by Jamie Davis
Hal turned the stick acting as a spit for the quail roasting over the fire. He took another bite of the bread and cheese and considered everything Tildi and Ragnar said. In the end, he turned to his only real friend present for advice.
“Kay, what do you say? You and the rest are fighting the Emperor on the front lines. You know more about what’s going on here than I do. What do you think?”
“I hate to say it, Hal, but I don’t think you have a choice. This isn’t the place for one of your ‘clever plans.’ They’re the mages and I trust their assessment of the magic needed to get to the Emperor and your family. If this is the path they’ve laid out for you, then I figure it’s the best option you have. Whatever you decide, though, I’ll have your back.”
Hal nodded and returned Kay’s smile. Through all his adventures here in Fantasma, she’d been right there in the end making sure he got to where he needed to be.
“Fine, I’ll be your apprentice, Ragnar, and I’ll follow the rules to learn what I need to learn from you and the others but only until I have the skills needed to get my family back. Once that happens, I’ll expect you all to back me up. If I really am the mythical Opponent of prophecy, then that means you have to follow my lead in the end. Fair?”
Ragnar and Tildi exchanged glances and Ragnar extended a hand to Hal. The two clasped forearms to seal their agreement. Tildi just met Hal’s eyes and nodded before she pulled out her pipe and started puffing away while she waited for the dinner to be ready to eat.
Hal settled back and finished cooking the game birds over the fire. He was tired and more than ready to get started learning how to do more than just survive using magic. He needed to dig into the depths of each mage’s knowledge until he could do everything they knew how to do. Only then could he confront the Emperor directly.
Hal Dix was ready to get his magic on.
7
Hal, Ragnar, and Kay set off the next morning, heading northwest into the deeper reaches of the northern wastes. They left Tildi seated by the campfire puffing on her pipe and blowing rings of smoke into the early morning air.
“She always has to be mysterious it seems,” Hal remarked.
“Oh, you have no idea,” Ragnar laughed. “She has been that way since we started our training together years ago. She once told me it behooved us to live up to all the expectations people had for wizards and mages. That’s why she is always seen puffing away on that pipe. She knows it’s strange. Honestly, I don’t think she enjoys it very much. It’s just for effect.”
Hal turned to see if she was still blowing smoke rings at the campsite. He blinked in surprise to see she had already disappeared. He looked forward to the day when he could just open a portal and vanish into thin air. It would be a much more efficient way of traveling.
“Ragnar, why don’t we travel by portal, too?” Hal asked. “We could move faster that way.”
“It’s not as easy as all that, boy. I can travel that way by myself, but it is difficult to bring anyone with me. Each elemental school has strengths and weaknesses. Wind elemental mages are much better at opening portals from one place to another and are able to transport more than just themselves from place to place than the rest of us.”
“So, what do ice mages specialize in, then, besides being cold all the time?”
“Ice is a crystal; it is rigid because it is hard and cold, yet flexible because ice is just frozen water. Ice magic offers great protection spells and other abilities to obscure us from detection.”
“What about offensive capabilities? Will I be able to fight back if attacked? I’m not wearing any armor and I don’t look forward to getting up close and personal with my daggers if I don’t have to.”
“There are some things we can do that enable offensive capabilities, but nothing like the fire mages can do. Fire is inherently destructive so most of their spells are focused on attack and devastation.”
“Sounds like fire is stronger than the others in some ways if it is the elemental school offering the greatest forms of attacking others.”
“You’d think so, but then you’d be a fool,” Ragnar said with a snort. “There must be a balance to all things. This is especially true with magic. Fire is a great offensive tool but how would you use it to protect yourself? You can’t wrap yourself in fire without burning yourself, even with a protection spell in place. Just as with resistance to cold, fire resistance isn’t absolute. There are limits to what a fire mage can do without injuring themselves. But you can surround yourself with ice if need be and force others to batter their way through the ice to get to you.”
“So, you have to carry water with you to freeze wherever you go?”
“Of course not. There’s water all around us. Even in the most remote desert, water is present in small quantities. Not enough to do anything major, but enough to use simple spells to protect oneself.”
“Teach me a protection spell.”
Ragnar stopped and turned around to face Hal.
“Very well. Enable your resist cold ability. Then reach out and search the air around you with your mind. Do you sense the water vapor present all around? It will seem as if there is mist everywhere when you finally see it in your mind’s eye.”
Hal closed his eyes and selected his resist cold skill from the menu. Then he tried searching around him for the water vapor in the air nearby. While it wasn’t particularly humid in the frozen north like it would be farther south along the coasts, he started to sense a — dampness to the air, a quality to it that seemed just like Ragnar said it would. Like a mist suspended all around him.
“Now pull at the mist and draw it to you like a cloak until you feel it touching your skin and clothes all around.”
Hal did as he was told and soon enough, his shirt had a clammy property to it as if he’d put it on wet from the clothes washer without drying it first.
“Good, now for the fun part. Push the cold from the air together around the cloak of mist until you’ve super chilled it and it freezes. Make sure you don’t drop your cold resistance or it’s going to hurt, a lot.”
Hal knew how to do this. This manipulation was how he’d started the fire two nights before and he’d practiced it more since. He grabbed at the chill air around him and drew it in tight against the misty cloak he’d created. The mist froze instantly, forming a hard shell all around him.
And now he couldn’t move. Not an inch. He was frozen solid inside an inch-thick block of ice all over.
“Nice,” Kay chortled from behind him. “You could do that a party sometime and be the ice sculpture in the center of the food table. It would save the host dozens of gold pieces if they didn’t have to hire a sculptor or have the ice carted in from the ice house.”
“Laugh if you must, woman, but before you put it up as a cheap party trick, try your sword against the ice he created.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Oh, I most definitely am serious. Do it now and you’ll see what I mean.”
Hal tried to protest but he couldn’t even speak from his place encased in the ice. In fact, he was starting to panic. He couldn’t breathe either.
A jarring clang hit him from behind and he realized Kay had just taken a swipe at him with her sword. Judging from the force behind the second and third blows, she had little effect on him with her blade.
“That water crystalized in a near-perfect lattice of ice surrounding him and is nearly impervious to simple blows by weapons, at least until you manage to chip your way through it.”
Hal’s vision was starting to tunnel with blackness encroaching in all around his field of view as the available oxygen in his lungs was used up. He managed to groan from within the ice encasing him.
“You fool!” Ragnar exclaimed. “Didn’t you leave an opening for your mouth and nose?”
The wizard moved around into Hal’s field of view again and placed two fingers against Hal’s face. The ice melted, and water flowed down his cheeks and chin until his face was free and h
e could breathe again.
Gasping as best he could with his chest encased in ice the way it was, it took him a few seconds to regain his composure. Ragnar stood and shook his head in exasperation.
“You’ve got to think ahead, boy. Even the dumbest simpleton I’ve ever worked with knew enough to leave their head and face free the first time they did that. Idiot!”
“How do I dispel it? Or do I have to wait until spring to thaw me?”
“Push the cold away from the water and it will liquify again. I should warn you …”
Hal didn’t wait to hear the warning. He pushed the cold away from himself, returning the inch-thick layer of ice to water in an instant. And then he was soaked to the skin as if he’d jumped in a swimming pool in his clothes.
“As I was saying. If you’re not careful and let the water vaporize again as you push the cold away, you’ll get very wet.” Ragnar turned away and shook his head. “What kind of dolt has Tildi saddled me with.”
Even with the cold resistance spell in place, with every inch of his clothes soaked, Hal began shivering in the chill northern air uncontrollably.
“Th-th-that’s a n-n-nice trick but w-w-what good is it in battle if I can’t move?”
Ragnar turned and pointed to his dripping sleeve.
“Do it again but this time focus on just your forearm from your elbow to your wrist.”
Hal closed his eyes again and when he opened them seconds later, his right forearm was encased in a cast of ice from the elbow to his hand. He could bend his arm and twist his hand and fingers. Focusing his energy again, he was able to encase his upper arm in a similar tube of ice from the shoulder to the elbow.
Ragnar drew his hand axe from his belt and tapped it on the ice encasing Hal’s right arm from shoulder to wrist. Hal could see the ice chip a little, but the frozen armor held.
“Well done. Now you see how it could work for you in battle. Of course, it will be some time until you’ve practiced enough to bring it all together fast enough to save you in a sudden fight. The same can be done to create a shield of sorts between you and missile weapons if needed.”
“It’s a shame it’s so clunky looking.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Ragnar stood straight with his arms outstretched from his shoulders and, within seconds, he was encased in a clear crystalline armor of overlapping plates covering his entire body. The ice armor was etched in runes and animal shapes. It was beautiful.
Kay clapped and cheered. “Now that’s a useful spell. How wonderful.”
Ragnar drew his axe and went through a few practice swings while calling a circular shield into being on his arm. The round panel of ice had the shape of a wolf’s head molded into it.
After a few more moves to demonstrate how flexible the armor could be, Ragnar stood still and concentrated. The armor dissolved into mist and dissipated from around him into the air from whence it came.
The northern mage glanced at Hal with an eyebrow raised in question.
Hal nodded.
“Fair enough. I have a lot of practice to do and a lot more to learn.”
“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said all morning. Now come on, we’ve got a long walk ahead of us if we’re going to catch up with my tribe before the caribou move on to better feeding grounds.”
Hal and Kay fell in to step behind Ragnar, Hal’s boots squishing with each step as the remaining freezing cold water sloshed inside the sole.
He had a lot to learn indeed.
8
They’d trekked for four days and they still didn’t catch up to Ragnar’s tribe following the caribou herds across the tundra from feeding ground to feeding ground. Hal tried to the make the most of it. He spent the time practicing the few ice magic spells he’d learned so far. He wanted to work on them until he could cast them in his sleep.
Resist cold was easiest. It had become second nature since that first difficult night in the wilderness but he still had to concentrate for a few seconds to cast ice shield, ice armor, and even longer to start a fire. The shield spell was the easiest of the latter three so far. Hal could now summon a disc of magically hardened ice three feet in diameter, centered on his forearm.
He convinced Kay to test her sword on it. After a few tentative taps on the ice to make sure she didn’t accidentally cut Hal’s arm off, she began hammering on his magical shield with gusto. Eventually, she began to chip away at the barrier, though if Hal concentrated on it, he could repair the damage as fast as she caused it.
The armor presented another challenge altogether. Hal remembered the complexity of Ragnar’s ice armor. During one of the breaks in their trek, he tried to create something similar to Ragnar’s articulated armor.
It was a complete failure. Hal ended up with a series of paper-thin layers of frost all over his body. The ice cracked and flaked away as soon as he moved.
Ragnar grunted a laugh at his pupil’s first attempt at real armor made of ice.
“You can’t start at the top, boy. You must work up to it. I’ve been perfecting my armor for decades. Start with something simple and practical first, like a single breastplate to protect your vitals. See it in your mind’s eye and make it happen.”
“I’ll try.”
Quest accepted — create an ice breastplate.
Hal considered the advice and focused his mind on encasing his torso in a layer of ice. This time, he was able to visualize what he wanted. He closed his eyes and drew in the moisture around them while he formed the armor.
When he opened his eyes and looked down, his chest and back were encased in a simple breastplate of opaque light blue ice. He twisted his body and bent down to see how mobile he was. Unlike his previous attempts, he could move, and the ice didn’t crack or fall away.
Hal rapped on the armor with his knuckles and smiled. It seemed sturdy enough.
“Kay, try out your sword on this.”
“I’m happy to but this chipping away at magically hardened ice is ruining my blade. You have to agree to repair my edge with a whetstone tonight if you want me to keep testing it on your armor.”
“Agreed. Go ahead. Give it a try.”
Hal thumped a fist on his armored chest and then stood still with his arms raised to give her a clear shot at his chest and back. Kay was more confident in Hal’s abilities by this point and she took a full swing at Hal’s chest following it with a return blow to his back.
He felt the contact and the force nearly knocked him down with each hit, but the armor held.
Quest completed — create an ice breastplate.
600 experience.
Level up!
He was pleased with what he’d created but it wasn’t practical yet. Any opponent would slice him in half by the time he’d concentrated long enough to build his armor and it only protected his torso. A glance at his magical level status menu showed he’d gained some skills but still needed more practice to level up to the point it would be practical in battle.
Mage Experience: 1225/2,400
Ice elemental school:
Resist Cold; Ice Shield; Ice Armor;
Attribute points: 6
He allocated 4 of his attribute points into his wisdom attribute deciding that he needed to bolster his spell-casting abilities if he was going to be successful as a mage. He split the remaining points between his luck and speed. Hal didn’t see himself needing his brawn attribute anytime soon. He noticed that unlike the other classes, it seemed that the mage class didn’t reward the player with new skill points every level. It looked like he would have to learn new skills the old-fashioned way.
Hal spent the next day creating and then dispelling his breastplate until he managed to don the ice armor on his torso in a few seconds. His practice came in handy sooner than he expected.
The first signs of trouble came when they spotted the circling vultures in the sky ahead. It could have been anything including a dead animal on the trail. It wasn’t. The five people, two women and
three men, had been dead for at least a day, their bodies stripped of clothing and armor and staked out with arms and legs extended on either side of the trail.
Hal wanted to look away and vomit, but he swallowed the bile in his throat and forced himself to examine the corpses. Thought the vultures and other animals had been at the bodies, it was clear they’d been tortured and cut up before they died.
He recognized flaying when he saw it, having experienced that particular torture in person before at the hands of one of the Emperor’s henchmen on his previous visit to Fantasma. Ragnar had stopped to examine one of the women and Kay walked in a wide circle around the bodies, searching the ground for something.
“What are you looking for?”
“Tracks, Hal. Whoever or whatever did this had to move on when they were finished. It would be nice to know which direction they were headed.”
“It was Grendlings,” Ragnar growled. “I recognize their rituals in the way they mutilated the bodies. What I don’t understand is what would drive them to do this. Our tribes lived in peace alongside them for decades.”
Hal turned and scanned the scrub brush on either side of them for signs of those who’d done this. He realized he didn’t know what he was looking for.
“What’s a Grendling?”
Kay completed her circle of the bodies and stopped next to Hal. She had her sword out.
“They’re a northern variety of goblin. They mostly roam the edge of the ice floes of the far north, hunting and fishing, though they come south from time to time to trade with human tribes and settlements.”
“That’s why this doesn’t make sense to me,” Ragnar said as he stood and scanned the horizon. “This time of year, the Grendling bands should be in the north following the sea lion migration along the coast to their breeding grounds. There shouldn’t be any this far south at all.”