Respite: The Institute of Technical Magical History

When a plan goes from bad to worse

{I have the babiest understanding of french so if I've messed it up please let me know. :) Also Venitaci is a play on Venatici which means "Hunting" approximately in Latin. Pronounced Ven•e•tah•see. I also have no basis for the magic I am just making it up as I go. }

Aquila swung the portrait open and climbed into the space behind it. The short hallway was small and tight but she knew it let out into a grand staircase that twisted down. As far as she knew it could descend all the way to the bottom of the castle. Time had been scarce lately to sneak off and see the unknown parts of the castle but she had resolved to fix that lack of knowledge. Aquila did not like stairs, any of them but she particularly didn't like these. The stone was old and crumbling, the air damp. With the heat of the castle the stairs remained humid always.
               Due to her dislike and mistrust of most of the castle's stairs, Aquila spent time mastering levitation. No person could truly fly without the assistance of some device be it broom or other. But, plenty of people had mastered the art of levitating and Aquila was one of them. She'd worked hard in the unnatural forest outside, figuring out how to make it work best for her needs. She had settled on using her palms as the source of lift. Her arms down straight at the sides with her palms parallel to the ground, she pushed up. It helped that a gentle breeze wafted up from far below her. Wind was a great tool to utilize with levitating, as it could boost one's own ability.
                  Aquila was skilled in this form of magic but she didn't have a death wish. So instead of jumping straight down, she chose to jump from one level of stairs to the one below it. Using her power to stifle the landing impact. After a while, she could skip two levels before landing. Sometimes it seemed like she could almost hear whispers in the air rushing past her, but she could never decipher them. The stones of the walls and stairs changed as she descended deeper. Sometimes gray or white other times ash or charcoal. During her descent, she was holding the stone Junhin had given her. She was pushing the image of the location through the rock, hoping it would give her some kind of signal. Though it never did, Aquila kept hold of it and decided to stop.
               Pausing on the stairs Aquila pulled several stands of her hair out, and conjured a necklace for the stone, tying it around her neck. As she finished, a door materialized. She didn't know how far she'd gone down, only that she'd been jumping down for at least twenty minutes. The door looked nondescript, a bland brown with a bronze knob. She braced herself, having opened far too many doors without acknowledging how old and mysterious Respite actually was. Some things were better left unexplored but Aquila was not one to be cowed by a few bad experiences.
             As she opened the door it grew impossibly quiet, like all of the sound was sucked out of the world besides her own beating heart. She closed the door behind her, squinting into the dark corridor. Cursing herself for not grabbing a light source, she whispered a summoning spell. "Icy Star, blackest night lend me a guiding light." Three small twinkling stars appeared above her, bathing the space in a dim white light. Another perk of living in Icy Star, whoever had created it clearly did not like the dark. She hadn't tested its reach that much and preferred to bring her own light source but as far as she could tell, the stars could be summoned anywhere on campus.
       She stepped further into the space noting it was dusty and appeared as if it had been unused for a long time. She was at a fork, a hallway stood to her left and one straight ahead of her. She paused for the briefest of moments before she turned left and began searching. The hallway was eery, no pictures hung on the walls but occasionally a door would pop up or a chair. None of these doors interested Aquila as they weren't the room she was looking for. She walked aimlessly for a while, noting doors and thinking of the room she wanted to find. I'm looking for what I found before she thought, hoping the Tiger's Eye would do something. She began creating tiny wisps that would float ahead to give her eyes ahead of her but the hall remained the same. Silent and lifeless.  
             She was so focused on seeing ahead that she missed what was behind her until it was upon her. "Fancy meeting a gal like you down here." She spun around so quickly she got off balance and nearly fell. The person before her was wavering and glitching, making it hard to discern who it was in the dim lighting. "Drop your concealment." She demanded, straining her eyes to get a clear view of them. Male by the voice alone but she wanted confirmation. The person scoffed. "After you." Aquila rolled her eyes but allowed the enchantment to drop and the stranger followed. Aquila's shock was evident. "Venitaci? What are you doing here?" Venitaci stood leaning against the wall like he didn't have a care in the world. His hair looked ashen under the stars. "Exploring same as you." He looked around casually, pretending to examine the stone.
       Aquila didn't know Venitaci personally, she had never spoken to him before tonight. Their classes didn't overlap and she spent more time in the bowels of the castle or arguing with Thondren than socializing. Ventaci had his own group, unknown to her. After all, the institute is massive, so it was easy to not know a lot of people here. The only thing she did know about him came from Asda who was often a biased narrator. They shared a class on symbols, runes and other magical markings. A class Aquila had been avoiding.
             Knowing nothing about him didn't stop Aquila from being suspicious. If anything it raised her hackles more. What were the odds he just happened upon her? It wasn't impossible but it seemed unlikely in her opinion. "Well, I'm exploring this floor. Go somewhere else." Aquila didn't share information with anyone except her tower mates and that wasn't going to change now. He was unperturbed by her remark, he just laughed. "No I don't think I will." And then he pushed past her to forage ahead. Aquila felt frustration well up in her for the second time today. She tore after him with a vengeance. "Hey! You can't just come in here and take over the floor. I was here first!"
            He was so quick as he moved down the hall, barely making a sound. As quiet as the hall itself. Aquila resented that as she tried to catch up to him. "I'm being so serious right now. Hey! I said qui-" she didn't get to finish her sentence as he came up short and she ran straight into his back. Rocking backwards she groaned. Reaching up to rub her nose. "What's the big idea?" His hands were on her shoulders and his face had gone white. He began pushing her backwards swiftly. Aquila was even more frustrated at this. He'd barged his way in, ignored her and now was pushing her back the way they'd come. She huffed and pushed back. "Alright enough!" But he wasn't stopped by her pushback and continued shoving her back with haste. Before she could further explode, he yanked a door open with force and brought them both inside.
           The room was dark but the stars above her grew brighter, revealing they were in a study. It was covered in dust. He then said, "Put out the lights." She began to protest but he interrupted her harshly. "If you value living, put out the damn lights!" Aquila did value living so she dismissed them. "Icy Star, put back the moon and let darkness once again bloom." The stars vanished and they were alone in the dark. It was deathly silent again and then she heard it. Venitaci had moved behind her standing beside the door. Distantly there was a thump, squelch and then a long screech. Aquila might have gasped if he hadn't grabbed her the moment before she heard it. Her back was pressed against his chest and she could faintly feel him breathing. He whispered quickly, "It's a Stridorli. Do not scream. No matter what you hear, do not make a sound."
            Aquila had a vague memory of a magical creatures class but not of the Stridorli. She did know the root Stridor, which meant hiss or scream. It sounded again, closer this time. She heard a crack that cut through the floor, then a ghastly ripping. Splatters could be heard hitting the floor and walls. Without thinking she'd grabbed Venitaci's arm. The sounds grew closer and she tried to slow her breathing. The man behind her was as still and quiet as ever. Another gut wrenching screech filled the air followed by an indescribable abominable thrumming that began to vibrate through the floor. Aquila startled violently when she heard Venitaci in her mind. "It's going to locate us. The vibrations will tell it where we are eventually." Aquila felt dread twofold.
             Every student at the Institution was taught how to block access to their mind. It was a core tenet of Respite. Breaking into someone's mind was a horrible violation and Aquila thought her mental walls impenetrable. But she hadn't even felt him so much as knock upon them, he had simply entered. That fear took a backseat as another horrible scream erupted, closer still. So she thought back, What do we do? The squelching sounds grew wetter. "Unless you've got a sunspear, die." Wonderful, she thought. Dying wasn't an option. No, but I've got something else. She grasped the Tiger's Eye fiercely and thought, it's now or never baby.  Taking care to be as quiet as possible she moved away from Venitaci. The stone was cold against her hot skin. I need to find a way not to die. She told the stone, channeling the image of every materializing door she'd ever seen in the castle.
           The next scream that sounded stopped her heart, it was outside the door. Venitaci was posed in front of it ready to fight or die trying. He barred the entry with magic as the beast began tearing at the door. Aquila grew desperate, throwing caution to the wind she channeled all of her power through the stone, lighting the room up orange and red. The screams were now deafening as the thing began throwing whatever wet substance it had against the door. Venitaci yelled over the noise, "Figure it out or get over here and help me!" Aquila barely heard him, the sound of her heartbeat was loud in her ears. Agh! Take us down! Down! She screamed at the stone, the thing beyond was beginning to melt the door. Forget this! Was the last thought she had before she ran to grab Venitaci. Pulling him across the room, the thing made its way inside. She grabbed him by the shoulders and began chanting faster than she ever had. He was sending bolts of firelight at the creature. Its screeched louder still and she thought they would surely die as it threw liquid upon them.
               It burned with the fury of a thousand suns and she fought not to scream. Still she did not look up, she knew if she did they were dead. It snaked up to them, the ripping and crunching sounds making her lose focus. Venitaci ripped one hand free of her to ward off the beast and blessedly the floor caved in beneath them. Free falling she didn't stop her chant, closing the floor back before the wretched creature could follow them. They landed abruptly, with Venitaci atop of her. Her heart was pounding madly and her head spun from the impact. But Venitaci began to scream and she scrambled up from under him onto her knees. His left hand was gone.
              She grabbed his arm, the bones remained but seemed melted in places. Particularly the tips of his finger bones. The sight made her vision go white but she began chanting before she even knew what she was saying. The first put him to sleep. As a long suffering insomniac, Aquila knew that one like the back of her -. Well she knew it well. She then began tearing her jacket apart, ripping the fabric into strands before tying them tightly around his wrist. After that she muttered, "Vie Fidèle, fin de la souffrance. Lie-nous, fil tissé." The wonderful thing about the French was their extensive knowledge on battlefield healing. Remembering an obscure 1700's spell might save his life.  She'd never tested the spell, when had there ever been a need? But as the blood stopped pooling and a protective field covered his naked hand like a transparent glove, she let out a sigh.
           She slumped down, looking at her blood covered hands and clothes. The stone around her neck was singing to her, buzzing. She grabbed it with her bloody hand and gasped as it strained against her hand. It was absorbing the blood. Aquila marked her first priority when she returned to Icy Tower, to interrogate Junhin on what exactly was in this stone. She pulled her hand away in disgust, planning to clean the large puddle of blood but it was seeping into the floor. That's when she got a good look at the room they were in.
          She stood abruptly, swaying slightly from the movement. It was the room she'd been looking for. The ice began to shift into a pale pink as it absorbed Venitaci's blood and the fire raged taller than before. She grew closer, determined to make note of the runes along the fireplace. She shivered, now jacketless examining them. They moved and writhed in a way they hadn't the last time she was here. The walls grew dark and deep with blood. She attributed that to the change in the glyphs. Her head felt fuzzy and the cold was further distorting her thoughts. When she turned the lights in the room whirled around even after she stopped moving. She reached up and grabbed her head, trying to stop the swaying. Instead she felt blood and the room began to spin. She dragged her body back to Venitaci's. The spinning grew faster but she knew she couldn't pass out yet. Crawling across the floor she murmured a warming spell across them both. Aquila didn't reach him before her vision went black. The last image she saw was the red ice floor, saturated with their blood.