Chương 6: Blue Fire

Moving the cabinet sounded much louder the second time. Its wooden base scraped across the chapel floor in one long complaint, the noise carrying through the stone passage beyond the door. Marcus and Will stopped at the partially cleared barricade. Everyone else went still around them, listening for claws, footsteps, or any indication that something had heard. Nothing answered. Thomas was not reassured. Silence had already proven itself perfectly capable of containing monsters.

Behind him, the remains of their brief rest had been packed away. Margaret had divided the food and water into what they could carry without slowing the group. Chloe had wrapped the three cores separately in scraps of cloth and buried them deep inside her bag. Eleanor held Gareth's folded jacket beneath one arm, her grip tightening whenever she looked toward the opening. Amy stood near the centre of the group, awake but visibly drained.

Will had reclaimed his place at the rear with the broken length of bench resting against one shoulder. Thomas reached for the bond inside his pocket. Golden light gathered before his hands, suspended in the air for an instant before extending into the shape of the spear. The translucent shaft formed around his grip, and its weight settled into place in one smooth movement. His arms still ached, but his body no longer fought the weapon's balance. Marcus noticed.

"You didn't touch the spearhead."

"I don't need to once the bond exists."

"That's useful."

"The system being useful is becoming the consensus." Marcus checked his pistol one final time before looking over the group.

"Same formation. I go first. The proper diamond behind me." The instructions settled into Thomas's thoughts with the same unnatural clarity as before. He could see where everyone belonged and how the formation would move before Marcus finished speaking. This time, Thomas recognised the effect. Battle Captain. Will and Marcus shifted the cabinet the rest of the way. They removed the chairs next, widening the entrance until cold air drifted into the chapel.

It carried the familiar smells of old stone and dust, along with something faintly metallic from deeper within the keep. There was an undercurrent of anxiety to everyone's movements. Eleanor held Gareth's jacket tighter. Marcus stepped into the passage with his pistol raised. Thomas followed, levelling the golden spear into the dark. The remaining sweep went faster than the first. They had already cleared the nearest chambers, and Marcus no longer needed to explain every movement.

He raised a fist, and the group stopped. He pointed, and Thomas shifted to cover a doorway while Marcus checked the room. Chloe directed the beam of a replacement torch Eleanor had found among the emergency supplies. Will watched behind them, holding the broken bench across his body. The formation moved with an ease they had not possessed an hour earlier. Thomas doubted any of them had improved enough to call themselves competent, but they had stopped making the same mistakes.

The upper rooms yielded no monsters, but they found two more bodies. The first was a staff member Thomas recognised from the café, lying near a window with injuries too severe for treatment. The second was an older visitor at the base of a flight of stairs. Marcus checked both before moving on. Thomas stood back in the shadows, fighting the knee-jerk urge to add two more tallies to his mental ledger. Abstract numbers kept him sane; names and familiar faces made him want to throw up.

He couldn't afford to log them anymore, not if he wanted to keep his hands steady enough to hold the spear. The silence altered as they moved farther from the chapel. At first, there had been only stone, breathing, and the careful placement of feet. Then Thomas heard something else beneath it. A faint crackling. He stopped, and Marcus glanced back.

"What?"

"Fire. There's a fire nearby!" No one else spoke. The blue flames outside the castle had been visible from the chapel windows, bending along the walls without consuming them. Thomas had not considered what might happen if the same phenomenon came inside. Eleanor's expression tightened.

"The maintenance stores are this way." She moved forward before Marcus's arm blocked her path.

"I know," he said.

"You still stay behind us."

"My staff may be trapped there."

"And running ahead won't make the corridor any safer." For a moment, Thomas thought Eleanor might argue. Instead, she pressed Gareth's jacket closer against her side and nodded. Marcus continued forward, ever vigilant of their surroundings. The crackling grew louder as they descended a narrow service stair. Blue light pulsed against the walls below, brightening and fading without any obvious rhythm. Heat climbed the steps in uneven waves. Thomas's summoned spear reflected the colour strangely.

Gold remained along its edges, but eerie blue light moved through its translucent shaft like dye through water. At the bottom of the stairs, Marcus stopped. The corridor beyond had become a river of fire. Blue-white flames rose from the joints between the floor stones and ran along the lower portions of the walls. They did not spread across the wood of a storage shelf or consume a cardboard sign that had fallen partly into them. Instead, they curved around the ordinary materials and clung to the castle itself.

The fire was brightest near the far end of the passage. A grey metal door stood there beneath a small maintenance sign. Flame covered the floor before it and climbed both sides of the stone frame, leaving the door untouched but impossible to approach. Marcus studied the corridor.

"Are there any other entrances?" Eleanor began to explain, "There's an exterior service door farther along, but it opens into the yard. If the walls are still burning—""They wouldn't be able to use it," Thomas finished. Eleanor nodded frantically.

"Gareth! Daniel!" No answer came from the maintenance room. Eleanor tried again, louder this time.

"Gareth!" Her face changed as time went by with no response. Hope withdrew behind something more controlled.

"The room is insulated," she said.

"Thick door. Storage walls. They might not hear us."

"They might not be in there," Marcus said.

"They are." It was the certainty of responsibility—rather than evidence—but Marcus did not challenge it. He crouched near the edge of the fire without crossing. The flames leaned toward him, then away, as though disturbed by the movement of air.

"The extinguishers?"

"Maintenance room," Chloe said. Marcus looked at her, and she pointed toward the inaccessible door.

"Naturally." Thomas lowered the spear until its point hovered several inches above the nearest flame. The fire reached for it. A thin strand of blue lifted from the floor and curled around the golden spearhead. Thomas felt the contact through the bond—pressure, rather than heat. Mana pressed against the summoned weapon, searching for somewhere to go. He withdrew the spear before it found an answer.

"What happened?" Chloe asked.

"It reacted to the summon."

"Did it damage it?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, if you could figure that out, I'd appreciate it." Thomas focused on the flames and activated Study. The skill resisted him at first. The fire had no clear boundary. It ran through the stone and air, more an effect than an object. Thomas narrowed his attention to the nearest concentration, following the blue light down into the floor until the pressure behind his eyes sharpened.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐ Mana Flame Rank: E State: Dissipating Cause: Excess ambient mana converting into heat Danger: Moderate └────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Thomas read the result aloud.

"Dissipating," Eleanor repeated.

"How long? Minutes? Hours?" Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"It doesn't say. I read out everything" She looked down the corridor.

"We can't wait without knowing if anyone is injured." Marcus nodded once.

"Agreed." Chloe had already crouched near the edge of the fire. She extended one hand, stopping before the blue light reached her fingers. Her attention grew distant, as Thomas had seen when she used Analyse Device. The torch hung loosely from her other hand, its beam forgotten against the much stronger glow.

"Can you analyse fire?" Thomas asked.

"No." The flames bent slightly toward her palm. Chloe's brow furrowed.

"But this isn't really fire."

"That distinction must matter to your skill, but my readout still says moderate danger.."

"Hasn't hurt me yet." Thomas fell silent. He watched the light dance across her fingers, noticing the uncanny lack of heat or smoke radiating from it. The ability to Study or Analyse the mana flame had come to them both in this new world, but she seemed to be adapting faster than him. Marcus stepped closer, his shadow falling over them.

"What do you see?"

"Movement," Chloe answered.

"That narrows it down."

"Mana is coming out of the stone." Chloe shifted her hand from side to side, following something none of them could see.

"Not just here. Through the walls, the floor, all of it. The flame is where too much is escaping too quickly." Thomas looked back toward the stairwell. Richmond Castle had glowed from the battlements when they first reached the visitor centre. The old place had taken in enough mana to burn.

"Why is it fading?" Amy asked.

"The pressure is equalising," Chloe said.

"The castle has more mana than the air around it. It is shedding the excess."

"Like heat moving out of something hot," Thomas said.

"Close enough." Will leaned around the others to look at the corridor.

"Can we stop it?" Chloe did not answer. She closed her eyes and the blue light nearest her hand trembled. Thomas felt something shift in the air. The sensation resembled the pressure he felt when using Bond, but was diffuse rather than directed. Mana surrounded them, thick enough near the flames that he could almost mistake it for steam rising off boiling water. Chloe inhaled sharply. Her shoulders drew back, and the nearest flame dipped. Not much. A few inches at most.

The change lasted less than a second before the blue light returned to its previous height. Chloe opened her eyes as a notification crossed her vision.

"I just gained Mana Control."

"What did you do?" Thomas asked.

"I pulled." Marcus's hand moved toward her shoulder, but stopped before touching her.

"Are you hurt?"

"No." Chloe pressed one hand against the centre of her chest.

"Possibly."

"That is not the same answer, Chlo. Are you okay?"

"The mana is not only moving out of the stone. Some of it is trying to enter everything around it." She looked down at her fingers.

"My class normally keeps it from doing that to me."" Mana Insulation," Thomas said, worry leaking into his voice. She nodded.

"I relaxed it."

"And?" Chloe's expression shifted from concentration to startled satisfaction.

"I think I replenished what I used on the torch bomb earlier." Thomas stared at her.

"You can tell?"

"There was an emptiness before. Not a hunger, but more like a battery; I could not see that it had been partly drained." She touched her sternum.

"It is filling." Marcus looked toward the flames.

"Can you pull enough to extinguish them?"

"No." Chloe sounded offended by the scale of the suggestion.

"The castle is holding far more mana than I can."

"But it weakened," Thomas said.

"For a moment." Thomas let Summon Echo remain active and tried to feel past the steady drain of maintaining it. Beneath the bond and the fatigue, there was a reserve he had only noticed through absence. The spear drew from him continuously. After the barghest fights and the sweep, the reserve had felt stretched thin. Now he could sense pressure around it. Mana waited outside him. Chloe watched his expression.

"Don't force it."

"That advice is late in several areas."

"I mean it. I have Mana Insulation. You don't." Thomas concentrated on the surrounding pressure. Nothing happened. He tried again, imagining the act as breathing. The comparison was imperfect, but it gave his mind a familiar motion: open, draw inward, close. Pain flashed behind his eyes, but mana did not enter.

"It is like trying to inhale through your ribs."

"That's close," Chloe replied.

"Except the part you're using is not physical."

"Helpful."

"Try finding the place your spear draws from and connecting the flow back inwards." Thomas focused on his summon. The golden weapon maintained a line between the bond and the reserve beneath his sternum. Mana flowed outward through that connection in a slow, continuous stream. Instead of following it toward the spear, Thomas traced it backwards. He found the boundary Chloe had described.

It was more like tension held unconsciously than a wall, a refusal so deeply ingrained in his body that he had never known it existed. Thomas relaxed it, and ambient mana rushed inward. He staggered. Marcus caught his shoulder before he stepped into the flame. The sensation passed through Thomas's chest and spread along his ribs, cold and burning at once. His vision was filled with blue light even after he closed his eyes. For several seconds, he could hear his own heartbeat louder than the fire.

Then the pressure settled. The steady cost of Summon Echo no longer felt as sharp.

"That was unpleasant," Thomas said. Chloe looked him over.

"You drew too quickly."

"Thank you, Chloe. Always a pleasure having an expert on hand." The flames nearest Thomas had weakened during the draw. They returned, but not immediately. Marcus looked from Thomas to Chloe and then down the corridor.

"If everyone does that together, can we clear a path?"

"Not everyone should," Amy said, her voice thin as she rubbed a hand over her tired eyes.

"I'm already running on empty. If I try to push another skill right now, I'm going to pass out, and none of you gets healed if something comes through that door."

"She's right," Chloe added, looking around the circle.

"Besides, Margaret and Eleanor may not even have mana class. Will almost certainly doesn't."

"I can still try," Will interjected.

"So can I," Eleanor added. Marcus raised a hand.

"We're not experimenting with everyone beside the fire." Eleanor looked at the maintenance door.

"Then what do you suggest?" Marcus studied the corridor again. The flames did not cover it evenly. Some sections rose nearly to Thomas's waist. Others barely reached above the floor before collapsing into blue sparks. The pattern changed as mana moved through the stone.

"We need enough of a lull to reach the door," he said, "but we don't need to extinguish the corridor." Chloe nodded slowly.

"Drawing mana changes the local pressure. If Thomas and I pull at the same time, the flames near us should weaken."

"For how long?"

"I don't know."

"Can you move while doing it?" Chloe tried. She stepped sideways along the edge of the flames, one hand extended. The blue light followed her, bending inward as she drew from the surrounding air. Her pace was slow, and concentration tightened every line of her face.

"Yes," she said.

"Not quickly." Marcus looked at Thomas.

"Can you?" Thomas attempted to draw mana again, this time more cautiously. The pressure seeped through the boundary beneath his sternum rather than rushing across it. The sensation remained uncomfortable, but manageable. He took one step and the spear wavered in his hands.

"Not while maintaining this," he said.

"Release it then; I will protect us." Thomas hesitated. The corridor might be empty of monsters, but they had made enough noise to invite anything nearby. Letting go of his best weapon felt wrong. Marcus understood the pause.

"I'll cover the corridor. Will stays with the others. You and Chloe deal with the fire." Thomas released Summon Echo. The spear folded inward and streamed back toward the bond. Without its drain, the mana entering him became easier to distinguish. He could draw more slowly and control where the pressure settled rather than letting it strike his entire body at once. Chloe moved beside him.

"The fire reacts to the nearest imbalance. We should pull together, walk to the door, and open it."

"What happens if the flames surge?"

"We just step back." Thomas looked at the distance. The maintenance room was perhaps fifteen yards away. If the flames surged halfway down the corridor, stepping back might become ambitious. He trusted in her, but wasn't sure he trusted in himself that much. Marcus removed his jacket and handed it to Thomas.

"Wrap this around your arm. If you have to touch the door or shield your face, use it."

"The fire ignored ordinary material."

"It ignores cardboard," Marcus said.

"I'm not assuming it ignores people." That was not exactly comforting, but Thomas accepted the jacket when Marcus handed it to him and wrapped it around his left forearm. Will stepped forward before he finished.

"I should go."

"Your class holds ground," Marcus said.

"If something comes from behind us, you are the only person between it and everyone else." Will looked toward the maintenance door, then back at Margaret and Amy behind him. The decision sat badly on his face, but he nodded and returned to the rear. Eleanor held out Gareth's jacket next.

"Take this too." Thomas looked at the torn sleeve of the otherwise whole jacket.

"He's gonna complain about the tear and blame me for it."

"He can complain after you get him out." The answer left no room for refusal. Thomas layered Gareth's jacket over Marcus's, building a clumsy shield across his arm and shoulder while Chloe handed her torch to Amy. The two of them moved to the front of the group, preparing to walk into fire.

"If I fall over," Chloe said, "don't drag me through the flames."

"I won't. I'll leave you where you land to save my back."

"Heartwarming, Thomas."

"I'm a man of standards." Chloe extended one hand toward the fire. Thomas found the boundary around his reserve, that strange internal tension he had never known existed until the castle started burning excess mana into the air.

"Now," she commanded, and they pulled. The nearest flames collapsed, blue light flattening from knee-high columns into thin lines running through the stone's joints. Heat still pressed against Thomas's face and exposed hands, but the path ahead opened. They stepped forward together. The fire moved with them. Each footfall disturbed the mana flowing through the corridor, sending flames rising behind their heels while the light in front of them bowed away from their bodies.

Thomas concentrated on steadily drawing the mana. If too much mana entered his chest, the pressure sharpened; but too little, and the blue fire climbed toward his legs. Chloe took a half-step forward, her control visibly better. The flames near her sank lower and stayed down longer, leaving Thomas space to follow.

"You make this look easy," he said through clenched teeth.

"I'm trying very hard not to scream."

"You could scream just a little bit; it would make me feel better." They passed the first third of the corridor before the air thickened around them. Mana pressed against Thomas from every direction, dense enough that his skin prickled beneath his clothes.

"Chloe. I am starting to feel full."

"Can you try to channel it into one of your skills?" They slowed their draw, and the flames immediately rose. He wasn't able to use one of his skills and draw in the mana at the same time. One tongue of blue curled around Thomas's boot. Heat punched through the leather, sharp enough to force a shout from him, but he stepped forward rather than back and nearly collided with Chloe.

"Keep moving," she said. Thomas moved. His boot smoked but did not ignite. Pain burned across the outside of his ankle, shallow but immediate, and the door remained ten feet away. He took several quick, panicked steps as the flow of mana shifted. Blue fire surged from the wall to their left. Chloe threw up one arm, and the flames bent around her without touching, sliding along an invisible contour created by Mana Insulation. Thomas had no such protection.

He raised his wrapped arm, and blue-white heat struck the layered jackets. For one impossible second, the fire passed through the cloth without consuming it and burned directly against the mana beneath his skin. Thomas felt the contact in his chest as much as his arm, a line of pressure bright enough to erase everything else. He pulled harder. The flame vanished into the imbalance he created, and mana flooded him. Thomas staggered against the wall.

The stone felt hot beneath his shoulder, but the jackets had stopped the surge long enough for him to remain standing. Chloe grabbed his sleeve.

"Too much?"

"Almost certainly." Thomas took the second to try to channel some of the mana out of him, but the overabundance of mana made him feel weak.

"Can you move?" Thomas looked at the door.

"Yes." They covered the remaining distance while the flames behind them began to recover. Around the threshold, the fire was lower than it had appeared from the stairs, but it clung thickly to the stone frame and curled around the metal fittings. Chloe reached the door first and seized the handle. It did not turn.

"Locked?" Thomas asked.

"Jammed." She pulled harder. The metal groaned, but the door remained shut. Thomas looked back. Fire was rising along the path behind them. At the far end of the corridor, Marcus stood with his pistol ready and entirely useless against the current problem.

"Can you Modify it?" Thomas asked.

"Not until I understand what's wrong with it."

"That would be a good start." Chloe activated the Analyse Device, her eyes tracking the handle, latch, and frame in quick, precise movements.

"The metal has expanded. The latch is pressed against the strike plate."

"How do we fix it?"

"Cool it down."

"With what?" Chloe looked at the blue fire surrounding them.

"Yes," Thomas said.

"That was why I asked." She set one hand against the door, careful not to touch the burning frame.

"Push when I say so." Thomas braced his unburned shoulder against the metal.

"Now." He shoved. Chloe pulled the handle upward rather than down, forcing the latch to scrape inside the warped frame. Thomas increased the pressure, drawing on his improved Strength until his injured side protested and the door shifted half an inch. Something struck it from the other side. Thomas froze as a second impact followed–a frantic, heavy pounding against the hot metal. Someone was alive inside.