by Daniel Ruth
“Oh, going to get all the ‘Spellcraft’ books at once? Can you even use them?”
“Yes,” I said smiling brilliantly. “Yes, I can. You will too in a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?”
“The Accords can go shove themselves where the sun doesn’t shine. Just don’t go showing off too much. Besides, the spells they have in this academy are all utility or small scale offense and defense,” I said with some disdain in my voice. “You can only be a mage by a technicality until we get some real spells.” I paused in thought, “By the way, don’t forget to make them forget the last few hours.”
“Of course,” she pouted. “If I couldn’t do that, I would have just knocked them out.”
After our temporary servant had brought our food, I showed Beth the first meditation variation. While she practiced gathering energies, I gleefully took out my book. It had taken a lot of time but I finally had a spell book to study.
With a sigh, I opened and started to leaf through it. Cleaning was the first spell. A brilliant smile grew on my face. This was the best day ever. I was learning a new spell and it was even the Cleaning spell. I had wanted that one since I had seen Stella use her own limited version that merely cleaned dirt.
I looked ahead a bit before I settled down for serious study. Create Bread and Water, a Find Item spell, and finally a Breath Under Water. That was the most complex in the book. I thought about that one for a minute. It said Water Breathing but the effects were to suspend the need to breathe. I may be able to use that on Mars or more likely Pluto. I probably wouldn’t need it if I decided on Mars since it was halfway terraformed and merely had a thin atmosphere.
I checked the book a few more times. Four spells for a four month semester? I knew they were deliberately slowing down the training time but were they drugging the students? I shrugged, I figured I would have these mastered in a few days. At that moment there was a knocking at the door. I smiled again. It must be the second teen with the additional spellbooks. This day just kept getting better.
I opened the door and saw Sebastian, standing there with a smile, his rune dagger in hand and murder in his heart. At this point, my precognition warned me of danger.
“Miss me?” he asked in amusement as his dagger swung towards my neck. I tried to move my arm up in defense, but he seemed faster than before. Much faster. He was also stronger. When the dagger struck, it bit deep. The entire city was near a node. It was where my durability should have been at its peak. Unfortunately, his dagger also increased its effectiveness based on the density of magic. It sliced deep and the force behind it sent me across the room. I knew I would regret letting him keep that dagger.
Still, despite my human form, I am not one of them. In my own body the dagger, even sunk to the hilt would barely reach a blood vessel. By the laws that governed my shapeshifting, there was no way it could go deeper than that in one blow. Of course, I was still bleeding like a stuck pig. One hand on my neck, I staggered to my feet.
My mind stuttered to a stop for a second. I had taken the dagger away the last time the deranged undead had attacked me. I got the sinking feeling as I had the realization that if I checked my pouch, I likely wouldn’t find the dagger. It probably hadn’t been there for weeks. I shouldn’t be surprised, many major rune weapons had special abilities. Returning to one’s owner is one of the most common. What was even more unsettling was that I hadn’t noticed that a huge dagger the size of a humans forearm was missing from my bag. Hmmm, that might actually count as another ability of the dagger. Either that or I needed a long sleep way more than I had thought.
Sebastian wasn’t following up on his advantage. My mind froze for a moment as I saw him bent over a pool of my blood. With a sponge. With a primal roar, I charged over to him. Still, he may have been feral, but it hadn’t dulled his wits as it had the others. He was a martial artist and a damn fine one, with hundreds of years of experience. Still mopping up the blood, he slid out of the way and an upraised leg jutted out to help me fly by him.
Now I was outside looking in. Worriedly, I noted that Beth had just opened her eyes. At least she had her force field up if the blue glow was any indication. The dagger would cut through it and her entire body without resistance, but it would help with debris. I quickly advanced, before he could follow up on the obvious hostage situation. I managed to get a force bubble up on her and the window behind her, just before he reached her. He may have been fast but even his reaction speed couldn’t match the speed of thought. He bounced off the surface very nicely.
I put another force field on the door to the hallway. There was no way he was getting away with my blood. It was obvious he had used his mouthful of blood from his previous attack to pass through the barrier between the worlds. I didn’t know if he had expended all of it or if he needed it for someone or something else, but it couldn’t be for anything good.
“Coming here was a mistake, Sebastian,” I said grimly, summoning my swords. My six-foot energy blades began to flicker into existence in my extended hands. My bleeding had since slowed to a trickle. It was far from healed, but I wasn’t spurting blood all over the room anymore. “It gives me the opportunity to make up for my error in judgment. The one where I let you live.”
“We all do what we have to,” Sebastian said. He still had a small smile adorning his face as if he knew a secret only he was privy to. “Master has his needs and things just follow from that.”
“It your master’s name Vanth?”
“Oh, you’ve heard of him? I’ll tell him you said hello,” he said with a jaunty wave.
“Sebastian, I’m sorry you have fallen to this state,” Stella said as she opened the door to her room. She had been less than her initial bubbly personality recently, but now she was downright grim. “I had hoped your world was truly different than all the others I had known.”
“Awe is the super-elf sad to see me,” the vampire sneered. Apparently, sympathy irritated him more than my anger. “That’s too bad. I don’t need you alive.” As he spat that out, he blurred towards the álfar. Just before he reached her, a barrier of flame materialized between the two. Unable to stop his momentum he barreled into it. Unlike normal fire, it had substance to it. He immediately slowed as if entering a vat of gel. Then the wall of fire opened its eyes and stared at the creature with it. And hissed.
Sebastian screamed in agony. Supernatural creatures all have insane pain tolerances, but being vaporized within a fire elemental kicked him over his limits. I was amazed he hadn’t instantly turned to ashes and vapor. Whatever had given him his power boost was significant. Although his skin was gone, the fat and muscle beneath it were cracked and blackened, he was able to stagger out of it and run towards Beth again. I frowned in concern, the force bubble I placed on her would only take a single blow from his dagger.
I ran towards him bringing my energy blades down on him in a massive overhand slash. Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm to slay the old vampire I hadn’t thought of how low the ceiling was. My ridiculously long swords slid halfway up to the hilt, gouging massive trenches into the stone above us, before finally descending upon him.
This slight delay was enough. Sebastian jerked to the side and it was then that I realized he wasn’t heading towards Beth, he was heading towards the fireplace. Which had a chimney, that likely went up to the roof.
“Damn it!”
In an instant, I was watching his feet disappear up the opening like some demented killer Santa Clause. I halfheartedly tried to jab my swords up the chimney but they simply were too huge and couldn’t get past the hearth. They weren’t made for indoors or low ceiling. Or fireplaces.
“And it started out as such a nice day,” I whined as I gazed at the flue.
“Can you fix the ceiling?” I gestured to the massive holes in the ceiling I had accidentally caused.
Stella was patting the wall of fire muttering something. She looked concerned and it wasn’t in regards to a vampire or the mess left behind. “No, my friend
was hurt when Sebastian charged him. I need to help him recover.”
“Since when can vampires hurt fire elementals,” asked Beth. She was still shaken but recovering fairly quickly.
“Since this vampire had a rune blade,” I answered her. Squinting a bit to examine the elementals aura, I saw that it had indeed been severely wounded. I assume Stella had some way to help it. “I’ll put a ward in our room. No, our entire floor. It will keep the undead out. Even our buffed-up ex-companion.”
“So, some evil vampire god has taken over all the vampires,” Beth asked. She wasn’t stupid and had put all the clues together.
“Something like that,” I nodded as I prepared the placard and the tiny crucible I kelp in my pouch.
“And the rocket to Mars or Pluto will fix this,” Beth said hesitantly. Stella looked on briefly before shaking her head and ushering the fire elemental into her room. Somehow the room didn’t burst into flame.
“Something like that.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“Something like that.”
“Jerk.”
I nodded in agreement and continued preparing my circle. The makeshift ward equivalent was faster but also weaker. A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. I summoned an energy blade, which I kept out of sight while I opened the door. This time it was a teenager with a vague look in his eyes, holding out half a dozen books to me.
I sighed. Okay, maybe it was a halfway decent day.
Later that night, while Beth was still in her reverie and Stella was helping her fiery friend, I snuck away to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, I concentrated. Slowly real scales formed, my body grew until I had to kneel on the ground. Talons replaced fingers and my jaw distended to form an elongated snout. Opening my mouth, I saw serrated teeth, merely few inches long.
At this point, resistance formed. It became harder and harder to force any change. By the time the excruciating pain in my chest blocked anything further, I was far from my previous humanoid shape. The two fortuitous encounter with the various types of truth magics had further loosened my bonds. The mirror didn’t show a dragon by any degree. I looked like a twenty-foot-tall muscular lizard man with grayish green scales. I probably could have changed the color but frankly, I didn’t care.
I sighed in melancholy. Halfway there. I sighed again and changed my shape, shrinking back to the little Baron’s boyish form. It was time buckle down and learn some spells.
Chapter 25
By midnight I had learned the simple Cleaning spell. I practiced it by cleaning the detritus left by the fight. I had left the rubble there specifically for this purpose, despite the aggravation. The dirt and dust constantly drew my attention. It was only with a huge effort I ignored it and concentrated on my first spell.
My reward was a practically sparkling room. As my first attempt, the energy use was inefficient and wasteful, but that was to be expected in the beginning. Partly from my inexperience and partly because it was written that way on purpose. The academy truly made an effort to not teach these students correctly. A normal first year would not even know how wasteful they were being.
I shrugged to myself. There was nothing to be done about it. I had plenty of reserves, but it would take a few spells under my belt before my innate knowledge would be able to connect the dots and make the changes needed to streamline the spell. After that, it would be relatively easy to tweak the parameters from an entire room to a mere stain. But that was for later.
The Creation spells were next. Now that the room was clean and much less distracting, it was easier to focus as long as I didn’t look up. These I learned in a few hours. I would never lack bread and water in the future. I had mixed feelings about those ones. The light was just coming in the window when I finished. I was just about to go to my room for a two-hour power nap when Beth came out yawning and stretching.
“Morning.”
“Night, see you in a few hours.”
“Wait a minute, you can’t go to sleep yet,” she halted me with a hint of worry.
“Why not? The entire floor is protected from vampires, demons ghost and some supernatural influences I’m not even sure of,” I questioned.
“I have my first War Wizard class this morning,” she said urgently. “You said you’d start the pain suppression technique until my psionic strength built up and I can do the entire two hours.”
“Oh.” I guess that was important. “Sure. I wish I could go. I’m actually really good at alchemy. It would have been nice to add the process to my repertoire.”
“Didn’t you say you already had something?”
“Sure, but it only lasts a few weeks,” I said with a frown. “It also has some nasty side effects. I couldn’t possibly use it on friends unless they were in incredible danger.”
“Like an ancient vampire assassin,” Beth asked.
“Exactly like an ancient vampire assassin,” I agreed amiably. “Good thing Sebastian is still wet behind the ears.”
“Bu he got a power up you said,” she wheedled. “Isn’t that worth something?”
“Absolutely. It’s worth you going through that war wizard conditioning as soon as possible.” She started to say more but I continued, ”Seriously, the side effects suck. It’s embarrassing, so I don’t want to talk about it but you wouldn’t want it, especially with a better method right here.”
“But it’s going to take the entire semester.”
“It’s only a month and then they give you potions to continue the process. If you can give me a couple drops to analysis, I am almost positive I can reproduce it if we have to leave sooner.”
“Really?”
“Really. I am better at alchemy than almost anything else,” I awkwardly tugged at my collar. “I just don’t know anything besides my awesome recipes with a side of horrible. It is why I was able game the ingredients facet of the circle magic so well.”
“What else are you better with,” Beth asked curiously. “Your mental magic?”
I winced at her lumping psionics in with magic. They were completely different. “Um, no. You remember those magical sigils I mentioned that require being tortured for three days and just may cause insanity?”
“That’s your specialty?”
“Yeah, they are really awesome, though,” I muttered.
“Did your ancestors study anything that didn’t have horrible side effects?”
“Why the heck do you think I’ve been perfecting my psychic skills?” I grumbled.
“Fine, I have some time before class. I’m going to call Jeremy first.”
“Good idea,” I agreed absently. Since I was going to be up for a little longer I might as well practice the Create Food spell. Soon the bar was covered in fresh loafs of bread. The bread was a bit bland but I was a fair cook. If I understood the spell well enough to substitute other concepts of ‘bread’ in the firmament I could probably get something decent.
“Hey, there Beth,” Jeremy’s voice came from the girl’s wrist terminal. “How are things there? Where’d that hole in the ceiling come from?”
“It’s great over here,” Beth gushed enthusiastically. “We had our first classes yesterday and I’m about to go to another new class today. The hole was from a vampire attack...”
At this point I abruptly focused on the conversation, staring at Beth in horror. Moments later I was waving my hands in a cutting motion. “Beth, that’s not true at all,” I inserted nervously, moving into the camera field of view. “I actually summoned my swords...”
“The absurdly long ones?”
I paused and glared at him. “Yes. Those.”
I could see him eyeing the two troughs in the stone above us. “Those really aren’t meant to be used inside.”
“I have since realized this,” I replied stoically. I didn’t say anything more and at that point, they started to talk about Beth’s classes. This was probably Jeremy’s way to tell his sister that he forgave her. Beth played along and gave h
im all the boring details. No vampires or hypnotized teenagers were mentioned.
Hours later I muzzily woke up and staggered into the living room again. Beth was either still at class or exploring the campus. Stella was sitting in one of the chairs, looking how I felt. I didn’t know about her, but I knew I was getting closer to a mandatory month long snooze. I hoped I could wrap up a few things before I crashed.
“Morning,” I grunted. She just groaned and closed her eyes. “Tired?”
“I was healing the elemental all night,” she sighed.
“I assume you thought about using the regeneration circle?”
“Why would that even work for an energy being?” she asked, somewhat confused.
I looked over at the circle. “I’m not sure the target is defined enough to tell the biological from the inanimate.”
“Wouldn’t it be a repair circle if it was defined that way?”
“Not really, elementals have a presence on the firmament level. They are supernatural creatures, not animated dead.”
“So would that thing heal vampires?”
“I don’t think so,” I said thoughtfully. “Okay, frankly I don’t know. I could add restrictions, but since there are none right now I have no idea how far its definition of healing will stretch.”
“I’ll try it next time if something happens before I go.”
An awkward silence descended. After a minute, I broke it. “So when are you going?”
“I need to calm them down before I move them through inhabited areas,” she said simply. “There’s so many. I think it will be at least a few weeks, assuming no more vampires attack.”
“I’m not expecting any,” I responded to her half question. Of course, I wasn’t expecting the first one either. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Not really,” she sighed. “Only I can calm them. When we go, it's won’t be through roads any matter bound creatures can follow. I will need a lot of your blood, so I can get through the barriers. From my visions, it’s a through a few portals.”
