Facade Over Force

“I've already told you that wasn’t how it worked.”

The voice sounded exasperated, leaning towards annoyance. A flare of green light emitted against the cave wall, then sputtered out, leaving the silhouette of a mage hunched over an array of papers spread on the cave floor. He traced a finger over the dozens of lines and runes, searching for where the mistake lied.

“This sequence isn’t responding. It needs a mana constant,” he jabbed the page with a finger across one of the sketches, frustrated. “Not whatever this is supposed to be.”

Across from him, an armored man strapped a gauntlet into place with unhurried indifference, his eyes drooping.

“It worked last time,” the warrior said, as though that ended the matter and cleared up any loose ends.

“That was different,” the mage snapped back, sitting on his legs. “The procedure had a completely different purpose, and it wasn’t even close to similar for what we’re trying to do. You can’t just—”

“You’re overthinking it.” The warrior cut in before he could finish the thought.

The mage’s eyes squinted. If there was a social taboo among people who handled magic, that phrase might be it. Overthinking was the only thing separating spells from death. Or worse.

“No, I’m thinking exactly the right amount. You don’t draw half a circle and hope it just works out, that's not how ritual magic operates. Maybe you'd know that if you paid attention to what I say once in a while."

The warrior shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to activate.”

“That mentality,” the mage muttered, “is why we keep screwing up the rituals.”

The warrior didn’t respond, which the mage had learned over his time with him that it was not agreement, just his preferred method of avoiding annoying conversations.

The warrior’s gaze flicked toward the corner of the cave where Mira lay, remembering that she existed only because his role required that she doesn’t escape or wake up.

She lay on her side, ropes biting into her arms, still under the mage’s induced sleep spell from a few hours prior. Hal didn’t look troubled by the sight of a bound, unconscious child. If anything, her stillness reassured him, like checking that a tool hadn’t rolled off the workbench.

The mage followed his glance and cleared his throat, a little too quickly. “She isn’t ready for the ritual yet, Hal. Her mind won’t remain viable if she wakes up, so don't screw around with her."

He spoke as though he was talking to a slow coworker, one who never listened to advice or directions. Hal was not a man who wanted to sit still, he knew that painstakingly well over the time they’ve spent together these last few months.

Hal rolled his eyes and went back to fiddling with his attire, boredom finally getting to him. “Man this sucks. What am I supposed to do in this boring cave? At least the last ritual had something for me to do.”

The mage just ignored his plights.

Hal groaned and kicked a pebble toward the cave mouth. “I’m just saying, that gem we made last time? That was cool. And I got to kill some things for it, which was more interesting than sitting in this cave."

The mage finally acknowledged Hal, sighing as he did so. “It was a stabilizing crystal, Hal. It let me cast complex spells in half the time."

Hal brightened. “Exactly. Let's do some more of those instead."

“That ritual was elementary,” The mage said. “A child could’ve performed it.”

“We literally are using a child for this one, Quincy,” Hal pointed out, nodding his chin at Mira. “So, improvement?”

“That’s not—” Quincy stopped himself. His fingers twitched like he was debating whether strangling Hal would be a wise move. Not really. Not only could he not compete physically, but he also needed Hal for the ritual.

Hal seemed aware of that too. He stretched, yawned, and leaned back against the cave wall like a man proud of being indispensable.

“You know,” Hal continued, “for a guy who keeps insisting he knows what he’s doing, you sure do complain a lot.”

“I don’t complain." Quincy snapped back.

Which, unfortunately, was exactly the kind of thing someone who complained all the time would say. Hal had heard that exact sentence often enough to consider it as Quincy's personal slogan.

He didn’t argue about it, though. That would’ve required effort, and Hal only wanted to exert himself in interesting things.

Quincy shuffled a handful of papers, reorganizing them for the fifth time now. “If the anchor point isn’t stable,” he muttered, half to himself, “the mind won’t adhere properly. We’ll end up with—” He stopped, face wrinkling. “Nevermind. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Yeah,” Hal said, sarcastically. “Words sure are hard.”

Quincy glared but reconsidered his stance on Hal's intelligence. "Ok, do you want to hear what would happen, then?"

Hal perked up immediately because Quincy had made it sound like something important.

“If it’s interesting, sure, I guess.” Hal said, kicking his foot in the dirt.

“Maybe?” Quincy rubbed the side of his head, eyes darting between runes as though they might rearrange themselves. “Anyways, if this isn’t fixed, we could see a beast form like—”

He stopped. Not dramatically, but more like slamming a mental door shut before something unwanted slipped out.

Hal narrowed his eyes. “Like what?”

Quincy exhaled through his nose. “You remember the hundred hands incident, right?”

Hal blinked. It took a few seconds, but he then made a disgusted face. “Oh. That thing. The one with the arms?”

Quincy’s expression soured. “It didn’t start with arms. It started with three institute mages who thought merging their talent pools into one vessel would let them cheat working for years. They didn’t consider that three egos working on one ritual would turn out poorly."

Quincy cleared his throat, pushing a sheet to the top of the design.

“It wasn’t the merging that doomed them,” he said. “That part worked, obviously. It’s just that no one agrees on the exact problem—poor design, weak parameters, sloppy execution—take your pick. All we know is that somewhere along the way, the ritual went awry and started mutating the form of the body, leading to that... arm thing."

Hal grimaced. “I'm glad I didn't see that thing in person. I heard it took four ruby ranks and all of the best mages at the institute to seal it."

Quincy nodded along. "Yeah, they couldn't kill that thing since it kept multiplying. Freaky stuff."

Quincy continued rearranging glyphs. The pages around him had begun to curl at the edges from cave humidity, forming a half-moon of sketches and symbols.

“Besides,” Quincy added, writing a mark with his quill, “what we’re doing is different."

Hal raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

"Of course. I should know more about ritualism than those stupid kids from thirty-six years ago. Took a lot of digging to get much information on it, though." He said, confidently.

Hal recalled an encounter from the past. "Oh yeah, reminds me of that time we found that creepy guy who claimed that he was Midra's disciple. I know you were freaked out, but he even gave me the creeps."

Quincy snorted at the memory. "There's no way he was a disciple of that madman, even if he was an expert in ritual magic. Why in the world would Midra have taken on a student? But you're right, he was creepy."

Hal let his head thunk back against the stone wall. “Still think we should’ve killed him.”

Quincy scoffed. “We couldn’t have. A mage like that probably would have some safeguards or creatures around to intervene when you tried to even draw your sword. If he really was Midra’s former student, we are lucky we didn’t become some part of a ritual."

Hal shuddered. He wasn’t a thinker, but even he understood the implication. “Yeah… that guy didn’t blink once."

“That’s how high-tier ritualists are,” Quincy muttered, as if this were forbidden knowledge. “They don’t sleep. They don’t eat. Ambition, greed, whatever you want to call it, just overtakes them completely. They get so wrapped up in their stuff that they forget they’re human. "

Hal snorted. “Sounds like my old guild captain.”

Quincy shrugged. “Your captain probably wanted glory. Ritualists want… results? Doesn’t matter who gets crushed along the way.”

Hal raised an eyebrow. “Including themselves?”

Quincy hesitated, tapping the butt of his quill against the page. “…Especially themselves. They get so close to something big that dying is no longer a downside. Sometimes they die for the ritual's sacrificial component just so they can realize their goals.”

Hal grimaced and shook his head. “And we’re using one of their diagrams. That's just great.”

Quincy shot him a look. “I'm reworking some of the dangerous parts, we shouldn't have any problems."

Hal stared at him flatly. “That sentence does not make me feel confident in the slightest."

Quincy grumbled. “You act like I've never done ritual magic before. You said it yourself that the last one worked out perfectly."

Hal rolled his hand in the air. “Yeah, but that one didn’t involve a kid or us as parts of the spell."

Quincy pinched the bridge of his nose and forced himself to breathe. This was exactly why he preferred working alone. Ritual magic required precision, patience, and a healthy respect for consequences. Hal treated it like a forge. In some respects, that approach could work, but Quincy didn't operate on the same wavelength as his partner.

He spread another page flat and weighted its corner with a stone, eyes scanning the inked maze of runes. The geometry was sound, but he still had much work to do to scale back the dangerous aspects. This spell was designed for a much larger scale of bodies and sacrifices. The ritualist called it his "Chimera" spell.

Hal’s gaze drifted back to Mira again.

She lay where they’d left her, small and still against the cave floor. The ropes around her wrists were snug and he watched as her chest rose and fell in slow, even breaths.

Mira’s fingers curled once, then again, twitching like she was grasping at something just out of reach. Her brow creased faintly as a dream, or perhaps nightmare, stirred her muscles.

Quincy stiffened.

He looked up sharply, eyes locking onto her form. For a moment, the runes and papers ceased to exist. He watched her form, waiting to see if the movement would continue.

It didn’t.

Still, Quincy rose to his feet and walked over. He crouched beside her, careful not to cross any lines, and murmured a quiet phrase under his breath. His mana traced a short spell circle in the air, the invisible pressure of the sleep spell deepening.

Mira’s fingers went slack.

Quincy exhaled slowly and straightened. “It's not unusual, but I'm surprised she even moved at all. I've been letting my focus slip too much as I fix these."

Hal glanced back at Mira. “Just hurry up, I'm getting tired of sitting around."

Quincy didn’t answer immediately, but Hal could tell it was just about done from his expression.

He stared at the pages. The Chimera design lay gutted and repurposed beneath his hands, its excess stripped away until only the core components remained. There were some minor fixes to be done, but it would only take another thirty minutes until he could draw the form on the cave floor. It was nearly time.

------------

“[Sealed Boundary].”

A voice rang out against the chilled silence of the night. Holm rested the tip of his staff against the stone at the cave’s mouth as the spell flashed. A boundary took shape and expanded to encompass the cave in the cliff.

Whatever was said or screamed inside would go nowhere. Whatever stepped in would not leave unless Holm allowed it.

He remained where he was for a moment, staff still braced against the rock, eyes half-lidded as he listened for anything. Two people of their caliber abducting a child that wasn't even nobility; it wasn't a good sign to say the least.

He lifted his staff from the stone and adjusted his grip, using it more like a cane in his hand rather than looking like a threat. His posture softened and his breathing slowed as years of habit settled back into place, appearing as a retired mage once more.

He took a slow step forward and crossed the cave’s threshold into the den.

The interior was colder than he expected. Chalk lines covered the stone floor in wild patterns, layered with etched runes all around the design. The air seemed to hum faintly, a sign that something truly nefarious was at play.

One man stood near the circle’s edge, eyes sharp and single-mindedly focused on the task at hand, unaware of the man who strolled into their ritual. The other lingered closer to the wall, clearly losing his mind at the sheer boredom of doing nothing.

Only one thing stood out right away.

Mira.

In the center of this ritual design was little child, bound by ropes and under the influence of a spell that Holm identified to be [Slumber]. The same child that helps him clean up the classroom after school is out. The girl who sticks her tongue out as she draws her runes.

Mira Lefèvre, who hums on her walk back home every day.

“Evening,” he said smoothly, as though he was greeting a customer rather than staring into the mouth of something terrible. “May I ask what you guys are up to in this little cave?"

The chalk snapped.

Quincy jerked upright, papers rustling as his hands flew towards his staff. His eyes widened a fraction as he took in the figure standing just beyond the entrance.

“What—” He stopped, words catching. “How did you get in here?”

Hal jumped out of his spot, hand instinctively poised to draw his weapon, but only for a moment.

They both paused.

Standing there was an old man, body weight being supported by his staff. His wrinkled face and limp posture all but screamed that there was no danger to be had.

Hal let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Quincy began to grin ever so slightly. His gaze lingered on the man at the entrance, sizing him up as nothing more than a retired adventurer at best. That was the only way someone could have found them out here; it was the only logical explanation.

He let out a quiet breath through his nose, the corners of his smile holding. “You’re lost, old man,” he said. “Turn around and leave. This doesn’t end well for people who wander where they shouldn’t.”

Holm nodded slowly, as if conceding a fair point. “I suppose I am,” he said. “Lost, that is. These cliffs all start to look the same once you’re past a certain age.”

Hal snorted. “Yeah? Then take the hint and wander back out.”

Holm didn’t budge after the threat. He shifted his weight on the staff instead, easing a hand down its length from his resting point below the abyss core. “Before I do,” he spoke smoothly, “I was hoping we could talk.”

Quincy raised an eyebrow. “Talk?”

“Yes,” Holm said, pointing towards Mira. “About that girl.”

Hal laughed outright this time. “You’ve got some nerve, I'll give you that.”

Quincy let out a quiet huff of amusement, glancing back toward the circle before returning his attention to Holm. “You don’t strike me as the type who wanders into caves to negotiate,” he said. “Unless you've gone mad in your old age."

Holm smiled faintly. “I don’t usually, but I’ve found that exceptions tend to arise.”

Hal snorted. “Yeah, well, this isn’t one of those exceptions.”

Holm’s smile stiffened. “It is for me.”

Quincy’s eyes moved once more toward the circle, focusing his attention back towards his work, annoyance creeping in where amusement had been. “You really don’t understand what you’ve walked into, so get lost before we have to hurt you.”

“I understand enough,” Holm said. “Enough to know that whatever you’re doing is very wrong. I can't let you use my student for something evil."

Hal let out a huff through his nose. “You hear that? ‘Very wrong.’” He gave a short laugh. “He wasn't kidding, I've had nothing to do for a while now so I wouldn't mind playing around with you before killing you."

Holm met his gaze. “I’m not telling you,” he said. “I’m asking you to do the right thing and give up doing whatever it is you are doing. You could take the honorable career of being an adventurer party, I'm sure whatever you are trying to do could be done that way instead.”

Quincy’s fingers paused over the air for just a second before resuming their careful movements. “Honor doesn’t get us what we are looking for, at least not in a reasonable amount of time. You wouldn't understand."

Holm gave a small, almost amused breath. “You’d be surprised what an old man understands,” he said. "Time has given me great wisdom and experience."

Quincy shook his head, irritation sharpening his movements. “That's precisely what we are trying to get. Without latent powers or exceptional abilities, you can barely hope to get anywhere in this world unless you do evil things. Time, among other things, runs out much too quickly for us humans."

Holm’s expression softened, not in agreement, but in understanding. “That’s a bleak way to look at things,” he said. “More years won't make you stronger, only through great effort will you."

Quincy let out a short, humorless laugh. “More years is only a bonus for what we are doing here. The true goal is to combine talent pools."

Quincy realized what he said, the slip of the tongue was one of his great flaws.

"I've said too much already. You better leave now, old man, before you never walk out of here again." He said hurriedly.

Holm’s eyes studied Quincy’s face, calm and attentive, as if he were listening to a student.

“Combined talent pools,” he repeated, tasting the words. “That sounds… crowded. Kind of reminds me of a group that tried the same thing a few decades ago.”

Quincy stiffened. The air around the circle wavered for a heartbeat before he forced it steady again. He waved a hand sharply, as if brushing the thought away. “It doesn’t matter what it sounds like. You don’t belong here.”

Hal glanced sideways at him. “You good?”

“Fine,” Quincy snapped, then caught himself. “You’ve heard enough, you old mage. Leave now before I have him deal with you.”

Holm didn’t move.

Quincy exhaled sharply through his nose and turned back to the circle, dismissing Holm as easily as he would a fly buzzing near his work. Chalk scratched against stone as he resumed his corrections, mana threading carefully through the lines. After a few moments, he glanced up just to make sure he left.

What he saw was equally as surprising as when Holm first arrived; he was still standing there.

"Wait, your still here?” he asked, genuine disbelief in his voice. “Are you actually stupid or do you have a death wish?"

Holm met his gaze without flinching. “Neither,” he replied. “I’m just a teacher, which means that I can't abandon my student, no matter what.”

Quincy huffed and turned back to his work. “Hal, please deal with him. I don’t have the focus for this right now."

Hal glanced once toward Mira, then back at Quincy. “Couldn't we just get another kid from some other place? This seems like a big hassle to take out the village's only teacher for some random kid."

For the first time since Holm arrived, Quincy looked fully away from the circle with all of his attention focused on Hal.

"No, you bum. We are much too far along to back out now,” he said with malice. “Besides, I doubt this ‘teacher’ would just let us leave after hearing we would grab some other kid to perform the ritual."

Hal took a step forward, rolling his shoulders loose. “Worth a shot. Sorry, old man, guess you get to be my opponent.”

Holm inclined his head slightly, the motion respectful. “I'm sure it will be a worthy fight for us then. I was a gold rank before I retired, so we should be on equal terms."

Hal burst into a hysterical laughing fit. “Gold rank?” He looked Holm up and down again, openly amused as he wiped away tears. Even Quincy giggled from his work. “That's not even impressive."

From under his cloak, Hal fished out his adventuring rank, a blue crystal catching on the light. "I'm a Sapphire rank warrior and he's an Emerald. You won't even be a warmup."

Holm’s gaze flicked to the crystal only briefly before returning to Hal’s face. He nodded once, as if acknowledging a correction on a worksheet. “Then you’ve done well for yourself,” he said. “I’m glad.”

That only made Hal laugh harder.

“You hear that, Quincy? He’s proud of me.” He said, grin stretching wide as he tucked the crystal away. “This isn’t a duel, old man. You will die tonight and no one will find your body in this cave in the middle of nowhere."

“I didn’t come here to measure ranks,” Holm said calmly. “I came to take my student home.”

Quincy clicked his tongue from the circle. “Enough talking. Kill him and be done with it, Hal.”

Hal obliged.

One moment he was standing there grinning, the next he was already in motion midair, sword drawn. His weapon came up in a clean, practiced arc meant to end things immediately when dealing with something significantly weaker than he.

Holm stepped forward instead of back and adjusted his grip on the staff to block the killing blow.

CLANG.

The sound rang sharply through the cave, the impact shuddering up Hal’s arms and into his shoulders. Pain flared instantly. His body bent under the recoil, boots scraping against the stone as he gave ground by a single step before leaping backwards to reposition.

Hal blinked.

“Huh.”

He hadn’t expected resistance, not from a mage. Even Quincy would lose in a 1v1 against Hal and his staff would be in pieces after that blow. So how was this geriatric able to not only resist that attack but not suffer any damage?

"What the hell? Is that thing made of freaking steel?" Hal asked, looking at Holm's staff.

Holm adjusted his grip again, rolling his shoulder as if working out a mild ache. He glanced down at the staff where Hal’s blade had struck it, then back up at the warrior with mild curiosity.

“Steel would be awfully heavy for walking,” he said. “I prefer something sturdier and lighter.”

Hal stared at him, then he stifled a laugh. “You’re joking. That would mean you are using something crazy expensive like argent alloy or void-star metal."

Hal didn't react.

The grin slipped just a little as the thought finished forming in his head. There weren't many metals that were lighter and sturdier than enhanced steel, especially in a quantity that could make a staff. Argent alloy was rare enough to make nobles sweat and void-star metal was the kind of thing people lied about owning. Old men in backwater villages did not casually walk around with either.

He shook it off with a scoff. “Whatever, it's probably just some reinforced steel. I can cut through steel just fine."

Holm’s brows lifted in mild interest, just like a teacher would. “I’m sure you can,” he said. “You strike like someone who’s done it before.”

That wasn’t the reaction Hal wanted, and it made him furious.

Hal’s smile vanished.

He stepped forward again, slower this time, boots grinding deliberately against the stone. “You talk too much,” he said. “Old men are supposed to shake and beg when they realize they’ve made a mistake.”

Holm inclined his head. “Then this is a rare event indeed."

Hal’s jaw tightened.

He surged forward again, no theatrics this time. With the triggering of a talent, his sword came down in a full-commitment strike, red aura flaring bright as it carved through the air with lethal intent.

Holm raised his staff.

CLANG.

The sound cracked through the cave like a thunderclap. Stone dust rained from the ceiling as the force rippled outward. Hal’s boots dug grooves into the floor as he was driven back. He staggered, barely catching himself.

“That’s impossible,” Hal muttered. This had never happened to him before.

He unleashed a flurry of strikes faster and just as strong as the last, but not one landed. Each one blocked or parried, obvious openings in Hal’s defense becoming apparent, yet Holm never capitalized on any. Was he screwing with him or was he just not aware of how easy it would be to land a hit on Hal.

Holm exhaled slowly, shoulders lifting and falling. For the first time in this fight, there was strain there. Like a toddler trying to push open a door that an adult was keeping closed, Holm wasn’t budging an inch.

Hal’s arm throbbed violently as he pulled his sword back, fingers tingling as if the impact had rattled something deeper than muscle. The red aura around the blade flickered, then stabilized again, obedient as ever.

"That should have put me on par with low Emeralds, there is no way you should have been able to deflect that!" Hal screamed. Quincy wandered back to reality from his work and scrunched up his face in confusion, not really grasping the situation fully as he split his attention three ways.

Holm finally spoke. “You’re very strong,” he said, tone even. "But I'm a frontlining mage. I can fight, too."

Hal nervously chuckled at first, but his face slipped as his mind caught up to what he just heard. "A frontlining mage? That would mean you are splitting your stats."

“Frontlining mage...?” Hal repeated slowly. Only idiots even attempted to do that, and everyone knew the stories of people who split their stats evenly. They were half as strong as a mage or a warrior, which made them very, very weak respectively.

Hal’s laugh came out forced. “That’s… that’s not how that works,” he said, more to himself than to Holm. “You don’t get to stand in front and cast. You pick one or the other.”

He swallowed, eyes studying Holm again. The staff. The stance. The way he hadn’t moved back an inch.

“People who split their stats die,” Hal said. “They’re too slow to be warriors and too weak to be mages. They just end up mediocre at both.”

Holm didn’t correct him.

"Quincyyy?" He asked, voice rising an octave. "I need you to inspect this guy right now."

Quincy flinched at the edge in Hal’s voice and finally tore his attention away from the circle. The chalk lines were nearly finished, so interruptions got on his nerves tremendously.

“Inspect?” Quincy echoed, irritation flickering. “Hal, I’m in the middle of—”

“NOW!” Hal snapped.

Quincy was surprised at Hal's urgency and tone, it didn't feel right. What did he miss while he was working on the ritual drawing?

"[Inspect]." Quincy incanted.

Quincy felt it before he saw anything; a brief resistance in the flow of his mana like his spell had brushed against something dense and much more powerful. The familiar pane took longer than usual to form, flickering faintly as if unsure how much the system was allowed to reveal.

Inspection failed. Approximation provided.

Approximation? Quincy had never seen that in his life. Was this mage using some sort of skill or accessory to block the inspect spell? He glanced below the text to see what little he was allowed to read.

==========

Name: ?

Race: Human

Class: ?

Level: 2000

==========

Quincy’s blood went ice cold.

Unknown name meant interference or deliberate masking, which wasn't unheard of, but class not showing and level approximated meant the system had forced something through despite resistance.

His eyes flicked back to the figure standing just beyond the ritual circle. The old man hadn’t moved.

“That’s not possible,” Quincy murmured.

Hal turned his head slightly, expression turning to worry. “What, Quincy? What do you see?”

Quincy swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “It gave him an approximate level. Two thousand."

“Say that again,” Hal muttered.

Quincy didn’t. He didn’t need to.

Holm finally shifted his weight, the staff making a soft clink sound as it touched stone again. Not as a threat, but a reminder that he was still there.

"Quincy?" Hal asked. "Can you help me fight him?"

"Yeah." He responded.

Even two on one against a class splitter didn't guarantee their victory.

For a heartbeat, nothing changed. Holm still stood with his shoulders slightly rounded, staff planted like a walking aid, face worn and unremarkable.

Then something shifted.

It started in his eyes.

The gentle haze faded, replaced by a sharp, predatory focus that had no place on a retired schoolteacher’s face. Holm’s eyes widened just a fraction, pupils dilating as if the dim cave light suddenly wasn’t enough for him anymore.

His face seemed to rearrange itself around the expression. The corners of his mouth pulled back into naked delight, teeth bared in a way that felt wrong on a human face. There was joy there. Bloodlust. The unmistakable thrill of violence ready to be unleashed.

For an instant, Holm didn’t look like a man at all. He looked like something pretending to be one.