Medea

I wasn’t used to being out and about while the sun was still high up, and walking around the city all day confirmed that was a sensible choice. The pavement radiated heat and the glass of the skyscrapers never provided shade where I needed it, instead being perfectly angled to shine the lights directly into my eyes. The workshop often was hotter when the furnace was blazing. Although I had spent countless hours trying to perfect the heat insulation runes, it could only contain the heat to a small bubble that encompassed the work area, and even that wasn’t ideal as then the interior of the bubble was way hotter than it would be otherwise. Maybe it was an Elf thing. The humans around here seemed to be enjoying the heat wave.

I sat in the Horizon Bi-Seasonal Public Park, pressing a cool water bottle to my head. Crusher was a bit unwieldy, bigger than Righty and Lefty combined and shaped more like an oven mitt than a hand, but he’d have to do until I got my normal gauntlets fixed. The park was partially conjured, which was surprisingly druid-y for a place at war with the druids. I sat below the light blue and pink blossoms of the Spring side, watching the people go by. A family was having a picnic under one of the trees, where the adults sat and ate food while their children ran around and squirted water at each other from colourful plastic wands. It was only marginally cooler here than the Summer Side, which was more natural and overgrown. It was hard to look around that area for Wyll since most of it was closed off for the nature reserve, and I doubt he would have ended up there. Not for the first time today I wished that Horizon had finished the job and made an Autumn and Winter section, but I swallowed my complaints and got up from my bench to continue looking around.

Honestly, I was running out of places to check. Since Arryn had to go off to sort parchment or whatever he does at work, I’d been looking all over the city for signs of Wyll. I’d checked the hospital first, but they told me he’d already been discharged days ago. I’d stopped by an eatery I knew Peacekeepers frequented to see if I could overhear anything, but it was too early in the day and the place was pretty much empty. Pip hadn’t heard anything either through his underground connections, though did hear about the blast near the market street.

The area had been completely cordoned off for several blocks around. Most of the talk I’d picked up from people in the area were just complaining about the disruption to their commute since even a no-fly zone had been set up around it. The story being shared was that it was an amateur spellwright trying to make a new fireball spell, and that was reflected in the posters that decorated almost every otherwise empty wall in the city. The posters had been there forever, though new ones often appeared, and the contents of them shifted to advertise certain products or share emergency alerts like this one. I’d once tried to take down one to take home and figure out how to make my own, but the second it came off the wall it crumbled into dust. I’d found another in the exact same spot the next day.

The last, glaringly obvious place to check was Wyll’s home. Pip had given me the address after some digging, but as it turns out he comes from some rich family up in the north of the city. I couldn’t even get into that area of the city without people stopping me to ask if I was lost, and when I finally got up to the gates I could see some fairly nasty summoned guards patrolling the place. Wyll didn’t strike me as much of a rich kid, but I guess I’ve only really known him for a few days.

It was honestly hard to believe that I’d only really known Fyron and the others for that long. So much had changed, in my perception of the world and my own abilities. Wild Magic had seemed like a dangerous game to play, and I was determined to just get what I could from Fyron then cut and run, but since last night I found myself using it without really realising. It was easy, disturbingly so. I got dressed this morning using just my telekinesis, and had to take Crusher to keep up appearances. Crusher didn’t even have the blood-linked runes that Righty and Lefty had, he had just been a prototype. All day, I’d been just using him as a medium to move things, and it felt so… inefficient. It was like a barrier had come down and this thing that had always been there was right at my fingertips. If I had fingertips, that is.

A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I ducked into a public bathroom near the edge of the park. The inside was empty, fortunately, but I dipped into a stall just to be safe. Someone had scratched “da big 3 can suck my evoker” into the wood, apparently deep enough that the Cleanse rune embedded into the back wall hadn’t removed it. I locked the door and tried to focus my mind on cooling thoughts. I pictured swimming in the river as a kid, snowy mountaintops, and the refrigerator in my kitchen. Just to be safe, I floated Crusher in front of me and tried to connect with the mana crystal inside. The all-powerful Wild Magic should be able to handle something like this, right?

The air in the stall began to cool. Emboldened by my success, I tried to focus on the feelings of goosebumps on my arms, the faint fog forming on my breath. It was working. Cooling magic like this was not uncommon, though mostly handled by runework. I sighed in relief as the heat of the day ebbed away, and let my focus fade. Again, that was almost too easy. How had I not accidentally done something like this before?

I opened the stall and stepped out, and had to catch myself on the door of the stall as my foot slipped. Outside of the stall, the restroom was covered in frost. The place sparkled, and as my spell faded the ice began to drip down the large mirrors opposite the stalls. Crap. I guess it wasn’t that easy to control yet.

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I quickly hurried out, hiding my face with my hair as another park-goer made their way towards the small shack. Maybe I’ll keep the practice to my sessions with the others before I work out all the kinks. I quickly made my way away from the park, trying to think about where else to look. I was wondering if I could do some kind of divination before I could track him down, when I saw a familiar face standing outside of a Brimstone-sponsored Evoker shop. I tried to duck into a side street before he saw me, but I was too slow and he started jogging in my direction.

“Uh, hi Coach.” I mumbled.

Switch Mandon was not who you’d expect to be running an underground fight club. He was scrawny, with slicked-back hair and a cheap oversized suit. He wore thick spectacles that took up most of his face, possibly to draw attention away from the oversized mole on the center of his chin. Despite the suit, he always wore these battered white trainers that looked so threadbare that I was honestly surprised they didn’t just fall apart when he ran. I knew for a fact he made a killing from the fights, so not paying to get them repaired or replaced must be for some kind of fashion statement. He caught up to me and crossed his arms.

“Don’t you ‘hi Coach’ me, Dee. Where the hell have you been? Fight is in two days and you haven’t shown up to training since your last fight.” he grumbled with the raspy voice of a heavy smoker.

“Uh, I have been keeping up with my training. Sort of. Things have come up. I do have a life outside of boxing.”

“Not when there’s a thousand gold on the line you don’t. What kind of training have you been up to? I see you’ve got Crusher with you - I don’t think one big hand is gonna do you any better than two.”

Shit, I hadn’t thought about the fight. I needed to get my usual hands fixed up or… recreated. I appreciated Arryn carrying me home last night, but I wished he’d picked up my hands. I couldn’t go back and get them not with the Peacekeepers blockading that whole area.

“Oh, I got some real world experience last night. Alabaster sent his boys to take me out last night.”

“Fucking hell, really?” the gruff facade dropped for a moment, and I saw genuine concern in his eyes. Switch was tough at times, but he’d been a mentor for years now. Certainly not a father figure, though he did once hit on Ari with disastrous consequences, but someone who had my back when not many did. “Are you okay?”

“Ari had to dish out the good potion. I’m walking around today to keep my leg from getting stiff.” I lied.

“Alabaster has been a prick for as long as I’ve known him, but this is too far. I might have to get some of my contacts involved in, uh, resolving this dispute.” he said, chewing his thumb.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. Sent a pretty clear message last night that I’m not easily fucked with.”

“Shit, Dee. You kill them?”

“I honestly don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m more pissed off that some friends of mine got wrapped up in it. They helped deal with it, sort of.”

“Right… Well we’ll show him what’s what in the semifinals.”

“To be fair, Coach, you haven’t exactly been playing fair either. Who do you think told Volcano that levitation would be a good counter strat for me?”

Switch grinned. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Mm hmm.”

“But speaking of, I think you ought to consider taking on some support buffs. The guy you’re fighting is some kind of projectile user, as far as I can tell. You’ve got quick reflexes, but a little speed enhancement wouldn’t hurt, right?”

“Nah, I don’t want to split my winnings. I’m pretty confident these days, anyway. Didn’t see anyone in the listings that worried me.”

“Always so stubborn…” he sighed “Well, you haven’t let me down yet. Just stay safe, yeah? I’ll talk to Alabaster.”

“Enjoy that. I’m gonna continue my walk.” I said, turning to leave, but I paused. “Unrelated, but have you heard much about that incident near the market last night?”

Switch had half turned to leave, and was pulling a cigarette out of a crumpled cardboard pack. “Aye, some dipshit novice trying to be the next Meilon and make a new spell or something. My bud in the PK says that Brimstone is looking into it.”

“Huh? They don’t normally sniff around this kind of thing.”

“Nah, but he says that some bigwig came and told ‘em to kick rocks while they did all the work. He reckons it was some kind of terrorist thing. A3L or something.”

“A3L?”

“Anti-Three League. Buncha kids with too much time on their hands thinking they can take down the corpos. Never heard of them pulling something like this though.”

“Hmm. Weird. Anyway, catch you later Coach.” I said, waving with Crusher. “I’ll see you at the semis.”

Switch gave a noncommittal grunt in response, then started walking the opposite direction.

It sounded like nobody was starting a witch hunt for Wild Mages yet, which is good. I don’t know if the Peacekeepers or Brimstone or whoever actually knew what happened and just wasn’t letting on, or if we’d somehow avoided detection. We were safe for now, but who knows how long that would last?