Lucy and Wanyeng hit the floor in the mouth of the mineshaft. Around them was carnage. They quickly recognised the adventurers powers flying around them were bronze rank and even some silver rank. On the other side they recognised a lot of the monsters were bronze rank, swarming iron ranks but also three or four silver rank monsters. This was unheard of in the greenstone area outside of a monster surge. It felt like something an instructor would set up in a mirage chamber. Thinking of the mirage chamber and the academy Lucy grabbed Wanyeng.
“We’ve got to get behind the friendly line of advance!” She had to shout over the sounds of the battle.
“This many monsters they must’ve called out the academy to help.” She was thinking about monster surge protocol, every now and then the academy would program a day to go through joint tactics in the event the academy annex was deployed on clear and sweep operations. The days were not remembered fondly, unable to fit the entire school into a mirage chamber they conducted dry drills out in the delta. Lots of stopping and starting as they got different units into position and the instructors were learning to be lieutenants of formations rather than independent adventurers.
Wanyeng nodded at her and pointed at an outcropping of rocks towards the adventurer side.
“Auras out. Even if there is no one here that will recognise them at least they know there’s friendlies in the area.”
Just as Wanyeng said this a tree landed just past them, thrown by some great force from the adventurers side. They shared a look then both flooded their auras out as hard as they could whilst they ran towards the centre of the adventurers side. Doing so might attract monsters but with so many auras all clashing about, especially with the silver rank adventurers they were unlikely to draw much attention. Lucy ran as hard as she could, pouring every bit of speed on, she knew there would be a safe space ahead and seconds mattered. Wanyeng was always just a step ahead, picking the good path and making sure it was clear.
The ground burst in front of them and a spinning figure emerged from a new hole in the floor to find the drawn double blades of Wanyeng, a glowing wand and a rune encased arm from Lucy.
“Well, seems a shame to pull you two away from this little adventure you’ve got yourselves into. But fancy coming back with me?”
Shane Druggan was a silver rank instructor at the school, he had worked a lot with Kyra and her earth essence as it was one they shared. As soon as he had burst out the ground an elegant dome of smooth earth surrounded their backs. He waved them on and they all started running, the earth dome travelling with them covering their retreat.
Once they got back behind some hastily erected earthen barricades they finally felt relief, as they had drawn near they were set on by monsters. The friendlies on the other side couldn’t help as they were worried about fratricide so they had to deal with it themselves, with Shane taking the lions share, Wanyeng taking the next largest slice and Lucy taking everything she could. When they finally sat down Wanyeng was exhausted even through his new bronze rank endurance and Lucy was empty of mana and her arms burned from where she had to draw a sword and take the monsters on ‘manually’ as James called it. Shane had dashed off as soon as he had seen them safe, he had to get back to the frontline. He had left them with no explanation of what to do or what was going on.
“Can you smell that?” Wanyeng asked Lucy, looking around and sniffing from where they were both sat slumped against some barrels.
Wanyeng’s newly bronze rank senses had picked up the scents just before Lucy’s. There was a faint smell of barbecued meat. They got up and followed their noses deeper into the adventurer encampment. Neither had eaten in days, relying on spirit coins in the mine. They found a small field of trestle tables with a large pit at one end that half a dozen chefs were grilling monster size steaks. Looking at the size of the steaks and how hungry they felt they agreed to join the short queue for the grill.
“Wh ad’ya want? We got Igneous Iguana steaks, fried Mud gator tail or giant tremor worm sausages.”
The chef they’d gone up to was from the academy annex kitchens, he was bronze rank and he was still sweating, working on the giant grill in front of him.
“I get the steaks and butchering a tail, but how have you done sausages out here?” Lucy asked.
“Got a lootin power ain’t I? Got it from the Bounty essence, turns them monsters straight into easy to cook portions, now we got a lot of people needin food, whad’ya want?”
They took a little bit of everything and found an empty trestle table and sat down. They got nods from people they recognised and smiles from their peers but they chose to sit alone to try and wrap their heads around what was happening.
“What in the gods names is going on Lu? That was crazy. We were down there for days? I think we both now know we need to buy watches.”
“I don’t know, there’s something hinky going on with the magic around us at the moment, I’ve not felt right since we got separated from Instructor Trenslow. Part of that was due to being stuck in a cave with no light and no idea if we would ever see daylight again. I need to see my husband, he’s going to kill me but I want to see him. But the other part of it is the current of magic just looks different, its more active, a different flow to the the normal. Or at least what I know as normal from this area.”
“I wouldn’t know, if it’s not a problem I can cut in half then it’s someone else’s problem.”
With that clever comment he stuck a chunk of iguana steak in his mouth, looking quite self satisfied with his quip. His face instantly went bright red. He reached for the large water jug and started quaffing it as fast as he could. When the jug was empty he was breathing deeply and reached to a nearby empty table and pulled another jug onto theirs.
“Igneous, Volcano, hot, spicy. What an ass. How can he be giving that out?!” He looked around and saw other people tucking into the large red steaks. Lucy was delicately eating hers, it tasted similar to a vindaloo from back home.
“It’s either your newly bronze rank senses that you’re not yet used to or your taste buds need maturing.” She smirked good naturedly at him.
Wanyeng hated people calling him out on his age so he smiled, and promptly tossed the contents of the water jug he was still holding at her. The water hit her full in the face. She gasped and looked down at her sodden lap. Her eyes glowed briefly golden and runes streamed out to form a circle a few feet above Wanyeng’s head, he looked up quizzically and suddenly a torrent of rain poured out soaking him, he fell backwards off his chair and the rain followed him, it finished as quick as it had started. They looked at each other and laughed. Wanyeng from his back and Lucy from standing looking over the table where he was on the floor.
Vincent Trenslow cut the laughter short by running in and scooping them both into a bone breaking embrace.
“I led a team of bronze rankers, a silver ranker, a team of digging specialists down to get you, and there was no trace of you. We didn’t know if you made it!”
He then released them and looked down the front of his dusty armour that was now patchy with wetness.
“Why am I so wet?” He looked at the two of them. “Why are you so wet? Why are you eating and messing around when everyone thinks you’re dead?!”
His grateful demeanour from seeing them alive and well schooled itself into a scolding one. Then he noticed Wanyeng’s bronze rank aura and his eyes went wide.
“Wanyeng! Congratulations!”
Instead of the crushing hug he held a hand out the boy to shake.
“Thankyou Instructor Trenslow.” Wanyeng said, bowing over the handshake. “It has been a long time coming. The amount of bronze rank monsters pushed me over the edge. We had only just arrived at the camp and both exhausted we were pushed to get some food straight away. How can we help?”
Lucy looked as eager as Wanyeng at Vincent. He shook his head, amazed at the pair.
“You have both just survived an experience I wouldn’t send a bronze ranker in alone, never mind a pair of iron rankers not yet qualified. You both need to meditate and consolidate. However, this has been declared an emergency by the Duke of Greenstone and it is all hands on deck. Lucy, you will be needed with the magic society contingent working at the centre of this camp. Your studies will be more useful than your combat abilities at the moment. Wanyeng, you will be placed in the iron rank block C, you haven’t consolidated to fight at your new rank and as that is the case I wont use you as such, your extra strength will be a welcome relief to the rest of the block.”
Wanyeng nodded his approval, wise beyond his years it was easy to expect him to argue about being put back with the iron rankers after achieving what he had and going through what they just had. He bussed his tray and adjusted his sword belt.
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“Where am I headed to?”
One of the iron rankers with Vincent lead him away, Wanyeng gave Lucy a smile and a double thumbs up on his way out. Vincent lead Lucy away towards the middle of camp.
“Did Sylvyn make it ok?”
“Cadet Sylvyn came around when I fed her a potion, she then started to panic and fire at any shadow she thought moved. Another rock collapse must have happened and she was hit rather forcibly in the back of the head with a particularly hefty rock… in my haste to evacuate her it slipped my mind to feed her another potion and carried her out using your wonderful breadcrumb trail.” He paused for Lucy to stop giggling. “Once above ground the adventure society messengers found me and lead me to this camp where I handed her over to the healers. After making a full recovery and being cleared by the med tent she insisted there was still something wrong and needed to be treated by the family healer, she took a detail of the Duke’s guards to escort her back to Greenstone.”
“Oh wow, that’s not exactly adventurer material.”
“My thoughts precisely, however Cadet Sylvyn is oblivious and has said that she will not be coming to the academy to pick up her badge and would like me to come to her family estate to drop it off, by no later than the end of the week.”
This time Lucy stopped in mid stride, eyes wide and laughed at the news.
“How vapid can one person get?! She wouldn’t be invited to the academy anyway, however much she desperately needed as much time there as she can get.”
“Sometimes we recommend attending the annex for a module or two to make up shortcomings that some on assessment may have. However I cannot in good faith subject the academy to her presence, a flat fail and a recommendation to not re-assess with a caveat that she can only re-assess in a years time and it must be with me.” He looked tired and stroked his moustache, it had obviously been a strenuous few days for him as well, the fact that he was talking so openly about another cadets performance showed his fatigue. Lucy could sympathise, herself and Wanyeng had been able to laugh and see the funny side in such a horrible person, but she had worn even them down and they hadn’t been responsible for her.
Suddenly she was hit by something blonde and hard, bearing her to the ground and attacking her face. Lucky was licking her with great enthusiasm., his front paws were on her chest not letting her up. Kyra grabbed him by the collar and hauled him off.
“I swear he has better aura senses than I do at iron rank, he just hared off all of a sudden! Vincent explained what happened with the mine, I’m so glad you made it out ok!””
She helped Lucy up and gave her a hug.
“Well I’m glad to see you too boy.” She stroked Lucky’s head and he raised a dignified paw for her to shake as if he hadn’t just been barking and bouncing like the puppy he was. “Oooh! I’ve got a present for you Kyra.” She raised a hand and runes streamed from her eyes, down her arm and out in front of her. Her storage portal appeared and she seemed to manipulate it in mid air that instead of a window in front it was a ring above them. Diamond dust started streaming out of it like grain from a silo. It kept coming, forming a huge mound on the floor between them, Lucy had to raise the storage portal to allow more to come out. When it was done it had formed two piles so that Kyra could split it into her storage.
“That’s insane, why do you have so much? Thats worth a lot of coins!”
“We were stuck in an abandoned diamond mine for days, this is just what was on the floor from the mining. It kept my mind off the fact it was so dark and miserable down there. I worked out an easy enough ritual that basically separated it from the dirt and hoovered it all into one big pile.”
“Well this is brilliant, it should keep me going for a long time!” Kyra took out a pocket mirror from a pocket that definitely wasn’t big enough for it. After quickly checking her bangs and tucking one behind her ear she moved until the piles were in the reflection, one pile and then the other disappeared into the mirror.
Lucy’s portal came back down in front of her and she pulled out a handful of felt bags.
“These are also diamond quintessence,” she said handing them over. “I know your summon doesn’t need them but I’ve heard of some rituals we can do to strengthen your summon with them so hold onto them for now. Not that I’m not happy to see you but why are you here? You’re out of the academy now so how did you get roped in?”
“I was working at the broad street clinic when they came bursting in saying there was a monster surge, you should have seen the confusion on peoples faces, it’s not due so there was a little panic. Everyone calmed down and they said they just needed healers as quick as they could.
As they talked they were walking to the magic society tents. Vincent got them through some sort of security, it was there more to keep personnel to a minimum so they could get on with their work.
“I don’t care that you think it’s improbable Arthur, the fact is that it has happened, the magical density is not what it was half an hour ago!”
Three men in magic society clothes were standing around a bird table with a huge map of the area. On the map they were manipulating magical coloured sand that showed the magical density in the area, like a hologram it moved across the map then started again, showing the swirl. It started in the middle of nowhere and was slowly spiralling outwards getting larger.
“Mack, we’ve not seen this before, calm down.” The oldest looking man turned to Lucy. “Yes miss can I help you?”
Vincent stepped into the tent with the others.
“Gentlemen, this is the student I was telling you about, she has an unparalleled depth of study in to rituals and astral magic in the academy. Tell her everything you know.”
The older man looked over the two women and shrugged.
“It started roughly a day ago, first thing in the morning, a large pack of bronze rank monsters being lead by a silver rank, almost unheard of for the area. A local decided to run to the city to get help immediately. When the teams arrived to put down the monster another local had gone to the city from a village over to report a wave of monsters, he was sent away thinking we had dealt with the issue he was on about. It turns out we hadn’t. More reports came in, getter larger and larger numbers of monsters. What seems to be happening is an expanding surge of magical density, generating monster manifestations at an extreme pace. The face of the surge is expanding, as it crawls over the ground more and more monsters are manifesting. In a days time the front will be larger than Greenstone, which is where it will hit. This camp was placed in its path to deal with the monsters, it swept straight past us, and is continuing.”
“Like a tornado of magic.” Lucy said.
There was a cough from the front of the tent, a young man was leaning against the pole.
“My goddess would like to remind you Miss Lucy that your knowledge of how weather works is incomplete and she has already warned you about using knowledge from the other world.” He stood straight, bowed slightly and wandered off.
Lucy shook her head. “Well I assume I can talk about lightning rods.” She paused, when he didn’t come back she continued. “Placing a battle camp in front of the phenomenon is treating the effect not the cause. We need to ground the energy out to stop it from propagating.”
Runes streamed room her eyes as she placed a blank piece of paper on the table in front of them, the runes settled onto the plain surface.
“I’m more a combat ritualist than an array specialist, you will need to find me one to work with, but this is what I would be suggesting to use.” She took a glowstone from the stand in the corner and took it to the gold spinning diagram. She placed it over the top and they all watched as the glowstone dimmed then went out. “A ritual to absorb magic, with the size we are talking about it will need to be a semi-permanent array that interconnects. Do you have a specialist in formation interactivity?” The men shook their heads. “Well it’s a good job I’ve been looking into it for adapting my fighting style when I get to bronze rank then.”
Lucy had spent a lot of hours studying magic, she had dug out the records of all of their powers to go over with the team and the powers progression through the ranks. Rune type storage powers were common, less common was combat rituals as they were a small niche, having both in the same power was extremely rare. She had found the record of her rune power in the magical records.
Ability: [Rune Lore] (Magic)
Special ability: Rune projection
Cost: Variable mana
Cool-down: Nil.
Current rank: Iron 5 (90%)
Effect (iron): Increased mana regeneration. Project runes that will form a portal window to dimensional storage. Alternate use is to produce a varied range of combat rituals, these rituals are supplied by the casters own mana to be powered. Flexible usage requires a varied mana input. Only one ritual or storage power may be used at a time.
Effect (bronze): Two rune circles may be used at the same time for an increased mana output, the effects may be the same or different.
She started rapidly sketching under the golden runes before she moved them around the paper and sketched again.
“We’ll need to place a semi-circle of arrays in the path of the front. What it won’t do is suck in all the magic in the gaps. So magic will seep between the sites. The magic that gets through will be super concentrated but cant last long without being part of the whole phenomenon and fizzle out, think of it as a one last gasp from whatever’s going on. I’ll need every ritualist and earth mover you’ve got.”
The men looked at each other and silently agreed. The benefit to crisis management that the society had learned the hard way that if someone said they were a specialist in a field no matter what they looked like they should be taken seriously. Lucy made copies of the ritual needed, the cost in spirit coins, the orientation, the timing to activate, the most common cause of it going wrong and where to place the adventure society ‘troops’ for between the arrays.
The ritualist teams all got given an adventurer team escort to get ahead of the vortex, although they were going to ground not yet effected by the phenomenon the monsters on the inside of the swirl had started moving outwards as well as following the direction it was moving. Lucy, Kyra, Wanyeng, Vincent and a small team of iron rankers all raced across the delta, they had their copy of the map and were responsible for a full third of the array diagrams due to the shortage of specialists. As they got to the first site, which was to be the far right edge of the array Vincent and Wanyeng went hunting the local area to make sure they weren’t going to be disturbed.
“Ready?” Lucy asked “This will need to be slick. We have a lot to get through and I only have so much mana.”
Kyra nodded and kicked her boots off, digging her toes into the dirt. Lucy took a deep breath and the largest runes she had ever produced streamed from her eyes, they spread out and settled on the ground, the size of a large stadium hovering just off the ground. Kyra stomped her foot and a spike of earth blasted her off the ground. At the peak of her jump she looked over the runes scattered on the ground. She spread her arms and legs in a star position and the ground rose precisely under the runes. As she was landing Lucy has already used her astral projection to go high above the array and have a look. When they were both returned to the ground Lucy lead Kyra around the array to tweak here and there. They left the ritual materials in the right places and left a pair of iron rankers to guard the site.
“That was a ridiculous size ritual Lu, how can you do that?”
“Oh there was no way I could have used that ritual, if I tried to power it then it would have fizzled out, but I can lay it as a template for a good amount of time.”
They moved on to the second site and Lucy was deep in thought.
“Stop.” She said.
The group stopped and a smaller set of runes came from Lucy, Kyra instinctively repeated the process from before forming an array the size of a large family car.
“This wasn’t in the plan?” Kyra said.
“No but I think I’ve figured out how to link the array in the gaps. If it goes wrong we will have just enough time to have another go before it reaches the city.”
They dropped half a dozen of the smaller rituals before they started the next. It was a long process but they had completed four of the large arrays and daisy chained in between them and linked up with the nearest of the other ritual teams. The adventurers that had been sent to guard between the arrays had taken a little convincing that they would not be needed and spread out amongst the other side but time was short and they recognised that although a lower rank Lucy knew what she was on about.
All the preparation complete they looked to the inside of the semi circle of giant arrays, they were just in time. The magical density phenomenon wasn’t a visible force, but marked along its advance was a constant shimmer of rainbow light from here and there where there was a constant manifestation of monsters.
The adventurer force was lined up behind the gaps in the arrays watching the advance.
“WHEN THE MAGIC WAVE HITS. THERE WILL BE A FLASH OF LIGHT. CLOSE YOUR EYES UNTIL I GIVE THE SIGNAL.” Lucy shouted over the assembled force.
The last rainbow manifestation started on the very edge of an array.
“NOW!” Lucy yelled, the ritualists near each array fed the necessary coins to the diagrams and they activated, all the adventurers covered their eyes. The world turned white, Lucy used her astral projection power to be able to see through the flash. All the magic wave was being turned into harmless light where it touched the arrays, but there was a lot of it. It was clear to see that the arrays were working, she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the interconnections working between arrays to her left.
What she saw in the gaps between arrays on her right made her blood run cold.