Runeblade

A sigilistic ring of tessellated and layered geometry hovered around the tip of Ianmus's staff, rock solid and glowing softly to his mundane sight. Just over a longstride in diameter, it almost looked like the simplistic octograms that he had seen beginner students of runecraft make use of at Sunspire.

Only many times more complex, woven and layered across three dimensions.

He could feel the effect it had on his spell. His mana seemed to leap to his very word, stable as granite and flowing like a flash flood. It was magnificent! Everything he had hoped!

Sure, it was unwieldy, and likely of the barest use in its current state, but it was new! An entire avenue of spellcraft, ripe for the taking. It didn't matter that it took far too much time to use in combat — hell, even if it required soul infusion for every cast it wouldn't matter. He had seen the proof in Kaius himself.

This discovery meant something — would influence his next class greatly. If he could leverage that, obtain more complete and complex samples to study himself. Well, between him and Kaius, they would be able to practically upend the entire study of spellcraft overnight.

Once they were ready, of course.

With his sigil stabilising his spell, Ianmus's glass mind was finally enough to hold his working steady on its own. It would still require a more hands on touch to actually finish, but for now he had the freedom he needed to check on his team.

Drawing his mind away from the spell in front of him, Ianmus blanched as he was confronted with a warzone.

Trees lay shattered and broken, trunks as thick as fort spires shredded and pulped. Great tracks of earth had been scattered, upheaved under the force of a constant barrage of sonic beams and cutting waves of force.

He saw Kaius and Kenva a couple of hundred longstrides away, blitzing across the jungle in a dizzying display of speed and control.

Kaius detonated one of his Shunts, bursting away from a sudden shower of needle-hairs. He turned mid air, a screaming steel spike erupting from his hand to slam into the flying beast that raced behind him.

Close by, roots exploded from Kenva's leg. She leapt onto the side of a tree trunk, crouching as the roots recoiled. Another kick off, and she crossed behind the Champion's flight path.

An arrow tore straight towards the beast, only to shatter into a spray of jagged splinters that shimmered with potency. The burst peppered the bat, tearing dozens of small ragged holes through its wings.

It screamed, the wave of sound hitting Ianmus like a physical wall. As close as she was, it stunned Kenva — sending her tumbling across the ground as she fumbled her landing.

Ianmus blanched, shocked at the severity of the battle.

"Back with us, I see. Bastard's been…persistent since you started channeling, so I hope you're ready to cast."

Realising Porkchop was still defending him, Ianmus looked over to his teammate quickly.

He looked battered. Blood stained Porkchop's heavy-plate, seeping from dozens of seams in his armour. The jade itself was cracked — nearly shattered from whatever attacks he had weathered in his stead.

A startling revelation to the cost his team had borne to see his plan through.

Ianmus shook his head quickly. "No, but I only need a minute more at most. The sigil is helping as much as I hoped it would."

"Be quick about it — we don't have long before it tries to make another attempt at you. Whatever you've done, it's pissed it off something fierce."

He gave his friend a single sharp nod, and devoted his focus fully to finishing his work.

The metamagics were easy to manage — simple, automatic skills. While it made his mana more rebellious to feed it through three of the damn things, with the aid of his sigil and glass mind it mattered little.

His spell weave was far simpler. In the first tier, most of what he knew he could do was simplistic. Most of the time and effort of a large burst came from the sheer volume of mana he had to channel, and how hard it was to control.

His sigil had made it possible, but as he poured more and more of his pool into the tight bundle, pressure rapidly began to build once more as his head throbbed and his circuits ached.

Without conscious command, his sigil slowly spun around his burgeoning spell — aiding his efforts. Ianmus grit his teeth, his staff quaking as he held it in a white knuckle grip.

Everything he had went into it. Everything. Every drop of mana, year of training, and stoneweight of Willpower.

It grew dense — a tight looping weave that bucked in his grip, yearning to burst free. He almost couldn't hold it. Grey descended from the edges of his vision as his eyes fuzzed and a low drone drowned out the sounds of mayhem around him.

Slumping to the side, Ianmus let the trunk he hunkered behind prop him up as his knees started to buckle.

He needed just a little more. It didn't matter that he could feel the sticky tracks of blood that ran from his eyes. His blood could burn for all he cared.

More mana flooded into the spell.

It built in his channels, eating away at the pseudo-physical membranes that directed the energy through his body. They could disintegrate into ash, he needed more.

Even with all of his skill, all of his strength, it was impossible to control the simple density and volume of mana that he channeled. Not with the pace of his output. From a thousand hairline tears in his channels, mana seeped into his raw flesh. Freed from his grasp, the pressure caused the unaspected mana to spontaneously transmute into raw arcane.

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Caustic and toxic, it ate away at his body, poisoning his marrow and wearing away at his bones.

He coughed, pushing on. He had health — enough to last through the damage, at least. The mana was his. His birthright, his future, and his legacy. He was of elven blood, born to cast.

He would not fail. He could not fail. The mystic force fueled him — had empowered him to become everything he was, had stood behind him at every turn. It would not be his downfall. It was the legion, and he was the commandant that would lead it as he pleased.

If his body burned and his soul disintegrated, so be it. His will was iron, for only those with a firm hand could bring the raw potential of mana to heel. It was his, it would do as he commanded. It was him, as much as his blood and bone — if it should burst his soul-space and flood him utterly, so be it.

As within, so without.

His soul quaked as the very last scrap of his mana was drawn from the pool inside of his soulspace, still carrying the faintest hints of his essence. It roared along his circuits in a great torrent, shattering and shredding them as it passed. Unleashed, it roared through his flesh, twisting and changing all in its path in an overwhelming wave of mind bending agony — searing his very marrow.

Blood pooled in his mouth, dribbling from his lips as red spread across his dirt-stained robes.

Still Ianmus held, his Will and Intent sovereign.

In the quaking instability of his soulspace, Corporus ignited in a single overwhelming detonation. It drew on the power of his soul, even as it bolstered and supported it.

The system descended, uncaring of his consent as chimes sounded unnoticed in the back of his mind.

Even as mana coursed and raged through his body, flooding outwards to be channeled towards his spell, his Pillar changed him, sinking its claws into his very marrow, resculpting his flesh and transmuting his blood.

Ianmus barely noticed, his entire focus devoted to his work as he hung on to his spell weave by the barest tips of his fingers.

The last iota of power he needed settled into place.

He snapped his head up, ignoring the raging corona that bucked in his grip. Old Thousand Eyes screamed, sensing the pulse of strength that echoed forth as his spell became ready.

It ignored Ianmus's battered companions, flapping its wings to charge straight at him. He smiled.

And cast.

A glowing arc of pure sunlight ripped out of the centre of his sigil, as real and tangible as a headsman's axe in full swing. It shot forward, not quite instant, but still fast enough it should have been a blur — lengthening until the crescent stretched a full ten longstrides from tip to tip.

It wasn't. He could feel his spell, sense it like a third hand, see through the very essence he had unwittingly bound within it.

Slumping to his knees with his head lolling forwards, Ianmus watched through arcane eyes as the Champion baulked, racing to the left with a mighty flap of its wings.

Bending everything he had left, Glass Mind and all, he commanded his spell to turn. The Champion flew as fast as it could, curving around tree after tree.

Ianmus cared little for its attempt. His spell cut straight through the obstructions, closing the distance quickly.

His mind ached — the world going foggy and distant. Ianmus blinked slowly, and suddenly the Champion was screaming, careening downwards behind him. Frowning, he tried to make sense of the sudden change.

Directing his spell like a maestro, the blade of sunlight curved down, looping back over itself to shoot straight back towards the bat.

A full quarter of one of its leading wings had been severed, destroying the Champion's ability to fly. Unable to do more than crack the slightest of iron-tasting smiles, Ianmus sent his spell straight through the base of its other. It fell like a stone.

He coughed, nearly choking on the blood that flooded his mouth. The strain was too much — his body and mind too broken from channeling.

Grey closed in.

A final act — he refused to die here, but he had one last song to play. Gritting his teeth with determination, Ianmus clung to consciousness rabidly and forced his spell to curve once more.

It shot after Old Thousand Eyes, tearing across the distance between them in moments.

Right before his grasp on the spell faded, before the last remnants of his imbued soul sputtered out, he felt the arc of sunlight slam into the creature's hips, burning its way through flesh and bone.

Ianmus gasped, falling onto his hands and knees.

Distantly, he saw Porkchop charge out, racing across the ground towards the downed Champion, a good quarter-league from their current position.

He barely noticed, too busy focusing on the sensation of his organs curdling. Perhaps he'd overdone it — just a touch. He'd always had a little problem with pushing his experiments too far. Master Tromfild would be rolling in his grave.

Chuckling lightly, Ianmus fell on his side, his vision tunneling.

Insistent, notification after notification burst unbidden into his sight — almost forcing his focus upon them.

**Ding! Significant Feat of Strength performed under Observation. You have been awarded an Honour: Sublime Prodigy - Keyseal Conjuring**

**Ding! Pillar of Self Discovered, Corporus Ignited. Would you like to initiate Aspect Formation?**

**Warning! Critical physical and soul instability detected! Initiate Corporus formation!**

**Warning! Critical physical and soul instability detected! Initiate Corporus formation!**

**Ding! Safeguards activated, initiating Aspect formation!**

**Alert! Soul stabilised, mana pool is unrecoverable!**

**Alert! Tissue mana saturation and toxicity is unrecoverable!**

**Alert! Adjusting parameters…**

**Alert! Solution found!**

**Ding! Corporus Aspect Founded - The Transmuted Manaborn**

Ah. Perhaps there had been something to Master Tromfild's vexatious nittering afterall.

Ianmus coughed, the world fuzzing as his surroundings blended into a haze of fog and pain, only for another series of chimes to yank at his attention.

**Ding! You have slain a Champion: Old Thousand Eyes - Level 258 Shrieking Banshee!**

**Ding! Solar Theurge Apprentice has reached level 176 > 182!**

**+4 Int, +2 Wil, +1 Vit, End, & Free - from Class & Racial Traits!**

**Ding! Class skill available for selection!**

Ianmus barely had the wherewithal to smile before the gray haze returned. Next thing he knew, he was spluttering as liquid was forcibly poured down his throat, inflaming the itching fire that smouldered over every inch of his body.

"Is he alright?!" Kaius asked, his voice sounding distant and thin.

"Does he look alright? Dumbass was channeling for so long he was literally sweating blood!"

"It doesn't matter — his soul is a complete mess, and the scraps of mana he does have are acting really fucking weird. He looks stable though. We need to go."

Someone hoisted him up, easily enough he may as well have been a sleeping child. The sudden lurch was too much — his tenuous grasp on consciousness slipped; his head lolled back.

The grey rushed in, swiftly deepening to black.