“Watch it!” Hector barked, feeling his balls want to retract into his stomach as a hexagonal snowflake two feet across sliced through the air a bare inch from his nose, like some demented giant’s ninja star. It missed his nose but plowed through the bushes beside him with a noise disproportionately quiet for its effect. An effect that left a mirror-smooth finish on stumps of what used to be half of a full flowering bush and a fountain of blood on what used to be a raptor's neck. His mind wanted to freeze, and his bladder wanted to let go.

He had time for neither.

Practice may not have given him perfection, but he could hum a few bars. Undelayed by near-death or grotesque horror, he snapped through the required somatic and audible portions of Corinth’s Sanctuary of Confusion. Not stopping for a breath of relief even as white pillars of myst rose in the four cardinal directions while black pillars rose at the intercardinal. The horrid mixture of scales and feathers darting about like striking snakes momentarily cleared. Anything non-human inside the 15-foot circle soon found itself blundering its way out.

It wouldn’t last long. Not with a pack this size. Not so much because of the numbers as because of what had to be leading them. It was more hearsay than experience, but while raptors were pack beasts, they were mostly small packs. Five or six was common. Maybe as much as double that if you were really unlucky.

There were at least 50 in his sight right now. No, there had to be something powerful and nasty holding this lot together.

“Corinth! Tonitrua voco,” he spat out, drawing mana from his aura into the forked lightning sign with half-moon-shaped sound waves generating from it, reaching through the Name of one of the founders for the spells written in her aura and offered up to her guardians, “genus ab ira defende meum.” that modifier took time. Time he wasn’t sure he had. The hand sign for humanity and the slashed circle of denial on top of another 5 or so words may only cost him an extra two seconds, but those seconds could be his death. But death or no he could not leave it off. Honor demanded it.

He fought the urge to snort even as the thunderclap that he could not hear shook the bushes and dropped leaves from even the great trees beside them. What did a former contractor have to do with honor?

As it turned out? Everything.

“To the Tree’s!” He bellowed, crouching and beginning to gesture, aura draw and forming the required words in his mind all at the same time. Morgan! Scandere ungues, exilium pondus. Speaking the words aloud would add to the potency, but he didn’t need potency now, just speed.

Brown and orange bone sprouted from his wrists, arching forward over his hands before forming into wide splayed hooks while his fingers clamped around a handle. He took a running jump towards the nearest great tree, at a quarter of his normal weight the jump took him well over 20 feet upwards and his claws did as they were supposed to, neatly hooking into the thick bark.

His added height finally gave him enough of a vantage to see what the hell was going on.

It was a dog’s breakfast, but not nearly as bad as it could have been.

Should have been. He corrected as his eyes snapped to a sudden explosion of glitter. The common, if odd, aftereffects of an illusion breaking. Thank you Runefather! He managed, in his head. All around his besieged troops, 400 when the morning started, probably considerably short of that now, illusionary humans were running about screaming, like chickens without heads. Far more exciting prey than the disciplined humans. He winced as an ‘illusion’ came apart with an avalanche of gore. Mostly disciplined.

The ambush had come too fast for it to be only a few panicking fools taking an eternal nap below. There would be an accounting once he got as many of his people through this as he could.

His scouts had spotted a small pack of the scale and feathered menaces and like a damn fool they’d ’snuck’ right into an ambush of what he was guessing was considerably more than 100 of the bastards.

His first large-scale command and this nightmare had to occur. And it was all his fault.

And he would pay for it. He promised both himself and the men and women who would not walk away from this meadow. But that would come later. For now, he had to make damn sure not to leave any more on the jungle floor below.

“Corinth! Catena Fulgar!” He spoke, drawing mana from his aura into the formal gestures in his mind rather than his occupied hands. It would gimp the spell a bit, but hanging from the side of a tree he didn’t have many other options. Mentally he tagged six of the raptors darting towards a knot of his people that were still on the ground. Stuck nearly under a heavily thorned berry bush when he’d made the call, they were still struggling out into the open where they could leap and climb to safety. All they needed was a bit of time, and even an underpowered spell should do the trick here. The liquid blue ark of lightning leapt from his mouth, leaving his tongue numb and his lips tingling. A harsh reminder of why this particular spell should not be cast without somatic components. A damaged head from insufficient control was a hell of a lot better than a fried brain. In a timeless moment, it pooled in front of him, then snapped down connecting to a particularly bright raptor. Crimson red feathers opposite deep green scales that positively gleamed even under the ever twilight of the jungle canopy. Sometimes, he reminded himself as the beast shrugged off the strike with barely a pause, it wasn’t just size that indicated the alpha. At least tier 2 to shrug that hit off. He breathed out a breath of relief as under his prodding the faltering ball lightning gave up on its initial target and leaped to the other five he’d mentally marked. They fared considerably less well. Falling to the ground in twitching steaming heaps. They were likely still alive. He’d prefer dead but stunned would have to be enough.

“All up! Maximum AOE! At the ready in 10!”

One. He lunged upwards once more. He needed his hands free for the next bit. He glanced up finding the nearest branch if you could call something well over six feet in diameter merely a branch.

Two. He lunged out from the trunk, hitting the branch a good two lengths out. Digging his claws in for a brief second, then doing a half pullup, half jump to find his feet. Three.

Morgan! Motus. He reacted to a half-seen blur. A small nudge enough to fling the diving forest hawk into the branch below his feet instead of letting its razor-sharp wing feathers decapitate him. Its five-foot wingspan looked somehow less impressive, crumpled up like an accordion, or it did for a brief moment, before falling, fluttering briefly to the floor some sixty feet below.

Four. “Finem.” His claws faded away and his weight returned. He breathed out in relief as two others made the branch next to him. Bobsly with his ridiculously overgrown beard and Joani in her flowered robe, all done up in camouflage colors. They took up the protective positions without his needing to ask and he was grateful to them. The primary caster was a position of honor and channeling that kind of power was a heady thing. Like a drug. But it was also a vulnerable position. It took concentration and focus. And having either of those things not on the jungle itself was deadly. They would watch the jungle for him.

Five. Short chants, or even no chants, were possible. Gestures about the same. But each reduction was a shortcut that came with a corresponding loss of power and control. When you wanted maximum destruction you needed to go whole-hog. He adjusted himself into the stance of Calling. Legs spread shoulder-width apart and hands raised open-palmed to the sky, eyes lifting to the heavens. “MORGAN!” He shouted out, not the hurried words of his earlier spells, but lingering on each syllable to give it the proper respect. He could hear other voices giving similar calls around him, but did not, could not, give them any of his attention.

Ritual. Acting. Hamming it up. Call it what you will but it worked. He took a sure step to the side on the branch, arms lowering to cup about a non-existent ball in front of him, the Gathering stance.

Six. “Micantia flammarum essentia, et rore venti.” Drawing on his aura he stepped through the forms for flickering flames and morning dew. And giving reverence to the time, symbolism and effort he pumped in the surrounding magic field also began to trickle into the forming spell. Eight. “Ditans.” Classical muscle pose with biceps flexed, pouring out his aura as fast as he could manage but with additional control, it poured out considerably more smoothly.

Nine. “Claudunt.” Flexed arms dropped to place palms together at the belly button, fingers pointed down. Taking all the mana he’d pumped into it and the additional quarter or so the world itself supplied he forced it together into an ever-smaller condensing ball.

Ten! Arms snapped to full extension palms opened up facing outwards with pointer fingers and thumbs touching. Presenting a triangle to his eyes. The targeting triangle some called it. “DIMITTE!”

A large cloud of steam exploded out of the ground below. And it wasn’t the only manifestation. Pillars of lightning, whirlwinds spinning razor-sharp ice shards and forests of earthen spikes fought their way into existence. Throwing raptors and pieces of raptors about like bowling pins. The very world seemed to shake and only Bobsly’s steading hand kept him on his feet.

It took a good 10 seconds to start to calm down, and even longer to start to get his breathing under control. Dumping that much mana out at once was like running a marathon. You could pack more of your effort into a shorter span of time.

But you always had to pay for it.

As the steam faded, protector pairs began to drop down, viciously flinging out smaller-scale spells to pick off the occasional leaker and even massing together to take out a surviving, if wounded, alpha. But the mass strike had broken their backs, and whatever was left was just the dribbles. It needed cleaning, but the end was no longer in doubt.

It was time to find out exactly how much he had to pay for.

—---------------------------------------------------------------

Timothy sighed as he drew his consciousness out of the scrying pool. The DnDer’s had suffered a setback. No doubt about it. But that’s how lessons were learned. Hopefully, they’d take this one to heart.

That at least was a much better direction to take his thoughts than to wonder if he’d been watching them alone, instead of splitting his attention over four different assault teams, they wouldn’t be in this situation at all.

Hindsight was 20/20 after all. The decision had already been made to field multiple groups, and “what if” was just self-torture.

He sketched out a quick note to check up on those three holds anyway. He’d been more than a bit busy but there were some hints of rot magic going on back there. Not anything large-scale, but still it bothered him.

He sighed and moved over to the map table. It was just a note for later because even if it was true, and somebody was going down that magic path, there wasn’t anything he would do about it. He wasn’t the Union's daddy. It wasn’t on him to police ‘dangerous’ types of magic. If such things even existed. Some people were rotten to the core and any magic they used would likewise be rotten. But it wasn’t the magic's fault that humans could be shitty. Blame had to rest with the user, not the weapon.

Of course, he wasn’t the policeman for shitty people either. Still, he liked to keep an eye on probable problem points. And rot magic could easily slip over into disease magic. That would be pretty damn easy to lose control of and fuck everybody over.

Thoughts for another time. He had plaque after wooden plaque covered in similar musings. He would get to them all eventually. He even dedicated part of every day to that task. It was never enough though. For every line he crossed off he added two more.

He grimaced as a swirl of opalescent light drew his attention to an impending confrontation. There were a number of seers working over a linked table in a hold not so very far away. He rarely bothered to provide such linkages. A bit of separation between holds was a good thing. Too much communication and you didn’t find a thousand different paths, you had people unite to carve out a few bigger ones. That had been one of the secrets of technology. It wasn’t for magic. Every additional passable route was a chance for the next generation’s guardians to find something that truly fit them.

Again, thoughts for a different time. Reading the coordinates off the table he adjust the scrying pool again and threw his thoughts back into the breach. He couldn’t do everything. Hell, he couldn’t do a lot of things. But a small touch at the right time could have a disproportionately powerful effect. And he was pretty damn good at those small touches!

A word whispered in a scout’s ear to redirect his attention. A small gust of wind to hide the approaching part’s scent. Small things, but suddenly the side that was going to do the ambushing was reversed.

He kept an eye on the fight, wincing as despite the successful ambush there were still casualties. A few men here or there could become unsurvivable if deaths outpaced replacements. But if the guardians were rapped in magical bubble wrap they wouldn’t grow enough to be useful. It was a tight rope that he had to walk. And he was walking it blindfolded.

Even so. He brushed it aside, taking a minute to glance at the loot. Bodies were quickly bagged up and packed for transport. This was the reason they were all willing to take these risks. Willing to pay the cost in lives to keep going forward. Just like Regi had planned, damn him.

That brought him back to a memory that he was trying very hard to avoid.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

“The hell you say, Regi!”

“Not my fault that you fell asleep in a meeting nodding along with everything anyone said.”

“That’s bullshit! If someone is asleep that doesn’t mean they simply agree with anything you came up with! It’s not like you couldn’t tell I wasn’t present!” Saying he was asleep would have been a blatant lie, and he tried to avoid that where he could.

“Sure we could tell. You weren’t exactly sneaky about it. And that’s why you deserve this.”

“Come again?”

“We were all trying our damndest to find a solution to the problem-”

Timothy bit down on his tongue. He so wanted to say that it wasn’t his problem. Not yet. But that was bullshit. If these men failed to hold back the invasion, then it would be his problem soon enough.

“-and you dropped out napping!” His eyes were no longer light and amused. Anger also spiked his aura. “The meeting hall may not be as interesting as your laboratory or the battlefield, but the decisions made there will likely save significantly more people's lives! Our bad decisions can kill even more. I hint and I even plead but you don’t seem to get it, brother. You can't keep dodging or sleeping through meetings. This is the cost.”

“The cost? What the fuck Regi? Did you decide to screw me over to force me to care about the things you care about? Meetings and the damn union are your problem! Not mine!”

“BULLSHIT!” He roared back. “Can’t you see the truth when it's slapping you in the face? No single hold could deal with this invasion! Or the one that comes after it. Our survival depends on uniting! It is everyone’s problem.”

“To the carpenter the building, to the blacksmith the smithing, the politician the lying. If you want to play empire builder then do it! I have supported you from the get-go. But don’t pretend that I have to be a bureaucrat-” he loaded the word with as much contempt and scorn as he could muster, “-to make that happen! If not you, then someone else would push to rule. There is no shortage of tin gods around wishing for the opportunity.“

“And you will what? SImply bow down to whoever it is?”

“Do you think so little of my skills brother? No king, emperor, chief or whatever else they may call themselves is going to force me to do shit unless I approve of him. I'm more than capable of just leaving even if I couldn't force a few manning changes myself. I do things for you because I approve of you! And I approve of Arthur. That’s why I left the details to you two! It was trust! Trust that the two of you knew what you were doing and didn't need me to muddy the waters. Not just disinterest!”

He stared at his brother, taking a few moments to fight down his own anger and hurt as he watched Regi do the same.

“You had that all planned out before the meeting started, Regi, and if not the final results then a damn close approximation of them in mind before you ever asked anyone’s opinion. Tell me I’m wrong!”

“Of course I had it planned! Only a fool goes into any meeting without having a good idea of how it will end. But I don’t know everything! I make mistakes! That’s why we have meetings. So that all of your collected wisdom might catch me before one of my mistakes gets men killed!”

“You had your chance then.” He forced his voice down to a normal volume, “you had people who knew as much as anyone knows these days. They can, and obviously did, help you.”

“Is it too much to ask my own damn brother to help as well! To trust in your opinion more than some strangers with divergent interests!”

“Then trust my opinion! My opinion is that I had better things to do than argue over the minutia of contribution points.”

“Well, congratulations! Your better things to do, napping in other words, got you a new task. And a task that’s been announced in all 5 holds. Break it, and you will lose that reputation for honesty that you are always blathering on about.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

He’d forcibly kept his mouth shut and walked away. It was that or say something that could not be unsaid and he loved his brother too much for that. Besides, from Regi’s perspective, he wasn’t wrong. Worse than not being wrong he was disappointed. And from his narrow viewpoint, Timothy knew he had a right to be disappointed. From what he could see Timothy had fallen short of competence. He’d let laziness and inattention put him in a compromising position.

And Timothy couldn’t afford to widen that point of view. If Regi knew he’d been preparing new spells for the next fight then they wouldn’t be having this conversation. Probably. Despite his overfondness for the bureaucratic bullshit he did value actually getting the work done.

But he couldn’t tell him. There were far too many secrets hanging on that one little fact. He didn’t tell anyone how difficult his spells were. That what looked like a casual wave of the hand was actually a week’s worth of hard work and perhaps a few days worth of mana. They merely saw the wave of his hands and the massive effect it had. Like causing a flood by damming a river. He never let them see him putting up the dam. Merely with a wave of his hand how the floodwaters rose. Perception was often more important than reality and the ease with which he appeared to throw down disproportionately powerful effects was a major component in the safety of the hold. They flinched away from starting nonsense because they were cautious of his skills.

No one knew how hard he worked because he went to great lengths to hide the fact. Using body doubles to appear to be traveling when he was working, appearing to bathe when he was spell crafting and so many other such moments. Most of his projections looked the part. Half transparent and ghostly-looking things and those were what he appeared and disappeared with at the drop of a hat. The full-on doubles were a secret from everybody. And to keep it that way no one could be told. Not Regi, not Da. No one. Information that stayed inside one man's head could be kept a secret. Even from the diviners if he was careful. But whisper it to another, even once, and the secret was no longer known by one, it was known by multiple. Such symbols mattered.

So he was stuck with it. Stuck with a beloved and respected brother who was disappointed in him. Stuck with a task that was damn near impossible to do without a lot of specialized help.

It would take help on the soul binding, begging for help from the high planes for their expertise on trapping fading auras, some divination expertise to measure that aura for difficulty and the amount of resentment it held for the bearer as compared to the bearer's comrades. That and probably more that he hadn’t thought of yet. A complicated but possible spell. Then he had to repeat it 2000 odd times! That wasn't possible!

He had to do all that and pay for it out of his own pocket. All because he couldn’t actually admit to being hard at work.

Life had handed him, not lemons, but a full-on shit sandwich.

And he was going to have to smile widely while he took each bite.

That was part of the reason for the current four-way split. Each of the groups had temporary agreements in place on how to distribute the loot. Nothing particularly complicated, one share of the total per tier of the participant and from towns that each of them trusted not to pull any funny business with it. It wasn’t a perfect setup for all the reasons that he needed to make the contribution recorders. But until those were finished it would have to do.

Shaking his head Timothy pushed those considerations from his mind. For now at least. He would have to find, or create, time to work on that project but right now he had other duties to worry about. A careful study of the clustered icons on the map table, no oracular help this time, had him sliding the pool's point of view a good seven miles to the northeast and another small conflict that threatened to spiral into something far more.

Wolves this time. And all the more dangerous for it. Funny how that worked. Dinosaurs, giant pigs and crocodiles the size of buses were all around, but it was the Clydesdale-sized wolves that were one of the most dangerous threats.

What made them so dangerous was two of the same things that made humans dangerous. Intelligence and variety. They were damn bright even in the old world, and the magic seemed to have given that feature a bit of a kickstart. And that intelligence in turn let them wield a sort of magic themselves. Not just a single racial ability. No, they weren’t one-trick ponies. Frost wolves, damn rare in the jungle but seen occasionally in the higher mountains, could belch out freezing mysts. Fog wolves could hide in those mysts, nearly immaterial until they chose to strike. Earth wolves might as well have been wearing armor for the strength of their fur and a half dozen other known variants with other problematic skills. Shadow wolves, for instance, were a fucking nightmare. You never knew what a pack of wolves might bring and that lack of knowing could make them lethal.

Of course, it also made them valuable. Each pelt had something different about it and if prepared properly could be used to channel some of the disparate magic of its former host.

The pool’s view finally broke down through the jungle canopy, descending into a world of twilight broken by special effects sufficient to make Michal Bay jealous. Hundreds of spells exploded together in disciplined volleys. Not the same spell over and over, that would be incredibly wasteful. Every person had different talents and different skills, much as it frustrated Arthur. Forcing them to use spells they sucked at would not help anyone win a fight.

He threw his consciousness out of his body and into the pool.

“One, cast!” If the bellow right by his metaphysical ear nearly made him flinch, and it did, the resulting explosion of lights, mana and screams should have left him frozen stiff. Small pods of casters stepped forward in sequence, not lines but clumps of what were probably the original five to ten-man hunting groups stepping forward in a knot. Stepping forward and letting loose!

Five elemental specters danced with each other right before his eyes. Manifesting and compounding their effects before flinging the resultant mess down range to strangle a charging wedge of armored earth wolves. Water elemental, almost humanoid but bulging oddly as its body of connected water droplets eddied in the man-made winds, drew moisture from the air to form large globules of water even as a lightning elemental, humanoid as well but only between moments as it darted about its caster in sudden jerks and flashes, charged the droplets. Then a wind elemental did a two-part play. Flinging the globules at individual targets even as it drew away the breathable air from around them. The water globes struck armored faces, doing no damage but holding together for several moments even inside the defensive aura’s, desperate for air and prompted by a sudden small shock many of them were induced to inhale, then drop choking and snarling as their lungs filled with water. Some managed to resist it and the water quickly lost the magic that kept it concentrated against the pull of gravity. That water dropped a bit then exploded out into myst as the residual lighting also lost its containment, Then myst solidified under the auspices of 3 ice elementals working in concert. Locking the remaining armored beasts in place beneath a blanket of frost. Even if they broke free their increased mass combined with slippery footing would stop that charge completely.

It really was a brilliant use of magic. Elementals didn’t have the sheer power of a DnDer’s chant, but they made up for it in considerably more flexible spell crafting, much greater synergistic effects between spells and a better eye for matching those synergized spells to the weaknesses of their targets. The wolves could have shrugged off several direct damage spells while sapping the caster's mana. Instead, their heavier armored pelts contributed to heavy breathing that was ruthlessly taken advantage of.

“Two Cast!” Another dozen teams stepped forward and fire superheated water into steam while earth and water turned a field to mud while vines came alive to hang the yellow furred air wolves who attempted to jump over the resultant quagmire.

He pulled his attention back slightly. They had a firm hand on this fight and didn’t need him to interfere. Not with the current fight at least. The issue was that there were several other large groups of beasts in the surroundings. A pod of crocs and a truly massive passel of hogs were already starting to move in this direction.

Moving his physical hands when in this ghostly shape always felt weird, but weird or no he had the enchantments close to hand and it took very little effort to find a large sealed vial. He might not have much in the way of acid spells, but that wasn’t the only kind of liquid that was dangerous.

The vial in his hands was one such. Much more expensive than gold or gems he’d had to spend a massive amount of effort to acquire a sample of the liquid within. Not because it was rare or inherently valuable but because no one in their right mind fucked with the rather common creature who created it.

Magick made ordinary traits nastier. It was a simple rule that was nearly always true and in this particular case, it had been taken to an extreme. It was both beyond repulsive and untreatable. At least no magic he knew could remove the smell of a dire skunk’s spray. It wasn’t just a physical smell. He could isolate and remove the liquid from a victim and it would do very little good. The stench was magically contagious. Touch the aura of a man or beast who was contaminated by it and you got to share. Thankfully the farther removed from the original creature the weaker the effect, but even 10 steps away it was enough to induce severe nausea and uncontrollable vomiting. They had a special quarantine shack outside the hold (The smell was its own protection!) for anyone dumb enough to get sprayed. Food would be provided in a bag on the end of a long pole, and the poles burned after each use.

The task had sat untaken for most of a year, and several increases to the promised reward, before he finally got his hands on the sample. He didn’t ask how they accomplished his request, and they didn’t say. But he certainly didn’t allow his projection to have a sense of smell when he arranged payment and he destroyed the projection and the enchantment that created it afterward to prevent contamination.

Once he had a sample, like the gold and gems for his advancement, he could create more… as long as he was damn careful. A truth he found out by breaching rather than prior planning. Murphy had sat there laughing its immaterial ass off at him, stuck hiding in his tower for a week, too miserable to work and barely able to keep anything down. He’d even had trouble making his teaching obligations. Even his projections had carried the spiritual scent at first. And fixing that while indisposed had been beyond disgusting.

Thankfully, all of that hard work and learning from his mistakes could now be applied to a good cause. The familiar old material removal spell, used in reverse, began to sprinkle droplets of the putrid liquid in a wide (wide!) circle around the fight. He stopped a few places to splatter the leading hog scouts as well. Nothing like making someone else share the pain to make him feel better. It wasn’t a complete circle, he didn’t want to block the assault force in. He left them a clear exit lane. Even without fully completing the circle, he ended up using most of a liter of the stuff to make a fire break against additional beasts joining the fight. It wasn’t a wall. They could brave the stench, and the 5 or so days of it lingering on, and attack the humans anyway. They could.

But there was bravery and then there was stupidity and this time it just wasn’t worth the cost. Hogs weren’t as bright as wolves perhaps, but they weren’t that stupid.

He flipped his attention back to the ongoing fight, moving through the trees and branches with a grace only the immaterial could manage. Coming to a rest at last beside a short grey hared potato-shaped woman currently directing the battle.

“Frida, a moment of your time.”

“Group 4 left flank!” She bellowed, then dropping her voice to a quiet whisper even as her eyes continued to scan over the evolving fight. “Runefather.” The frustration in that tone was mostly hidden. Mostly. Timothy didn’t hold it against her. She was pretty damn busy at the moment after all.

“You had more guests coming to call. I blocked them off.”

She froze for a moment. And they both winced as the distinctive feel of a spell backlash crackled through the air. And a young man 4 or five groups over to the left collapsed on the ground twitching. Burnout, Timothy judged with a glance, unsavable. Dammit.

Neither of them mentioned it. There was nothing to say. “How long do we have?”

“How long does a skunk's scent linger?”

She shuddered, face turning slightly green. Huh. He hadn’t realized she’d had the pleasure of experiencing it.

He continued with the question before she bothered to ask. “You have an isle free of the scent directly south. Go at least a mile before you turn.”

She mulled it over for a moment, not stopping barking commands out as she did. “Ok, I can work with that. My thanks.”

He let his projection fade away. That would have to do.

He grimaced at the empty vial in his hands, and several similar ones sitting in front of him. As effective as it was, he wouldn’t be able to replace those vials without a week of dedicated work. Still, needs must. It was the right tool for the job.

But it was somewhat worrisome. He was rapidly exhausting the various magics he’d squirreled away. They needed to wrap this up in the next few weeks or he was going to have to come up with some excuses to change the kind of support he was offering. Most of the simple illusions were reusable at least. He would be able to keep throwing those out so long as he had a day or so between fights. It wasn’t an issue yet, but he would have to keep an eye on it.

Thankfully, he very much doubted anyone else was aware of his limitations. A fact he had gone to fairly large extents to hide. And beyond the loot that he wasn’t getting at the moment, he was still gaining a significant payout.

Awe.

The help he was providing, even if most people missed the more subtle tricks he threw in, was the beginnings of a legend. He was nearly everywhere, helping everyone. Unseen with only his voice heard on the winds.

That kind of a reputation was the nukes of the new world. It would keep wondering what they didn’t know and that lack of knowledge might keep them from starting fights. Both with Runehold and with their neighbors.

Still, that was a consideration for later. It was time to find another fire to piss on.

And so the day passed, fight after fight. Trick after trick as he moved through his supply of enchantments. Prioritizing the reusable but still expending a number of the more expensive varieties. Even those were mostly small scale though, never the large explosions or meteor-like dramatic destruction. He could pull that off, but it wasn’t appropriate at the moment. He was here to help the assault teams survive. Not to do the fighting for them. Besides, those kinds of attack spells would really take it out of him and he had only so much mental strength to go around. It had to be husbanded. Doled out in penny driblets where it could do the most good at the cheapest cost. Illusions and deception to keep the hordes of beasts from massing against the small armies of men that hunted them. Scent bombs, bait, nightmare sendings and maze traps. Any and everything he could think of to give men just that much more of an advantage.

Because despite what Hollywood liked to show, it wasn’t in large defeats that civilization lost to barbarism. It was in just those penny packets. Where a fight that could have been ten fatalities cost twelve. And the next fight without those extra two would cost just a little bit more as well. Until it snowballed into utter destruction.

Or that could just be the melodramatic inside him. It didn’t matter. Those two men were worth saving even for their own sake.

Worthy of saving or not, penny packets or not it had nearly been too much. His head felt like the stage of a Riverdance performance. He’d pushed as far as was wise, and perhaps a sliver farther. It was enough. It would have to be.

He slumped back, splaying his legs out carefully to avoid the pool in front of him. Resting for a moment as the marble-like essence stone sucked some of the head from his body, and perhaps some of the ache from his head.

He could hope at least.

There was a pot of ginger tea with his name on it somewhere and he would get up and go find it.

He would…

His eyes felt like they were made from lead and he was struggling to remember why he needed to keep them open.

That pot of tea….

The eyes closed and the tower embraced peace for a time, instead of war.

For a time.