Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

The demon warlock raised its staff above its head and brought it back down on a dwarven woman wearing leather armor and carrying a spear made from either iron or steel. I quickly raised my hands and conjured up a basic shield of earth which managed to block most of the force behind the attack and shattered leaving the dwarven woman mostly unharmed.

The dwarf took several steps back in shock and surprise at what just happened. I could see that she was expecting to die from that attack and was having trouble processing what just happened. “Those of you with shields get in the front, those of you with longer reaching weapons stay behind them!” I shouted to the mercenaries who were without a good leader.

The demon looked at me and scowled, its ears were the biggest indication of this as they turned not unlike a cat's ears, it also showed its displeasure with my action by swinging its earth staff down at me like it was swinging an axe. With some quick thinking I managed to use some of the earth near my feet to shoot up and create a barrier of sorts that partly blocked and deflected the attack. Like the previous attack against the dwarf it broke but I was left unharmed.

Thankfully I wasn’t the only one doing something smart to fight the demon, though I didn’t like Saturio or his subordinates very much, I saw them take the opportunity to strike at the warlock while it was paying attention towards us. His subordinates were trying to subdue the warlock by attacking its legs and arms where it didn’t have its earth cloak to protect it, Saturio on the other hand took a running start and jumped towards the upper body of the demon with his spear pointed towards its head.

The warlock wasn’t stupid of course, but it also wasn’t expecting something so bold and dangerous to happen either. So instead of batting Saturio away like a bug it instead started to panic before slapping him away and taking several steps back.

“Press the advantage!” I shouted to everyone and I along with everyone else ran towards the warlock to leave it with as little space as possible. The warlock seeing the situation turning bad began messing with the earth below our feet to knock us down and delay us. Unfortunately it wasn’t putting its all into these attempts and we quickly managed to reach it before we started to hit it with everything we had.

Those in the front with their shields raised high focused on blocking anything the warlock tried against us while those with longer reaching weapons like spears used the reach their weapons afforded to them to attack while being protected. Though I didn’t have a shield I did have my magic and a set of full plate armor which only around four people in the entire company had counting both Aelia and Citro.

My main target was the right arm or the warlock as it used it in wide gestures when using its magic, though as I did this I noticed something significant. It wasn’t chanting for any of its spells, in all honesty it might not have even been casting any proper spells. It might have just been simple manipulation given how it never did anything complex.

The earth cloak began to crack in several places under the combined strength of everyone all fighting at once and driving it into a corner when suddenly a clear ball around the size of my helmet shot by without making a sound and collided with the demon warlock. Like a puppet cut from its strings the demon dropped to its knees and leaned over while its cloak broke apart in pieces one at a time.

We did not hesitate to bring our weapons down upon the demon when this happened, heck even Saturio seemed rather happy with the situation at hand. Everyone started hacking and slashing at the demon with as much force that could be mustered, yet for some reason the demon didn’t even try to fight back. Instead it tried pushing away from us and even held up its arms in a defensive position.

Eventually it suffered several injuries to the face and eyes that led to it bleeding too much black tar-like blood and it stopped moving. It was then followed by the familiar light show of the demon’s soul being sucked up by the phylacterium resting just behind the throne it was sitting on. It was a strange sight to see the wisps of the soul as it was trapped within an object, it was also quite beautiful. Too bad I didn’t have the time to enjoy the view the last time.

“What kind of magic spell was that?” I asked as I turned to the woman responsible for the spell in question.

Lyra looked a little tired after casting such a powerful spell and had to take a moment to catch her breath. “That was a spell I personally created called Iron Anchor. It does two things, first it will destroy or heavily damage any armor the target is wearing, then it will multiply the weight of the target many times over until standing becomes very difficult. As you just saw it even left a demon powerless against us.”

Instead of responding I just smiled and nodded, it did make sense given what we all saw the demon do. ‘An interesting spell. Alteration magic seems a lot more powerful than I initially thought it would be, I should probably look into learning how to do some of those things. Increasing the weight of a living being sounds useful for limiting the mobility of enemies.’

By this time everyone was crowded around the corpse of the demon and looking at it with a look of fear and worry in their eyes, I noticed a few people poking it with their weapons to see if it would react. Instead of joining them I instead walked behind the throne the demon was sitting on and found the phylacterium resting on a small podium. It was a small obelisk made of silver and decorated with those strange symbols that I now recognize as some very complex inscriptions, they were so complex that I couldn't even understand them.

Holding the phylacterium in my hands I walked back to Lyra with the intent of handing it to her for safe keeping as she was the most trustworthy person here. As I walked by everyone they all got a good look at the phylacterium and its glowing inscriptions, even Saturio got a look, but he looked more annoyed than anything else.

Lyra smiled as I handed the phylacterium to Lyra. She smiled and took it from the bottom and ran her hands along the sides. She took her time to inspect the phylacterium and the inscriptions it had. For a minute she inspected every side and angle it had, when she was done she placed it within her bag and turned to me.

“This hasn't been the first time you have seen a phylacterium is it?” I was a little taken aback by the sudden question, but I nodded and Lyra smiled.

“Yes, I thought so. You handled the demon and the phylacterium itself far too carefully for this to have been your first time encountering one.”

With the demon taken out of the equation we were able to start attending the wounded, while mostly everyone was alright there were still a handful of dangerous wounds, mostly those who were wearing very light armor. All of the mages immediately dropped everything they had and started healing those with the worst injuries, myself included despite my minimal skill in restoration magic.

As such I was given the task of healing those with light injuries that required only some basic medical treatment. My first patient was a human man that looked to be in his late twenties, he had apparently hurt his arm while defending against the demon. He managed to keep himself and those behind him from being seriously injured but at the same time he strained the muscles in his shield arm.

Placing both my hands on his arm I converted mana within myself in healing energy and poured it into the arm, gently I allowed it to flow across his arm and settle in like a river. I could tell based on his facial expressions and his soft sighing that it was having the intended effect, after a minute of this I stopped and allowed him to try moving his arm.

Like I expected he was able to move his arm quite freely without any lingering pain. “Thank you sir mage.” The young man said as he stood up and bowed deeply. I just nodded before moving to my next patient.

This continued until all of the major injuries were dealt with and we were able to focus on the fact that our exit was blocked by solid stone. All four of the mages including Lyra and myself stepped up to the stone blocking our way and placed our hands up against it to try and move it. I was a little worried about what might happen as I wasn’t conscious the last time this all happened.

To our surprise there was no more interference and the stone easily responded to our collective commands, we quickly moved it out of the way where we found several concerned members of group one waiting. The first two quickly started asking questions regarding the condition of the group while the other rushed to tell the other members of the group one of us exiting the cave.

Slowly everyone in group two fingered out of the cave starting with those with the most serious injuries, they had been treated but many still required some time to fully heal their injuries. That was why getting them somewhere safe and with proper medicine and bandages was a high priority.

I was one of the last to leave the cave and when I was about to, Lyra stopped me by placing her hand on my chest abruptly. Citro was also there to take count of everyone to make sure everyone was still in the group, when he noticed Lyra just nodded to him and he nodded back before stepping away with his list fully filled out.

“You don’t know very much about restoration magic do you?” Lyra asked in a semi accusatory tone. “How long have you been practicing magic to not know much about it?”

“I’ve been a mage for a little over a year now, to be honest I haven't been keeping track.” I answered honestly. Lyra however looked a little surprised given my answer.

“Wait, what? Just over a year? You are easily at the level of a beginner evoker in terms of your geomancy skill, and you learned all that in a year?” Lyra's pitch went up as I continued to explain the variety of my skill set.

“I am actually also equally skilled in all four of the evocations, my only two weak links are my alchemy which hasn't really been that much of an issue, and my restoration. I was actually using my alchemy skill to supplement my lack of any proper restoration training through potions, though I haven’t been able to create any for a while now given the situation.”

Lyra just looked at me like I was some sort of freak for several seconds before she just wordlessly retrieved a piece of paper from her bag and scribbled something on it before handing it to me. Immediately I recognized the address to her home in Antium where I met up with her to join in the war between the kingdom and the empire.

“This is an address?” I asked after looking for a few seconds to hide my instant recognition.

“It is. That is my address in Antium where we will be leaving for soon once the military arrives on the scene. I suspect there might be a few more demons down here and I don’t think my mercenaries have the might or magic to take them on with some losses.”

“Fair enough, but why exactly are you giving this to me?” I asked, faking my confusion.

“I think with some proper training and perhaps just one more year of time you could become quite powerful. You should be ready to start learning tier three spells in the four evocations and I don't see why you wouldn’t be able to catch up with the other types of magic.”

I looked down at the piece of paper and back up a few times while I weighed my options. ‘This is an invitation to join the Flock of War mercenary Company far earlier than I normally would have. I am betting that she doesn’t expect me to join right away, she is probably betting that I will hit a roadblock in my training once I become a Conjurer. The need for a teacher will likely shoot straight up if I want to make any significant progress, she will probably be hoping that I will come to her to learn more and become her apprentice.’

“Well… I'm not too sure about joining your mercenaries right away. I was actually planning to go to Antium myself to broaden my horizons and try to join up with the mages guild. Maybe even get myself a proper magical education that way.” I instead said trying to make myself sound a little more normal, which was my plan during the first time.

“That is a good plan, Antium or any large city for that matter will have a lot more opportunity for anyone than a small town or village even if they do have a branch of the mages guild there. If you want I can see about getting you a recommendation for the guild on my own and my fathers behalf, someone like you certainly deserves an opportunity to be a part of something where you can grow to your full potential.”

“Thank you Lyra, I would certainly appreciate that. Would I also be able to join you and your mercenaries for the trip back to Antium, unfortunately I don’t really know the way from where we are and I worry about the bandits and all the dangers on the road.”

“Of course Arthur, I see no reason why that would be an issue.”