“Just wake her up and make her discharge again” Amez suggested, as he came over, having spotted the scene of Rum standing over a smoking and still unconscious Elrith.
Beard in hand, Rum slowly shook his head while his little brother came to a stop at his side. “Not this time, it won’t work. That is the accumulation of a large number of spells crowding in her enchantment. It’s not excess mana this time. If she tries to discharge: either nothing will happen, or she’ll blow up instantly. I have a strong gut instinct that either of those options are more likely than any other.”
“So what do we do?” Amez looked to his brother. “My body enchantment is obviously coming apart there.” He pointed to her back. “I’ve never seen it happen before, but I know it can happen–” he tilted his curious head to the side, “–in theory.”
Rum stared at Elrith’s prone body in thought. “EVERYONE!” he abruptly shouted, taking his hand off his beard before starting to wave at all the mages around them. “MOVE AWAY FROM THE SMOKING HUMAN BOMB, AND GO OVER THERE!” he pointed with both arms at the other end of the room, where Gilda, Rulli, and Darmon still resided, each of his party members either kneeling, sitting, or lying on the cavern floor. “MOVE! QUICKLY!” he shouted insistingly, gesturing wildly for the witches and wizards to begin migrating.
“Human bomb?” a wizard asked confusedly.
“Is she alright?” a witch inquired, glancing over at Elrith.
“Anything we can do?” another witch added, looking over into Rum’s face.
Rum ignored them all and continued pointing and waving for people to move. Luckily, most of them did – everyone except for the couples, that is. “You also, love-birds!” Rum told the two sets of passionately engaged lovers. However, they either didn’t hear him, or chose not to. Rum continued waving and wildly gesturing, until he realized the last people present weren’t even giving him as much as a cursory glance. He stepped over closer to them, took a deep breath, and then from the depths of his lungs bellowed a proclamation: “I DECLARE A KISSING CORNER!” Rum pointed to the corner at the other side, the one that, when he looked at it, would be on his right, or to the left for the people on the end staring back at him. The area was mostly empty of people at the moment. “EVERYONE WHO WANTS SMOOCHES, GO TO THE KISSING CORNER!”. The pairs each managed to pause just long to give him the briefest of glances, before seeing where he was pointing. Both couples soon returned to looking into each other eyes though. Then, to Rum’s relief, each couple, at their own speeds, managed to turn away from each other just enough to begin walking side by side and away. They kept up their sensual play though. With fingers interlocked, their mouths continued reached over to each other’s necks and ears and cheeks and everywhere else there was sensitive skin to be wrapped in a teasing bite, a sucking pull, or a simple press of soft wet lips. Truly, Rum remarked internally, these people are living in a world of their own. Their evacuation from a bomb played out like a concern entirely secondary to them, their primary concerns instead falling to living every single second of their existence in intimate exchange.
Sighing at their departing bodies, Rum turned around to Amez. “You too should get going. I’m not sure I can save her this time, and I don’t want you killed by the blast if she blows.”
“But maybe I can help?” Amez responded, not looking the least bit afraid. That’s probably due to my spell, though, Rum reminded himself.
“If you have anything to say that might help, shout it over here, or run back to me. But right now, I need you all to be safe while I try whatever I can.” The elder brother turned away from Amez to look down at the woman’s body. In truth, he wasn’t sure he trusted himself at that moment either. There was too little time and too many unknowns for anyone really to do anything.
“What do I do with you, Elrith? Hmm?” As one might expect, the unconscious person did not respond. Anything I can think of seems to require too much time. I don’t know the enchantment well enough, and I’m still a novice in enchantments altogether. He began habitually stroking his beard again. The broken magic obviously needs to go somewhere, but where?
At the corner of his eye, Rum saw his brother step forth and walk past himself. He watched as the body enchanter knelt down besides Elrith, spreading out hands along the spot on her back, speaking a phrase. “Lurish Bardenun.” Nothing visible occured, but the little brother stood up as if whatever he’d intended had been done.
“What did you do?” Rum asked.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
“It was a variation of a reinforcement spell.” Amez turned to meet Rum’s curious eyes. The little brother twisted his smile somewhat regretful. “It’s very basic. We use such spells to create support structures in worn down enchantments. Sometimes enchantments can be strained or damaged, but this is beyond what a support spell can do. At least I think.” He cast a glance down at Elrith, whose back and vest had stopped actively smoking, but was at least glowing a tiny bit less of that red color. “I’m actually afraid–” he said dropping his little gay smile for just the hint of moment, “–that I may have made it worse.”
“But you had to try” Rum concluded, understanding.
Amez nodded weakly.
“Hmm” the older mage sounded. “Hmmm...” he repeated the sound longer and deeper and in a more serious tone. He breathed through bit teeth, tearing up inside at the problem ahead of him. “Okay, I think I just have to try something.” He stepped up to Elrith and knelt. “You go” he waved away his little brother. “This’ll be dangerous.”
“What will you do?” Amez asked from behind.
Rum sighed deeply. “Huuuh. There is only one thing I think I can do. The problem, of course, is obvious – or so I believe. The enchantment is not able to accomodate the strain of so much broken magic.” He sighed again, trying to overcome his own uncertainty by resigning himself to the logic of necessity that he was about to explain. “I will have to find a way to break open the enchantment, and help to break down the magic further – down into mana. Once it starts to look more like mana, me or anything or even the surrounds could absorb it. However, before it grounds down to this free-form, the broken magic, once it’s been disassociated from the enchantment, could have all sorts of unpredictable effects. The enchantment itself could blow up in my face” he swallowed at the thought, and his own face took on a whiter color while he paused, “I could get electrocuted by the functional remnants of witch lightning” he paused again, and swallowed dryly once more, “or even some random magical effect may erupt from partially intact magic.” He breathed out.
“But how would you break down the magic?” his little brother sounded astonished. “You know a quick way to do that?”
“I suppose–” Rum replied, “–that we’re about to find out.” Face drained of much color, he partially twisted from his kneeling position to glance up at his little brother. “Now please step to the other side, so I at least don’t have to worry about your life while I try to save her.”
Amez, a little slow to react, eventually departed him, and like that Rum was all alone to think, the others having congregated all at the other side of the room, with the ranks upon ranks of skeletons still blocking the tunnel they’d come from. Rum stared at them all while his thoughts cooked up all sorts of fragments of ideas. The people, they all looked quite happy. Amez, Gilda, and Rulli, and a few others was staring and glancing at him kneeling down before Elrith, and while they were not without smiles, they were clearly interested in what was going on with him and the human bomb.
“YOU CAN DO THIS RUM!” Amez suddenly shouted from the other side, taking Rum by surprise, and so even he had to smile a little.
“That man’s name is Rum?” a witch said, coming over to Amez. And before the tattoo artist could answer, she too shouted over and across the cavernous room at him: “YOU CAN DO IT WIZARD!” Before loudly whispering to Amez “what is it he can do?”
Rum shook his head at the scene, wondering whether it’d be the last thing he’d see. His brother, shouting encouragements while smiling, and then explaining why he was shouting to others who wanted to join in on the spirited positivity.
“YOU CAN DO THIS! YOU ARE THE GREAT MAGE, RUM!” Amez shouted again, and suddenly he had company. Around Amez’ side congregated the former choir of singing women, and they were in no mood to be outdone in the fine art of encouragement.
“YOU ARE THE GREAT MAGE! THE GREAT MAGE CAN DO ANYTHING!” shouted the first of the group of women.
“YEAH” added a second, “YOU BEAT A HOARD OF OUR SKELETONS – ALMOST SINGLEHANDEDLY! We’d never seen anyone do such a thing” she gesticulated amazement and a surprised face to the others around her.
“RUM – RUM – RUM!” a third began chanting, and before anyone knew it, every single one of those witches were chanting his name.
“RUM – RUM – RUM – RUM!”
“RUM THE SKELETAL-BREAKER!” a 7th mage, a wizard, joined in.
“RUM THE TRAP-BESTER!” Amez added, caught up in the excitement.
Rum felt a moment of embarrassment at seeing the display of excitement aimed at him. Then he remembered that he was working against a ticking clock, and turned away from them to look at Elrith. Okay – no distractions, he steeled his mind, what could I realistically do to – his thoughts stopped. Wait a second. “Skeletal-Breaker?” he mumbled out loud. He looked back at the cheering crowd, and then passed them, at the “skeletons. Skeletons made from enchantments.” He sprang up to his feet. “THAT’S IT!” His feet started moving as fast as his mind, as he began jogging over looking for the head witch in the crowd. On the way over he had to dodge his own cheering crowd who came to meet him. Ducking under an attempted embrace by a big witch – in every dimension – he soon spotted his target, standing and talking to another of the wizards in a quiet corner.
“Witch!” he shouted, and half a dozen nearby witches turned their heads to look at him. “Not you” he waved the rest of them off. “Witch” he pointed at her and she realized his intent. “What was your name again? Glarith?” She nodded at him. “Okay, Glarith, I have an idea, but we need to work quickly.” He pointed at the entrance tunnel where only the first line of skeletons was visible from their angle close to the wall. “Can you command the skeletons, and have them follow me back to the–“ he pointed over at Elrith who had returned to her previous dire state, “–the smoking human bomb.”