Two days is not much time, not when a would-be hermit has three hundred people in their care.
Ulric was overseeing the packing for the newly minted Xefoti, the People of the Glade. Ulric Einar, engineer, recluse, and generally unsociable asshole, had people. He wanted to run away, but his parents had worked too hard to instill a sense of decency into him. These scarred and valiant souls were now His Responsibility. Ulric was a man who took his responsibilities seriously. He considered it a character flaw at this point.
"Bastard!" the Jarltyn Valin Engineer yelled, and brought his strength to bear, straining against the anchors driven deeply to keep his hide teepee from being flung skyward by the typhoon of recent days.
Muscles taut, Ulric tore the meter long stake from the ground and abruptly toppled to the ground, the sudden release of the earth's hold unbalanced against the force of his pull. From his new throne of sandy dirt, he entertained the fantasy of burning the teepee, and much of the surrounding forest to the ground. Only briefly, he was still too enamored of there being real forests in this strange new world, forests that were myth by the time of his birth, fairy tales of a world gone before his birth.
"Very good Glade Chief! Curse your enemies as you ply your might against them!" Taipan cheered from beside the cook pot she was stirring.
She'd been in a good mood since they'd returned from the Great Diplomacy of a few days past. Apparently, she considered the recognition of a fellow Lord, even a foreign Otherkin that was only recently an outright enemy, if not still completely an ally, to be tidings that Ulric's prospects were rising. As his Shadow, a self-appointed title by this point, their marriage having dissolved the Iriel'en legal binding of that indenture, her priority was advancing his interests however she might. Typically that included things like curtailing the attempts of rivals to spy on the household and, sometimes, to assassinate one that could not be goaded into open confrontation who nevertheless was conducting their own campaign of hostilities from less than strictly honorable angles.
The eclectic smattering of Elves, Beastkin, and Valin which were now calling themselves Xefoti, coupled with being recognized by not only the Iriel'en but also by a major Barony of Prespang, meant he was sort of "official". Ulric was still in the dark about all the implications of such things, graduate school hadn't covered how to be a King. Chief lab monkey, maybe, but not a leader of peoples, especially given that most of them weren't human beings.
To Taipan, that meant that her grand duty, her purpose, was being fulfilled at a satisfactory rate. In celebration, she was giving him shit nearly constantly. He didn't know why her being happy meant he had to endure the flagellation of being ribbed about nearly everything he did, but she was a Taipan.
"Come here, dearest Shadow. I think you ought to take a closer look at this stake, just to make sure it is sound." Ulric said innocently, hoping to lure her in for a solid bopping.
Smirking at his vain attempt, she remained where she was, feigning business by way of even more vigorous stirring of a stew that had already cooked down to almost uniform meat broth.
"Verrockt frau, raggenfraggin elf furkin…" He trailed off, damning Elves, women, and Elf women most particularly under his voice.
It was done though, the last support stake was pulled, which meant he could bundle away the shelter and tie it to his travel backpack. They were ready to travel, ready to make their appointment with the Baron of Kistalfer, with all the Xefoti under his protection in tow.
Ulric was nervous. This was different than merely taking the Elves through the uninhabited highlands of Prespang. They were going to enter a City-State, a walled fortress town of probably no less than fifty thousand citizens of a nation that had, until about thirty-six hours ago, been at war with the Elves of Orlethrem and were no friends to the rebellious elements of Kistalfer and surrounding lands that had essentially seceded from Prosper's Empire. If things went bad, Ulric was going to find himself having to make the choice to let his adopted stray persons be harmed or maybe kill a city to keep them safe.
Surprisingly enough, he already had his mind made up on that count: to keep these Xefoti safe, Ulric Einar would murder a city. He wouldn't enjoy it, but he could feel the whisper of the Lord Instinct in the back of his head rousing to defend its feodaries. Ulric was more accommodating towards this instinctive protective urge compared to the savage desire to slay challengers to his authority, but he still didn't like having so intense a bundle of urges buried in his psyche. The Akashic connection didn't appear to give a shit what he thought about it though, while he was still bound to the [Plateau of Ancients] he gained the strength of that connection and its accompanying drives.
The last tie cinched tight, Ulric considered the milling crowd of mixed races. Former Prespangers, the countrymen of this land, natives of the surrounding City-States, stood beside Elves. To his great surprise there had been no strife, no backbiting, and no hard feelings. He couldn't explain that outcome, not with his readings of history from Old Earth. There should have been grudges. There should have been racism. There should have been at least a couple of infractions that needed him to intercede and lay down the law.
Instead, the former Orlethrem had accepted the newbies like they'd been walking across the highlands together all along. For their part, the one-time residents of the Empire had been at first astonished by, and then bemused by the reality that was the Elves. The only Elves any of them had ever encountered were those enslaved, ruled by a slave collar that suppressed their personalities to the desires of whoever held the bond of the collar, evil fucking working that that was to Ulric. In spite of that, there was no undercurrent of disdain for the Elves as a "slave class". Honestly? He couldn't explain it, and, when he couldn't explain something with his own reasoning or evidence from his frequently depressing hobby of exploring the vast waste land that was ancient human society's persecution of itself, he turned to his partner for wisdom.
"Taipan?" Ulric called, slapping the dust and sand from his britches.
"Yes, Ulric Glade Chief." replied the crouching Amazon from her cookpot.
"Why hasn't there been any conflict or friction between the Aes'r and the Prespanger freemen? I was expecting at least a little bit of issue getting them together." Ulric asked, voicing his misgivings.
The deceitfully placid expression on his mate's face held suppressed mirth, he could tell by the way her lips tightened against her teeth, trying not to give away a smile. She was going to say something she thought was amusing now, Ulric predicted.
"Because I told them you would kill whoever introduced war to the peace of the glade." She answered.
He stared at the bewitching lass, with her buxom form, legs a gymnast would kill for, and exotic Elven features. Those details slid into the background of her impression on him, lacking the almost tangible impact on him that she'd had when they'd first met. Now he saw the woman for her true self, behind the physical perfection: a roguish scallywag hiding behind façade of dignity.
"I see. And you decided not to tell me this why?" He inquired, the question dragged from him by sheer morbid curiosity.
"You would have lost your temper and killed any that committed an offence worthy of killing, Ulric, I do not have to tell you to do this thing. It is one of your better traits, that savage fury that comes on you when you are truly aggrieved." Taipan praised again.
He didn't quite know how to take that. He wasn't that…murdery was he?
Flashes of memory played through his mind. Of a Lordling stepping too far, broken against the floor of Irielhos. Of would be slavers walking into an ambush of shredding magic, having plotted to murder him and take his Taipan for slavery. Of Bartala, her Magister, her Baron, the thugs he'd hired for bodyguards, and making explosives to detonate her port, sending its docks to the sea floor. Of blasting piers and ships with [Stormfire] to kill the Magisters aboard them.
Okay, he admitted to himself. Perhaps she did have a point.
"I do not have anger issues." Ulric tried denial.
After all, to his reasoning, he didn't have anger issues, what he had was a coping mechanism for surviving in a brutal, harsh, unrestrained-
"Of course not! There is no issue to send lightning and flame to your enemies, or to parade their defeated Captains upon a standard through your encampment. This is all that may be expected for those who would challenge your strength or stand against you. Father has destroyed more than a few who thought themselves his worthy foes. Wrongly thought it, as it happened." Taipan agreed, interrupting his train of thought.
That comparison put things into perspective for him rather abruptly. Who could complain about being held in the same light as that great man? Elf. Whatever.
"Just so we're clear." Ulric confirmed, accepting this small piece of insanity into his paradigm.
Sometimes adapting just means not sweating the small stuff. At this point, a singular killing of some deserving fucker was small stuff. What a godsdamned year it had been.
"Are we ready, you think?" He asked, too quietly for even sensitive Aes'r hearing to pick up.
In answer Taipan patted the low, wide, stone bench next to her, one of Ulric's contributions to the cause, making [Stone Wall] seating. He left his pack where he'd finalized its configuration, so he didn't have something to paw over and show his nerves. A leader of men shouldn't be seen to be nervous, because it makes everybody else nervous.
He lowered himself to join his partner, who handed him a bowl of steaming stew to occupy his hands, then flicked him in the forehead sharply.
"Ouch! But why?" Ulric complained, unable to retort without wasting food.
Taipan leaned into him to share her soft warmth whispering, "Because you think too much on what may yet be's. We know the risks and the challenges, what can be done has been done. To dwell on ghosts of the future does nothing but divert our focus from the tasks of the now, stealing strength to face the trials."
Fair enough. She had the right of it. It was a habit of his to brood, a remnant of the bad old days that he tried to shake. Picking up more and more to take care of tended to bring those neuroses to the fore. He didn't tell her so, mostly because they were familiar with each other well enough by now that he knew that she knew that he knew that she knew. Relationships were odd.
Ulric took a long hit off the rich stew and chewed slowly, enjoying the savory flavours. Live in the now, Ulric, he chided gently. Ride the wave. That was easier to do when the now included a molten hot Elf woman who showed you her special smile, that one reserved just for the two of you, from time to time. He'd gotten to see it that morning and he would carry the momentum of that small pleasure for a good while yet.
When the bowl was empty, not very many minutes later, Ulric figured that they ought to be getting this carnival on the move. Taipan had finished breakfast an hour ago, while he made rounds. Most of the village had completed their preparations not very long after the Twins broke above the treetops, with only a few stragglers left, and a few hunters scouring the woods for a few last minute game acquisitions left to return. The rough shelters stood proud, the green wall a declaration that a people had made this place into a respite, which was the name Ulric gave to this place in his mind.
It was a shame to leave the safety of Respite, after so much effort had gone into it, but then, Roman armies on the march had dug fortified camps and created palisades wherever they marched on campaign. It was a similar idea, stiffening up the defenses of the budding village. Some places were too dangerous to be caught sleeping absent fortification. Nearly all of Varda fell under that category.
"Alright then." Ulric announced, stuffing the bowl into his pack before hefting it to rest against his back, straps tightened, the bulging thing almost comical for its size.
A burden so large would have been impossible for him to walk with, let alone ruck across many kilometers, in the Before. Yet another reason to remember to be grateful for this new life. For all its trials.
Like a wave rippling outward from a pond, the other travelers shouldered their traveling bags, hefted their walking sticks, balanced on crutches, or secured themselves upon the wagons they were forced to sit, crippled as they were. Those with weapons checked them one last time. Whistles trilled from many fingers raised to many lips, a singular piercing sound to call the remaining hunters in. They trickled in over a few minutes and Ulric now stood with a little over three hundred of those who had cast their lots with his, all prepared to make way to Kistalfer, to find what fate had in store for them there. A welcome? A battle? A short stay before a voyage to safe waters? None of them knew, but all of them believed that Ulric Einar would see them through to the end.
It was a hell of a thing to lay on a man, he decided, suddenly very glad that he had Taipan at his side to help share the load. On his own, he was simply unfit to lead a multitude.
"We go!" Ulric called simply, and strode from the arched woven gateway of Respite, into the surrounding forest.
His Wife trailed, stepping in his shadow, as her role required, and, a respectful distance behind, came the Xefoti, the people who now saw his Ancient Glade as their bastion, the place they would one day call home. Hopefully they'd build their houses on the opposite end of it, far from his burned out, hand tool carved "cave" in the side of the trunk of that same fallen [Godtree] that had broken the plateau's canopy and made the glade. Ulric liked his privacy. He liked reading from his library too. Maybe he'd have the young Germen Mage help him grow a spiraling wizard's tower made from the ancient trunk of the [Godtree].
Ulric's roaming, aimless thoughts came to an end as they stepped away from the relative safety of the enclosed Respite. Things stalked these woods, predators preying on other predators, and things that only a lunatic would call prey fought back with equal brutality against their would be hunters.
The Elves on the wagons now wielded longbows and crossbows, courtesy of the reprieve from travel granted by their short stay in Respite. Many of the staves were magicked up by Brodin, who had a trick for causing the wood grain to twist, becoming far more potent than would otherwise be possible amongst the types of Trees available in this coastal woodland. He'd also dried them at an accelerated rate, so the mature staves would last as long as those made from aged stock, preventing warping or cracking. The freckled mage with the boyish face had proven himself an incredibly useful lad to have around. As a result, the wagons were, more or less, mobile artillery strongpoints, hauled behind their draft animals.
Around him roved out the Elves healthy enough to act as outriders, scouting the forest about a half kilometer out, forming a diffuse web of archers that would deter predators, cover their flanks, and pathfind the best, most even ground for the wagons to traverse. Taipan departed from his side almost as soon as they were completely enclosed by the shrouded light of the forest, ghosting around about ten kilometers ahead to clear the way and ensure they did not walk into something dangerous. Ulric's role was to simply walk through the wood looking calm and collected, while he prayed to anything that would listen that there would be no more [Cloud Leopards] or other monstrosities in the neighborhood to try to eat anybody.
It was thusly that the motley assortment of individuals banded together under his protection made way through Kistalfer forest. They traveled quietly. They held themselves at attention, ready to receive and repel any threat that might present. In spite of the relative slowness of the loaded wagons, Ulric had no complaint about the rate of their progress. It was midmorning when they rolled past the general vicinity of the burned out freemen village. It was just past Midsunset when they came to the edge of the forest, to enter the coastal plains that marked a bare thirty kilometers to Kistalfer.
Ulric judged that they would arrive with an hour of daylight remaining, the pace of the wagons was greatly improved for not having to wind around trees and the plains had almost no barrier to travel, being, by this point, mostly solid in substrate. The regular showers coming off of the Vatyn could not saturate the ground through the rapid pull of the greenery, transpiring the water into thirsty roots and out from lush foliage. What didn't get pulled in by the abundant verdure passed relatively rapidly through the loamy, sandy soil, making its way to several nearby marshes.
According to the locals, there was an area nearby that sounded very suspiciously like the vast wetland Ulric had read about called the Everglades, back before the ice caps melting had submerged the area completely.
Ulric wanted exactly zero part of trying to pass this horde through a giant swamp full of murky, muddy, water, obscured by dense, four meter tall reed thickets dozens of square kilometers in size, interspersed by some kind of metallic bamboo called [Singing Cane]. It was said listening to the winds passing through the [Singing Cane] groves was a once in a lifetime experience. Mostly because you didn't survive to see it a second time.
Taipan completed her diligence about the time the caravan reached the site where potent poison and a horribly efficient use of his [Skyshield] had killed a hundred something soldiers from Kistalfer's garrison.
The small depression was emptied of bodies and their equipment and, aside from the evidence of wagons loaded heavy and the tromp of many feet, you wouldn't have known there had been any army here at all. Ulric couldn't really be sad about the deaths, not knowing what those men would have done to these he led had there Captain discovered the former Orlethrem. She'd have wiped them out on principle, if they were lucky enough not to be shipped to some location for more attempts to create the Bane.
Ulric wasn't so optimistic that he believed he and Taipan had found the only two locations where that particular project was ongoing. Nothing for it though, his plate was goddamned full enough already.
"What do you think we'll find in there?" he broke the comfortable silence between himself and the not quite prowling Elf at his side.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
She turned those brilliant emerald eyes on him, the metallic bronze flecks within their irises glimmering in the late afternoon light. So intense, so focused was Taipan. It was one of her more attractive traits. The other one she now displayed, not answering straight away but instead thoughtfully examining his question.
Eventually, the lovely profile of her calculating was broken by her reaching a conclusion.
"I believe that the Baron is in good faith." Taipan decided.
"I cannot be certain of anything, not with Otherkin, but I have the sense that this Valin is not without honor, even for an enemy of my people." She continued, reluctant to offer a word of favor but unwilling to let her dislike for her brother's killers taint her evaluation before her Honor.
"His house has a reputation for valor, his father's father, and the sire before him all ruled with strength and fairness, from what we know of them, for we Iriel'en keep track of the ruling Baronies, their strengths and dispositions. This latest in the line of Kistalfer has only ruled a short twenty years, but we have found no indication that he differs substantially from his forefathers. His willingness to slay a Magister and fly their bloody robes openly speaks greatly for his commitment to his word." Taipan summarized.
In her eyes, deeds were worth far more than words and a ruler who discovers the sort of treachery against them that had been perpetrated by Prosper's deception had only one response. In this, she knew Ulric was in agreement. It was also hard to imagine what good the Baron would have from inviting three hundred something enemies within his walls under the guise of alliance, or at least neutrality, only to betray them and risk a battle within the township. Especially when they knew that Ulric was not a minor mage and she was well known as a slayer of Prosper's agents.
Ulric took a great deal of comfort in that evaluation, let some of the tension in his shoulders drain, but not all. They had been over this already but he couldn't help but be on guard. History of Earth had been rife with subtle plays and betrayals to eliminate rivals. Things were different here, too many peoples running about who lived long and held long memories for liars to hold much influence, but still. Dead men tell no tales.
Enough, he clamped down on the negative thoughts. Taipan has made her case, take the word of those you trust or don't waste their time asking.
He fell back into silence, refusing to permit any more of the nagging worries to find purchase in this thoughts. It was an exercise of discipline. He turned from the unproductive to matters far more interesting and far more useful for his time: magic.
Ulric's two month crossing of the plains had been much like his time spent cowering inside his shelter during the rainy season back in the Ancient Glade: alternately boring and extremely vigilant, lonely, and largely spent considering how to manipulate the flows of power that were at his beck and call. Only now, he had the benefit of the training given him by the Dragons of Iriel, each potent in her own way, and the instruction of Gother Cenur'it on top of that.
Gother's lessons were a grinding stone, polishing his approaches, adding layers of efficiency and complexity to his spellwork. It was thanks to that incredible wellspring of wizarding technique that Ulric had been able to branch into weaving multiple elemental forms, creating new spells of incredible potency, compared to his initial run of elemental magics. [Vortex Flare] was one of those hypotheticals, now born out as reality. [Winter's Breath] was another.
The Reforged man, once so lost in his prior life, was starting to get a feel for how this whole wizard thing worked, especially since he'd managed to figure out the [Arcanite Diamond]. That kind of incredibly precise, utterly pristine manipulation of power had sort of elevated him to a new level of the craft. The growth of his classes was contributing greatly to this rapid advancement as well, if in slightly spooky and not entirely understood fashion.
What he lacked, what he very much needed, was a way to create separation between himself and very fast enemies, monsters that could close with him too quickly for him to readily utilize his core's greatest strengths. The [Cloud Leopard] was a serious problem for him. So had been the flickering steps that had so effectively been deployed against him by that would be Praetorian of Prosper's Merchant Lords. Had not he been able to use [Surge] to elevate his ability to move and perceive it was very likely he'd have been badly wounded or killed by those disorienting changes in position, coupled with that solar lance.
But how to do it? Ulric had two defensively oriented abilities tied to his class. [Maxwell's Parry] which applied a charge to a striking weapon, which, when he matched it with his own weapon or armor, let him magnetically deflect attacks. The other was [Inpulsa Soak] using an electromagnetic field to bleed an enemy's attack into heat, like dropping a powerful magnet against a copper plate, coupled to an induction heater. Both of these only worked against a conductive weapon. Natural bone or wood or the like were immune to his abilities. Given that monsters like that burrowing Greater Beast were running around, Ulric needed something more generally effective.
Of course, if he laid hands to it, Ulric could always use [Voltaic Grip] to give it the [Forest Lord] treatment. He was, if he was willing to let the enemy get within hands reach, fully capable of lethality with his very first working. He'd rather not let the sorts of things he'd encountered since leaving the [Plateau of Ancients] get close to him, however. Nor men like the Baron of Kistalfer or his former garrison Captain.
Tricky. How to deter an aggressive enemy that had him within its sights? Terra was an option, disrupt their footing, as he'd done to the Svartalfin juggernaut of an assassin, only he'd used [Skyshields] and the momentum of that enemy's momentum against him in that case. It was a sound tactic, Idra was a great believer in disrupting the enemy's footing and if that Elf thought it was a good idea, then it damned well was. Idra'se was one of the most elite fighters that lived, so far as Ulric knew.
Hmm…use Terra to soften the ground beneath feet? Sort of a rapid deployment set of foot traps? He could turn the soil porous and brittle, create small voids that would permit the stepping weight to break through a thin shell, almost impossible to notice, which would break ankles or, at least, seriously hinder the attacker for a moment or two, frequently the difference between Ulric being able to blast his assailant and being on the receiving end of their attack. It had merits. But it also had problems. Firstly, it was a gambit that assumed that Ulric knew what kind of semi magical bullshit the opponent was going to employ and that pushing them off balance would stop that attack while they were coming close. Not a guarantee. Secondly it was slow, Terra didn't happen quickly, not compared to how fast some of the assholes he'd had to deal with moved.
There was also the slight problem in that some of them could fly, such as Captain Firecracker, or that Vapormeister from Port Edunshire. There were also eagle things that could swoop in and carry off a man without trouble. Or cut a seasoned Iriel'en hunter apart in a fleeting moment with blade like wing feathers.
New plan, the ground was too situational. Great when where it was effective but worse than useless when it wasn't. Problem was, once he was in their sight, too many classes had some kind of sneaky way to attack from distance.
Wait! That was it! Sight was the weakness. Taipan's true strength came from her ability to move silently, and, above all, unseen. She was an absolutely unholy terror at night. Ulric needed to target his adversaries where they were weakest, their eyes. He thought about that trend way back when, when sociopaths would shine high power lasers at planes flying above, hoping to murder hundreds by blinding the pilots, for reasons that defied Ulric's ability to interpret complete lack of empathy.
His mind turned to less than lethals employed to quell riots. Those had sprung up frequently during the unrests immediately preceding the Collapse. Before they were consumed by the fires of mass revolt and civil unrest, more or less justified by about a century of gross neglect, mismanagement, graft, and intentional, government sanctioned cruelty with the purpose of keeping a populace too tired, sick, ignorant, and poor to resist their own soft enslavement, the governments had deployed flat-bed trucks with massive lamp banks. The LED lamps flashed a rapidly oscillating, isochronous pattern that was designed by talented neurologists to interfere with balance, perception, and to rapidly inflict temporary blindness. The strobe lights patterned to overload neural systems and also inflict extreme nausea.
Against a civilian populace they were incredibly effective at controlling large crowds, right up until that crowd began throwing rocks at the lamps from behind those at the front and then lynching the operators from the nearest street light.
At its most effective, the strobe pattern should include different colors at wide ranges across the visual spectrum, deep red, green to hit the middle of the spectrum, and intense blue or violet. Those widely variant spectral ranges should then utilize a seven to fifteen oscillations per second frequency, to maximally overwhelm the brain's ability to process the information and adding phase shifts to cycle the pattern spatially would then give the strobe a moving effect, which destroyed the sense of balance and proprioreception. Flicker vertigo, or the Bucha effect, named for the man who discovered it, not knowing that his contribution to humanity would immediately be weaponized against it, was, more or less, using the brain's neurochemistry to short circuit it. Because of the hard limits for neural processing times and optical nerve input, it represents an almost undefeatable attack on the wetware of a living being.
Ulric had once considered creating a pattern of arc snaps or buzzes to confuse the sonic echolocation of batlike monsters called [Bloodfangs]. Now, it seems, he had reason to deploy a variant of that technique against the visual hunters.
Could he do it? Ulric wondered, and set his core's energy to cycling. Ceraun flowed and moved to his will and Ulric had, at a thought, a steady fifteen Hertz pulse racing through his mana network. The color would be the hard part, he'd have to generate very specific amplitudes of discharge to emit the exact wavelength of light that was needed for each of the three colors. He never imagined he'd need to use magic to reproduce an LED but here he was.
Hmm…how to do it? Normally, the LED would rely on a doped semiconductor, the metal dope chosen to predominantly excite low orbital electrons at a relatively mild voltage, the wider the conduction band of the doped semiconductor to the metallic first to third energy shell orbitals, the lower the frequency and thus longer the wave of light generated. If Ulric didn't have the doped semiconductor he'd have to use Varda's air and an incredibly precise control of Ceraun, at three different voltages to hit the right wavelengths. He might also have to use Aquae, in order to use the moisture in the air as a prism or lens to direct the light in the intended direction, his strobe would be useless if it assaulted him as well.
[White Interference]
With a minor effort Ulric convinced his lightning mana to combine its naturally separate poles to unite, cancelling one another to produce unaspected white mana. The mutable essence of magic responded to his will, inflecting towards the harmonics controlling water. With a raised hand to help focus his concept, the former engineer envisioned a not quite sphere of air with dense collections of water vapor on its back side, sort of like an eyeball shape with the "retina" a dense fog of droplets held by his magic. The front side water he gripped with his core's aetheric control and pushed into a thin lens, similar to a cornea. The use of a biological analogue to what he wanted sharpened his focus considerably, and, turning loose the magic to follow the construct he'd woven, a hazy ball appeared above his hand, its purpose to gather the light within and concentrate it forwards, protecting the caster from the effects of the paralyzing sickness he planned it to inflict.
It was difficult to hold one not quite complete spellform in place while working another, but he was working Ceraun itself now, a task that was not for the core evolved toward that purpose. Pulses of electrical discharge flared, bright white as he started intentionally too energetic, the discharges bouncing from one side of the sphere to another, according to the loci of positive and negative he had dispersed across the sides of the water ball.
Ulric slowly brought down the strength of his mana, lessening the intensity of the brilliant arcs. White turned to violet and Ulric memorized the feel, the flow of magic, before continuing to gradually lessen the intensity of the arcs. Violet faded to indigo, to blue, toward green and Ulric latched onto the sensation of creating deeply green light in the late spring evening air. Faster now, the reforged continued weakening the discharges until he produced a vibrant crimson flash, pulsing with his core's frequency.
Now! Ulric thought, holding the feeling of each flash of light, he alternated the arcs between each of the three colors, producing a flash of dispersed light from behind his dense fog of the water sphere, its frontal lens directing the light forwards. Ulric ramped his core to cycle faster, blue, green, red, in sequence, accelerating it until the faint remnants of the light pulsing from his working became vaguely sickening to observe.
A dobermen sized mammal, faintly jackal in form with webbed skin between its arms and body, enabling it to glide silently before sinking its long recurved fangs and hooked frontal claws into prey, fell from the branches of small wind twisted tree on the same rise from which he and Taipan had launched their attack on the garrison troops, sixteen meters away, hitting the dirt with a muted thud and the creature staggered drunkenly, retching loudly as it failed to orient and escape the vicious assault on its sensitive eyes.
*PING*
image [https://imgur.com/JrVZiVS.png]
Ulric was starting a crow of victory when he was struck, most ungently, in the back of the head with a bowstave, and his loving Elven wife, hissed, "Cease that horrific thing at once, you worms in the head Valin mule!"
A few peoples nearby were simultaneously staggering to vomit their breakfasts, before slumping to the ground groaning and cursing. Many of them were glaring in his direction, still not satisfied, even after his unceremonious and well-earned chastisement.
Oops.
The spell fell apart, its effects ending immediately without his core feeding the energies to the construct and the movements of the air dissipated the fog and lens both, the water rejoining the local atmosphere from which it had been drawn.
Turning his head to look at his partner, who looked like she might be readying a follow up stroke with her bow, he waved his hands in a mild panic, crying "Stop! Wait! Sorry! It's gone it's gone, lay off with that thing, Odin's balls!" to prevent another whomping.
Taipan leveled a cooly considering look upon him, unknowable Elf thoughts running in her foreign mind. Whatever calculus went on, it came to an inevitable end. Dipping her chin in a single nod of decision, she whacked him decisively again.
*Thud*
"Fuck! Okay, damnit, that hurts!" Ulric whined.
She was getting more violent these days. If he wasn't careful she'd start following in her mother's footsteps and use her belt knife to make her case for keeping him in discipline. What would Bald'rt do? Should he strobe her and run? Ulric gave it serious consideration but decided he would rather live. Still, the second strike required an answer, or she'd believe he would accept such in the future. Boundaries had to be drawn with Taipan, in no uncertain terms.
"Dropped your pocket, lass." He told his mate, whom he loved dearly, quite against his own natural disposition, forming the inescapable forefinger and thumb at waist height.
Hunter's instincts followed the motion and she looked into the ring for a second before scowling, opening her mouth to object when he placed the opposite hand he'd reached towards her, the movement covered by the deception of his ultimate technique to take hold of her shoulder. She looked at the muscle clamped unforgivingly to her deltoid and he took her hand in with his other paw.
"What do you thin-" She started to ask.
[Voltaic Grip]
He made certain to put some oomph into it, just enough to put her dick in the dirt. Metaphorically speaking, of course. His Shadow dropped, muscles seized, back arched, and she twitched a few moments in the grass before the rolling arcs of residual lightning left her gasping for air.
Ulric frowned down at his mate, letting her know that he was not well pleased with her and he waited for her to stop squirming.
"The second strike was too much?" She asked after a few moments, looking up at him from her repose.
"The second strike was too much." He confirmed, before offering his hand to assist her to her feet.
She took his olive branch, and he pulled her to stand, slightly unsteady. From experience, Ulric now knew precisely how much mana it took to take the wind from her sails. She was a fantastic specimen of Elven physique, but electricity was a hell of a thing on living creatures.
He let her find her balance and rubbed his head, the two knots raising from her blows and just a bit of blood indicating that she'd broken the skin of his scalp. Once he would live with, being bitten was part of the price of handling venomous serpents. Twice, and he would not sit idle, he would not tolerate her thinking him passive. Theirs was a dance, two headstrong individuals orbiting one another's oddities, locked together in spite of their differences.
In a way, this was a habit that she had picked up, not from her Mother, Vedyr, but from her Father, Bald'rt. That one strove to find whatever boundaries there were and would explore relentlessly to know what was acceptable and what was not. It was why his Wives worked hard to restrain his worst impulses at court, before he could be allowed to thoroughly aggravate whatever visiting dignitaries or supplicants that arrived. Taipan, when she was not being all cool dignity, tended to favor her father in this way. Unfortunately.
Now that both parties were square, Ulric gave the assembled entourage a brief inspection, to see that no great harm was done. Other than the last traces of breakfast being spilled, there was none. He noted it, the effects of the spell were not as long lasting as was documented in his histories, the robust constitutions of the peoples of Varda being less prone to vulnerability, even if they could not resist the initial burst of vertigo and flash blindness. He judged the spell to be able to buy him about three seconds unmolested against the Baron. Maybe half that, at worst. It would have to be enough, should things ever come to that.
It was important that one knew the effectiveness of one's weapons, especially when those were not directly able to inflict harm. The crowd control spellwork was worth its mana cost, not because it caused real damage but because it bought him time, and with time came space, and initiative. Not to mention, once blinded by his working, an enemy would be hesitant to direct their full attention on him, lest they be given a second taste of the strobe. His spell sowed doubt in the enemy, and that was well worth the cost to his magical reserves.
"How bad was it?" Ulric checked, directing that question broadly to the surrounding Aes'r, Jormund, and Valin.
He received multiple hand signs for "terrible" from the Elves, whose sensitive eyes and careful balance had not enjoyed at all the treatment. Lesser agreement came from the Humans and Beastkin, who had been disabled temporarily but not altogether shut down like their long-lived comrades. So…particularly effective against those with the best vision, not like that was a surprise. He figured his spell would be hell on those birds of prey beasts, in all their forms. Ulric might be able to bring them down all the way to the ground before they recovered their wits to resume flight.
Another tool in the toolkit, a defensive option to complement his offensive magics and mobility. Better every day, Ulric, he reminded himself. It was his motto, his mantra. So long as he was a little better each Sunsrise than he was on the one before it, he would be satisfied, if not happy.
"Did you intend to test your magic on your own people, Glade Chief?" Taipan posed the question with a dangerous inflection in her voice.
"I did not." Ulric answered noting that doing so was crossing a serious line in his partner's eyes, "In truth, I did not know if the working could be done without the aid of a substrate material whose manufacture has probably not been discovered on Varda as of yet. There was no guarantee that I could manipulate both the amplitude of my spell and its frequency to produce the pattern and color of light necessary to achieve the maximum impact."
His partner grew thoughtful.
"You believed you needed an additional technique to supplement your already wide array of spells?" She asked, slowly.
Ulric made the sign for strong confirmation.
"We are in the heartland of Prespang. Prosper will not sit idle, waiting for her enemies to gain strength, especially not when the rumors of Bane and open rebellion gain traction through the trade season. There is no way for them to employ their usual information control tactics, not when I've been hamstringing easy resupply at the ports between here and the outlying regions beyond Bartala and killing a dozen or so Magisters along the way. Prosper will begin to feel the pressure and the Merchant Lords will lash out when they do, seeking to dominate their home territories and resecure their domestic position." He explained, laying out the concerns that had nagged him for these last couple of weeks.
The actions taken this past month had not been done with great forethought or planning, they were reactionary. The Twice Born man knew that reactionary decisions, instead of strategic ones, created a complicated situation, one in which the chaos could threaten to overwhelm him. The chaos would be more likely, however, to inhibit the normal function of a far-flung Empire, breaking down its ability to maintain firm control over so large a territory.
His far more experienced consort nodded her agreement, scanning him with her usual attention to detail, weighing and measuring to gain the greatest insight.
"You are anticipating trouble." She said bluntly.
Now it was Ulric's turn to nod. That he was. He had a feeling about it, an instinct. Prosper would be up to something, they had been too greatly stung to not be driven to action. Whether it was an army to send at the revolting Lupid Beastkin, or a fleet to suppress ideas of breakaway factions along the shipping routes of the Vatyn, reminding the populace of who it was that was master, or some other threat he hadn't considered, Ulric felt bad weather coming.
Speaking of which, a raggedy old curmudgeon who had until very recently been High Mage of Kistalfer shambled over, using his masterwork staff, its twining metal iridescent in the evening light of the Twins, the massive amethyst crowning it throwing violet shimmers from its countless facets. As was normal, the geezer was cursing fit to make sailors blush.
"What in the Seven Hells was that!?" He demanded, addressing his new lord in tones similar to those with which he had addressed the old.
Tones that had nearly led those two men to decide that one of them would need to go. Ulric was more patient, or maybe just had less innate dignity to be insulted by the fogey's lack of decorum.
"Are you being rhetorical, or shall I explain it to you? But only if you are ready to admit that I am the better of us with the weaving of mana." Ulric answered the question with one of his own, and heavy sarcasm to really load it up.
"Should have just aimed the skylances at me'self and been done with it." Grumbled the Blacksky, one of the heavy hitters that had once made up Prosper's local mage corp.
Most of his students and colleagues had been wiped out when Ulric and Taipan loosed their poison on the garrison troops, the naturally lower constitution of a bunch of adepts compared to their rigorously training soldier fellows resulting in being more susceptible to Taipan's cocktail of toxins. Those who had survived had been killed by Adept Brodin when they targeted the freemen village for termination. Though young, the Germen cored Adept was in his element surrounded by forest greenery, and he had used his gifts to their utmost against the still reeling remains of the Choir of mages. Ulric wasn't unaware at how bitter a loss that must have been, even if he wasn't sympathetic.
The icing on that particularly nasty cake was that the Baron had effectively fired the High Mage as part of their bargaining process, a way to both remove a persistent thorn in his side and to placate a potentially powerful ally after Geras had attempted to assassinate Ulric and Taipan when they came in for parley. As a result, the High Mage was now in service to the man who had slain most of his comrades and was a peer to the other man who had finished them. He was not overly happy about his circumstances.
So far as Ulric could determine, Geras Blackskies was not often happy about anything at all. He threw the older man a bone, as a professional courtesy between practitioners of the arts magicka.
"I have developed a working to dazzle and stun my enemies. More work remains to polish the construct, but I think it will do. For now." Ulric related to the aged Mage.
"What devil light shines bright enough to be seen through closed eyes?" Complained the mage, setting Ulric up beautifully.
Taipan turned around, knowing her Glade Chief's habits.
Ulric held up a hand and summoned the globe of water laced with flashing discharges, flickering through their bewildering pattern.
"See for yourself, Geras." He grinned.
[Ceraunic Strobe]
"Gaahh! My fucking eyes! You rrreartch!" The mage bent over and heaved violently, the lights having done their work on him.
Ulric laughed at the man, enjoying the man's discomfort perhaps more than he should have. The bastard shouldn't have aimed lightning at Taipan if he didn't like it.
"Don't ask if you don't want true answers, Geras." Ulric suggested.
The mage wiped spittle from his lips and narrowed his eyes. Ulric felt the mage's core pulse and didn't need to look up to know that Nephel was conjuring clouds, binding the vapors into form high above at the powerful Magi's calling. Ulric's own core hummed with intent and violet arcs danced between his fingers, a Jacob's ladder reminding the High Mage that Ulric could blast him before the man could finish whatever working he had in mind.
Both men stared at one another, judging the odds. Ulric respected the elder mage enough to know that, should it come to magical battle, he would need to obliterate the older man in a single stroke to prevent his experienced casting from being threatening.
Geras subsided, reaching similar conclusions as he had come to with regard to dealing with the Baron, his former Lord. Just his luck to be passed off on another whelp he wasn't certain he could defeat in single combat. This one was more troublesome in the sense that Geras' greatest weapon was worse than useless against the Ceraunic core'd Lord, who'd eaten his last attempt to wield Skylances against him, subsuming the power directed at him. Geras hadn't known that was a possibility, but then, he'd never met an Adept with a nexus harmonized to the power of lightning.
"Perhaps that was uncalled for, Elder Geras." Ulric conceded, after a few moments.
"Still, seeing is believing. What think you of this working against a Greater beast or a seasoned veteran warrior, such as you have known?" He inquired of the veteran Battlemage.
It was a peace offering between them, a statement that Ulric respected the older man's experience and wisdom. It was also a reminder of who truly was the greater between them. There were those who had to be reminded of the pecking order or they grew difficult to work with. His time in the materials science industry indicated that those were amongst the more intelligent of his collegues. They had to be made to see that a junior was worth hearing out before they were of any use. Once that was done, however, they were fantastic resources to the team. Funny how his old life's experiences had niche applications to the fairy land of Varda.
Geras considered the young maybe Archmage's question. He wouldn't have believed how disorienting a set of flashing lights would have been to his constitution but the assault on his vision and balance had been immediate and violent. It was also short lived.
"Better be quick about capitalizing it young Lordling. A Greater beast will start using its other senses and adapt. My old Liege would bring his axe to bear and cut you apart even while his guts churned, and his orbs burned sightless. Pain and discomfort are lesser tools against those with high vitality or great will." The seasoned Mage advised.
So it was implied by the spell's descriptor. A good thing to know. He didn't have a way to judge what the hard limits were, or how much of those stats was a predictor for shrugging off the effects of the strobe. More questions, always more questions upon Varda.
"Wisdom I will adhere too, Mage Geras, and thanks for it." Ulric said aloud, slightly placating the grumpy magician.
"We've wasted enough time on my little practicum. We have places to be!" the Lord of the Ancient Glade called to the Xefoti, setting off in the direction of the city as he did.
And, to his continued amazement, they followed his lead.