It turned out that Simon’s spell did more than just create four walls and a roof. Using Construction mana, the aptly named Construct Stone Structure spell was only tier one and created a basic building based on the mental template of the caster. Since the apprentice earth mage needed to use multiple mana strands anyways, he’d apparently decided to show-off. Whether this was to redeem himself in the eyes of Professor Alrik or just because he felt like it, Gabe wasn’t sure.
What he was sure of was that he appreciated that Simon had thought to create separate rooms inside the building. He’d even go so far as to include raised sections of stone in each so that they didn’t have to place their bedrolls directly on the ground. The security of the building and the privacy of the rooms allowed Gabe to fully relax from the stresses of the day. As he settled in for the night, he went over every spell he’d ever seen or heard about and tried to imagine what it would be like to unlock a second node. While he had no delusions that he was on the same level of skill as Simon, he had naturally unlocked his life node when he was younger. Maybe that meant unlocking a second node wouldn’t be too hard. He planned to ask the Professor about it after they dealt with the wyvern and wanted to be ready to start the process as soon as he could. As Gabe drifted off to sleep, visions of him wielding different elemental and arcane magics wafted through his dreams.
Hours later, as the sun was just beginning to color the horizon with soft orange and pink hues, Gabe’s peaceful slumber was interrupted by a loud cry that pierced through his consciousness with an eerie and haunting resonance. The sudden noise shocked him awake and in his disorientation he got caught in his bedroll and rolled off the stone bed, hitting the ground with the thud.
Cursing, he disentangled himself and rubbed at his elbow which had banged against the side of the bed as he fell. He quickly made his way out of his room and through the small antechamber that separated the four rooms. Once he was outside, he nearly fell to his knees when the cry sounded again. Without the stone to block part of the sound, the full brunt of it hit Gabe like daggers to his mind. He tried to block it out with his hands, but it vibrated through his body. The sound was a mix of a high-pitched screech and a deep, rumbling roar, a fusion of primal power and otherworldly etherealness.
As it abated and the pressure in his skull decreased, Gabe pulled his hands away from his ears and noticed there was blood on both of his palms. On instinct he was about to cast Repair, but he stopped himself. This was the type of reactive behavior he was trying to avoid doing. He needed to think through his actions, though it was admittedly hard to think clearly with the echoes of the cry still ringing through his ears.
Thinking back to how Aura of Vitality had cleared up his thoughs the day before, he cast the spell without modifying it. He didn’t want to make the same mistake twice and expend too much of his mana in one go unnecessarily. As the green light pulse out around his body, the ringing in his ears lessened and he was finally able to take stock of the situation around him.
He was finally able to notice that Professor Alrik and Drevock were also outside. Worryingly however, only Drevock was standing, an orange glow surrounding his body. Professor Alrik was lying on the ground, thin streaks of blood running down each ear and from the corners of his closed eyes. Between the effects of his aura and seeing the professor like that, Gabe snapped into action.
He immediately ran towards the pair, beginning the motions to cast Restorative Shield. He placed his free hand on Professor Alrik once he arrived, finishing the spell and causing a thin barrier of translucent green light to appear above the unconscious gnome. With both the regenerative effects of the shield and the buff from his aura, Professor Alrik began to stir though he still didn’t awaken fully.
Looking up at Drevock, Gabe said “Go check on Simon. I’ll do what I can for the professor. We need to be ready for when that noise comes again.” As if on cue, the cry once again pierced the air around them, this time louder and accompanied by a steady beating sound that was almost lost behind the intensity of the screech.
Despite being noticeably louder, the noise didn’t affect Gabe as severely as it had just minutes ago. He still brought both hands to his ears to try to block out some of the noise, but it no longer felt as if daggers were being thrust into his skull. Drevock for his part seemed completely unaffected by the noise. Seeing that Gabe wasn’t going to join Professor Alrik passed out on the ground, the large bodyguard turned and ran into their shelter.
By the time he’d returned, Simon thrust over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the cry had stopped again. As soon as it had abated, Gabe had begun casting Repair on the professor. The spell was designed to heal injuries, and even though he couldn’t see any damage, the blood indicated that something had ruptured in the gnome’s head. Having seen how Simon and Professor Alrik were able to modify their spells, Gabe had to assume that he could do something similar with Repair. Not knowing if it would work, when he cast the spell, instead of focusing on a specific wound, he tried to envision Professor Alrik waking up.
Despite feeling the mana being used up, there was no reaction from the gnome. His breathing had evened out and Gabe was able to feel a strong pulse, but he otherwise remained the same. Once Drevock got close enough to be in Gabe’s aura, Simon gave a sudden gasp. Drevock unceremoniously removed Simon from his shoulder, who cried out as he was dumped to the ground, and came over to inspect Professor Alrik.
In his deep, slow rumble, he asked “Vhat is vrong vith him?”
All Gabe could do was shake his head. “I’m not sure. He seems stable, but he’s unconscious. I’ve tried all my spells, but I don’t think Repair will work for this kind of injury. I’m hoping that between Aura of Vitality and Restorative Shield, he’ll recover on his own but I don’t know how long that’ll take or even if we have the time to wait. Do you know what happened to the professor or what’s making that noise?”
Gabe had his own suspicions about the source of the cry but he was desperately hoping he was wrong.
Pulling off his axes, Drevock began to look up at the sky as he answered Gabe. “He vas trying to see if ze vyvern vas in its cave. He chanted a spell and zen ze screech happened and he fell to ze floor.”
Drevock’s words did nothing to assuage Gabe’s concerns, but it was Simon’s that truly made him start to worry.
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“Shit! This is bad. We need to wake Master Alrik up right now. It’s a damn Psysonic wyvern.”
Gabe’s blood ran cold. He’d been afraid that the cry had come from the wyvern. While he’d never heard the term ‘psysonic’ before, from context he could put the pieces together. During its most recent molt, the wyvern had indeed grown into its magic. The cry sounded again and this time a large shape appeared in the sky.
The wyvern was nearly the size of the building Simon made. It had a long serpentine body with two powerfully built back legs and a pair of wings that when fully extended were nearly as wide as the wyvern was long. The creature was covered in iridescent indigo scales and had a set of large spines that descended along its back and tail. Its mouth was wide open as it screamed, exposing shape fangs that glistened with venom.
If not for his aura filling him with strength, Gabe was certain that he would have frozen in fear at the sight of the wyvern above them. As it was, he was barely able to resist the psysonic attack. With the creature so close to them, the cry was once again cutting straight through his skull and he began to feel blood dripping through his fingers as he covered. He was trying to focus his will enough to cast Restorative Shield on himself, but he kept losing hold of the mana threads. He was beating himself up for not casting it earlier between attacks.
Just as he was resolving himself to bear the full weight of the attack so that he could free his hands to cast the spell, the cry abruptly cut off and was replaced with a shriek of pain. Looking up, Gabe could see Drevock standing between them and the wyvern, which was flying erratically through the sky. Noticing that Drevock was only holding one of his axes and that there was a hole through the membrane that stretched between the bones of its left wing, Gabe realized that he must’ve thrown his other ax at the monster.
Gabe took advantage of the wyvern’s distraction and began casting Restorative Shield. Simon must have had a similar idea as a large dome rose out of the ground around them. The wyvern tried its screech attack again, but the effect was largely subdued. It was pitch dark under the dome, save for the glow of Gabe and Drevock’s magic. The green and orange light combined to make a pale yellow that was just bright enough for Gabe to make out the others.
Simon, who had started panting after his spell was cast, stumbled over and sat on the ground next to Professor Alrik.
“Man, casting that took a lot out of me. The dome has alternating layers of stone and crystal which will dampen the effects of the wyvern’s attack. Part of me is glad Master isn’t awake to yell at me for dumping all my mana into a tier three spell again.”
Over at the edge of the dome, Drevock was pressing his head against the stone and knocking on it. Gabe was about to ask him what he was doing when the large man turned to face the others.
“Zis may halt ze sound, but ze vall is veak. If ze beast attacks directly, it vill break.”
“Yes I know. I was the one who cast it,” replied Simon bitterly. “The crystal is great for absorbing sound but it isn’t the most sturdy. That’s why we need to wake up Master right now. He’s much better at mind spells than I am and he might be able to weave some sort of protection for us.”
Turning to face me he continued. “Gabe, it’s up to you. We don’t have the time to wait for him to wake up naturally. “
Gabe’s replay came out much more harshly than he’d intended it. “Repair won’t work. It’s only effective on wounds I can see and even then it’s limited. I’m not like you, I can’t just modify my spells to suit every occasion. Not all of us can be magical geniuses.”
As much as he hated to admit it, as much as he was impressed by Simon’s magic, a part of him resented the apprentice. He’d only been able to cast spells for a fraction of the amount of time Gabe could, but where Gabe had been restricted to a single spell and no teacher, Simon had flourished under Professor Alrik’s tutelage.
An awkward silence filled the dome, only broken by the faint remnants of the wyvern’s magic. Gabe knew he should apologize, in fact he was about to when Simon cut him off.
“Look Simon, I didn’t mean-”
“It’s alright Gabe. Tensions are high, we have a raging magical beast attacking us. Terse words are to be expected. I should have spoken clearer earlier. I know you said Repair as it currently is isn’t enough. Let me show you how to improve it.”
This took Gabe by surprise. “I didn’t think you knew life magic?”
“I don’t,” replied Simon easily. “But I do know how magic works. I am a genius after all.” He said that last part with a smirk and Gabe felt chagrined.
While Simon could be a bit odd, he had helped Gabe learn his tier two spells and take the time to answer his questions. As much as he was jealous of the man’s ability, he realized that Simon himself hadn’t done anything to deserve how Gabe had spoken to him earlier.
“Cheer up. It’s only natural for you to envy me. I am a great and powerful wizard and you are only a junior apprentice. If you didn’t resent my magic, I would be doing something wrong. Anyways, what I have to teach you isn’t all that complicated. Boosting a spell up from tier 1 to tier 2 is actually so simple, you’ll hate yourself more for not figuring it out on your own. All you need to do is pull two threads out, braid them into a single strand, and then cast the spell like normal. Boom, instant upgrade.”
All Gabe could do was stare at Simon in the dim magical light. Was that really it? Instead of replying to him, Gabe reached into his soul and pulled out two threads of mana from his life node. He tried twisting the threads together to make them one but he found that they repulsed each other slightly. This wasn’t a big deal when he cast his tier two spells because while the strands weaved around each other, they only did so at particular junctions. Getting two strands to move as one was a completely different matter.
From the smirk that Simon still wore, Gabe could tell that he was just waiting for him to ask how to braid the strands together. He’d said it was so simple, he should be able to figure it out on his own, so Gabe was hesitant to ask for further help. But as much as Gabe wanted the satisfaction of doing it himself, he knew that they were in a bit of a time crunch. The wyvern could still be heard through the dome and it was only a matter of time before it decided to attack them with its claws.
Gabe began cycling his mana through his node as he tried to think about what he needed to do. It took him a moment to realize it, but when he did he realized he was still holding two mana threads when he started cycling. He’d never tried that before and to his amazement as he guided them through the pattern that represented life mana, the two strands wove around each other without the repulsion he’d noticed before.
Drawing out this thread took more effort than a single thread usually did, but Gabe found he was able to control well enough with just his will. He guided it into the pattern for Repair as he reached out to touch Professor Alrik’s forehead. When the spell completed, there was a bright flash of green light and Profess Alrik’s eyes opened as he sat up.
He blinked his large eyes before flicking his wrist and sending a ball of bright white light to the top of the dome that illuminated the whole area.
“Could someone please tell me why we are sitting on the floor trapped under a dome of stone?”