Olice and the Red Crystal Realm Part Three

Chapter 2: Not of the Red Crystal Realm

Olice looked up trying to see where they had come from. It was as if she was looking inside a crimson kaleidoscope, but the patterns changed not by the hand of a person, but by cracking shifting crystal, obscure currents. The sky was a sea of mirrored plates.

“Where are we Gander?” Olice wondered.

“Passst the mirror, but not the mirror realm of Awarth, you sssshould be able to figure it out if you remember your reading” Gander hissed.

Olice moved around in a circle, taking everything in. It was quite hard to tell the difference between the ground and anything rising from the ground. If the sky wasn’t in constant motion, it would have been extremely difficult for Olice to see her way around. As it was, she could see the spires and walls of red crystal all around her, some reached further than she could see, others she could have easily hopped over. The ground throbbed under her, little ripples cascading across the crystal, the ground also gently hummed whenever she stepped on it.

It felt a lot like Awarth, the shadow of Kigan, but it clearly wasn’t. Awarth’s sky wasn’t shifting crystal, it was whirling maelstrom, and quite unsafe for many beings of Kigan to view. This realm’s sky was relaxing, Olice felt it was like looking into her father’s eyes.

Olice sat down and tried to recall what this place was, it did not take her long.

“Why! This is Ceilron Shail’s Red Crystal Realm!”

Ceilron Shail or as most knew of him, the Sorcerer of Spaces was a legend. The man himself seemed to have vanished, but failed, abandoned and complete projects of his were scattered across reality. Ira Kiopla the Witch of Dimensions was considered his successor by many. The Red Crystal Realm was a pocket space that could only be reached via some red crystal artefacts.

“Well done! You can read a book and remember it later!” Gander sarcastically congratulated Olice.

“Most girls my age couldn’t do that!” Olice protested.

“Well, yes most people can’t read, I can hardly praise you for being born a princessssss naturally inclined to magehood, can I? If you were a common born child from the depthssss of the wild windss of Nortrieln, then I would perhapssss ssssseriousssly congratulate you.”

“Well, you are a big meany face. I don’t know why I keep talking to you!” Olice pouted.

“I don’t know why you ever expect anything different!” Gander chuckled.

*Hmmpf!*

“Anyway, get us out of here Gander!” Olice commanded.

“No, I cannot mistressss, In saving us as we were falling, I alsssso destroyed our way out.”

“You couldn’t have saved us without doing that Gander?”

Gander began vanishing, beginning with the tip of his tail until only a dissatisfied mouth remained and then that too was taken by shadow.

Olice sighed and sat down, she wasn’t scared or worried, but that was because however else she felt about Gander, she was sure the spirit would protect her. She supposed she should just wait where she was for Ira to come back to the tower and rescue her.

Olice did not even manage to last thirty minutes before she decided to explore instead, wondering if she could find a way out.

Then she came across it. It wasn’t quite the same crystal as everything else. Olice would have said it was a suit of armour for a giant, so large it was. It looked like no armour Olice had ever seen in person or in books. She thought it was crystal, but it was so smooth, so glossy. The joints of the armour were more like mere seams, she wondered if it was just a statue.

The whole thing was made of curves, an elegant figure that looked like it could slip through anything. What was very strange to Olice was the head. The front of the helmet was a mess of what looked like lenses, but that was strange, because Olice knew that helmets didn’t have lenses like telescopes.

“Kind of pretty isn’t it? I’ve wondered about it, it came here recently you know, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll be leaving here.” Olice did not say anything, but the speaker sounded just like her, but with a sneering undertone.

Gander leapt from her shadow, spinning through the air, attacking where the false olice had appeared, the top of the armour’s head. The other just laughed and appeared on a mirror-like bit of crystal a bit away from the armour.

Olice did know some magic, she reached within herself and drew on her heartflame, cloaking herself with the sparks from it, pushing them outward, chaining them together and spinning them around. A barrier orb was formed around her, it was invisible, but sometimes flickered blazing silver.

“Go away! Leave me alone!” Olice cried out.

The other hissed at this, and disappeared from sight.

“Horrid mageling. I’ll take your place soon enough. I’ll be a better you than you ever could. You’d be wise to let me have my way!” The other snarled.

In response to this, Gander spat three teeth into the crystal ground. The shadows cast by these teeth grew and grew before long they were vague forms the size of Olice with a tooth in what might have been a forehead on a regular being.

“Hunt it through the reflectionssss!” Gander commanded.

The three tooth shadows vanished into the crystal of the realm.

“Your pet spirit will not protect you forever!” The other wailed.

“I won’t, but you’ll not have her before then” Gander replied.

There was no reply.

Olice’s barrier shattered. She stumbled, but Gander lent some of his power to her, stoking the life-flames that she had drawn on.

“Oh, is it gone, Gander? Please tell me it is gone” Olice pleaded.

Gander sniffed about.

“For now it issss, but I’ll not be able to do that trick again ssssoon”

“I want to go back to the tower Gander. I think I don’t like it here”

Gander stared at Olice.

“Ssssshould have thought of that when you went chasssing after who knows what, then you’d not have ended up getting pulled in” Gander chastised Olice.

Olice looked down at her feet.

“I know… I shouldn’t have gone near the mirror, Oh however will we get back to the tower?”

“That chlan sspirit sssaid ssomething about the armour being recent…” Gander hinted.

Olice frowned, then a look of delight came across her face.

“Oh if the armour isn’t from here, it must have come from somewhere else! Maybe we can use it to get back!”

Olice looked at the armour with her magical senses. The first thing she noticed was that the flow of magic in the red crystal realm was quite irregular, more of a collection of swirling scarlet whirlpools than a proper stream.

As for the armour, she had no idea to where to begin, it was a mess of patterns, though, she was able to tell that it wasn’t armour for a giant, but had a seat inside. It was a magical device the like of which she had never heard or read of. It was crawling with patterns that gave it this or that attribute.

The flows of magic naturally give rise to patterns on contact with forms, but the patterns of the armour didn’t arise from the flow, in fact, the flow mostly slid off of it. The armour’s crystal parts were its own source of magic, gently pulsing, spreading magic, force of motion throughout the device.

Olice could hardly understand what she was looking at, but she had seen enough of things related to dimensional magic that she could recognise something that was connected to passing through a dimension. She excitedly bounded up to the armour and put her hands to the chest of the device. Trying to find out how it opened.

There was a beep. Gander quickly scooped her up into the air away from the armour.

-Invalid user. Access denied- the armour called out.

“Oh, you can talk! Hello, can you let me in! I want to get out of here please!” Olice asked

The device was silent.

“I don’t believe it issss a thinking construction missstressss” Gander remarked.

“Oh bother! Now what?”

“You could keep trying to talk to something that cannot ssspeak back if you want” Gander said.

“That won’t do at all! Put me down Gander, there must be an owner of this device!”

Gander floated gently toward the ground and then, not far above it, unceremoniously dropped Olice.

“Ow!”

Olice glared at Gander as she got up.

She looked at the whirlpools of magic, considering how to do what she wanted. She pulled out a ribbon of magic from her heartflame, and tried to hook it to the device.

“I am lost, I think you are lost, and your owner lost, that which is lost wants to be found, that which is connected is connected. Owner and possession.” She began.

The ribbon of magic shot out.

Olice focused, this kind of seeking magic had been taught to her by Ira, so as she could find things more easily for her. She wasn’t very good at it though, the wild nature of the flow in the red crystal realm was making it harder too.

“Found shall be what was found before, lost no more, connected shall be!” Olice commanded.

Olice felt the ribbon finally reach its destination.

“Can you see it Gander?” Olice asked.

“Yes”

“I did it! Lead the way!”

Gander followed the ribbon, Olice close behind.

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Author: SnowyMystic