by Roharp17
Earth wizards, probably wizard Basalt included, had erected stone walls and fortifications at a rapid pace. The walls were not tall enough to stop anyone but would slow the goblins down. Ogres moved forward into a sea of human soldiers in front of the fortifications. The ogres swung thick tree branches like clubs, and one even used a human body. The ogres' hides were so tough that even the augmented strength of the soldiers had trouble piercing them. Magic and arrows flew from the humans' fortifications, across the field. In one location, Danny could see an ogre fall, but only from a multitude of burns and cuts.
The goblins on foot raced into the field, attacking with swords, knives, and clubs. Danny realized something was definitely off about them. When one goblin's arm was removed and it kept fighting unperturbed, his suspicions were rewarded. When another goblin was cut in half and kept crawling towards the defenders, no blood gushing from its wounds, Danny knew what was wrong.
“Undead…” Danny whispered to himself.
Then something twice as large as the ogres stepped out of the forest. Trees were pushed aside as it entered the battlefield. Danny heard multiple people scream out something and managed to make out, “Mountain Troll!” It wielded a massive bone like a club. Multiple human and goblin bodies were knocked into the air with each swing. Danny recognized wizard Basalt, who behind the fortifications with his wives and the rest of Danny’s shadow, gestured towards the massive creature. A spike of stone as black as night shot up from the ground, impaling the troll right through its lower stomach. The troll fell, breaking the spike, and stood up again, unfazed, to keep wreaking destruction all around.
Wizard Basalt pulled a massive hammer from behind his back and stepped out of the fortification towards the troll. The wizard’s wives ducked and weaved through the approaching goblins. The three women easily removed heads and limbs, letting nothing touch their husband. Once Basalt reached the edge of the defending line of soldiers, he stomped twice on the ground and two spikes broke through the ground, piercing the zombie mountain troll and pinning it in place. Another stomp and a pillar of stone shot it high into the air. Wizard Basalt jumped after it, using the growing pillar's momentum to give him an added boost.
Danny couldn’t believe what he was seeing, as the large bulk that was wizard Basalt flew through the air, and brought the hammer down on the troll's head. The spikes had thrown the troll off-balance and, unable to defend itself, the troll took the full brunt of Basalt’s attack on its head. Bone and brain matter ejected out across the battlefield as the headless mountain troll fell to the ground, crushing friend and foe alike.
Wizard Basalt landed on the troll’s corpse and retreated back to the fortifications with his wives. Those defenders in front of the walls were retreating as well. There seemed to be no end to the waves of zombie goblins and ogres.
That’s when Danny realized he hadn’t seen any hobgoblins join the fight since it started. He searched the rear of the enemy to see something odd. Phantom, hearing his mental request, raced through the trees towards a group of shaman hobgoblins all in a circle. They were down the road and in view of the human fortifications. Danny knew from school that a team of wizards could work together to cast a large spell. Each wizard added their mana to power a specific piece of the rune in the spell. Seeing as there were six shamans, Danny was very concerned. He needed to stop them, and after looking back at the defenders, realized he was their only chance to stop this.
He debated if using the mass of mana was a good idea, but all he needed to do was interrupt their casting. He probably only had one chance at this given the shamans were being defended.
Phantom crept up on the edge of the tree line, overlooking the mages. There were beast wolf riders and more hobgoblin shamans surrounding the mages. They were on high alert, ready to strike as quickly as possible. They had not spotted Phantom and Danny yet, so he sent half of the mana stored in his body into the circle of shamans. Deciding it wasn't the right time to experiment, Danny thought he would use his new explosive trick with air affinity.
Danny could now see a large, dark orb forming in the center of the shaman circle. Danny didn’t know why this magic could be seen when the others only showed up when activated. Concentrating, Danny started condensing the oxygen towards the center of the orb. Danny kept condensing the oxygen in the air expecting a random ignition source to trigger it like last time, but it never came. Tired of waiting, Danny threw a fireball and the shamans’ defenders all looked up to his location in alarm.
They didn’t have a chance to retaliate, as the fire hit the condensed air and an explosion expanded from the center of the shaman circle. A concussion of air and dark energy hit Danny and Phantom, flinging them through the trees behind them. Danny could feel the trees ripping at his skin and clothes before he hit something, and blacked out.
Danny came to, hanging from a broken tree branch. The branch was pierced through his chest near his left shoulder. Blood oozed around the tree branch in the wound to drip down his badly-burned body and clothes. Danny looked around and couldn’t see Phantom anywhere. Then his vision started to fade.
Danny slammed into the familiar captain’s chair in the sanctuary. Cranny was busy at the controls.
Shaking his head Cranny pushed a button on the console. In what was supposed to be a Scottish accent but sounded more like a pirate, Cranny shouted, “I’ve given her everything you’ve got, cap’n! I was only able to give us a wee bit of thrust so that the branch didn’t pierce your heart.”
Danny could see through his eyes, shown on the screens, that his body was slowly sliding down the branch. His body unceremoniously fell to the ground, with his face looking up to the sky. Danny could only scream in pain.
Cranny looked back at him apologetically and gave up on his accent, “Sorry, I know you can still feel all this. Fortunately for you I only feel what I want to.”
Cranny got up and walked over to the captain’s chair and squatted down in front of it, “Danny, do you think you can focus enough to help me separate some of the mana from the mana bomb to heal you? I don’t know what using all that mana will do to you and I can’t manipulate that much on my own.”
Danny’s only response was to moan in pain.
Cranny frowned and nodded his head, “We don’t have any more time. All I can do is move and try and condense it. Worst case, this explodes and puts us out of our misery.”
Manipulating the controls for a minute, Cranny reached over to hesitate above a button on the control panel.
Looking down at the button, Cranny smiled sadly, “Here goes nothing,” and pressed the button.
A bright flash of light washed over everything and eventually receded.
Cranny finally opened his eyes and looked around at the screens, only to start laughing.
“We did it, Danny!” Cranny looked around to find Danny’s presence gone from the sanctuary.
Looking up, he could see through Danny’s eyes that the boy was desperately trying to sit up. Danny was making strained sounds and his breathing was heavily labored. Danny screamed out as he grasped at where the tree branch had pierced his shoulder. As he desperately wiped away the blood covering the area, it was revealed to be completely healed. Danny let out another strangled scream as he began to writhe on the ground.
Confused, Cranny tapped into Danny’s senses and could feel a burning sensation at the locations Danny had been healed, especially where the large wound had been. He desperately searched the screens for what was happening, only to realize the areas that had just been healed didn’t show any damage, internal or otherwise. What they did reveal was a spreading white light. Damage was usually shown in shades of red and infections in green, but this whiteness was something new. Cranny could only sit there uselessly as Danny screamed at the pain that was slowly engulfing his body.
A note from Roharp17
Edited by SkrmnMrgsm
Afterwards
A note from Roharp17
Arcane Transmogrification: Book Two
August 7th, 2017
I want to thank everyone that made it this far in my first book. I would like to point out that I have found the Royal Road community to be very supportive. I appreciate everyone’s comments, as they were, more often than not, polite and constructive (even when being severely critical). I also appreciate everyone’s tolerance early on when I didn't have access to MS Word and there were way to many obvious editing mistakes (Yes, I know there are probably still more).
Now, I apologize. Before moving on to book 2, I want to take some time to go back and address any glaring errors and plot loopholes you have noted in the comments I haven't had a chance to read yet. FYI – Also, I will be covering for a coworker and things will be crazy busy over the next 3+ months, but know I don’t want to hold off starting book two for too long.
I see now that in my quest to avoid making my character overpowered, I didn't have him grow enough. I created excel charts of Danny’s growth compared to the wizards, and he starts slow and grows exponentially as he ages while the wizards are stagnant. I will try and go back and alleviate this issue somehow with more “chemistry” action. I had plans for having major growth happening in the next book (hint: what happens to him at the very end of this first book), but that doesn't help me if I lose readers before they finish the first.
Please leave a review, if you haven't already, and honestly tell me what you liked and didn't.
As always, please walk near junk mail responsibly.
Robert Harper
Spoiler: Special Thanks
Special thanks to my new friend across the pond, SkrmnMrgsm, for bothering to stay up late and edit so many of my chapters.
Additional Kudos to:
FirstDragon
denkkar
Flakes
specificmice
killashard
Skoonting
and anyone else that I will thank in the future at the bottom of my chapters later.