The Glass Mage: An Artisanal Progression Fantasy

"Ready? Let's go!" Trevour calls out, his voice projecting an admirable level of confidence despite the tremors of apprehension coming through my Domain senses.

We're standing in a small atrium of thick, enchanted stone. Lanterns line the walls, each glaring with light-affinity mana to ensure that no shadow-aligned monsters can slip by unseen. Behind us, a gate almost two feet thick slams into place, sealing off the single-file entrance to the Rift. The only way out now is through the Rift portal ahead of us.

Guess the Army takes security seriously.

We march out, the newly-combined team following Trevour's lead. This will be Mikko and Avelina's last delve, their final hurrah before their upcoming wedding and what I sincerely hope is a quiet and blissful retirement. Ember and I trail behind the group. We're here to observe their growth and bail them out in case of emergency, not to do all the work for them.

Trevour presses through the soap-bubble sheen of the portal with his glass flagpole held out ahead like a talisman to ward off the darkness. Mikko and Club walk forward by his side with shields up to guard their entrance. Klaarson, Marta, and Teuria go through next, with the Linas right behind them to act as overwatch.

Finally, Ember and I slip through, and I shiver at the all-too-familiar touch of unreality as we step between worlds. I've clamped down on my Domain before the passing, but I still sense a surge of power from the Rift's core as it reacts in what I can only describe as panic to my presence.

I'm more than an intruder. I'm a threat to its seat of power, a contender for its throne.

There's a current of animosity underneath it all that makes me shiver. How does raw mana gain something approaching emotion and sentience? The energy here isn't chaotic, like with a wild Rift, since the Army has pacified the core with one of their relics—which I'm dying to get my hands on—but it's not exactly domesticated, either. Rifts are dangerous. Always. No matter how built up the safety measures and training infrastructure around us.

A mana-flag unfurls soundlessly ahead of us, visible despite the total darkness. Ironic in a way, since it's signaling for light. The construct looks far more realistic now than it did a few weeks ago, almost like actual cloth. Snapping back and forth in an invisible wind, the banner gleams with inner illumination, which renders it legible in mana sight, despite the abyss-like black depths of the Rift.

No wonder they have so many light-mana lamps. A containment break would flood the region with practically invisible monsters. The average citizen would be nothing but prey for beasts that thrive in shadow and darkness. Easy pickings.

Avelina snaps her fingers. Light blooms in the darkness. Harsh and unrelenting, the fire and heat pushes back the shadows, casting our surroundings into sudden, sharp relief.

I almost tell her to let Marta practice, but I can't blame Avelina for having fun with her last adventure into the depths. Besides, Trevour is in charge today. It's his call.

Subdued gasps of astonishment echo in the eerie atmosphere as the team takes in their surroundings. Tall pillars of stone thrust upward around us, reaching toward a black expanse that seems endless. Truly impossible to measure. A sky that never ends. If gravity reversed, we might simply float off through nothingness for all of eternity, never reaching the other side.

I suppress a shiver. Neither sun nor moon nor stars dot the firmament above our heads, leaving me with the uncanny impression that we're wandering through the void itself, unmoored from reality.

The pillars all around us are solid, at least. They're smooth and completely featureless, without any weathering or cracks that real buildings pick up over time. In the same way, the gleaming black floor beneath our feet is uniform and unlike any stone I've seen before. Taken all together, the Rift has the feel of something dreamed into existence, not an actual place in space and time. The lack of echo as we walk adds to the surreal experience of the odd environment, as though we're drifting through a vision instead of the real world.

To my mundane senses, the place is as empty as it is eerie. In my Domain, however, the Rift is crawling with monsters. Since I'm only here as an observer, I refrain from telling the team that a handful of suspicious creatures wreathed in deep, clinging shadows are moving toward our position. Not speaking up is torture.

"Let them grow, Nuri. They'll handle themselves fine. You did, after all," Ember says, patting my arm with a smirk.

I swallow the taste of fear. "I trust your training. I've just had too much time to think about all the things that could go wrong."

"Thinking always gets you in trouble."

I chuckle at the gentle insult. "You're right. Let's sit back and enjoy the show. We'll step in if disaster strikes."

"Incoming on our right," Trevour snaps, right on cue. He goes silent after that, his banner unfurling in an unseen wind and directing our attention to the shadows in the gap between two thick pillars to the right. Thanks to his recent Skill upgrades, his communication comes through clearly even though none of us know anything about semaphore.

The puddle of darkness he pointed out intensifies, drinking in more light than the rest of the shadowy cavern. "Black" is too lacking a term to describe the void-like area. Staring at it for long hurts my eyes. Even my mana senses are uneasy taking in the strange phenomenon, as though my Domain is inherently inimical to the encroaching darkness.

Trevour's rippling, ethereal flag updates a moment later, informing the team that five of the shadow monsters are approaching from our right flank. Orders scrawl across the flag.

Tactic: Pincer formation

Weeks of training kicks in, and the assembled delvers split apart as soon as Trevour's command displays through his banner. They form two columns, designed to funnel the enemy into the middle of their formation. Then they'll spring the trap, collapsing on the monsters from either side in a furious, coordinated assault, transforming the hunters into the hunted.

Hungry tendrils squirm in my mana senses, questing toward the team as though tasting the air. They're strangely cold and disconcerting, emitting a pervasive sense of wrongness. I'm preparing to intervene despite my word, intent on severing them from our plane of existence with application of sharpness, when our youngest member unleashes judgement on the pack.

Teuria's lightning strike takes out the lead monster instantly, lighting up the artificial night sky and leaving a searing after-image in my eyes.

One down.

The brief brilliance is enough to make out the hideous shape of the shadow monsters, and a chorus of gags and protests rise from the team. I think we all preferred when we couldn't see what we were up against.

Bulbous and indistinct, flowing into multiple forms, the remaining four shadow monsters look more like enormous blobs of ink given life than creatures of the Rift. Strange white bristles of too-long hair drift in invisible currents, tasting the air and twitching lazily. They're right in the middle of the two columns of delvers, poised to strike my friends.

Despite their light color, the coarse bristles don't show up at all in the dim light. Only the flash of lightning illuminated them, and far less than it should have. Shadow wraps around them, warping vision and hiding the creature's sensory organs from sight. Cold emanates from them in cyclical waves of icy dread.

With a cry of triumph, Trevour shakes off the mental attack. Fear still wafts off him, but he masters himself and advances anyway.

I smile proudly at his reaction. He's not any less repulsed by the creature than the rest of the team, but he does what a leader ought to do and acts in the face of a threat. He's still afraid, but he doesn't let that hold him back from his duty. That's the true mark of courage.

He spins his glass pole, switching out the flag for the sharp end, and rushes forward. His spear lashes out, impaling the nearest monster. Or, at least, he tries to stab it.

The flag pole passes right through the shadow beast, which phases out of the way of the squad leader's strike, throwing him off balance. In the blink of an eye, the monster lunges toward the young man, twisting its bulbous form into a maw filled with hundreds of teeth.

Trevour lurches sideways, recovering his footing. He grunts as he brings his makeshift spear to bear on the centerline of the beast. Anger and determination flare within him, and his mana flows into the conducive flagpole, lighting it up like the sun in my Domain.

Thrusting forward with elegant violence, he plunges the mana-empowered spear into the amorphous beast, disrupting its incorporeal presence and fully bringing it back into the physical realm. A howl of pain reverberates through the Rift as this time his spear strikes true.

Trails of misty gray light erupt out of the back of the monster. Trevour's mana rips it apart from the inside out, and it squirms like a worm on a hook.

Recoiling from the energy blast, the shadow monster surges away from Trevour, only to collide with a flame strike. Fire rains from the sky. Marta slashes her knives in rapid succession, slashing through the side of the beast and shredding it like an eager kitten playing with a piece of tissue paper until there's nothing left but smoldering ash and puddles of ink.

Two down.

The remaining beasts undulate, sending out waves of darkness-aspected mana around them and shrouding their position. In the confusion, they try to make their escape, growing hazy and indistinct, difficult even for me to perceive in the shadowy murk.

"Augmenting!" Klaarson shouts.

Through my Domain sight, I track the target of his buffing magic. A thick connection of potent energy snaps into place between him and Teuria. Fractions of a second later, mana races along the link, dense with meaning and shared strength.

Eagerly, Klaarson draws on the temporary bond, and I grin in anticipation as a deafening blast of power manifests around him, shaking the monsters like a scoop of gelatine on a plate and making it writhe in pain.

Booming shockwaves of thunder rupture the nearest shadow beast's thick membrane. It wails in agony, leaking dark ichor like a punctured balloon, and collides with the monster to its side. Caustic acid spurts out, bubbling and fizzing against the beast corrosively and eating right through its hide.

Teuria takes advantage before the pair of monsters shake off the pain and disorientation. She smashes a lightning-wrapped fist through the side of the closest monster in an explosion of darkness and light, already bounding toward the next one before the first drops dead.

Laughing as the extra strength from Klaarson's shared augmentation Skill enables her to physically trounce the monsters, she pounces on her next target. Following up her first blow with a devastating kick to the next beast's head, if the mouth-like opening could really be considered a head at all, her mana discharges down her leg and out through her foot.

The fourth monster bursts in a disgusting detonation of acidic ichor, flickering lightning, and void-like darkness, leaving only a single remaining threat.

Club advances from his position in the pincer formation, ambushing the now surrounded shadow beast from the opposite flank. His new mace from Mikko glows ominously, infused with mana, and grows to the size of a huge tree limb as he demolishes the creature with a powerful overhand strike.

Silence reigns for a long moment as they spin around, looking for more threats. Only the sound of rapid breathing punctuates the eerie, oppressive silence.

"Hey, that wasn't bad," Klaarson says, chuckling nervously. He runs his fingers through his hair. "We'll be back in time for lunch at this rate."

"Oh, now you've done it," Mikko grumbles.

"Don't be superstitious," Avelina scoffs.

"I'm not. But Nuri's with us, so what do you expect?" Mikko says calmly, as though that explains everything. Based on the knowing nods from everyone else, they all accept Mikko's reasoning even though he didn't clarify anything.

I ignore the side-eye they send my way, although inwardly I'm laughing at how resigned they are that something will go wrong with me around. I suppose I've earned my reputation.

Trevour straightens up abruptly. "We have more company. At least a dozen of them. Bigger, if the mana signatures are anything to go by."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"My turn, kiddos," Avelina declares.

She walks beyond the front of the squadron and out into the darkness. Each step calm and unhurried, she strides away from the group and summons her mana. Heat washes over us despite the distance. She's visible due to the fire flickering above her open hands. Flames float in a circle around her head, like a glowing halo of inescapable death, as she puts a few hundred strides between her and the team. A tiny blip on the horizon, she pauses to look back over her shoulder and smile serenely.

Then her gaze sharpens. She snaps back toward the dark, her attention locked onto the mana signatures incoming at high speed. She takes a long, deep breath, and ignites with power.

White hot fire explodes out from her in a massive supernova, lighting up the Rift even brighter than Teuria's lightning strike. Oppressive heat makes me take a step back before I even realize what I've done.

The blazing sphere of blinding light expands faster than I can follow—one blink, and it's already threatening the team, erasing the distance in a heartbeat.

I almost intercede, but Marta holds up her hands with a cry of determination. She draws the flames in, wincing at the potency of the fire-aspected mana searing her channels. Beads of sweat stand out on her forehead, trickling down her face, and her breathing grows labored, but she masters the flames and keeps her team from burning alive.

Her channels will heal, but I feel guilty for not shielding the team with my [Greater Heat Manipulation]. Reluctantly, I admit that this is for the best. I can't protect them forever. Marta needs to challenge herself now, while I can still step in if things get worse, rather than finding herself unable to exceed her limits when their lives are actually on the line.

"Clear!" Avelina calls from far up ahead, her voice echoing through the cavernous void of the pitch-black Rift.

Trevour tilts his head, casting his senses over to where Avelina incinerated the incoming threat. He lets out a soft snort. "That's ridiculous. They're gone. All of them."

"Yep. That's Ava for you."

Fondness seeps through Mikko's voice. He's beaming at nothing in particular, a dreamy expression on his face. It makes me happy to see him so happy.

"Stay sharp," Club grunts. "Monsters ain't predictable, 'cept for always showing up at the most inconvenient times."

"Good point," Trevour says, nodding in thanks. "Let's regroup around Ava. I'll scout up ahead, but keep your guard. Watch for my flags."

The next hour goes smoothly. The team works their way through the Rift in a methodical fashion. Trevour sneaks ahead, protected by Club, and plants his flag pole in the ground, using it as a focus for his senses. Once he gives the all clear, the rest of the team moves up to join him and re-establishes a new perimeter of defense.

Whenever Trevour identifies a monster lurking nearby, he hurls his glass pole toward the creature, trying to impale it on the sharp end of the spear-like flagpole. He misses more often than not, since they're moving so quickly, but the spectral flag illuminates the Rift and lights up the targets he calls out.

"Leopards of some kind. Two heads!"

Trevour heaves the empty flagpole as he shouts, sending it streaking toward the beast he identified. For once, he aims true. The sharp end of it punches through the spotted hide of the leopard beast, pinning its hind leg to the obsidian floor. Thrashing in an attempt to free itself from the spear, it yowls desperately.

Death rains down from above, slashes of fire scorching the fur and skin off the shadowy creature. It writhes in pain, finally wrenching free of the flagpole turned makeshift spear. A split second later, blinding stabs of forked lightning burst into existence, devastating the Rift monster. It sizzles under the dazzling assault, convulsing with the force of the electric attack.

Mana spikes in density within the beast. Yellow eyes burn with wild, lurid light. I prepare my Domain in case I need to shield the team from the death-fueled attack, but Club interposes himself between the Rift beast and the rest of the delvers, holding out his shield to absorb the explosion. The shockwave of the sacrificial attack washes over them, disrupted by the bubble of safety created by Club's protective aegis.

The force of the blast flings the other leopards away, killing at least one, but the survivors scrabble against the hard ground with long, wicked claws and regain their footing. High-pitched whines make my ears ring even from my removed distance, while low growls reverberate in my chest and make my bones shudder in protest.

The discordant sounds emanate simultaneously from the twin heads of the remaining beasts. As one, the pair of monsters dash back toward the team.

Swelling mana signals a beast Skill about to ignite, but Trevour is already on it. His flag unfurls in the blink of an eye, declaring the next formation.

Tactic: shield formation

They form up, shoulder to shoulder, in an unyielding wall. Augmented by Klaarson's odd squad Skills, they grow stronger in my Domain sight, reinforced by the empowering mana. Club and Mikko lift actual shields, which to my surprise are echoed across the formation in ghostly, unseen light. To anyone without my advanced mana senses, they're completely invisible.

To me, they blaze like the sun.

When did he learn to do that? I wonder to myself in slack-jawed admiration. Awesome!

The monsters crash into the shining shield wall. The team staggers back a half-step, but they hold. Mikko's preternatural, enhanced strength reinforces the entire formation to a shocking degree. No beast in this Rift stands a chance at breaking through, short of the Rift boss itself.

Trevour's glass pole-spear materializes in his hand, drawn back magnetically through his [Bannerman] Skills. He thrusts forward, impaling the closest leopard, and drives it back.

Unearthly howling screeches forth from twin throats as the skewered monster screams in pain and anger. With a powerful tug, it wrenches the weapon free from Trevour's grasp and limps away, dragging it across the glossy obsidian ground.

"Hey! Hit the glass pole with your fire, Marta," Teuria blurts out, excitement laced through her tone.

Marta frowns in concentration, working overtime to target the retreating glass tool. She summons her hearth fires, heating up the glass until it takes on a soft, cherry glow, enabling everyone to track its progress through the heavy darkness.

Teuria claps. "Yes! I thought I sensed something." She reaches out her hand, and an arc of scintillating blue leaps hundreds of feet, connecting instantly to the pole that normally doesn't conduct electric power.

Screaming in agony, the leopard convulses and strikes out at an assailant it can't hit. Its muscles lock up under the furious assault, and it collapses in death a moment later, as silent as the grave.

"What was that?" Trevour shouts.

"Do it again!" Marta cheers.

Teuria beams. "When the glass heats up, it's conductive. Usually, it's an insulator, but if you hit it with your flames then I can target it. No more free-casting. That's amazing!"

Huh. News to me, and I'm the glass expert around here. I scratch my beard. I must not have noticed the synergy back when Teuria and I first started training together, because neither one of us were strong enough back then to sense the changes in the properties of hot glass.

I'll have to remember that trick. Maybe I can replicate it with runic arrays. Or maybe I can unlock the higher order concepts behind it all, and imbue lighting attacks into my future weapon creations.

Mikko, Klaarson, and Club surround the last leopard on three sides, blocking its retreat with their weapons and restricting its movement while I daydream of casting lightning at all my foes. Avelina summons a wall of fire, cutting off the leopard's retreat and completing the box.

Trevour wastes no time sprinting toward his glass flagpole, his hand outstretched, and he summons it back into his grasp once he's in range to exert his Skill. He dashes toward the caged beast and spears it through the ribs, shouting a battle cry at the top of his lungs when he strikes the monster.

Flames superheat the glass, and he leaps back to avoid the incoming strike. Seconds later, Teuria's lightning flashes, finishing the job to a resounding chorus of cheers.

With their new discovery in place, Trevour's targeting soars to new heights. He pinpoints the monstrous threats, flings the spear at extreme speed—farther and more powerfully than he should be able to, given his current grade, which tells me that one of his [Bannerman] Skills just ranked up—and sets up the next attack. Fire follows, scorching flesh and boiling ichor.

Teuria finally gets a chance to show her true strength. Her lightning manifests faster than thought, destroying any monster unfortunate enough to attack our group. Now that she doesn't have to spend so much mana and willpower forcing lightning toward a specific target, she can release her full power and let the lightning jump naturally to the pole. Crackling energy instantly connects between her and the red hot glass pole, chaining to the strange, two-headed leopards and killing them almost instantly.

The three of them advance with machine-like precision, clearing the dark Rift with brutal efficiency. Protecting their flanks are Klaarson and Club, one on either side. Nothing gets past their shields and enhanced strength. Klaarson's [Strength in Numbers] empowers them to fight on equal level with the Rift monsters, proving how powerful the [Augmenter] has become.

Eventually Trevour's flag unfurls once more, signaling the team to regroup. He's panting from the exertion of the last few hours, and a quick peek with my Viewing technique confirms he's almost completely out of mana. His ghostly flags drain his Capacity rapidly, especially since he's not using the flags in the usual manner his Class prescribes. No wonder he calls for a half hour to recuperate.

I take a seat with everyone else while we share lunch, congratulating the team on their monster kills. Even so, there's a remoteness to our interactions that I doubt I'll ever shake. I'm not one of them anymore, not really. They're a team, flush with the well-earned pride of proving themselves. Me? I may as well be an instructor at the SCA presiding over a classroom, not a friend or peer.

Even Mikko and Avelina are forging their own identity as they prepare to become joined in covenant with each other, the two becoming one.

Just like that, I'm an outsider again. It doesn't hurt my feelings, but melancholy creeps up on me all the same. I feel self-conscious, barely even able to laugh at their jokes, which only serves to widen the gulf between us.

Drifting back into the shadows, I sit quietly during their tactical meeting, leaving Trevour to practice leading and planning. With only three formations under their belts and limited ranged options for dealing damage, there's not a lot to discuss. Their current group dynamic is nearly flawless. They'll strike while they can, Trevour will call targets, and the heavy-hitters will close in and clean up.

I refrain from commenting when I wonder if their plan might prove sub-optimal against the wrong threats. They're smart and adaptable. They'll do just fine without my input. That's why I trained them so hard, after all.

After a brief snack of crackers and cheese, Trevour passes out mana draughts to hasten the recovery of resources. They drink them down, stand up with a series of satisfied groans and stretches—accompanied by popping spines and necks—and set out again, eager to challenge the rest of the Rift.

Trevour's flags light the way, pathfinding through the darkness. The others fall in behind him, following the directions on his ethereal banners, and rampage through the rest of the Rift. I almost don't believe how quickly they scythe through the amorphous ink blogs with giant teeth now. The shadowy packs of two-headed leopards still give them trouble on occasion, since they run so quickly that they're hard to pin down, but the synergy Marta and Teuria discovered gives them the tools they need to hit the fast, elusive cats.

"Halt!" Trevour shouts twenty minutes later, verbally reinforcing the urgent order that his flags all transmit as one.

Danger ahead!

Everyone huddles up, staring out into the unnaturally-silent shadows surrounding them. A hush falls across the team; I can barely hear them breathe even with the enhanced senses of my upgraded [Aracne Domain]. Trevour works up his courage and scouts ahead, planting his flags as he clears each stretch of obsidian void.

A suffocating presence crashes over them, bearing down with the weight of the world. Their joints creak and the blood drains out of their faces. Without my Domain pushing back against the aura, they fight to avoid falling to their knees.

I beam as I watch them struggle for all their worth to stand upright, unyielding even in the face of overwhelming power.

"B-boss fight," Trevour gets out, his voice trembling. Fear and excitement weave through his words in equal measure. "Get ready. This is what we've been training for!"

I share an amused look with Ember, who's smirking at what's about to happen. Poor kids can't catch a break.

With the squeal of tortured metal, a massive gate unlocks. Looming out of the darkness, it seems to appear out of nothingness, shaking the Rift as the doors split apart. Rumbling in low, menacing tones, like gravel tumbling down a hill in a runaway avalanche, the gate creaks open, and the power of the mana shielding that prevents monsters from infiltrating the Army outpost grows even more oppressive.

Power flares as each member of the team prepares his or her strongest attack. Mana is surging around them so thickly it leaves a smoky haze in the air.

Yet no monster emerges. Instead, a small squad of Army [Soldiers] marches into the gap revealed. They fan out, barring the way to the core room.

"Wait. We have to fight them?" Teuria squeaks. She swallows hard, but lightning crackles around her raised fists in defiance. Only her wavering voice betrays her fear.

Mikko shakes his head. He pats her on the back and smiles in encouragement. "Don't worry. Nuri will take care of us no matter what happens. But I don't think they're here to fight."

"No fair. No boss after all," Trevour mutters.

The [Captain] of the squad of [Soldiers] gives Trevour a sharp look. He clears his throat and unrolls an orange golden scroll, reading aloud in a loud, clear voice. "Congratulations on successfully completing the Rift of Shade and Silence! Designed to push your perception skills to the limit, this is one of the Royal Army's finest training courses, so each one of you should be proud to make it this far. While policy forbids clearing the Rift, I have no doubt that you would all acquit yourselves valiantly if allowed to fight the final guardian and challenge the core."

Their confusion bleeds through until my brother turns to look at me through the gloom. A note of suspicion echoes through his emotional landscape. He crosses his arms and shakes his head at me with a frown as I smirk at him.

"You knew we couldn't clear the Rift."

I chuckle. "Yeah. How else do you think I convinced Melina to bring Teuria down here? No Rift is truly safe, but this is tamer than most."

He grunts non-committedly. "No wonder she never intervened with a time-bubble. Good way to practice teamwork and tactics, I guess. Ava had us covered anyway." He grins. "Not a bad final run."

"Not bad at all," I agree. "Besides, Avelina would have killed me if a monster scratched up your pretty face before the wedding. No chance she'd let anything past her."

"Right this way. Show's over," the Army [Captain] reiterates, interrupting our banter. Light flickers to life all around us, glaring with eye-searing brightness. Twin lines of lanterns guide the team toward a previously-hidden door in the enormous gates.

"Hey, um, what's the guardian like?" Trevour asks as we all trudge toward the exit.

The [Captain] snorts. "Leopard. Just bigger."

Trevour's shoulders slump. "Oh. Boring."

"It's got four heads."

"Twice as many. So what?"

"Well, it flies, too!" the captain bellows, sounding slightly offended that Trevour is casting aspersions on the training Rift.

"That's more like it! Any chance we could take it on some other time?" the [Bannerman] asks eagerly.

"Depends," the [Captain] drawls. He gives Trevour a once-over with an appraising eye. "We're recruiting. You'd do well with the irregulars."

"I'll take you into more Rifts than the Army knows exists," I say, butting in before Trevour gets any ideas. "I pay better, too."

"Hm. I'll have to compare offers. Nuri makes us masterwork artifacts, though. How many imbued weapons will the Royal Army provide?" Trevour asks gravely.

The [Captain] sputters, his face growing red as he struggles to wrap his mind around the ridiculous question.

Trevour turns and winks at us behind the man's back. I can't hold back a chuckle at his antics, and soon the entire team is laughing uproariously, to the confusion and annoyance of the poor Army [Captain] out here trying to do his job. He manages to maintain his professional demeanor, however, and escorts us to the exit.

Spirits soaring, intoxicated by our resounding success, we stride through the door and leave the Rift behind, our heads held high in victory.