But they had to break at the last minute!

  He snatched his hand from the door, feeling a rolling static tumble from his skin. Droplets slid down his red face from his overheated hair and forehead. "Water, need..." he said, his sentences incomplete from overexertion.

  Gulping down several mouthfuls and watching his brother do the same, Zan took it a step further. He drizzled some water on his head and used more to dampen a cloth which he put over his face. Then he leaned against the back wall and closed his eyes.

  Letting himself drifted into a semi-relaxed state, knowing nothing could hurt them here in the bunker, so as long, that is, some monstrous fae-construct from below didn't suddenly burst from the floor or lower levels. It wasn't, as though, he wanted to take a nap... but as he rested his lids, he found himself drifting further into a sleeping fit. Not for long, and not so suddenly he didn't mumble to Jiehong about 'keeping watch...' but long enough for his mind to open, slightly, to an adjacent plane of existence.

  He was asleep.

  He didn't know what happened. Not really.

  Just that one minute he was awake and with his brother in the bunker hallway. The next he was asleep. And the following moment? He was outside of himself, somehow. Observing he and Jiehong's bodies as though they were wholly different people.

  Seconds. One second. One-half, even. Bled in quick succession.

  He woke up. But before he woke, during a moment which passed so quickly he hadn't realized it had even happened until after it happened, he thought he saw a figure watching him as he watched he and Jiehong.

  Who was the figure? He couldn't say. He thought about it as he woke up groggy and dazed. He remembered a strange energy wafting from the figure's body. He saw, or thought he saw, anyway, an odd face. A face juxtaposed against another face and another. Faces which were kept chaotically bound to each other. Contained in a prison. A prism?

  Words and their associations came to him and then left. Prison, chains, prism, crystals -- then nothing.

  Mental silence. Actually, out of it. Where was 'it'?

  He stared at Jie. "Did you... feel that?" he asked, unsure of his words.

  "Feel what?" Jiehong asked. "I was tired, yeah. I didn't fall asleep like you, though, Mister Leader," Jiehong laughed.

  "I had a weird dream. Experience? I don't know how to describe it. It was like I was outside of my body. And something else was there with me..."

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Something else? A scary something else or...?"

  "I don't know. I felt it and that was it. Like somebody was watching me..."

  Not knowing what to say, Jie shrugged and said, "Shall we continue?"

  He looked to the door. Nine-point-seven it read.

  "Yeah. What choice do we have?"

  Point-three was all which remained. Thirty percent of one percent. That was it.

  So, it took forever. It felt like running down a wounded deer. Heavier than you would think it would be to hunt. He gained a headache as he pulled away. He grunted loudly. "Almost! For crying out loud! We're so close! Why does it take so much effort now? It's ridiculous!"

  Panting as a predator after a hunt, Jiehong groaned and grunted alongside him, his soreness and pain evident from how he cradled his limbs, systematically moving from hands to arms, chest, stomach, and so on. "I know. I am looking at that door thinking to myself 'we should just come back tomorrow.' But... we can't!" Jie said, stopping a moment to catch his breath. "We've only been in here for a few hours. We will waste the day if we leave now. We got to at least get this door open before we call it quits! I'm so tired, though. And not just tired -- I'm feeling pained. If Whiskey was here, she could at least heal one of us using her own magic. I... don't... we need her..."

  He shook his head. "She is away and should be away. Unless we are to fight some mob of fae -- unlikely, from how MAC made it sound -- Whiskey should remain out there, building connections to the community. That's what the rational side of me says. The other side of me, the less pragmatic side, he says 'I wouldn't mind Whiskey lending a helping hand. What is so important about a random village?' And I'm caught in-between. It's so... tiring..."

  They each might have dozed off again. Or Jiehong, at least, perhaps. This time succumbing to his exertion. He did not think they were out for any longer than an hour, maybe longer. But it was enough for him to question his state when he awoke with his face covered in his own drool.

  "Gross!" he yelped, cleaning himself off with a rag he always kept close-to-hand.

  He expected his brother to yell-ask what the matter was, but moving toward him, he saw he was asleep. He shook him awake and asked, "Shall we just leave?"

  "No... no! I was just resting my eyes for a moment. Yeah," Jie replied, but unconvincingly.

  "I think this door is our limit. We either finish it right here and now or pack our tails between our legs and head back to camp. Nothing wrong with a modest rest," he replied.

  Jiehong took his chin in hand and mused. He thankfully, did not muse for long, so there would not be any protracted back-and-forth while he argued with himself the merits of each. "Let's get it over with. We didn't come this way for nothing!"

  Readying himself for the final round, Zan and his brother held their palms flat and against the cold surface of the door.

  "Now!" he said, letting his magic out at a rate which had to be his most consistent, smooth yet!

  The number climbed slowly. If he concentrated too much on the sub-numbers as they climbed, it felt as though the numbers generated new numbers just to mess with him, just to prevent him from reaching the requirement. Like every number beyond the decimal was an eternity, an infinity of lesser returns forever beyond their comprehension.

  In an instant -- he saw it! The numbers, they would reach the point of no return. "Now! Jiehong! Reverse course, pump everything we have into it!"

  Feeling like he was to vomit, he saw the door pulsed green, followed by the padlock unraveling. He stumbled back and slumped against the wall.

  [Magical Artes: Level Increased (4)] and [Constitution: Level Increased (3)]

  They had done it.

  By their lonesome, they had opened a door locked under ten whole units of mana and lived to tell the tale.

  Adding to their victory, a voice said, "Looks like you've two have been busy!"