Lance of Azura

Summon a divine lance from the vault of Azura. The lance summoned may be wielded by the caster without any martial penalties, the lance automatically gives proficiency to the caster. The lance may be used as a projectile and be cast from twenty feet away from the caster. The lance cannot be destroyed, upon impact it will remain in place for five seconds before disappearing, returning to the vault. The lance cannot be wielded by anyone but the caster.

This spell cannot be double cast unless reforged to a certain rank.

Huh.

Well at least it’s a detailed kind of thing. Sucks about the double casting though, if I want to use it properly, I’ll need to time my attacks or just use it sparingly. I mean I should first try and cast it, who knows, my mana might not be enough.

“What level are you by the way?” Kade asks

I just turn to him slowly and scratch my neck. I didn't expect this conversation to come up so soon.

“Uh…I don’t think it matters much…” I reply quietly

Kade side eyes me with a judging look on his face. He clears his throat and maintains eye contact. He’s not looking away. He’s still not looking away. It’s been like ten seconds now and this is getting awkward.

“Um…e-eight…” I just look away from him

“Mmmmmm. That's not a bad number.” Is all he says

“Don’t patronize me..” I say defeated

“I’m not, I’m not. It’s just….unexpected?” he says “You’re kind of a contradiction you know?”

“And what level are you?” I look towards him with narrowed eyes

“Eighty.” He says clear as day without missing a beat

I just deflate and bonk my head on the side of the rowboat then groan as I lay there.

“But, congrats that you made it this far with that kind of level. It’s pretty rare for this kind of thing to happen. Think of it as a bright side to this shit place.”

It’s pretty rare to get reincarnated as well, but I don’t think that’s a good counterpoint to this conversation….

“Do you have a plan?” I ask to try and steer away from the current topic

“Nope. All I know is that these things might not like lightning, but then I risk losing more spells.”

“What if you got the spells back?” I ask

“I’d need to kill everything down there and with my extremely high Elven intellect I can say that I have no idea if I can do that at all.”

“You’re not helping. You know that right?”

“Then what do you have for ideas my big tittied compatriot?” he asks annoyed

“Are you ridiculing my boobs?” I ask, I'm surprisingly offended

“I’ve never seen a mage with things like those. It’s like a gnome with the muscles of a giant or an Azca with the feet of a Dwarf. It's out of place.”

“And I’ve never seen a sorcerer that’s has the body of a stick like you.”

“I-!” he pauses “Fair point..fair point.” He scratches his beard “But come on, you’ve got some smarts, use them. I like the thought of dying with a pretty girl as much as the next me, but I think it would be better if I did that when I’m over a few thousand years old.”

“You’re not going to try anything weird with me, are you?” I ask

“What? No, no, no. I might ask the weirdest things, or at least what society considers weird that I consider normal or just interesting, but I won’t do anything.” He says

“Uh-huh.” I squint

“Oh come on, do I look like some weirdo? Also, I can do much better.”

“Do you want an honest answer? And you’re just saying that because you’ve never been around many Elves.”

“Just use that damn head of yours to get us out of here. After that we can argue back and forth.” He sighs

I look over the rowboat to the fog.

“How breakable is it?” I ask

Kade makes his way to my side and looks over with me.

“You can just fall right through without it breaking. Worms won’t be able to get past it, but the other thing will.”

Alright. I know that they don’t like lightning, I can use that to some degree, I think….

“Do you have Field of Discharge?” I ask Kade

“Of course, why?”

Alright, that’s good, that’s good.

“You’re level eighty which means that your flying abilities is limited to only when you cast spells. How much mana do you have?”

“Two thousand five hundred.”

“That’s surprisingly average for your kind of sorcerer. What’s your health and stamina?”

“One thousand for health and eight thousand for stamina.”

“Why on earth do you have that much stamina? You’re a sorcerer.”

“Well...” he says with a nervous chuckle “When I escaped the Covenant of Old Magiks, that’s magiks with a k, I sort of ended up in a party city hehe.” He glances away rubbing the back of his neck

“What did you do there?” I ask slowly

“You know…did some adventuring….frequented brothels every night……made money, typical freedom stuff...”

“Every single night?” I ask

He just slowly nods as he looks back to me.

“Are you a man whore?”

“I suppose you could say that, but I mean you get locked up for more than seventy years of your life without any intimacy.”

“Fair point. Fair point.” I won’t even argue with that

“Yup.”

“So..”

“Hmm?”

“How did you not go broke?” I ask

“Well..” he coughs into his hand to clear his throat “I got good, like too good.”

“You never spent a single coin did you.”

“Well, they stopped accepting my money after my fifth time at certain places.”

“What are your titles?”

“Those don’t matter.” He quietly chuckles

“Kade. What are your titles?”

“B-Beast of Pleasure…” he says quietly “Among other things..”

I just snort, trying to hold my laughter back. His head slowly turns to me.

“And what are your titles?” he asks condescendingly

“Dai..uh..none…nothing….don’t have any..” I jumble with my words

“Really now? Don’t goddesses give titles to their followers?”

“Naturally.” I reply

“Then what are yours?”

“L-Lady of Azura, naturally.” I say with fake confidence

“And the other one?”

“How did you know I have two titles?” I’m a bit surprised at how he knows that

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“I didn’t.” he smirks and does one of those heehee laughs with an open hand over his mouth

“Dick..” I grumble

“Come on, come on, tell me.”

“I don’t need to.” I turn my head away and fake pout

“Yes, that’s true, but are you willing to put up with me asking for it over and over?”

A slow realization comes to me.

“F-Fine..” I take a deep breath and speak quietly “Maiden of Azura..”

“What was that?” Kade places a hand to his ear “I couldn’t hear you.”

“M-Maiden of Azura..” I say with a brow twitching

“Isn’t that just a fancy way of say-“

“Yes! I know!” I cut him off

A silence grows between us. We just stare at each other for a while before we both start laughing uncontrollably. I’ve got no idea why I’m laughing this hard with him, I think this is probably just some stress release. Our joint laughter goes on for a few minutes until we calm down.

Kade wipes a tear from his eye and chuckles again.

“At least we’ll die with a few laughs.” He says

I look over to the fog again rubbing my eyes.

“No..”

“Hmm?”

“We won’t die.”

“Now who’s the optimist?” he chuckles

“I just need to get a little creative. You can supply magic right?”

“Yes. Where are you going with this?”

“I’ll cast three spells at once and keep them up. You need to cast Field of Discharge and keep it up around the two of us. We won’t be able to fly out of here, but we can get rid of all the worms down there and then fight the cocoon. You flying is important for this.”

“Oi, oi, oi wait a second there. You want to cast three spells at once at your level? Are you insane? Even if you’re a super special kind of Elf that might kill you.”

“Depending on where I spread the magic. I just need to spread across my entire body.”

“That takes a lot of concentration. And even with concentration you run the risk of blowing yourself up.”

“I know, but I think I can manage. Plus, worst case is that I force everything here.” I raise my left arm “I don’t know what that thing did to it, but I think it’s pretty much lost.”

“Maybe you’re going insane sooner than me which is an accomplishment.”

I lean over and cast Eye of Placement under the fog, I close my eyes to focus, and my vision enters the spell.

It’s just a literal sea of worms, they’re all incredibly small, but fast. I can even see some of the corpses, well, no, those people are in between life and death from the looks of things. I do spot an actual corpse. It’s one those paladins that Kade mentioned. That crest is familiar in a bad way.

Before I can look further something attacks the eye throwing me out of it and even knocking me slightly back in the boat.

Spell Destroyed: Eye of Placement

Shit…

“You okay?” Kade moves over

“I get what you mean now about losing spells.” I just nervously chuckle

“You lost one then?”

“Just a simple one, I wish I didn’t though.” I nervously smile

“Does that change your plan?”

“No…not really, well, depends. How good of a flyer are you?” I ask

“I don’t like to brag, but I’m pretty good.” Kade says and stands up, he extends a hand to me “May as well start right?” he smirks

I take his hand and he pulls me up. Huh, we’re about the same height actually, interesting.

“I hope you don’t mind being close.” He says

“I think as long as you don’t get a boner we should be fine.” We both laugh

“Alright, let’s do this.” he says

He places his hands close together and starts to concentrate, the tattoos across his body begin lighting up, I can see the field start to grow from his hands. It quickly increases in size until both of us are in it. He moves behind me.

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath “I’m going to hold you around your stomach, so, start casting those spells and I’ll keep you charged.”

“Look at that, finally getting your hands on an Elf.” I joke

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, shut it and just do what you’re going to do.” He says annoyed

He puts his arms around my stomach, and I start feeling the energy course through me.

Okay, phew. I guess the first two steps are done.

I focus for a second and cast Ice Ring around the two of us. I cast it again and again until I’ve got a shield of rings around the two of us. I give it a little more juice and the rings start moving with increasing speed. Spinning rings, check.

I extend my hands and cast Shroud of Bones. The protective necromantic shroud flows over the two of us, okay, I’ve got that done. I glance up to my mana bar to see it basically supercharged, but I am feeling the fatigue already. Can’t stop now.

I place my hands close to each other and cast Anti-Magic Shield around Kade’s Discharge Field. We’re safe from magical attacks and physical attacks to some degree.

“Your heart is beating a bit fast.” Kade says

“I could say the same to you.” I try and jest

“Alright, princess, we can have our continued pissing match after we live through this. Deal?”

“Deal.”

The two of us move to the edge of rowboat. I place a foot to the edge, my body already feeling the effects of Overcasting or maybe that’s just my nerves acting up right now. Fun, fun, fun.

“Ready?” I ask

“Nope.”

“Me too.”

I lean forward and the two of us fall from the rowboat through the fog.

I feel Kade lean forward with me and dive down, through the small cracks between the rings I can see the worms clearer. I pump a little more mana into all my spells and right as I do so the rings collide with the sea of disgust. There’s a slight jolt but it doesn’t deter my pilot behind me. Kade moves deeper into the nest of worms until he levels us out and now we’re just cruising while killing these things.

+Level

+Level

Something smashes against both our shields all of a sudden.

“Well, it’s awake.” Kade chuckles “Just focus, I can keep flying.” He tells me

I just nod and continue to use my mana. A minor crack in my skin appears on my left arm. I still have time before that crack gets bigger and before I get close to death…..again…I seriously need a slice of life arc or something, maybe just less dangerous adventures.

Kade suddenly pulls upwards, and we leave the sea of worms. Through the openings I see the giant cocoon, it has the same texture as that caster did, but I guess the more important detail is that it’s now open with a dozen or so tentacles out for food.

“How long do you have?” I ask Kade

“Three minutes before I can’t fly anymore, unless I stop before that time runs out.”

“Two minutes, continue flying between the worms. After that we’ll land.”

“Where?” he asks as he dodges a tentacle and dives back down

“On the ground right here.”

“I should’ve asked more about your plan.” He comments

“Well it’s a bit late for that.”

The grinding of worms continues as Kade flies us back into the fray. He weaves left and right to try and get as many worms caught up in the rings. Another crack appears on my arm. It’s fine, It’s fine. The worms aren’t reacted to this which is mildly odd to say.

+Level

+Level

I think we’re past the first thirty seconds, but I’m also not sure, it’s a little hard to count while I’m trying to focus. But the bright side is everything is working out as I planned, the rings are killing most of the worms and the shroud is dealing with anything that gets between the rings close to us.

+Level

+Level

+Level

Another thirty seconds pass, most of everything is the same, but from the looks of things the number of worms look less than before, another thing I should remember is that the swinging of the cocoons tentacles is getting louder and faster.

“Do you think the more worms we kill the stronger the cocoon gets?” I ask Kade

“That’s a very good question we should’ve considered before doing this.”

Yeah…that’s a good point.

Kade starts slowing down which makes me a little nervous.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him

“I don’t think you’ll need to worry about the worms much more.” He says with a gulp

He dives downwards and levels us out. I feel my legs be placed against solid ground. It couldn’t have been that easy, could it? He let’s go of my stomach and in turn I uncast all my active spells. I glance to my arm, the crack is gone, well, not gone, but replaced by a “scar”. It looks more like a stretchmark than anything.

“How are constructs formed?” Kade asks out of the blue

“What do you mean? There’s a variety of constructs.” I say as I pull my miniskirt down, turns out the flying pulled it up slightly, but I don’t think he noticed

“What are those then?” he asks

I turn around and see what he’s talking about. We killed about a quarter of the sea of worms, but the rest have piled around the cocoon which looks way bigger from the ground. The body of worms split into two and a single tentacle from the cocoon goes into both. The two separate groups of worms begin to grow taller and take up forms with the two tentacles seemingly controlling them. They look like mock golems if anything, constructs have aesthetic going for them.

“I don’t know.” I say

“We’re going to have to fight those.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Are you ready?” he asks

“Can you like cover me for a few minutes? I can level up quick.”

“I’m going to die, but sure.” He turns his head away from me and takes a few steps towards the two constructs

Spheres of lightning form in both his hands. He moves them close to each other, his tattoos glowing once more.

“Take your time.”

He moves his hands forward launching a strain of lightning into one of the constructs knocking it apart before it could fully form.

Shit that was cool..but..ah! Level up!

I open my inventory and go through with the level up, I’ll need magic for this so fuck it I’m putting it all into mana.

Level 15

Health 125/125

Stamina 75/75

Mana 650/650

After finishing leveling up I move to my spells and just double reforge Azura’s Lance without even thinking, but the spell name changes to Azura’s Divine Vault. I close out of my inventory and look to where Kade was only to see him get knocked back to me.

He lands beside me and groans. I reached out and cast Heal a few times. He slowly sits up and cracks his neck.

“Fuck me…” he says, reaching for his neck to rub it “Those things pack a fucking punch.”

“With enough damage both will die.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“This isn’t the time for fun facts!”

“I wasn’t serious…” he gets back up to his feet “Give me a plan that doesn’t involve me getting close to them and having my ass kicked.”

I extend my hand and summon Talos, the wolf pack, the stone golem and the fire elemental right in front of us.

“Nice plan.” He says

“That isn’t part of the main plan.” I say “Focus on the cocoon, the summons will focus on the constructs.” I add

“Those constructs are about double the size of your golem and are getting closer.” Kade says

“I’ve said my plan, if you don’t want to follow it be my guest, but when you attack, let’s alternate between spells, you attack first and then me. Got it?”

“Hmmm, odd arousal from the dominant tone at the moment, but you got it. Chain Lightning it is!” he laughs as he begins casting the spell

“For the love of…” I start to sigh but wipe my face, I look to my summons “Deal with the constructs!” I order them

I roll my shoulders and give myself a moment to take the scene that’s unfolding in front of me in. My surprisingly attractive Fire Elemental is engaging alongside Talos with one of the constructs while my Stone Golem is dealing some big damage to the other one, the pack of wolves acting as distractions to the construct.

Kade on the other hand is just firing Chain Lightning at the cocoon and that thing does not like it one bit. From the looks of it the more agitated it is the less control it has over the constructs which is good to know.

Okay, I should try it, it might be dangerous, but I have over six hundred mana right now, so, fuck it!

I take a deep breath and start concentrating on the newly reforged spell. Clerics usually do a call out of their patron spells, so I think this one deserves a call out as well.

“Divine Vault of Azura, lend me your treasures.” I say quietly to myself

I’m hoping you’re the real deal my dear goddess, so, show me some of that sweet power oh pretty pretty please!

I feel a golden light behind me, I glance back to see a small portal, about half my size. Another appears next to it and then two more, another three, more keep appearing until there’s fifteen. I reach into the closest one beside me and grab onto something. My arm is just residing in the warmth of this portal, but it can’t stay there forever.

I pull my arm out slowly and the hilt of a blade appears in my hand as it leaves the portal. A second later I’m holding a weightless Ancient Elven Longsword in my hand. Shit, this thing is beautiful. I turn back towards the cocoon, I focus towards it and from the golden portals behind me a barrage of weapons fire out towards it, striking it and making it screech like the little bitch it is.

Now we’re getting started!