Chapter 26

The team’s preparations for the upcoming tournament were intense and varied. Riakon and Errrkkkk took it upon themselves to enact a rigorous training regiment. Errrkkkk nearly dragged Roden out of bed before the sun was even cresting the horizon. They began their day with a lengthy run around the property before they took a break for their morning prayers.

Roden had gotten into a routine with his morning prayers. He’d do his meditation and when he’d appear in his grove of spell selection, he’d just walk the path to the end and leave that place. Roden was quite happy with his current collection of spells, but one morning Roden realized his Blooming Recovery would serve no purpose in the Arena Tournament. Death wasn’t possible while under the safety precautions of the arena.

He kicked himself for forgetting to ask Mu’Tumbo about the seed he needed for the spell. Roden had an inkling a seed from Mu’Tumbo’s family tree would be able to get the job done, but he had forgotten all about it in the aftermath of the gathering.

With that Roden set to deciding which spell to take in its place. There were a few spells that immediately drew his attention. He heavily considered taking the area effect spell that surrounded him in a powerful arcane aura that was devastating to anyone who got within its range.

The spell was incredibly enticing especially considering his recent predilection towards his close quarters fight as of late. Roden was reaching out to absorb the spell when a wisp caught his eye.

It floated and bobbed in the air with a different cadence than the rest. It was an uncanny thing. Roden felt a need to at least consider whatever spell was contained within the strange orb. The knowledge contained within the mysterious wisp flooded his mind.

The spell was unlike anything he had ever encountered. It was a spell that could alter fate. At its core, it was a spell of limited future sight. Its base effect was to guarantee a specific outcome of a particular action. It couldn’t change a person’s free will or make someone do something they otherwise wouldn’t, but it had strong applications in a situation where he needed to succeed.

Roden considered the spell deeply, he figured this must be the world’s interpretation of a spell that allowed a reroll or something that allowed a player to change the outcome of a dice roll. He had to admit it sounded way cooler in his current situation. In the game, Roden hated effects that made a failure a success. He felt it took away the randomness of the game. However, his life was on the line here,

'to hell with randomness,' he thought.

Without any further hesitation Roden grasped the spell. It was an odd sensation to have a spell leave his mind as the new one entered; to feel himself forget something while actively thinking about it was an unnerving feeling.

His new spell was consumed and with no pause was drawn into his Adventure domain. The spell twisted and morphed, more than ever before the spell was altered. His new spell was called Divine Gambit.

It was a spell that granted him a brief moment of intense prophetic insight. At first he thought it wasn’t changed at all until he realized this spell would show him when something was fated to happen and would give him the opportunity to change it.

It was a strange spell in that it took longer than his combat spells to cast, meaning he had to prepare and cast it well before he’d need it. Roden had to admit he didn’t love the spell on paper. He hoped it would be more useful in practice. He wasn’t sure how loosely the spell defined the concept of fate.

In Roden’s mind the vast majority of this world had a fate set down when Roden had played with campaign with his friends. He considered the spell while standing on the path in his grove of spell selection and he realized a massive benefit to his new spell.

He could use that spell to ensure the storyline, if his actions made a mess of things. He had to admit the spell did give him a sense of comfort in knowing the spell would most likely be able to save him from a killing blow too.

Then he groaned, he really had taken a spell that was tantamount to once a day plot armor in the event it saved him from death. If this was a game he was GMing, he might care and would probably even try to talk his players out of such a spell, but it was his life on the line and he had no intention of being killed. He was going to see this through to the end and get back to his wife.

Roden came out of his meditation and immediately set to casting his new spell. When he had completed all of the required movements and enacted the spell matrix, a warm feeling rippled through his body. He could feel the power coalesce behind his eyes.

His vision became slightly more clear, colors were more vibrant, and his mental clarity shot through the proverbial roof. The increase in stimuli staggered him a bit, but he adjusted quickly.

With their morning prayers out of the way, their training began in earnest. Both Errrkkkk and Riakon wanted to spar more than anything else. It was decided that between Riakon and Roden they could afford to spar all out.

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They put all of their abilities on the table except Roden had to preserve his Never the Time and Place ability and Riakon had to save his Faith Healing, just in case one of them took a shot that knocked them down.

Errrkkkk moved to the center of the portion of the yard they had designated their arena. He rolled his shoulders, stretched his muscles, and said “Hey Roden, you and I are up first, cacaw.”

Roden had a feeling this was coming. He had already fought Riakon and Errrkkkk wasn’t one to miss an opportunity to fight someone new. Roden was excited that Errrkkkk wanted to even fight him.

He took it as a compliment, knowing that Errrkkkk would only be this eager if he thought Roden was strong enough to give him a challenge. Roden took his place opposite Errrkkkk on the field, Riakon counted them down before shouting, “Fight!”

Roden’s first move was to manifest his Grove Armor, and activate his Moment of Ignition. He still got a kick out of what he must look like when those abilities were active together.

In his mind, he looked like a wooden knight with a cape of flames. He wasn’t entirely wrong either, he however, couldn’t see the scorching his cloak left on his armor. It was superficial, but even Riakon had to admit it looked pretty cool.

While Riakon watched Roden prepare for Errrkkkk’s charge, he decided he wanted a cape so he could look cool too. He wanted to stand resolute, his cape billowing in the wind, a picture of heroic magnificence.

Errrkkkk closed the distance and prepared to unleash an assault of fists and feet. Before he could get within range to strike he felt the sting of Roden’s aura. It burned and singed his feathers ever so slightly, but he pushed through.

Errrkkkk gave one more powerful flap of his wings and propelled himself into a straight cross. Just as his punch was about to connect, Roden activated his Pilgrim’s Rebuke. The resulting shockwave sent Errrkkkk sprawling back.

Roden wasted no time and shouted, “Conflagration” the flame shot from his open hand straight towards Errrkkkk, who anticipated a follow up. The spell erupted in a plume of bright flames, boosted by Roden’s Elemental Augmentation.

Without waiting to see the result of the blast, he activated Blaze. Errrkkkk appeared out of the flames covered in cinders as he rose into the air, having avoided the brunt of the explosion.

Errrkkkk fired a barrage of chi blasts from his hands. Roden was thrilled, when his blasts were confronted by his aura and were summarily halted in their tracks as their energy was burned up. A look of consternation spread across Errrkkkk’s face, the fight clearly not going as he had imagined.

Roden took his opportunity to overcharge an Ignition Bolt, “Ignite!” The bead of concentrated fire shot straight towards his target. Errrkkkk was too fast. He dodged deftly and in the same motion dove towards Roden in a kamikaze attack. This time, Roden had no safety net to deflect Errrkkkk’s incoming melee.

Each strike collided with Roden’s armor. He was protected from the direct contact, but that did very little to blunt the force of each blow that knocked him around. “To arms!” He was barely able to get the incantation out amidst Errrkkkk’s blows. He manifested the sword in the air to his right and directed it to thrust down.

Errrkkkk leapt back to avoid the incoming thrust, but was halted mid-jump. He hadn’t noticed Roden had lashed out with a vine and caught him around the waist. There was nothing Errrkkkk could do as Roden pulled him onto the incoming thrust. The conjured blade pierced his shoulder straight through. The offending vine that halted his retreat went limp, the Common spell’s magic exhausted.

Errrkkkk was furious at his performance. He channeled his anger into his aura. His chi surged, and blasted outward. The force of it sent a powerful blast of air out in all directions buffeting the trees and their audience of Riakon and Grok.

Fucking hell was Roden’s initial thought at Errrkkkk’s transformation. He had felt like the fight was going well for him. He was feeling less optimistic now that Errrkkkk was fully powered up. He did have one plan. He figured if he could do enough damage and then wait Errrkkkk’s transformation out, he might be able to win. With Errrkkkk this close, Roden rushed forward. He directed his sword switch sides and slash across at Errrkkkk’s other shoulder.

Errrkkkk feigned a block at Roden’s sword strike anticipating a more powerful one coming from Roden himself. Errrkkkk was vindicated when he saw the purple arcane energy arcing off Roden’s fist. The sword strike dug into his shoulder, the pain of the blow tempered by the torrent of chi coursing through him.

It was Roden’s spell-powered punch he was set on avoiding. Errrkkkk faded to his right, sidestepping the attack causing the spell to arc out uncontained into the air where Errrkkkk had been.

In this form Errrkkkk felt invincible. His strikes were faster and his chi was always at his talon tips. He hit Roden with a swift left kick to the midsection followed by a wing powered jumping back kick. When Roden stumbled from the second kick Errrkkkk thrust his hands forward.

“Caaaaaaaaa, Caaaaaaawwwwwww!!!!!!” was all Roden could hear after his Wounding Touch failed. He had never really considered what it must feel like to take Errrkkkk’s Cacaw Wave. He was unsurprised to discover it was not a fun experience.

The blast ripped through his Grove Armor and was unaffected by his Moment of Ignition. The sensation of the beam on his skin was similar to a painful sunburn, which in hindsight seemed pretty obvious to him.

In the aftermath of the blast, Roden was still standing. He had managed to get his arms up to shield himself as much as possible. His arms and legs were left bare to the open air as his wooden gauntlets and greaves fell to the ground, cracked and splintered.

There wasn’t much left in his arsenal. He could either save up his magic and use a couple Trainee spells or he could manage maybe one more Initiate tier. Errrkkkk didn’t look much better to him other than his golden aura, which gave him a divine visage.

The two men locked eyes, both were determined to win and knew the end was coming. Roden called his blade to his hand and brought it to guard. Errrkkkk dropped into a sideways martial arts stance with one leg back and his knees bent. In a flash, both men charged.

They clashed in the middle, both men missing with their melee strikes. Roden’s sword strike sailed wide as Errrrkkkk ducked and moved to deliver a strike to Roden’s damaged breastplate. Roden twisted out of the way and shouted the incantation he had prepared, “Burn!” He dumped every last bit of magic he could into that Burning Finger.

Errrkkkk came out of his missed strike with his hands already together. The second his back foot hit the ground he was thrusting his beam out. It was then Errrkkkk saw Roden intended to meet his beam with a wave of his own. Errrkkkk bore down on his chi and put as much of his energy into his attack as he could.

Riakon watched as the two attacks raced across the yard towards each other. As Roden cast his spell, Riakon noticed a slight surge in the aura around him. Riakon had seen this spell up close and personal during their fight with the spiders, but there was something different about it this time.

It wasn’t just the color of the flames from when he had made that advancement. This was something else, it was as if he had cast a perfect version of the spell.

Riakon knew from his own experience that spells didn’t always function perfectly. In some cases, it was all about timing. In other cases, it was about how well the spell hit the target. In this case, Roden had somehow managed to force the spell to be perfect.

The beam and the swirling flames met in a confrontation of two unlike things. Errrkkkk’s beam ripped through the center of Roden’s flames. The outer flames crawled up Errrkkkk’s beam all the way to Errrkkkk’s himself. Roden was caught squarely in the chest by the blast, while Errrkkkk was engulfed in bright orange fire.

When the dust settled, Roden was on the ground a faint glow emanating from his body, his ability already rousing him back to consciousness. On the other side, Riakon could see the glow of Errrkkkk’s golden aura still shining, the birdman still standing tall. Riakon was just about to shout congratulations to his brother as Errrkkkk’s aura dissipated he swayed on his feet and fell face first into the ground.