“GLARITH!” barked Jorteg, mage lord of the dungeon. “WHY did I see your FACE down in Mivalla’s tits!?”

The elder witch, staring back with fright and standing next to the tits in question, had honey slowly running down her nose, and crumbs gradually falling off a new beard made of tit-cake.

She must’ve been extremely terrified if not even Gay Aura can hold that smile together. Rum pondered the situation at his left as silence fell over the room. He glanced at Jorteg’s ginger-bearded face, and then back at Glarith’s cake-bearded face.

“Iiiiii...” the woman shakely let out the pronoun, “I was just cleaning cake from them, Lord Jorteg. You see, we were playin’ a game an’–”

“PLAYING A GAME!?” The intensity of the man’s stare could’ve killed her there and then. He took a single menacing step forward, and several of the witches reactively leaned back, some even taking a step back out of pure intimidation. “WHAT are you doing, Glarith? You are supposed to lead my apprentices, not ea... NOT whatever this is!” He lifted his ruby staff up and slammed the bottom back into the stone floor. As wood hit stone, a flash of red erupted from the ruby and the light, strange in composition, spewed forth across the room. Cast around widely, it blended into and stuck itself like a gleaming substance all over the walls and the floors and the kitchen counters, producing a dim red shadow across the room, and dampening the blue light of the river. At the same time, the ginger beard, the ginger moustache, and the ginger hair all took on a deep dark red tint, making the dungeon lord stand out like a menacing bloody torch, his face joining and reddening with anger.

Another threatening step forward. All eyes following him. The ruby on his staff took on a glow, as if to remind everyone present that it held magic – dangerous magic. “I don’t know–” Jorteg began, “–what to say of this. It goes beyond mere words, but clearly you have all come under some kind of spell, because not in a thousand years can I fathom how you thought you could get away with this UNSEEMLY behaviour, with this MOCKERY of my dungeon, and your apprenticeships.” The lord’s eyes scanned the horizon of face, giving every student a deep penetrating stare, and an injection of guilt, shame, and fear.

“WHO is responsible for this?” Jorteg looked about the faces of his mages, searching for truth. Rum watched it all. Nobody’s answering... the massive returned silence impressed and staggered the thoughts of the adventurer. Are they protecting me? Why is nobody telling on me? Rum decided to casually lean a hand against the mountain wall and push himself up to stand. Dusting off his robe a little, he glanced over at Jorteg who, having noticed Rum’s motion, turned from the witches to stare at him. “Is it you?” the mage lord asked with a disapproving, and surprising to Rum calm demeanor. “The one mage–” Jorteg continued, “–who always seems to bring me trouble whenever he visits. With his friends of dwarves and elves.” Rum opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. What do I even say to this man? What do I have to say to him? I should think about how I’m going to get out of this. “First–” Jorteg continued his monologue, “–you decide to smash open my door, even though there’s a perfectly good handle to pull with. Actually, you destroyed my door twice” Jorteg slowly shook his head, annoyed and showing his disapproval, “–when your elven friends somehow managed to make a perfectly circular hole in it. Yet we caught you, didn’t we?” He began animatedly gesticulating with his free hand, as if recounting some dreadful story of the past. “And somehow you escape, smash to pieces half my skeletons, and rendering the next half so damaged had I known how much work it would’ve been to figure out how to FIX them–” his voice rose louder with the agitation of his memory, “–I would’ve just made new enchantments! Finally, you had the AUDACITY to ABDUCT one of my apprentices! And now–” Jorteg gestured with his hand toward the mass of people at the center of the kitchen, “–you seem intent on taking the rest. For I can fathom no other motive for ridiculing my apprentices like this.” The man seemed to pause for a second, focusing his gaze to stare plainly and penetratively at Rum. “Well, have you anything to say, mage so bold he thinks he can aggrevate a dungeon lord – in his own dungeon?” The wild raging eyes at the last sentence were not missed on Rum.

However, returning the stare of the lord of the dungeon with a neutral one of his own, Rum raised a finger, as if readying to say something. Jorteg responded with an eyebrow, waiting for the lesser mage to speak. Now or never. The finger was halfway lowered, before Rum curved all his fingers over an open palm – and aimed it squarely at Jorteg. “GAY BOLT!” The projectile of magic shot out of his hand. The globule of gold, yellow and a rainbow of other less intense colors, flew directly and with speed, and the moment it’d left Rum’s hand, looked like it would definitely strike true. Nearing Jorteg’s staff however, the ruby flashed and the projectile – vanished?

Rum was mildly stunned at the sudden switch from existence to nothingness. Jorteg raised both eyebrows at his enemy, looking tired, his expression a disappointment. “Was that supposed to do something? Do you mean to suggest that pathetically weak magic such as that could ever work against a dungeon lord?” Jorteg turned away from Rum and glanced across the crowd. “Watch and learn, apprentices! This man may have some tricks up his sleeve by which he could enthrall you, and bring shame to all of you with such lowly behaviour – but that is all he has, tricks! Watch, and let me set the record straight, let me show you why I AM YOUR MASTER!”

Nearly swirling back to confront Rum, Jorteg aimed his staff and – “SUUUPER-GAAAY-BLAAAST!” A hurricane of magic erupted from the adventurer opposite the dungeon lord. A brief and direct burst of a thousand bright colors, like a torrent but concentrated over an area enough to take in all of Jorteg, bathing the dungeon lord in really, really gay magic. Rum felt a tug at his body, at his ethereal being, and in that moment of its execution struggled to feed the greedy spell and its enormous demands for mana. Lasting no more than a couple of seconds, his brain still managed to complain, as well as his nerves, and finally at the end, one of knees simply stopped responding. He collapsed down to one leg standing, and exhaled, his vision momentarily blury, his head feeling light, emptied. Incapable of doing much for the time being, Rum glanced up at Jorteg, at what he’d done.

The dungeon lord stared back at him, not with a smile of triump, and not with surprise. There was simply no indictation that the dungeon lord had been overwhelmed or even struck by the spell. Still, the dungeon lord was looking at him, his expression wary, his eyes gauging him, sizing him up. Did I just expend the majority of my mana on a failed spell? Rum hadn’t had the time to feel properly afraid yet. However, in that moment of mental exhaustion, down on his knee, he felt weak, and helpless. Helpless in a way he hadn’t felt in years time. Helpless because who else here could, or would, stand up to Jorteg, but me?

Time passed as Rum continued to kneel, breathing more heavily than normal, eyes locked with Jorteg’s in a tense focus. In the end, it was the dungeon lord who spoke, his wary look normalizing. “That, I will grant you, wasn’t weak. But, my eyes tell me you can only do that once, can’t you?” He raised an eyebrow. “And what a strange phrase your spells require. I’ve never heard of spells spoken like ordinary language before.” His eyebrow raised another step, and his expression turned into full-on curiosity.

Rum didn’t respond but took the time to gather his thoughts and rest there in his position.

“I suppose–” Jorteg continued, “–I could destroy you right this moment. Yet, I can’t help but find you intriguing, promising even” he took a step towards Rum. He was a man not very old in appearance, perhaps in his late 40s Rum guessed, but his bearing made him at least a decade older in soul if not body. The older wizard studied Rum, analyzing him. “I could spare you, and make you a select apprentice of mine. The punishment for your prior insolence would be simple: you teach me all the magic you know, all of these spells of yours–” he gestured at the charmed crowd of onlookers, all of whom were dead silent and waiting uncomfortably, “–and fight my enemies, and I will forgive. As a bonus, an incentive, I could teach you the path to becoming a dungeon lord some day, the path to having your own domain of power.”

Rum pushed his hands against the floor and stood up, displaying to Jorteg a tired expression, with sweat already having formed on his forehead. Is it just my magic drain or has the temperature inside here gone up significantly?

“What will it be, mage. Power, or annihilation?”

Rum ignored Jorteg, turning instead to look across the room – over at Elrith. The human had been busy stuffing herself with cake like everyone else, though for this moment her half-finished cake, the plate and the spoon had been set aside on an adjacent counter. A speck of cake sat on the side of her lips though, and as she watched the confrontation like everyone else, Elrith saw Rum looking at her.

“Elrith!” He shouted across the room. “Are you sure you don’t want to be a shield again? Just for a little while longer? I – we – could really need you!”

Jorteg cast his eyes to where Rum was looking and noticed a short woman with dark half-long hair, and no red robe but a brown leather vest. The spotted person looked surprised to be addressed, but when she saw Jorteg’s intense angry eyes on her, her surpise turned into fright. “Nah, no–” she shouted back, “–you can take him!”

“What about overcom–“ Rum began, but Jorteg interrupted, loud and menacing, eyes raging.

“If you ignore me you choose DEATH!”

Rum cleared his throat and decided to act as if Jorteg had been a bug down his throat. “Ehem, what about overcoming the man who most certainly wants to kill all of us?” He pointed at Jorteg without looking.

Elrith stared back at him, mouth open and eyes wide. Her stare went from Rum to Jorteg, then back, then to Jorteg again. No words came out.

Jorteg glared menacingly over at Elrith, then his eyes moved over to his apprentices. “Witness your master crush this petty arrogant mage of a man!” He snapped back to Rum. Mumbled a single phrase, Jorteg summoned a gust of wind that tugged at Rum’s robes and swept him up, up from the ground, flying, then spinning in the air, once, and twice. AAAAAAAH! Rum panicked, just as his face crashed against the wall behind the water, and he promptly fell down and in with a SPLASH!, his location showered in droplets.

“Ha-ha!” Jorteg chuckled in mild triumph. “Don’t you have any defenses, petty mage? Are you so useless you have to rely on your comrades, even against a bit of wind? This is nothing to me – a warm-up – and you’re already defeated?”

The Great Mage, or so he’d been called on that very same day, fumbled in the water for his own head. His hands were shaking. His body was aching, his mind felt dazed, and as his hand found his forehead, there was blood on it. “Trin’ty o’ Healin’.” The green magic emerged across his body, beginning to repair him, quickly, though perhaps not quick enough. After a couple of seconds, he could at least think again. I need cover, I need to escape somehow. His eyes roamed wildly about his position. He lay in the river like a man trying to fit in a tub slightly too small. His shoulders and head dangled out of the river, while his lower torso and butt was submerged, and his legs curled up against the mountain wall. Behind him were the counters, solidly built of stone. I could hide behind the counters. But how do I get to them? And how do I survive in the meantime? Rum heard the voice of Jorteg, another spell mumbling starting. NO! Rum’s heart sprang into another panick, and the wizard threw himself forward, against all his pains and into the water. REMEMBER TO HOLD YOUR BREATH! The thought crossed him milliseconds his head dove in. The river, relatively short along its width, was fortunately deep enough that his whole body could be submerged easily across its length which spanned the room. Underwater and in the silence that followed, Rum pondered his situation. What magic did Jorteg try to cast on me, and did he succeed? His hands gripped the rough and slightly sandy riverbed. Wait, I can’t risk floating! He pulled himself downwards, as best as the rough texture of the riverbed allowed, though luckily his problem was already mostly taken care of. His Muscle Grow spell had increased his average body density with the added muscle, and he sunk pretty well. Maybe I can move underwater? He pulled at the riverbed, trying to pull himself forwards with the direction of the stream. If I move stealthily, maybe Jorteg won’t notice where I am. He continued to move along the riverbed for several seconds, before a feeling of hot? Is the water getting hot? He continued a little further. His fingers started to feel strangely warm, then, uncomfortably warm, then – He’s trying to boil me alive! Jorteg’s lobstering me!

Rum turned about in the water, until he faced upwards, or tried to – his floating beard obscured the surface, and grabbed at it to pull down. I have no choice. A hand shot out of the water, grabbing at the stone towards the center of the room. Another hand followed. Rum pulled himself up, and quickly. He emerged and before Jorteg could react – or so he hoped – Rum pushed with all of his magically enhanced might at the stone, sending his body shooting up and forward like a flying fish for a meter and a half, and then he met the hard mountain floor. “Ugh!” The landing was messy. He fumbled about the room with his eyes trying to find Jorteg. Another spell mumbling began somewhere, and with no time to think, Rum instinctively pulled himself forward along the floor. Apparently, he had landed just out of sight of Jorteg with one of the stone counters between them. Getting some centimeters closer to the counter, he twisted his body over and started to roll clumsily across the floor until he was adjacent. Luckily the counter, like all the others, was long, and easily accomodated his size down on the floor. Weak spats of Splash! and Splash! coming from his clothes could be heard as he moved across the floor. I’m so soaked, Jorteg must definitely know where I am. When he stopped moving, the a constant slow stream of Drip! Drip! Drip! continued to broadcast his location.

FEEEUUUWWW!

A wind blew, and Rum suddenly became acutely aware that he was no longer feeling too warm. Instead, as he sat against the counter and adjusted his legs, he noticed his clothes had stiffened. Then, before his very eyes, a winter chill ran across the open space where he hid. He’s freezing me... Rum felt stunned for a moment, trying to understand the change in tactic, before his body prompted him to shiver. How versatile is this wizard? “Heuuuh” his mouth chattered in complaint. However, the younger mage tremembered that he, too, was actually quite versatile. Putting his hands together flatly, Rum whispered a spell. “Warm Body.” A surge of warmth spread across him, combating the effects of the chilling wind spell. As the warmth spread though, so did the chilling wind magic intensify. And it continued to intensify, over the span of a dozen seconds, until he could see a solid sheet of ice forming across the floor, while the extremities of his beard turned into icicles, and his clothes came to the point of making breaking motions whenever he moved even a little.

“Stand up, petty mage, or I’ll come for you!” Jorteg challenged. “Only one of us is leaving this room – ever.”

What do I do? What do I do!? WHAT DO I DO!? “Heuuuh” he chattered. He channelled some extra mana into his Warm Body spell. “Fooowh” he breathed out, glad at the relief.

BOOM!

An explosion of fire erupted two meters in front of Rum and instantly bathed him in an extreme, melting heat. “WHAAAH!” Screaming, the lesser mage went from worrying about frostbite on his fingertips one second, to experiencing his skin melting off in realtime. “TRIN’TY O’ HEAL’NG!” The familiar green magic seeped out of his skin everywhere, healing him as his clothes continued to burn and burn and try to burn him too. He was pretty sure he’d now gone from no hair on the top of his head, to having no eyebrows either. Certainly, as he looked down, half his beard was gone – just like that – while the rest continued to smoke hotly, until his green spell finally reached his hairs.

Full of pain and shock, Rum had to dare himself to look down across his body. He was largely naked, wearing only small patches of intact clothing. He could see some of his chest-hair had been burned off too. With no way of putting out the remaining fire, and little desire to continue this battle practically naked, he did the only thing he knew how. The one option he’d already had to do once before, not too long ago. “Renew Clothes.” The plain robe in smoking tatters, transformed in the next seconds into – a suit? I’m wearing a grey, stone-patterned jumpsuit? Rum clumsily reached behind his head. With a hood?

“Rum! Are you okay brother!?” Over on Rum’s left Amez came crawling, a look of simultaneous concern and terror on his face.

“I’m fine” Rum responded. “But you shouldn’t be here, this wrestling of ours is no match for you, unfortunately.”

“I watched you being engulfed in flame and screaming, Rum!” Amez looked on the brink of tears as he arrived next to his brother. “I thought you were gone for!” Amez reached out and grabbed hold of his older brother in a tight embrace. Rum, unable to immediately figure out a clever response, resorted to simply patting his little brother’s back.

“I wasn’t” he said after a time.

Amez let go but continued to stare Rum into his face, close-up and with a tear about to run down one eye. “There must be something I can do – anything – you don’t look like you’re winning this one.”

Rum offered a little corner-smile. “Well I’m still standing.”

“No Rum” Amez replied, “you’re sitting.”

Rum shook his head. “In terms of spirit, I’m standing!”

“You’re also hiding.” Amez said. “How do you propose to win this?”

Footsteps. Rum snapped to focus on the sound somewhere on his right. A noise, opposite of Amez. There – slow footsteps. Is Jorteg coming?

Rum grabbed his brother, desperate to act fast. “Listen here Amez. You can’t do anything, except...” he paused for half a second, eyes distant. “Mana.” His eyes snapped back. “I need mana. Go get me a mana potion! If I have mana, I can survive.” He slapped his brother’s shoulder, giving him a serious expression. “Now go!” He loud-whispered. “Don’t make me have to keep us both alive!”

Amez, wiping a tear away, obeyed. He turned around and crawled away quickly. And just as his form vanished around the end corner of the counter, the footstops suddenly felt a lot nearer. Rum snapped back to watch the exact moment Jorteg rounded the corner at the opposite end and stopped. Jorteg, magelord of the dungeon, stood there, staff in hand, looking down and over at his lesser.

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“You survived a Fireball. Intact?” Jorteg raised an eyebrow at Rum who sat on the floor, his back leaning against the counter. Jorteg’s eyes fell from Rum’s face to look over and across the new attire. “You had time to change clothes?” His eye went back to Rum’s, and his eyebrow raised even higher. “Your tricks are not over yet, it seems. Yet, that was but a basic Fireball. I know the spell for a bigger one–” Jorteg began to smile confidently, “–and an even bigger one than that. Fireball of Terror. Fireball of Bombardment. Shall I test you against the next level?”

Rum’s heart raced. He stared back at Jorteg and forced himself to calm down and engage this situation tactfully. “You would use such a weapon with your apprentices nearby?” Rum replied, suppressing a gulp. “Don’t you care about their lives?”

Jorteg’s face soured into a snarl. “Of course I care! I’m no thoughtless killer, whatever you adventurers imagine of my kind.” The lord of the dungeon looked up and across the crowd of his people. “Apprentices! Evacuate the kitchen! You will have to witness the crisp remains of this mage, rather than the moment–” Jorteg’s eyes fell back on Rum, “–of his death.”

“Buuut” a voice responded somewhere in the kitchen, a voice that Rum did not recognize, “–Lord Jorteg, could we still watch from the archway?”

Jorteg’s eyes shot up again, looking at somebody Rum had no chance of seeing. “What?” he barked. “Yeah sure–” he quickly responded before the person could repeat themselves, “–just don’t get in the line of fire.” And again he looked down at Rum. “Now mind telling me how you did it? I’ve told you what’s in store for you, it would only be proper for you to tell me something in return, while they evacuate.”

Alright neurons – give me some survival strategies; give me plans, anything! I could just rush him? Rum measured up the older man with his eyes. If I could get in reach to touch him I could get the upper hand in seconds with my fists – pummel him faster than he could recover to cast a spell. But would I get so close? What else can I do? Give his heart a coldshock? Give his body heatstroke? Everything I can think of requires of me to get near – and anything that takes time to channel also means I must have the upper hand for long enough.

With the adventurer looking at Jorteg deep in thought, Jorteg impatiently looked up to see the status of his apprentices. “Good, they’re gone.” He lowered his eyes again to Rum. “It seems that you have no etiquette, and little discernable honor.” Jorteg raised a hand towards Rum and the lesser mage felt alarm bells ring deep down in his thoughts as his head tried to eject him out of his ponderings, and alert him to the beginning of a spell being cast.

“From Thal–” the dungeon lord began, and Rum tried to hasten to his feet. “Yrd-NASH!” But he wasn’t fast enough. Managing to clumsily get up alright, Rum was so unbalanced by the time he stood that he stumbled in his own feet backwards, and barely managed to turn his body away before something manifested in Jorteg’s hand that Rum did not see. However, he did, to his surprise, see Elrith run up towards him – and then past him. Immediately guessing what was going on, Rum did not wait to see the results. He ran, sprinted, his magically muscled legs sending him at full speed across to the end of the counter. He turned left, over and behind another counter and down the length of it, reaching for the end of the room before he cast himself down and turned to peek above the stone, over at the scene. A magical rope of some kind was trying, but failing, to envelop Elrith. Instead the twisted magical fibers, a kind of white substance, curled around Elrith only to have its length melt away – absorbed – by the magic-devouring system of channels in the woman’s body.

“WHAT IS THIS!” Jorteg raged at the phenomenon in front of him. “Is this woman wearing an enchantment of some kind!? ARGH!” Irritation overflowing, Jorteg cancelled the channeling of his spell, instead summoning a gust of wind in his hand which he threw against the woman. The wind struck, but managed only to stagger the woman backwards a few steps, the majority of the magic doing nothing but vanishing as it touched her. “WHAT!” Jorteg yelled, and threw another, and then a third, and a fourth gust of wind, the last one finally causing Elrith to stumble and fall – and hit her head against the stone counter. The woman fell down onto the ground and out of sight for Rum.

“Thank you, Elrith” Rum whispered from his covered position. “I’ll try and get to you.” He began crawling and sneaking back. He wasn’t very good at sneaking, and the sounds he made must’ve been obvious in the new quiet of the room. Also, as he noticed behind him, there was a very wrapped up audience of red robed mages standing in the opening into the kitchen, from the tunnel they’d first arrived from, and their eyes collectively watching him was all the tell Jorteg needed to guess where Rum was.

And then there was Amez. “Rum!” The loudly whispered voice nearly caused the mage to jump up, and he quickly turned to see his little brother. A hopeful smile met him, along with an outstretched hand holding 2 vials of blue potion.

“Hah” Rum let out, feeling a bit of hope himself as he recognized what had arrived. He grabbed the vials. “This will make so much difference.” He uncorked one vial and began chugging the contents. Like last time the taste was atrocious, a mix of dust and soot together with something weird and decidedly metallic. His face took on the general expression of a dry lemon as he tried to suppress the hostile flavor. “Uuuh, at least it works” he mumbled, before nodding a quick thanks to his brother and then shooing him away with a hand; gesturing for him to get out of the battlegrounds. Amez hesitated for a second, but only a second. The little brother turned and hastily started crawling back to join the audience, which, now that Rum saw them again, was packed very tightly in the opening, every single witch and wizard apparently trying to get a peek. And why wouldn’t they. Their fate, and the fate of everyone here is in this moment. Rum turned back to peek himself over the counter. He saw Jorteg, glancing in his direction and locking eyes with him. However, and more importantly to Rum at that moment, he saw that Jorteg had moved over to stand right where Elrith had fallen. Rum dropped down, and moved a couple of meters towards the room’s center behind the counter. This is not good. I have to get to her before he finds a way to do more than just cause her to stumble. But what options do I have? What can I do? Rum leaned in towards the stone counter, pulled up his legs, breathed out slowly once, and then closed his eyes. What do I got?

RUM’S MENTAL SPELLBOOK

Cool Body

* Cools down an individual’s body.

Warm Body

* Heats up an individual’s body.

Body Thicken

* Makes an individual larger in every dimension by temporarily adding fat and various extra tissue.

Skin Toughen

* Makes an individual’s skin harder to penetrate, for instance by means of piercing, cutting or scratching.

Muscles Grow

* Makes an individual significantly stronger.

Clean Body

* Cleans an individual’s whole body.

* Cleans clothes or cloth-like items (for instance bags or bed sheets).

Clean Skeleton

* Cleans an individual skeleton’s bones.

* Removes dirt, discoloration etc. Typically dirt obtained from not wearing clothes, as skeletons seldom do. Also removes the remains of meat, skin and other tissue still left on them left after the meat suit (body) they used to inhabit pre-undeath.

Renew Clothes

* Repairs clothes or cloth-like items (for instance bags or bed sheets).

* Gives a new appropriate design to the clothes or cloth-like items (for instance bags or bed sheets).

Positive Mind

* Makes an individual gain confidence in the future, in others and in themselves, leading to a potentially excessively optimistic attitude that steers the individual’s mind to narrowly focus on the benefits of a situation.

* Is prone to make individuals become seemingly diligent, brave and short-sighted because of their excessive belief in their own agency and the future.

* Impedes the expression of particularly negative character traits of individuals, potentially leading to temporary partial personality death.

Positive Aura

* Channels the positive mind spell into a mild aura effect.

Restore Humanoid Mind

* Removes effects that impede the efficient functioning of a human-like mind, including diseases of the mind/brain or magical curses.

Restore Artifical Mind

* Removes effects that impede the efficient functioning of a magically created mind, including enchantments and magical curses.

Clear Mind

* Makes an individual more clear-headed.

* Can make an individual seem more intelligent by making it easier for the individual to engage in intelligence-based tasks such as abstract pattern-recognition and systematic thinking.

Self-Running Legs

* Magically takes control of an individual’s legs, and forces the legs to run towards some destination.

* Is prone to make the individual run beyond their physical capacity, causing them to become severely exhausted and potentially become unconscious from exhaustion.

* While never witnessed, there is a real possibility that this spell could make an individual run itself to death if the individual is unable to stop the spell.

Restore Body

* Heals simpler injuries, such as broken legs, cuts, scratches and bruises.

* Removes most of the effects of less severe conditions, such as the common cold, migraines or tired nerves.

* Effective against blood loss and skin tissue damage.

Filter Body

* Makes an individual’s body into the perfect filter for harmful substances. Anything the spell deems abnormal for a body becomes separated from it and is rushed out through available nearby orifices, such as mouth, nose, ears and other openings of the body.

Magic Blanket

* Spawns a thin magically sustained layer of see-through fabric that is bound to the casting mage’s mana, draining it very slowly while in existence.

Magic Shoes

* Spawns a thin set of magically sustained shoes that are bound to the casting mage’s mana, draining it very slowly while in existence.

Softify

* Makes any surface significantly softer to lean on or touch by means of distributing magically sustained fabric that is bound to the casting mage’s mana, draining it slowly while in existence.

Channel Bio-Energy

* Instantly burns biological energy, for instance fat and carbohydrates, turning it into freely manipulatable energy, which can for instance be used to make sparks for a fire.

Beast of Burden

* Transforms a person into someone capable of pulling or carrying very large items, very heavy items, or very many items.

* The individual’s strength, and the constitution of their bones, drastically increases at the cost of dexterity and intelligence. The body and mind all organize under the principle of acting like an ideal beast of burden, causing the individual’s mind to focus intensely on their task of carrying.

* May be used to make slaves and captives more cooperative as the intense focus of the spell may undermine rebellious thinking.

* There is a possibility that an individual will try to carry something for which their body – not even with magically reinforced bones and muscles – is capable of carrying. And as a consequence, in the worst scenarios; people may even come to crush themselves to death.

Make Rotten Edible

* Restores most of the edibleness of recently rotted food.

Make Water Drinkable

* Purifies contaminated or dirty water until it becomes mostly drinkable.

Mana Ghost

* Creates a magical body that can study a living being, or the magics of a living being, and convert its essential characteristics into a form of mana known as a “mana ghost”.

* May briefly paralyze a none-magical person being mana-ghosted, or even a magical person with little control of their own mana.

Disrupt Skeleton

* Disables skeletons in a manner that is permanent, but also relatively easily fixable.

Rumalize

* Magically estimates a person’s real power level, attributes, and other power characteristics to their being.

* The spell informs the caster of the information through a piece of special magical memory which they have access to, and which they may communicate to other people.

Bony Love

* Transforms an undead simple skeleton into a sentient skeleton.

* The initial personality tendencies of the skeleton will lean weakly towards the personality traits recorded from the 2 wild gnome girls Esmili and Ereisi, but with heavy influences also from the skeleton’s first exposure to other sentient life.

Trinity of Healing

* A spell which combines the powers of excellent diagnostics, excellent surgery and excellent medicine, to produce an almost unheard-of degree of healing power on targeted humanoids.

Replenish Skeleton

* Feeds the mana reservoir of a skeletal undead, extending how long it can keep on living before it risks dying from mana starvation.

Mana Requisition

* Slowly drains another person’s mana and letting the caster absorb it.

* It’s not deadly, but overcharging the spell can wreck havoc to another person’s mana threads, causing long-term or even permanent (but fixable) damages.

Magic Mind

* Creates a temporary magical version of a person’s mind. The mind is tethered to the person, and works like a parallell auxiliary mind, which can interact with and be loosely controlled by the primary mind.

Grow

* Enhances the growth of biological organisms. Larger organisms are affected less and affected slower by the same amount of mana expended.

Conjure Magic Library

* Conjures an array of intermediary-to-advanced level books on magic whose pages, bindings and text all appear formed out of magical substances.

Gay Bolt

* Shoots a bolt of powerful magic that induces a gay, free-spirited, relaxed mood on the target.

Gay Aura

* Channels an aura similar to Gay Bolt, but somewhat weaker as it is less concentrated.

Super Gay Blast

* Blasts a concentrated area with an effect similar to, but significantly stronger, than Gay Bolt.

* Costs a lot of mana to cast.

Magic Arteries

* Creates a channel for the directed transportation of magic through a humanoid body.

Transcorporal Bridge

* Creates a bridge across humanoid bodies where magical arteries from both bodies can connect, if there is skin-to-skin contact.

Transcorporal Arteries

* Creates both the magical arteries in a humanoid and the bridge with which to connect to another humanoid who also has magical arteries to connect to.

Let me think: ideally I need a ranged spell, but Gay Bolt did nothing. Super Gay Blast failed too, and I doubt it’d work a second time. Also I can’t afford to waste that much mana. It seems I have nothing then, at least nothing ranged. What about something close-up? Most of what I have requires touch to work effectively, and I can’t do anything less than effective, but how would I get close to begin with? I’m also already physically strong, but what good does that but let me run... Or, no... no. I can’t do that? What about instead – yes – that might work. Maybe.

Rum may not have been a mage made for fighting, but there fighting could be done in many ways. And there were many battle-useful tricks that could be thought up with a creative spirit.

“Feeeuuuh” Rum breathed out. Trick #1, field test A.

Keeping his eyes closed, Rum let his magic out into the room. Roaming, searching, finding – a body of mana. No, a beacon! A FOUNTAIN of mana! Jorteg’s ethereal being stood out like a tall blazing campfire on a dark winter’s night. A source of enormous energy, far exceeding Rum’s own, and far exceeding anything else he could sense nearby from anyone. “Mana Ghost.” Rum’s magic arrested the very soul of Jorteg. A paralyzing remote grasp, a grasp enveloping the man in a totalizing shutdown of the lord’s self-control. Producing a mana ghost was a taxing endeavour, not so much because of its mana cost, which was only moderate, but because it required fine control, a steady hand, and a deep focus. Therefore, as Rum decided stand up, he did not dare to open his eyes immediately, but focused on keeping control of Jorteg instead, keeping him arrested in place. After a held in breath, Rum turned a little on the spot and dared a peek. Only a little peek, only to gain some spatial awareness. He quickly closed his eyes again, and began stepping forward along the counter, aiming for Jorteg’s frozen position. One step, three steps, six steps. Rum dared to peek again. NO! He’s slipping from my grasp! With no means of continuing to hold the man in place, Rum tried to rip the mana ghost off Jorteg’s being as forcefully as he could. He did not see it happen, but he heard the body collapse on the ground as he refused to let the mana ghost return to him, instead letting it dissipate into the environment like a ghost proper. His eyes opened and he took one big breath – and ran. He leapt into a fast jog forward, around the end corner, and over to the counter with Jorteg and Elrith over on the other side. However, instead of circling the last counter, he simply used his muscles to push down on the counter and throw the rest of his body over. He landing came without grace.

He came just in time to see Elrith, and then hear Jorteg moan, and as he turned, to see Jorteg’s eyes open. A hand reached out towards him, the fingers curling over an open palm, a palm aimed at Rum. “Avro Tort!” The nearly whispered spell came out with effort on the slightly dazed man’s end, but it struck Rum straight in the chest nevertheless – a perfect hit – and it was a dart? Rum looked down into his chest as he staggered. It was a magically created metal dart of some kind, piercing his skin into a quickly blood-soaking spot near where his heart should be. Rum looked down at Jorteg, who appeared to smile back up at him, as the latter tried to get up on his knees to stand. “Again–” Jorteg breathed, “–clever trick, but not good enough.”

Rum grabbed the dart and pulled it out, and it vanished in the air. Rum started at where it’d vanished. Jorteg mumbled some words again, and once more Rum felt a wind lift him up into the air, up and flying, and then spinning – once, twice, thrice – as his body projectiled towards the far end of the room. This time though, Rum was – mostly – prepared. As his face was about to slam into the floor he managed to reach out with his arms and let them take the blow instead. CRUNCH! “Aaaaa-aaaah!” The moans escaped Rum as a streamed feeling of several broken somethings rushed from his nerves and to his head. “Trinity... of... Healing.” The spill nit his body back together while he tried, carefully, to roll over onto the floor, and get a view of his enemy. Managing as much, he tried to lean his head up, only to see that something else too was broken by his side – his second vial of mana. Oh cursed spoiled mushrooms! His eyes went over to watch the dungeon lord. The man was standing, looking a little out of sorts, but standing, and if his malicious stare directed at Rum was any tell, the man was also putting together a plan of something very awful. Between both of them there was Elrith’s body, her head bleeding a little from the fall, but otherwise looking alive enough, and crucially: as of yet untouched by Jorteg.

Okay then, Rum thought to himself, Trick #2 it is. Let’s go to the next level, Jorteg.