“I’m game!” she shouted her little fairy shout. It was too cute. A grin broke out on my face as I cast the new spell. It wasn’t that big of a change, really. A bit of a mix of the abjuration spell form where the fire shield would float around the target, and my Force Shield that had been one of my first spells.
“What?!” Traser shouted from where he was at the front of the boat. Tol’geth grinned at me and nodded as Zed also began casting something. But his spell form was far different than my own.
“Go on boy, I’ll get us over there in a jiffy!” Zed said, grinning a happy, almost manic grin. Shrugging, I completed the new spell form in what I knew was a fraction of the time it would have taken me just a few days ago. As I slammed the new spell into my chest, my traveling boots gained a grayish white hue. I got the notification as I leapt out over the water and started running.
Congratulations! You have successfully cast and learned a new spell, “Wind Strider 1” this is a Force and Air Magic spell. Effect: This spell allows 1 standard humanoid sized target, no more than 400 lbs, to walk 3ft above any designated surface for the duration of the spell. Duration: 5 - 15 minutes. Cost: 150 mana + 100 mana / minute past 5 minutes.
My gamer heart did a little shout for joy until I landed my first step and got a second notification.
Warning: As you have not learned Air Magic you receive a -50% penalty for the duration of this spell, all mana costs associated with this spell are doubled, and any additional penalties or debuffs encountered while using this spell are doubled. Current Duration: 5.58 seconds remaining.
Oh crap, I thought as I booked it towards the opposite shore. I had the mana to spare to keep the spell going. But I didn’t feel very safe running around like a giant target. Particularly when any penalties from ranged spells, weapons, or abilities would be doubled. Stupid air magic, stupid self! Stupid, stupid! You really need to start reading these things before just jumping out of perfectly good boats!
As I reached shore, I mentally kicked myself again. I knew I had an apprentice level Magical Book available that could teach me air magic. It was the worst of the lot though in terms of durability. It could have failed or worse, left me with a single point in Air magic. That would have dropped my average magic skill down below master rank. So, as I landed on the shore just a few seconds after the spell timer finished, I stopped, mentally kicking myself. It hadn’t been a poor decision, just disadvantages right now. I ducked down as a bolt of fire raced over my head.
“What in the?!” I shouted as Ailsa dodged the small ball of fire. I looked and found the source. A man in brown robes, an insane expression, and an extended hand that was still sizzling with smoke stood among a group of armed and deadly looking fighters. Several men with long spears and simple chain-mail shirts stood against them, trying to keep the cut throat pirate looking guys from getting to the barges. Behind them on the decks of the barges several men in workman’s clothing shot arrows at the would-be river pirates. Including one man I recognized.
“Wait, is that Harsker and his son?” Ailsa asked as she began summoning her own spells.
“Looks like it. Thought they had already left. Well, let’s go give them a hand.” I locked eyes with the raider spell caster and did my best impression of the cheshire cat. I knew the way I looked, black robe, black staff, brown nearly black haired dude who had just run on water. There was no way this guy didn’t know I was also a spell caster. But there was no way for him to know just how out classed he was.
First, I cast the Fire Shield spell I had stored in my ring on Ailsa, protecting her from any more magical fire attacks. Or my own, if things got out of hand. That done, I raised my staff and blasted an arrow that one of the pirates launched my way with a Force Bolt. It splintered mid air, sending shrapnel spraying the entire raider line.
The raiders spell caster launched another Fire Bolt at me, and I allowed it to land. I walked forward through the flames. I was immune to the thing, and I knew my cloths gained at least some of that protection. As I emerged on the other side, the man’s face fell. A heartbeat later, his nearly manic grin came back as he twisted something on his hand. He raised his wooden staff towards me and I kept walking forward, my staff raised in front of me. I gathered my will and started sending it through the staff to activate a Jet of Flame 1 I had stored. I knew the enemy spell caster probably couldn’t cast any other types of magic. Knowing your enemy couldn’t hurt you is a heady thing. Looking back, I was being what Ailsa would call a meat head.
A bolt of ice struck me square in the chest, sending me flying backwards a few feet. I landed on my back in the frozen mud.
You have been struck by “Unknown Bandit Mage” with “Ice Bolt 1” for 37 damage. You have suffered the following status effects: Dazed (5 seconds remaining), Prone, Winded (-5 to all activities involving Dexterity).
I lay there, stunned, as I realized I had lost a fourth of my 143 HP in a single hit. “What was that?” I tried to ask, but it came out as a desperate wheeze of pain. Ailsa cast a simple healing spell on me restoring 22 of the 37 lost health, and allowing me to refocus.
I cast “Force Shield 1” with several augmentations for hardening and shaping. Most of which were not yet formalized in my spell list. I was noticing more and more that the little augmentations or abilities of magic rarely registered on Ethria’s official system. Not unless you entered the information manually. I used the kite shield shaped force field as leverage to stand, keeping it between me and the mage. When I got to my knees, I used the active Analyze ability on him.
You have activated Analyze in a combat situation. General and Combat Statistics prioritized. Target life force strength: Very Weak. Your Current Life-force Strength: Weak. Effect: Combat Information Success. Basic Information Success. Success Overrun: you have learned 2 pieces of Hidden Information about your target.
Name: Gradrin Townsend
Race: Human
Age: 38
Class: Peasant (Branded: Lawbreaker)
Profession: Peasant Mage
Level: 17
Affiliation: Bandit’s Band (Cardinal Telik)
Religion: N/A
Alignment: Unlawful, Moral
Skin Color: Tan
Height: 5’9
Combat Statistics
HP: 129
Defense: 8
Melee Attack Bonus: 9
Ranged Attack Bonus: 11
Spells Known: 12
Highest Tier Spell Known: 2
Physical Characteristics: N/A Unsuccessful
Immaterial Characteristics: N/A Unsuccessful
Traits: Unsuccessful, Ability Level Too Low
Special Abilities: Unsuccessful, Ability Level Too Low
Skills: Unsuccessful, Ability Level Too Low
Equipment: Unsuccessful, Ability Level Too Low
I had never seen or heard of my Analyze skill prioritizing certain pieces of information before, but it made sense to me. Prioritizing information I would need in a fight while in a fight? Yes, please! The other interesting thing was the bandit’s affiliation. I tucked that piece of information away for after the fight.
Raising my staff, I fired several dozen Force Bolts enhanced with my staff’s elemental ability, adding additional fire damage to each. The guy dodged most of them, but the last two hit home, sending him sprawling. As he fell, he let loose another Ice Bolt that struck my shield. The vibration of the shattering ice shard reverberated through my bones and chilled me. I had to stop for a second, hiding behind the shield so I could refocus on what I was doing.
“Uh, Rayid? They’re coming our way.” Ailsa pointed towards four bandits who had broken off from their buddies. They were heading right towards us. A familiar purple and blue shield appeared around us in a bubble, crackling with angry purple lightning. “I don’t know if this is going to hold them, these guys are higher leveled and more determined than the weaklings we met outside Cutters Hollow. So, you better do something!”
I analyzed the would-be pirate
s as they headed my direction and found that she was right. They were each above level 15. Several of them had professions that sounded pretty menacing, professions like ‘torturer’ and ‘bone breaker’. I lifted my staff as they got within a few yards of me and let loose a Jet of Fire 1 spell I had stored. The flames fanned out and broke through Ailsa’s shield as if it wasn’t there. They raised and locked shields, and a small white light radiated from them as my flames hit them. I stopped their advance, but I wasn’t getting any damage notifications. I canceled the jet of flame spell, and aimed my staff like a rifle, shooting Force Bolts trying to get headshots or shatter arms.
A ricochet off his shield clipped one bandit’s sword. The blade went flying into the dark. A heartbeat later they were at the Ailsa’s barrier and striking at it. One bandit quickly learned why that was a bad idea, as purple lightning arched out and struck him square in the chest. He stood there as the energy ran through his body. Sizzling smoke rose off him, and I could have sworn I heard his teeth crack under the pressure of his jaw muscles seizing tight. But the man stood and lived through the attack. Much worse for wear, but still alive.
An icicle shattered above me on the shield, and I heard Ailsa grunt at the effort of keeping the shield up. The bandits kept hacking away at it. As I scrolled through my spell list looking for something to use that wouldn’t be too much, or too little, several more shards of ice shattered against it. I knew Ailsa’s mana pool wasn’t full, despite her time spent with the Mana Fountain every morning. I needed to act quick or she might very well fall again.
“Alright boys, looks like it’s time to stop screwing around. Here we go.” I said, as I found what I was looking for. First, I cast the last spell I had saved in my ring. A small golem made of earth appeared just in front of me. Its cost was massive compared to my other spells and was why I had not been throwing around Force Bolts out of my staff like a Gatling gun this entire fight. The thing was a slightly improved version of the standard humanoid golem template I had received when I first got the skill. This one had some close combat ability aside from its ‘pull them under and try to suffocate them underground’ thing that only activated once in a blue moon.
The little rock man did a double take, first looking at me, then back at the bandits. He only came up to my hip, but I wouldn’t have wanted to wrestle with the little guy. I pointed at the two bandits who still had weapons and weren’t a blackened husk.
“Get em, boy!” The little dude pounded his two stone fists together like a boxer before throwing himself into a melee with the two attackers. He barreled straight into their kneecaps and I heard the distinct snapping sound of bone. Whose, or which one I wasn’t sure, but the three of them fell in a tumble to the ground. The weaponless and still smoldering bandits pulled hatchets from their belts and began hacking at the little dude trying to help their friend. I looked past the melee and found dozens of other bandits still pressing the barge guards hard. It looked like roughly half the mercenary guards were knocked out and left bleeding in the snow or were dead.
I looked and the body of one dead raider lay not too far behind the line of battle. I smirked. “Time to try something new.” I began dual casting a single spell rather than trying to cast different spells at once, and the pressure on my mind was far less. More like trying to row a boat than trying to do two math equations at the same time. I cast my chosen spell on the body twice.
My vision shifted, everything looked like a picture negative for a moment as I shaped the mana into the proper form. The world suddenly seemed bright and filled with light, rather than dark and foreboding, as it had just a moment ago. A deep sense of odd rightness permeated everything as I finished shaping the mana and cast both balls of black, swirling magic at the dead body. My vision shifted as the spell took effect.
Crunching and grinding of bone mixed with the sounds of tearing and cutting flesh, and everyone on the field stopped fighting to look for the source of the otherworldly noise. A deep sense of peace filled me as I watched the body convulse. My friends from the other side, from the plane of shadow, had come, and they needed a place to stay. I had given them the shape, the form, and the purpose for which they would be here on Ethria. It was all up to them now.
After a few seconds of the body convulsing, bones breaking and snapping into what my brain knew were horrifyingly unnatural shapes. The spell was done. Everything paused and the entire world felt heavy with anticipation of my little friend’s rebirth.
Dozens of fleshy, hairy, bald skinned, or bone white rats poured out of the clothes of what had once been a murdering light lover. I gave them two purposes: protect my friends and kill my enemies. They were connected to my will, and I felt a small portion of my mind locked away, helping them determine who was friend and who was foe.
I shook my head clear of the otherworldly perception that came with touching Dark magic, allowing my mind to reset back to its normal state. I took several deep breaths as Ailsa landed on my shoulder. The screams of desperate, fighting, and dying men filled the night as I calmed and made right my perception of it all. I once saw a video of a female soccer player dislocate her kneecap, and with nothing but a few swift punches pushed it back into place. This felt like the mental equivalent of that. Painful, but necessary. A notification appeared in my vision, telling me my little rock golem friend had been slain. Sighing, I turned and found three battered and heavily bruised bandits standing just a few feet from me.
“Well? What do you say? Give up, and I won’t turn you into those things when you die.” The three men looked at me with horror. Determination sprang to life in their eyes as they mistook my meaning. “I’ll just tie you up and give you to the city watch. Not kill you. I realize now how that first statement sounded.” I sighed, exasperated. “Look, just give up. You won’t be hurt.” Ailsa let down her bubble shield and flitted down to sit on my shoulder. Her legs and arms demurely crossed in front of her like a lady.
“That’s right, we won’t — Icicle!” She pointed as I ducked down. I avoided getting my head skewered by the magical attack, but it was close.
“Okay, that guy isn’t fun anymore.” Ice and snow lifted up off the surrounding ground, and the temperature dropped steadily. I was fine, but Ailsa started shivering. “I thought you said you were immune to cold and stuff,” I complained as she darted into my satchel for warmth.
“Non-magical elements, this is magical, you meathead! Ouch, ouch, ouch! Okay yeah that hurts.” She said, wrapping herself in the leather and anything else she could find to keep herself warm.
I took the satchel off my shoulders and threw it as far as I could behind me. I was about 99% sure I was in an AOE spell. The silhouette of the three remaining bandits didn’t move to find cover. They gathered their weapons and prepared to attack me. I raised my shield and brought my staff up like a spear and unleashed several Hammer augmented Force Bolts, one with every heartbeat. My stored spells were practically gone. All three men took the augmented bolt to the shield. Only one attack had any noticeable effect. The mall rounded metal shield the far right bandit held went flying.
I decided it was time to try something else new. I cast a new spell, though the mana structure was remarkably familiar. It was just heavier, for lack of a better term for it. More dense, requiring a little more of my concentration to keep it together. My mind settled and calmed as the world shifted slightly to a light blue tint, the color of water magic.
Water spouted from the tip of my staff like a fire hose and doused the three men as they began their advance towards me. Their shields would do little to stop them from getting soaked as I kept the spell up and forced more mana into its structure, increasing the pressure and amount of water created with each passing second. Technically, this spell was Shape Water 1, but with the augmentations that felt nearly second hand to me I picked up a new spell.
Congratulations! You have learned a new spell, “Water Jet 1” this is a Water magic spell.
Congratulations! You have learned a new Water
Spell Augment “Pressurize” with this augment you can increase the pressure of any water spell by any given multiplier chosen. Warning: Mana requirement increased by a factor of 1.5 of the multiplier applied.
The men spluttered as they tried to keep the water out of their mouths and eyes. I minimized the pop up as the spell ended. That should keep them out of the AOE spell until it ends unless they want frozen solid, I thought and I refocused on my spell list. I looked at my mana pool and realized I was at about half. That still left me nearly 10k mana to play with. Shrugging, I cast Storm of Blades. It took me 15 seconds to shape the mana into the right forms and set them spinning around me. The men outside the circle still couldn’t see me clearly, or I them. Smirking, I stepped outside the small AOE spell and heard dozens of strikes against their shields, armor, and bodies as my summoned blades whirled around me in a protective circle.
The three men broke and fled. They had had enough from this strange mage. The spinning blades mutilated the body of the fourth man as I walked past him, the blades spinning like a meat grinder. I used my staff as what I originally crafted it to be as I climbed the small hill where the peasant mage stood. When I got there, he looked baffled look on his face.
“Who are you?!” He shouted at me from a dozen yards away.
“My name is Rayid the Wizard! I suggest you surrender, or your entire cohort of villains will not live to see the next sun rise!” A powerful war-cry came from the other side of the small scale battle, and I knew that Tol’geth and Traser had both joined the fight. I chanced a glance over towards the peasant bowmen and the handful of remaining barge guards and found small Force Shields protecting each of them. Zed’s work, I had no doubt.
As I reached where my shield of spinning deadly blades would start hurting the raiders, I stopped advancing. Most of them had backed off, and my little rats had nearly all been butchered. But they had done their job. Distracting the enemy and keeping the barge men and guards alive.
Ethria 3: The Liberator Page 11