Cass put a hand on the door. It was cold under her open palm. Solid. Immobile.

  Elemental Manipulation hadn’t worked on the crystals in the Catacombs or the glass floor in the hallway. Would it work on metal? Surely, it would be more fruitful than her attempts at applying Strength to the problem had been so far.

  She pressed with Elemental Manipulation, pushing her Focus into the material.

  The metal of the door was indifferent. This wasn’t impossible, but the metal had no interest in listening to her commands. She lacked something to make it work.

  Power? Knowledge? Technique?

  She didn’t know. She didn’t get a notification from her Bonus Range trait, offering her an angle on it. The skill was utterly silent about what it would take.

  She could keep forcing it, but there were more things to try. She shifted to the right, her hand sliding over the smooth glass brick of the wall.

  Maybe the glass making up the rooms was different from the glass in the hall. She pushed Elemental Manipulation into the wall. Just as before, the glass slipped out of her grip. Someone else’s mana definitely was affecting the glass, protecting it from arcane manipulation.

  She wasn’t going to force her way through with magic.

  Cass glared at the door and wall, turning the problem over in her mind. No fortress was impenetrable. There was always a weakest link, just by definition of ‘weakest.’ Was it the walls, the ceiling, the floor, or the door?

  The door, Cass decided. The glass making up most of the room was empowered, but the door wasn’t. The door was several parts. There had to be some part of it she could exploit.

  The door itself was sturdy. She could not break its panels. But what about the latch? She grabbed the door’s handle again and pressed Focus into it. Her Focus flowed easily into it, the metal happily accepting Focus. It was a minor effort to contain it to the section of the door with the latch.

  She’d tried this trick once before, on a tile in a very different temple. She had about half her total Focus and even less skill in applying it then. She also needed far less detail now.

  Focus: 403/549

  She could feel the latch's general shape on the door's far side. That was all it was. A bolt slid into place to hold the door closed. No fancy lock. Just a bolt.

  A heavy bolt.

  A bolt she couldn’t move with Elemental Manipulation.

  Could she blow it out of place with air? Could she even move air on the other side of the door with Elemental Manipulation?

  It was worth a try, even if she didn’t expect it to work.

  She reached across the glass wall and the metal door to the open space on the far side. Her Focus flickered with the effort. It was difficult to picture it working, which only made this harder.

  She grabbed a handful of air and yanked it into the bolt. But the air broke on the iron bolt, flowing around the latch instead of pushing it.

  Focus: 362/549

  Cass sank to the ground from the effort.

  That wasn’t going to work either. Maybe if she could materialize stone with Elemental Manipulation, she could use that to push the bolt out of place, but she had never managed to up to now.

  She held her hand out, palm up, and tried it again anyway. Willing stone to exist where it hadn’t before. Air was easy. Fire sprang to her fingers. Water reluctantly came when called. But stone? Stone refused.

  There was a trick to it. Cass was sure. It was a refusal, not an impossibility. The same way moving metal was a refusal. Maybe with a higher skill level. Maybe with more practice. Maybe with some insight.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  It didn’t feel like it was happening now.

  What did it leave her? She could materialize water. Could she do what she wanted with that?

  Cass pushed herself back to her feet to try it. She summoned the water on the far side of the door. She could feel it wrap around the bolt. But it wouldn’t push. The metal was too heavy; it slid right through the water instead.

  She let the skill fall.

  What else did she have?

  What else could she do with this skill?

  She could move matter (air, water, stone) and energy (lightning, fire). She could materialize some matter (air, water).

  She could change its temperature (fire).

  She paused. She had asked for very, very hot fire that one time to disinfect her drinking cups. And she’d gotten it. As she’d rationalized then, temperature was just another aspect of it. No different to manipulate than position or velocity.

  Could she change the temperature of other things she summoned?

  An idea budded in her mind.

  She moved from the latch to the hinge side of the door.

  This room was a storeroom, not a prison. It had been designed as such. The biggest thing to note about not-prisons was the hinges of the doors could be on either side. In a long hallway with lots of storerooms, it was convenient if the door opened inward so they did not obstruct the hall when open.

  That put the hinges on the inside. Where Cass could easily see and manipulate them.

  They were wrought metal things, much bigger and heavier looking than the kind she was used to seeing on doors on Earth. But they were still within the range she thought she could handle.

  She summoned water over the lower of the two hinges, forcing the water into the hinge.

  Focus: 342/549

  Then she pulled its temperature down.

  Down.

  Down.

  Her Focus dropped precipitously with every drop in degree. But she could feel the ice forming. Could feel the ice pressing against the bounds of the metal hinges. Could hear the crack as ice strained and metal bent.

  And then the snap as one of the hinge’s pins flew off, and the door sagged under its weight.

  Focus: 283/549

  Cass grinned at the broken hinge. Even this fantasy universe was subject to the laws of physics.

  Elemental Manipulation has increased to level 23.

  That was the same level as she was overall. The skill swelled in that nebulous space skills lived in, both ephemeral and present in her chest. It was snug, almost cozy, and yet tight like it was warning there was no further space to grow. The image of roots outgrowing their pot, growing in tighter and tighter circles, sprang to mind.

  Was this a hint from the system that her skills would not grow beyond her current level? Or, perhaps not from the system, given there was no pop-up window. Maybe it was her body doing the warning.

  She added the questions to the pile to ask Salos when she had some free time. For now, it was time to finish breaking this door.

  She stood and focused on the upper hinge. Water slipped into the mechanism with ease and froze with her focused effort.

  Focus: 225/549

  The hinge burst, metal yielding to the expanding ice, and the door fell to the floor with a clang of metal on glass. A single level, and that was already easier.

  Cass poked her head out the now doorless doorway. If there were guards, they heard that. No way around it.

  Except the hall was empty. No one was around.

  Cass pressed out with Atmospheric Sense. Surely, her eyes were wrong.

  And yet, the air promised that no one was around.

  Really?

  They left her entirely unguarded?

  Cass shook her head. Part of her was sure this was a trap. There was no other explanation for why escape would be this easy. Except, she also couldn’t think of a single reason a complicated ploy like this would be worth their time.

  Maybe that circle was supposed to have done something. Maybe they expected the door to keep her inside. Maybe they assumed she’d be passed out longer.

  Either way, she was free of her prison. It was time to see if their space-looping trick was still in effect.

  Which way had she come from? She didn’t remember. More pressing things had been on her mind when they’d marched her down the corridors.

  Well, if the looping were still in effect, it wouldn’t matter much which way she went, would it?

  She turned right, flicking on Stealth as she walked. It grumbled that there was no cover here and the area was too well-lit. She ignored its complaints, finding comfort in the quiet whoosh of air around her body, subtly diluting her presence.

  There were more doors on either side. Storage rooms like her prison or inhabited by priests or paladins? Places to hide and recover Focus, or more enemies to run from?

  There was a crossroad ahead where two corridors intersected. Atmospheric Sense warned someone was approaching from the right side. Cass’s heart thumped in her ears.

  She couldn’t be caught again. Would they bother capturing her alive a second time?

  She sidled up to the wall, inching her way backward. But there was nowhere to hide.

  Stealth whirled around her, the winds pulling apart her presence.

  She wasn’t here, they whispered. She wasn’t here. This was nothing but an empty hallway.

  Nothing here but the wind.