Origins (Book 4 of Alfireán age)

Star Fall

The rolling thunder started to fade away, and Olivia blinked hard, attempting to clear the purple afterimages burned onto her retina. Steam and mist clouded her vision, but a distinct red glow filled the room.

As the aftermath came into view, a smile crept across Olivia's face.

The machines had been utterly annihilated.

All that remained of the hundreds of war bots was a molten metal scrap heap floating in the middle of the vast room. Red, glowing liquid bubbled and seethed at the core of the debris, while metallic limbs and various parts gradually melted and vanished into the molten mass.

Suddenly, Alf's gravity spell began to fade, and the crushing weight pressing Olivia against Zaphaniea's wall of spheres lessened. "Alf," she called out through clenched teeth. He attempted to face her, but his face remained smushed against the spheres. "Yeah?" he responded, his words muffled by his flattened lips.

"I need you to create an opening in the shield," she told him, straining to reach out.

He garbled out an answer and grunted while he reached out and touched the shield. A fist-sized hole opened in the blue dome around them, and Olivia cast her spell. Wind whistled as the spell wrapped around the opening and sucked air into the shield. Within seconds, Olivia felt the pressure as it began to push against her.

"Too much," Zaphaniea wheezed, "You're crushing us!"

Olivia mustered the strength to take a deep breath and rasped. "I have to," she explained. "Or the pressure from the gravity spell fading will cause our bodies to decompress too quickly and kill us." While she spoke, the gravity spell faded altogether, and she crumpled to the floor as the world righted itself.

Nausea slammed into Olivia as a loud crash echoed through the cavernous room, and the ball of hissing, liquid metal splashed down in the distance.

"Alf," she hissed, struggling to keep her eyes from rolling up in her head, "reduce the opening to the size of a pinhead and slowly let the air out."

A loud hiss permeated the room, and the pressure slowly equalized. A bright light flashed in front of Olivia's eyelids, and the sound of armored shoes clanked on the other side of their shield.

"That worked! I can't believe that actually worked!" Valarinnia exclaimed, her voice brimming with excitement as little strands of lightning danced across her armor.

"Of course it did," Drake groaned.

The princess stopped bouncing on the balls of her feet and bent down to look at him. "Oh, you don't look so good," she chuckled, observing the prince's greenish features.

"Of course not. We were just crushed half-to-death," Zaphaniea moaned, then rolled onto her back. "You have to..." She drew in a deep breath. "Drop the elevators. Or more will come up."

"We certainly don't want that!" Rinnia exclaimed, springing to her feet. A bright flash filled the room, shortly followed by the crack of thunder, as the princess flew off.

Olivia lay there moaning on the floor while the world rolled and vibrated. Suddenly, someone off to her right threw up. The sound of his vomiting churned her stomach, and Olivia clenched her eyes tightly, willing herself to keep her breakfast down.

Shortly afterward, a loud crash reverberated through the floor, and Olivia sighed in relief.

The elevators were down.

They could relax at last.

When the weird dizziness finally began to fade, another flash thundered directly over Olivia, and the princess landed beside her once more.