Sidrick quickly moved to the opposite side of the lava crabs’ pyramid. Two shots banged against the other side. A series of beady eyes poked out to stare in the shooter’s direction. They blinked with puzzlement as the damaged shells melted around the bullet holes and filled them in. The molten rock cooled abnormally fast as the eyes receded.

Sidrick glanced at some of the more roughly shaped pyramids. Was it battle damage? What would be dumb enough to fight these things?

Two more cracks sounded out.

Sidrick frowned. Why fire while he was in cover? Metal mages could curve bullets but they moved too fast to use any true manipulation…

He shook his head. Need to learn Linean rules.

He slid down the pyramid, stopping a few shells below where he was. As he looked up, he saw the bullets pass the pyramid before making sharp turns to where he should’ve been. They smashed into the stone shells, raining little pebbles on his face.

Linean metal mages would be a serious threat if they could all do that. Did the sniper create the bullets? Did that grant them special control? He still held the first bullet in his hand. If it was created by mana, it would dissipate before long.

The bullets were also slower than they should be. Still too fast for complete manipulation, however. Was it a poor weapon or a limitation of the magic?

Three bullets passed over the pyramid and bent toward him.

Sidrick’s eyes widened. He barely had time to move before the first hit where he was. The two remaining bullets tracked him. One he blocked with Cyrina. The second grazed the side of his face before making a sharp turn to strike a shell.

Letting out a breath, Sidrick wiped the blood off his cheek and started moving.

How had they hidden the gunshot?

Sound magic was first to come to mind. Was it the sniper or one of their friends?

If it was all metal magic, maybe the ones fired were real while the silent bullets were creations. He picked out the bullet that grazed him before the crab could melt it down. It was fully intact, which meant enchantments at the very least.

That hopefully meant a very limited supply.

He checked the bullet over and found what he was looking for. Two small arrays. One… he vaguely recognized the strengthening runes. A general durability enhancement. The second had the foundation lines of a sound spell. Too few runes to be a general enchantment. You needed the right affinity to use it.

One of them was definitely a sound mage.

Unless Linean rules changed that too.

Sidrick groaned. He should’ve read more theory instead of slightly expanding his reservoir. He tossed the bullets away. Keeping unnecessary metal on his person would just be asking for trouble. They were definitely real with enchantments like that. Too complex. He remembered that part of Linean rules, at least.

He paused. Why hadn’t more bullets come?

The air rang like a bell.

Sidrick’s instincts screamed. He flung himself to a higher section of the pyramid. Below, chunks of rock were carved away. One of the crabs leaked red-orange blood and made an odd clicking noise. Hundreds of eyes emerged and gazed up.

Sidrick followed their gaze.

There stood a young man in tight-fitting black and gold robes, his pitch black hair waving elegantly in the wind. He had the gaze of an emperor, his golden eyes practically glowing with confidence and pride. Two sharp, smooth black horns grew from his forehead, each one polished to an almost metallic shine. Black scales freckled his cheeks, more like jewelry than blemishes. A long, almost whip-like reptilian tail was stabbed into the peak’s shell, holding the young man aloft.

The blade in his hand was pitch black, made of what looked like the same material as his horns. A wavy golden pattern ran along the blade’s length.

Sidrick knew better than to pick a fight with anyone that looked like that. But it didn't look like he had a choice.

He opened Cyrina, his finger already on the page he needed.

The young man narrowed his eyes. He held out his sword and tapped it with a sharp black nail. A bell chimed once more.

Sidrick frowned and, rather than retreat, started closing the distance. He rapidly drew an ice array on Cyrina’s page. Forming ice without water was a hard concept to grasp, its nature becoming magically closer to stone than liquid. It felt strange to conceptualize, like he was skipping several steps. He had to think like an earth mage.

Still, one of a battlemage’s greatest skills was improvisation. He had been in more than enough fights to learn it.

Invisible slashes gouged into the rock below as Sidrick streamed mana into Cyrina. The ice array lit up as Sidrick slammed his hand on the page. The handle of a weapon formed in his hand. Sidrick pulled, a longsword of ice emerging from the page. Razor sharp and a magical blue. He had formed it with simple durability runes engraved on its side. A pale imitation of a real enchantment but better than plain old ice.

Before he could reach the young man, the pyramid crabs acted. Several of their shells turned into molten rock and streamed away from their hosts. Tendrils of lava closed in on the young man.

Sidrick noticed the tendrils were only from the damaged side. He rushed to the right as the tendrils suddenly stopped before the pyramid’s peak. They hovered two meters around it, shifting around in a constant threat to their assailant.

Sidrick frowned. The leader of the herd was that red-tipped pyramid. Maybe every peak held the leader of a pack, and the young man was just holding this one’s hostage.

How had he even gotten here? Teleportation? Was that how he was able to cut the air? Space magic and something else? But he needed to tap his sword to cast the spell—sound magic was likely. Or was it a bluff?

Sidrick hated this. He despised fighting the unknown.

“Are you also being observed?” the young man asked.

Sidrick made a face. “By Olivant?”

The young man didn’t reply and tapped his sword again. The air distorted a ways away from Sidrick, cutting apart two bullets he hadn’t seen.

“I am Oswin Fenroe. You are now my partner,” the young man said, turning to face the sniper’s pyramid.

“What—“

Sidrick was stopped by a sudden impact on the pyramid side. He made his way around and saw a shirtless man with his hands dug into the rock. His skin was a pale blue, with black tattoos covering his entire body. Sidrick saw a small dent being filled in on the pyramid opposite to his.

The blue man had jumped across despite the speed they were moving.

“Take care of him,” Oswin said as he watched the skies.

Sidrick bit back a curse as the blue man focused on him. Charging forward, he didn’t wait for the man to prepare any spells. This side of the pyramid was much more jagged, offering plenty of footholds to fight on.

As Sidrick closed in, the man’s tattoos lifted from his body. An ink mage? The tattoos swirled into an abstract beast with a maw of razor sharp teeth. Sidrick frowned and swung his longsword. It sliced through the ink with some effort.

The blue man’s eyes widened as he retracted the ink and retreated.

Sidrick raised Cyrina’s pages to face him. A pole of ice grew from the array and shot toward the man. The blue man shifted at the lost moment, avoiding a blow to the chest. The pole smashed into his shoulder with a loud crack.

He grimaced, drawing the tattoos close into messy armor. Tendrils of ink extended and formed blades.

Sidrick let the ice pole dissolve and launched a pillar. The ink mage didn’t avoid it, trying instead to cut the pillar apart.

With a mighty crash, the ice pillar smashed through the ink blades and launched the ink mage off the pyramid. Sidrick felt brief panic as he realized the mage would land in the path of another pyramid. At the last moment, tendrils of ink latched onto the incoming pyramid and pulled him up.

Sidrick sighed with relief. He’d rather not be killing every person he met. Any decent mage had connections and there was no point in making enemies. The old him would have put a spike on the end of the pillar. He was going to be better.

“Well done,” Oswin said, looking down at him. Sidrick glared but the young man didn’t seem to care. “However, you’ve created a grudge.”

Sidrick looked at the tattoo mage. He was staring back, hatred in his eyes as he wiped blood from his mouth. His tattoos were spotty and stretched.

Sidrick rolled his eyes and looked away. What was he supposed to do? Just let himself get killed?

“How did you know Olivant was after me?” Sidrick asked.

“You don’t cast any magic yourself. You don’t even use mana to reinforce your body,” Oswin said. “Nobody restricts themselves that much unless they’re hiding. The only reason to hide here is foolishness or that unsavory lich. You do not strike me as a fool.”

Olivant was a lich? Sidrick frowned deeply. They had been some of the hardest beings to kill in Yenoriha’s cleansing.

He gazed out at the other pyramids. Each one had an ongoing battle. People were flung into the paths of pyramids, splattered on the side, or caught in an attack from the crabs.

“Where am I?” Sidrick asked, his heart growing cold. It was too much like the barbaric games played on Yenoriha.

“Your name first.”

Sidrick rolled his eyes. “Sidrick.”

Oswin gave a nod. “This is the Mezha Huld—the March of the Mountains. It’s a rite of passage for Chosen of the Northern Wilds.”

“How do I leave?”

“Jump.” Oswin gestured to the rocky wastes around them.

“Great help. I’m guessing there’s no civilization for miles.”

Oswin raised a brow. “We’re above the city of Galgua.“

Sidrick sighed. A small relief but he still had his doubts. “Is it barred to humans?”

“Yes, but…” Oswin stopped and gave Sidrick an odd look. “You’re human?”

Sidrick didn’t answer. None of the participants were fully human. Half weren’t humanoid at all. It all would have been incredible if they weren't seemingly out to kill everyone here.

“I understand why you caught Olivant’s gaze,” Oswin said. “Jumping down means trying your luck with Northern customs and rules. If you help me, I promise to do all I can to return you home.”

“Why are you the only one without a partner?” Sidrick asked. He had noticed every mage fighting in teams, or at least half cooperating. The tattoo mage had regrouped with a similar looking man.

“I suspect we have similar reasons,” Oswin said as he looked toward the leading pyramid. Someone launched themselves up atop a flying spear, countless weapons following them like a flock of glittering birds.

“Finally,” Oswin said.

The weapon mage shot toward them.

Oswin’s sword rang again as he leapt off the pyramid’s peak. Tendrils of lava were cut apart as he landed on solid air.

“Stay here and the sound mage will pick you off,” Oswin said as he kicked off the invisible platform and toward a neighboring pyramid.

Sidrick watched the weapon mage change course to chase Oswin. He could see that it was a woman now, with long raven hair and black plate armor over purple robes. He glanced between her and Oswin, wondering if whatever the half lizard could offer was worth all the fighting.

Oswin knew about Olivant too. That he had found Sidrick—possibly the only other one of Olivant’s oddities—was already worth investigating. Had he seen Olivant earlier? Had he been listening in?

Too many questions.

Sidrick wanted answers more than he wanted to leave. Or was it just the old him? The spectre of Yenoriha, always on the lookout for danger, always ready to die.

To follow or not to follow?

The lava tendrils turning on him made the decision easy.

Sidrick turned Cyrina’s pages toward the pyramid wall and created a pillar of ice. He held on tight to the book as the pillar pushed him off. His reservoir was rapidly draining but he could feel the assistance of the currents. It was like streams connecting to a river, feeding it, growing it, but never enlarging the source. The great lake of his reservoir would drain eventually, the river would stop, and only the little streams would fill the valley it carved.

Maybe that was the final goal of Linean mages, to allow the streams of foreign waters to do all the work. To be the glorified tour guides of nebulous greater powers.

That didn’t seem right to Sidrick. Magic should always come back to the self—the greatest expression of who someone was, not the project of a grander collective.

He let the pillar dissolve. The air whistled in his ear and ruffled his hair as he reached the peak of his jump.

The weapon mage hovered in front of the pyramid as she glared at Oswin, standing proud at the peak. At the same time, she pointed a finger at Sidrick.

A third of her swarm split off to intercept him.