Ends of Magic

Time seemed to slow down as Stella unleashed her lightning. The tendrils of energy curved around the outcropping like the outstretched arms of a hungry god. They were sun-bright, and the battlefield was immediately lit in actinic tones by the incredible glare. That light should have blinded Nathan as it consumed the battlefield, but it didn’t.

Apparently my magic immunity means light produced from magical effects can’t blind me.

Nathan could see Stella’s magnetic containment fields for a split second as the unimaginable power of the lightning spell tried to find an outlet, forking through the air. Then the questing power touched the beams of light assailing Khachi’s shield. The electricity ceased its exploration, having discovered the path of least resistance. A tangible mass of lightning roared down the lines of the beams, following them back to their source.

I did mention electrolasers to Stella, didn’t I? Those beams of light aren’t lasers, but I suppose they ionize enough air to make a conductive path.

The sound was beyond deafening - Nathan could feel the reverberation of the cataclysmic spell in every bone of his body. The lightning dominated the air overhead, the entire sky flashing white as incandescent bolts replaced the top half of the world. Streamers of power flickered down from the sky, crashing to the ground all around the battlefield. One struck right next to Nathan, blasting aside a charging strike-construct.

The spell that came for Nathan was like nothing he’d ever felt before. It wasn’t a fancy spell - it was barely a spell at all, just a raw outpouring of lightning mana. It was the sheer power that beggared the mind. By Nathan’s estimate, the bolt that struck near him contained about 1800 mana - the entire pool of a level 170 mage without any special skills. He gritted his teeth and leaned into the spell as if leaning into a high wind, healing through any damage that got through as the sand under his feet fused together.

Magic Absorption 10 achieved! Congratulations, you have maxed out this unique Talent! You must achieve Insight into the Talent to develop it further! As it is unique-tier, this will be very difficult, and the type of Insight will influence how the Talent develops.

That trunk of lightning was nothing compared to the bolts that impacted the huge constructs that had been the source of the light-beams. Each of the besieged machines manifested hexagonal shields of force that reflected the lightning, which lashed fractal bolts through the ranks around them.

Can they defend against that? We won’t have a prayer.

The shields lasted a single heartbeat before shattering and exposing the giant brick-shaped constructs to the full fury of all the mana Stella could channel in ten minutes. They exploded as one, detonating like their entire building-sized bodies had been packed with plastic explosives. Whizzing projectiles filled the air, and Nathan heard the sound of a large piece of metal impacting the stone behind him.

A large piece of shrapnel took his leg out from under him, mangling the limb as it sent him cartwheeling to the ground. An enormous cloud of dust obscured everything, though Nathan could still see the glare of lightning playing through the cloud.

I guess her spell’s not over yet.

The flying sand itself was charged, and lightning flickered through the storm like it was alive, lighting the thick dust with hundreds of small jolts of electricity. A scout staggered into Nathan’s sight, and he saw it be electrocuted half a dozen times as the ambient charge grounded itself against the metal construct.

The lightning was also shocking Nathan, but not nearly as aggressively because he wasn’t made of metal, and the lightning was still magical enough that his talent protected him. It was enough to completely refill his Stamina after he healed his leg and cautiously got to his feet.

Well that’s an adventure. I think I'll go check on the Heirs and wait for the dust to settle. Heh. I’ve never used that phrase literally before. It’s a very charged atmosphere. Heh, good one.

Nathan shook his head, unsure if he was concussed or just a little stupefied by the grandeur of his friend’s spell. Regardless he turned to go find the protected dip where the Heirs had been fortified, hoping that he wouldn’t find a red smear on the ground.

The first thing he heard was coughing, which was a good sign, followed by the sound of Khachi’s voice finishing a weak prayer. “... stand once more. By my own perseverance, I am healed.”

Nathan stumbled over an obscured rock, nearly face-planting on ground littered with sharp metal. He caught himself and looked up to find Sarah propping up a wounded Khachi, who had blood dribbling out of his wolfish snout. The cleric's chestplate was crushed in, but it was suffused by a golden glow and popped back into place as Nathan watched. The wolfman’s breathing started coming more easily and he slumped backward, taking deep breaths.

The fully-armored figure of Aarl was nearby, greatsword held at the ready. He gave Nathan a quick nod but continued standing guard. Occasionally a streamer of lightning would jump to his armor, but each time the armor would react, neutralizing the lightning with a blue flash.

Nathan looked around for a moment, unable to find Stella. “Where’s…?”

Sarah pointed, and Nathan followed her hand. He caught a glimpse of slippers poking out from behind a large piece of jagged metal and rushed over.

Shit shit shit.

Nathan rounded the metal to find that Stella was unwounded except for a nosebleed. She had seemingly just collapsed on the ground behind the flattened chunk of shrapnel. He looked down at her in confusion.

“She collapsed after the giant explosion.” Sarah was helping Khachi to his feet, looking over at Stella with worry. “It’s probably mana overload. She was keeping the lightning away from us.”

They looked up as a strike construct emerged from the cloud, jumping toward them with the scrape of damaged metal. Aarl bisected it with his disintegration-sword, and the halves clattered to the ground.

Nathan shook himself, looking out into the swirling sand. “We don’t know that we got them all. Khachi, can you heal Stella, or carry her if you can’t? We need to get out of this dust cloud and get better sight lines. I don’t want to get jumped by one of those spiders with a disintegration aura.”

The cleric nodded and coughed up some more blood, though it seemed to be leftover from his injury. He reached down to grab Stella, hoisting her gently in a princess carry as they turned and retreated away from the battlefield. Nathan took the rear, tearing apart a slow stream of surviving scouts and retreating to let Aarl deal with the few strike constructs that were following them.

I just want to be sure I’m the first to engage any of those spider constructs. I might be the only person who can take them out. Stella or Sarah might be able to deal with one from a distance, but not with this visibility. And Sarah would probably have to use an enchanted round for it.

Most of their enemies had some kind of damage, and were limping on malfunctioning legs or dysfunctional logic. Their disorganized attacks made them easy fights for Nathan and Aarl, who dispatched the staggering constructs as quickly as possible so they could ensure nothing slipped past them.

They’ve been pretty smart in groups previously - I wonder if they had some kind of networked intelligence that Stella’s spell broke.

The dust started clearing after a few hundred feet, and eventually Khachi declared a halt and lowered Stella to the ground. He channeled some healing to Stella and Sarah, then held out a hand to Aarl, who shook his head.

“I haven’t taken a wound. This armor is as impressive as adamant. In fact, there might be adamant in it. Though I’ll need Stella to recharge it later. It takes basic mana right here.” Aarl indicated a spot between his shoulder blades, which held a recessed metal port that looked a lot like an electrical outlet.

Khachi grunted, then leaned down to heal Stella again. She was still unconscious, and didn’t respond. The cleric frowned, then slapped her lightly with his gauntleted hand.

“Ow!” Stella blinked sluggishly, lifting a hand to her cheek. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the lightning still flickering through the cloud of sand and looked around in confusion. “What happened? Why did you hit me?”

Then her eyes fully focused past the wolfman and onto the cloud of dust. She spoke with a slight slur, clearly tired and barely focusing. “The spell! What happened? Did it take out the army?” Her eyes were flicking back and forth, clearly skimming prompts from Davrar. “Hah! I developed [Mana Shaping]! And [Robust Spells]!” She yawned, holding a hand in front of her face as her eyes slid nearly shut.

Khachi snorted, standing up as dust flaked from his armor. “To repeat prophecy, your spell had great effect, for we are not dead. But I did not see the outcome. The light attacks directed against us were rather bright. My barrier protected us, but we could not see beyond. After you passed out, a large piece of metal hit my shield and broke it, nearly breaking me.” Khachi glanced at Nathan. “Did you see what occurred?”

Nathan kept his attention half-focused on the dust cloud as he answered Khachi’s question. “Yeah, I saw most of it. The lightning followed the light mana back to the big bricks, and they exploded. That was probably where that piece of metal came from. I don’t know if the lightning got all of the smaller ones, but it definitely got a lot of them. It was a pretty damned powerful spell.”

He shook his head, then met Stella’s eyes. “Honestly, great job on that spell. We bought you the time you needed, but you pulled it off.”

“So… plasma mana next?” She smirked in a self-satisfied manner, eyes sluggish and nearly drifting closed.

Nathan laughed. “Yeah, if you can contain that much lightning, then a little bit of plasma shouldn’t be a problem. I also think we’re going to go for electrolasers, which are a good intermediate. And you already saw how it works! A strong beam of light can help direct lightning mana. That seems like an Insight you can use.”

Stella cheered weakly, but was called back from her excitement by Sarah, who was frowning over her rifle as she aimed into the dustcloud. “Sorry to douse your fire, but we haven’t leveled yet. I wish my [Unhindered Weaponsight] worked through dust. Stella, are you hale enough to blow away the cloud? We need to see. Don’t bait the castlebear if you’re too tired.”

The mage nodded, flipping one hand dismissively and covering another yawn. “I’m fine! My development of [Mana Shaping] will let me build big spells and then unleash them. This should be easy.” She raised her hands into the air from her sitting position, and a swirling ball of air mana started forming twenty feet in the air.

The Heirs waited for a minute as the size and density of the spell built, then Stella swept her hands down, directing a wide jet of gale-force winds which blew in the direction of the electrified cloud of dust. It started clearing, slowly revealing a wasteland of shattered metal and blackened rock.

Sarah was ready with her rifle, snapping off shots as still-mobile constructs were revealed. They were staggering around the cloud, though some had formed up into small groups. She knocked down a handful with precise shots as Khachi raised a barrier of translucent golden light once more.

It was none too soon - as the dust cloud parted, the surviving army started organizing. They advanced on the Heirs in a ragged line and enchanted metal spikes deflected from Khachi’s barrier. Nathan and Aarl left the cover of Khachi’s magic, advancing to meet the wave of damaged war robots.

It was hard not to grow overconfident - they’d demolished the majority of the army, and what remained was battered and malfunctioning. But even the reduced foe was still scary. Nathan took several bad wounds from scouts and the spikes fired by the strike constructs before he regained his caution. He focused on dodging the attacks and not taking a wound that might disable him for long enough that the machines could bury him under a weight of bodies.

High-tier Dodging Footwork 4 achieved!

But really I’m just playing second fiddle to my teammates here.

Aarl and Sarah were mowing through the enemies like farmers scything grain, with Sarah focused on taking out any strike constructs that tried to draw a bead on her brother. He managed to dodge most of the metal spikes, and the few that did hit him just caused him to stagger slightly as he continued to dice the attackers into metal scrap.

Then the wind revealed one of the giant metal spiders, which was missing three legs on one side. It turned and oriented on the Heirs, rushing toward them with a staggering gait.

I think that’s my cue.

Nathan ran to meet the disintegration aura-ed creature, maneuvering around it so he could approach where the legs had been sheared away. It tried to hit him anyway, but there was a lack of coordination to the nine remaining limbs that made it simple to dodge through the gaps. Once under the spider, it tried to disintegrate him with the aura, but Nathan duplicated his feat of jumping up and grabbing hold of the crystal, which retracted into the creature’s body.

If it worked once - I just hope this isn’t a trap somehow. Not sure how it could be.

Nathan reached in after the retracting crystal, again finding the conduit that connected directly to whatever magical brain controlled the entire machine. He drained it quickly, dropping from the frozen body afterwards.

You know, in case it explodes like the last one. Though I’m pretty sure that was a plasma ball attack from one of those brick-like robots.

While he’d been busy, the dust cloud had mostly been dispersed by Stella’s magic, and she was frying some groups of constructs with occasional bolts of lightning.

Nathan looked around the battlefield, which was strewn with metal bodies in various states of disassembly, ranging from ‘completely exploded’ to ‘cut in half’ and with more than a few just ‘partially melted’. Large swaths of ground were blackened and fused from the cataclysmic lightning spell, and there were substantial craters at the crest of the hill where the bricks had been standing when Stella unleashed her spell.

…eight, nine and that’s ten corpses of the spiders. Glad to have all of those accounted for. I can’t believe Stella’s spell got eight of them. Goddamn.

The craters at the top of the hill were still smoking, though the smoke was quickly drawn away by the vestiges of Stella’s wind spell. Nathan watched a few constructs skitter over the hilltop and out of sight. One of them dropped right as it reached the crest, a final victim of Sarah’s rifle.

Nathan called out to Aarl, who had just finished off the last group of functional constructs. “Are we going after them?”

Aarl shook his head. “I don’t think so. The army is broken. And I’m tired.”

Nathan nodded, turning to walk back towards where the rest of the Heirs stood and rolling his shoulders.

You have leveled up to level 110! Congratulations, your party has vanquished a strike force of Old Gemore War constructs!

As Nathan approached, he heard Stella laughing. Her voice morphed from a tired giggle into a maniacal chuckle. “I gained thirty three levels from that! Haha!”

Aarl’s helmet retracted back into the armor, individual metal tendrils slithering off his head like liquid. He shook his head, flicking sweat off his hair. “Twenty one here. Killed a lot of constructs.” He marched up to Stella, presenting his back and sitting down. “The armor needs a recharge - getting a bit low. Port’s right between my shoulder blades, miss thirty-three.”

Stella did a double take, opening her eyes wide as if to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. “Wait. Where did that come from? Did you put on the maybe-cursed armor in the middle of the fight?”

Aarl shrugged. “Yup. Isn’t cursed. Well?” He gestured again at the charging port.

The tired mage grumbled, but proceeded to slap a hand onto Aarl’s back and start channeling mana into it. Small lights on his armor started slowly pulsing, reminding Nathan of how electronic devices indicated ‘charging begun.’

Sarah spoke up next. “Twenty levels here. Got a lot of the strike constructs.” She tossed Nathan a fresh pair of clothes, gesturing for him to speak next.

“Nineteen. I didn’t get that many of the strike or scout constructs. Just two of the big spider-ones. That disintegrating aura is nasty, I don’t think there’s a scrap of my old clothes left. If I learn how to take a second class I’m considering tailor.” Nathan started pulling on the clothes he’d gotten, then felt at his head, which felt a bit different. “It also gave me a buzz cut. I guess my hair is less antimagic than the rest of me. Hold on.”

Nathan concentrated for a moment, and his hair grew out again to its normal shagginess, just barely too short to get into his eyes. “No construct gives me a haircut.” He ignored Sarah’s snort and indicated Khachi to speak next.

The big wolfman had also smiled at Nathan’s joke, but was gazing intently at the intact spider Nathan had taken down last. “I appreciate your destruction of those particular foes, I do not know how we could have faced them without you. I gained twelve levels today - as I only struck down several attacking scouts. I am free of regret, but am surprised I earned so many levels.”

Sarah slapped his shoulder plate. “You blocked a lot of attacks there. Allowed Stella the time she needed for her spell. You earned those levels, same as us.”

Khachi shook his head, dismissing the topic. “Shall we proceed to the town of Tarren? I expect we will not have trouble now.”

Nathan smirked. “If there is trouble, I don’t think we’ll be on the receiving end of it.”

Stella spoke up. “I don’t think I’m ready to walk that far yet. I want a nap first.” Then she frowned at where her hand met Aarl’s armor. “This stuff is drinking mana like an ocean. How much energy did you spend, Aarl? What does this item use it for?”

The wiry man held up his arm, inspecting the metallic gloves that had emerged from the sleeves. “It spends mana to counter attacks, including magic. It can also spend stored mana to empower strikes, but I’m not comfortable using it yet. It’s a great piece of gear.”

“And it’s taken in nearly four thousand mana and is not even partway done. This is ridiculous. I’m getting low. That never happens.” Stella’s tone made it clear this was a personal affront, even as she cracked a loud yawn and her nose started bleeding again.

Khachi hustled over to treat her. "Stop that. Do not worsen your mana-burn."

“You know, I bet there are some intact crystals out there." Nathan looked around the battlefield. "I know the spider-constructs had these giant crystals to channel the disintegration spell through. Should I go grab those?”

“Yes please!” Stella’s voice was tired. “While you guys do that I might take a nap. Wake me up when we’re heading down to Tarren.”

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Magic Absorption 10

Permanent Talent 2: Perfected Body 4

Talent 3: High-tier Slow Fall 8

Class: Implacable Antimage level 110

Stamina: 3064/3600

Antimage’s Impassivity

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Implacable Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Improved Antimagic

Strenuous Agility

Hand-to-hand Expertise

Utility skills:

Battle Meditation 4

High-tier Earnestness 8

Mid-tier Sprinting 10

High-tier Spellsense 8

High-tier Notice 3

High-tier Identify 4

High-tier Dodging Footwork 4

High-tier Enhanced Memory 7

Mid-tier Lecturing 8

High-tier Tumbling 1