System Info: You have received the spell staff Ashura.

Weapon. Staff.

Magical alignment: Light.

Status: Elder Spell Weapon.

This weapon is a Soul Bound weapon. Would you like to soul bind? Yes/No?

Morwen immediately accepted. It was a weapon her father had wielded, but only as an interim owner. He hadn’t soul bound to it. Like she had. She could feel his magic in it. A sensation of oneness settled over her.

“Hi! I’m Ashura, or Ash for short. Are you my new owner?”

“Yes. Little busy for introductions. Do you have any spells of your own?”

“Several! Would you like the whole list?”

“Please.” Morwen grunted, avoiding a stabbing lunge from Ominek’s tail. She rolled free and fired off a series of level 1 void bolts that splashed against the dragon’s scales. She broke into a sprint and dove for cover as Ominek snapped his jaws several times, reducing a thick hardwood table to splinters. She slid on her knees for several feet before pivoting and getting up as the dragon pursued.

“I have a wide variety of spells. Storm of the unforgiven. Divine barrier. Oh! And the Fuck You Gun.”

Morwen ducked under a tail swipe. “Fuck You Gun?”

“One of my previous master’s was… how can I put it? Colorful with words.”

“What does it do?”

“Unleashes a 10th level light bolt.” Hope said nonchalantly.

“10th?” Morwen hissed in disbelief. That was well into the territory of a minor god level spell. Just who exactly owned this weapon prior to her father coming into possession of it? This had Sashlu’s fingerprints all over it. Morwen was coming around to Akamori’s stance on an extreme dislike of fate.

She rolled away from Ominek’s talons as they crashed down into the stone and raked away from her. “What about a flurry of weaker spells? Can you cast a torrent of void bolts?”

“Not only can I do it, I can amplify your magic while doing it.”

“Do it!”

Morwen aimed the staff at Ominek as it erupted into a storm of level 2 void bolts that struck Ominek like a wave of negative magic. The spells crashed against his scales, and patches of them dissolved. Ominek inhaled and breathed his soul based breath weapon. She jumped above the attack, exposed in the air. She spotted Ominek’s off-hand weaving signs.

A large void bolt zipped for her, but something black and blue and red crashed into the bolt from above, cleaving the attack, causing it to destabilize and dissolve into motes of spent magic. She landed and watched the figure interpose itself between them. She’d not been using her power, so she didn’t know it was Akamori until he turned back to give her an intense nod. she returned it, feeling a little confused.

“I take it you’ve completed your task?”

“I have. I’m sorry about Lucinda.”

Morwen nodded sadly. She’d sensed as much and looking back, it made sense the way she was acting erratically. “Follow my lead.”

“It’s you! The farm boy from Hoshun! I’m going to enjoy devouring you!”

“Not today, you Patricidal maniac.”

Akamori’s black and purple crystalline staff spun, buzzing through the air with a dangerous aura. Morwen fired off another Amaterasu’s Fire spell. Amplified with Hope, the spell had no issue going to work on Ominek’s magical defenses. Fire and void magic mixed usually meant fire that disintegrated stuff. She hoped it chewed off his wing.

Ominek responded with another deep inhale that distended his chest cartoonishly. Akamori stepped in front of Morwen, taking a deep breath himself. Both dragon and human breathed. Pallid grey breath crashed into destructive Ebon breath, resulting in a magic beam struggle.

Ominek’s eyes glinted with glee. Slowly his soul element breath attack closed in on Akamori’s false breath attack.

“Hope, you said you could enhance spells, right?”

“I can!”

“Does that apply spells already being cast?”

“It does!”

“I need you to enhance Akamori’s spell now, or you may need a new master soon.”

“Sure, just touch me to him and watch the magic!”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Morwen deadpanned at the staff’s joke, but did as the staff said. When the floating diamond contacted Akamori’s back, he glowed with radiant energy. Then Morwen saw golden lines dripping with raw magic begin to build a framework around Akamori’s breath attack. It took the shape of a large bell and, for an instant; she was confused.

“Hope… why a bell?”

“It’s an amplifier of sound.” Hope said nonchalantly.

At that very instant, a loud gong issued from the ArchPriest’s chambers followed by a thunderclap of power as Akamori’s breath attack turned into a hurricane of void magic and a dragon roared within it. A massive void scaled arm lashed out, raking Ominek across the snout. Blood splattered the opposite wall as the dread lord broke his attack and backed out. He flapped his powerful wings, gaining altitude and them cast a morph spell, and vanished from sight.

Akamori dropped to his knees, his head pounding from mana depletion. It would take him time to recover the spent magic. But even with his mind reeling, he knew he’d spent more AP than he technically had. Was that the staff’s doing?

Morwen rushed over to the prone form of her father. He looked so old. He’d been consuming his excess magic to fight off Ominek’s poison. Buying time at the expense of vitality.

She gently scooped his head up in her lap. Black fluid bled from his nose and mouth from coughing fits. She’d have expected something that could kill the Guardian to have worked faster, but she felt like this was retribution.

“Don’t blame yourself, muppet.”

“Father. I hate when you call me that.”

He smiled, his first genuine smile in a long time. “I get to call you whatever I want. That’s how it works for the dying. And we both know that is my fate. Now that I’ve fulfilled my duty, I can see you as the proud and biased father I always wanted to be.”

Morwen’s eyes stung, and her vision blurred, but she refused to take her eyes off her father. Afraid that if she did, he might vanish. Eaulmant’s eyes slowly drifted to the goldenrod with the glowing diamond floating next to her as it bobbed up and down slowly.

“Take care, my little muppet, for me. She’ll need your guidance in the trials to come.”

“Of course, Master Eaulmant.” the staff said somberly. All jovial charm washed away in the moment.

“You’ve only just begun your war. But you will yet need more tools. The staff is just one part of a set. If you wish to destroy Sauridius and his minions, find the first spell ship. It is something of an elvan legacy.” Eaulmant coughed.

“But guard the staff with your life. There will be those who seek to rob it from you. Some are ignorant of its true purpose, and others are not.”

Eaulmant’s eyes turned to Morwen, but they slowly clouded over as his magic faded. “A new ArchPriest will need to be selected. Please choose between Elder Weaver Erlaut, or Allosius Rayshe. They’ve both served the longest and most intimately know our people and can hope to face the trouble we yet face.”

Morwen bit down her concerns about Rayshe, simply nodding to her father’s final requests. “I’ll make sure it happens, father.”

“Do not fret for me muppet. Mine was but a small part to play. I only hope I get to watch as your star continues to shine.” He continued to hack out.

Morwen did her best to hide her grimace as his breathing became more ragged. His body was failing now. “Save your strength. The medical teams will be here soon.”

He smiled, tracing the side of her face with a weathered old hand. “Oh muppet. I truly wish I didn’t have to send you forward alone like this.”

“She’s not alone, sir. She’s got allies. We’ll see the fight done.” Akamori said, stepping forward.

“Ah. The traveler. She wants me to bid you… good luck.” Eaulmant choked out before his breathing trailed off into stillness.

Akamori hung his head in silence for a long moment. An instant later, the entire temple was an eruption of violence and noise as a massive column of magic power was blasted into the air. The force of the eruption was so powerful it’d thrown Akamori and Morwen both to the ground. They both watched in horror as massive chunks of the temple flew into the air, lose momentum and fell back towards the planet.

“Oh shi-”

#

Meanwhile…

Aboard the Indra upon arrival.

Arjun sat in the pilot’s seat with a knowledge scale playing out how to handle the ship. Standard tech ships he could manage. But a spell ship? He’d never trained for this. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he understood magic. Still; the Captain had given him orders. Watch the ship and save the day if they needed.

The instructions were frustratingly simple and vague. Put his hands on the controls sticks, channel his magic, and tell the ship what he wanted to do. Simple, but vague. Arjun was a bit of a tinkerer though, and one of his preferred learning modalities was simply trial and error. He tried to crack his knuckles and look macho, but it only hurt his hands and he got maybe two pops.

“Ow. So much for looking good while trying this.” he muttered.

Arjun sucked in a hesitant breath before finally seizing the golden control sticks. At first nothing happened, and he grew worried he wouldn’t be able to get any farther than this. But something shifted on the edge of his consciousness. He could sense another awareness next to his own. The ship was alive and aware.

“Whoa.” he said in awe. This went leagues beyond having a ship with advanced AI.

The ship intuitively pulled some of his freshly gained fire magic and linked with him fully. He shifted in his seat as vertigo threatened to overtake him, as the full suite of ship sensory systems overwhelmed his mind. He grunted under the strain of processing it all until the burden eased. The ship had lifted some of the extraneous data from him, giving him a break.

“Thanks Indra.” The console beeped affirmatively.

Over the next few minutes, Arjun took some time practicing flying. He manually brought the ship around in circular patterns and tinkered about with various systems. He’d experimented with powering up the spell canons when he realized he didn’t have a target to shoot at. Until the roof of the temple exploded into the air, hurling massive chunks of stone high into the canopy of the massive giant red woods.

“Uh oh.” Arjun muttered, sensing the ship’s alarm.

The ship calculated descent trajectories projecting the biggest pieces would strike the heart of the city that had yet to evacuate. “Not good.” Arjun said, wiping sweat from his brow. “Ok, think. Think. We have to take out those pieces before they land.”

What happened next was a blur. Sensing his intent, and expertly molding his need and will with its own capabilities, the Indra raced off at full speed. No one heard Arjun yelling in surprise as the Indra sped up hard.

All four cannons came to life and swiveled towards their own targets. They fired basic spell bolts; the ship amplified. The tax on mana was high for a level 1 mage, but he was all the squad had for help. With so many lives on the line, he would not let them down now. The Indra took up the brunt of the heavy lifting, blasting rocks into smaller, more manageable pieces the golden spell fighters could deal with.

Each new target became harder for Arjun to destroy, as his AP ran dangerously low. So he resorted to crashing the Indra into them like an arrowhead shaped ram. The last chunk had slipped past him and plummeted dangerously close to the temple itself. If the team was still inside, someone would wind up hurt.

At the very last minute, he lanced clean through it, spraying gravel across the side of the temple’s remnants. Arjun threw his hands up and cheered. He’d done it. “I just saved the day!” he said with a disbelieving laugh.

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