Shards of Old

I stood there for a good minute, trying to understand what exactly I was seeing, but no matter how hard I racked my brain, nothing that made sense came to me. Then I remember that there definitely were more important things to worry about right now. What happened to everyone else?

With that simple question in mind, I shook off the initial shock and took a good look around the rubble that used to be our lab. Besides the obvious hole, and the destruction, there were no immediate signs of any human presence. I slowly started circling the room looking for any signs.

I don’t know if I should call it luck or not, there was no trace of bodies. Not even that much traces of blood. Where I woke up, near the wall and the, now overgrown with moss, floor, there were a few, barely visible, red stains, but besides those, the only ones were on the shards of the Crystal itself.

Speaking of, the Origin Crystal - it was most definitely destroyed. The shards were scattered all over the room, and some even further down the corridor. Some of them, now instead of pure and colorless, were now dyed crimson, from the blood of… well, it’s anyone’s guess whose.

And yes, another thing that was dyed red was my shirt. Or rather all my clothes. Suddenly I got reminded about the state I was in. I quickly sat down on a nearby piece of destroyed furniture and started peeling away the remains of the sleeve from the wound.

But the wound wasn’t there.

Well, let me be clear. My whole arm was still missing. But, after getting a fucking hand chopped of you’d expect a bone sticking out, or, since the exploding Crystal was definitely searing hot, a charred wound at best. But no, instead of that I had a large piece of the Origin Crystal, about the size of a large fist, right where my shoulder used to end and my forearm start.

Just to be more unsettling, I could see, although barely, a bone embedded into it. Hesitating a bit, I touched and tried pulling it away, getting ready for the immediate pain, but no. It was wedged tightly, to the point you can say it basically was melded into my flesh.

If that was not enough, as I was inspecting the crystal lump I had instead of a piece of my arm, I realized that it wasn’t the only place where I got struck by the shrapnel.

The whole left side of my body was full of cuts and bruises, filled with pieces of the Origin Crystal of different size and shape.

I had to lie here quite a bit, since all the wounds managed to close, leaving the shards inside my body. I started pondering if I should somehow try and pull at least some small pieces out, but after trying to scratch a little bit at the small ones, I decided that it was a bad idea. They were already completely embedded in me and I’d literally have to use a knife to try and get rid of even the smallest of them, not to mention the large crystal stump. For that I’d probably need a chisel. Or an axe.

Carefully, I tried stretching a little bit. To my surprise, I did not feel any pain, although I definitely felt the presence of the shrapnel. It did not inhibit my movements, but my whole side felt itchy with every move, which was rather annoying. How long did I have to lie here for my wounds to look like that?

I stretched out once more, this time a bit more lively, just making doubly sure that everything else was working as it should. Even the larger piece of crystal in my arm socket moved slightly. It was definitely unsettling, being able to see a piece of your own bone move as you tried stretching, but I was not complaining.

Considering the fact that I spent an indefinite amount of time under some rubble, I was incredibly lucky. Somehow, the epicenter of the catastrophe, the same thing that destroyed so many lives, saved my life.

My personal health being out of the way, I now had some other pressing issues.

Where were the others?

The distinct lack of the bodies meant one of few things. It was possible that they disintegrated as well. But the signs of the blood were still there. Not that much, considering what happened, so it could be possible. Someone moved them? I doubt it, they would’ve noticed me, I wasn’t buried that deep. Disintegration seemed most likely, but there was the one little detail that didn’t fit all this.

What’s up with this forest? Sure, we had some trees next to our building, but not THIS. I heard that abundance of mana sometimes was able to cause nature to wildly expand, but on this scale? Still, I could feel a faint trickle of mana slowly pouring out from where the crystal used to be. We… I mean, I did manage to rupture the leyline after all, so it was not completely out of the realm of possibility.

I looked out from the opening in the wall towards the forest. After a closer look, the ruins I saw earlier were sort of in the right places, fitting the old layout of the streets before, although only the nearby ones. Others were too densely overgrown to see from here.

For a second I thought about yelling out loud to check if I can grab anyone's attention, but I stopped myself. If anyone was to come here they would definitely ask questions. Questions I either did not want to answer or plain should not.

-Well, I better get moving… - I said to myself and went back deeper into the ruin of what used to be the greatest research center of The MIRE.

The building was an absolute wreck. While the room where the Crystal used to be was definitely in the worst shape, the rest of it was also hit pretty bad. Holes in the walls so large that the light from the outside was pouring in, ruined furniture, broken fish tanks, a lot of scorch marks… And of course, on top of that - moss and grass everywhere. As I walked down the stairs, trying to find what remained of our locker room - the elevator was of course just a pitch black shaft with some vines wrapped around the cables - everything was silent.

On the other hand, the staircase was mostly untouched. I mean, it was completely overgrown, but it was in one piece at least - with no major cracks screaming “I am gonna give out any second now and kill you”.

The locker room itself also was in decent shape. Probably because it was underground was my guess, but what got spared during the explosion, was ruined shortly after. The room was completely flooded - unsurprisingly, some water pipe had to break during all this and those were the effects.

My locker was not far from the stairs, so I was able to reach it, but that did not mean my stuff was not ruined. The only thing that was somewhat spared was my bag - and this was only because it was not a regular bag.

It was a common practice in The MIRE that we would use our personal belongings to experiment, sometimes even using our personal funds to finance more, ehm, unusual ideas, and my bag was one of such items. It was supposed to be enchanted with something we called “infusion” - a.k.a. it was supposed to be resistant to all sorts of elements - water, fire, you name it, while still being made out of cotton and looking exactly the same. The experiment was deemed a failure - besides the protections being pretty crappy, the material darkened in color in random places. I didn’t mind, but most of the clothing companies would most likely not stand for that, so I ended up with a bit darker and a little bit more resistant bag.

It was definitely only “a little bit more” - because right now the bag was completely damp - including its contents. My notes, phone, everything - ruined and useless. Well, at least I had a bag. I put it on the ground floor, in one of the numerous holes in the walls, where the sun was still shining through to let it dry a bit and I continued to scavenge, trying to find anything useful.

I sort of wanted to find something to at least replace my torn clothes, but with the basement flooded I did not find anything that was not ruined by nature.

Sadly, there was nothing that I would call useful, that is besides shards of the Origin Crystal.

When I tried collecting them I noticed a strange new property - they were attracted to each other. Not only that, but when they actually touched, they immediately started to meld together, making it impossible to separate them.

Without much of a thought I undressed from my shirt. I took one of the shards and using it as a makeshift knife, I cut out my other sleeve, essentially creating a very poor t-shirt. The remaining material I used to wrap the shards I picked up, trying to separate each other as much as I could. It sort of worked - they still were “magnetic”, but the cloth at least prevented them from fusing. I tossed them into the bag, now a lot less damp - the enchantment was at least good for something, it was drying up pretty quickly.

After a short consideration I put my shirt back on, but this time back to front - it was already pretty much ruined so no one would tell the difference and this way I at least had my crystal scars hidden. I grabbed my bag and started slowly leaving the building.

I briefly stopped at the entrance and looked back at the ruins, wondering what the hell I should do now.

There were no signs of any human presence nearby, and even the path that used to lead to the city was overgrown so much that if you did not know that it used to be there, you’d easily miss it. I sighed and started to walk towards where the city used to be.

As I was walking, I tried to think of some story I would tell if I met someone. Saying that I was from The MIRE was pretty much exactly the same as yelling, “Hey look at me, I was the one that wrecked the city”. Whenever we liked it or not, when something went wrong with magic, it didn't matter if that was our fault or not, the blame always got pinned on MIRE. Okay, most of the time it WAS our fault and it was just one of our experiments either running away or a stray spell went off somewhere where it shouldn’t, but that doesn’t matter.

I decided I would act as a crippled refugee that got lost in the forest. My appearance definitely supported that story, all my clothes were ripped and dirty, resting in some ruins and getting front row seats to an explosion will do that for you. There had to be some refugee camp somewhere, or something right? That is if I was still where I thought I was…

But the longer I walked, the less sure I was. I mean, sure, I saw from upstairs that it covered quite a bit, including a part of the city itself, but I walked and walked, and there was no sign of the buildings.

Was I lost already?

Even considering that the mana flow has let the greenery to grow at an astounding rate, it was simply impossible for this forest to be big enough for me to get lost in. I was even following the path that used to lead to the city. Then it struck me. I WAS following the path. There was no sign of it any more, replaced by thick grass and bushes.

I stopped for a minute and started thinking, but I could not think of a proper explanation for whatever was going on. Sighing with resignation I said to myself.

-Welp, I guess I will have to bend the rules a little bit.

Back when everything was normal, flying using magic was not something publically available. It was in development for a while now in our research center, but we were never able to stabilize it and have been going haywire more often than not. Since you basically used a small tornado to propel yourself upwards, it was deemed unsafe and quite destructive if not used correctly. I would know, it was one of my side projects after all.

The experimental spell aside, there was another issue - I have not tried using magic since the explosion, and to be honest I was a bit worried to do so. After all, I did not have my personal crystal, one I used all the time for the experiments, as well as for regular everyday tasks - the only thing I got was the pieces of the Origin Crystal.

Casting spells through them was definitely possible, but… a bit risky.

Imagine this comparison - if you were to make a cup of tea, would you, if you had to, instead of using the stove, pull out a flamethrower to heat the water?

Yeah, that was basically what I was dealing with. The spell would most likely work, but I would most likely destroy something in the process, and most likely that something would be me.

Without much of a choice, I had to at least try. Even if I were to go back to the ruins of the research center, that is if I managed to find it, I would just get lost again.

But, I was not going to be completely reckless - at first I decided to check out the effects of a different crystal on a spell of a much smaller scale.

-Usc fi mynu - I murmured under my breath, holding a shard that I've gotten out of my bag. It was an easy light spell that I always used instead of a flashlight.

I expected many things. For it to blind me completely. Or to burn me. Or to produce some other weird random side effect. Or even not to work at all. I admit I was pretty certain I was gonna produce a flashbang, to the point that I even closed my eyes as I spoke the incantation.

But as nothing like that happened, I slowly opened my eyes, and realized that it actually just worked as it should - a small orb of white light, the size of an apple, was now hovering in front of me. I tried focusing on the spell, trying to pour a bit more power into it, and as expected, the orb started slowly getting brighter. I was in full control of the spell.

Encouraged by the success, I decided to try something else.

-Usc fi geksu.

The spell worked just fine - another orb appeared - composed of red flames instead - looking like a miniature bonfire, hanging in the air..

This time, I did not bother closing my eyes, and thanks to that I noticed something strange.

Well, I would probably notice it anyway even with my eyes closed, because as I casted the spell, I felt a bit of heat somewhere near my left arm and a distinct smell of burned clothes.

The spells that you cast always originate from the crystal you used. Usually it’s not the problem, you can always move the source, right?

Too bad, the source this time was not the crystal I was holding in my hand, but rather the large one that was now part of my body.

Startled, I started patting down my clothes, but the orb moved quickly and my clothes only got singed a little bit.

-Makes sense. - I muttered to myself. - Now I have a big chunk of crystal instead of my elbow. Mana always chooses the biggest shard to flow from. It might be problematic to explain how I am casting with a stump though…

Shrugging off his revelation, I continued with my experiment. Since everything was going pretty smoothly, well, mostly, I decided I should check all other elements, just to be sure.

-Usc fi visu.

The air next to my stump started to distort and condense, creating another orb - or rather rock - that moved and started hovering next to the other ones.

-Usc fi elvu.

Another one. This time, from the thin air, a bubble full of water appeared.

I sighed with relief. The most basic elements were no problem. Now for the more advanced one… well, the light worked, so why shouldn't others, right? Hoping not to butcher the pronunciation, I went ahead and attempted summoning another one.

-Usc fi wipvu.

I was sure that was the weirdest sounding one that I had to use on a regular basis. But sure enough, suddenly a wind picked up, and I felt a brief rush of wind around me.

There was no visible orb, but I felt that the spell worked. I hid the crystal back inside my bag and tried feeling with my hand around where the other spells appeared.

Yeah, it worked alright. As I moved my fingers I could feel the air being denser and move between my fingers.

Good. The one element I was the most worried about worked fine, so I was ready to try my idea, but before that, since I already started, I decided to test the other elements as well.

I moved the invisible orb towards the other ones, paying close attention not to get too close to the flame - forest fire was one of the last things I wanted right now.

-Usc fi gymnu.

This time I summoned a small ball of electricity, which promptly shocked me as it emerged next to my arm. Actually, I didn’t. I saw the small tendrils of electricity zap my crystal stump, but since it never touched my actual flesh, I did not feel the sting. Besides that, everything so far was going fine.

-Time for the last one. Usc fi uncsu.

This one appeared smaller than the other ones - a small dark orb. It was most likely thanks to my first spell directly influencing it, but I didn’t care much about that - the point was, it worked.

I started playing with them, making them dance around me, thinking of the next step, feeling a bit anxious.

Noticing that I am looking like some weird solar system, I released all of them letting them disappear without a trace or fall to the ground, depending on the element, aside from the water orb - which I simply swallowed.

-Here we go, I guess…

Trying to remember the whole incantation, I started chanting.

-Imwulo wipvu loy wumu gesy nop icme fi gmyhu…

The spell worked. I felt the sudden familiar rush of air and slowly, but surely, I started rising from the ground up.

My crystal was better than expected. It had the most stable mana flow I ever felt. It probably had to do with it basically being bio-bound to me, or rather wedged into my flesh. Only problem was its weird placement. Feeling more confident I started to increase my altitude, to try and break through the canopy. Soon, I was above the trees and slowly was ascending higher and higher, to see more of my surroundings.

What I saw was definitely a sight to be seen. In every direction, as far as you could see there was only dark green. Not believing my eyes I flew even higher, until I was about 50 meters above the canopy.

-Wow…- A sigh involuntarily escaped my mouth. In every direction, for what felt like tens of kilometers, you could only see trees. And, like in some dream, on the horizon, I was surrounded by mountains so high you could not see their top, hidden in the clouds. It was already getting dark, so with the red sky it was even more out of this world.

After admiring this unexpected vista for a few moments, I finally stopped kidding myself - I was not even remotely close to my city, nor to any city in fact. How did I end up in this place? Why were the ruins of The MIRE still here as well?

And most of all I realized I will have to somehow travel all across this.

-I am lucky that I know this spell. I can't imagine having to travel through all those trees on foot. - I muttered to myself. After looking around, I decided on going south, towards the ruins, or at least I thought that was south.

Flying above the flowing sea of trees I couldn't help but think about all of the possible scenarios that transpired after the explosion, with questions flooding my head constantly. What exactly happened to the rest of the city? Where the hell am I? Did I get teleported somehow? Then why do those ruined buildings look very familiar? Did they get teleported as well as the whole research center? How long has it been? What happened to the other people? Was I just unconscious for that long, my life supported by mana and the crystal? Is that even possible?

I flew past where there should've been the residential zone, full of skyscrapers. Lowering my flight , I started looking for any signs of civilization, but it was already getting pretty dark, so even after summoning a couple of light orbs I couldn’t find anything. After a long while of flying around the area, I almost gave up. As I was about to leave I increased the power of my spell, and this stronger gust of wind displaced trees far enough for me to see the ground. And some brickwork. Intrigued, I tried my hand at landing.

It was pretty smooth until I hit the canopy.

Before, when ascending, tree branches just moved out of my way, since nothing was really disrupting them. Now, they started swaying chaotically in every direction, being hit by strong winds generated by the spell. Not wanting to be smacked out of the air by some tree branch I started descending faster, but apparently my flying skills were not as good as I wanted them to be, because I got slapped in the face by a massive tree branch anyway. Dazed by the hit, my spell ended and I started unceremoniously falling to the ground.

-Zurxa!

Before I hit the ground I managed to cast another spell. Since I did not have much time to think nor to speak I kept it simple, But not wanting to break some bones I put a little bit too much into that one this time. I managed to stop my fall and not break my neck, but the large air current I created in the process managed to break some branches off the trees nearby and with loud creaking pushed a bunch of other trees back away from the impact point.

-Note for the future: do not land near the trees in the dark - I thought, gathering myself up from the ground.

On a closer look, what I saw from up above was less interesting than anticipated. I expected to find some actual clues about the current situation. Instead I've gotten some old bricks, firmly planted in the ground. You couldn't even tell what they used to be even part of. Scattered every few steps, half buried in the ground and overgrown with moss.

Considering how far I've flown, this could either be a part of the residential area, or even the old town. Though if that's true and I was somewhere in the old town, I should be at a lake nearby, about half kilometer away to the east, on the outskirts of the city.

That is of course if I was still where the city used to be.

On foot this time, I started slowly making my way in that direction.

Sure enough, it did not even take ten minutes for me to hear flowing water, and not long after I was standing on the edge of a small lake. To be honest, it was larger than I remembered. A lot of things were different than I remembered.

First of all, besides the lake, there was a very small river that I am sure was not supposed to be there. It was flowing through and out of it, to the south.

And second - the greenery.

It was something else entirely. I already was used to seeing the forest all around me, or rather under me, while flying here, but even from the ground I could see the difference. It was even more bizarre than the whole forest combined. While everywhere else the trees were lush and green - here the colors were even more vivid, almost unnatural. The ones closer to the water were covered in something akin to the moss, but instead of green small leaves it had all the colors you could imagine, with patches of the same color clumped together, forming some abstract-looking patterns. To add to this image, there also were some sort of water lilies, although those were also pretty different - they were absolutely humongous - to the point I was sure that I would be able to climb into one of them and use it as a raft.

Speaking of, the water itself was crystal clear. I could see the bottom of the lake, covered in something that looked like fresh cut grass, that, the closer you got to the shore, was being replaced by a nice and very fine, slightly reddish, sand.

The most important thing though - while it was already dark enough so I had to use my orb to see properly, this place was quite the opposite. The water itself was slightly glowing. It was dim enough for the light to not get out thanks to the canopy above, and even if it was any brighter I don’t think I flew close enough to here for me to notice anyway.

It was definitely charming. It would be a great place to hang out, that is if it was not in the middle of nowhere. For a second I considered spending the night here, but immediately dismissed that thought. I was not going to sleep on the grass in some random forest, where there are most likely an abundance of wild animals.

Actually, when I thought about it, I have not heard or seen much of the animals lately. Maybe some birds while I was flying, but that was it. A bit strange, since such lush forest should be a great place for any animal, but no, the silence of the forest was only being interrupted by the flowing water.

I approached the lake and gazed into the clear water in front of me. Since it was the first time that I actually had the opportunity to wash myself up in something that is not a stale basement water, I kneeled down and dipped my fingers in the cold water.

Immediately, I realized something was wrong.

As soon as my skin touched the water I felt a sudden rush. My heart rate spiked up to, maybe twice of that what I would consider normal. I instantly pulled my hand back.

The feeling subsided and my heart started slowing down, but even though the water was cold, I could now feel heat slowly spread from my fingertips, to the point it was almost painful, through my whole body and towards the left side and concentrating at the shoulder.

Unsettled, I pulled back the sleeve and checked what’s going on.

My crystal was now glowing with the exact same light that the water was. I checked the other pieces of shrapnel in my side and, sure enough, they were as well, although less.

I finally understood what was going on, two things to be exact.

First off, the lake was heavily infused.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised - not that far from here there was a literal crack in a vein of the world, constantly seeping mana to the environment, why wouldn’t everything be infused with mana, especially water.

I’ve seen infused water before. As soon as mana emerged, half of the water supply got infused and started glowing, especially wild rivers and such, so I did not think much about seeing it here. To be honest, it was the only water I’ve been using for the past few years. More infused waters were quite popular as a replacement for chlorinated water - it was cleaner, didn’t smell, killed germs just as well, maybe even better, was pretty, and on top of that you were able to cut costs on heating it, because even when cold, it warmed up your body nice and quick. Thanks to that, you could measure the intensity of mana infusion quite easily - the quicker and more your body got heated up, the more mana was in the water.

This water was intense.

Back in the MIRE we used to use infused water of various degrees of infusion, including those with mana concentration so high it was dangerous for human health. Once, during some experiment I remember spilling a few drops of the one with about 80% on me. That thing burned like boiling water. If I was one to guess, this lake was about 60%? Maybe 70%?

I was lucky I removed my hand so quickly. The cutoff between infusion percentage harmful to humans was exactly 66%. If I didn’t… Well, maybe I would not have lost another arm, but my fingers would definitely be numb by now if it was above that. Or maybe not, if things were exactly as I thought they were..

The second thing was about the crystal itself. The glow and the feel gave me a very clear idea what was going on in my body, and the crystal. As soon as I touched the water, the crystal reacted to it, or rather to the mana in it, pulling it towards itself. The glow and the vanishing heat - it was absorbing mana. Why, though? I had not even the slightest idea. I was hoping it was not going to do that consistently, I would not want to end up in a coma in a ditch somewhere after trying to light a fire with a spell because I ran out of mana or something along those lines.

Luckily, it did not look like it was just hogging all the mana for itself, since I already cast a bunch of spells, including experimental one, and I did not feel drained at all. Quite the opposite. After touching the water, although my heart rate was normal again, I felt energized, as I just drank a large cup of coffee, or an energy drink.

As I was contemplating what just had happened, the light in the crystal started to fade and it didn’t take long for it to be back to normal, well, as normal as it could be. I carefully touched my side, checking if anything changed, but as far as I could tell, it was exactly as it was before.

Shrugging this sudden event off, I covered my wounds again and took a few steps away from the lake, just to be sure. I was sort of curious about the source of this river, so without much better to do, I started to walk upstream.

The river was pretty small, so I expected it to be a short walk. Boy, I was wrong.

I walked maybe a full hour and still there was no sign of it ending.

Thirty minutes, and I started considering flying again, even though it was dark and from above the canopy it would be hard to even see this small stream, not to mention to follow it consistently. Especially when the trees closer to the river bank were even thicker and more closely packed together, probably thanks to the mana flowing in the water.

Another half an hour later I finally decided that without flying I am not going to get anywhere and started looking for a somewhat thinner piece of canopy, or a clearing, to try and fly up from.

It proved a bit difficult - It took me about 40 minutes - but I managed to find an opening between the trees. It wasn’t a clearing or anything like that - It was just a small hole in the canopy thanks to a tree that was crooked - it’s branches were growing so awkwardly that there were large gaps between them, making it possible for me to see the night sky - a good location to try and take off from.

It went smoother than expected. Trees nicely moved away from my spot when I finished chanting thanks to the air currents the spell created and soon I was above the canopy once more. This time, I was flying low and slow. I kept my light orb just above the water, so I could keep track of the stream and the way it was going. Even in the darkness of the night, it was not that hard to keep track of it, mostly thanks to the glow the river was emitting and thanks to the canopy itself which looked distinctively different near the water.

It did not take very long for me to realize where I was going - soon, in the distance I started noticing a very familiar building to appear once more.

Yeah, I just made a nice and big circle. For a second I even thought it was going to lead me right to the front door, but before the river reached the main building, it suddenly curved to the side and started to circle away from it. I had a good idea where it’s going to lead me though.

Not too far from the main building, there used to be a small shack - “a maintenance box” as we called it. It used to house a bunch of pipes, valves and electric fuses, responsible for power and water supply of the whole center. I did not bother checking it before, since obviously the city was nowhere to be found - it was now just a useless piece of ruin. Or so I thought.

As I flew closer, I could see the small clearing where the shack was - now cut exactly in half. This time, I managed to land without any additional unfortunate events.

I walked closer to the “box”, or rather now half of it. The cut was clean - it looked like someone just went and used pressured water to cut right through the concrete, pipes, cables, all of it. What was more interesting though was that the other part, the one further from the main building, was not just ruined - it was completely missing. No rubble, no ruins, nothing. Just untouched green forest further out, and the small stream of water slowly coming out of the cut pipes.

It was definitely the same one I followed here, which I found puzzling. As far as I knew, the water to the MIRE was just supplied by the city and there were no magical additions to it that would explain this, well, maybe beside one…

Once, when there was an outage back in the city, Mike said he was going to work on a stable source of power and water for our facilities. It apparently was one of his side projects, saying “It’s going to help us in the long run”. At first I thought he was talking about signing a new deal with the city so they can supply us with generators or maybe a water tower, but nope, he wanted to do it the better way - using magic.

I have to admit, even for him, that was far-fetched - creating something like that would be hard, especially for him, since he was not an expert on neither water nor lightning magic. That’s why he asked me for help. While I was not particularly good at water magic, I want to say I was decent at lightning - and so we started working on a magical generator.

To my absolute surprise, it went quite smoothly - with help of Iloa we managed to create a solid spell, which then we implanted onto a large runic circle connected to a battery - for starters it was just a regular car battery.

It actually worked. But there was a tiny issue. The amount of mana it consumed was absolutely humongous - the three of us combined managed only to keep it working for less than a couple of minutes - and even then, the battery got filled about half way. The project was scrapped and forgotten soon after, but not by everyone. Even as recently as the day before everything went to shit I kept hearing from Mike about how he was having the exact same problem with the water source, that is it being too inefficient.

Now, thinking about it, I have never actually seen that part of the project - since I was not good at that type of magic, I did not want to accidentally ruin his work. But it was not impossible that he was experimenting somewhere where, if he was to succeed, he would be able to connect his new invention to the water source of our facility. And going from there, it was not far-fetched to think that it was still operational - and now, thanks to the bonus supply of mana from the leaking leyline, the main issue of this “generator” was resolved. Even better, the water now was infused.

But that gave me another question - assuming I was right and the ruined MIRE had now an infinite supply of water, why wasn’t the water in the basement infused as well? It was even closer to the leak than the “generator”, which most likely was somewhere underground between the main facility and the maintenance box.

I had no answer for that question and since there was no way for me to get to the underground section of the facility, because of the flooded basement, I did not bother going back to the ruined lab. Instead, I decided I would follow the stream the other way, to see where it goes past the lake.

I took a deep breath and once more chanted the long incantation of the flight spell. Silently thanking my brain for remembering it well enough to be usable, I ascended once more above the canopy of the trees and started following my orb and the river below me.

It probably was well past midnight before I arrived back at the lake and left it behind me. I was flying slowly, not only not to lose track of the river, but to look around and maybe notice something that would give me a hint about the area I found myself in - maybe lights of the city or something like that. Unfortunately, besides the one dot that was my orb down below me, and the dim glow of the river snaking through the trees, the forest was completely dark. The mountain range as well, while I did not expect for it to be a village on the mountainside, I still hoped to maybe see a light or two, but no, it was as dark as the forest.

This trip took me most of the remaining night. At dawn, I finally started noticing the forest to thin out a bit and soon I reached the base of the mountains, or rather a large cliff.

While the trees were a bit spread out, to the point where I could clearly see the ground and the water below me, the mountain just suddenly was sprouting from the ground at almost 90 degrees. On top of that, the rock did not look natural. While it had its irregularities and cracks, it gave me an impression that it was carved by someone, or something.

And, more importantly, the stream was ending here - with yet another lake, and a small opening that looked like it was a cave right next to it.

I landed next to the water and just by the mountainside, to take a better look at this “wall”.

Sure enough, after checking up close, I was almost sure - this thing was just way too straight not to be man-made. How, though? That was anyone’s guess. The important thing was - there was absolutely no way to scale those mountains without flying.

Besides, I had more interesting things to deal with besides the geological structure and genesis of some random rock.