Chapter 91
Combat Medic
Whoosh, pulse, scatter shot, scatter shot disrupt.
I was casting.
With my left hand I would use Quick Cast, to create a spell that I would simultaneously Pulse, and use Legendary Trick Shot with. Then with my right, I would use Quick Cast to create a Dispersal spell that would try to strike my one Legendary Trick Shot, with a separate identical Legendary Trick shot.
Mallory for her part just kept watching, though I could tell she was at the very least aware of such spells being cast behind her. Aside from a few occasional twitches she seemed to be on board with the whole process of me trying to practice my different spell castings to improve my skills.
From my understanding we had miles to go, and Mallory wasn’t taking us on a direct path, but rather bringing us so we would be a neutral party that met at the lines of separation where the orcs met the elves in open combat. Though open was a bit broader of a term than most would probably admit as open in this case meant they were fighting each other, but both sides were bunkered down and firing shots and magical spells at each other from a few hundred paces away. I guess in a way we were lucky that no true artillery pieces were being used in this war so far, but then thinking about that most of the artillery pieces would require wood and this place had long ago been harvested for most trees. In fact, the one little oasis out in the middle of the desert was the one spot I have seen so far that even had a tree.
Supposedly there was an Yggdrasil, or at least the spiritual equivalent of Yggdrasil, but I couldn’t tell. I could see the faint magical outlines of what appeared to be deep magical roots far underground, but unfortunately for the plant that the roots were linked to, there was corruption and Blight even under the ground. That was the main reason why I started my incessant casting of spell and counter-spells all at the same time. Well, one of many reasons. I am not going to lie and say I only practiced my new skills as a means to distract myself. Honestly, I know me at this point and a shiny ball could distract me for a moment, but skill grinding is one of my favorite pastimes. So I cast, while I keep moving forward at the same exact rate and speed as Mallory, casting spell and counter spell all at the same time.
Twitch.
Mallory twitches, and I can almost see the moment she gets annoyed by my incessant casting, but then stops herself from yelling at me. It’s times like these that I realize Mallory truly was a mother, for only parents could see something like this that causes them to flinch and be annoyed, only to take a deep breath and then reset their annoyance counter. Of course, the annoyance counter in this case is the number of spells per step we can take before she gets that odd twitch to her, then rolls her shoulders and tries again to calm herself.
Unfortunately for Mallory, both her patience seems to be going down, while my ability to cast the spell and counter spell are getting better and better. By now I can do two castings per stride, well really one and a half, but I am getting closer to two casts per stride.
Double cast.
There I did it, and that is the exact second that Mallory turns around, chest heaving as she is clearly taking in deep breaths to try to relax herself. Me for my part I am walking with my arms out wide, casting both my spell and counter spell as quickly and accurately as possible. Cast, spin, twist the hands in opposite directions, then wait for them to collide.
Poof, magic smoke.
Mallory pauses and looks at me. Seeing that she has stopped moving, I continue to cast, but use this time to ask.
“Everything alright?”
Mallory stares at me for a second, but then just lets out an annoyed breath.
Poof, more magic smoke.
Seeing the two spells collide right there in front of me causes her to pause and take in the scene before her. Then letting out a breath, she seems to relax slightly.
Seeing her, I decided to preemptively apologize.
“Sorry about this, it’s just that I don’t know another time when I can improve these skills in a relatively safe environment like this.” I state.
“Safe? We are about to enter a war zone.” Mallory says with a note of incredulity to her voice.
“I know that, but when else am I going to have you to protect me.” I state, and at that Mallory seems to visibly deflate. With that, I press the advantage, “also, I think I will need the Attribute and Skill increases with what we are about to face.”
With that Mallory stops herself and then turns around, nodding her head in agreement. Then a second later she begins walking forward.
With that, I too begin trying to walk and cast spells at the same time again. It is a bit of a mental exercise to do everything like this, but it does get easier the longer I press on. I also realize that this is the equivalent of when your bounces their ball against the wall to practice for whatever sport they are trying out for. As a parent you want to yell at them to cut it out, but simultaneously you know they need the practice, so they don’t embarrass you while playing in the game and have a pop fly pop out of their glove because they get frightened and act like they have never seen a baseball before that very moment. That or, they run towards the soccer ball, only to shy away from it at the last second as someone is angrily kicking the ball down the field. Or worse, the one time they put your child as the goalie on the field, and she went and got caught in the net while the opposing team charged at her with the ball. Not that I remember any of these from my life as a parent, these are just mere examples to be called upon. But seriously, I can see this being very annoying, as such I offer an olive branch.
“If you want, I could stop.”
At that, Mallory looks over her shoulder for a second, but then shakes her head.
Huff.
“No, sorry about that. It is annoying, but I can’t say that it isn’t paying dividends for me. Both my Detect Magic skill, and my Magical Awareness skills are increasing from just seeing you cast your spells. Especially the ones you cast behind my back. Had these not been the most difficult skills I had to improve I likely would have asked you to stop. As it is, this might honestly be the easiest way to level these skills I’ve ever had to deal with. And as annoying as the notifications of magical detections going off around me are, this is nothing compared to a Magic Missile to the back, or something equally as devastating.”
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“Oh,” is all I can think of at the moment. Then after a moment’s pause, I nod in understanding and then continue casting. “Okay, just let me know when it gets to be too much for you.”
“Too much for me? You are the one over here chain casting spells. Doesn’t that get tiring?”
I pause, but then shrug, “it’s not like I have too many other things that are pressing for my time. Also, simple spells like this are easy. I am just using the lowest setting Omni-Heal spell and countering it with a second, but exact opposite Omni-Heal. Then if that pool of energy gets too low, I switch to a different spell.”
At that Mallory pauses. “Omni-Heal?”
At that I realize I might have said too much, but then realize there isn’t much point in hiding that one. “Yes, it was my level 25 Void Healer class Trait I unlocked.”
Hearing that Mallory’s ears rolled up as she seemed to take the gravity of my comment in. “You unlocked a class specific trait at level 25?”
At that, I realized that I might have said too much, but then just decided to go with it, so I nodded and answered truthfully. “Yes.”
Again, these were components of my class that any one of my apprentices would learn, if I ever taught someone else how to be a Void Healer, so I didn’t feel like I was betraying too much. Also, the idea of a healer class having a healing specific Trait was not too hard to imagine.
We strode along for a few steps, while I continued practicing. Finally, Mallory asked, “so what exactly did you do to earn a class trait as part of your level 25 evolution?”
“Nothing much, just cured the Blight, I think that was also around the time when I learned to Resurrect people and generally came to my understanding for how to use Spirit Magic as a means to heal people.”
Finally, after a few more paces Mallory added, “if that is the standard needed at level 25 to unlock a Trait, even a powerful one like Omni-Heal seems to be, I can see why I have not been able to do so for my class.”
I pause, as I looked at Mallory, and saw her. Here she was nearing level 800 at the very least, meaning she had over eleven class evolution points under her belt, and if I was understanding things correctly, she had never unlocked a class Trait bonus, despite all her pioneering work she did over the years. That was, well that was something to be sure. I was in the middle of contemplating how to handle that, when we finally made it to the battlefield, and that is when all hell broke loose.
Boom!
Ratta-tat-tak.
Small arms fire went off, aided by magically infused bullets and other sources of energy. The world was alight with power and precision. It was clear that only a few people truly were aiming, and even those people had a hard time finding a target.
“So what is your play here?” Mallory asked.
“What?”
“Now that we are here, what exactly is it that you intend to do?”
At that I pause, “I intend to heal people, why?”
Mallory just shakes her head. “That isn’t how this type of thing works. You need to have a plan of action. You go heal a person, only for them to go back and fight?”
“What, well no. I want them and their squad to sit out after I heal them.”
“For how long?” She presses.
Hearing that, I have to pause, but then come up with the first number that comes to mind. “For a week or so? That should be more than enough time for us to at least make our way to the tree and not worry about being targeted by errant spells and attacks.”
Mallory just shakes her head. Apparently, I disappointed her in some way, to be fair I was hoping that she would have a way to deal with such a large-scale battle. Of the two of us, she was clearly the one with the most combat experience, as such relying on her to come up with a plan should not have been too much to think about.
“So you don’t want to pick a side, you are going to go at this from the idea of being Switzerland?” Mallory asked, and that is when I saw where her confusion was coming from.
“Yes, I would like to heal both sides and end this conflict as easily as possible.”
Hearing that Mallory paused, as she bit her lower lip, then paused. “You want to keep elves and orcs from battling each other, and you think this will be the easiest way to stop this battle?”
“Well it sounds stupid if you put it that way. But if we sell it, you know, revive your friends and loved ones. Get a week to rest and recuperate, then it sounds better.” I say.
Chuckle.
At that Mallory flashed a brilliant smile and just shook her head. “Fine. I’ll try this, only because I am curious to see if it works. So, the terms are free healing and resurrections for both sides, so long as the unit the healed person is a part of takes a week off?”
Hearing that I pause, then realizing that was likely the best I could come up with for the moment I nodded. “Yeah, let’s go with that.”
Shaking her head, I can still see that Mallory has her own doubts about this, but then chuckling lightly to herself she smiles brightly and says, “let’s go with it.”
Then in a second she began manifesting magical wings. These were bright golden wings that were so bright and awe inspiring that I felt the wind get sucked out of my chest as I took them in. I was watching a miracle, the wings of a Valkyrie, no, not just any Valkyrie, but the Valkyrie. Seeing her wings form and become manifest, I could see the moment when her aura and majesty went beyond our small two-person group and began to grab the attention of everyone around us. It was a simple thing at first, as first the spells stopped being cast, then the bullets stopped getting fired. This was a cascading effect as the entire battlefield slowly grew quiet as everyone tried to understand why the people down the line stopped firing. In this one moment of complete and utter silence, Mallory nodded to herself, clearly psyching herself up for her part to play in this.
Then with the flexing of her muscles she did a half crouch, lowering her body and bending her knees slightly like she was a seventy-year-old woman going to the gym for the first time in a decade. Then her bulging leg muscles coiled slightly, and she stood up. Or at least that is what the movement she made would best resemble, though she didn’t stand up, not in the traditional sense at least. She launched herself upwards, that slight but quick movement was enough to propel her hundreds of feet up in the air.
Flying high in the air, she rose until she was a good three hundred feet in the air. Once there her golden wings pulsed and shone with light magic. This wasn’t an attack spell, but rather just a simple Illusionary light spell, one that pulsed brighter than the sun for a moment. Since it was a beam of intense light, and not an attack the typical boundaries of magic were not applied, as such her spell was able to travel much further than her magic was capable of normally.
Then to add even more credence to her overwhelming presence on the battlefield, she gave out a giant whistle.
Wolf-whistle.
“My name is Mallory Deathstalker; I am the Valkyrie of this battlefield. I have come to offer you one chance at salvation, not only for yourselves, but also for your slain comrades around you. This is your one and only chance. Stop fighting now, form into two orderly lines, Orcs and Elves alike, in a staggering rotation. My partner will heal you, your friends, and anyone you bring before her.”
With that she paused, letting the words sink in. She used some type of battlefield speech, one that let her speak to everyone and anyone who was on the battlefield before her. Hearing her, everyone paused, then after a few seconds, people began to murmur amongst themselves. Hearing them, Mallory continued.
“There is but one condition that comes with these healings, once you are healed, you and your unit that you are with must abstain from combat for one week. We will heal anyone that comes, we will not choose a side in this conflict.” Mallory stated, then paused, as she realized one other ground rule that should also be stated. “Also know, that should you or anyone in your squad attack me, or my healer, I will personally kill every member of your squad, and ensure your souls never make it to rebirth. This I promise you.”
Then Mallory moved, her actions were far too fast to see. Fortunately, she aimed over and behind us, not once, but twice.
FWA-BOOOOMMM!
FWA-BOOOOMMM!
Two devastating attacks occurred, I think she pulled out a magically imbued scythe, one that she could either cast horizontally to take out a row of soldiers that were all standing in a line, or like she did in this case, where she angled the blow straight down and had it roll out into the distance.
A giant gouge that was easily five feet deep was carved into the ground and stretched on for a mile before finally running out of energy.
Silence.
Everyone stood there in shocked induced awe as they looked at the sheer devastation that Mallory had rendered in just a matter of seconds. Seeing that attack, and realizing that she could cast it twice in rapid succession proved a number of things, first it proved that it was not just a onetime bluff, that if she so wanted, she would and could do the same attack again. Also, it went to show just how outclassed everyone was when compared to Mallory. Anyone who remotely had thoughts of going up against Mallory to continue this little battle stopped, then realized that if they attacked, then such an attack would not only affect them, but their entire unit. Honestly, I had to admit, it was a rather effective attack, and an even better stupidity deterrent.
Stillness.
At first it appeared that Mallory’s demonstration had been a little too impressive, as everyone just stared up at her. I couldn’t blame them; this level of the tower was set up based on where I should have been had I not been power leveling myself through this tower climb. Meaning everyone here was set up to be at most level thirty to forty, with the leaders being in the seventies or the eighties. For any of them to see Mallory, who was vastly overpowered for this zone appear and issue threats caused everyone to pause and reevaluate their life choices.
Seeing everyone’s hesitation, Mallory shook her head in annoyance.
“Well!” Mallory shouted.
Then just like that, the two armies stopped fighting and began forming lines of people needing to be healed. And just like that, we went from having to choose a side in an endless battle, to being a two-person M.A.S.H. unit. Realizing that, I had only one question, did this make me Corporal Klinger due to my Doppelganger ability, or was I more of a Hawkeye Pierce? Then before I could get too lost in my thought the first patient appeared before me, and I was instantly in heal first, tell jokes second mode. That’s when I realized I was likely one of the side characters to this M.A.S.H. unit reboot.