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Death loomed above as Mira triggered her bracer’s special escape gem, and in a flash of light, smoke, and thunder; Mira’s form was obscured. No less than seven figures (all duplicates that resembled Mira) ran from the cloud of roiling mists, each dodging and weaving acrobatically in different directions.
Mira breathed in relief as she flew above the fray, invisible to normal sight. None of the images were real but they were very convincing. The Behemoth lashed out at the fleeing Mira decoys. As the blades and beams found their targets; each clone detonated in explosions of Akasic lightning. Even in their obliteration, her clones caused damage. She was proud of that spell.
She breathed hard as she hovered above the clashing beast, the dodging and exploding clones, and the occasional spell trap gem detonating underfoot as the beast chased her decoys. Mira could feel Tiamat’s relief as the dragon sensed her nearby through their bond. She hissed quietly as the thick arcane aura began to eat into her skin. The intense energies burned as it penetrated her tissues with its magical potential.
Damn, my staff and amulet are already full of energy. Unless I pull out my Shield Array to protect myself, I need to use this never-ending flood of energy before it gives me mana poisoning. Mira thought.
Mira flew up and grabbed Tiamat in a hug. With a smile, she triggered the biggest spell in her pre-cast sigil array. Normally, this spell would require all of the stored energy from her staff and amulet combined, but the mana was as thick as syrup in the cavern. She funneled the energy into her spell form and watched as chain lighting tore through the cavern. The lighting bounced back and forth between the monster and the cave’s walls and ceiling, blowing pieces off both. The lightning forks grew ever more powerful as they split, multiplied, and struck. The cavern lit up with electrical Armageddon as rock shards and monster limbs were blown apart.
Mira sighed in relief as the density of Akasic mana was depleted, and converted into usable energy. Her invisibility spell had been disrupted by the massive casting. The air was a morass of ozone and dust from the lightning storm. She landed, eager to collect her prize when a chorus of echoing roars filled the cavern. The rubble covering the floor shifted under Mira’s feet.
Mira quickly cast another spell from her array, using the power stored in her staff. A blast of air swept the dust out of the cavern. Amidst the rubble, a smaller, leaner Behemoth crawled upwards, pushing the rocky debris away. Its stony armor was gone, revealing a metallic underlayer of plating. Its many eyes pulsed angrily as it looked for its prey.
Mira cursed as a beam flashed towards her, only for her Impervious Cloak to intercept it and absorb the damage. She quickly triggered another of the limited spell gems on her bracer. A prismatic layered shell snapped around her and Tiamat an instant before more eldritch beams blasted out from the Behemoth. Mira held fast, charging the magic shell layers as the beast's beams sought to tear it down. One by one the beast proved to be stronger, destroying each shell layer in turn, until Mira was forced to use another spell gem to blink-step back to the ledge above.
The beast’s senses were confused…for the moment. Mira needed a better approach. She couldn’t match the monster in pure strength.
“[Wow, M. The Behemoth looks a whole lot leaner and meaner than before. Except for the crack in its upper back where you gave it that opening kinetic piledriver, it looks fresh as a daisy.]” Tiamat messaged.
The familiar peeked over the edge of the ledge. Tiamat’s observation gave Mira the beginnings of a new strategy with the innocuous mental comment. Mira stayed hidden as she used Tiamat’s sight to “see” the beast, her little dragon's natural camouflage making it hard for the monster to detect her.
She saw the large crack in the armor that Tiamat mentioned. In fact, it was large enough that she thought that maybe she could even fit inside. It might be the one place she could hide and continue to attack without the beast being able to blast or smash her.
Before Mira could second guess herself, she fired off a volley of spell gems, her entire stock except for her final emergency teleport home. Tornadoes of fire and ice hit the Skraeling from both sides. The ground at its feet turned to sand and it began to sink. Giant swords of energy slashed and stabbed the creature.
Mira quickly grabbed Tiamat in a football carry and leaped off the ledge, boots of feather falling activated. She landed on the creature's back while her many spells tore at it, pulling its attention down and away from her. Mira dove for the large split in the armor using her VoidSteel-tipped staff and her Vorpal knife to burrow in even further. Tiamat screeched in disgust and fear, as both were squeezed into the disgusting and bloody fissure in the creature’s armor.
The monster thrashed and rolled, finally feeling Mira’s excavations into its shell. Mira burrowed in deep and released her most effective area of effect spells; summoning [Force Blades], [Fire Storm], [Ice Gale], and [Acid Cloud] to continue the area attack spells from safe inside the beast's own armor. With her reserve of spell gems used up, she would need to cast from her stored array of pre-built spell forms. At least, she would have no shortage of available energy to power them.
She cast a minor divination spell to see the beast's response. The monster appeared to be absorbing the damage far too effectively. It used the dense ambient energy, absorbing it to blunt the attacks, and was even actively repairing previous damage. Mira knew she needed to up her game when it reattached a severed claw and began collecting more pieces of armor to cover its exposed flesh.
Despite her strategically superior position, the thing’s defensive power all too easily kept pace with Mira’s attacks. The atmosphere was so thick with power that Mira’s tactical planning for efficient spell work wasn’t going to net her this victory. She needed to control the environment, not play against the beast’s strength.
She remembered her first day at the Imperial Arcanum. The High Magister had shocked the class with his ability to drain the Akasic energy from the room leaving the students gasping and bereft of their source of power. The lesson was to prove the value of storing power in staffs and amulets for use in regions of low Akasic density, but Mira had learned a different lesson.
Mira had felt the power of the Magister and didn’t doubt it, her mage sight had shown her that when the man had inhaled all the power, the room became a void without a spec of magical power. Mira knew from her early ability to see Akasic power that its aura penetrated almost all mundane matter. The magic energy from nearby should have filled the void in the classroom, but it didn’t. There was more to the Magister’s demonstration than sheer power.
She investigated, bribed, and stole favors and information until she learned the Magister’s trick. Most delicate spells required a spell circle to isolate the caster from the world, protecting him and his forming spell from fluxes in the Akasic energy. The Magister had formed a truly enormous magic circle, bigger than the classroom itself, preventing Mira and others with mana sight from seeing that they were all trapped within an isolation circle. The man has used a stabilizing technique as a weapon. Mira smiled as she realized it was a better method to defeat the Skraeling Behemoth.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Mira dropped into deep meditation, a learned skill. Relaxing and shutting out all distractions was impossible for most novices, especially while in the middle of combat and surrounded by danger and distraction. Using her mage sight, she could sense the limits of the cavern. She visualized a magic circle as large as the cavern and began casting a tracing spell. The magic she used painted her imagined sigils in a ring around the largest magic circle she had ever attempted.
With a final burst of power, she empowered the runes and sealed the circle. Now the Akasic mana wouldn’t be able to leave or enter the area. She and the Skraeling were trapped together. Mira promised herself that she would be the only combatant to leave the circle.
Mira overcharged her staff to convert its store of power into a powerful [Cloak of Fire], surrounding herself and Tiamat in an aura of intense flames that burned into the beast’s innards. The Skraeling bellowed and rolled, pulling in mana to regenerate the damage. Mira pulled also, refilling her staff, even as its stored power was still feeding the inferno. Together they devoured the thick mana until it was completely gone. Mira’s enormous isolation circle prevented the thick energy from flooding back into the cavern.
Mira smiled. The beast had no more energy to fuel its regeneration as her staff continued fueling her fires until its power stores too were fully depleted. The insides of the Behemoth, where Mira and Tiamat sat ensconced in tapering flames, were now much bigger as the charred tissues burned. The fissure had grown larger and larger as Mira’s staff burned off the last of its charge. The Skraeling’s roars were weak, and it could barely move when Mira’s staff was finally drained dry.
Mira, with grim determination, pulled the stored power from her Amulet. She cast a spell converting half of its potential into an expanding sphere of [Freezing Embrace] then finished the rest with a thunderclap [Force Blast]. The Behemoth's armored form, without its usual Akasic reinforcement and regeneration to empower it, shattered explosively.
Mira shook off the debris and stood, still cradling Tiamat, amidst the charred and frozen pieces of the beast. Her magic sight swiftly found the final prize, the massive beast core of the Behemoth. She carefully navigated her way toward the luminous core. She weaved through the wreckage with Tiamat wiggling in her grip, still secure in her arm.
The core pulsed with residual energy, its glow dimming and flaring intermittently as if it were breathing its last breaths. Mira hefted the Core and inspected it carefully. No damage was evident. Mira sighed at the treasure. She had overdone that last spell and had been worried about damaging it.
The Core was pure solidified mana, currently tapped of power, but with enormous potential. A magic pearl, grown over decades within the powerful creature and filled with the potential to store and harness magical power.
“Hehe! Now that was a lot of damage! Huh, Tiamat?” Mira crowed. The dragon hissed and flew about, trying to shed the stink from the Behemoth’s internals from her scales.
“Excellent! This is exactly what I need to finish my Spell Engine!” Mira exclaimed. The little dragon dropped and landed on the huge core and hugged it with avarice.
“Are you sure you want to finish that crazy enchantment? I think this treasure would be a perfect addition to my growing dragon hoard.” Tiamat countered.
Mira scoffed and one by one sent the core, several refined Skraeling claws, and a few of the larger Magicite crystals into her Talisman’s dimensional storage. She picked up her familiar with a last glance around the cavern for loot.
“Waste not, my dear. This will be insurance. Being a High Sorceress, it’s only a matter of time before someone comes looking for trouble. I’m impatient to get home. Let’s fast travel. I’ve only one more gem left, my Recall spell. to travel back to my Tower. We might as well use it!” Mira said.
Holding her prize and her familiar tight, she triggered the gem. Nothing happened. With a huff of annoyance, she realized the air was devoid of even a wisp of power. Mentally, she dissolved the magic circle, and a wave of Akasic energy came crashing back into the cavern with a powerful thrumming. After a brief moment, Mira was able to trigger the gem, and the pair flashed away to her Tower’s beacon sigil.
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It took almost a week for Mira to add the large beast core to her large device. She’d had to commission a custom Mithril frame from one of the local Elven smiths to properly connect it to her complex Spell Engine. While she had waited, Mira had refitted a full complement of spell gems into her Spell Shard bracer. She retraced her stored rune patterns into the ghostly sigil spell forms in her personal spell array and was once again fully armed for trouble or adventure.
Mira climbed the spiral stairs to the very top of her Wizard Tower, Tiamat was close behind, riding the new device, as Mira levitated it to follow her. The sun was setting, casting a glorious blaze of fiery colors across the sky, visible as they emerged onto the open floor atop her stronghold.
She carefully placed the device on her prepared pedestal. This device needed room to work, unlike most of her enchantments where she would use them secluded and protected from outside influences. She positioned the core within the Mithril frame, carefully aligning it with the arcane conduits that snaked around the Spell Engine.
The pseudodragon, sensing the importance of the ritual, had ceased its playful antics, and now watched with her keen, intelligent eyes. Tiamat didn’t have any understanding of the magics involved but was ready to lend her power should Mira need it.
Mira’s Spell Engine stood on the pedestal, an intricate masterpiece of both artistry and functional magic. The rare Magicite crystal spun in Void Steel rings, a massive imitation of a celestial orrery with arcane sigaldry embossing all the components. At its base, the head of a recycled golem still held a functional artificial mind. That would serve as a controller for the device, seeking resonances in the Akasic fields to magnify the device’s pull upon the Akasic field.
Mira peered across the valley using her mage sight. Her Tower was built atop an Akasic mana fount which had long ago fed into the nearby Ley Line of power. The previous tower owners had tapped its power and captured a portion of the font’s power. Mira’s recent additions of the trove of Magicite Crystals from the Antipode region had added significantly to the Tower's foundation and its ability to fully capture the Ley Font's power. However, Mira could always use more power for ever bigger spells.
She eyed the major Ley Line in the distance as the twin moons hung over the valley. Her Spell Engine would pull in Akasic power from far and wide. She hoped to alter the flow of the Ley Line. Some of her peers had towers with multiple Ley Line convergences, and Mira envied them for the massive power reserves they had. The extra power enabled them to create better enchantments…more powerful spells.
Mira would not be outdone. The Spell Engine hummed to life; its vibrations syncing as the golem's mind sought the resonances to pull the energy to her tower. Mira smiled as pulses of power flowed out in wide arcs, pulling surrounding energy back with it as it returned. Winds whipped and lighting coursed through the air as displaced power moved.
“Tiamat, it's working! Look at the Ley Lines with my sight through our bond. It’s shifting this way.” Mira laughed, giddy with the power. The device hit a higher frequency, threads of gold and black began to form from the air and swirl about the device.
Faen mana. Mira thought, suddenly concerned. The most chaotic type of magic. This is unexpected!
No sooner had Mira observed the effect, than the experiment began to sour. Her wards flickered as the air pressure around them dropped precipitously, a sign that the forces at play were quickly spiraling out of control. The Spell Engine, humming with increasingly erratic energy, began to resonate with a pitch that was inaudible yet palpable; a dread vibration that set Mira's teeth on edge.
She stepped forward, her hands drawing sigils in the air as she attempted to realign the faltering enchantments. Tiamat squawked, darting back from the wildly spinning Magicite crystals which now glowed with a blistering intensity.
“Mira! Do something! It’s going crazy!” Tiamat screeched.
Mira refocused her attention; the Akasic aura falling from the distant moons was pouring down from the sky and worse; a wall of energy could be seen cresting the horizon, piling higher and higher into densities rivaling the Antipode region.
Mira desperately pulled her Aether Nexus Staff out and plunged the VoidSteel capped end into the controller Golem's head with all her Qi-enhanced strength. The whirling rings of the device flew loose as the golem’s head exploded. The explosion knocked Mira backward into the tower battlements, almost throwing her off the tower’s rooftop platform.
Mira added one more item to her long list of ideas that looked good on paper but failed utterly when attempted. She contemplated filing a complaint with the game administrators, but quickly dismissed the idea. She suspected that the AI running the game rigged things specifically to prevent ambitious enchanters like her from finding loopholes in the game physics.
Mira and Tiamat gathered up the pieces of the device. As she started to descend the staircase, she noted that the neighboring Ley Line was noticeably closer to the tower than it had been. She wondered if maybe she could tweak the resonance…then she remembered the earlier tsunami of energy looming ever closer and shuddered. She slowly and carefully took the stairs down, determined to put her experiment on a hiatus.