“Again!”
Nethlia’s voice boomed across the training ground as Autumn lay sprawled in the dirt, the towering berserker having knocked her on her ass. Grunting in annoyance, Autumn picked herself back up and settled into her combat stance facing the berserker, wand and knife held at the ready in her grip.
It’d been a week since Autumn first awoke in the encampment. A week of preparation for the battles to come.
According to Liddie’s scouting reports, the battle lines between the goblin-crow horde and the fey hadn’t shifted in all that time, and if Death was to be believed, they wouldn’t. Ever. How that worked with the hag in possession of the Tome of Witchcraft, Autumn didn’t know.
Did it mean that she wouldn’t be able to open the book?
Did it mean their efforts didn’t matter?
Autumn couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t wait forever. Prepare forever. As far as she was concerned, every day they took brought the hag one day closer to her foul goals. Whatever they were.
Thankfully, with the war-wagon Dreadnought now complete, the party was almost ready. They only had a few things left to do before they set off for the final confrontation.
Things such as more training.
Autumn squeaked in surprise as Nethlia caught her outstretched arm and sent her crashing back down into dirt.
“Focus!” Nethlia barked. “You need to pay attention! If you lose focus like that in combat you’ll be dead before you know it. Now get back up and we’ll go over your footwork once more.”
“Sorry,” Autumn mumbled out as she stood back up and slipped into her fighting stance once more.
She’d not been the best at keeping to the stances Nethlia’d taught her during the hectic violence of combat, opting instead to mostly saturate her enemies with a continuous barrage of panicked magic whilst scrambling for cover or flight. While it’d worked out for her so far, Autumn’s tactics hadn’t impressed her team captain. So with an opportunity presented before her, the demoness sweated her through drill after drill to remember them instinctively. Mostly by throwing Autumn around the dusty training yard.
“Again!” Nethlia barked as Autumn picked herself back up once more.
There were two stances Nethlia wanted her to remember.
The first, she’d called the aggressive stance.
It was a simple stance. Autumn was to stand side-on to her opponent, wand-hand (right) leading with the same side’s foot (also right) placed forward and her knife-hand (left) tucked into her chest. Most of her weight would rest on the ball of her leading foot, allowing her to quickly and easily lunge forward in a pivoting step to strike the enemy with her off-hand. With her opponent stunned or wounded by an initial blast of magic, they wouldn't be able to defend against the follow up stab.
While straightforward, it was still hard to remember when murderous vikings, bloodthirsty slavers, and monsters were bearing down on her.
The next stance, Nethlia’d called the defensive stance.
Like the aggressive stance, Autumn would stand side-on to her opponent, only this time with her knife-hand side (left) leading. She was to place her weight on her back foot (right) with only her ball and toes of her leading foot (left) touching the ground. Her knife-hand (left) would cross over her chest while her wand-hand (right) would rest atop it, holding her wand in a claw grip with the butt of the wand pressed into her palm. From this position, she would easily step backwards while slicing out at an aggressive foe or strike them with magic.
Easy right?
Wrong! Against a single experienced foe, Autumn found herself woefully outclassed.
She let out a shrill short scream as Nethlia’s polearm swept her legs out from under her, dumping her onto her ass once more.
“Again!” Nethlia barked. “You could’ve avoided that!”
As she picked herself back up, Autumn grumbled under her breath. “This would go a whole lot different if I could use my shield.”
Hearing the witch’s grumbling, Nethlia quirked an eyebrow in amusement. Hefting her pole-hammer onto her broad shoulder, she favored Autumn with a confident smirk. “Oh really? You think that’ll make a difference, do you? Sure, go ahead. I’ll knock you on your ass anyway.”
Autumn paled. “Ah-ha. I was only joking. We don’t need to do that!”
“No. I insist.” Nethlia said, twirling her weapon around her before falling into a low-ready stance, pole-hammer aligned with the ground. “Use your magical shield if you think it’ll help you.”
Gulping despite herself, Autumn fell instinctively into her defensive stance. “You know it withstood a blow from the undead-angel, right? And being crushed by a mountain's worth of rock?”
“Oh, I know,” Nethlia grinned, showing her sharp canines. “In fact, I’m counting on it. Are you ready, or do you need to stall some more?”
“No, I’m ready.”
“Good.” In an instant, Nethlia rocketed towards Autumn, trailing a dust cloud in her wake. Autumn gasped in shock, raising her wand hurriedly to meet the onrushing berserker. The bright bolts of magic roared towards Nethlia, but they didn’t even graze her, she simply leaned contemptuously around their paths before they were even cast, her eyes locked onto Autumn’s wand. Excited fury danced in the berserker’s bright eyes.
Like thunder, the pole-hammer rose.
With a strangled gasp, Autumn was lifted off her feet as the powerful blow crashed into her stomach. A shrieking flash of violet bloomed where the iron hammer met her magical protection.
Nethlia’s weapon of war scythed through the air like a reaper’s blade as she skidded to a stop beside an airborne Autumn, kicking up another plume of dust. Above the witch, the weapon rose menacingly. Autumn only had time for her eyes to widen before the meteoric blow descended. With a mighty heave, Nethlia drove the hammer’s head down upon the witch’s glowing shield, eliciting a resounding crack where it connected. The force of the blow sent Autumn into the dirt with a deafening boom.
Dust surged into the air from the impact, obscuring the fallen witch.
Nethlia planted her polearm into the dirt as she waited for the dust to clear. A bright jinx splashed harmlessly off her shoulder.
“Ha!” she laughed, rolling her struck shoulder. Below her, the dust cloud parted revealing a panting Autumn glaring up at her covered in dirt.
“How–” Autumn panted, “-how did you do that?”
“What? Lift your skinny ass up like I did?” Nethlia smirked. “Easy. While your shield absorbs a lot of momentum imparted into it, some of it makes it through. So, I simply lifted you using my pole-hammer as a lever. Then I hammered you back down like striking metal on an anvil. Just because I’m a berserker doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” she grinned down at a dazed Autumn. Reaching down, she grasped Autumn’s forearm and hauled her to her feet. “Just because you have a good defense doesn’t mean you can act like it’s impenetrable. Someone somewhere will find a way past it. Best you learn that from me rather than them when it’s too late.”
“Now, let’s run through those stances of yours again, shall we? You could’ve easily stepped away from my strike.”
Autumn groaned, but complied, falling into her stances once more.
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Spells.
Autumn had a decent selection of spells already, but she could always use more.
Once she’d finished going over her footwork and stances with Nethlia a few more times, she’d turned her attention to her combat casting. First, she refamiliarized herself with all her known spells. Nethlia helpfully aided her as a test dummy on the non-lethal or harmful ones otherwise she’d set up the straw targets for Autumn to practice on.
After she felt confident in her ability to cast those, Autumn moved onto crafting her own. Or trying to, at least.
It was rather hard.
Of the four spells Autumn knew she could create, the one she focused on first was the one she’d tentatively named Witch Armor.
In most of the fantasy games and literature she’d seen or read, mages, wizards, and other spellcasters forswore armor. Typically, because it impeded their spellcasting in some way. As such, they often turned to magic to acquire means of protecting themselves, whether that was with a shield spell like Autumn’s, enchanted rings or robes of protection, or with conjured armor.
It was that last thing she wanted to explore and create.
Aside from her hat, Autumn hadn’t noticed any particular issues with impeded spellcasting while wearing armor. While she couldn’t wear a helm or anything that’d impede her connection with her hat, garbing herself in chainmail hadn’t been an issue for her. Perhaps she just wasn’t the kind of spellcaster that was bothered by such issues.
Autumn’s mind wandered for a moment. She wondered if a witch’s hat made of metal would work. Sort of like a kettle helm, just with a higher point. Thinking about it, who said it even needed to look like a witch’s hat to hold magic?
Technically, as Autumn was a witch, wouldn’t any she wore be a witch’s hat? Would a sunhat or beanie work?
Shaking off her wayward thoughts, Autumn focused.
As she’d no idea how the spell would manifest, or if it’d interact poorly with the chain shirt, Autumn divested herself of it and her robes for good measure. Standing in her tunic and hide pants, she closed her eyes and slowly formed her magical shield around herself, concentrating on the way it formed and manifested.
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Gazing into the spell’s weave, the complexity of magic within it nearly blinded Autumn. There was too much. With but a glance, she knew she’d never comprehend even the smallest thread of it. Thankfully, she didn’t need to.
Autumn focused not on unraveling the chaotic tangle, but on how it reacted as she fed her metamagic of force into it.
It was like trying to fit a lone puzzle piece into an already completed puzzle.
At first, the spell simply didn’t want to form, but as the dark-eyed witch continued to pluck at the seams, searching for somewhere to jam the lone piece into, it began changing. Sometimes that change was benign or useless, other times not so much. The catastrophic failures left Autumn with scorched palms and curses on her lips that’d make a sailor blush.
Eventually, after a myriad of failed attempts, Autumn finally succeeded.
Violet shadows, dark like the deepest night, clung tightly like smoke to the witch’s form. It swirled loosely around her. Instinctively, Autumn knew she could mold the shifting magic to any style of armor or cloth she wished. Focusing once more, she warped the shadows around her chest into a breastplate front and back. Unadorned, it was and burnished the same violet-back. Around her throat, she spun a scarf that trailed off into tattered shadows as it drifted in the soft breeze.
Sweat beaded heavily on Autumn’s brow. With a gasp her concentration broke and so too did the spell, unraveling to leave her dressed only in cloth and leather once more.
Autumn huffed in frustration. Closing her eyes once more, she willed the magic to form around her.
She’d get this spell right, even if it was the only new one she did.
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Autumn found herself outside Pyre’s tent, the acrid stench of chemicals and alchemy burning the hairs from her nose. She peered inside the cluttered space and saw Pyre tirelessly tending the glassware stills. Behind her, magical potions glowed brightly upon a table top.
Other than her spellcasting, there was only one major project left on Autumn’s to-do list — Armor-working. As such, she was here for the hopefully tanned bear hide to turn into armor for Nethlia.
While she didn’t mind the sight of the demoness’ scar-clad physique proudly displayed in tattered furs and cloth, Autumn felt that perhaps Nethlia could do with a bit more protection given the carnage they were walking-slash-driving into. If that meant sadly covering up her Amazonian body somewhat, that was a price Autumn was willing to pay for her lover’s protection.
Leaning into the alchemist’s tent, Autumn called out to Pyre. “Hey! Are you done with that pelt yet?”
Pyre started at Autumn’s shout, almost spilling a vial or red liquid over herself. She glared at a sheepish Autumn. After carefully stoppering the glowing vial and placing it with the others, she stomped over to Autumn. While she looked more rested than when they’d last met, deep bags still hung beneath Pyre’s eyes.
“Don’t do that!” Pyre growled. “Now, what was it you wanted?”
Quiter, Autumn asked again. “I, uh, was wondering if you’d finished tanning that bear pelt? I wanted to make some armor with it.”
Pyre blinked. “Oh, that? Yeah, it’s done. It’s stretched on a makeshift tanning rack out behind the tent. You can take it if you want.”
Yawing, Pyre went to rub her eyes with her stained leather gloves, only recoiling at the last moment to glare at them.
Awkwardly, Autumn shuffled. “Hey, are you doing ok?”
Pyre rolled her eyes. Impressive, given they were aflame. “Yes, dad. I’m sleeping. Kinda hard not to with Nethlia training us into exhaustion. Plus, I’ve made most of what we needed by now.”
“Most of?”
Pyre crossed her arms defensively. “Yeah, I ran out of supplies. You try making potions without proper ingredients or reagents,” she huffed. “I tried looking at the plants around the camp, but I’ve no idea what they do. I’ve started keeping a journey on Feywild plants, but without time to test them properly…” she said with a shrug.
“What potions have you made?” Autumn asked.
Lazily gesturing to the potion laden table, Pyre listed them off. “Well, we’ve got roughly a dozen Minor Healing, half a dozen Stone-skin, another half-dozen refined Feybane poisons — I wasn’t able to make them hagsbane, sorry — a Wide-eyed potion each that’ll keep us awake for about three days, a dozen Poison Resistance potions, and finally a set of Minor Haste vials each. I’m not sure how long those will last, but it should be long enough for a fight.”
Autumn marveled over the wealth of potions glowing brightly on the table.
“What about that Angel-blood potion?” Autumn asked. “Were you able to dilute it down?”
Pyre looked away, scowling in embarrassment. After a beat, she muttered. “No, it…it was too hard. It’s almost alive in how it resists changes. I tried to dilute it down, but I didn’t have much luck — it just evaporated. It’s so frustrating! If we were back home, I’m sure I could do it.”
“Where is it now?” Autumn asked as she didn’t see it amongst the other bottles.
Pyre scowled resentfully. “Nelva took it so I couldn’t ‘waste’ anymore. Her words, not mine. I wasn’t wasting any! Just…trying out some things that might have worked if someone would’ve just let me have a few more drops. It’s like she didn’t trust me or something!” she whined.
“Right~” Autumn drawled, eyeing the agitated alchemist. It was probably the right call to keep it out of the sleep deprived alchemist’s hands for now. “I’m just going to go and grab that pelt now. Come get me if you need anything.”
Pyre waved her off, as Autumn bid the alchemist farewell.
Skirting around the tent, she found the tanning racks behind the tent. Mostly by following her nose.
While the alchemical process of tanning leather wasn’t as pungent as other means, it still wasn't pleasant. Hiding her poor nose from the aroma with her sleeve, Autumn withdrew her wand and cast a cleaning spell on the pelt and the air with a few flicks and muttered curses.
With the tanned hide cleansed of the stench and residual chemicals, Autumn carefully unbound it from the rack.
Autumn took a moment to admire it. The fur was beautiful and velvety soft as it ghosted through her fingertips. She had to admit, Pyre did some good work. After rolling the hide up, she heaved onto her shoulder with a grunt and made the long trek back to her own tent. Ursa Ossa rumbled as she passed him by.
Before Autumn got to work on improving Nethlia’s barbarian-chic armor, Autumn decided to try and fix Nevla’s first.
Previously, Ithuriel the Rotten had sundered both the knight’s shield and armor. The great fallen angel had driven Nelva’s own blade right through her stomach, shattering the bone plate protecting it. Autumn had tried her best to fix the armor while they were in the necromancer’s tower, but with her lack of familiarity with the bone-grafting spell the best she could do was remove the lower shattered section of her cuirass so that Nelva at least had the upper portion to guard her vitals. Now that she had a better grasp on the calcic spell, Autumn was confident she could do now what she couldn’t before.
Nelva was more than willing to lend her armor and broken shield to Autumn after she’d explained what she intended to do.
As she focused, Autumn came across familiar patterns within the knight’s bone armor. She’d always wondered just how armorsmiths made these continuous bone plate armors, and as she worked the shattered plates back into a cohesive whole, she got an answer.
Perhaps necromancy wasn’t as outlawed as she’d first thought. Maybe they’d just changed the name?
She’d have to investigate these bonesmiths further when they returned.
Either way, Autumn swiftly fixed Nevla’s armor. She even refitted it to the knight for free, not that she was charging for the rest of it.
Neither Edwyn, Pyre, nor Liddie either needed or desired armor, so Autumn turned her attention to those that did.
Like herself, Eme preferred to not wear armor or at least only wear lighter armor. Whether that was a magical issue or just one of preference, Autumn didn’t know and couldn’t find said catgirl to ask. In the end, she decided to make the bard a forearm guard out of dragonbone that went from elbow to wrist. Only the one, obviously.
Seeing all her other projects completed, Autumn grabbed a bemused Nethlia and dragged her into her tent, stripping her down to her underwear for a fitting.
“Do I really need to wear a helm?” Nethlia asked trepidatiously as she ran a hand through her saggy locks. “I haven’t before and I’ve been fine.”
Autumn tore her gaze away from Nethlia’s rippling abdomen. Blushing, she answered firmly. “Yes, you do. We’re heading into a clusterfuck of epic proportions and I’ll be damned if I left you unprepared.”
“But the others don’t,” Nethlia whined.
“Nelva does. And you’re on the frontline, so you need more armor than the rest of us.”
Nethlia huffed, crossing her arms under her breasts. “I don’t really need to. My style of combat is all about avoiding getting hit or pushing through the pain. Any extra armor would just slow me down. Plus, I run hot in battle — too much on me and I tend to overheat.”
Blushing Autumn nodded. “I’ll take that into consideration. But at least let me remake your armor, please? This lot,” she kicked the tattered remains of Nethlia’s barbarian armor, “is pretty much rags at this point. Don’t you want bespoke armor made by yours truly?”
A smile tugged at Nethlia’s lips. “Fine~” she groaned. “But nothing too covering!”
Cheering slightly, Autumn grabbed her last orb of dragonbone and siphoned off enough material to make an open-faced helm perfectly fitted to Nethlia’s head. Once padded, it’d clip around the back of the demoness’ horns and cover the top and back of her head, leaving her ears open. Next, she sliced off the bear’s head and forepaws from the pelt. Taking off the lower jaw, Autumn added new teeth to the upper jaw before stitching the head to the dragonbone helm via magic. The forepaws would cradle the back of Nethlia’s neck and shoulders before crossing protectively over the top of her chest where a bone pin held it together.
Autumn crafted a thick fur-lined belt around Nethlia’s waist and an armored tasset-like skirt to protect her upper thighs. Nethlia’s boots and gauntlets too got an upgrade, now sporting thick dragonbone plates and soft bear fur.
As Autumn went to add more armor to her, Nethlia finally had enough of being the witch’s dress-up doll. Gently grabbing Autumn’s wrists, she spoke exasperatedly. “Ok, that’s enough.”
“But I’m not done!” Autumn whined. “Just one more thing, please.”
Nethlia sighed as Autumn pouted. “What is it?”
Wiggling from Nethlia’s grip, Autumn dashed over to her pile of bear fur and withdrew a half-completed jacket she’d for the last hour or so in between other pieces of armor. What she held up to Nethlia was an almost modern-looking sleeveless leather jacket lined with bear fur. It looked kinda crude, but in that barbarian-chic kinda way Nethlia favored.
“This!” Autumn proudly declared.
Despite herself, Nethlia looked intrigued. Donning it, the jacket stopped just below her breasts, leaving her rippling abdomen exposed. The berserker rolled her shoulders as she adjusted to the weight of the slim armored plates Autumn’s sneakily hidden inside the lining.
Clad in a roaring bear hood and armored jacket, Nethlia looked far more dangerous than ever before.
Seeing Autumn’s look, she rolled her eyes. “Yes, Autumn, I was wrong and you were right. It looks good. Happy?”
“Very.”
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Oh, one last thing before we go.
Late into the night, when few were stirring, Autumn lay bare upon her bedding, clad only by light and shadow. She’d brought a moment of lonesome reflection by sending Eme off to bother Nethlia for the night. While initially hesitant, the bardic catgirl acquiesced to the witch’s request, recognising her need for a moment alone.
A chill wind breezed through Autumn’s tent, chasing rises and bumps all across the witch’s snowy flesh. A shiver raced down her spine at the touch. Her scars spoke of a history like contours on a map, a history of violence and victory.
Slim fingers traced those white lines in thought.
Nethlia had taught Autumn much about scars. Of how to view them not as the horrible wounds they appeared to be, but to view them as badges of honor or lessons to learn from. Or both.
And most of them, she did.
Autumn’s fingers ghosted over the scar on her brow. It reminded her of the fight she’d undertaken to see her friends free of the city of chains, to see them beyond the river chain. Her fingers next traced the scars to either side of her calf. These ones reminded her that all plans can go awry and to prepare for the worst. The scar the mage had gifted her reminded her of victory, of escape, and of her brush with death.
She liked those scars. When she saw them, she felt the pride Nethlia spoke of.
But when she gazed upon those worming across her stomach, she felt nothing but residual horror and regret. It reminded her only of pain and suffering at the hands of a monster that wished to see her dead or worse. There was no pride, no lesson to be learned in them.
She wished to see them gone.
Placing her slim hand upon the grotesque wound, Autumn willed her magic to mold and shape her flesh, to wrap the wound back to what it once was. She grimaced as the pain flared, but her concentration didn’t break — she’d endured worse. Through the pain, she smoothed out her nightmares.
After a long, agonizing, teeth-clenching moment, the roiling pain stopped.
When Autumn lifted her hand, only unmarred skin remained, although sensitive and pink to the touch.
A smile graced her lips.