Book 2, Chapter 14: A Friendly Spar

[Alen]

The Crawling Canyon, the mountain of shells, where the sun strikes the back of the God of the Eternal Sands and fails to shine upon the world he scorns in his final breath. Here, my children lie hidden; the fruit of my legacy the key to unlocking what I have never wished to find.

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A lizardman with scales the color of the sea stood beside Alexandrius, the calm color of his scales contrasting against the images of brutal savagery that flashed through Alen’s head whenever he saw the crimson-scaled bandit chief. Slowly, he read out the riddle written down on the note left behind by Alexandrius’s missing uncle. The lizardmen nearby listened intently, and Alen sat on a rock with his brows furrowed. This didn’t seem like a riddle that lead to wealth, but rather, one that might explain the ‘missing’ tag people had affixed to Alexandrius’s uncle’s name.

“Isn’t it exciting?” Lynn asked him, gazing at Alexandrius who was in a calm discussion with the blue-scaled lizardman.

“I don’t know about you, but I just want to leave the canyon.”

“Oh come on,” She shook her head. “Who doesn’t want to go on a treasure hunt?”

“The ones that don't get said treasure,” Alen motioned to the lizardmen, then back to the two of them. “Which in this case, is unfortunately us.”

He looked around. They’d set up camp in a basin-like area near the center of the Crawling Canyon. Tents had been pitched, monsters were hunted, food was cooked, and Alen was as afraid of Alexandrius as a snake watching a hawk patiently flying overhead. Their camp was quite the distance from the entrance of the canyon, considering how the place was comparable in size to one of the most majestic mountain ranges in the continent.

Roland walked up to the two, holding two canisters of water in his left hand. He handed them to Lynn and Alen, and the latter decided it was the perfect time to ask questions.

“So I’ve decided that it’s the perfect time to ask questions,” Alen nodded. “First of all, do any of you have an idea as to what that riddle means? I mean, we’re in the Crawling Canyon, that much has been made obvious, but what are we looking for, exactly?”

The orange-haired warrior shrugged. “I heard from a few of his men that what we’re looking for is his uncles inheritance, whatever that is. Most kind of just assumed that it was the sword his uncle used, the Drakeslayer. It got stronger every time it drank the blood of dragon-kin apparently. Even my family knew about it.”

“Aren’t they like, half-drake? Why would they have that kind of weapon in their arsenal?”

Roland shook his head and looked around to make sure no one had heard the necromancer. “Don’t go around saying that. Their kind takes offense when compared to the savage lesser drakes you’d find on the continent. After all the one that birthed their race can’t even be compared to your average drake. The Queen was feared by even the dragons themselves.”

Alen shrugged. “Offense is taken, not given.”

Lynn idly took a sip off the canister. “In this case, they’d be more than happy to take it, and then give it. In copious amounts, too.”

A lizardman approached their group. “Hello. Alexandrius is calling for you three.” He said. He seemed like a nice guy. Roland nodded and stood up. Lynn followed, and Alen reluctantly did the same. Once they got to him, the blood-scaled lizardman’s golden eyes rested its gaze upon them.

“We have decided that barging into Ortena’s Temple with a large force is a bad idea,” The blue-scaled lizardman told them, as if they would understand.

Alexandrius nodded. “We’ll be sneaking in.”

“We?” Alen asked.

“Yes, we.” He replied. “My men might be capable, but they will not be able to stand against the swarms deeper in the canyon. Therefore, I am only bringing the elites.”

“Did you hear that?” Lynn whispered to Alen and grinned. “We’re the elites.”

“What does he mean, though? If his army can’t take on a swarm, how can we?”

Roland crossed his arms. “A large group naturally attracts more attention. If there are less of us, we can approach it without risking an attack like last night’s.”

The lizardman nodded. “We set off this afternoon. Get your equipment ready. Faust, go call the rest of the team for briefing,” He said, then waved his hand at Alen and the others to notify them of their meeting’s closure. As they walked away, Alen spoke.

“He really doesn’t waste time with small talk.”

“Well, we are leaving in a few hours.”

“But don’t we get briefed?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Roland said. “His main team is probably getting details on what exactly that temple is, along with a few juicier details. We were hired to fight, and that’s probably the only thing he’ll have us do.”

“I’m getting the feeling we’ll be acting like glorified meat shields.”

Lynn shrugged. “It’s Roland’s job description.”

“You make good points.”

Roland sighed. It was unfortunate, but it looked like he’d be covering the front line in their party again. There were bound to be a few more with him, but he just wanted to test out what he could do with his javelins over in the back. He plucked out his runebook from his pack and retired to his tent. The sound of conversation outside eventually died down as both of his party mates walked away, heading into their own tents to prepare.

He flicked open the pages on his runebook and immersed himself in the texts. Each one was different—unique, each stroke making the next different from the last. Roland wondered why his family failed to see what something as wonderful as this could do. They regarded magic as weakness, something to reply upon. He shook his head.

“A mage’s magic is powerful. With the intensity of the inner mana that warriors cultivate, both would only complement the other. Why can’t they understand this?”

They never bothered to try, really. Roland had resigned himself to this. The only way to get those people to listen would be to beat them with something until they understood. In this case, he’d be using this runebook of his. Every rune he’d ever created, unique to his own design, was engraved within the pages, within his memory, and within his own soul. It was his magic—his passion. He smiled lightly, and the pages lit up, each rune releasing an aura that blended with the other. Suddenly, the area around a meter of him exploded into a terrifying pressure, something that was nearly on par with Alexandrius’s own aura.

The air creaked and groaned and crackled. Alexandrius had been wrong. If he hadn’t reset his thresholds and spent over a year studying runes, they wouldn’t’ve been at the same level of strength. No, Roland knew he was stronger than that, and these runes only reflected his potential. He laughed, and the pressure only grew stronger.

Sweat dripped from his brow, and the ground below his feet cracked. The table that stood in front of him screeched and splintered. Wood chippings fell to the floor, and the aura suddenly halted. Almost as quickly as it came, it had gone. Air rushed back into place, decompressed. Roland’s knees bent, and he caught himself using a chair. The runes on his armor hissed and released gray steam, the patterns noticeably closer to being as complete as the one designed in his notes. Roland’s eyes shone with a bright gray light.

Soon.

“Why did you unsummon your undead?” Lynn asked through the sound of engines and beating wings, tilting her head.

“Well, Alexandrius did tell us he wanted a small group. I have a few of them still summoned to follow us from afar, but I’ll keep most of the in my pouches. I don’t need to expend mana mid-fight to summon them anyways,” Alen explained. He stuffed the bones into pockets and pouches in his robe. He’d remodeled it a bit in his tent, and he’d also designed a few more shapes in AutoBone. Now that his robes were strong enough to be considered armor after a month of being refined with his mana, using spells like Bone Spear had an even greater effect for less of a cost when cast on his robes.

Alen glanced at Alexandrius’s men from above and saw them turn. His summon turned with them. It was the bat they’d defeated the night before. Luckily, Alen made it to them on time before the monster’s soul completely dissipated, and after he extracted the strands he needed, he let the soul go on its way.

The skeletal bat beat its massive, leathery wings. Well, keratin wings. Alen had remade the fleshy bits, but with the same material he’d used to create his robe. It was tough and flexible, so it didn’t give the bat any problems when it came to flying. Lynn was sitting beside him, a large quiver of arrows she’d gotten from the lizardmen strapped over her back.

“I didn’t realize how quiet this place could be without a large group. We were getting swarmed a lot before this.”

Alen shook his head. “It’s because of that powder you guys talked about. Flying about in the open like this would have gotten us attacked a few times already, but it’s somehow kept the insects off.”

“Ah,” Lynn clapped her hands together. “Maybe it’s because we’re riding on the Demon-blood Bat’s skeleton.”

“Huh,” Alen said, glancing at the bat below. Some weaker creatures had avoided him in the canyon, actually. It was upon sighting the raised remains of their predators following him around that they probably had them decide to screw off. “I’d say it’s both, now that I think about it. This thing’s fucking terrifying. Even my mana’s not strong enough to make it as powerful as when it was alive.”

“Can it even use those screech attacks from yesterday?”

“Nope. At least, I’m pretty sure it can’t unless I use some sound-based variant of Necrotic Blessing.”

Lynn let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I don’t want my ears bleeding again,” She said, then went back to messing about with her equipment. Alen looked at Alexandrius’s team. They were riding Galeboats, but the ones they were on were a different kinds. Small, compact vehicles that looked like boats, but weren’t too dependent on the strong winds. Under the hull, the persistent hum of an engine drifted out. Alen didn’t know how Alexandrius got a hold of Gnomish technology, but it was safe to assume he had a few contacts among the race of short geniuses Alen had been hearing about since yesterday.

Like a squid’s syphon, it let out periodic bursts of air generated by magic. It skidded along the surface of the sand, and Roland below looked like he was having a good time riding one.

“I didn’t realize a necromancer could be so… useful,” A lizardwoman sitting just behind Lynn said, her strange, thick strands of hair that were unique to her race stopping just by her neck. Small bells and trinkets decorated them in an orderly manner. Alen struggled to remember her name as he looked at her; she’d been quiet the whole trip, and he wasn’t even sure if he took the initiative to even ask her for her name.

As if reading his mind, she spoke up. “I am Valah,” She said. “I’ve heard about you from Miss Frostwood, necromancer. Your name is Alen, yes?”

“Uh, yeah.” Alen said. He was still very bothered by Lynn’s last name, and it did not help that these people were all addressing her with it. He gave the elf a look. “Why are they referring to you as ‘Miss Frostwood’ again?”

She shrugged, and he sighed. Alen looked back at the lizardwoman. “So the people up here are supposed to be the ones that keep away from the fight, right? Um, what do you do, exactly? I’m surprised Alexandrius’s elites aren’t all melee fighters.”

Valah pointed her clawed finger at him, and a stream of light shot into his chest. Alen flinched, almost releasing a Bone Spear from his robe’s fabric when he suddenly felt his magic flow smoother through his body. It felt smooth and light. He felt refreshed, as if he’d just downed a cold glass of water on a hot summer day. He looked at her in surprise, and she spoke before he did.

“I am a mage on the path of Life,” She said, setting her staff on top of her crossed legs. “Alexandrius hired me after I saved his life many years ago. I am his oldest follower.”

She closed her eyes and breathed in, and Lynn continued for her. “She’s not the only one who doesn’t hit things, you know.”

“Really? Why aren’t there more guys with us, then?”

Valah opened her eyes and gazed at him. Alen stared at her weirdly. What is this woman doing? He thought, then paused. Her hand stretched out and pointed below, to a handsome elf in leather armor riding beside Alexandrius himself. “That is Tirilius. He accompanied our leader to the Gnomish city of Cradlee before we set off for the Sandsea. He came back, and in his hands were no longer his old Dwarven flintlocks, but the Magitech Pistols of the Gnomes had created for him out of respect for his skills with firearms.”

She pointed to another, it was a lizardman with a scarred face. He wore a dark robe over his body. “That man is Gravil. He is our sorcerer, but as your friend said, he is one of the people that hits things.”

“What does she mean?” Alen whispered to Lynn.

“He hits things. Really, really hard. With a stick,” She replied.

Valah continued on to introduce the rest of her party, but at that point, Alen had spaced out. She finished, and he blinked once, and then twice. “Oh,” He simply said.

When he looked at her, her eyes were already closed once again. “Is she usually like this?” He asked the elf, motioning to the woman with his eyes.

“Well, yes.”

“Alexandrius’s party is moving way too far from what I expected them to be like.”

“Ah, you’d need people like this to be successful. Can’t have just attackers in a single group, right?” She said, and upon spotting the nearing temple, she nodded. “Let’s get down.”

“Yeah,” The bat’s wings were tucked in and it swooped down, before it hit the ground, they unfurled once again, the sand flying up as if to make way for their landing. Alen waved his hand and the bat disintegrated into nothingness, a single tooth falling back down onto his palm. He immediately infused his mana into it, readying it to be summoned.

It didn’t cost as much to do so anymore. The mana muscles were still fairly expensive to scale to his level, but his mana pool was now large enough to be able to summon the bat without overtaxing his supply of magic.

Alexandrius turned off the motors of their vehicles and stepped off. He waved his hand, and the ring on his finger let out a bright flash of light. Suddenly, the small boats were gone. Alen narrowed his eyes at the sight, giving Valah an inquisitive look. “Was that..?”

“It is a Ring of Holding,” Alexandrius said. “I had it enchanted years ago. It is a difficult task to accomplish, but I trust that Roland Wolfram will be capable of it soon enough.”

The rest of the party activated their rings, and the motors disappeared. Alexandrius retrieved the one Roland was riding. The orange-haired warrior looked at the rings almost longingly, his hand resting on the bag that held his runebook. He sighed, before finally, he stepped forward and gave the crimson-scaled lizardman a look. “I would be capable of it sooner if you let me borrow one of yours for a month or two.”

Alexandrius smiled, his dozens of sharp toothpick-like teeth glinting in the light. “Not a chance.”

One of the lizardmen, the wizard that apparently hit things with a stick, walked up to Alexandrius. “Oy Al, mind if I give this new guy a try?”

‘Al’ looked at the sky and shrugged. “We arrived sooner than expected, and it is safer to move deeper into the canyon during the night. Valah, Drex, Tirilius, come. We are setting up camp.”

Tirilius, the elf, shook his head. “Take Cadavir instead. I want to see what the necromancer can do. Frostwood and Wolfram have said some pretty interesting things about him, after all,” He laughed, then cocked an eyebrow at Alexandrius. “Didn’t he intimidate you once, too?”

“I knocked him out for trying.”

“Hah!” Gravil, the muscle-mage, laughed, then looked straight at Alen. “Come, let’s fight. Frostwood’s told us some pretty interesting things about the way you fight. As a fellow mage, I’m quite interested.”

Lynn laughed nervously and backed off. Alen glared at her. He looked at the lizardman in front of him, his lean body and emerald scales simmering in the sun’s light. He held an iron staff, and his very presence seemed to put the surrounding area into a submissive state. He’d spent time in the Crawling Canyon, and during this period, Alen had developed a sense of sorts for danger. It was talking right now. Screaming. It was telling him that this guy was no fucking joke.

“No thanks,” He said.

“I told you he’d say no,” Roland crossed his arms at the lizardman. He then sighed and looked at Alen, distancing himself from the two. “I’d get ready to fight if I were you.”

“What?” Alen took a step back, glancing around to notice that everyone else had backed off too.

Gravil shook his head, and Alen only had him in the corner of his vision for a second before he disappeared. His pupils rapidly constricted. Mana surged into his feet. A bone spear exploded out from below his soles and propelled him to the sky. Something followed him up. It was Gravil.

“You see,” He said. “I’m quite insistent.”

A tooth flew towards the lizardman before he even finished. It exploded into a black-green half-circle that blocked out all sight. Alen used Bone Spear again, using the half circle as a platform to propel himself backwards. It shot towards the lizardman—it shattered into dozens of pieces. Dull, gray fog rapidly billowed out of Alen’s body. Numbing Mist. Gravil shot towards him, the wind at his feet, and the earth covering his body like living armor. The Numbing Mist seeped into his pores, and from inside his armor, the lizardman frowned. “Curse magic?” A jet of air blasted out from his feet and catapulted him towards Alen again. The mist was thicker there, and he felt the mist weaken his body as his vision was obstructed.

He swung his staff, and Alen barely avoided, the sheer force of the attack causing a fierce wind to blow against his face. Gravil jabbed, and Alen twisted. It hit his shoulder. He felt something in it crack. Numb Senses. He slammed into the canyon wall four meters away.

Teeth rained out of Alen’s pockets, and they immediately turned into undead. A spider shot a web at Gravil. A beetle followed behind it. The tip of the lizardman’s metal staff hummed with air, the wind providing a razor-sharp edge. He sliced the web in half, but the beetle rammed into him. Stone chipped off his armor. Gravil smashed the beetle to the ground. More followed up. A mantis slashed at him. He avoided. A mosquito stabbed at him with its proboscis, and he shattered it.

The spider from before sprung from the mist. It had jumped from the wall. It shot a web at him once again. He channeled the air into a rotating sphere. The web spun around it, and he whipped his hand to the side, sending the web crashing into the mantis. He felt a massive amount of mana gather above him. His head whipped upwards just in time to take a Blightwater Surge to the face.

Boom! A shockwave of air blasted out from his body, sending the Blightwater out in all directions. It splattered along the canyon walls and caused hissing sounds to ring out. He panted, feeling the earthen armor protecting his body deteriorate.

Suddenly, the mist above him gave way to reveal a massive, skeletal hand. It was horribly disfigured, wrong angles and bone formations—clawed fingertips covered in hissing black ice. The hand wrapped around him and clenched, grasping tight!

Alen watched all this happen, panting as sweat rolled down his face. As he let go of his control. The chitin that connected the giant hand to his robe’s sleeve disintegrated, and the massive enclosed fist fell to the ground with a boom.

He looked down in horror at the gigantic hand, standing atop a flying beetle. It had used a large amount of his mana, with Necrotic Blessing’s Deathchill variant having been ramped up to more than twice its normal intensity. What if he’d killed Gravil? What would Alexandrius do? His team mates. Would they side with him?

Just as Alen was preparing to bring out the bat’s tooth in order to make an escape, he noticed the sand below him churn. It was spinning—twisting and writhing like a whirlpool. Grainy tendrils of earth began to rise up, seeping into the gaps between the skeletal hand’s fingers. Mana was building. Magic was radiating out in a light within a fist—magic so intense it took visible form. The alarms in his head were screeching. Gravil was not dead, but the relief was easily flushed out by the fear.

The necromancer balled his fists so hard that his knuckles turned white. That was supposed to be a sparring match, but all of the lizardman’s attacks had been strong enough to kill him had they hit full-on. He grit his teeth. He’d been holding back his full force, but now, it seemed like he’d need it. In his mind, this wasn’t a sparring match anymore. He remembered Thagathos’s trial and felt something inside of him turn cold. He felt it in his hands once again. Dripping—heavy, viscous, red. His mind was uncharacteristically silent. He was getting ready to kill someone.

His robes fluttered, and teeth rained on the sand below. His undead formed one by one, their forms deadly and augmented with AutoBone.

Lizards, snakes, insects, spiders, hyenas, and finally, the massive Demon-blood Bat. He jumped off the beetle and mounted it. His hand went into his robe, and he brought out a single, finger-sized crystal. The green gem flickered with a deathly light, looking like rumbling lightning within the Numbing Mist that seemed to cover the sky.

There, he stood atop the Demon-blood Bat, and all around him; earth and sky, nearly a hundred undead gazed cruelly at the hand down below.

One of the fingers shuddered, then flew right off with a thunderous boom. It embedded itself into the canyon wall. Gravil walked out, the sand pooling into the earthen armor he wore. It was compressed and compressed, and his power seemed to rise by the second. Some flooded into his staff, and his injuries, a few spots on his skin where the scales had melted off, were covered by the earth, slowly healing at a visible rate.

He looked up at Alen, and the piece of armor that covered his face opened up. He was smiling wildly. “Okay, I—“

Boom! The sand below him ruptured, and a Droughtworm swallowed him whole. Alen pointed his finger, his eyes clouded in anger and murderous intent. His undead shuddered, its insides exploding into a sea of keratin spears. Skeletal Rupture. The spears of keratin pierced it from the inside, the barbs going through its carapace. Gravil’s staff blew a hole through its stomach. He stepped out and was about to speak again when the canines surged in. They tore into his armor, their teeth shrieking against his defense. They failed to do any damage.

His surroundings darkened. Webs blotted out the sky. He waved his earthen staff, and a wind swept the webs to the side. Bang! A plume of Rotfire devoured him. He stepped out unharmed, his armor scorched black by the decay.

Alen watched him from above, his undead surging in. He watched Gravil shatter them one by one. He’d lost a dozen, but Alen had even more in his robes. Centipedes spit acid, and an invisible shield of air shielded him from it. A wolf ran past him and suddenly exploded, a bone spear surging towards his back. It dug into his armor. He was trying to say something. Alen interrupted him with another Rotfire Blast.

Gravil sighed, then smashed his staff into the ground. Alen’s undead were blown away by the force. He jumped straight towards him, and Alen used undead to block his way. Earth left Gravil’s armor and formed boulders. He kicked them, and they destroyed Alen’s undead in their wake. The necromancer felt panic slowly rising up. Alen didn’t want to die. He had to kill this person to avoid that.

The lizardman was getting closer, and in the distance, he heard Roland shouting. He saw Lynn, Tirilius, and Valah rushing towards them. They wouldn’t make it. Not even a second later, even after he’d ordered the bat to retreat, Gravil fell from the sky and kicked it to the ground.

Alen felt his insides vibrate from the fall. He tasted blood. Gravil was falling towards him. He grit his teeth. He was so fucking tired of this. He grasped the emerald crystal in his right hand, and through it, he channeled a spell. Gravil had reached him. The staff swept out, and Alen’s magic surged.

It hit his head—and then, the world turned black.

Cra-a-a-ack!

Black ice fell to the ground. It clacked, and rolled to the side, because the ground itself was covered in obsidian frost as well. There was no sand to catch it, because the grains had been frozen solid. Mist was drifting about in all directions, emanating the aura of Deathchill. Within the Crawling Canyon, an area of ten meters had been turned into a wasteland of sinister black ice. At the center of this area were two figures. Alen laid unconscious, a wound on his head and a glittering green gem in his hand. The other was a statue. It was humanoid in shape, and it stood in front of the necromancer. A rod was in its hands, but its entire body seemed to be encased in a layer of ice. It trembled. The ice cracked. Pieces fell from its fingers. Soon, its hand was moving. Next came its arm. The arm slowly reached towards the statue’s torso and tore off more of the ice, its scaly digits covered in varying degrees of early stage of necrosis.

Ice was ripped off piece by piece, revealing a figure in a miserable state. Though his armor was mostly intact, pieces had been completely destroyed, revealing areas suffering from the effects of Necrotic magic. His hair was disheveled, and he breathed heavily as he finished pulling out the ice.

Gravil stood in front of Alen, and a bit of fear was present in his eyes. Crunching noises rang out from behind him, and Tirilius hung an arm around his shoulders. The elf let out a whistle. “Had your fill, eh?”

“Shut up,” Gravil glared, looking at Roland, Lynn, and Valah who were checking on the necromancer’s condition. All around them, his undead stood still, unaffected by the Deathchill. They watched him, awaiting orders from the unconscious master. Valah healed the young man’s injuries with a spell, and walked over to them.

“Need some help?” She asked, noting the various wounds the lizardman wore.

“Yeah,” He nodded, ignoring the glares the white-haired elf sent him. “The potion’s not working as well because of his magic. It’s in my body, slowing my recovery. It was the same for that mist a while ago, the damned thing was making my body stiff. I’ve never fought a necromancer before, but now I can understand why the powerful ones are feared by entire kingdoms.”

Tirilius shook his head. “I’ve fought them before, but this one is different. All the necromancers I’ve ever encountered have needed corpses to function—a lot of them, at that. But this one? I’ve never seen a necromancer summon an entire army from nothing. Those spells of his, the last one especially. Shaved off a whole layer of skin, eh Gravil?”

“I didn’t even use Earth Vajra,” The lizardman crossed his arms indignantly. “It wouldn’t have affected me at all if I did.”

The elf laughed. “The fact that you used Stone Avatar against a kid on the what, thirteenth threshold is enough. You may be the weakest out of all of us, but it’s a bit embarrassing for you to be pushed this far by a necromancer of his level. You reached the twenty-first threshold a week ago, right? I can’t wait to tell Faahira about this.”

Gravil glowered. “Who did you say was the weakest in Al’s group? Come, Tirilius. Let’s have a spar.”

“I don’t like kicking men when they’re down,” Tirilius chuckled, then left. Valah healed Gravil, then promptly left, murmuring about something. The lizardman then stood there alone, gazing at the malevolent black ice all around him, and the eighty or so undead that seemed to stare at him. He shuddered and remembered why he wasn’t fond of necromancers, before turning around.

“Creepy bastards,” He spit on the ground, and his spittle sizzled on the ice. He frowned.

He was definitely beating that necromancer more thoroughly next time.

…Next time.