ACT TWO

  Brinn pressed his Alchemist’s Flame to the hinges of the heavy wooden door. They began glowing orange-red under the spell’s blue flame, and then white. The overcharged spell superheated the iron in an instant, and as it began to warp, he shoved against the door with all his meager, skinny might. He heard the wet slapping sounds as the dripping paint creature continued to charge towards him across the small study. The hinge snapped, and Brinn shouldered it one last time. The door gave way. It—and Brinn with it—clattered into the hallway.

  He threw a glance over his shoulder as he crawled away. The creature had gotten tripped up by the door. It looked a lot like him, if he were dripping and wet and made from paint; but its movements were clumsy and confused. It was no wonder it took so long for it to haul itself from the painting. Splatters of peach and silver paint covered the fallen door, and then a smear as the creature reached forwards and dragged itself across it. Brinn scrambled backwards as it surged towards him, rather than walking over the fallen door its legs twisted into an amorphous blob underneath the creature’s torso. He could still see a silvery-white paint around its cheeks.

  Brinn pulled himself to his feet. Brinn had gotten the distance he needed to think. He was no longer enclosed with the thing in the study. He wasn’t running. Running hadn’t worked yet, and he was out of friends to win his battles for him. But trying to tackle things head on hadn’t worked either. He was nearly out of mana yet again. He drew his knife. It wasn’t really a weapon, but it did have a minor sharpness enchantment, and it was better than nothing. He held it in his left hand, to keep his right free for his fire spell. The creature continued to roll forwards toward him as he backed down the hallway.

  He couldn’t keep doing this. If a threat approached him from behind he was screwed. There was no accounting for the labyrinth, no certainty that he was backing down the same hallway he’d come down when he entered the study. The creature made a soft gurgling sound as it reached for him. Droplets of paint spattered across the distance between them as it made a fist. Its hand began to glow and Brinn instinctively covered his eyes. Brinn put his hands in front of his face. He had expected the paint to shoot at him like a projectile, but instead, the colors seemed to shift and the shape warped into a sort of oblong sphere—that quickly formed into a hand, holding a knife. He couldn’t tell if it was sharp. Maybe it’s just paint, he thought., but that hope was dashed as he saw the glint of metal in the rapidly dimming light. He began to draw on what little mana he had left to form another Alchemist’s Flame spell in his left hand. The blue glow barely lit the hall, but the light from the doorway was already beginning to fade away.

  As if to punctuate the observation, the door to the study slammed closed with a crash, leaving only his flickering spell to light the hall. He still wasn’t running. This was a tactical retreat. Probably.

  Brinn continued edging back as the deformed orb of brown and beige paint below the creature resolved into something leg-like and dripping once again. It continued after him with a clumsy, unnatural gait. He spared a glance behind him. As he expected, the labyrinth had shifted. Rather than a singular straight hall leading back to the crater from where he’d come, he saw only a smooth stone wall behind him. He realized with horror that the hall was lined with paintings that showed nothing but a solid, inky black. If he was going to do something he needed to do it now.

  He had to hope the thing would burn. He ducked forwards, waving his left hand in front of him as if he were trying to ward off a pack of wolves. When the heat of the torch met the creature’s dripping flesh, it smoked and charred, blackening instantly—but the creature didn’t rear back like he expected. It kept advancing on him, as it roared. The sound was inhuman, a familiar voice layered under a guttural growling Its knife reached for him, cutting wildly. Brinn barely pulled his arm back in time.

  The blackened scar across the creature’s remained on the surface for only a moment before it was absorbed into the rest of the painted mass. It burned, but so little wouldn’t be enough. He needed a way to do lasting damage. He tried to pull his knife hand away in time but there was no luck. The left arm reached out to grab him, and Brinn hacked at it with his own knife. The viscous paint wrapped its way around his wrist. It crawled up his arm, forming into too-long fingers. It began to glow it an orange-red light.

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  Brinn realized what was about to happen a moment too late to try and pull his arm out. He watched a surge of heat mana in the creature—the first mana he’d seen the being produce so far—and a copy of his alchemist’s flame burned into the flesh on his arm. He groaned as his flesh charred. The pain shot through him, but that wasn’t the first time he’d been burned that day. He grit his teeth and inhaled sharply. The smell of burnt hair and flesh overpowered the normal stench of putrid flesh that filled the labyrinths halls.

  The creature’s knife came down in an icepick grip. He threw his arm up to block the attack, but to no avail. The paint simply flowed past his arm, reforming. Brinn dropped his knife, and twisted. He felt the blade meet his chest—and splatter against him with a dull thud. His torso was covered in pain. Brinn stared, confused. Heat still scorched his arm, but he could hardly feel it anymore. He was in shock. Even the beast seemed to hesitate for an instant, before it lunged at him, maw agape. Brinn drew on the last reserves of his mana. His mind raced, looking for anything he could do. He held the alchemist’s flame in front of him, hoping that if he burned its face maybe it would prevent whatever the creature was about to do.

  The creature’s full body slammed into him, flowing up his neck and face. He felt wet and cold and wrong. An acrid stench flooded up his sinuses from both sides. He could taste nothing but linseed. Choking through the mud, forcing even more of his mana into the spell. He was going to have to try something dangerous. If his little flame wasn’t going to be enough, he needed a bigger one. He choked out a single word.

  “Burn.” The word rang clearly, even through the paint slowly forcing its way down his throat. To invoke was to use your mana to impose a concept onto reality, through a word.

  His understanding of magic was far different from Favel’s. To Favel, it had been something that exploded out of him violently, completely out of his control. It was a thing that had been forced upon him. This shaped the power and effect of his invocations. Brinn, on the other hand, saw magic differently. It was unstable and dangerous, yes, even explosive. Yet it was precise. If not controlled, managed.

  It came as a white hot blade of flame bursting from his hand. More powerful than when he’d tried to use his alchemist’s flame during the mana overload. This wasn’t Favel’s mana, though. This was his. The closest to war magic he’d likely ever see again. This was what it meant to survive a mana crucible event. Part of him was beginning to understand why the kingdom of Lindunn would have done this to Favel. The invocation tore through the creature in an instant, lighting the hall of the labyrinth. It seeped away, creeping into the painting. He coughed up paint, mucus, and slime as the thing retreated from him. He had burnt half of it away in a single blast, but he felt cold.

  Brinn looked at the mess of splattered paint around him, and watched in horror as it began to seep up the walls and into the portraits on either side. His invocation had long since fizzled out. He didn’t have any way to try to finish this thing off. Instead, he started knocking the portraits off the wall, one by one. He hadn’t managed to catch them all before the creature had receded completely into the portraits. One remained, and the last droplet of paint oozed its way through the pitch black canvas. A single spot of color sat in the center of the frame. He knocked it over just in case. He wasn’t really sure that would do anything, but it would be worth a try. Without the light of his spell, only the light of the flames on the floor—thick smoke came up from burning paint. It smelled acrid.

  “So,” he said. “Some kind of paint…mimic? That’s…new.” Brinn had to admit the concept was…novel, even if it seemed a bit contrived.

  Brinn would have to keep an eye on any paintings he saw from now on. His whole body was smeared with paint, but he supposed that was better than the blood, soot, ash and ectoplasm from before. At least he would be traveling the rest of the dungeon in good fashion. For what must have been the millionth time in the last few days, he felt like he was about to pass out. He was nauseous and shaking with mana deficiency. Part of him was starting to regret venting all of that mana off earlier in the study, but the alchemist in him knew that it would have killed him if he hadn’t.

  He would have to make do. Brinn was becoming increasingly aware that was the point of all this.

  —

  Brinn stumbled down the endless, cramped halls., shaking from the mana sickness. He had spent so much time fighting, running, dying, and sleeping. Favel and Alexander were dead. He needed a plan, but for a plan, he needed real information, and that was a place that Brinn had found himself sorely lacking. It was all so…featureless. He was beginning to worry it would drive him mad. It had only been a day since he’d been with people. Only a day, he thought. Amazed. Even their last battle with Amelia was beginning to feel like a long time ago. Although he still remembered it like it was yesterday.

  It had been dark, after his spell flickered out. He had come upon a thin line of golden thread, pulled taught around the corner at the end of the hallway.