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165. Whoops
🕑 Added 2025-07-11 14:00:05 +0000 UTCHonestly, he should’ve seen it coming. The void wasn’t somewhere people were supposed to be. It was most akin to outer space. When he was a soul-slash-mana-construct, that didn’t matter. He was pure energy, and safe from environmental hazards… or rather, he had no body, and consequently, nothing to get harmed by the environment with. But when he was human, in his body and not a being of pure energy, it hurt like hell.
His eyes felt like they were trying to squeeze out of his head, and he closed them tight to keep them from escaping. Every other orifice was subject to a heavy squeezing, sucking sensation. He closed his mouth and clenched his butt, then pinched his nose, but there were still ears and at least one more bodily hole he couldn’t do anything about.
Suction was only the first of his worries. The temperature was insane. Half of him burned, while the other half froze. He was baked alive and frozen to death at the same time.
Even as a mage, this sucks.
Rhys exuded a thin layer of mana over his body, and instantly, the sensation of being sucked in a bad way vanished. The temperature difference faded as well, and he sighed in relief. He hadn’t felt pain from heat or cold since he’d achieved magehood, and he wasn’t happy to be reminded that they still hurt, in sufficient quantities. Temperature sucked. He was glad to be beyond it… for general-purpose weather, anyways. Clearly super-dangerous voids were still beyond his ability to freely ignore.
With the mana coating, though, he was more-or-less okay. There were only two problems. One, the void sucked away the mana coating the way it sucked away everything else. His time in the void was limited, if he didn’t want to bleed all his mana into it. Two, the void was greedily sucking at his mana, which meant he was a big, blazing streak of mana on the wall of the void. Bright as a star, visible for miles. Already, he could distantly sense something coming his way, and he didn’t want to sit around for it to find him.
Somewhere in the near distance, something stirred. Rhys glanced at it, but saw nothing. Was it just a trick of his eyes? Or was there actually something moving out there? Either way, he’d be better off if he got out of here before something found him.
Another hole. There had to be a way out. He’d cut plenty of holes in the void, so why was he blind to all of them now? Come on. They should be bright. They ought to be glowing with sunlight. The void was dark. It was day outside. He should be able to easily see the difference between the two, but he was struggling. He pushed ahead, head swiveling left and right as he moved. This didn’t make sense. He’d put all the exits close to one another, so he could monitor them easily. Why couldn’t he find any now?
Bright light caught his eye. He turned, looking toward it. A small hole opened in the void. Rhys drifted over to it, continuing to search as he glided. Where were all the rest? He kept them all close to one another, so—
There! Bright light. He lifted his hand, squinting through the darkness. It was so far away it was barely distinguishable from the stars in the dark field. He frowned. Did I accidentally cut that one too far, or…
One after another, he found the other holes. Each one was further from the last than he remembered. Either they’d drifted, or he’d cut them far further apart than he’d realized.
He frowned. How good was his sense of scale as a soul? He didn’t know. When he was a representation of himself composed of mana and will, how accurately did he perceive anything? He hadn’t felt cold, or felt the sucking pressure of the void, either, as a soul. He’d simply existed freely in this space. To be fair, it wasn’t like a mana construct would necessarily sense heat or pressure, and it had no holes to clench, but it was shocking how different things were as a soul, and with a body. Still, maybe that really was the problem. He hadn’t visited the void before with a body to know the difference. I’ll come back here in a minute through my core, and see what it looks like then. First, let’s test out the other half of teleportation.
With one glance at the place where he might’ve seen the motion, Rhys hopped through the hole, and came out on the side of the road in an unfamiliar city. One mage, sitting on a nearby bench, glanced over and jumped, terror flashing over their face. He hopped to his feet, but before he could react, Rhys dove back into the void. He grinned, excited. That was victory. True teleportation, parens, with warp anchors. Close enough for him, honestly. He wouldn’t be popping behind someone to nothing personal them anytime soon, but he could use this for rapid appearances wherever he needed to be, so long as his underlings distributed the trash cans first. All the foundations had been laid. It was time to raid the camps, and then, once he’d consolidated his gains there, go after the criminals.
The first set of mages he’d released from the camps had gone silent. He was quietly pretending to himself that they’d all escaped the Empire and found somewhere safe to live, but deep down, he knew the truth wasn’t nearly so peaceful. They were probably all dead. His little experiment had gone wrong, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He sighed as he hopped out by Mouse. It was sad, and he deeply regretted it, but was it wrong to try different tactics and experiment, when the alternative meant becoming so predictable and obvious that the Empire found them and removed them from the equation? He’d been trying to cast suspicion elsewhere, to make it seem like the first and second prison breaks were unrelated, but he didn’t know if it had worked out, ultimately. If it hadn’t, if the worst had occurred, then those deaths were on his head.
It wasn’t a good thought. He didn’t like it. But it was a necessary thought. A sobering one. Because of his decisions, those people would never see their loved ones again. Sure, maybe their sacrifice was what let him beat the Empress, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was irrelevant to the bigger picture. And maybe it was the lynchpin that let the whole rebellion go off. He had no way of knowing either way, and an infinite amount of regret to feel for his decision to let them go free as a part-distraction, part-proof the two prison breaks weren’t conducted by the same person. Who knew if that had even worked? It had an equal chance of having worked and not having worked, and he had no way to know either way. He was literally running blind.
It's okay. I can make things right this time. I won’t make the same mistake again. He’d make mistakes. He’d sacrifice things, and sometimes, they wouldn’t even be things he had to sacrifice. That was the nature of this situation, where so much was unknowable. Had this been a mistake? Sure. He’d admit it. He was only human, at the end of the day. He’d make mistakes. Sometimes, they’d be dumb ones. Sometimes, they’d have serious consequences. He had to pick himself up and keep going, and do whatever he could to make up for them, if he ever ran into the consequences again.
And if I’m a god? he thought amusedly, remembering absolutexistance’s mistake. A second later, he snorted at himself, still down, but at least slightly amused. If the story of Job was any indication, this was totally godlike behavior. Hell, he hadn’t even made a bet with the devil to deliberately make these people miserable, he’d just taken a chance that probably hadn’t played out the way he’d hoped.
Mouse looked at his glum expression and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. If you didn’t get the technique to work the first time, you can always keep studying it until you master it.”
He looked at her, confused. “No, I managed a teleport. It’s not hard, though I’m not sure anyone under Tier 3 could do it.” Actually, I don’t know if anyone but me can use my portals. I should test that. I don’t want random Empire mages messing around in the void when it’s so close to my core. Back before he’d entered the void physically, he’d kind of thought it might just kill people, but something—maybe some vibe in his soul—had told him it wasn’t the case, but either way, he hadn’t confirmed it until now. Now that he’d confirmed it, it made him a little nervous about setting all those trash cans all over the Empire where just anyone could get into them. If anyone can go through, I’ll have to set a lock, or some kind of password.
He turned to Mouse and smiled. “Mouse, could you put your arm in the trash bag?”
Mouse had been reeling from his revelation, and now, she blinked. “P-put my arm in the d-death bag?”
“No, no, it’s not a death bag. I don’t think it’ll harm you if you put your arm in there. Your whole body is probably a bad idea, but your hand is fine. Probably.”
“P-probably?” she stuttered.
“We’ve got healers back at base. Give it a shot, I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Rhys reassured her.
She didn’t look very reassured, for some reason, but she did slowly, hesitantly, lower her hand toward the mouth of the bag. She hesitated one last second, then pushed her hand into the bag.
Her hand stopped at the edge of an invisible wall. She pushed, but nothing happened.
“Huh.” He looked at his own quickly-fashioned void weapon, then put it into his storage ring. Good thing he hadn’t tried it in the last battle. He would’ve been sorely disappointed, and his opponent, mildly confused.
She looked at the bag, then looked at Rhys. “Why’d you give me this?”
“I… thought it would work differently.” He licked his lips. So the void would accept him, and any piece of trash (presumably objects or dead matter), but not other mages or humans? Would it accept other human beings? Could he personally bring people or items into the void?
The fact that it could accept objects made it a little dangerous, since someone could do something insane like put a bomb in his precious trash cans, and detonate it right next to his core. He made a note to add some kind of filter or awareness to the trash-sucking holes so that he wouldn’t suck something dangerous to him into the void, then knelt and picked up a small handful of moss from the forest floor. He lowered his hand into Mouse’s bag. The moss entered, and emerged a little heat-stressed, but none the worse for the wear.
He turned to Mouse and held out his hand. She hesitated, then took it. Experimentally, he lowered his hand, holding hers, into the trash bag.
Both entered. A second later, Mouse yanked her hand back. “Waaah!”
“Sorry. I should’ve warned you,” Rhys said. He looked her hand over. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine! I was just surprised. It feels weird in there.” She put her hand into the bag, trying to enter the void again, to no avail. Her brows wrinkled, and she pushed harder.
This time, Rhys felt something. It was a dull buzzing at the limits of his senses, like a limb that had gone numb, or one he hadn’t known existed coming to life. He blinked. Was the barrier at the edge of the void something he’d subconsciously created when he’d created the void holes? He had created the holes, after all, so it wasn’t an insane suggestion. But if he was the one who’d created the barriers, and he could sense them like a limb, almost, then could he…
“Whoa!” Mouse shouted, as her hand suddenly passed through the hole. She yanked it back again, clutching it to her chest, and gave Rhys a shocked look. “What happened?”
“I can let you through, apparently,” Rhys told her, raising his brows at himself. He hadn’t even known that was a possibility until just now. He looked at his hand and flexed it, then looked at the trash bag. Interesting. I wonder what I can do with that?
Mouse shook her hand out, then shivered. “I don’t like that place. It feels wrong.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty… that’s a good instinct,” Rhys told her. “Come on. It’s time we start raiding some camps.”
“At last?” Mouse asked, excited.
“Yeah,” Rhys said with a smile, then jolted. He looked at his hand again, but in a totally different light. Slowly, he looked back up at Mouse.
Right now, just then… did that qualify as hand-holding?
Mouse blushed self-consciously and flinched away from his gaze. “W-what?”
“Did we just—it’s nothing,” Rhys quickly stopped himself. Getting worked up over hand-holding? Ha! He’d have to be a Laurent-level 9th Tier virgin to get worked up over something like that. Yeah, that took a wizard of the highest caliber! Not like Rhys, who had definitely… qualified in his past life. But not in this one! He was still young! His previous life didn’t count against his virginhood in this world, surely. After all, he’d been a child again. That time was null and void.
“Come on. Let’s hurry back,” he said quickly, and sped up so she couldn’t see his face.
Comments
Jumure
Feedback on conciseness [to keep in mind for the future or use if revising for publishing]: “Had this been a mistake? Sure. He’d admit it. He was only human, at the end of the day. He’d make mistakes. Sometimes, they’d be dumb ones. Sometimes, they’d have serious consequences. He had to pick himself up and keep going, and do whatever he could to make up for them, if he ever ran into the consequences again.” ^ Text like this can be tightened up a bit sometimes. You don’t necessarily have to cut a lot, but something like this: “He made a mistake. He’d admit it. He was only human; he’d make more mistakes. Sometimes would be dumb, some would have serious consequences. Regardless, He had to pick himself up and keep going, doing whatever he could to make up for them.” ^something like that has all the same components without feeling rambly. You don’t have to use that exactly- Rhys has a certain tone. However, if his inner dialog gets to verbose it feels kind of tiring. Like filler, almost.
Jumure
“It's okay. I can make things right this time. I won’t make the same mistake again” I’m confused about how he knows it was a mistake. He says they went silent? I don’t remember Rhys and the second band of mages exchanging communication details.
Shiloh Gallaher
Nope your still a Laurent level 9th tier virgin Rhys
