Kal’Duresh stood like a tiered wedding cake, atop rippling orange sands. Blue roofs adorned tall white towers and an uncountable number of white buildings, while a curving tree, larger than any tree had a right to be, snaked around the airy castle on top of the cake. It was not the idyllic landscape it appeared to be, for looking closer, it was obvious they were ready for war.
For atop every single blue roof, and hovering in much of the sky above the city, were mages.
They were not the most populous thing in the air, though. That award went to their enemy; a cloud of spiders that stretched for kilometers in every direction, like an invading cloud.
Pure white, long limbed, and covered in too many eyes, the spiders descended from the endless blue sky; an endless horde of chittering, egg-laden invaders. Long streamers of near-invisible threads fluttered from their backsides, buffeted by the heavy wind. Unintelligent spiders would have caught on to each other and tangled long before now, but these were not simple beasts; they were coordinated monsters. The largest of spiders in the horde had faint black lines running down their backs, from their eight eyes to their spinnerets. These coordinators, these mothers, each held together a loose assortment of their kind both in the physical, and in their arachnid minds, readying themselves for the feast arrayed before them in the city below.
The horde shifted.
Here and there, the largest spiders vanished from sight, invisible, taking with them whatever smaller spiders they controled. The descending cloud became a patchwork mess of unattended spiders who were already half dead, spent from the mating, but still ready to kill whatever enemy they could sink their fangs into. These visible spiders would draw the ire of the prey below, while the invisible mothers rapidly descended in controlled falls, avoiding bursts of wind from their prey designed to push them off course.
The first Ophiel to blip into the swarm was instantly set upon by hidden monsters.
The second Ophiel blipped closer to Kal’Duresh, into the sky just above the defenders of the city. A calm white orb formed around Ophiel, as thick air tore up from the ground like a sentient tsunami, like an ooze larger than the world had ever seen before, except for the last time this particular spell had been used. That ooze ripped into the descending horde, squeezing the life out of everything large enough to prove a major problem.
Black striped mothers curled, dried, and died. They dropped to the ground. The invisible turned visible, and died.
Another Ophiel popped into the space between the Ballooning Spiders and the incani city. And then another. A fourth Ophiel appeared. As one, they set about constructing their own floating platforms, then filling them with dense, Restful air. Once they were prepared, they took their position against the monsters, and called the Withering Slime to Veird.
Gently glowing white spheres radiated tsunamis of thick-air ooze into the sky, pulling down every monster they could. After a moment, the original Ophiel on the scene constructed his own Saturn-like construct of floating platform and dense air, and took the fight back to the monsters.
Ophiel did the heavy lifting, but they could not get the smaller spiders or the unattended egg sacs. Tiny white spiders were just as deadly as the large ones. But they couldn’t turn invisible. They had no coordination.
They were sitting ducks.
Mages cast fire and ice, wind and rock, poison and radiant power, out against the invaders.
But the horde kept coming. The spiders controlled vast stretches of air, funneling themselves toward the city below, toward their deaths, or to victory, whichever came was fine by them.
They did not care about dying. They had spent their lives well in advance of this day. They had even gathered the winds to them and chosen their target, knowing that a city was the harder, yet rewarding choice, as opposed to somewhere outside of this blighted desert. Those who survived and thrived against this culling would become stronger for it. They would become the next matriarchs of their horde in the Underworld.
Some of them always survived, and that was enough.
Those still high in the sky directed streams of winds hundreds of meters wide against the wind thrown at them from those on the ground. The horde won. The surviving mothers pushed their forces forward, into the city, hoping that they could find food and power. They thought they knew what they were doing, but they had never come up against [Withering] before.
And then the sky shifted, stealing from the horde the only power they truly had.
The shifting air was not the fury of nature directed by a mortal, but more like a pattern changing; a background turned to the right. An ocean of air deciding to alter course in a way it never had before.
The ocean carried the descending horde to the right. They were off course! They would hit the dreaded orange land! There was no coming back from that! The mothers panicked. They fought with all their might against the sky, controlling their kin to redirect the air, but the very sky had turned against them. They had lost the pattern. Fighting mages for control of the natural world was easy, but fighting the natural world? Impossible.
Maybe those who came after the front lines could do better. They usually did.
The horde fell to crystalline jaws.
- - - -
Erick left his Ophiel running for a while longer, but it probably wasn’t necessary. The Ballooning Spider Horde was falling onto the Crystal Forest. Mimics were already killing and eating white spiders for kilometers in every direction.
Erick, still in his armchair, holding his book of weather open, said to Poi, “I didn’t go fully against the normal background winds, but I did turn the wind from northerlies, to easterlies. I’m not entirely sure, but I think the effect is something of a circular, diffusive change, beginning around five kilometers north of Kal’Duresh, and extending in every direction. I tried to turn the winds around completely, but the base casting cost was not enough to achieve such a change. As it is right now, the spell should remain in place for a day, according to the minimum duration listed in the spell’s box. I will have to do more experiments to find out more of what I have done.” He said, “If the Baroness wants to know what happened, that was it. Don’t tell her the name of the spell or what it does, exactly. I’ll keep Ophiel around to help with the stragglers.”
Poi nodded, then looked to the air. After a moment, he said, “She thanks you for your assistance and says that these hordes descend for anywhere from a day to three. She wishes for you to do whatever you did, again, if it comes to that. If your Ophiel could remain for now, that would be most acceptable.”
Erick smiled. “I like that. ‘Most acceptable’. Tell her that Ophiel will stay as long as needed, but if Spur gets an attack, too, then I must focus on here, of course.”
Poi nodded. After a moment, he said, “The Baroness accepts your terms.” He added, “Silverite has caught wind of what you did, and wishes to employ the same spell in front of Spur.”
“… did you make a joke there, Poi?”
Poi stood straight. “Entirely unintentional.”
Erick smiled. Then he sent an Ophiel out to change the weather to the north of Spur. He said, “Done. I did something slightly different north of Spur. There is now a corridor of wind maybe three kilometers thick and something like ten kilometers wide, traveling from the east to west. If the spiders manage to navigate that, then I can change it up again.”
Poi nodded.
Erick asked, “Do you think the spiders will bother Frontier? They’d have to travel around Ar’Kendrithyst, first.”
“They might. Ballooning Spiders historically avoid Ar’Kendrithyst, but they can still hit Frontier.” He added, “Right now, they are literally all across the globe, mating in the skies. They can come down from literally anywhere.”
“Then when the spiders come for Frontier, I’ll do something for them, too.” He paused. He said, “Actually... Can you tell Silverite that she is free to negotiate prices for the same to be done for every city of the Crystal Forest? I’ll help anyone who wants help.”
“I’ll let her know.”
Erick went back to his book on weather patterns, thinking about the winds he had seen people cast from the roofs of Kal’Duresh, and the counter winds cast by the spiders. Nothing either side did was as powerful as the brief moment at that bar, so long ago, when he celebrated the creation of [Exalted Storm Aura], and Krakina painted the sunset sky with a brief [Nature’s Fury]. Her green winds briefly tore a tornado from above, before the Guard shut that down.
Erick smiled to himself, remembering Krakina’s cackling laugh. What would she think of him messing around with prevailing winds?
She’d probably get angry.
- - - -
Hours had passed, while Erick read.
It was a simple fact that magic used in a precise way, along established paths, cost less and did more. Nowhere was this fact more true, than in Erick’s own Particle Magic. This was why he wanted to find out more about the natural weather of the Crystal Forest. Small changes to vast systems would likely last longer, and cost less to change.
An object in motion can be deflected a heck of a lot easier than being shot right back to where it came from, right?
… But… Maybe that wasn’t entirely true. [Reflection Ward] was pretty cheap, after all.
Anyway! In the vast majority of cases, changing a system in small ways was easier. According to Erick’s reading, and his own experiences, the Crystal Forest had roughly three seasons. Water Season, which was basically Spring. Wyrm Season, Dry Season, Oh God Why Is It So Hot, and Summer, were all the same season. Dry Season lasted well over over into Autumn, and was almost as hot as Hot Season. Then came Sandstorm Season, which was Winter, and also not. The Crystal Forest did not truly experience Winter, except at night, when the normal chill of the loss of the sun became something much deeper. But there was certainly no snow.
Erick kinda missed snow.
The prevailing winds of the Crystal Forest were well known. In the east, the wind blew south. In the north, the wind blew south. In the south, but only near the coast, the wind changed it up a bit, blowing from land to the ocean at night, and from the ocean to the land, in other words, to the north, during the day. And in the west, it was back to northerlies.
A high-powered jet stream ran along the coast of the Crystal Forest, flowing from west to east, chasing the sun.
According to everything Erick read, he did not think his [Weather Control] would last very long. It might not even last a full day. Increasing the spell’s level, by casting it as much as he had, had done nothing to increase the duration of the magic. It was still ‘minimum: 1 day, maximum: 1 month.’
And since there was nothing natural about northerly winds suddenly shifting to easterlies, the spell was surely running out of power. Probably rather fast, too. Thankfully, Ballooning Spiders didn’t have [Dispel].
… How did [Dispel] work when the spell was spread out over ten kilometers?
Something to investigate, right there!
Erick checked on the state of Kal’Duresh, through the Ophiel still stationed there. The sky was still raining dead, dying, and tiny spiders, and they were definitely getting funneled off to the west, but some of them had regrouped, and changed tactics.
Deep in the winds, some of them were putting out more threads, to catch the air and divert their destination back into the sky, to rejoin the greater horde up above. Erick frowned. That was just leaving an enemy for another day, and that would not do. He recast his spell, but this time he put more thought into his magic.
Wind curled overhead, easterlies becoming northerlies once again, but cold, while a heavy and hot ocean of air, just above the ground, pushed upward. The combined effect took a moment, but it happened fast enough. Dust devils sprang from the ground, catching orange sands into tight funnels that reached upward into the sky. Spiders tumbled directly down from the above, their many threads tangling into one, uncontrollable mass.
Erick cast a [Withering] into the land below, but kept it above the actual ground; he wanted the mimics to take care of those who managed to make it through the storm, since they were the simple solution, here.
Tornadoes of dead spiders crashed into the ground, kilometers from Kal’Duresh. Mimics swarmed and began killing what Erick could not.
Eh. He didn’t really need the mimics, did he? No. Erick moved an Ophiel into the area. Ophiel supplied his [Domain of the Withering Slime], killing everything, while Erick tinkered with [Control Weather], aiming to pull down more spiders, faster and faster. He added [Shimmer]s on the ground, turning sand molten with heat, setting corpses on fire, providing more sources of upward wind.
Shimmer X, long range, 1 minute per level, 250 MP
Tiny specks of incandescent heat fill a large space, igniting flammable objects and dealing
He almost added [Wintry Sea]s to the sky, to create more falling, heavy air, but his short attempt at that proved to destabilize the whole system, as the errant blue spells went wild, and usually crashed to the ground, searching for targets to murder. He stuck with [Shimmer], and heat, for now.
At the height of his control, he had three tornadoes going at once.
Three, almost natural tornadoes!
Well. Not actual tornadoes. They were only maybe a dozen meters across, and all they did was rip up sand and rip down spiders, sending smoking corpses up and down on columns of hot air. They were more like dust devils, than true tornadoes. Erick probably needed to add [Call Lightning], to make a real storm, to make a tornado or three. There was just not enough moisture in the atmosphere of the Crystal Forest for the heat transfers necessary for tornadoes to properly form.
But his three dust devils became large enough to tear down the horde, anyway.
So that was cool.
Erick smiled as he cast another [Control Weather], shaping what was already there into a more perfect form. Three dust devils became four, and that was super cool.
And look, the spell had leveled to 10.
Control Weather X, one minute, super long range, <500 mana + Variable>
Change the weather in a location. Effect lasts longer if desired weather and location are conducive to each other. Minimum duration: <1 day>. Maximum duration: <1 month>.
Particle Mage Only.
Still no change in the box, though.
Erick went back to the Ophiel overlooking the storm. The first dust devil had risen an hour ago, with subsequent mini-tornadoes rising soon after. By now, most of the sky was clear of spiders. Maybe it would stay that way? Had Erick pulled down the whole horde? He looked at his most recent notifications, and picked one of the tumbling blue boxes at random. It was much easier to count kills now that his listings weren’t in alphabet base 26.
You have slain Ballooning Spider 1,574,971!
95% participation!
+12,789,555 exp
Not all of them were worth that much experience; most were worth considerably less. But they were all called the same thing, and since they were all called the same thing, and since Ballooning Spider attacks were well documented, at 1-point-5 million kills, Erick knew he had gone through roughly 75% of the attack. Maybe more, maybe less. Horde sizes varied, but not by much. The kills were slowing down, of course, but Erick suspected the attack on Kal’Duresh would not even last into the night.
Erick renewed a few choice pockets of [Shimmer] on the ground. Dried spider bodies turned to broken flames as dust devils carried bright sparks and burning corpses into the air. That done, he went back to reading.
Weather was pretty interesting stuff! A lot of people had done a lot of magical experimentation on the subject before, but most of what his book talked about was conjecture, observational studies, and magical theory. Not many people, and certainly not the people who wrote this book, could just up and control the weather, proving their theories as true or false.
Maybe he should write some of these people letters, letting them know if they were on the right track, or not.
Ah! He almost forgot about the rads! Some of them had burned up, for sure, but the battlefield was absolutely littered with dried corpses, for kilometers in every direction.
Ophiels began summoning Jewels, while Erick did the same. Soon, the battlefield was littered with knife wielding crystals, chopped up corpses —some still burning—, and piles and piles of rads.
- - - -
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Erick showed up at Al’s Sewerhouse just before sunset. The golden building was closed for the night, but the lights were on upstairs. A quick telepathic connection brought Al outside. He looked pretty great. He wore black, as usual, and a smile. Erick hadn’t dressed up much, himself, but he was ready for wherever the night took him. First, he wanted dinner, though.
Erick greeted Al, “Hey, Al! I’m hungry. Let’s eat. my treat. I’ve just killed Ballooning Spider number two million.” Erick smiled. “Definitely did not get that many rads out of them, though. But it’s a lot, so far.”
Al returned Erick’s smile, seeming to relax as his shoulders shook with a small laugh. “I could always eat. Have you ever been to The Regian’te?”
“Nope. Sounds fancy, though.” Erick pulled at his shirt. “Not sure if I’m dressed well enough.”
Al smirked. “This is Spur. We get all types, here. I’m sure they won’t care.”
“Then lead the way!”
Al led the way. They spoke of news and people they had recently met. Al spoke of rookies messing up the sewers, while Erick said he had still never been down there, ever. Erick spoke of magic, and auras, and Al opened up like a burst damn. He loved aura magic, and math, and it showed in his speech and his happy face.
They made it to the Regian’te. It was the top floor of a ten story building, situated near the Mage District. It was fancy. Expensive fabrics on the tables. Drinks in cut crystal glasses. Menus with only three items on them. Mood lighting, and mostly private booths. Erick must have been the least properly dressed person in sight, but no one cared about how he dressed, or that he did not have a reservation.
While Poi and Kiri shared a seat at the table behind them, Al and Erick sat down at one of the nicest tables, with a full view of Spur in the east. There were no skyscrapers in this city, but stone buildings got pretty tall. Erick commented on the buildings. Al said something about how that’s the highest they can build with stone; it breaks on its own if you don’t build right. Whatever the case, the city was a pretty sight, for sure. Lights shone along building edges, and inside apartment buildings and business spaces, giving brilliance to the deepening night.
“I’m not used to being the second person recognized when I walk in a building,” Al joked, as the waiter filled their glasses with water. He said, “We haven’t done this in a while.”
“Projects have gotten away from me, so that’s my excuse.” Erick asked, “What’s yours?”
“Hangups, mostly.” Al said, “So, I was saying about Auras, natural versus magical.”
Erick smiled. Al had already gone over all the basics on the walk over here, explaining what Aurify did, and what Erick already knew based on his own experimentation. Al had almost become an Auramancer in his younger years, but while he kept that thread of interest alive, he had eventually opted into Stone Mage. As for his particular variant of Stone Mage? He communicated that to Erick with silent [Telepathy], for secrecy’s sake.
Al’s Class was Stone Mage. Just Stone Mage. Nothing special. Erick punched him in the arm for that, but Al just laughed.
Al said, “Natural auras came first, of course. It is suspected, but Rozeta has never confirmed, that we get Health and Mana from a shift of the naturally occurring aura that any being with a soul possesses.”
“I could see that.”
Al nodded. He almost spoke, but instead paused, as the waiter came by for their decisions. This wasn’t the kind of place that had many options on their menu, because what you ordered was one of three options, and they paired everything else with what they were serving, and that included drinks. When that was taken care of, and Al had ordered the steak, and Erick had too, Al continued, “The best magical auras, meaning those with the most damage and control it is possible for an individual to achieve, all involve taking your natural aura and pairing it with the best spells that represent you, as an individual. But you can also go the other way, and start with a spell you really like, and thus mold your self and your aura to better fit your magic. That second way takes years, though. You’ve probably already figured this out, but you already have better control over your [Exalted Storm Aura] these days, than you did in the beginning, right?”
Erick thought about that. “I don’t really know about that. I have gotten better with landing the spell exactly where I want it to land, but not by much.”
Al smiled. “It’s entirely possible that you made a spell that already suits you perfectly. In such a case, improvements of the spell are rare, and you wouldn’t experience much of a personal change.” He added, “Take, for example: A Water Mage using a [Fireball Aura] would probably run into issues with singed hair and burned skin, where the disconnect between their normal magic and fire magic would cause their natural aura to fray. But a true Fire Mage would have no issues with a [Fireball Aura].”
Erick thought about that. He would have thought everyone would have had trouble with a [Fireball Aura]. He had never tried to make one though. Maybe he should try?
If he ever decided to make a [Vivid Gloom Aura], he would probably end up with a lot more problems than damaged skin and singed hair. But that would be true for everyone when it came to creating an aura out of [Vivid Gloom], right? Or maybe… was this the reason that Poison Archmage was perfectly fine inside her own orange cloud?
Al smirked. “I can see you don’t believe me.”
“I’m just saying, this requires some testing.”
Al laughed.
Erick smiled, to see the man laugh. This was a good idea. He should have done this a while ago. To be fair, there were a lot of problems out there, right now, but he was solving them as he could. At that thought, Erick said, “Ah. Yeah. I need to check on this thing. Shouldn’t take long.”
Al nodded.
A brief check on the Ophiel north of Kal’Duresh revealed that the storm was still going, and that spiders were still dying, and burning up once they touched the fire-covered ground. Erick quickly renewed a few necessary spells, and then came back to himself. He had only been gone for five seconds.
Al said, “You know, that’s a rather impressive storm you made.”
“I’m learning all about weather patterns now so that I can cast the spell more effectively.” Erick felt a stab of pain, as he said, “I miss Krakina. I would have loved to ask her some questions. She’d know a lot about the weather around here.” He added, “Not too sure I should talk to Ikawa, though. That didn’t go so well, last time.”
Al looked away. He said, “We lost a lot that day.”
At that segue, Erick asked, “How is Savral? What’s going on with him?”
After a minute, Al turned to face Erick. “It’s not going as good as it could, but it will get better. He is missing memories, but I’ve talked to others who did the same thing as I… Some people are doing rather well. Others, not so much. The group I’m in— We think we’ve found a pattern to the problems. Those who lead violent lives of killing monsters are doing worse than those who stayed in the city and tried to live calm lives.” Al said, “The woman said to treat people like they had Dragon Essence poisoning, but we did that. We just didn’t think she meant that people had to completely change who they were. Some of the adventurers who... got better, they went out into the Crystal Forest to try and ‘find themselves’.” Al looked away. “Those ones have done the worst, and Savral is a part of that group.” He turned back. “I couldn’t stop him from testing himself against a mimic. He did fine, of course, but then he forgot about a stupid spice he liked to use all the time.”
Al bunched his fist, then relaxed it, slowly. Moments passed.
“I’m sorry, Al.”
“Thank you for saying such, but it is not your fault.” Al said, “This was my choice.”
The drinks arrived, along with salads and bread. Erick ordered something harder than the wine that was part of their meal. Al smiled again at some funny little joke Erick made, and it was good.
When the first course was done, Erick asked, “So how do you lock down someone from using Spatial Magic? When I have to fight, I want to be able to keep the enemy from avoiding the fight.” He added, “I was thinking imbuing [Dispel] and [Teleport] into an aura attack, or something. Something that would stick around on the target for a while, or at least until the spell ran out. Maybe something with [Conjure Bind]? But I have yet to make that spell, either.”
Al shook his head. “[Conjure Bind] is decent. You might have to go that route. Aura attacks are only useful when someone doesn’t know what you’ve done. I can show you some of how that works later, but all you have to do to clear your aura is use [Cleanse]. If you truly want to deny someone their Spatial magic, you have to use parasites.” He added, “Monsters rarely have Spatial magic though— Oh. I see.” He said, “But shadelings don’t have Spatial magic, either, I think?”
“Shades do.”
Al sat a bit straighter. “Ah.” He thought for a minute. He said, “It could work. [Conjure Bind] would be useless against a Shade, for sure.” He said, “And you’ve reminded me: What you want to know is actually called Curse Magic. Almost all of that is locked behind the Witch Class.”
“… Oh?” Erick connected some dots in his mind, then said, “[Cleanse] is a gift from the gods. Curses are an aura affliction. So that’s how divine magic works to clear out curses? It purges the aura?” An anomaly reared its head. Erick looked to the ring on his finger. “Then why do my rings work, too?”
“The mysteries of magic are many.” Al smiled. “But if I had to guess, it would be because the aura is produced by the soul and magnified in different ways by the presence of the body and the mind. But we get access to the Script through our souls. And so, strengthening the soul and body with boosting rings that will not break, has a bolstering effect on the natural [Cleanse] that normally flows through the [Script] to keep it functional and whole.” Al said, “That’s pure conjecture on my part, though. You probably won’t hear that from anyone else, and I’m likely wrong. But that’s what I’m thinking is happening.”
Erick thought for a moment. “The Army has said that these rings don’t instantly clear out curses; it takes a short while, and it destroyed the rings, too.” He asked, “A loop of interaction that gradually erodes the magic inherent in a curse?”
“That’s another way to put it; sure.”
Erick asked, “How does the divine clean out curses?”
Al spoke strongly, “With divine might! Plowing through the curse! Brushing it aside with the power of a god!” Al relaxed, smirking. “I have no idea.”
“Is the Curse of the Shadeling the same?”
“Ah.” Al thought. He said, “Probably not.” He added, “I don’t know much about curses except how to notice when one has invaded my aura. I can show you some aura control, later, if you wish. That should enable you to do the same, but there’s no way to know for sure. I haven’t had to fight off a curse in decades and I don’t have any Curse Magic of my own.” He said, “Aura control is pretty esoteric. It’s not that useful except for shaping aura spells.” He paused. “But that would be pretty useful for you, wouldn’t it?”
Erick smiled. “Probably.”
Al jolted. He said, “Oh! I almost forgot. Curse Magic is highly illegal. You could probably get around those laws, though.” He waved a dismissive hand, saying, “Silverite probably won’t care if you learn some curses.”
Erick said, “She might even know someone I could talk to.”
Al nodded.
Their food arrived. It was delicious. They spoke of their last months, like they were friends getting together on the weekends as they always did, and not like two people who had barely spoken to each other in a long while. When the meal was over, after three courses and dessert, Erick insisted on paying the bill. Al only relented when Erick said he was already paying for Kiri and Poi’s meals. The bill came out to 4500 gold. Erick was surprised at that, but it was a good dinner, with a good view, and even better company. In order to actually pay, though, he had an Ophiel blip in a 900 count pile of rads into a side room; Erick’s many, many Jewels had been working overtime to gather what they could from spider corpses.
After dinner, Poi briefly informed Erick that the spider horde was gone. He could stop the storm, now.
So Erick stopped the storm, and then he reorganized his collection protocols. Ophiels and Jewels continued to work long into the night, but since there was no need to deal damage anymore and all the tiny spiders were burned away in the fires, Ophiel started using a different spell to help the many, many Jewels work faster.
Cleansing Flame, instant, medium range, 15 MP
A smokeless flame gradually consumes and transforms a large amount of organic material to naught but air.
Deals no damage.
Piles of spider corpses caught on white fire, transforming into thick air that twisted away on the northern winds, leaving glittering rads strewn across the desert, like a strange reflection of the night sky above. Jewels picked those rads from the ground like they were plucking stars, gathering their harvest against their quartz-like bodies.
Erick, meanwhile, got an introduction to aura control in the third story classroom of his house.
An hour of discussion and attempts passed easily, at first, but quickly got rather rough.
Al finally got too disgusted to continue. “But you use your aura all the time! How can you not see what I’m telling you?!”
Erick laughed. “Just like old times.”
Al frowned. “It’s barely midnight. I want a drink. You’re buying, rich man.”
“Sounds good to me.” Erick smiled.
In minutes, Al and Erick, along with Teressa, Kiri, and Poi, were back on the town. It wasn’t long till they were drinking at a nice, open air amphitheater-slash-bar on the third story of a building just beyond the Gardens, near the Human District. The place had a beautiful view of the northern sky, past the wall, and live entertainment. [Weather Ward]s stretched between stone pillars, keeping the wind out, but not the chill. There was no roof. Some people happily huddled together, while other, less amorous visitors, enjoyed private fires scattered here and there. Erick and Al had a fire. He also had a clear view of the night sky. Stars twinkled above like motes of light in the endless dark.
The band tonight was called Veruna and the Rumblers. Their lead woman was an incani of some beauty, with violet skin and violet horns. Her dress was a simple cotton thing that twisted in the breeze as she sang of the dearly departed and forever loved, of emotions and ceremony, while her band played along in a style that Erick would have called art rock, or maybe classical but with a stronger sound. Whatever it was, it was good.
Erick smiled, listening to the music, drinking his beer. He clapped between songs, like the rest of those present.
After two songs, he whispered to Al, “She’s pretty good. This was a good idea.”
Al smiled wide. He nodded.
Some time later, something shifted in the crowd. Erick was not the first to notice the problem, at all, but he caught on quick enough when people started pointing to the north. The twinkling stars seemed to twinkle a bit more than they should. Some of the stars even vanished completely for long moments.
Veruna stopped singing. The band stopped playing. Some people turned to look at Erick.
Erick turned to his guards. Poi was already walking toward him.
‘Sir,’ Poi sent, ‘Ballooning Spiders will descend on Spur in thirty minutes. It seems that the spiders have accounted for your [Weather Control]. Something more drastic must be done.’
‘Okay. I’m on it.’ And then he spoke loud enough for people to overhear, “I’ll take care of it.” He sent to Poi, ‘I won’t leave myself, much, but I will be slightly vulnerable.’
‘Understood.’
Ophiel, on Erick’s shoulder, was happy listening to the band. He would have rather floated above the singers and joined in the song, but Erick readily put a lid on that, controlling the tiny feathered [Familiar] to sit on his shoulder and behave. But now, with the music over, and danger approaching, playtime was over. It was time for work. Through his [Familiar]’s eyes, Erick saw Teressa loom behind him, facing backward, protecting his rear, while Poi stood to his right, ever vigilant. Kiri stayed near the bar; a set of eyes to watch from a different angle.
Erick began summoning enough Ophiel to bring him back up to his cap, while remaining mostly high mana. One by one, they blipped away to first summon their Saturn-like configurations, before blipping again, into the sky.
When the first Ophiel arrived in the skies north of Spur, spider threads caught on his shield, and spiders, meters wide, landed atop Ophiel’s dense air. They stabbed into the unknown, solid space, with long, oozing fangs, but Ophiel released his [Domain of the Withering Slime], and the assault ended as fast as it began. Spiders died, dried, and fell away, revealing the horde as far as Ophiel’s many eyes could see.
Erick changed the weather, casting wind into a twisting vortex, aiming for dust devils like before.
But something failed. The storm did not twist how Erick wanted—
Ah. A source of heat on the ground. Right. This was ‘Winter’, and it was pretty darn cold out there this far past sunset. Erick had his Ophiels blip around the battlefield, layering the ground every hundred meters with bright [Shimmer]s, casting heat into the night, while he layered [Call Lightning]s into the space above the spiders. In ten minutes, the field was primed.
Erick gave the weather another push, while he gave each Ophiel the appropriate spells, and set them to task.
He came back to himself, sitting in a spellbound, silent audience, while the skies north of Spur began to churn with flickering clouds. Rain began to fall on long lasting balls of fire that populated the desert, while lightning flickered in towering clouds. The stationary fireballs provided little light, so it was hard to see—
Here and there, someone turned on the lights in the sky. Massive lightwards shone onto falling, hungry spiders, and onto the clouds that chased them. The clouds were dark with rain, but the spiders were bright white, and their horde larger than the clouds. It had to be nineteen, twenty kilometers from east to west? Much more than that from north to south.
Ophiel’s own Domains were not large enough to cut into the whole swarm, but they did cast large swaths of spiders to the ground. But these spiders controlled the wind, and they were a hive mind species. The dying informed the living of what was to come, and the horde parted the sky like only a thousand mages working in concert could, dodging the thick air swirling around each flying Ophiel.
Erick felt his first spike of worry of the night, as spiders whipped around kilometer wide killzones, still headed for Spur, and sirens began to blare.
BrrrRRRRRRRRRRR!
The siren came and went in mere moments. Silverite spoke to the city:
“Attention Spur. Ballooning Spiders are falling. Our Archmages are fighting, but smaller spiders may get through. They are just as deadly as the adults. Take cover, or prepare to fight. I repeat: The smaller spiders are just as deadly as the adults.”
Erick felt his second spike of worry of the night.
A personal message came directly to Erick’s mind, ‘We could use a Domain across the city, and some imaging for the spiders somewhere. Your house is fine, or at the Guardhouse.’
‘On it.’
Erick worked fast. He finagled with the storm, connecting heat and cold and tumbling currents into a stream of air that churned from east to west, like a wave crashing in the sky. At a nudge, the sideways wind shifted, one end up, the other down. The spiders fought back, turning the air back to calm, but they were spitting into the wind; they could not fight the whole sky. Clouds turned violent, turning into tumblers, catching threads and pulling in spiders like a spindle transformed wool into yarn. Erick, and his entire audience, watched, as a churning air touched down on one side of the battlefield, pulling sky to the ground, and the fires of the desert into the swarm.
The whole thing caught fire at once, as thin, flammable spider threads proved to be excellent fuel, disrupting the whole storm system. The conflagration was short lived, drowned out by falling rains, but the heat those massive moments supplied to the system lasted much longer. Fires twisted and clouds spun. Dried spiders caught fire. People gasped to watch the death happening right outside their city.
Erick took one of the Ophiel and sent him blipping to the battlefield floor to pick up something—
A spider leg! Ophiel grabbed the meter-long, partially charred limb, then blipped directly to the courtyard of the Guardhouse. People were already there. Someone reacted to Ophiel’s appearance with a [Force Beam] that briefly swiped against the feathered [Familiar], but the caster cut the spell before much happened. Ophiel glared at the offender, but Erick brought his attention back to task. Soon, a ball of cascading light glowed high above the Guardhouse, while a map of Spur appeared in the courtyard, with blue dots marked for every single Ballooning Spider. Erick had not made a DNA scan, but he did use the spider limb to set his 20 kilometer radius map to better target exactly what he wanted to target. It was only that size, because the Guard needed to see what was happening inside the city, not what was happening outside.
Erick had his third scare of the night, when blue dots appeared on the map; they were already here.
Erick immediately had the Ophiel by the guardhouse blip to the center of the city; it was the only one free at the moment, all the rest were busy killing the swarm. As that Ophiel appeared in the center of Spur, Erick channeled his own Domain through him, casting his own magic so that he could hit the entire city with his aura, at once.
He came back to himself, still sitting in the silent music bar. Thick air lifted from all around him, as notifications poured through the sides of his visions, and a kilometer wide tornado ripped across the land far ahead. Spiders tried to fight the storm. They cast diverting winds into the tornado, trying to change their fate, but Erick had set the system up too well. They caught on the threads of their fellow spiders and tumbled down into waiting [Domains of the Withering Slime].
Ten minutes passed. The blue dots on Erick’s map were already vanishing, as the Guard sent people out to deal with the problems. It wouldn’t be long till the city was empty of all Ballooning Spiders.
The ones to the north who chose to attack en masse, instead of on their own, never had a chance. None of them got through Erick’s storm.
Veruna, the singer, spoke up from her spot on the stage, tentatively asking Erick, “Are we good?”
Every eye in the music bar was already on him.
Erick said, “I think so. Looks like the Guard is clearing out those that made it to the city. I’ll let you know if we’re not.”
Veruna smirked, then she smiled, then she laughed. “Good!” She said, “Because this is the most adamantine backdrop I could ever ask for. [Strike] it, boys!”
Her bandmates happily obliged. The tornado continue to churn death in the background, while Veruna belted out a song of glorious battle and hard fought life. It was a good song.
Erick’s mind was occasionally in eleven places at once, to make sure that Spur remained safe from the spiders, but the battle was won as soon as the two kilometer wide tornado began to churn and tear down the swarm. Erick mainly kept the weather running with fires and control, as he sat next to Al, listening to the band, the occasional crack of sky-filling lightning, and the far away rumble of a tornado.
The patrons at the bar loved it. They cheered louder, they drank more. Some people tried to buy Erick a drink, but he shook his head.
Before long, Silverite sat down next to him. She smiled, saying, “This is fun.”
Erick laughed. He had another beer, but he kept himself sober.