May you come to the attention of important people.

Pre-Fall curse

Johanna and Laura contemplated the squad in the middle of the courtyard, their wooden training weapons in hand; a spear for Johanna, and a sword for Laura. Tom stood at her side, a light bat in his hands.

“I’m General Floriano Adorno, and the goal of these afternoon exercises is to build what we military guys call a doctrine, a general method for fighting, based on your abilities,” the man with an elaborate uniform said.

The three stood straight, waiting for the explanations.

“I’ve read extensively the notes we have on your abilities and got a few ideas. Now, both of you Miltons are good for single targets. Mrs. Milton, your ability to freeze people in place is good, but you can do it one at a time. Ditto for your flame abilities which are limited to your weapons, natural or man-made. Mr. Milton, you’ve got the same limitation. You can incapacitate an enemy with relative ease, but one at a time.”

They both nodded in agreement.

“Mrs. Donnall, however, is the one that has a massive advantage. The so-called Dreadful Glare appears to affect everyone you look at, up to a maximum distance of…” the general looked at his notes, “… 36 yards?”

“That’s correct,” Laura confirmed.

“And you can turn it on and off at will? Does that mean you pick and choose?” he inquired.

“The only ones who seem to be unaffected are Tom and Johanna,” she said.

“Oh?”

“I can start and stop it near instantaneously, though.”

“Ah. So that’s what the note really meant. Bugger.”

“A problem?”

“Yes and no. Means one of my original ideas just got an arrow in the head.”

The general threw his hands in the air before pointing back at Laura.

“Was going to have you neutralize enemy forces while ours pushed through. But if you’re looking at both… do they have to look at you?”

“No, it works even if they don’t look at me. I just have to see them.”

General Adorno shrugged.

“Strategic Plan B it is then. Rather than a straight offensive force, you’re going to be disruptors.”

Seeing the incomprehension in the faces of the three, he immediately elaborated.

“Mrs. Worchester is powerful, but her fogs basically cut everything. Once she covers something, it’s hard to fight there, because you can’t see more than a foot in front of you. Arrows and bolts fired blind, and you can’t even tell if you’re trying to spear a friend or foe. That basically stops an attack, true, but for everyone. You only use it when you’re losing.”

He pointed again at Laura.

“You’re much easier to work with since we can prepare our formations for your disruption effect… and if you can turn it on and off, then we can do brief maneuvers, and as soon as the enemy rallies, it’s back to being terrorized.”

“It’s not really terrorized. It’s a menace… it just causes you to hesitate, and everything needs to be done more meticulously.”

“That’s what I meant. Any proper soldier will overcome his fear, but Mrs. Worchester confirms, both from trying, and her reference book, that the hesitation remains and significantly degrades one’s performance.”

Laura raised her hands defensively.

“With your range, you’re probably safe from the kind of crossbows the tribesmen might eventually have, but good bowmen can still try to get you. We’ll need to figure out how to protect you from range. But when it comes to melee, Mrs. and Mr. Milton will basically act as bodyguards for you. They are the last defense to make sure nobody can get to you. Mr. Milton can rush anyone who tries to get close, and Mrs. Milton makes sure they really do hesitate to get real close because a spear on fire in your face is going to be very, very hard to ignore. In the event things go wrong, you can heal them without stopping your effect?”

“I need to keep looking at my targets, but yes, I can do that. Did that, in the Narrows,” Laura confirmed.

“Then…”

“But we have – Lady Worchester and me – no idea how much heals do drain from my reserves.”

“That’s something we’ll work on later. Trying to stretch your impact, because real large battles can last a few hours. But for now, we’ll start on maneuvers, trying to see how it goes. The squad here will alternate between being all against you, or splitting into two half-squad, one red team, one blue team, and work out how to fight along with you against ‘enemies’.”

He turned toward the squad, then hesitated and turned back to the three.

“Mr. Milton… try not to damage our squad. I know Mrs. Donnall can heal them, but if we have to take a break every time it happens because she needs to be quick, it’s not going to work.”

Johanna called out, “Is there a Strategic Plan C?”

“Yes. That one is you two on the front line, killing tribesmen as fast as possible using your enhanced weapon abilities and your Saint friend just behind trying to keep you alive.”

The general smiled, adding “not a fan of that one. If Mr. Milton had one of those Heroic skills of avoidance of attacks… maybe.”

Moore was curious about the various maneuvers. Then he slowly realized what was happening.

Wait, are they using Laura as a battle healer, and dps as defense? That’s not how it works!

He had to admit, though, that trying to use Falter offensively, if that was what was happening – given the drain on mana, she was using it continuously – was the kind of idea that matched the belief that it was part of a sorcerer toolkit, not a healer.

“I’ve been trying to slot you into the classification system,” Elena said.

“The tier system? I couldn’t make heads or tails about how it’s constructed in that chapter. The math is beyond me, I’m afraid,” Johanna replied.

“You can time very accurately your mana endurance. It’s fixed. If you have some form of continuous ability, you can keep it up for a specific time, and then you’re simply out,” she replied.

“I know. I’ve tested it,” Johanna acknowledged, omitting the part where she’d compared it to Peter’s stealth.

“Well, every sorcerer has their own endurance, and so, scholars have been making statistics the time. And there are some very distinct points where…”

Johanna raised her hand to stop the mist sorceress.

“I know the word, but we never covered it when I was schooled.”

“Statistics? Not surprised, it’s usually taught late, and mostly if you’re going to inherit some specific businesses. Or going for scholarships in the south.”

Elena shrugged, then resumed her explanation.

“Anyway, if you try to place the length over which you can sustain something over a common scale, you find that the points will cluster around certain values. There’s a current hypothesis that the values follow some form of quadratic…”

Her words trailed as she spotted Johanna’s eyes glazing.

“Okay. No complicated math. But the point is that scholars have found certain points where a sorcerer’s endurance tends to be. We call them tiers.”

“So that’s a known quantity?”

“Yes. Although a sorcerer’s endurance tends to increase a bit as they get older, it’s usually by a small amount. The only ones who change tiers are those who find themselves gaining a second, or even third ability later.”

“Like I did.”

“So, tier 1 is usually around 9-10 minutes. It’s not fixed, but you’ve got nobody above 10 minutes until tier 2. That’s around 20 minutes of endurance. Then, you get to tier 3, at around 30 minutes, up to 32-33. Tier 4 is then at 45, plus or minus 5 minutes…”

“Then I was probably… tier 4, I think. When we were figuring this out initially.”

“You did check then?”

Johanna realized that she couldn’t tell Elena that she was extrapolating from Peter’s original endurance tests. Their respective maximum endurance had matched within two minutes once they’d compared the time, after gaining their newest abilities. But maybe she was extrapolating too much. Trying to bend rules for Heroes to Sorcerers, or vice-versa.

“Only briefly.”

“Then you get in some old archmages. Tier 5. That’s a bit above an hour, around 70 minutes. That’s where we don’t have much historical data. There’s been a grand total of seven archmages ever recorded in the Union of the States.”

“The compendium says you’re tier 6.”

“Yes. When you have one hour and a half endurance, that’s tier 6, the highest ever recorded. That’s Jade or me, currently, and Ranshao – another fire mage, before he died – and one ancient Archmage, Casper Viktul. Those are the highest known mages. That’s partially why I suspected the stone was working. Tier 7 at two hours would work… but I didn’t get a new ability after joining the Warden. So, there was no way I needed that stone as some kind of superstitious anchor.”

“I’m between tier 5 and 6?”

“Unsurprising, since you are an archmage. I’ll probably classify you as a low tier 6. You’re young, and it’s not that uncommon for a mage to grow a little bit in endurance with age, although it’s usually an additional minute, maybe two every few years. If you were two decades older, you’d fit comfortably in tier 6.”

Johanna contemplated that pronouncement.

“But that’s by using my oldest ability. If I’m using either the ensnaring or the flame blade, my endurance is only half that.”

“People have been trying to separate the sorcerous abilities from the sorcerer’s endurance. Ernesto Gomez has been writing on the topic for more than two decades, actually, and he makes a convincing argument that there’s a baseline for abilities, and the endurance of a sorcerer is equal to the sum of his baselines, plus a fixed quantity, time the baseline of the ability you use. He’s been pestering for years the Erlangs to provide data since those people have more dual mages than anyone else.”

“Does this work?”

“As I said, he makes a convincing argument. But the idea that the ability is separate from the sorcerer has been easily disproved.”

“By whom?”

“By me. There have been other sorcerers of the mists, including one down in the southern Marches next to Aztlan right now. Except they were all tier 3 only, not a 6, like me. It’s the same exact ability, except my fog last twice longer, and cover far more.”

Johanna considered the difference. She still felt intimidated by the sorceress. If tiers were simply the accumulation of individual abilities, then Elena, with a single ability, was almost her equal with four. That was humbling, and it showed how different the two of them were.

“Then, of course, there’s your friend, Laura.”

“Who might be a sorceress.”

“She is… she’s a clear tier 6… The Dreadful Glare is rare, but not unprecedented. Mind sorcerers are almost as rare as fire sorcerers. Almost as rare as Saints. To have someone who is both…”

“As I said, the ability to heal people of major damage is… well, I can see it when she does it. I see mana in action.”

“Well, most dual sorcerers have multiple elements. Which explains her tier ranking if the miracles boost her mana endurance. Although…”

Elena shuddered.

“If we – sorcerers, that is – start claiming that miracles are actually simple sorcery… that’s not going to go well with some people.”