“Lyric!” Aeric shouted. Blood was seeping into the top of her battle robes from the wound in her chest. Acting on instinct, he scrambled down the newly formed ramp in the floor and wrapped his arms beneath her. “This might hurt, he said.
“Auughhh,” Lyric shrieked as he lifted her off the spear that had been skewering her from below the mattress. Blood immediately poured from the wound on both sides of her body.
“Are you an idiot?!” Amos shouted. He was standing up now, looking down at them. “You just opened up a puncture wound! She’ll bleed to death in minutes if she doesn’t get aid.”
Aeric looked down at the girl in his arms. She looked up at him with a frightened, pale face. “Please,” she said, her words raspy. Flecks of blood came from her mouth as she spoke. “Your sister--”.
Aeric lifted her up into Elsie’s ready arms. He hadn’t needed to tell his twinborn sister what to do. Elsie carried her over and laid her down on the straw mattress.
She took the flimsy pillow from off the mattress and folded it up, jamming it down the front of Lyric’s robes against her skin, trying to apply pressure to the wound. “Try to push down on this, if you can,” Elsie told her. “We’ll have to figure out how to stop the bleeding on the other side too.” She turned to Aeric at her side. “I’ll take care of her, you go help Amos.”
Meanwhile, Amos held out both hands to his sides. “Of course they were tunneling! How could I be so stupid?!” A brief memory of Nadia lecturing him at breakfast flashed through his mind, but he ignored it to focus on the situation at hand. He could see movement in the dim light down the tunnel. The minorats were coming to inspect the results of their ambush.
“What are you doing just standing there,” Amos said to Aeric as a pair of throwing axes coalesced into his hands. “Grab your kit!” Aeric ran to his backpack on the side of the room.
Lyric looked up at Elsie. “M-my wand,” she said. “In… in my pocket.”
“You’ll die if you lose too much blood,” Elsie said. “We need to keep pressure on the wound.”
“I’ll be… fine,” Lyric said. “It can heal. The wand. Use it.”
Elsie realized what she meant and let go of the pillow, digging through Lyric’s pockets to find the wand. She pulled it out, and extended her already formed astral connection into it. “I don’t fully know what I’m doing, but I’ll try my best,” Elsie said.
Lyric tried, but failed to smile up at her: a grimace of pain forming on her face instead.
Amos nodded to Aeric as he arrived with his sword and shield now equipped. “I didn’t have time to form an astral connection,” Amos said to him. I'll have to hope my internal astra is enough.”
A swarm of minorats arrived at the entrance to the tunnel, though it was only large enough for three of them to move through it at a time. A taller minorat stood a few feet back with a ragged hood over its head. It grinned with razor sharp teeth and pointed a gnarled stick towards the party. “Skeeraaaaw!” The hooded minorat shrieked, chaotic astra sparking through the air around it. The rats in front of it charged.
“A shaman!” Amos called. He readied one of his axes with True Aim and threw it towards the shaman. It held up its staff at the last moment and the axe evaporated with a reverberating crack into a cloud of physically manifested astra which dispersed in the air. The closest three minorats reached Amos and Aeric a moment later.
Amos kicked at the closest minorat, sending it tumbling into the row behind it, pausing their forward charge. Aeric swung his sword clumsily, but the two remaining minorats that were approaching him crossed their spears together in a show of teamwork to block the attack. He lifted his shield just in time to block their counterattack.
At the small bed, Elsie finished channeling what she hoped was a healing spell. She pulled the bloodied pillow off of the wound and pressed the tip of the wand to Lyric’s chest. She could feel the astra building up as she tried to focus on the healing aspect of Sylvan magic. It finally erupted out of the wand, manifesting as a pink misty vapor that was immediately absorbed into Lyric’s skin.
Lyric’s eyes shot open. She gasped and her back arched, raising her body upwards in the middle. “No! It’s too much! You have to controllllll--.” Elsie stopped channeling the spell, but it was too late. Lyric fell back onto the straw mattress. Her pupils dilated. A placid grin crossed her bloodied lips, and her whole body went limp.
Oops.
Elsie stretched Lyric’s robes forward to examine the wound. The flesh had already re-knit itself: the bleeding stopped. Elsie placed her hand on the wound and felt around, but could feel no damage. There was an almost invisible scar on her pale skin though.
Elsie we need you! Aeric thought. She turned and saw Amos hacking an axe into the throat of a minorat. He had received a grazing wound in his side from its spear in return. The beast collapsed, its head mostly severed from its body. Amos grabbed the spear with his other hand, flipped it around and threw it with his True Aim skill. It pierced directly through the eye of the next minorat in line that had been scrambling toward him.
Next to him, Aeric was not doing well. He had knocked a minorat off balance with his shield, but the other was scrambling up the side wall of the ramp in what would surely be a flanking attempt. Aeric swung wildly with his sword, but the enthralled minorat was too deft to take any hits.
Elsie pointed her wand toward the melee. She only had a vague idea of what she was supposed to do. She focused on the feeling of the cognition aspect of Sylvan magic and channeled what she hoped would be the muddle spell that Lyric had used yesterday afternoon. Maybe it won’t affect us if I’m the one casting it, she hoped.
Aeric roared in frustration and barreled towards the minorat who had been avoiding all his attacks. “Dodge this!” he shouted, shoving the rat onto the floor with the full weight of his body, pressing it between his shield and the floor.
He raised his sword, but it was an awkward angle due to lying on top of the large bipedal rat. He succeeded in stabbing it down into the rat’s snout, but did not have enough leverage to push it deeper.
The minorat that had been trying to scramble up the side of the ramp wall turned and leaped onto Aeric’s back. It brought its crude spear down as it fell, slammed it into his shoulder, lodging it into the shoulder blade.
Aeric bellowed in pain, but it did not pierce any further into his body. Elsie also cried out in pain as she felt the damage to her twinborn body. He leaned back onto his legs, bringing his shield up with him, then thrust himself towards the monster that had just stabbed his shoulder. He knocked it off balance and pinned it against the wall.
A fresh wave of minorats scurried past the shaman, raising their stone spears. Amos threw his remaining axe at a new minorat that was approaching Aeric’s back. It entered the creature’s skull right at the ear, causing it to collapse lifeless to the floor. Amos held his hands out to try summoning his axes back, expending more of his precious internal astra. He would need a few seconds.
The rat with the sliced snout scurried up now that it was no longer being pressed to the floor. It had lost hold of its weapon, but leaped forward and grabbed the spear sticking out of Aeric’s shoulder. The rat jammed it down, angled below the shoulder, then pushed with his might to wedge it up underneath like a lever. The frail wood snapped. Aeric screamed as the tip of the spear was lodged beneath the back of his shoulder blade.
Elsie flinched, feeling as if her own back had just been assaulted. She stared with wide eyes at the scene before her, and nearly dropped her wand due to the pain she was feeling in Aeric’s body.
She finally felt the power in her wand grow to a crescendo. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to shout something like Lyric had, but she pointed the wand towards the minorats emerging from the tunnel and let the wand work its magic. The room was illuminated with a red light, the minorats’ shadows suddenly growing deep into the tunnel due to the angle of the light source.
Amos fell to his knees, and most of the minorats stopped moving for a moment. Aeric and Elsie were not affected by the spell. Behind her, Elsie heard Lyric giggling incoherently as if she had just seen something funny.
Aeric groaned and sat back with his legs beneath him. His sword arm was hanging limp by his side: any movement of that shoulder causing excruciating pain. His left arm was still strapped to the shield, but he managed to pick his sword off the ground in a loose, awkward grip. With the minorats not moving, he swiftly dispatched the two that he had been fighting with stabs to their throats.
Elsie ran over and grabbed her rented spear. She was about to step down the ramp when the shaman woke up. It muttered in its squeaky language, then lifted its staff and slammed it base-first onto the ground. A wave of force shot through the room, cracking wood, and shattering the bedroom window into so many shards of glass. The minorats quickly began recovering from the cognitive attack.
Amos finally recovered as well, discovering his two axes freshly summoned to his hands: he had finished summoning them just before the muddle spell hit. He launched forward a step and slammed both axes down on the closest foe, severing its spine in two places. Pulling the axes out, he spun and slashed one after another into the next minorat, who were only just beginning to be able to react.
The ramp was littered with enthralled minorat corpses: the entrance to the tunnel becoming clogged with their bodies. Amos looked up to see the shaman standing as the next available target. He threw one of his axes at it, but it once again evaporated into astral mist as it grew close to the beast. Whatever shield it had cast must still be in place. The shaman turned and fled into the tunnel. It was quickly out of sight behind a fresh horde of enemies.
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Lyric was humming to herself on the bed, giggling occasionally. Aeric was standing awkwardly with a shield strapped to his wrist and a sword he was barely able to hold. Elsie stood, her right arm also feeling an echo of numbness, but still able to hold onto the wand.
“We’re not ready for this,” Amos said as the rats formed up in a row a few feet down the tunnel. They could only fit two at a time now due to the clog of dead bodies. “I should have listened to Nadia.” He twisted his wrist around, making his remaining blue summoned axe twirl in a fancy circle, then grabbed it with both hands. “But if we’re going to die then I’m taking as many of these suckers down with me as I can.”
I can’t fight anymore, Elsie.
You can! We need to try using your nullification power.
But minorats are non-magical.
Minorats are, sure, but these are Enthralled. Just try. Do. Not. Give. Up!
Can’t you heal my shoulder?
I can try, but… it feels like the tip of the spear is still in there. I don’t know what would happen if I healed it like that. And plus I have no idea if I’d accidentally knock you out like I did with Lyric.
The closest two minorats charged, pointing spears towards their foes. Aeric raised his shield and swept it forward in a bash, while Amos parried one of the rat’s spears with his axe and then delivered a kick between its legs. The minorat staggered back, and Amos followed up with a large slice across its chest.
The rat that Aeric had bashed with his shield recovered faster than expected. It stabbed its spear into his leg, making both him and Elsie scream out in pain.
Elsie began channeling astra into the wand, once again. This time focusing on the spacetime aspect of Sylvan magic. She had no idea what the spell would do, but she could feel it as an option she could channel power into, and she knew she needed to do something to help.
Amos buried his axe in the neck of the minorat that was currently drilling a spear into Aeric’s thigh. The rat fell backward, its weight pulling its spear out as it fell.
“I can’t… I can’t do this,” Aeric said, out of breath. His thigh was throbbing in pain. His twinborn sister responded mentally, as they were able to communicate faster through thoughts than with spoken words.
Your nullification power, Aeric!
I don’t know how to use it.
I know you can do it. Remember how you traced the astra from yourself to the castle’s power, then back up to the shower. That’s how you turned off my water.
Aeric tried to reach out a path to the leyline, but the next set of foes was upon them. The two minorats tried to spread out to attack Aeric from both sides, having identified him as the weak link in their defense. The one that drew closer to Amos discovered its fatal mistake all too late as it suddenly found itself with an axe deep in its brain from an overhead two-handed swing.
The other minorat stabbed its spear forward, but Aeric managed to knock it out of the way with his shield. He swung his left leg forward in a wide arc, sweeping the legs of the bipedal rat out from under it. His shoulder throbbed in agony at the motion.
Elsie’s spell was ready, and with no idea what she was about to do, she released the spell from the wand. A light pink shimmer formed around the three standing party members. It reminded Elsie of the way air warps in the heat.
They all felt something change. As Aeric watched, the rat in front of him stumbled to the ground in slow motion. He looked to Amos and saw him staring wide-eyed at the scene as well.
“What spell did you just cast?” He asked Elsie.
“I have no idea. But if it helps then use it while you can,” she said. “Focus on your nullification power, Aeric!”
Aeric immediately began focusing on his astral connection. He traced it to the leyline below the river, then tried to comprehend everything he was feeling. The leyline coursed so powerfully towards the direction of the castle. He felt like his consciousness was being swept away with the powerful pulses he felt.
He pushed back against it, and tried to feel the other connections to the leyline. There were so many to choose from: dozens pointed back towards the watermill, and then through the tunnel to the farmhouse.
Following one with his sense, he felt the connection arrive at a mesh of astral energy. He examined it, trying to understand what it was, but couldn’t tell what he was looking at. In front of him were two more rats charging in slow motion with spears leveled towards the humans. He made eye contact with one of the rats and knew that his eyes and his trace sense were examining the same individual.
He reached out with his power and pressed on the mesh. The strand of astra connecting it to the leyline thinned. He watched the minorat closest to him slowly begin to stumble over its own feet as it felt an abrupt and unexpected weakening sense from its source of power. Aeric pressed harder, and the connection thinned out even more. The enthralled minorat tripped over its own feet.
Aeric saw that he still had a few seconds before the rats would arrive, so he tried to bring his mind back to the leyline to try identifying the other minorat. He picked another strand at random and followed it, having no ability to tell which strands would lead to the foes charging towards the ramp.
This one didn’t go towards the watermill or the tunnel after all, but instead felt like it terminated in the river itself. When Aeric’s sense brushed up against the mesh at the end of the connection he felt the mind at the end of it flinch at his touch.
A sense of surprise coursed through the connection back to him. It was followed by a feeling so full of raw power that Aeric broke off the connection instantly.
Amos and Elsie had not been standing idly by. Amos had restored his second throwing axe in only a quarter of the time it normally took him. Making use of the enhanced speed, Elsie had dashed over to the window and retrieved her rental spear.
Not wanting a repeat of what happened when she threw a wand during her class selection trial, she jammed the Sylvan wand into her top, having no pockets on her current outfit. Elsie was back in position the moment she felt the overwhelming power that her brother’s trace sense had encountered.
The minorats were moving increasingly faster, though still slower than normal speed. Amos stepped forward, easily batting away the nearest minorat’s spear with one axe and chopping into its chest with the other.
Elsie stabbed her longer spear forward, stabbing the beast that her brother had mentally tripped.
Time finally resumed moving at the same pace for everyone. To the three members of the party participating in the battle, it felt as if they were suddenly trying to move through water: a whiplash effect from the haste spell.
The Enthralled in the tunnel paused. They had just borne witness to the humans moving almost faster than their eyes could see. The fact that the humans now seemed sluggish was an oddity to them that did not register in their brains.
“It’s coming,” Aeric said weakly.
“What is?” Amos asked.
“Something from the river,” Elsie replied. “Something angry.”
Before the two closest minorats could attack, a loud crashing sound erupted from far down the tunnel. Shrieks and wails immediately followed with the loud rushing sound growing louder. The foes closest to the ramp risked their lives to turn and peer into the darkness of the tunnel as the sounds grew louder.
A crash of water suddenly erupted from the tunnel, carrying so many minorats with it up into the room. Amos and Elsie jumped back up the ramp, but Aeric was unable to avoid the water, being crushed beneath the water and bodies of the fallen. Lyric’s mattress was on the floor, but the water stopped its surge before she was plunged beneath its depths.
The flood surge reversed. Water began draining back into the tunnel, taking minorats and Aeric along with it. Lyric’s bed flowed towards the ramp, but Amos moved to physically block it from flowing down with the receding water.
“Aeric!” Elsie screamed. She tossed her spear to the side and dove into the churning water. She struggled against the mass of bodies as she waved her arms around. She thought she knew where her brother was, due to being able to feel his body, but the water was rough and there were so many beasts either scrambling or floating around.
The minorat closest to her suddenly disappeared under the surface. The white, churning water became dyed red. Elsie ignored it, striving to get closer to where she could feel her twinborn body.
A struggling minorat grasped onto her with its clawed hands in an attempt to stabilize itself. Two gray arms reached out of the water and pulled the furry creature off of her. The minorats claws tore into her shirt and dug into her flesh as it was pulled away, shrieking. Elsie ignored the pain and continued searching for Aeric.
Feeling her brother being carried with the current deeper into the dark tunnel, she kicked off the wall, face first into the bloody water. As she swam towards him she felt through his dimming senses that his shield was caught against the wall of the tunnel, preventing him from being swept further away.
She finally reached her brother. He was still under water, flailing along almost lifelessly. Just before he ran out of breath the water level in the tunnel dropped enough that they could both breathe again. She threw her arms around Aeric as water streamed around them, refusing to let the rushing current pull him away again. His shoulder ached in pain at her touch.
A slender humanoid shape swam up to her under the water that was still at chest height. It reached up with the same two gray arms as before and put both Aeric and Elsie in a muscled bearhug. Without warning it dragged both of them underwater.
Elsie opened her mouth as if to scream, and was given a mouthful of bitter salt and iron flavored water instead. Elsie thought it was taking them into the tunnel at first, until she found herself being unceremoniously dropped onto the floor next to Lyric. Aeric was placed closer to the door.
He immediately began coughing out water onto the ground. Elsie could feel his pain from his shoulder and thigh injuries. She crawled towards him and tried to reposition him so he’d be in less pain.
The creature stood at the edge of the water, watching it retreat back into the tunnel. He was taller than a normal human, with pale grayish-bluish skin that looked tight like a diving suit. He wore no clothing, though Elsie didn't see anything that would have made her embarrassed.
His face was longer than a human’s would be. A small shark tail was protruding from the back of his head as if it was his hairstyle, with two side fins coming out each side of his head. The top part of his forehead protruded slightly like the snout of a shark as well. His legs and forearms had red-colored fins coming out in curved arcs.
Elsie was reminded of the set of magic armor she had seen through Aeric’s eyes in Tailor Taylor’s shop. In this case though there were no seams where the magic armor would have had them. It appeared to just be the creature's body itself.
Elsie pulled the wand from her shirt and pointed it towards the beast, not sure what to do. Amos on the other hand lowered his weapons in surprise when he saw the shark-man.
“Professor Nidus?” Amos said incredulously.
The Firefin professor spat a bloody wad of minorat fur towards the tunnel, then turned to the students and gave an award winning smile with a thumbs up. His sharp teeth glinted momentarily in the morning sunlight streaming into the bedroom. The effect was slightly ruined by the blood streaming down his chin.
Lyric giggled so hard that she rolled off the mattress and onto her face.