It was too hot in this desert heat, he was too tired, and this whole operation was too much to bear. But bear it I must, he thought, nodding to himself.

They had to close the rifts which had formed around the world. Rifts were like a crack in glass. They start out small, but when left alone those cracks crawl along the surface, and spider out in all directions. And if one crack gains momentum and joins with another large crack…the glass would eventually shatter.

But the world was not a piece of glass that could be replaced. If the cracks were to spread and converge, there would be no fallback, no plan B.

He could sense that the rift was nearby. Once you’ve been near one, your body develops a ‘tell’, a sign that something is very, very wrong. For him, the hairs on the back of neck would stand on end. He rubbed the back of his neck and continued his hike, following the map he traded for off of a passing caravan. There should be a village up ahead, and he would talk with them to see if they had noted anything out of the ordinary.

As he neared the village gates, his blood ran cold. It was too quiet. No sounds of people, no barking of dogs, no chirping of birds. Even the palm leaves on the trees seemed to have stilled.

They’re already dead. He shook his head, casting away the thought. Act first. Mourn later.

Every step into the village shrouded his heart with an ethereal chill. He tore out a warding spell, signed it with Aletheia, and took a breath to steel himself. They were coming for him. They would sense the magic emanating from the Implement and be drawn towards it.

He clutched Altheia and projected a message to the others:

I’m in position.

Now what? she thought, already in position. The rift wasn’t too difficult to find, her eye always twitched when one was nearby, so it wasn’t hard to pinpoint it. But this one…this one was different. There should be Reachers streaming out of this thing, attacking her. But as far as she could tell, there was not a single one in the large meadow before her.

Something had to be wrong. She felt her mind ripple, and a voice tuned inside her head, “Storm…other side…suppression.” She could not make out the rest. When they had tested out their Implement link earlier, the voices were clear as if the person were standing right next to them. This was like trying to pick out a voice in radio static.

Now both of her eyes twitched, and she leapt back, startled. The rift was growing at an alarming rate. It seemed to respond to the message that had just been projected. Dammit, I warned them about this possibility. The pens were linked and could transmit thoughts, but what they didn’t understand well enough was how they could do this. To her it was obvious – it utilizes the surrounding magic for transmission. That means it will also transmit all magic – good or bad. If they continued to communicate using these, they risked enhancing these rifts before they could close them.

And now she had to warn the others, while risk bolstering any rifts in their vicinity. If this kept up, the only way to collapse the rifts would be from the inside, and that was suicide.

She gripped Chara and cursed under her breath. It couldn’t be helped.

“Guys, I’ve got some bad news…”

“Will you help me?” A small girl asked him. He nodded, face solemn. He crouched down and met the girl’s gaze. “But first I need your help. Can you take me to your home?”

“I don’t want to go back there,” she said, shaking her head.

“I know you are scared. But you look like a very brave girl to me. Are you brave?”

She nodded, holding her chin up.

“That’s what I thought. Please, lead the way. I will be with you the whole time,” he said, trying to reassure the frightened child.

The girl led him through the small village. Not a single person stirred within. As they walked, he noticed that the voices of the other Arcanists communicating through the pens began to trail off. He could sense something was happening, he just hoped his spell would hold out long enough.

“Mister, why do you want to go to my house?”

“I’m looking for something,” he said.

“What are you looking for? My parents aren’t home. They are…gone.”

“I’m not looking for your parents. I’m looking for a doorway.”

“Oh. We have some doors in our house, I guess,” she said, brow furrowed.

She led him into the heart of the village, and to the doorstep of a squat cottage with a roof of thatch. “Can we go now?”

“Just a little while longer. I need to go inside for a moment,” he said, opening the door. He stepped inside, and the girl followed close behind him.

He looked around. This had to be where it was, but he could not sense the location of the rift. The chaotic energies flowing throughout the village made it hard to sense much of anything. It was akin to picking out a singular voice in a crowded tavern. He pulled out a spell and signed it. The spell cast, though it felt…delayed. He walked from room to room until he found one with a small bed. On a shelf sat a stuffed bear with a torn ear and an eye missing. He could just make out a trickle of bright particles in the air. The rift was slight, but it was there.

“My teddy! I’m so sorry I forgot you!” The girl ran in and reached out for her stuffed bear. She stopped, noticing that her hand had passed through the toy. She looked up, wide-eyed, at him. “Mister?”

He bit his lip. Taking a deep breath, he knelt down to the little girl. “All right, it’s time for me to help you now. You see this page?” he asked, showing her a page in his grimoire.

The girl nodded, silent.

“This is a magic spell. This is going to take you home.”

“But…isn’t this my home?”

He shook his head. “You have a new one. Your family is waiting for you there. But this,” he said, gesturing to the particles emanating from the rift, “…is keeping you from going there. This magic spell is going to release you.”

“Release me?”

“You will see,” he said, signing the spell with Menos. This spell was delayed, too, but did cast. He looked over and the little girl had vanished.

“Go in peace, little one,” he whispered. Then, standing, “Leave your vengeance to me.”

All her life, people would give her trouble about her plans. Either they were “too complex”, or that a plan wasn’t needed for something so “simple”. And if their endeavors failed? It was always something or someone else’s fault – not the fact that they had ignored her plans.

And her plans weren’t complex. They were quite simple. They just had layers. Each layer helped support the base layer – the ultimate goal. It was for this reason that she specialized in trap magic. A good trap also needed layers – one trap was not sufficient for larger operations. And Meridian? This was the largest coordinated operation she had ever been a part of.

Not that she’d been asked. She found out about the operation through another Arcanist and managed to negotiate her way onto the team. Everyone likes to keep trap makers at the headquarters and outposts to bolster defenses, but rarely do we get to travel on operations. She was excited – this was a golden opportunity to prove that trap makers were essential to special ops.

A powerful wind kicked up near the location of the rift some 40 yards ahead of her. It was somehow originating from the rift. She turned to one of her traps. The spell did not trigger. Impossible. She rushed over to it but could see that it was trying to cast. The paper already disintegrating, but only one small fragment at a time.

She smiled. Magic suppression. Clever. She was not used to Reachers being clever. That was new. But she didn’t mind, because the one thing she liked more than plans was a challenge. And for once in all her isolated monotonous tenure as an Arcanist, she finally had one. She hurried over to her suitcase, which she had almost regretted hauling 20 miles to this location and pulled out Grimoire #27: Energy Systems. She turned the book over to the back and flipped it. This was how she stored her dark magic spells. Technically, dark magic was a no-no if you were a strict rule-follower. But she dealt in magic. Magic itself doesn’t follow rules so well, so why should she?

She found the spell she had been searching for. She glanced over the glyphs and made some edits. A little tweak and she could network this spell with the others. She signed the spell. It cast instantly, energized by the dark magic carried upon the gale that was swooping around the clearing.

Like clockwork, the other spells and layers of traps she had set began to trigger and come to life, now feeding ravenously upon the influx of dark magic. It began to amplify and soon the storm became nothing more than a gentle breeze.

I love it when a plan comes together.

The small charter plane hummed along, and the Arcanist had little to do than think about the operation ahead. One shot was all they really had. Of all the types of magic, there were none that could manipulate time. A good thing, to be sure, as it would be far too tempting to use it for the wrong reasons. But it meant no second chances.

He could feel the plane begin to descend. He furrowed his brow. “Hey, are we there?” he called out to the pilot. No answer. Concerned, he unbuckled from the seat, and made his way to the cockpit. The pilot was missing. The doors remained secured. A Reacher, on a plane? he thought. That would be the only explanation, but… He began to feel a cold chill envelop him, and the roar of the engines dulled in his ears. A Reacher was here, and it was coming for him.

The plane pitched forward, throwing him off balance. He reached out and grabbed hold of the pilot’s chair, nearly ripping his arm from his shoulder. He grunted but managed to pull himself into the seat and buckle the harness. The console was dead, but it didn’t matter much – he had no idea how to fly a plane. The cold around him began to close in, and the very sunlight in the windows began to dim. Dammit, not much time.

He did not have his book of spells, but he always kept a spell around, just in case. From his shirt pocket he pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. Reacher containment spell. He could write this spell in his sleep. You needed to know this one if you liked living. His hand began to grow even colder, and he held fast to his Implement, Tyche. If he dropped it now, he was dead. His hand was practically a claw now, and he could feel the Reacher already trying to feed upon him. It felt like a part of him was being pulled away, like some type of siphon. It made him oddly sleepy, despite the adrenaline coursing through him. Focus, he thought.  Cast the spell and you live. With considerable effort, he managed to scratch out his name upon the bottom of the page.

In an instant, the spell flashed in a burst of sparks, and the warmth rushed back into his body. He gasped as if he had been holding his breath and his returning senses let him know that the plane was in free fall. He frantically scanned the interior, and saw a parachute secured next to the emergency exit.

He took a deep breath, unbuckled the restraint, and urged himself up. No second chances.

You have been cleared to use S-Class containment spells for rift closures and Reacher suppression at rift sites using Phos. Due to the usage of forbidden glyphs in high-level containment, these spells are not suitable for city-scale or smaller threats.

While powerful enough to seal away energy of substantial threats, there is an element of documented instability in these spells. Records indicate this is triggered with the introduction of parallel dark magic activity. Dark magic has shown exponential energy growth when cast alongside complementary spells. Should an S-Class containment spell experience an overlap of this nature, it will likely bolster the effects of the containment and envelop a much larger area than anticipated. Worst-case scenario is obliteration of a rift zone within our world, causing a subtraction effect as the surrounding landmass is extracted. The wall between worlds will be weakened by this event, however, meaning that increased patrols for the subtraction zone will be required. This risk has been deemed acceptable for Project Meridian.

– Excerpt from Supplementary Operation Briefing, Project Meridian