The normally pink sky of Alfhiem shone with a rainbow of colors growing more intense as the wind picked up. Lightning strikes soon became frequent as mana collected giving a hint of blue across several miles of forest. From across an open plain on a tower in a large city, the view was beautiful. Although, the sound of raging monsters spurred on by the rift storm made the yearly occurrence foreboding for most. It was neither to Brand.
The wild magic and army of monsters charging towards the city were the least interesting thing to observe. He’d seen the rift storm a year ago when he first came to North Bastian. Back then, it was interesting but now it was like watching the rain. What captured his attention now was Ragnar, the man floating between the city and the charging beast.
His name was almost a title after the ancient hero of unlimited power, one earned through magic the striker could not explain. It made his status of king almost an afterthought but absolutely appropriate for the most powerful beast kin or mortal alive. Calling his mana S class failed to describe the infinite depths of his mana pool.
Finding said limits is why Brand sat on a tower in the middle of a storm of mana, one with far more lightning than any other. He didn't mind. In fact, Brand thought the lightning a wasted resource.
Whenever a rainbow-colored bolt struck his perch electrifying him, he converted the charge into pure mana. It had the unique taste of Alfhiem along with a hint of Jötunheimr mixed in due to the rift leading to the land of giants being the focal point of the storm. With a decent workforce, Brand could enchant every tower in the city to absorb the energies of the yearly storm. But for now, he was content using the mana he gained to cultivate.
He circulated and compressed mana within his body using it to build over the foundation he'd already laid with his life craft magic. Usually, there were only three ways to cultivate power. One was to sacrifice your own mana pool in order to fill the augments in one's body.
Some magi chose this path, especially in countries outside of Vellia who saw the only form of honored combat was with the sword in hand. This method was also by far the fastest giving immediate improvements over the course of months instead of years.
There was also the method anyone could and should use even while implementing other methods. Augments could be built by absorbing the ambient mana in the atmosphere. This method was slow taking more time than any to work. The advantage was that anyone could do it with a little concentration even if using another method as a primary source of improvement.
The last method was to use beast cores in place of one's own mana. One's mana pool would stay intact but the number of cores needed would be astronomical. For someone without the riches of a noble family, collecting the cores from the beast themselves was the only way.
This is what Brand had been doing for the last year when he wasn't studying the local magic or carrying out missions for his squad captain. Thankfully he'd come up with the idea of using the rift storm to his advantage to cultivate while observing his target. That allowed him to build quite a large hoard of the precious stones.
Suddenly a new source of mana enveloped the area. Brand pulled out a crystal ball and enchanted his eyes making sure not to miss a single detail of what was to come. In the distance, he saw Ragnar move his hands and intricate patterns. As he did, spell circles appeared all pointed towards the encroaching army of monsters like floating cannons primed with mage bolts.
Bringing his hands together, Ragnar unleashed more mage bolts than Brand could count. Each one struck the ground with a boom that seemed to shake the very bones of those watching. The magical battering slaughtered the rallied creatures blowing each one apart leaving only blood-drenched corpses and the unmistakable gleam of beast cores.
Ragnar landed on the freshly decimated ground. Not a blade of grass was left, only deep craters filled with the blood of hundreds of monsters. Not even the flyers were spared, as none were fast enough to avoid the deadly spells that fell like rain.
Brand felt another incredible release of mana but this time it was focused on the ground. The earth shifted under Ragnar's feet smoothing out the damage he'd caused. Soon the king and what was left of the monsters stood on perfectly flat land.
Within the next few moments, the barren land turned green as Ragnar forced life back into the patch of desert he created. Within the hour, soldiers of North Bastion would take the field, not to fight but to burn the monster corpses to not embolden any necromancers and collect the precious beast cores left behind.
Brand put away his crystal ball angry that once again he was unable to gather any clues towards Ragnar's power. The spell circles he used cost exponentially more mana the farther away they were making his first attack simply impossible not just from how powerful each individual spell was but their number and widespread arrangement. Him shifting the earth with only his mana should also be an impossible feat even with a focus making the mana usage more efficient. Making the damned grass grow was even more ridiculous than his previous accomplishments.
“How the fuck is he doing it?” Brand said to himself.
He looked up to the sky noticing he hadn't been struck by lightning in almost a minute and signed in annoyance. Ragnar’s mana somehow quelled the storm adding a fourth impossible feat under the King's belt.
“And I was so close to reaching my fifth gate.”
Brand examined himself. He’d need to cultivate mana in order to finish the augments on his body before opening his next gate, but there was no hurry. He hadn't made up his mind on what build he wished to use so there was no hurry. The only path he was set on was increasing the strength of his Ironsides spell. Anything more than that needed to be researched. As a life mage, he refused to settle for a basic build.
After staring at the blood-soaked field for a good while, Brand decided he'd seen enough. He pushed himself off the tower and fell nearly 1000 feet without trying to slow his descent with his roots to the world. Even trying would burn through his mana pool, but he had no need of such things.
A spell circle appeared around Brand’s feet just before he landed in an alley wedged between two buildings. The force that should have broken his legs traveled outward along the stony ground compressing it in a circle around him. The portion of the force his spell wasn't able to capture was absorbed by his fortress aura at the same time leaving a small fraction for him to endure.
Brand immediately put his access mana to use molding an illusion over himself as he walked out of the alley. Several eyes looked his way and quickly moved past him as they saw what looked like a very short jötunn . His skin was dark blue like a large body of water under the Midgard sky. His teeth were black and slightly sharpened housing a blood-red tongue. One of his eyes remained gold while the other shined a lighter blue than his skin while his hair was colored a whiteness reminiscent of the clouds.
Over the last few years, Brand found a new appreciation for his focus. Illusion's such as the one he wore could usually be sensed by even the weakest of magic users. He would be like a lump of charcoal on a bed of snow under normal circumstances but thanks to a secondary layer of mana just above his illusion no one can sense their presence keeping his identity safe no matter what nefarious work he was doing.
Brand inwardly groaned. “Like there's anything worth doing in this fucking city.”
North Bastian was deceptively interesting at first glance. The majority of its population were beast kin with a few jötunn migrating through the nearby rift. The fey kin had a significant presence as well, but humans were so rare they almost seemed mythical which is why Brand saw the need to hide as another race.
Besides, pretending to be a jötunn could be fun. Every day he changed his features drastically. The only thing that seemed to be common in jötunn s was how varied their features were and how most were around seven to eight feet, some reaching as high as 12.
Some had a single eye or several dotting their faces. Some had more than two arms and clawed fingers. Their skin and hair color were even more striking coming in vastly different hues from average pale human coloring to variations of red, blue, and green.
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As for the city itself, buildings, excluding the towers made to shield the city from lightning, were not built with magic like in Vellia. They were built high with mundane constructing techniques only enchanted after completion.
That should have been the first sign of how boring North Bastion really was. Brand thought because joining the military was all one needed to learn magic made the city better in some way. It might have if North Bastion had a god of magic like Prometheus on its side.
Unlike Vellia, North Bastion had no god of magic or learning. Their runes were rudimentary at best, things Brand learned in his first few weeks at the Hall. As a practiced if not licensed thaumaturge, seeing their poor mage craft almost made him sick. Even the city's royal library which he'd broken into from time to time held little in the way of arcane secrets.
Due to the lack of interesting magics to study, Brand at least hoped he'd make some kind of difference. That's what Rollo said strikers were from. They helped the people, well not North Bastion’s people seeing how it wasn't a part of Vellia. And the best way to do that was to stop North Bastian from attacking its neighbor.
An amused grin appeared on Brand’s face as he entered a small fanciful home. “Or maybe an all-out war is exactly what I need.”
“Did you say something?” said a woman from beyond the doorway.
Brand, for an instant, lost control of his strength at the irritating voice and crushed the door handle. He looked at Brunhild with uncounseled contempt. “Nothing for you,” he spat.
“Excuse me?”
Brand walked in unabashed. “Did I fucking stutter?”
Brunhild shot out of her seat shattering the table in her way with a rush of magic that swirled around her in a dense cloud. “I’m tired of your shit, Black Steel!”
“Then get off your ass and do something about it bitch!” Brand’s voice turned apologetic. “Or are you too busy sitting on your hands?”
The house began groaning as Brunhild’s magic filled the space causing the building to shudder and grow warm as its wards struggled to conceal the magic. It seemed she’d finally been pushed too far. Months of insults and insubordination eroded whatever tolerance the striker captain had. She’d threatened to kill Brand before, but this time seemed different. This time something deadly danced on her fingertips; a spell Brand was unfamiliar with.
“The light show is pretty but what exactly are going to do with that spell?” Brand said almost begging to be hit with the only new magic he’d seen in months. It looked survivable if Brunhild didn't use Striker’s Onslaught, but if she did, Brand could just counter with the same.
“I'm going to paint the walls with your fucking brains!” Brunhild answered with runes appearing around her fingers
“Not with that spell you’re not,” Brand said looking down on the woman as if her anger amounted to nothing more than a child’s tantrum. At the same time, he extended his Fortress Aura around the room collecting whatever mana Brunhild wasted as she crafted her deadly spell.
Right before Brunhild lost the last of whatever was holding her back, a voice rang out. “Are you two crazy? A fight in here will have the army on our heads in seconds."
Brand looked over to Elma who'd charged out of the back room. He understood she was being the voice of reason but didn't care. Like when they were still at Saint Hilda’s, she couldn't convince him to do anything.
“No need to worry." Brand said. "I warded this place with my mana. No one will see our glorious leader get her ass kicked.”
A pitch-black darkness enveloped half the room then receded leaving Uhtred and Astrid with a mixture of shock and confusion written across their faces.
Uhtred was the first to speak. “What did he do?” The Shadow Boy asked Brunhild while reaching into the shadow of his worn brown cloak for a weapon
“Why do you automatically think I caused this?” Brand admonished.
“Because you don't respect her in the least.”
“Neither do you!”
“But I don't pointlessly remind her every week.” Uhtred looked at the Brunhild. “Sorry.”
“You two should just fight,” Astrid offered and pumped her fist in the air. “Whoever wins gets to be in charge.”
“I hold the rains on you three,” Brunhild said and looked over to Elma who’d been quiet, not wanting to be drawn into a fight that had been builting over the last few months. “That includes you.”
Elma jumped in surprise as the tense silence presiding Brunhild’s word was broken by the front door opening. In walked a man, the final member of the quad. He eyed Brand taking a stance as if about to attack. His name was Steapa, an older human striker in his forties. He’d always taken Brunhild’s side due to them being trained together. His loyalty grated on Brand’s nerves not to mention how adamant he was about how the binding oath forced into their heads was necessary for people just like him.
A wand and dagger slipped out Steapa’s clothing and floated to his hands. “This better not be what it looks like.”
“I’m just here for our weekly waste of time,” Brand said derisively then looked over to Brunhild. “Unless you want to start throwing spells around.”
Brunhild banished her magic. “Let’s get this over with.”
As tensions cooled, Brand found himself with Uhtred and Astrid at his side and Brunhild, Steapa, and Elma opposite their position. The quad always seemed to split into two groups; those that wanted to follow Brunhild’s orders and those that followed begrudgingly without much of a choice.
Brand pulled a crystal ball from the small bag on his waste throwing it at Brunhild with just a bit too much force making her catch it with telekinesis instead of her hands. Elma just looked tired of the infighting while Brunhild and Steapa looked ready to start the fight anew. Brand just ignored the looks he was getting and gave his report.
“That’s what I got.”
Brunhild waited several seconds for more until she was sure Brand was pulling another one of his asinine stunts. “Brand, stop acting like a child and give the report.”
“What’s the point?” Brand said. “Everything you need is on the balling. In fact, as the team's thaumaturge, I don't think I'm qualified to do reconnaissance.”
Brand could practically see the anger pouring off of Brunhild. No one else was better at information gathering than him. Even Uhtred had a hard time thanks to several dimensional barriers in place around North Bastion due to the heightened security after Vellia took control of the south. Brand on the other hand, simply placed undetectable listening or recording spells thanks to his focus. Every officer in the military or official in the government had some kind of aid that made unknowing spies with a simple touch.
Right as Brunhild opened her mouth to admonish Brand for his foolishness, he cut her off and began to explain his findings. “North Bastian’s war machines are a few months away from being complete. The first hundred of who knows how many golems are already finished as well as a few spell canons and about a dozen skyships. Seems the officials we killed were just replaced probably a day after we got to them. It seems they think their deaths were due to some exotic magic. Standard military gear now has enchantments to defend against such things.” Brand started clapping in mock admiration. “Good job everyone, you've accomplished nothing at all. It's almost like we should be focusing on the source of all our problems.”
“Here we go again,” Astrid said with an eye roll as the same argument Brand and Brunhild had every week reared its ugly head.
“You must have some kind of death wish,” Brunhild said. “We can't kill Ragnar. It's just not possible unless you’ve found the source of his infinite mana.”
“I don't need to know the source,” Brand said. “An ax to the throat is all it takes to kill anyone no matter how much power they think they have.”
“Even you,” Brunhild challenged. “With that Ironsides body of yours won’t take much damage from an ax.”
“OK,” Brand relented. “I'll make it a really heavy ax. 20 tons should do the trick."
“That's not the point,” Steapa said. “When you fail, which you probably will, only death or torture awaits you when you're caught.”
“If you listen to my plan, you'd realize I'd be the only one taking that risk so who cares if I get caught. It's not like the oath will let me say anything of value.”
“I don't think it's worth it,” Brunhild Said.
Brand leered at his captain. “I don't think you should be making that call seeing as what happened to your last squad.”
The room went completely still. No one thought Brand would mention Brunhild's greatest shame. Only Steapa knew the circumstances of her last team's deaths. That was precisely why Brand, Uhtred, Astrid, and Elma as new strikers were sent to the same squad. Brand had never mentioned it but now he didn't care. This was Brunhild’s last chance before he did things his own way.
“We've been trying to stop the build-up of arms,” Brand continued. “But any idiot can build a golem and flying ships if they're powered by someone else. Killing Ragnar is the only way to ensure the south is safe. This observe and report nonsense is not working.”
“You’re usually more than ass about these things,” Brunhild said darkly. “You truly believe killing Ragnar would fix everything. Well, guess what, I do too, but unless you can tell me the source of his power, we won't move on him. As the squad’s thaumaturge that's up to you to figure out. Now Uhtred, what have you got to report?”
An hour later, Brand left the safe house. Within ten minutes Uhtred appeared next to him in a hood hiding his human features. A few minutes later Astrid joined them dressed as a child thanks to her young fey kin looks.
“You guys with me?” Brand asked. They both nodded.
“As long as the plan hasn't changed,” Uhtred said.
“And as long as I can have some fun,” Astrid said. “For Vellia’s sake, of course.”
“Nothing’s changed,” Brand said handing necklaces to both. They were depleted beast cores wrapped in some kind of decorative metal and etched with faintly glowing runes.
Astrid eyed her's suspiciously before pocketing it. “Do they work right? This was my first attempt at making something like this.”
“They're perfect, much better than what I could do.” Brand reassured. “With my mana inside them no one, not even the strikers can find us from afar. You should wear them now even though Brunhild will only start looking for us in a week. In the meantime, use the amulets to camouflage your new safe houses. And you won't see me until we’re ready to make our move.”
“Making your way back to the forest?” Uhtred asked already knowing the answer.
“Yeah. I've got to go see the elves at least one more time.”