When she finally came back to her body, slipped from the astral and Nowhere, she fell as if she were coming from some demented heaven.
Lucid fluidity of the higher realms was replaced by ever thickening grossness as matter and energy gathered and condensed. And so was she. Solidifying as she descended.
'Everything is made of energy. On the outer edges it is its most thin, and at its center it is so dense that it becomes solid. In the higher realms we call that place the material realm or midworld. It is where we are now.'
The singing man's brief lesson rolled through her brain in sluggish shots as synapses fired against the weight of the world.
'It's super packed nature makes its the hardest and most dangerous to master. It may be…uncomfortable when you become aware of it. What takes decades to learn, you will be experiencing in a burst. Just remember to breathe and try not to panic. I will guide you through it.'
Flashes of sky, land, and sunshine she hadn't seen in months packed into her vision in rich thick color.
And then the prison. A sprawling mass of buildings just as white on the outside as it was on the in. The tightly packed energy of stone wept and wailed as she fell through its stolen blocks. Memories and pain trapped inside their substance. Layer after layer she traveled down. Past prisoners and guards, their energy alighting their bodies in luminous glow. Through cells and hallways and a room with tables and men in white coats.
Five levels deep and right to her cell. The black mist that hid the top now just below her belly. Her eyes snapped around hawkishly. It was an open watchtower, circling all the way around, a single table and a chair set in front of a door.
Then she saw the illusionist. Face concealed by his hands, he bent backward, his bow dangling loosely in the crook of his arm as his laughs cut through the air in high pitched mania. Like a prospector struck gold yowling in glee.
She crashed into her body with a shockwave that cracked stone and shook the cell. The illusionists laughter cut short as sprays of dust and debris exploded with the impact.
A gag rolled through her as she registered the true solidness of her own being. And then another as her vision sharpened and flecks of stone rained down on her. She, the energy, the world, everything vibrating in a dissonant hum.
And playing over the wretched hum was a paranoid scraping. Sirens ringing in her head, escape, escape, escape.
Her eyes shook in her skull as she leapt to her feet. Continued to shake when her arms flexed outward, met the quivering energy of the cuffs that kept them locked and shattered it. The magic woven inside of them burning up along with their material structure, the metal exploded into an array of sparks and arcs of energy.
She grabbed for the collar digging into her throat and finally looked down, as dust settled and cleared and found first, two men laid out at her feet with equipment strewn around them. And then, looking lower to her body filled with arrows. More that she'd ever woken up to before. Her blood flowing back towards her, separating itself from the dirt and the unconscious men.
A deep chasm opened at the sight, and her rage rushed forward. Emotion finally making its way into the haze of energy. Her anger soaked the world in scarlet and she let out a hollow scream.
'Kohryn, breath.' The singing man's voice sung in her head and she felt as her lungs cyclically pushed hair in and out of her chest.
Another screech cried out on an exhale, and with a swift kick the shackles on her feet exploded.
More breaths came.
The need to escape grew.
And her anger sharpened to a fine point.
Energy hummed beneath her feet as she crouched down.
A shaky huff echoed from above and Kohryn shot up. Chains flew from her body, hitting the ground with slapping clanks.
The one holding the collar did not stand a chance against the shock wave that rippled down it when it reached its full length and threatened to yank her back. Violent wisps of energy cracked its links and she was free.
She hit the wall half way up, hands punched into stone as she tore her way up the cell.
She leapt through the fog, caught hold of the ledge, and propelled herself up into the watchtown and in front of the illusionist.
He stood in the doorway, arrow notched and held steady at her.
Thrill sparkled in brown eyes on a chiseled face with flushed cheeks and a dimpled chin.
A hollow bark of laughter echoed around the room that she did not immediately recognize as her own.
She had imagined him as rancid. A withered up wicked jester with rotten teeth and an ugly mug to match his terrible personality. It was insulting that the world had allowed him beauty.
"I'm going to destroy you." She spit, hollow and deep, and full of vehemence.
The arrow let loose.
It was odd and thrilling the way she could 'see' the air and the arrow morph around each other as their energy mixed and swirled.
She snatched it, burning her palm from the abrupt stop. A hiss and she snapped the dowel.
The illusionist took off, a crazed smile curling on his face.
She burst into the hallway after him, crashing into the wall and throwing herself upright.
She ripped arrows from her body in her pursuit.
He didn't look back. Making turns left then right. Then another left and a blaring alarm began to echo down the hallways. Another turn and she came to a corridor with doors and cross sections all down its length. The man was nowhere in sight.
An echo of voices came from the distance. Guards barking commands at one another and funneling into trained positions.
Escape, escape, escape.
Air continued to funnel in and out of her lungs, in even steady breaths despite the inner turmoil and blood thirst that threatened to consume her.
She looked back down from where she came and then back to the way the illusionist had gone. A few of his arrows still lodged into her flesh and anger hot in her face.
The singing man and his ambiguous heap, called down the path of his connection in her mind. Obligation and commitment coating her thoughts in what she could only identify as the command of his song. It was plucking at the strings of her empathy and singing in the notes of her own desire.
She groaned, turned on heel and sprinted back in his direction.
She passed her own cell, kicked open the door to the next and rushed to its edge. She did not find the heap in her visions but instead, the mimic. The arm she'd ripped off slowly regrowing. He looked how he had when she first saw him, human, but he was malnourished and mumbling to himself.
What he'd said to her on the mountain, running through her mind as she turned and quickly left the cell. Her brain would not allow her the extra time, the alarms of the prison ushering her on.
Two more cells, and she found him at the bottom of the third. The line of his song airy and melodic between them. Different from the hyper dense reality.
She lept over the edge.
.
The woman didn't land beside him with grace, but with power. Flesh cracking stone as she heavily hit the bottom.
Delta wasn't sure why, but he found himself in awe as he laid eyes on her. She had a feral beauty. Dark haired, pale skinned, and large eyed, Her aura and the energy that seeped out of her were like wine, staining up the white walls.
Perhaps it was the delirium of death's door, or the metals packed into him but he found her divine in her state of ruin. Covered in blood, laced in magic, with arrows still sticking out or her. An alluring nightmare.
She watched him so steadily as she closed in. And he wondered what she thought of him. He'd been too afraid to spare glances at his body. He knew his state and how his war form occupied his appearance.
Then she was crouching down, threading an arm under his to pull him up. He winced in pain then let out a whimper as he pressed into her. Her energy coating his skin, it dulled a little of his suffering. The small woman managed to support him, awkwardly but easily enough.
"I'm sorry." She apologized then proceeded to yank the cuffs from his wrists. It tugged at raw skin and her energy pulsing through them burned, but within a moment they were disintegrating. One arm fell limply to his side and he wrapped the other around her. He let out a deep sigh as the suppressing effect faded and even more of her energy soaked into him. Without the shackles binding either of them any longer, the channel of influence opened and the thread became a hallway.
If she noticed she did not give a hint to it. On the other hand it had Delta unintentionally pooling into her.
The dense energy of her material make up lighting inside of him. Through the widening bond he felt her anger, his influence, and the overwhelming hum of her world. The energy around her warping and fluxing and the energy within her spilling out from the great symphony of her soul.
"I don't think I can jump to the top holding you like this.Is there an entrance down here?"
Her voice brought him back into himself, dampened the connection and Delta pointed to the curved wall in front of them. Where, in the plaster between brick, hid a seam with a secret door. "I don't know how to open it from the inside."
She only nodded, face set in grim determination and marched them toward the wall.
When they came to it she lifted her foot and kicked out. Her own power leaded the bottom of her heel and when it connected with the wall it infected the stone. Corroded at its individual grains, overrode its vibrating hum then tore it apart. The wall exploded in a show of red fireworks and plasmatic ribbons.
Delta's breath rattled as he regulated the energy that powered through the bond. He weakly dug his fingers into her. Let his eyes roll over to view her face and watched as blood leaked from her eyes and nose. He stopped himself from telling her it was dangerous to use magic in such a raw and unmanaged way. That connecting to it so intimately could cause her heart to explode. He only did his best to protect himself from it with what energy he had left and let her lead their escape.
She dragged them through the rubble, and he did his best to stay on his feet as she pulled him up a spiraling staircase. A wooden door easily shoved open when they came to the top and out into the hallway.
Two priests, dusty and scuffed up, were entering the hall at the same time.
When they caught sight of the two of them, their eyes widened.
"Hurry! The new gear!" One yelled to the other who frantically began to dig in a leather duffel on his side.
It was all the time they had, as Kohryn slipped from under him.
In a flash she was batting one into the wall. The stone cracked and caught the man in his crater.
One hand curled around the next man's neck and the other around the handle of the bag as she jerked it away from him. His hands came out empty and he tried to grab onto her when she pulled him down, but it was no use as she used her energy to crush his throat.
And it was all over as Delta was catching himself against the wall.
She looked around, the echo of calls coming very close now.
She tossed the bag at his feet. "Wait here. I have an idea." And then she slipped into a doorway, leaving him to fend off the coming guards in his state.
He let out a dry laugh more painful than pleasant and did his best to pull himself upright.
When he drew from his power, his sap dewing from the skin of arms, it came out dense and riddled in her essence. Thick inky blots swelling with a mix of their power as it bubbled and multiplied.
The grin that lit his face was the first genuine one he'd had in a moon.
The sap continued to amass around him, feeding on her infinite song with no limit in sight. Unheard trills of warning were snuffed out by the intoxication of material magic coursing through his body.