Thinking With Portals

"Alex Vorhal, what a curious specimen. I did say I would personally be following the progress of all the wizards in this Tower of mine, but I have to say that you have had a particularly fascinating couple of days with me here. So, I made something special for you here. Something special for you and your friend.

Let's see, it was Anna or something, right? As far as the test is concerned, you can just leave. If you do, you will complete the challenge immediately. Alex may try to stop you, but he has been scoring so pathetically low in most violence-related activities that I sadly doubt it.

Alex, my boy- may I call you boy? Of course I can, your age is but a rounding error of mine- you will find a spell hidden somewhere in this room. Once you have done so, the path forward should become perfectly clear. If you try to leave without the key, you will be vaporized instantly. So not only am I giving your friend a free out, I'm also giving you the option of painless death! I assure you, that your brain will be destroyed more quickly than your nerves can transmit information to it. You will literally not ever know what happened. Good luck!"

"You should go through," I said, immediately. "Alex, look at me," Anna said. I waited for her to continue, but she didn't until I looked her in the eyes. "That will never happen," she said. Her voice didn't shake or anything. "Why can't you listen to me about this. I'll figure something out," I said. "Stop fucking acting like you're my boss. I wasn't okay with it when you were ordering me to stay out of fights, and I sure as shit am not okay with it now," she said. "I was right. You nearly killed yourself with mana drain anyways. If you'd been blasting earlier-" I said. "Not the fucking point. I make my choices. Me. Look, I'll listen to your advice, but I won't do what you tell me. Not even if you just want to keep me safe. Hell, especially if you just want to keep me safe. I went through fucking hell to get here, and I made it. You don't know what I've had to do," she said. "I just- It'll make me hurt you or something," I said. "And what is leaving you here to die supposed to be? Painless? Like lah-di-fucking-dah, I just left my friend to die to save myself? Literally just put yourself in my shoes for a second," she said.

And I did. It wasn't easy, not when I wanted to keep arguing, but, yeah, I saw it. I couldn't really imagine any degree of pain that would keep me from at least trying to get my friend through and if nothing else I had gone through expert instruction in the subject of suffering over the past two days. Shit, two or three of my least favorite limbs would be acceptable. I don't know if I could actually let her kill me, except by inaction, but anything short of that… Sure, I didn't think I deserved that consideration, but it wasn't about me. Not really. It's just not something you could do and live with yourself after.

"I guess it's not something you could do and live with yourself after," I said. "Duh, you dumbass," she said, and her voice broke on the 'ass' and she hugged me for some reason. I hugged back, because while I was never a social genius, when a crying friend hugs you, you hug back. "Can we at least sit and talk for a moment first. We haven't had the time to catch up since we met," I said. "Find your spell first. But yeah. I want to hear about what you went through," Anna said. "Alright, yeah. It's not like there's a lot to look at," I said.

So we went over every square inch of the cube shaped room. The first thing we tried was to put our hands into the portal, but they just came out the other side as if there was nothing there. Then we started looking at the walls. I even dismissed my armor so that I could feel the texture of the walls and be able to feel any sort of relief or carving. I conjured ice and fire and tried to dispel each of the walls and the portal in the center of the room. There just wasn't anything in this room aside from the both of us and the portal to an identical seeming room.

"Wait, huh," Anna said. "What's that?" I said. "The view, it follows your eyeline," Anna said. "What do you mean?" I said. "The portal. You never see the back of the table, the perspective shifts as you walk around," Anna said.

She was right. When I walked around the portal, looking at it, the image followed me, only showing me the front of the little table thing that the key was sitting on.

"Hold on, I think I have an idea. This'll take a moment," I said.

I had a spell that'd let me look at the back side of the table, if it was in a real space somewhere. It was probably the most inefficient way possible to look at something on the other side of a table we could already seen, but I'd used my pseudoportal spell like this once before. I made sure to cast it as close to the opposite side of the table as possible. Aaand I coughed up blood as my sight became stained pink with burst blood vessels.

"My dear Alex, you are, of course, familiar with the costs of casting spells through a pseudoportal. I suppose I should have mentioned that these restrictions persist through almost all spells of such nature, regardless of the rank," the voice said.

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I told him to fuck off and checked my hit points. Even with my improved blood magic ability and slightly increased health from increasing my level and strength, I still had lost nearly half of my health casting that one third rank spell. Which likely meant that it would have killed me if I'd tried anything like it before.

"Alex, what's wrong? Why did you mana drain?" Anna said. "Shouldn't have been looking through it, it targets line of sight or a place in the Tower. Fuck, I'll be fine, I'm not close to dying yet," I said. "Well? Anything useful?" Anna said.

And yeah there was. I saw a spell sigil- looked to be about second rank- and an incantation of six syllables that confirmed it. It looked nothing like any spell I'd cast before, and it didn't have a description anywhere nearby, but I was ready for this. I already had my spellbook open to a blank page, and I began copying. It went quickly, and five minutes later I had a copy of the sigil and an incantation ready. I turned to an empty corner of the room and cast it.

A ghostly hand appeared floating in mid-air. When I raised and moved the fingers of my right hand, it moved exactly, mimicing my motions. I tossed the Journal towards the hand and mimicked picking it up. Not only did it pick up the Journal, but I got haptic feedback, I could feel the Journal in my hand though I was holding nothing. I pulled the hand back, and once in motion it kept moving towards me even as I stopped moving my hand. Eventually, I could lead the Journal into my left hand precisely enough, if with some awkwardness.

My updated Spell section in the Journal more or less confirmed what I already knew the spell to do.

Spells

Ghost Hand; Conjuration, Rank 2

You conjure a transparent hand that floats in the air at a point designated during the casting procedure. It mimics the movements of your dominant hand, can lift objects up to 22.04 pounds in weight. As it is not designed for combat, it can be dispelled by a dispel spell of any rank and has little force if used to swing a weapon. This is a sustained spell, and costs 1 mana per second to use.

"So, he said you'd know what to do with it. Do you?" Anna said. "Yeah. I mean, the obvious answer is to just cast the spell into the room through my pseudoportal, pick up the key, and try to pull it out through the portal that was already in the room when we got here," I said. "So what's the twist?" Anna said. "I'd kill myself. Between the portal, the casting cost of a second rank spell and the sustain, I'd have two or three seconds to act before I'd drop to 0," I said. "But you said you knew what he wants you to do," Anna said.

I paused. I didn't really want to lay it all out, but honesty was the least I could do at that moment.

"Yeah, I've got this curse. I can inflict pretty horrible pain on someone, anyone with a Journal, and that restores my mana and gives me some other boosts," I said. "Fine, I'll do it," Anna said. "It's pretty bad. I used it on myself once and nearly whited out," I said. "It's only pain?" Anna said. "I guess," I said. "It's only pain," she said. "Fuck. Yeah, I guess I'd do the same for you. Still wanna talk about everything? Probably better to restore mana and start the whole process at once, the portal should last long enough to go right now, but I don't want to try this twice," I said.

She took a breath and leaned back against one of the walls and motioned me to join her. Then she took a deep breath and said:

"Yeah. But what happened with you? How did you get here?" Anna said. "I'm guessing it started pretty much the same as with you. As with everyone here. I was crossing the street and I felt a strange static electricity sensation all over my body," I started, and I explained what I'd been through. I skipped some of the less vital bits, but I didn't intentionally leave anything out.

"Shit. I guess it really was no better for you than it was for me," Anna said, "Alright, I guess I'll start when I got transported too. Shit, actually, this is important, I should have said it before, but- Anyways. I was in the bathroom. Suddenly I hear James go 'wait, what the fuck is that?' and I'm about to pull my pants up to go and check, you know. I mean I did get my pants up, but then, like you said, red pentagram, poof, classroom." "So it happened to someone else in the group?" I said. "Maybe. Probably. Look, Alex, I didn't meet any of them here. Hopefully that means even if they crossed over, they're still alive in some other sector. 200 is way too few people to be exhaustive even on your block, it couldn't have been just location based," Anna said. And I believed it as hard as she did, which is to say, with all my will.

A lot of her story lined up with mine if I hadn't met Artemis and the Guild. The initial excitement about magic and leveling, the terrifying first encounter- a troll in her case- new friends made and lost. Her second day really sounded like a fucking nightmare. She'd been in a hallway when the bell rang, and fought monsters immediately, far beyond her ability. She'd been taken captive, beaten and laughed at by another one of the apprentices. She'd escaped by setting the whole room on fire, which, hey, me too. After that it had been grueling skirmishes until she hit a cafeteria. That one had been clean and functional and not at all full of monsters, so she'd used it as her base. Finally, by the time that day 3 came she was high enough level and trained enough to make way to the exit.

I was back on full mana, and she didn't let me tarry any longer. She fed me a health potion she'd been hiding somewhere, and it got me back to full hitpoints.

"Uh, you'll have to be hurt already. The curse will make it a lot worse," I said.

Without as much as flinching she scorched a blistering burn wound on her forearm. I cast the pseudoportal. I didn't activate the curse yet. Not until I absolutely had to, even as my own health plummeted again. I cast the ghost hand too, and almost passed out before I did activate the curse. The screaming didn't start right away.

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