Although maybe not as graciously as she would've wanted.
Not with her crystal magic puncturing through like an over-inflated bagpipe, and bursting open similarly. It only burst through the inner part of the barricade magic though, bursting through it only halfway. It must have opened up like a folded bed sheet, and since Cter was on the intact side of it she was pushed along with it into the wall, shattering its planks.
Did that mean that she could layer it? Like the sheets of a chest plate? Hard armor on the outside to protect and soft fabric on the inside to be comfortable to wear? She was stuck on the hard part which was why Terri could not hear her. He could get through it though, but he didn't get stuck. Maybe his entire body had to go through for him to have become stuck too?
Perhaps so…
Perhaps if she–
"Sorry," the Royal Mage of Ice apologized after healing at the Monster Mage's head. "The cut wasn't as deep as I thought."
Damn it, Cter was becoming dizzy again from the healing magic on her head, and her thread of thought loosened into strands. She'd have to write it down later. It was something she felt she would have use of later.
Perhaps for the war.
The healing magic dulled the dullness Cter had in her left arm though, and she released her hard grip on it. The needle-like tingling faded, but there was still some dullness lingering in her left hand.
But not the same dullness as the healing magic was removing.
"Careful," uttered Terri with slight surprise as Cter whipped her head down towards her inert sleeve. He took half a step back to allow her to tug loose the fingers, which in turn allowed her to slide the sleeve off her arm.
And her hand.
"Cter..."
Covered half in white.
