Chapter 103: Eye to Eye

  With the same ease that Parth possessed, the doppelganger held up his palm and conjured a floating fireball. The reddish-orange ball of flames darted forward a few meters and then slowed down to the same pace as the two green-skinned people. The whole place looked eerie, now that the only source of light was the fireball.

  Parth was just a pillion in this ride, but he kept his metaphorical eyes peeled nonetheless. If this were real, then he’d learn more about the darkness ahead. His major reason for not exploring the cavern was the unknown. If he knew what was ahead, then maybe his team could avoid relocating and stay a bit deeper in the cavern.

  There was always the risk of monsters, but that risk was present everywhere inside the dungeon. As long as they killed it quickly, there would be no risk of a cave-in. And if this place was one of those traps, then as long as the hidden mana crystals were intact, the cavern would take no physical damage. But that was neither here nor there. Sometimes the traps could only be present in specific portions, and the rest of the area could incur damage as usual.

  “How much farther, Dad?” the inquisitive daughter asked.

  “Patience, princess. We’ve just entered the cave,” the doppelganger said.

  As Parth watched, the doppelganger ventured down as if he knew this place like the back of his hand, as if he’d been here a thousand times before. A few minutes later, he came to a gradual stop, the fireball halting in tandem.

  “Now, close your eyes, and do as I taught you,” he said to his daughter.

  “Okay.”

  She stood still for a few seconds, eyes closed, face scrunched up in concentration.

  “No monsters,” she declared, eyes still closed.

  “Is it? That’s good. But what about the path? Can you find the way?” The doppelganger asked in an amused tone.

  “Yes. We just need to keep going forward!”

  “But what about the fork we’ll be coming across soon? Do we go left or right?”

  She seemed to silently ponder the answer before opening her eyes and giving her father a sheepish look. “Left?”

  The doppelganger began chuckling at that and shook his head. “You need to practice more, honey. There’s no fork up ahead. Just a steady descent.”

  “Oh! You lied, Dad. That’s not fair,” she said as she harrumphed and turned the other direction.

  “Dad’s sorry, princess. But I just had to call out your bluff.”

  She just shook her head and kept looking the other way. Parth felt the doppelganger’s body slowly crouching to the child’s eye level as the green-skinned man gently turned his daughter around. Parth expected a mock-glare or a stubborn pout. What he got instead was the girl fully blowing a raspberry at her father.

  The two just laughed for a few moments, and the doppelganger got back up.

  “This time, I’ll be guiding you. Okay?”

  “Sure thing!”

  “Good girl. Now, once again, concentrate. Close your eyes, let your mana flow through you,” the doppelganger instructed. Although he kept his eyes wide open. But Parth could feel the change immediately, as a steady trickle of mana began flowing through the doppelganger’s body.

  “Focus on the mana coursing through your head.” The moment he said it, Parth could specifically feel a touch of intent coursing through his mana. He then had a sense of whiplash, given that it was technically the doppelganger’s body and mana. “Feel it flowing around your noggin. Don’t influence it just yet. Don’t send it to your eyes, ears, or nose, none of that. Just trace the mana.” And as the doppelganger said, he did. Parth personally had never meditated on his mana on such a fine level. Sure, he had focused on control exercises that the triplets taught him. Exercises he inherited from the Pygilists of the past. But it was never at this level of precision that his doppelganger was displaying. Moreover, Parth’s effort had always been geared towards combat. He had not let himself relax and just explore the joy in magic. It seemed like a mistake now.

  Compared to the rest of the body, the mana flow inside the brain was quite unique. Usually, the mana ran in a metaphysical lane parallel to the flow of blood. But deep inside the head, it switched up. It was as if the center of his brain was a bar magnet laid out horizontally. And the mana flow was eerily similar to magnetic fields. It flowed through the left and the right hemispheres in tight, closed loops. The left loops and the right loops touched each other in the center of the brain, elongating and running lengthwise together in that section of their loop. He never saw a three-dimensional representation of magnetic fields. He’d only ever seen it in two-dimensional sketches. But the mana inside his brain was doing a pretty spectacular job of showing him what it must have looked like.

  He was never great at physics. If he were, maybe he’d have better utilized the principles of thermodynamics in his arsenal. So, he had no idea why he was suddenly so focused on magnetic fields.

  “Now, try to feel the one tangent of mana that is running against the grain.” The doppelganger’s voice snapped Parth out of his out-of-character scientific tangent. He realized that the level of depth in internal mana control was enhancing his own thought process. Which made no sense, as once again, this was not his body. This was not his brain. So why were his thoughts speeding up in tandem with the mana flowing inside the doppelganger’s head?

  “I know this, Dad. You’ve taught me already!”

  “Then why did we have problems the first time around?” His voice never lost that tone of amusement.

  “It’s because this is hard!”

  As the father and daughter were talking, Parth’s heightened state forced him to notice that the language being spoken was completely foreign to him. It was not D’Raakan. Nor was it English, Tamil, Hindi, or any other language he was familiar with. But he could understand it perfectly. In some ways, it was a bit similar to his mother tongue. But foreign, nonetheless.

  Magic truly spat in the face of logic. He was viewing some sort of memory through the head of another, and the knowledge was bleeding over freely. It felt as if he had drunk a potent version of the translation potion the D’Raacs had fed him when he first arrived in their world. He wondered if his brain would retain this language when he woke up. After all, no matter how surreal this seemed, it was a dream. Or maybe magic would wipe the floor with that logic as well.

  “I know, princess. I know. That’s why I’m guiding you now, aren’t I?”

  “Yes...” she trailed off with a pout.

  “Alright then. Do you feel that specific strand of mana?” Parth could feel it acutely. It was like a single coil that was holding together the loops of mana.

  A few seconds later, she replied. “I do.”

  “Perfect. Now, start pushing more mana into that strand. No rushing. Be slow and steady. As he said it, Parth could feel the mana inside his own head changing as instructed. The next second, Parth’s world exploded with information. The half-baked heat sense that had been flickering on and off so far felt like yesterday’s trash in comparison. The new sense he had just gotten glimpses of bloomed completely. It was as if his ears and nose were clogged his whole life, and only now did they unclog.

  So far, it was just like a compass when it deigned to work. But now, it was a different ballgame altogether.

  He was at the center of a massive sphere, and he could feel everything within the sphere. He wasn’t omniscient, nowhere close. But he could feel the temperature of everything within his range. Correction, this was his doppelganger’s domain that must have taken a long time to develop. Parth’s true capabilities with this ability would only be tested when he woke up from this vision. If it even worked this way for him. If it even worked at all.

  It was odd, feeling things that were not in his line of sight, nor within the range of any of his other senses. Despite that, right there, right then, he felt a sense of clarity that he had never felt before. A sense of clarity that he wished he’d retain in his wakefulness.

  “Feel anything real this time?” The doppelganger asked softly.

  “There’s nobody else here,” she said.

  The most obvious heat signatures in his range were himself, the girl, and the fireball, which had the exact same heat signature as him. And he called them signatures because there was a distinct tang that accompanied the heat. That was when Parth realized that it was not just mere heat that he was sensing. Because he could acutely feel the temperature differentials in the air. And the heat coming from the air was different when compared to the heat emanating from the two people and the fireball.

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  The heat emanating from the fireball was mixing with the air and making it hotter. Still, the signature of that air and of the fireball itself had a different flavor to their heat, so to speak. Their bodies were doing the same, albeit far more subtly and negligibly than a ball of fire.

  “That’s the easy part. We’re the only two people here, yes. But is there something else here?”

  “A few bats up ahead... Wait! There is a fork. You lied again, Dad,” she shouted in indignation.

  “Hah, but you lied first, didn’t you? I was just checking if you were giving the correct answer or making stuff up.”

  While he was speaking, his senses were already on overdrive, scanning the cavern. As his daughter said, he could feel a bunch of tiny heat signatures up ahead. Bats. The heat emanating from the bats was different. Just like everything else, their heat did not have the same weight as the heat from the humanoids. Logically, heat was just heat. Yet there was a distinction here. That was because they didn’t possess mana. Just common critters. Nothing magical about them... How did Parth know that? It was not mere guesswork. There was an absolute certainty in his thoughts, as if he knew this to be a fact. Was it because he was inside the head of another person? Were things more than just senses bleeding over to Parth?

  “We need to go right. I’m sure this time,” she said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I can feel mom’s crystals on the left!”

  Sure enough, the doppelganger subconsciously focused on the hot wind traveling through the two paths. The path on the left had something cold in it. Something that had mana.

  “Correct. Good job, princess. Let’s move,” he said as the fireball floated forward once more, and they began following. Parth noticed that the doppelganger turned off his temperature sensing while he walked. It was a simple maneuver of just cutting off the extra flow of mana to that specific channel of mana in his brain.

  Soon, they came across the fork that they were talking about and took the right without pausing. For a brief moment, Parth caught sight of one of the crystals that he had sensed. It looked too transparent, and the mist rolling off it looked very familiar. But he didn’t have the faculties to stop and observe. The body kept moving on autopilot.

  A few minutes of silent walking later, the descending path started getting steeper. The ambient temperature spiked steeply as well. The doppelganger circulated a bit of mana throughout his body and used it to stabilize his gait and combat the heat. Given the way his daughter was walking without any trouble, she must be doing the same. People who were born with active magic truly used it without a thought, as if it were second nature. For him, who was new to all this, it took conscious effort. All the training and the relentless combat had made Parth better, but he knew that he still had a long way to go for himself to be comparable to a native practitioner in terms of mana control.

  Meanwhile, the doppelganger kept firing his heat sense up at set intervals to scout the path. It was barely a blip in his stride. He stopped for a second, fired the sense, noticed nothing odd, and kept walking. During one of these bursts, Parth got an idea of why they were making this journey. Down below, he could feel a lot of heat. The kind of heat that was attached to a mana source. And this heat was rising, and then mixing with the air, the mana slowly withering away, just making it hot air.

  Inside a mountain, a rising source of heat meant nothing good. And on cue, the tunnel took a turn, and the fireball was no longer necessary. Because there was a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, and it was glowing orange, illuminating the tunnel quite well.

  Parth did not like where this was going. More so if this indeed mirrored their current location perfectly. The doppelganger extinguished the fireball and beckoned his daughter to follow.

  “Don’t be afraid. We have our magic. Nothing here can harm us,” he said out loud as he held his daughter’s hand and led her forward. The girl nodded and kept walking with wide eyes. What she failed to hear was the silent “Yet” that he mumbled at the end. Parth, due to riding shotgun, heard it loud and clear, confirming his suspicions.

  They walked out of the tunnel, but couldn’t go further, as the tunnel’s entrance was located over a ledge. And deep down below was the source of the orange light: a massive pool of lava. The entire structure was a humongous, hollow cylinder in the center of the mountain. High up above, there was a tiny hole that let in sunlight. If there were any doubts before, then they were gone now. This was a volcano, and they were looking at the lava lake, which had most likely risen from the underground magma chamber.

  “Whoa...” she said as she looked around the place in wonder. And wondrous it was, yet equal parts terrifying. One slip, and down into the lava you went.

  “Welcome to Siga’s Heart,” the doppelganger said as he kneeled down, peering over the edge. His mana automatically shifted gears and circulated across his body even more than before, fending off the excess temperature and the pressure. “Open up your senses again, darling.”

  The next moment, Parth could feel the heat in all its glory, and it terrified him. It was instantly apparent that the lava was rich with mana. Once again, there was that specific flavor to the heat that signified it. And the lava, and the air right atop it, were so hot that it was nigh-impossible to discern how much of it there was.

  “I can’t tell if it’s rising or not,” she said, causing the doppelganger to look at her and smile grimly.

  “This is why we are here. If our senses alone were enough, we didn’t even need to get this close. But the heat’s just too much for us to tell.”

  Just eyeballing it was not viable as well. The air was distorted due to the sheer heat. Apart from this shimmering here, there were pockets of vapors rising up here and there. The heat and the fumes made standing in such a place painful. If not for their mana enhancement, they’d be in a bad state.

  “So how can we tell?” she asked.

  “Form a sphere first.”

  “Mist, steam, or anything in between?” she asked cheekily.

  “Your call. But nothing cold, because it’ll get dissipated immediately and beat the purpose of the exercise.”

  “Alright, something super-hot then,” she said as she cupped her hands together and scrunched her face in concentration. Within seconds, a shimmering ball of air formed in her hands. She then looked at her father questioningly.

  “Not enough. You can maintain it here, where there is no interference. But down there, the mana from the lava will mess with your construct. At that time, you can’t focus on both the temperature and composition.”

  “Hmmm... I got it,” she said as she squeezed the sphere, shrinking it and expelling most of the air from the construct. She then threw it at the lava.

  “Slowly,” the doppelganger warned her. Parth could see why, as the tiny sphere quickly ballooned in size as it descended rapidly. Moreover, through the heat sense, he could feel how the hot air from the lava got sucked into the sphere, causing it to expand.

  Heeding the warning, she let much of the excess air leak from the sphere. But retained enough to fortify its shape. Instead of generating the heat, she had co-opted the existing heat inside this place to stabilize her construct. Clever.

  “Now, I won’t be able to guide you precisely, since the extreme heat will soon mask everything. But as long as your construct exists, you can still feel its mana, because it’s a part of you. Use your judgment, and once it floats close enough to the lava, lock it in place.”

  She didn’t reply, but she was in the zone, concentrating hard as she followed the instructions to the T. Soon, Parth could see a tiny speck floating above the lava pool. The distance traveled by the construct gave him some perspective on how far away the lava actually was. There really was no way to eyeball it correctly from this height.

  A second later, there was a small pop and a flash of light as the girl winced and shook her head. She took a deep breath and created another sphere. “Sorry, Dad, I briefly touched it, and the air combusted. I got it now, though. I know the distance.”

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t get this my first time either. And I was a few years older than you when your grandfather brought me here.”

  She smiled, but didn’t say anything as the second sphere descended towards the lava. Parth could see the speck once again, and this time, there was no disturbance, as the construct stayed in place. The doppelganger followed suit, making several fireballs and letting them float downward, placing them at different spots over the pool.

  “In the future, when I’m old and feeble, or busy with something else. You’ll have to do the same. If you find a better way to do it, that works as well. But we need to be sure if what we’re inferring is the truth,” he said solemnly.

  “I’ll do it!”

  “Good. Now let’s sit and concentrate.”

  The doppelganger shut down the heat sense and focused solely on the fireballs. They sat there like that for a good while before the ball of hot gas popped again.

  “It wasn’t me this time. I held it in place,” she said.

  “Indeed. Siga is waking up...”

  The vision ended abruptly, and Parth was back in his body. He quickly got up, startling Kwame.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing... just another weird vision.” He still felt the phantom sensation of his doppelganger’s constructs making contact with lava.

  “Huh... what was it this time?”

  “Hopefully nothing important. But let me check.”

  “What do you mean?” asked a bewildered Kwame.

  “Just gimme a minute,” Parth said as he sat cross-legged. This vision had been so different than the rest. Yet, it gave him something tangible to verify the veracity of these things. He thought back to the way the doppelganger had manipulated his mana and replicated the process. His heart started hammering against his chest the moment he zeroed in on the mana running inside his head. It followed the same pattern as the vision. Spooked, he pushed mana to that single strand, and his world exploded with temperature signals of varying size, shape, and motions.

  He couldn’t maintain the sense for long, but he didn’t need to. The fact that this method worked was enough to send alarm bells ringing inside his head. But he needed to do another check. He hadn’t sensed any monster. Heck, even the bats from the vision were not there inside the cavern. And why would they be? This was a dungeon. The inhabitants were the voyagers and the monsters. There was nothing else in between. With the way the doppelganger spoke, this place seemed to be a part of a real ecosystem. Maybe the dungeon had sourced its geography from other places as well. It made sense; it was a dimensional pocket. It sourced its meal from elsewhere. Why not get the utensils from somewhere as well?

  But all that pondering could come later. Right now, he needed one last confirmation.

  “Kwame, did you get enough rest?” Parth asked, unnerved.

  “Yeah.”

  “And Moira?”

  “She used a low hearts and went to sleep a couple of hours ago. She told me to wake her up in three hours.” He looked at his screen and hummed, “About forty minutes left. We should be good to go once she wakes up.”

  Parth nodded in agreement. But before they left, he had something to confirm. “I’ll explain later, but I need to check something. You good on your own for ten minutes?”

  “I guess. Where are you going?” Kwame asked.

  “I’ll tell you all about it. But it’s better if I do it quickly. I’ll be back soon,” Parth said as he ran into the cave without hesitation. He threw a fireball in front of him and let it illuminate the path as he blitzed through it.

  He arrived at the fork within a minute and looked at the left path. He couldn’t see the crystals, nor could he feel any cold through his sense. It didn’t give him any solace, though. Just the fact that the path looked the same meant that they were in deep shit. He took the right and kept running.

  Soon, he arrived at the last turn and saw the same orange glow. He skidded to a stop and walked out of the tunnel, onto the ledge. To his horror, the lake of lava was indeed there.

  He wasn’t about to do the test to see the current state. It didn’t matter if it was rising or not; they needed to get far away from this hill, nay, volcano.