Chapter 136: The Wrong Way to use Trap Magic
There was a little over a month until the year-end Sanshi festivities, and Nara was looking forward to what that looked like in another world. Her last Christmas and New Years had been ruined by her soul-napping, and she wanted to have only good vibes and good times this go around the holidays.
There had been several minor holidays in Sanshi during her stay in Sanshi. The time before the Celestial Book trials had turned into an unofficial festival, where vendors would clog the streets selling supplies to visitors from afar. Inns and hotels filled up, and iron rankers roamed the exotic city from across the sea they found themselves in.
The team had been too busy with iron rank trying to acquire the skills not to die to dedicate their full attention to any festival. Now that they were past the initially dangerous iron rank, they all felt the fresh air and their muscles loosen from their stress and anxiety. Monsters were hardier now, and so were they. A single bad blow wasn’t going to kill them. There was room to make mistakes, even if they endeavored not to.
They spent the first few weeks of the 12th month out on contracts. With the various portal abilities and the nebula vehicle, they could travel faster and farther more easily.
They started off easy, working their way back up in difficulty from the bottom of bronze rank. The team was on a monster killing contract, hunting some wind and sea elementals that were attacking transport ships and shoreline operations on Shian’s east coast.
Aliyah stood on the back of her Arcane dragon, Ensi, enhanced with the fire element. It’s eyes burned with eternal embers; steam rose from the water as its fire blasts attempted to sear grill marks in the ocean itself. Her arcane constructs had become odd, flat, flying platforms. Bronze clockwork wings flapped with a speed comparable to hummingbirds, keeping the platforms afloat above the water.
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Ability: [Arcane Construct]
Essence: Master
Summoning (ritual)
Cost: Very high mana
Cooldown: 6 hours
Effect (Iron): Summon 3 magical construct. At base, the magical construct is a flying orb that fires disruptive force bolts. Use an additional magical modification ritual to change the shape of a construct with certain limitations.
Effect (Bronze): Summon 6 magical constructs. The modification ritual grants additional powers to the constructs dependent on their changed form.
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A blade of wind cut past, and Aliyah sprang from her position, nimbly landing on top of one of her arcane constructs like Black Widow. The platform was enhanced with wind elemental magic; It kept her aloft, weaving through blasts of water and wind flung by the elementals. Ensi was easily dealing with the water elementals, evaporating the bonds of their bodies. It was a mother-like dragon, cautiously watching as her summoner left the protection of her back. Ensi was physically resilient, and could shield Aliyah as needed, but Aliyah was practicing some more advanced maneuvers with her new bronze rank attributes.
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Ability: [Arcane Dragon]
Essence: Master
Familiar (summoning, ritual)
Cost: Extreme mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Summon an [Arcane Dragon], to serve as a familiar.
* High resistance to physical and disruptive force damage.
* Can unleash elemental breaths and basic elemental spells. Breath attack has a 2-minute cooldown.
* Can chose to empower itself with an element, increasing the damage of that element. The dragon cannot use other elements. This effect has a 6 hour cooldown.
* Generates its own aura effect.
* Aura effect: Allies have increased damage resistance to the chosen element and increased resistance to elemental afflictions.
* Can be subsumed into the summoner’s skin, increasing physical and disruptive-force damage resistance with reactive dragon scales.
Effect (Bronze): Summon a bronze rank vessel for the [Arcane Dragon].
* Can generate shields to protect others. This effect has a 40 second cooldown.
* Gains an additional aura effect. Aura effect: Allies have increased [Power] and [Spirit].
* Can adopt a smaller, non-combat form. In this form, the Arcane Dragon has force levitation capabilities and can turn invisible. Shield effect has a reduced cooldown in this form.
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The wind elementals were harder to deal with. The fire did little to them, flowing past their bodies like the wind directing a wildfire. Elementals, while simplistic, were often difficult to deal with since their bodies made them immune to a large variety of attacks and damage.
Disruptive-force damage was universally effective against semi-corporeal and incorporeal beings like elementals, and Aliyah had it in spades.
A conjured Force Tether was on another of Aliyah’s flying platforms, wrapping all enemies up with shimmering tethers as the Arcane Construct flew past them.
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Ability: [Force Tether]
Essence: Gathering
Conjuration (trap)
Cost: Low mana-per-second
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Conjures a crystal rod, from which a tether of shimmering force connects to all nearby enemies within a moderate range. Tethered enemies are dragged toward the rod, which is protected by a force field that inflicts moderate resonating force-damage to anyone in contact with it. If the force-field is ruptured, it explodes in a wave of resonating-force damage. If the rod is destroyed or removed from its location, then it explodes in a wave of disruptive-force damage. Dimensional displacement, such as teleportation, severs the tether. Untethered enemies who enter within range of the rod become tethered. Only one force tether rod may exist at a time.
Effect (Bronze): Strength and pulling force of the tether is increased.
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The tethers extended to all nearby wind elementals, capturing them like birds in a net. They lacked the power to escape the force of the tethers. Attached to the underside of her flying net contraption was Aliyah’s Mana Siphon.
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Ability: [Mana Siphon]
Essence: Gathering
Conjuration (trap, drain, recovery)
Cost: Low mana-per-second
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Create an orb of magic that siphons mana from all nearby enemies, with mana drain increasing the closer the enemy is. When destroyed or displaced, the orb releases a wave of resonating-force damage increasing in distance and damage with mana siphoned, then bestows the mana onto nearby allies. If no allies are nearby, the mana is returned to the caster. Only one mana siphon can exist at a time.
Effect (Bronze): The siphon has greatly increased effect against incorporeal entities or entities utilizing mana as an animating force. Enemies affected by the siphon suffer disruptive-force damage over time.
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Not only was draining the mana of elementals effective, but the Mana Siphon was additionally effective against incorporeal entities or entities using mana as an animating force, such as undead and elementals. The Force Tether scooped up the enemies, all while her Mana Siphon drained them of mana and destroyed them through continual disruptive-force damage. Once enough enemies were dragged along by the combination like cans behind a wedding car, Aliyah destroyed both conjurations with a controlled Mana Burst. Both of the on-destruction effects of the tether and orb triggered, releasing a surprisingly powerful wave of resonating-force and disruptive-force damage that annihilated the hapless crowd of elementals. A wave of mana coursed over her, refilling both her mana and the reserves of her Arcane Orb.
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Ability: [Arcane Orb]
Essence: Gathering
Conjuration (recovery)
Cost: Low mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Conjure a floating orb that can hold mana. Mana drained from abilities is stored in the orb which can be redistributed to allies. The orb passively regenerates mana until it reaches its capacity. If destroyed, gain all the mana stored by the orb. Maximum mana is determined by the [Spirit] attribute.
Effect (Bronze): The orb gains mana from ally mana recovery and regeneration effects. The orb has greatly increased resistance to damage. Mana from the orb can be used to enhance the effect of your abilities, proportional to mana invested.
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“Emplace a mark of power,” Aliyah chanted, placing an enhanced Rune Trap with a quick tap on a flying arcane platform that flew adjacent to her. She conjured her Force Vortex, grouping up a mass of Wind Elementals that couldn’t resist the pull of the vortex. She directed the arcane construct into the center of the vortex, then detonated it.
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Ability: [Rune Trap]
Essence: Magic
Spell (trap)
Incantation: “Emplace a mark of power.”
Cost: High mana
Cooldown: 1 minute
Effect (Iron): Create an explosive rune that will disappear after a short period. The rune can be set to trigger by proximity, caster trigger, or both.
Effect (Bronze): Enemies affected by the rune trap will be the source of a secondary explosion after a brief period.
Ability: [Force Vortex]
Essence: Gathering
Conjuration (trap)
Cost: Low mana-per-second
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Create a core that generates a vortex of pulling force, sucking all enemies nearby towards the center of the vortex and dealing continuous rending damage. When the core is destroyed or displaced, a wave of force explodes outwards, dealing a burst of rending damage and knocking all targets away from the core of the vortex.
Effect (Bronze): Strength and pulling force of the vortex is increased.
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The resulting explosion was massive, comparable to Earth’s bombs in strength and intensity. Overlayered secondary explosion boomed like a metal concert with the bass turned way up, past the point of comfort and into thundering pain. The arcane platform shattered along with the vortex core and the other monsters, sharps of conjured metal falling back into the ocean along with dispersed water and wind.
Aliyah frowned at the destruction of the platform. She only had six; It wasn’t suited to sacrificial tactics, although it was an option. She wanted some way to preserve her platforms against her own damage or improve the durability of her summons.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
She lightly leapt up, grasping onto a handle on the bottom of a platform as another wind blade shot past where she once was. It gouged into the coppery metal of the platform, but didn’t destroy it.
Her other four hummingbird platforms darted between the sea and sky horizon. Nara launched herself off of them from every direction in a dizzying zero-gravity acrobatics display that made Aliyah feel nauseous just looking at her. The sky and sea twisted, swapping positions and swirling around her like a rolling marble of light and dark blue. Her stomach-turning sky dance was possible thanks to the bronze rank effect of Avatar of the Boundary which had departed from afflictions and boons into passive enhancements.
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Ability: [Avatar of the Boundary]
Essence: Balance
Special Ability (boon, affliction, holy, unholy)
Cost: none
Cooldown: none
Effect (Iron): While under the effect of your own dimension abilities, successful normal attacks or abilities will accumulate an instance of [Boundary’s Grace]. Additionally, upon reducing, avoiding, or negating damage with dimension abilities, the attacker will receive an instance of [Boundary’s Scorn]. [Boundary’s Scorn] inflicted in this way cannot be resisted. Instance limit of [Boundary’s Grace] is determined by the [Spirit] attribute.
* [Boundary’s Grace] (boon, holy, stacking): Increases rending and transcendent damage dealt. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
* [Boundary’s Scorn] (affliction, unholy, stacking): Reduces resistance to afflictions dealt by anyone with the [Boundary’s Grace] boon. Cleansing abilities have reduced effect when cleansing afflictions inflicted by anyone with the [Boundary’s Grace] boon. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
Effect (Bronze): Gain increased reflexes, proprioception, and spatial awareness.
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Instead of dancing on the boundary of offense and defense, the boundary of 3D space itself blurred. No direction was forbidden from Nara; no movement was too dizzying, too extreme, or too fast. She spun and twisted like a ribbon taken away by the wind, except she was in full control.
Almost full control.
A blast of water caught her mid-jump, punching her in the gut like a boxing glove filled with cement. She was intentionally not using her Dimension Nodes to teleport. They had gotten an interesting upgrade that completely changed their functionality. Nara already had so many mobility options that she wanted to leverage its new capabilities because it provided an effect that she lacked easy access to—instantaneous, consistent damage.
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Ability: [Dimension Node]
Essence: Dimension
Special Ability / Conjuration (dimension, teleport)
Cost: Low mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Teleport to locus of dimension effects. This effect cost low mana and has no cooldown.
Effect (Iron): Conjure a [Dimension Node], a locus for dimension effects, costing low mana. [Dimension Nodes] are incorporeal. A maximum of 6 [Dimension Nodes] can exist simultaneously. If another [Dimension Node] is conjured while the maximum number of [Dimension Nodes] already exist, the oldest [Dimension Node] will be replaced, unless another is selected.
Effect (Bronze): Maximum nodes increases to 9. When destroyed, nodes release a disruptive-force blast. This effect can exclude targets or be disabled.
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She recovered from the torso blow, teleporting to Ensi’s back who had a body of Sage with her. She sprang into action again, landing smoothing on a flying platform with the accuracy of a major league baseball pitcher. Nara conjured a dimension node next to a wind elemental, then detonated it with a quick gunshot from one of Nirvana’s new forms.
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Item: [Nirvana] (Bronze rank [growth], legendary)
Classification: Weapon
A weapon forged from the Astral and transfigured by the Reaper. Fear not death but a life unlived.
This item is bound to [Nara Edea] and cannot be used by anyone else. This bond allows the weapon to share the wielder’s ability to ignore rank disparity.
Effect: You may invoke all effects of a conjured weapon into this blade for the normal mana cost of conjuring the weapon. Only one weapon’s effects may be invoked at a time.
Effect: This weapon deals increased damage for each instance of a boon on the wielder, up to a limit determined by rank.
Effect: The wielder gains increased resistance to dispel effects.
Effect (Iron): This weapon has no specific form unless it is given a form. Current forms available: Staff, Bow, Sword. This weapon can take the form of an accessory when not in active use. Can transform into other forms with no bonuses. When transformed into other forms, cannot invoke the effects of a conjured weapon.
* [Sword]: Low [Power] bonus.
* [Staff]: Low Increase to damage resistance.
* [Bow]: Low [Speed] bonus.
Effect (Bronze): The weapon gains additional forms: Dagger, Dual Machine Pistols, War Hammer. Alter forms slightly within their concepts.
* [Dagger]: Low [Speed] bonus.
* [Dual Pistols]: Low reduction in mana costs. Ammo Consumption: Medium.
* [War Hammer]: Heavy weapon. Low [Power] bonus.
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A single node detonation did minor damage, just shaving a bit of the swirling tornado-like wind elemental’s body off. The wind reformed, slightly smaller than it had been, but otherwise unimpeded.
Nara could directly attack the elementals. Her Blade of the Boundary could become incorporeal, sharing that effect with Nirvana. That was enough to damage and afflict incorporeal beings, and she could enhance her blade with disruptive-force damage with Boon Conversion for extra impact.
Additionally, almost nothing was immune to rending damage (she theorized she may have issues with pure energy beings). It was damage that tore things apart, whether it be wind or water. Everything had some sort of form to separate, be it atomic bonds or grains of wood. While rending damage worked against everything, it wasn’t particularly effective against anything either. It had the same effect on all beings, for better or for worse. It saved Nara needless worry; her other skills demanded her attention. She didn’t want to have to worry about what her damage was and wasn’t effective against.
Instead, Aliyah manipulated her constructs and her magic to target weaknesses, displaying her thorough knowledge of magic, arrays, and monsters, while Nara focused on her mechanical skills.
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Ability: [Blade of the Boundary]
Essence: Dimension
Conjuration (sword, affliction)
Cost: Moderate mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Conjures [Horizon’s Edge, the [Blade of the Boundary]]. Normal and special attacks made with [Horizon’s Edge] deal physical and rending damage and will inflict an instance of [Dimensional Instability] and inflicts or refreshes [Dimensional Rupture]. Horizon’s Edge can be made incorporeal at will.
* [Dimensional Instability] (affliction, magic, stacking): All rending damage suffered is increased. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
* [Dimensional Rupture] (affliction, magic): When inflicted or refreshed, suffer additional rending damage proportional to current instances of [Dimensional Instability].
Effect (Bronze): Normal and special attacks made with [Horizon’s Edge] inflict [Dimensional Nausea], [Dimensional Exhaustion], and [Dimensional Ruin]. The size of [Horizon’s Edge] can be adjusted for low mana-per-second, with ongoing mana cost increasing with size difference from the base.
* [Dimensional Nausea] (affliction, magic): Rending damage suffered additionally inflicts damage to mana, as if mana had been expended.
* [Dimensional Exhaustion] (affliction, magic): Rending damage suffered additionally inflicts damage to stamina, as if stamina had been expended.
* [Dimensional Ruin] (affliction, damage-over-time, magic, stacking): Inflicts ongoing rending damage. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
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With Dimensional Nausea and Dimensional Exhaustion, all of her damage affected all three pools of health, stamina, and mana simultaneously. The damage to stamina and mana was less than the damage to health, but enemies that expended those two resources at their normal rate without adjusting for their effects would find themselves unexpectedly exhausted of resources. That wouldn’t kill them. Nara would be just a step behind when they finally collapsed from exhaustion, the persistence hunting reaping the mammoth of its life.
Dimensional Ruin was Nara’s first damage-over-time affliction, other than Thanatos’ umbral fire and Umbral Burn. Like all her other afflictions, it started minor. However, thanks to Dimensional Instability, which increased rending damage suffered, it would eventually become dangerously high if not managed. More importantly, with Dimensional Nausea and Dimensional Exhaustion, it created a constant and slowly increasing drain on stamina and mana.
Nara’s fighting style was active, however, and rarely did enemies die to Dimensional Ruin. While Entropy gradually increased her instances of afflictions without her input, active battle had a noticeable increase to total instances. She could hit an enemy once that could not cleanse and leave them alone as long as the effect of Entropy did not run out to maintain the afflictions, but in a dangerous battle where enemies needed to be killed as soon as possible, that was impractical. Her Adventure Society examination had warned her of such.
Bright sunlight danced off the waves refracting in shards of shattered glass. Nara glimmered with silver light, a small silver light in a sea of blinding light, a new effect of her Moonlight Raiment.
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Ability: [Moonlight Raiment]
Essence: Mystic
Conjuration (armor, light)
Cost: High mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Conjured robes that contain the tranquility of night.
* Increased resistance to damage. Highly effective against cutting and piercing damage, less effective against blunt damage.
* The robes subtly redirect aura and physical perception, making the conjurer more difficult to detect. This effect can be controlled or disabled.
* Mana recovery over time effects have increased strength and duration.
Effect (Bronze):
* Increased resistance to mana drain effects.
* Manipulate light to distort it, blurring the wearer’s figure. May cause homing abilities to miss.
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For new abilities, they were usually named after the first few ranks. The bronze rank was when the Moonlight Raiment received its namesake. Nara was thankful for a defensive effect that did not rely on a dimension effect. Any attack had to get through several of Nara’s defenses to reach her—Dimension Node, Infinity Domain, Phase Shift, Cosmic Path, Dream’s Wake, and finally, Moonlight Raiment. Nara had to intentionally let attacks through in order to trigger Refresh and gain Invigorating Spirit for the mana.
The light distortion was another effect she could actively manage, same as Infinity Domain. It also worked passively, but Nara had learned from several of her mentors that full mastery was ideal and the hallmark of a skilled adventurer.
She still needed more practice. She let attacks slip through Infinity Domain, feeling out the limits of the light-manipulation effect. The elementals were the perfect opponents. Both the wind and water elementals fired of cutting blades or bullets of wind and water, which followed her if she didn’t teleport. The anti-homing effect prevented the wind and water bullets from tracking her slightly. At best, they curved towards her, but their annoyance was greatly reduced. It was as if they were missiles with a faulty targeting lock, focused not on her but a meter away from her.
The moonlight manipulation was more effective against aimed projectile attacks. It had no significant effect against large area wind bombs or blasts of needle rain. While similar in effect, it differed from Infinity Domain in methodology. Manipulating light affected the enemy’s direct ability to target her, while Infinity Domain changed trajectories after the fact. With the two combined, it created a nauseating effect of being unable to properly hit a target as if fighting off a weekend bender of mixed alcohol and drugs at an airsoft battle. She had become a desert mirage, a trick of the light. She’d be an opponent that incessantly attacked but could not be tracked nor aimed at. She flickered in an out of existence, blurring the line between physical and non-physical.
Their duo fight was nearing its end, and Aliyah primed a final move. She sent out her flying, octopus like Force Tether monstrosity, picking up elementals like a mother duck adopted orphaned ducklings. They trailed after the flying trap, helpless, just another balloon in a balloon bunch.
“Nara, give it a try,” she said over voice chat.
Standing on a flying platform, Nara conjured nine simultaneous Dimension nodes at the center of the elementals bunched like grapes.
A bow shot enhanced with disruptive force damage penetrated the throng of surging elementals and shattered the layered dimensional nodes in a pulsing nova blast.
However, that was not enough to destroy the elementals. A simultaneous nine low mana cost Dimension Nodes explosion was a decent amount of damage, but at bronze rank even elementals made of amorphous water and air had more resilience to them. The low cost of the Dimension Nodes meant their damage would never match up to the damage of a spell, which Aliyah shortly demonstrated.
The Force Tether had been destroyed by the node blast, and the elementals had begun to scatter. Aliyah used Instant Negation, restoring the Force Tether. Immediately, the elementals that had been once connected to it were yanked back by shimmering tethers of force that reappeared.
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Ability: [Instant Negation]
Essence: Adept
Spell
Incantation: “A moment’s negation.”
Cost: Moderate mana
Cooldown: 1 minute
Effect (Iron): Dispel an effect from you or an ally and prevent it’s reapplication for a brief duration. This effect ignores resistance.
Effect (Bronze): Alternatively, reverse the destruction of one of your conjuration abilities. This will apply the ability to the same target or targets, if applicable.
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The elementals smashed into each other, crowding the Tether like debris at a storm drain. Aliyah followed up, casting her most powerful spell and demonstrating why spells masters were avatars of destruction.
“Feel the annihilation of reality unmade.” As she chanted, an incredible volume of mana swelled and gathered, coalescing to the magic of the chant and Aliyah’s concentration. Spell chants gathered mana from both the essence user and the atmosphere, increasing their power compared to an equivalent cost ability.
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Ability: [Wrath of the Magister]
Essence: Master
Spell (fire, magic, curse, poison, wounding, ice, dimension)
Incantation: "Feel the power of reality remade." /
“Feel the annihilation of reality unmade.”
Cost: Moderate mana plus additional mana per effect.
Cooldown: 1 minute / Varies
Effect (Iron): Lock a prismatic beam onto an enemy. Expend additional mana to alter the target’s reality, using any combination of the available colour effects. This cannot be used in conjunction with the other variant of this spell, which requires an alternate incantation. This effect has a moderate mana cost and a one minute cooldown.
Effect (Iron): Lock a prismatic beam onto an enemy. Expend additional mana to unmake reality in a localised area, creating an annihilating void sphere inside the target. This effect requires magic to be channelled into the target at an extreme mana cost until sufficient mana has been channelled to trigger the effect.
* [Red] (high mana): Target’s temperature is significantly increased (frost burn if combined with blue).
* [Yellow] (high mana): Target’s abilities have increased mana cost.
* [Pink] (moderate mana): Target’s resistances are reduced.
* [Green] (moderate mana): Target’s blood is poisonous to itself.
* [Purple] (very high mana): Expending mana harms the target.
* [Orange] (very high mana): Target suffers increased damage from all sources.
* [Blue] (high mana): Target’s temperature is significantly decreased (frost burn if combined with red).
Effect (Bronze): Create a ritual circle in which the magical attacks of spells, staves and wands have increased effect. This effect has a very high mana cost and a one hour cooldown.
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She applied all the colored effects of Wrath of the Magister, producing a prismatic beam that created a void sphere at the location of the trap. The void sphere expanded, destroying all the surrounding elementals and retriggering the destruction of the Force Tether conjuration, repeatedly abused for its on-destruction effect. Aliyah was using it less as a trap than another disruptive-force bomb.
The resulting combination of disruptive force damage finally shattered the hard working and underappreciated arcane construct, destroying the basic motive spirit and its physical form.
The wind and water elementals exploded in a firework of wind and saltwater rain, completely and entirely annihilated. Nara hunted down any last stragglers that had escaped the carnage with the help of Aliyah’s flying platforms, which followed after her to provide footing above the sea.
Nara looted the elementals who had been a mixture of iron and bronze rank manifestations. She had gained a Water Essence and a Magic Essence. Elementals were good monsters to fight for looting essences, she noted. She’d likely loot at least one of whatever element they were made of. They also dropped the Magic Essence, which was one of the most popular essences.
She turned to Aliyah, whose magus robes were drenched in saltwater. Ensi flapped her wings, created a warmed gust that evaporated the water in a steam, leaving her crusted with sea salt glittering on her dark skin.
“Aliyah.”
“Yes, Nara?”
“I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to use trap abilities.”