Three more days passed in the Grove. With each passing day of Tahir’s internal injuries slowly healing, it convinced him that he couldn’t use Mikharma at tier three until he properly prepared his body, or unless the situation got so dire that he had no other option. Without the spellbook, or the proper setup to work on the elixir, Tahir could feel his party’s rising restlessness, but they busied themselves by going out into the surrounding jungle looking for yet more reagents. Theo would stuff her storage bag practically full by the time they’d leave.
During the second day, Tahir elected to see if he could help some of the burned woodland around the Grove recover. To that end, he summoned Dahlia. During this, he kept the tier one bond with Mikharma active, which dangerously stretched his aura and mana use, making him use well over sixty percent of both of his pools. Unstable, possession territory in the normal case. He had a bit of trust toward Dahlia, being a nature spirit, and toward Mikharma, being formally humanoid herself, abhorred the concept of possession as a spirit. He made sure the group was around to watch him during this process, and he used it as a good test in a controlled environment, since he’d never intentionally gone over those halfway points in his spirit summoning before. It felt odd, to say the least. Tahir could deal with the mixing of souls that the regular bond provided, but this was the first time he’d summoned multiple spirits of higher than tier zero. He struggled to keep thoughts that felt like they weren’t his from going unnoticed. Still, he let Dahlia use her primal magic to begin the process of regrowth in a large patch of the burned forest. Nowhere near all of it, but a good start.
During those three days, Shukri brought the group food each day, and asked about Tahir’s recovery on each of those days. She seemed particularly excited on the third, when Tahir said he felt like he was basically back to normal, but he wouldn’t find out why until the day after. “Tahir.” She called, once the party was about to separate on the morning of the fourth day, which startled him a bit, since he hadn’t actually heard her call him by his name since he’d met her. She held her spear in her hands as she walked up to the group and confidently stood. “If your injuries are healed, and you believe you can fight, I would like to engage in a duel with you. Today, if possible.”
“Duel?” Tahir replied, noting the word choice. “...Not spar?” The only context he had for the duels between nomads were the marriage duels she’d told him about a few days ago.
“The exchange of blows I want to have with you can’t be considered a spar. I want you to fight to the fullest, and hold nothing back.” She told him. “Will you accept?”
A fight like this wasn’t something Tahir would normally choose to get into so quickly after recovering, but the gleam in Shukri’s eyes of genuine interest in his ability felt contagious. “I’ll accept, sure.” He also wanted to know, with Mikharma’s affinity, and without hurting himself in the process by fighting with it at tier three, how well he measured up.
“Oh, this is gonna be interesting.” Hasio said. “Best entertainment I’ll see all week.”
Shukri led the group to one of the edges of the Grove, to a training area with several training dummies that looked like someone had dragged them all to the edges recently. Leaning against a nearby tree, seemingly waiting for them to arrive, Tahir spotted Mikharma, in a new set of red and black clothes, different from the simple set of hunting gear that he summoned her in. “Ah, I had a feeling you’d accept her challenge.” She said, with a knowing smile, then glanced down at her new outfit. “Ah, you must be wondering about these. The Grove’s weavers worked to put this together as soon as they heard I was still walking among them after the fire. I’ve seldom received an offering outside of hunting trophies, and they were very insistent that I at least try them on.”
“You look very regal in them, but will they stay on if I release the bond and then summon you back?” Tahir asked.
“I believe so. I am partially a being of belief, these days. Now that the Grove’s people have seen me in these clothes, and you, as well, they should be incorporated into my form when I am summoned.” At that, she shook her head. “But enough about me. My descendent is growing impatient.” She said, and Tahir glanced at Shukri. Her tail stood up, but also flicked back and forth. “I have asked to officiate, since I have a good sense of both of your aura levels.”
“Alright.” Tahir made his way to the training field, opposite of Shukri, while Meti, Theo, and Hasio sat off to the side. He drew his blade, and took out his staff as well.
“I will allow you to prepare yourself. Do not hold back, and do not expect me to, either.” Shukri told him.
Tahir couldn’t help but wonder what this was for. A spar was well and good and all, but he couldn’t see the reason behind all of the ceremony behind it, other than potentially wanting to impress Mikharma, which she’d certainly already done during the fight with Giralldo. Oh well. He thought. Best not to think about it until after the fight. Focusing in, he summoned three spirits. Along with Mikharma already active at tier two, he called forth the air, fire, and water spirits. With Mikharma only taking up the mana and aura of a tier one spirit, he had more leeway to summon his spirits. He could probably summon Mikharma and another tier one spirit at the same time, but that was something he’d have to test out at a later time.
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Shukri watched him carefully, and must have sensed the change somehow. “Hmm? No earth spirit, and a one-handed grip? Are you underestimating me?”
“You just haven’t seen all of my tricks yet.” Tahir replied. Both the earth and air spirit had their trade-offs. The earth spirit made him heavier, which let him take strikes more, and added weight to his own attacks, but he needed to use more aura to keep or increase his speed. The air spirit, on the other hand, made him lighter and faster, which meant he needed to use more aura when he attacked and blocked damage with his aura shield. If he only used aura, the earth spirit would generally be the better option.
“Right then, this duel will commence, and end when one party surrenders or I determine that they can no longer fight safely.” Mikharma held up an arm, and looked to both of them. Shukri held her spear at the ready, and Tahir held his staff and sword. Confirming that they were both ready, Mikharma’s arm dropped, signaling the start of the duel.
Shukri pounced, crossing a couple dozen feet in the space of a second with an aura enhanced leap. Tahir turned to the side, dodging her and her spear by inches and letting her pass by. He cast a quick spell, a ball of fire appearing at the end of his staff before he fired it off. In the recovery for that missed attack, Shukri whipped around and swatted the fire away. Tahir expected that much. Beginner spells wouldn’t break past her aura shield, but the flash from the flames gave him time to prepare his next spell. As Shukri lunged for him again, he jumped high in the air, the wind-assisted leap taking him thirty feet high, and a swirling gust slowing his descent.
If he’d only used aura, the earth spirit would probably be the better choice to summon initially, but he didn’t. With his current mana, the affinities his spirits gave him, and his staff, he believed he could cast advanced spells using the knowledge the spirits granted him. Only two or three of them before it drained his mana pool, though. During the fight with Giralldo, it proved better to use his mana to continuously refresh Mikharma’s spiritual energy, but since he’d raised his mana at the leyline, he finally felt like he had enough. With no other use for his mana in this fight, he might as well use it to try to give him the upper hand early.
He started a chant for a spell that lasted longer than he would have liked, but thankfully his guess that Shukri would want to hold on to her spear rather than risking it flying out of the training ground and losing it, and his descent kept him above her long enough to get the chant off. Realistically, she probably could have pounced using an aura infused jump. That she didn’t must have meant she wanted to see what he was up to. As his chant progressed, a swirling storm of motes of flame sprang to life just above his head, and at the conclusion of the spell he sent them all spiraling toward Shukri. Dozens of burning darts, each individually almost as destructive as the single fire bolt he threw earlier, fell toward her. She dodged back, but the ones that didn’t burst against the ground followed after her. She swung with her claws and her spear, using her aura to dodge and swat away the bolts, until none of them were left. At that point, she noticed Tahir had already started a second chant.
He finished it as she made to lunge for him once again, fully intending to stop him this time. From his staff, he released a torrent of water at high pressure. She avoided taking it head on, but hissed as the water grazed her and her aura shield. With a quick flick of his staff, the released water began to flow back towards him, and he willed it to gather around Shukri’s arms and legs. With a snap of his fingers, the water froze instantly. After taking a deep breath, Tahir rushed in himself. He had enough mana for one more advanced spell, but that would leave him drained completely, and he had a plan for the rest of his pool.
He also knew very well of Shukri’s strength. Even as he closed in with his speed enhanced with the air spirit, as he brought his sword up for an overhead swing, Shukri broke free of the ice binding the arm that held her spear, and swung to parry Tahir’s strike. He managed a couple of nicks against her aura shield in a following flurry of strikes, which she defended against as best she could while freeing herself from the ice. The last leg that broke free almost met the side of his head as she brought it up for a kick, but he jumped back from her before it could.
From what Tahir knew of aura, people tended to have certain specialties. Different from affinities, which were bestowed at birth or given by a blessing like Tahir’s minor affinity with earth that he gained from Odium, people tended to use aura in some forms better than others. A combination of the individual person’s body, their personality, and their training. Hasio proved exceptionally good at cloaking himself using aura and speeding himself up, but he struggled with prolonged uses of aura strengthening, leading to him developing a style that had him intensely strengthening his strikes in short bursts, that he usually used to go for a blind spot or weak point. Theo proved an anomaly, so he wasn’t entirely sure how her primordial soul worked. Someone like Talibah became a Mithral Redcloud due to her incredible use of aura strengthening.
Shukri, on the other hand, was an all-rounder. She’d trained all of the basic uses for aura to deadly efficiency through years of hunting, and because of that, Tahir knew he couldn’t get the upper hand from aura alone. Even if he considered himself an all-rounder as well, he had about six months of aura use under his belt compared to her probable decade at least. On top of that, his aura shield was boosted by his cloak, his auric recovery was boosted by his ring, and all of his aura efficiency increased from his bond with Mikharma. All of those allowed him to stand on a vaguely even field with her at the beginning, but he didn’t even know if that would be enough.
“I will concede that you are a passable magician. But I have outlasted your mana.” She said, and with a grin, leapt towards him to engage once more.