NOVEL NEXT 94 - Beatrice's Wand Powers
The cell-like halls began to open up. Monsters awaited them in the darkness.
Archmund saw the glint of Gemstone, capturing the half-light of the Dungeon. Inwardly, he winced. That meant weaker and less valuable Gems to harvest from their corpses.
Archmund let his Ruby of Energy float lightly above his shoulder.
Second Awakening. It seemed inconceivable that there could be more levels of power still sealed within his Gem. His magic saturated the Gemstone, burgeoning from every facet and flaw. How much more power could he pump into the thing? Of course it had been hubris to assume he'd reached the pinnacle of human achievement after just half a year of practice… but he wasn't quite sure where next his improvements would come.
Beatrice stood besides him. Roiling darkness, like thunderclouds, bubbled up from her feet to her head, leaving only her eyes exposed. She met Archmund's gaze. Her eyes were like a mirror of his, not just in their appearance, but with the arrogant pained resolve they held.
"Just to three?" she said.
"Five, ten, I can go as long as I need to."
She hissed. "Of course you were underestimating me."
"You know how much more efficient I am than you," Archmund said. He didn't say stronger; for all he knew, Beatrice was strong enough to slice right through his Bodily Barrier with that knife of hers (if she wanted to die in the process). But he had honed his powers to slice right through Monsters en masse, and few were as efficient as he.
"That doesn't make me weak," Beatrice said. "And that's why we're doing number of complaints, not total kills. Let's make it to… 30 each?"
"Sure," Archmund said. If she started to get overwhelmed, he planned on letting her call a stop to it and tallying the complaints there and then.
He let her take the lead, because he had nothing more to prove. He could kill the Monsters before they even spawned from the darkness, so he decided to match her pace. Even if she didn't like it.
The Dungeon opened up into an atrium. Pale blue light streamed in from the domed glass ceiling, opening into the same pale and uninterrupted blue they'd seen before. And yet that harsh blue light barely illuminated the ground below. The shadows were deep and dark, and as they watched, a pair of Monsters in the form of man emerged from pools of shadow, immediately spawning into light that cast the sunken pits of their eyes and their emaciated features in harsh relief.
Two more Undead Clerks, going straight from darkness into the light.
The Second Tier didn't make sense.
Beatrice drew her wand. It pulsed a deep indigo for a second with a surge of her power, before reverting to its neutral gray crystal.
"Go for it," Archmund said, nodding at the Monsters.
"I know you're pulling some trick," Beatrice said.
"The trick is pretty obvious, isn't it? We're not fighting to kill, we're fighting to get the least complaints possible."
As on cue, Rory walked forward. "Are you two going to be alright? The both of you can be… reckless."
"Let's not count that, since it was against both of us."
"Fine."
"What are you two thinking—"
Gelias's hand landed on Rory's shoulder. Archmund held in a snort; since Gelias was easily two heads shorter than Rory, he had to stretch to reach the taller boy's shoulder.
"They're playing a game, Rorhid."
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"Is that… safe?"
Gelias smiled in a way that wasn't quite a smirk. "If it's not, we can swoop in and save them."
"Needing to get saved counts as five complaints," Archmund said.
He turned his attention back to the Monsters, which had been polite enough to wait for them to talk, instead standing threateningly in the center of the dome. Presumably, they knew how outmatched they were.
One held Gemstone Tankards attached to lanyards, one in each hand — two bolas, four mugs total. It started spinning the tankards around like helicopter blades. Another Slingerclerk.
The other held a long, narrow blade in one hand. Not a sword, but more like a safety razor — the blade was only exposed on one side. At the tip of the blade, there was a circular hinge, as if it had been a mechanism that was wrenched apart. In the other hand, it held a square shield. A Bladeclerk.
A thought flowed unbidden through Archmund's mind: Paper cutter.
"Like a butcher and a cutting board," Beatrice said.
"After you," Archmund said.
She glowered. "You're not taking me seriously."
Her wand flashed black as her magic flowed into it, but not quite as dark as when the Monsters used it. It almost had a tinge of navy or purple, though that could have been a trick of the light.
She swept her wand before her, and black darts beaded in its trail. And then she released her spell.
The black bolts flew forward, towards both monsters.
The Bladeclerk lurched forward, faster than seemed logical for its emaciated limbs, to guard the Slingerclerk. It raised its square shield, blocking Beatrice's incoming darts, each exploding into puffs of black dust that settled on the floor.
Interesting. It's not dissolving completely, but the residue it's leaving isn't miasma.
Beatrice cursed.
Simultaneously, the Slingerclerk released a bola, letting it fly in an arc past the Bladeclerk's head. If unimpeded, it was on track to clonk Beatrice right in the head, and though she had her Shadowed Cloak up, it would still distract her.
Archmund pulled out his Gemstone Rapier and stepped forward.
Already he was thinking of the possibilities of he could channel the Skills of the Rapier through his other Gems. Perhaps one day he could use his Ruby of Energy for Deflection, letting it dart around to knock projectiles out of the air. But for today, he just used his Rapier.
He knocked the bola out of the air.
"I had that handled," Beatrice said. He glanced behind him to see a basket-weave of red light shaped like a dome, flowing out of the wand, guarding Beatrice's head like a halo.
"Apologies."
There were good odds she actually had, and he'd deprived her of a valuable chance to grow.
The Slingerclerk released its other bola.
This time, he forced himself to step back. To step behind Beatrice, to let her handle it, as she wove the red denser and denser, the weave going from a basket to an insect screen.
The bola met the red dome. It flexed just a tad, but held firm — and the bola clattered to the ground.
The Slingerclerk held out its hands. The Lanyards of the bolas drew taut, vibrating like plucked rubber bands, before jumping back to the Slingerclerk, taking the bolas with them.
Or they would have, if Beatrice hadn't struck. Her wand flashed, and a blue spiral struck one of the boomeranging bolas. A thin black mist splurted from the crystal bolas when the spiral struck, and they fell to the ground, inert. Though the Slingerclerk's hands remained outstretched, only one pair of bolas returned.
But that left the Bladeclerk standing menacingly there. And after seeing the threat to the Slingerclerk, it made to advance.
There was a gleam in Beatrice's eye. Archmund thought he recognized it. The look of a breakthrough, when you came to a smug realization that one of your powers was exactly what you needed to solve the situation.
"Gelias," she said. "Was that what I thought it was?"
"Yes."
Her wand glowed blue, practically fluorescent. Spirals with spirals shot at the Bladeclerk, like coiled solenoids within solenoids.
The Bladeclerk raised its shield and blocked the blue spirals. They dissipated on impact, dissolving into wiggly strands that fast evaporated.
Beatrice snarled. She swept her wand through the air again, and a wall of blue spirals appeared, as dense as the springs of a mattress. She flicked her wand, and the spirals drilled forward at the Bladeclerk.
The Bladeclerk blocked some of the spirals, but it couldn't block them all. It raised its blade and twisted it with the rapidfire motion of Deflection. Some of the blue spirals were scattered towards the floor and ceiling, but every impact caused a slight puff of dark mist. Inevitably, some made it through. Puffs of dark mists erupted from the Bladeclerk's flesh where the spirals hit, and its motions grew jittery and locked up.
"Hey, wait," Rory said, "Doesn't that mean you're making the Gem it drops weaker?"
"Point for me," Archmund said.
"Oh, come on. That wasn't about my conduct."
"Aren't you being a bit petty, young master?"
"Point for me," Beatrice smirked, though she let up on her blue spirals. She drew her wand back, drawing a line of black darts as if she was drawing back an arrow — and then she flicked her wand forward, and the darts flew straight for the Bladeclerk's head.
Its arms had grown sluggish, and it could not lift its shield, so it raised its blade. It blocked the first few darts, but its power was fading, and Beatrice didn't relent, and the blade slipped under the force of Beatrice's power — and it sliced the Bladeclerk's head in two. It collapsed to the ground, a puppet with its strings cut, and began to dissolve into miasma.
"Damn," Archmund said approvingly, eying the wand. "I want one of those."
A flash of light caught his eye as the Slingerclerk began swinging its bolas again.
He killed it with an Infrared Lance through the head.