Of all the people for him to run back into, why did it have to be the loud one. Gareth was barely containing his annoyance as Roran chatted animatedly about the lady he had to fight before they reunited.
“She was crazy strong, she kept summoning all these wicked chains, and she was super fast. I could barely even keep up….” Gareth tried to tune him out. Both of them looked worse for wear with some tears in their clothes and plenty of bruises. He in particular had lots of cuts around his body. Freaking wind mages and their obsession with cutting things up. He hoped the guy he was fighting was stuck in here with them, that way he would be stuck with the various burns until they were released and he could get a healer.
His malice must have been obvious on his face because Roran finally shut up, and gave him an odd look. “I take it you didn’t enjoy your fight as much as I did mine?” Enjoy a fight? Who enjoyed fighting, it was a means to an end. He could and would fight, but enjoying it didn’t make sense to him.
“Of course not, I fight to win not for fun.” Roran frowned at him, but ultimately just shrugged and let it go.
“So how do you think the others are doing?” Gareth wasn’t sure how to answer that. Luna seemed best at melee combat, and didn’t seem to have any offensive spells to make up for her crippling lack of any ranged option. Her clairvoyance spell was a pretty solid support though, so at least she wouldn’t be caught off guard. He would say her odds were decent depending on the type of enemy she ran into. These corridors didn’t have much room to maneuver which once again could be good or bad for her odds depending on the enemy.
“I’m not sure. Frankly we know absolutely nothing about Azura’s combat abilities save for that he can enhance his allies if he has time to sit still and focus, but on his own he won’t be able to do anything like that. He didn’t strike me as the kind of person to only have 1 skill up his sleeves though.” Roran flinched a bit at that. “Luna on the other hand has either really good odds or really bad odds depending on the kind of enemy she gets. Anyone trying to use precise moves to take her apart will be at a major disadvantage, but someone who uses powerful aoe attacks will be hard for her to deal with in this environment.”
“Yeah I got that feeling too.” Roran winced. “Frankly you’re right about the lack of versatility causing an issue here. I didn't really win my fight per se, my enemy just got frustrated with their inability to get close since I kept releasing spells that would probably turn them to dust, not like I could actually hit them anyway.”
“Don’t take what I said to mean specialists are worthless. Your spells are even stronger than mine, because you have devoted all your time to that 1 branch of spells. Versatility is useful when you are on your own, but specialists really shine on a team where they can use their 1 skill to the fullest.” He was fine acknowledging that in terms of raw destructive power Roran was leagues above him, and that would always have its place as a valuable asset. However it had its cost too.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Thanks for the pep talk, I feel loads better.” Roran perked back up and he had only second to regret his decision before Roran once again started talking up a storm.
***
Azura was not easily surprised, but finding out that someone on the team had worse luck than him did it. He was walking super slow so he could support the weight that the heavily limping Luna was unable to. “Wow A field control type mage huh, that is literally your worst possible matchup.” Azura hadn’t really taken many hits and his clothes were all absurdly tough so his only real show of combat was the dirt staining his face and clothes, Luna on the other hand looked awful. Her armor was mostly in one piece but there were plenty of places where it was obvious that something had pierced the armor. Blood soaked the cloth the armor was over, her blonde hair had plenty of red splotches.
“Yeah thanks for the save, I thought for sure I was a goner.” She looked sheepish, but honestly the fact she had lasted as long as she did was a testament to her skill. He had only seen the tail end of the fight before he managed to intervene. The lady Luna was fighting was insane, and he didn’t just mean how strong she was. She was laughing maniacally, and saying all kinds of twisted stuff.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. My guess is the people we fought were academy employees, and that yours got a little carried away.” He winced a little didn’t seem to cover it. He had only fought her for less than a minute, but even once he arrived she kept a single minded pursuit of Luna. His skillset wasn’t designed for protecting someone else, but he could do it pretty well in a pinch and they managed to force her to retreat after he created an anti-magic zone around Luna. “Mine was probably stronger, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that by the way he fought, he was obviously holding back. If she was holding back she wasn’t doing a very good job of it.”
“Well that would be my luck, I got the tester that didn’t want to hold back, who also happened to be the absolute counter to my skill set.” Azura winced in sympathy. His luck had actually not been too bad recently, he had half a thought that encountering the water elemental had taken up his bad luck for a good chunk of time and he wouldn’t have to deal with it for a while. He turned to see her staring at him intently in deep thought. She looked to be debating something in her head. He was about to say something, but she beat him to it. “Could you teach me the anti-magic field?”
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He thought she might be interested in that spell, but wow to think she asked straight out Were her parents not mages. That was typically not done. There was an order to these things. Asking to learn a spell from someone was a big deal. “You’re not really supposed to ask like that, but I’ve been thinking of how to offer a trade anyway. Your Clairvoyance spell would be super useful to me, so I would be willing to trade my antimagic field spell.”
She looked unsure, he understood. Someone could only really be considered a mage when they made their own spell, so that first spell was typically precious. “That doesn’t seem fair, there are plenty of people that know how to set up an anti-magic field. However I have yet to hear of or meet someone with the spell you’re asking for.” A spells value was based more on its rarity than its usefulness, not that the clairvoyance spell wasn’t as useful as the anti-magic field.
“That’s true, but unless you only want to be able to use it on areas you set up beforehand I have to teach you how to do a battlefield enchantment. Which is a skill that as far as I know only I can do.” Honestly as far as most people were concerned he was definitely getting the short end of the straw with this, but frankly he would be happy to see enchantment becoming more prevalent so he was actually eager to trade it. Within reason of course he wouldn’t be giving it away for free anytime soon.
Luna sighed, but she must have realized he was right because she nodded. “Ok deal, but we should probably wait until after the trials.” She frowned. “We have enough to worry about without trying to master new spells.” She wasn’t wrong. He knew the trials would be difficult, but he had thought they would be a little bit more straightforward than whatever this mess was. However, that did give him an idea.
“I’ll tell you what since we both actually have to get through the trials to trade spells, I’ll even throw in a permanent enchantment for your gear. Luna’s gaze snapped to him in shock. Permanent enchantments were fairly difficult, to the point where only top tier artificers typically had that skill. Being able to create magic items was an extremely valuable skill, and to see a combat type mage with it was unheard of.
“Not that I’m not grateful, but don’t you think you're trading a bit much? Magic items can go for thousands of gold and even that’s just for low tier stuff. Plus that would be for each piece an entire set with matching enchantments would probably be something only an extremely wealthy noble family could afford.” She looked panicky, probably because if anyone found out her gear was magic she would have a major target on her back for unscrupulous people willing to do not strictly legal things for some quick coin.
“I mean yeah sure, but I can make them so I decide the price. Besides, based on how this trial has gone so far I’m guessing a major part of it is being able to make allies and the stronger my allies the better for me right. Although it’s important you keep that I can make them secret, and I’ll keep that you have them secret. I’d be just as screwed as you, so mutually assured destruction and all that.” They probably wouldn’t be equal to those magic items anyway. Thanks to his ancestors' notes he was probably equivalent to skilled artificers in ability, but not in resources. There were several materials and special items that went into making high level magic items that he just didn’t have access to. However he didn’t feel the need to share that little tidbit.
Luna was about to respond when she turned her head to the next branch in the corridor. There were 2 paths, one going straight and the other to the left. Her gaze seemed focused on the left. “I found the others. We should talk about this later.”
He nodded. Right grouping back up took priority. “How far off are they? If it’s a fair distance it may be better if I carry you so we can link up with them faster” Her face turned a little red, before she winced and seemed to regain her composure. She frowned, looking a little ashamed.
“They're a good distance away. Sorry to be such a burden.” He had already kind of guessed, but she seemed to have some real self confidence issues. They must be pretty bad if she was completely glossing over the fact he wouldn’t even know where they were without her so it’s not like he would be any faster without her.
Azura laughed. “Yeah such a terrible burden, how dare you be able to find our wayward teammates.” She glanced at him in surprise before he kneeled in front of her. “Well better get on, I’d rather us find them before any more surprises crop up.” She didn’t say anything, but he took her climbing on his back to be agreement. He took off down the left corridor going as fast as he could without exhausting himself. He followed her directions, resolutely ignoring his hormones trying to distract him from the matter at hand. He idly wondered what kind of metal her armor was made of, because it wasn’t stiff at all. While it was better in the sense it didn’t hurt, it was making his efforts not to get distracted very difficult.
It felt like he was running down corridors for hours, but it only really took a few minutes to find Gareth and Roran who both looked less beat up than Luna, but looked like they fared a little worse than he had. Well at least their clothes did, which was only natural really. They gave him a raised eyebrow after seeing Luna on his back. Apparently Gareth couldn’t resist a snide remark. “It looks like the 2 of you got real ‘close’ in your alone time huh.” Gareth had very clear implications of what he meant by close. He didn’t blush, really he didn’t… Ok maybe a little but that’s it.
“Yeah she had a run in with a field control specialist.” Azura had after a second decided now wasn’t the time to rise to poorly disguised bait. They both winced. He figured they would get the picture, both of them seemed to have a solid understanding of combat and its intricacies. “We don’t really have time to trade stories here though. Luna, do you know how to get to the room we were originally heading to?”
She nodded. “Yeah, leave the navigation to me.”