Levin said, “I’ll take care of it.”
We waited as Levin moved forward into the stairway, and I detected his spell casting as he filled the basement up with a stone lattice.
I frowned, “Now that we know they know, let’s do that preemptive filling Dan was talking about. The ladies’ house first, let’s secure the buildings people live in first.”
I took out my communicator to report, as we moved to the other building. Since we’d just gotten the inn, the house of ill-repute was the only other building in our assigned area with people. The rest of us waited outside, while Dan and Cassie went in and took care of it. I was a little amused Cassie followed Dan into the building with a scowl on her face, but I didn’t dare let it show on my face.
It didn’t take long to secure the basements of the six or so buildings. Dan would have to clear them again once the horde was in retreat, but it was worth it.
“Stay alert, and we’ll continue our circuits. The basements are probably just their preferred destinations.”
Probably obvious of me to say, but I didn’t want anyone to assume…
Chapter Thirty-Three
There was only one more teleport infiltration that day in our assigned area, and it was in the stables above ground. Other than that, we were called on four more times to guard the streets from other areas, as theirs were invaded.
It was around dusk when we were relieved, and we hot bunked with the day sleepers in the inn when they took over for us. It was crowded though, Gwen and I shared a bed, but in a room with two beds that we shared with Steve and Lara. I didn’t mind except for the lack of intimate opportunities, but we were at war and could skip that a few nights if necessary, just like up north. That didn’t stop me from holding her all night though.
We were sitting around and eating breakfast the next morning. Dawn, and our next shift, wasn’t far away. The night folks had made temporary if slightly uncomfortable solid stone tables to replace what was broken. The food was decent, but very simple. Just some meat pies with egg in it, and juice.
“Anyone heard anything on the numbers?”
Ken said, “They slowed down a couple of hours after night fell, probably to get sleep themselves while they continued light suppression fire to deny ours. We got about another ten thousand, about half of what we got in Stonefort.”
I tried not to grimace, seven more days at ten thousand a day? Or maybe five if they retreated when they hit twenty thousand. Assuming of course, we held against them, and the Southern Kingdom didn’t disappear into the annals of history. At least they’d thrown away all their giants back at Stonefort, we didn’t have to worry about them tossing up a foothold on the walls.
My communicator went off, and I pulled it out.
“Huh, we’re assigned to the western wall, fifty feet south of the gate.”
Gwen frowned, “I wonder what happened,” as she pulled out her own to verify it.
I shook my head, and squashed my curiosity, for the moment.
“No idea, and I don’t want to bother Anna by asking, at least not until the battle is over. I bet she’s busy.”
Ken and the other guards in earshot all stared at me in shock. It took me a minute to figure out why.
I blushed, “What? She told me to call her by her shortened name unless we were in court.”
Gwen snickered, as they all went back to eating with dubious looks on their faces.
Cassie shrugged, “Either they found a way to block it, or the enemy discontinued the tactic.”
Dan added, “Or, they found the staging point and Duchess Catalina killed the bastard, so they can’t teleport anymore.”
Steve chuckled, “I like Dan’s theory.”
I nodded, “I’m not sure if it can be blocked. Teleport bends space, bringing two points together for an infinitesimal moment in time. By definition, you can’t block the same place from itself. Any wards or protective spells between the two points would be bypassed without crossing them.”
Cassie asked, “But you aren’t sure?”
I shrugged, “We’re less than halfway to grandmaster level ten with our primary skills and spheres, by a single level anyway. That’s a whole lot more concepts to learn about our skills, spheres, and the universe itself. Not to mention the general concepts of the magic field and enchanting, so who can say what we’ll discover? But, from what I know now, it’s impossible, and I know enough to teleport things that aren’t alive, though I may not actually have enough mana to do it.”
Cassie said archly, “So, you don’t know, and are totally guessing.”
No doubt she was getting me back from yesterday’s teasing.
I laughed, “Yes, I don’t know for sure. But it’s an educated guess, not a total swag.”
Gwen giggled, and I figured it was time for a verbal retreat of sorts.
“These meat pies are pretty good. They’re like breakfast hot pockets, but better.”
Lara giggled at my obvious change in subject.
We spent the rest of the meal talking about every day stuff, the beach might have even been mentioned in passing. The truth was, a full-scale war was hell, and we were ready for it to be over.
Five more days would be grueling.
Seventy thousand was still pretty damned intimidating, only the total lack of giants or Ice wolves in the sea of evil beings gave me hope. They’re was also evidence that the gray dwarves had been busy little beavers the last day and night, there was a multitude of siege engines similar to the ones we’d seen outside Aladell.
Similar, but not exactly the same.
While we defended from the typical charge at the walls, and climbers, I noticed them loading them with large stones the size of a head into the cradles, which they were obviously casting spells on. I tried not to think of all the havoc that could cause in the city if they were fire spells. With so many, it’d also be extremely hard to dispel them all.
The wall commander was paying attention as well.
“Light, prepare to dispel a hail of rocks, earth, get ready to turn them to dust!”
The enemy chose that moment to turn up the heat on the charge as well, as they fired hundreds of spelled rocks in an arc that would take it over the wall and into the city.
I was in a groove, or a rut maybe, and casted fire blasts into the field below as quickly as possible. Only stopping that when we were ordered to ice and spike to clear the walls.
It was mid-morning, so the adrenaline had long since stopped to a trickle, as I struggled to concentrate on what I was doing, and also stay alert enough to react to surprises. My heart was beating fast, but there was enough numbness and familiarity there that it wasn’t racing.
Between Lara and I, we’d kept the dying to a minimum along the walls, but it still happened. The good news though, was there were seven thousand soldiers on the wall now, and about seven hundred of us undying. Our defense would be tight, even with the Light and Earth wielders shifting focus.
The stones were blasted with white light as they passed overhead, and then pulled apart into dust. Most of them were stopped, but there were some few in front and behind the main volley that snuck through.
The large rocks slammed into buildings through the roofs, and then exploded into fire. I did my best to ignore it, the citizens and guards on the ground would put out the fires, I had enough to be dealing with as it was. I just… hated that it meant innocents would die.
Damned evil bastards.
Lara refreshed our enhancement spell for the umpteenth time that day, and then went back to healing. The soldiers were getting wounded almost constantly with the barrage of spells, and she was doing a hell of a job keeping ahead of it so they wouldn’t stack up and kill.
Gwen was causing havoc in the lines again, sometimes she killed outright with arrow and darkness magic, but when they really pushed on the charge she started to shoot them with mind control arrows to cause havoc in their lines. Which usual made their charge falter.
Another fire bl
ast.
“Ice and Spike!”
I started to build the concept, but then I stopped and suppressed an eyeroll as I switched my focus to the Water sphere. Switching was habit by now, I normally didn’t have to consciously think about it, but after hours of non-stop casting my mind was a bit numb. I wondered once again how master levels worked, how would it be possible to focus on more than one sphere at once? I finished the spell and iced my part of the wall, while Dan built a field of stone spikes on the ground below. There was always a small sense of satisfaction as the enemy fell away. I couldn’t see them on the walls, but I could damned well sense them with detect life. I could also sense their wounds and the few deaths, as they were impaled by their own fall and body weight.
“Light and Earth! Next volley coming!”
Another volley of rocks came at us, and at a whim I cast control water.
A vast sheet of ice just appeared in the air, right in front of all the rocks from at least five of the catapults. It was thin, so didn’t take as much mana as it sounded like it should, less than two millimeters thick. It was also out of my range to hold it up, more an immediate cast and done spell outside my fifty-foot radius. Still, I made it right in front of the rocks, and falling or not it was in the way. An impact was an impact, even one so light as a thin sheet of ice.
The sheet of ice exploded in fire, and it completely drained the stones momentum as they arced down and landed among the enemy. It would have been more satisfying to make it explode among them, but I couldn’t do that, and wasted damage was better than a few reaching the city.
The rest of the siege engines sent them above us and into the city. Once again the light and earth people got most of them, but a few got through.
The commander cleared his throat, loudly.
“Water! Duplicate that ice sheet spell for the next round, let’s stop all of them if we can. Light and Earth, go back to killing the enemy!”
Well, damn. I just cleverly got myself stuck killing less of the bastards. But, protecting the city was the actual goal, and the real point, killing the enemy was the secondary goal, so I got over it. That didn’t stop me from casting fire blasts though, I just had to leave off every time the enemy had a load of rocks ready to go.
It was so effective at stopping every rock, that the other walls started to do it too, and the enemy stopped using the siege engines an hour later. Unfortunately, that freed up all those Fire Sphere wielders that were casting on stones, to fire directly at the wall instead.
Still, better at us than fires inside the city, and innocents being in danger and dying. Lara healed us, and I did too on the rare occasions she fell behind. My mana shield mostly took care of it, all the spell damage was just absorbed, but I was hit by a random arrow or bolt occasionally, which the mana shield couldn’t do a damned thing about. Regardless, it hurt, and was even excruciating at times, I was lucky enough not to take a mortal wound to head, neck, or heart.
And… the fight went on, night and day, for four more mind-numbing days. There were a few times they’d managed to gain a temporary foothold, but no true major crisis as we always pushed them back, and we broke their charge a short time later.
We also did find out during those five days, that the scouts had located that Water and Life sphere enemy master who was doing the teleporting. The staging point had been in a small meadow in the nearby forest, about a half mile from the city. Steve had been right, Catalina had gone out and annihilated him in a surprise attack. Virtue of his mana levels being compromised from all the teleports, and Catalina had waited until she was full up before attacking. After, it’d been child’s play for her to kill the thousand or so enemy troops that had been waiting for transport.
The battle would have gone a lot faster if she could have joined us, but she’d had to get back to the king and duel with the other masters from afar over the grand enchantment.
The morning on the fifth day, the battle practically stopped. They had just under twenty thousand troops left, and about four thousand of them were casting spells, and firing arrows and bolts at us from a distance to keep us pinned in the city, while the rest started to pack up, pick up their loot, and bolt south.
I felt a huge surge of relief, as they started to move away. The last two thousand or so, rabbited quickly as soon as the majority of the host was out of visual range. We just kept casting at their retreating backs, wanting to kill as many of the bastards as we could.
When they got out of sight, I got a whole slew of popups.
We got five million experience for ending the southern horde’s invasion. Another three million for ending the race wars as a whole for another two hundred years. Lastly, we got a little over a five hundred thousand experience for killing eighty thousand enemies made up of orcs, hobgoblins, dark elves, gray dwarves, trolls, ogres, giants, and ice wolves.
Cleanup took a while, then we all went straight to study. We’d all gotten the concepts for journeyman level ten, but needed to study and incorporate, and then practice them to get the skills and spheres to flip to Expert level one, for level thirty-one.
The concept update was much vaster then, and very intense, as we all took a large step forward in power and understanding. We immediately studied it to understand the changes and update our spells. We’d get around to celebrating eventually, and in finally getting the hell off this island. Honestly though, I’d probably miss the place, or at least a few friends in it.
Chapter Thirty-Four
There was a lot of new stuff that opened up different possibilities.
The easy stuff to quantify was our understanding of mana and the spheres increased to the point where the damage was four times as much as at initiate, both for attack and for healing. The area I could now feel around me was sixty feet instead of fifty, and my area of effect impact now lowered by every six feet instead of five.
I also had over thirty thousand mana, and I regened nine hundred and seventy per second. I decided to put twenty thousand of it into a mana shield. I also had over four thousand hit points. We’d also replaced our armor, so I had thirty-two intelligence and twenty-six wisdom. My casting would be a lot faster.
Digging deeper into our understanding of the mana field allowed us to retain a connection to our spells outside the body. This was a game changer because it meant duration could now be used on offensive spells, as well as defensive such as Lara’s mass heal or bonus. All spells up until then were either immediate, limited in time to the mana pool we added to them, or the core of the spell had been anchored inside our own bodies. That last one was like detect life.
Normally when casting a fire blast for instance, the last thing I’d do is lock the target into the spell, and then release it. From expert on, that anchor could be outside the body, which meant I could cast a fire blast spell with a duration, with almost everything in the spell defined except the damage and target. The cost to do so was the same as the spell cost, per second. So, five per second for a normal fire blast, and fifteen for an area of effect fire blast. That meant after the few seconds it takes to cast, I could have the spell hovering over a hand, or even over my shoulder, and with a very minimal thought including just the target and mana I wanted to feed it, it would shoot a fire blast. So quick as thought I could send out fire blast after fire blast, probably three or four a second, my only limit at that point was my available mana.
Mass heal was the same way, in the past we’d just pack it full of mana, and then toss it. If the spell radius ran out of hurt people, the spell would expire and then any extra mana left would be lost. Conversely, if the spell didn’t have enough mana to heal everyone, it would fizzle out with people still hurt.
Being able to anchor it outside the body and stay connected, meant that we could feed it the exact amount of mana it would take to heal everyone, we could also keep it as a constant spell by feeding it the minimal casting cost, so it would quite literally start healing as soon as someone was hurt.
The enhancement spell Lara used
would also work that way, instead of recasting every three to five minutes, she could just give the spell mana per second and keep our stats constantly enhanced. The caveat to that though, is we’d need to stay within sixty feet of Lara while fighting, otherwise the normal spell count to expire minutes later would kick in, until she re-casted it.
So quite literally, I could cast my modified detect and assess life spell, have a normal fire blast for five mana a second on my right shoulder, and a fire blast with area of effect over my left for fifteen. Twenty five mana or so a second to maintain all those spells wasn’t a big deal, not when I gained back over nine hundred a second. Spells would now be instant as thought, as long as I set things up before battle.
There were some obvious drawbacks. Outside of the target and damage I’d be stuck with the rest of the spells specifics once cast. Like shaping the blast for instance, I’d be stuck with whatever I’d cast it as to begin with, or I’d have to cast a completely separate one off spell. Which really, was quite fine.
There were other improvements because of the greater understanding of mana in spells and enchantments outside the body, we could identify more easily what things did. Instead of just the sphere it belonged too, we’d have a better idea of what the enchantments purpose was, and what it would do, instead of the guessing we’d been doing.
That worked for spells too, like assess life would yield further information. Now that we could feel mana outside the body, we’d know how much mana an opponent had in their mana shield, on top of the level, mana, hit points, and other information we were able to glean.
Mana shield and mana blast, using raw magic as a shield and weapon, hadn’t changed at all. It was still a one for one in damage and defense. I didn’t think that would change at all, but I wouldn’t be sure for another twenty levels.
Not all that much changed in the general concepts of enchanting. We could still only enchant either one gem, or a grand enchantment with spells from one and only one sphere at a time. Of course, at that point we could place four spells in an enchantment, as long as the stone itself was of expert quality. The one major difference was more due to the mana field advancement than anything. I could now fly the ship, or even fire the weapons without touching the gems. I could just will it in my mind to connect, as long as I was within sixty feet of the gem.
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