Illusory Empire: A Magic School Progression Fantasy, page 27
It was then he noticed he didn’t have four ambushers, but six. And, while his Darkvision allowed him to see the four ahead relying on shadows to hide, it hadn’t let him see the two who had been hiding behind walls.
“Flood,” he cursed for real this time.
He weighed his options. He could probably catch all four under the bush in a Shatter, but he was not yet certain they were after him. They almost certainly were, but he had no idea why.
The two from behind the walls had come out to block his path. Each was well over six feet tall. They were wearing dark leather armor, and each held a two-foot-long club.
“Good evening,” Kole said, waving to the pair even as he heard the other four come out of hiding.
“Kohlyn Highridge?” one of the two asked, the simple question making everything suddenly clear.
The only person he knew with the inclination to target him for a nighttime mugging was incidentally the only person who would refer to him by that name. Even his uncle had started to call him Kole in their last meeting—not that he would have hired muggers.
Darkvision wasn’t the only spell Kole had learned over the past months, but he was struggling to think of something he could do that wouldn’t kill these men outright.
Sleep? he considered. The spell could knock out the four tightly packed men in the bush, but he’d not yet learned to cast spells while maintaining concentration on another, and they would wake as soon as he cast a spell on the two ahead. He was, unfortunately, not confident enough in his martial prowess to handle two adult goons alone.
And if he was being honest with himself, he doubted he ever would.
Kole spun around, facing the four crawling out from under the bush, impressed to see they’d gotten out so quickly and quietly in the moment he’d looked away. His spell was already formed in his mind as his target came at him. He stuck his fingers in his mouth, let out a loud, piercing whistle, and watched with satisfaction as the bushes exploded at the sound.
The spell Shatter was the last he’d learned in the past week, not because it had been particularly difficult from a wizarding standpoint, but because the spell’s somatic component had required him to learn to whistle with his fingers. He’d been very frustrated over the setback and vented to his friends about it well past the point they’d grown tired of hearing it.
The four men in the bush shouted out in pain. Two of them fell outright and didn’t get back up, but a second application of the Shatter, focused now on the two men still standing, saw them lying down too—hopefully unconscious but possibly dead.
Kole didn’t let himself dwell on that at the moment. The spell had magically amplified his whistle, and he was certain the guards on campus would be here soon.
He could simply turn invisible and run away, but Corbyn knew he could do that. In fact, that was the only thing Corbyn really knew Kole could do, so he suspected the men came prepared for such an occurrence.
Instead, he decided to test out another spell. He could put them to sleep now that there were only two of them, but that wouldn’t let him test his next spell in actual battle—if you could call this a battle, which Kole had already decided not to.
He pictured in his mind the horrible giant ant soldiers, lifted his two hands to form a triangle with his fingers, looked through it to make sure the man on the left’s head was within the shape, and unleashed the spell.
Kole couldn’t see what was happening in the target’s mind, but he saw the effect.
The man on the left suddenly recoiled in fear of his partner.
“Ant!” he shouted, making a rushed swing at his former ally as he fell back.
The attack was made in panic and weak, but it got the full attention of its target.
“What are you doing, you Flooding moron?!” the second man shouted, turning on his ally.
The ensorcelled man only jumped back holding his club up. His head whirled around.
“Tony? Where’d you go?”
“I’m right here, you moog!” Tony shouted.
“Ah!” the moog shouted, plucking up his courage. “You ate Tony!”
He leapt forward at Tony, bringing his club down hard on what he thought to be a soldier ant.
Tony brought his club up, blocking the attack, and he pushed the moog back, still trying to reason with him.
But the moog couldn’t hear whatever it was Tony was saying, and he screamed in pain at the light push. For in his mind, he’d just been stabbed in the chest.
While the two fought, Kole waited for the guard to arrive, placing himself behind a tree to watch discreetly after making sure the other four were down for the count. He heard some groans of pain, so was happy he’d likely not killed them. Not all of them, at least.
The guards had either been paid off or had their schedules altered because none arrived before Kole spotted Rakin and Zale running out of the art building he had been heading toward.
They saw the two men fighting and ran over to investigate.
“I’m over here!” Kole said, getting their attention.
He stepped out from behind cover and, satisfied with the efficacy of his new spell Mental Phantom, cast Sleep on the two men, casting the first-tier spell as a second-tier spell to ensure it knocked out both men.
The moog had a moment of clarity before he passed out, his eyes growing wide as the soldier ant he’d been beating up morphed back into his friend Tony.
“Look at you!” Zale said, inspecting Kole’s handiwork. “You don’t even need me to save you anymore!”
“Hey!” Kole said, “I’ve saved you just as many times as you’ve saved me.”
“Aye,” Rakin said, agreeing with Kole. “Yer both equally pathetic and codependent.”
“I, uh, may have hurt those four really bad,” Kole said, ending the banter before any of the four men could potentially die.
Chapter 44
Consequences
The sea drakes grew massive in this time and soon took to taking down ships for the precious metals on board. While these beasts killed thousands in their hunting of ships, their existence contributed to the continued survival of the exiles at sea. For fifty years, the sea drakes were the only way the survivors of the Flood had to restock on their supply of metal, and crews of ships quickly began to specialize in hunting the beast.
—Oakcrest, Lidian. Lidian’s Manual to Magical Fauna, 283rd ed.
Kole was relieved to learn that the men he’d cast Shatter on would live. The spell had burst all of their eardrums and broke enough bones that they’d been unable or unwilling to engage in the fight.
The two who had been asleep had gotten off easier and were in a much better state to answer questions when the campus arm of the city guard appeared. There had apparently been an administrative mix-up with the routes that night, leaving this section’s guard duty blank, and the men who appeared assured Kole and his friends that it would be investigated.
As was protocol when a student was attacked on campus, the guard notified the school, but Kole, Zale and Rakin had been free to leave after giving a statement.
The next morning, Kole was summoned to the administration building between classes to go over the incident. Dean Cornwall had requested he come but had given a precise time at which to do so, so Kole took the request more as the command it had been meant to be.
The dean was an older human man, somewhere in his sixties, dressed in a very brown suit that made him blend into the room, which was elaborately adorned floor to ceiling with wood panels and carvings. It might not have stood out in a normal building, but everything in the Academy of Illunia was constructed of stone by dwarves, so the wooden facade in this room must have taken some deliberate effort to pull off.
The dean wasn’t alone in the room. Professor Underbrook was with him, and they were talking as Kole entered.
“Ah, there he is,” the dean said. “Come, sit.”
“Can I assume this is about last night?” Kole asked.
The dean nodded, and Underbrook gave him a nod of approval and a thumbs-up that the dean couldn’t see from his vantage point behind the desk.
“Yes,” the dean said. “The city guard has completed its investigation, and we wanted to give you an update and assure you that you will be facing no consequences for your actions.”
“Consequences?” Kole asked, surprised.
That hadn’t even occurred to him as a possibility, but he supposed if he’d been wrong, and those men hadn’t actually been after him, there would have been consequences.
“Don’t worry about it,” Underbrook said. “The thugs admitted to being paid to jump you, take anything of value on you, and leave it at a dead drop.”
“Did you find out who paid them?” Kole asked. “Because I have some ideas.”
Underbrook shook his head. “The thugs didn’t know, they’d been hired via an intermediary who the guard hasn’t yet tracked down. And, before you ask, we can’t go and interrogate the Oldhill kid under a truth spell without some sort of evidence.”
“So, why are you here?” Kole asked.
“As your sort-of-mentor, I get notified anytime you get into trouble,” Underbrook said.
“That was all, Kole,” the dean said. “You are free to leave.”
“Want a lift to class?” Underbrook asked.
He held out a hand to Kole.
“Sure?” Kole said uncertainly.
He reached for Underbrook’s hand, and the halfling snatched it up.
“Try not to barf,” he said, before Kole felt the world fall out from underneath him.
One instant he was in the dimly lit room of the overly wooden office, the next he was in the bright corridors of the Dahn.
The trip had been instantaneous, but the part of Kole’s mind attuned to the Arcane Realm had experienced an array of sensations that seemed to last hours.
Those memories stayed as he stood in the hall, a wave of nausea flooding through him.
“It’s always the worst the first time,” Underbrook said, taking a step back just in case.
Kole steeled himself, taking deep breaths until he was confident he wouldn’t throw up.
“Nice job!” Underbrook cheered. “That’s going to make training you a lot less horrible.”
“So,” Kole said, gathering his thoughts. “Is there anything I can do about Corbyn?”
“Plenty,” Underbrook said as he began walking down the hall to class. “But most of it will land you in disciplinary trouble.”
“What should I do, then? I doubt he’s going to give up.”
“Stay vigilant and beat up whoever he sends at you next,” Underbrook advised.
“That seems rather shortsighted. What if he hires better thugs?” Kole asked.
“Well,” Underbrook said, “I advise against walking across campus at night alone, but I don’t think you need to worry about him hiring anyone much more competent than that. Those morons were the cream of the crop of ingrates a student could hire on his own. All the powerful muscle won’t be taking the job.”
“How do you know?”
Corbyn’s family had a lot of money, and if he had connections in the Academy, as he seemed to have at least partially proven, he might have connections in the underworld of Edgewater.
“Zale got Runt to spread word that you were off-limits,” Underbrook said, giving Kole a knowing smile. “Runt was privy to some of Shalia’s contacts in the city, and I highly doubt the Oldhills have the coin to pay the price that would be demanded if asked to go against her.”
“Wow.” Kole was unsure what else to say.
“You really should have just asked her out to the dance,” Underbrook said.
It took Kole a moment to process the words.
“What?!” Kole cried. “How did you know about that?”
“Don’t worry. I lost coin on that bet,” Underbrook replied. “Tigereye thought she’d ask you, and I bet that neither of you would ask the other out.”
“Wait,” Kole sad, holding up his hand. “Tigereye is in on the bets?”
“Who do you think comes up with the odds?” the halfling asked, smiling in a way that made Kole wonder if he was being serious.
Then the other implication of the words struck him. Tigereye thought Zale was going to ask me out?
He didn’t know how good of a judge of adolescent drama Tigereye was, but the fact that he knew Zale well and thought she’d ask him strongly suggested that Kole really should have asked her out.
“Go sit in your seat,” Underbrook told Kole, “class is starting soon.”
Kole complied, lost in his thoughts.
He went undefeated in his duels that day, not revealing any more of his new spells. With the sealing of the rift, it had been announced midweek that the hardball tournament would resume. In light of this, Kole had decided to keep the full extent of his abilities secret until he found need of them.
He’d been hoping the hardball league would resume so he could make another great showing for potential mentors, but now that he tentatively had one, he wanted it to resume so he could win.
There were eight undefeated teams remaining, and they would have one more round of one-on-one matches before having a battle royale final. Kole was both eager and excited to resume the tournament. He’d had high hopes for their chances at victory before, but with both his and his friends’ recent improvements, he didn’t see how they could lose.
Chapter 45
Competition
Ensouled artifacts bend the long-established rules of magic. While casting a spell, a wizard must draw from one or more specified Fonts, carefully guiding each Font to create the desired effect. Primals have more intuitive and unstructured control over the magic of the Font they channel, but with each effect they only draw upon the one Font they are connected to. Ensouled artifacts have the flexibility of both and the limitations of neither.
—Deckard, Arcum. Deckard’s Compendium of Ensouled Artifacts, 9th ed.
Kole was standing in a pitch-black cavern with his friends, beaming like a fool.
“I can see!” he said proudly.
“Welcome to the club,” Rakin said.
“That’s great!” Zale said, much more excited for Kole.
“There’s a note,” Doug said, grabbing a piece of paper off a pedestal in front of them.
“‘There’s more than one ball,’” he read off the card. “‘The team that grabs the shiniest ball wins. Watch out for the kobolds.’”
“Well, that’s different,” Rakin said. “We must be in a mountain. There is a lot of stone around us, but we aren’t too far below sea level.”
As he spoke, the dwarf was busy walking the perimeter of the cavern they found themselves in. It was a small chamber, roughly circular and twenty feet across, but it narrowed to a tunnel.
“All clear, let’s go,” Rakin said, gesturing them on.
“Good thing you learned Darkvision,” Zale said as they were making their way to the door. “Kobolds go mad when they see anything reflective. If we had a light, they’d be all over me.”
Even with her armor enameled an intimidating black, the polished, smooth surface of it still caught the light spectacularly.
As if her words summoned it, a commotion broke out, echoing to them down the tunnel.
They picked up their pace, Zale traveling in a silencing aura while Kole subtly drew on his Fade ability to help them get the jump on whatever lay at the end.
The tunnel ended suddenly, opening into a vast cavern. While Kole could now see in the dark, his sight was limited, and he couldn’t see anything beyond a bridge spanning a chasm twenty paces beyond the tunnel’s exit.
The only reason he knew the cavern to be so large was because far away he saw a small globe of light. Within it four of his classmates fought off a horde of kobolds as they made their way across a similar bridge.
“That’s the Hooadin group,” Zale said in a whisper, having ending her aura.
“Who?” Doug asked, for which Kole was thankful, as it saved him from being the only person who didn’t seem to know half the classmates,
“Wookan’s Heirs,” Zale said, as if that clarified anything—which, for Kole at least, it did not.
Seeing that Kole and Doug were still lost, she said, exasperated, “The people with the ghosts!”
“Oh!” they both said together, recalling them from hardball match replays.
The group drew upon the spirits of their ancestors to assist them in battle, sometimes directly summoning them. They had a barbarian who wielded a giant sword and a rogue who specialized in archery. These two could lightly draw upon their ancestors to aid them, but they also had two Blessed by Wookan who summoned spirits directly. One conjured a spiritual hyena, while the other could harness the ancestors to aid allies and hinder foes.
As they watched, a dozen kobolds crossing the bridge swarmed the other team.
“The bridge is trapped,” Rakin warned them.
“How do you know?” Kole asked.
“For one, it’s kobolds, so everything is always trapped,” Rakin said. “And two, look at ’em runnin. They are avoidin’ the traps.”
Kole noticed what Rakin meant. Even in their rampage, the kobolds were not running at the other team in a straight line. Instead, they ran in an odd dancing zigzag pattern, making large hops over invisible obstacles to reach their prey.
Due to the slow crossing, Wookan’s Heirs held the kobolds off, easily killing any of the small creatures that got near them.
“Let’s go while they keep them busy,” Zale said. “Lead on, Rakin.”
“Aye,” Rakin said and began to cross their bridge.
He moved slowly, giving instructions for everyone to follow directly in his footsteps, stopping every step to listen to the floor with his tremor sense as he tapped it with his foot. A few times he sprinkled sand across the ground and moved it, using it to detect something Kole couldn’t see.
As they progressed across the chasm, the other team fought on more slowly. At the far end in the distance, a large ziggurat entered their view. By the time they crossed the bridge, the other team wasn’t visible, but the sounds of their battle could still be heard. There were no guards in sight as they reached the wall of the ziggurat, all that had been present likely drawn to the battle.
