Jace lead the group of almost 80 women out of the keep toward the central hall with the huge dome. It was a multiple mile walk. All the women were dressed reasonably, except for those unfortunate hats. In the time it had taken him to put the armor on and belt on the sword the last remaining witch had tested into channeler. This made him wonder a bit about the stone they used for testing. Apparently it was not really all that possible for people to surpass their “potential”, yet every woman in this tower had managed it in just a handful of hours. This probably meant the stone never actually measured potential, but something else, and these human mages had been using it with a mistaken understanding what it did for all of this time.
Regardless the reason, prior to today, this academy had just 11 students at the level of channeler or higher, including himself, Karius, Khana and Kay’rin, that number just went up significantly. Even though all those girls behind him were basically brand new to magic, he remembered his own explosive growth with casting. Magic wasn’t tied to endurance. He never got tired using it. He only could feel drained if he pushed against the limits of his ability to handle the flows of the pulse of the world at his limits.
He knew his mind was drifting into irrelevancies, but that was mostly to keep himself in check and not to teleport directly to the dome himself. He knew the school knew he was coming. He could see people fleeing out of the shadows of some of the buildings to carry word. He was half curious what this Emisary of Elis had to say, though he suspected nothing that would come out of his mouth would be something he’d want to hear
It was closing in on midafternoon by the time they were within a mile of the domed central meeting building. Waiting for them was a large group of male students lead by Kay’rin and Karius. They spread across the way as if to bare their path. Jace felt nothing but impatience to find Sam, so he was in half a mood to walk straight throught their lines. However, he didn’t want the first person he killed to be a human with no evil intent. So he grabbed hold of his impatience and stopped a dozen paces away.
“Greetings Grand Wizard Kay’rin. Grand Channeler Karius. To what do I owe this great honor?”
Kay’rin looked conflicted a moment then spoke slowly. “We’ve been ordered by the emissary of Elis to apprehend you, and to place these women back into the general populace as per their station.” Her soft voice sounded almost robotic, she looked like her heart wasn’t in the command given. Karius next to her looked deeply apologetic.
Karius spoke up, “Jace just come quietly, we don’t want to harm anyone. Besides, those girls aren’t yours to do with as you please. They have duties, which you’ve kept them from for weeks. Let them return to them.”
Just as Jace was about to say something, the pretty girl who spoke out before in the keep, he still didn’t know what her name was, though at least this time she was wearing clothing spoke out. “We’re all channelers now, thanks to Jace. Just what duty is it we’re skirting?”
The looks on the warlocks faces behind Karius and Kay’rin was that of pure disbelief. One of the men strode forward, he looked like he was perhaps in his mid-30s, nearing the end of his life since he had the moon tattoo on his forehead. “What are you talking about you little bitch. Lying won’t let you avoid squealing under me tonight! You’ll take our seed and thank us for it.”
The pretty girl briefly shone with a blue light, and the foul mouth man, who had a grin on his face obviously feeling as if he had put this woman in her place, suddenly groaned and grasped his chest before collapsing. Jace had an idea of which glyph was used. It was either Death or Stop. If you used ‘stop’ on a heart you probably could get that effect. He suspected it was stop not death. From his experimentation, the death glyph was very hard to use on a living creature. He even struggled to use it on a small flower, he could only imagine how hard it would be to use on a living creature.
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The laughing and foul promises from the group of warlocks came to a dead stop as she killed the foul mothed one. You could have heard a pin drop, the looks of disbelief and terror on the faces of the warlocks was actually rather funny when Jace looked at it. Finally, one of the braver ones spoke up. “Death by torture. That’s the penalty for killing another human. We all saw her kill him. Someone seize her.”
The girl didn’t back down, and for that he had to give her a lot of credit. She looked challengingly at all the men and spoke out. “The first man who touches me or dares to ‘seize’ me dies.” A number of other women strode forward to stand with her. Jace never really stopped watching Kay’rin, she would be the linchpin in this conflict.
Kay’rin spoke. “If all these women are now channelers, their duties as students have changed. Find a slave girl to impregnate instead. We are not here for you to collect bed companions. And unless school rules change you can’t have them anymore anyway.” She then directed her gaze at Jace, “and you. Will you submit or must you fight against the will of an Emissary of Elis?”
“Where is Sam?”
Her gaze flickered to Karius. He spoke up. “She’s in the central hall. With all the other slaves brought back from the keep. She’s not in any real danger right now. Though we’re to tell you that if you fight us she will be.”
“That’s sophistry. Come on Karius. If a man holds a blade to your back you’re in danger whether they mean to kill you now or tomorrow. They hold that blade to Sam, she’s already in danger. Don’t [sugar coat] this.” He realized he actually said that phrase in English, and corrected himself “I mean don’t make it seem like the situation is better now as long as I don’t fight back.”
Kay’rin spoke in, cutting off Karius, “I told you your soft and reasonable words would not work. He’s of no mind to actually listen to good advice. Very well let me make this clear to you. The exact words of the Emissary were if you thought to resist, not only are we to cripple but not kill you, but you would then be brought before Sa’manatha while you watched them remove her arms and legs then turned her into a toy for the men to play with until she died. The only reason you were not seized and Sa’manatha was, was for you to suffer more. Elis apparently wishes for your despair before death.” She spoke those terrible words without even an ounce of inflection in her voice. It almost made it seem unreal.
“Cripple me?!” Her words echo’ed in his mind. That towering rage he was keeping in check burst forth.
Khana thought she would be sick thinking about the image put in her mind by what that nasty girl Kay’rin said. She was mixed in among the other girls and was sort of following the flow. The idea of rebelling was a bit exciting to her, that said she didn’t think she’d have the courage to really take a lead role in what was happening. So she was surprised when she came forward with the other girls to support Shawey when she killed that vulgar fellow.
Sa’manatha was a good person. She really liked her. She sort of reminded her of her big sister. The idea that someone could do that to someone was repulsive to her.
Then she noticed Jace’s face look strained, his hand clasping the swordhilt at his waist he spoke through clenched teeth. “Out of my way. NOW. Last warning”
The kindly looking man called Karius shook his head sadly, then spoke up, “You’re just a channeler Jace, you can’t match me let alone Kay’rin, just come quietly and Sa’manatha will be alright.”
Jace scowled and spat out “you were warned.” What happened next was almost impossible to follow, it happened so fast that her eyes had difficulty to track it. A flash of lightning and a crack of thunder roared out, which exploded as it hit and shattered a curved shield around Karius and Kay’rin, Kay’rin staggered back a step and Karius flashed a blue barely erecting a shield before both of them were turned to charcoal by the blast of lightning still streaming at them.
Kay’rin flashed blue, and from this range, even Khana could feel the power of the spell she was invoking, it was hair raising, Jace still hadn’t moved a step and drew the kindred sword, almost as if he was ignoring what Kay’rin was doing.
A spacial ripple appeared around Jace, it looked almost like a transparent dome, which shrunk in size rapidly, she would have mistakenly thought it was a simple shield, had the spacial ripple not been present she probably wouldn’t have noticed the glyph of SPACE and perhaps even REALITY involved in the creation of the shrinking dome.
Jace smirked and spoke “too slow” as his appearance inside the dome simply melted away while Kay’rin collapsed after taking a blow to the back of her head. It took Khana almost as long as karius to realize what happened. The trapped Jace was likely a visual/auditory illusion. Though it was so well made she had to wonder how long that was there, and where Jace had been hiding this whole time.