The Third Portal: Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Guess I’m up,” I said, stretching and thrashing my tail. I gave Kene a quick peck on the cheek, then stepped into the ring.

Across from me, the peak third gate life and time mage stepped into the ring, and I got my first actual look at her. She was tall, slender, and very pretty, but there were bags at the corners of her eyes. As the adjudicator’s spells fell over us, I started to cycle Mantle Dragonfyre. I hadn’t been sure I could use it in the fight, but the adjudicator was an Arcanist as well, and had layered defenses over each of us that would pull us from the ring the moment they broke.

“Why are you with someone who is putting profits higher than human lives?” I asked my opponent. 

“He is my uncle," the woman said. 

“He’s a prick,” I said. 

“I don’t disagree, but I still have to defeat you.” 

I frowned, much less enthused about fighting her, and wondered if I could swap opponents to fight the guild leader. That was arrogant, and I knew it was, but I didn’t like having to fight someone who was there for their family. 

I took a second to remember the sounds of the people in pain in the Hyacinth Heart Guildhall, and steeled myself. Benevolence and Guardian both pulsed, while Druid maintained a bit of empowerment on my plant, beast, and ghost magic. 

“You’ve got this,” Hannah told me from within my mind. I was surprised the accountant was paying attention to the fight, but the support… helped. 

“Go!” the adjudicator shouted. 

I thrust my hands out and released Mantle Dragonfyre. Though the breath weapon had only cycled twice, it tore across the distance. The woman used Instant Step to move just barely to the side, but her defenses were flashing with warning as I swept the beam into her. 

She was pulled from the arena a moment later, and I shook my arm slightly. 

“Objection! That had to be an item smuggled in, because that was not a fox spell!” 

“Course it wasn’t, but what makes you think someone would only learn spells from their bloodline? Do you expect a forest dragon to never learn any engineered spells?” I shot back, teleporting over to the adjudicator. She glowered at Jeremy, and then cast the spells on me again, confirming that it really had been my own magic, before I was free to return to the guild.

Gakodi raised an eyebrow on seeing me. 

“Was that magma pulled from Dusk?” she asked. “I did note your spatial mana. Spells to pull specific elements from a bound ring are rare, but I could see the value for you.” 

“Oh, something of the sort,” I said evasively. 

Dusk piped up that even though she helped, it was more of the big turtle’s work than hers.

“I see,” Gakodi said, though she clearly didn’t. “Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to go make an offer to poach the guilders from Glowing Soil. The woman you fought seemed reasonable.” 

“Go ahead,” I waved, pulling a bit of life mana from my tree, while converting it – albeit inefficiently – into hudau mana.

We waited out the break, and then I stepped into the ring again. She nodded to me, and I to her.

“That won’t work a second time,” she warned. 

“I know,” I said, swirling my mana in a complex pattern. “I hope you gave Gakodi’s pitch some thought. She’s a good person.” 

“I did, but if I’m not with my uncle, I can’t–” 

“Begin!” 

I teleported to the right her, locking myself in the air as I unleashed a wave of stonesprout and pollen from stillfield asters, filling the entire arena with the the gravity empowering pollen, and coating the ground with spikes of earth. 

“You can’t what?” I asked.

She spun in place, taking care to dance between the spikes, clearly moving with a haste spell. I flared Tortoise Time, neutralizing it, and we traded a few quick punches. 

“Can’t afford housing,” she said, then I felt a pulse of powerful temporal mana. An echo of her appeared in the air, and she launched it at me, her arms blazing with green light of a body enhancement spell. I thrust my hand out and made an echo of my own, but her copy turned and sliced through my own with a glowing gray blade that appeared. 

Her copies could move?! How was that fair?

I slashed at the echo with blademoss, and an instant later the echo faded away into nothingness. I Foxstepped across the ring as she drew a longsword from her spirit and threw it to the ground, before stepping on it and rising into the air. It resonated with a dangerous power, and I immediately released Mass Enhance Plant Life on the stonesprout. Keeping it over such a large area was taxing on my mana, even with more available, doubly so with the increased gravity of the stillfield asters, which I kept – at least for now. 

She flew through the air at me, and I could sense her weaving together several spells that combined temporal and life mana, forming an effective enhancement, but also a taxing one. The moment she was near me, I simply Foxstepped away. 

“The housing here is free for workers,” I pointed out. “You could stay there and earn points until you–” 

I was cut off as another copy of her appeared, this one inches from my face. I flared Tortoise Time and Foxarmor in tandem, slipping to the side and kneeing her copy in the stomach. 

“Not for me,” the copy said, slashing out with its copy of her sword.  

“My family, back in mossford,” the original finished, landing on the ground and leaping forwards. 

I drew power from my morels then, ran mana through Enhance Forging, and cast Fungal Armor. The dual attackers got a confused look on their face for an instant, but pressed their attacks. 

I was glad my armor was more akin to a somewhat flexible, thick cloth than heavy armor, as I used my Foxarmor and Tortoise Time spells in tandem with the Fungal Armor. I wove between most of their attacks, but the sword still caught me on occasion, and the power of the domain weapon caused parts of my armor to wither and flake away in spots, forcing me to put more mana in to fix it. 

I ducked, spun, twisted, conjured enhanced Briarthreads to knock the blade askew, and flicked some Fungal Locks over them but this was starting to get annoying. 

I Foxstepped to the other side of the arena, and the two turned, launching themselves at me. 

“You won’t wear us down,” one said. 

“Our mana meditation gives us too much mana,” the other continued. 

“And this is our pre-cast use,” the first one finished. 

I teleported into the air and released a hail of bones and briars on them. Both threw their blades down and used them to fly into the air to meet me, but I Foxstepped back onto the ground and set new anchors, causing my bones to ricochet upwards. They retaliated with creating echoes of their blades in the air, blocking my attacks and starting to try and block off parts of the arena, while also cutting off my conjured mycelium. 

“So is it guild housing?” I asked, funneling a touch of soul mana into Briarthreads to match the twin echoes. 

“Yes. No other guild will also provide housing for my parents,” the pair said in unison. 

Their blades skewered in towards my throat, and as I went to Foxstep out of the way, I felt magic fall on me, some sort of paralytic spell. It acted on my life energy, but I had more than the average person, and while it drained me, I was still able to teleport out of the way.

I focused my mana senses to identify the echo, flicked out more Fungal Locks over the real one, then teleported right behind the fake. I drove my palm into her back, and pulsed Foxthorn, my renamed Curse of the Wild Spirit. 

Power rushed out of my hudau mana like someone had punched a hole in my spirit, and both of them spasmed in place before leaping back, looking confused.

“What was that?” the real one asked. 

“It’s a spell that crystalizes dragon mana inside of someone else’s garden,” I said. It wasn’t dragon mana, but that was easier to explain than the truth. “I figured it might have interesting results with a mana construct.” 

I had actually been hoping that Foxthorn could cut through mana constructs in the same way Foxfyre could, since if I could do it all with one spell, I could save one of my limited spots in the beastgate, but all it seemed to do was empty itself in the search for a nonexistent mana-garden. 

“Are you… experimenting?” the copy asked in disbelief. 

“A bit,” I admitted. 

For the first time, they seemed to grow actually angry, and both turned to me. I felt power build in the air, and Dusk almost stepped into the ring to help. She would be allowed, as my bonded partner, but it would further mess with the misconception that most people seemed to have of me being a phantom fox, so I held back. 

Temporal mana exploded through her body, and both copies crossed the distance in a flickering series of Instant Steps. Their swords blazed, and echoes caged around me. 

I retaliated with more soul mana enhanced Briarthreads, running Enhance Forging and Material Echo to copy it as well, but between the emptying of their temporal basins and the fact they were peak third gate, they were slowly pushing me back. 

I teleported out of the way, but between Haste and Instant Step, they were able to catch up in seconds, their blades extended. I lashed out with blademoss and Briarthreads, then teleported into the air, but they leapt and sliced further. I conjured my staff to block one blow, but the other dissolved a chunk of my Fungal Armor, sliding through Foxarmor with little resistance. 

I grimaced and started cycling Mantle Dragonfyre, then teleported to the ground, releasing a scattering of boneshards while using Mass Enhance Plant Life to create a carpet of stonesprout and cut at them with blademoss. 

Then all of the sword echoes that had been scattered all around the ring began to move. Each of them glowed with power as the magic in the domain weapons they were created from flared to life, and they screamed through the air towards me. 

One struck me and I teleported away, but they curved to follow me, and another struck. 

It wasn’t the second, or the third, or even the fourth blade that did me in, but somewhere in the rain of attacks, I was pulled from the arena. 

“Maybe don’t play with your opponent in the middle of a duel next time, babe?” Kene said, causing me to flush.

“Alright, that was on me,” I admitted, shaking my head. “I got overconfident. But she pulled out a major trick, using up her Temporal Basin. I think I can win next round easily.” 

Gakodi nodded, but she seemed distracted. 

“It’s true most guilds don’t house families, but it’s not that impossible. Was he stringing her along?” she asked, though it was quiet enough that I wasn’t sure I was supposed to hear. 

Dusk patted my head and said it was okay – she hadn’t been there. Dawn, who was still inside of Dusk’s realm, sent me a feeling of love and support, which I appreciated. I glanced at Gakodi then back to Kene. 

“Just end it,” Kene advised me. 

I restored my mana, then began cycling my spell slowly. Before I knew it, we stepped into the ring again. 

“I’m friends with Liz Davies, granddaughter of a guild master,” I said. “With your skills, they’d doubtless be happy to take you on, and I can make sure to pass on stuff about your family.” 

“I… Let’s just fight.” 

“Alright,” I agreed. 

The moment that the beginning was called, I teleported right in front of her and released a soul mana enhanced Mantle Dragonfyre at her chest. She tried to Instant Step to the side again, but I matched it with Foxstep. 

A second later, the adjudicator called out my victory, and I retreated to watch the fight between Gakodi and Jeremy. As their fight began, the woman I’d been fighting approached. 

“Were you serious? Or just getting in my head?” 

“He was serious,” Kene confirmed. 

“I was,” I said. “I can have a Crow Shade Messenger on its way within a minute, if you want.” 

“Victory to Gakodi!” the adjudicator called out. “Break for the next round.” 

I looked up, surprised, to see Gakodi walking over. 

“Oh, hello dear,” she said to the woman I’d fought. “Like I was saying, I can’t really offer you a spot with us, but I expect the Candleseers would be delighted to have you as a military scout, if you picked up some psychometry. And thank you for the plants, Malachi. Extending my resonance into blademoss. was not easy, but it made all the difference." 

I grinned and patted her arm. 

“Glad to help.” 

As the next round began, Gakodi destroying Jeremy with her improved resonance and power, I sent off a messenger to Liz. 

I couldn’t help but feel like I had at least achieved some small good here in Crysite. I’d be busy for a bit tonight, helping everything get transferred to the Earthwright guild, but after that, it was time to go soul array hunting.