The Runic Artist

Nate didn’t really listen as Prefect Raoult prattled on, espousing the virtues of the top thirty-two and how they were the best of the Silver Badges in Etrua. He was sure that wasn’t entirely true. Some Silver Badges may have struggled to make it to the Capital, or not bothered at all. It was an opportunity for many, certainly. But there was a cost in coming here. The city wasn’t cheap and not everyone had the kind of support or funds that Nate and Kiri did. Surely there were others who just couldn’t be bothered or couldn’t afford to make the trip.

He perked up as he heard Prefect Raoult begin introducing the various competitors, and considered for a moment whether it was rude to not pay attention to their names. Had this been back on Earth, he wouldn’t have cared, as he was terrible with names anyway and wouldn’t have remembered most of them after the Prefect’s speech was done. But that had all changed as mana-fuelled development on Galle had improved his mind. He knew he would remember every name, if he bothered to pay attention, maybe even he didn’t. But was it worth it? In the end, it was unlikely he’d ever cross paths again with those who didn’t make the top eight. Those he should definitely remember as he’d be attending the Royal University with them, assuming he was one of the eight. They might even need to stick together if the rumoured friction between the Nobility and the Guild was anything to go by.

Finally, Prefect Raoult finished his speech and Nate, alongside the other competitors, made their way back to the side of the arena. It only took them a minute to finish preparing the field, a barrier made of mana going up around it to protect the crowd from any stray attacks. He’d kind of hoped they would’ve sculpted the field a little. Added terrain or something similar. It certainly would’ve made it more interesting, but after thinking through it for a moment he realised why they didn’t bother. The mana cost.

It would’ve cost them mana to do it, and to rebuild it after every match. He was hardly the only one to reshape the arena, even if his runic empowered earth-shaping was one of the more obvious cases. It also meant no one could argue that people were being given any sort of special advantage, though that wasn’t necessarily true anyway. Anyone working with earth or sand had plenty of material readily available, while anyone using something like water, or ice in the case of Coralie, had to spend the mana to both create the element and then more mana to manipulate it.

The first match ended up being Helena against another competitor dressed like a sailor. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised since the Capital was a port-city and there were likely plenty of monsters and other riches to be found off the coast. The battle looked close, as Helena used a shortsword and buckler to weather the attacks of her opponent's spear. He could see why the spear wielding sailor had made the top thirty-two as he deftly kept Helena at spear-length, never allowing her to close. Helena kept trying to slip inside her opponent’s range as any time she drifted too far away, the spear-user launched sprays of cutting water at her. He couldn’t help but smile as the water left mist that refracted the light, leaving rainbows around the pair as they fought furiously.

Blood soon joined water in spraying as Helena took a cut to her upper arm. It didn’t seem to slow her down, and for Nate, it made the scene in many ways more beautiful. He knew he was going to paint this scene later, with the juxtaposition of the beautiful rainbows and the released violence, and of course, the consequence of said violence. He was considering whether to detail the competitors’ faces or simply leave them as faceless individuals when the contest abruptly ended.

Helena ‘looked’ like she dashed left and as the spear-wielder responded, she appeared instead on his right, shortsword going through his upper chest. The sailor collapsed to the sand and dirt, blood bubbling from his mouth as he struggled to breathe through what was probably a punctured lung. A moment later a wave of golden light enshrouded the spear-user, the blood vanishing back into his mouth as he stood up, unharmed and hung his head before offering a short bow of respect to his opponent.

Helena didn’t seem interested in offering the same as she turned to face the crowd, bloody shortsword raised in triumph to the roar and approval of the crowd. The bloodthirsty nature of it all made him a little bit sick. It opened his eyes to how some artists could find the beauty in the grotesque. Or conversely, in this case, the grotesque in what should be beautiful. The fight had been beautiful. Helena was undoubtedly beautiful. He found her behaviour afterwards to be somewhat grotesque though. It just reinforced his feeling that he’d been right to avoid her advances earlier. She flashed him a smile as she exited the field, which he intentionally chose not to return, instead looking to see who was called to the field next. Fate must’ve had its finger on the scales, as he found his own name alongside that of someone named Gregory.

Walking out onto the field, he could hear Prefect Raoult introducing him and his fellow competitor.

“Now entering the field we have Nathaniel Weber, a Battle Enchanter hailing from Helmfirth. That’s a quaint little town on the borders of our beautiful country for those of you who’ve never heard of it. Facing off against our intrepid Battle Enchanter is one of our very own. Born and raised in our beautiful Capital, Gregory Bernier, Arcane Archer for the number one Silver Badge team out of this very Guildhouse. We’re in for a treat with this one folks, as two hybrid mage Class individuals face-off against each other. Please let our competitors know how excited you are to see their battle!”

The crowd went wild but it faded into the background as he focused on his opponent. The archer from Null’s team stood across from him with a confident but friendly smile.

“I had hoped we’d get to face each other, Nate,” called Gregory as he squared up across from Nate. “I even saw a couple of your preliminary matches. Null said you might be a good fit for the team. It’s a shame that this is as far as you go. If you’d made top-eight with us, well having a Barrier Mage and…Battle Enchanter was it? Well that would’ve been pretty ace.”

Nate wasn’t used to trash-talk, if that’s even what this was. No one he’d ever fought had really engaged in it. Not even Luc, which thinking back on it, was a bit of a surprise. Still, surely he could think up something clever to say back?

“Why would I want to join a team weaker than one I am already on?” he yelled back, more confidently than he felt.

Gregory laughed and shook his head slightly in amusement as he pulled his bow off his back. “Maybe you’d have been able to beat Britt, but Null and I are just the worst match-ups for someone like you. Well, best of luck. May the better man win.”

Nate just inclined his head, not sure what to say to that. He’d never been involved in many sports so he didn’t really understand the etiquette, but Gregory didn’t seem like a bad guy. That didn’t mean he was going to take it easy on him though. Like the Prefect had said, he was a member of the number one Silver team out of the Capital. There was almost no chance Nate was getting through this without revealing a few more of his cards.

Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his robe, he drew out four runes from his spatial storage. Two were identical, and proof that his planning from so long ago had not been in vain. He’d withdrawn the other two runes so he could replicate them onto his robe, as now that he knew what he was facing, he needed a counter to what was arguably the biggest issue with dealing with Gregory. Archer’s Step. The man was an Arcane Archer and almost certainly had the signature movement ability that Kiri had used so frequently and to such great effect.

He’d considered how to counter Kiri’s skill months ago and realised that barriers were unlikely to work. It wasn’t that the barriers couldn’t potentially prevent the movements from Archer’s Step. They could definitely do that. It was that he’d need to predict the direction they were moving in, as it took him about a second to create a barrier. More if he had to create them further away from himself. That and he only had two barrier runes in his robe. His bracer wasn’t yet completed which would’ve added a third.

That meant he needed another method to deal with the movement skill so that he could actually land his attacks. He’d had other ideas, that involved using light to blind them, or air to try and shove them towards the ground. That had all changed a few days ago when he got access to the Guild library. Gravity. The Sigil had even been of the Journeyman tier. When combined with his Strongest Sigil he’d managed to push the final rune to the Master tier. That was his trump for finishing this fight, but it wasn’t the only card he had to play.

The referee called for the battle to begin as the crowd roared its approval. Nate split his attention as he tossed two runes into the sand on his left before throwing up a barrier. Imbue Intent turned it into a perfect sphere with a two metre diameter with him as the centre. Two of his Intents used up; he spent ten of the remaining fifteen Intents forcing the sphere to double, then triple layer itself. It would cost him more mana, but he was a little concerned about the piercing arrows. Gregory had wasted no time, immediately jumping across the sand to his left as he fired two arrows towards Nate. Nate had to marvel at the man's control as the archer was clearly using Archer’s Step to bounce in small short arcs, alternating feet as he drew back. The arrows were already in flight as the barrier finished enclosing him.

He saw the confident smile on Gregory’s face falter as the two arrows veered off course, planting in the sand around him without even scuffing his barrier. Ranged fighters had been the first opponent Nate had ever really considered and his Projectile Gathering runes had been a resounding success. They’d just been mostly useless until now. He was about to think he had this match in the bag when he felt something flash through his sphere of awareness faster than he could react.

A moment later it settled inside him and he realised what had happened. Soul energy. It seemed Kiri wasn’t the only one with a skill that made use of it. His barrier, just like last time, had failed to do anything to stop it. He was going to have to add that as a permanent feature to his barrier rune in the future. Multi-layered barriers to stop different effects. It was going to be mana-intensive, but that was what the bracer was for. Shame it hadn’t been ready for this match.

Gregory already had another arrow drawn and Nate felt the tug inside of him as the arrow was released, as though his body and the arrow were drawn towards each other. He didn’t have time to think or determine whether or not the arrow had been layered with a piercing skill, instead resorting to revealing more of his abilities. The barrier flashed as he used Empowered Runic Artistry to alter the runic array, adding the Projectile rune and exhausting his remaining five Intents as he altered the Subconcept to ‘arrows’. The arrow bounced off his now specialised barrier with a plinking noise. He’d been right to empower it as much as possible as he felt it almost completely expend the mana he’d invested in it. If he hadn’t, that arrow would’ve gone straight through the barrier and him.

It was worth it to see the look of shock on Gregory’s face though as his barrier held up against the attack. Using that moment, he searched inside of himself, tracking down whatever Gregory had used. It only took him a second to find it but he could see Gregory was already nocking another arrow. He needed to buy time. Splitting his attention again he activated his Earth and Projectile runes in a new runic array, launching spears of earth from the ground at Gregory from nearby. The attacks barely gave the archer pause as he expertly used Archer’s Step to dodge and avoid the attacks. But it had bought him a moment and the moment was all he needed as he forced himself to split his attention a third time, a headache starting to form.

The third runic array he spun up was one he’d included on his robe specifically in case he’d been forced to fight Kiri this early. He would’ve hated it, but he still would’ve fought. Mixing the Soul and Release runes, he targeted the bit of soul energy inside him that wasn’t his, using Imbue Intent to guide it out of his body and release it into the air. If he’d had the targeting rune stored in his robe he’d have used it and his Intents to try and bind the soul energy into his Gathering Projectile runes, but he hadn’t thought it would’ve been useful and he couldn’t maintain splitting his attention like this for much longer to force the issue with just his Intent.

Finished removing the soul energy Skill, he immediately sensed a hail of arrows falling around him with Awareness of the Runic Artist. Gregory was still dodging spears of earth as he launched arrows over and around the attacks. Nate smiled though as the attacks slammed into the ground to his left again, his headache fading as he no longer needed to split his attention three ways. With Gregory no longer free to pick his shots, it was time for Nate to begin his own offensive. Focusing on the two runes in the pocket of his robe he used Runic Creation to replicate them onto his robe, Gravity replacing Wind, and All Directions replacing Water. He’d prepared for this kind of fight and now that he had a little breathing room, it was time to go on the attack.

With Empowered Runic Artistry and Runic Creation he formed the runic array between his outstretched hands, combining the two runes in front of him in a complicated mandala, geometric shapes in an arcane configuration, with the rune for Gravity at its centre. Superimposed over the top was an enlarged rune with arrows pointing in the four cardinal directions. His All Directions rune. The next part he’d only managed to practise once, and ideally he’d have preferred not to use it so soon under combat conditions, but with an effort of will he altered the All Directions rune, ballooning it out into a sphere as he superimposed it on itself. His first truly three-dimensional rune. The number of arrows doubled from four to eight as they oscillated slowly, all pointing away from the Gravity rune in the centre.

He was so focused on his creation that he didn’t notice the reactions in the crowd as silence fell over the arena, the only sounds left that of the dull thuds of earthen spears as they kept Gregory busy and the occasional plink of an arrow as he fired back. Looking up through his own creation he smiled. It was time to end this.