Grabbing my hand, Victoria pulled me to my feet. Not saying a word as she led me from the dining room. Next to the stairs was a door I had seemingly never noticed. It was made of a deep dark wood that made it stand out against the lightly colored pster walls. The only reason I noticed it this time was because Victoria put her hand against it.

  She spoke a single word. Though it was too low to hear, I could feel the words resonate with something inside of me. Her hand pulled on mine as she opened the door, pulling me down the stairs before I could do more than try and memorize the sensation.

  There was only one word that could describe the room; impossible. We had only walked down maybe twenty steps, yet the ceiling was far out of sight. Electric lights hung down from said ceiling, casting circles of light that did little to keep the darkness at bay. Surprisingly, the room wasn’t cold, as the stone surface suggested. It was quite comfortable.

  Every so often, towering over everything else, a column seemed to have been jerked out of the ground. Cracks in the stone floor spread from each of these columns. There were even pieces of the floor lifted as if dispced.

  In the middle of a retively close grouping of columns, a circle was etched into the ground. It was this section that Victoria led me. “What is this pce?” I finally asked, breaking the silence.

  “Whatever we need it to be.” Came Marcy’s voice from my left, causing me to jump and nearly scream. How in the hell was she so silent?

  “I see you modeled your training room after the grand training hall the royals use,” Gregory said from my other side. I didn’t jump this time, a fact that seemed to cause a frown to appear on his face. Disappearing nearly as fast as it had come.

  “How is this possible? There is no way this room could fit below the house.”

  “Spatial magic. The room is literally bigger on the inside.” Victoria said.

  “So, a TARDIS? Can it travel to other worlds and through time?” I asked, genuinely curious with a tiny amount of excitement over the possibility.

  Marcy snorted. “I wish. Her father was the spatial mage. He built this pce for his practice and testing when he was younger. It is one of the only things I have left of his.”

  “He left you a spatial cube?” Gregory asked, answering my next question before I could voice it. “An artifact that can build and modify a region as the owner wishes. Very few mages can make them. Even fewer can make such a rge one. I didn’t think the guy had the power for such a creation.”

  “He didn’t. What he did have was his brain and his family's research. From what I understand, somehow he combined his grandmother's growth spells, his father's mana crystallization techniques, and the family's spatial formation.”

  “Don’t tell me he made an artifact that will grow in power over time.” Gregory sighed, “You know how illegal such things are.”

  “Why would such a thing be illegal?” Victoria asked, “Wouldn’t such artifacts be great for fighters? Then they would grow with their user.”

  “They constantly absorb mana and store it. Said mana is locked away for as long as the artifact is intact. Such artifacts have drained entire pnets of their mana, leaving it desote and devoid of life.”

  “That can’t be true,” I said, not believing him that a ck of mana would kill a pnet, let alone that one item could accomplish it. “From what I understand, Earth is devoid of mana, yet it has life.”

  “Earth has mana, just not much of it. Now, you are not wrong that life can exist without it. For some species, mana is just another tool and not necessary to live. Humans are a great example of this. With it, they can cast spells that would put…what is it that they use for war now?” Gregory asked.

  “Mostly guns. The device fires projectiles at high speed.” Marcy answered him. “Well, that and bombs.”

  His eyebrows lifted upon hearing that. “Sounds like a safe pce to live.”

  Marcy shrugged, “Some pces were constantly at war, but it was peaceful where we were living.”

  “Anyway,” Gregory said, returning to the topic. “Such effects could be replicated with a simple spell and a generous helping of power. In fact, most magical and technological leaps tend to happen around the same time. One person finds out how to toss fireballs; other humans find a way to form bottles that produce the same effect upon contact. Without magic, though, humans need to make such discoveries on their own.”

  “The Dark Ages,” Marcy said, cutting off what seemed like a lecture in the making.

  He gred at her as he said, “Records I have read tell of a time that Earth had even more mana than Avalon. While some say that it was the church's fault, others state that it was a dark mage or a rift in space that caused the pnet to magically dry up. There is no agreement on who caused it to practically vanish. Just that it led to humans stagnating for nearly half a millennia. After finding their feet, humans started to make discoveries and develop technology on their own.”

  “This is all well and good, but can we get on with the practice run? Victoria needs to make sure to get enough sleep so she isn’t tired or rushed during the actual ritual.”

  “Fine, fine,” Gregory said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I can lecture him more on the topic ter.”

  “Christian, sit in the middle of the center circle.” Marcy said, “Victoria, you need to sit in the rger of the outer circles. Gregory, the smaller outer circle. I will take the middle-sized one.”

  Carefully walking through the field of symbols and lines, I made my way across the space to the designated spot. Turning, I realized just how big the thing was. The size of the room had distorted my perception a bit. Lowering down onto my legs, I sat with my legs crisscrossed.

  “Victoria, pour some mana into the spell. Don’t worry about it activating.”

  “Ahh, you are using the version Margrave Penelope developed. That’s smart.”

  “Gregory, I know you have a hard time not talking, but please shut up.” Even from where I was, I heard his teeth cck as his mouth snapped closed. “Thank you. Now, Victoria, where is the mana you are supposed to be pouring into the spell?”

  “I don’t think I have enough for a circle of this size.”

  “You don’t have to. My brother and I will be here to help provide the mana to start the spell, and the sun will provide the rest.”

  “What sun?” I asked, confused, as there was no way that light would reach the circle while we were in here.

  “Either I can expin the entire workings of the spell, most of which will go over your head, or we can run through this once. Which is it?” Marcy snapped at us. No one dared to ask her another question. “Now, when the spell fills with mana, a rge diagram of Christian’s mana network will be dispyed.”

  Victoria seemed to take the hint, a faint greenish-blue light filling the lines around her. Marcy continued. “Victoria, the first thing you need to do is carve the outer yers off of Christian’s core. Be careful, as taking too much will make the core weak or even fail. Taking too little off will lead to extra resistance as he tries to pull mana out. While you are doing that, we will be directing streams at various points in his system in an effort to clear up any blockages he might have.”

  “Why can’t one of you take care of his core?” Victoria whined.

  “Two reasons, as a punishment for not heading my warning and as a test to see just how far you have progressed.”

  “What do you mean warning?” I asked, curious about what the warning had been about.

  Not that I was going to get an answer. Instead, Marcy said, “Good, now go get a good night's sleep. We need to be up and prepared before the sun reaches its apex.” With that, she turned and walked away. Vanishing into the darkness. Vaguely, I noticed that she had gone in the opposite direction of the stairs.

  Just as I turned around, a body came flying at me. Victoria’s arms wrapped around my neck as her lips met mine. Her legs squeezing my hips as she pulled herself against me. My arms went around her waist to help support her as a soft cough to my left let me know we were not alone. I tried to pull my face back but Victoria was having none of it. Her face pursued mine relentlessly. Only letting go when I stumbled. Her added weight throwing me off bance.

  “Jesus, you two are like a pair of animals in heat.” Looking at him, I gave him a simple questioning look. Gregory relented, “Ok, not in heat. They tend to be worse. But still, you two are all over each other, given some freedom to do so. I just hope it calms down, or your adventures will be over before they begin.”

  A cold chill rippled across my body. “What do you mean by that?”

  “You cannot go into the wilderness and hope to survive if you don’t pay attention to everything around you. That goes double for sleeping out there. Surely you didn’t think that you wouldn’t need to keep a watch at night.” He brought up a good point. One that I hadn’t thought about until now.

  “It will be fine,” Victoria said with confidence. “I wouldn’t let him distract me when either of us are in danger.”

  “You say that now. How will you feel when you two are on your own in the wild for days on end? Will you be able to keep from doing something?” With his bit of wisdom delivered, Gregory set off in a random direction while saying, “Now, I wonder what else she has hidden in here.”

  “Do you think your mother is okay with him just wandering around?” I adjusted my arms to hold her better against me. Supporting her from below rather than against me.

  “If she didn’t, then she would have insisted on dragging him out before leaving him to his own devices. Now, let's head to bed. I need to get up early in the morning to help my mom move a few things around.” Slowly, I walked across the floor in the direction we had come from. Eventually finding the stairs and ascending them. Let’s just say that we didn’t get as much sleep as we should have.