Some cities took creative measures to survive. The Hollow Peak sealed themselves into a mountain top cavern, enlarged within by the Spatial magics they were known for.
-A Brief History of the Flood by Albert Moonsuckle
Kole stood in the ready room, inspecting his gear as they waited to be teleported to some strange and unknown location.
For not the first time, Kole pulled his blasting rod out of his shirt holster to confirm that it still was not a spoon.
“Quit playin’ with yer rod,” Rakin yelled at Kole, and then laughed to himself.
His team stood around him, all handling the tense wait differently. Rakin had—apart from the wisecrack—been standing in stoic patience, as to be expected from one of his training background, though the act seemed out of character from Kole’s actual experiences with the dwarf.
Doug stood, looking around the room a bit panicked, as if he was expecting a predator to burst through the walls at any moment, reminding Kole of a cornered deer. Again, not something Kole had ever actually seen, but he’d begun read up on surface wildlife as that seemed useful information for an adventurer to have.
Zale was looking from each member of the with a proud smile. Before the event, she’d given them each a gift.
“We can’t be caught going out into the public eye in academy training clothes,” she’d said, as they’d each unwrapped their bundles to find a set of silver accented black outfits, cut in the style of their typical wardrobe.
Kole’s looked a lot like the dress stormcaller clothing Zale had helped him purchase earlier, and the color scheme was definitely inspired by that outfit post ink spill. The black seemed to drink in the light in a manner similar to Zale’s hair.
Rakin had a monk’s robe of the same fabric, while Doug had a set of light leather armor dyed black with a black hooded cloak to go along with it.
With the antlers jutting from his forehead, the hood was only of marginal use.
“Why’d ye give him a hood?” Rakin had asked.
“Because it looks super cool, obviously,” Zale said, after she’d gotten Doug to put it up.
Kole had to admit, that the black hood with antlers protruding from the front did in fact look super cool and intimidating. At least, for anyone who didn’t know the demonkin who bore them was a kind and gentle young man.
When they’d all arrived at the ready room, fully geared up, Zale had revealed she’d had her own armor enameled to the same black as the rest of the groups, With her dark hair, and pale white skin, her face seemed to float in a sea of darkness.
“How much did that cost you? Kole had asked.
He still knew very little about armor, but since he’d only seen the wealthy with colored armor, it was safe to assume it was expensive.
“Enough,” Zale said evasively, “It was worth it though. You can’t put a price on fashion.”
“In my experience it kind of seems like you can,” Kole said. “and it's a very, very high one.”
“You think everything is expensive,” Zale shot back.
Kole, who really had no rebuttal because she was basically right, chose to leave it at that.
Now, in the ready room Zale had activated her disguise bracelet to appear an olive skinned half elf girl, but she also wore her rarely used helmet, hiding even that. As she’d offered before, Zale agreed to enter disguised to not give any potential mentors a reason to reject Kole should their performance prove worthy of attention.
Suddenly and without warning as they stood idly in the ready room, Kole felt powerful magic, and the dimly lit room was replaced with blinding light.
They all shielded their eyes, and it was only after a full minute of squinting and blinking that they could see where they were.
They stood atop a raised stone plinth in a seemingly endless expanse of desert.
“Where are we?” Doug asked, taking in the surroundings with the same wonder he did any new vista they encountered.
“A desert?” Kole suggested less than helpfully.
“The Desert,” Zale corrected. “The Vasiv Desert in the southwest by the elven lands.”
Kole looked to Rakin, who’d remained silent through this all, and saw the dwarf was rubbing his hands together, with a wide smile on his face as he took in the endless expanse of sand.
“Finally,” he said. “I’m going to enjoy this”
A flare shot up over a dune in the distance, signifying the start of the match, and revealing the location of the ball, and the team set out at once, according to their plans.
They’d decided that unless the environment precluded such an act, Zale and Rakin should head out first to try to get to the ball first, with Kole and Doug showing up to support after. While it was risky splitting up, the two cousins were the most resilient and fasted of the group in an open run, and the risks of them getting taken out were low.
So, as Kole and Doug ran through the sand, both finding it to be a surprisingly exhausting exercise, Zale and Rakin took off, disappearing over the dunes. Rakin quickly outpaced Zale, with the shifting sand solidifying under his feet, but he slowed himself to not get too far away from Zale.
Two people going ahead was a risk, but one person going alone was simply stupid—though, Kole could tell from Rakin’s expression when he turned back to see Zale lagging behind that the dwarf was tempted to go at it alone.
No short time late, after climbing over their third dune, Kole caught sight of the ball. The run had be miserable, and he’d had plenty of time for his gratitude toward Zale’s gift to turn to anger as the sun beat down onto the black.
The third dune they’d summited, hadn’t been a dune at all, but the rim of some artificially crafted crater, the center of which was a massive nearly mile wide bowl, with a spec of a platform set in the middle. By the time Kole got to the top, he could see Zale and Rakin each halfway down, Zale sliding down the slope, using her shield as a sled, and Rakin simply sliding down next to her, his feet sliding down the sandy slope like he were sliding across a frozen lake.
Far and across, Kole could see four specs making their way down the opposite side in a much less graceful manner.
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“This isn’t going to be fun,” Kole said, looking to Doug who nodded in agreement.
The two boys jumped over the sandy ledge, and they began to fight their way down. Kole immediately lost his footing, falling to his butt, and sliding down a dozen feet before he came to a stop. Doug fared better but when a spray of sand flew into his face, causing him to sneeze, the demonkin vanished, appearing thirty feet down the slope, where he then lost his footing and repeated Kole’s antics.
By the time Kole and Doug reached the bottom, Zale and Rakin were at the central platform, but instead of grabbing the ball and running back to meet Kole and Doug, Rakin leaned over while Zale stood guard over him with her sword and shield at the ready. Kole looked around only briefly when he’d realized he’d lost his quarter staff. He quickly spotted it a dozen yards up the slope, but counted it for lost, and he ran to meet up with Doug.
They raced for the center at a job, hoping to get their before the other team, while still being able to aim effectively. And, as much as Kole hated running each morning with Zale, he was grateful of that torture in that moment. They lost sight of the other team as they neared, their target blocking their line of sight.
“There’s a hundred decoy balls!” Zale yelled to them as the neared.
Kole and Doug kept running for the platform. It was a thirty-foot wide, six foot tall cylinder of stone, set into the center of the artificial sand crater, and when they got close, they saw that Rakin had carved handholds into the wall for them.
Doug reached the wall a moment before Kole, and bounded up the handholds. Kole followed at a less graceful pace, and summited to see Zale standing at the opposite edge of the platform, facing away from him.
Beyond Kole saw the other team watching them, weapons drawn. He now recognized them, just as Zale gave him the information he should have known, but had never gotten around to studying
It’s Tolbolt’s Rangers,” Zale called, just as an arrow glanced off her shield. “They have a ranger, a fighter, a blessed and a wizard.”
Kole really should have known that name, and the abilities of those in the group, but studying the capabilities of his classmates wasn’t the most compelling task when he could be spending that time learned new spells.
Yes, he was aware that there was more to learning to become an adventurer than learning magic, but that was the part that interested him most. He did admit, in that moment, that he wished he’d spent a little more time preparing.
Calling on his Fade ability, Kole risked stepping around Zale to get a better view. He immediately recognized the wizard as one of the few other wizards in the PREVENT class, but the boy wasn’t in any of Kole’s other classes, which meant he was either not as talented as Kole, or far more talented. The indecisive look Kole saw on his face suggested the former rather than the latter.
With the wizard was a human girl, dressed similarly to Doug, and she was the one firing arrows at them. with them both were two men wearing chain mail armor and shield, one with a sword and the other with a mace.
Doug began harrying the other team’s archer, and she ducked behind the two armored figures, peeking out to return fire. Doug kept up his volley, and Kole saw that some of his arrows deflected off an invisible barrier around the mace wieder.
“The mace wielder is the Blessed,” Kole called out.
“Found it!” Rakin shouted, climbing out of the pit in the center of the platform with a large stone sphere in his palm.
“What do we do now?” Doug asked, who was not ducking behind Zale and popping out to return shots.
The wizard had yet to join in the volley, and Kole had elected to conserve his Will for more than distracting fire.
“We either take them out, or cover a retreat with the ball,” Zale said. “Shoot!”
Kole’s eyes moved from Rakin back to the opponents at Zale’s ‘curse,’ and he saw them circling around to the rear of the platform to cut them off.
“We should take them out,” Kole suggested. “There’s no way anyone could get out of this sand pit.”
“I probably could,” Rakin said, “but I’m not against a scrap.”
They all turned to Zale, who was mulling over the options.
“Let’s take them out, while Rakin runs to score,” she said, coming to a decision. “Even if we can’t take them out, they’re slow. Rakin could probably just outrun them without our help.”
“Aye,” Rakin agreed, and broke into a run towards their base, which meant towards the enemy who had moved to block them.
Without waiting for back up, Rakin jumped off the ledge, diving into the sand below. Kole watched the other team freeze and stare in awe as the dwarf seemed to be committing to a broken neck, but when Kole reached the edge and saw the sand below, Rakin was nowhere to be seen.
Kole scanned the sand, looking for signs of the dwarf, and it was only Zale’s intervention that saved him from taking an arrow to the chest.
“Arrow!” she shouted, and Kole dropped down instinctively as the missile flew over him.
“Cover me!” Zale said, and jumped off the edge herself.
Instead of falling into a painful armor covered heap, Zale vanished into a plume of smoke, reappearing a moment later on the ground below.
“Climb down!” Doug told Kole, “I’ll cover you.”
Kole complied, sitting down with his legs over the edge, and then hopping down the short distance. With Zale running at the foes, all focus had shifted to her, but still Rakin was nowhere to be seen.
Once down, Kole drew his blasting rod, and sent a bolt at the other team, who were still huddled awaiting to meet Zale’s seemingly suicidal charge. His bolt was heading straight for the wizard, but for the other wizard cast his first spell Kole saw, conjuring a transparent dome to absorb the blast.
Seeing that Kole had joined the fray, the wizard and archer fell back and to the side to get a better shot at them., leaving their two melee combatants to meet Zale.
Zale met her opponents just as the ranged battle began. They spread out to meet her, and Zale happily dove into the gap, fending the mace wielder off with her shield as she dealt with the swordsman. As Kole often reflected, he was not a good judge of martial prowess, but even he could tell that the two boys were outclassed.
Kole fired another blasting rod bolt at the wizard, which he met with another Shield, evoking a slight pang of jealously from Kole at the casual use of the spell that would have cost Kole half his Will capacity.
Doug joined in with Kole, and they alternated taking shots at their counterparts, and firing into the melee. And in doing so, they quickly realized that their opponents.... weren’t very good.
The wizard began shooting bolts of fire at Kole, but for every two he fired, Kole could get off three. Similarly, the archer on the other team was far slower at drawing and nocking arrows that Doug. The archers traded shots, while running side to side, closing in and falling back to avoid being hit, while the wizards did the same.
Just as Kole completely forgot about Rakin, the dwarf surfaced out of the sand ten yards ahead of him. And, after getting over the surprise of the dwarf’s sudden appearance, the wizard fired three rays of fire straight at Rakin.
“Second-tier spell!” Kole shouted, recognizing the spell Scorching Ray.
To the wizard’s evident shock, when the beams of fire struck Rakin, lighting his robe on fire, the dwarf let out a bellowing laugh.
“Bah ha ha! Ye got to do better than that,” the dwarf shouted as he began to sprint across the desert.
The ground didn’t leap up to propel him forward as Kole had seen before, but the sand did remain firm beneath his steps, allowing him to run as if on a smooth road, and not shifting sands.
While on some level, Kole knew Rakin to essentially be immune to fire, the implications of that had never really sunk in until that moment. Taking advantage of the distraction Kole cast his own spell.
Kole built the construct for Magic Missile, and fought against his connection to the Font of Illusions to open his bridge to the right location, sending his Will out into the Arcane Realm, and receiving three bolts of force in return. The bolts streaked across the desert, and struck the wizard in his chest, once, twice, and then three times.
Kole didn’t know what he expected to happen when his spell hit, but it wasn’t what actually happened. The force darts hit, piercing the Mage Armor Kole only then realize the other wizard had active. The bolts then vanished before hitting the wizard, who yelled out in pain and fell to the ground.
While confused, Kole wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip by him, and he fired two more blasting rod bolts at the wizard. The first struck him, and the wizard vanished, whisked away to safety by the magic of the arena.
At his side, Doug and his own foe each stood among a field of arrows, strewn across the desert. The other archer was moving as if she’d been hit in the leg, only no blood was visible. As Kole turned to assist Doug, the demonkin boy froze, mid draw, holding his arrow, and then vanished. An arrow flew through where he stood, and the female archer let out a scream that was cut off in the middle as she too vanished—though not from her own power.
Kole saw that Doug had reappeared to the side, and taken the opportunity to get the drop on the other archer.
With their own targets dealt with, both boys turned to assist Zale, only to see she was sitting down oh her shield which with thrust into the sand, pulling her helmet off and panting in the heat, no sign of her two opponents.
“Took you two boys long enough,” she said, and then suddenly there was a surge of magic and they were back in their ready room.