Kole doesn’t like the way this ‘talk’ has begun. For starters, ‘talk’ is a bit of a misnomer, the moment the sorcerer and the captain had laid eyes on the elf the mercenary mentioned earlier, they’d been stunned still. Kole’s not particularly interested in beautiful women, which is probably why he was more uneased by her presence as opposed to awestricken.
The man that stands next to her on the other hand. Oppressive. That is the only word Kole’s mind can put to the feeling of standing in his aura. His face is covered by some sort of cloth veil, and he’s wrapped head to toe in flowing and ragged brown robes, not even a inch of his skin visible. Yet still, without eyes to glare at Kole or a face for him to read, he can tell that the mage is radiating hostility.
Every hair on his neck is telling him to run. Kole isn’t a very composed person in the face of danger, that fact is what saved his life enough times to get promoted so high as a commoner, but even for him, it isn’t danger, exactly, that he feels like he’s in. Afraid of getting caught in a duel between high level mages? Yes. Out of his depth in standing besides Captain Nils in a peace talk? Yes. In danger… No. There’s something about the robed mage that Kole can’t quite put his finger on. Like the hostility is merely a front for something deeper.
“H-Hello citizen. I am Captain Nils of the twelfth advanced company. My men and I march for the front and to investigate the disappearance of a company that came before us. Announce yourselves, and know that we would have no quarrel with the magician taking up residence.” The Captain’s early faltering was made up for by the sheer authority in his tone, though Kole does wonder why exactly he lied about being the ‘twelfth advanced company’.
“I am a mercenary sorcerer, hired to provide various magical services to the army for the winter. I am not a sorcerer, nor am I bound to fight for the Kingdom in any way. I would like to formally apologize for my [Scrying] spell earlier, we were merely investigating.” The sorcerer-no, his name was Marcus, Kole learned that earlier-sounded shaky, but the mention of his spell made the robed man shift his weight around for a moment.
Kole doesn’t think he should bother introducing himself. The Captain and Marcus are the talkers here, Kole is here more for formality. The robed man looks contemplative as opposed to openly hostile, which Kole thinks is a good sign, though the elf’s expression is the same half-smile as it had been before. Wait… She has a sword on her hip… Didn’t Marcus say she had some amount of magic, and the ability to resist [Scrying]? Hold on-
“Greetings to you, Captain Nils and ‘mercenary sorcerer’, I speak for the survivors of the village that once stood here, as the wife of the wizard that rescued the village in its most dire straits.” Even to the ears of a man with no interest in women, her voice sounds simply angelic, no doubt intentionally so, and Kole swore he heard the Captain and Marcus both hold their breath as she began speaking. After a brief pause, and a moment of eye contact with each of them, she continues. “That said, I can’t answer for you as to where your fellow soldiers went. The village was destitute when the wizard came to us.”
“I take it you are this wizard, then?” Captain Nils addresses the robed man, and Sera merely nods and steps backwards in response.
“Indeed.” Hold on, that’s not right… what isn’t right there? What am I- Kole’s breath catches in his throat as he spots it, a flicker of light from beneath the cloth covering the wizard’s face, pale blue and focused on him like an eyeball. He has a spell on already, that’s why he’s been so quiet! As the mage steps forward, Kole takes a step back and to the left, trying to use the Captain’s body to hide that his hand is reaching for his sword. “My name is Vey, I was on a journey in search of some- Ah. Excuse me for a moment.”
Kole’s instincts scream at him to duck as the man pivots in place, and the faint whistling sound in the back of his mind sends him to snowy ground in reflex. Three distinct sounds follow as Kole hits the ground, the unmistakable whizzing and thunking of arrowfire.
“Captain!” Kole looks up as he shouts, only to see that it is too late, as the Captain’s helmeted forehead is sprouting a wooden branch tipped with fletchings. Wincing as he forces his arms to the ground to push himself up, Kole hears the sound of steel drawing out of a scabbard. The elf! The instant he gets to his feet, he jumps backward while fumbling for his sword, and he has barely enough time to register that the two mages still exist as he watches the elf take a dueling stance before him. “Bastards! You’re attacking soldiers, we have numbers on our side, I’ll-”
Kole stops when he sees an honest to the gods bolt of lightning erupt from the robed mage’s outstretched palm. A skeletal palm. Not a human or even fleshy one. Marcus hadn’t screamed in pain or otherwise expressed distress, and whoosh of something leaving the ground at high speed from his direction gives Kole a bit of hope that the mercenary can buy enough time for the rest of the men to ready archer-fire.
“Can you take him?” That angelic voice from earlier, Kole barely registered that it came from the mouth of the elf in front of him. He’d seen her lips move, but he’s far more concerned with what looks like a bit of drool leaking out of the corner of her lips, the cruel smile she’s wearing, and the fact that she’s obviously reading herself for a charge.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“[Fireball]!” Marcus’s voice is farther away and higher up than Kole expected it to be coming from, but Kole has just enough time to glance up at the sorcerer floating overhead before the elf charges.
“[Dispel]. Focus on leading the troops, we need to kill as many of them as possible.” The robed wizard-no-skeleton’s voice now fully registers with Kole, as does the name it had used earlier. Vey. Dragonskull. A skeleton wizard claiming to possess the power of dragons… I’m so fuc-
Three arrows he hadn’t the time to pay attention to silence his thoughts forever.
--
I know not all humans are so dumb, but neither the captain nor the duelist even tried to dodge the arrows. Pathetic. Vey’s honest thoughts whir seamlessly and timelessly in [Alacritous Cogitation] enhanced perception of reality. You’ve got more magic at your disposal than I do, by a large margin…
Vey looks up at the flying sorcerer, regretting for an instant that he didn’t prepare his own flight spell this morning. The gambit of coming out to talk was worthwhile in the sense that the enemy is down two leadership roles, and the spellcaster is isolated, but it also means he didn’t have any time to prepare his many buffs as he normally would. No matter, he can just do so now.
“Cover me.” Vey doesn’t bother shouting the command, and Sera doesn’t respond verbally, instead simply stepping in front of him as his mind blurs dozens of spells and potential spells together. Everyone, charge! Vey commands the mindless undead in the treeline wordlessly as he catches a glimpse of the first rank of enemy soldiers rushing to position.
“You’re an undead? You, why would you serve such a detestable creature? It isn’t too late, I can rescue you, just put the sword down and run!” The sorcerer’s nonsense gives Vey enough time to finalize his [Layered Augmentation], which he casts under his breath as Sera responds.
“Rescue? Oh, my sweet prince, thank you, truly, thank-” Vey stands still in brief shock as Sera’s entire body tenses and jumps faster than he would have been able to react to in real time, and he wonders for a moment if Sera actually has a spell for jumping, or if she can just jump that high with her strength buff on. “YOU!”
The sorcerer’s flight spell allows him to dodge the strike easily, but Vey can’t help but feel satisfied at how the distraction prevented him from applying his buffs. [Mage Armor], [Dragonskin], [Mirror Image], [Shadow Cloak], and [Dueling], a combination of spells specifically designed to kill other spellcasters. [Dueling] in particular, given that its enhancements towards the user’s ability to counterspell stacks with [Alacritous Cogitation]’s enhanced processing speed, means that as long as his MP holds up, he can probably guarantee that this sorcerer never successfully casts a spell ever again.
“I don’t have a way to drag him down.” Sera’s announcement as she lands from her leap doesn’t surprise him, but for all the faith he has in her ability to inflict horrible injury in close quarters, killing a floating spellcaster was never her job.
“As I said, lead the troops, I’ll kill him. [Greater Evocation: Gust + Updraft: Blustersquall]” As Vey finishes casting, the sorcerer brings his arms together in the same way he had done earlier to cast his [Fireball]. He’s a sorcerer, he didn’t learn to cast from doing the math or theory or science, it’s just instinct. He’ll make the same movements for the same spells. Inferior. “[Dispel].”
As the sorcerer’s spell crumbles in his hands, Vey checks his dwindling MP. 42 left. The custom [Blustersquall] spell finally takes its effect, as he watches the air around the sorcerer twist visibly, dragging the man from a stable and evasive flight into a predictable downward spiral. Predictable to someone with five times as much ‘time’ to chart the course, anyway.
“[Greater Evocation: Icicle Lance].” Sera evidently ran off to join the undead at some point when he was either tracking the sorcerer or when he was calculating the [Dispel], he’s not sure which though. The lance of ice that flies forth isn’t dodged, but Vey didn’t have enough time to see exactly how it only managed to remove the sorcerer’s left arm as opposed to his whole chest. His flight also stabilized the moment the knockback from the lance pushed him out of [Blustersquall].
“So this is as far as I go…” Vey hears the sorcerer talking to himself even at this distance, which means he’s probably saying it pretty loudly, even if it sounds sort of muffled and distorted from here. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me just-”
Vey lurches forwards as he spots the sorcerer’s flight turn and accelerates him away from Vey and towards the now escalating battle lines. Wretch! Fine, if you want to run…
Vey focuses for a moment, making absolutely sure the spell will work. By his estimation of the sorcerer’s max flight speed, he has two seconds to cast his spell. Enough.
“[Bestow Curse: Bloodrot].” The moment the spell finishes, Vey feels like his body just got four times as heavy as it was before. Even as what he presumes are the spell’s aftereffects take their toll on him, he can’t help but act a little smug for the sorcerer’s benefit. “ [Whispering Wind] I’ll collect your corpse later. Don’t go far.”
--
[Bestow Curse]
Tier 4
Enchantment & Necromancy(Curses)
V, S, F
Target: Creature within 120ft
Duration: *
12 MP
The caster inflicts a curse upon a target. The caster chooses what curse is applied, though temporary curses are applied temporarily for a duration of 1 hour/caster level rather than their normal duration.
Permanent curses incur a special temporary curse on the caster called ‘Soul Binding’, which has various negative effects including but not limited to an inability to recover HP and MP, a -4 penalty to Str, Dex, and Con, and an inability to make Pacts and Oaths for the duration.