Emily surveys the destruction wrought by her spell with immense satisfaction. The blackened trees are still smouldering as more magical fog rolls in, smothering the small fires she has accidentally started, making her realise she managed to partially clear it with her spell.
Curious. I can clear a large area of the fog with a single dispersed third circle spell. We needed Oscar to use airspace claim to achieve even half of this effect last time. I guess that’s the difference in circles showing.
She turns away from her achievement and is filled with pride as she sees the stunned looks of disbelief on her friends' faces, still shocked even after her earlier display of another equally impressive spell.
“Was that enough raw power for you?” she asks with a teasing tone, snapping them out of their reverie.
“Fucking hell!” Dante cries, unable to contain himself as he looks around with a giddy grin. “That was incredible! Do you have any fire spells like that?”
Emily laughs at his predictable reaction to the more explosive spell.
“I have fireball, but I’ve only made a few third circle spells so far, and my only other fire-based one is more single target than area of effect.”
He nods, his mild disappointment unable to dampen his excitement over such a destructive spell.
“It was certainly impressive,” Hester agrees, drawing her gaze back to Emily from the excessive damage around them with a curious glint in her eye. “Was that all one spell? It looked like you changed it halfway through without dispelling it.”
“Good spot,” Emily praises. “It’s technically two different spells.”
She stops speaking as the strong aroma of singed flesh hits her. She turns around, looking at the burning cinders that used to be ocelaxes and makes a quick decision.
“Let’s get out of here first. I made a lot of noise and these corpses will be useless to us now. I’ll explain as we move.”
Her friends all agree, so Emily sets off towards The Waters’ tunnel again, leaving the destruction behind.
“At first, when I was designing arc, I was looking to turn my second circle spell, bolt, into a more powerful third circle version,” Emily explains as they walk, all of her friends listening attentively. “However, I thought that instead of just sending out a powerful shot in a straight line, it would be better to target my enemies, since lightning spells don’t lose a lot of force even after penetrating one target. That led me towards targeting in the way I used for scattershot, where I apply a small magical mark to each enemy within my range before casting the spell. But that didn’t feel quite right for the element.”
She turns around, walking backwards at full pace and facing her audience. She raises her hand, fingers splayed, and courses machina through it. Small arcs of electricity jump between her digits, crackling from the base to the tip.
“You see, lightning moves in a very unique, erratic way. It likes to move along the path of least resistance, and that means that if you block its other routes, you can get it to do some interesting things.”
Emily points at Juliana, building up machina at the top of her finger until it bursts. A glowing arc jumps to Juliana’s body armour, buzzing across and dispersing. She lowers her hand as she continues explaining.
“Living beings are great conductors! So, I decided to create arc, where I simply build up a mass of charge and let it go wild, jumping to the lowest resistance objects nearby and therefore hitting my enemies. But, because I’m continually dispersing a single spell across a wide area, it is very weak. The arcs it shoots are only strong enough to disable a second circle target. So, I went back to my original idea of a single powerful bolt, and then combined them. They have the same base of a dense orb of lightning, but one is a slow discharge, and one is a single compressed burst.”
She pauses, looking over her friends’ faces to gauge their understanding. They seem a little confused by some of the things she said around the path of least resistance, but a general air of understanding sits over them.
“How does this relate to you changing a spell you’re casting?” Tom asks.
“I’m getting to that,” Emily says dryly, picking up where she left off. “I designed the two spells with the same base, so the majority of the magic circles are the same. The major differences are the parts for discharge, and the targeting system. Arc applies a small magical mark to all living targets it hits, and arc-bolt targets those marks. So, since the main body of the spells are the same, after forming arc I can change a few small parts of the spell to change it into arc-bolt without affecting the energy gathering and compression sections at all, meaning the gathered mana never disperses. It makes it faster and cheaper to cast two spells!”
Emily beams with pride, looking at the astonishment on her friends' faces.
“Crazy,” Enzo mutters, receiving several nods from the others, confusing Emily.
“What’s crazy?” Emily asks, smoothly stepping backwards over a knot of roots.
“You,” Dante responds instantly with a grin.
“What’s crazy about that?” Emily asks, tilting her head.
Juliana sighs, giving Emily a gentle smile.
“Emi, that casting method works for you, but it’s ridiculous for most other people to copy. You made those spells yourself, right?”
Emily nods silently, waiting for her to continue.
“Well, most of us haven’t ever made a spell. We memorise magic circles and chants, then cast them. Most of us don’t actually know what each rune is doing. Being able to pick apart a spell while casting it without breaking the magic circle is incredible, and requires an intimate understanding of the spells you’re using.”
“Hmmm, I see,” Emily mutters, considering her words.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
I guess most mages don’t have my processing speed and ability to perfectly multitask. If it weren’t for my perfect memory and cortex, it would’ve probably taken weeks or months to learn all the spells I know, let alone make new ones.
She shrugs, flashing her friends a cheeky grin.
“Guess I’m just amazing.”
They roll their eyes at her, chuckling as she turns back to face the front again.
They march on through The Glade, following the guide pose deeper into the mist. Emily spots several more groups of beasts through her bird scouts as they move, but none are large enough to warrant a third circle spell, so she sticks to less extreme measures, flying lightning and the Spitter, to save the corpses. Ivor and Dante join her in dispatching the enemies, the latter excited to finally fight again after complaining about the lack of fights so far compared to their first expedition.
Late afternoon, as the sun is vanishing beyond the horizon and the shadows of the trees stretch ever longer, they arrive at the shifting fog wall that marks the end of the first leg of their journey.
“Woah,” Juliana gasps in surprise at the sight of the roiling wall of shifting white, her voice barely louder than the constant patter of heavy rain falling around them.
Tom and Hester show equally impressed reactions to the strange phenomena. Emily silently steps forward, vanishing through the ethereal wall to join her birds on the other side. One of them flies down and lands on her head, waiting to be swapped out with a spider for the night watch.
Her friends step into the clearing behind her, and all of their attention is immediately drawn to the ominous crack in the earth. The three who accompanied Emily last time spare it a quick glance before looking around the rest of the clearing, checking it’s in the same state as last time. The other three keep their eyes fixed on the crack with wonder, watching the billowing fog rolling down the edges.
“We camp here for tonight and head in tomorrow,” Emily says, calmly walking out into the open and turning back to face her friends. “We’ll stay here for a little longer than usual to do a few final preparations on the surface, so spread out and set up however you want. Oh, but don’t go into the crack unless you’re fighting something coming out.”
She pointedly looks at Tom as she says that, trusting him to look after himself the least.
“I’m not stupid!” Tom cries in injustice, receiving a doubtful glance from his sister so genuine Emily can’t help but double over in laughter.
After Emily finishes laughing at Tom’s expense, she reassures him it was Hester’s reaction that made her laugh, to keep him from being too hurt, then they move to set up camp. The tents are split between Tom, Hester, Juliana, and Ivor to set up, while Enzo and Dante leave the clearing with one of Emily’s birds to gather firewood.
Emily casts a water barrier over the clearing, blocking the rain above, before throwing the barrier disk into the air at the centre of the area. She leaves it to set itself up as she positions a spider at the entrance to The Waters. The instant it starts clacking its legs, she spots enemies rising from the depths. Without a word, Emily steps up to the edge of the crack and drops in. She walks down, past the lower boundary of the sound barrier and quickly reaches the point where darkness takes over and comes to a halt.
She slides the Spitter from its holster, summoning the silencer into her other hand and screwing it on as she waits. Five cat-sized roaches skitter towards her, clear in her spider’s vibrational vision. She raises her hand, not giving them time to hurl flaming bile at her, and flicks her pistol into burst mode.
She squeezes the trigger, a light sheen of machina dancing over the weapon’s body as two bullets fly into the same spot on the first bug’s head, cracking its hard exoskeleton with the first shot and pulping its innards with the second. Before the third shot of the rapid burst leaves the barrel though, Emily flicks her wrist in a precisely timed motion, sending the third bullet into the head of the next bug.
Without hesitation, she pulls the trigger again, repeating the same flick after the first shot, killing two bugs simultaneously. The last two bugs pause and open their mandibles, building up flickering red masses in their jaws. Unfortunately for them, they don’t get to release their attacks before Emily’s gun kicks against her hand again, sending three more bullets down range.
The bullets fly through the bugs’ mouths, sending the built-up flaming bile back into their throats and ripping apart their insides. They curl up, twitching as life fades from their bodies.
Emily sweeps spatial mana over the corpses, moving them to her utility belt as she turns and walks back up the slope while disassembling her gun to store again. She rises above the lip of the crack, meeting with Juliana’s concerned gaze as she stands to the side waiting for Emily.
“Is everything okay?” she asks as Emily approaches.
“It’s fine,” Emily responds with a warm smile. “I just spotted a few bugs coming to bother us, so I dealt with them.”
She waves a hand, dropping the five balled-up corpses from her storage and onto the floor. Tom and Hester’s attention is drawn by the action, and they both leave the tents they were setting up to come over. Hester looks excited as she walks towards them.
“Are those poisonous?” she asks eagerly.
“No,” Emily answers, raising a brow. “Fire-spitting bugs should be safe to consume. Why? You planning on cooking them?”
As she asks, she notes the faint smell of cooked chicken coming from the two bugs she filled with fire.
“Of course! We make burgers from desert crawlers back home, they’re good.”
“I see. Go ahead then, they’re all yours. I’ll show Tom how to strip them now.”
Juliana and Hester leave them to it and go and help Ivor finish setting up the tents. Emily finds a good rock to sit on next to the tunnel’s entrance and gestures for Tom to join her.
They sit down, each with a bug in their lap, and Emily slowly guides Tom through the process of cutting away the hard exoskeleton from the soft flesh beneath before jamming in a knife and prying the individual plates off.
“Save the mandibles and any mostly undamaged plates of armour, they’re the valuable materials. As for the rest, gather the flesh for your sister, and get Ivor or Enzo to help you bury the rest. The organs are annoyingly fire resistant so we can’t just burn them,” she says after finishing her demonstration.
“Got it!” Tom says cheerfully, grabbing another bug to get started on.
“Do you like butchering things?” Emily asks, slightly taken aback by his sudden enthusiasm.
“Hmm? No, not really. I just really like bug burgers!”
“Fair play. I’ll go get her started on those then,” she says, picking up the flesh from her finished bug and walking towards their new campfire.
Enzo and Dante have returned from gathering wood and piled a few of the dry logs from Tom’s bag in a circle of stones before lighting them. Next to the crackling campfire is a small stone structure made by Enzo, which is filled with damp wood, with open gaps on either end to allow airflow. Juliana is sitting next to the structure, using a basic wind spell to blow the warm air from the campfire over the wood, drying it quickly.
Emily hands Hester the bug meat and sits down next to Juliana, wrapping an arm around her waist and resting her head on her shoulder.
“Let me take over drying,” Emily says quietly.
“No. You already do enough,” Juliana argues, keeping part of her focus on maintaining her spell.
“You need conscious effort to maintain the spell. I don’t. You can do some weaving for a bit if you let me take over.”
Juliana sighs, giving in to the devil’s temptation and releasing her spell.
“Thank you, darling,” Juliana says, placing a kiss on Emily’s forehead before pulling out her weaving supplies.
Emily smirks, casting a first circle wind spell with barely a thought and letting one of her secondary cores manage it. They sit together in comfortable silence as everybody fulfils their tasks, the sound of the crackling fire and falling rain mixing together in the clearing to give a pleasant atmosphere.
Slowly, everyone finishes their individual tasks and gathers around the fire, waiting for the surprisingly good-looking patties of meat to finish cooking.
“Do we have an actual goal for this expedition?” Tom asks after a while, growing uncomfortable with the silence.
Emily lifts her head from Juliana’s shoulders, looking around at her friends, all expectantly looking to her for an answer.
I guess it’s time to tell them.
“We do,” she says calmly, a smirk growing on her lips. “We’re heading for the end of The Crystal Waters.”