Future Past Day - 2020 A.D. (0 A.R.) - February - Greenland - Almost Three Weeks in.
Foreboding.
I had a bunch of words that could’ve come to mind: scary, intimidating, frightening, ominous, trepidatious, and for a smarter person, the list would’ve gone on. But for me, foreboding just fits the freaking bill.
Reeanth lay next to myself as we peeked over the edge of the closest mountain. Both she and I toggled the ‘Monocle’ spell as we surveyed the castle.
Big. Check. Covered in spikes and spines. Check. Intermittent patrols of undead with ice hanging off of them. Check.
“What is Acantha doing again?” I asked, glaring at the unsophisticated version of the ‘Monocle’ spell before adding in a few more runes to update the features.
Reeanth wiped my changes out of the spell formulae, growling about inefficiencies. “Your ward is organizing the golem army with Kraken. Remember, sunstone golems do charge amazingly well in the sun so they’re sitting on the eastern side of the mountain to catch the light of dawn. The pylon is gathering as well.” I raised one eyebrow. “Your ward is currently creating mana-concentration formations to speed along the charging process. You agreed to this because it will give us the best chance if we charge until noon tomorrow and then begin the attack.”
“You know, I find the word ‘ward’ kinda weird.” I scratched the ice in front of me with Gungnir’s knife blade. “I get the context but she’s got a name.”
Acquiring the services of a loyal yet technically partially unstable fire sorceress/alien wytch in exchange for my younger brother getting to attend a genuine extraterrestrial college of the arcane really isn’t such a bad trade. I’ve done worse and for far less. Not sure why I’m getting hung up on the word though. Ward. As in she’s an unwanted orphan sloughed off by those that should give her the care and supervision she needs but instead she’s hiking around the ass end of the North Pole getting ready to fight the undead so one part of the world can be a bit safer. At this point, it’s not even about the Tree back in Virginia. Elizabeth ain’t gonna be around for thousands of years so why the freaking fuck has she been the center of my priorities?
Huh. My thinking is different. No longer does the thought of my girlfriend, kind of in the ex-girlfriend category, or is it ‘suspended girlfriend’ . . . . no longer does her presence take up the forefront of my mind. Her safety isn’t the driving force of why I’m out here anymore. She’s a goddamn tree for magic’s sake! A baby goddess in a cocoon of a tree that DOES NOT need my help to survive. Well, at least anymore.
Closing my eyes and holding one finger up to forestall any interruption from Reeanth, I began to tick through my thoughts one at a time. Each motivation was carefully examined. Each driving impulse put under a microscope and scanned to the nth degree. I had to get this confirmed by Kraken but my gut feeling and rational mind were telling me that my magics had had more of an influence on my mind than I would willingly admit.
Elizabeth was ensconced in a tree and being twisted, groomed, grown, shaped into a being that would defy earthly comprehension. And that simple fact, by sheer circumstance, could have taken advantage of my mind. My Earth Sorcery, due to its ease of use and utility, unconsciously persuaded my mind to use certain tactics as well as influencing me to build my hideouts below the earth. My Mana Sorcery, while extremely useful, pushed me down the path of enchantment and artifact creation EVEN THOUGH looking back I could see that playing around with the building blocks of the universe without any education was like putting a five year old in a room full of loaded firearms without any safeties.
So it stands to reason that the current clarity of mind allowing me to focus without Elizabeth being a factor in my plans is that my Nature Sorcery served as the shatterpoint, the weakness, the chink in the armor. My Nature Sorcery, powerful as it is, is the very avenue by which her unconscious influence, possibly enhanced by Yggdrasil’s very being, that I set up my entire life to protect that fucking tree. Not that it was her fault. She didn’t plan on coercing me into becoming the neighborhood guard dog.
Growling internally like a starved and beaten rottweiler, I shook off that line of thinking. I can’t know that for sure, either way. I opened my eyes and looked past the translucent ‘Monocle’ spellform hovering in front of me, vowing to build mind-altering prevention enchantments ASAP.
What I had clearly wasn’t good enough. The influence I’d been functioning under was obviously powerful enough to just brush my Consciousness Sorcery right out of the way.
Reeanth coughed and I put my finger down. She took a deep breath. “My lord, the term apprentice does not fit.” It took me a second to catch back up from my internal ministrations. She kept going without missing a beat as I packaged up a copy of my thoughts for later so I could give them to Kraken. He’d remind me when this mission was over. “And neither does any moniker used to refer to family. By all intents and purposes, she is your ward as in ‘ward of the state’ because she is in your care and there is no official ‘state governmental structure’ on Earth as of yet.”
We both started as Acantha plopped down next to us. “Nooope.” She said, sticking her hand in the ‘Monocle’ runic structure and adding a few extra bits. “Just did the first one on a flat piece of stone and then Kraken had the golems make more and I just empowered those ones.”
I shrugged but pointedly looked at the additions within the spells. My mind tried to wander again as the landscape beckoned. Without the castle of evil in the distance, this really was a fantastic view. The icy ocean of the Arctic was visible, barely, off in the distance to the left and right. Flat plains of frozen ground and ice let the wind race across its surface as the only obstacle around were the mountains we hid behind to the south east.
Acantha sighed and rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, haven’t you seen the runes that allow you to see ambient heat?”
I squinted in the morning sun. The inner and outer circles of the floating spell circles held the Centauri rune-script and without missing a beat, I started taking notes in my Grimoire, holding it at an angle so that Acantha could read over my shoulder.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
She tapped my shoulder. “You got it, well, close enough for clan work.”
I snorted. “You mean, close enough for government work? Or is that just your version of it?”
“Old people who want answers but don’t really care about the quality at the moment until it bites them in the ass?”
Nodding sagely, I tapped the newest runes. “Yup. That’s it right there. Government work. Shitty public works because they have zero incentive to provide a good product because they have a monopoly on force.”
She tried to hide a laugh but I couldn’t let the rant end without my last few cents worth. “Competition is good for everyone. Good for business, quality, and the customers.”
Acantah pointed at the looming castle of death in the distance. “Aren’t we currently working on getting rid of said competition.”
I gave the Hungry Ones the middle finger. “Nope. This is competition.”
*******
The trek down the southern side of the mountains was more fun than dangerous with our enhanced physiques. I slid down on armored boots using my dragon-altered body to handle hard turns and even harder stops, the boulders nothing more than convenient bounce points to let me change direction. Acantha slid down like a pro even though she cheated by emitting bursts of flames from her hands to steer or act like jet engines when pointed behind her.
Reeanth beat us all. Like an ice demon from the wrong side of hell, she simply sprinted down the steep mountainside without fear. Every single step she took was solid, as if she could see what patches of earth would slip due to the ice just beneath the surface. Steep drifts were avoided like they were holding signs up but ones that only she could see.
By the time we caught up to her at the base of the mountain where Kraken was working with Sunny to establish a reinforced cave, the glow in Reeanth’s pupils was fading away.
“You cheated!” I yelled with a laugh, huffing like a fat kid being kicked to go outside. “Sight Sorcery!”
Quicker than fleeing shadows, my Centauri companion carefully stepped to the side and pushed me back with two fingers, my feet catching a slip of ice and I fell on my ass.
Not letting the clear invitation to spar go, I dug my heels in and launched a diffuse ‘Mana-Bolt’ at her chest. It was merely a distraction to give me a split second to get my feet underneath me. The second ‘Mana-Bolt’ was even slower but wider and far more dense. It functioned as a battering wall and Reeanth had two options. Jump over it or get knocked back.
She chose option three.
My quickly conjured wall of mana blew apart in my direction, disrupting my tackle. I went with it, sliding underneath the chaos only to get a boot straight to my shoulder.
Gungnir’s spear blade pointed right at Reeanth’s femoral artery and her own maul pointed at my head.
I glared directly into her eyes, pulling Gungnir back an inch to concede. “Again.” I snarled, moving Reeanth’s maul head a bit further away.
A spark flew between us and popped. Acantha crossed her arms. “This is not the time or place! At least move a few miles away if you’re going to practice really loud and dangerous magic near our SWORN enemies!”
Reaching a compromise didn’t take long. Kraken pulled Sunny out of his normal duties to create a large reinforced cavern sunk deep into the bowels of the mountain. Complete with entrance tunnels, extra solid pillars supporting the ceiling, and a convenient hexagonal socket in which to place our reshaped pylon, Reeanth and I stood in the center of the wide open space.
Acantha looked like she was going to pull her hair out. “I ask again! Is this the best use of our time?”
I held out my palm towards Reeanth, motioning for her to be still so I could lay out the facts for Acantha. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to crush the undead right fucking now, but setting up a forward operating base is usually the highest priority. Training in my new body is up there too. Besides, Kraken and Sunny are already working on making this place secure.”
Turning to fully take in the sheer amount of work accomplished by my familiar and elemental golem, Acantha shook her head. “That’s not the point! We need to plan, we need to-”
“Rest.” Reeanth finished. “You need to rest. Meditate. Center yourself. Work on coming up with your own plans and contingencies. We will all have another planning session tonight.”
The air around Acantha’s entire body shimmered with contained heat before liquid flames lashed out to her sides, her arms resembling an octopus's tentacles if they were made out of brightest lava.
“I’m tired of resting! I want to fight!”
Three lances of freezing water doused our fire wytch. I spun around to see Sunny standing next to a much smaller Splashy who burbled with happiness. Kraken burbled right back before glaring at Acantha.
“You cook everything to ash when you fight!” Kraken admonished, motioning for Splashy to put out the tiny fires simmering across the smooth stone floor. “No overt magic until we have the cavern warded and runed from top to bottom.”
I held still, hoping to avoid the disciplinarian but I was surprised when Kraken nodded in approval in my direction.
“You, you’re good. You have the right idea for once. Physical combat will help you here more than anything else.”
Taking that as tacit approval, I spun around and launched myself directly at Reeanth who smoothly countered with an upward backswing of her maul. The spiked head whizzed past my chest and I smirked in triumph only to catch a solid uppercut from her right hand. I coughed, spinning to lessen the force of the blow and my elbow caught her in the collarbone.
Ten minutes of bloody combat followed by five minutes of Flesh Golem enhanced recovery became the cycle for the next two hours as adrenaline, fear, and the looming threat of Centauri-shaped death continued to forge my body into a living weapon. Nothing like sheer terror to speed your movement while a heavy maul capable of destroying a boulder swept past your face.
And it was all so cathartic until a shimmering tear in reality deposited one very grumpy yet familiar looking Asian dude wielding a silver spear that looked oh so much like a living cobra.