13 Going Back Up The To-Do List
I took another moment to look at Diane before we left the dorm. The idea to throw a blanket over her occurred to me, but with the way she was leaning against the wall it would have been awkward. The pillows had been moved to the side when I put her there, so I made time to take one and shove it into the gap between her back and the metal beam that headed off the bed.
As soon as I was done, Proximity Alarm chimed to alert me of a strider moving past the dorm. I stilled and watched it go. The massive indigo shadow on the wall placed its main body at around my level.
I let out a breath. Just like that, my momentum was gone.
“When you leave, you should make a large burst of magic,” the remaining Authority simulacrum told me after the strider had passed. Its distance didn’t make us any safer. Proximity Alarm was chiming more regularly as several more starbane forms began passing by, following the strider.
“Because it will attract nearby starbane forms?” I guessed, finally turning away from the living statue in front of me. Quiet because I was worried about our volume.
The blue and green fairy nodded, bobbing up and down ever so slightly. “And if they follow you, they might not encounter this little bastion you’ve made. Diane will be safer.”
“Okay,” I said, and thought about what large spells I could cast. Friendly Race was something I’d be using for the next fight, but I had no idea how much mana it used. The only indication I had of its price was that my Familiar called it expensive when it was first introducing me to the spell. “Any recommendations?”
“Why not Jump?” Authority asked. “It’s a fun spell, and you can move around quickly with it. I used it a lot before getting a dedicated mobility grimoire.”
“Which one did you get?” I asked, curious despite everything.
“I was recommended the Aveanarias Sentry Primer. Basically they were bird people with great eyes, and developed magic to enhance their flight and sight. It’s where my wing motif came from, but recently Authority has been going through Psionics For Dummies. Her Familiar said she was on track to move up to the succeeding apprentice grimoire shortly before I was cast.”
“Huh,” I said.
“Your familiar will likely recommend a different grimoire when the time comes, since your mana affinities are different to mine.”
I looked at my Familiar, and its tail twitched before it responded to the silent question.
[We believe the Grumskn Guide To Entry would be the most cost effective mobility grimoire for you to learn from.]
“Those are the rock people, right?” I clarified, and received a nod down in confirmation. “Why would rock people need a guide to entry?”
[The title is misleading. The Grumskn would often exit their atmosphere and require safeguards during re-entry.]
“And you want me to learn that?”
[We would prefer for you to learn the intricacies of Jump first.]
I shook my head and pulled my personal grimoire out of the air. On a hunch, I gently tossed it up in a way that would have it fall back into my grasp and said “Jump.”
My lips twitched towards a smile when the grimoire began to float and open itself. The pages turned as though a fan was blowing them until it came to an abrupt stop on the requested page and fell back into my hands. Authority came to flutter beside me as I lifted it to read the activation paragraph for the Jump spell.
“You’re good at directing your intent,” she praised.
“I think that’s what purple is supposed to indicate,” I murmured as I read through the two line paragraph. “Decisiveness.”
“It fits you,” she said.
“Does it?” I asked, closing the book. “I feel like I was just coasting until the veil fell.”
“From what I heard, there wasn’t much for you to be decisive about until then, so you held yourself back from forcing things. I’ve learned from experience that being too decisive can cause friction, and you avoided that.”
I had, but it had still sucked. And this wasn’t something to be talking about right now. “Where are we going?”
“You can start clearing the starbane on the gymnasium, if you want, or I could lead you to the miasma beacon,” Authority told me. “Either first is fine. You will likely end up doing both eventually. “
[We request you avoid the outdoor lounge, as a vast number of sentry forms have gathered there,] my Familiar added. [The threat to my physical form would be excessive and needless.]
I thought about it, mostly ignoring the Familiar. “Miasma beacon. Since Diane’s going to be stuck here for the time being, there isn’t much point in gaining access to the gymnasium, and the fewer elites that are coming through after…” I checked the top of my vision. “...another two hours and seven minutes, the better.”
[We would enjoy alerting you to some modifications to the Enemy’s tactics that we suspect will occur. However, this can wait until that objective has been completed.]
That made me frown, but… “Okay,” I allowed. We couldn’t afford to stay here.
I shelved my grimoire and exited the dorm, Authority flitting behind me as I inspected the mostly blank horizon. The river was visible where it peeked out of the forest thanks to the bioluminescent monstrosities in there, and the strider that had fallen into it was gone.
“Where should I aim?” I asked. There weren’t any starbanes screeching at me, so I was assuming I was undetected for the time being.
[Please maintain a wide berth from the outdoor lounge,] my Familiar requested again.
“For your first leap you should aim halfway between the river and the cafeteria,” Authority said from behind me and a little down. I didn’t see her when I turned around, but put that out of my mind and faced forward again.
“Alright,” I said, crouching a little. “Jump!”
A circle made of an off-yellow mana formed beneath me, just as the instructions had warned. I faced in the direction I wanted to go, since sight would influence which way the spell would propel me, and did a standing jump off of the balcony. It was a leap of faith in more ways than one. I couldn’t see where I was landing, and it was only the way I’d recently survived being punched by a hookblow that gave me the confidence that my legs wouldn’t break.
The feel of air rushing past and playing with my hair was exhilarating, and that playful giddiness I was sometimes able to enjoy when casting magic was able to bubble up through all the stuff that had been miring me. A smile was doing its best to form as I reached the apex of my jump, and I realised too late that I hadn’t checked to see how much mana Jump was taxing.
Not that it really mattered in that moment. It really threw the fact that I would soon have flying spells at me headlong, and I felt great despite everything.
[Donna,] my Familiar said, its hard and weightless form anchored to my shoulder. [Did you remember to cast Land?]
Cast Land? But the spell hadn’t said anything about… It had assured me that the magic would carry me to my destination, hadn’t it?
“What?” I demanded as I descended back to earth, but by then it was too late to change anything about my descent.
My impact upon returning to the ground was jarring, and I stumbled forward a few steps.
But I was okay.
I took a moment to make sure that I was actually completely fine. There wasn’t any kind of pain in my legs, and I could feel it when I patted myself down. The spell had taken care of the landing and I was fine.
“You…” I started, growling despite myself. When I turned in the direction of my Familiar, which had swiftly vacated my shoulder. It was jumping away in an odd fashion, actually on the ground for once, and repeated doing something that reminded me of a shocked cat. My own cat was easily shocked, and I took great joy from placing things beside Prissy’s food bowl, so I knew the kind of jump it was doing. The mood was all wrong though.
[Ha ha. Got you,] it said, tone flatter than I’d ever known it.
My fist clenched, but then I heard Authority giggling behind me. It anchored me, somehow, and I relaxed. Forced myself to, anyway.
“There are sentry forms in that direction, you know,” I told it calmly. I didn’t actually know that, but it felt like a safe assumption.
The Familiar froze on the ground, then leaped back to me in a single bound where it lay down. Even its tail went flat and didn’t twitch for two whole seconds. [We beg forgiveness,] it said.
I crossed my arms. “What will you give me in exchange?”
[An explanation.] I wanted an apology, but I gestured for it to go on all the same. [We once granted a wish to prank all subsequent magicians the first time they cast the spell Jump, and have honoured that wish in all cases.]
After spending a few seconds considering that, I decided I was thoroughly unimpressed. “What’s the name of this magician? I owe them a slap to the face.”
[They were called Glasses Grace.]
“Were?” I repeated, catching the wording. The Familiar wasn’t the sort of speaker that said things unintentionally.
[Glasses Grace has been deceased for fifteen years and a little more than three months. We miss her greatly.]
That mollified me. At around that time, a bunch of starbane I couldn’t see started to howl, undoubtedly having just seen us. That may have played a part in me forgiving the Familiar.
“I want an apology,” I said, uncrossing my arms and turning back in the direction we had been going.
[We express regret, but will not apologise for granting a wish,] it said.
I spent a moment thinking about that. In the end I gestured it closer and didn’t comment. I would remember that it didn’t apologise, of course, but now wasn’t the time to make a big deal about it.
“Jump,” I cast again. This time secure in the knowledge that the spell took care of the landing. My traversal was both less enjoyable and more than the last one. A starbane sentry had come into the light of the Hands-Free Torch that was still following me around before I jumped, and it was difficult to forget I was on a battleground again.
My second leap took me much closer to the forest, and Authority zipped in front of me before I could try for a third.
“You’re too close to jump now,” she said. “You’ll just crash into a tree. Cast that racing spell you used after the wish.”
“Friendly Race,” I cast, actually looking down at myself when I cast it this time. The ribbons actually only attached themselves to my arms and legs, with a couple detailing my shoulders. The rest of me was covered by angled plates of transparent magic that more or less connected to cover my body.
Proximity Alarm chimed and had me looking to the right, where a sixball had pinged the spell. I took a few running steps and managed to judge the distance right, then used our newfound closeness to kick it. The monster was sent sailing through the air as space moved fluidly around us, but I was fairly sure my kick had sunk halfway into its body first.
Shortly after that a scoutscale emerged from the forest as well as a sentry, which I prioritised. The scoutscale tried to grapple me like they always did when I was busy kicking the sentry, but it didn’t manage to inconvenience me when I turned my back. The armour provided by Friendly Race proving itself to be an effective repellent to those sorts of tactics, it was scrambling to grip me when I turned around and the thing’s sticky fingers were smoking.
I kicked it as well, wrinkling my nose at the smell, then ran towards the blue light that was drifting into the forest.
“Where?” I asked when I was beside Authority again, just into the treeline.
“Follow me,” she said, then sped up. There were several trees around, but they were spaced wide enough that it became difficult to lose the tiny form as she raced ahead. I followed as best I could using Friendly Race, but wide enough to see did not equate to having enough space to manoeuvre. Especially not when I was using a spell that made every running step count for three or four times the usual distance.
Very soon into the forest Proximity Alarm started giving me more pings. I glanced at my mana before deciding how to respond.
B: 0/56
U: 64
287s
Considering the high upkeep spells I was maintaining at that moment, having only sixty something mana made me wince. Seeing how my bound mana capacity was going up was reassuring, but the sum of mana I had in that pool felt like it had been zero for ninety percent of my time as a magical girl. In any case, I could use mana from any source.
“Authority!” I called. “Slow down please!”
Then I took a sharp right and ran headlong into a tree.
Staggering about as I tried to regain my balance after that was a disorienting experience. Every other step seemed to take me a different distance from the last. “Oww…”
[Once you have learned the intricacies of moving with Friendly Race, you will be considered proficient in its use,] my Familiar informed me as I shook my head to finally regain my balance.
“Good to know,” I said as I looked at the shadow Proximity Alarm was showing me. The dark indigo shape sort of blended in with the blackness beyond the reach of my floating light. It was easier to make out when the shadows were shifting, but that required me to be moving, something I had blundered quite significantly just then.
A glance back told me I had left a me-shaped impression in the tree, and I snorted with dissatisfaction. The damn outline was even smoking, telling me my armour was running hot.
That was a good thing, considering that the shadow was probably an arachno’s. The ominously floating threat in the air around the tree supported that conclusion.
After considering my approach, I cast “Tug Of War,” before approaching further.
It turned out to be unnecessary. The arachno was at shoulder height, and didn’t react in time when I raced up to it and delivered a punch to the body just behind its neckless head. A glance at my bound mana revealed it to have barely moved, and twelve mana came back to my bound pool when I dismissed Tug Of War.
“Sorry,” I said to Authority when her tiny form entered the range of my light. “I need the mana.”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“You don’t need to apologise, every magical girl understands,” she told me.
A threat of the arachno’s web brushed against my armour then, and a significant part of the forest proceeded to erupt in flame. Then, less than a second later, the fire was gone. One leaf near my foot remained burning, but I stepped on it.
“Sorry,” I said again. Authority had a healthy black burn on her fairy form.
“Please be more careful,” she requested, shaking herself. That somehow managed to remove the burnt stuff, like a dog shaking water off of itself. “That almost killed me.”
I thinned my lips and nodded, remembering how I’d watched the surly Authority die.
“I’ll go slower,” Authority said, and began to move again.
I followed, but soon diverted to where a scoutscale was waiting in ambush. There were four or five more distractions like that before we arrived somewhere I could recognise in the night.
The river had somehow become even more populated with lampers. When I looked at the glowing green lines under the water’s surface, it almost felt like I was watching a representation of the water current. Only I knew the water here didn’t flow nearly that fast, and current lines didn’t normally change lane at the rate these ones did. Occasionally an area would be disrupted as all the Lampers converged on an area, then return to normal like nothing had happened.
“There’s more Lamper than water,” I said quietly after watching for a few seconds.
[They have proliferated immensely using the strider form you bested,] my Familiar explained. [Several hundred forms would have hatched over dry land and suffocated, but thousands more were produced using the biomass.]
“Um.” I closed my eyes for a moment and desperately tried to think of anything else.
“Do you want some advice?” Authority asked. I opened my eyes and nodded, very grateful for a distraction. “Turn off Proximity Alarm before crossing. Each lamper would trigger it.”
Nevermind. “There’s no wish demanding you to prank me about it?” I asked rhetorically as I pressed two fingers to my temple and turned them counterclockwise to end the spell. There was no way I was intentionally letting my head go through that again, and I still wanted an apology.
[We again express regret, as well as a small amount of juvenile satisfaction.]
“I don’t want your regret,” I told it. “Got more than enough of that for myself already,” I muttered under my breath. Then, louder, “See you on the other side?”
The Authority fairy bobbed. “Yes! Happy jumping!”
She shot off across the river, and I cast Jump to follow her. This being my third casting of the spell, I was getting a handle on how the way I crouched before leaping affected the arc of my jump. Going about halfway to kneeling was how I’d approached the first jump, and the second one had been significantly less than that. The first had taken me higher for longer, while the second crossed a similar distance using a shallower jump.
I went even shallower for this one and ended up regretting it. Not because I misjudged the jump, if anything I overshot that. It was more how the lampers under the water surged up and out of the water in an attempt to reach me. They made this high pitched whistling sound when moving through the air, and the way they were all leaping out of the water turned the water into a frothing mess.
By far the worst part was that some of them actually reached me. My magical armour helped, but it only covered most of me. A sharp pain made itself known in my leg right before I came down on the other side, and it made me fail to stick the landing. I eventually found stability when I staggered into another tree and put my entire arm through its trunk.
“Damn, Lamper!” I cursed as I searched for the source of the pain. Unsurprisingly, one of the glowing things was undulating as it did its best to eat my skin where it was attached just above the top of my stocking. The ribbons on my hand moved to decorate my palm as I reached down and grabbed the creepy thing from where it had snuck through the gaps in my armour.
I was planning on just pulling it off, throwing it on the ground, and stamping on it there. The burning purple ribbon meant that it died on contact, and the front of the small creature went limp still attached to me while the tail fell off as a separate piece.
“Higher next time,” I told myself, carefully plucking the head off without burning myself.
[The lamper has injected its eggs into your wound area,] my Familiar informed me, making my head snap up. [Unfortunately, you will need to cauterise that area, or you will experience more lampers hatching inside of you after ten minutes have passed.]
“Oh, come on,” I complained. “Can’t I just heal myself?”
[Healing yourself will not rid your body of this parasite.]
“Is everything fine?” Authority asked as she rejoined us. She’d taken a higher route, no doubt. Like a smart person.
“Just a second,” I said, looking at two pointing fingers and willing a racing ribbon to cover them. That done, I jabbed them into the spot the lamper got and hissed with dreadful pain.
It hurt.
It burned more than when I stupidly pressed my thumb against the glass cover of a lit fireplace.
So much more.
Ow.
Ow. Ow. Ow.
“Have I got them?” I asked through grit teeth after my vision cleared from the pain.
[A small cluster of eggs are still alive towards your front.]
I breathed for a few moments, doing my utmost to relax. Then I closed my eyes and moved my burning fingers forward. “Nng?” I tried to ask.
[Down.]
I moved my fingers down.
Pain. So much of it.
[You got them all, Donna. Well done.]
I cut the spell immediately and fell towards my good side. That put me against the tree again, so I managed to stay on my feet. “Ow,” I said. “Um. Spell. Heal.”
“What happened?” Authority asked, and I barely noticed it through the haze. She sounded immensely concerned, which made sense. I had just stabbed myself, and effectively twisted the knife.
“Lampers,” I said. “Jumped too low.”
I felt her tiny form impact on my cheek. “Oh, you poor thing.”
While I was still processing that I had a fairy hugging my face, my Familiar came through with a healing spell. [Localised Regeneration Burst is a spell from the Androkan Grimoire of Restoration that normally has too narrow an area to be considered an effective solution for large field wounds. For a wound the size of your present malady, two castings would restore your leg to complete functionality.]
“Okay.” I took another breath, then reached up to pull my grimoire out of storage. “It was… Localised Regeneration Burst?” I checked. The Familiar gave me an affirmation, and I tossed the book up like I had for jump. It opened by itself and began turning without me needing to say the spell name again, which I was very grateful for.
The spell directed me to choose a casting finger or appendage, and point it at the wound while maintaining a short distance. There was actually a warning to avoid placing that appendage where any missing flesh might normally be, so I pushed through the haze to make sure I wasn’t doing that before casting the spell.
Relief came immediately, and I sagged as soon as I felt the pain go away. After a few breaths I wiped the tears of pain from where they had fallen from my face, and that simulacrum as well while I was at it. When I looked back my leg looked healed, but it looked like it had healed from a serious burn that had taken more than a pound of flesh.
I hovered a pointer finger above that spot on my leg and kept an eye on my mana. “Localised Regeneration Burst,” I cast, and saw five mana disappear from my bound mana pool. The magic circle that formed was dim compared to all the others I had cast, but was about as green as could be despite that. My leg smoothed out as flesh grew where it was supposed to be, and then the circle dissolved, returning three mana to my bound pool.
The sight of the dark green mana left me with a strange feeling. I had it because Diane had needed to be healed, which I had done, but it had been my fault. Seeing this shade of green would always remind me of that.
I pushed the distracting thought away. Not the time.
“I hated that,” I said once that was done.
[Lampers produce many unpleasant experiences, as most starbane forms do,] my Familiar said. It had moved to rest on a tree branch that was too small for it while I was purging myself of Lamper eggs.
“Yeah.”
[We will now state that we were about to suggest the Cauterise spell from the Adrokan Grimoire of Restoration. However, you were cauterising yourself through other means before we could mention it.]
“Are you serious?” I demanded, my mind suddenly engaged once more. “The Androkan… that spell would have come with anaesthetic, wouldn’t it?”
[It would have provided anaesthetic,] my Familiar confirmed. [We will take your decisiveness into account in the future when suggesting courses of action. This should not happen again.]
“It better not,” I said, pushing myself off of the damaged tree.
[However, if you desire to continue healing without anaesthetic, we would recommend the Gravest Grimoire of Reconstruction. Its spells are functionally identical to the Androkan Grimoire you have scribed, but are fractionally cheaper.]
“Because they removed the anaesthetic, right?” I guessed.
[Correct. The Gravest culture viewed pain as a sacred experience, necessary for personal growth. This was perhaps influenced by a reduced nerve density in a typical gravest, but a number of human magicians have actually expressed a preference for the Gravest spells over the Androkan spells all the same.]
I pointed at the Familiar. “Stop,” I told it. Then I pointed at it again. “Don’t bring that up again.”
Its tail flicked. [We are making a note.]
“Good.” I said. “I seriously mean it. Never again.”
“Never what again?” Authority asked.
“Gravest,” I said, dropping my finger and turning to where the fairy was going ahh. “Now where is the miasma beacon? Wait, Proximity Alarm.” I made sure I was a few good steps away from the lamper river before pressing my fingers to my temple, and the spell chimed several times right away. “There’s company,” I announced.
The shadows my spell showed me were different from the ones I’d become familiar with by the main buildings of the camp. Of all the silhouettes, the creepiest I’d seen until this point was probably the strider’s, which gave me a shadow puppet horror show whenever I noticed one moving on the other side of a wall. These new shadows were like fairy lights, but each light was actually a limb that hung down a few metres and moved ever so slightly with something that wasn’t the wind.
They weren’t coming closer, but they were close. I decided to go for Anklebiter and beam one of the things where its silhouette stopped being highlighted behind a branching trunk. It protested immediately, filling the forest with an echoing howl that other starbanes quickly added their voices to.
“Calling Curtains!” Authority shouted over the sudden cacophony. “They’ll be calling more this way, but it means we’re close. Watch out, they’ve got longer reach than you’d think.” She zipped upwards then, and something dark flashed through that space right after she was finished.
That proved her point rather handily. I was unprotected from similar attacks, but I could easily fix that.
“Friendly race,” I cast, then took a look at my mana levels.
B: 0/56
U: 33
118s
Less than what was ideal, but I’d probably have my next mana pulse during or after this fight. Hopefully I’d get another colour to regenerate the stuff faster, but what the Familiar had said told me it was based on emotional moments. The emotions I was feeling tonight weren’t things I particularly wanted to carry with me.
Nothing to do but deal with it.
My defensive spell saw near immediate use when another something impacted my front. The force of it was reduced and I saw the thick limb recoil before snapping back out of the light I was using to see. It was mangled and hurting, clearly peeling where it had touched my armour. Friendly Race proved its use once again, as all that had managed to make me do was take a step back.
I got hit a few more times from other directions before the starbane I’d been focusing Anklebiter on finally died. The only signs I got were an uptick of unbound mana, the indigo shadow suddenly fading against the trees, and the attacks coming from that direction finally stopping. Then they changed tactics.
One brave tentacle wrapped around my legs from my right, and tightened despite my racing ribbons burning into it. When it pulled back, I wasn’t able to stop it, but it wasn’t strong enough to lift me off of the ground, so I dug my feet in to make its job as difficult as possible. Then I pointed Anklebiter at the flexible limb and started to channel.
Yet another tentacle coming from behind to strike at my head made me briefly miss the easy target. I ended up angling Anklebiter closer to me to make it more difficult to miss at greater risk to myself, then turned as three words left my lips.
“Tug Of War,” I cast, then whipped the spell to where the blow to the back of my head had come from.
I missed, but the spell was quicker to reset than these curtain callers were, so I swung again before more rude attacks could come my way. This time I did hit, and I quickly pulled and realised that the spell gave my tugs a lot more power than I had first thought. There was a cacophony of breaking wood as the calling curtain I snagged was pulled into the light of my torch while another curtain caller slowly killed itself dragging me to it.
It was like that that I got my first clear look at what they looked like. As was frequently the case with starbanes, I hated it.
The calling curtain was an odd orange colour, close to brown but clearly orange, and that was the most clearly defined feature about it. There seemed to be a spine, and there were eyes along that spine. Connected to it were several tentacles that were far thicker than the ones that had been hitting me, and they were flailing about wildly. There were mouths too, because of course there were. How would it scream if there weren’t any mouths?
As it screamed that awful scream, the calling curtain was doing its best to find handholds, or the tentacle equivalent. But the combined force of me pulling it, plus the force of its friend pulling me meant that tree branches snapped and bark on trunks disintegrated as it was pulled ever closer to me. It wasn’t going anywhere fast.
Which meant another one of my new spells would be rather effective against it, I realised. I cut off Anklebiter and cast “Jump Rope!” directing the control ring to the hand holding my purple energy rope that Tug Of War had given me. That made gesturing the circles of Jump Rope towards the curtain caller awkward, but results were evident the moment I twisted the ring and turned it on.
I-don’t-know-how-many limbs began to flail every which way, including towards me. That turned out to be a non-issue when the sorta orange tentacle was slapped away by a ribbon that had, until that point, drifted lazily from my elbow.
The thing wasn’t escaping the jump rope, so I reset my magic rope and turned my attention to the one that was still hugging me far tighter than I appreciated.
It was up in the trees, and as I turned it managed to get me off the ground for a moment. My feet landed on a tree root though, and I found myself with a firm foothold as I looked up at the orange aberration in the tree. Its mouths were still screaming, and my magic rope went straight into one of those toothy maws.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to convince it to shut up, but it was enough for the spell to take hold of its body. When I pulled down, the magic of the spell enhanced the force of my pull, and the trees it was holding on to all groaned as it was ripped from its perch. The hold of its tentacle on my legs went slack as it lost all other points of contact, but I wasn’t released just yet.
Looking back, I saw that the second curtain caller hadn’t managed to win at Jump Rope, so I reached out with my controlling hand and directed the deadly beam to its next victim. The course would involve passing by me, but unlike the freaky and dead tentacle monster, I had played playground games at elementary school.
I jumped over the deadly beam as it passed me and felt really cool.
A fourth curtain caller of course chose that exact moment to hit the side of my head and send me to the ground.
“Fuck!” I yelled, feeling justified in my frustrations even as I found my legs being released.
[Friendly Race is not intended to be used in a horizontal position,] my Familiar beamed into my head as I frantically rolled to be on my back. [Attempting to move in your current position will have unintended consequences.]
The advice came too late. In rolling over the spell had bent space to lift my feet into the air, because that’s where it thought I was walking or something. My feet ended up so high up that my head was actually hanging above the forest floor for a moment.
I cursed again, but managed to handstand for a moment before my legs returned to the ground. The spell made me come down fast and hard, and my breath was knocked from my lungs. At least I ended up on my back.
So no walking, that I understood. There was no time to acknowledge it though, so I just aimed a hand towards where I thought my newest assailant had come from.
“Choker Crystal,” I cast when I didn’t see it immediately. The moment it was formed, which it did more swiftly than the first time, my arm was wrapped by two orange limbs that squeezed immediately. This time they exerted a force that I couldn’t ignore like I had with my legs.
I growled as I pulled myself upright and bent my casting arm as best I could. It wasn’t much, but I snapped my fingers anyway and quickly scrambled for the crystal with my other hand. Unlike before, my efforts didn’t invoke relief when the choker crystal started charging and shot a beam at the tentacles wrapping my arm. They froze in place, but they froze tensed and hell bent on snapping my arm.
My other hand stayed attached to the charging circle, some function of the magic making it impossible to take my hand away without intending to, but I slumped forward as the pain made my eyes water. It was hard to remember to keep my feet still at the same time. All the same, I couldn’t end Friendly Race when the armour was still protecting me, the ribbons had moved to be between me and the tentacle.
On top of all that, keeping my feet still was a task that kept me occupied. I forced myself to only think about that until the tension in my arm cut out and I gasped with relief.
“Are there more?” I asked, but fell flat on the ground behind me. My magic armour was sizzling the earth and roots, but I wasn’t going to do away with that until I thought I was safe.
[No starbane forms are in your immediate vicinity.]
With a dismissing gesture, Friendly Race ended, and I slowly pulled myself upright. My right arm protested when I tried to put some weight on it.
“I have a new most hated starbane,” I said, holding my arm in certain ways to determine what exactly hurt about it. There was a constant ache but it was low, and more importantly nothing twinged.
[The calling curtains are frequently complained about by female magicians,] my Familiar said. [They are frequently encountered due to their proficiency at defending set locations, as well as a lack of mobility. Foundation serpents are normally located near these forms.]
“Yeah, I can see why these things are hated,” I agreed, eyeing the one that had a bright purple Jump Rope beam shooting through it. That was wasting mana now, so I cut it off entirely. The rope for Tug Of War met a similar fate. “More than just one reason.”
[For record keeping, what is your primary reason for disliking this form?]
“Everything,” I said before hauling myself to my feet. “Authority, it’s near here?”
The little fairy came down from the canopy where she’d been hiding. “Yes, it’s in the direction of the hill, that way.” She pointed with her stubby fairy arm. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll follow your trail of destruction from behind now. I’ve served my purpose, and I’m really fragile.”
The death of Surly Authority played again in my mind’s eye. “Yeah, that’s fine,” I said. “Stay alive to annoy me with advice?” I wasn’t certain what I was trying to say, which was why it came out as a question. The Authority still with me brightened and nodded.
“I can do that! Start practising cool finisher poses as soon as you feel comfortable killing the smaller forms, but don’t go too drastic. You don’t want to be seen as a tryhard, and casually cool magical girls are really popular.”
I blinked, taken aback by all that. “That’s not the advice I was looking for, but thank you.”
“You're welcome! You said to annoy you!”
I waved her off with a flat look and turned in the direction she had pointed.
A gentle feeling passed through my head, and I checked my mana levels after letting myself luxuriate in the sensation for a few moments.
B: 44/60
U: 21
654s
I wasn’t sure exactly how much mana was being held in my choker crystal, but the amount there gave me more freedom to respond to the starbane forms starting to trigger Proximity Alarm. I took another breath, started another Friendly Race, then introduced the new starbanes to a game called Jump Rope.