Ulric breathed deep of the misty, salty air. Dawn was one of his favorite times to stand at the rail of the ship and drink in the experience of sailing Vatyn. Just cresting the waves, the Twins were in their dance, the blue partner star now in front of its larger sister, and the clouds that were soon to be dispersed as the day's heat came on coruscated reds and golds.
There was an odd feeling come over him in the fortnight since they'd departed Kistalfer. Almost melancholic. Hells if he knew why, things had gone about as well as they could have. The unexpected threat of Prosper's armada, championed by the bastard Merchant lords themselves, was broken. None of the vessels bearing their signature gold threaded sails had survived.
It was Taipan's opinion that, what with the Barbarian tribes united, the Beastkin tribes declaring their lands independent, and the city states shrugging off their thralldom, Prosper was doomed as a power. Further doomed, because Brighteyes and the Orlethrem were going to lay claim to the heart of their long time enemy and bring that fortress city under Aes'r dominion.
Never again would the mouth of the Zelas be permitted to be held by Otherkin. The Zellussin had made it their clan's entire mission to assume guardianship of Prosper, to secure the Orlethrem's hold of the Southern part of Aesvartheim. She had told him of that decision made while the Lords of the various tribes of Elves met in war council.
Looking out over the Vatyn, it seemed like a good idea. Speaking of Prosper, they were close now, to the iron walls of that fortress. It was the last great hurdle to be leapt to make for safe havens. It was a great relief, that he no longer had to worry about infiltrating the heartland of his enemies and murdering them in their chambers. Bit of an anticlimax, really. But a welcome one, and paid for by the culmination of their own plots, in the form of a High Mage who'd had everything that mattered taken from him through the web of lies, compulsion, and institutions designed by Prosper to secure its chokehold on Prespang.
Ulric owed that old geezer a lot.
His eyes glanced back toward the cabin he shared with his lady wife, and he thought of the iron-bound chest that held, amongst other things, the core of the man that had guided a maelstrom against the armada, who had raised its power from a decisive first strike to blunt its advance, into an axe that sundered it apart.
The working was more than Ulric could have managed. It was more than any one mage could manage, on such short notice, this side of an Archmage. Geras Blackskies burned his candle bright to use the working they'd developed together to destroy the threat to his home, and died in the doing. Ulric's own strength had contributed to it, his core's control over the lightning that strengthened the storm, that bound it to the old man's will, leashed under the High Mage's direction by the runic circle he'd scribed.
A neat trick. One Ulric would be aware of in the future.
That core, and the incredible staff, the catalyst made by Geras himself, Ulric was going to use to create an instrument that would call the storm, according to the runes the old mage had inscribed on the stones of a lighthouse overlooking Vatyn's seas from Port Kistalfer. Not as insanely powerful a storm, mind, or it would kill anyone that tried to use it. No, this would be high cyclonic winds, driving pelting hail, and enough lightning to make anyone attacking from the sea regret their choice. Ulric considered the project his graduate work in the art of magical bullshit.
He looked forward to it. It would require rune inscription, of which he knew only the barest of basics. It would require precise control of mana, which he was confident he possessed. It would also require handling about five different forms of mana simultaneously, which he thought he might be able to do with a few months of practice. Their initial plan had the High Mage, with his finesse at weather handling, doing most of the heavy lifting, with Ulric contributing the purified mana and holding things together with Ceraun. Doing the thing by himself was a tall ask, if not as tall now that he'd had front row seats to Geras' Telikos.
As the mage had commanded, Ulric had watched closely that act of mastery and power. Ulric Einar was an excellent student, he had that much going for him.
A yawn behind him alerted him to Taipan's presence, the soft bare feet making no sound as they tread across the wooden deck. She was already in stabbing range before she'd deigned to make a noise so that she didn't startle him into jumping off the boat when she put her hand on his shoulder. The evil wench knew he was jumpy.
"It is a fine morning, Ulric Glade Chief." She announced, as if it were her declaration that made it so.
His Shadow-Wife was nothing, if not confident. And lovely, which was emphasized when she leaned against him, to join his study of the sunsrise.
He looped an arm around the tall Elf's shoulders.
"That it is, Taipan of the Glade, that it is." Ulric agreed.
They said nothing for a few minutes, just enjoying the gifts of Varda's suns climbing above the horizon, the spray of sea, and the thinning of clouds while the coming day dispersed them.
"We shall come to the heart of our enemy this day." She told him with certainty.
He breathed in slowly, and let it go, "Yeah. We will." Ulric agreed again.
A single sidelong glance assessed him from the corner of her eye.
"You seem to have much on your mind." She prompted him.
"Aye, that's true." He confirmed, without expounding.
Another minute passed by slowly, as he stood there taking in the passing coastline. The not so distant shores revealed a speed faster than a horse could trot, if not gallop.
"You are insufferable when you do this, Ulric." Complained Taipan, at last.
He acknowledged her with a slight bow, glad that she'd caught onto the game quickly, this time. Baiting her when she wanted to talk about something was a past time he didn't often get to enjoy. Intrepid lass that she was, she didn't normally come sideways to topics so he was glad to prod her a little.
Still, he said nothing, drawing a deeply discontented sigh from his side.
"Very well then Glade Chief, since I must drag it out of you, what do you intend to do when we are come upon the fortress?" his mate finally asked.
"Weeellll," He drawled dramatically, "I think I'll just cut the chains on that big barrier you say that they use to block the river's mouth and run our ships right on through. If anybody in the citadel has any complaints about it, I'll turn them into meat confetti so they can think it over."
He watched her mouth the words "meat confetti" and give him a disappointed look that she sometimes used to cover great amusement.
"That is…a startlingly visual way to describe slaying your enemies to present me so early in the morning, Ulric. I find my interest in a hearty breakfast lessened now, thank you." His partner muttered, tossing her head to dispel the images he'd conjured.
"Well, if that doesn't suit you, I think I might be able to manage some inside out corpse soup. Maybe a little flesh salad with armor croutons? Oh! I got it, pureed bad guy sausage with a side of squeezed-" He was cut off by a firm hand over his mouth.
"There is something deeply wrong with you, my love. It is best if I get you home before you sicken any further." Taipan said, clearly trying not to indulge his graveyard humor by laughing.
He subsided and she withdrew the covering hand. It was a marvelous morning to be entertaining gruesome thoughts, but Prosper was, indeed, just around the bend, and he had been up since before dawn contemplating that fact. Ulric had talked himself out of using a [Vortex Flare] to cleanse the city of its occupants. Just because the cursed place was the stronghold of the enemy didn't mean he had to conduct a slaughter, especially not with the Merchant Lords themselves well disposed of.
"I know, dearest Taipan, but it cannot be helped. I don't know how you manage to stay so calm, you've spent a hundred years wanting to put knives in these people. I've only hated them for half a year." Ulric told the Iriel'en woman.
She squeezed the arm around his waist possessively for a moment and whispered, "I had the delight of watching them taken by storm's fury by the thousand, them and their leaders. It is enough."
True enough. One of the differences between Elves and Men. The Elves, once debts were settled, moved on swiftly with life. It was a very human thing to nurse a grudge even beyond the taking of vengeance. Those were the kinds of attitudes that made peace on his old planet a fleeting thing, her peoples wrapped in endless cycles of killing and retribution. Better to let go, move on. He'd always had trouble with that.
"I guess so," He agreed, with reservations, "We'll have to see how things go, but, now I think about it, I'm ready to be done with all the war shit, blind my eyes if I'm not. If at all possible, I'm ready to put it all behind me."
Just like this schooner was moving on down the coast, he'd like to be on with his life. Distant, yet visible, were the great iron walls of the malignant heart of the empire that had ruled over Prespang. Would they know yet the fate of their rulers?
Did Ulric actually give a shit? Another good question, and he was siding on no. This citadel, and these people stood between him and home. That was currently not a healthy place to be standing. Like hiding under a tall tree in a thunderstorm, and with much the same result. Besides, if they didn't know, then he saw no reason to tell them, all he wanted was by. Everything else came down to people making choices.
"Okay, let's get everyone who needs to be down below. Hats on people!" Ulric shouted across the deck.
Every passenger sporting pointy ears covered up. Those who were unable to fight, swim, or run were stashed below decks. If things got messy, he didn't need people who couldn't defend themselves hampering those who could. In the worst case, there would be enemy mages left behind to secure the city, along with a no doubt sizable garrison.
Never had Prosper been taken at arms, the walls being part of that equation, but plenty of archers, spears, and various flavors of highly trained warriors were another part. The lynchpin though, except for the time Bald'rt had gone off his rocker, was the fact that the mage academy of Prespang was housed within those distant walls. Controlling the instruction of youths gifted with potent magical ability, indoctrinating them for decades, and winnowing them to remove those deemed potentially problematic, was a major source of the Merchant Lords' power. It was with great satisfaction that Ulric looked forward to the cursed psychic manipulator scheme being flushed into daylight.
Powerful men and women hated being controlled. They would resent in the extreme the dirty trick played on them. Once the lid came off, Ulric was certain the decomposition of Prosper would be complete.
With all hands made ready, as ready as they were able, the small fleet of refugees cut through the spring surf, navigating with subtle use of sails to turn the North to South winds into Easterly push. They'd reach the eight kilometer wide mouth of the Zelas in about eight hours. He wasn't the only one with a hint of anxiety about his eyes on the boat, and was glad for it.
*************Two Days Earlier, Deepest Vaults of Prosper*****************************
"Well. Myert." Commented a whisper, like bone dragged over dry rotted leather.
Baleful pinpoints of animus lit the husk of a face, barely more than a skull, and the Lich of Prosper raised itself from the sarcophagus that had held its original body, abandoned for nearly six hundred years. If it had felt anything it might have felt the need to stretch, uncomfortable in the now unfamiliar shell it wore, a consequence of its current form having been blasted to lightning shattered pieces.
"Who knew the old Blackskies had it in him?" Wondered the animated corpse, as it dragged itself through the tomb, phylactery clutched in a bony fist.
The connection to its soul was tenuous now, having snapped taut through the field of Varda's mana to catch its drifting consciousness, dragging it back to the safety of an incarnate form. That journey had been agonizing, and not swift, taking days for the link to the phylactery to wind it back from the brink. Pure souls did not last long in the Field, they were eroded, washed away in the river Time, returned to the cycle of birth and death. The Lich had not sacrificed so much and so many just to be another grain of sand in the sea. It had become something eternal, as bargained with the Corrupted Ones. The demon had gifted the once Aes’r-Iriel’en with knowledge to break free of mortality. For a price, the touch of the Akashic, to be wrapped in the embrace of Varda’s Field.
The Lich of Prosper paid that price gladly. It had found...workarounds...for being unable to directly harness the Field. Catalysts with the appropriate mana resonant stones and rune structures could do most of what wizardry it had been able to achieve with its core. With less flexibility, but there were always costs.
Costs...for a moment the details of the crypt fogged and it felt a weightlessness. It's thoughts scattered, and it took a will to concentrate itself. Candles had burned down to suggest the passage of hours in that time and the master of the Golden Thrones, the eternal puppet master knew a moment of concern. It had lost something in the passage from its host. Memories. Bits of itself.
An Abyssal's gift, mighty as it was, bore heavy cost. The phylactory and the nets of magic binding its soul to it could not completely negate the erosive effects of the journey when it had died.
"Blasted Timeless parasites." It commented to the echoing dampness of the tombs and monoliths of Prosper's interred rulers.
The entity that the Lich had summoned used its soul as a shelter, to enact its designs upon Varda without being eroded by Time. The influence remained, even when the being itself returned to the fringes of existence from whence it came. When the Lich’s last contact with Varda was severed, if its safeguards were broken, its soul would unravel and it would face true oblivion. That cost need not be paid, so long as one could arrange to never die. The Lich had spent hundreds of years on just such arrangements, their rarity and cost beggaring the imagination of most mortal creatures. It helped to wield the might and riches of a continent spanning empire.
A few moments questioning what could have led to the revolt of one of its mage pawns, so carefully chosen and cultivated were they to prevent that very thing. Ultimately, it found no flaws inherent to its designs and so, naturally, blamed the source of most of its problems in this last disastrous year.
"It was the Watcher's pawn." The Lich rasped, recalling the final moments wherein a coalescence of power circled high above, beyond what should have been achievable by one of its crippled mage minions.
Truly the Lich was vexed. Hundreds of years of careful strategy unraveling before its eyes, or whatever manasight that granted it sight in place of the withered orbs within its sockets. In tatters now the manipulations born from obsessive study of the cultures and traditions of tribes of lesserborn, the Jormun and Valin that had lent it the insight to twist those peoples to its designs. So short lived those animals that they never realized they were being domesticated. And the ones that did, well, even smart animals could be dealt with swiftly.
The use of a carefully hidden compulsion array was a gamble that had paid dividends, a risk, but one so deftly hidden in layers of subterfuge and ceremony that it had gone undetected by generations. Undone, the Lich realized, for why else had its most loyal Baron defected, why else a High Mage enmeshed in a life time of faithful service turned traitor?
Logical connection said that, somehow, the occult domination tools had been revealed. Proximity to the Watcher's instrument pointed to that infuriatingly difficult to eliminate pestilence being at fault. But, then, the Watch ever did choose with careful purpose its minions. Especially when it sniffed out the influence of a Corrupted One in its domain.
"How to impose order on a creature woven from the chaos of another realm?" The Lich wondered rhetorically, considering the many broken knives it had sent that one's way.
It had dealt with other such specimens, carefully documenting the signs of these presences, coordinating swift dispatch of Triads to snuff them out. This one had broken the pattern. Or, perhaps the Eternal Gaze had simply decided to take chances, to play an unconventional style in the game. A gambit. Yes. The Lich followed with dispassion that logic. It had in place means to detect amongst the civilized places any anomalies, its Magisters trained to identify unusual magical talents, its Barons and minions regularly combed the populace for exceptional peoples to be sent to the Lich's domain under the guise of education and advancement.
This one then, had not been born from the blood of its kin, but constituted whole from the aether. Risky. A low probability event designed to accelerate its potential and quicken it before the Lich could find and cull it. Rumor said the Watcher’s instrument was first sighted on the Plateau of Ancients, far outside what even its former kin would consider remote, a holy land of sacred forest inhabited by some of the most lethal Greater Beasts known to learned monster hunters, kept confined by the guardian beast, the [Forest Lord].
The dispassionate undead creature had to tip its hat to Varda's immortal custodian. It was a hand well played. Cast full grown into wilderness, hidden amongst the hostile domain of its former kin, as remote and deadly a womb as could be found, shielded by that danger from the Lich's eyes planted amongst civilization.
That was, of course, part of its design. All roads led, eventually, to Prosper, the beating heart of the continent, outside that which was held in thrall by its foes. By those who it had once called blood. Blood rejected for the sin of greatness, for daring to explore realms of magic they were too cowardly to even contemplate. Sacrifices were always necessary for great deeds to be done. Creation necessitated destruction, it was a law of Varda, unstated, but clear to any with the vision to see.
The blind ones had not seen, had cast it out. Banished to the uncivilized lands amongst wildling clans of animals barely capable of common speech. They had held tightly to their own tribes, until it had managed to bind them all to its will, a doing of most of its natural life span. When it knew that vengeance would not be found in that life span it had prepared the ritual, the summoning of a Corrupted One. One boon asked, one price paid. Its soul, its core, to act as a vessel for the Abyssal to hide within, outside of Time's erosion, that it could work its taint into the Watcher's glory. But it had achieved what those fools who thought themselves wise amongst the Orlethrem's magical dogmas declared impossible. Or, if not impossible, merely anathema. A soul unbound to flesh, a core abandoned in place of a piece of alchemical and arcane mastery unmatched. [Arcanite Diamond] bound to [Arcanite Onyx], life to death, in perfect symmetry. The phylactery. Within this cage of enchanted crystal the Lich was immune to Time's influence, as was the Abyssal.
From there, it had centuries untold to spin its designs. Five hundred years of possessing avatars to slowly consolidate power, to build roads, to wall the hovels of tribes and establish cities of grandeur unthinkable to the animals. It expanded its reach and dominated most of a continent. The artifact it took with it, stolen from a hidden vault deep inside the Heaven's Reach, a piece of the Ancient's wisdom, from which the wards that covered Orlethrem were woven. That artifact it had burned, a price paid to eliminate the final barrier that separated it from its conquest: Bald'rt Iriel. The freak. The starborn. A nexus of might born once in fifty generations of Aes'r. It had thought to erase that line, but had not reckoned that one of the inward looking descendants of Grove Tenders would respond with such ferocity to the loss of a single whelp. That mistake had cost it an avatar, and eighty years of progress toward its plans.
Plans now unmade, it ascertained, unfamiliar emotion caused it to clench animate jaws, aged teethed grinding to literal dust as it did. Rage burned within the phylactery. Another year. Two at the outside and its vengeance would have been complete. The Bane it had managed to produce through years of enslavement of its kind, torturing them, breaking them, tearing apart their essence to find the surest path to creating the Soul Poison. And in a spring, it had suffered devastating counter attack to the ambush meant to cripple the Heartwood of the Orlethrem, it had lost so many ports and ships that its vice grip on the Vatyn was gone like smoke from a fire, and, now, it had lost its armada, its gauntleted fist against those who would attempt to rise from their place.
A lash of magical force from a ring upon its bony finger whipped through priceless statues, scoring deep the precious metals of their construction, flinging symbols of untold wealth across the tomb without care. They were nothing. The Lich's punishment for its exile was everything. Undeath had taken many things from it, including most mortal concerns. Only the need to see those descendants of the ones that had exiled it flayed to their bones kept it engaged. Without that, what were the doings of ephemerals? Why rouse itself, without an enemy to be fought? The Lich needed its hate, or it would sit in the darkness of a forgotten vault and reside without motion for an eon. Maybe forever, in the cool, comforting dark of a place outside of time.
Banishing such encroaching thoughts, the calls of the void that haunted the undead, the Lich made ready to prepare the glamours that would let it move freely in its own kingdom. None would tolerate the presence of a withered skeleton strolling around, no matter how fine the robes it wore, or the wisdom of its death rattle voice. All they would see is the unclean, and then it would have to destroy its own instruments, rather than have them turn on it. Better to cast the spells that would cloak its rotted form, while it selected another suitable host body to serve as its avatar.
Climbing secret stairs high into the rooms formerly occupied by its prior host, one of the most powerful women of the empire, a lady reknowned for her cleverness and subtlety, it picked through items hidden inconspicuous amongst more obvious treasures for just such an occasion. Decades plotting on one's enemies made for an almost insane degree of preparation for those just in case scenarios. Especially after having your host body disintegrated into bloody mist and your home leveled, having to wait three years for a scavenger to find your phylactery so that you could rip the weak soul out and possess its husk for the mere two weeks its feeble body could hold your majesty.
That had been an eye opener, never would it have believed one of its fellow Gardeners would cross the continent and erase a city over a whelp. The Elves were changing with the times. Slowly. Too slowly. It wouldn’t allow it, they had to suffer.
Ages old hate was reigned in, and the Lich continued readying itself for a return to public life, under a new guise. Such experiences taught the Lich much about contingencies.
Barely had it completed the layers of woven illusion that hid its true nature when came a thief to steal from hoard thought unguarded, news having arrived hours ago of disastrous calamity on the high seas. The Lich ate the thief gladly. It did not need sustenance, could ignore the hunger for mortal flesh with ease, if it cared to. Sometimes though, stress eating was allowed, and current circumstances certainly qualified as stressful. In new garments, the Lich began dispatching messages, began taking up the threads severed by its previous incarnation's untimely demise.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
In a matter of a few hours, it had a veneer of control imposed on the great fortress city, mechanisms it had labored over for hundreds of years operating by sheer inertia to maintain its systemic power over the empire. Soon enough it had the information it sought. Ships. Ships carrying, if it wasn't mistaken, and it wasn't, the very creature that had turned almost a thousand years of plot and plan into dog water, and headed to Prosper in a mere day, if the winds held.
Aggravating though this past year was, perhaps there would be some salvaging of its wounded pride. That was worth the thousand years. After all, what was time to an immortal?
******************************************************************************
"Is it weird to get the creeps from a big iron wall?" Ulric asked rhetorically.
For the last few minutes, as the sharp angles of the massive structure that was the citadel city began to rear up in his sight, Ulric had grown increasingly anxious. He couldn't put a finger on it, but the place over there made his skin crawl. Never would he be so happy as to have it behind him.
They had more immediate problems, however, in the form of the huge chain barrier. It looked like anchor chain, thick and strong, far too large to be cut with any kind of blade. Too big to push through, no matter how large the ship. Pylons of stone like bridge supports stood proud from the water, evenly space, one rising twenty meters high about every two hundred meters. These were capped by big metal brackets, into which the anchor chain was, well, anchored, the rest of the chain dropping into the water through huge loops to let out slack.
Grimacing, Ulric had found a problem with his plans, namely in that the pylons he'd planned to break had a marbled structure to them, streaks of obsidian through granite. He was familiar with that stone. It was all over the place in the Jaggeds, a wild place far to the West, where the Barbarian tribes of the Outer Reaches of Prespang dwelled. That stone, for reasons Ulric didn't know, disrupted magic, soaked up mana. The M'rakur lived in a giant sinkhole lined by it, which made them almost completely immune to mage assaults. That, coupled with their tendency to kill anybody not invited who found the place had protected them for hundreds of years.
These big square pillars were made of stone laced with the stuff. That meant that his plan to just use a bit of stone shaping with his [Stone wall] spell to weaken the pillars or loosen the chain wouldn't work.
"Plan B." Ulric announced, to the raised eyebrow of his mate, which was accompanied by a collective eye-roll from most of the other Orlethrem.
They'd been around long enough by now to know that the dreaded "Plan B" meant that shenanigans were afoot. Whatever. A man had to roll with the punches, didn't he?
"Why not operate the lowering mechanisms?" Mage Brodin suggested from the side.
These chains could be lowered, a system of pulleys and gears would let out the slack on the massive chain, dropping it low enough for even the deepest keel to pass easily through. In terms of scale, Ulric couldn't not be impressed by Prosper's commitment to ruling the world. It couldn't have been easy to shape that much metal, not with what forging technology he'd seen so far. They must have cast poured the links somehow, probably with massive molds, and hand forged them together by methods unknown to him, quite possibly by magic. A monstrous task, however they'd done it. Expensive too. High had been the wages of sin around these parts.
"Slaving bastards," Ulric muttered before getting around to addressing the Tree weaving former battlemage, "I'm pretty sure the mechanism has been scuttled."
He followed that statement by pointing to a set of gears that appeared to have been welded together. Nobody was going to be using that any time soon.
"Does this 'Plan B' of yours involve something you know well I would find objectionable, Glade Chief?" Taipan inquired dutifully.
As part of their growing accustomed to each other Ulric was supposed to think about safety and low risk alternatives before he did things. Somewhere, across worlds, boxes containing long forgotten OSHA regulations rattled joyfully within their forgotten chambers.
"Natürlich nicht!" He declared.
A sigh greeted his assertion.
"Ulric, you know I do not speak your Grand Dam's mother tongue," Taipan said with resignation, "As well speak to me in Svartalfin High Chant. Fine, do as you will, but I will be cross with you if you are killed stupidly."
Thus given the go ahead by his keeper, Ulric had the ship brought alongside the pillar. If they couldn't bring the pillar down, he'd just cut the brackets holding the chain instead. Suppressing a mad scientist's chuckle, Ulric was fairly certain nobody around these parts counted on a man being his own plasma cutter. That iron or steel or whatever was toast.
How to get up there though?
Ulric ended up climbing the rigging of the ship and jumping. He did not succeed his first attempt, having too much momentum and the iron cap of the pillar having been polished smooth. Getting a good soaking in the cold Vatyn salt water was not how he had wanted to take his bath, but, there he was. The encouraging advice given him by the onlooking refugees was sufficient motivation to try harder, and he plotted maximum ear length mandates as equivalent punishment. Round two went better, he jumped from the rigging and grabbed the bracket, hanging from it instead of trying to land atop the pillar. From there he was able to easily clamber to his position.
[Scintillating Touch]
Ceraun tamed to concentrate its electric fury to a confined space created a brilliant lance from his finger to the bracket and Ulric, face turned aside from the blinding light, guided the potent spell around the supports holding the massive chain. It took a few minutes, the brackets themselves were girthy things, over-engineered because their manufacture had to be done by hand, and no craftsman wants his named stained by failure, or his time wasted to repeat a project for trying to be totally efficient. When he noticed the bracket's structure sag against the weight it held, he changed his position to sit atop the polished cap and avoid a second dunking by having the chain and bracket he held fall free from under him.
Careful unwelding of the sturdy bracket finished with a sudden *clink* of snapping braces and the chain dropped to splash into the salty Vatyn.
Ulric looked at the angry red iron cooling to dark red-black with satisfaction. Put another win in the Glade Chief column.
"SO THIS PITIFUL CREATURE IS THE SOURCE OF MINE GALL?!"
A voice that seemed to boom from the air around the ships called out, amplified beyond normal vocalization. It was issued in all the intonation of casual speech but still so readily heard that it had to be a spellform.
“FOR A SEASON MADE LONG BY THE INTERFERENCE IN PLANS BEYOND YOUR INSIGNIFICANT LIFE I HAVE WONDERED WHAT FORM YOU WOULD TAKE. A VALIN BARBARIAN? ONE OF THE LESSER KIN, I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. THE IMMORTAL GAZE HAS A SENSE OF COMEDY, IT WOULD APPEAR.”
Ulric's eyes locked on the wall a mere kilometer distant. There, in fine robes, stood a staff bearing form that, from this far away appeared to be a blond haired man of indistinguishable feature.
In response, Ulric raised a single digit of contempt high. Some gestures transcended realities, for the voice that addressed him took on a harder edge.
"INSOLENT! VEXATIOUS! NOT WITHOUT REPERCUSSION WILL BE YOUR IMPERTINENCE FOR YOUR CRIMES AGAINST MY EMPIRE!"
The staff raised, even as the ships had begun their advance through the barrier that Ulric had dropped. He turned and waved them on, not particularly caring if the voice thought their disregarding of its clamor rude. The staff bearer had other plans, however.
A glistening white crystal, glittering like diamond shimmered and witchfire flared from its surface. Ulric was stunned to see, and, more importantly, to feel the emanation of an [Arcanite Diamond]. That was a godsdamned philosopher's stone on that staff!
"Taipan! The bastard over there has a catalyst staff crowned by [Arcanite Diamond], there's no telling what he might be cooking up!" Ulric warned.
It took no genius to figure out quickly what working was being fueled by that staff, the sudden fog of water cooling rapidly, crawling frost, and sudden lurch of ships being seized by the grip of the frozen sea told all.
Ulric's mana sense was saturated by the massive enclosure of Infrig that stole the motion of the sea, locking it in a frigid ice over a meter thick. He suppressed a thrill of fear at the sheer amount of mana that would have been needed to so rapidly freeze that much salt water. He was pretty certain he could have done that, if he were willing to [Core Capacitor] the spell and squeeze himself dry.
Taipan's voice raised and she called "Ware, Ulric! That is an Archmage, or of similar power to still the sea so!"
Fun, fun.
[Battle Rhythm]
[Warrior's Instinct]
Familiar calm of a veteran warrior fell over him, and, free from distracting tangents, Ulric began to parse options for terminating the source of the voice. First, test their control over their magic, the precision of their will.
He extended his own strength, reaching out with his core to pull at the mana being woven around him. It was like hauling at a steel cable staked into the ground. He shoved and ripped at the magic, unable to dispel it. Ektyl'rt was not some ultimate anti-magic, it depended in no small part on sloppy casting by the enemy. This, it would appear was no crippled Adept. When the water around his wife's ship melted, a sliver of the weave against which he exerted himself unraveling though, Ulric saw hope. A greater enemy than the mages against which he'd tested himself thus far, but no Gother Cenur'it. No archmage was this. Which meant he might stand a chance yet.
Grinning fiercely, Ulric felt the mana weave tighten, felt the effort put into the doing of it through the magic. He lowered the visor of his helmet, latching it in place, to complete the visage of a roaring [Forest Lord].
"Not an Archmage, dear Taipan! Just a fool with a toy greater than his own talents!" Ulric shouted, hoping the asshole across the way heard him.
A spear of wind gathered, Caelum forged into a three meter pillar, tipped like a pike, and which form multiplied by two dozen. Ulric leapt from his position in time to avoid being skewered by half a second, his armored feet skidding on ice as he caught his balance and ran across the ice powdered ice clouding behind him from the strike. A dive, a juke, a roll, and pure speed covered his evasion of the remaining giant's darts, each digging a half meter divot in the solid ice. Every motion took him closer to his goal. On he came toward the towering iron walls of Prosper, core screaming to life, Lord Instinct baring its fangs.
Well he knew the risk of letting a mage alone to forge their spells. It was paramount to push them, pressure them, force them to work quickly and expend their mana. And, above all, keep them from tearing the ships apart, their rescued peoples with them.
"Ulric!" he heard the shout behind him, but charged ahead, unlimbering Xef'tocht from his back.
"YOUR BONES WILL DECORATE MY THRONE FOR A THOUSAND YEARS!" Threatened the voice, and Ulric couldn't help but imagine a serial holovid villain, in spite of the certainty that his enemy meant every word.
The Lord of the Ancient Glade replied with [Stormfire] a swath of sparkling flame that collapsed on itself before rocketing toward the city wall. Ceraun fed on the air, fueling the Incendere within, amplifying the terrifying magic far beyond the mana Ulric had triggered it with. The cataclysm was the size of a train car when it splashed over the form on its wall, held together beyond any range Ulric had attempted before.
He wasn't the same man who he'd been before Kistalfer. He wasn't the same man he'd been yesterday, for that matter. Better every day, his mantra against the struggle that was his Reforged life. Ulric Einar hammered himself over the anvil of dissatisfaction daily, but he would be lying if it wasn't the last weaving of a former battlemage that had shown him how to work beyond limits of which he hadn't been aware. Geras' legacy lived on in Ulric's magics.
Atop the battlements, sparking flame billowed, chewing hungrily on the fortress' symbol of invulnerability. Molten iron ran down the wall like wax, congealing. A sphere of protected space stood when the flames dissipated, standing lower than it had been as a large divot of wall had been melted from under it. The mage was alive, and, evidently, unharmed. Bastard.
An arrow, laced in shadow flame, arced down to strike that globe of shielding.
Ulric spared a glance to see that Taipan had come in a dead sprint, closing behind him at incredible velocity. Akashic gifts empowered arrows to far greater range than a mere longbow should possess, even one as fine as Blinder. Two more hit within a breath, Taipan of the Glade joining the fight with her mana-corroding arts and mastery of her bow. The form seemed to stiffen with surprise when glimmering cracks appeared in its shield.
Ceraun streamed gladly, guided by the Reforged man, and he built a pathway of ionized air, like spiderwebs extended to touch that form so certain of its safety, its freedom from harm. If the mage felt the minute presence of the filaments it ignored them. To its peril.
Running still, he'd closed a hundred meters, a tenth of the distance in the time the flames of his spell burned away. By the time his wife's volley impacted he was fifty meters closer still.
He felt the Aquae gathering beneath him and reached into his class's enhancement of his body, [Surge] sent him forward in a sudden lurch of velocity. The raging whirlpool that tore the ice down into its hungering depths missed him by ten meters, and he continued tightening the lace of his spell, the focus of it demanding nearly all of his will. He regretted the expenditure of his reserves, but the scale of the whirlpool and its incredible violence demanded maximum fucking off.
"INSECT! THIS FARCE WILL END!" The belligerent voice cried, clearly furious.
Taipan was the one who answered this claim, pouring her Iskios into a blizzard of razored petals of blackness that soared through the air and ripped away at the staff wielding form, the violent storm of shadow held under the Huntress's emerald-bronze eyes, locked over her prey in her concentration. The hissing snap of her magic's corrosion against the shield ate away at its layers visibly. The forms on the wall next to the enemy, so far protected, evaporated under the assault when the outer edges of the shielding spell boiled away, already nearly destroyed by the shadowed blades eating away at it.
Five hundred meters and counting, the Glade Chief ran. He watched the figure atop the melted battlements scatter Taipan's spell, fragmenting the mana that powered it. The Iriel'en woman was about a hundred meters behind him, and closing, but not in a line. She was forcing the mage to split his attention, his focus if he wanted to deal with her.
The sheer amount of mana that had been expended already by the arrogant bastard heckling him was outrageous. Ulric could move magic like nobody's business, he was an anomaly in that regard, courtesy of the Watcher. But even he would be dragging thaumaturgic ass if he'd thrown around the kind of mojo to freeze the sea surface, and then launch those secondary attacks in the same day, let alone within a handful of minutes. And it wasn't over.
A twinge of something close to Terra, hardened, and somehow robust skittered across his senses, faint from the distance. Ulric's Elementalist class let him feel out the strange mana form which tasted of blood in his mouth, sharp, acrid. Metal? His answer came in moments.
Pieces of the Iron shield of Prosper tore free and hissed through the air at him, driven by the maniacal wizard. They moved too fast for him to see without [Surge]. That costly ability he couldn't rely on now, not and have the juice to squeeze for what he was weaving. Ulric baseball slid under the first shard of wall, sliding easily across the frozen sea before gaining his feet in time to roll sideways, the first loss of forward momentum in a minute. Powdered ice flew up in a cloud, the path to the divot having gone through where his chest had been. Zigging and zagging, Ulric managed to evade the Iron. Almost.
"Ooof!" A spinning piece clipped him along the hip with enough force to spin him around and he landed hard, barely hanging onto the construct, white fire in his hip blossoming while his brain tried not to go to static.
Had it not been entirely of Ceraun, with his core's full capacity to control, the mana would have slipped free, his working unraveled. Not so. Pained, hurt, but not crippled, Ulric had a feeling his enemy was the type to kick a man while he was down so he launched himself into a forward roll and a handspring, gaining his feet a tad clumsily but he gritted teeth under visor and propelled himself to full speed within a few breaths. Blurring darts of metal scrap tore into the ice behind him and he shouted a war cry against the throb of his hip while he ran. He'd have had a shattered pelvis if not for Uldin's talent, but almost didn't count today.
The daughter of Bald'rt, skidded to a halt and took a special arrow from her quiver, one made for desperate straits after their encounter with the armored mace tailed creature that had defied their efforts to harm it. She pulled back on her bow, face locked with concentration. Ulric felt Iskios bend to her will and Taipan sent Akashic strength into the enhanced spear tipped arrow, one made entirely of metal wrapped in shadow stuff. Her class abilities were combined, amplified, synergized under his Shadow's arts and the laser straight almost ballista bolt vanished from her bow. It impacted a moment later, breaking through the shield of the mage and jerked the hood from the golden locks, rocking the figure backward.
Even from that far Ulric saw consternation in the features of the magus, not expecting its shield to be defeated with such gusto by a mere archer's bolt.
Feathers of fire the mage sent flickering toward Taipan, who recovered just in time to spin away from the flurry and hurry in the opposite direction from Ulric's angle, further forcing the wizard to split his attention to deal with them. Always pushing for an edge, maneuvering for advantage was his Taipan. Ulric was proud of her, and determined to make the distraction cost dearly.
His reprieve was short lived, fletchettes of torn wall sailed toward him, somehow guided like his [Wind Blades], the sign of a spell truly mastered. The asshole must have thought Ulric too ungraceful to avoid them, unlike his mate, for which reason the mage had not expended the effort to do so, merely driving her off almost half-heartedly. That he was correct did not well please the Glade Chief. So, he didn't bother trying.
[Inpulsa Soak]
Instead of wasting momentum and energy trying to avoid the attack, the retired engineer trusted his armor and used the magically resistant sword like a shield, absorbing the needle hits, powering through them on forward momentum, further tilting the odds by converting some of the kinetic energy into heat through akashic skills.
Uldin’s armor, after so much abuse, finally yielded to the punishment against it, plates cracking, others coming free from the tiny slivers of shock pelting against them. Even the Master smith’s art wasn’t enough to completely keep Ulric from harm as he drove through the hail of projectiles. Blood ran from more than one that managed to dig into flesh, their momentum stalled greatly. Most of the wounds were minor, but, he was peppered, a dozen and more hurts distantly sense, and ignored, under adrenaline high and battle skills. Onward, he ran.
"BAH! YOU WILL SUCCUMB!" Predicted the mage.
Another trio of arrows sailed in from a high arc to pin the caster to the battlement for answer, forcing the mage to evade physically, for once. The enemy mage didn't trust his shields completely against Ulric's lady wife's impressively corrosive Iskios abilities.
"ENOUGH! VARS! YOU WILL TAKE THE FIELD AGAINST THIS RIFF-RAFF, EARN THE COIN I SPEND SO DEARLY ON YOU."
Ulric recalled the name, the Wolven mercenary leader who was called Elfbane for his atrocities. It would be a job well done if he managed to kill both of these clowns, the Reforged man noted grimly. If. Big if.
An enormous form in half plate stepped up to the edge of the wall, bearing a three-meter long halberd wickedly hooked, almost like a scythe. Vars himself was a giant amongst the Lupid, well over two and a half meters tall, and if he massed less than two hundred kilos Ulric would eat his boots. With casual ease, Prosper's attack dog, stepped off the wall, dropping straight down the fifty meters. The impact of his landing threw a wash of frigid water, but the wolf headed form climbed up onto the frozen surface of the Vatyn, appearing to feel nothing of the cold. A snarling howl rose up and the wolven warrior charged forth to meet his master's enemies.
Ulric had killed this particular warrior's younger brother, long, long ago upon the Plateau. He was fairly certain this sibling wouldn't let him defibrillate the warrior's heart without a lethal retort. He was definitely certain he wasn’t going to get a chance to try, Ulric Einar had bigger fish to fry, and his Shadow would simply have to do for a stand in.
"Taipan! You take fuzzy nuts! I'm gonna go have a word with that clown on the wall!" Ulric shouted.
Taipan made no sign she heard him except to draw an arrow and send it toward the sprinting warrior's heart. The arrow was batted aside by the long halberd and derisive laughter, soaked with contempt issued from the savage fighter.
"Another set of ears to join my necklace! Today's meat will be tender!" Cried the Wolf.
Her bow went over her head, held by its string. A bola from the Iriel'en woman's belt she pulled free and sent low with only a single whirl overhead, weighted ends spiraling to tangle the Beastkin's knees.
Vars hurdled the bola easily, not slowing even slightly. Taipan fast balled the poison globe palmed by sleight of hand in her other directly into his chest while he was midair, sending a dark grey cloud of toxins into his smirking face. Her own features were without emotion. Hers was the demeanor of her namesake, cool, calculating, and bent on the destruction of whatever made itself prey.
Ulric focused his attention on his own project. His wife was mighty, the daughter of her mother, the blood of her father. She could take a jumped up werewolf without his hovering. Growing closer, the enemy's face, handsome if not twisted hatefully bared its teeth, and the philosopher's stone flashed brightly again as its powers were summoned. Notes of multiple elemental harmonies swirled around that [Arcanite Diamond], heralding the potency of the casting.
Two hundred meters.
Close enough. Ulric ripped the bandoleer of knives from his thigh lifting them into the lattice of alternating energies, fiercely proud when each blade wrenched free of its sheath to stand in line behind the other as soon as they crossed the threshold of his spell, suspended by electromagnetic force. An exultant shout accompanied the release, freeing the chasing energy, positive seeking negative that he'd been holding by his mental fingernails to restrain. A culmination of arts and power from a dead world's batteships and this one's magi. The electromagnetic force rippled and he drew the gaze of a vast sprite.
[Ceraun's Spear]
Lightning shattered the air, not a bolt, but a lace flickering faster than the eye could follow, alternating to accelerate the knives into motion with such velocity that they appeared to vanish. Ulric swiped his hand across as he loosed the magic, sending each blade a few degrees to the side of the one before.
The wash of energy roared over him, forcing him to duck his visor against the pressure wave released by the spell, his boots sliding backwards along the ice, as if a gale force wind pressed against him, Newton's Third having its say, though not to the extent that it should have. By rights, that exchange of momentum should have turned Ulric into a fine mist. Impacts rang out, accompanied by shrieking metal torn by the projectiles and violet trails of arcs lingered in the ionized air along their trajectories. The booming strikes, near simultaneous, threw up brilliant splashes of sparks marking the place where the mage had stood.
Breathing heavily from the strain, physical and mental that the working took from him, Ulric couldn't see the mage anymore. Prosper's wall was mangled, the top of the ridiculous thing bowed inward, three holes punched through by the sheer kinetic energy of the rail gun spell.
His hopes for victory were dashed when the form reappeared elsewhere on the wall, twenty meters to his right. No longer a blond headed man, now there floated a skeletal corpse, half of its left side missing, ribs and arm blasted away along with the glamor it had held. Faint whisps of steam rose from the once magnificent robes, freshly scorched and ruined by lightning, and the unadulterated rage in its throatless voice told him it had not enjoyed its time facing his working. He had little time to savor its discomfit.
No words came now, only a scream of hate from the form. The staff leveled in his direction, [Arcanite Diamond] threw waves of white flame, uncontrolled mana washing from the Lich's fury.
A missile of super-heated rocked manifested at its tip, glowing molten under the Twin's light. The enemy played him, hid its intent in the wash of the obvious power, suckered him with a Kansas city shuffle in the form of a whisper of Infrig that closed vise grips of ice over his boots, locking him into place. Ulric had no time to break free before the casting of the lethal spell.
Xef'tocht pulled free, and risen high, glittering in the reflected light of the frozen sea declared his intent. Fully in the flow of battle, Akashic whispers told him what he had to do, what lack of any other choices compelled him to do to live. One chance, Ulric.
"SO YOU ARE SLAIN, TOOL OF THE ETERNAL GAZE. AT LEAST THE ANIMAL KNOWS HOW TO FACE IT." The necromantic wizard hissed at him, as it urged the molten boulder into ballistic motion.
A refrigerator sized meteor keened toward him in a straight flight. No twists, no curves, a heater down the pipe. Reflexes sharpened by a second life lived hard against the edges of his ability, honed by Idra of Iriel, and beaten into him by his wife melded with the call of the Ceraunic Knight's path. Reality warped for an infinite moment, tinged in violet.
[Surge] [Crackling Draw] [Maxwell's Parry] ****Override*******[Ceraun's Dance, Second Movement]
The [Lord of the Ancient Glade] brought the vorpal sword down in a two-handed stroke, charged with lightning inside and out, electromagnetic force blasting aside the charged spell stuff of the meteor even as the enchanted blade cut through it. Hair and cloth singed from the heat of the passage of two cleanly parted edges of the spell that he'd severed as they passed him by. A burst of pressure behind him, fragments of ice pelting his battered armor, declared the molten rock had hit the ice, to devastating effect.
Glancing eyes saw the twinned holes burned smooth through a meter of Infrig locked sea water. Before him, a wedge of the frozen Vatyn was carved half a meter deep, an acute cone three meters wide clean as a razor through paper. The ice shimmered, polished from the perfection of the lightning imbued cut. The frosty prison on his feet was gone, blown free by the violence of the Ceraunic Knight's arts.
Galed Uldin's masterwork had come through again, its wicked edge cleaving through even magic, just as the Iriel'en Smith had promised that it would, and, for once Ulric wasn't willing to question the Akashic nonsense of his status. His entire body felt like a rung bell, shivering echoes of the skill reverberating, but he couldn't stop now. The enemy awaited. The reforged man didn't have much left, but he was going to make it work, no matter what.
Promises to keep, and all that.
Ulric ignored the disbelieving rant from his enemy. The backlash from his skill was fading enough to move, and move he would. Legs bunched with power launched Ulric forward and he was firstly lurching, now smoothly in hurtling motion, sword held over his back with one hand as he closed the gap. Only a hundred meters left, the iron barrier reared up high overhead.
Jutting protrusions, spikes probably meant to keep ships from docking alongside, served as spring boards, and Ulric jumped and climbed his way up, ignoring the blood that ran free down his legs as he did.
He felt the Caelum swirl through his core before the wind hit him mid jump and sailed him backward, flying free of the wall thirty meters up.
Grasping at his own knowledge of wind magic, Ulric shaped a dome as he had done to protect a battered group of Elves from the rain, inverted, precious magic spent to save him precious time to get his hands on this evil bastard.
[Skyshield]
The frictionless surface of hardened air redirected him like a bobsled chute and he sailed back up to hit the iron wall near its apex, scrabbling for the nearby spike one handed. A grunt of effort hauled him to his feet and he was leaping aside to his next hand hold, gripping when another blast of wind ripped past him gale force but unable to break his gauntleted grip on the spike.
"Not good enough, you Abyssal fuck!" Ulric screamed toward the skeletal mage, and he had to move quickly to avoid a set of icy spears that sleeted down at him.
Pieces had come together rapidly in his mind as soon as he'd seen the true form of the wizard. This, he was certain was his huckleberry, the thing that had blighted Varda's beauty with incalculable ugliness. As he threw himself at almost inhuman pace up the surface of the metal, he knew today had to see it done. A grudge held for unthinkable span, cruelty unimaginable toward the lives spent in its plotting, utterly callous, utterly without regard for mortal suffering, and the powers to deceive and work against what once had been its own kind. An Elven Lich. An abomination. It had to go.
Ulric made the wall, clambering up across the melted portion of Prosper's monument to avarice and pride. The Lich floated nearby, humming with power. This close, it was obvious to anyone with a remotely developed manasense that wrongness abounded around the undead mage. It had no core, no heart to catch Varda's Field. Instead, it was a void, turned inward, wrapped up in the insane desire to be isolated from Time's flow, to be a thing of forever. The dissonant notes of the Lich's magic was almost nauseating. No wonder it crippled this sensitivity in the mages trained under Prosper's dominion.
The immortal monster's eye sockets burned with spectral blue flame, sparks of obsessive will behind them focused on him.
"YOU ARE INCREDIBLY ANNOYING, EPHEMERAL." Commented the Lich, its bony grasp on its catalyst staff tightening audibly.
A throaty roar of wolfish anger abruptly cutoff, gurgling wetly. Ulric grinned behind his helmet. Taipan was doing Taipan things. He hoped the butcher of Elves didn't mind being a notch on the sylvan woman's belt knife. Fair was fair, after all.
"I'm an asshole." Ulric agreed readily, staring ahead at the monster he was going to do every single thing in his power to kill.
He readied his own weapon, both the one in his hands, and the one inside him. This battle was, almost certainly, the reason he had been Reforged. He didn't mind being the spear forged to destroy this monster. It was a thing that needed doing, and a better world when done.
"I keep my promises though, and, I promise that I'm going to see you scattered to the wind today." Ulric challenged the Lich.
"BETTER THAN YOU HAVE TRIED, ANIMAL." The Lich retorted, and the catalyst ripped at the Field around it, dragging the mana almost unwilling into its grasp.
It can't use magic, Ulric realized, it's cut itself off from Varda's flow. The mystery for how it was accessing so much of Varda's magic, potent, but destructive if overused, was solved. The Lich needed the catalyst as a crutch, it couldn't wield power of its own any more.
[White Interference]
The retired engineer purified the Ceraun in his core, generated the fundamental node of Varda's mana, the unaspected magic that held all possibility. He seized the nascent weave of the thing's magic, this time scattering the motes of power it gathered. Ektyl'ert had failed to dispel a crafting already assembled, but he could feel the magic it was trying to pull to itself. That magic was connected to his core directly, siphoned away by the white magic Ulric spun into life inside himself. The catalyst was one step removed from its will, an extra link in the chain connecting to the magic. Whatever fell spell it was trying to use failed, unable to drink of the mana around it.
A flash of eerie green haze sputtered, acidic droplets falling to smoke on the metal beneath the Lich’s bony feet.
The Lich clicked its teeth at him.
"TCH! THAT HYPOCRITICAL OLD PACIFIST HAS BEEN SHOWING YOU HIS TRICKS, I SEE." Hissed the undying wizard.
It reached a skeletal hand under its robe and held a glittering assortment of gemstones, faceted surfaces reflecting in myriad hues. The grip turned into a fist and the tiny droplets of condensed magic siphoned away into the catalyst, accompanied by another brightening of the [Arcanite Diamond] atop its stave.
"I HAVE TAKEN STEPS TO SEE NOT EVEN GOTHER CENUR'IT COULD STOP ME."Boasted the creature, swollen with new strength.
"Say that to his bearded face, coward." Ulric spat, calling the arrogant prick's bullshit.
The figure rocked slightly, as if slapped. Then it pushed its stolen magic at him, weaving something that turned the air dark, and Ulric Einar's world turned into agony.
Grasping claws ripped at his soul, wires of steel pulling at his core. Ulric gasped at the shock of pain that had no obvious source and knew that this was one of those schools of magic the people who'd trained him had been too decent to dabble in. Soul magic, another evil of the Abyssals. He fought the tangling threads, used the white magic to resonate with them and sever them, before they could carve what was him to pieces. His was a valiant effort, but he knew he was losing. The Lich had had centuries to master its evil, Ulric's defenses couldn't keep up.
Grimacing, Ulric's grip loosened on the sword in his fist, numb fingers unable to hold it, the ringing of metal on metal sounded too loud in his ears. That was all he heard before the rushing of a distant river filled them.
Threads of cold power tore at him and fragments of memory flashed before his thoughts as they did, memories of a home long gone, and a life regrettably lived. He was losing himself!
Desperation drove his hand into his belt, too clumsy to even work the catches, and the cool surface of a gift from a fellow mage barely registered to his battered senses.
Ulric drove half his remaining magic through the ruined Tephras catalyst, the [Arcanite Diamond] within it spent, the tiny spots of [Deathstone] inside grew exponentially, and the Reforged man sent the cloud of burning ash at the Lich attacking him, and the failed philosopher's stone he tossed weakly behind it.
Ash dispersed around another iridescent shield, the floating mage unconcerned. The Tephras catalyst flared black flame and went dark. Grasping, tearing claws of magic vanished, along with the Lich's shield when the [Deathstone] exploded, pulsing a wave of antimagic at point blank range.
The wash of it tugged at his core, but he'd experienced the sensation before and powered through it, strength coming back into him at the retreat of the Soul attack. The [Lord of the Ancient Glade] scooped up the artifact blade and summoned all that remained of the lightning bottled inside his core.
Robes haggard, half its body gone from the electromagnetic strike that had blasted Prosper's walls, the Lich now had cracks running across its exposed bones, the animating spellwork that it had woven around itself compromised by the unexpected antimagic.
Xef'tocht's indigo metal seemed to drink the light of the Twins hungrily and Ulric roared his fury at the thing that had caused so much pain on this world, rolling thunder on the monster. Ulric's form, rampant with Ceraun, tightened, as if condensing, and he gave himself to the Akashic whispers, leaning into the lightning's flow, a Prime elemental's might to wield. The Lich raised its staff once more this time in defense.
[Ceraun's Dance, First Step]
Crackling lightning, a blast of thunder brought his strike through the Lich, blasting through its reforming barrier, shearing apart the intricate staff in its passage. The skeletal form evaporated in violet light that left Ulric Einar standing numb where it had been. The sudden shift in position, the immense drain on mind, flesh, and core slammed home and he staggered a step, catching himself on the wall.
Xef'tocht fell from nerveless fingers and he sat hard against the ferric battlement. The armor, once beautiful, so perfectly crafted and fitted, for once, felt heavy on him. Bone plates were shattered, several shorn free entirely. His chest plate was half gone. Most of his arm guards too, from protecting himself from metallic shrapnel. Leaden limbs barely managed to unclasp the helmet and pull it free of his head, so he could feel the wind on his face, and see the Twins in all their glory.
"Done, done, and done. Thrice I've said the Lich is gone." Ulric chanted with a goofy light headedness, boneless exhaustion and agonizing cinders smoldering in his mana channels from the currents drawn through them.
A man might never touch magic again after doing a thing like that to himself. He managed a wry chuckle at that notion, but he was starting to hurt too much to be sad.