#ocfile:sting

I sat still, humming and exhaling in tune from my core. A set of singing bowls had been set to one side, the echo dying but still giving me enough tune to match my song. My hands rose ever so slightly, power thrumming from chest to arms as I began to work the spell laid out in front of me.

Twisting and spinning my arms in the right pattern, I began to sing. One of the fungi lit up at my tune, magic resonating outward. I switched my pattern, adding a small waver to my notes until the second one lit up. Lacing in further undulation resonated with the third. I continued until all eight of the pillars were lit up, the words in front of me now glowing where I had carved them in the stone of the platform.

Their light was caught and absorbed by a green gemstone, hanging suspended over the center of the platform. The lights began to swirl inside it, becoming an intricate pattern of colors and lights before my eyes. I was running out of time, however, and couldn’t stop to watch. The echoes of music were already dying into bleak, quiet space, and I had to finish before that happened.

Stretching my hand out, I focused all my energy and song on the gemstone. The lights responded, reaching out to my fingertips, and I began to slowly guide them downwards to the center of the platform. An elongated bit of crystal glimmered helplessly in the light, as if it were afraid but willing to stay put while the light fell towards it like thick smoke.

It covered the crystal, submerging the translucent surface behind a veil of smoke and light. The resonance around me grew louder, the pillars and the gemstone overriding my own song as they began to channel their own magic into the situation, the words scrawled on the floor now coming alive and speaking through ancient unseen tongues. The colors and smoke began to swirl, clouding the circle, the pillars, the crystal and the lights.

I kept going, my focus only on the crystal as everything reached a crescendo of music and light and sound. I poured everything I had into the crystal, the spear of light now vibrating on its own frequency as it absorbed all the surrounding energy with a feverish intensity. Everything mounted into a peak, swelling and shifting and obscuring until--

Like blowing out a candle, everything stopped.

A short rush of air from the center. The light had blown. The words were empty shadowed scratches. The pillars were dark. Everything was still. Silent.

I waited a moment, weak and drained. I had given everything. Had it worked? Had I done it?

Dragging myself forward, I crossed the lines and reached out for the crystal shard. It was cool and smooth in my hands, nearly unchanged. Except...Except…

I pressed a finger to the top of it and found it was solid. I hummed, trying to channel magic through it and found no reaction. I set it down and watched as something began to crawl across the surface, mapping itself onto the crystal in a way I had only seen a few times before, and I knew. I knew what it meant.