Cleansing Fire

by D. L. Harrison

  Then with my detect life, I felt him swerve, and move away. The ice disappeared in fire, and I lost almost half my mana shield. One of the young dragons must’ve done that. It was with some relief we saw the ancient dragon moving off. It was blind, and apparently worried enough about its life that it wasn’t sticking around. I imagined it could still feel our magic well enough to aim, maybe it’d been a very long time since it’d been hurt like that.

  Either way, I’d take it.

  I sent mental orders, and my water elemental dropped the five soldiers of Lerus, and then sped up into the sky to attack one of the young dragon’s wings.

  “Lara!”

  As I’d hoped, she was quick on the uptake, and used a dispel magic on one of the other two young dragons, leaving the one I’d sent my elemental to alone. It’s mana shield flared and fell beneath the assault. I wasn’t surprised, she was mainly a caster as well, and had almost as much mana as I did. Her stats were just a bit different, she had more strength and agility to begin with, even if she didn’t use a weapon.

  I sent a double blast of ice bolts at another of the young dragons. My attacks were joined by Dan’s stone spike, Gwen’s shadow spike, and Cassie’s lightning. Steve went last, and he had a nasty grin on his face as a gray miasma shot from his hands and into the dragon.

  The dragon’s flight faltered in the air for just a moment as the drain life finished him off, but then straightened up. It snaked its head around, and it blindsided its buddy with a blast of fire magic.

  “How?” Cassie asked.

  Steve smirked, “I haven’t got a chance to use it much yet since we gained expert levels. But my raise dead includes racial traits, resistances, and magical abilities now. Can I keep him?”

  Lara snorted, “Maybe?”

  The young dragon with my elemental on it managed to bathe it with fire, and my elemental was dispersed. Still, it had done some damage to its right wing, and didn’t look all that steady in the air anymore. That also meant my elemental had destroyed its mana shield.

  Screw it.

  I used my emergency mana and shot it with three ice spikes. That didn’t quite kill it, but it was definitely on its last legs. Gwen finished it off with a shadow spike, no doubt digging into her just in case mana supply as well.

  The other dragon I’d expected to have to create a wall of ice, to avoid its attack, but it was attacking the undead dragon instead.

  Steve said, “Sparky!”

  Yeah, I was kind of feeling the rush too, this battle was in the bag. We just had to make sure we got out of there before the ancient got its sight back.

  The two dragons crashed together in the sky, and then started to rip each other apart.

  Cassie hit the live one with lightning, and Steve finished that one off too, and suddenly we had two undead young dragons.

  They landed in front of us.

  “Umm, you’re going to keep them?”

  Steve laughed, “I’d like too, but people would talk. Still, I could enchant them to protect Lerus, we kind of owe them, you know?”

  “Go for it, but we have to go quickly, before the ancient comes back.”

  Steve took out three expert stones, and he placed them in the two dragons already under spell, and placed the third one inside the third dragon, which woke up.

  Dan asked, “Won’t they rot?”

  Steve shook his head, “I’ve got the raise dead and the preserve dead on the same stone, since it can hold four spells.”

  That made sense.

  The dragons took off, and they started to fly north.

  Steve said, “They’ll obey the captain, otherwise they’ll just fly around, and attack anyone that attacks the city.”

  One of the guards asked, “Seriously?”

  Steve shrugged, “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Undead dragons are just… cool.”

  We all took a quick look around, no sign of the ancient. He couldn’t be too far away, or we’d have gotten experience by then.

  I waved and started walking toward the ship, “This way, we’ll give you a lift back. Then were going to the beach, we need a break, and to gain skills.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  We hadn’t gone too far to the north when the popups hit us. We didn’t get any skills of course, since we hadn’t meditated on, integrated, and mastered the last levels yet.

  Congratulations! Six young dragons and one ancient dragon have been killed or quit the field! You have earned one million twelve thousand Experience Points!

  Congratulations! You have avenged the attack on Lerus, and you’ve finally cleaned up your mess! You have earned six million Experience Points!

  You have leveled!

  You have leveled!

  You feel smarter!

  Wow, so that’s three levels worth of concepts we needed to catch up on. That’d never happened before. I also got another intelligence point!

  I was also shocked at my mana, every time it jumped, I wondered about master levels. Of course, I was only three levels away from that now. I had two hundred thousand, six hundred and seventy-two mana now. I immediately put my mana shield at one hundred twenty thousand. Then I split up the last eighty, I’d use forty freely during combat, and keep forty thousand back for emergencies. It would take me just five point five seconds to regenerate that forty thousand.

  The guards were a little surprised by a flying ship. There weren’t enough seats for five of them, but the cargo area was more than big enough for them to sit down on the floor. With the new grand enchantment for flight, and inertial dampers, we didn’t have to worry about them being tossed around by the G forces.

  The six of us were ready to relax and gain our stuff. This was the first time since we faced the aliens that we felt like there were no more unintended consequences to deal with. I started to plan out our beach house. We’d create a three-bedroom house, but all of them would be large master bedroom suites with their own bathrooms. I’d create another bathroom. I also had plans to build a jacuzzi of sorts out on the back deck near the ocean. It would be simple enough to do, a heat spell to keep the water warm, and a control water spell to keep it at the right level and clean. Similar to the tubs, except much bigger, and I’d get Cassie to build in an air jet enchantment for it.

  Then a large living room, dining room, and kitchen. We could probably even put on a fourth bedroom, and then hire someone to maintain it while we weren’t there. Keep food and stuff fresh, and the house stocked for when we were in town. I could even build a fridge and freezer using the heat spell, to draw heat out of it until things froze, or simply cooled in the former case.

  Come to think of it, next time we went to the Southern kingdom I’d do the same there. Just not at our forest, that was ours, and all we had there were simple cottages.

  I was ready, and excited to take a week off, and relax as we built the house, meditated, and integrated all the new concepts up to level thirty-eight.

  That’s why I was so annoyed, and disappointed as the city came into view. Looks like those plans would need to wait a bit more.

  Lerus was under attack, both on the ground and at sea. There was an army along the south wall, and the defenders were fighting fiercely to keep them from infiltrating the already half destroyed wall. The sea was no different, almost half the siege weapons were destroyed already from enemy ship fire.

  Damned Velus to hell, they’d attacked because of the wall being destroyed, and the dragons had softened the city up and killed many of the guard.

  Bastards.

  We all exchanged a glance, and I saw my own thought echoed in their eyes. This too was an unintended consequence, so much for taking care of it. How many ripples would happen, from the destruction of that city ship and an invading alien evil species? We’d been at fault, unintentionally or not, when we’d woken up the dragons and then led them to Lerus. We needed to help fight Velus off, and send their asses home, or to the grave.

  Lara sighed, “I don’t really want to be involved i
n human on human war, but this may be our fault. The dragons weakened them, made them ripe for attack.”

  Steve took her hand.

  “None of us like it, but we have to do something. Besides, the evil races aren’t the only ones who can be evil. These Velus bastards sound like a prime example.”

  Gwen said, “We’ll let them retreat, if they retreat. If not…”

  There were a lot of them down there, but I knew most of them would be apprentices, maybe a few journeymen. If we got involved, they wouldn’t have much of a chance.

  “Land in the usual spot, we’ll say hi on our way into the city.”

  Steve snickered.

  I took a moment to drop my ice spells, and to reinstate my fire ones. I wasn’t worried about being seen, we were cloaked, and Lara wouldn’t drop it until we’d gotten on the ground in the trees. It made me wonder how the two thieves had seen us, maybe they’d been hunting in the woods, and we hadn’t sensed them?

  “Steve, see if you can drive them off with the dragons, and get some of those dead on our side. We’re a lot stronger, but a stray arrow from an initiate could give any of us a bad day, so Cassie, you need to give us a wind shield. We move slowly but surely toward the city, and we’ll annihilate anything that looks at us wrong. It would be best, if we just merely scare them into running.”

  Steve said, “No problem.”

  Cassie nodded, “I can do that on a duration spell, so I can still be hitting them with lightning, also on a duration spell.”

  I nodded, “Good, five hundred mana per spell should be more than enough to kill anyone out there, so I’m going to be firing almost non-stop until they break and run. I can cast four of those a second without even impacting my mana.”

  Really, they were hugely outclassed, I just didn’t want to have to kill too many of them before they’d run. I hoped they’d run away, otherwise it would be a slaughter.

  I was really uncomfortable with that, mostly because they were humans too. Asshole invaders, who wanted to step on the necks of their neighboring kingdom and take over. But still human. It wouldn’t be nearly as easy to get over this, as it was to get over killing goblins and the other evil races.

  We got out of the ship when it touched down, the six of us and the five guards who looked wary. Dan sunk the ship into the ground, and we moved forward. I could already see blasts of fire breath raining down from above the enemy before the wall.

  I doubted we’d be so lucky, but for a moment I hoped they’d break and run before we got there.

  Cassie created a swirling air shield, which screamed around us and would deflect arrows and bolts. Our mana shields would take care of any magic. She was already palming a ball of lightning as we stepped out of the tree line, and into the large field in front of the city, which was a couple of hundred yards wide.

  Dan asked, “What about the ships.”

  I shrugged, “One step at a time.”

  My mind cringed away from blasting huge areas of death through the enemy rushing the gates and broken wall. Instead, I started to send normal fire blasts into the back of the enemy formation hitting random people. My first volley of twenty fire blasts killed twenty among the lines easily, and only took about three seconds to launch them. I could have killed a lot more, but I was trying to make a point, and make them run for it.

  Cassie, not to be outdone, sent four coruscating lightning balls in various spots among the lines, taking out almost thirty of them with the chain lightning, and hurting and stunning several others.

  Dan took a different tack for shock and awe, and simply dropped one sixty-foot radius fire blast. At least twenty just died, many more than that on the edges took a lot of damage and had burns.

  Steve just tossed a number of area of effect raise dead spells, behind our attacks. Looked like he too was taking advantage of the new ability to hold spells outside the body with duration. A good portion of the seventy newly dead started to rise, and then attack their neighbors.

  The whole time that was going on, the three undead dragons were roasting one of them at a time. The splash effect of their fire breath hurt several others too.

  “Cassie, state our demands.”

  She grinned at me, and then cast a quick air spell. Her voice was usually sweet while also fun loving or at times thoughtful. This time her voice boomed out, and it sounded terrifying.

  “Anyone who runs back to Velus gets to live. Run!”

  Gwen, bless her heart, picked the perfect time to launch her multiple attacks, which were area of effect curses. It landed among the gathered enemy forces in three clumps. The spell invaded their minds, and must have caused terror, because they all screamed almost perfectly on cue to Cassie’s warning and started to run east to Velus.

  It was complete havoc, as seventy of their number were undead attackers from within, about that many were running in terror which gave all the other soldiers the right idea. Herd mentality, their panic was catching, and the enemy’s assault fell apart. Almost half of them were fleeing, and it didn’t take long before the other half lost heart, and quickly followed.

  Cassie snickered.

  “What?”

  Cassie said, “We didn’t need the air shield.”

  That was true enough, we’d scattered a small attacking army, in one volley of spells from each of us. That more than anything else, showed me just how far we’d come. The five guards with us looked a bit terrified. I figured we probably worn out our welcome in Lerus.

  Just as well, we wanted to take a break, and get that beach house going. This was just one more unforeseen circumstance we’d needed to deal with first.

  “Ships,” I said reluctantly, as I built a platform of ice that was rough in places for some traction. Everyone in the party got on without question, and I lifted us up and over the city leaving the guards behind. I didn’t blame them for not getting on with us.

  The battle on sea hadn’t changed all that much. The Lerus ships were in the small bay waiting to engage the enemy if they survived the gauntlet of siege engines. It looked like they were going to, there were a few wrecks sinking, but the enemy still had almost twenty ships, and over half the siege engines were destroyed, or at least damaged enough that they would no longer fire.

  “Ideas? Or just blast them?”

  The three dragons flew over our heads, their claws missing our heads by about two feet. I ducked down, and my sphincter tightened up enough to make a diamond, as my heart skipped and then raced. I heard his low chuckle, everyone except him had flinched.

  “Asshole!”

  Steve cackled madly, then the three dragons sent blasts of fire breath at the first ship.

  I sighed, and not to be outdone I formed a fire blast with all forty thousand mana, and I sent it at the first ship. It was beyond overkill, as the center of the ship just plain exploded into tiny wooden splinters, and the rest of the ship was quickly engulfed in flames. The lucky ones died quickly, the ones on the bow and all the way back on the stern, started to scream as they burned to death in the flames. I briefly wondered what would have happened if I used the forty thousand of my reserve as well, and I shuddered.

  Cassie sighed, “This is… a slaughter. We’re too powerful for this.”

  Dan touched her back, “I know, but it’s our fault. We’ll only help with this battle.”

  Cassie formed another air spell, and her voice boomed again. She was terrifying.

  “Turn back! Sail home! Or we’ll do that with the rest of your fleet!”

  The ships kept coming, and Cassie’s face grew pissed. I imagined so that she wouldn’t cry.

  She started to cast a spell, and the clouds in the sky moved, and started to swirl. A large tornado dropped out of the sky, and it landed on one of the ships. It only lasted about three seconds, but that was enough time to turn a second boat into tinder.

  Gwen said, “Didn’t know you could do that.”

  Cassie sighed, “Control weather. It’s where the lightning attacks come from, coupled w
ith the air weapon concepts. I couldn’t have done it two levels ago, and as you saw it took all my mana to make it last three seconds. Short my mana shield.”

  I said, “Well it worked, the other eighteen ships are turning around. I think you made them shit their pants.”

  Cassie snickered.

  I shrugged, “What? I totally would have, if I was them.”

  She giggled, and so did Gwen. Lara just looked… sad. We all felt that too, but the rest of us were trying to fend it off with bad jokes. They weren’t goblins, or dark elves, they were humans. Sure, the asshat in charge in Velus very much deserved to die, but did the soldiers that were just taking orders?

  After a moment, I decided yes, they did. They didn’t have to fight in the army under a bloodthirsty bastard. They could have gone to another kingdom, or simply not served in its military. Point was, we sure as hell didn’t kill any innocents today, and we’d defended and kept safe a whole bunch of them living in Lerus.

  In the other direction, we couldn’t even see the Velus’s land army, they were already out of sight. Except for the zombies.

  Steve looked reluctant, as he cut them all loose, and they fell to the field, dead once again.

  We stayed up there and waited for a while, with nothing but our own deep thoughts for company, as we watched the ships sail away. We knew it was a done deal when we got another popup.

  Congratulations! One human army and one human navy has quit the field! You have earned two hundred thousand Experience Points!

  Congratulations! You have defended the vulnerable city of Lerus from their greedy neighbors! You have earned five million Experience Points!

  You have leveled!

  Dan snorted.

  We all looked at him in question.

  Dan shrugged, “At least we know the gods approve of this slaughter. Silly thought.”

  Again, we didn’t get any level upgrades outside of our mana gains of course, and we had the sub-concepts for four levels to catch up on now. It seemed ridiculous, but we seemed to be drunkenly stumbling from one emergency to another ever since we went to the island kingdom ruled by Queen Rachel. I hope this meant we finally got a chance to slow down. Besides catching up on the concepts, and our building a new beach house which will be our third home, I really needed to spend some quality time wooing Gwen. It felt way too long since I’d done that. At least several days.