Mad Toffad's Keep

by Zack Finley

  Camp number three had not moved yet. She thought the move was imminent due to the amount of milling around going on in the camp. The main raider band had already left. She told the scouts to keep moving toward camp three. Even if the slave train left before they got there, it shouldn't take long to catch up.

  Argon returned just as my monitor lit up.

  As expected, raiders from camp four were the first to arrive.

  However they crossed the river, they'd brought their basas.

  We watched three raiders slip through the darkness, between barred buildings and inky black alleyways.

  Two of our bargemen ported inside the barracks and made a commotion, opening the rooftop door and letting light shine there before they closed it. They ‘ported out before the raiders could react. Argon fluttered the lights, then turned them off.

  “The trap is set, and the raiders have taken the bait. We don’t need any more visits to the garrison,” I sent out via mage net.

  Argon was monitoring the first group of raiders and confirmed they were now convinced the entire troop was now asleep inside the garrison.

  "I think your worries about the garrison are right, they were falling over themselves in their eagerness to report the king's guard was in there," she messaged.

  The leader was too far away for even Argon to read. No raider in range knew what the big weapon was, they just knew not to be close to the garrison when it went off.

  I put a low 3-feet thick stone wall inside this building for my men to crouch behind to shield them from a possible explosion. I was starting to wonder whether this would be enough.

  "I think we have a problem," Argon messaged. "I think the leader is a mage. He has one of those crappy amulets, but I'm pretty sure he is a mage."

  I turned to my men and told them to scatter. "Get them out of here," I told the three young mages. "Leave this mage and raider band to us, we'll send an all clear when we can."

  Argon thought the mage was still too far away to read much from our men, so she hoped the camp four slave train would be safe. She warned our mage heading toward that train about our battle mage. She told him to have his scout get as far away from the train as fast as possible.

  "If we think he has left Flom you need to teleport away from the slave train. Don't 'port to the garrison, head to where one of your buddies is and standby for instructions," Argon sent out on the mage net.

  "Let's go get this mage," I messaged. We began running away from the river toward the Flom city limits, using invisibility spells to hide us in the darkness and muffle any footsteps. Our strategy was to skirt his raiders and get close enough to take the mage down. Once he was down, we could mop up the rest.

  I prepped the defensive blast shield we had discussed, layering different shield spells on it. The default size was 10 feet high, 10 feet wide, and 4 feet thick. If I added a "two" to the command, it would be twice as wide and "three" it would be 30 feet wide.

  I finished setting up my new layered mage killer spell. I was a long way in my thinking since fighting the mages in the Augun keep. The worst aspect of magical warfare for me, besides getting creamed last go, was there no real way to figure out whether a spell was effective except in combat.

  For my new spell set, I pictured each shot like a rocket, comprised of different stages. The first stage was a dispel blast, the second one of my magma grenades, the third a combined force and rock spear, and finally a piece of the sun. The last wasn't really a piece of the sun. I was dissatisfied with my past fireballs. I suspected their effectiveness had more to do with my lack of imagination rather than a conceptual lack. Lava had been my earlier standard, but now I was thinking of a plasma arc or sun’s corona. That shift had made my light spell much more effective.

  Argon and I slipped into our combat dance. After our earlier discussion, we decided to take no chances and just kill this guy. Doing anything less wasn't worth the risk. He still might slip away, but it wouldn't be because we failed to hit him with everything we had.

  Argon angled to our left towards the river. I continued on our original path. We separated so a lucky shot couldn't knock out both of us. We knew where he was, from our mind-reading app, but still couldn't see him in the darkness.

  When we got to the agreed upon locations, Argon launched our all-out salvo. It was designed to take down the mage and his nearby entourage in one blow.

  A blizzard of spinning force blades, rocks, and plasma swept the area. I launched a sun-bright flare to see what had happened. My mind reading app showed a clean sweep. I pulsed the area to make sure, and my heart sank. The mage was still alive. He had moved.

  The mage had shifted closer to Argon. They were engaged in a series of attacks and counter-attacks. They were so close I had to be selective with my attack choices. I ran toward them while launching a barrage of my new mage killer rockets. I knew several of Argon's shields had failed and she was in trouble.

  I banished the dirt under his feet causing him to stagger, then turned it to rock. This allowed Argon to gain some separation from her attacker, allowing me to slam my new shield wall between them. Without pausing, I flooded him with a massive dispel blast followed by a series of rockets aimed at the same location on his chest.

  The dispel blast must have collapsed his last shields because after that more than one of my rockets was overkill.

  Argon's shields were recovering. She joined me while I was verifying the mage was dead. This time I wasn't going to rely on my mind app.

  As I put my arm around her, I knew something was dreadfully wrong. The small amount of blood on her face I thought was just a bloody nose was much worse. I barely cast the "heal them" spell when her deadman's switch teleported her out of my arms.

  I was already messaging Alba as I ‘ported into the Klee hospital lobby beside my love. I used a pulse of healing magic to show me where the problem was. Part of her skull was broken and was pushing in on her brain. I banished the bone and began flooding her brain with nearly non-stop healing boosts. I forced myself to localize and pace my healing spells, as I realized she might need me to do this for a while. I examined the bone surrounding the injury and banished more of it. This relieved the pressure; the angry color strong healing indicates eased.

  Alba burst into the lobby and knelt by our side, sliding mentally into the copilot spot as I continued my targeted healing.

  Inside my soul was dark and empty. I had not realized how much a difference Argon made in my life. I relied on her warm presence, even when we were separated. What would I do...

  "Stop that," Alba demanded. "She needs you to concentrate on her needs not your own."

  Ignoring someone shouting inside my own head was hard.

  "What happened?"

  I described the fight and that Argon seemed fine until I touched her.

  "Her brain has had a shock, but you removed the bone causing the injury and relieved the pressure. Let's make sure this is the only injury. Sometimes trauma to one side of the head causes the brain to slam into your skull on the other side."

  Alba sent a mild healing boost. She used a yellow tint for her healing color. Sure enough, a second area needed healing.

  Wordlessly I sent health boosts toward the other damaged area.

  "Even after the damage is healed, I expect Argon to remain unconsciousness for some time," Alba warned. "Brain injuries are complicated. Unlike fixing a lung, brain tissue needs to regenerate at its own pace. We can repair the physical damage, but our spirit needs to repair the rest of the damage."

  In a few minutes, it became clear, even to me Argon's brain tissue needed no more healing. I knew Alba recognized it before I did but wisely left me to realize it on my own.

  "Go ahead and regrow her skull, there is no reason to put her through that after she wakes up."

  I shifted my healing to the skull and monitored the bone regenerating until it closed.

  Now what. The places in my soul Argon occupied even when asleep were now barren.

  Alb
a shook me to get my attention. “This sometimes happens with brain injuries,” she said. “There is no need to panic.”

  While I believed her, she couldn’t hide the fact it sometimes, albeit rarely, became permanent.

  I noticed Tobron, Cleon, and Inoa in the lobby beside me. All were in their combat gear. All they needed was a location.

  "We have done what we can, it is now up to Argon. If there is any change, I'll let you know immediately, and you can teleport here instantly," Alba messaged. "You have a battle to finish and innocents to rescue."

  "The mage is dead, but there are scattered groups of Augun king's guard, two slave trains and a bunch of raiders left. I need to go back," I said looking at my friends.

  "Let's go," Tobron said.

  The four of us teleported next to the dead mage. The darkness was heavy around us.

  Tobron nudged me, "Show me some of that fire magic, let's get some light here."

  Inoa had already woven us into a tactical unit, supplying the location of the remnants of the camp four raiders scattered across Flom.

  We swept down the street paralleling the river, overwhelming all the raiders who were dumb enough to stay in town.

  On my mage net, the three bargemen were with Sgt. Bomes and his men. They were fighting the camp three raiders on the other side of town. I got a teleport location and shared it with my partners.

  We 'ported in and made short work of the raiders. Three of Bomes' men had serious wounds. I stopped the bleeding and sent healing boosts. They would need more help, but that would have to wait.

  Inoa stunned the camp three leader. She squeezed him for intel while I was healing the injured guardsmen. I told her I wanted to know where these beasts had their home base. She nodded but continued her work before putting the leader out of his misery.

  That chore behind us we 'ported to meet our bargeman who was following the camp four slave train.

  Inoa integrated us into a single tactical unit. It took seconds to kill all the guards. There were nine, as usual. I told the scout mage Argon was injured and he needed to contact Olive to get help releasing the slaves.

  A few minutes later, we repeated the action at the last slave train.

  I was back at Argon's side less than an hour after I left.

  I stripped off my bloody armor and wrapped myself around her. Our mental tie might be broken, but I needed her to know I was there.

  I meant to stay awake to be alert for any change, but my body betrayed me. Exhaustion and emotional trauma took its toll.

  It was a great dream, full of sweet kisses and luscious caresses.

  When I opened my eyes, Argon was staring at my face. In seconds, I knew my life had returned, and then I worried.

  "No, my love, this is not a dream. My dreams do not include the lovely aroma of dead raider splatter."

  Okay, it wasn't a dream. I pulled her tight to me and claimed her lips.

  "Don't scare me like that, I almost lost you." I shared my feelings of overwhelming relief.

  I didn't need to fill her in on what happened because she'd been awake awhile and went back through my memories to catch up.

  "Alba has already been in and given me a clean bill of health. I've let our friends know I'm okay and now I'm ready to go home and have a shower."

  I started to protest out of sheer reflex when she stopped me.

  "I know what it is like to have the one person in the world you cannot live without being injured and possibly at death's door. The complete helplessness this creates. But we cannot let it stop us from doing what we must. Of course, we have to find better ways to defend ourselves and to kill our enemies. But we are warriors. We put our lives on the line to help others. Live with it."

  Argon climbed out of bed and pulled me with her.

  "Now grab your gear and take us home."

  Argon sent me to shower first while she faced a very irate Allo.

  They seemed to have reached an uneasy peace by the time I finished showering. Argon met me at the bathroom door, shoved Allo into my arms, and slipped into the bathroom. There was a definite click when the door closed. She didn't want Allo joining her.

  Allo wasn't happy to sit on the bed while I got dressed, climbing up my leg while I was putting on the armor undershirt. I tried to dawdle, hoping Argon would come into the bedroom and relieve me of Allo duties.

  When it was clear Argon was going to stay in the shower until the coast was clear, I took Allo into the kitchen for a few fla treats. These distracted her long enough for me to brew a batch of chee.

  Argon came up behind me in the kitchen and began to sniff me. I began to wonder whether this was another Jaloan ritual, I had somehow missed.

  "You smell a lot better, now," she said pouring her own cup of chee. "I was awake for hours. I could feel how tired you were and wanted to let you sleep, but I couldn't take the stench any longer."

  She slid against me, sliding her arms around me, and resting her head on my back. "I get it," she whispered in my mind. "I never want to be separated from you either. When I woke up, I was so happy you were there. Having you there was perfect. But then, I noticed the smell. The more I tried to ignore it the more horrible it got. By the time I woke you up I was ready to 'port you somewhere to scrub you down."

  I tried to be annoyed but it was impossible to stay that way, I had been quite ripe. "Let's go get some breakfast," I said instead.

  Argon proposed a detour before heading to breakfast.

  "I've been looking into the different treasure rooms provided by Shala," Argon said. "I found one packed with magical armor and weapons. I meant to tell you about some of the stuff in the treasure rooms, but we haven't had a chance. Since we both had our armor fail us this week let's go check out different armor before we head to breakfast."

  While I find shopping mind-numbing, shopping for weapons and armor was like reliving Christmas morning over and over again. Let me at them.

  I was shocked at the size of Shala's treasure room. It was about the size of a high school gymnasium. My direction sense placed it near the demon gates Shala was responsible for defending.

  I glanced at the ornamental gear but made a beeline for the sets that had seen heavy use. My mate was close on my heels.

  The enchantments on the armor were depleted and would need to be recharged, but these pieces made those in the Losan shop look like kid's toys.

  While I was drawn to the metallic sets, Argon strode toward the rack of gray bumpy leathers.

  "You could buy all of those," she said pointing at the racks I was looking at, "for the least one of these. This is high-end oso armor. There is nothing better in Jaloa."

  Obviously, looks were deceiving.

  "This is the one for you," Argon said after spending a few moments studying each one of the oso sets. "It is designed for people who lead from the front ranks. Try it on."

  This piece had seen a lot of use, based on the wearing of the leather straps. It was in excellent shape and had been well maintained. It was too large for Argon but fit me with only a few strap adjustments. The armor weighed no more than a light jacket. I was skeptical it provided better protection than heavy metallic chest pieces.

  Unlike the metallic chests, it extended in the back to cover my rear and in the front to mid-thigh. The front was split in the crotch for easier movement. It would allow me to relieve myself without disrobing.

  The enchantments so depleted I couldn’t glean what they did. They were heavy with force and elemental magics. The armor was made from a single piece of hide. There was no indication it had ever been pierced or cut.

  I casually pulled my knife and attempted to stab a hole in a discrete place on the side. No matter how I pushed, the blade did not go through. I added a force spell to the knife's edge and tried it again. Nothing happened.

  I noticed Argon watching me.

  "What would you have done if you cut through?" she asked.

  "Get a different set," I replied.

  The helmet was
lightweight and heavily enchanted. Like all Jaloan helmets, it molded to the head and allowed plenty of space for the ears. Argon's injury had boosted helmet redesign to near the top of my current to-do list. We just needed to find an armorer.

  I started charging the enchantments and went to look at what Argon chose. Her armor was also made from a single hide, although cut much differently than mine. It was better suited for someone fighting from a distance.

  The weapon selections seemed endless.

  I was not satisfied with my current sword. I wasn’t skilled enough to use it effectively. I didn’t have the time to increase my proficiency with it. I chose it when I first arrived in Jaloa because it had longer reach than a knife. Now I realized I would only use it to poke at an enemy when my magic failed, and my back was to the wall.