After another hour of running, or in Luna’s case riding they finally were nearing their goal. “We should stop and rest, I can’t actually see what’s beyond this point.” Ironically her injury was the reason she was actually the freshest in the group. It didn’t stop her leg from hurting like hell, but at least she wasn’t exhausted on top of that. Azura had been careful not to jostle her while he was running, which she was grateful for, at least after she got past the absolute mortification.
“Yeah that’s a good idea, now that the whole group is together I can take a look at your injuries.”Azura gently set her against the wall and she let go of his shoulders so he could get up. He stretched a little to loosen his back muscles before turning back towards her.
“Enchantment ‘and’ healing magic? That’s an odd combo.” Gareth said in a barely detectable hint of mocking. Sad to say that was a major improvement from when she had first met him.
“Oooooh are you just collecting unusual spells for a combat mage as some kind of statement of superiority. Like you’re so strong you can win even after handicapping yourself.” It should have been an insult, but somehow the stars in Roran’s eyes made it sound perfectly innocent to her.
Azura laughed loudly, even bending over to clutch his stomach. Even after he managed to calm down he looked much less stressed, even managing a genuine smile. “Thanks Roran I needed that.” He chuckled again before getting serious again. “But no, I don't have any healing spells per se, and I’m definitely not trying to collect unpopular spells. However an important part of enchantment magic is understanding the basic principles of the thing you want to enchant, that of course includes people.” She understood, he had probably worked with a medic for a while to better grasp not just the how and why of biology, but even grasping the small details, like how unrelated systems interacted and such.
None of them said a word after that, Roran and Gareth simply kept watch while Azura’s piercing blue eyes went over her injuries. She fought back a blush at being so intensely inspected and was thankful he didn’t ask her to remove her armor for a better view of the injuries. He bandaged most of the cuts and bruises easily enough using his mana to place odd glowing symbols on the wraps that dulled the pain and made her feel much better. He stopped when he got to her leg and winced. “The leg injury is the worst. To the point where if we want you to be able to use it, we will have to take some drastic measures.”
She gave him a confused look, the other 2 glanced back at them, but otherwise didn’t react. “What do you mean? Can’t you just bandage it like the others? If it hurts less I can probably move it fine.” It was a deep gash across her left thigh. Azura had stopped the bleeding back when they first met up, but said it was too dangerous for him to really look at without someone to stand guard.
“Sure if you never want to be able to use that leg again after today.” Her head turned sharply to stare at him in shock. “I told you, I’m not a healer. Those bandages are soothing the pain and helping energize the things in your body that heal injuries over time to speed up the process. Which is fine for superficial damage, but I would have to super charge it to help with your legs, and if I do that the pieces of you healing will start expending too much energy trying to keep up with the energy being provided. They will burn out and your leg will cease to function, possibly even become cancerous and have to be amputated.” She and the other glanced at him horrified.
“Ok so not that, but what did you mean by drastic action?” Hopefully he had something better than sacrificing her leg just to help with whatever was beyond the huge stone gates they had stopped before reaching.
He winced. “ I can enchant your leg. Nothing too crazy, but I can numb it and stop the injury from getting worse.” Well that didn’t sound bad, he had her all worried for nothing. “Unfortunately once that enchantment drops all the pain it was sealing away will be felt all at once.” There it was.
It was her turn to wince. “Well as long as it’s just some pain and no permanent after effects I think that’s fine.” She had come this far, she wasn’t going to let a little pain get in her way. Her leg already hurt like crazy, how much worse could it really get.
He gave her a pitying smile, she noted in a mildly concerning way was much gentler than the one he gave with the provisions he handed out. She resolved herself, she hadn’t been hungry all day, so his claims have all been true so far. “If you say so, just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” His hand was just about to touch the wound when Roran spoke up.
“Why bother, it will only matter if there's a fight past the gate she says is ahead and even if there is, the 3 of us should be able to handle it. If you just dull the pain we can come back and get her after we deal with the threat.” Luna almost screamed, why did everyone underestimate her, she wasn’t a fragile little girl anymore. Everyone around her had always tried to protect her, they never seemed to think she could handle things on her own. Her parents had begged her not to try for the academy. She knew they didn’t want her getting hurt, but it was her choice. She got to decide what she did with her life, not anyone else.
Azura laughed and it shocked her out of her internal tirade. “Yeah sure, so if the situations were reversed, you would just sit out the big boss battle would you? I know I wouldn’t.” Roran had the decency to look a little sheepish. Azura turned back to her with a questioning gaze. It was silent for a few seconds before he spoke again. “Well?”
She realized he was waiting for her to say what she wanted him to do. “Please make it so I can fight, I’ll deal with the pain later.” She was a little relieved, she had to remind herself that she wasn’t back home. Rorans comment hadn’t been to say she couldn’t handle it, but that she didn’t really have to. Not that it mattered she was going to earn her place in the academy not let other people earn it for her.
He put his hand over the injury, and markings spread all over her legs, and suddenly her leg felt fine. She could see the injury, but it didn’t hurt. No more than that it felt fine, as in it honestly felt like the strongest part of her, the only piece still operating at 100%. “Woah.” He wrapped the leg so the injury wouldn’t reopen. She jumped up and down and did a few other movements to make sure everything was fine, but if she didn’t know it was there she wouldn’t have believed she was injured.
He gave her a serious look. “I know it feels good as new, but try to keep in mind that it’s not. The enchantment and wraps ‘should’ prevent further injury, but they are far from perfect. So please try not to use the leg anymore than you have to.” She nodded, but she knew it would be difficult. Every piece of her told her that her leg was fine. It felt strong and healthy. Her battle instincts would probably lean towards that leg as her strongest piece.
***
Azura was a little weary as they approached the giant stone gates. He expected them to be decorated with arcane markings, or at least have a mural or something. Instead they were just 2 enormous stone slabs, the only remarkable thing about them being their size. “So, think we should knock or just burst the door down?” The others had agreed, albeit reluctantly in Gareth’s case that he should be the leader. Purely because he was the support so he could stay back and observe the battlefield. He wasn’t very happy about it. Personally he would rather be in the thick of the fight, but most of the skills he wanted to hide would be combat skills so in a way it was for the best.
“That’s pretty tough without knowing what’s on the other side.” Roran put his hand to his chin in the classic thinking pose. Azura chuckled, he wasn’t wrong but that wasn’t really helpful. He put his hand on the rock and scanned it with his mana.
“It’s not magic resistant, So either option would be easily doable.” If he were being honest that only made him more weary about it.
“I say we assume it’s an enemy. Roran can disintegrate the gates and we can rush in to take the initiative.” Gareth had a point. If it was an enemy no point giving them time to prepare, but if it isn’t they could start a fight they don’t have to. Hmmm no Gareth was right it was safer to assume there would be trouble.
“Sounds good to me. What do you 2 think?” Roran and Luna nodded agreeing to the plan. “Alright then Roran do your thing. All 4 of them tensed ready to rush through the opening at full speed. Roran made a ball of energy in his hand and tossed it at the gates. It wasn't particularly fast, but the second it touched the gates they completely disintegrated. The four of them rushed in at full speed to find… an empty room. “Yeah that’s about what I expected.” The others glanced at him before taking in their new surroundings. There wasn’t much in the room to speak of. A few pillars to support the ceiling and a small stone tablet on a raised platform at the opposite end of the huge room, with stairs leading up to it.
Azura walked up to the platform and started climbing the stairs. The others followed behind. “What did you mean this is about what you expected?” Luna looked at him curiously.
“I already told you guys, I don’t think this trial is about combat skill. Honestly even when we were attacked it felt more like they were judging our reaction to getting split up then actually testing our combat ability.” The others seemed to think about it, before agreeing that he was probably right except for Luna who grumbled something about speaking for himself under her breath. That was fair, her proctor definitely put her combat skills to the test. They made it up the stairs to the tablet and read it aloud. “4 brave souls may enter, but only 1 shall proceed. Fear not for the remaining 3, they shall have their own opportunity.” Well that was menacing.
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“So 1 of us has to face some trial on our own, and the other 3 get to work together huh.” Gareth summarized. Now who should do what he was probably the most versatile, so he could do either well enough. However, he should probably stick with Luna in case something happened with his enchantment. So that left…
“Sorry Gareth, but I think you’re the best bet for the solo round. My guess is they are testing our ability to make decisions under pressure, so the fight will be tough, but probably not unreasonably so.” Gareth glanced at him before nodding in agreement.
“You’re probably right, it’s you 3 I’m unsure about. If the goal is to get your strongest out alone than the other 3 are in for a rough fight themselves.” Azura laughed, he couldn’t help it. Gareth took being voted as the solo fighter as him being the strongest. Azura would help him with that ego of his at some point. Totally ignoring the fact his own ego was just as inflated.
“Don’t you worry about us, in terms of destructive power Roran’s probably got you beat, Luna is easily the best melee fighter of the 4 of us, and I have quite a few tricks up my sleeve. Frankly I chose you as the 1 to proceed purely due to your versatility. Since it’s best I’m near Luna to make sure the enchantment doesn’t give out early.”
Gareth looked like he swallowed a bug, obviously he didn’t miss the subtle claim that Azura was more versatile than he was. “Well I guess it’s time we put our money where our mouth is isn’t it.” Clearly Azura had stoked his competitive side. Which was exactly what he was hoping for. “I’d wish you 3 luck, but if you need it then you wouldn’t be worthy of the academy anyway.”
Azura nodded at him, and Gareth went through the door that was hidden behind the pedestal when they first entered the room. The 3 remaining had to wait around for a few minutes before anything happened, but when something happened they immediately wished they got to wait a little more because a giant stone Golem made of the same magic resistant rock as the rest of the pyramid rose up almost to the ceiling. So it was at least 3 stories high. Thankfully the room was big enough that they had plenty of room to maneuver.
“How is that even possible the rock is magic resistant it shouldn’t even be able to be manipulated.” Why was this just surprising him now, the walls had been moving earlier, though he supposed that could have been done in a mechanical way so that was fair enough.
“I think the rock is made by a unique magic, and the owner can still affect it.” That was his theory on it, but it wasn’t impossible for there to be other means of accomplishing something like this.
“I can’t see through it, I don’t know where the weak points are.” Luna’s eyes stopped glowing as she resolved to fight, stepping into a stance with both hands on her spear and her legs tensed ready to move at any moment. Roran didn’t take a combat stance, but he also looked ready to move. He noticed the Golem hadn’t moved to attack them yet so he put a hand on both of his ally’s shoulders and set a temporary enchantment to boost their speed and strength. He goth the feeling no durability buff was going to stop them from being physically crushed by that thing.
“So does anyone have a plan or are we just going to try to hit it till it dies.” Roran didn’t look happy, and Azura couldn’t really blame him. He didn’t look like he had much in the way of melee skills, and magic wasn’t going to work well here. However Azura noticed that the Golem hadn’t moved at all. He looked at it closer and realized why. It didn’t have legs, he had been so focused on how tall it was he hadn’t even looked down until now. Its arms were long, but they were out of its reach for the moment.
“It doesn’t look like it can move, so we can aff-” He was cut off as the Golem tore out a big chunk of rock from the floor and threw it at them. They scattered to avoid the mass of rock that was speeding to where they had been standing a moment before. The ground shook as the projectile hit it causing it to crater. “Never mind! Focus on staying moving for now, I’ll think of something!” He yelled making sure the other 2 heard him. The fight vaguely reminded him of his clash with the water elemental. The golem wasn’t something he could easily destroy, but it was a ton slower than the water elemental and it was immobile. On the flip side if he took a hit, he would be reduced to a fine bloody paste.
Roran fired an orb of his destruction magic at the Golem, but as expected it didn’t do much of anything. The guy controlling it wasn’t in the room with them, so no way to take out the controller. It was controlled by magic, so an anti-magic field would work. But he would have to get close, and it wasn’t something he could do instantly it would take at least a few seconds and the Golem wasn’t ‘that’ slow. His grimoire could fix this easily enough, but that was out of bounds for several reasons. If he made some copies then at least 1 would definitely succeed in setting up the anti magic field, though it would immediately disperse afterwards. Even aside from that, revealing his unique magic so early on seemed like a mistake. It was hard to think while having to dodge giant death meteors, but the golem didn’t let up tossing rocks at all 3 of them with both arms.
“ANY DAY NOW!!!” Looks like Roran was getting impatient, but what was he supposed to say, this wasn’t exactly a simple issue. He saw Luna use her spear to cut into the Golems' side. It didn’t go very deep, and she had to jump back immediately to avoid being swatted like a fly. That gave him an idea. His left gauntlet glowed with icy light as he put his left hand on the ground causing ice spikes to shoot out towards the Golem. They broke on impact, but they began to cut off it’s range of movement. He wanted to hit himself for being so dumb, obviously the rock couldn’t be affected by magic, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be touched by physical objects made of magic.
The ice slowed it down, but not but much it broke the ice easy enough, but that was fine. “Hey Roran you said half of your destruction magic was fire right!” He shouted. He should have listened closer, because using fire and earth to disintegrate something was pretty impressive.
“Yeah! Why?!” He looked confused… for all of 3 seconds before a giant rock smashed into where he would have been if he hadn’t jumped to the side.
“The golem can’t be affected by magic directly, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t get hotter if it is near magical fire or colder near ice magic. Rorans eyes lit up, it seems like he got the memo.
“Ok, I’ll bring the heat while you freeze it up.” Azura had to say he was impressed when an inferno rose from where the golem met the ground, and his theory was proven right as he noticed the golem’s color change slightly from the temperature. His turn, he put more mana through the ice shards in his gauntlets storing a large amount of ice magic in the enchantments for a big ice spell causing the gauntlets to glow brighter than ever before.
For the first time in the fight he closed into the golem, dodging the giant palm that slammed down to crush him he slammed his hands into the golems chest after jumping up to reach it. He unleashed all the stored ice magic causing a wild blizzard to form. Ice began to creep up the golem from the sheer drop in temperature the blizzard caused. Steam rising of the golem as the previously super heated rock quickly cooled leaving cracks in the rock. Azura jumped back out of range of his spell and had to use some mana to warm himself back up, since he couldn’t actually target the rock itself; he had just created a blizzard around it, which meant he was affected too.
“Woah, that's brisk.” Azura had to rub his hands together rapidly, trying to warm them up enough to regain feeling in them. The golem looked a bit worse for wear, but the cold didn’t seem to be bothering it anymore as it began tossing rocks at them again. “Roran you're up again!”
“Way ahead of you!” A blaze erupted around the golem again, canceling out the blizzard that had already begun dyeing down without more magic to sustain it. More steam rose up of the golem as the patches of ice sublimated due to the intense heat. More cracks began to form in the Golem, and it was having a noticeably harder time moving. “That’s it for me, I’ve used a lot of mana in too short a time. If I use another big spell, I’ll pass out for sure!” Yeah fire was a pretty mana heavy element, and those were impressively strong fire spells. Honestly he probably only had enough for 1 more big spell himself.
“Hopefully this finishes it then!” He gathered the mana in his gauntlets and rushed in again. Roran had an impressive grasp on external manipulation, to form the spell so far from him even after moving the mana through a shard he kept it condensed into such a small form until it was where he wanted to actually unleash the spell. That was well beyond his current ability, so he had no choice but to get in close. Luckily, that wasn’t too bad against something slow like this. It seemed the golem’s controller knew that as well and spikes started shooting at him on his way to the golem. He weaved through the spikes, but the sheer number of them was enough to leave him pretty scraped up.
He was covered in blood and sweat when he finally managed to get close, he unleashed his blizzard spell a little further away than last time not wanting to actually land on the golem and get impaled, however exhausted as he was he didn’t have time or energy to dodge the giant hand looking to swat him out of the air. Luckily he managed to unleash his shield and use some wind magic to soften the blow. Slamming into the wall and leaving a crater still hurt like hell though.
The golem was cracking and crumbling now. There wasn’t a spot on its body that wasn’t heavily damaged and big pieces of it were falling off. However he and Roran were out of the fight, which left Luna to finish it off. Which now that it was falling apart she handily did. Turns out she didn’t need clairvoyance to find weaknesses if her enemy was covered in them. She was fast and used precise stabs of her spear to help quicken the rate the Golem was falling apart. It didn’t take her long to render it to rubble.
The 3 of them all exhausted gathered up and slumped to the ground. “Yay. we did it.” Even Roran couldn’t seem to gather his normal energy. He felt he should probably respond, but he was tired so he just laid down instead. However before he could give in to his temptation to sleep, there was one last thing he had to do.
“Sorry Luna.” She glanced at him in confusion, before her eyes widened and she screamed in immense pain before she blacked out. Roran winced in sympathy. “I told her it was going to hurt.” Roran turned to him with a raised eyebrow.
“You could have at least warned her before you released the enchantment.”
“Yeah, but then she would have braced herself. It’s better for her that she just passes out.” Roran nodded in understanding.
“Yeah I suppose that’s fair.” Roran gave an almost jealous look to Luna. then groaned. “One of us should probably take watch.
Azura chuckled, but he was so exhausted it came out more like a wheeze. “If they throw anything else at us after this, then I refuse to believe anybody would ever pass the first trial. Roran nodded, then almost in sync they both passed out.