Chapter 6: Shocking Results!
Most spells in the elemental categories required rather precise control. A lot of the dark arts instead are guided by emotions. Hate. Anger. Sorrow. Even joy and other positive thoughts often formed the basis for spells in the darker schools of magic.
Elemental magic was stoic, calm, and meditative. You had to become like water. You had to guide the lightning. You had to carefully stroke the fires. Sure, for the more destructive spells, it didn't matter quite as much. But it was also rather easy to blow yourself up by overdoing it.
It could take decades of training to become a master at bending fire to your will. Decades I most certainly lacked. Not like that stopped me to try and learn the more violent variants.
Water did not equal water. A lot of people believed that water itself was conductive, but it wasn't. So I couldn't just drench the room in normal water, I needed a variant. I needed salt. But creating salt out of nothing was not possible, at least not for me. Salt-based magic was a ridiculous idea.
Good thing this place had an abundance of one specific thing. Bones. Bones that held a whole lot of calcium and sodium. I looked around to gauge the situation and tried to formulate a plan.
"Francis!" I screamed over the sound of battle. His concentration broke and he looked at me.
"Francis! I need you to pulverize the bones, don't just break them. Pulverize them!"
He nodded in acknowledgment. I was gonna do my best to do the same.
I wasn't really too practiced with old Norse, but as with most forms of magic, intent trumped accuracy. I threw away the sword, making sure to knock down a bowman in the process. Then I drew the [Wand of Sacrifice] and readied myself. I had to visualize the effect first and then start shaping the arcana.
I decided on which words to use. Unlike ancient types of Sumerian and Akkadian spells and rituals, for most Latin and Norse spellwork, it was enough to manifest the already pre-visualized spell by releasing the arcana through words. I knew what I wanted to do and so I willed it to happen.
Þungr Afráð Beinahrúga
I spoke while drawing the Naudhiz rune into the air, the rune for necessity and need, commonly used to will intent-based spells into reality. A thin mist sprayed out of the wand as I aimed it in as many directions as possible. It had the intended effect as any bone that got in contact started breaking down into a fine powder.
WARNING:
Integration of unknown spellwork attempted.
Attempting [negotiation]... [negotiation] [agreement]
SUCCESS:
System-wide integration accepted [acknowledged]
NOTIFICATION:
New spellwork created by [Lewana Wintersong] [War Witch]
DETAILS:
[Mist of Bone Pulverization]
Mana Cost: 40 mana / 5 seconds
Damage: ???
Effect: Creates a lasting mist that will turn any type of bone material into a fine powder.
There was a short stabbing pain as I got the system notification. This one was a lot different than the previous one I got. And suspiciously enough I somehow knew exactly how to replicate the Norse variant within the framework of this more and more terrifying system. I did not appreciate anyone fucking with my mind.
But I had more pressing matters to attend to. With both Francis's and mine efforts there was now a lot of bone powder, residue, and splinters spread around the battlefield. Sure, hundreds of walking and fighting skeletons were left but I had all we needed to hopefully put an end to this.
I put the wand away and lept towards some random sword on the floor, instantly I knew how to best wield it and I made good use of that knowledge as I cut and rolled my way towards Akna and Francis who still held their position with their back to the initial summoning chamber.
I counted a good fourteen that fell to my blade, knowing full well they would be up in a bit to keep fighting thanks to the constant arcana being pumped into them.
Akna, after her initial jungle display, went back to defensive magic and Francis had returned to simply burning the skeletons to ash. This got rid of pretty much all the sodium but left a lot of calcium for me to work with. I felt an odd, tingling sensation as I passed through the barrier.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"I am ready, we need all this ash and bone dust in the air and then flood the whole fucking thing. Any ideas?" I asked Francis while giving Akna a curt nod.
"Good job out there, even if it is hilarious to see you move like a warrior rather than a witch." He responded and then seemed to think for a second, a cone of flames still causing mayhem outside of the barrier.
"A basic blast of arcana should do the trick, don't you think? How much juice do you think you got left?" He asked me.
"Not enough to create a blast on that scale, summon a bunch of water, and still do what I wanted to do." I acknowledged.
"This will probably push me to my limit then, I hope your plan works." Francis snuffed out the flames, cracked his knuckles, and stepped out of the barrier. There was no incantation, no grand buildup. I felt the static in the air as he gathered a sizable amount of arcana in front of him and with a yell, he threw his hands forward.
Skeleton soldiers were pushed back, some lost their skulls, and a bunch of weapons got ripped out of the hands of the enemy. But that was not the important part. Splinters of bone and metal got blasted through the hall but most importantly Francis had managed to whirl up a cloud of ash and bone dust.
He quickly gathered himself. The push had given him enough time to prepare for the next step. I felt the spell before I saw it. The arcana all around us turned cold and oppressive. A promise of something greater, this was a force of nature and a bringer of life.
He flew through the necessary hand signs and finished it off with a crescendo, like a conductor he raised his hands, and the arcana followed. Then he brought it all down.
šur amaru
To be submerged in a destructive flood. Water literally materialized out of the gathered arcane in the air and roared to life. It was beautiful to behold, like a bursting dam violently crushing whole villages under the might of the suddenly released water.
He kept the spell up for a while before stumbling a bit and letting go of it. The oppressive amount of arcana quickly dispersed into its usual flow.
I admired the aftermath, skeletons wading through knee-deep water. Most were struggling to even get up again. The water had started out as clear and pure as physically possible but had now turned into a sluggish mess of century-old dirt, ash, and bone dust.
"Wonderful display Francis!" I yelled and prepared to do my part in this. It was gonna hurt like a bitch.
He gave me a tired thumbs up as he stumbled back towards the safety of Akna's barrier.
I pulled out the wand again and began drawing runes for positive and negative charges into the air. Making sure to keep the flow of arcana around me low enough to not immediately blast myself. Creating electricity was simple. Guiding it in the right way was the hard part. I was gonna have to make myself the conduit.
The hair on my body was starting to stand up and I knew it wasn't gonna take long now to reach the breaking point. On the left of me, I had gathered a sizeable amount of positively charged arcana, and on the right the negative counterpart. It was getting harder and harder to control and I grit my teeth.
A few of the skeletons were getting awfully close again. I hoped that this was gonna be enough. I brought the differently charged sides of arcana together and yelled out the word of power. The ancient Sumerian word for a lightning storm.
ADDU: im-ĝíri
This was the breaking point. Hundreds of millions of volts discharged rapidly out of the tip of the [Wand of Sacrifice] and I screamed in pain as the backlash fully hit me, throwing me back violently. My nerves were burning with the fury of the sun itself and I felt parts of my skin burn up and my blood scream in protest.
Turns out that even Rabbit did not appreciate having potentially up to a billion volts interacting with his blood.
The effect on the army of skeletons was devastating. They did not merely burst apart, they were straight-up evaporated. The bottom of the statues exploded as I had completely overloaded any security measurements put in place to protect the delicate mechanisms.
The world disappeared in a flash of white, as massive explosions rocked the very foundations of the underground halls and tunnels. Then a painfully bright white-blue, not for long as the color of Hadad himself disappeared a single moment later under an even brighter eruption of pure white. Magical flames burst into existence as ambient arcana ignited, and started devouring anything and everything in their path.
My continuous screams of pain were swallowed by the sound of thunder that burst my eardrums and the last thing I saw was Francis through the barrier shooting blobs of cooling void at me to protect me from the worst of the flames.
I giggled as I looked down and realized that all over my body, the skin was melting off, and parts of the soldier outfit I was in, was sticking oddly to my flesh. Absently I made a note that next time I should probably start with a few protection rituals. I passed out.
WARNING:
Integration of unknown spellwork attempted.
Attempting [negotiation]... [negotiation] failure
ERROR:
System-wide integration rejected due to [redacted] [outcome] [acknowledged]
NOTIFICATION:
New spellwork created by [Lewana Wintersong] [War Witch]
DETAILS:
[Variant: Storm lightning Flash, Blessed by ADDU] [integration locked]
Mana Cost: [redacted]
Damage: [redacted]
Effect: [redacted] due to [corrupted]