B3 C64: A Bother

Hovering high in the air above Emer’Thalis, Archmage Xander’Callis had to admit that he was having a particularly frustrating day.

At first it had been the normal things. His research was going nowhere. The latest batch of theses out of the academy’s magic students was all drivel. He’d received several collaboration requests from multiple branches of the government, all which he had to waste time turning down.

It was a bother. And if there was one thing that the archmage did not like, it was a bother. In his darker fantasies, even that much was enough to make him consider burning the entire place down and starting over fresh somewhere. It was something his own master likely would have done. Xander’Callis, however, was a man of patience and restraint, or so he liked to believe. He could handle a bother or two.

What he had not planned on, however, was for the damned chamber heads to start brawling on the streets!

Not even the weak ones either -- it was that battle-crazed adventurer and the war woman. Had it been any of the others, he would have let someone else deal with it, but he wasn’t sure someone else could deal with it when it came to those two.

To add one more complaint to the list, considering he was pretending to be a good many levels lower than he was, he had to draw it out and pretend to struggle to stop them, too.

A bother.

And with that done, did he get to return to his tower in peace? Was he done cleaning up the idiocy of others? Gods above, no! No he wasn’t!

Against his will, he’d had to listen to an abridged version of why they were fighting in the first place. A few truth spells later, and what did he discover? The damned Goss boy was dead after attempting to kill his disciple!

Now, Xander’Callis wasn’t entirely proud of this, but he may have gotten a bit perturbed at that fact. He’d let his anger slip out just the teeniest bit, and well…

Hopefully the three chamber heads wouldn’t hold it against him whenever they woke up.

It was, as some less refined minds might say, an “oops” moment.

That was an entire debacle he had waiting for him back home, but presently, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. The reason, of course, was that above all else, Xander’Callis tried to take his promises and obligations rather seriously. He went out of his way to have very few such obligations in the first place, but that only served to make the few he did have more important.

And he’d made such a promise.

He’d taken on a disciple. Offered her protection. Protection specifically from the very man who’d nearly succeeded in killing her. Worse yet, he couldn’t even mete out any form of punishment to the boy -- he’d forced the girl to handle that herself as well.

With all of that said, it was time for the archmage to do something he rarely had cause to do.

Apologize. And make sure that foolish disciple of his was okay, too.

That, at least, he’d expected to be a simple affair. Chamber Head Astorius was sadly a bit too… passed out to tell him where the girl would be, but as long as she was still wearing the mana obfuscation bracelet he’d given her, Xander’Callis could track her with ease.

Or at least I should be able to.

Annoyingly enough, she appeared to be somewhere warded right now -- rather strong wards, too -- but even then, he was able to pin down her general location. It was enough to locate the settlement she was in, and he’d opted to teleport over immediately. Even that, however, would have been acceptable.

Why, then, in the name of all that was holy, was the entire settlement at war! As he gazed down at the many small-as-ant figures, repeatedly clashing against one another with their tiny, pitiful spells, Xander’Callis found himself wishing he still had skin just so he could knead at his temples. Were the gods messing with him today? Was that what was happening?

Despite lacking the requisite lungs, Xander’Callis sighed.

“Which side do you think is Tess’s?” he pondered aloud. “Is either? Would she be angry if I just killed them all?”

Xander’Callis would readily admit that his instincts on human emotions weren’t always spot on these days, but after some careful consideration, he decided she probably wouldn’t appreciate that. More than that, regardless of what side she was on, she would likely already be less than happy with how many people had died.

“Fine. No killing.” Much like he had with the two errant chamber heads, Xander’Callis would simply break things up, figure out where his disciple was, and then move on.

Mmm. What’s the proper way to end a battle like this without killing anyone? He scoured his memories trying to recall the last time he’d had to do something like this. Ah! Quite right. A bit of ice.

Now, Callis hadn’t focused on the basic spell schools as much as others might have. Once he’d gained access to more advanced magics many, many, many years ago, he’d thrown himself into them. Still, over the centuries he’d picked up a cute spell or two, and with his own prodigious Spell Alteration level, he was more than equipped to modify them on the fly.

And so it was that as the archmage hung far above the battlefield, he began to cast a spell.

A seemingly infinite, dizzying array of mana threads shot out from his core, arranging themselves into the proper form, half within his body, half without. Given how much mana was pouring off of him, one could be forgiven for thinking that he was deeply focused, concentrating as hard as he could.

In truth though, he was anything but. He added a few simple modifications to make the spell less lethal, and then he was stuck there with a wandering mind as his spell continued to take shape.

Hmm. A few dead down there. Would the girl be happy if I fixed some of that?

While he didn’t mean to brag, Xander’Callis had reached level 25 in soul magic. For most schools of magic, that would be laughably low, but it had taken him an entire two decades just to perceive souls, let alone manipulate them. Even now, he shivered at the brutal training sessions where he’d been stuck in sensory deprivation boxes with nothing around him but souls. His master had been a firm proponent of “tough love.”

It was hardly his specialty, but he was perfectly capable of preserving souls and throwing them back into their bodies, even if that was just about all he could do. More than that, he could do it extremely well too -- the power of one’s soul magic was partially dependent on their skill level and partially dependent on the strength of their own soul, which meant the archmage had plenty of fuel to work with, so to speak.

Very well. I’ll try to preserve anyone I see. Maybe heal a few corpses and shove the souls back in, too. It wasn’t as if he would be reviving everyone. Some souls would have already dissipated, and some bodies would likely be too mangled to restore. Still, he supposed it would be his good deed of the day, or week, or whenever the last time he’d gone out of his way to do something good was.

Just about that time. Idly, he looked down at the battlefield, surprised to see that nearly everyone had already stopped fighting. As one, they had all craned their necks up to stare at him.

Oh! Drats. Forgot the obfuscation.

Well, no matter. It wasn’t as if they could do anything to him in a backwater like this.

With the spell finally prepared, he targeted the largest cluster of people below him, and at last, he released it.

Blizzard’s Advance

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the swell of mana far above reached its pinnacle, King Antaiu knew with some certainty that he was staring down his death. The caster was certainly the Protagonist, and he had no reservations that he would be spared her umbrage.

He knew what he was supposed to do here: Call out to her. Surrender. Offer his own life in exchange for his people’s.

Mostly, though, he just wanted to run. It was hardly regal, but that did nothing to decrease the statement’s veracity.

He likely would have, too, if he hadn’t felt so frozen. Even his mount didn’t dare to move a muscle.

Perhaps if I summon all the fire mages back, we can form some sort of shield. It does seem to be an ice spell, after all. As long as we have more time, then-

As if to mock him, the spell finished.

The entire mass of mana which had stolen his breath vanished all at once, leaving him able to inhale shakily once again.

Or not vanished, now that he looked more closely. Condensed. Solidified.

The spell started out small. Quaint even. Just an unassuming ball of ice which fell a few meters in the sky. For a moment, the king was able to convince himself he’d overreacted.

In fact, even when the ball of ice subsequently shattered with a discordant crunching and clinking that spread across the battlefield, nothing horrible immediately happened. The resulting ice shards then themselves cracked apart, and so on and so on, until the original ball was nothing more than specks of frozen dust, the world’s smallest hail or perhaps more of a powdery snow at that point.

Borne by unnatural winds, the snow spread out and seemed to multiply until the king’s entire field of vision was consumed by nothing but glistening, glittering powder.

Ever so gently, down it fell.

As if a more figurative spell had broken, everyone reacted at once. Certainly, there were a few pot shots here and there, but all thoughts of battle fled from nearly all assembled, a mad dash ensuing to get away, to be anywhere but right here, right now.

Luckily for the king, his horse was not exempt from this reaction either. The otherwise well-trained steed nearly managed to buck off its royal rider, but once the king regained control of it, he was escaping faster than anyone.

I’ll survive, he mentally droned on over and over again. I’ll be fast enough.

In reality, however, the king knew the truth all too well.

He was far, far too slow.

The first of the snow arrived, dusting the tops of the rapidly receding trees. A thin layer of frost spread across their trunks, each branch turning into a wooden-centered icicle. Only seconds later, the snow hit the ground and the people thereupon.

The king had expected the cold. What he hadn’t expected was the rapid relocation as he flew through the air, landing against the ground hard enough to break bones had he been a lesser man. As he attempted to get his bearings, his mount’s bleating cries drew his attention to its hooves, frozen fast to the ground.

I need to run. On foot. He tried to pull himself from the ground and keep moving only to discover that he couldn’t.

He watched with horror as a thick layer of ice climbed from the ground onto his gauntleted hands and greaved feet, trapping him just as effectively as it had his horse. He tried to rest his extremities free, but it was no use. Even with stats much higher than his soldiers’, the king was trapped.

So this is how it ends. Frozen and entombed. Bitterly, he wished he’d never gotten involved with that demon of a Protagonist. He struggled in a decidedly un-kingly manner as the ice went higher and higher, to his wrists and ankles, to his forearms and calves.

And then… stopped?

Before the king had time to appreciate the fact he didn’t seem to be dying, an unfamiliar voice called out to him.

“Ah! You look important. Good, come with me.”

The world flashed around Antaiu, and suddenly his surroundings were much more familiar. Still on the ground and frozen to it, he’d returned to almost exactly where he’d started running from. Everywhere he looked, his own soldiers and the enemy’s had been similarly frozen, though most of them standing up.

That’s not the Protagonist, he realized for the first time. That’s some old man. What in the blazes is going on? Is he one of the fighters? The king’s mind raced for something he could do to escape the situation, but he had too little information. Out of promising riches, he had few options.

“As for the other side… Oh, you! Very good. And also- Good hells, woman, what are you even doing with all those souls?”

Just as abruptly as he’d appeared, so too did two others, both of them forest folk with strange skin defects. The first angrily growled while the second responded to the man’s question with a shrug.

“Lovely!” the mage announced. “Now, I’m sure you all have something important to be warring about, but would either of you happen to know where a girl named Tess is? Reddish-brown hair? Pale? Yay high?”

Had the king not been terribly discombobulated and afraid of being killed at the drop of a hat, the mention of the girl’s name might have been enough to drive him into an apoplectic rage. On the other hand, however, he sensed an opportunity.

He froze the forest folk too, did he not? If he’s looking for the Protagonist, perhaps he’s hunting her? Maybe there was hope yet.

Sadly, he did not know where the girl was. From the stony silence of the other two present, neither did they.

It was, then, some shock when someone did manage to answer. Even more of a shock was who the one to respond was.

“I do.” Popping out of thin air was the very last person he wanted involved in all this mess.

His daughter.

It was with some small sense of pride that he noted she seemed to be the only one who was not frozen fast to the ground. That was far secondary to the spike of fear he felt in having her here.

Gods above, run girl! Truly, she was turning out far too much like her mother for his liking.

“Oh! What a magnificent invisibility skill. I wouldn’t mind studying it if you have the time, but I suppose that’s another matter entirely. Delightful! I’m more pleased than you could imagine to have someone know where she is this quickly. As for the ‘why’, it’s rather complicated. As a side question, though, you wouldn’t happen to know which side of this war she’s on, would you?”

Very hesitantly, his daughter gestured towards the foresters. “Tess is the settlement owner here. She’d be defending it.”

The unnaturally powerful mage clapped his hands. “Wonderful! Another side question: Do you think she’d appreciate it if I wiped out the other side? I could do it as a sort of gift, perhaps?”

“NO!” In unison, both the king and his daughter shouted. Calilah went one step farther. “She’d want this war to be over and for everyone to stop fighting.” She addressed those last words half to the ice mage, half to him, nearly burning him with their intensity.

The mage simply shrugged. “Very well, then. Just a passing thought. Come along, then. The sooner the better.” He beckoned for Calilah to show him the way forward.

She lingered for a moment, opening her mouth as if she wanted to say something before ultimately closing it and rushing ahead. The mage followed behind her, only belatedly seeming to recall something.

“Ah! No more fighting, if you would. Or I’ll be very annoyed and probably kill you.” As a final errant thought before leaving them all with their feet frozen, he glanced at the forest woman. “And you! I’m not even sure how you’re doing that, but for gods’ sake, if we’re not killing everyone, put those back.”

And just like that, the man left, following behind the king’s daughter as they wove through all manner of soldiers and forest folk bound to the ground with ice. Even with their upper bodies free, not a single one dared accost them.

Despite being glad to not be dead, the king was left reeling, Even so, one fact stood out more than the others.

If that man was seeking to get in the Protagonist’s good graces, does that mean she’s even stronger?

He could have fainted from just the thought.

Right then and there, Kind Antaiu swore to himself never to mess with the girl again.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Archmage Callis. I wondered if that was your handiwork I was sensing. It is good to have you here. Lady Calilah. I am glad you returned safely.” Verin’Sylus knelt by a bed, very lightly bowing her head towards the archmage as he paused by the room’s door.

True to her word, the invisible girl had managed to lead him here with a pleasant alacrity, even if fully silently. He hadn’t imagined the Sylus girl would be here -- he tried to avoid her out of principle, as she was far too politically charged -- but that was secondary to what he’d come here for.

“Lady Valis. A pleasure. If you’ll excuse me, I came to see my disciple.”

Said disciple was presently lying in bed, and at first, he thought she was sleeping. Barring some skill he wasn’t aware of, however, she couldn’t have been given her open eyes.

The very moment Xander’Callis saw those eyes, however, he knew something was wrong.

Hells, girl, what did you do! He rushed up to the opposite side of the bed from Verin, placing a hand on Tess’s forehead, not to check her temperature, but to get easier access to her mind.

Citadel walls, reduced to rubble. Deep furrows in the ground, gouging out parts of her mind. The thick fog of trauma filling every crack and crevice it can-

The archmage recoiled.

Hells, girl. How did you even manage this? The Goss child shouldn’t have had any skills to do something like this.

The archmage felt a deep welling up of shame at seeing his disciple like that. In a sense, this was partly his fault, no? And those eyes of hers looked so dead.

Well, no matter. He would fix it. Mental magic was a speciality of his, after all. He injected as much mana as he could into the girl’s head, intent on fixing it up.

Incredibly, however, he failed.

Wha- Oh! Fascinating. Her mental skill is directly integrated with her soul and other skills. I truly should have insisted on studying this.

It was then, though, that he realized the terrible truth.

I can’t fix this, can I? You’d need a single person just as advanced in mental magic as they are soul magic.

“Is she going to be okay, Archmage Callis?” Verin crouched over the bed as if waiting for the archmage to cure her all at once.

Unfortunately, no cure was forthcoming.

At least not from him, it wasn’t.

Using air magic to simulate a sigh, the archmage internally groaned.

Even if he couldn’t heal her mind, the archmage knew the answer better than most.

There was one person who could help her, after all.