The Simulacrum

"Which way?" Josh barked as the trio (plus one) rushed down yet another flight of stairs and into a long hallway.

"I don't know! I can only feel the direction, not the layout of the building," the class rep shouted back before ducking as a few brightly coloured magical projectiles whizzed over their heads.

"I've got an idea!" Snowy, third in line, pointed forward and yelled, "Let's try the third door on the right! The big one!"

She didn't properly explain herself, yet Josh still exclaimed, "On it! Follow me!"

"I'm right behind you!" the bloodied Abyssal responded in the back, but by this point, nobody had the mental leeway to react to him.

Team A (plus one) dashed forth, and while their pursuers were still lagging behind and occasionally stumbling over each other; it was hard to cast Abyssal kinetic spells while running, yet Snowy was also following their example. She made a series of delicate hand movements as the glow of magic suffused the air around her, and just as they rushed through the large doorway, she twirled around and pointed her hands towards the opening.

"Get behind me!"

"Eeeep!" Hareng Ninurta screamed and threw himself onto the floor to get out of the way. Not that Snowy would've hit him anyway. Probably.

Anyhow, my sister let loose the spell she was preparing, and in a split second, giant icicles sprouted from all around the door, pointing in every which direction, until fully encasing it in a single giant, spiky block.

"Damnation!" one of the pursuers on the other side exclaimed as he came to a screeching halt. He must've been some kind of noble or officer, because he was wearing a snazzy suit with a whole lot of fancy embroidery. "Quick, we need to go around!"

The rest of the Abyssals behind him didn't argue and dashed down the corridor the way they came.

"That should buy us some time…" Snowy muttered while wiping her forehead.

Meanwhile, the class rep poked the mass of sharp ice-spikes with her finger and asked, "How did you know this would work?"

"Um… you mentioned the layout," my sister responded and made a vague gesture towards the floor. "It made me realize why I've had this strange feeling ever since we came here. It's just like our castle." She lightly shook he head and quickly corrected herself, "I mean, it's like Castle Inanna."

"Wait, what? Are you from House Inanna, my fair lady?" asked the Abyssal, still lying on the floor, but he was once again summarily ignored.

"If the layout is the same, then the only other way to get here is by exiting the building through the main gate and then going around the back of the castle to use the old servant entrance. Even if they hurry, it should take a few minutes."

"Okay, that's our Plan B then," Josh cut in and tapped his ear. "I got in contact with Judy. They found the Ninhursags and the Fauns, but it doesn't really matter anymore. The original plan is toast." He glared at the guy still on the floor, and then added, "Because someone just had to kick over the hornet's nest."

"Hey! It wasn't my fault!" Hareng protested as he finally got up. His upper body was still smeared with blood, but he didn't look much worse for wear.

Ammy decided to interrogate him with, "Then what exactly happened?" followed by a critical tweak of her glasses, and the guy immediately shifted into a smarmy pose and put a hand on his chest.

"If my fair maiden wishes to know, I'm more than happy to explain!"

"Do it on the move," Josh interjected and gestured to Snowy. "You said the layout of these castles is similar, right? Do you know the shortest way to the target?"

"That's through there," she responded meekly while pointing at the ice barricade. "B-But I know an alternate one."

"Good enough. We've come this far, we're not gonna leave empty-handed."

They moved out at once, this time led by my Abyssal sister, while the other Abyssal began to weave his tale to the class rep.

"You see, I met up with my brothers to tell them the good news about my survival and return, but then…" He paused for a long while, seemingly to build tension, then threw his hands into the air and exclaimed, "Assassins!"

"Assassins?" Ammy repeated after him with audible skepticism, and the guy nodded along.

"Quite! They were waiting in ambush! Hiding on the ceiling, and the wardrobes, and everywhere!"

"The wardrobes? Are you serious?" Josh quipped from the front, and Hareng vehemently nodded at him.

"Yes! They must have been, like, ninjas or somesuch! That's why we didn't see them coming!"

"That's dumb," the guy told him flatly. "I've met enough ninjas to know they aren't hard to spot."

"Wait, what? You've seen ninjas?"

Ammy was already making a comment before Josh could respond to his question, saying, "I disagree. Our ninjas are the demon-hunter variety, but they can still be really stealthy at times."

"Whatever. It still doesn't make sense why now everyone's hunting us," Josh griped, and the other guy must've taken this as his cue.

He exhaled a theatrically pained sigh and put the back of his wrist on his forehead, so engrossed in the act that he nearly lost the group when they abruptly turned a corner. He quickly caught up to them and repeated the motion before saying, "My dear older brother jumped in front of me to shield me! I can still recall his last words as if it happened just yesterday! He said, 'You can't trust anyone in this household!'. He also said 'Aaaargh!', but—"

"But that doesn't explain why we're being chased!" Josh cut in a tad impatiently.

"Ah, I think it's because everyone's mistaking you for the assassins," Hareng explained as if stating the obvious.

"How!? You were running towards us, not away from us!"

"Probably because you're a bit shady?" the Abyssal retorted, sounding just a touch uncertain. "I mean, you take hostages and have ninjas."

Fortunately nobody made a 'That's a fair point,' kind of remark, mainly because the whole group came to a halt when half a dozen Abyssals poured out of a nearby doorway.

"Shit! They caught up to us already!" Josh cursed aloud, but just as he was about to get ready to fight, Ammy stepped forth.

"It's my turn!" she declares while simultaneously summoning the familiar staff she occasionally used, and after muttering a long string of multi-syllable faux-Latin words, the air around her swelled with mana.

She slammed the butt end of her staff against the tiled floor, causing a small wave to propagate forward. It harmlessly passed under Josh's and Snowy's feet, but when it got near the Abyssal men rushing into the corridor, it caused the ancient stone walls to undulate and then suddenly sprout enormous stone spikes. It was almost a mirror image of Snowy's ice spell from before, and in a matter of seconds, the corridor was completely blocked.

"Wait, what? What kind of spell was that?!" Hareng exclaimed in shock.

Ammy didn't recognise the alarm in his voice, and proudly declared, "It's an original one I came up with just now!"

It was a good thing that spells didn't have copyright protections, because if someone looked at that and said it was completely original, then I also had a brand-new bridge to sell them.

It was at this point that Snowy awkwardly pointed at the jammed hallway and said, "Uuu… That's where we were supposed to go."

Ammy let out a startled, "Oh…" while Josh only shrugged.

"We weren't going that way anyway. What other options do we have?"

"I'm not sure…" My Abyssal sister glanced around, her eyes ultimately settling on an unadorned part of the passage. "If… I mean, so far everything else matched, so it should be over there."

"What should be?"

"The stairs leading downstairs," she explained while pointing downwards. "It's something like a maintenance corridor, I think. Um… the servants back home sometimes used it as a shortcut, and I heard about it from them."

"A shortcut?"

"Yes. It goes around the back of the Chamber, and there's another stairwell at the other end. It's the quickest way to move between the wings."

"But it does bring us to the right ballpark, right?"

"Y-Yes!" Snowy confirmed, while the other Abyssal let out a low chuckle.

"It's unfortunate that there's a brick wall in the way. You could even say that your plan is… bricked!" He opened his arms wide, but seeing that he got no reaction, Hareng grumbled. "Oh, please! I'm just trying to bring a moment of levity to this—"

Before he could finish, Josh abruptly retrieved his black sword from his storage enchantment and took up a high guard posture. He only held it for a breath, just long enough to gather his mana, and then he poured it into his weapon. At first, I thought he might've wanted to unleash a sword-beam, but there was only the golden light of his Celestial power and none of the crackling dark red energy that accompanied that attack. Instead, he lunged forward and made a series of seemingly wild slashes, followed by a forceful kick that blew a roughly circular hole into the wall, sending plaster and debris flying every which way.

"Let's call this Plan C," he declared before sheathing his weapon, then he covered his mouth to keep away the dust he kicked up. "Let's go!"

Snowy followed after him right away, while Hareng said, "Well, it's lucky that wasn't a stone wall, I suppose. Then we would've been stonewalled."

The class rep squinted at him, then wordlessly followed the other two. So did the Abyssal guy, though not before muttering, "Oh, bother… I hope this wasn't load-bearing…"

Meanwhile, my sister took charge again, and she led the group down a winding spiral staircase leading into the basement. Normally, this would've been the point where I made a few half-hearted complaints about why so many important places were underground, followed by wondering about whether there were Abyssal mole people, but… it kind of made sense this time? I mean, even the Celestial Mana Wells were tucked away under the Migdáls of the Elysium, and heck, I was already so desensitised to the concept, it didn't even register with me when I Phased into Crowy's basement that one time.

Anyhow, the four of them finally reached the bottom of the stairs, and Snowy pointed at the unlit curving corridor in front of them.

"That way. It goes around the Mana Well chamber."

Josh squinted and whispered, "I can't see a thing."

"You can't?" Ammy blurted out in surprise, only to then mumble a soft, "Oh, right…" and then conjure up a ball of light at the end of her staff. I didn't blame her for being oblivious; thanks to the proximity of the Mana Well, the whole area was saturated with ambient mana, and while it wasn't exactly visible light, she could probably still see everything fairly clearly down there. Or at the very least I could, and our visions were at least nominally similar.

"Much better." Josh walked over to the smooth wall to their right and lightly tapped on it. "Should I break this one too?" he proposed, no doubt the adrenaline-high speaking, but my sister hurriedly stopped him.

"You can't! Um… I-I mean, you literally can't! The whole chamber is heavily fortified and warded to protect the Mana Well. Even if we all worked together and attacked the gates together, it would take time to break through them all!"

"But these aren't the gates," Ammy interjected and also tapped her staff against the wall. "The main entrance is the expected attack vector, so it's heavily reinforced, but what about these?" She tapped it a few more times, like an electrician looking for a stud in a wall, and let out a determined hum. "I think we should be able to break through here."

Snowy didn't agree, and she pointed down the far end of the corridor.

"We can go to the other wing, and then we can circle around and use the stairwell next to the Lord's quarters to reach the chamber's main entrance. It's much safer."

"And slower," Josh pointed out. "There's also no guarantee we aren't gonna run into more enemies on the way." He stepped back and got out his sword again. "I say we give this one a go."

"Can I get a say in this?" Hareng asked on the side, and after receiving a glare that implicitly said 'No!', he stepped back with a dispirited, "Oh. Okay, then."

"I… don't like this plan, but if you want to do it, I'll help," Snowy stated, and the class rep also joined the fray with a resolute look on her face.

"I'm going to use a spell to weaken the walls. It should make it easier to break through."

"I… I have a Sigil that can interfere with static spells. It has a short range, but if I make it mono-directional, it could maybe affect the wards on the other side."

"Is this Plan D then?"

Josh only spared a disparaging look at Hareng's question before nodding at the girls.

"Please do that. I'll prepare myself in the meantime."

Following Josh's words, all three of them began to work furiously. The class rep continued to chant while periodically tapping her staff against the wall, occasionally stepping left and right to let Snowy draw onto it. She made individual Sigils and then slowly connected them until they formed something that kind of resembled one of those stereotypical magic circles often seen in fiction. Oddly enough, the two's magics didn't interfere with each other, or if they did, they quickly compensated as to not to step on each other's toes.

Meanwhile, Josh stood at the back, holding his sword vertically in front of him. The normally jet-black blade was now shimmering with a bright golden light, and it hungrily drank in the ambient mana, both through Josh and from the air itself. The principle was the same as when I used Cal and Teeny, though a bit cruder and more brute-force, since Josh lacked the Oaths and the mana-pathways specifically designed to plug into magical equipment, but it worked.

Oh, and Hareng was there too.

It only took a few short minutes for them to finish their preparations, and then Ammy declared, "All set!"

Snowy followed her up with, "I'm activating the Sigils!" causing them to flare to life and giving a definite magic circle shape to her handiwork.

"Stand back!" Josh shouted and lunged forward, sword held high, and he swung downwards.

The strike met the wall, tearing away the plaster and revealing the chunky stone slabs underneath. They didn't put up much of a resistance either, and as Josh's attacks picked up the pace, his blade started sending chunks flying everywhere. The others retreated a bit, though the class rep stayed a bit closer to provide lighting for the guy, and he proceeded to enact his best drill-bit impression by rapidly cutting a more-or-less circular hole in front of him.

He was wicked fast… but still slower than expected. Not because he lacked cutting power or magical interference, but because the wall was really freaking thick. After only a minute, the floor of the hallway was covered ankle-deep in debris, and Josh had bored a hole that was at least a meter deep into the wall, yet there was no end in sight. By this point, the class rep had to pull double duty, using a different spell to magically sweep the stone chunks towards the stairs whence they came from to give Josh space to work with.

And then, just as the light of his sword was starting to dim from the over-exertion… a crack. It was the size of a pinhole, but it was definitely there, and the blue light seeping through it drew a beam into the dusty air of the hallway. Seeing that he was almost done must've reinvigorated Josh, as he let out a triumphant roar and thrust his blade directly at the pinpoint, releasing all the remaining mana in his system in one giant burst of power.

It was less of a sword-bean and more of an indiscriminate blast, but it was just what they needed, and as the dust partially settled, it revealed a neat, mostly circular hole.

"See? I told you this would be—" the guy began, only to instinctively duck when a magical lightning bolt hit the wall right next to him.

"Ninurta scum! You'll never take us alive!" a fierce yet also somewhat nasal voice roared on the other side, and based on the light coming from there, they were ready to make another attack.

Josh was quick on his feet, and he exclaimed, "W-Wait! Hold your fire!" He stored away his weapon and raised his hands over his head. "We're not with the Ninurtas!"

That made the man on the other side pause, and once the dust fully settled, our resident protagonist found himself staring down about twenty Abyssals, all of them striking various poses like an interpretive dance troupe stopping mid-performance, no doubt ready to release whatever magic missiles they had up their sleeves at a moment's notice.

In the middle of the group was a portly, long-haired middle-aged man. His skin was pale, made even more prominent by the blue light of the Mana Well, and he had a beard and moustache that were right off the face of a royalty-themed fast-food mascot.

In the meantime, Snowy and Ammy also made it to the other side of the hole, one focused on the Abyssals within the chamber, while the other was more interested in the round pedestal holding the floaty blue magical Rubik's Cube. It was my sister who made the first move, as she hopped over the debris and beelined towards the rotund man in the middle.

"Neige Liliam Inanna-Dunning greets the Head of House Ninhursag, true descendant of the Seven Founders. May your lands always prosper."

That must've been some kind of universal greeting within Abyssal high-society, because the man finally let his poised hand down and muttered, "House Ninhursag greets you. It's been a while since we last met, scion of House Inanna." He jerked his head towards Josh and asked, "Is he the rumoured Peacemaker of House Dunning, who took you under his wing?"

"Ah, no," Josh interjected a tad awkwardly. "I'm Joshua Bernstein. I'm Leo's… I mean, the… erm… Peacemaker's friend. We're here to save you."

"Among other things," Ammy noted while inching towards the Mana Well. "Can I take a closer look?"

Since nobody told her no under the circumstances, she briskly walked over to the pedestal, and as soon as she came to a halt, the transparent yellow avatar of the Grimoire manifested beside her, much to everyone's surprise. Including…

"Wait, what? Who's that?!" Hareng exclaimed from the other side of the hole, much to the Abyssals' shock and confusion.

"Hareng Aseng Ninurta! What are you doing here!" the Ninhursag patriarch bellowed, hand aimed at the guy with pale cyan lightning sparks flickering between his fingers.

As for the half-naked, bloodied Abyssal, he flashed a harmless grin and exclaimed, "I'm a hostage!"

"… Excuse me?"

"It's a long story, and it's not very important," Josh interjected and gestured at the pedestal and Ammy. "Listen, sir. We need to access your Mana Well. It's critical." He didn't even wait for the Abyssal Nobleman to respond and turned to Snowy. "Lili? Can you catch him up to what's going on? I think you're better suited to this."

"C-Certainly!"

With that concluded, he turned his back on them and headed over to Ammy's side. By the time he got there, Hareng was already there with a disarming smile plastered on his face.

"I must say, I have seen many a beautiful women in my time, but none so transparently charming as you! May you grace me with your name, my fair ghostly lady?"

Grimmy promptly ignored the guy (that seemed to be the default reaction) and said, "Progress Report: Connection to the terminal of the Asphodelòs Sub-System is successful. Administrator certifications accepted. Waiting for system log update."

"How is it?" Josh asked a bit warily, but Ammy didn't respond right away.

She was clearly communicating inside her head with Grimmy, probably because it was faster, and before long, her expression turned cloudy.

"Ah… This isn't good."

The guy prompted her with an understandably irritated, "What?" and she turned to face him.

"We have a problem. One Mana Well isn't enough."

"… What do you mean it 'isn't enough'!?" Josh burst out in alarm, startling the Abyssal guy and drawing the attention of some of the Abyssal nobles in the back.

"Confirmation: The output of a single terminal is insufficient to perform the requested operation."

"Yes, I understood what you meant! That's not the point!" Josh let out a loud huff and rubbed his forehead hard. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Response: Insufficient data. Prediction: The probability of two terminals being sufficient is over eighty percent."

"Oh, great! And how are we supposed to get our hands on two Mana Wells at the same time?!" Josh's irate outburst was followed by a long groan and the question, "Can't you just do it remotely, or something?"

"Response: Due to a lack of regular systems maintenance, restoring remote communications between Terminals would require six days, three hours, and seventeen minutes. Alternative Response: Making manual contact with two terminals at once is recommended."

"Yes, sure," Ammy fumed in turn, picking up where Josh left off. "We're just going to take a whole Mana Well with us on the way out of here. No problem."

While that was clearly and unmistakably sarcastic, if I were in the room at the moment, I would've already facepalmed so hard it would've given me a concussion, because that was just asking for—

"Confirmation: Request received. Engaging standby protocols in five… four…"

"Wait, what?" the Abyssal guy blurted out, but the others looked just as confused, and when the countdown reached its end…

"… Zero."

The room went dim. Not literally dark, but rather, both the visible radiance emitted by the cube and the mana in the room were rapidly sucked into it, so the only light sources remaining were the magic orb floating over Ammy's staff and the faint outlines of the wards on the walls. Meanwhile, the Mana Well spun in the air a few times until the last of its glow receded, and then it unceremoniously fell onto the pedestal with a dull thud. Which was… exactly what I thought would happen. Goddamit.

"Statement: Asphodelòs Sub-System Terminal successfully disconnected and is in standby mode," Grimmy stated, and despite the whole machine-voice gimmick, she almost sounded proud of herself.

"What have you done!?" the understandably panicked Ninhursag patriarch bellowed and pushed Snowy aside, approaching the pedestal with heavy steps.

Josh, quick on his feet once again, showed his palm and exclaimed, "Wait, listen! We… erm…" He glanced at Ammy, but she couldn't give any support, so he tried his best to wing it. "Noir Inanna is on his way here to claim the Mana Well, so we… how should I put this? We're gonna take it with us when we leave. Yes, we're gonna do that, so he can't have it."

"I don't know what you've done or why, but that's not the immediate concern!" the portly man argued back, his glare literally infused with static electricity that made his facial hair point every which way. "The Wards of the Chamber are powered by the excess mana of the Well! Without it, the Chimera will—!"

Before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by a huge impact that made the ground shake under their feet and set the huge metal gates of the room ajar. It was followed by a second, then a third, and by the fourth time the metal warped enough to let them see three predatory eyes arranged in a vertical row peeking through the crack.

There was a beat of silence, then the eyes blinked, followed by a low, guttural howl and yet another impact on the door.

"So… um… Friend? What's Plan E?" Hareng asked, about as shaken as everyone else in the room.

"… We grab the cube and run while the door is still holding."

"Ah. Hm. And what if it doesn't?" the Abyssal mused, sounding a bit calmer than before. "I hope you have a Plan F too…"

In return, Josh responded with a faint, "… Goddamit, Leo…" as if I had anything to do with this.