Ends of Magic

The Heirs stared across the field at the Giantsrest mages. The distracting spells had faded, the ambush had failed. Now it was just a hundred feet of crops separating two groups of five.

On one side, Nathan and the other Heirs stood. They were bloody and battered, having come out badly from round one. But they were resolute, and now they had a plan.

Standing opposite were Taeol and four other Giantsrest mages. They were unharmed and powerful magic glimmered at their fingertips. But for all that they seemed to have the upper hand, their stances were uncertain as Nathan stalked toward them.

I have built myself to kill mages. It’s time to test that out.

Then the pair of green-robed mages finished their spell and the ground in front of them cracked open into a wide crevasse. A pit opened up thirty feet across and a hundred wide, separating Taoel’s group from the Heirs. Nathan saw Taoel’s smile across the field as he inspected the array of floating needles the two purple-robed mages were marshaling into place.

Nathan murmured out of the corner of his mouth. “Stella, I need a jump assist. As close to the crevasse as you can manage.”

There was a grunt of assertion from behind him, then Nathan charged once more.

He ran straight at the crevasse, trusting his team to handle their parts. The two purple-robed students were marshaling another storm of poisoned needles, while the two green robes were reestablishing the sturdy dome of force.

Fat lot of good that will do.

Nathan picked up speed quickly, hurtling over the ground on a direct line towards the foes. One of the purple-robed mages held the cloud of needles aloft while the other maneuvered behind the projectiles and aimed at Nathan.

Taeol cast a spell that Nathan couldn’t hear, and his senses cut out. It was a spell of void and shadow, similar in concept if not construction to the sensory deprivation spell that Gale had cast on him after his plummet into Gemore. Instead of working as an illusion, this one absorbed all of the light and sound that should reach him. It also held a component that would quickly suffocate the target.

High-tier Spellsense 5 achieved!

Nathan absorbed the spell as the needles hit, another dozen of the wickedly sharp enchanted objects impacting his skin. But this time, he was Raging. A third of the needles penetrated, but the rest didn’t hit straight on and deflected from his skin. One sunk into Nathan’s right eye, and scraped against the back of his eye socket before he yanked it out.

Each point of impact briefly became numb before a moment of focus banished the sensation and the needles fell from his skin.

He saw a rock a couple feet across vibrate ahead of him. Nathan jumped on it and crouched, then pushed off as the rock jerked upwards. He soared into the air once more, propelled by the same trick they’d used so often.

Nathan arced through the air. Once he reached the apogee of his arc he used stamina to pull himself diagonally on a straight line toward Taeol.

The purple-robed mages stood there, slack-jawed. The green-robes were faster off the mark, and one of them hurled a gust of [Razor Wind] at Nathan. The spell tried to push him back into the crevasse but Nathan’s momentum-enhancing skills allowed him to plow through it, the shredding blades of air slicing his clothes but leaving not a mark on his skin.

The other mage levitated a rock from the ground and was about to hurl it at Nathan when Sarah’s rifle spoke. The enchanted bullet crashed through the force bubble, then through the [Mage Armor] and hit the Giantsrest mage in the neck. It kept going after that, punching through the other side of the force bubble and presumably flying off into the distance. The rock fell to the ground.

Good targeting. That mage was a little too clever for my preference. And Taeol is mine.

Nathan’s flight was uninterrupted, and his mouth pulled back into a snarl as he approached the force dome.

Taeol looked up at Nathan descending towards him. Nathan strained his [Slow Fall] trying to reach Taeol in the seconds where his lips moved. Once again, he was too late.

[Teleport]

Taeol vanished in a flicker of orange light, and Nathan shattered the barrier, screaming his frustration.

Not again!

High-tier Slow Fall 5 achieved!

As he landed Nathan lashed out with his fist, backhanding one of the purple-robes through her mage armor. She spun and fell, clutching at a shattered jaw. The remaining purple robe raised her hands to either cast a spell or surrender, but a bolt of lightning curved through the hole Nathan had left in the shield. It consumed her for several seconds, lasting until the mage armor shattered and she fell as a smoking corpse.

The sole remaining mage [Blink]-ed away, running as only a man running from death can run. Nathan stalked after him, plotting routes to cut off the mage’s paths. Then his quarry dove into the tall crops and was blown back out by Aarl’s lightning-blade. The strike blew out a good portion of his abdomen, and the corpse tumbled into the crevasse, leaving a bloody splotch on the ground.

Nathan looked around for a moment, trying to spot if Taeol had reappeared nearby. He saw nothing but fields, calming from the sudden winds and explosions of the fight.

You have leveled up to level 72! Congratulations, you have defeated an ambush laid by an Archmage of Giantsrest and sent him fleeing.

Then a weak cough sounded from behind him, and Nathan turned back to the sole surviving mage. He stalked towards her with purpose.

Not going to kill her - yet. I want answers.

He reached and grabbed her hands, roughly pulling her to her feet and grasping them tightly behind her back. The mage moaned and struggled, trying to pull her hands free to touch her bleeding jaw. Nathan wrenched her hands upwards to put strain on her shoulders.

He heard Aarl approaching from behind. “Can I get some rope?”

Nathan could hear Aarl’s hesitation in his slow footsteps. The lithe man approached carefully, putting away his weapons. He reached into his dimensional storage to hand Nathan a length of rough rope. Then the swordsman voiced his concerns with a simple question. “Why?”

Nathan wrapped the prisoner’s hands with the rope, then ran the excess cord down to her ankles. He wasn’t trying to make this unescapable or hogtie the mage. He just wanted another barrier to complicate any escape attempt. “I want to know why Taeol was here. And what he’s planning next.”

Aarl grunted, then handed Nathan a fresh set of clothes. Nathan took them, glancing down at his bare chest and shredded pants. At least his underwear was intact. “Watch her. If she tries anything, kill her.”

Another grunt was affirmation enough, and Nathan took a step back to pull off his clothes and wipe off the bloodstains left by the needles. He quickly garbed himself anew, then turned his attention back to their prisoner.

The mage had turned around, crouching slightly because of the rope linking her wrists and ankles. She was breathing hard, wincing around her visibly broken jaw. Her purple-glowing eyes flicked back and forth between Aarl and Nathan, and Nathan addressed her, leaning into [Earnestness].

“As you saw, I’m immune to all of your magic. Cast any spells at all and I’ll crush your throat and let you choke to death. We have questions. Will you answer them?”

The prisoner nodded, and made an ‘uh-huh’ sound, once again flinching at the pain. Nathan sighed, and looked around for Khachi.

Sarah, Stella and Khachi were standing on the other side of the chasm as Stella conjured a stone bridge over its depths. Nathan filled the time by patting down the captive, stripping off two dimensional pouches at her belt as well as a thin wand and a dagger. Her robe was also magic, but as far as Nathan could tell it was a set of self-cleaning and durability enchantments, so he let it be.

Stella skipped across the bridge and joined them, eyeing the other mage with hostility. “Why is she still alive? Tried to kill us, didn’t she?”

The captive made an "uh-uh” noise and shook her head vigorously.

Khachi was gingerly crossing the narrow bridge, favoring his partially-healed arm and looking at the edge of the chasm. He was clearly wondering why he hadn’t just walked around like Aarl had done. Nathan gestured him forward. “Can you heal her jaw?”

The big wolfman barely paused before he reached down, cupping the prisoner’s face with golden-glowing claws. She flinched away from his touch but then stopped herself, looking up at Khachi’s stern expression with hope.

Sarah joined them, holding a revolver loosely in one hand. Stella picked up the items that Nathan had stripped off the mage and stowed them away, then joined Aarl in patting down the other bodies and stripping them of valuables.

Khachi stepped away, gesturing for Nathan to take over. Nathan watched as their captive’s eyes flicked to the smoking body that was wearing charred purple robes. Her face went slack, and her already teary eyes grew a bit wetter.

Nathan snapped fingers in front of her face. “Hey. I have questions, and you better have answers. Or…” he gestured to the corpses.

She looked up at him, setting her shoulders and working her recently healed jaw. Now that Nathan took a look at her, she was rather pretty in a sharp-faced way. Her hair was a dark brown, and cut to the nape of her neck over now-bloodstained purple robes. They matched her eyes, amusingly enough.

“What’s your name?”

The mage looked up at him, and her face grew calmer by degrees. She took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes for a moment before answering.

I think she has some kind of mental focus skill.

“Harthi. Harthi dha Jaltre. Daughter of Archmage Chennal dho Jaltre.” Her voice was defiant, but then she remembered present company and swallowed her last words. She seemed to want to take back what she’d said.

Nathan nodded, pursing his lips. “Harthi. Tell us about how you came to be here. Fairfield is an awful long way from Giantsrest.”

Harthi chewed on her lip for a moment, but Nathan raised an eyebrow and looked expectantly at her. He didn’t step forward or make any additional attempts to loom, but he didn’t need to. She trembled slightly and continued speaking.

“Archmage Taeol usurped teaching some advanced classes a few weeks ago. He has been known to teach expert dimensional magic to favorites. Me and… Ruthal tried to get him to teach us. As one does.” Her eyes lowered, and her attention drifted to the purple-robed corpse. “He said he’d favor us, take us on as full apprentices, but he needed a special project first.”

Nathan looked around at the battlefield. “This?”

Harthi’s eyes closed, and she jerked her head away from the corpse. “Yes. He needed a Giant’s trick to capture one who could resist magic. Ruthal is… was a librarian and alchemist. She discovered a recipe for nonmagical paralysis poison, and I enchanted the delivery needles. Taeol was pleased, and promised on the Grave to make us full dimensional mages after…” She rolled her head around to indicate the battlefield.

“And the green-robed mages?”

Harthi opened her eyes and shrugged dismissively, her movements limited by the ropes. “Taeol hired Enslavement Mages to help against your teammates. Stram and Brogar. Promised them favors and positions in his household. They bragged about their accomplishments, but they’re just dropouts who couldn’t ascend the Academy.”

“And how did you get here?”

“Taoel can cast [Enlarged Teleport], a spell of an archmage, that lets him bring two people. A week ago we started teleporting here every day. We would weave spellwork to confuse and scare. He wanted it to look like a magical threat of adamant, such that they’d send you. Farfield is far enough away that elites from Gemore wouldn’t interfere.” Harthi’s voice had grown more clinical, recounting events precisely and without emotion. “Ruthal and I - our purpose was to nullify you with the poisoned needles. We had three volleys.” She looked at the bloodstains on Nathan’s skin and swallowed, reminded of how that had gone.

Nathan ignored that last. “Some people from the village vanished. What happened to them?”

Harti shrugged again, unconcerned. “We brought them back to Halsmet. They were a sixth finger bonus to the Enslavement mages. No idea what happened to them.”

Nathan frowned. If the villagers were in Giantsrest, they were gone. At least until he could seriously threaten Giantsrest, and then he wouldn’t restrict himself to freeing one set of slaves.

No. My goal is all of them.

He looked down at Harthi again. She was eyeing him and the other Heirs with trepidation, and darting hopeful looks at Khachi. Her casual remark about the slaves had reminded Nathan of whom he was dealing with. She was an ambitious young mage who had wanted to get ahead in Giantsrest’s cutthroat academia. But she was also somebody who could see people ripped away from their home as slaves without batting an eye.

That realization chilled Nathan’s mind, and Harthi’s chances of surviving the conversation dropped. He cast around for more questions. “What did Taeol say about me?”

Harthi glanced around at the listening Heirs before turning her attention back to Nathan. “Nathan Lark.” It wasn’t really a question, but he nodded and she let out a shaky breath. “He said you could resist magic, and that you knew something he wanted. Implied it was the Insight to your magic resistance. He’d been ordered to capture you. But then during the fight he said…” She cast a look at Stella. “I’ve never seen anybody use light or lightning that way. By the Giant, there’s more going on here, isn’t there. Earth?” Her face had gone calculating again, and she was clearly reconsidering her opinions in light of new evidence.

It appears my secret is kept better in Giantsrest than it is in Gemore. Funny. I’m sort of impressed by Harthi’s ability to think and connect details under pressure. I bet it’s a survival trait in Giantsrest.

Nathan didn’t want to dwell on that topic. “Who could order Taeol? He’s on the Council, right? Is there anybody above that?”

Harthi snorted. “The voice of the crowd speaks that a founder has returned. Badud. An ancient mage of unlimited Insight. He hasn’t appeared to students like me, but Taeol said he’d be rewarded an Insight worthy of a Giant if he captured you.” Her expression softened, looking hopeful. “Taeol spoke of it often. He is hungry for that reward. He will keep trying to capture you. I listened to him, I can help you predict him. He’s got a spy in Gemore.”

Nathan’s eyebrows raised. “Do you know who the spy is?”

Harthi flinched. “No. From what he said I don’t think it’s an Adventurer.” She cast around for something else to placate Nathan. “But Taeol is staying in a manor in Halsmet, the one atop the second hill. And he can teleport others, so he will try again.”

Nathan nodded at that. This was useful information. “Do you know what he’ll try next?”

“Not… really. He wanted this to work. He said he didn’t want to owe Exea for borrowing elite soldiers.”

I’m glad he didn’t go with that option. Though I’ve got the Heirs to back me up against that sort of threat.

Nathan looked around at the Heirs. “I think that’s all. Anybody else got questions for her?”

Sarah raised her revolver, aiming at Harthi’s forehead. “Only one.”

She was clearly about to kill Harthi. Nathan had a second to interfere, and decided against it. He hadn’t made any promises, he didn’t see a good way to keep her prisoner, and he remembered that she’d just tried to capture him and his friends for chattel slavery.

Khachi was the one who placed a hand on Sarah’s gun, pushing it gently aside as he addressed Harthi. “Tell me. What path do you see for yourself, from this point forward?”

Oh you have to be kidding me.

Harthi was breathing quickly, shivering at her near-death experience as her eyes darted between Sarah’s gun and Khachi’s face. She licked her lips nervously, looking at the Heirs and calculating odds. Then Harthi’s shoulders slumped and she addressed the ground. “I would ask to go to Gemore, whatever may befall me there. I can enchant, or... or whatever is needed.” She shivered, and Nathan couldn’t tell what she was imagining. “But I don’t want to die,” She said in a small, quiet voice.

Khachi seemed to expect no other response, and his upraised hand pointed to Stella. “Ask the guild if they want a captive student of Giantsrest, cooperative and knowledgeable of recent workings of the academy. Direct the [Message] to Sudraiel’s immediate attention.”

Sarah threw up her hands. “What you want is no mystery.” Stella just shrugged and cast [Message].

Khachi ignored Sarah, keeping his attention on Harthi. “I know Giantsrest does not put much stock in Oaths, that you view them as cheap tricks easily escaped with mental magic. Still, I would ask you to swear an oath to us. Swear to me on your class and your magic, to not cast a spell or harm any of those present in any way. Forswear yourself from the academy and swear to never return or provide aid to Giantsrest.”

Harthi nodded quickly, grasping the lifeline the Cleric had thrown her. She stood up as straight as she could and stared into Khachi’s eyes, repeating the vow he’d suggested back. “I swear on my class and my magic that I will not cast a spell on any of those present or harm them in any way. I foreswear myself from the academy and swear to never provide aid or return to Giantsrest.”

Khachi rumbled, his thin lips curving up. “Know that this Oath means you may not cast magic on yourself. I may free you from this Oath in time, but even casting [Mage Armor] would break your word to me, and to Davrar. A [Message] to any of Giantsrest would do the same.”

Their prisoner’s eyes widened, taking in the meaning of the Oath she’d just sworn.

I remember that Oaths made under duress are less effective. I wonder if Harthi knows that. This seems like a terrible idea.

Stella spoke up in a light, almost sing-song voice. “To repeat prophecy, Sudraiel wants her. We’ve been directed to return to Gemore with the prisoner.”

Aarl spoke up from the side. “It’s time to get back anyway.” He shot a meaningful look at Sarah. “I’m ready for my level 81 Development.”

Sarah grinned back lopsidedly. “So am I. High-level enslavement mages, eh?”

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Magic Absorption 8

Permanent Talent 2: Perfected Body 1

Talent 3: High-tier Slow Fall 5

Class: Spellbreaker Juggernaut level 72

Stamina: 287/820

Juggernaut's Wrath

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Juggernaut's Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Utility skills:

Battle Meditation 1

High-tier Earnestness 5

Mid-tier Sprinting 7

High-tier Spellsense 5

Mid-tier Notice 10

Mid-tier Identify 8

Mid-tier Dodging Footwork 6

High-tier Enhanced Memory 5

Mid-tier Lecturing 5

Mid-tier Tumbling 3