Azura was not in good shape. He had never had to do a stasis spell over that wide of an area before. He had to hold the arrows long enough for the townspeople to get out of range, and then on top of that he had to blink in front of Arbeid to stop the guide from losing his head. He wasn’t even at full mana when this whole thing started, so he felt he had done a pretty decent job with what he had. Not that he was feeling particularly good about this current fight. He needed to break the amulet, he didn’t stand a chance against the masked bandit as he was, and that was even assuming none of the other bandits joined in. He was planning out his escape with Arbeid when a terrible feeling went through him.
He and his foe froze at the same time. He slowly turned his head, and was horrified to see Arbeid wearing the crown. The energy swirling around him was like fire, everything it touched turned to glass. He disengaged from the bandit as both of them fled in opposite directions. How had he not seen that coming? Of course Arbeid would end up being the mad king, the guide was the only idealistic idiot that would think the crown would help them. He wasn’t sure on the specifics, but he knew the crown bestowed some powerful abilities, apparently at the cost of both sanity and morality.
Exhausted as he was, this was actually a decent turn of events for him all things considered. All he had to do was make sure mad king Arbeid cleared out the bandits and didn’t hurt any civilians. He watched in grimm amusement as a few bandits got caught by the energy Arbeid was releasing turning entirely into glass. After the transformation was complete they began moving calmly around Arbeid. So Arbeid was making guards first huh? Scouts would likely be next.
“What have you done! That man doesn’t have the strength or will to control such power! How could you let him don the crown?!” He rolled his eyes. Like the bandits weren’t the ones at fault. The masked bandit was apparently very familiar with projecting their voice, because it sounded like they were yelling in his ear, but there was quite a bit of distance between them.
“That’s funny, I somehow seem to remember you forcing us into this situation. In fact I get this odd feeling we were going to hide or destroy the crown before you jumped in.” There wasn’t really any point playing the blame game, but he was intent to stall. All he needed was for the bandits to die or clear out. Afterall he had planned for the possibility that someone dawned the crown, though he honestly hadn’t expected it to be Arbeid.
He heard them growl. “You should have just given us the crown!” He rolled his eyes. They had already made it quite clear they had no intention of honoring the deal, so he wasn’t quite sure who they were trying to fool. Who in the world would hand them the crown knowing they were going to die anyway?
“No, it's definitely better this way. This way all the bandits who get close die, and Arbeid himself is safe until I decide to knock the crown off of him.” He wondered how he must look to the bandit king. Speaking with such bravado, despite the fact he was running on less than fumes. He probably didn’t even have enough mana to make a copy, much less give the copy any extra for spells. Of course he still had plenty of stored mana to draw on in a pinch, but he didn’t think it would come to that here.
“You’re a fool, do you have any idea how dangerous the bearer of the crown is?” Given that the story of the kingdom of glass ended with a mass concentrated strike to kill the mad king, he was pretty confident he knew how dangerous the crown and thus Arbeid was. It just didn’t matter to him. This situation was already quite different from what happened in the story. Of that much he was sure.
“Less dangerous than you would be with it I’d imagine.” Silence sat for several long seconds. Not surprising really. There wasn’t really any point to having the argument, even if by some miracle he agreed that he should have handed over the crown it wouldn’t really get them anything.
He heard a sigh. “It doesn’t matter now, but we’re going to need to work together if we want to get the crown off your friend. We can work out who gets the crown after.” He rolled his eyes. They must really think he was an idiot. He was already exhausted, and not counting his reserved mana any fight he got in would probably end poorly. He was tempted to go with it and surprise them with his extra mana, but it just wasn’t necessary.
“You’re on your own. I intend to leave him like this until your entire camp is dead or gone. I don’t care which.” Perhaps it was callus, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about the lives of people that would threaten others. Especially when it was over something as simple as material wealth. Although a dangerous artifact was far more dangerous than that, and he doubted they had anything good in mind with it, even if they were somehow able to control it.
“You can’t be serious! What about the fleeing townspeople?!” They were well out of range for the time being, and Arbeid was way closer to the bandit camp than he was to town. It would be at least an hour after obliterating the bandit camp before the energy even entered line of sight for the oasis township.
“I’ll stop him before he gets that far.” He made sure to sound as arrogant as possible. It wouldn’t be good if the bandit felt that his confidence was actually deserved, and had a way to stop Arbeid rather easily. He was a little giddy if he was being honest. This was probably the first time his plan A had gone so smoothly. The only hiccup was Arbeid donning the crown, but in the long run that didn’t make much difference.
“Do you really think you can stop him by yourself? The crown protects its bearer, and if it overwhelms our camp then he’ll have many glass soldiers.” He just shrugged and continued to avoid the expanding sphere of energy. The biggest risk at the moment was the bandit leader sticking around. Azura could probably take them if he had to, but it wouldn’t be an easy fight as he was now. Even if he drew on his reserves, he’d still be mentally exhausted from all of the high level magic he’d been casting.
“If I can’t I’ll just run into town and warn them to flee, but I don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to get the crown off of him.” Come on bandit, stop bantering, and flee, grab the bandits in the camp and get going. He didn’t care if they might be a problem later. He’d be long done with this simulation before they ever tried to strike again.
“Fine, let's see you do it then, I’m rather curious.” He sighed. Of course, why had he expected the bandit leader to try and save their henchmen. Better 1v1 than all of the henchmen and the leader vs him though. He would definitely need to learn how to make simulations though, this would be an incredibly useful tool for training.
***
It had taken roughly 20 minutes for the bandit camp, and most of its occupants to be turned to glass. Like him the bandit leader never slipped, always staging out of range of the energy even when it tried to surge out at them. Since the 2 of them could sense magic energy they had a huge advantage over the bandits who couldn’t even tell what was happening.
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He figured it was about time to reveal his hand. He dispersed the copy that had taken a much bigger chunk than normal to make. The expanding energy suddenly stopped and vanished as if it was never there. Leaving all the glass soldiers as simple statues. Using his unique magic to make copies of artifacts was much more difficult than copies of his normal enchanted gear. Which was why he never tried to make a copy of his grimoire, attempting to do so would likely kill him, but while powerful the crown was rather simple. Making it had cost him a lot, but it wasn’t unmanageable.
“What?! How?! Destroying a magic item releases all of its power, there is no way to do so without causing massive damage to a huge area?” He started walking backwards towards the most likely unconscious Arbeid while keeping an eye on the bandit leader. They no doubt knew what he was doing, but if they wanted answers trying to race him to the no longer mad king would prevent any chance of him answering.
“That’s true.” He carefully considered how much to give away. He definitely didn’t feel the need to reveal his hand about his unique magic. Copy was easily his most adaptable spell, but it had a lot of conditions, and it definitely wasn’t cheap on magic. Still definitely best not to give away his ace. “If it had been destroyed that definitely would have happened.” The downside of that choice of words was that it was obvious the crown still existed, though it gave no indication that the crown had never been out here to begin with.
“I see, so your teleportation ability isn’t just usable on you.” He shrugged. She wasn’t wrong. Of course his teleportation wasn’t something that would make something vanish like that. It was really more like an extremely close range portal. He was working on an enchantment that let him make a marker that he could teleport to. That would require much less precise control of mana, and would grant him much higher range for far less cost. It was really only thanks to his contract and Luna’s help that he has been able to use blink as effectively as he has.
“That’s true, it has its limitations though.” Of course that much was obvious. If his teleportation ability had no limits there would have been much better ways to handle this whole situation, so he didn’t feel like he was revealing anything the bandit leader didn’t already think. Besides the more they focused on his blink spell the less they were thinking about what he had actually done.
“That’s quite the useful spell, and you had some impressive wards and such on your friend when he was talking with me, not to mention those powerful spells you fired from who knows how far away. You have quite the arsenal… it would be a shame to just kill you. Perhaps you might consider working for me. I’ll even promise to spare your friend.” He had to hold back a laugh. The bandit had more than proven themselves untrustworthy, and they began to match his pace so the distance between them was consistently about 30 yards. Which certainly wasn’t making him more likely to trust them.
“I’m assuming that comes with the condition of me telling you where the crown is?” Arbeid was in sight now. The man was lying peacefully in the center of the glass he had formed while under the copy crown's influence. Several glass statues standing in front of the unconscious man. They couldn’t move without the crown’s power guiding them, but the glass was still magical in nature, so they would be much more durable than normal glass. So hopefully the statues would prevent any of the fight’s backlash from hitting Arbeid.
“Of course, but I assure you I’ll have much better control of its power than your friend there.If he had the crown in his possession and the power to make another copy he might consider giving the copy to her. Just to see if she really was capable of controlling it, but neither of those things were the case, so he’d just have to live with the curiosity.
“That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. In fact I’d say it’s more dangerous for you to have it if you can control it.” Expanding outward in all directions simultaneously was fairly slow. If the bandit leader had full control they could probably turn the space in front of them to glass in an instant. Not only that, but they’d be able to only turn their enemies to glass while leaving their allies. “You haven’t exactly proven yourself to be very trustworthy.”
“Hmmm yes I’ve heard hiding one's face doesn’t particularly help with the building of trust.” He raised an eyebrow. The mask and hood were removed, and what was revealed was a pretty woman probably not much over 20 years old. Her hair was somehow even darker than his, and her eyes were an interesting color, like molten gold almost. It was clear to him that the eyes possessed some kind of magic, and he could feel her magic probing him in a way he hadn’t felt till now. This wasn’t a bid for trust, this was her taking him seriously as an opponent.
“If you expected the fact you’re a girl to throw me off balance, then you are sorely mistaken.” It wasn’t that he had guessed it, but more along the lines of it not really mattering. He knew a lot of people that would let something like that throw them off, but he never really understood why. Unfortunately whatever magic she had connected to her eyes was throwing him off a little, he had a bad feeling it was going to put him at an even worse disadvantage than he already was. He was practically on his last leg, and she was fresh having not done anything strenuous yet.
“I expect the fact you can’t win to help you decide to join me. There is no need for any more needless deaths today. If your teleporting ability would allow you and your friend to escape you would have done it already, so something is keeping you here, and as long as that’s the case you don’t stand a chance.” She wasn’t wrong per se. Though it was certainly odd to have a bandit try and reason with him. Based on what he’d seen so far he’d guess he had roughly a 60% chance of winning, and that’s without taking into account the actual nature of the bandits abilities. Since at the moment all he had was a basic idea of how much magic she had, and a general skill level.
“I’ll tell you what, if you let me take Arbeid back to the town, I’ll consider it. You can even come along, make sure I don’t take off.” It was an obvious stall tactic to let him recover mana, but he hoped she was confident enough in her abilities to go along with it anyway.
“If you give me your word you will join me then I’ll agree to it.” He pursed his lips. He hadn’t really considered their word to be worth much, but in hindsight he had never asked for it. Although it was also possible she just had him pegged as someone who would honor his word. Which was unfortunately correct. He was more than willing to mislead, and even lie from time to time, but if he made a promise, then he would keep it. He even still intended to honor his deal with the ice dragon even if he had been forced to make it. He probably wouldn’t get it done in time, but better late than never.
“I said I’d consider it, I’d never agree to something without knowing the entirety of its contents.” He supposed that wasn’t strictly true, there was plenty he didn’t know about spirit contracts, but he knew that the spirit contract couldn’t really negatively impact him at least. “I’ll promise to hear you out though.” He wasn’t likely to get his long walk bringing Arbeid to the town, but every second he had to regain mana counted here.
“An admirable trait in the desert, unfortunately I don’t have enough time to waste so much of it on a maybe. You may have noticed, but I’ll need to be working on refilling my forces.” Her combat stance told him that negotiations had ended. He sighed he hadn’t recovered near as much as he’d have liked, but he’d have to make do. His shield that had yet to make an appearance for this encounter quickly expanded to its circular form.
“Well if you’re wanting to fight at least you won’t have to worry about it for much longer. I may be tired, but I’m still more than capable of putting you into the ground.” He so enjoyed pre-fight banter, although by the smirk on her face, he may come to regret picking this fight. Not that he had much in the way of a choice. He sighed, why couldn’t these things ever just be easy.