“Get down!”
A concussive blastwave of dirt showered Ori as his face planted in the mud. Ears ringing, soot-stained snot streamed from his nostrils as he lifted his head. Above, a shimmering yellow dome tinted the sky while fiery arrows rained upon the army.
He was dragged up onto his feet, the muted shouts of “move” were barely enough to pierce his dazed awareness. With the chaos around him, Ori found himself marching with the army.
“Shield up specialist!”
Ori lifted his shield, his steps turning into a jog, and then a sprint. Everything was shouted, smoke and the scent of rotting blood coated the air. Above the bodies ahead, a ball of fire bloomed before turning into a small mushroom cloud. His hearing cleared just in time for the shockwave before a roar tore apart the din of war. The ground noticeably trembled underneath the thousands of men charging as something grotesque and massive rose from out of the ground. A part of Ori’s mind challenged the assumption that running towards it was a good idea and thankfully he wasn’t alone. It towered over ten meters and despite being silhouetted by the overcast sky, Ori could still make out armoured limbs… wrigging, as if still living flesh were all but plasticine rolled into a roughly bipedal approximation of a monster.
“Fuck me!”
Before anyone could reply, it moved.
In a blink it had rolled into a ball, traversing a hundred yards as it pulverised and subsumed all who lay in its path before hammering against the yellow shield.
‘Flesh golem’ Sera said gravely, answering his unanswered question.
“Move it!”
Ori was roughly tugged, his attention wrenched away from the golden ripples of shield light the amalgamation of flesh made as it pounded on the dome.
They were not quite at the part of the plan where his aura was required, yet the scenes around him felt apocalyptic. Perhaps less than an hour since the general call to charge had been made and Ori had seen more people die than he had ever known, each death a brutal bludgeoning to the face or worse.
Ori stumbled, looking down he pulled up on a still-moving limb covered in mud. Just as he was prepared to use what limited healing magic he knew, a living soldier came all too easily out of the quagmire, or at least the top part of one had, and Ori stumbled back, his voice dry, his mind unable to form words.
“Specialist, I’ll handle this. You need to move. Shield up.” He jolted, his gaze fixing on a scarcely recognisable Jacobin under the helm. Ori nodded robotically, raised his shield and continued his jog.
The army streamed past the Golem as its metallic parts from the armour and weapons within heated to a brilliant orange. A second golden dome surrounded and compressed the monster like a trash compactor even as it roared a deafening scream of rage and unwillingness.
In the distance, the white cape of Lady Jasmine’s figure suddenly appeared above the creature, her empowered sword falling as she sliced with a blinding, Purifying Light. The Flesh Gollum exploded into chunks of seared meat. Ori was glad he’d still had his shield up as rotting flesh rained upon the battlefield.
The mad march continued as the main body of the army propelled itself closer towards Eltus’s host. Infrequent melees involving handfuls of pikemen versus necrotic abominations caught Ori’s eye. They used the reach and combined strength of multiple polearms to keep at bay the physically stronger opponents while mages peppered the creatures with arcane missiles and magic that seemed to dispel or purify. He understood the plan, understood, in theory, what it would entail, but the reality was so far from expectation that Ori felt unsure, unnerved, and unable to truly think. Head down, shield up, the stink, the claustrophobia of the armour, the unstable ground, the forbidding sky dotted with streaking arrows and falling mud.
Dozens of streaking ghasts breached the line of charging infantrymen, their semi-corporeal floating forms unburdened by the pikes and shields. They glowed green and shadows as forms that were once men swooshed and dove at the soldiers in front of them, their path seemingly unimpeded by mundane weapons.
‘Sera!?’ Ori called as one ghast made it within the protective dome that sprung up just a moment too late.
‘Purifying Light Ori, draw in the Mana now,’ Sera commanded, Ori acted, calling upon his memory of the spell gifted to him by Lady Jasmine. His Mana sight saw a turgid mix of affinities with little unexpected Mana to call from, and yet he willed it towards himself all the same. It flowed into him, as his artefact wand summoned into his main hand.
Purifying Light was a versatile spell that could be cast instantly or channelled through a focus or weapon. It functioned as a hybrid offensive support spell, as its name suggests purifying aspects of death and decay from a target. While casting was easier than Cure Wounds, the Mana cost was substantially larger. Ori felt he was about the burst as the minimum amount of Mana required to cast the spell pooled within his mind.
Meanwhile, his eyes tracked the ghast as it left a path of havoc in its wake. Its movements were erratic, and despite being the size of a man with its lower half a wispy insubstantial mist, a ghostly aura seemed to fuzz the creature's outline, while its movements were far too fast and abrupt for Ori to be confident in hitting it.
And then suddenly it moved, phasing through and crippling the men between it and him.
‘Ori!’ Sera screamed and time slowed. The sensation of being in step with another’s will returned. A shared dance born of a clarity of purpose and trust fused body and mind.
Sera’s Beacon of Wisdom washed over him and suddenly spellcraft became easier, the amount of Mana funnelling into him quadrupled. He was aware of his falling body in that eye blink of time between life and death. The ghast’s face filled his vision with rows of vicious daggerlike teeth, each one dripping with sickly saliva while a necrotic aura seemed to drain the light from the world. The spell was completed at the same moment he stabbed out with Seraphine into the ghast’s incorporeal torso. A cone of light replaced reality, dispelling every molecule of necrotic aura in front of him.
The ghast popped into a cloud of steam and a spray of ectoplasm that liberally coated the unshielded parts of Ori’s face with gunk.
“Fuck’sake!” Ori said, half in disgust and half in relief. The sounds of the world returning to him as the unity of purpose faded.
“Nicely done specialist,” Sergeant Baker said, dragging him to his feet. “Wasn’t aware that you were a Mage?”
“Yeah. Just something I picked up from Lady Jasmine before the fighting started.” Ori said doubled over, still winded and unsure if he was about to retch.
“I see,” Baker said in that strange way that seemed to be common in this region of the multiverse. “Anyway, sort yourself out, laddie it’s time. The aura, are you ready lad?”
Ori nodded.
“Now then, things are about to get hairy from herein. When you light your aura, you’ll be a glowing fucking beacon to the madness yet to come, but if you do your job we’ll do ours, so head down, shield up, one foot in front of the other and focus on maintaining that aura no matter what. Understood specialist?”
“Yes, Sergent,” Ori replied.
“Until then, wait for my order, now come,” Baker casually swatted arrows from the sky with a war pick as he pulled Ori along with him.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As he moved through the ranks, Ori recognised a few figures, Lady Cordelia seemed to be deep in discussion with various mages, while Lady Jasmine ran triage over a handful of severely wounded. Sporadic arrows still wizzed through the air, while orders calling for soldiers to form up and assemble into specific formations were barked over the relative calm. The remaining men, of which there were still thousands, condensed. War banners once more raised, the long pikes discarded for the shorter halberds and war hammers.
Through Mana Sight, the air swirled with countless affinities while other energies that Ori could only sense at the edges of his vision pooled and exhaled with the breathing body of the army. Gold skin coated Lord Bartholomew as he stood on the front lines a couple of ranks ahead. He seemed to be taller, even more imposing in a counterintuitively reassuring way, especially now Ori could see the forces arrayed against them.
A dark tide of everything they’d faced so far and far more, filled the land from horizon to horizon and beyond. Despite the hundreds of yards that separated them, he could sense a funnel cloud of Mana and something darker swirling at the army's centre. Ori’s stomach twisted at the thought of diving into such madness.
----------------------------------------
“Is the specialist ready?” Lord Bartholomew asked. Ori tightened his grip on Seraphine as dozens of eyes turned to him. He looked towards Baker who simply returned his gaze in question, before answering Bartholomew with a nod.
“Bring it,” Ori added, attempting to sound more confident than he felt.
“Very well.” The Lord smiled, effortlessly reinforcing Ori’s bravado. “We charge! For Astoria!” The Grace Knight bellowed, and the golden shine he could see through Mana sight seemed to intensify as a pulse of something erupted with his words. Ori felt his spine straighten, his belly settle, the sourness of tired muscles and chafing wounds were forgotten as an inexplicable resolve settled in his heart. Ordinarily, he would have refused this alien, mind-altering sensation, but suspecting what it was, and knowing that he needed it, he allowed it to settle, confidence reinforcing his will.
A furious roar built up in his chest as the entire army responded to the Grace Knight’s War Cry with a reciprocal howl. The dreary overcast sky was replaced by a world of Astral and Celestial colours. Subconsciously, Ori’s mystery affinity leaked out, his intent resolving itself into an aurora-tinged night sky filled with a galaxy of stars.
The all-encompassing doom, that pervading sense of sickness and death disappeared and suddenly, Ori felt a hundred pounds lighter wondering how he had ever put up with that debilitating sensation in the first place.
A yellow shield snapped into place as a bloom of fire washed over just before the front lines. It was like napalm in how it dripped and slid off the shield.
Baker seemed to exhale as a sheen coated his skin, before leaping into the the maelstrom beyond.
The army ran in a dead sprint as mages of all types lit the air with magic and arcane missiles. Meanwhile, the undead fodder in front of them seemed to melt away under the barrage, while a few powerful undead units were met by the C and B rankers in turn.
Jacobin roared as his form morphed into that of an armoured bear, before ripping chunks out of another flesh gollum. Meanwhile the Red Mage, Captain Craig blasted with white hot blue fire, searing away the liquid fire from the necrotised red mage. Besides him, Jasmine fought with steel and silver magic, her white domes a pale imitation of the golden shield that seemed to centre on Ori. He caught Cordilia’s determined gaze behind him before returning his sight to the front. The shrieking wail of the soldiers behind him, seemingly more desperate and primal than galant as steel clanged against steel and flesh, the sounds and smells intensified as it was met with a new, unholy wail of the undead.
The mantra head down, shield up, one step after another, filled his mind as he clung to Seraphine and the Aura of Amplification. Before he could even process their appearance, several Ghasts exploded into a rain of ectoplasm that filled Ori’s eyes with gunge.
‘Ori!’ Sera cautioned, as his instinctive reaction to free his hands and rub his eyes almost robbed him of the focus needed to maintain the aura. Once again, he was pulled up to his feet.
“Shield up, specialist!”
Ori complied, still attempting to blink vision into eyes he couldn’t clear.
“Get down!”
A call came and before he could react, Ori was flattened by the press of another's armoured body on top of his own. The ground lifted with the force of a shockwave that sent a storm of loose dirt into the sky before the heat of Liquid fire rolled over him.
Ori could scarcely see as the fight between undead fire mage, Lady Jasmine and Captain Craig came to a head.
‘Ori, your Domain, I know I said to avoid using it, but I think we can turn the tide if we use it on my say,’ Sera’s voice rang in his mind. He had far too many questions but as he saw both C rankers being pushed back and the momentary stalling of the army's charge, Ori nodded, his trust in Sera at that moment, absolute.
Lying prone, he pulled the artefact into his sight, unsure as to whether he was to aim it at the glowing blur of fire and light before him or otherwise. And then the comforting sensation of the Resonance of Battle Harmony settled over him. Beacon of Wisdom pulsed and his mind cleared, the sounds of battle muted, and reality slowed.
Motions that were a blur of movements clarified, and upon Jasmine's Purifying Light empowered thrust, Ori felt more than heard Sera’s command and turned his Aura into a Domain.
Ori’s Aura was merely the fusion of his subconscious Spirit and Presence, characteristics that delt with the intangible, subconscious aspects of a person's existence. Through Aura of Amplification, Ori’s natural aura, an area of effect manifestation of his highest affinities, provided positive, passive effects to all who were under it, including the negation of weaker auras, curses and lifeforce stealing effects.
However, Aura was just one of many ways individual characteristics could be fused. In Ori's case, Intent was the fusion between a person's Will and their Perceptions. While not normally manifesting in the same way as Aura, high degrees of Intent could reinforce spells and magnify the intensity of abilities, enchantments and wild magic. And when one unifies two already fused characteristics in an outcome more formally known as a four-fold unification, this results in a single characteristic with effects one hundred times more powerful than any single characteristic alone.
Born from his explorations and successes in the fifth, dreamlike trial, Ori’s Domain unified both the higher-order characteristics of Aura and Intent into something many times more potent than the sum of his Presence, Perception, Spirit and Will alone. Conscious Will was reinforced by the subconscious desires of the soul, Presence was given substance and awareness by heightened Perceptions, while the reach of an Aura was infused with the strength of Intent into a synergistic whole.
As a result, within the radius that was once Ori’s Aura, all light and Mana lay under his dominion. Because his soul wanted to win, and his mind demanded Lady Jasmine’s next thrust must completely obliterate the ghastly presence puppeting the Mages's corpse; all light within his Domain became Purifying Light and was swept into a single spell. Lady Jasmine's sword became the sole light source within Ori’s domain as all mana, aligned or otherwise, flooded the spell-infused strike intensifying it one hundred-fold.
The world became light and still.
The Red Mage who had been undead, found herself blinking down at the blade stabbed through her chest while a shocked Jasmine and Craig found themselves glowing with a different type of light as Peritia flooded their very souls and their pages of Fate were rewritten.
Meanwhile, undead for a hundred yards in radius seemed to disintegrate as the necrotic energy that empowered them was banished.
In the same moment, Ori found himself on his knees, his diaphragm locked and his mind dizzy as the brief instant of Domain mentally and spiritually exhausted him more than days' worth of marching and spellcraft had combined.
‘Ori!’ Sera screamed. ‘Your Aura!’
‘I can’t breathe.’ Ori panicked. A wave of Sera’s Lesser Restoration helped with the dizziness but did nothing for the pressure preventing his chest from drawing breath.
‘Aura, focus on the aura!’ Sera demanded. Ori fell to the ground, his eyes resting on his wand, and willed himself to use Aura of Amplification.
He gasped as the comforting light of the Astral sky pushed away the foreign pressure. He rolled onto his back as he took in air in large, heaving mouthfuls.
‘What was that?’
‘Eltitus, we’re getting closer to the nexus of his aura. Are you alright Ori?’ Sera said solemnly.
‘Yeah, did we win?’
‘We helped win that battle. As for the war…’
“Well aren’t you a bag of surprises, Specialist?” Sergent Baker said, his form looming over Ori before bodily dragging him to his feet. “Up, the host is retreating and if we don’t strike now, it’ll be over.” The Breath Knight turned and bellowed something over his shoulder. “An inspired piece of stupidity or genius that was. A second longer without your aura, and we would have all been fucked. Seraphs help us. Still, we somehow managed to steal a B ranker back from Eltitus and raise two more of our own. Bart asked me to ask you if you could do it again, but seeing as you’re now paler than I am, I’m going to go with no.”
Ori shook his head, “Maybe in a bit.”
“Just as well, focus on that aura laddie and stay on your feet. Head down, Shield up,” Ori felt a tug on the shield protecting his back, as the Breath Knight removed arrows he didn’t realise were there, before a too-forceful pat almost set him stumbling, and drove him forward.
Ahead, he saw Jasmine tending to the befuddled Red Mage she was fighting just a moment before.
‘What happened?’ Ori asked in confusion.
‘It’s as Baker said, a reversal. Your Domain banished Eltitus’s control over Lady Terresa’s soul, and I suspect that with some quick thinking and a spell similar to my Death Ward, she was able to revive the B ranker back to good health. Meanwhile, because of the reversal or due to accumulated Peritia, Jasmine, and I suspect Captain Craig ascended in rank.’
‘Wow, That’s good. At least it sounds good, right? But, I mean, why do I get the feeling you don’t think so?’ Ori wondered as he kept pace with the jogging army.
‘Just a nagging feeling that’s all.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Ori prodded.
‘That maybe we’ve shown our hand too early? Perhaps it was worth it to bring Terresa back to us and raise two new B rankers, but that’s only if there are few surprises left in store for us.’
‘And the chances of that being so are basically zero.’ Ori added to himself as focused on maintaining the Aura of Amplification and the now well warn mantra worming his way into his skull.