Magium: The Mage Tournament: Book 1

by Chris Michael Wilson

  The ogres surrounding us are all making loud noises and preparing their clubs, while we pull out our own weapons and get ready to fight. Before we get to engage the enemy, however, their captain roars loudly, and that makes all of the other ogres grow completely silent. They then step aside in order to make way for their shaman to pass, as he approaches us and then stops a few feet away from our position, while leaning on his wooden staff.

  “Welcome, brave warriors!” the shaman says, in the Common language, with a wicked grin on his face. “You don’t often see humans wandering around these parts nowadays. I must say that you are certainly bold to have come here all by yourselves. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “We came here seeking the sacred chalice,” I tell him.

  “Ah, so it’s the golden fox that sent you here, then,” the shaman says, while rubbing his chin with his left hand. “I don’t know what the fox offered you in exchange for the chalice, but I doubt it would be worth all of your lives. I could have you all crushed by uttering a single word, but I do not want to risk the lives of any of my people without good reason. So here is my offer to you. Leave now, and we will grant you safe passage out of our fort. We will bring no harm to you, and we can all forget this unfortunate incident ever happened. What say you to this, human warriors?”

  “Like hell we’re leaving this place without the chalice, you ugly bastard!” Daren says. “If you’re not going to give it to us, then we’ll just have to fight our way through your minions until we find it ourselves.”

  “I see…” the ogre shaman says. “Then I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to drop your weapons, humans. As of right now, you are our prisoners.”

  “Yeah, that’s not how this is going to work,” Hadrik says, with a grin, as he readies his fists.

  “If you’re not going to cooperate, then we have no choice but to force you into submission,” the shaman says.

  “There will be no need for that,” I hear Flower’s voice coming from my left.

  As I take a look at her, I see that her eyes are bright blue again, and she has Illuna’s cold expression on her face. However, unlike before, this time the girl’s aura is so weak that it pales in comparison to the banshee’s. I can barely feel any life force coming from it, as if she were in some kind of a dormant state.

  Immediately after Illuna stops talking, a golden cage pops out of nowhere and it surrounds us all, leaving only the banshee and the ogres outside of it.

  “I believe you all still remember the spell that the fox used to trap you back in the ruins,” Illuna tells us. “I wouldn’t even think about trying to break out of there through brute strength. That golden cage is practically indestructible.”

  She is not lying. Even without being a mage, I can tell that this is an incredibly powerful spell. There’s no way we’re breaking out of here without any magic.

  “What is the meaning of this, banshee?” Daren says, furious. “What have you done with the girl?”

  “I’ve put Flower in a stasis,” Illuna says. “I’ve dealt enough with her idiocy for one day. In fact, I would say I’ve dealt with it enough to last me for a lifetime.”

  She then turns to the ogre shaman.

  “Great shaman,” she says, “my name is Illuna, and I am a banshee. I’ve come here to offer you my services in exchange for access to the rare and unique books from your stronghold’s library. As a token of my goodwill, I offer you these human intruders as a tribute.”

  “You traitorous little—” Daren starts to say, but he is interrupted by the captain of the ogres.

  “Bold words for puny prisoner!” the captain shouts loudly, in the Common language, speaking with a very broken accent and grammar. “What make banshee think that ogre want your services?”

  “Don’t be so rash, captain,” the shaman says. “This isn’t just any banshee. This is Illuna, of the sacred woods massacre. It is said that she killed hundreds of guardians of the forest in a single day, without showing the slightest amount of mercy. However, it is also said that she went soft ever since she fused with this little girl we see before us.”

  “The girl I share the body with has been treading the line between asset and liability for far too long,” Illuna says. “Her natural magical talents made her a particularly powerful ally, but her whims overwhelmed her judgment more often than not, and she repeatedly put us into mortal danger because of this. Her decision to help these mages infiltrate your stronghold was the final straw, and it made me realize that I needed to rid myself of her quick, before she would become the end of me.”

  “And how do you plan on doing that?” the shaman asks.

  “I’ve heard of several shamanistic rituals that could help me with my soul fusion problem,” the banshee says. “I only require some time to study in your library, and I am sure that I will find a way to eliminate the girl for good, without harming myself in the process.”

  “And in exchange for this favor, you offer us your loyalty?” the shaman asks.

  “Precisely,” Illuna says.

  “Then I require you to do one more thing to prove that you are being sincere,” the shaman says, with a wicked grin. “You’ll have to execute your friends from that cage.”

  “Sadly, I cannot do that,” the banshee says. “Killing them now would result in all of our deaths.”

  “How so?” the shaman asks.

  “Those collars that they are wearing have been placed around their necks by the great golden fox, who is also the one who sent them here to steal your sacred chalice,” Illuna says. “They are made in such a manner that if the humans die, the collars explode, and those explosions would be powerful enough to easily level your fort and kill all of your warriors. The fox took this extreme measure to make sure that you all get eliminated even if the humans fail their mission.”

  “Hmm…” the shaman says, as he strokes his chin. “I recognize these collars. They were made by the lessathi of old. I know for a fact that these devices had some very dangerous self-destruct mechanisms set in place in case the prisoners wearing them misbehaved.”

  He pauses.

  “What do you propose we do with them, then?” the shaman asks the banshee.

  “We wait,” Illuna says. “The fox gave them five days to complete their quest. If they do not return in five days, she will assume that they abandoned their mission, and they will die by electrocution. In this case, the self-destruct mechanism in the collars will not get activated.”

  “You’ve said enough,” the shaman says. “It’s clear that you hold no attachment to your former allies. You are welcome to use our library as much as you please, Illuna of the sacred woods massacre. We will discuss your payment after you rid yourself of the girl. As for these humans, I have a teleportation spell that can easily transport them into their cell, as long as they don’t move from their position for a while. If you confirm that you can still hold onto that cage, I will start casting it.”

  “My cage will last for at least another few minutes,” Illuna says. “However, I have one more warning to give you. That dwarf possesses a giant’s strength and could easily break through the walls of your prison without any weapons. I suggest you transport them into one of the cells that have a paralysis spell cast on them. I’ve visited this stronghold before, when it was owned by goblins, and I remember that there was at least one such cell on the lower levels of the main building.”

  “You remember correctly, banshee,” the shaman says. “Very well, then. I will send them to one of the paralysis cells.”

  He then starts casting his teleportation spell, and our bodies start to slowly vibrate, while we get covered in a bright white light.

  “You bloody traitor!” Hadrik says, as he tries to bend the cage’s bars with his bare hands. “I can’t believe you actually told them about my giant’s strength!”

  “Illuna, how could you do this?” Rose asks the banshee, as a tear drops from her eye. “I trusted you. Flower trusted you. How could you betray us all li
ke this?”

  “You are far too trusting for your own good, Rose,” Illuna says, with a frozen look in her eyes. “I already warned you not to consider me your ally. You should have listened to your healer when you had the chance. Now you will pay the price for your foolishness.”

  The banshee’s cold look and Rose’s tears are the last things I see before everything fades to black and we all get teleported to what may well become our final destination.

  Chapter 10

  “I can’t believe that we managed to get ourselves imprisoned twice in two days,” Hadrik says. “And by animals and ogres, to boot. If word gets out, we’re going to become the laughing stock of the tournament.”

  It has now been close to six hours since we were teleported to our prison cell. I can tell because my stats device also shows me the hour of the day, in addition to my stats. Otherwise, it would have been almost impossible to find out how much time had passed, because not only are there no windows in our cell, but also no sources of light whatsoever, except for the small light coming from my stat booster’s screen.

  For the past few hours, we’ve been trying to shake off the permanent paralysis effect of our prison cell and to come up with a plan to fool the ogre guards into releasing us. So far, we’ve made no significant progress on either front. Daren and Hadrik managed to remove their paralysis spells temporarily, by focusing all of their magical energy into giving their muscles a powerful jolt, but they were barely able to move three feet before the spell was automatically cast on them once more.

  Of the five of us trapped here, I appear to be the only one that can move my hands, even if only slightly. It turns out that partial resistance to paralysis is one of the perks I get for being a lessathi, along with a higher than average resistance to electricity. That being said, this newfound ability of mine hasn’t really helped me much, except for being able to take the stats device out of my pocket in order to use it as a makeshift candle.

  Seeing that we couldn’t free ourselves from the paralysis spell, we decided to shift our focus towards engineering a plan to have the ogres open the door and cancel the spell for us. Unfortunately, despite their renowned stupidity, the ogres were under strict orders to not let us go under any circumstances, and they were much too afraid of their captain to risk going against his wishes.

  Rose hasn’t spoken a single word since we got imprisoned. Illuna’s betrayal must have really affected her. The rest of us aren’t exactly in the best of moods either, but we are far from having given up. Since the ogres are afraid of letting us die of starvation because of our collars, we are expecting them to come bring us food, sooner or later.

  At the moment they open the door, Daren and Hadrik will use their muscle jolt techniques and make a run for it, in the short time they have at their disposal before they get paralyzed again. They will then find the control panel that cancels the paralysis spell, and we’ll all be free to roam their stronghold at our leisure. It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s better than to just roll over and accept our fates.

  “That accursed banshee!” Daren says. “I knew from the beginning that she was plotting something. We were so heavily underequipped for this mission that I had no choice but to accept Flower’s help when she offered it, but now I’m starting to regret that I didn’t listen to my instincts instead.”

  “Yeah, she sure did a number on us,” I say.

  “To be honest, I don’t think that the banshee actually betrayed us,” Kate says.

  “Why do you say that?” I ask her.

  “Because of what she said about the collars around our necks,” Kate says. “Even if we take into account the fact that the lessathi were significantly more technologically advanced than any of the currently predominant races, there is just no way that such small devices could blow up this entire fort. If there really is a self-destruct mechanism implanted in these collars, I doubt that it could take out more than a roomful of ogres. I think the banshee knew this fact, and she was banking on the ogres’ lack of expertise on this particular subject when she lied to them about it.”

  “I’m sorry to burst your bubble, Kate, but this all sounds like wishful thinking to me,” Hadrik says. “You don’t really think that the banshee is just going to show up here to open our cell, cancel the paralysis spell and tell us that everything was her plan all along, do you?”

  Almost immediately after the dwarf finishes his question, we hear one of the ogre guards from outside our cell shouting loudly.

  “Halt!” he says. “You are not permitted to go any further. Turn back now or—”

  The ogre stops mid-sentence, and the next thing we hear is a loud thump outside of our door.

  “Hah!” I hear Arraka’s voice through the stone walls of our cell. “That ogre must have been so focused on forming a coherent sentence that he didn’t even notice his head being cut off.”

  “Do you ever shut up?” Illuna asks her.

  “Hey, you let me out of this amulet, and I promise you won’t hear a word from me ever again!” Arraka says, as she starts laughing.

  A few moments later, I can feel the paralysis slowly starting to wear off, as I begin to regain control of my limbs. Shortly afterwards, our cell’s door creaks open, and we see Illuna standing in front of us, with her usual displeased expression on her face.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” she says. “Get up! That chalice isn’t going to steal itself.”

  Seeing that none of us are saying anything, Illuna starts to speak again.

  “The girl told you before coming here that we had a secret plan, didn’t she?” she says. “Well, this is that plan. I’m busting you out. Now come on, we shouldn’t be lingering too much time in one place.”

  “Yeah, I’m not buying it,” Daren says. “I’m much more inclined to believe that your deal with the ogres didn’t work out as well as you were hoping, and now you’re trying to use us to get back at them. The proof is that you didn’t tell us about your plan beforehand.”

  “I couldn’t tell you beforehand, you oaf,” Illuna says. “Your reactions needed to be genuine when I betrayed you. The shaman can tell from your auras if you are actually shocked or just pretending. That is the reason why I had to put Flower to sleep. As a banshee, I am the only one who the shaman can’t read, because I am in complete control of my emotions, as well as my aura fluctuations.”

  “Oh yeah?” Daren says. “Well, why don’t you wake the girl up, then, so she can confirm all of this herself?”

  “The stasis I put Flower in cannot be undone forcefully without risking serious complications,” Illuna says. “The spell usually lasts two days, so I didn’t have the time to wait for her to wake up before coming to rescue you.”

  “How convenient,” Daren says.

  The banshee frowns at him.

  “If you don’t feel like breaking out of this cell, then I’ll just take the others with me, and leave you here to rot,” she says.

  “Oh, I’ll come with you, don’t worry,” Daren says. “But as soon as I get my sword back, you are in for a world of hurt.”

  “I see,” Illuna says, as she gestures with her hand, and all of our weapons come floating inside of the cell.

  She then gestures with her right hand towards us, and my dagger and crossbow get thrown in my lap, while at the same time, Kate’s dagger gets thrown into her right hand. The banshee then grabs Daren’s sword, and she eyes him intently. Daren tries to get up, but the effect of the paralysis still hasn’t completely worn off, so he staggers on his feet. After careful consideration, Illuna finally decides to throw the sword on the ground, in front of Daren.

  “Let’s get this over with, shall we?” she says.

  “Don’t worry,” Daren says, as he picks up his sword. “I’m going to end this quickly.”

  The two of them step outside, into the corridor where the ogre guard was killed. The rest of us follow them out of our cell, to get a better view of the fight. So far, nobody seems keen on stopping either of them.
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  “We’re going to settle this once and for all,” Daren says, with a serious tone in his voice. “We fight to the very end. Are you ready, banshee?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Illuna says, in a disinterested tone.

  “Then here I come,” Daren says, and he dashes towards her, raising his sword in the air, ready to strike.

  Illuna conjures a water whip out of nowhere, which she grabs with her left hand, and then she swings it towards Daren’s wrist. The water solidifies as it reaches him, and the impact of the hit makes him unclench his fist and sends the sword flying out of his hand. The banshee then immediately makes another whip with her right hand, which quickly coils itself around Daren’s waist, as it turns itself solid as well. Before Daren has the time to figure out what happened, Illuna pulls on the whip and she flings him with full force into a wall. When he tries to get back up, the banshee creates a water spear out of thin air and she points it at his neck. Despite it being made of water, the spear’s tip looks sharper than regular steel. It must be the result of a technique similar to Kate’s ice reinforcement.

  “I don’t understand…” Daren says. “How did you manage to throw me like that? It makes no sense!”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” Illuna says. “Because it never happened. The fact that I was the one holding the whips was just a ruse. I only made it seem that way to instill a false sense of security within you. I wasn’t the one who threw you into that wall. The whip did so by itself, and I just mimicked the motion with my arm to make it appear like I was the one doing all the legwork. Since you didn’t expect a mere child to have so much strength, you left your guard down against such attacks, thus becoming vulnerable.”

  She pauses.

  “Now then,” she continues. “I don’t usually do this kind of thing, but if you promise to stop being an idiot, I am willing to spare your life for Flower’s sake. Actually, I think I’ve worded that wrong. It may well be physically impossible for you to stop being an idiot. Just promise that you won’t attack me again, and I’ll give you back your sword.”