Kir ran up the stairs, finding no further demons barring his path as he took floor after floor at a dead sprint.
Ten floors up, his legs were burning.
At fifteen, he saw sothing coming through a window and he quickly took a battle stance as-
CRASH.
A rather large raptor had shattered its way through the glass, and on its back was Noir, who hopped off just as the raptor transford into Stella.
"Fuck that hurts!" Stella picked a bit of glass out of her shoulder and Kir stepped up to help, brushing a few shards out of her hair.
"What are you two doing here? Is everything alright with the others?"
"We fucked off as soon as the battle started," Stella answered.
Kir only nodded. He wasn’t going to chastise them for acting according to their ability. Noir didn’t have his crossbow, and Stella, for all she kept up her crass deanor, clearly didn’t want to hurt her own kind...
His own kind. Too. He guessed.
"I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to help," Noir said, "But I’ll try." He puffed his chest proudly. "So... how many more floors do we have to go?"
"I think thirteen," Kir said.
Noir deflated instantly. "Uh... mind if I get a ride?"
As Kir took off up the stairs, they found themselves passing through a section that was entirely windowed, and off in the distance Kir watched as a ball of light dodged and cast spells at a dark slit in the sky.
He couldn’t tell who was fighting, but he suspected the ball of light was Lumin.
As they passed another floor to another windowed hall, he caught a brief glimpse of the light ball splitting into five identical ones, each heading in a different vector as the other mage was forced to choose which to target.
Kir had guessed she focused a lot on manipulating light, given how she’d made illusions, and he made a ntal note not to fight her unless he had too. After all, the speed of light was very, very hard to dodge...
"It’s kindof pretty," Noir said, riding Kir’s shoulders and holding onto his horns. "If I didn’t know it was mages fighting for their lives, I’d have thought it was a show."
"Magic should be beautiful when it can be," Kir agreed.
Noir chuckled. "I like that," he replied. "And I like you. Maybe when all this is done, I can spend a season or two earning up to join the Academy."
Kir smiled. "I’ll write your recomndation myself, assuming they even want back." He reached up and double-tapped the seal in his ear.
"Their loss," Noir shrugged. He lowered himself to hug the back of Kir’s head a bit tighter, and Kir felt the smaller man’s heart pounding rapidly in his chest.
*
Thirteen floors later, Kir skidded to a stop at a door he’d never seen.
The double doors that led to the core were cast wide, and only that made it obvious that the doors were designed to blend into the wall as much as possible. With his active manasight, he could tell that the doors were only openable with magic.
Beyond the door, it appeared that there was only a simple, empty room of grey stone, with ancient cobwebs in the corners.
"I suppose this is where the traps start," Noir said. "Are you sure we’re on the right floor?"
"An open door’s an invitation," Stella said. I’m betting there’s a switch in there or it’s so kind of illusion... but, again, what kind of idiots would put traps in a fucking school?"
"The kind that wants quick lessons for violating the rules," Kir said as he stepped into the doorway slowly.
As soon as he entered, a light began flickering ahead of him. The grey and empty room was suddenly a massive, dark space filled with pillars that occluded each other as they spiraled out from the center. Everything glowed with a slightly white-blue haze that felt strangely familiar to Kir.
Sothing, at the center of the room, he assud, was emitting a lot of light. It pulsed blue-white through the gaps in the pillars, and as he took in the scene, he saw a surge of mana strike a pillar, and golden runes quickly absorbed it, channeling the power downward before they faded.
"Eesh, this place is like a dungeon," Stella quipped as soon as she was inside. "Lucky we got tempered, eh?"
"Or all according to the fucking keikaku." The poem-voice snarked, causing Kir to flinch.
"Yeah... lucky..." Kir said, while in his head he shouted "So you speak Japanese now?" with his thoughts. Or at least he tried to think very loudly of that phrase.
The voice did not answer.
Kir’s hands tightened into fists. He hoped he wasn’t going crazy, but sothing was happening. The voice had only appeared after he’d had his senses enhanced by General Sreev...
"Keikaku" ant plan. But Kir got the sense the voice was referencing sothing he didn’t rember. Then there was the sense that whoever was behind the voice seed awfully pissy toward Kir, while seemingly able to experience at least so external input, given how he’d responded to what Stella said.
"...the most expendable." Noir finished saying.
Kir had been too wrapped up in his headspace. "What did you say?" he asked.
"I said I should go first... Since I’m the-"
"You’re not expendable," Kir interrupted. "None of us are."
"Be realistic," Noir said. "I’m small, and pretty sure-footed. If anyone’s going to set off a pit trap or a bunch of arrows or one of those fall-down roof things, I stand a much better chance than you do of getting away."
"Fuck realistic. Kir get us all out of this alive. I haven’t had my chance to play with sheepy-boy yet," Stella said assertively.
"I’m a grown man, Miss Stella," Noir frowned.
"Talk to when you reach triple digits," she stuck her long tongue out.
Noir sighed. "You’re not my type." He took three steps forward, and only then did Kir see the edge of the circle that had been carved into the floor.
It glowed as soon as he passed over it, and suddenly-
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