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Looking and moving around took a little adjusting to do once again. Everything felt new. Different. I was getting physical sensations from both my own body and from Crystal’s as well. Perhaps the oddest sensation was feeling that she was feeling me, as I was feeling her. It reminded me of placing one mirror in front of another mirror, and letting them reflect something endlessly back and forth; that’s how the emotions felt.

“Are you guys Okay?” Tiffany was leaning anxiously over me, checking me with her magics for any obvious defects or problems.

“I’m…” Shrugging, I was at a loss for how to explain it. “Confused by the results,” I finally said, honestly, “but I think I’ll be fine with just a little time to get used to things. At least I don’t think I’m going to need several days of sleep for my spirit to heal like Mongo did. I was worried about that, since we’re on a time limit now.”

“I feel the same,” Crystal told Jess, smiling slightly. “It’s an unusual feeling, but nothing that I can’t adapt to, I think.”

Standing slowly, I wobbled from the new, unusual sensations coming to my legs and body. I hear losing a limb can disorient and confuse someone mercilessly. It seems that gaining a whole second body does much the same. I was finding it hard to focus on my balance and wobbled like a new born fawn. I didn’t need to glance over to see that Crystal was having the same difficulties.

“You two aren’t going to be in shape to do anything for a while,” Jess muttered in irritation. “It’s like the two of you are stupid drunk.”

“We’ll work it out,” I promised and Crystal nodded. “For now, Dino needs to start blasting and clearing the dead back from those bars and thinning their numbers. When using my magic, I could sense the crypts around us, and Megan has moved on deeper into the depths of the earth. I can follow her for part of the way, so it’s a clue for where we need to be next.

“But, before that,” I warned, “Dino needs to help us reclaim those other rooms so we can gather up what’s left of our gear in them, and you girls need to sit and recover the magic you used to help us.”

‘You need to recover your strength and magics as well, My Lord,’ Crystal told me mentally. It was quite odd how easily sending or reading her thoughts was now. All it took was a simple desire for her to understand a message, and she knew what I wanted to say. Keeping secrets from the two of us seems like it’ll be something impossible to do from now on. What one knows, the other can know with just a little gentle probing of memories. It won’t be long before Crystal realizes exactly how odd I am, and that this is actually my second attempt at life.

‘I already realize it, My Lord,’ Crystal told me, already buried deep in my mind. As I became aware of the concern, she did as well. ‘We’ll have a lot to discuss between the two of us later,’ she promised, ‘but for now simply learning to control our bodies as we used to must take top concern.’ She was right, of course. Explaining my world and my previous life was something that I’d have to do later. For now, I needed to simply rest, master my own body once again, and regain my energy.

With a gentle probe, I felt the magics around me, and then channeled the power of water to quickly wash myself and Crystal. Merging in the manner we had, was a completely orgasmic experience; and my own manly fluids were thick across my middle. Crystal was about in the same condition, with her legs drenched and covered with her own womanly excretions. Washing and cleaning ourselves was something that I felt was quite important, and it was a simple enough test of my ability to manipulate my magic.

Luckily the flows of water, which I used to clean us; and the flows of air, which were used to dry us off afterwards, obeyed my will and worked as easily as ever. I was half-afraid that bonding with Crystal would’ve affected my ability to control magic, but thankfully that wasn’t one of the side effects. Being disorientated, feeling drunk, and having problems moving and dealing with my physical self was more than enough to handle. I’m grateful that issues with my magic weren’t included in the changes.

Once we were cleaned and dried, I wobbled over and sat down, my back against the wall. Stretching forward, I reached for first my left toes and then my right. These were basic stretching exercises which they’d taught us in Kindergarten oh so many years ago, but I thought they might help me feel and reconnect with my own body. Crystal stared at me curiously for a few moments and then sat down at the bottom of my legs and joined me.

Dino blasted his flames back and forth from one set of bars to the other, and Jess and Tiffany both rested and nuzzled against Mongo as he leaned up against the door. Several hours of quiet passed as everyone did their own thing – Dino melting the dead, the girls resting and recovering their magic while Mongo guarded them and the entrance, and Crystal and I practiced our sit ups, push-ups, toe-touches, jumping jacks, and other common exercises. Slowly, we regained the control over our own movements. Things were still a little awkward, but they were manageable for now, and that was all that was required at the moment.

As the hours wore by, it was Jess who finally got up and broke our restful routine first. Walking over, she channeled a little magic and created a few pieces of fresh fruit and began to distribute them to everyone. “Eat,” she warned us. “Everyone needs to keep their strength up.”

“Thanks.” Taking a few different things from her, I took time to eat and share what I’d taken with Crystal. “Guys, we don’t know day from night down here. We don’t know what time it is, or how much time we have to achieve our goals. With that said though,” I stressed, “we can’t afford to just rush out and get ourselves in trouble. We need a plan of some sort for surviving and stopping the revival of this evil.”

“So what do you suggest?” Mongo asked, sounding like he didn’t care one way or another. He truly was broken, I feared.

“First thing to do is to get up after we all eat and finish what Dino’s spent all morning starting for us. I’ll get rid of the bars leading to the left and we’ll blast our way into the next room and secure it.”

“Why that way first?” Dino muttered. “My stuff and Jess’s is to the right.”

“I realize that Dino.” Much to my credit, I didn’t even sigh this time at his interruption. I suppose I’m leaning to accept his whiny outbursts. “The reason we’re going to the left first is for Mongo. He’s one of the shields that people like me and you end up hiding behind, and it’d be nice if he had his armor, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, whatever…” Dino mumbled something else, but I just tuned it out. When we get back to town, I’m going to reevaluate whether I even bother attending the school or not. I think if I stay, I’m definitely going to find someplace different to stay so I won’t have to be around him any more than is necessary.

‘There’s always the house which I bought with your money, My Lord. You’re welcome to come stay with me anytime,’ Crystal told me, having read my mind again.

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,’ I thought back to her. First, we needed to survive and get out of here. Worrying about where to stay back in town was something that could come later.

“Once we’ve cleared that room and sealed the door again, we’ll surge forward and on into the room Crystal and I was sleeping in,” I continued aloud, so everyone could follow along with the plan.

“I don’t think we’ll have much problem,” I offered, optimistically, “as I’ve got my magic back and can lead the way forward by picking up where Dino left off. When you guys are ready, I’m going to blast a wave of heat and fire into the next room that’ll be hot enough to melt those stone bars and anything behind them. I imagine that the corruption will fight back almost instantly and freeze the ground and walls, so Dino you stand prepared to warm the air and keep us all from turning into popsicles...”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to open the door and clear the hallway?” Mongo asked, while half shrugging. Maybe there’s hope for him yet!

“Maybe,” I agreed, cautiously. “What makes you think so?” I was hoping to draw him out of his shell a little more by encouraging him to offer insights into a better plan. He’d led the other team, and he’s led other tasks in the past. His experience in these matters is much better than mine.

“I dunno.” Mongo just shrugged his massive shoulders and kept his head down. “If there’s problem with the crypt fighting back, if the walls get hot, why worry about heating the stone to melt those bars? Let’s just open the door and fight to the other room and then close them behind us.”

“Sounds like a plan to me, boss!” Enthusiastically, I offered an encouraging thumb up to Mongo. “I’m not a boss,” was his only gloom-filled reply. Honestly, I don’t think either way will prove a problem at this point; I have enough power to vaporize my way through the dead for the next several hallways. It’s what I did previously after all, when Crystal and I secretly cleared their numbers somewhat last night.

I was really just trying to draw Mongo out of his depression a bit by stressing what wasn’t a real concern. The bars had been melted and cleansed from the taint previously when I’d first shaped the loose stone into the shower, and the corruption hadn’t spread to them yet. Melting them wouldn’t trigger any response from the darkness around us; I simply stressed that it might so Mongo’s leader instincts would kick back in.

It’s too bad they just twitched their muscles there a few times and didn’t spring back to life fully. I’d love to let him deal with managing all the people in the group – especially Dino – so all I’d have to focus on was my fighting and watching my energy levels. At least there still seems to be hope for him! I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

“Grab that door, boss,” I ignored his refusal to accept such a title. People often become what they’re expected to be. If he’s called boss, and treated like one, Mongo just might become one again. “You open it when you’re ready, and then stand back and I’ll blast our way out to the hall.”

Crystal clutched Heartblade tightly in her hand, and I pulled a large amount of fire and air energy to my command. Mongo slowly rose and then waited for Jess and Tiffany to move to the back of the room with Dino. “Mif, you start blasting the dead through those bars again.” Even though it was a command, it didn’t seem to have any real strength of conviction behind it. “When you start, I’ll yank these open and Michael can blast his way out and then help clear them from the hall’s side. Trapped between two wizard’s flames, they should go down quickly.”

Dino glared at me, as if he wanted to say something to argue, and then he slowly shook his head from side to side. I wasn’t the one who gave the order, and it didn’t seem like he was going to complain back to Mongo about being told what to do. If Mongo would only snap out of it, things could go so much easier for us! At least he could handle Dino without a fight over the simplest things.

“I’m ready, boss! Whenever you are Dino!”

“I’m not a boss,” came back Mongo’s sullen reply as Dino blasted fire through the left set of stone bars. Taking his time, not in a rush to make any mistakes, Mongo glanced left and right at me and Crystal and then slowly nodded his head. Reaching forward, he grabbed the handle and tugged open the door.

KABOOOM!!

Fire and thunder erupted from outside the doorway as a massive wave of fire and death exploded inwards. Instinctively, I lashed back out at the opposing energy with my own prepared might. The resulting concussion was one that shattered the door, cracked the walls, and sent Mongo and Crystal flying to slam into the far walls opposite each other.

That bitch Megan had trapped the doors somehow!

Fighting the raging magic which tried to rush in and consume us all, I grabbed ahold of the tainted weaves of fire with my own and twisted them around in a cyclone of energy. The death magics followed along, and intermingled with the maelstrom of energy fighting to destroy everything in its path, and with an effort of will I forced it backwards, out of the room, and into the hall.

“Release such magics on me, you bitch!” I howled with anger, as the magics howled and battled with each other. Had Megan stayed behind to help control her magics, things may have been more difficult; but as the energy was just shaped to explode when the door was opened, it wasn’t that difficult to take control of the swirling power and make it my own.

Stomping out into the hallway, I split the firestorm to either side, evaporating everything left and right of the door. Glancing down the hall, four dark and ominous runes glowed brightly against the floor and doors of the other rooms on this side of the hall. Megan had trapped every door, and not just this one!

Snarling, I refocused my will, grabbed the maelstrom of power tightly under my control, and then I slowly moved it down the hall. The moment it hit the first rune, there was a dark explosion of power – which I quickly wrapped up and channeled into the massive swirl of energy I already had control of. Like a firework exploding in a tornado, the runes power was quickly smothered and absorbed into my own.

The dark feeling of the greasy taint oozed around and along my own magics, trying to get to me, but I was expecting such and keep my own flows of purifying fire between me and the corruption. Without a will to guide it, the taint was easy enough to fight off when one was expecting it.

Dark-boned skeletons melted under the onslaught of raw power, even their flame resistant strength not being sufficient enough to withstand the force erupting down the hallway now. Lightning crackled between me and the storm of fire, as I continued to hold it tightly and moved it further down the hall to consume the next rune and absorb its power as well. The sound of the rune exploding was lost under the already deafening howl of the magic, and effortlessly, its force was absorbed into the storm within the hall.

Turning my attention, I let the other half of power which I had split at the entrance, drift down the right hall and consume those runes as well. Both sides of the hall were now engulfed in a raging inferno of power, and I stood in the midst of it, struggling to keep it from spiraling out of control.

Controlling fire, I was good at. Had the traps been nothing more than plain fire magic, I could’ve taken control of them and had a large pool of power to draw upon. I would’ve used the boost in unexpected strength to help us surge forward and try and catch up to where I last felt Megan’s presence.

As it was though, the corruption and the weaves of death energy were intermingling with the fire and air. I had a surprising amount of power here at my fingertips, and I felt as if that’s how I had it – by the ends of my fingertips alone! At any moment, I could lose control and true hell would break loose all around.

Desperate for some way to contain the magic, before I lost it, I kicked open the door opposite the room we had been trapped in and began to force the magic in there. If I did lose control of it, at least there’d be an extra set of walls between everyone and the explosion that I was so certain would happen!

As the energy cleared the hall and filled the room, it grew darker. Denser. By the time I had the energy all out of the hall, I was beginning to think I’d made a mistake in judgement. The dead were now starting to wander out of the rooms and into the hall, and there I was – standing helpless in the middle of it, lost in my own battle with the magic trying to go out of control!

‘Don’t worry, My Lord! You have us!’ Crystal’s mental shout was an immense relief, as she pushed herself out into the hallway and turned to face the dead on the left. Mongo was just a step behind, and boldly moved to the right. I wasn’t certain how badly the explosion had hurt them both, or how well the healers had patched them up, but it was a relief to know that they were there, between me and the dead. Tuning out the battle in the hall between them and the stragglers who wandered out of the rooms, I focused my whole attention on fighting the wild power before me.

The problem, as I pictured it, was two-fold. First, the energy was too large and too wild. With an effort of will, and a large expenditure of my own energy reserves, I forced the magic to compact itself. Brighter and hotter the fire burned, as I forced the energy into an ever smaller space. In the beginning, it filled the whole room. Then it filled all but a hand’s width of the room. Then several feet around the edges of the room were free of the storm’s influence.

I imagined a star imploding, all that energy and force being turned inwards like a neutron. Denser and tighter, I packed the energy, forcing it to the point where it was eventually no larger than my hand in the center of the room.

With the size of the problem contained, I then focused my attention to the second part of the problem as I was it – too much death and corruption within it. By turning the fire inwards, I could consume the corruption and destroy it, so cleansing the taint from the energy was a simple enough task. Trying to maintain control over that much death though, wasn’t something I was built for. Death is not one of the magics which I have the best control over to begin with!

Stretching my imagination to the limits, I finally focused on a desperate – if simple – plan. Life was the natural counter to death, just as death was the natural counter to life. If I couldn’t control the death energy, perhaps I could balance it!

Using the barest amount of power to maintain control of the now-tiny storm, I began to channel the energy of life into the mix. Had we been in the forest, this wouldn’t have been a difficult process, as there’d be a large amount of life to draw upon and use. Down here, surrounded by the dead however, I must secretly admit – I took drastic measures.

I pulled directly from the strongest sources of life in the immediate area, and ripped energy directly from my comrades. Tiffany and Jess were both healers. Both had made a point of steeping themselves in life energy. Both were excellent sources of power for my current needs – so I ripped the energy out of them forcibly.

I’m sooo going to hell when I die!

Borrowing their strength, I wrapped life energy into the mixture and watched as the black-blue fires now began to swirl with streaks of white as well. After a while, the ball of power looked like a child’s oversized marble, and a balance of energy was formed inside it.

Slowly, I began to release my own magics and watch the orb as it floated in the center of the room. It now seemed self-contained, showing no sign of exploding or instability. As I finally released my grip upon it completely, it simply sat in mid-air and hovered.

And then, it blinked.

Just like an eye lid closing, the darkness clicked down over the swirling light, and then clicked back up. Slowly, curiously, the orb began to move and hover around the room. Sluggishly, it inspected the room it was in, and then it turned its attention to the doorway and blinked once more in my direction.

May the gods have mercy on my soul – I think I’m a father!