System Lost: My Own Best Friend

Draga's plan is actually pretty simple, but also completely terrifying. Instead of trying to predict when or where the Stalker will show up, we reduce its options as much as possible and prepare for each one. To that end, he has us move back to the entrance of the labyrinth. While that gives us fewer escape routes, it also means that the Stalker has fewer angles to attack from.

"[That leaves us with three possibilities,]" he explains. "[First, the demon leaves us alone long enough for Saban to make a full recovery, in which case we'll be able to resume the hunt using his skills.]"

I'm curious what skills he might have that he couldn't have used before, but I guess I'll find out later.

"[The second option is that it attacks from inside this constructed area,]" he goes on. "[In which case, we can force it into the corridor and collapse the tunnel on it with your exploding candle.]"

That sounds dangerous enough, but it's the next part that gives me chills.

"[The last and worst case is an attack from the caves, in which case, our plan remains the same. Trapping ourselves in here isn't ideal, but with the demon dead we'll have plenty of time to excavate ourselves a way out.]"

"Or starve to death, or suffocate, or just die in the collapse," Violet argues. "Allie, this is a horrible idea."

"Have you got a better one?" I ask under my breath.

"Literally anything that doesn't involve collapsing a cave that we are in."

That's a no. I huff irritably, and Draga mistakes my dissatisfaction as being directed at him. Which, in a roundabout way, leads to him addressing Violet through me.

"[I know how dangerous it is,]" he assures me. "[But it's not going to give us a straight fight, and widespread destruction is the best way to handle invisible foes. Narrow it down to as small an area as possible, and indiscriminately wipe out everything within it.]"

There's a hint of bitterness in his voice at that last part. Speaking from experience maybe? It sounds like a bad memory. I nod in agreement. If he thinks that's what gives us the best chance, then I'm willing to trust his experience. I trust Vi too, of course, but I don't want to get ourselves killed hesitating over picking the least bad option.

"I'm gonna need a fuckton of candles," Maggie says. "Speaking of which, about half of the candles in this place are missing."

"Wait, what?" I respond with a start. "How do you know?"

"I used [Candle Seeker] to count," she answers. "Duh. It was hard to notice at first, because whatever's taking them is spreading it out evenly."

"So they're just random?"

"Not random," Maggie corrects me. "Even. Animals like the geckos would take stuff closer to the entrance, and actual randomness would have at least a few clumps by chance. This seems intentionally uniform."

"Weird," I muse. "Wait, is that what's been bugging me? The whole place is just a little bit darker than I remember?"

"Probably. I don't know why or what it means, but I figured it was worth mentioning."

Draga clears his throat, and I snap my attention back to him. "[Everything alright, Miss Allie?]"

I blush, realizing that I look like I've just randomly trailed off and started talking to myself.

"Yes, [sorry]," I make the effort to apologize in their language. "Need candles," I say, holding one up by way of demonstration. "Lots."

Talla relays that for me and Draga nods. "[I'll collect as many as I can find from nearby. You two stay put with Saban. If the demon shows up, run and shout. I won't be far.]"

"What if it attacks you?" I ask.

Draga laughs, not even needing Talla to translate for him this time. "[I'll do the same. Don't worry, I'm not easy to catch off guard.]"

"Alright then," I sigh. "I guess you're up, Mags."

I take a seat with my back to the wall and gather up all the nearest candles along with the ones Allie brought with us. I've already done this trick before, so ultimately this is just going to be a matter of seeing how far I can push it. I start with the ones that I already messed with—the one I used to blow that guy's head up and the one that used to replace its fire. I already killed a guy with this one, so I figure it's lucky or something.

One quick little application of [Pyropathy] and [Pyrokinesis] later, and I'm back up to one "fully" charged and one extinguished candle. Now to see if I can push past that. It's funny—not only did I go for fire magic despite being in a cave, but now I'm also playing with explosives. I might be the dumbest fucking mage who ever lived. Oh well—needs must.

"[Hey,]" Talla says right next to me, nearly making me fumble the candle. When the fuck did she get there? "[Maggie, right? I understand that I've mostly been talking to Allie and Vee—I mean, Vi, right? It's nice to meet you.]"

What? Why is she talking to me? Why now? I'm in the middle of something! Shit, she asked me a question, right? I know how to answer those.

I nod without looking up and replace the extinguished candle with another lit one.

Nailed it. I am a literal god of socializing. Who needs Allie? Oh fuck, she's not done—someone kill me.

"[I'm a little curious about how your magic works,]" she admits. "[Your skill only moves fire, right? I can see how it lets you transfer magic from one mana candle to another, but I can't figure out how you made it explode.]"

She wants me to explain magic? Oh thank fuck—I thought she was gonna ask about something difficult. This is my chance to lure her to the dark side. Alright, so here we go!

The idea is pretty simple. I hold up a candle to show her. As far as I can tell, the "mana candles," as she calls them, are concentrated masses of magic that are like, conceptually attuned to the idea of a candle. Candles are lots of things—they're light and fire and heat and wax and all that good shit. You can break it down finer and finer pretty much forever, but put it all together, and you've got candles.

I hold up the second candle. I can move fire from one candle to another, and that's fine. Candles don't have a set amount of fire. They can have more fire or less fire, but they're still candles. Put a candle out—still a candle. Add more fire and it will burn hotter and brighter, but again, it's still a candle.

I move all the fire from one "full" candle to the other, and sure enough my skill doesn't resist me in the slightest. One candle goes out, and the other's flame grows a bit bigger and brighter. Now the question is how much I can do that before it does become less of a candle. Adding a ton of heat without matching it to the light or fire caused it to destabilize pretty quickly, and the bomb-lizard's gaze was made to cause explosions—literally exaggerating the "expansion" part of heat to an extreme degree.

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I figure if I keep on adding more and more fire, eventually it will reach a critical mass and explode—or at least start to melt and lose coherence. If I really force it, then maybe I can—

"Maggie, what are you doing?" Allie interrupts me.

"Allie, shut up, I'm in the middle of explaining my magic," I admonish her.

"No you're not," she counters. "You've literally just been silently fiddling with candles for like a whole minute, ignoring her the entire time."

Wait, was I not talking?! "Fuck! Allie, what do I say?" I ask frantically. "Wait, she can't understand me anyway."

"[I understand some of it,]" Talla responds. "[But no, I haven't really been able to follow your pantomiming.]"

I wasn't trying to—oh for fuck's sake! "How did you do that charades thing?"

"What?" Allie asks incredulously. "Maggie you're being ridiculous, just use your words. If Talla doesn't understand something she'll tell you and ask for clarification."

Right, duh, words. I can do that, obviously. I talked to the other goat people just fine when they were trying to kill us. Then everybody died. I mean, that wasn't my fault, exactly. Though they might not have attacked if I hadn't been so eager to try abusing [Message] like that. Then again, maybe they would. I'll never know, and counterfactuals aren't really helpful and I'm just sitting in silence again aren't I?

"Nope," I mutter quietly. "Can't do it."

"[That's okay,]" Talla replies softly instead of Allie. "[How about I just observe and comment for a bit and you can tell me if I'm right or wrong?]"

God, I feel like a fucking child the way she's babying me, but I nod anyway. I can do that, at least. I continue dumping the fire from candle after candle into the killer candle, setting the spent ones aside. They've still got plenty of magic in them—just no more fire.

"[You're concentrating power into one mana candle,]" Talla observes. "[I suppose that's what you were doing before as well? With the heat from the rocks. I didn't think those would count.]"

They kinda didn't, but I nod anyway. The transfer gets a little harder after each one, a bit like putting too much air in a balloon, although that analogy makes me a bit nervous. I really don't want this one to pop in my face.

"[It's getting rather bright, isn't it?]" she notes. "[And warmer too. But it still doesn't consume any fuel.]"

I shake my head. It does actually consume fuel—but again, this is magic. Instead of burning away the wax, it's the whole "candle" that concentrated conceptual essence made physical. That might also be why they burn so cool normally, but I'm not sure. Given enough time, the candles probably will burn themselves out, but they'll disappear entirely when they do, and at the rate they burn through energy on their own it would take...I don't—a long-ass fucking time.

This one, on the other hand, is getting hotter and brighter with every candle I add. Draga even comes by to drop off another armful before leaving for a second run. By upsetting the balance between fire and the rest of the candle, it does slowly lose stability. The killer candle is even starting to sweat just a tiny bit.

The bomb lizard accelerated things by giving me a big infusion of literal explosion magic, but I'm pretty sure that if I can get the mana candle to eat up all of the wax, wick, and other physical candley bits, all the leftover heat and fire will have nowhere to go. Then—boom!

"[It's getting a bit hard to look at now,]" Talla says, squinting and shielding her eyes.

As she says, the killer candle is now a ridiculously bright beacon of white flame. It's not melting much, but it's hot enough that I don't want to touch the flame and probably bright enough to cause eye damage if I stare at it.

"You could try changing its color," I suggest.

Talla gives me a startled look for some reason, but rallies quickly. "[Changing what? I didn't get that last word.]"

Crap. Allie, save me!

"Try pointing at our hair, then hers," Allie says.

You want me to fucking touch her?! Ugh, whatever—I hold up a little lock of Allie's hair, then gingerly reach towards Talla's. I get about halfway before remembering that I can just point—what the hell is wrong with me?

I search her face for any sign of understanding and get about as far as her chin before I chicken out and go back to focusing candles.

"[Change hair? Hairstyle?]" Talla mutters to herself. "[No, that's stupid. Hair...fur...fur color—color! Color?]"

The last part is directed at me, and I sigh in relief as I nod. Holy shit this is stressful. I don't know how Allie does it.

"[That's a neat idea, but I can only control the brightness of my own light,]" she says. "[I suppose it might be a bit easier on the eyes if I turn it red with my skill. I'd forget I even had it if it wasn't so useful in combinations.]"

"Hah!" I scoff. "Changing colors is probably your second strongest skill. Go ahead and turn the candle red."

Talla cocks her head in confusion, and although I'm not sure how much of that is the language barrier, she does as I ask. She reaches forward and I tense up slightly as she cups her hands on either side of the flame. After a moment, it slowly starts to turn red, though it's still so bright that it casts the whole hallway in an ominous glow.

"[There,]" Talla sighs, once it's completely red. "[Better?]"

"No. Go redder."

She furrows her brows. "[It's already red, Maggie.]"

"Redder," I demand. "More red!"

Talla frowns, but moves her hands back into place and tries again. After a few seconds of effort, the candle flame turns slightly darker red.

"[How's that?]"

"More! Redder!"

"[That's not—]" she huffs, but redoubles her efforts. "[I don't know what you think you're trying to show me, but a thing can only be so red, you know.]"

It takes a considerable effort from her, but the light grows even darker as she focuses on her skill.

"More!" I demand. "Keep going!"

"[Maggie, I'm starting to overuse my skill,]" she complains. "[This is hard!]"

"I don't want your excuses, Talla, I want a redder candle!"

She rolls her eyes, then squints them shut and puts all of her focus into it. Her hands tremble slightly until, with a final grunt of effort, the flame turns completely black. Talla opens her eyes again, panting for breath, then flinches away from the black fire in shock.

"[Blood and acid!]" she curses. "[That looks terribly ominous!]"

Huh, it sure does. "That's weird," I mutter. "I thought that would just make it invisible."

Fire is a light source, so the only way it could be black like this is if it's absorbing light instead.

"[Why would it turn invisible?]" Talla asks.

"Invisible light," I try to explain. "More red or more blue."

That must mean her skill changes colors by making them absorb light instead of emitting it. Damn, that's not nearly as abusable as I thought. Alas, no nuclear goat girl. Though I could have sworn it specifically said different wavelengths.

"[It works with blue as well?]" Talla says curiously. "[Let me try...]"

"Wait, no—!"

Before I can warn her, Talla reaches forward and the candle becomes a beacon once more. I twist away from her and block the candle with my body, squinting my own eyes shut and looking away.

"Dangerous!" I shout. "Ultraviolet light still hurts your eyes even if you can't see it!"

"[I-I'm sorry?]" Talla stammers. "[What was that about Vi? Why is your pet glowing?]"

Oh god damnit! Of course Violet's causing me problems just by existing. Wait, what did she say about Nipper?

Keeping the candle as far out of my vision as I can manage without burning myself, I chance a glimpse at Nipper, still just hanging out on my shoulder. Sure enough, he's turned a weird fluorescent blue, and his teeth look brighter white than they should.

"Huh, so he is," I muse. "Guys check it out—Nipper glows in the dark."

"He's not the only one," Violet says. "Look around us."

I raise the ultraviolet candle slightly, still shielding it from Talla's view just in case, and look around. I might not have even noticed if I hadn't used up so many of the nearby candles, but in the eerie gloom of the labyrinth, there's an unmistakable criss-crossing pattern of tiny thin lines spreading across the stone like a network of hairline fractures. Except they aren't cracks—the lines glow bright white under the candle's ultraviolet light, but vanish entirely from view if I cover it up.

I purse my lips and consider the possibilities of what those could be and what it means, then turn to Talla.

"Hey, I think we might have a problem," I tell her. "Good news, I might have figured out how we can see the Stalker. Bad news, I think I know how it's been spying on us without actually watching us."

Talla looks me in the eyes and frowns. "[What?]" she asks. "[I only understood about half of that.]"

I bury my face in a palm and groan. Alright, fine. Maybe I'm a little glad that we've got Allison.