The Runic Artist

Nate immediately started erecting his barrier the moment the referee shouted ‘begin’. His opponent, Cezar, wasted no time, rushing towards him. He’d expected as much. As a swordsman fighting a mage, unless he had some sort of ranged attack he needed to close the distance. Of course, he knew he could just teleport around the arena, always keeping Cezar at the maximum distance, but that would mean revealing his teleportation skill. From a tactics perspective, given the level of skill and higher Class tiers in the top thirty two, he wanted to keep some of his skills and runes in reserve. Revealing all his skills this early on seemed like a rookie mistake. One he intended to avoid.

Instead, he was going to limit himself to two runes. Earth and Barrier. He would of course mix them with some of the shaping and control runes to create runic arrays, but just those two runes should give everyone the impression that he was relatively limited in the breadth of his runes, if not their adaptability.

His barrier was up in less than a second and he created a runic array of Earth and Flow. Mana flowed into his robe and through his Class Core as he used Empowered Runic Artistry to create the array and Imbue Intent to control it. Earth flowed away beneath Cezar, attempting to trap him in a pit. His opponent clearly had some Skills of his own as he threw himself forward in an extended leap that had to be some kind of movement skill. Leaning sideways Cezar seemed to surf across the top of the dirt and sand. The movement was smooth, controlled and graceful, right up until Cezar ran into his second barrier, this one merged with his rune of Obfuscation to make it even harder to sense.

His opponent tumbled backwards and before he could get to his feet, was shoved into the dirt hole by the now moving barrier. Using Imbue Intent again, he forced the earth to quickly flow into the hole, burying Cezar. Had this been a fight to the death, he could’ve probably started creating spears of earth to poke holes in his opponent till he succumbed to his wounds. But this was just a competition so he looked at the Gold Badge and waited a moment.

The referee honestly left it longer than Nate was comfortable with, but after about ten seconds he called the match. The moment he did he used Imbue Intent to control the still active Earth and Flow runic array, spitting Cezar back out on the battlefield, mostly unharmed. Mostly, because the wild-eyed look in Cezar’s told him that being buried alive would not be a nice way to go. Just thinking about it sent a shiver up his spine. He’d never considered himself afraid of tight spaces, but then, maybe he’d just never been in a tight enough space.

Walking forward he offered his hand to his opponent who, after a moment spent obviously calming himself, took the proffered hand and stood. Nate had to brace himself against the unexpected weight of the guy, which didn’t make a lot of sense looking at Cezar. After a quietly muttered ‘good fight’ from his opponent, they both returned to the corral to wait for their next match.

Kiri was waiting at the edge with a huge grin on her face.

“That was awesome! Wasn’t even close!” Kiri gushed, slapping him on the back in congratulations.

He smiled back but his heart was only half in it. He’d enjoyed winning, especially so convincingly. He definitely hadn’t enjoyed burying his opponent alive, even if it was only temporary. Glancing at Kiri as she stared eagerly at the various fights taking place he knew that she wanted to be out there, amongst it. She had a killer instinct, likely honed by her father as she grew up, hunting in Firth Forest. Add to that her competitiveness and her desire to prove herself and it was easy to see why she enjoyed battle. But for him, fighting was likely always going to be a tool. He’d accepted that he needed to fight in this world. That if he wasn’t capable of fighting, if he wasn’t strong enough, then he would be subject to the whims and cruelty of those who were.

“Yeah, wasn’t really a close fight. But Aisling was pretty concerned so some of the competitors must be pretty strong. Think we’ll face any before the top thirty-two?” he asked.

“Probably, if we’re fighting five times. Unless they’re rigging it to make sure the people they want to get through do, which, you know, maybe?” Kiri replied as she leaned on the wall around the arena.

The crowd continued to cheer and yell, though it was hard to tell if it was for anyone in particular or just the contest and violence in general. It was another thirty minutes before Kiri’s name came up for the first time and she glanced back at him and grinned as she walked out onto the field. Thankfully her match was on training ground four so he didn’t need to leave his spot at the flags and potentially miss his name being shown for his second match.

Leaning on the wall like Kiri had done, he didn’t have to wait long for her match to start, or finish. He could tell she used her boosting skill as she hooked the axe of her opponent and used it to pull him off balance before stepping inside his guard and placing her other dagger at his throat. What surprised him was the speed with which she had moved. She’d always been fast, but she’d been close to leaving a blur behind her this time. Like her Father. He knew some of her Skills boosted her Agility but he hadn’t expected it to be so dramatic.

Her opponent looked like he was still in shock as he walked off the field, while Kiri seemed to be so pleased with herself she was almost skipping.

“We competing on time again?” she asked sweetly as she joined him on the fence.

“Not after seeing that. Were you even boosting?” he replied in amusement.

“Nope. Pure passives. Deverell teaches the good stuff. Which reminds me, is Evindal going to start giving you lessons?” Kiri asked.

“Doubtful. Maybe Luc could teach me some…things,” he responded, intentionally avoiding mentioning his preference for spatial magic. “Besides, the Guild doesn’t have many Enchanters it seems. I’ll just have to earn my way into the restricted sections of their library. That and experiment on my own. Want to help me blow some stuff up later?”

“Sure. As long as we’re not up too late. Matches again tomorrow,” said Kiri, relaxing next to him as they settled in to watch some more matches.

It was three matches later before something interesting happened. He first felt it in his sphere of awareness. A hole that he couldn’t sense in the shape of a man, slowly approaching the field. Glancing back it only took him a second to spot the culprit. Null walked towards the field confidently, his bastard sword in a sheath on his back. The last time they’d met, Nate had been more concerned with mollifying Coralie and preventing Kiri from picking a fight. This time he was able to take the time to assess Null a little more closely. With close cropped brown hair, brown eyes and tanned skin, he might’ve been mistaken for a farmer, if it wasn’t for his build, which clearly marked him as a warrior.

Like his father, Prefect Raoult, Null wore some kind of loose woollen vest, albeit in a far more subdued colour, opting for cream. The vest left his arms bare. Around his forearms were a set of metal bracers and matching greaves covered his shins. The mix of loose clothing and armour made Null look like some kind of sailor turned blademaster. Not that he could tell if one of his classes was in fact a blademaster variant, as every time he tried to pierce the veil around the man’s Class Core, his Awareness of the Runic Artist simply seemed to vanish. Null was like a black hole for the skill.

Kiri nudged him as Null took the field and he realised he hadn’t been paying attention to who Null’s opponent would be. Across the field, taking up position was a tall man with dark skin, wearing a full length brown robe and holding a staff that hummed with mana. A mage. He raised an eyebrow at Kiri who shrugged in response. Maybe the Prefects weren’t rigging the match ups to push through the people they wanted after all? There weren’t many mages present among the competitors. He was basing that on his assessment of those who weren’t shielding their Class Cores. He could’ve pushed through the veils of the few that did have them, but didn’t want to waste the mana, or alert them that they’d been scanned. That was another problem he needed to solve. But given how few had been shielded, less than fifteen by his count, not including Null and Coralie, there were very very few mages present.

Returning his attention to the match, he caught Null glance at Prefect Raoult and unless he was mistaken, the swordsman frowned at his Father, before focusing back on his opponent. Nate gave one last nod to Kiri as they both settled in to try and glean whatever they could from the fight and the likely number one competitor.

Null drew his sword smoothly from his sheathe and indicated to the Gold badge referee that he was ready. As soon as the brown-robed mage had done the same, there was a yell of ‘begin’ and the fight was on. Nate had expected Null to rush and close the distance but he started walking forward slowly. The mage was not as passive and Nate watched as he created a bulwark of earth around himself in an instant before launching blunted spears of earth towards Null. The speed of the spells or skills, whichever they were, was impressive. It still took Nate a second or two for most of his Skills and he often had to waste mana maintaining runic arrays even when he wasn’t using them because if he released them he’d have to rebuild them from the ground up, costing both mana and time. The mage had gotten both his defence and offence up before a second had passed.

Not that it was going to make a difference from what Nate could tell. The blunted spears flew towards Null until they got within five metres of him. Then each one slowed considerably, breaking apart into sand and dirt to sprinkle down around the swordsman besides a few pieces of rock that bounced off of him. It was obvious to Nate what was going on. The skills or spells were held together and propelled by mana, and just like his own Sphere of Awareness, Null’s skill…aura…sphere maybe, whatever, was cancelling out that mana. Without the mana to hold the spears of earth together, they quickly degraded back to what they had been - dirt and sand. That didn’t bode well for the mage once Null got him within his sphere.

Nate started moving around the wall to get a little closer, hoping he could get the mage within range of his Sphere. He barely even noticed Kiri following him, so intent was he on the fight. The mage had grown desperate and was launching multiple spears of earth at Null a second. A moment later the barrage was revealed to have been a distraction, as the earth beneath Null was pulled out from under him. The mage was clearly trying to use a similar attack to Nate's own, trying to seal Null in the ground. Before the ground had even opened up, Null blurred, moving forward three metres in the blink of an eye. That was the last straw as he was now within five metres of the mage and the earth mage's bulwark of earth crumbled to the ground. Null didn’t even need to get closer before the mage called out his surrender.

Watching closely Nate saw how Null flashed a frown at Prefect Raoult again before exiting the field. The sphere around Null had retracted and by the time he had exited the training ground Nate could sense that it only extended as far as a few centimetres above his skin.

Looking at Kiri he saw his own worry mirrored in her eyes.

“That’s a hard fucking counter,” he muttered quietly.

Kiri nodded before whispering back, “For you, definitely. Whatever he’s doing doesn’t seem to work against soul energy. I think I could probably take him. Lets hope I get him in the knockouts?”

“That’s a nice hope, but that guy is a seriously hard counter to most mages. What’s the chances he gets a mage in the preliminary fights? I’m not convinced that he’s not getting help…from you know,” he replied, glancing out at the Prefects as he did so. “Want to make a bet he gets optimal match ups?”

Kiri snorted, “No thanks. We both know you’re right. What an asshole.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head as Kiri glanced at him in surprise. “I caught a couple of glances at Pre…his father. He didn’t seem happy with the match up.”

“Oh yeah, that makes sense. What was it Aisling said? For now, we’re just pawns. So now we have to worry about Guild politics?” Kiri said in disgust.

He couldn’t help but agree, but there was something else on his mind.

“Did you see that bit at the end?” he asked.

Kiri nodded, clearly still annoyed at their suspicion that the matchups were being rigged. “Boosting skill. Looked like a good one too. Shame we didn’t get to see how long it lasted,” she replied, her voice taking on a more eager tone.

“You want to fight him,” he said, laughing quietly.

“Of course! He looked like he might even be able to keep up. For a little while anyway,” Kiri replied with a smirk, bumping his shoulder gently.

Nate focused his Awareness of the Runic Artist more intently on his best friend. It only took a few seconds to sense the change.

“You’re regenerating it?” he asked, intentionally avoiding mentioning her soul energy out loud.

“Yep. Evolved the skill yesterday. No need to constantly go out and refill it anymore. Though Dev said I need to be a bit careful about how much I use in my fights if I want to last through the day. Regeneration rate isn’t amazing, yet. Let’s head back and keep an eye out for our next matches,” Kiri said, putting action to words as she started walking towards the area for the competitors.

He followed a second later, glancing out at the field in thought. Kiri had said to hope he didn’t get matched against Null, but that wasn’t good enough for him. For every problem, there was a solution. He had, hopefully, at least a few days to come up with a way to beat the swordsman, if that’s what his Class even was, because after seeing his performance he was beginning to wonder if Null’s Primary Class was something like Magekiller. Either way, he had time, and he had Frick. He just needed to experiment and come up with a solution that didn’t involve him rolling over and surrendering. That was the old him. The new him, even if he didn’t want to fight, refused to back down, even in the face of overwhelming odds. He was a creator, so he’d create a path forward.