Hunters of Arkhart- Battle Mage

by Vic Connor

  Seven warbands are currently working their way through the quest, and one of them has the necessary traits for which Aremos is searching. It is them, he thinks. Classic.

  He doesn’t want to take part in the quest, so he closes the description. Accepting it would automatically transport him to the beginning of the mission. But he has his own, quieter ways of working.

  Opening his eyes, Aremos gets back to his feet. He holds out a hand, and the Staff of Adamant leaps into his grasp. He draws a little magical energy deep within himself, opens a portal, and sends its other side all the way to the far north, to open up at the base of that mountain range. As soon as he steps through, the cold hits him with immediate brutal and biting force. Dressed as he is, he’ll lose a few points from his health bar every minute until hypothermia sets in, and he’ll begin to move ever more slowly as the cold freezes his limbs.

  Truly, this is one of the most vicious environments Arkhart has to offer. But it’s no bother to Aremos. He first casts a ward around himself, keeping the chill wind from lashing him. Then, he touches his finger to one of the many pendants around his throat. It glows red, ruddy and warm, and right away, the cold stops bothering him. He’d bought the amulet several months ago, to survive the night fighting mummies in the southern deserts, where temperatures could be almost as bad as they are here. It was effective then, and it makes this climate survivable—comfortable, even—now. This simple, bound spell costs him little.

  Lights flash up ahead. Aremos has stepped out of his portal at the beginning of a long spine of rock—more like a bridge than a natural mountain peak—which spans two ranges. Far off in the distance, he can see the dark phoenix’s eyrie, signposted by the Makers. And along the bridge and the mountains which follow, he notices several warbands traipsing forward, braving the danger.

  Aremos closes his eyes and once more relies on his Second Sight. This close to the other warbands, he can hover over them, watching. He passes over a couple of them—a trio of hags led by a giantess and a half-orc, all wearing thick furs and charms against the cold, as well as a knight and an elven sorcerer, who looks up as Aremos passes, clearly recognizing Aremos’ spell. Then, he finds his warband … his old team of friends, as he should perhaps now think of them.

  They are a few miles away in a snowy gulley. They’re standing back to back: Eirrac with her gun held aloft, Asba with her bow held at the ready, and Sah, ten feet tall, horned and glowing with flame. Of course, Aremos thinks. Without his charms to protect them, his friends are relying on Sah for heat. Rudimentary and crude, he thinks dismissively. If anything were to happen to Sah, were he to be knocked unconscious or in any other way taken out of action, he’d revert back to his human form and they’d all begin to fall victim to the cold.

  A ragtag tribe of thirteen mountain goblins dressed in heavy, thick furs surrounds them, mounted upon giant spiders and wielding evil-looking swords and spears. Riding in a wide circle, they are nevertheless closing in, advancing from all directions at once as the three warriors prepare for battle.

  Aremos comes back to himself, dispelling the Second Sight. He opens another portal, securing its other side at the edge of his old warband’s battlefield—high up on a hill overlooking them all—and steps through, preparing to watch.

  Sah holds his hands out and roars as the first couple of goblin riders come into range. He sprays fire in a great, gushing torrent, hitting one of them and sending it scuttling away, alight. The creature dies as it climbs back up the hill, falling to fizzle out in the snow with its HP evaporated. Its companion, unhurt, runs back to its tribe, chittering noisily and gesturing with wild motions. Eirrac begins to turn the handle of her autocannon, blasting the hillsides with the sounds of blackpowder and keeping the spiders at bay, while Asba picks off a couple of enemies with her keen-sighted arrows, plucking one from its mount with a shot to the chest and skewering another straight through the head.

  But the goblins are clever. They sheath their melee weapons and unsling hunting bows, nocking arrows, aiming, and firing. Sah catches the first couple in a wave of flames, but the others get through. Several hit, causing damage to both Asba and Sah, so lightly armored are they both. One sticks in Asba’s leg, causing her thigh to buckle. As the other two cluster nearer to protect her, she pulls it out with a grimace and takes a swig of health potion, wincing until the skin heals up and she can rejoin the fight.

  Idiots, Aremos thinks.

  The two sides fling projectiles back and forth for a few seconds. Three goblins die, followed by two more as Sah spits out a long gout of flame, catching them both and injuring a couple more, but the trio are taking damage, too. Then, a mighty roar bellows across the surrounding hills, causing ice and snow to cascade down the sides of the mountain, miniature avalanches forewarning of the approaching danger. As Aremos watches, the goblins retreat, and a shadow arises.

  Of course, he thinks: they were just the scouts. There’s no way a handful of spider riders would form a decent challenge at this level of the quest.

  In the scouts’ place, a spider the size of a mammoth emerges from a nearby forest, stomping along on seven legs. The eighth leg, one of the front ones, is lost. In its place, the goblins have attached a long, hooked spear, covered in the fungal poison that forest goblins prefer and which will take a few percentage points of HP per minute from an opponent after the merest scratch. A howdah of goblins sits atop the spider, long spears in their hands ready to stab down at whatever foes the spider leaves alive.

  Ha! Aremos thinks, gathering his magic as Eirrac, Sah, and Asba fan out, preparing to take on this new challenge.

  He steps through another portal and reappears directly in front of the spider, ready to ruin his old comrades’ fun. The members of his old warband fall quiet for the moment it takes them to appreciate what is happening, then they begin to shout and curse at him. No matter, he thinks, sending a couple of fireballs over to them which explode in the snow at their feet and send them flying. No damage is done—he’d never hurt them, he just wants to dampen their fun the way they have taken so much joy away from him—but the distraction is enough.

  The giant spider rears before him, ready to strike down, and Aremos prepares to meet it. Standing ten feet away, he knows that the spider could be on top of him in just a couple of seconds. But he holds his staff aloft, draws his sword, and teleports once more. This time, he comes out beneath the spider. Whispering words of power to create a halo of blue light around the blade of his sword, Aremos hacks first to one side and then the other, cutting off three of the spider’s legs before running for it.

  As he runs, he throws another couple of fireballs behind him to slow the spider down. However, missing so many legs, the spider can do nothing but hobble and stumble after him. Aremos turns once he has put a little distance between himself and the beast, sheaths his sword and holds out his palm, putting three times the usual amount of power into his next spell. The obsidian ring grows warm, vibrating a little with its own inner force, and then a furious torrent of lightning bursts from Aremos and scythes over and through the spider. Most of the riders die instantly, and the creature itself is badly wounded.

  Of the goblins who survive, one is clearly a shaman. Teeth and claws jangle on necklaces around her throat and a tabard of bones rattles around, covering her torso. Her skin is a sickly yellowish green and her eyes grow red with magic. Yet more bones clatter around her gnarled staff, which is topped with the skull of a deer surrounded by a purple miasma. The shaman laughs while the lightning flickers and dies around her, her charms warding it off even as her brothers and sisters fall down at her sides.

  Arkhart does this often enough, Aremos thinks. The great spider was meant to look like the big boss of this level in the quest. In reality, however, it isn’t too intimidating. Despite its strength, the creature is unarmored, unprotected from magic or missiles, so that it’s greatly weakened already. The goblin shaman is the real boss, and her individual stats are only just being revealed. She has great
reserves of magical power, able to cause enough damage to kill the toughest opponent with just a few spells, and her bone armor is enchanted to mitigate so much destruction that it would have taken the warband’s combined efforts to bring her down—even then, Aremos isn’t sure they’d have managed.

  For him, however, it should be manageable enough. Especially with his new gear, and the upgrades he has given his spells with his recent XP intakes.

  The shaman rattles her staff and points one long, twisted finger at Aremos. The goblin’s skin ripples with green energy, causing the air to crackle around her. Aremos throws his own staff up, reflexively casting a shield. A dark bolt of energy, zapped from the shaman’s outstretched finger, hits him, followed by two more. The primal strength of the goblin’s magic reverberates around him as the shield dissipates most of the damage. Aremos’ new armor deflects the rest, leaving him remarkably unscathed.

  There’s no time to relax, though. The shaman whirls her staff above her head and green lightning begins to ricochet away from her. Some hits the spider, making it rear and howl. More lashes down on the warband as they back away, forty yards distant, hurting Asba and crackling across Eirrac’s armor. Aremos ignores it, letting his wards take the damage. He points his staff at the goblin, mutters a couple of words, and a bolt of white light fires forward.

  The shaman laughs in a high-pitched, sonorous and melodic voice, throwing her own shield up to catch it. But the bolt of light was just a distraction. The goblin’s howdah, Aremos has noticed, is held in place with metal rivets. A black iron sword hangs from her belt, and all of her companions wield metal weapons. Looking more closely, Aremos observes that the shaman also wears a coat of iron chainmail beneath her robes and the tabard of bones. So, while the shaman deals with his magical projectile, Aremos extends one hand to summon the power of fire and metal, combining them into a potent curse.

  The rivets begin to glow as he reaches out with the spell, setting fire to the howdah and its ropes and burning the spider’s flesh. The crew’s weapons also begin to glow, setting a couple of survivors alight and igniting the corpses of their fallen tribe.

  The shaman suffers the greatest effect, however. The rings on her fingers burn white hot, reeking of singed flesh. The sword at her side bursts into flames in its scabbard. Then, her entire body begins to smoke lightly as her chainmail heats up, glowing ever brighter as a few seconds pass.

  The shaman shrieks a counter spell, cooling the metal and stopping the flames around her, but a lot of damage has already been done. Her personal health bar has dropped by more than half, and the spider has also been significantly harmed. Furious, the shaman throws all of her power into a magical projectile which hits Aremos with surprising force, throwing him off his feet and knocking the wind from his lungs. He tries to cast the Time Warp, but the goblin interrupts him, squealing. Her eyes glow red with pain, rage, and desperation, and Aremos begins to burn in turn, his health bar losing at least fifteen percentage points as pain lashes at his skin.

  Aremos drops down and rolls over out of the way of the goblin’s curse, then jumps to his feet. The shaman might be angry, she might be powerful, but her health and magic bars are nearly empty. There’s no way she can be a match for Aremos the Great. She can’t do much more. She raises one withered, greenish-yellow hand and a ball of dark energy gathers in her palm, drawn in from the surrounding world. But now, it’s Aremos’ turn to shut the goblin down.

  He blasts a fireball straight into the spider’s face, hitting it square in the eyes and spraying fire everywhere. Burning, scared, the giant spider bucks and throws the howdah to the ground, screaming in pain and rage. The shaman rolls, floundering in the snow, alone and unseated. Her spell breaks and the dark energy scatters. Some of it lashes through her own body, breaking apart a couple of the bones in her tabard and causing snow to evaporate into a cloud of smelly vapor.

  Aremos commits the coup de grace quickly and without mercy. As the goblin shaman struggles to her feet, bedraggled, bloody, and steaming ever so slightly, Aremos draws his sword. Swinging it in a wide arc from a distance, he projects the blade’s edge through the intervening space. The goblin has no defenses left—no wards, no ability to counter—and as Aremos’ sword finishes its arc, the shaman’s head falls off, cut clean, with a dull thud.

  “Now it’s no challenge at all,” Aremos says to his former warband, smiling in his amusement. They have recovered from his earlier attack and are now closing in on the giant spider, looking thoroughly annoyed that their fun has been taken away from them. “Kill it quickly. The credit is yours. But the fun is mine—the glory is mine.”

  Sah lets loose his flaming breath as Eirrac and Asba fire, reducing the spider’s health bar further and further. It staggers and flops in the snow, unable to stand, and Sah approaches it with his black axe held high. He brings it crashing down into the spider’s skull, finishing it off. It keens and blubbers an angry chitinous noise, until, with a heave, it gives one last gasp and, its body going limp, it dies.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Eirrac shouts, stomping toward Aremos on her short little legs. Asba and Sah follow, the elf treading nimbly over the snow as Sah levitates to land a few feet before Aremos. “That was our kill—who the hell invited you?”

  “Who invited me indeed?” Aremos asks, thunder roiling in his voice. “Because none of you did, that’s for sure.” Magical energy crackles all around him, barely under his control. Sparks flash at his fingertips and he can feel the Staff of Adamant vibrating in his hands.

  The other three look abashed, shame-faced as they realize what’s going on. Awkwardness replaces their anger and they all stare at the ground, each waiting for the others to speak first.

  “So,” Aremos says, growling, “who is going to tell me what’s going on? Who wants to explain why you three have been avoiding me?”

  Nobody responds. Eirrac tries to turn away, mumbling, “I don’t need this, Aremos.” The other two look like they are wavering, ready to leave the mission and disappear completely.

  “No, you don’t,” Aremos snarls. He slams the Staff of Adamant into the ground so hard that the pixels shake for a second. Magical power crackles all around, sparkling against the ground, flashing across his limbs. A wall of flame sprouts up, encircling them, about three feet outward from Eirrac as she tries to walk away. He wants to talk to them, and this is the only way he can make them listen to him and answer his questions.

  “Come on, Aremos!” Eirrac shouts, turning around. “Be serious—you wouldn’t really trap us here, would you?” Aremos just glares. “Anyway,” Eirrac continues, turning to face the flames. “I can survive one wall of flame.”

  “Fair enough,” Aremos mutters. Immediately, three more rings of firewalls appear, one after the other, cascading outward in larger and larger circles. Nobody could survive walking through all of those without strong wards—wards which Aremos knows these three don’t have, as they have always relied on him for such things. “I just want to talk,” Aremos says. Despite his anger, all he really wants is answers: Their betrayal has hurt him and he wants to know what has caused it.

  Eirrac swears, calling him a few names as she turns back to face him, raising her autocannon. She cranks the handle and bullets begin to fly, spraying the ground at Aremos’ feet, before she raises it to shoot straight into his body.

  This surprises him. For all their antagonism as well as his own, he didn’t quite expect they’d dare to attack him directly. A couple of the bullets hit him, ready to take a chunk out of his chest or abdomen. However, they slow as they penetrate him, his own shields taking much of their damage away. The rest is absorbed by his new armor. The bullets bounce harmlessly off of him, doing no damage.

  “I don’t want to fight,” he explains. “I just want answers!”

  Whilst Eirrac cranks out bullets, the other two prepare. Sah, who could easily survive both the firewalls and the deep cold beyond with his new demonic powers, has chosen to stay, showing a loyalty to Ei
rrac and Asba that hurts Aremos even more. Sah holds his axe before him, clenched in horned, flaming hands, and it begins to glow as red as his own flesh. His horns grow larger, pointing toward Aremos as he levels his head, ready to charge, and his throat and mouth burn brighter, ready to billow flaming black magic. Asba has slung her bow over her shoulder, seeing how useless her missiles will be against Aremos’ wards and shields, and has drawn her sword instead. Before, she always carried a selection of long knives and daggers, reliant as she was on her archery in battle. But now, she has a long, curved blade of starmetal, no doubt one of the most expensive purchases made in the aftermath of fighting the wyvern. It glows with an inner light and elven runes have been etched along its length.

  “Fine, then,” Aremos says. “If you want to fight, come on.”

  He readies himself to cast Time Warp once more, to gloat as they hang impotent, unable to fend off his attacks. He has not counted on Asba, though. As he begins the incantation, she holds out a finger and a bolt of energy flies from it. It is a puny magical projectile by his standards, but it is enough to distract him.

  Of course! he thinks, noticing the ring twinkling on Asba’s finger. All elves are attuned to magic—any elf can choose to learn to cast spells at any point in their careers, given enough XP. Asba has clearly begun: The rare ring on her finger is a convenient, although severely limited, way for an elf to channel magic without having to haul around a full staff, wand, or scepter, leaving her hands free for fighting.

  He flicks the spell away, dissipating it with ease, and reckons that Asba must be learning magic to replace him, to serve his old function. Well then, he thinks, I’ll track you down some time, Asba, and we can duel. I’ll show you what a real caster can do.

  But for now, he has to reinforce his shields. Like the rest of her elven kin, Asba is faster than any mortal man, and she closes the distance between them too quickly for him to begin the Time Warp again. From the other side, Sah charges, thunderous, furious, as Eirrac moves around to attack Aremos’ flank the second he gives her the chance.