With a loud hiss like a steaming kettle, fog exploded from the mage’s hands. Where they had been standing in a copse of trees just a moment earlier, Edwin was suddenly enveloped in an impenetrable blanket of white, the cool mist rushing by his head forming droplets of water on his eyebrows. The adventurers around him exclaimed in shock, but although they were standing mere meters away, he couldn’t see any of them. In fact, he could barely even see his own feet.
“Hafarn!” Bordan shouted over the noise. “You said ‘ten meters of vision’! I can’t even make out my hands!”
“Only right here, where it’s thickest,” the mage answered with a strained voice, struggling to speak and keep the spell going at the same time. “It’ll spread out and be less dense further out!”
Edwin looked around in wonder. It was a strange feeling, surrounded by walls of white so impenetrable that not even he could see through, while the noise of the rushing air dimmed the sounds of the environment that was just outside of his reach. He felt completely cut off from the rest of the world, as if he could simply start walking, away from the soldiers, away from the fighting and the war, and he would vanish into the mist as if he had never existed at all.
Somebody bumped into his back and pulled him from his reveries. He shook his head, chuckling at the strange mood that had overcome him, and walked forward where he remembered Hafarn standing. With the fog still rushing at him it felt like walking into a headwind on a rainy day, drops of water running down his face and into his collar. Two steps later, the mage’s figure suddenly appeared from the mist, still standing with his arms spread, eyes closed in concentration. As the seconds ticked by and the mist kept coming, Edwin couldn’t help but respect the man’s focus.
Most spells, like the fireball, the light spell and so many others, were single cast. The mage simply, though not easily, assembled its structure in their head, then filled it with mana and let it go to bring the effect to life. Channeled spells were a different beast entirely. They required the caster to hold the structure in their mind for the entire duration, then carefully disassemble it again to end the effect. Losing focus at any point in the process would lead to the spell unraveling, which wasn’t quite as dangerous as a failed ritual, but should nevertheless be avoided.
Maybe the greatest strength of Walter’s unparalleled psyche was its capacity to innovate. Inspiration came to him unbidden at all hours of the day and night, whispering sweet promises into his ear if he only made the ideas reality. It was this ability that had made him who he was and created Edwin, but it also made him particularly bad at channeling spells. Assembling the structure was a simple thing, even as a human Walter had been a decent hand at spellcasting. He had never succeeded in preventing his mind from wandering, however, and stray thoughts about completely unrelated matters unraveled the mental spell structure more quickly than a punch to the gut.
Watching the young mage fill the valley with fog, Edwin realized that he wasn’t the slightest bit jealous. When he had been alive, Walter had tended to be resentful of those who succeeded where he failed, but now the familiar stab of envy never came.
Is it the distance to my previous life, filtered through Walter’s mind, that allows me to finally be free of this, or have I actually outgrown this base impulse the second time around? Edwin wondered.
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Whatever it was, he welcomed it. Being who he was, wielding the power he did, there was no place for envy, greed, or lust for power in his future.
I was right, Walter thought triumphantly. I am truly the only one who can be trusted to wield this power responsibly. It wasn’t the transformation that corrupted the Tyrants, they were weak-willed, lesser men from the start.
The constant hissing stopped, pulling him from his thoughts once more as Hafarn exhaled explosively and slumped forward, closing and opening his fists as if to restore sensation to his fingers. Almost immediately the fog became less dense, revealing the adventurers surrounding them as indistinct figures.
“Good work,” Edwin said, startling the mage. “Your concentration is quite impressive.”
“Thank you,” Hafarn replied with an unsteady smile, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “Didn’t think I could keep it up this long either.”
A whistle broke through the awed chatter, reminding the warriors that they weren’t here to watch the show.
“Alright, people!” Bordan said loudly. “Check your equipment, get in position and ready up. This will be almost as confusing for us as it will be for them, but as long as you remember the plan and the signals and don’t get turned around you have nothing to worry about. Let’s go! First banner to me!”
Banner officers called out to tighten their formations and Edwin walked toward Bordan’s voice, meeting up with him and Salissa. While the former soldier was looking around, straining his eyes to see if everything was in order, Salissa was running her hand through the mist with a look of wonder in her eyes.
“Quite something, isn’t it?” Edwin asked, smiling at her as she pulled back her hand with an embarrassed look on her face.
“I can’t feel it,” she said as if to explain herself.
“No, that’s the point,” Edwin said, nodding. “It’s real fog, nothing magical about it. Just tiny droplets of water in the air. Even if the Marradi mages figure out that we did this with magic, there’s nothing they can do about it, no spell for them to break. While I am personally more inclined toward rituals, you have to give it to the ancient spellweavers: Creating a spell that a regular journeyman with a few weeks of practice can use to plunge several square kilometers of terrain into actual fog this thick is a masterpiece, if only for the efficiency of it all. Tiny droplets or not, that’s a lot of water you have to create.”
“I can see why it was hidden away,” Salissa said, looking into the mist where the outlines of their bannermates became indistinct only a few steps away. “You could use this to cover up any crimes you might want to commit and disappear without any real danger of being found out.”
“Exactly,” Edwin agreed. “That’s why it was locked up with the war spells. The only applications you might have for this are sinister.”
“Do you think I could learn this?” Salissa asked, and Edwin cocked his head until he realized that she’d only listened with half an ear.
“No reason why not,” he responded, chuckling. She probably didn’t have plan to rob a bank or ambush more soldiers, she simply saw an impressive display of magic and couldn’t help but want it.
“Enough yapping, you two,” Bordan grunted, waving them forward. “It’s starting. Edwin, do me a favour.”
“What is it?”
“Please don’t run off. Don’t roll your eyes you oaf, I mean it this time. If you go off and disappear in all this, there’s no way we’ll find you, and you might not find your way back to the staging area either. Just control yourself this once, okay?”
“Sure, no problem,” Edwin said easily, hefting his glaive to start walking. “You worry too much, Bordan. You need to relax or it’ll be bad for your health.”
“I’m starting to think you’re doing it on purpose,” Bordan growled, following him. “Why did I have to leave the army where people did what they were told?”