Leyline Magus: An Isekai Progression Fantasy, page 1
Leyline Magus
Isaac Keyes
Marcus Sloss
Copyright © 2024 by Marcus Sloss and Isaac Keyes
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Author’s Note
Check This Out!
Chapter One
My phone rang into the darkness of the night.
I felt along my nightstand until I found it. “Yes?” I answered, my voice gravelly.
A high-pitched, excited barrage of words came through, talking fast. Whatever had John so worked up was forcing me to pull the phone away from my ear.
“Slow down, John. What’s happening?”
I only caught every other word, but if he could be believed — which I was very dubious about — something bizarre had happened. Or was happening. It wasn’t clear.
“Okay. Don’t worry. I’ll be there. I’ll take care of it.” Whatever it was.
I hung up and laid the phone down on the nightstand. I hadn’t opened my eyes, but I knew it was still the dead of night. I inhaled deeply, enjoying being under the covers for a moment, before I had to get up and take care of whatever John was so afraid of. His description of this “event” left a lot to the imagination.
With a herculean effort, I tossed the blankets aside and sat up. I still didn’t open my eyes. I opened the top drawer of the dresser next to my bed, pulled out some clothes and laid them on the still-warm sheets. I finally cracked my eyes open as I stumbled over to the closet and pulled a random shirt off a hanger. It didn’t matter which one it was; they were all work shirts.
As I dressed in the gloom, my mind wandered to everything I could be walking into. The only rational words John had said to me were that weird lights and sounds were occurring in the job site basement. He’d said a lot of other things that I disregarded as hysteria.
This issue was possibly electrical, possibly explosive, or possibly something else entirely. It sounded like a job for an electrician or the fire department. But no, the fire department would want to fill out paperwork and document the whole thing, so I got called instead; keeping it all hush-hush and under the rug.
I got paid very well for handling these sorts of things. A lot for my skill, a little for my discretion — not that job sites normally required hiding anything, and all my work easily passed inspection.
The kitchen lights were blinding when I flipped them on. Still wobbling on my feet, I pulled a thermos out of the cabinet and filled it with tea. I slugged half of it down immediately and refilled the thing again.
Okay. Let’s get this done.
The sounds of my boots echoed down the hallway as I left my apartment, the fluorescent lights even worse than the ones in my kitchen as I stepped outside, a soft shower of droplets trailing off the roof of the building.
The one nice thing about two-in-the-morning calls was that there wasn’t any traffic to deal with. I didn’t bother turning the radio on. I just drank more tea and listened to the rain hitting my truck as I made my leisurely way to the worksite. The drive ended all too soon.
As I pulled through the temporary fence, John was there, waving me down. He was the night watchman, and although he was a nice enough guy, I was a little surprised that he’d done any actual watching. He was dressed in his usual, slightly wrinkled, uniform and had a pair of sunglasses on his head. I didn’t recall ever seeing them over his eyes, even in the daytime.
When I pulled up beside him, I rolled the window down and gave John a flat stare. I didn’t say anything.
“Dan! You’re here!”
I chuckled. “I’m here.”
John fidgeted, clearly nervous. “Great! So glad you could—”
“Cut to the chase, huh?”
“Okay, yeah.” His eyes flicked toward the not-so-towering building that would eventually become a tower. Well, a skyscraper. Same difference. “There’s something, uh, weird going on in the basement with all the new systems.”
I didn’t say anything, just kept staring, knowing that he’d keep talking in a second.
“Uh, yeah, so, like, there’s these weird … lights? And wow, you can’t even imagine the sounds!”
“Is it a fire?” It seemed like a stupid question, but I asked a lot of stupid questions that somehow needed to be asked.
“I don’t think so.”
He didn’t think so. I suppressed a laugh. As bumbling as he was, I didn’t want to mock him. “Okay. Is it an electrical thing?”
“I’m not sure.”
Riveting stuff. I nodded. “Alright. I’ll go check it out. Did you call anyone else?”
“No. I was told to call you first.”
“Good. And thanks, John. I’ll go check it out.”
My boots crunched on the gravel as I stepped out of the truck, the rain still coming down. I didn’t bother hurrying into the building; being wet would be a good thing if it were a fire. I picked up an extinguisher on my way in, even though I didn’t think that’s what it was. If it had been, it’d probably have engulfed the building in the time it took me to get here and be obvious. Still, better to have the extinguisher and not need it.
I pulled my flashlight from the pocket of my jacket, where it always lived, and flicked it on. Its rays illuminated partially-constructed hallways devoid of any other light. They were pretty creepy, but honestly, they kinda were in the daytime, too. They were almost regular, human-made structures, but not quite, as if some otherworldly entity had heard of buildings and tried to build one without seeing any. I shook my head and groaned. I read too many fiction novels.
I unlocked the basement door using one of the many keys on my ring, and made my way down. The stairs were new and shiny, but the way they groaned under my steps made it feel like they should’ve been rusted through, this place falling apart and filled with ancient, malevolent—
Okay. Focus.
This night had somehow gone from comedy to surrealism, and now to horror. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I started to see some irregularly flashing lights from around a corner. They weren’t the flickering of fire or the stuttering flashes of broken lights. They faded in and out, and I could swear they were changing colors, if only a little.
“Okaaay…”
I took a few steps down the hallway towards the lights, and then the sounds started. They were weird, undulating sounds that were, for some reason I couldn’t name, deeply unsettling. As they rose and fell, it felt like they were pushing and pulling me, even though that was stupid.
“Okay, John,” I said softly to myself, “I take back all the thoughts that I had about you during our short conversation.” This shit was weird. My steps were slow and careful, and I looked before I took each one, convinced I was going to fall through the floor or something. Nothing about this situation felt right.
I powered on, creeping closer to the anomaly, the sounds getting louder and the lights brighter. Through a massive force of will, I made myself walk around the corner and glance into the room. My jaw dropped.
The sound and light wasn’t coming from any of the machines. They were all there, perfectly fine, completely whole and undamaged. It wasn’t a fire. It was a free-floating amalgam of light that twisted in on itself, surrounding a dark core, which was the source of the sound.
“What the hell?” I said softly to no one. “It’s a … black hole?”
No, that was dumb. Wasn’t it?
I don’t know why I went closer. I should’ve turned and run. I should’ve called someone. The FBI? The MIB? This was a hundred times above my already-high pay grade. I didn’t think there was enough money in the world to adequately pay anyone for dealing with this thing. It was just wrong, in all the ways. Of course, while those thoughts were going on in my head and the hairs were standing up on my arms, my feet were taking me closer. Step by step, I walked towards it.
There was surely a rational explanation for this thing. It could be ball lightning, or St. Elmo’s fire. Or just some weird shit I’d never heard of. Hey, maybe nobody’s ever heard of, or seen, something like this! I could be the guy that discovered it! I already had a name picked out: Dan’s Luminosity. Yeah. That sounds cool.
My boot hit the ground at the end of the steps, and the thing started pulsing wildly, its lights flaring outward and across the room. Grasping tentacles reached out of its dark core, moving in a way that light shouldn’t move.
The sounds intensified as it continued pulsing faster, and I swore it was pulling me in.
“Nope!” I turned and bolted, but a second after I did, the pull became overwhelming. My boots slid across the floor as it dragged me towards it. “Oh, fuck no!” I lunged toward a nearby workbench that was scooting across the unfinished subfloor. My fingers wrapped around a hammer and I pulled myself along the table, but I was still being hauled backward to the thing. I smashed the hammer through some drywall until I hooked a stud.
Okay, that’s it! I can make it out from here.
I yanked myself toward the wall and clawed my way, stud by stud, towards the door.
Unfortunately, the gravitational pull was getting stronger as the seconds passed. I looked down in horror as my body was lifted off the floor and into the air. I gripped the hammer as tightly as I could, but it wasn’t enough. The thing’s power kept growing, and finally, my strength failed. I slipped off the table and hurtled into the unknown.
Briefly, I saw a pair of wide, golden, glowing eyes.
Chapter Two
A cool breeze drifted over me as I lay there. I’d kicked off my blankets and had left the window open when I’d gone to bed.
I didn’t open my eyes and sighed. Well, that was a weirdly realistic but also not-realistic dream I just had. I groaned and stretched my whole body, wondering what time it was. Daylight, at least. Not the middle of the night anymore.
My eyes flew open, and many things flitted through my head at once. I wasn’t lying on my mattress. It felt like the ground. I was fully dressed and even had my boots on. The sun was shining directly into my face, which it couldn’t do in my bedroom.
My hand felt wild grass and weeds, and there was a heavy scent of forest all around me. I sat bolt upright, my eyes wide as I took in the unexpected scene. The grass and leaves on the trees were a bright golden color, interspersed with a rainbow of colorful flowers. I sat there for a moment, fighting to get my breathing under control.
When the blood stopped pumping so hard in my veins, I ran my hand through the grass again. It felt real. No, it was real. I patted myself down. Yep, real and awake. I slowly stood and gazed at the scene around me. I wandered over to a tree and tentatively touched its bark. Also real.
That weird-ass light and sound thing had been real. And it had dumped me somewhere entirely foreign. I ran my hands through the grass again, and took the time to really examine the flowers throughout. They were flowers, but some of them had petals that were oddly shaped. I’d never seen or heard of anything like them before, let alone the golden grass.
I was in another world.
For a moment, a thousand thoughts tore through my mind. But they all faded away as I stood there, boggling at my surroundings.
My silent reverie lasted for a solid ten minutes before something else became clear. If I focused, I could see faint trails of light emanating from, and flowing through, everything. A translucent layer of light was running through all the trees, the ground, and the very air itself. It undulated, just like the light from the anomaly that had pulled me here. That’s probably important and relevant. While I stood there, I felt a slight push and pull like I’d felt earlier.
Throwing caution to the wind, I followed the feeling and pulled at the light waves in the ground.
They moved. A little mound of dirt formed where I had been concentrating.
My eyes went as wide as they could go. I tried again, this time pulling on the air around me.
I caused a stiff breeze.
The blood started hammering in my veins again. I have magic. Real magic. Holy shit.
I pulled a ball of dirt from the ground with fucking magic and threw it — also with magic — across the clearing, where it hit the ground with a little thud. “SHIT!” I shouted, because what else could I even say? “What else!? What else can I do!?” There were lines of magic — because that’s what it was, I realized — flowing through everything, even the trees. I marched directly up to one and pulled on the magic in one of its branches.
The leaves withered, turned black, and fell away. The branch shortly followed, coming loose and falling to the ground.
“Whoops.”
I stepped slowly back. Okay then. Maybe a little more caution is a good idea.
A twig snapped from behind another tree.
I rapidly changed my opinion about not caring if a monster popped out of the underbrush and ate me. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”
A man stepped out from behind the tree. Well, a man-like thing. Guy. Thing. It wasn’t clear. He had small gray scales across the sides of his face, over the top of his hairless head, and down his arms. His eyes were bright green and had vertical slits, which weirded me out. He was dressed in an assortment of weathered clothes and a few bits of leather armor, which seemed like they were more for ornamentation than actual defense. Unless he was good at taking blows only on the shoulder or in the gut. In his hand was a short, shiny sword that appeared plain, but well-made. His eyes were locked on me and contained a hint of malice.
A fight felt inevitable.
I’d been in my fair share of fights. I had started a few, too. Not that I was proud of it. Most of them had been with belligerent coworkers who wanted an outlet for their own frustration rather than a conversation or problem-solving. But others were misunderstandings that I should have de-escalated and didn’t. I had not, however, been in a fight where the other guy had a fucking sword. I’d been in two fights where the other guy had a knife, and I’d gotten really lucky both times. But based on those experiences, I knew what had to be done: I had to end this, as fast and brutally as possible. Otherwise, I’d be getting the pointy end of that blade.
The scaled guy-thing didn’t say a word as he advanced, twirling the sword in his hands. A small smile spread across his lips as he sized me up. Unarmed, is what he was undoubtedly thinking. Easy prey.
Asshole. I’d show him.
I brought my hands up and widened my stance, waiting for him to move first. I only had one chance, and I wasn’t going to fuck it up.
He looked confident that he was going to win, his posture showing that he knew what he was doing. He stepped closer slowly, his eyes locked on mine. When he struck, it was fast. He aimed for my chest, not wasting any time.
I stepped to the side, avoiding his sword, but moving forward into his guard as well. I clamped my left hand down on his wrist and my right hand grabbed his upper arm, pushing the sword away and pulling him in close. I kneed him hard in the crotch three times.
His whole body convulsed, and he dropped the sword with a strangled grunt. He might have said some words, but I couldn’t make them out.
I kicked the blade away and forced him back. I was hoping to trip him, but he stayed upright, probably running on pure adrenaline. We gripped each other tightly, pushing and pulling, each of us vying for dominance. I thought I had him, but he twisted. Before I knew it, the world was spinning.
I landed hard on my back.
His hands reached for my throat.
Before he could strangle me, I caught his wrists. He grunted in frustration.
Oh yeah. I have magic now.
Not really knowing what I was doing, I reached out to the magic flowing through the ground, and ripped a clod of dirt from beside my head.
I flung it into his face.
With a grunt, he toppled off me. Before I could use the advantage, he rolled away, an expression of pure terror in his green, serpentine eyes. With a desperate scramble, he got to his feet and started running away.
“Aw, shit,” I muttered. If I let him get away, he’d probably come back with friends. And magic or not, I didn’t like the odds of fighting off multiple, probably armed, people. My breath came fast as I got up and sped after him.
We ran into the forest, dodging trees as we went. I tried the magic again, choosing the one ability I was sure I could do, flinging misshapen clods of dirt at him, one after another. I mostly missed. There were several glancing blows before I finally managed to hit him in the back of the head. He went down.
He was facing away from me as I jumped on him, unsure what else to do. Punch him to death? Try to break his neck?
