Often, there is a comparison between guns and magic. Magic relies on the skills and ability of the user to bend reality to their whim, while guns are items of artifice capable of considerable destruction. Both require skill, but most of the preparation for guns is done in factories while magi need to spend precious seconds casting their repertoire of spells in the field.
While considered slower, magic is often more flexible than guns. One mage can raise an army of battle-ready soldiers, conjure fireballs as destructive as any hand grenade, or restore troops in seconds. I, for one, would rather not look down the barrel or wand of any adversary. Still, the dilemma brings up a valid question: Is it better to have weaponry ready to decimate your adversaries or have flexibility to deal with evolving situations? I won’t make you wait until the end of the class: it’s both.
If you remember anything from this lecture, let it be that when you are on some foreign planet and you decide not to use everything at your disposal to your advantage, just remember that your opponent will.
-Traveler’s guild teacher
As I step away from the cool morning air of the entrance into the murky, cloying humidity of the tunnel, I can feel the rising trepidation wafting from my teammates. Benjamin and Kurt light torches before Kurt ties off the entrance with thin wire. I look at Kurt in his half plate armor, with a heavy heater shield in his left hand and a long sword at his side.
Benjamin wears studded leather armor with an array of weapons on his person. In addition to a few small knives, on his back is a short bow, on his waist a short sword and dagger, and finally a buckler on his left arm. Comparatively, Olivia has very little, sporting only her cloth battle robe and the new staff. Looking them over, I realize this will be my first time seeing them fight up close, and I’m excited to see what this world’s mage and knights look like in action.
At least I was excited until Benjamin stopped us at every corner to observe the next stretch for five minutes, before slowly wading forward again. Benjamin uses his short bow to skewer rats and the ferocious-looking bugs. I look over at Olivia, who lets Benjamin and Kurt handle all the fighting.
I’m about to ask her why she doesn’t help. It makes sense to save her mana, but waiting on one man to clear an entire tunnel feels wasteful. We should alternate, so we conserve mana or arrows across the team. As things are going, I’m concerned Benjamin, the lightly armored fighter, will run out of arrows and be forced to fight up close. Before I can say anything, the water erupts around Benjamin.
I hear him cry out as a giant green-scaled form wound around him. Olivia doesn’t hesitate to let out a blast of heat from her staff that hits part of the snake, and though I wonder how much damage is negated by the water clinging to its scales, I think I have at least some sense of the answer when hot steam fills the tunnel, making it hard to breathe.
I’m about to dive into the fight when I see Kurt trudge forward and, with mighty swings of his sword, he hacks into the snake’s thick form. Instead of adding to the chaos, I draw on my healing magic and begin trying to mitigate the damage Benjamin is taking.
Benjamin, for his part, isn’t idle as his years of training kick in. He doesn’t hesitate to take out his knife and begin stabbing at the thick scales squeezing him. He holds the knife blade down in his fist as he rapidly jackhammers his arm. Most of his stabs are deflected, but a few begin to chip away at the snake’s natural armor. Despite my reservations, the four of us make quick work of the snake. Benjamin drains his poison resistance potion and curses as I heal two large holes the snake’s fangs left in his leg.
After I close the wounds, Olivia pulls me aside. I study her face saturated with concern.
“Benjamin is pretty shaken up. He doesn’t want to show it, but I’m not sure he can continue like this. Can you reanimate the snake to go in front of us?”
I look over at the mostly intact corpse and nod. It’s missing pieces here and there throughout its body, but the knights refrained from decapitating it or breaking its spine. As I look at my shaken teammates, it’s tempting to tell her, “I told you so”, but I swallow my words.
“Ok, reanimate it and send it a few feet ahead of us. Kurt is going to switch places with Benjamin, so he’s in front, and Benjamin will watch our back.” She informs me.
I take a final look at the rattled Benjamin. It’s strange to see him so out of character. Normally, he’s jumpy but always with a composed certainty. It’s surreal seeing him this way, compared to his usual self-assured self.
With Kurt in front, we continue onward. Kurt is much less cautious, but he also has a large undead snake acting as bait in front of him. Kurt slices his way through the dire rats and bugs that cross our path with ease. We even find another snake that attacks the undead snake. Kurt skewers it without any problem, pinning it in place with his blade so we can make quick work of it.
We continue to wind through the tunnels until we come upon a tunnel with dozens of rats in varying states of decay, riddled with a mountain of mushrooms. Kurt turns to us and makes a drinking sign. We all drink our poison-resist potions as Olivia sets the corpses on fire with a spell.
“Wait!” I grab her wand and pull it to the side, so it washes over the wall instead of the mound of corpses. She turns, raising an eyebrow.
“If we set those bodies on fire, we might clear the mushrooms, but it’ll be far worse for us. The smoke will make seeing hard and breathing next to impossible. Not to mention, the poisonous smoke will only help the mage if they can use wind magic.”
A sense of surprise and reluctance radiates from her. I’m a bit annoyed at her feelings. I shouldn’t hold her inner thoughts against her, but her mistakes could get me killed. If they had listened to me in the first place, Benjamin would never have gotten bitten. Most of my knowledge comes from books and video games. They should be much better versed in this than I am. I stamp down my petulance and listen to what she has to say.
“I don’t like having the mushrooms at our back,” Olivia responds neutrally, weighing my words but unhappy about my suggestion.
“We can move them without burning them.” I animate a few rats and have them push the mushroom-ridden corpses into a dark, watery corner.
When I finish, we move around the bend to see the tunnel open to a large circular room around 100 feet across. In the center sits a desiccated form in a tattered robe with a staff. I listen, straining my ears for any sounds. There’s a faint rustle of the wind and the echo of dripping water, but in the distance under all the noises of the sewer, I hear the faint wheezing of labored breathing. Whatever it is, it isn’t a zombie.
Not that I’m an expert, but I know from my brief personal experience as a necromancer that the undead don’t need to breathe. As we enter the room, the shadowed humanoid figure stands. Under the dank clothes, I see the creature give a wide smile that sends a shiver down my back.
“It looks *wheeze* like he sent me more rats *wheeze* to feed my garden.” The raspy voice echoes as it bounces off the stone walls.
As I continue to scan the room, I see mushrooms of varying colors and textures creating a toxic garden collage. It’s then that I start to see under the layer of mushrooms, there are piles of bones littering the ground. Not animal corpses but human, with some corpses still in the early stages of decay. With a swoop of the figure’s hand, wind begins to swirl around the room, and I cringe as I see bits of mushroom torn from the fertile landscape of decomposing corpses, diffusing into the swirling wind.
Back on Earth, I downloaded an app that showed air quality for areas, and I always wondered how they were measured. Faced with such a ridiculous scene of a room filled with poisonous mushrooms and carcasses that were dispersed into the air, I wonder what my phone app would show. Maybe something like: ‘Air quality: nope, don’t even think about it.’
I continue taking in the scene, trying to figure out where to start, until Kurt’s yell snaps me out of it, “Attack!”
Kurt bellows a war cry, charging forward with his shield up. Benjamin strafes right, dropping his bow and drawing his blades. With the strong winds, the arrows would no doubt stab us as the winds redirect their course before they ever make it close to our enemy. Olivia moves forward some, but instead of continuing her charge with Benjamin and Kurt, she stands halfway to our enemy as she unleashes a blast of fire. I join my team, commanding the undead snake forward and pulling pure water from my water skin so I can heal any injuries before they become too dire.
While I’m not sure what exactly the decrepit form is, I’m sure it’s a mage by the way it controls wind. As my teammates charge forth, the mage doesn’t hesitate, summoning a ball of water to shield itself from the fire. As Kurt closes, the ball reforms into a wall of water that surges out with a strong blast of wind.
The water and wind wash over Kurt and Benjamin. Kurt weathers the wave of water and the blast of wind, but Benjamin, with his much lighter frame, is knocked off his feet. Seeing his attack didn’t have the intended effect against the larger Kurt, the mage points at Kurt. Lightning jumps from its finger to bounce through the whirling wind before slamming into Kurt’s back.
The enemy mage stops concentrating on its defense, and Olivia punishes the mage for focusing too strongly on her knights by circling and letting loose another blast of fire. The mage weathers the attack with a last-second condensation of water before responding by creating cyclones in the swirling air, then pushes the powerful, sharp whipping winds toward Olivia. The cycles follow her even as she tries to sprint out of the way, but blasts of fire dampen their intensity, reducing them from deadly vortex to gusty nuisances.
I watch from a distance, but I don’t remain idle. I pull on my magic to heal Kurt, but grow frustrated as my work is contested by a series of continuous bolts of lightning that blast into him. Seeing my friends being overwhelmed and injured, I decide the best defense is a good offense.
The snake is slow to make its way to the mage, but with my focus, it doubles its speed. The zombie snake launches itself at the mage, sinking its fangs into the mage’s leg and wrapping around the limb. Despite the undead predator’s success, I know it won’t last long against a foe of this caliber. I push dark mana along the corpses on the ground intact enough to be raised, and command them to claw at the mage.
It's in the process of summoning a tornado to lift itself off the ground. The zombies I raise are weak and will be next to useless once he creates any significant distance. To slow it down enough so the zombies could get a good grip on him and drag him back down, I summon tendrils of darkness. The tentacle-like mana constructs wrap around his legs, pulling him down to the clawing horde of zombies emerging from its poisonous plot. Soon, the mushrooms the mage cultivated will be turned against him as each undead bite and scratch will be filled with the spores.
Pinpointing that I’m the one summoning the undead, it turns to me and makes a cupping motion. I cry out as water encircles me, lifts me into the air, and creates a prison of water. I try to swim out, but the waters swirls creating a suction force that pulls me back into its core, like a whirlpool.
Fortunately, with my water affinity, I’m in no danger of suffocating anytime soon. I can also keep from being spun about in the center of the water prison, but I’m unsure of how to undo the magical working. Any ice shard I make will be just as dangerous to me with the strong currents. I can pry parts of the water prison away, but the prison just regenerates, and I’m not strong enough to shred the water prison spell anytime soon. With all my focus, it will take me minutes I don’t have to pry it apart.
I see in the distance the zombies wane and the mage levitates off the ground. Now floating in the air, it flits about the room, summoning more cyclones and lightning to pepper my companions. Each of Olivia’s fire blasts takes more time between casts, telling me she is already starting to weaken after the first few exchanges.
Benjamin and Kurt have some luck chasing down the mage, but each time they are in melee range, it effortlessly summons wind to fly across the room. I’m not sure Kurt and Benjamin will be able to keep running after him. They’ll soon tire them out, becoming living lightning rods for the mage’s attacks. Worst of all, anytime my companions regroup or take a reprieve to gather their strength, the mage summons water to himself, and the familiar glow of healing magic washes over its decrepit form.
While I observe the battle from inside my confinement, I take a moment to look at the plethora of notifications notifying me of negative status conditions affecting me. It seems like I’m resisting numerous poisoned conditions from the mushrooms.
In my notifications, a few get through my resistance only to be snuffed out by my blood affinity passive. I know that, as well as I’m holding out, my companions don’t have all the advantages I do. This doesn’t bode well. As if to punctuate this, Olivia chugs a mana potion while my other two companions begin to drain their health potions.
I relax, allowing myself to drift in the prison, conserving air as I reach out with my mind. Tendrils of mind magic push against my enemy. There’s resistance, but I reinforce my will; I won’t be deterred.
As soon as the attack gets past the surface level resistance, I feel his vulnerable psyche beneath. With his mind distracted, trying to keep up so many spells and keep track of multiple opponents, my mind attack finds purchase. As Olivia, Kurt, and Benjamin desperately fight the mage, I push all my strength into exploiting an opening in his defense, prying open his corroded mental barriers to launch an attack on his psyche.
When I fought the snake, the directed mental attack had the side effect of exposing the snake’s memories. Most of the snake’s memories were hazy and unfocused. As I cut into the storm mage’s mind, the memories stick to me like ash as they are ripped free. They aren’t the hazy, washed-out memories of a beast, but the sharp scenes from the memory of an intelligent creature.
-
Euberon, battle mage, hero, and grand magus of storms, looked out over the rolling hills of his city. He had once been a great warrior, but he had set that life behind him. He fought hard for the elven Empire, and in the end, when asked how he could be rewarded, he could think of only one reward he wanted: to be with his family.
Throughout his career, his wife had stood by his side. She would send letters of encouragement detailing how their family was doing at home and how she missed him. When his jealous rivals tried to smear his name and leave him stranded on the frontline without supplies or support, she fought for him. She led a campaign to be his voice when he was miles away and unable to defend himself. Most of all, she sacrificed, giving up so much as he pursued his career and fought for what he believed was right. So, when it was all done, his thoughts turned to his loving wife and to focusing on their family.
To compensate for his many heroic deeds, he had been given land, land that had been taken in the last push by the elven capital against the mongrel humans. He remembered when he first arrived, looking over the war-torn land, pockmarked with craters and devoid of anything other than weeds and mud.
In a lot of ways, he saw the land as a reflection of himself. The surface that had once been full of soft rolling hills with the potential for life was scoured and hardened by years of war. He had almost given up on the wasteland he inherited, but his wife saw something under all the detritus that he did not.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Years later, she had been proven right. What had once been a battlefield was slowly healing into a fertile land that could be remade into a place where life grows vibrant. There were changes in him, too. Time had not erased the wounds, both physical and mental, but her love and devotion breathed new life into him, giving him a love for life that he had once thought he would never have again. As if drawn to his sanctuary, many veterans had volunteered to lay down their blades to join him in farming.
In the war, adversity and survival made close bonds necessary to endure. He lost many friends and brothers over the years, but was overjoyed to see the many faces of those who made it out the other side.
Looking over to his right, he saw his faithful lieutenant, Baruleon, who had been his closest friend and ally. His friend was an elven earth mage, and his walls had saved the lives of many. Together they had faced the harshest parts of the war together and now it was fitting his friend would be with him as they fought to create a new peaceful life.
During the war, his friend specialized in building defensive structures. He could build moats, walls, and even a few cobbled defense posts in less than a day. He had saved many lives then, and now he created buildings that would save lives in a different sense.
Euberon had a home built for him, but many who joined him were living in tents or makeshift housing. Baruleon created roads, built aqueducts, and built shelters. With his wife on Euberon’s left side, he had brought life back to the devastated landscape and now his brother at his right- his brother… This man would help his family build a city where others could come to live in peace.
-
I groan as the memories press down upon my straining mind like they hold physical weight. They are full of thick emotion, complex thoughts, passionate dreams, and confusing concepts. I don’t let the attack on the mage relent; I’m too worried that if I let go at this point, I might be left exhausted and vulnerable.
The stark memories make everything so confusing. Was I in the dungeon or a battlefield? Did it matter? I just need to press forward, to not relent. I know this is my only chance to strike a blow at them- no, not them, him. The image of who I’m attacking grows hazy as memories of the past mix with my own.
I’m not sure who I’m attacking, only that I can’t stop. I try shaking off the disorientation, but the strain on my consciousness makes it difficult. I begin to recite works of affirmation in my mind; I am Jason, and I am fighting for my friends, my family, my home on the hills with my wife, my brother-
The fog clouding my mind burns off, and a deep anger inside me starts to boil.
Euberon’s memories may have confused me for a moment, but the stark fact that I no longer have a brother, not after what he did, shatters the brief confusion. I only have my sister. Deep inside me, I feed the rising anger, an anger I thought I had moved past, one I kept suppressed in my last life.
Thoughts of my family halved in a brief and terrible traumatic moment. How in the ensuing months, I felt lost as my grandfather succumbed to disease. A small grace that he was too steeped in his Alzheimer’s to understand the loss he suffered when I told him his son died. Even the memories of my ex-fiancé supporting me through those times only add to my anger in the light of her betrayal.
I channel it, giving it an outlet. I form it into a sledgehammer, which I bring down on my foe, smashing into his mind. His mind staggers, and the web of overwhelming memories fracture. Still inside the prison, I feel it waver and hear a warbled cry of anguish. My lips peel back, and I can’t tell if I’m grimacing or grinning.
As the memory fades, I blink, able to see clearly the underground battlefield. Olivia is kneeling; I cannot tell if she is hurt or just exhausted. In front of her, Kurt kneels, blocking lightning with his metal shield anchored into the soft, mulchy ground.
I wince knowing that each strike will dissipate into the mushroom-ridden soil, but only after scorching my friend along the way. I see a haggard Benjamin stealthily crawling up behind the elf.
I try to focus on aiding my friends. I want to heal Kurt, send zombies to distract the mage, or summon more shadow tendrils to hold the mage so Benjamin can strike. Before I can summon the energy to aid my friends, another memory is shaved from my enemy’s consciousness. The memory clings to me as though it’s magnetized, and another vision begins.
-
Euberon stood at the head of a table overlooking the great bounty his land had provided. In the years since they had built a community, they had traded weapons of war for farming tools. They had worked the land, and it had been bountiful. Bowls of freshly harvested vegetables, steamed by his wife, Keeva, with their daughter’s help, littered the table. The smell of sizzling meat, which he and his son had hunted only that morning, was mouthwatering.
Even Baruleon brought a few dishes of cooked vegetables with meat from his farm. His friend sat on his right side, but on Baruleon’s right was the love of Baruleon’s life, Stanela.
Euberon looked to his left to see his own wife, tired but grinning as she soaked in the warmth only family could provide. He couldn’t resist the grin on his face as he saw the jubilant faces of his children sitting around the table. He wasn’t the only one to have grown his family.
Baruleon recently married Stanela, though they didn’t have any children yet. Baruleon, his dear brothe-
The dream turns dark like a still photo. In the memory, Euberon’s thoughts were almost my own, but in that moment of discontinuity, I claw free of the dream.
It begins to distort, fraying at the edges before slowly resuming. At first stuttering like the damaged film for a movie, but slowly the dream regains color. I watch through Euberon’s eyes as the actors resume their play…
Despite Baruleon’s worries, Euberon was confident they would have children soon. While they didn’t have children of their own, Baruleon and his wife spent time spoiling Euberon’s children at every opportunity. “Uncle Baruleon” would often make a game of sneaking treats to the young ones.
Looking into the eyes of each of those gathered, Euberon announces, “Today we gather here to rejoice at our bounty.”
A goblin servant waddles over with a tray of wine glasses. They were a recent addition to his household. The elven council had recently conquered another roaming tribe of goblins and given them purpose. At his wife’s insistence, he purchased a few to do menial tasks. He had been averse to them at first, but his wife reassured him of their role to shepherd and share their bounteous land.
While the goblins were quite chaotic at times, he heard stories of how rough living in the roaming tribes was. The way they were hesitant or resistant when he gave orders often tried his patience, but over time, they began to grow on him.
Truthfully, he was happy to be able to help the stunted and short-lived goblins. If only humans could be brought to heel, so they too could enjoy the eutopia the elven empire sought to bring about. He shakes away his dark memories of the war; now was the time to put away those dark thoughts and focus on the light of the future. He grabbed a glass and watched as another goblin brought a tray full of goblets of juice to his children.
“To family!” Euberon toasted, unable to keep the grin from spreading across his face.
A chorus of “to family!” erupted around the room.
-
The haze and confusion accompanying my exit from the memory dissipate faster this time. I can feel it’s shorter than it should have been. The disruption had caused a break that allowed me to gather my will to attack while in its midst of memories. I’m fearful of what I will see, but the first thing I do once the memory breaks is to look around the room.
I see Olivia and Kurt coughing vehemently. Sure, they could be coughing for any reason, but it’s most likely that the spores have overcome their resistance. Only Benjamin looks like he’s still in the fight.
The elven mage, Euberon, his name now clear from the memories, looks haggard as well. Every movement is sluggish, and even his attacks take a visible effort. I see him winding up another strike against my friends. I’m exhausted, and I want to take more time to recover from the last memory, but seeing my friends in such dire straits, I renew my mental assault.
-
Fires and chaos danced through the night as Euberon stood stoically over his once peaceful town. At the edges of the dark night, he can see the fires of the human scouts preparing the way for other human forces to follow. Inside the walls of his town, a few buildings lay destroyed by the surprise attack by a human warband. Euberon had fended them off, but far too late.
At his feet, Keeva cried as she held the lifeless body of their oldest son in her arms. Her sobs are silent now compared to the wailing screams that had her shaking only an hour ago. He looked down at her, not knowing what to do.
He couldn’t fall apart, not with the enemies at the gate. How was he supposed to make things right? As he processed the new hole in his chest, he felt burning anger and a desire to make the humans pay. He gave another look at his oldest son lying there, looking peaceful, like he was asleep.
His son had been excited by war, eager to prove himself a great warrior, like his father. Euberon had thought he could keep his son safe if he pulled strings to put him on the defense force of the village, but the despicable human war machine was in full force.
Peaceful towns and villages that flourished for decades now sat in ruins. Under his shock, a hot anger threatened to overtake him. Even the memory of when his son had informed them of his decision to join the elven army that once made his chest fill with pride, now made his stomach turn as he looked at his lifeless body.
He heard the door behind him open as his younger son and daughter made their way into the room. They rubbed their red faces, trying to hide the tears from him. He had given them space to grieve and cry, but he needed to take action to keep them safe. He summoned them a few minutes ago so he could make a statement.
“Take the children south.” He said to Keeva, keeping his voice strong for his family. She doesn’t move, she doesn’t even look at him as she kneels with their dead son, but Euberon knows she heard him.
“What about the farm, our home?” His daughter, barely a child, asked pleadingly.
Euberon doesn’t turn to meet her eyes. How can he tell her that he cannot protect them, that he cannot lose them? That they were the most precious thing to him in the world, and his soul would collapse if they died. He couldn’t voice those thoughts, even speaking of their death as a possibility, carried too much weight.
“Homes and farms can be remade.”
He strained his muscles as it took great exertion to expel those words. They were lies meant to comfort them, making it sound as if the destruction of their childhood was a minor inconvenience. He looked at each of his family members in the eye. “The humans will never stop. I’ll slow them while you flee south.”
A firm hand landed on his shoulder. Euberon looked over to see his ever-faithful friend Baruleon. He had forgotten he was there but was reassured and comforted in a way he couldn’t articulate. In a deep voice, his friend said, “And I will stay by your side.”
Despite how much he wanted that, Euberon shook his head. Baruleon’s wife had given him a child, who was not even a year old, and they had a second on the way. How could he ask his-
-
Static. I claw and bite at the dream. Chewing at the heavy emotion, I feel it drip down my neck. My claws find purchase, shearing through it and leaving stains on my clawed fingers.
-
-he had only spent a few months with his firstborn. How could he deny his friend time with his children when the separation from his own son cut so deeply?
Seeing the conflict in his eyes, his friend says, “You aren’t the only one who wants their family safe. We will march south together. We will both see our families again as soon as we can.”
Keeva rose to her feet, grabbed Euberon’s head, and touched her forehead to his.
“Come home safe.” She said in a soft voice, and then with venom he had never heard from her, she spat, “and make the humans pay for their crimes.”
-
I open my eyes to see Olivia and Kurt lying still on the ground. I see Benjamin on the ground to my right, futilely crawling across the ground. At the rate he is going, he will reach the mage in ten minutes or so. It’s clear he can’t fight but doesn’t relent in struggling. He continues crawling through the muck and mud as he holds a dagger in his hand.
In front of me stands the once proud elven hero Euberon. He is no longer holding his staff, wielding death and destruction. Both hands grip his head, and I can see him screaming even though the wind and water, laced with poison, muffle any of the sound.
A vestige of the prison clings to me, barely held together by the mage’s fraying concentration. I can still hold my breath for a while yet, but I’m unsure of how my companions will hold out.
I feel Euberon aimlessly scratching at my psychic grip. He doesn’t have the skill with mind magic, meager as it is, nor the affinity that I do.
I can feel his thoughts with my mental attack lodged so deep in his consciousness. It feels like an enhanced form of empathy, the connection connected to the deepest parts of the elven mage.
Euberon knows he needs me out of his head if he is going to survive and frantically tries to summon the will to dislodge me. With him fighting me with all his strength, I know if I move to heal my companions, I will lose my grip. I recommit and push forward, attacking with a renewed surge of mental mana.
-
Euberon spat as he wiped the mud from his face. He had thought he could take a few dozen humans before fleeing north to the protection of the empire, but he had underestimated them. He no longer had an army of equipped soldiers to hammer their forces as he unleashed his magic.
While in the army, he had only fought human adventurers from a position of strength. In his anger, he had forgotten the human’s gruesome power of their nobles and heroes. Baruleon and he had gone out to fight the humans the day after their family had left, but they met with a host of skilled combat magi. He had conjured wind to spirit them away, but in those few moments, Baruleon was skewered half a dozen times. By the time Euberon had landed, his friend was dead.
The weeks that followed were a game of cat and mouse, where Euberon would attack vulnerable positions, such as their supply lines, only to escape as the human hordes forced him into hiding. With his magic, he could have flown high over the army to flee, but his heart wouldn’t let him. He hadn’t avenged his son, Baruleon, or sated his anger. They hadn’t faced a fraction of the pain he had. He thought back to his wife’s last command to make them pay.
Somewhere deep inside, he imagined himself fighting the humans to a standstill as he slowly took them apart. It wasn’t meant to be. After making a third successful attack on their supplies, a group of adventurers was dedicated to tracking him down.
Unwilling to give up but hounded relentlessly, he eventually found his way to the sewers of his previous home. He felt it was fitting he used the tunnels his brothe-
*crackle* *pop* *snap*
-had so painstakingly made. The humans were reluctant to delve too deep inside, so he thought himself safe as he continued his crusade.
-
The time is shorter. I’m jostled as I hit the ground; my cage is broken. I look to find all my companions still. I’m not sure they’re dead, but I can’t relent against the elven mage clawing at his head.
Dully, I could hear him crying out, “Stop! Stop!”
-
The memories come disjointedly now.
A memory of him victoriously killing an adventurer sent to hunt him. Another of the mayor, caging him in tunnels, to his dismay. Other memories of deals with the mayor. Euberon’s disgust at having to deal with a human.
At first mayor wanted to make him use his wind magic to cycle through the sewers, but when he refused, the mayor sent people down. More and more they came, and he happily killed them all. Even as he knew the mayor was using him as an executioner to his own ends, Euberon cried out to send more humans to die. Not satisfied, he cultivated toxic mushrooms with their bodies.
He tried to eat the mushrooms to gain immunity even as he created new strains. At first, it was fine, but slowly, the numerous mushrooms growing on the floor were too much. He was slowly being eaten away from the inside. Then again, was there anything left inside him to eat?
Still, he was undeterred. He would use the mushrooms to kill the mayor, attack the town of humans living in their stolen homes, and he would realize his dream of revenge. He was a master mage, a soldier, and most of all, he was death. He- no…
I am the inevitable death to all who stand against me.
I, the great hero of the war, strode forward as I had done on so many other battlefields, looking at my foe broken before me. He isn’t the first great foe brought low and won’t be the last in this war.
I reach forward, yanking at the last failing vestiges of his consciousness. Even now, he feebly tries to fight me as his mind is coming undone. My power holds him aloft in front of me, levitating, and unable to flee.
He tries to summon the last of his power in a last show of resistance to strike me. Lightning from around the room gathers in his two hands, building into a grand attack.
I grin; it might’ve worked against someone else. Just as he seeks to strike, Morgana’s hand bursts from his chest, ripping out his beating heart. The flow of thoughts and memories fades, leaving me empty. I fall to my knees and vomit.
The memories were so strong, but now that there is nothing left to feed on, I reassert control.
‘I’m not Euberon. I’m not Euberon. I’m not Euberon.’ I chanted the mantra repeatedly. I feel a hot, sticky wet hand pat my head in what was meant to be a comforting gesture. A feeling floods my chest, both foreign and comforting. I feel… satiated.
I look up to see Morgana petting me with her blood-soaked hand as she devours the heart in her other hand.
‘You are not Euberon she echoed back, ‘we devoured Euberon. ’
I looked up to see razor-sharp teeth. As I look at the sharp predatory smile, I don’t feel fear, I only feel her desire to protect me and satiation from a foe felled. She flashes me what I know is meant to be a comforting smile as she chomps down on the heart again.
Any other time, the horror of the scene would have made me scream in fright, but the comfort reflected across the bond overrides the horror, if only barely. Before I can think too deeply on what’s happening, the urgency to save my friends urges me into action. Morgana finishes the heart in a final bite before helping me to my feet.
I walk over to Kurt and Olvia. I pop my health potion and feed half to each of them before draining my own mana potion. I don’t remember most of the battle, but I can feel my mana is low, though I still have a third of my mana pool. The mana potion will give me another third.
I begin healing the two of them until their breathing is no longer haggard. I then move over to Benjamin and heal him. They are all heavily injured and wouldn’t last another hour, but none of them are on the verge of death as I feared. They will all recover, though how long is still to be seen.
I can’t see their status, but I know the number of status afflictions coursing through them would have killed them had I not been there constantly healing their bodies, slowly fighting off the toxins. It’s not until they are all breathing more easily that I realize I used blood affinity magic to heal them, not water affinity magic.
After stabilizing them, I go over to the mage. He is covered in dirt and grime, but despite this, he has some artifacts of considerable power. He has a staff that will considerably amplify my water magic, a ring to amplify storm magic, a circlet that stores mana, an armband of fire resistance, and a dagger that has a wind magic enchantment.
With the staff in hand, healing becomes much easier. I equip the circlet and armband. The ring is powerful, but won’t do much for me. I want to leave, but I’m unwilling to start the journey with my companions, hurt as they are. It’s not just that they are in a weakened state; it’s that I’m not sure I can defend all three back to the entrance.
Morgana and I pull them to the side of the room, where I can better defend them should anything come looking and sit to rest.
