Call of the Abyss [Book 2 Complete]

Julia repressed the urge to open her eyes. She wasn't threatened exactly—the two apprentices were beginners at best—but fighting with her eyes closed still felt wrong. However, she was determined to get some training out of this spar in addition to training the apprentices.

Namely, she wanted to become better able to combat multiple foes at once. Thus far, she had managed mostly by recklessly charging groups and forcing them into one-on-one conflicts. This was a dangerous tactic because she had to control the tempo of the fight. If she got behind even a single time, a different enemy could catch up with her, and suddenly her disadvantage had doubled—and that was only assuming a single extra enemy.

She had closed her eyes mostly because it was dark, and she felt that with all the extra sensory information she had at her disposal, any murky images from fighting in the dark were simply distractions.

Still, this was a little unfair.

She leaned to the side as a dagger cut through the air from behind her—Rowena attempting another unsuccessful sneak attack.

Gareth stabbed his sword out from behind his shield, and Julia simply allowed it to connect with her armor. The strike clanged off and glanced aside. She put the bottom of her foot flat on his shield and shoved. At the same time, she grabbed Rowena's wrist, still following the arc of her unsuccessful strike, and pulled her forward into the already-stumbling Gareth.

They fell to the ground with a clatter of metal and bodies piling atop each other.

"Rowena, I appreciate you sticking to your role, but once you've failed a sneak attack, it's going to become extremely difficult to land a different one on the same enemy. Not only have they avoided it once, but now they're expecting it. I think you need to broaden your horizons a bit. Perhaps instead of sneak attacks specifically, you should aim for subterfuge.

"Your goal should be to outsmart your opponent—lead them astray with feints and misdirection, then strike when they're vulnerable. If a sneak attack lands, great. If it doesn't, at least it wasn't the only tool in your belt. Be thinking about how the battle is progressing—what moves both you and the enemy are making—and think about how you can lead them into your own win conditions.

"Gareth, your defense is stalwart, but what exactly were you aiming for with your strike? Even if this armor were cast iron, a single strike wasn't going to penetrate it. You need to be looking for weak points: face, eyes, hands, joints in armor—anything that your sword stands a chance of harming.

"Your role is to keep the enemy's attention on you—always. If you strike my armor ineffectually, you broadcast yourself as a low threat. I might turn my attention to your companions simply because you pose little risk to me. If you can't deal damage, you must at least annoy the enemy enough that they want to finish you first," Julia lectured as the apprentices recovered.

"That makes sense. May we…um…take a break, Miss Julia?" Gareth asked tentatively in between breaths.

"Sure. Actually, you should probably think about sleeping soon, so let's call it here tonight. Good work, you two," she said with a smile. She hadn't been thinking about it, but it had been almost half an hour since they first started. Sparring for half an hour straight was difficult for beginners, probably.

As the kids dragged themselves over to their packs, Suresh approached Julia.

"That was sound advice, thank you very much for assisting my students, Julia," he said with a smile.

"No problem. Happy to help. My dad always used to say, 'You don't truly know something until you can teach it to someone else'," she explained, returning the smile.

"Ho, those are wise words that I don't hear much in the adventurer community. Many are preoccupied with wealth and fame and little else—not that I intend to judge. Hard to consider fulfillment when your belly isn't filled," he chuckled.

Julia nodded and shared his chuckle. She then realized that they were standing a few strides away from and facing each other—very much like the beginning of a spar.

"Forgive me for saying this—I don't mean to be rude—but am I correct in assuming that the sword is not your primary weapon?" he asked.

"That's right. I'm pretty competent with one, but I've always considered myself a caster who knows the sword rather than the other way around," Julia responded, her stance subconsciously widening.

"Ah, excellent. I suspected as much. If I might be so bold—you were kind enough to teach my students—would you be kind enough to teach me as well? Magic is what I favor. I know I could learn much from you, and perhaps there is something you could learn from me as well," he offered.

Julia thought for a second before responding.

"Sure. I don't see why not."

"Wonderful! Thank you so much for this opportunity! Let's just go with standard sparring rules, shall we? First to concede, or first who is unable to concede?" he suggested.

"Sounds good to me," Julia replied easily, her hands falling to her sides.

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There was a brief pause as both combatants evaluated each other. Suresh thrust his hands out, white lightning snapping toward Julia at the speed of—well, lightning.

The microseconds turned to minutes as Julia's perception enhanced. She had enough time to note that the lightning was shooting out of his fingertips specifically. Likely he had no way to prevent his own lightning from striking him, so he took every precaution to make sure it would hit anything except himself—even going so far as to release it as far away from his body as he was comfortable with.

Julia evaluated what she wanted to do here. What could she show him that would be helpful without tipping too much of her hand? It's not that she didn't trust these people specifically, but she was in this city for a purpose—and as far as she knew, the entire city could be aligned against her. Better safe than sorry.

Also important was why Suresh, who seemed the laid-back sort, would really ask her for this spar. True, he could simply wish to test himself against someone attempting to ascend to the level above him, but shooting lightning was…well, it was pretty reckless. If he overestimated her and she couldn't avoid it, it could be lethal.

She glanced over to the fire and noted the faces of every single adventurer watching intently, a kind of focus on their faces that she hadn't yet seen from them.

Ah, that makes sense. Suresh is a pretty good guy.

Deciding what she wanted to do, Julia allowed time to tick a little closer to normal, and the lightning blasted into her torso before spiraling around her body, coiling across her like a snake. It swirled about her, orbiting and seemingly stable.

"Lightning—impressive. It's something of a specialty for me too," she said with a smile.

The white lightning swirling about her began to dye a deep blue before shifting in a gradient pattern between blue and crimson.

Julia opened her hands—palms facing outward—and raised them just to waist level. Bolts of brilliant blue and bloody red arced around her. Their trajectories seemed random, yet they never struck her, nor any of her surroundings—not even grounding themselves. They zapped into existence and immediately faded, trading places with new bolts that sprang into being.

Suresh's eyes were wide—so wide that Julia could see the reflection of the lightning in them. He seemed frozen, his hands still extended as they were when he shot the initial lightning.

"Do you know what lightning is? It's energy rushing to fill a charge differential," she said, bringing her hands up to her chest and holding her open palms against each other, as if gripping a ball between them.

"The energy that rushes from opposite charges creates so much heat that it boils the air, converting it into the fourth state of matter: plasma. The process is called 'ionization'."

The lightning surrounding Julia suddenly whooshed in between her hands, collecting there as a sphere of swirling blue and crimson so bright that one risked their eyes looking directly at it.

Suresh's mouth was agape, his body still frozen in the position he'd started the spar in—Julia honestly didn't know where to go from here. She needed some kind of feedback to work with. In a panic at a potentially-botched performance, she decided the lightshow might have been too dramatic.

Though, this show served a dual purpose, and its second purpose was more important.

She raised an open palm to the sky, the ball of plasma resting upon it, and shot it into the air. The ball traveled so fast it seemed to almost instantly disappear, and less than a second later, it detonated in the clouds above, lighting the sky with blues and reds, as if the sun forgot which color to shine.

After the crack of thunder and the light faded, Julia lowered her hands to her side. She put them on her hips and did her best to adopt a casual posture. Internally, she wondered if she'd made a mistake. However, the most unexpected thing happened—Suresh started clapping.

He clapped his hands so fast and vigorously that she wondered if he might be hurting himself, but he spoke before she could ask.

"Wonderful—truly wonderful! I have never seen lightning wielded so masterfully!" he exclaimed, practically shouting into the otherwise-quiet night.

"...thanks," Julia replied lamely. She wasn't completely sure whether this was a win or loss, but at least Suresh seemed to enjoy himself.

"Incredible. I made it to Mithril with my own meager lightning. With your prodigious control, I wonder if even Adamantine will be the limit for you…" he mused, looking over at his students, who were all watching with wide eyes.

"Well, thank you very much for indulging me, Julia. Come now, time for bed, everyone. We rise at first light, lest we lose any time to search for our quarry. Come, come—bed," he declared, ushering the students to the fire.

"I'll take the first watch," Julia called as they moved away. Though, she didn't plan on sleeping tonight.

Indeed, that lightshow wasn't just for her own camp's benefit.

Smokey, ethereal shapes moved through the trees, their haunting visages cloaked by the darkness under the trees. The light of the moon couldn't fully penetrate to the forest floor, and these creatures were adept at maneuvering where it was absent.

Ghastly, purple eyes glowed in between the trees as the creatures converged, drawn by a dramatic light that brightened the entire world before disappearing just as suddenly.

Beneath them, snarling faces filled with sharp, gnashing teeth stalked through the shrubs, somehow avoiding rattling them with their passing. Some crawled on the ground, some walked on two legs, and others even appeared to drag themselves along, their back legs completely inoperable.

A lightly armored figure stood in the middle of the force, leather plates attached to a tattered doublet with a hood cloaking its face in darkness. Only two fiery orbs of purple glowed within.

It held up a gloved hand, halting the group's silent march, before quietly drawing its sword. It peered into the trees, seeking something it didn't know for sure was even there. It knew nothing specific—only that there was danger.

Out of the absolute darkness sparked a conflagration of crimson. It swarmed the Revenant, scorching its bones from existence before it comprehended the attack.

Undead shifted and stirred, knowing a threat was upon them, but lacking coordination now that their leader was gone.

Up in the trees, two eyes glowed in the darkness, crimson rings around sky-blue irises. They burned in the darkness, a fire of vengeance swirling within them like the inferno quickly engulfing the Nashiin.

Within just a few seconds, it was over. The fire was gone as if it never was, along with the Nashiin that it hunted.

The eyes glanced in the direction the undead had come from briefly before they too disappeared into the inky black of the forest night.