Kellen stared at the door to his quarters and listened to the footsteps fade. Two guards. Heavy boots. Probably packing dispel rods in case the "chosen one" got uppity and tried something clever like asking to leave.
He turned back to the room. The bed was four-poster, draped in velvet the color of old blood, and probably cost enough to feed his neighborhood for a month.
Everything was expensive. Everything was a cage. And the Penumbral Order wanted him to feel grateful for it.
The Codex sat on the desk.
It hadn't moved since the guards escorted Kellen here three hours ago, but he swore it watched him. Which is ridiculous. Books don't watch people. Except when they're magical artifacts bound to your soul, in which case all bets are off.
The leather cover was black as a starless sky, etched with silver sigils that crawled when he wasn't looking directly at them. The spine hummed, not audibly, but in the way a tuning fork vibrates through bone. His teeth ached with it.
Kellen sat. Opened it.
The pages turned themselves.
The interface materialized in midair above the book, translucent blue text suspended like frost on glass. Because apparently Kellen's life had become a video game. A really expensive, potentially fatal video game with no save points and permadeath enabled.
His finger hovered over the SUMMONS header. He tapped it.
The text rippled, reforming:
[SUMMONS]
- Glimmerling (Tier 1 - Level 2)
- Stone Toad (Tier 1 - Level 4)
- Vine Creeper (Tier 1 - Level 1)
Only three... the last Codex Bearer didn't seem to get very far.
The Codex would allow him to collect more, if remembered correctly, the Codex was a Paragon artifact... and through it, he could equip the Summoner class, obtain skills and utilize the [Triad of Choice].
Up until now, he and the other students would use Echo Tomes, which provided a sort of "rent-a-class" type service. They could temporarily use a class and a limited set of summons and skills, but they couldn't permanently acquire them or unlock new ones.
For once he'd be able to learn new skills and collect more summons... but until then, these three would have to due.
He tapped Glimmerling.
[GLIMMERLING]
TYPE: Scout / Distraction
COST: 20 Mana (Sustain: 5 SP/min)
ABILITIES:
- [Dazzle] – Blinds target with a flash of light.
Notes: Fragile. Do not deploy in frontal assault.
Fragile as wet tissue paper. Great. Kellen dismissed the window and swiped again.
The blue text flickered. A hairline crack ran through the center of the interface, splitting the words like shattered glass. Kellen frowned. He tapped the crack.
It spread.
[WARNING: ANCHOR STABILITY < 15%. VEIL CRITICAL.]
The text pulsed red. Numbers scrolled:
[GLOBAL VEIL STATUS]
ESTIMATED TIME TO COLLAPSE: 87 DAYS, 14 HOURS
[ANCHOR NETWORK STATUS]
1. Kelidor: 12% (CRITICAL)
2. Oakhaven: 34% (UNSTABLE)
3. The Sunken Vault: 41% (DEGRADING)
4. Mt. Moroz: 68% (STABLE)
5. The Grand Spire: 72% (STABLE)
His stomach dropped.
Eighty-seven days. The guards had called this "routine." Oryn had called it a "formality." The entire Penumbral Order had smiled through their teeth, assuring him the Veil was stable, the Anchors were holding, the world was fine.
The UI said otherwise.
Kellen leaned back, jaw tight. Three months to save the world. Great. No pressure. Just him, a glitchy magic book, and a countdown timer to the apocalypse. He'd seen this movie. The protagonist usually died in the second act.
Kellen slammed the book shut.
The interface vanished.
The room fell silent.
Three hours in the gilded cage, and the shadows had started lengthening wrong.
The oil lamp guttered.
Kellen looked up from the Codex. The flame hadn't flickered a second ago. Now it barely clung to the wick. The shadows in the corners thickened, pooling like tar across the marble floor.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"We don't have time for this," Kellen whispered to himself.
He stood, pacing the small space between the desk and the window. Eighty-seven days. It sounded like a lifetime, but if the Anchors were days apart... weeks apart... he was already behind schedule.
He checked the window. Narrow. Barred. A three-story drop to the courtyard. Suicide.
He checked the door. Locked. Two guards. Diplomacy or violence. Neither favors me right now.
He needed a way out. He needed leverage. He needed...
The shadows in the corner of the room lengthened. Stretched. Detached themselves from the wall with a wet, tearing sound.
The air grew cold. Kellen's breath misted in front of his face, the kind of cold that made his teeth ache and his fingers go numb even through the gloves he wasn't wearing. Because of course he wasn't wearing gloves. That would have been smart.
The wall rippled.
A figure stepped through the stone.
Not around it. Not breaking it. The marble bent like fabric, and a man emerged from the grain itself, robes trailing shadow like smoke. He solidified ten feet away, silver hair stark against the dark, eyes burning with pale blue light.
Elder Waltz.
The same man who'd stood beside Oryn during the trial. The one who'd called Kellen's selection "madness" and demanded the Council convene to stop the Rite.
Kellen's pulse spiked.
"You shouldn't be here," Kellen said, keeping his voice level. Measured. Calm. Don't give him an excuse.
"Neither should you, boy." Waltz's voice was severe. "But here we are. The Codex does not choose fools. It does not choose gamblers. You tricked the artifact. Exploited a loophole. I know you... You did something... I will not allow a heretic to hold the book."
Kellen stepped sideways, putting the desk between them. "Heretic? I passed the trial. Oryn made no objections."
"Oryn is blinded by protocol." Waltz raised one hand. Shadows coalesced around his palm, twisting into a lance of solid darkness. Six feet long. Razor-tipped. Tier 5 magic at minimum. "The artifact will be reclaimed. Properly. By a true candidate."
The lance hummed.
Kellen was in deep shit.
Waltz thrust.
The lance screamed through the air, and Kellen had just enough time to think, Well, this is a stupid way to die, before his hand hit the Codex.
No incantation. No ritual circle. He shoved intent through the link and felt the mana drain.
[SUMMON: STONE TOAD]
The air split. The toad materialized, gray skin thick as cobblestone, eyes like unpolished marbles and approximately zero thoughts happening behind them. The shadow-weapon hit it center mass.
Thunk.
The lance punched clean through. Black ichor sprayed across the expensive floor like someone had dropped a paint can full of tar. The toad croaked once, a sound like a garbage disposal eating gravel, and began to collapse.
Kellen's hand was already moving again.
[DISMISS]
The toad vanished.
Not died. Not faded. Erased.
The mana tether snapped mid-drain, system refunding the cost before the summon fully manifested:
[MANA REFUND]
Stone Toad dismissed (partial manifestation)
Mana: 105/120 (+15 refunded)
The shadow lance dissolved into mist.
Kellen exhaled.
Holy shit, that actually worked.
He didn't have time to celebrate.
Waltz snarled. Shadows erupted from the floor. No projectiles this time, the entire room became the weapon, midnight blades forming a cage around Kellen with nowhere to dodge.
The toad was too slow. The Glimmerling...
Kellen summoned the Glimmerling.
The sprite appeared in a burst of prismatic light, hovering at eye level. Waltz's shadowy cage hesitated, blinded by the sudden brightness, and Kellen barked the command:
"[Dazzle]!"
The Glimmerling detonated.
A flashbang of pure radiance filled the room. Waltz staggered, hands over his eyes, and Kellen Dismissed the sprite before the sustain cost kicked in.
[MANA REFUND]
Glimmerling dismissed (0.4 seconds sustained)
Mana: 119/120 (+24 refunded)
He pivoted. Summoned the Stone Toad directly behind the Elder.
The toad landed with a wet slam, a granite trip-hazard manifesting out of thin air. Waltz stumbled, his shadow-lance going wide and slicing harmlessly into the wall. He flailed, tangling his robes in the toad's warts, and went down on one knee.
"Ha!" Kellen grinned, adrenaline overriding his common sense.
He stepped forward, hands raised, maybe thinking he can intimidate a Tier 7 Summoner.
Waltz looked up. His eyes weren't angry anymore. They were bored.
He flicked a wrist.
A pulse of raw force hit Kellen in the chest like a sledgehammer. No chant. No fancy shadow-glass. Just a contemptuous backhand of pure mana that lifted Kellen off his feet and threw him across the room.
Waltz's hand shot out. Shadows coiled around Kellen's ankle, yanking him back. He hit the floor hard enough to rattle his teeth, breath knocked loose in a wheeze that would've been embarrassing if he weren't about to die. The Codex skidded across the marble like a flat stone on a frozen lake, and Kellen's brain screamed nonono because without that book he was just a guy on the floor with a homicidal Elder standing over him.
Waltz loomed. Lance reforming in his grip. "You insult the Order with parlor tricks. The Codex deserves..."
The door exploded sending fragments of oak splinters inward, and Magister Oryn strode through the smoke, staff glowing white-hot.
"Stand down, Waltz," Oryn said.
The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees.
Waltz froze, lance hovering inches from Kellen's chest. For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then the Elder straightened, shadows dissipating like breath. "This boy is a fraud."
"This boy," Oryn said, voice colder than Waltz's magic, "is the Codex's choice. You will respect that, or you will leave the Order."
Waltz's jaw clenched. He glanced at Kellen, still sprawled on the floor, bleeding from a split lip, then back at Oryn. "This is a mistake."
"The Codex does not make mistakes."
Silence.
Waltz stepped back. The shadows retreated into the walls, and he followed them, phasing through the stone without another word.
The room warmed.
Oryn lowered his staff. Crossed the room in three strides and hauled Kellen upright. "Are you injured?"
"No." Kellen wiped his mouth, tasted copper. "Just pissed off. And bleeding. But mostly pissed off."
"Good. Hold onto that." Oryn's expression didn't change. "Anger keeps you sharp. Terror keeps you stupid." He retrieved the Codex, pressed it back into Kellen's hands. "The traditionalists are restless. Waltz is not the last who will question your right to carry the Codex."
[COMBAT COMPLETE]
+150 XP
Kellen stared at the number. One hundred and fifty points. Apparently, that was the going rate for surviving a Tier 7 assassination attempt. It somehow seemed low.
Kellen glanced at the shattered door. The guards outside were unconscious, stunned by Oryn's entrance spell. "You knew he'd come for me."
"I suspected." Oryn's expression was stone. "You handled yourself very well... better than I expected."
Kellen stared at the Codex in his hands. The interface flickered, still glitched, still showing the countdown.
[ESTIMATED TIME TO GLOBAL VEIL COLLAPSE: 87 DAYS, 11 HOURS]
He closed the book.
"Come with me," Oryn said from the doorway. "We have preparations to make."