The Wordless Mage
Chapter 37: Trial of The Forgotten Mind

Chapter 37: Trial of The Forgotten Mind

Not before long, a sudden breeze brushed through Liora’s hair and skin, her cheeks flush with pink from the cool sensation.

It was calming, the way that surrounding her was a nearly-infinite expanse of just grass and floral, the degree of which they extended unknown to her, possibly unknowable.

Her hair waved in the air, individual strains scratching against her scalp to offer her solace in its solitude.

Yet, she understood that that was not why she was here.

"What did the demon mean when it said it was going to throw me to a place I could not return," she asked, urging her tail below to send up back up into the air.

No good.

"What?"

Looking down, she found two legs once more, unresponsive to her very whim. Better yet, her entire body was like that, missing its translucence that it once possessed.

Holding onto her grimoire, she closed her eyes and felt for the aether.

Swish!

A ball of water dribbled out from her stretching hand, slashing onto the ground just a few feet from her and drenching the flowers.

"Hm, I have arcana and my original body, almost like I were in the real world. Could that possibly be where we are?"

The grimoire, thrumming, flew up to her face, shaking its covers and pages like one would their own head.

"Suppose that couldn’t be the case, otherwise, we would’ve been back in that town. There’s no way that the demon could’ve just moved my body like that, so there’s something more to this."

Liora grabbed the book once more, carrying it within her armpit, consoling herself by its presence.

Her eye twitched slightly at the prospect of being trapped in this sub-space, but she knew it would’ve been far better for not only Rowan, but herself if she didn’t lose her composure.

What to do now, she thought, crouching down to sniff at one of the flowers.

It was golden--unnaturally so, seeping a viscous bright white liquid. Whether it was its nectar or not, Liora didn’t care to taste it.

Not unless I’m absolutely starving.

Still, she plucked it from its root, carrying it with her only by a passing curiosity.

Sskrkkrrshsh!

The ground erupted from underneath her feet, reaching up to her level with two hulking molds of soil in the form of arms

"Ahhhhh," she screamed, letting go of her grimoire for a moment.

The balls of her ankles popped at the sudden pressure gripping them tightly, leaving her without balance as she was slowly raised into the air.

One of its fingers prodded at her face, inquisitively squishing her skin.

The mold had grabbed and held her, insistent on egging her on.

"What are you," she asked, her heart settling as it only poked, never attacked or harmed.

Although, annoyance began to singe her composure as her skin began to blanch from the continued contact, her cheek bone getting sore.

"Stop that," she yelled, calling her grimoire to her side to unleash a devastating rapid of water in front of her.

It blew through the forearm of the sentient soil, causing one arm to grovel into a pile.

"Grrgghhh!"

She bit her teeth at the violent onset of the remaining arm’s tightening of grip, her ankle on the verge of breaking.

She turned around and pointed her palm against it as if she were going to unleash another blast, but the soil didn’t stand for it, even further length sprouting from the ground below.

Its shape grew with each inch gained, the bulk of it no longer in its forearm, but, instead, in its torso.

It was no longer an arm, fully forming a hulk of soil in humanoid shape. It was featureless, but there were almost muscles etched in the mystical whim of the earth.

"Wait," she gasped, her head following behind her in depressed inertia as her body began to swing wildly into the air from the ramping up of its swing.

Her arms flew ahead of her head to stretch outwards, the velocity too much to resist now.

Spit flew from her mouth, her eyes rolling back into her head from her whirring in a cyclical motion.

What-- Is-- Happening--

"Thou shouldst not be in this place," it bellowed, the deep grumble too uncanny to be a natural voice, "Thou shalt be returned when thy soul is prepared."

Had Liora not been spinning in the air vehemently to the point of unconsciousness, she surely would’ve made commentary on its words, but the most she could muster was the strength to witness what occurred next.

The golem released all of its potential energy downward, straight towards the ground.

It was enough force to make the air boom, her grimoire only following her due to the tether it’d made once more between itself and her hip.

Shwam!

She thought that, surely, she would die from her head impacting against the ground, the fear biting through the movements in her limbs or any attempts to fight back against the golem.

But, instead, when the ground should’ve fought back against her momentum, it, instead, keeled, drawing inward towards the earth.

It was almost as if it were liquid, rippling in accordance to her velocity. Despite the oddity of its form, it surely saved her from imminent death, that she was sure of.

Dropping head-first into the liquid ground, she hastily closed her eyes out of pure reflex, putting her hands out as if she were going for an unexpected dive in a pool.

In mere moments, her body no longer thwipped through liquid--or any medium, at least, that she could instantly get a feel for.

She was no longer head-first either, the polarity of gravity turning in a near-instant.

No, she was in the air, thirty feet of the ground.

"What," she muttered, the pool of blood in her head dispersing down with enough haste to discombobulate her senses for a few moments.

With a violent thud, she fell onto the ground, the only thing protecting her, her outreaching arms to soften the landing.

Taking a second to rub her head in hurt, she turned to her surroundings, now entrapped in a blank living room with a television on its furthest wall.

"What, now," a child asked, turning to a woman on his left.