"Herr Doktor, everything is as you wish."

  "Good Igor, good. You have done well."

  The Mud Scientist rubbed his hands together as he took in The Experiment.

  The Experiment was unimaginably complex (relatively simple). The work of several lifetimes (hours). The amalgamation and ultimate consequence of generations of scientific research (one man's ravings). The ritual components were expensive, rare and myriad (largely superfluous).

  The Mud Scientist rubbed his hands together as he took in The Experiment.

  The price tag was pushing a hundred thousand credits. The whole space had been redesigned and remodeled. At the bottom of a concrete bunker sat a brick wall (Harry). Said brick wall was encased in several coatings of different muds. Said wall-mud combination was buried beneath several feet of water. And all this was connected to the control room with a thick tube of mud wiring. Every experiment needs a big, brown switch.

  The Mud Scientist rubbed his hands together as he took in The Experiment.

  Everything was ready. Every last piece in place. Mana batteries at full power. Blast shield check, safety goggles check, lab coat check. How could the Mud Scientist content himself with animating petty mud spheres? The mission of science is to dissect God himself. To tie him down to the operating table, cut him open and see how he works. Life, consciousness, the soul, Harry had died and now he would live again. He was strapped into the electric chair, without life, awaiting the divine spark that would reanimate him. The divine spark of science.

  The Mud Magician frowned to himself as he gazed down upon The Experiment.

  That was no test subject, no guinea pig or lab rat. That there was his friend, his companion and mantle, the good cloak. The Mud Magician had come for his mantle. Let the Gods themselves, the natural order, the shadow of the Reaper stand in his way and still the Mud Magician would come. The Mud Magician, he that commands the sleeping darkness. He of the great mud wave and the mud armor and the judgment mud.

  The Mud Magician frowned to himself as he gazed down upon The Experiment.

  The world was very quiet. And then the Mud Magician began his chant. His deep, dark voice echoing around the chamber. Mana began to course down the mud wires.

  "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble."

  The magic phrases rolled through the air, crackling with power.

  "Round about the cauldron go; In the muddy earth we'll throw."

  The control room shook. The blast shield rattled. The mud waited.

  "Clay that in the flame did bake; Now with life we shall awake."

  It was too much. The magic was too powerful. He was losing control. He couldn't keep this up.

  "Dormant cloak, with magic rife; Boil, bubble and spring to life."

  The Mud Magician staggered. This was the magic of the gods. He tried to force out the words.

  "Double, double toil and–"

  Silence. The chanting was cut away. But see the Mud Magician stays on his feet. He is defiant. His eyes closed in concentration. His hand upon the mud. The magic is spiraling through him. He needs no chant. Chants have no magical import after all. They're just the (distracting) dramatic flare of a good spell.

  The Mud Scientist rubbed his hands together as he took in The Experiment.

  He had hit the switch. Mana was flowing down the wire. Two one-way (invisible) barriers pulsed in position. Water could flow into the mud and from the mud into the wall but no where else. Stage one, cleared. Commencing stage two. Mana was pumped into the muddy layer where it disintegrated into raw, magical energy. Heat.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  His sensors (his mud sensor) showed the mud beginning to bubble, to churn up. Normally the water would start evaporating and vent away energy. But the particles were between the rock and anvil: the mana barriers and Harry's Wall. The energy had nowhere to go and every moment more mana was pumped into the mud. The Mud Magician's brow was wrinkled in concentration. The spell required every ounce of his attention. It was a complex tapestry of arcane architecture.

  A little more. A little more. The mud was superheating. Trapped water vaporized, forming steam bubbles inside the mud. Steam bubbles which made to tear the substance apart from the inside. The mana barriers trembled under the blows of untamed nature. Harry's Wall shuddered.

  The Mud Magician grimaced. This was a channelled spell. A single spell continuous cast. The moment the Mud Magician ran out of mana, the whole spell construct would shatter. And still the fired brick stood firm. Its chemical realignments stoutly rebuffing the water's advance. Mana reserves bottoming. Estimated energy thresholds crossed. Critical energy thresholds crossed.

  The Mud Scientist rubbed his hands together as he took in The Experiment.

  "Show me the divine spark!"

  Steam molecules zipped around inside the mud layer. They shattered into the suspended particles and strange, unnatural compounds exploded into existence, only to decay instantaneously as nature fought to consume the energy. There was an unpleasant, sizzlingly smell and a black, oily smoke filled the control room. The mud in the control panel was boiling, the mud magician's hand inside. He didn't take it out. He didn't seem to notice. The mud wiring was starting to melt. The pressure buildup inside the barriers was beyond every calculation. Pressure levels, critical high, critical high. Breech impending.

  Crack. The superheated water had torn off a piece of the wall and was forcing its way inside. The internal bonds were shredded as water molecules catapulted through. The Mud Magician felt the moment the system recognized it as mud. This was working. This was working. This mad experiment. It was going to work. Only a little more. Only a little more.

  "The divine spark! The divine spark!"

  The Mud Magician forced more mana into the mud. He had the deep pools of a genius intelligence. He could go on. He was going to manage it. They were going to make it.

  "Harry I know you're in there. Harry, we're coming for you. Only a little longer."

  The wall shivered. This was the last stand, its final effort. The mud frenzied, clawing at the wall. Any moment. Any moment now. Boom!

  A spot in the mana barrier gave out and the whole structure blinked away. The barely contained pressure broke free in an explosion of energy. The whole bunker seethed and shook. All of the water instantly atomized. Boiling mud splattered in all directions. Chunks of hardened brick fragmented out and bulleted at the control panel. The blast shield cracked, held, cracked again. And then a glob of super-heated mud impacted and the explosion-proof glass melted clean through.

  Bob was inside the control panel. He was sitting on his spot. His hand an angry red. Hot tears in his eyes. He'd still had mana. He could've gone on. He should've done more. Why was it never enough? They'd been so close. The world was burning around him. The storm had come. But our hero didn't try to run. He didn't try to protect himself. He had made his oath. He had sworn not to leave and he wouldn't. At least he would keep his oath.

  Pieces of the ceiling started to fall down around him. The lights flickered and then cut out as water got into the circuitry. Roiling waves battered against the control room and doused him in boiling water. Bob sat on there. In the darkness. This is the price of playing god. The concrete cracked and started to sag. Maybe the whole thing would come down on his head and that would be the end of it. He took a brick fragment to the left thigh. Another clipped him on the ear.

  Nature raged and ravaged. She stomped and cursed. She screamed her fury, her outrage and vengeance against the proud mortal who had challenged her laws. Challenged her laws and lost. Because Bob had lost. It had been on the blade of knife. Why in those last moments, he knew he'd felt Harry inside the wall, Harry calling out for help. But close means nothing in the end.

  Finally, after the storm, comes the silence. Bob was still alive. Nature had spared him to suffer. And the silence was dark and black and was far worse than the storm. Because life always goes on. No matter what tragedy, what misfortune, no matter how low you fall, or how gloriously you succeed, life goes on.

  Bob bought himself a torch. He bought himself a couple health patches. He mended up his burned hand, his wounded thigh. The scratches and bruises of a near-death escape. He was tired in his heart. There was mud everywhere. He used it to clear away the debris as best he could. He wanted to see what was left. He wanted to confront it all, now, before the will failed him.

  The long, yellow beam stretched out into the dark emptiness of the bunker. The water shimmered ominously with yellow reflections. It was a completely still. Dark and silent like the pools in the deeps of mountains. There was no brick wall. Bob swallowed. What had he expected? The bunker itself was in ruins. What had he expected? The wall, Harry's wall had been pulverized by the explosion, shattered and stomped and scattered. Harry was gone. Gone forever. Bob had failed. It was over. It was over. His oath was broken.

  He stood up, walked over to the edge, and let himself fall down into the darkness.