A Legacy of Blades - An Epic Tower Fantasy

Pip weighed his options. Unlike his brethren, who were, even if it had been a matter of choice, trapped here with him, he wasn't frustrated by the limitations set on him in this place. It would have been easy, when considering the power any of them once wielded, to succumb to frustration at the relative powerlessness of his current state.

Magic spoiled a person.

That irked him more than the loss of magic, the loss of his identity. He wasn't some monster! He came from a line of proud people. Their ancestors might not recognize them any longer, but he still knew the pride of the people who came to this place. It was something that ran deeper than blood, and not something he thought might abandon him before his final, maddened faculties.

Pip, as he'd come to call himself, having discarded the titles and adulations of the past, even that of First Warden of the Forest, didn't share in his compatriots' disdain for the lesser magic they wielded. They were just so limited in their thinking. Hadn't he always told them that Power was only one mark of a magic's potential?

He'd spent millennia, possibly longer, time did become so difficult to keep track of after a time, honing his control. True, what he could do wasn't as impressive anymore by most metrics, but if he could apply his current prowess to his past powers, that would be a thing of wonder.

As it stood, he could manage some truly stunning pyrotechnics.

Most people who came here wouldn't be able to withstand his last trick, not that he didn't have a great deal more where that came from, but he was particularly proud of that bit of inspiration. The cold fire alone was fascinating. It needed very little to burn, just sought to consume everything in its path. It hardly even hurt, compared with real fire, almost as if it consumed the pain itself.

It had been a novel experience, the sheer absence of his smallest digit after he tested that flame. That was his purpose, after all, or at least the one he'd accepted: to test and push for progress, even if he had sacrificed his own advancement for the sake of future generations.

He wasn't intended to be a wall meant to stop the newcomers, whatever his comrades believed. And he could stop them, if he wanted, at least the average challenger. No, he was here to let them prove they deserved this world's blessings.

Any who failed and refused to turn back would only feed his people's Blessed sanctuary, or whatever the young ones call it nowadays, he thought. Everyone has their part to play. The only question is: what should the next test be? Don't want to turn it up too high and consume her completely. Maybe…that might push her far enough.

He felt certain that she had more tricks to show; he only needed to pressure her enough to force her to reveal them.

Pip increased the pressure as he put the finishing touches on his plans, a smile creeping over his face. He'd just have to make sure he didn't have too much fun.

She might not be ready for that.

Anilith was determined to win this fight, and she was determined to do it without using her full suite of abilities. Her skill with her reflection ability was leagues behind her other magics, and she needed to shore up that weakness. Pip provided an excellent opportunity to train the ability, even if she was sure he hadn't shown even a fraction of his true ability. There was a confidence to the creature that suggested hidden depths of knowledge, and she wasn't foolish enough to tempt him into using more power too quickly.

More than anything else, she needed to know that she could keep up with an opponent of this level, even with a self-imposed handicap. He was far and away the most talented mage, the most talented fighter, she'd ever encountered.

"Stepping up your game," Anilith said, "eh, Pip?"

"Don't know what you mean, child," Pip retorted, "The only one playing games here is you. It's about time you stopped holding yourself back."

The First Warden, Champion of the Consuming Flame, unleashed a salvo of cold fire upon the challenger, releasing orbs that closed in on her position from multitudinous arcing angles.

"Do you really think that's enough to trip me up," Anilith asked as she danced through the empty areas of the attack, deflecting what orbs might have struck her and letting the others pass her by, so they might immolate harmlessly on the floor where she had stood only moments prior. "You'll have to try harder than that, old-timer!"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"What a shame," Pip replied with a grin, "I really thought you'd fall for that. Guess this round goes to you, child." He bowed low, folding his hands across his chest.

Anilith rushed her honored foe, seeking to strike him down under her own power. She would claim this victory without resorting to outside aid; there was no doubt in her mind. Too late, she realized there was a noticeable lack of impact behind her.

Pip looked up from his bowed position, a mischievous smile on his strangely beautiful, angular, gray face. "The rumors spoke highly of your awareness, but I see they stretch the truth. Such is the realm of rumor, but it saddens me."

An orange glow, hidden by the illumination of the perimeter fires, descended from on high, streaking toward the ground behind Anilith. A sudden eruption threw her forward, intense cold and untouchable heat radiation from its epicenter, and she crashed to the ground, tumbling without grace. Before she could find her feet, another explosion sounded in the air above her prone form, flattening her into the tiled floor with greater force than she'd ever experienced, greater even than the unearthly strength of the ogre-kin.

Blood ran from her ears from the concussive force, and her exposed skin was left raw and blackened in equal parts, while her blades slipped from her weakened grasp.

Instinct, born from hours training under her Master, coupled with months of Orion's relentless tutelage, told her that the finishing blow was coming. With what strength she could muster, she pushed herself to her feet, claiming an unsteady position with her arms at her sides. Closing her eyes, the afterimages from Pip's lightshow playing in the darkness of her mind, she held her hands and relied on the most dangerous force she knew: blind faith. Master always said there is nothing more threatening than someone who acts on faith alone, for they exist in a realm beyond reason.

Warmth enveloped her right hand, while cold swallowed her left, and all the while she channeled her power, hoping beyond hope that they would drink in her magic like the metal of her blades. She had no reason to believe it would work, but that didn't stop her from trying.

When the world takes away your options, sometimes folly is the only recourse.

As the sensations of heat pressed against her exposed flesh, she felt something in them that she did not expect, a call back to her time before the Tower, when she knew a different sort of life.

She remembered, in that moment, the intense focus that consumed Temperance as he sat at his forge, and the hours that his craft ate away. She had spent far longer than she'd ever realized watching the man, the boy, she realized, as he strove to push himself to greater heights.

A flame had burned in him, one she hadn't recognized for what it was at the time, but which shone undeniably through the windows of time. It was a flame that consumed, just as Pip had claimed, but that was not all that it represented. Nothing that consumed, for the sake of consumption, could ever exist in her friend. His purpose was something far greater.

The flame that she now recognized in him consumed to create. It was a flame born of passion, turning time and effort into something greater than the sum of its parts. Even his failures led him down his path, ushering him towards future greatness by nature of experience. For all of his setbacks, he never gave up, never stopped experiencing, and never let his flame die.

His was a flame of passion, not meant to merely consume.

Anilith gripped the orbs she held, clawing her charred fingers around them as she followed the sense of connection. She saw the answer before her, even as she forced her hands outward with strength she didn't know still dwelled within her corporeal form.

The orbs arced away from her, colliding just before her opponent's position, as the arrogant goblin had hardly moved during their combat. She knew firsthand the force of that explosion and opened her eyes to see the creature taste his own medicine. Pip was launched backwards with familiar force, skipping across the ground like a stone on still marsh waters, but he was left unburnt.

That didn't matter, though, as Anilith followed the feeling she'd discovered, arming herself with a balanced knife in each hand as she fueled herself with a new power.

Heat blossomed from her feet, and she erupted from her position. She moved quickly under the guidance of the Wind, but that couldn't compare to the acceleration her body felt in that moment, as her frame felt previously unimagined pressure. The air around her was consumed, leaving her feeling breathless as she launched herself with a new gift. From a standing position, she closed with her foe in a heartbeat, fire trailing behind her and passion filling her heart.

She would forge something new in the heat of this battle.

Before either of them could react, Anilith's knives found purchase in Pip's sides, drawing her first blood of the encounter.

Each of them leaked life force, the sanguine liquids intermingling as they ran down Pip's body, surprise disturbing his grin.

"The rumors," Pip coughed, "they said you were something new. I…I didn't think…"

"You fought well, friend," Anilith said simply, "but my path does not end here."

Pip smiled at her, his gray skin becoming more pallid by the moment, as a tear ran down her cheek.

"Tears for an enemy," he said, "you honor me. I…I didn't think you could…teach me. All my time…all these…years…" bloody sputum flew from his lips as he coughed again. "To think…fire does more than consume…to think…it can…create."

As the light began to leave his eyes, he uttered one last phrase. "What an oversight…of mine."

After all of the death she had wrought, Anilith felt a weight settle on her that she'd never before experienced. "Rest with honor, Pip. Thank you for showing me a new way forward. May the fire consume you fully, and return you to your god, transforming you into something greater. Until we meet again, honorable Pip."