Riloth the 19th the 123rd

“Why’d you burn the whole damn forest down?” Dagmar’s stern voice broke me from my slumber.

I sat up quickly, looking myself over, expecting to still be on fire. The death by lightning bolt, while very painful and jarring, had not stuck with me after the reset, but the way that fire had burned inside of me still causes me moments of terror to this day.

In lieu of an answer, I said, “It seems that my mother was right.”

“I knew that from your tales. She seemed like a smart woman. About what specifically? That you're a daft fool, or that you keep causing more trouble than you resolve?”

“Both probably. I tried to make a new spell, and it ended... poorly. I’d found the wizard, but he somehow detected the Message spell. I suspect he can recognize active casting, and the Seeker is sensitive to ongoing effects. Then when I tried to attack, he blocked my spell. When I tried to flee, he countered my teleport. So, I ran.”

“And this explains the burning forest how?” Dagmar asked, circling her hand in a gesture urging me to carry on, very unlike her to push me to elaborate.

“Well, after I ran for a while, I realized that I had nowhere to run to, and nothing to do once I got there. I considered killing myself, but...” I paused, aware of Dagmar’s own experience with the topic. “When I couldn’t think of a painless way to do so, I chose to embark on an experiment that my mother had warned would prove fatal—so at least the pain would have a purpose. I tried to expand the capability of my Firebolt spell. The results were... let's just say I could have thought of much less painful ways of getting out of the situation.”

Dagmar hummed in thought. “Do you think it will work? If you keep trying.”

I thought about the experience, considering the implications.

“Honesty? I don’t know. My mother said it wouldn’t be possible because any attempt would almost certainly kill you. She was right about that, but with death being but a temporary condition, who's to say what is possible? My modifications of some Air spells are already beyond what she said to expect. Maybe she was wrong about this as well. But," I paused, reliving the event. "I'm not hopeful. There was no feedback aside from the failure, and I can't remember exactly what I did. I'm doubtful this will bear fruit, but I'm willing to try again. I may have discovered the secret to death spells though, which has always been a curiosity. You'll need to witness my next attempt to confirm."

Dagmar steered us back to the more immediate topic of spellbook theft, and we planned as we moved through town preparing.

"I think I need to employ some less magical lethality," I explained as I directed her to Hilroy's.

We purchased the giant crossbow, along with a more reasonably sized mundane version and a sword for Dagmar.

In talking it through, we'd decided to make a joint attempt at the pair to gather information on their capabilities while we knew their location. If we waited to attack after gearing up from the outpost, we'd be too late to ambush them.

Now that we knew the way, we made it to my rocky perch of the today before with a little time to spare, despite our detour. We loaded our crossbows, Dagmar the large one, and me the smaller, and waited.

The plan was for us to both loose at the wizard, after which I'd follow up with Lightning Bolt while Dagmar reloaded. If we could take him down, Dagmar's martial prowess and my own ranged Lightning Bolts should serve sufficient to take out Fanos.

Without warning, the bubble disappeared to reveal our targets. Unlike before, they weren't immediately alerted to my presence, and began to walk into the forest. Dagmar made three quiet clicks of her tongue as a count-down, and on the third we loosed.

The weapons shot off in near unison towards the wizard, the sounds of their releases blending together, but Dagmar's more powerful bolt outpaced mine and struck a fraction of a second before my own. The first bolt struck and penetrated the invisible armor, while my own less powerful projectile deflected off of it and into the woods.

The wizard staggered from the strike, falling to one knee, the massive bolt protruding from his lower back. As soon as I'd loosed, I began casting Lightning Bolt, and had the spell complete before Fanos had taken two steps in our direction.

My lighting flew at the downed wizard, but just before it made contact it erupted once more into a web of lightning inches away from its target. Somehow, despite the pain and his kneeling, he'd managed to cast Shield.

I glanced at Dagmar to see that she'd nearly finished reloading the crossbow. I needed to keep the wizard off-balance to prevent him from Shielding. Dagmar's weapon could pierce his armor, but it wouldn't be able to overcome it if he shielded. I reached to the Font of Air with barely a thought, and drew the power for a Gust on the wizard. He tried to counter the spell, but just as before, his counter was too late. My spell took effect, and sent the already kneeling man tumbling unceremoniously through the rocky undergrowth.

I held my focus on the spell just long enough for Dagmar to sight her shot.

“Ready!” she shouted, and I let the spell lapse just before she pulled the trigger.

I heard Dagmar's shot, and her shout of triumph, but had no time to watch as I turned my focus to Fanos. The warrior had nearly covered the sixty feet that separated us in our joint assault on the wizard. Our eyes met as I began to cast a Gust to keep him back, and I sensed recognition in his eyes, shifting his face from a grimace of battle to one of anger.

“It’s Daulf’s charge!” he shouted once more.

My spell took form just before him, the surrounding forest making the effects of the wind visible. The sudden blast threw him back half a dozen feet before he managed to regain his footing and brace himself against the wind. His grimace turned into a grin as he swiped at the air in front of him with the short sword in his right hand. As it passed through the area of my spell, I felt the connection I’d been maintaining to the Arcane Realm snap close.

How many tricks against magic do these guys have?

He resumed his advance, but by then, Dagmar had gotten between me and the Seeker. The two warriors fought wordlessly on the rocky ground. The Seeker was relentless with his barrage of attacks, keeping Dagmar on the defense, but despite her short and stocky frame, she had amazing speed and matched each of his attacks with a parry or side step.

The two fought for positioning, each trying to place the other between themselves and me, and so far Fanos had the edge. I tried to line up a shot for Lightning Bolt, but I wasn’t confident I could hit just Fanos. I focused on the ground behind him as I reached to the Font of Space, but as I drew the spell into our realm, I felt the newly familiar sensation of the wizard’s counter spell.

I turned to where I knew him to be, to see him leaning against a rock, his robes covered in blood and two bolts sticking out of his torso. Before I could begin another casting, three carrot orange spears of energy shot from his wand and hit me square in the chest in rapid succession. Each felt like a punch to the chest, and I looked down in shock to see blood begin to flow out of tiny coin sized holes in my chest.

Did I just get killed by magical force carrots?

Riloth the 19th the 124th

“Wake up!” Dagmar's excited voice broke me from my sleep.

Groggily I asked, “Why are you so excited? We lost.”

“The wizard cast some sort of force darts at you! That's exactly the kind of magic we need to destroy the golems!” came her uncharacteristically enthusiastic response.

I sat up in my chair, suddenly over the indignity of the appearance of the attack.

"Let's go."

And we were off, back to try again, with a little feedback.

"Can you try to, you know, maybe kill the wizard with one of your shots?" I suggested as we collected the crossbow, in front of a visibly confused Hilroy.

"Aye, don't you start. Your little twig shooter didn't even leave a dent."

Once more, we made it back to the bubble with just enough time to load our weapons and line up a shot. This time I left my Willsight up in hopes of gathering additional insight.

I need to tell Dagmar about this sometime. See if she's familiar with the phenomenon.

As soon as the pair walked away, we loosed at the wizard. Just as before, Dagmar's bolt pierced through the magical armor while mine flew off into the woods after being deflected. The aura around the wizard flared in intensity at the points of impact before diffusing, just as the door to the Dahn had.

I followed my attack with an immediate blast of Gust, the faster casting allowing me to disrupt the wizard before he could gather his wits enough to counter. Fanos reacted the moment the crossbows loosed and I tracked him as he charged us. His swords were drawn and they both had identical silvery auras, less intense than that of a person or ensouled artifact, but far from the hazy gray of the mundane. When he'd covered half the distance between us, I summoned a new Gust in his path, releasing the one on the wizard as it came into being.

The wizard, briefly free of the wind, attempted to regain his feet, and inside him I saw a growing intensity of Will. The orange of his aura seemed to go deeper somehow, I have no better word for it. The color didn't change, but the intensity of it did. His hand began to trace patterns in the air, and wherever it went an orange light followed, visible only to my Willsight.

Fanos fell back just as before when the wind took him, and just like then he recovered. As he swung to dispel the wind with his magic sword, I did it for him when I summoned yet another Gust on the wizard. Before the wizard could complete his casting, with the aura still floating in the air, my Gust formed in front of him and knocked him to the ground, the blue tinged air of my own spell dispersing and disrupting whatever magic he’d tried to perform as it simultaneously knocked him down.

Fanos, overcompensating for the force of the wind, fell over, just as the wizard had. Once on the ground, I heard the distinctive crack of Dagmar’s crossbow, as she loosed an arrow into the prone wizard’s chest. In my Willsight, I saw as the orange armor on both the wizard and Fanos vanished, and I prayed to Riloth silently that that signified the wizard’s death.

“The armor’s gone!” I shouted to Dagmar as she charged Fanos, narrowly intercepting the Seeker.

Dagmar, charged into the skilled swordsman, heedless of her own defense and taking a strike from the offhand sword on the ribs as she ran her sword through his belly and continued into him with a tackle. Once on the ground she pulled a dagger from Fanos’ belt and stabbed him in the chest.

I looked away, not wanting to see the man who’d seemed so kind bleed out on the forest floor.

Could we have gotten away with letting him live? When I'd found them, he'd attacked so easily, just from the presence of my magic. He didn’t care what kind of sorcerer I was. But, to kill them in cold blood today. I don’t know. He seemed kind when I met him with Daulf. They will be back tomorrow, but does that make it alright? Where is his soul in the interim before the reset? Is this even the man who chased me through the forest?

Dagmar approached with Fanos' swords in her hands, shaking me from my reflection.

"These are magic blades," she said with a hint of admiration. "The first, as we knew, dispels magic. The second“—she gestured at her bleeding side—"seems to drain Will when it cuts. I'm tapped out."

She placed the sword on the ground and began rubbing her temples. I handed her one of the two spare potions of clarity and sat down on a rock, exhaustion hitting me as the adrenaline of battle faded. I'd brought food, but I had no appetite after what we'd just done.

After a few minutes of silent recovery, we moved to the corpses wordlessly. Dagmar rifled through Fanos' pockets as I walked to the wizard. He lay in a pool of his own blood, crossbow bolts protruding from his chest.

At his side, he wore a satchel very similar to mine in shape, if not in ornateness. I examined it with my still active Willsight and saw no signs of magic, though I'd never seen a magical trap with which to compare it. I cut the bag free and walked back over to Dagmar who was looking curiously at an array of knives and tools laid out in a leather wrap.

I recognized the kit as the kind of tools tanners used, with the addition of a cleaver, saw, and wickedly curved knife in an elaborate sheath. If not for my meeting of Trish, I'd not have noticed the oddity of the last three items being included with the rest. All but one showed gray in my sight, and I pointed to the sheathed weapon.

"That one's magic too."

Dagmar picked it up cautiously and inspected it closely.

“How do you know?” she asked.

I waived briefly, but in the end decided that there was no reason to keep the secret.

“I can see Will, and by extension magic. As far as I can tell it's all the same.”

“Well, cave in my mines, that's something. How in Torc’s name did that happen? Is it a sorcerer thing?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it's a side effect of potions. I found a report of something similar happening in an alchemy book. Why would you think it was sorcery related?”

“I know dragons—and the gods when they walked among us—have the ability to sense Will. Sorcerers can be descendants of both, so it seemed a fair guess,” she looked away, thinking and then turned back in agitation. “Is that how you learned to power runes so quickly?”

Sheepishly I responded, “Yeah... I kind of cheated. I could see where my Will didn’t match the rune.”

“Hmmm, that could prove handy, but you’re off task again. Can you tell what this weapon does? If not, go look through the wizard's belongings. And don’t forget to check his pockets”

I stared at the dagger that appeared a deep crimson in my Willsight, trying to get a sense of it. I sensed no smell, but as I stared at it, a piercing pain began to build behind my eyes that vanished as soon as I looked away.

“I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t let it cut you. It doesn’t seem friendly.”

I placed the satchel down, and walked back to the corpse. He’d died face down, and I had to roll him over to get his robe open.

Why do wizards wear these stupid things?

Once I got him supine, two patches on the front of his robes glowed faintly green in my Willsight. I reached in through the wide neck opening and fumbled around looking for what caused the issue, and to my surprise felt a large cavity inside as my hand reached into a pocket that seemed to have no end.

“Dagmar!” I called.

She came over, and together we undressed the wizard, which required we break the crossbow bolts at their bases to pull the cloth over his limp form. Once free of its owner, I turned it inside out to examine the magical pocket. It glowed a much deeper green, when viewed from the inside. Both had wide openings about six inches across, and I could reach my arm in up to my elbow before encountering the bottom of the pocket—which felt to be of the same fabric as the robe. Carefully, I removed the contents from the pockets and piled them onto a nearby rock. It was hard to tell, but the robe seemed to lighten very slightly after it had been emptied, though not nearly enough to account for the weight I’d removed.

Inside the pockets we found a purse full of coins and smaller gems, some rations, a small flute, spectacles, some strange notched and runed bone rod, letters, writing equipment, a golden quill and gilt ink bottle, sheefs of high quality paper, bookbinding equipment and other sundry items more typical to a traveler on the road.

Under the body, we’d found his wand, which had an aura reminiscent of the green of the sea. On his finger sat a ring set with a rather large diamond, which Dagmar found, its aura matching the wizard’s and blending in my Willsight. The satchel carried two potions, and three empty vials that once contained potions from the residue. A vial of ink that glowed a pure white in my Willsight, and last but certainly not least, a spellbook.