A quick portal carried Olivander out of harm’s way and over to where Fezzic lie in the wyrm's nest. The goblin was bloody and bleeding from cuts on his shoulders and scalp, but he was quite alive and breathing rapidly.
Olivander himself breathed a sigh of relief. He moved his hands over the goblin in an intricate pattern, tracing out a glowing diagram.
“Healing ritual reinforcement, deep recovery!”
The power sank into the goblin, and Fezzic’s breathing evened out. His wounds began closing immediately.
With Fezzic on the road to recovery, Olivander turned to see a giant hammer slam against the wyrm’s scaled maw, launching it towards a nearby cliffside.
The wyrm managed to catch itself in the air before smashing against the rock wall. It was one of the biggest wyrms that Olivander had ever seen. Easily the size of a true dragon, the wyrm had a more serpentine body than a dragon, with only two rear legs with massive claws. It had black and brown scales and wide leathery wings.
“A solid hit! You might not even need my help, Burtrum.”
“It’s coming back!”
The wyrm screeched directly at Burtrum. Visible waves of force blasted out of its mouth, staggering him. Then it dove at him, back claws extended.
Olivander noticed a nice, flat patch of ground nearby, and ran towards it.
“Keep it entertained for a minute, Burtrum!”
Burtrum grunted in response as he took the claws against the shaft of his hammer, the best he could do after taking the beast's force attack. The wyrm clasped down, and ripped the hammer out of his hands, flying into the sky and casting it away.
Burtrum liked his hammer, Great Hammer of the Pits. He had spent countless hours defending his home and the city with it and quite a few adventures besides. Although it was his weapon of choice, he was a gold rank guild member. It would take more than disarming him to slow him down.
Burtrum’s hand plunged into the stone below him. He pulled out another hammer made from reddish brown stone. It was even bigger than his first hammer.
Olivander smiled at the display. It was always good to develop a well rounded ability set to cover your weaknesses. He wasn’t sure if Burtrum not having a weapon was a weakness. The man’s hands were practically hammers on their own. Still, many abilities relied on having a weapon.
Olivander summoned a huge tome, his Magus class grimoire. It was wrapped in chains and glowed with a deep violet color. It unlocked with a thought, and Olivander immediately started paging through it as it floated in the air.
“Let’s see…combat spells, here we go…traps, no…finishers? Maybe,” he scrolled a few more pages. “Ahha! Big finishers, that will do.”
He ignored Burtrum being tossed through the air like a ragdoll while he studied a diagram, tracing it out with his power on the ground around him. The wyrm ignored him, chasing after the tumbling Burtrum.
Burtrum caught himself. He was a gold ranker, with an epic class and dozens of levels, but his mana reserves were limited. He was a physical combatant, not a caster. The simple fact was that the wyrm could blow his stone hammer to pieces without much trouble, and he could only summon a new one a handful of times.
The wyrm landed and lashed out with its fanged maw, trying to bite him. He dodged a little, but the plate armor was built for strength and endurance in a physical contest, not agility and speed. He was battered back by the wyrm, managing to get a few punches in on the beast’s head, but it didn’t seem to mind.
Finally, the wyrm managed to catch his arm in its jaws once more. Just like the first time, he was launched through the air, back the way he had come. He was facing Olivander when he flew by this time. He saw the man creating an incredibly intricate magical diagram on the stone under his feet.
He landed, plate screeching as he slid to a stop on the stone. He stood back up without trouble. He was getting his butt kicked, but the wyrm hadn’t managed much damage through the enchanted plate armor.
I’ve become too reliant on my superior strength and my weapon, Burtrum thought. Most of my techniques need a weapon as a medium, but maybe I can surprise it with a spell.
To Burtrum’s horror, the wyrm wasn’t pursuing him again. It decided the diagram Olivander was drawing might become dangerous. It dove at the man.
Olivander casually waved a hand in the air, and a huge portal opened. Burtrum jumped as the wyrm slammed into the ground right next to him, a second portal winking shut behind it.
He did not need to wait for instruction, in a moment he drew a new hammer from the stone at his feet and brought it down with incredible speed.
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“Ox Giant Smash!” Burtrum bellowed.
The runes on his armor flared, and a translucent image of a giant golden ox appeared in the air for an instant before the hammer struck the wyrm's prone form.
A wave of force in a circle blasted out from the point of impact. Stone ripped from the ground, creating a small crater, and the hammer Burtrum had used fell to dust under the strain.
The wyrm got back up. He knew it wouldn’t be enough. Those scales were armor of their own.
“Earth Aura Quake!” he shouted. It was one of a few pure magic spells he could cast, his class “Armored Great Knight” was not built for fighting with magic, but he had unlocked the Geomancer class in his youth. That earth affinity from the Geomancer class had colored all of his future gains, eventually earning him this powerful spell.
Earth aura was all around them, not just from the ground below but from the movement of rocks and boulders as they had been fighting. The earth aura was further enhanced by all of his abilities leaking a little into the air as they fought.
His Earth Aura Quake gathered that aura around his target and then shattered it.
The damage to the wyrm was obvious now. It had several bleeding wounds and a couple patches of scales had been torn away.
Maybe I can do this.
The wyrm looked straight at him and spoke a few words in its own tongue. To Burtrum’s horror, he was wrapped up in aura himself, wind aura.
The wyrm had the same spell, but with a different aspect.
Burtrum’s armor was rent asunder, pulled off his body in painful jerks. Pain blossomed all over his body. The wind was very effective against his earth aspect armor, and the excess force from the spell tore at his skin.
He dropped to the ground from the spell. He was hurt, but he had a veritable lake of health. Not having any armor would make that irrelevant, however. The wyrm would tear him apart.
He got back to his feet and fought. He buried bare fists in the beast's belly even while it shredded him. He managed a solid uppercut reinforced by a simple force technique, but as the wyrm fell back, its tail whipped around. It caught Burtrum across the middle and drove him into the ground.
The beast landed in front of him. He hoped Olivander and Fezzic would get out of here, and that an adventuring team would clear this monster out before it hurt any more of his family.
The wyrm’s head darted in, and Burtrum closed his eyes.
He heard a “crack!” split the air and opened his eyes. The wyrm’s head had rebounded off an invisible barrier.
“I’ll take it from here, Burtrum. Good job distracting it. You looked so weak and helpless, it was the perfect bait.”
Burtrum turned to see Olivander at the center of his magic diagram. It was complete and he could sense a cold, terrible power spilling from it.
Frost crystalized in the air all around as Olivander began incanting his spell.
“King of the Ice Giants, hear my summons! I call upon our sacred pact. Deliver unto me a weapon of your icy will. Glacial Sword of the Frost Giant!”
The wyrm flew up into the air turning and arching into position to dive at Olivander.
Between them, the frost floating in the air all flew together, coalescing into a massive blade. The blade was impossibly large — at least eighty feet from pommel to tip.
Quicker than should have been possible, the blade swung, easily battering the wyrm out of the sky. When it slammed into the ground, the sword reoriented itself. It plunged down and speared through the wyrm, burying itself twenty feet into the bedrock.
Burtrum stood, dumbstruck. He couldn’t close his open mouth. He turned to look at Olivander, who brushed his hands off on his robes and nodded. Olivander turned to see Burtrum staring at him and gave him a friendly wave and a smile.
* * *
Back at the ranch house, Gregory and the rest of his family watched from the porch, looking into the distance. They couldn’t see what was happening, but they occasionally saw a flash of dark wing rise above one of the distant hills. The last light was almost gone, and soon they wouldn’t be able to see anything at all. But they knew there was a fight happening in that distant valley.
They could heard the beast’s screeches, and the occasional sound of heavy blows against stone.
“I hope Dad and Olivander are alright,” Gregory said.
“Your Dah will protect Mr. Olivander, don’t you worry,” Helena said.
Gregory just nodded.
A flash of brilliant gold energy lit up the hill in the distance.
“That was Dad’s big spell right? Earth Aura Quake?”
“I think so, I’ve seen him use it out here before,” Timothy said.
“He almost never uses direct spells in combat. What do you think that means?”
No one knew.
“Wait, is the air starting to look bluish over there?” Timothy asked, squinting at the distant valley.
Then they saw a massive blue sword appear in the sky, they could only see half of it, but it glowed with an icy blue coloring, and they could immediately feel a chill from the blade, though they were miles away.
“What is that!?”
The sword swung once, and then spun and buried itself in the ground. When it stopped moving, they could only see the piercing blue pommel over the hill.