Three Days Later
Tak! Tak! Tak!
The ephemeral roar of the Dune Worm echoed in his head, his muscles burned and one of his more worn shirts clung tightly to his torso with large dark patches running down its back and front; another two hidden under his arms until he raised them to bring his wooden blade back up once more.
Tak! Tak! Tak!
The sight of its dusty-brown chitin flashed across his vision and the memory of its mana beam weighed down on Alec like a pair of phantom hands shoving down on his shoulders. His breath came out in heavy pants and his chest heaved with each inhale and exhale, a couple strands of blue hair clumping to his forehead and neck uncomfortably.
Tak! Tak! Tak!
Alec hated this feeling, this feeling of weakness in his body from his exercise and the hot, sticky feeling of sweat that coated him from head to toe. He did and he always had. Over time, as he adventured more and was forced to actively fight for his life against creatures that wouldn’t stop a killing blow if they found one, he’d gotten used to actually being subject to it. A thousand leagues better than when he had been a child and didn’t want to break a sweat training because it felt gross. Yet the fact still remained that he had never been a fan and even his current feelings on the matter still topped out at ‘begrudging acceptance’.
The stone-crushing ‘clacking’ of the Dune Worms ‘teeth’, if they could even be called that, echoed in his mind once more and he shivered; his blade clacked against the wooden training dummy another three times in quick succession.
But now he was almost left without a choice in the matter, the nightmares woke him up and his adrenaline left him antsy and with too much energy to just ignore. His mind forcing him to imagine how his friends would have handled such a creature, how they would react to these nightmares, and what they would do with the realisation that they were still so far behind in the world.
Tak! Tak! Tak!
He knew exactly what they would do too, beyond just generally training.
Angelica would be studying runes and experimenting with new spells, working on her mana reserves and efficiency.
Felicia would be looking further into Solyre and even other gods like Anputu [King of the Gods], Zetia [Goddess of the Twin-Continents], or even Aegian [God of Blades] for any hint on how to further her abilities as [Saintess] as she could, working on her magic much the same as Angelica and even going on pilgrimages if possible.
And finally, Peter would be learning every and any skill that he could be. Refining himself further and further and turning himself into even more of a jack-of-all-trades than he already was. Making his muscles stronger, his fire magic hotter, his reflexes more refined.
Peter would be…
XXXxxxXXX
-Wanting to kill himself.
“Get. Up.”
“It's only-“ Peter cracked an eye open, deliberately looking straight past his glaring sister to the position of the sun out the window. “Like 8am…ish.”
“That is a perfectly normal time for people to get up, Peter.”
“But I’m tireddddd! Come on, just a few more minutes?” He whined, hugging his pillow to his chest, leaving his head with nothing to lie on but the fairly hard mattress of the rented room he was staying in.
“The last time I gave you a ‘few minutes’ Felicia managed to get in an argument that nearly turned physical with a street preacher.”
“Fine, fine.” He groaned tiredly, sitting up with a yawn and running his fingers through his crimson hair as his other arm continued to loosely hug the pillow to his chest.
“Good.” Angelica huffed, crossing her arms with a very self-satisfied smirk on her face. “If you aren’t down in ten minutes we’re going on this quest Felicia picked out without you.”
“Huh? Another quest? Why didn’t you say that sooner!?” Peter yelped, leaping out of his bed and rushing towards his pack to grab his adventuring gear.
“Because you wouldn’t have heard that while half asleep, idiot.” Angelica sighed, shaking her head and placing it in her hand before turning around to walk out of the room.
“I totally would’ve!”
“Whatever you say.” His sister laughed, waving her hand dismissively as she walked out of the room.
XXXxxxXXX
Six Minutes Later
“I’m here!” Peter announced exuberantly as he bounded over to his two companions, both of his fists planted on his hips.
“Took you long enough.” Felicia mumbled into a muffin that she took a small bite out of.
“You know that I struggle to get out of bed in the morning, Felicia…” Peter replied sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.
“If you stopped going to bed so late that might not be an issue.”
“I get distracted training. I really think I’m getting the hang of activating my Power Stance.” Peter said happily, making a small gesture with one hand as the other stayed on his hip and his weight shifted to rest on a single leg.
“Imagine needing to stay up so late to practise that.” Angelica whispered to Felicia, the both of them giggling at the only male left in the party for a moment.
“Well, I’m not sure you’re much better, you tried to pull a four-day all-nighter marathon when you first found out about Magical Contracts to investigate them.” The [Saintess] replied with the vaguest hint of a smug smirk, getting a dusting of pink over the Kroll girl’s cheeks.
“Well, I didn’t even know they existed! I needed to know more!” She tried to defend herself, clutching her rather simple staff defensively.
“Uh huh. Which is why we found you covered in ink-stains while staring, basically comatose, at a book on vegetables?” Felicia crossed her arms and raised a single eyebrow in amusement.
“I- That- Well-“
There was a sharp clap, drawing both girls’ attention to Peter who gave the both of them an easy-going smile with his eyes closed.
“Ok ok, how about we just focus on the quest ok? It’s been a few days since our last one and I’m getting a little antsy.” Peter spoke, trying to sound calm and diplomatic.
Yet both young women knew him far, far too well to fall for such a deception. The both of them were able to see the not-so subtle hints of that very pent-up energy that seemed to just want to burst right out of the red-haired teen’s very pores.
“And you don’t even know what it is yet. You know that your need to keep moving is going to get you in some real trouble one day.” Angelica huffed, placing her own fists on her hips and leaning forward slightly, a disapproving look on her face.
“Like when Miss Vira took away my blade for a week for rushing in to fight that draken?” Peter shuddered at the memory, paling a little and hugging himself tightly.
“You know that it could be far worse than that, Peter.” Angelica scowled, slapping Peter’s hand away when he tried to place it placatingly on her shoulder.
“Owww! I was just trying to lighten the mood, sorry.” He grumbled, waving his hand around a little.
Angelica didn’t truly know if it actually hurt or if he was just playing along to give her some kind of ego boost and she didn’t actually know if she wanted a confirmation at this stage.
“We have to go clear out a small ruin that was found outside Kret.” Felicia informed him, pulling out a small map that seemed to already be marked with the location in question, in the northern-most east end of Kairahl.
“That’s….pretty close to the vianthian peninsula. Don’t a lot of people go up there all the time?” Peter questioned his sister, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger as he looked between her and the map.
“They do, it’s a rather lucrative mining hot spot. Mana sensitive gemstones and metals can be found pretty much all over the coast and a fair way inland too.” She informed, ever the encyclopaedia of wherever the party needed to go.
“Followers of Thaum make pilgrimages to the peninsula on a fairly regular basis.” Felicia added in monotonously. “If I remember correctly, the belief is that making the travel and following the guiding principles of their lord in a land so steeped in magic brings them ever closer to his greatness.”
“Though a couple countries still aren’t very happy about that….” Angelica mumbled under her breath, purposefully making sure that her brother couldn’t hear.
Not that he would have, anyways, since he was a bit too preoccupied with taking a large step over to Felicia with a teasing grin on his face and a hand cupped beside his ear.
“Oh, what’s this I hear? The great [Saintess] Felicia pronouncing the greatness of a god other than Solyre?”
“Your attempt at a joke is noted.” Felicia deadpanned, raising a hand that sparked and lit on fire as if it simply sat beneath her skin, waiting to be released. “And it is not appreciated.”
“Alright alright!” Peter leapt back a few steps and raised his arms in surrender. “I get it, I get it. No mocking your love for Solyre.”
Felicia hummed while narrowing her eyes, recognizing the ‘love’ comment for the somewhat subtly buried joke that it actually was but deciding to let that one slide. The flames snuffed out in a small puff of black smoke and scattering embers.
“But in all seriousness, wouldn’t we have already found and cleared a ruin out in a place like that?” Peter asked, straightening back out a little from his small, hunched surrender.
“From what little I know; it was found pretty deep underground.” Angelica huffed, swiping some hair out of her eyes as a small gust blew through the street. “Not sure how or why though, the situation is still too new for any knowledge to reach anyone outside the Guild and a couple other groups.”
“Couldn’t get anything from the Guild?” Her brother questioned, crossing his arms with a small frown.
“Nope, completely tight-lipped.”
“I was worried they were going to strip us of the quest with how hard she was pushing.” Felicia hummed, this time getting a small blush and averted gaze from the red-haired young woman in question.
“I just wanted to know…”
“And that, dear Angelica, is your vice.” Peter sung smugly, only to yelp and swerve back when she whirled around on him with a glare.
“Let’s start travelling alright? It's already going to take 8 or 9 days to get there as is.”
“Alright.” Both siblings nodded solemnly, beginning to trudge after Felicia as she began to walk.
XXXxxxXXX
Four Days Later, Kairahl Countryside
“Peter you’re still struggling to activate it just in general, are you sure that you want to attempt this?” Angelica asked, worry evident in her expression as her and Felicia stood facing Peter, their camp set up a few hundred metres to her left.
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“I know I can do this!” Peter nodded exuberantly, his stance wide and his arms pumped as he tried to convince the two of them. “I can’t just sit around and wait; I have to learn this as quickly as possible.”
“That may be true. But this method isn’t exactly safe.” Felicia tacked on, clearly worried herself.
“Potato tomato.” Peter scoffed, waving a hand dismissively before smiling widely once more. “With Felicia’s help I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not omnipotent, Peter. There are plenty of things I can’t heal. Lost limbs and organs being high on such a list.” Felicia said, a bit of heat entering her voice as she glared disapprovingly.
“Then I’ll do my best to avoid injuries like that. But I really need your help, girls. Learning to do it in battle is going to increase my battle prowess to a whole new level!”
“Peter…you’re trying to rush this too much.” Angelica tried to reason with her brother.
“One time!”
Both girls froze in confusion at the sudden exclamation of the red-haired teen. One of his fingers raised to the sky with a deadly serious expression carved into his face.
“Go along with this one time. If it goes well, you’ll agree to help me with it in the future. If it goes poorly….I’ll never do this ever again, no matter how long I live. Deal?”
Both young women looked between each other before they began to quietly whisper between themselves, keeping it at a volume that Peter had absolutely no hope of hearing even a single word, let alone a whole sentence.
Not that he was particularly trying to, the red-haired male already performing a couple stretches and making sure that he was limbered up properly. His entire body bobbing up and down rhythmically as he bounced on the balls of his feet to get his blood flowing and heart pumping.
It definitely said something about his knowledge of both girls that he knew they would agree to his bet. Not because he made some kind of enlightened argument or because both of them genuinely believed that he would be ok in the end.
No, Peter knew that the both of them would agree for the sole reason of stopping him from ever attempting something like this in the future. A bet on their ability to overwhelm him to the point that they could reasonably say that it went poorly.
Peter knew all of this, and he didn’t care in the slightest, he knew that he could do this. He had the utmost confidence that he could not only learn to consistently use the one Power Stance he knew but also that he could convince both the girls that he could be trusted to train like this.
“Fine.” Angelica huffed, her arms crossed and her glare almost sharp enough to cut him on its own.
“We’ll go along with this plan of yours, Peter.” Felicia muttered, embers beginning to waft off her hair and palms.
“We say when this spar comes to an end.” Angelica added, her staff floating over from the campsite and into her hand, where the core began to faintly glow.
“Yeah. Sounds like a plan.” Peter said, still bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, pausing for just long enough to draw his blade completely from its sheath.
“We’ll start when this rock hits the ground.” Angelica instructed, a small magic circle appearing over her staff and firing a golfball sized stone into the air.
The rock wasn’t fired with any particularly powerful velocity, reaching the apex of its arc and hitting the ground in precisely 1.64 seconds. The ‘dunk’ of stone on stone seeming to echo for an eternity in the span of a single second.
Peter burst forward, his blade stopped in midair by a glowing barrier of white light before it could land true on Angelica’s form.
‘Felicia’s barrier, no way I’m breaking through that with a regular strike.’ Peter felt a ripple of mana beneath his feet and leapt into the air, avoiding the myriad of needle-thin earthen spikes that erupted from the soil.
“Not yet!” Angelica exclaimed, the magic circle on the ground beneath her feet whirling and sliding into a new position.
Beads of brilliant light coalesced above Peter’s head as he began to hang in the air, the earthen spikes rolling and conforming to each other until they’d formed one much taller, much thicker, spike. Its sharpened point actively rose towards Peter as the beads of light reached critical mass and detonated; an instant, split-second duration, sun of white light appearing over the three teens.
Like a small meteor, Peter struck the earth and slid back. His feet gouging deep trenches in the earth until he was finally ground to a halt.
Both young women wanted to hope that such a quick combination attack would have gotten the red-haired party leader, but they both knew Peter and his stubbornness too much by now to expect such an easy victory.
“Wow!” The smoke that clung to his form slowly drifted away, showing that Peter had braced himself against the flat of his blade, using it as a makeshift shield with a few, ultimately, superficial burns along his arms and shoulders. “Nice combo, girls. But if you think that’ll be enough to stop me-“
A familiar string of runes, to the two ladies at least, flared to life over Peter’s blade as he held it out towards the two of them once more. Brilliant orange flames flaring to life over the blade as he grinned widely at the two of them.
“Then we clearly haven’t sparred enough!”
Felicia’s response to his, ever so slightly, arrogant exclamation was a searing blade of light that hurled itself through the air towards him like a javelin.
‘Here and now-‘ Peter flared the flames around his blade, shaping them in a specific pattern as he tried to get his stance perfect.
Angelica narrowed her eyes further and formed two cables of earth, held together purely by her magic, to lash out at Peter and force him out of his stance.
If Peter got his stance right, it would activate before she could pull him out of it. If he got it wrong, he’d be at the mercy of Angelica’s earth cables and Felicia’s light blade without enough firepower to efficiently deal with both.
A bet on both sides.
‘I’ll get it right!’ Peter began to swing forward, faltering for a fraction of a second as he realised that his stance had not, in fact, been right.
Both siblings had made bets, but Angelica’s had proven to be far safer.
A cable wrapped around his right forearm and right shin respectively, hurling him into the air with a strangled cry, directly into Felicia’s light blade.
However, even though he may not have been able to activate his Power Stance, the technique that it was derived from was still ready to go at a moment’s notice.
A guttural cry washed over the two ladies as an arc of flames twice the size of Peter himself surged forward and struck Felicia’s construct, detonating the both of them in midair, swallowing Peter in the proceeding fireball for the second time.
“The fights lasted for about two minutes by this stage and that’s the second time he’s been caught in a fireball. You know he’s going to be complaining about burns all the way to the mines, right?” Angelica sighed, placing her head in her hand.
“I’m not surprised. He’s always been bad with burns.” Felicia hummed, getting a single glimpse of Peter flying towards them before he disappeared.
On pure instinct, both teens whirled around and launched themselves back. Neither one of them, for as confident as they were in dealing with Peter at a distance, wanted to be anywhere within striking range of their red-haired leader. Shields of crystallized mana and brilliant solar light flickered to life as Peter himself spun around amidst his hard landing.
A single foot slammed itself into the ground, his arms curled in a large swinging stance around his shoulder and his eyes blown wide in manic focus.
‘This time! This time I’ll get it!’
Peter followed through with his swing after just enough hesitation to activate his Power Stance, throwing yet another arc of fire out towards the two ladies, clicking his tongue when he saw the flames harmlessly bounce off their shields.
He’d failed to activate his Power Stance yet again.
Leaping towards the two ladies once more, Peter hit the ground and crouched low to avoid the fireball aimed at his shoulder. His right leg sliding out and knocking Felicia off her feet dramatically.
“A-”
White hair splayed over the ground like snow as Peter leapt backwards once more, a fireball on his tail.
“Did you think that would be all, Peter?” Angelica crowed, clenching her fist.
As if in the midst of destabilising, the fireball began to jitter and shake, Peter’s eyes widening as the spell split into four smaller fireballs that exploded out from their point of origin and began to arc towards the red-haired [Warrior].
‘How did she do that? There was no extra magic circle and the first one disappeared. A Magic Contract?’
Two rapid strafes brought him out of the blast radius of the first two fireballs, a back cartwheel bringing him out of the way of the third and his own flaming blade striking the fourth. His teeth grit and his muscles strained as he tried to push back against the velocity and force of the spell.
Ordinarily a fireball, especially this size, shouldn’t have been any issue for him to bat away or disperse. But with Angelica it was a different story, and that was all thanks to the attribute of her mana: Superiority. An attribute that was rather simple in its complete and utter merciless existence; the attribute of superiority made her mana better. Her mana was denser than it should be, faster than it should be, stronger than it should be.
With a flare of his own mana and a final swing of his blade, the fireball dispersed harmlessly, shorn to cinders by his own mana.
Unfortunately, while his own mana attribute of Power made it an effective way to overpower a spell when given a prolonged period to overwhelm it, Angelica’s own mana was far tougher to break than the average persons and nearly as strong as his own in terms of pure, raw, power.
Not exactly a winning combination.
But it was that raw power that made his Power Stance that much more dangerous. The moment he could fire it off at will, he would have a powerful ace in his pocket, he just had to get the feeling right.
“Time to end this.” Felicia’s voice washed over the two, six pillars of burning white energy crashing into the ground around Peter with a wide-eyed look from the teen.
‘Felicia is calling on way more power than usual. If she keeps going, she’s going to injure herself!’
The flames around Peter’s blade flickered and their colour shifted ever so slightly, his breath drawing in with a quick but controlled inhale. The six pillars around him began to connect to each other through horizontal bars that trapped him from escaping entirely, a well-known technique of the Church of Solyre: The Pillar of Repentance.
Once all three rings of horizontal bars connected themselves, the centre of the six pillars would be engulfed in the radiant energy of Solyre, or so the saying went. Peter didn’t exactly have any plans to experience it himself, nor did he have any plans to allow Felicia to injure herself just to stop him.
He no longer had any kind of choice, it was either succeed on using his Power Stance right here and now, or he was calling an end to the training himself. His final chance, everything rode on this and his training.
“Remember the feeling…” He muttered to himself, sliding into his stance as a magic circle appeared before Angelica, a regretful look in her eye as she powered up her own attack.
‘I just wish you could learn a lesson without being so damn stubborn, Peter.’ Runes and symbols whirled and transmuted in her magic circle, coming to their final resting place with a soft pulse of mana.
Peter breathed in deeply, and everything just seemed to click. He felt the mana of the world around him flow in like a tsunami through a crack in a rock-face and the flames of his blade exploded exponentially in size. He had finally done it, Peter had finally managed to activate his Power Stance in a fight, and now it was time to use it.
“Felicia! You can stop overloading yourself with power!” He yelled, taking a heavy step forward and heaving his blade in a large, heavy swing.
Like they were made of glass his arc of fire shattered the Pillar of Repentance, searing the grass beneath it and leaving a trail of fire along the ground in its wake. Its flight eating up the distance between itself and Angelica at a speed too fast for any of them to react, save of course for Angelica herself.
Her spell, which had already been actualizing itself even before his Power Stance had activated, burst to life in a frenzy of its own fire. Activating and destabilising in equal measure as she threw herself to the side with a healthy dosage of mana-infusion to her legs to get the necessary distance between herself and the explosion of fire that she knew would occur.
And occur it did, the arc of fire striking the compressed fireball and detonating both at once in a pillar of reds, oranges and yellows. Its power swirled lazily even as it spread a wave of fire over the grass nearby and flash burnt the skin of the three teens facing the epicentre.
And as quickly as it appeared it disappeared, the mana which had been its fuel running out and the flames no longer able to sustain themselves. A shaky, relieved, sigh leaving the lips of Angelica as she saw that the main danger itself, the fire tornado, had dissipated and left only small flames in its wake which she could easily deal with.
“Hehe.” Her pink-ish eyes whirled on her brother as she heard him laugh, his body turned to face Felicia as he gave her a big grin and a thumbs up. “Activation of Inferno Strike has been completed!”
She wasn’t sure what about it set her off, maybe his laugh, or his grin, or the general demeanour that he spoke to Felicia, who risked actual injury a few moments ago to stop him, but she just knew that her next action was correct.
Without mana this was certain to injure her hand more than his head, so she made sure to pack a fair amount of it into her open hand as she stalked up on her brother from behind. Her hand raised and her face shadowed by her hair.
“Felicia? What’s the look fo-“
The palm of Angelica’s open hand smacked into the back of Peter’s head, immediately knocking him off his feet with a squawk of surprise from the teen in question, his body rolling until it hit a tree with a dull thump.
She knew that he wouldn’t be seriously injured by her slap, he was still her brother after all, but that felt undeniably good after how stupid he had been.
“Angelicaaaaa! Whhhhhyyyy?”
“Suck it up, baby.” Felicia kicked him while he was down, sticking her tongue out at him.
“Felicia!?” Peter gasped, sitting up with a scandalised look.
“You complete idiot. Get over here so we can check you.” Angelica huffed, crossing her arms with an eye roll and gesturing him over with her head.
“I’m not going to be slapped again for being stupid….right?”
“Slapped? No. But other punishments may await.”
“Can they…not?”
“No.”