Rum had an idea. The idea had been brewing under the surface of his mind, shortly after he’d laid his eyes on the witches, and there hadn’t been many seconds after that to distill it. But it was an idea fully formed or not, and it was one that required urgency.
“KILL” – the word had activated something in Rum. As soon as the word escaped the head witch’s mouth, his feet moved. “Muscles Grow” he mumbled under his breath, and his arms bulged out even as he took the quick, decisive, necessary steps of his feet. Not a fraction of a second was lost, as the wizard mentally prepared a second spell in his head, meanwhile sneaking up on the totally unsuspecting and busily crossbow-loading Elrith. He grabbed her waist, and before she could protest, lifted her up.
“Whoaow! What you doin’!!!?”
Rum didn’t waste a reply. “Magic Arteries, Magic Arteries, Magic Arteries, Magic–” Rum stepped forwards towards the tens of wands, holding the woman’s form up and out like a raised shield. At the other end of the room, the wands began flashing up, the final syllabel of the incantation already having escaped most lips. I’m not gonna to make it, his subconscious told him in an irrepressible moment of defeatism, just as the universe rolled its agonizing die of chance and of hope.
ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP! The wands fired off their lightning bolts in such rapid succession the sounds overlapped, and for one fateworthy and blinding instant, the room went completely white with color.
Rum spasmed hard and fell to a knee. In his clutching hands, Elrith’s body spasmed even harder, violently shaking over the course of several seconds. In the end her entire body – arms, legs, head – all collapsed and fell into a limp unmoving form.
Suffering an all-out daze, a single thought crawled its way through Rum’s mind, strugglingly climbing its way to the forefront of the wizard’s consciousness: Alive... Why aren’t I dead? Several rapid breaths came in and out of his mouth. His heart was still beating, if somewhat fast, but he managed to think again. I’m conscious. That was his first thought. My left leg is still standing. That was his second. Even as his right had collapsed into kneeling, his left hadn’t. All over he felt his bodily presence reemerge, and with speed; his awareness of the world once more being restored.
Had it worked? Surely he hadn’t had the time. It all happened so fast, he commented all to himself inside his head. Rum knew this wasn’t the time to ponder his situation though. If he had survived the first volley, he had to seize the moment, and seize it for all that it was worth. He had to exploit whatever precious seconds was now afforded to him by luck. For it had be luck, in one form or another. A glance at the witches ahead of him told him that his enemies were about as surprised as he felt.
The wizard forced his mind in and out of the ethereal world in a flash. Within that little glimpsing second though, he gauged enough of Elrith in front of him to conclude that even if what he saw was not the cause of his own immediate survival, this plan of his was indeed working. Hastening a look back he saw the others – ALL of the others – spread along on the ground where they’d stood in a line, caught unprepared for such overkill of a trap. All of them had fallen from just a single volley of witch lightning, after all. Not all the strikes were aimed at me and Elrith – THAT’S how I survived. He caught sight his own brother still breathing, and moaning, and Gilda’s hand appeared to twitch with life, but Darmon and Rulli gave off no signs of life. Nevertheless, he had to trust that they were okay, for there was no time to spare on them now while the enemy was only moments away from finishing them all off – he had to act, now!
Rum pushed up his kneeling leg, standing upright. “Magic Arteries, Magic Arteries, Magic Arteries–” inside the limp body of Elrith, he continued connecting every surface of every extremity of that little human’s body towards the body enchantment at her back. And as his spell worked at her, an aggregate funnel of magic was coming into being; a network of channels inside her, all leading to the same destination: the artificial mana reservoir of the tattoo. For this enchantment, like every enchantment, had its own method of containing and storing mana. A container which he had proven earlier could be filled with magic as well, as magic was nothing but structured mana. Of course it wasn’t designed for this, but it was a last resort idea for a last resort situation, and if anything, this was the epitome of last resort situations.
“AGAIN!” the head witch shouted.
“–Magic Arteries, Magic Arteries, Magic Arteries–” Rum mumbled the words over each other and under his breath, until they became but a slurred sequence of nearly meaningless sounds. And yet, his ethereal self knew what to do, for the magic distributed its invocations all around that body like a dispersed stream of little workers, molding Elrith’s magical being, turning her frontside into the spongiest sponge for spellwork.
“Rithir–” Once more the ominous choir of some 30 witches and wizards in dark red robes and hats started their 5 syllable spell, and if anyone else could’ve witnessed this scene from Rum’s angle, the parallell incantations must’d sounded like the arrival of doom itself.
But Rum couldn’t hear them though. He couldn’t afford to listen. Only to mumble. “–M’gic Art’is, M’gic Art’is–”
“–Dyn.” The room went up in white again. A singular, blinding, everywhere flashing white light of magic, the sum of dozens of individually deadly magics, collectively concentrated into a volley of electrical death.
“–TN’ITY OF HEALIN’!” Rum blurted the spell at the last second, targeting himself.
ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP-ZAP!
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Lightning struck, again, and again, and again. Rum spasmed violently. So violently this time he lost his grasp on Elrith whose lump body fell forward while he came down kneeling on both legs, his entire body caught in a shaking immobilized clinging to life.
Most of the witch lightning had hit Elrith and gone into her, but 3 spells struck him too, maybe more, and that should’ve been more than enough to finish him off. But – Rum’s shaking subsided and he half-collapsed forward, taking several rapid breaths. He tried again to pull himself together, to reclaim his awareness, his presence, his control of his own body. Rum felt his healing spell patch him together, accelerating the restoration of his senses. This time it didn’t take so long before knew his surroundings again, and he could look forward at the witches. Eyes, mind, and body, all of him was rapidly becoming functional again.
“Impossible!” exclaimed the head witch, sounding bewildered. “How high level are you, truly, to survive that twice?” She appeared stunned as Rum caught a glimpse of her. Well, Rum wasn’t going to let that stunned expression go to waste. He grabbed Elrith in front of him and stood up. “Magic Arteries, Magic Art’is, M’gic Art’is–”
As he stepped forward and towards the large flock of mages, the witch commanded another strike, simultaneously furious at him and concerned. “AGAIN! And this time don’t stop until he’s a lifeless corpse on the ground!”
“M’gic Art’is–”
“Rithir–”
Rum had another idea, or rather, an extension to his idea. He was pretty sure his plan was now working, and that Elrith’s enchantment was eating up all the magic thrown at her body. But he was still vulnerable. He’d only had his chance to stand up because the witches had decided to try and kill him in volleys. If they started free-firing spells at him now, however, he wouldn’t have the respite to keep going, no matter the heals. That should’ve been his conclusion. Except, perhaps there was a way for him too, to passively dispose of the offensive spells. What if...
“Transcorporal Arteries.” He changed his spellcasting. “Transcorp’al Art’ies.” Again the room lit up with white magic, as some 30 plus wands burst into active firing mode. “TR’ITY O’ HEALIN’!” His last spell was cast as the witch lightning shoot all over Elrith’s body, and the last syllable left his mouth, as he too was lit up and electrified. This time not 1, not 3, but 7 spells hit his body.
But the effect... that wasn’t the effect of 7 spells, which should’ve killed him on the spot. He fell to a knee, shaking, spasming, but he could still grip Elrith’s body. It had worked, even though he was too busy experiencing the disturbant pulses across his body to take note of the fact. The spasms lasted longer now, long enough that another couple of the witches’ spells had time to fire. Luckily, those landed on Elrith, giving Rum the time to gradually calm down and get the presence of mind and matter to react to his circumstances. And his first reaction was simple – he pushed, with his still standing leg all that he could – and jumped. The act must’ve come as a surprise to all the witches, who were taken aback by his sudden upwards motion. Several spells missed both him and Elrith as the witches scrambled to aim spells that had been in the midst of being fired off.
As he came down to a landing, he had even had the respite during his fall to regain all of his consciousness. And with intellectual capabilities intact, there more spells had to come. “Transcorp’al Art’ies! Transcorp’al Art’ies! Transcorp’al Art’ies!” Knowing he too could be protected, Rum went full in on linking up all of his own bodily surfaces, over and across his insides, and into the magic funnel of Elrith’s body.
Spells flew at him, and at Elrith whenever the witch’s aims were poor. Rum felt the impact of the hits, but noticed he was still able to cast even as the enemy’s spells took hold of him. He walked onwards towards the witches, getting real close to mass of them now. Some of the witches started turning desperate, and intensified their casting. “Rithir Tauthor DYN!” He could hear the spell being cast again and again, the cavernous room a constant fading into a white tint, and then back out into the natural darkness of the depths of the mountain. But their spells were of no use.
“Transcorp’al Art’ies.” Rum saw a young witch pull out a blue vial, a mana potion, and start to chug it. The act made him aware just how spent his own mana reserves had become at this point. He was nearly done for, he could feel it. In fact, he was but a couple of steps away from entering into the crowd of witches, and he had no mana left to do anything about them.
Except, maybe he did have mana?
The electrical energies were almost exclusively hitting his body at this point, yet it’d all become just a bit more than a flash of stinging pain with a pulsing aftermath of tingling sensations. In this state of relentless magical assaults from 2 to 3 dozen witches and wizards, he was afforded a very challenging but workable moment to think. I have ELRITH’s mana. The woman, he knew, didn’t have much of a mana pool, but if he took enough from her body – he hoped she was still alive, he hadn’t actually had the chance to check – but then he should be able to afford it. One spell. Just one, single, but big overcharged spell.
He grabbed at her body in more of a backside embrace, holding her limp form this way while casting sacrificial doom into her right ear. “Mana Requisition.” He couldn’t show any reluctance in this moment. He couldn’t hold back. Elrith would likely be permanently damaged by this, but at this point there wasn’t much else he could do. So, as the spell latched onto her magical reservoir, he felt at his own spell, forced it to expand and infiltrate all the way inside her. Then, as he sensed his spell reaching coverage complete and utter – or as complete as he could manage within the crudeness afforded by the tightness of time – he drew out her mana like blood from a vein cut open. With the magnitude of his pull, his drawing of mana quickly grew from tug and into a great, violent, tearing process. A grinding apart of the structures of her ethereal self, as unwilling mana was wrestled from her being – a sucking out with force – and filled into his.
Rum felt the rush, a sudden surge of magical strength and capacity over the course of mere seconds. It was a fast process, as he’d needed it to be. As her body tightened up, Elrith produced a sign of life, and he heard an inward breath. She’s alive. It was the briefest moment of relief and guilt.
In less than 5 seconds, he finished leeching her dry.
With his left arm holding onto and around her belly now, and with them both continuing to be assaulted by spells, Rum lowered the finished body of his ally. Then, he raised his right arm up high, and stared a nearby witch straight into her eyes, his own face neutral, while his eyes showed tiredness.
The final stage to his idea, his final bit of magic, had come. Had anyone but him known just what this magic implied, perhaps they panicked even more, but as it happened, the initial reactions to his magic would soon just be confusion.
Still, nobody needed to know what he was doing. The only needed to be claimed by it. And so, he acted out the magic, starting with simple, humbly spoken phrase.
“Gay Aura.”