(Resumed) Solstice

[Emmett]

About ten minutes later, I climbed out the back exit of the carriage, examining my new surroundings.

Stone housing lay scattered across foothills belonging to a larger hill: one much larger than any I had seen in Charade Gin, but paling in comparison to the tales of mountains I'd heard from visiting travelers to my once-homely home.

One of the hills stood laced with ramps and pulleys, with people working and living in houses built on or carved into the mountain face. Most of the men, and even some of the women, walked without shirts, carrying backpacks and supplies on bare back instead.

"This place seems overly specialized," Patrick said, "Is everything here dedicated to mining? How do they manage their food?"

"Why yes, that is an excellent observation," said an unfamiliar voice. I turned around to see a dark-skinned man wearing a pitch-black suit, as well as the rest of my team. The proportions of the outfit seemed to cling to his body perfectly, his outward smile hinting he knew how powerful it made him look. "I'm Stephen Clark, the mayor of this town, and to answer your question, we live on imports and exports."

"As I'd expect." Samael stepped forward and held out his hand. "Samael Michaels, Squad Leader."

"Pleased to meet you. Do you need food or drink before we take you to the job site?"

"Y'all said this should take a day, right?" Patrick asked.

"Hold on Patrick," Grace interjected, "You and Samael spent a lot of energy powering our carriage. I think it's best we get some food, let you refresh some more, and we can ask questions about the cave-in we're supposed to clear."

Samael nodded. "I agree with Grace. I assume your treat?"

"Of course; follow me." We followed on foot to a wider building a ways away and entered. The signage indicated it was called the Dying Canary, and it served as an inn and tavern. We pushed past a few tables and gathered up around the bar.

"Ah, Mayor!" said a bright voice belonging to a tan-skinned woman, herself wearing naught but some short shorts and a bra. Oh, and shoes too, by the taps on the stone floor I heard, "What brings you in?"

"The Squad we sent for finally arrived," said Clark, "Let's give them a warm welcome before we put them to work, shall we?"

"Oh thank the heavens and havens!" she struck her foot down hard and pirouetted. "Right away! Oh fuck yes, Jacob's coming home!"

"Jacob?" Grace asked.

"Her brother," said Clark, "He's one of the Forty Niners who got trapped. She's awful worried, and is really happy you're here."

"So happy I might offer to spend a night with one of ya!"

I could feel a warmth in my cheeks as she said that. The howls of laughter across the room only served to make it worse.

After the moment of levity, we were offered water, steak, and potatoes. It was a surprisingly plain meal, but I reckoned that if you lived in harsh lands, which these folk seemed to, then really anything helped.

One meal later, the four of us, Clark, and the bartender, Jessica was her name, headed out the door and set off for the mines. Ser Feylance, however, turned the other way. "Have fun clearing the mine shaft!"

Samael swiveled to confront him. "Where are you going, Ser?"

Ser Feylance stuck his tongue out and held out some parchments, "I'm still a teacher, and a Dean at that. I have paperwork to complete, you know."

"So we're on our own?" Patrick asked.

Feylance jumped up and down. Twice. As an older man. "Yep! You've got this though. Toodles!"

I gave a sigh and heard some grumbles before we started marching onward again.

We had walked several kilometers to one of the entrances carved into the mountain face, and stepped into a torchlit chamber, entering a suspended metallic cage within.

"Welcome to Iron By Right Entryway 'Down Below'," said Jess, closing the door behind her in the cage. She stepped toward a wide wheel-crank and started forcing it anticlockwise. When she did, the cage slowly descended down, and the light of the torch gave way to darkness in the vertical shaft beneath.

I held my hand out and grasped for Æther to alight, but by the time I did, Patrick and Grace had already beaten me: Patrick with actual torchlight and Grace with a glowing azure orb of solid Æther floating above her palm, connected to her wrist by small spectral tendrils, and far brighter than mine.

"Aw yeah, I love being down here with Magi," cheered Jessica, "Makes the scary darkness go away."

"It is phenomenal to see aspiring professionals in action," said Clark with a nod.

"Yeah, why don't you put your light away Emmy?" Patrick asked, "Ours are better anyway."

"Shouldn't you be conserving your energy, Patrick?" I countered, "You're going to be doing some of the excavation anyway."

It was actually Grace who dispelled her light. "You have a point, Emmett, but it's mostly going to be me who handles most of the clearing. Remember, there are people on the other side who need to be alive, and blasting Fire Magick isn't going to help that."

"I like the strategy discussion you have going on," said Clark, "Though, may I advise you to wait until you get to the dig site? I just want to avoid you getting in deep shit because you feel you already have a plan, and then something unaccounted-for shows up."

"That's a good idea," Samael replied, "Team, let's hold on the strategy talk for now."

Several minutes later, the cage touched down on the ground several tens or hundreds of meters below.

Jessica walked toward the gate on the other side and turned the handle, pushing it open with a metallic creak. "We're here."

The six of us stepped forward, and meandered through several cavernous hallways, the scent of stale moisture hanging in the air, the warmth leaving our bodies with every breath. Patrick and I kept our lighting spells strong to provide us with some ability to see in the chasm below,

This chasm, with literal tonnes of rock above our heads, potentially ready to drop and bury us at any moment.

Thinking about our sudden mortality I walked into a wall, literally. Not one that was intended to be there, mind: it was many boulders cobbled together, with plenty of soil padding the spaces in between.

"Welp," I said, "Here we are." I stepped back from the haphazard geological clusterfuck in front of me and laid my glowing palm against it.

"Emmett, don't do anything," Grace commanded.

"I was going to pass Æther through to get a look at how the boulders are arranged," I replied.

Grace grabbed my shoulder, pulled me back and sighed. "Let me."

She pressed her hand on the cave-in, and I barely had time to activate my Æthervision when a smooth, wide wave of azure energy swept into and around the mess. Watching and feeling the flow of Magick permeate around the structure constructed a three-dimensional model in my mind's eye, a flowing network of Ætheric rivers, with wide gaps in between being meandered around.

I drew my attention to the gaps, and focused on them instead, imagining them as the foreground, and my image of rivers morphed into a mental diagram of where everything was.

"Four inches in, large cavity, but threatened by additional rocks from above," I said without thinking, "We're gonna need a barrier up top while we excavate, or we'll just undo everything."

"Emmett, I did the scan; don't assume you know more than I do," replied Grace, turning from me to the rest of the Squad, "Unfortunately, Emmett is right. Without an Earth Magus we're pretty screwed in terms of permanent excavation." At this point the scan had faded and the Æther, dispersed.

"That's fine," said Clark, "It's unfortunate, but the priority is human life. Proceed."

"We'll need a barrier up top." Grace held out her hands, and drew a slow breath in, "When that's secured, I'll begin."

"I got it." Samael took one step forward, and raked his fingers against the air, drawing his hands close and compressing  the azure light gathered between. "Patrick, back me up if I start faltering, alright?"

"You got it," my nemesis-turned-teammate replied.

Samael opened his hands and let a dense cube of solid Æther to float to the ceiling before pulling his hands apart and finally pushing them out with a kiai. The cube expanded laterally to a thin blade, then jutted forward into a thin barrier, covering the top of the rubble. A few crashing sounds echoed after, assuredly the additional invisible debris adjusting into place. "I don't know how long I can hold this! Go!"

"On it!" Grace opened her hands, cobalt light emanating from each. She pushed her arms forward, and two jets of water streamed from the spell gathered around her hands. The water splashed into the rocks, but instead of falling down, they slithered around like little droplet-shaped serpents. I kept the Æther flowing into my eyes, and saw the dark blue energy of the water slowly filling in the river network Grace laid out earlier with her earlier probe.

"Okay Grace, how the fuck is this supposed to work?" Patrick asked pointedly.

Mayor Clark furrowed his brow. "I'm inclined to agree, I don't see how slowly conjuring water is supposed to help."

Jessica, on the other hand, curled her lips in a smirk. "Looks like you two are about to see practical alchemy in action. You go girl!"

"Please don't distract me," said Grace, "But, thank you."

I blinked. Whatever lesson the two of them were about to learn, I apparently needed too; I wasn't sure what Grace was doing, but I trusted my teammate.

Several anxious minutes and multiple grunts of determination from both casters later, Grace had filled the entire wall with her Magick. She lifted her elbows and twisted her hands inward, pale arcs of static seeming to emanate from her spell. "Three..."

"Just do it!" Samael called.

"Two..."

I kept my Vision alive, and stood with bated breath.

"One..."

I heard the voice of the other woman in the room intone, with a excited, exciting depth, "Do it."

"Haaaaaaaa-!" Grace tensely twisted her hands back clockwise, as if opening a very-well-stuck invisible doorknob. The light I saw in the rubble brightened nearly thrice-fold.

"ZAH!!" Her hands snapped into fists, and the water seeped and suspended in the rocks solidified and expanded, cracking and breaking several of the rocks, and leaving me speechless wondering how the fuck I forgot something so basic.

The light around the water brightened even more when I realized Grace wasn't done yet.

Barbs and thorns of ice erupted all over, shearing and decimating the once-inviolable wall of rock into a bed of dust to fall onto the ground harmlessly. Grace snapped her arms down, and down it went, revealing the faces of several shocked people wearing helmets.

"Oh Heavens and Havens!" a tan-skinned man in front said before glancing a little farther, "J-Jessica?!"

"Jacob!" Jessica shouted, "Wake everyone up and get them out before the mage-barrier falls!"

"HEY JACKOFFS!" Jacob shouted hard, "YOU WANNA LIVE GET THE FUCK OUT!!"

The din of cheerful men roared, as Jacob and twelve others rushed through the corridor, in the organized fashion of a gaggle of terrified toddlers. Jacob himself, however, dove straight for his sister, wrapping her in a bear hug.

"One two three.... Twelve... thirteen! You're good to bring it down Michaels!" Clark said.

"Alrigh-"

"Aw hells nah!" Patrick rushed forward, gripping the air and pulling his arms back and hands together. "We're fixing this!" He threw his hands forward, and a torrent of flame roared up, coating the ceiling in flame.

I stepped back, sweat beading all over, and the cavern turning from chill cold to furnace hot in a heartbeat. "Patrick?!"

"Shut up Emmy! Grace, as soon as magma starts to drip, follow-up with a cold front!"

"I'll overdraw!" Grace shouted.

"I'll get you out!" I called, "Go for it! Samael, get everyone out! You can't lift as well as I can, and you're low too!"

"Urgh, fine!" Samael shouted, "Come on men, let's move!"

I shook before the brunt of Patrick's Magick, and Grace seemed to gather another burst of dark blue around her. "Patrick, I'm trusting you to watch Emmett while he carries me out!"

"Of fucking course!" Patrick widened his stance,

A droplet of bright, orange-red liquid dropped from the ceiling.

"NOW!" Patrick shouted, dropping his spell and stepping back.

Grace threw a wave of snow-sleet at the ceiling, the burst lasting about three seconds before her spell stopped and her body started to collapse.

Before I was aware of what was happening, I had bumped Grace up onto my shoulder and started sprinting out. "Patrick MOVE!" I shouted, not looking back.

"Don't have to tell me twice, Emmy!" was the last thing I heard before the boom of rocks falling behind me.

I had kept running.

No time to check whether Patrick was okay when I was already responsible for Grace's unconscious body.