Mage Mullam walked into the large office just behind Hall Bolak, it was magically cooled, so as soon as he opened the door, he was hit with a gust of cold wind. He shuddered, entered and closed the door behind him.
Already in the room, there were about thirty mages of various ages, all seated, gathered around a fairly long rectangular table made of mahogany. The mages were in casual conversation, the youngest being about twenty-five and the oldest being about 60. He greeted them and found a seat just behind two young mages who were already seated at the table.
“Okay I think we’re still waiting for 3 mages?” The lady at the head of the table inquired, her brow furrowing slightly.
“2 mages, actually” a disembodied voice said from the corner. Everyone looked at the corner sharply, exchanging puzzled glances in the process, until a shimmering distortion appeared in the corner, suddenly coalescing into a figure of a mage.
Everyone groaned.
“Seriously? Lakan?”
Lakan laughed. “I’ve been here the whole time! Hahaha”
Lord Mullam smiled, He was in his 30s and missed his prank playing days.
“Your prank is dumb Lakan, you can’t even see when you’re invisible.” Another mage said.
“He really stood there blind for thirty minutes just to play a prank.” Another mage laughed.
While everyone was laughing and cringing the last two mages came in.
“Alright house, everyone’s here now, let’s get to work. Lakan, take a seat.” the woman at the head of the table said. Her name was Segi Arabambi, She was a relative to the Sungan noble, but she was Aku’andan, born and raised in the city itself.
Everyone sat and quieted down as she began.
“Good morning everyone. I hope your week was great?” said. There were murmurs of positivity.
“Some of us have been discussing, one on one, what our response to Pirun is going to be.” She said,
“The Lord Mages have done what they can, I’m sure everyone here has been briefed about the peace envoy, the converations with the Pirunese forces, Seyrule, Navon, Sungans…” she paused.
“The Nobles’ poisoning.” she continued. “We’ve been given lead by the Lord Mages to come up with our own strategy for their consideration.”
“So I’m giving the floor to you. What do you think we should do?”
There was a short silence.
“Espionage.” Mage Lakan said, his brows furrowed “Ultimately what we want to do is attack Ganz and take away the kingdom of Pirun from him. But we know too little to go into battle with any level of confidence.”
“A warfare mage suggesting subterfuge? Well, isn’t that surprising.” A female mage said, chuckling. “And who will be the spy?” she asked.
“I don’t think that’s funny, Binko.” Lakan replied to her. “We’ve all read the files, everyone here possesses some of the most elite minds in the whole of Gan, yet no one here has any idea how to cast a stable field spell inside a spell dampener.”
“Well I’m not sure anyone has tried…” Binko defended.
“Well I have, and so has Mullam” Lakan said,
Mullam jerked up, hearing his name…
“Well, I didn’t actually put much thought into it, I just assumed it would be impossible. The spell dampener uses the power of the spell itself against it.”
“An alternative to espionage is to simply figure out how to do what he did.” another male mage, named Shuma said.
“We can do many things at once.” Segi said. “We can spy on Ganz to figure out the extent of his abilities, While we try to figure out how his initial spell was possible.”
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“I actually just think Pirun’s Mages were incompetent and captain Rodo didn’t know what he saw.” A mage named Hark said.
“How nice of you to say that when they’re not here,” Binko said. “We will not doubt Captain Rodo.”
“It was at night!” Hark retorted. “What is more likely? That a tensed up Warfare Mage misjudged his own eyesight, or that a fundamental pattern in the history of magic was overturned?”
“Well, given that a fundamental pattern in the history of politics was also overturned…” Mullan began…
“Pirun’s mages were outnumbered.” Hark said. “Most of them were not even in the city when the attack happened. There were only three warfare mages in the city when the attack happened”
“Lord Piakatu was in the city.” Segi said, raising her eyebrows.
“Lord Piakatu is not immortal nor infallible.” Hark insisted. “They were outnumbered 2 to 1.”
“And according to Captain Rodo, they were winning. Until Ganz showed up.” Segi said.
There was a long, frustrated silence.
“Sir Manjun… You’ve been quiet.” Segi said, gesturing towards a 60 year old man, the oldest in the group, he was a man of average height and jet black hair, a genetic anomaly in his lineage made him unable to grow gray hair, ever.
Manjun perked up and cleared his throat.
“Well, I’ve been an Elite Warfare Mage since I was 25 years old. I knew Lord Piakatu even though I never got to work with him.” Manjun said… “From what I know of the man, it is highly unlikely that he was outskilled by 6 mages. New magic is the most reasonable explanation.”
“Are you saying Lord Piakatu could take on 6 of us here?” Hark asked incredulously.
“No,” Manjun said, then paused.
“Lord Piakatu could take on all of us here.” Manjun said. The disbelief shone brightly on the faces of the mages in the room. “He wouldn’t win, but it would be very hard for us to trap him long enough to butcher him, just as ganz did.”
“Wow, Lord Piakatu sounds like a super wizard.” Hark retorted sarcastically, leaning back on his chair, clearly annoyed.
“It’s not about superiority.” Manjun said. “Lord Piakatu was a specialist in one to many battles. He quite literally wrote papers on the efficiency various strategies in single vs many battles”
“That sounds rather convenient.” Mullam said. “What do the papers say?”
“The conclusion of the research is that it’s usually impossible to win such a battle,” Manjun said. “The best strategy is to stall until your members arrive. He basically found a strategy that makes sure that you never lose until your opponents wear out.”
“Wow, I would love to read that paper.” Lakan said.
“Well too bad Pirun is closed to the waves and the city itself is now considered a hostile nation!” Segi exclaimed. “Fellow mages, we are digressing. How do we proceed with Pirun?”
“Despite the fact that I still believe this entire situation is the result of misdirection…” Hark said, “I will agree with you Segi, We need to investigate Ganz, while we try to figure out how to break a spell dampener, if such a thing can truly be done.”
“There’s a chance Ganz recognizes many of us in this room.” Segi said. “I’ve never met the man, but a man of his skill level must surely know the elite warfare mages in Aku’anda.”
“Hence we need to get some other people to do the spying.” Mullam said. “We will need to give them protection.”
“How do we infiltrate?” Binko asked. “Do we intend to save the poisoned nobles? If that’s the case we have less than two months to save them.”
“Another anomaly.” Hark said. “Why not just poison them immediately? What does he have to gain by giving a poison that does nothing for three months only to suddenly kill?”
“Hark, I understand your skepticism,” Lakan said. “But we need more information, therefore we need to investigate Ganz.”
“The Pirun Waves are blocked.” Binko said. “If we send someone into Pirun, we won’t be able to communicate with them.”
“That’s not a problem.” Manjun said. “We simply send two or three of us to infiltrate beforehand and set up a private wavelink that only us can use.”
“I and Lakan will go.” Hark said. “I haven’t gone on the field in a while.”
“I’ll go along with you.” Lara, a female mage who had been quiet so far, said.
“Okay, Myself, Hark and Lara.” Lakan said. We’ll go tomorrow night.
“The rest of us have one job until further notice.” Segi said. “Figure out how to break a spell dampener.”
Everyone sighed.
“Hey, don’t be lazy now.” Segi laughed. “Ganz isn’t smarter than anyone in this room!”
“When is the next meeting?” Shuma said. “Most of us have places to be in the kingdom.”
“No idea yet. I will let you know on the waves.”
The meeting shortly wrapped up and everyone left. Mullam walked out and, sighing deeply, set his mind to the problem of the breaking of spell dampeners.