Riloth 19th the 648th

Daulf excused himself, and I walked through the Dahn. Aside from Bearskin’s sleeping pallet, the room was much the same as I’d left it. Bearskin was too large to fit comfortably through the dwarven-sized doors, so he resigned himself to this one room.

I took my bag of coffee up to the kitchen, hoping to think of a better way to prevent it from disappearing besides strapping it to my body in small bags. I filled a pot with water in the kitchen area, and set it to boil on the runed stove while I got to work crushing the beans. I found a mortar and pestle, and got to work, but in a fit of genius—and totally not frustration—I found that the cantrip for the Font of Force worked much better than the pestle.

I cast Clean on a dwarven-sized stocking I’d found in one of the student rooms and filled it with the magically ground beans. I was in the middle of pouring the hot water over my makeshift setup when Trish came in.

“I can’t believe you drink that stuff,” she said, feigning a gag.

“I can’t believe you drink dwarven ale. You don’t know how much I suffered from that hangover”

“It’s not my fault you can’t hold your liquor,” she teased. “But I didn’t come to point out your glaring deficiencies. I came to give you back this.”

She held the sword out to me.

“I can’t take this. Really.”

“I’m telling you, it's yours,” I told her for the second time that day. “Ensouled artifacts pick their owners. I can see that it’s already Bonded you in your aura.”

“Aura?” she asked, “Like, magic crystals, not bathing aura, thinking illnesses are caused by bad energy aura?”

I sighed, “It was the best word I could think of at the time. I gained an ability recently, it lets me see Will—I think. With it, I can see that you are Bonded with that sword as much as I’m Bonded with Spellbook.”

“Um, I hope not. From your recounting of events, I think you may be a little too ‘Bonded’ with that book.”

“Maybe,” I laughed. “But I was alone for a long time, and when I got it back, I only had Dagmar for company.”

“I like her.”

“I know you do.”

“You’re sure I can really keep this?” she asked, hope breaking into uncertainty she hid behind the teasing.

“I’m sure.”

Her somber expression vanished, replaced with a mischievous grin.

“You say you gained some abilities? How about we go test them out,” she said, spinning her new weapon in the air to make her point clear.

“Sure, but my coffee’s hot, so can we do this later?”

Faster than I could react, she took her rapier and tapped it against the pot of freshly brewed sock-coffee. Frost appeared where the blade touched, and from there the white crystals spread until my hot coffee turned to a frozen brown block.

“I hate you,” I told her.

“You love me. Let's go.”

We walked back downstairs and out into the clearing, I picked up a sword along the way. The Dahn had a small assortment of arms when we found it. One looked to be a bastard sword sized for a gnome and served well enough as a rapier, even if it was a bit heavy. Outside the Dahn, the sun was just beginning to set, so we still had enough light to spar by.

I’d not sparred against Trish since our trip to Crossroads, a few days past for her, years for me.

“Magic, or no magic?” I asked

“Some magic,” she answered. “Use that armor spell.”

I complied, and we stepped apart a few paces each. She drew her new rapier in her left hand and her old non-celestial-haunted long knife. Frost billowed faintly off the sword, the once simple cage around the blade had begun to take on the appearance of ice.

That is not going to be subtle. How did I never see that my father had this?

Trish charged. This was not her preferred tactic in real combat, but in our sparring, she would take on the role of the aggressor and keep me on the defensive.

I parried her opening strike and jumped back to avoid the follow-up slash with her knife. Slowly she advanced, pushing me back to the edge of the clearing. I barely managed to fend off her blows, but even I could tell she was going easy on me. Flashbacks to my sessions with Ren came to mind, the two women having similar styles, and my skill having improved enough in the last two years to notice the similarities.

When my foot hit a root at the edge of the clearing, I knew the bout to be over and raised my hands in surrender. Trish brought the tip of her sword up to my chin, and I could feel the cold emanating off the blade.

“You’ve gotten better,” she said.

“Can I use magic now?” I asked.

She chewed her lip, considering. “Only a little. Don’t just smight me from above and end it.”

“I don’t think I can do that—yet.”

We reset in the center, and I inspected my sword before beginning. The sword I’d found had somehow withstood the assault of an ensouled weapon, a testament to the craftsmanship.

I wonder if the cold makes the sword more likely to shatter other weapons.

Trish charged once more, using the same opening thrust as before. I parried just the same, but this time when she brought her knife around for a slash, I deflected the blow with a Buckler.

“That’s useful,” she appraised.

She didn’t relent in her assault, keeping me on the back foot, but with the ability to cast Shield and Buckler, my retreat was a slow occasional step. After a failed Buckler left me with a cut forearm, I chose that moment to step up my offense.

A blast of wind appeared between us, sending Trish tumbling away. Had this been a real fight, I would have taken the opportunity to hit her with a barrage of Magic Missiles. But, had this been a real fight, I would have hit her with Mind Spikes from the start and Blinked away if she got close.

The loss of my father’s sword was liberating in a way. My magical arsenal had improved over the last year, but I still kept putting myself into the fray. The tactics employed early against the golems were hard to break, and I’d lost my aversion to getting up close over the last year. Compared to a faceless stone giant, Trish was not too intimidating.

I need to kick that habit before death and dismemberment become permanent.

I allowed Trish to regain her footing before I continued my attack, and she punished me for the charity. She recovered her footing faster than expected, losing her knife in the process. As I built the construct for my mother’s Lightning in my mind, she threw a knife from within her jacket.

Narrowly, I sidestepped the throw, and my Lightning crackled the distance between us—only to disappear into her blade.

How does everyone know how to do that but me?

Two more knives came at me in quick succession, and I cast Vortex before they hit. The howling wind deflected the blades, away into the woods.

“Bilieth’s larder!” she cursed, watching the knives sail away.

“Sorry!” I shouted. “They’ll come back in town tomorrow.”

At that, she smiled and began to throw every knife in her possession at me, as fast as she could. I’d known she hid a lot in her jacket, but I’d severely underestimated how much a lot really was. In between throws, I shot Lightning at her, but she blocked most of my strikes while dodging the rest between throws. Her knives came more rapidly than I could cast. Each blade flew wide, but just as Ren had, they moved closer as she learned the trick of the wind. The last blade clipped my shoulder, glancing off Mage Armor when Trish reached into her coat and came out with a blade of ice. The white frosted shard flew through the distance between us before Trish registered what she’d done. The magically summoned ice knife went low toward my leg, and flew up into my shoulder. Or would have, had I not relinquished the spell, sending the ice knife up into the air.

“How’d you do that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at her hand.

She mimed a throwing motion with an empty hand, and once more an ice knife appeared in her hand, sailing straight for my chest. I blocked the small projectile with a Buckler, and it shattered, sending white crystalline shards across the clearing.

“We need to test this,” Trish said with a smile on her face, and an eighteen-inch-long shard of ice in her hand.

She ran at me again, magical sword in one hand, and conjured ice knife in the other. Just as before, I could hold her back when using my magic in tandem with my sword, but her blows came rapidly, one after another. In the wake of each strike, I could feel the air chilling around me. Eventually, my blade grew so cold from the contact with her weapons, I could barely maintain my grip.

Amidst the barrage of attacks, my sword gave in to the cold and shattered when I brought it up for a high guard to block Trish’s downward. The blade broke with a sound like glass, and Trish jumped back to disengage, narrowly missing my head with her sword.

“Whoa,” she said, looking at her blades.

She looked untouched by the deep winter chill that radiated from her weapons.

“My turn,” I said as I began to cast another spell.

When it was done, the long shadows of the trees reached out towards me, rapidly climbing my body like a tendril of ink that grew darker as they moved. The mass of shadow traveled up my legs, and to my arms where it kept going, coalescing into a rapier of the deepest black.

“I learned a few other new tricks you haven't seen yet,” I said and then uncorked a potion of clarity to top me off.

“That totally looks like the spell of an evil sorcerer,” Trish observed. “Do I need to go get Daulf?”

In the most sinister voice I could manage, I monologued, “I learned it from a man I killed a dozen times. I burned his home to the ground as the world burned around us, and stole his knowledge for my own!”

Trish stared blankly.

“Too much?” I asked.

“A little.”

I ran at her, taking the initiative. When only three steps away, I summoned a burst of wind at my back, launching me over the remaining distance. The brief Gust remained only an instant, but it was enough to catch her off guard, and I scored a blow on her torso, but once more to our combined surprise, Trish found she had more tricks up her sleeve.

Where my shadow blade struck, ice appeared like armor, and when hit, shattered into shards that exploded out towards me. Despite their small size, the fragments froze flesh where they hit my skin, and I jumped back in pain.

“Ow,” I said from the ground, rubbing my face to fight the cold. “I might need to stand outside for a reset. Is my face scarred?”

When I looked up, I saw Trish inspecting the armor that now coated her body. She had pauldrons, bracers, and a breastplate, all made of ice the same blue white of her blade’s aura. The breastplate was missing a large chunk where my sword hit, but the rest was pristine.

“Hit me again!” she yelled, excited.

I looked from my sword to her, and attacked. She blocked my blow with her bracer, and once more I was peppered with burning cold shards, but this time I blocked with a Buckler, saving my face further damage.

We sparred for another half hour at a much lower intensity. When the sun began to finally set, and shadows bathed the clearing, Trish found that even with her elven eyes, she could not track my blade.

“It’s like it's not even there!” she complained as she waved her blades around in a blind guard.

To my own eyes, the sword was as clear as it ever had been. Somehow I could distinguish its deep black from the dark shadows of the night, though I knew that to be a trick of the spell. If I thought too much about it, the sword disappeared into the darkness.

“You’ve got a lot better,” Trish said as we sat in the grass afterward watching the stars. “I could still beat you, though.”

“I doubt it,” I said with a laugh. “If this were a real fight, I’d just pummel you with Magic Missiles as I ran away with Wind Run.”

‘If this were a real fight, I would have poisoned you the night before, or maybe killed you in your sleep. At the very least, I would have ambushed you before it came to a head on confrontation.”

I said nothing, staring at the sky beside her.

“Too much?” she asked.

“A little.”