by Dante King
“Quick, Amelia, let’s try and hit it before it sees us. It might be vulnerable to our attacks.” I summoned one large fireball. Amelia raised her arm and prepared to throw the ice spear that was forming in her hand.
We both cast our spells simultaneously and struck the Beast from different sides at exactly the same time. The Beast hissed loudly, lightning flickering erratically from its jaws. The lightning struck the stones around us, igniting several of the bushes. I hoped this was a sign that it was hurt, because the Beast was turning to face us both now.
We both cast our spells again, as quickly as we could summon the Mana into our tattoos. One side of the Beast’s hide was scorched as my fireball burst against it; the other side was frozen from Amelia’s spears.
The Beast hissed again, spitting lightning out against the ground between the two of us. We both leapt to the side. I felt heat on my back, as the lightning passed closer to me than I would have liked. Unlike the fire I was able to summon, I could feel that this heat would definitely hurt me if it got any closer.
The leather-clad Lightning Mage, her back to the wall on the other side of the plaza, summoned another lightning bolt from behind the Beast and struck it in the back, but the Beast didn’t even respond this time. It seemed to know that we were the real threat.
I looked at the pattern on the Beast’s hide, scorched brown on one side, and frozen blue on the other, where our attacks had landed. I had an idea.
I waited a moment. The Beast focused on us with narrowed eyes, gleaming in the gloom. After another moment, it hissed again, shooting out more lightning at the two of us, which we again successfully dodged.
“Amelia, come closer to me and summon another ice spear,” I said. “Hurry, we don’t have much more time before it can attack us again.”
Amelia raced to my side, her arm held aloft as the ice crystalized in her hand. I summoned a fireball in my left hand.
“Aim for the middle of the Beast’s neck” I said. “And make sure you cast at the same time as me.”
We had to be perfectly accurate. We’d practiced this move on the road, and we couldn’t afford to mistime it. If we could blind the Beast with a large enough cloud of steam, we could run in and stab it before it could cast again.
I waited until our spells were both ready. “Now!” I shouted and hurled the fireball forward. Amelia launched her spear. I held my breath as the projectiles flew toward the monster’s neck.
They collided with a boom. A flash of light erupted, and steam exploded against the monster. Chunks of the creature’s head splattered the stones of the plaza, and it crashed to the ground, stone dead. The monster’s head had been completely vaporized by our combined spell.
“We did it!” Amelia cried, and she jumped forward and gave me a quick squeeze before standing at my side.
“Well done, Amelia; you were great,” I said. Both Amelia and I were looking across the gore-spattered plaza at the tall, leather-clad Mage who was making her way a little unsteadily toward us.
I looked at her. She was very beautiful, with finely sculpted lips and cheekbones, and eyes like amethyst gems. They were a strange color, but I figured they had something to do with her affinity for Lightning magic.
“And you,” I said as she stopped, facing us, “you were amazing.”
Her eyes were wide as she stared from Amelia and I to the corpse of the lizard-snake and back again. “So were you,” she said. “I’ve never seen an attack like that.” Her voice was melodious and clear, though she was a little out of breath from the exertion of the battle.
I laughed. “We’ve never seen an attack like that either,” I explained to the Lightning Mage. “That was the first time we managed to combine our attacks.”
Amelia beamed at me.
The storm clouds started to dissipate, and the sun peeped through the clouds, shining on the spot where the Lightning Mage stood.
“May I ask what your name is?” I asked her.
“My name is Veronica,” the woman said. “I’m a Lightning Mage. As you can see.”
“Of course,” I said. “My name is William, and this is Amelia.”
“We’re traveling Mages, heading north.” I continued. “We heard the sound of the battle and decided to come help.” It wasn’t that far from the truth; I was an Ink Mage after all. I didn’t think telling the whole truth, that I was an Ink Mage following a prophecy revealed by a magic book, was a good idea to lead with. Better to get to know this woman first.
Veronica raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Well, I thank you both for your help. The boars and the bears I could probably have handled, but that Lightning drake at the end, well, that would have been a challenge for me.”
She ran a critical eye up and down our clothing and our gear.
“If you don’t mind me saying so,” she said, “you don’t look like Mages. Those swords don’t look like great vectors. And your clothing doesn’t appear to have runes.”
“Our swords work well enough as vectors for self-defense,” Amelia answered.
Then Veronica’s gaze fell on my arms. Her eyes widened, and she glanced at Amelia’s arms as well.
“And you have tattoos?” Veronica said, with apprehension in her voice. “You say you’re Mages, and I’ve seen your magic, but what is the meaning of this? Are you sure you’re not just common vagabonds?”
Damn. I hadn’t thought to hide the tattoos before the fight. I’d forgotten what a stranger would think when she saw them.
“They’re symbols of our order,” I improvised. “We’re part of a secret organization from the capital.” That wasn’t totally a lie.
Then Amelia spoke up. “But what are you doing out here all alone?” she asked Veronica. “It’s not common for a Mage to be fighting alone.”
“I might ask you the same thing.” Veronica crossed her arms. “Neither of you look well equipped to be taking on packs of monsters.”
“We had no intention of fighting such large packs,” Amelia said. I was happy to let her handle the cover story. She knew a lot more about the politics going on here than I did.
“We’re only here to investigate the presence of monsters in these woods,” she continued, “not to fight them.”
Veronica’s expression softened. She didn’t look completely satisfied, but she seemed content to let the issue of who we were rest for the moment.
“Well, thank you again for coming to help,” she said. “As I said, that Lightning drake would have taken me a while on my own.”
I thought it probably would have killed her on her own, but I kept that thought to myself. The sun shone brightly now, bathing the ruins in light. There was no sign of the dramatic cloud vortex which had been above the tower during the battle.
“Did you summon that storm?” I asked.
“Of course,” Veronica replied. “My job is to thin down the number of monsters in these woods. I needed a way to attract them.”
“You mean, you attracted the monsters here with that storm?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s a taunting spell. That, and it gives me access to an increased source of lightning.” Veronica studied the blade of her sword as she spoke. She seemed to be a bit more relaxed now.
Summoning a storm to taunt monsters? Seemed like a pretty specific ability. I wondered who might have discovered such a thing and why.
“You said this is your job?” Amelia asked.
“The people of the nearby town of Brightwater have hired me to hunt monsters in these woods. They were starting to menace the town and were causing disruption to travel and trade on the roads.”
“We’re on our way to Brightwater now,” I said. “I was beginning to wonder why we hadn’t seen anybody on the road.”
“Perhaps we can go together then?” Veronica suggested. “I’m getting a bit low on supplies. I was going to head back there myself.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Amelia said. “We mustn’t forget to collect the Beast Cores first. We’ll take the ones from the
Beasts we killed, and you can take the rest, if that sounds fair to you?”
Veronica hesitated a moment, looking at the Lightning Drake. She shrugged her shoulders. “Yes, that sounds fair. Lightning Beast Cores are worth a lot, due to their comparative rarity outside of the mines, but you did kill the Beast.”
I couldn’t use the Lightning Beast Core on myself. If Veronica decided to join us for longer, perhaps I could give her a Lightning tattoo at some point. I was sure that would compensate her for losing the Lightning Core to us.
“But what will you do with the Cores you collect?” I asked, curious about the Lightning Mage’s intent. “You only have the Lightning affinity, don’t you?”
“Uh, I’ll sell them?” Veronica narrowed her eyes and stared at me like there were horns growing out of my head. “What are you going to do with them? Eat them?”
“Oh right, no, we will be selling them too,” I responded hastily. “We haven’t had much experience with fighting magical monsters much yet, we only left Astros recently.”
“But why did you bring my affinity up? What’s that got to do with it?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. I was just mixing it up with something else. Don’t know what I was thinking. Let’s get to work and extract these Cores.”
Amelia was standing next to me, looking a bit pale. Veronica gave me a suspicious look, then shrugged. We all got to work and extracted the Cores from our respective monsters.
Veronica was obviously quite practiced. She had hers all out in the time it took for us to extract one Lightning Core, one Fire Core and three Cold Cores.
We collected the carry sack we’d left at the bottom of the hill before the fight began, with our food and Amelia’s book still in it. Then, we all got back on the road and continued heading toward Brightwater.
“Do you think we can trust her?” Amelia whispered to me as Veronica strode a few paces ahead of us.
“Somewhat,” I said. “We need to know if she’s in league with the Arcanists. If she’s not, then we can definitely trust her better. If she is an Arcanist herself, or in league with them, then I don’t think we can trust her.”
“Then we need to find out if she is an Arcanist before we can fully be sure?”
I nodded to that.
“If we can trust her,” Amelia continued, “maybe we can team up. She seems powerful.”
“Maybe,” I whispered back, “if that happens, I’ll have a chance to gain a Lightning affinity from her.”
“Ugh, William!” Amelia objected. “Really?”
“I thought you said you don’t have a problem with sharing?”
“No, it’s the fact that you’ve only just met her and you’re thinking about making love to her!”
I shrugged. “I’ve known you for a little over a day.”
Amelia laughed. “I suppose that’s true. But let’s avoid you thinking about having sex with her for at least as long as it takes to reach Brightwater.”
“I’ll do my best to avoid it,” I said, and we both laughed.
Looking at Veronica, however, I wondered how well I would be able to avoid that. She was incredibly attractive, as was the thought of gaining a Lightning affinity for myself.
As we finished speaking, Veronica dropped back a few steps to be nearer us.
“So,” Veronica asked, “what are two such freshly trained Mages as yourselves doing out here near Brightwater?”
“We’re not freshly trained,” Amelia retorted. Her voice sounded indignant. “We were chosen by the authorities in Astros to investigate reports of trouble near the mines in this area.”
“Yeah, right,” Veronica said, shaking her head in disbelief. “So, you were chosen by the Arcanists? Because, what? You’re their most trusted warriors? Don’t get me wrong, you fought well in that fight in the tower, but I would have said based on how you did that you’d been training for three months at most.”
“We were sent out as investigators,” Amelia said. “We weren’t sent out to fight the monsters.”
“And why would they send you out to investigate?” Veronica asked. “Couldn’t they just send a messenger to the mines to ask them directly?”
“We work for the Librarians in the Royal Library; they have very little contact with the Arcanists,” Amelia said.
Veronica smirked at this. “I didn’t think Arcanists and Librarians got along. The Librarians always focused a bit too much on theory for the liking of the Arcanists.”
“Alright, enough you too,” I half shouted. They both stopped walking and looked at me.
“Now look,” I said to Veronica. “You speak as if you’re not an Arcanist. We haven’t been totally upfront with you, because we didn’t know if we could trust you or not.”
Veronica chuckled. “That was obvious.”
“So, who do you work for?” I asked.
“I work as a mercenary for the town of Brightwater for now.”
“And are you in league with the Arcanists?” I asked.
Veronica’s face wrinkled in disgust. “No. I’m not. The Arcanists are corrupt; they’re all seeking their own interests. If you’re going to try to change my mind about that, you can go your own way.”
I sighed with relief. “We agree with that view—we’re not in league with the Arcanists either.”
“You’re not?” Veronica raised an eyebrow.
“Most certainly not,” Amelia said. “I am a scholar, sent from the Librarians of the Royal Library to investigate the rumors of monsters escaping from the mines. My mentor suggested that the Arcanists—perhaps all or perhaps only some—are responsible.”
Veronica nodded. “I see. Well, I’m sure there’s plenty to investigate. I don’t trust the Arcanists one bit. That’s why I set out on my own path instead of trying to enter their ranks.”
There was so much I didn’t know about the politics of these groups. “I always thought Mages and Arcanists were the same thing,” I said. “I take it they’re not?”
Veronica looked disbelieving. “Have you been living under a rock? Of course they’re not the same thing. Mages must still obey the Royal Decrees, but the Arcanists are different. They are a special group of Mages who are provided access to the Royal Armory, where the most potent vectors can be found, along with the most talented enchanters. But I wouldn’t join their ranks for anything—not even for powerful vectors and enchanters who can create amazing runes.”
“Right,” I said. “Thanks for the lesson, I suppose.”
“Besides,” Veronica said, as though she hadn’t heard me, “there’s one thing the Arcanists are responsible for, the most despicable thing on the entire continent.”
“The mines?” Amelia asked.
“Exactly,” Veronica replied with a curt nod. “But more than that. The tradition of slavery started with the Arcanists. I don’t want to have anything to do with people who believe it’s fine to enslave others. Even if they’re useful for monster mining, like those Elemental Sensitive types.”
This was interesting to learn. And if Veronica was prepared to take a stand against the use of slaves in the mine, it seemed like we could trust her. I decided to take the most blunt route to teaming up with her.
“I was a slave until yesterday,” I stated plainly.
Veronica’s mouth dropped open when I said that. Then she burst out laughing. “That’s a good one. You must think I’m a real idiot. No one starts flinging fireballs with a shitty vector like that shortsword after one day.”
“I didn’t fling them with the sword,” I said. “I did it with my hands.”
Veronica laughed some more at this. “Come on, stop insulting my intelligence. If you really don’t want me to hang around, I’ll just leave you guys to walk the rest of the way by your—”
I held up my hand, with a ball of flame on it. Veronica’s mouth dropped open.
“H-H-How are you doing that?”
I snuffed the flame out.
I turned my wrist over and showed her the tattoo on my lef
t arm, which glowed orange.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “How can you make fire appear without a vector? And why is your tattoo glowing like that?”
“I’m an Ink Mage,” I said.
Amelia gasped softly. When I glanced at her, I saw her eyes wide as she stared at me, watching our conversation. It was clear from her look that she wasn’t as sure about Veronica as I was, but I’d had enough of deception. My ability was my secret, and I could choose who I shared it with.
I turned to face Amelia. “I think we can trust Veronica. She is no friend of slavers or Arcanists.”
“You’re right,” Amelia sighed. “Getting captured by slavers has made me start questioning who I can trust.”
“Wait a minute,” said Veronica. “I’ve never heard of an Ink Mage before. What does it mean? What can you do?”
“It means I can cast spells using the tattoos on my body as vectors,” I said.
Veronica stared at me. “I still don’t understand. I’ve never heard of anyone being able to do this. And what’s that tattoo on your other arm?” She pointed at the snowflake on my right arm.
I conjured up a chunk of ice on my hand and held it out to her. “Go on, you can touch it.”
Veronica reached out a trembling finger and poked the ice. She drew it back with a sharp breath. “It’s so cold. Wait a minute, you have two affinities? What the fuck?”
She stood there shaking her head, alternately staring at my tattoos, at the ice on my hand, and at my face. “What the fuck is going on? I don’t understand. You said you were a slave until yesterday? How is all this possible?”
Amelia spoke up. “An Ink Mage is a very ancient type of Mage, who can create magical tattoos, allowing the wearers to cast spells without vectors.”
“But tattoos are wicked,” Veronica interjected. “Only thieves and bandits wear them.”
“That’s what we were taught to believe,” Amelia said. “But they can be used to create the most powerful magic.”
Veronica looked at me again, disbelief still written all over her features. “And, you’re one of these ... Ink Mages? You discovered this yesterday?”
