"Security protocol?" Solwyn muttered aloud.
"You saw it too?" Reena asked, only now realizing she wasn't the only one seeing these messages.
Before they could begin to wonder what it meant, they all received a new system message.
[Learned [D-3AT4]!]
They all suddenly received a new passive skill and while it appeared cheerful in the initial system message, their faces became pale when they read its description.
[[D-3AT4] Lv EX: You have left the range of the system without the permission of a level 4 or above administrator. Either return back into the range of the network or the system will remove itself from the user. Most system functions will be disabled until connection is reestablished. Note: Removing the system will kill the user. Time remaining: 9:58]
As they finished reading the description they could see the seconds continue to tick down ominously.
"Ten minutes?!" Reena yelled out in shock. "How am I supposed to get back in ten minutes! That's impossible!"
She began pacing in panic, moving back and forth across the small chamber as she tried to come up with any way to escape. With space magic as her only hope, she cast more spells. Even ones she hadn't tried earlier because she knew they wouldn't help, but now she was desperate. If even one worked, she might be able to deduce why the rest failed.
Even though none of the spells worked they still drained her mana and it didn't take long for her to reach the bottom. She used her spatial ring to retrieve another mana potion but when she did nothing appeared either.
"Even spatial rings don't work?!"
Reena fell to her knees in dismay, clutching her now-useless spatial ring. Her breaths were shallow and rapid, her thoughts spiraling. Nothing was working. Magic, rings, the system—all of it failed. The countdown ticked in her vision as if to mock her with her impending doom.
[9:34]
"Reena." Solwyn called out gently, their voice cutting through the oppressive dread in the air. "Take a deep breath."
She didn't want to listen to a human. But she knew she coudn't be irrational here. Caught up in the moment, she snapped out of it and did as they said and took a sharp inhale and a long exhale.
Her nerves settled as her heartbeat slowed to normal.
"There you go." Solwyn said, "I know you don't want to die. Neither do we. On that, we can agree. Right?"
Reena looked up at him, still wary of them, but nodded.
"But Jendar wouldn't—" she started, her voice weak.
Solwyn cut her off. "He wouldn't want you to die, would he? Or... does he want us dead more than he wants you alive?"
The idea was so absurd she shook her head instantly, rejecting it on instinct. "No! He—he wouldn't—Jendar would never—!"
"Then let's work together," Solwyn said, gently but firmly. "At least until we get out of here. What do you say?"
Reena hesitated. Her ears echoed with warnings she heard millions of times. 'Humans lie. Humans betray. Never trust them.' But as she stared at the timer ticking away her life, the certainty of death in isolation outweighed the uncertainty of cooperation.
With a reluctant grumble, she finally said, "...Fine. What do we do?"
Solwyn let out a breath of relief. It wasn't much, but it was a start. A small victory with death looming overhead.
"Great!" They said, managing a faint smile. "Let's start with what we know. I've already tested using the system, but we can't even bring up our own status pages, only the timer shows up. Also, I can still use most of my skills like normal. Amber?"
Amber didn't respond immediately. Instead, she turned her right hand into sand and reshaped it several times as it became a claw, a chain, a sharp spike, among a few more weapons. Then she formed it into a blade and slashed through the air with precision.
Besides cutting through the air, nothing else happened.
She shook her head. "Sand, yes. [Distort Weapon], no."
Reena watched Amber's demonstration and nodded slightly, starting to think aloud. "So… some things work, and some things don't. Maybe it's because some of the system functions are being disabled? That could explain it, right?"
Solwyn shook their head. "That can't be. I can still see all of our tethers and they are all fine."
Reena blinked. "Tethers? What are you talking about?"
"Never mind that." Solwyn waved it off, not wanting to waste time explaining his law technique. "Just trust me it's not that. Let me ask this instead, are there any known cases where space magic just… stops working?"
Reena narrowed her eyes, trying to think. "Stops working? Well…" She paused, rubbing her temples as she thought back to her studies. "Space magic can be suppressed by another, stronger spatial mage. Usually with a spatial lock spell or by an artifact that stabilizes space so it can't be manipulated. But that can't be it, this is my own spell. And if I was suppressed I should be able to feel it as if my magic is hitting a wall but it's more like I'm flailing in empty air."
"Then maybe it's not about the magic." Solwyn suggested. "Maybe it's about where we are."
Reena's face twisted into an awkward, sheepish smile. "Uh… well, funny story… I'm… not entirely sure where we are."
Solwyn's jaw dropped. "What? How can you not know?! You cast the spell!"
"I know I cast it!" Reena said, turning defensive. "But it's not my fault! I didn't invent the spell, the Speaker gave it to me and it's a divine level spell! Do you have any idea how complicated that kind of magic is?! Even after I cast it I still barely understand it!"
While Solwyn had never heard of a divine level spell, he could guess from the name that it was above advanced spells. He didn't even know that was a thing, but it made sense when he considered that gods were likely able to use magic at a much higher level than what they could comprehend.
Still, Solwyn raised an eyebrow. "You cast a spell you didn't understand? Not knowing it would send us here?"
Reena glared at them. "I never planned to be a part of the "us", okay? And anyway, what stumped me the most was that the spell had no destination coordinates."
"No what now?" Solwyn asked.
"Coordinates! Space magic always uses a starting point and an end point. That's how you go from place to place. But this spell? It only had an input, not an output." She threw up her hands. "I was never able to understand how this spell could work when there weren't any destination coordinates, so it was impossible to predict where one would be sent…"
But as she looked around the murky black cube her eyes slowly widened, as things suddenly clicked in her mind.
"…but now it finally makes sense!"
Solwyn and Amber both turned toward her.
"There aren't any coordinates…" She said, slowly at first. "Because we're somewhere where the concept of space doesn't exist!"
She spun toward them, her tone excited. "It's the nothingness between dimensions that is infinitely small yet at the same time ever-expanding. We're in the void!"
She stood triumphantly, as if solving a grand mystery. "The void! I've only read about it in theory but it's described as a plane of non-existence, said to be what's in between dimensions and keeping them separated! It's everywhere and nowhere, it's the reason spatial magic can't work at all! We're literally somewhere space doesn't exist!"
For a moment, she was proud, beaming with the joy of discovery.
Then the reality of her words caught up to her.
Her smile froze. Her shoulders dropped. Her lips parted as she stared into what was actually the black, swirling nothing around them.
"…Oh no." She whispered, her voice trembling. "We're in the void."