Hasio huffed, falling into pace just beside Metilia as they made their way down the hallway, after passing through the chamber with the spider spirit. “Not that I’m doubting Tahir at all, but was it really wise to leave him back there with the homicidal demon spider?” He asked. Metilia didn’t reply at first, so he continued on. “I mean, he’s not in the best shape to fight anyway with Mikharma out and all.”
“I’m not sure.” Metilia responded. “My first thought was that he decided to stay behind to reduce the chances of losing Mikarma, but he spoke otherwise.”
“Yep, he plans on winning, but I don’t have any idea how.”
“I’m not sure either. Maybe Theo might have known. Maybe she’ll be able to catch up and support him. For now, all we can do is trust him, and if not, hope his aura shield lasts long enough for us to take care of this mage.”
They could see a light up ahead, continuing forward until they reached the entrance to yet another chamber in this large ruin. Hasio’s eyes darted around the room, coming to rest on a man near the center standing next to a familiar device. The man - the spirit mage - he’d briefly seen during the warehouse raid. He stood, waiting for them, holding a staff and clutching an amulet with a glowing red gem. The device was another one of the orbs they destroyed back at the Blooming Grove. Presently, it conjured a portal that led out into some scorching red abyssal plane, a warm, sulfurous wind blew from it into the room.
“Would it be too much of me to at least ask that you come quietly?” Merui said, also scanning the room. “Osman’s not present, I see. Likely was never here to begin with, but that was expected on some level. In any case, I’m sure you can feel the rumbling of your other spirit mages being subdued, so surely you can save us the trouble and just go quietly.?”
“I’m afraid I’m too old to last in Nagyermend’s prison, so I will have to decline.” The amulet he wore began to shine, and Hasio could see a stream of something flowing out from the portal and into said amulet as the mage raised his staff.
Of course. Hasio thought. Why can’t it just be an easy job for once?
###
Tahir dove, sliding over several thin, razor sharp webs and popping back up as he approached the spider spirit. Another set flew his way as he got close, and with a swing of his sword, he cut through them after a brief delay, then dodged out of the way as more came flying at him, and leapt toward her, waving his staff, casting a quick bolt of flame in her direction, only to have it be blocked and dispersed by a tangle of web. Following up, he rushed toward her, dodging out of the way of any stray webs, and cut through the same ones he’d just struck with his spell, slicing through them easily and leaving a cut on the spirit’s arm.
With an immediate response, the spirit created more webs around her, using them as a shield as she leapt back and out of Tahir’s reach. “Perhaps you can entertain me a little.” She said, rapidly creating more webbing and wrapping it around her arm to stop the bleeding.
“Seems like I’m a bad match for you.” He replied. He’d mostly figured out how her webs worked from a couple of exchanges, his soul sight helping immensely. He could see her pour mana into creating her webs, and then in slightly different ways to change the material. She could make them more resistant to physical attacks, magical attacks, or somewhere in between. The ‘in-between’ was her downfall here, though. When she made the webs resistant to both, it made them not as resistant as they would be if she’d given them a pure resistance to one or the other. Tahir, who swung around a flaming sword, could cut through the webs since they didn’t offer enough resistance to take his blows. He could also soften them with magic before he hit, but he didn’t have a tier 0 spirit out, and his magic was severely limited with soul sight and soul flame active. “I’ve seen your tricks already.”
“Have you?” The spirit asked, and with a grin, held up her hands. She created more webbing, but this time Tahir saw them filled with much more mana than before. Outside of soul sight, he could barely perceive them other than small glints in light, but now he could see that they all had a red tint to them. “Then maybe you can dance with me properly, do try not to lose your head.” She flung them out, at the same speed as before, but Tahir knew to avoid them. He dove out of the way, and watched a broken pillar behind him get sliced to pieces.
He started running toward her, pointing his staff to start casting a spell, but with a flick of her wrist, Tahir spotted the webbing coming back faster than before, and he had to skid to a stop and hold up his sword to block them. The odd threads had a weight to them, like they were made of some otherworldly metal, that he stood against for all of a second before it knocked him back, making him lose his staff and roll against the floor before he recovered. If not for his aura shield, those strands could have easily cut his arm off.
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She sent him running, dodging out of the way of her webs while he scrambled to think, occasionally getting too close and having her shave off bit after bit of his aura. The webs weren’t impenetrable, but he had a hard time touching them as the force she could fling them at him seemed to have also increased. It seemed like it would take advanced magic to even break through them, and they’d shred him if he tried to get too close like before. At a time like this, he almost wished he’d stayed back in the massive melee instead of Theo, since she’d probably be able to contend with this spirit with her varied elemental magic. Tahir couldn’t let up, though. He could feel Mikharma’s concern over their bond. Not for him, but for the others. He didn’t think the fight they walked into was one they could afford to have the spider spirit join, but Tahir didn’t dare try to look through Mikharma’s eyes, even for a second, or else he’d lose track of the webs flying around him.
“Come on! You were so confident just a minute ago! Are you just going to keep running now?” She said with a laugh, swinging and controlling the web around her like some kind of bloody puppeteer. “If you keep running like that though, you’ll run out of aura eventually! Especially if you keep getting hit.”
She was right, but only about one thing. She would eventually whittle down his aura if she kept cutting him with the web. He’d also realized something when he managed to get a cut on her, though. “That’s funny, coming from someone who doesn’t have that much aura yourself!” He called back.
There were all sorts of fiendish beings and spirits - with varying levels of aura and mana. It didn’t come as a surprise that some would be better at one than the other, but for her to take the hit meant that she had drastically low aura levels in comparison. She likely didn’t have to bother with it in many cases, because it took incredibly strong magic, someone with a high amount of aura, or someone who could bypass the webs entirely to actually hit her. Tahir really only needed a single sure hit to take her out, and she very well knew that, not seeming to have any magical shielding other than her own webs.
That seemed to set her off, however, as she flicked her hands again with a wordless snarl. Webs swung around him from both sides, and he tried to rush toward her to avoid it, only to have the webs coalesce around him, threatening to collapse and carve him into pieces, or burn through his aura otherwise. With a lightning fast incantation, he cast a teleportation spell to shunt him only a few feet away, rolling across the ground, but fully intact.
“Oh! You still have more tricks? How long can you keep that up, I wonder?”
“I can’t.” Tahir admitted, rising to his feet. That he managed to hang on to his blade the whole time was a miracle. “Not anymore, which is why it’s probably time to end this.” He was nearly out of mana. He figured he needed to finish the fight before he ran out of mana for soul sight and couldn’t clearly keep track of the webs.
“Is it? You’re not even bleeding yet. I won’t be accepting a surrender just yet when I can still play with you a bit-”
“You made a mistake earlier, by the way.” Tahir cut her off, raising a hand casting a short spell. A cloud of steam burst forth, covering him in dense fog.
“A mistake?” She asked, curious. She held up her hands wrapping the web around herself protectively against his next move. She heard an odd ‘pop’, and a few seconds of silence before something flew out of the cloud toward her. Reflexively, she had her webbing stop it and slice it to pieces, only to watch as remains of a glass bottle hit the floor and shattered even further. “A bottle?” Her attention flew back to the cloud, when a single sword swing blew it entirely away, revealing Tahir once more.
“Since this fight started, the only times I’ve actually used aura were to block your webs.” Tahir told her.
After a moment, her eyes widened as she realized what that meant. “That’s not possible. You couldn’t cut my webs with just your strength and that flimsy magic on your sword.”
“It’s how it is. If I’d used any aura otherwise, I would have started breaking my own bones from the backlash.” He said, holding his sword in both hands. “But I’ve been hanging onto a potion to increase my strength temporarily for a while now. Who knew it’d come in handy like this?” He took a deep breath, and lunged, rushing to her destination so quickly, she had a delayed response. She whipped the webs around in front as she dove away from Tahir’s vertical swing, scrambling back in horror when she saw he’d cut through her webs as well as the broken remains of a solid stone pillar she’d been standing next to. He hadn’t felt burdened by the swing, it felt amazing, in fact.
As he reveled in his newfound power, he turned to face the spider spirit once again. “Sorry, but this potion won’t last forever, so I’ve got to wrap this up quickly.”
Tahir had been training with Mikharma at tier three for a while, since the first and only time he actually fought with her affinities put him out of commission for multiple days. During that training, he managed to identify and confirm the actual issue - which was that he simply wasn’t strong enough to handle the power her affinities gave him when he used aura. He never managed to find a method other than strengthening his body, which would come the more he fought, and the more he used his aura, but that would take time. More time than he had in the current moment, certainly.
With that in mind, he decided to use the potion he’d gotten all the way back in Zorhe’s ruin. Or at least Callipho’s recreation of it. The potion increased his strength immensely, and would have caused him to be a formidable opponent on its own.
With Mikharma out at tier 4, however, it made him a force to be reckoned with.