Songs of the Spheres

[ARC 1: BREATH] 001 - Enter, Part 1

The man of light fled across existence, and the enchantress followed.

Presently, existence manifested itself as a desert to the two of them. It was not the apotheosis of all deserts - far from it. It was decidedly too mysterious to be described in such a pure way. The sands themselves couldn't be considered the defining feature unless someone was foolish enough to stand upon the burning grains barefoot, in which case it wouldn't be part of the scenery but would certainly be prominent in said person's mind and feet. The real appeal of this particular desert was found in the ruins. The ancient stone structures stood around in defiance to the eons, chiseled both by intelligence and the merciless decay of time. Symbols adorned the many pillars - triangles within triangles were prominent alongside a depiction of an ancient eye staring forward and letting loose one single, painful, tear.

The man of light did not stop to puzzle over any of this - if he had, he probably could have discerned some meaning from the ancient glyphs and figure out where he was. He unfortunately didn't have the time to waste on getting his bearings, a fact he was painfully aware of. He continued running across the sands, kicking up excessive amounts of the ground with his softly glowing cobalt-blue feet. He wore no shoes, but his crystalline composition kept him from charring his feet. This did not mean he wasn't foolish - far from it.

He was, after all, running from the enchantress.

He knew she was gaining - but he did not dare steal a glance behind him. Not yet, anyway. He kept his gaze forward, catching glances of his hands every time they shifted forward in time with the opposite foot. He kept focusing on a small, black orb in his left hand, grasped tightly by his sharp digits. Had the object been made of glass it would have shattered from the force he was exerting, but it wasn't composed of such a flimsy material. It was something far stronger and much more complex than simple glass. He considered using it - but he still had enough intelligence within him to know now was not the time, for there was a strange obelisk coming up.

He recognized this for what it was - an ancient machine. He tore his right arm from its rapid back and forth motion, holding his palm outstretched to the obelisk. He focused, intent on timing this just right. The instant before he passed the ruin a surge of electrical energy shot forth from his fingertips, filling the obelisk's many glyphs with a blue glow. A wall of translucent hardlight shot out of it, erecting behind the man of light and dividing him from his pursuer.

He whirled around quickly, raising the black sphere high in the air, tapping it rapidly with his fingers. Even though he wasn't looking at it, he knew many yellow lights were rippling on its surface as it processed his request.

In the instant it took the sphere to process the input he locked eyes with the enchantress - or so he assumed, anyway, it was hard to tell which way she was looking when her eyes were obscured by those goggles. He also noticed that the wall of hardlight wasn't going to slow her down as much as he had hoped. He'd thought she would use her magic to levitate over the wall since she was avoiding the use of teleports to save her magic reserves. But no, she just shot a single laser from her horn at the obelisk, shattering the priceless relic into thousands of pieces. Her four hooves hardly slowed their gallop from the encounter - he may have gained a second, probably less.

Then the man of light was suddenly somewhere else. He didn't take long to gather his bearings - hallway, largely gray, with big numbers on one wall. Some kind of underground base, perhaps. There was most certainly a story behind this place he was not interested in. He bolted down the hallway, his rigid form creating loud clanks upon contact with the equally hard ground. Good thing stealth was not his goal - though perhaps he should have at least considered it.