“This is heavy shit.” Peter said after Illivere’s full explanation.

“A God of monsters…” Faron muttered. “Terrifying.”

Casimir sighed deeply. “Okay, so let me see if I’ve got this straight: Your dad has something that Malice wants. To that end, he created a dragon-lich, which he can directly control, unlike most monsters, to lead an organization that can retrieve this, a risk that has led to his exposure to us.”

“That’s right, although he has other objectives as well.” Illivere confirmed. “Giles didn’t know of any other time Malice has acted directly, but he’s a factor that could explain some of the more unusual monster activity throughout history.”

Hanna remained quiet, lost in thought.

“Well, was there anything actionable there?” Casimir asked. “Give me an hour and I’ll be in top shape.

“I wasn’t able to get directions to their base that I understand.” Illivere replied. “Giles doesn’t have a very good sense of direction.” There really wasn’t any way around the ‘target doesn't know anything’ defense. Compartmentalized information was a pain. “He did know that it would have taken them approximately four hours to get back to their base, and that it was roughly… that way.” She said, pointing. “But I didn’t catch how quickly they were going, and they were still accelerating when you intercepted them anyway.”

That was an easy thing to fix. “Well, I know how fast Magnus goes on that thing.” Casimir pointed out. “Also I think I can pick out his trail, even if he tried to hide it.” He clapped his hands. “Start binding, and then drink your invigoration potions. I have a very important task for you, if we find something.”

They’re ready to at least provide support. Also, he wants them where he can sense them until he gets a better idea of what in the world is going on.

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

Tracking Magnus’s earthmover spell was actually relatively easy. He did put a small effort into concealing it, but clearly didn’t put discretion as a priority. There were plenty of destroyed shrubs to find, and he flattened parts of the terrain ahead of him as he went, and didn’t do a great job putting it back afterwards. Four hours at his usual ‘don’t plan on fighting’ speed put it two hundred and fifty-ish miles from the dropoff point, and given how unprepared he seemed for battle… probably relying on those other revenants to do any fighting… yeah, he was probably going that fast.

This time, the hiding place of the Malice conspiracy was in a lush and fertile valley, a river cutting through, an idyllic place for anyone to inhabit. Too bad that Casimir recognized this hellhole. The Venom-Drowned Valley. Something about the area created encouraged life mana to develop into the most hostile, poisonous varieties possible. Living there was impossible, but it was a relatively famous location in the sense that it was dangerous enough for Elites to be sent there on gathering/monster clearing missions.

Casimir pulsed a sensory spell through the ground, imitating Magnus in the amount of power used. If they had some kind of code for this, they’d know, but the issue with unprompted coded signals is that it took people a few seconds to recognize that something was wrong.

They were in an underground complex in the mountains on the eastern side of the valley.

“Uh, Teach? I felt that.” Peter observed. He better have, even with his iffy mana senses. “Won’t they?”

“If you’re hiding in the middle of the wilderness, you can’t go panicking at every stray divination.” Casimir lectured. “Further, they’re expecting a Stone Wraith to come back, so they’ll just think it’s him if they don’t have a coded signal or something.”

“They do.” Illivere declared. “Suspicion and alertness has bloomed in an underground area, right there.” She said, pointing straight at the complex. This is why Casimir ended up overusing mind mana. It’s just so useful…

Hm, element of surprise lost, okay but less than ideal backup, an undead dragon, and on top of that, bare minimum, Luci, with whatever spirit magic backup Malice can provide his Lich-warlock-priest-whatever…

“Time to run.” Casimir decided. That response time was way too fast. “This way, towards that stormcloud we saw on the way here.” If they do pursue, some environmental advantages would not go amiss.

Immediately, they fled towards the source of accessible mana. The thing was, mana that was purer was also less stable. Mana had a general tendency to mix and corrupt itself, becoming harder and harder to manipulate. There were forces in the world that purified mana naturally, although no theory fully accounted for the discrepancies. You needed to isolate and control purified mana if you wanted to stay that way, but if that was how it worked, why didn’t all of the mana just… stay corrupted?

The generally accepted theory, at least for water mana, was that natural interactions between light and water mana allowed scraps of pure water mana to rise into the air, which accumulate into clouds that, once they became dense enough, unloaded its rich mana supply on whatever happened to be under it at the time.

One of the things that led to the creation of domain magic was studying the effects of rain, so naturally, it was an excellent place for someone trained in weather domain magic (which he qualifies as now) to stand and fight. The only issue was… it wasn’t raining. So he’s going to need to do something about that if he wants to tap into that extra power.

But were they pursuing? It didn’t seem like it…

“I think we escaped.” Faron declared. Hanna sighed deeply in relief.

Illievere didn’t seem so sure. “At this distance it’s hard to tell… but I think I can still make out the ripples of them searching for us.”

Peter hummed, implicitly trusting Illivere’s assessment. “You have anything else in that bag that can help us, Teach?”

He already gave them the… oh. Yeah this would be a pretty good time to break it out. “Just this.” He pulled out the Spear of Four Deaths, passing it to Illivere. “Have you ever used an artifact before?” He asked.

“Yes.” She confirmed. She did a mind magic spell that Casimir didn’t recognize, on the spear. “...I have explained the situation, and the fragments of the spirits within have agreed to help us.” What. She started waving the spear in the air, pointing it upwards. “I should be able to handle the connective part of our battle plan, Mr. Toomes.” She said, a small smile on her face. What the hell is this? Is this some kind of secret magic the Archmagus had up his sleeve?

Hanna took a deep breath. “If you have a good life potion, I have an idea that could help.” She said softly. Without hesitating, he tossed one of his emergency healing potions at her. After a moment of gathering her courage, she gripped her own arm, and after a moment of dawning horror, ripped it off entirely before drinking the potion. A sliver of green crystal, heavily resembling a starmetal artifact, steadily grew out of her shoulder into the shape of a skeletal arm. Then, she repeated the feat for her other arm.

The arms she ripped off, on the other hand, melted into a mana-rich goo that immediately sprouted and took form into… a spirit? What. Measuring the power of spirits accurately was always kind of a chancy proposition, but this one that formed… was substantially stronger than Hanna was. How the heck does that work? His best guess… a spirit pact, druidic or clerical in nature, triggered by her sacrifice. It didn’t explain… literally anything else about that, but Casimir could at least understand how she managed to get them more mana on their side than they started with.

The spirit looked like some kind of armored animal person, with thick wooden plates, a bipedal build, and a shape that suggested that it could effectively curl into a ball to protect itself. Its arms were long and thick, and ended with dangerous-looking claws that were dense in concentrated mana.

“That seems like an exceptionally extreme measure, Hanna.” Faron said, uncomfortable with her strange arms.

“Don’t worry, my arms will be fine.” Hanna assured them. “They’ll go back to normal after a few days.”

“Is that spirit summoning?” Casimir asked. “I didn’t know you were a spirit mage.”

Hanna’s expression was not comforting at all. “Well, I am. Surprise!” She said, lying blatantly. What. “Chestnut here will be able to fight better than I can. I’ll use my remaining mana to heal any injuries.” She then proceeded to run away, ducking into a medium sized copse of trees that was about a mile distant.

Casimir turned to his male students. “Do either of you two have something that’s going to damage my apparently fragile worldview?”

“No.” Faron responded.

“Nope.” Peter said, before wincing. “Well, there is… one thing.” He amended. Casimir scowled. “But it can wait. Won’t help us now.” He hastily added.

Casimir turned to Faron again, squinting as he examined him. “Well, if that’s everything…”

Faron coughed. “Well, now that I think about it…” He formed a sword in his hand out of… space mana!? “I have been practicing this. It seemed prudent, after seeing that mummy make use of it.”

That’s it, Casimir is a terrible teacher. “Well, clearly y’all have grown by leaps and bounds without me holding your hand.” He admitted. “But don’t think that I don’t have more up my sleeves!” His students started to glance at each other nervously. “After we get back home, I’m going to make last semester’s lessons look like drinks at the guild!”

With that confident assertion, all three of the remaining young wizards firm up their stances and prepare for battle with fire in their eyes.

Just in time, too, as Casimir heard, smelled, and tasted the noxious, moaning space magic that he last sensed in use by Luci tear open a rift in front of them, with the first being out being, as expected, the Soul Devouring Dracolich.

“Now!” Casimir shouted, quickly drawing six of the top-quality water potions on the ground. From the copse of trees that Hanna was hiding in, the other twenty-four of them came flying out, detonating when they came into contact with the water domain he quickly asserted control over, causing the area of magical dominance he controlled to swell in strength.

“What in the crushing depths is that?” Luci questioned, reflexively jumping away from his swelling domain after leaving the portal. “Is Hana here?”

The Soul Devouring Dracolich had no such compunctions; but it seemed sluggish, as its scales were half-gone, rotted away along with large swathes of its musculature. He supposes that while most revenants had more magically potent bodies than when they were mortal, a dragon would see it as a step down… Musings aside, the dragon used its primary method of attacking: it started to inhale, sucking up the mana they had left helpfully accessible to it.

Sensing the rate of depletion… This is working even better than Casimir thought it would. “He’s weaker!” Casimir declared. His plan was for the full strength dragon, too. It was chancy, mind you, but it was his best shot that didn’t require him to spoil the chance he had to catch the bastard. Even if they almost did anyway. “Next part of the plan!”

“Oh no you don’t!” Luci shouted as she charged, space-aspected “Holy” sword in hand. Apparently they were short on competent backup, because there were only two other Revenants present: a second mummy and a vampire, which is a cultivator revenant. He couldn’t discern a mana flavor through his domain’s overpowering aroma for the mummy, but the vampire appeared to be metal-based, given the superlative blade he was wielding, practically singing the tones of metal mana.

Faron jumped forward with his own weapon shaped from space mana, engaging the mummy in melee combat. Luci wasn’t a slouch when she was alive, but neither was she usually the type to jump into melee combat when she had other options. She just probably assumed that Casimir would be well-prepared for all of her usual tricks, and knew that Casimir would be distracted by the dragon draining his domain. So, despite the difference in experience, Faron’s dedicated and enthusiastic training matched and even exceeded Luci’s swordsmanship.

The vampire was engaged by Chestnut the spirit, the wood-seeming body surprisingly fast and predictably durable. The second mummy was engaged by Peter and Illivere working together, in the sense that Peter distracted it while Illivere showed off her new artifact’s offensive capabilities, a simple stab turning into an eruption of fire, utterly destroying it before it managed to do anything beyond an attempt to call on binding manacles from the ground, a typical miracle of Redoubt. Hrm, you don’t see many non-dwarf priests of that particular spirit.

As for the dragon… he was still sucking up mana. “You know, I’ve always wondered.” Casimir shouted as he molded the domain as the dragon consumed it. Illivere jumped back to a defensive position to his right while Peter went to join the fight against the vampire. “How much do dragons understand about the underpinnings of their magic?”

The dragon chuckled, its voice much raspier than it was when it was alive. The Soul Devouring Dragon wasn’t very chatty, but perhaps Malice is different. “I know enough.” It said. “Negative magic’s inherent limit is that of scale. You desire to use this outpouring of alchemical mana to counteract this strength. But it is not enough. I will devour this mana, and then yourself, consigning it to the void.”

“Really? Darn.” Casimir said sarcastically. “Looks like you got my plan all figured out. I’m kind of new with domain magic, you know? I’m really more of a curse guy. But I’m sure Luci told you all about me.” Discreetly, he signaled Illivere. He’s spread out the domain enough that it might not notice this next bit.

Luci sent off a massive flash of light, which was completely ignored by everyone present. Chestnut had managed to secure the vampire in a grapple, and Peter was focusing on trying to get through the revenant’s impenetrably tough metal skin.

“She was quite reluctant to speak of you.” The dragon replied. “But they always do, eventually. You lost to this body in much better circumstances than the last time, and there are no heroes to assist you this time. Merely children.”

Illivere unleashed a mist with a wave of the haft of her spear, allowing it to fill the domain with additional mana from her own stores as well as the inherent mana within the artifact. It also spread itself upward, linking the domain to the cloud above while concealing that connection with the mist.

“Maybe so.” Casimir acknowledged. The dragon’s undead body was… difficult to get a clear read on, and the domain’s polluting his senses with noise was not helping… but the domain was also being drawn into the monster, so if he focused on that… “But you forget the other weakness of negative magic.”

“What is this, a lecture?” The dragon growled, ready to unleash the mana he was draining the instant Casimir made an offensive move.

“Perhaps.” Casimir said, drawing in the cloud’s mana and organizing it into the right configuration for his plan. “I am a teacher now, after all. You’ve met my students, of course.” He said. Almost…

“You’re an up-jumped grave jockey that found out that making corpses is more lucrative than storing them.” The dragon retorted. Ouch. “You disrespect the noble art of magic with your craven obsession with knifing people in the throat, both metaphorically and literally.”

Casimir raised an eyebrow. “Kind of an odd sentiment from a God of Monsters.” He said idly, which earned him a glare filled with more hate than the dragon could ever manage in life. “Am I supposed to lie down and die, then? Or do you just object to me sticking pointy bits of metal into the monsters before I kill them?”

“Something like that.” The dragon whispered. “Now, I’ve absorbed half of your domain already, so if you’re going to do something, it’s too late. Not that it would have helped.”

“I’m sorry if you’re feeling impatient.” Casimir said. “But this is my masterpiece of magic, so I’ll thank you not to ruin it.”

“You’re not even using your specialty.” The dragon observed. “Even if you were, cursing me would be a futile effort. You’re not cursing yourself…” The dragon seemed a little nervous from Casimir’s boast, scanning the area for anything he could be doing that wasn’t already apparent.

“I am a curse mage, correct.” Casimir agreed. “Specifically, I’m a Master of Curses. That means I’ve invented my own spells. It’s not that difficult, really. I’ve always had a knack for improvisation. You just need to write it down afterwards and you have an academic paper.”

Almost… He’s getting distracted. “One of the most aggravating things about dealing with curses is that a curse doesn’t need to be cast through anything in particular. The less direct and energetic the interaction, the weaker the curse is, and the easier it is to shrug it off.” He tapped his head at eye-level. “Curses can theoretically be cast just by looking at someone and focusing on them. Eye contact increases the power of this. Some kind of ranged interaction, like conversation, increases it more.”

The dragon’s nervousness increased, as it continued to absorb the domain while feeling out what Casimir was doing. It could probably tell that Casimir was molding the domain into a domain spell of some kind, and it may have noticed the extra mana coming into it, but it didn’t look up, so it probably didn’t notice why the domain was growing faster than he could drain it.

Excellent. Continue to be concerned over the things he was talking about… “Distance matters, of course. The closer you are, the less your spell is weakened. Touch strengthens it more. Forceful contact, like a punch or slap, makes the curse even stronger, by a little bit. Getting through the skin, like shoving one’s hand down the throat of your target? Even better.” Casimir laughed. “With the right equipment, you can even curse someone by stabbing them! But you knew that.”

The Vampire was destroyed by Illivere intervening, using the artifact spear to penetrate the vampire’s metal-based defenses, and Luci appeared to be on the back foot now that all of his students were attacking her. She did, however, separate Chestnut into six pieces… which are still alive. Space mana was weird.

Was he ready? He thinks so. He just needs to distract Malice again. “You know that the instant you stop absorbing the domain, I can hit you with the full force of it. So sit tight.” Casimir said. “To create the best curse, you tailor things towards your target. Without a thorough examination, this is generally impossible for most beings. You can get maybe two thirds of the way there by studying others of their kind, of course. Something like you?” Casimir laughed as he waited for the slightest ebb in the dragon’s concentration. “You could study on how to curse dragons, revenants, negative mages, spirits, and possessed beings…” Casimir grinned savagely “Or you could be someone who cursed that body in life, know how to effectively curse liches, and have spent the last two minutes studying it.”

The dragon snarled, backing off from his protective void to gain additional distance. “You arrogant fool! I will destroy you with what you’ve given me.” He brought the water mana he had been siphoning back out, prepared to deal with whatever Casimir was going to do and building an offensive spell to kill him if he dithered.

“Perfect.” Casimir said, right when Peter decapitated Luci’s mummy. Casimir directed a lightning bolt at the dragon, not by creating it, but instead by making everywhere else a place where lightning did not want to be. The storm cloud he had been brewing above them unleashed its fury, the bolt from the sky impacting the overgrown lizard zombie.

The dragon was prepared, of course. He used the stolen water mana to block it, which was overpowered by the sheer power of a “natural” lightning bolt. He also used his own negative magic techniques to draw in some of the mana, which he might have used to deflect even more of the bolt. It’s what Casimir would do if he was in that dragon’s rotten britches.

Now, as a lich, getting struck by lightning wasn’t necessarily a lethal blow, and that went double for a dracolich. But the lightning bolt wasn’t the attack. The curse he had painstakingly created within the bolt of lightning was, which went through the connection to the lich’s soul through his absorption of mana.

It was the culmination of his entire life and education. From his family, he learned how to seed curses into other spells. From his Master, he learned how to construct a spell from disparate pieces of lore. From his party, he learned how someone’s soul changes from being turned into a revenant. From his students, he learned that he had been neglecting his education, and sought to learn more magic. During his quest to set his friends to rest, he learned how to use weather magic, and invented a curse to set off a foreign mana conversion cascade into someone’s body and soul. Most importantly… he knew that negative mages tended to struggle with ice mana.

The curse set off every scrap of mana the dragon had collected from the water domain and hadn’t finished using. The dracolich was encased in a massive glacier, which then immediately shattered into billions of tiny pieces as the dragon flexed its undead muscles. Those muscles immediately froze over again, as the curse hadn’t finished with the conversion yet.

Casimir smirked. “Lightning bolt.” He intoned, and he put the rest of the domain into some good, old fashioned, blowing stuff up.

He loved the sound of thunder in the evening.