#wizzy fandom

A word closer to a growl.

The wizard spins towards the sound.

Nobody else moves.

“Understudy?” Sparck tilts his head, just enough change in his monotone to color it confused.

Hearing voices?

Low.

Barely there.

Meant for them?

The wizard peers back into the dark of the tunnel they had come through. But there is. Nothing.

“Just an echo…” they mumble, swinging their staff over one shoulder. Half waiting for something to spring from the shadows…

All remains still.

Onward.

Deeper still.

Footsteps ripple through dark water.

The floor of the tower seems to vanish beneath their feet.  Smoothed into pitch dark glass.  But the moment they try to take a step, they find their boots submerged and stuck fast in a rippling sea of Shadow.  Cold crawls up their limbs, seeking a weak point.

Seeker.

Child of Light.

Warrior of cut-web and crushed chitin.

A torrent of formless voices washes over them.

They dig their heels in against the tide.

They are here for a reason.

Withstanding is not an option.  It is required.

The wizard takes a breath.

Allows the memory to pass, detached.

Keep going.

They can feel something ahead.

Power, energy, a background hum that feels familiar.  Dialed up higher than they’ve ever felt it, but still clear.  Mellori was down here.  Is down here.  They are going to get her out, and they are not going to fail like that ever again.

They have fallen back with their thoughts, letting Sparck and Pork argue over something to do with the pressure system keeping the next door closed.  They’ve found it better to stay out of those disputes, and given the fact they are underneath a city block, they aren’t keen on bringing the walls down.

“Listen—” Duncan grabs them by the arm and they jump, “—the thing up ahead—”

“—don’t do that—” the wizard starts, attempting to tug themself free. “—I can move on my—”

“—Shut up!” Duncan snaps, clearly having lost the majority of his patience for their rebuttals by now.  “There is a creature down here, Medulla, he’s a mind reader, a living thought. The Arcanum thought he was working for them but they were wrong.  He’s been part of all this longer than some of the scholars have been alive, and whatever is waiting at the front of your head, he will see it—understand?”

That, more than anything, is the emphasis.

Not some betrayal the Arcanum hadn’t seen coming.

Not a physical barrier to get by.

A strength and a weak point.

Their own wayward mind.

Cyrus had taught them to muddy their thoughts before.

How to hide things they didn’t want seen.

They had never struggled with it.

It was staying out of people’s heads that was an issue.

“Got it.” 

A pause.

“You've met him?”

Duncan looks as if he doesn’t want to answer.

Takes a breath.

“Twice. He came to… fix some of Gretta’s other apprentices.”

Fix. The wizard doesn’t like that implication. Doesn’t like the hesitancy the words had come with. Doesn’t like any of this.  But… it doesn’t really matter.  They have a direction now.  They know Mellori is ahead.  They know they can get her back to safety.  Whatever is stupid enough to stand in their way?  Well.  That wasn’t their problem yet.

What was—

“I think it might be better if you let me do the talking.”

—was this.

The wizard almost snorts, “Excuse me?”

“The— look the way the schism functioned wasn’t— isn’t stable.  Groups are fragmented and cross contact is low— there’s every possibility Medulla has no idea I’ve been—” he stops, as if unsure what exactly to call his current situation. “—I might be able to find out what the plan for Mellori is, if you let me lead.”

“Right,” they mumble, “I’m supposed to just let you handle it.  Like you handled our last confrontation?  Or better yet the one before?”

“Can you just trust me?  For once?” An edge to the words that is almost desperate. “You want to save Mellori—that is why you’re here—swallow your ridiculous pride for a moment and understand that not everything has to be solved with outright violence.”

The wizard can feel a knot growing in their throat.

Nods.

Trust me.

Why is it always him?

Why is it always his words they can seem to trace forwards.

The Celestial Calendar chimes like a warning beacon.

Louder and more insistent than it had been back in the Dragonspyre Academy courtyard.

No less unsettling.

Duncan looks relieved that they have given in without an argument.  Releases his grip on their arm and pushes forward until they are once again alone in the tunnel.  Faintly they hear him talking with Sparck, something about the other two returning to warn Khan the wizard thinks.  But every sound around them is muffled.  Ears ringing.  

Keep going.

Get Mellori.

That is the only thing that matters.

“—my father will not appreciate your interfering, everything was nearly finalized!” 

Just inside the door.

The voice they’d heard earlier.  So it had been a taunt.

Or a warning?

“Bat, let’s just go—this guy is obviously missing a few screws—” Mellori’s voice makes their head snap up.  The assurance, at least, at last, that she is okay.  She even sounds like herself.  Full of energy.  Full of fire.  “—hey, put those down!”

The crackle of something like flame.

A whiff of burning parchment through the door.

“Your father is a touch disappointed with your progress I’m afraid,” A wavering, uncomfortably wet sounding voice replies, and the wizard glances to Duncan in question.  

The slightest nod.

Right.

So this was Medulla.

“Fed up with how long you’re taking, tired of your insubstantial solutions.  Which is why he is handing the raven child—and this entire operation—to me.” 

They crack the door to hear better, peering through and finally getting Mellori in their eyeline.

The relief is instant.  She looks tired and angry, but that is better than they could have hoped.  Unfortunately she seems intent on completely ignoring them.  Instead she is stood between what the wizard can genuinely only describe as a giant floating brain, and Old Cob’s youngest and final son—the Bat.  On the floor before her and the Bat are a pile of smoldering ashes, the remnants of whatever had been burned.

“You lying little thief—father entrusted me with unraveling the secrets of Raven’s power, I won’t have you mucking up my plans now.” The Bat growls, stepping forward only to be flanked by a pair of prawns and some kind of… buff goat?

Whatever or whoever it was, they were muzzled.

“Enough of this nonsense.  Prawns, take the girl—we have no time for a confrontation.”

“What— hey—hey!  Put me down!”

The wizard has heard plenty.

They aren’t waiting anymore.

They start to speak, to call out, to get her attention—

—but Duncan steps forward first.

“About time you stepped in,” he sounds near as irritated as he had with them earlier, “I was beginning to wonder if I needed to do so myself.”

Right.

His little…. plan.

Loose a term as they felt that was.

They keep close behind him, cataloguing the room, three prawns, the goat, Medulla, the Bat.  Not terrible, they had walked out of worse situations unscathed.  From the sound of it they might even be able to turn them on one another somewhat—at least in the Bat’s case.

Just.  Let Duncan speak.

Wait for their chance.

Medulla fixes the group with eyes that seem to sit far too loosely in damp flesh for the wizard’s liking.  Everything about him unsettles them.  His very presence echoes like a dissonant note in the song.  Psychic disturbance.  Meant to keep enemies off their footing.

Smart.

They don’t like it.

“Ah, Lady Darkkettle's runaway hound. She sends her regards and her thanks—we do owe you her life, after all. Not that you care, do you? Already thrown your loyalties back to the other side. Found a bigger shadow to hide behind.”

To the wizard’s surprise, Duncan smiles at the words.

“Not as much as you might think—but then, maybe the knowledge is a little above your station.”

What is he doing?

They’d agreed to let him lead, not—

“After all, there are few safer places to siphon information than from directly beside Grandfather Spider’s favorite force of chaos.” He is at ease, almost relaxed. Weight leaning into his staff as if the conversation bores him. “I think I’ve about exhausted the resource unfortunately.”

Medulla regards him carefully, the odd little tendrils that protrude from his cloak shudder as if they are tasting something in the air.  The wizard can feel his mental presence reaching out, it washes over them like the idea of a tidal wave, like something trying to be stronger than it is.  They can tell it doesn’t make a dent in their own defenses.

“Besides,” Duncan continues, “I’d love to hear that gratitude in person.”

Sharp in a way that feels like it belongs elsewhere, lower stakes.

Medulla seems to have found what he was looking for.

“Mmmmm I suppose—since I will be leaving Baane here in my stead and the Notochord is a head short—I am to take it you have no interest in remaining behind to assist against… this?”

Duncan glances sidelong at the wizard, “Once was enough.”

A sound like a laugh, too meaty to hit the ears right.

Medulla gestures to the prawns and they scurry into some darker corner of the room, taking an uncharacteristically silent Mellori with them.

Last chance—

The wizard makes to move, but Duncan again beats them to it.

As he crosses, he taps his staff against the toe of their boot.

A burst of heavy cold weaves upwards.

“Can’t have you getting in the way,” Lunar magic crawls along their skin, up their legs.  Binding itself to the sigils always carved into the tread of their boots and keeping them trapped in place by the weight.  Inverse to what they are used to using it for.  The flash of a smile that feels more like a simple baring of teeth.  “You understand.”

Trust me.

He follows Medulla into the dark.

They’re frozen.

He’s gone.

He’s gone.

In a matter of seconds, in a handful of sentences and reactions they didn’t even understand let alone expect. Duncan is gone. With Medulla. With Mellori.

Growing tension snaps and fades in an instant.

Can you just trust me?

They don’t like this.

They don’t like it at all.

But they can grant him that much.

For now.

Just.  Don’t panic.

“Do you make a habit of surrounding yourself with traitors?”

The wizard rounds on the Bat, they can taste blood, know the words will echo before they even come out. “Listen to me you overgrown leather mouse—” They stop, take a breath, “—If you want to avoid the same fate as your pathetic elder brothers, watch your tongue.”

What reads as a smirk.

They want to smack him.

“Where would they be.”

“Not my problem to solve.” Amusement in the words, as if this is nothing but a distraction for him.  “Goodbye, little wizard.”

A burst of acrid smoke.

The remnant sting of Shadow.

And the Wizard is left with only Baane.

Fine.

They have steam to blow off anyway.

“I knew you were never on our side!” Mellori’s first words when Medulla is far enough away for his hypnosis to break are, characteristic of his only interactions with her thus far, sharp and bordering on violent. “They trusted you!”

Duncan rolls his eyes, “Spare me the temper tantrum. I’ve had enough of that today.”

Far more than enough.

“Temper—I’ll show you a damn temper—” She slams her fist into the force field holding her still for the journey.  Not even recoiling where he knows it must have shocked her.  

He lets out a little laugh, on the far end of mean.  Tries not to think too much about it.  “—and how exactly do you propose to do that from inside your little enclosure?”

She glares down at him.

There’s such a familiarity to it.

Reminds him of someone.

Gods alive.

He really hopes this was the right choice.