Wings of Fire: The Prequels

4.5

A couple of days later, Gust found something that was definitely animus enchanted and most likely part of the temple.

That something was a type of barrier in the water. If he went past it, something that seemed to sink its claws between his scales and through his bones tossed him back into the normal water. Circling its limits (seeing as the barrier was shaped in a circle), all he did was get back to where he started.

Summoning the necklace for the first time since he started this madness, Gust took a good look at it. It didn't seem like much, just a simple circular silver locket with a silver chain. With it in talon, he seemed to move a little farther into the zone before getting thrown out. Silently praying that he wasn't going to offend the animi who made it, he put on the necklace. Nothing extravagant happened but he tried to go into the zone again nonetheless.

Rather than the force tossing him out, it seemed to welcome him as it settled into his bones and breezed past his scales. Whether or not one considered that feeling as odd, the water around him was altered further. It wasn't hot or cold, wet or dry, it seemed to settle into an in-between that Gust couldn't put a label to.

Unveiled by the locket, a small globe of a building nestled itself within the barrier. It shifted between being made of blinding light or of vantablack material, not making his task any easier. There was one space that seemed to be made of nothing and showed nothing beyond it, reflecting the rest of the globe unless someone looked for it. And search for it he did, the discovery of it saving him from destroying his eyes more.

Swimming into it (it felt more like floating if Gust was to call out the weird altered water more), he landed on a floor made of softly glowing bricks. The walls and ceiling shifted from vantablack to a white that also created a type of void like the vantablack. The glowing bricks covered the floor, different from the two bright colors he had already seen but the vantablack was more preferable in this room.

A slam from behind him broke Gust out of his musings, his head whipping towards the sound to find that the blank space had disappeared to give way to the eye-sore shift from black to white. Before he could curse anything out, he had to duck before one of the glowing bricks bashed his skull in.

All of the bricks began to move, making Gust scramble to stay on one. The bricks weren't moving that fast but the numbers made up for it when one considered the chaos. One second he was fine, the next he was ducking under a brick, and the next the brick he was on tilted to dump him on a different brick. Similar sequences continued to happen, small aches starting to developed from when he was dropped from too high up or when he didn't quite completely dodge the block.

The initial confusion was to blame for most of the mess-ups but they happened even after he was in the whirlwind for a while. His eyes frantically scanned the room, trying to find a door or something to get out of it. Another blank space in the wall was noticed, although when he tried to jump through it didn't work.

He slammed into the wall, barely able to groan before a brick swung around into his side. It gave him a chance to get his footing from his fail, not that that chance lasted long with all of the chaos. Especially not when he had to scramble away from another random block.

There was no conceivable pattern to it all! Everything was sporadic, too many blocks around to give much of a chance for observation. All Gust could do was try to survive until something else caught his eye.

Jumping onto another block, he watched in fascination as everything slowed. Bricks descended back to the original level, creating a large slowly rotating circle. A clear change happened, the bricks changing from glowing solids to golden see-through... water? His claws sunk in lightly, shifting the liquid even as it gave the feeling as the rest of this place. Not hot or cold, not wet or dry, an in-between that he couldn't understand.