To retreat now is reckless folly. The war cannot be won but still it must be fought.
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Jair dropped backwards through his timeline, in no rush to pull himself out this time. The thought of leaving Larenok with Maelstrom's information made him incredibly uncomfortable. Better to erase that possibility as quickly as possible. He could revisit it after he finished his own personal attempts, and once he'd worked with fellow students, hired mercenaries, everything else he could possibly think of.
As powerful as Firdon had proven himself to be, he hadn't done enough to offset the risk. It was good to know his capabilities, but the few seconds he'd bought weren't close to enough.
Jair slipped out into realtime the morning before the attack, well before he’d drawn the dragon diagrams. He didn’t need to see them visually again at this point, he’d internalized the information and could recall them at need. He could easily repeat the frenzied drawing thing again if he ever wanted to go down the Ran-pretends-to-be-the-seer route, but right now that wasn't on the table.
Mentally rearranging his list of options, he moved Larenok to his own category at the end, leaving teachers and students as part 2. Jair honestly wouldn't put it past Larenok to hire assassins, if he thought about it more than a few seconds.
People would more than murder to obtain an item as powerful as Maelstrom. In the hands of a student, a Legendary sword was a liability and danger more than anything else. He could tell people it was Advanced but confirming it as Epic, let alone Legendary, would be as good as signing his own death warrant.
That was the biggest reason to try everything he could on his own before bringing anyone else in. Until he could protect himself properly, letting anyone know Maelstrom’s true rank would be incredibly risky.
If it turned out he could only save Ran by sharing that information, he’d accept the danger and deal with it the same way he solved anything else. He’d still rather avoid it entirely.
For now, he’d continue to focus on what he and Ran could do on their own.
"I'm going to need you to stand here."
Ran protested half-heartedly, but didn't resist as Jair physically moved him to the position he wanted.
"Now, stay there until the dragon shows up."
"You want me to stand here forever."
"Alright, twenty minutes. Then if there's no dragon you can leave."
"You are so helping with my project next week."
"Absolutely."
Ran shrugged and leaned his back against the tower parapet. "I do wonder, with all of these new obsessions, just how much I can get out of you for playing along."
"Anything." Jair moved back toward the stairs. "Stay there."
"Anything?" Ran tapped his fingers against his lips thoughtfully. "That's a lot of potential..."
Jair still didn't know exactly what the price would be for all his postponed bets and deals, since many of them were open promises. Instead of the thought weighing him down, the idea of finally learning exactly what his best friend would demand from him after so long was electrifying. He'd love to spend a few weeks where the only thing he had to do was obey his friend's every whim.
He arrived at the wall below and ran along it toward the next tower over. The dragon should show up in about five minutes. Judging from its direction, it would have to fly past this tower to reach the tower where Ran waited. It tended to stay high until diving down to eat him, but not so high that Jair couldn't hit it.
He'd been practicing his sword-throwing in every free moment this loop, even convinced Ran to purchase an accelerant band despite its prohibitive mana cost.
This position gave him the best chance. The dragon’s venom sac would be facing him, its flight as low as possible without being right there close enough that it could simply reach out and snap them both up.
This angle could let him hit it, he was sure of it.
He ran up the stairs, reaching the top right on time. The dragon's shadow against the sun showed faintly.
A quick check of the other tower - yes, Ran had stayed where he was supposed to. Perfect.
Jair turned back, tracking the dragon's flight. He could have pictured it with his eyes closed, he'd watched the approach so many times, but every time he changed things he had to verify. Sometimes, something seemingly inconsequential would cause the dragon to take a different route.
Moving Ran to one of the library towers made the dragon circle the entire academy from a much further distance, spiraling higher and higher until it dove and tore the tower apart. Moving him under the dome caused the dragon to use swift darting strikes and shatter the glass, then fill the whole thing with its poison breath.
So far, the outer wall towers were the most reliable way to get it to fly relatively low and completely confident.
Jair raised his arm, Maelstrom held ready, accelerant band steadily leeching his mana as it had been for most of the day. He'd get exactly one shot at this.
The dragon swooped down, heading straight for Ran. Jair took three quick steps to build momentum, released the catch on the construct, and hurled his sword with every ounce of strength in his body.
It flew true, the dragon's path unswerving and easily predictable. Maelstrom threw up sparks as it drove point-first into the vulnerable point at its shoulder, then disappeared in a flash of silver as Jair recalled it to his hand.
The transition happened so fast the dragon didn't have time to evade. The explosive mist ignited, the blast hurling the dragon off course and leaving its wing flapping weakly and unsteadily.
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It beat its good wing faster, twisting in midair, and crashed into the tower. Claws raked at the stone, tearing chunks free and hurling them below. The tower teetered as more and more of its support was removed.
Jair cursed and ran down the stairs to the walltop below. He had to get there before it brought the whole tower down. The falling stone wouldn't hurt Ran, thanks to the academy wards, but the fall and the hungry dragon wouldn't be so easily avoided.
Ran screamed before Jair could cross half the distance, tumbling through the air. The dragon couldn't fly, but it was close enough it didn't need to.
Crunch.
Jair winced and exhaled wearily, reaching into his soul and reversing time again.
The next time, Jair waited atop the second library tower while Ran stood on the stage within the dome. This was the highest point in the Institute, and the closest to where the dragon's path would pass. It would circle the academy three times before it managed to shatter the reinforced glass of the dome, and the second pass would bring it relatively close to where Jair waited. He'd practiced this throw a hundred times. He just needed to time it perfectly right.
The dragon swooped by on its incoming attack run, from the left and well out of reach.
Kriccchh. Its claws scraped over the dome, leaving long gouges but not piercing through. It circled, then flew back the other direction, towards Jair.
Skreee. Another set, intersecting the first at an angle, cracks beginning to perpetuate down the center of the dome.
Jair jumped and hurled Maelstrom just as the dragon swooped by, passing between the towers for its circle and final attack. The angle wasn't correct this time to ignite the venom sac, but it did slice a nice gash into it.
The flash of silver light as Maelstrom returned to Jair's hand was enough to draw the dragon's attention. Droplets of venom leaked into the air behind it. The dragon hissed in anger and shifted its course to swipe out at Jair with one wing. He ducked and raised Maelstrom, shearing off the wingtip and leaving a shallow cut down the center as the dragon swept by overhead, close enough to touch.
The dragon didn't slow, moving straight into its final attack run on the dome, dismissing Jair as no threat.
"If I had my spells you wouldn't think that!" he shouted after it, hurling Maelstrom at its back. The blade bounced off the thick scales of its tail, throwing up sparks but doing no actual damage. Actual flight wasn’t possible without more mana than he could handle even at his best, but combining Lift with a running jump would be plenty to reach the dome from here.
Jair stared down at the ground, wondering how hard it would be to create a rappel or zip line to descend quickly. He really missed his spells. Being bound by the normal rules of gravity was a major limiter on his mobility. Not being able to jump off things without breaking himself really sucked.
At least he had a good view as the dragon shattered the dome and killed everyone inside.
Again.
Jair and Ran waited together on the roof of the administration building. It hadn't been easy climbing up there, but it was someplace that he hadn't tried very thoroughly in the past. Usually it only meant they were out in the open on a nice flat surface with practically no obstacles, providing the dragon with every opportunity to swoop down and roast them both.
This time, Jair had a sword. He wasn't confident it would be enough, but at this point he was going to try every possible permutation until he found the best one. There was no reason to leave anything out, however obviously-terrible the idea may seem on the surface.
"You'd think they'd figure out a way to make proper gravity-defying constructs, wouldn't you?" Ran commented as they caught their breath from the climb. "It'd make stuff like this much easier."
"They have done," Jair replied absently. He was watching the horizon. Three minutes. "They're just exorbitantly expensive. It's cheaper to teleport from place to place than to fly."
"It takes less power to twist reality itself into a different shape than to let you move upward instead of downward?"
"Personal lift spells are very mana-efficient." Jair glanced down at his own arm, tracing the paired gravity patterns again for good measure. A few more months. "Building a construct to do the same thing takes far more material and space than is sane."
He'd tried more than a few times to solve that ancient problem, but it turned out that thousands of years of magical development wasn't wrong about some things. Generations of mages actually knew what they were talking about. Imagine that.
"There aren't many fields where the ability to recklessly test anything and everything is actually necessary," Jair commented, then abruptly realized that he'd drifted off into his own thoughts and Ran had asked something else entirely.
"Huh?"
"Contemplating weapon research at the moment. Most aggressive constructs are tested gradually over time. If this were a new frontier, I could probably make huge advances, but slow discovery still ends up finding the solutions. By now, there's not a whole lot of esoteric and dangerous stuff left to be found. Not easily, at least."
"...you're sure there are no classes on dealing with prophecies you can attend?"
"And let the whole school know my soulspell? Never."
"Most people who choose that track aren't even seers, no one would know for sure."
Jair gave him a look. "This is me we're talking about."
Ran clearly wanted to protest, but there was nothing he could say. The type of obsessively focused student Jair had always been would never have taken a class on a whim for a joke.
Even if the Jair he was now absolutely would choose whatever classes seemed amusing at the time, the rest of the school wouldn't know that. Going to a prophecy-focused track would be a complete giveaway of the general nature of his spell.
"Safer to stick with general track for now, yeah." Ran reluctantly admitted. "But that doesn't mean you can't find a private consultant--"
"Dragon time." Jair pointed upward as the dragon's cry split the air, echoing across the academy.
"Eh! The dragon's real? I mean, not that I disbelieved you, just--"
The dragon dove at them, claws extended to snatch them up. Jair jumped in front of Ran, braced himself, and slashed out with Maelstrom as the dragon snatched for them.
The impact knocked him over and sent Maelstrom flying from his hand, acidic dragon blood spraying across their armor as he severed one of its fingers.
Ran drew his own sword and lunged at the dragon. Too slow; it was well out of reach and climbing, twisting in midair to breathe fire at them as it flew overhead on a second pass. Their armor heated up painfully, draconic blood sizzling into acrid smoke, then the dragon was past.
"We have to get inside!" Ran shouted. "We're dead if we stay up here!"
Jair glanced at the dragon, then at Ran, then down at the roof beneath them. Well, he did have a much better weapon now than he did last time.
He stabbed it downward, carving a hole in the roof. The dragon turned to come back for another pass. Jair kicked in the broken section of roof. "Go!"
Ran jumped down, Jair close behind him. The next burst of dragonfire above missed them entirely as they fell below its reach.
They landed on a rack of records with a loud and painful crash, sending the footlong spools rolling in all directions. The rack toppled into another, adding another clatter and crash to the chaos.
The archive room was dark, unlit except for the hole in the ceiling through which they'd jumped.
"I didn't know there was an upstairs to this place." Ran extricated himself from the pile, sending more record spools rolling and tumbling about.
Jair took a quick look around, searching for anything that could be weaponized. He felt no curiosity; though he'd never been in the upstairs archive rooms, they weren't very different from the downstairs ones. And, much like the rooms downstairs, provided almost no protection from an angry dragon.
Jair attacked the floor while Ran stabbed up at the dragon, but neither of them succeeded.
Jair only had time for two quick slashes at the floor before the hole above rapidly expanded. Claws grabbed its edge and tore a huge section from the roof, flooding the dusty storage room with afternoon sunlight and dragonfire.
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