Tears of Dusk

Momentarily transfixed, Isyd tried to make sense of it all.

No, it couldn’t be…

The Song of the Grace wasn’t right. It wasn’t Felyn Król, though it looked like her. Instead, Söyem Nifritovna stood at the ready and blade drawn. Her long, jet-black hair was ruffled and fell in strands in front of her face despite the ribbon that tied them.

The Golem had turned to face her. Söyem’s sword had a silvery shine to it and the Commands of her [Spells] glistened on its sharp edge like beads of gold ink.

“[Heavenly Needle]!” she called again.

Isyd could feel that she also used as small an Opening as possible, thus constraining her power [Spell]. Case in point, the Golem simply swung his mace and dispelled the Windblade effortlessly.

“I didn’t expect her to come to our help…” Isyd noted to himself.

Henryk’s stern face was for the first time broken by a smirk. “More likely she wants to claim the token for herself.”

Even with that being said, Henryk didn’t remain idle. As the Golem was about to attack Söyem, he activated his [Arcane]. The flames spurted from his rod towards the moving armour and wrapped itself around its cuirass, below the armpits and above the beaver. The fire had turned into a solid leash that coiled several times around the Golem and prevented him from moving further.

Following his cue, Isyd knelt and put a hand on the ground. He aimed at the feet of the Golem and began casting.

“[Bog Trap]!”

He didn’t need much work to achieve the [Spell] since the wet meadow was already suitable. The soil under the armour began to sag and the Golem’s sabatons sank in their entirety.

Söyem didn’t let this opportunity go to waste. With a powerful lunge forward, she aimed at the hole between the beaver and the cuirass. She put all her strength into the attack so much so that the helmet was sent flying off its shoulders. It revealed underneath an empty armour. Söyem must have known that nobody was wearing the armour but it still felt weird to see it wiggle around while empty. She let a curse in a foreign language.

“What the hell is that thing?” she said out loud.

“A Golem, we think…” Henryk answered through gritted teeth.

“No, actually I have changed my mind,” Isyd intervened. They both turned to him. “A [Golem] is an animated object given temporary sentience thanks to a complex Meshing of Commands. It’s a high-level [Hex] that few people know. This is… this sounds different…”

“Sounds? You’re not making sense, Wybrany! What else could it be then?” Söyem said.

Isyd pointed at the empty space of the cuirass. “There’s a strong Concentration of Air Essence there. Also, it also constantly changing – moving – which makes me think of a [Fluid Spell]. Those aren’t characteristics of a [Golem]. It’s just a very powerful [Air Spell] that is kept moving from a distance…”

Söyem finally understood. “A puppet animated from the inside…” she drawled.

Isyd nodded. The suit of steel plates was controlled from within by the precise movements of an [Air Spell] like a hand within a sock-puppet. Söyem was about to add something, but at the same time, Henryk growled against the effort to keep the armour still. It had managed to extirpate itself from Isyd’s bog and was now straining against the red, hot leash that Henryk had thrown at him. Its strength was overwhelming.

“I… can’t…” Henryk muttered through gritted teeth as his rod was slipping from his grip.

Before Isyd could reach him to give him a hand, a final yank from the puppet armour was enough to break it free. Immediately, it swung its mace at Söyem – the closest target to it – and she used her sword to deflect the blow. However, she couldn’t riposte with an attack of her own since there were only steel plates for her to hit. The puppet armour kept on swinging and forced Söyem to parry successively and step back. Its movements were rigid and clanky but the force behind each of its blows was strong enough to make Söyem wince. Suddenly she found an opening and stabbed at the joint of the left elbow. She almost managed to dislodge the entirety of the vambrace and the gauntlet but her blade eventually got stuck. The mace swung at her head and Söyem ducked. She stumbled, let go of her sword and fell on her arse.

The puppet armour was already on her before she could get back up. Isyd leapt forward and he was halfway there when he realized that Söyem had been casting a [Spell]. She extended her open palm and aimed straight at the cuirass.

“[Blooming Storm]!”

The [Air Spell] consisted first of a sphere of compressed air; the moment it hit the steel plate, it bloomed into a spiral storm that pushed the puppet armour off its feet and back several paces. The blow also managed to deform slightly the metal curvature of the plastron. Isyd reached Söyem as she was trying to get up and offered her a hand that she accepted.

The puppet armour landed in a puddle on its back but immediately got back up, unshaken by the point-blank [Spell] it just received. In passing, it knelt down to recover the helmet that had flown up earlier and put it back on effortlessly.

“How do you even stop this thing if you can’t hurt it?” Söyem grumbled. “This was my strongest [Spell]!”

“A scaled-down version for a lower Opening, I assume?” Isyd said.

She glanced at him as if he had asked a stupid question. “If you’re willing to break your [Limiting Arcane] to take this thing down, be my guest!”

“I’m not even sure it would do anything…” Henryk said. “You took its head off and it just put it back on.”

“The armour is just an outside shell,” Isyd said. “What we need to do is to break or at least disturb the [Air Spell] that keeps it together.”

“This makes sense, but if the [Spell] is strong enough to control the armour, I have a hard time seeing how you can break it,” Henryk said. “Rather I think we are not supposed to fight it. Not so long that we have our [Limiting Arcane] on at least!”

He was making sense but both Söyem and Isyd curled their lips at that suggestion; they were not ones to shy away from a challenge. The puppet armour slowly moved in their direction, always relentless. The visor of its helmet moved slowly from one person to another, as if it was hesitating on which Pupil to target.

Henryk was right in saying that they couldn’t fight it head-on, not with [Limiting Arcane] restraining them. An alternative would be for the three of them to combine their strength, but Isyd immediately dismissed the idea. Combining their Arts was one of the most difficult thing Artysta could attempt. Isyd had a hard time seeing how they could work in unison and on the fly well enough to cast a [Spell] together. This brought him to his second idea…

“I think I can do something, but it will take some time,” Isyd said. “I’ll need you to distract it in the meantime.”

Henryk and Söyem threw him an unconvinced look, but they didn’t have the occasion to protest. The armour resumed its relentless offensive and its eyes were set on Henryk, he who had first attacked the monolith.

Isyd stepped aside and let his Idpulse take over his senses. He tried to recall at best the Song of the Grace he heard when Söyem had unleashed her [Blossoming Storm]. It was a good [Spell] and Isyd could easily imagine how powerful it would be if she hadn’t been limited.

In the meantime, Söyem was unleashing an onslaught of offensive [Spells] against the armour, trying to slow it down. Her Essences of predilection were the Fire and Air Essence, but they were too weak to even dent the steel plates. Henryk had taken the fight to the puppet armour itself. He had turned his [Fiery Arcane] into a palcaty and defended himself against the mace, parrying and riposting. Once or twice, he had to activate his [Shielding Arcane] at his wrist. The sudden repelling force it summoned was enough to push the armour off its balance at least momentarily. However, despite all their efforts, they couldn’t find a way to stop it definitely. It wasn’t made out of flesh so it couldn’t be hurt, and it also didn’t seem like it would tire any time soon.

Söyem glanced at Isyd still busy with his [Spell] and gritted her teeth. Maybe it had been naïve of her to believe that this 1st Year could be of any help. At the same time this thought came to her, Henryk’s [Shielding Arcane] gave out at last but it still managed to wrestle the mace out of the armour gauntlet, leaving the armour weaponless and Henryk defenceless.

“Over here!” Söyem shouted, trying to get the armour's attention, despite not being sure it could hear.

She accompanied her shout with a gust of enflamed wind to the back of its head. It turned its helmet – already loose on its empty socket – askew. This was enough of a distraction for Henryk to dodge the metal fist about to hit him. Söyem dashed forward and gave a leaping kick to the armour aimed at its head. The blow was enough to send the helmet flying once more, but the headless puppet wasn’t deterred and it simply seized Söyem’s ankle before she could escape. She winced under the steel grip and tried to twist herself free, in vain. Effortlessly, the armour lifted her off the ground and threw her away like a ragdoll. She slammed once on the wet terrain and skidded to a stop near Isyd’s feet.

“Are you okay?” Isyd asked her.

Söyem spit out a mouthful of mud and glared at him.

“Once I’m done with it, you’re next…” she muttered as she flexed her sore neck.

The armour was walking stiffly in their direction. Söyem struggled to get back on her feet. Her eyes landed on the [Limiting Arcane] at her wrist. She was considering her options and what was worth sacrificing to finally stop the puppet armour. To her surprise, Isyd Wybrany stepped in front of her.

“I needed an opening in its armour, so thank you for taking its head off again,” Isyd said.

In his right hand, Isyd was holding what looked like a floating egg. Its shifting surface shone with a silvery hue and was run with tremors as if it struggled to maintain its delicate shape. Söyem watched it with confusion; she didn’t know what she had expected, but certainly not something so insignificant!

“What the hell is this?” she snapped at him.

The young man had the gall to glance at her and smirk, unfazed by the approaching armour.

“A [Blooming Storm], of course!”

The puppet reached for him, but Isyd was deceivingly quick. He ducked below the armpit, slid behind it and kicked the back of its knees. The blow sent the armour stumbling forward, but it unnaturally dislodged its shoulder and swung its arms backwards. Isyd must have anticipated it because he stepped back and out of reach then went back in with a final kick to definitively send the puppet on its knees. Before the armour could hope to get back up, Isyd threw its [Blooming Storm] inside the head socket. Then, without looking back, Isyd raced back towards Söyem. He grabbed her forcefully by the arm and pulled her with him to put as much distance between them and the armour.

“What are you doing?” she protested. “Unhand me!”

“I think we should get some space!” Isyd said.

Söyem wrestled her arm from his grip and turned back toward the armour. It had gotten back up but was acting strangely. It jerked upward, took one step forward then froze with its two arms clutching its plastron. The whole set of plates was shaken by tremors.

“What’s happening to—” Söyem began.

The armour suddenly exploded before she could finish her sentence! A storm bloomed from its inside and released powerful gusts of winds. The steel plates composing the armour were sent flying off in all directions, the plastron shattered in pieces and the sabatons sank deep into the ground where the puppet stood moments ago.

Isyd walked around Söyem who’d been left speechless and approached the crater left behind. Henryk, who had taken refuge at the edge of the meadow, did the same. After looking at what was left of the puppet, he glanced at Isyd.

“How in the world did you do that?” he whispered in a mix of awe and confusion.

“I disturbed the [Air Spell] that controlled the armour and made it go into Resonance,” Isyd explained. “I used a modified version of Söyem’s [Blooming Storm].”

“But how?” Söyem said behind them. “To do what it did, the [Air Spell] had to be of a high Opening, something like 10th or 12th. To send it into Resonance, you’ll need at least a [Spell] of the 7th…”

Henryk glanced at the Isyd’s wrist; his [Limiting Arcane] was still there.

Isyd scratched the back of his head, thinking about how to best explain it. “My [Blooming Storm] was of the of the 9th Opening, closer to the original version of Söyem’s [Hex] I assume... First, I began like you did by changing the Balance of the [Blooming Storm] into a lower Opening; this was to make sure that the Grace flowing from my body and into the [Spell] remained at a rate below the 6th Opening limit. The [Limiting Arcane] is attached and aimed at me, not at the [Spell]. In other words, it is unable to distinguish whether the [Spell] I am casting is of the 1st, 6th, or 9th Opening. It can only measure the Concentration of Grace as it emanates from myself. By keeping this Concentration constant, I reshaped the Balance of my [Blooming Storm] to slowly increase its Opening. This is the reason why it took so long to cast it. I couldn’t risk increasing my Grace Concentration, so it was the equivalent of filling a bucket droplet by droplet instead of plunging it directly into the source.”

Henryk was staring at him with round eyes and speechless.

“I may have done a bad job explaining it...” Isyd said apologetically.

He approached the monolith that had been left relatively unscathed from all the fighting. It now presented a circular hole at eye level. Isyd reached inside it and retrieved the token.

“You are a 1st Year...” Henryk said behind him. “What you just did was much harder than simply casting a [Fluid Hex], which is hard in itself. The Idpulse it would demand... I don’t think I could even begin to do it...”

“I think you’re selling yourself short, Senior,” Isyd said. “It is tricky, but I assure you that with a bit of experience, you could do the same. At least with a [Spell], you are more familiar with... But now that we have sorted out this armour business, we come back to what interests us all: the token!”

Henryk passed a tired hand through his hair wet with sweat and smiled. “Sincerely, I am not about to fight you for it. After what you just did, I think you deserve it...”

Isyd was a bit surprised by his willingness to give it up so easily, but he welcomed it with a grateful nod.

“I am afraid I cannot say the same, Isyd Wybrany,” the voice of Söyem said behind him.

Isyd turned to see that the young man had retrieved her sword. She was now pointing her blade straight at him.

“I demand you yield your Blysht and all the tokens in your possession!”