Immovable Mage

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 215, Season of the Rising Moon, Day 23 –

The ghouls rushed at Terry in a frenzy.

Terry clenched his teeth and waited for them to come within range. Then, he swung his glaive to cut down the first of the ghouls.

He transfixed the glaive and jumped back. The ghoul’s charge was blocked by the glaive’s pole. Terry retrieved two short spears – one fire-aspected and one coldfire-aspected. He rapidly struck out and pierced the heads of the ghouls that were held back by the transfixed glaive.

Terry took a run-up and used the immovable glaive as a foothold to jump. He gathered momentum to rotate topsy-turvy and then activated the imprints in his boots. From the air, he struck down and eradicated the ghouls one after the other.

Where did the shade go?

Terry skewered the skull of another ghoul.

Can a shade threaten the cube?

Terry returned the spears to his storage bracelets. Afterwards, he retrieved two shining metal rods and walked down – or rather up in his topsy-turvy state – to get on top of them, where he started another retrieval. This time, from his crafter’s pendant.

A large boulder appeared in the air and fell onto the two shining rods.

Terry gathered momentum, deactivated the imprints in his boots, and let himself drop to the ground again. He picked up the glaive and then pushed the spike into the earth.

Terry retrieved his coldfire spear and a bolas. He watched the ghouls clawing at the light-aspected items.

Those are your last shining rods. Maybe you should have used the boulder with the glowing rings as bait instead? That would have been less easy for the shade to take away… I think… Maybe.

Terry used the moment of respite to check on Lizzy and inject additional mana into the immovable cube. When he noticed a trace of shadow-aspected mana, Terry ran forward.

The shade rushed from the shadows to grab the shining rod.

*Wroom!*

After the shade had disrupted the spell in one of the transfixed rods, the boulder fell down and crushed the ghouls beneath it. Unfortunately, the shade was holding on to the second rod and escaped the fate of the other ghouls.

Terry hurled the bolas at the shade. The rope wrapped around the shade’s torso and the octavum weights became immovable.

Terry dashed forward. He jumped and then activated the imprints in his boots. His coldfire spear penetrated the skull of the shade.

Is it dead? I miss the conclusive feedback from the dungeon…

Terry retrieved a barrier spear, stabbed it into the shade’s torso, and activated the barrier. He angled the barrier so that he could continue aiming blows at the head with his coldfire spear.

After two more blows, the shade let go of the transfixed shining rod and Terry pulled back his spears to let the creature drop to the ground.

Terry had to dodge when he noticed two more shadow-aspected signatures. One was aiming for the remaining rod while the other was lunging at him.

Terry gathered momentum and deactivated the imprints in his boots. He rotated in the air until he could stare down at the attacking shade and then reactivated his boots.

Terry blocked with his barrier spear and then counterattacked with his coldfire spear. While Terry did manage to finish off the shade that was focused on him, the remaining shade had successfully disposed of the light-aspected rod.

You are running out of herding items… and you ought to preserve a few in case of cube emergencies…

“Hmph.” Terry stared at the silhouettes in the distance. While the sheer endless amount of ghouls crawling onto the plateau seemed daunting, Terry found some courage in the never-ending flashes of hellfire.

Devon is scary~

Remember Ma Isille’s comment about team balance? Something about suicide squads? Ouch ouch ouch, stop biting the inside of your cheek!

Terry took a deep breath and returned his coldfire spear to his storage bracelet. “Change in tactics.”

Wait, hold up a second. You’re not really… You are. Are you sure?

Terry retrieved one of the aspected items he had acquired in Syn: a short spear whose tip had been aspected with brightfire.

Brightfire was an intersection aspect of fire and light. It burned with a white flame that was harmless to living beings but inflicted damage on death creatures.

“Their fear of fire is dwarfed by their loathing of the light aspect.”

Terry prepared himself mentally. He bent his left arm, whose hand was holding the barrier spear. He activated the barrier and kept the barrier close to his body. His other arm was outstretched and kept the brightfire tip at a distance.

Did you really turn yourself into bait? Are you an idiot?

Terry clenched his teeth and refused to blink…

He caught the flicker of a shadow-aspected mana signature. Terry turned rapidly and struck out with his barrier spear to prevent the creature from disappearing again. He activated the imprint in the barrier spear’s attachment. With the first spear transfixed, Terry stepped around the shade and used the brightfire spear to aim for the shade’s skull.

Ghouls were charging towards Terry.

After the shade was dealt with, Terry took possession of the barrier spear again. He considered switching weapons, but decided against it. The glaive could not attract the ghouls and, in the end, Terry still felt most comfortable with two short spears in his hands.

He started engaging the ghouls directly. Dodging on the ground. Moving to the air. Striking down from above. He used the brightfire spear to direct their attention and, whenever possible, to eliminate them quickly.

Terry was getting into a rhythm. The ghouls were not much different from the ghouls in the dungeon, and he was familiar with their movements. The only lingering anxiety in his mind was the possibility of more shades appearing.

Terry’s mana sense picked up new signatures. This time, they were not shadow-aspected.

“Curses!” Terry dodged a translucent green skull that came flying at him. He slashed the haunt with his brightfire spear and it disappeared.

“Crap.” Terry muttered anxiously to himself. “Crap crap crap.”

His cube would not protect Lizzy from ethereal creatures.

Terry returned his spears to their storage bracelets. He hurled a light-aspected ring into the distance and collected the glaive back into his storage item. Next, Terry hurried back to the cube.

“You can’t stay on the ground. I can’t intercept ethereal creatures coming from below.”

Terry disrupted the active spell and bent open the cube. He heaved Lizzy onto his shoulders and then used his imprinted boots to step up into the air.

Heavy!

Don’t tell her I said that.

“Wastes, if only Lizzy had used an imprint to make her armor lighter, then I could activate that myself.”

Despite his grumbling, Terry tirelessly stepped further up.

Terry was unsure about how high he should go. On the one hand, a higher location would give him more wiggle room for intercepting the creatures. On the other hand, a higher location would also increase the risk of hurting Lizzy if he messed up with keeping her cube transfixed in the air.

“ARGH!” Terry uttered in frustration. “No sense breaking my head over this… HERE!”

Terry retrieved a tertium slab and transfixed it in the air. Afterwards, he retrieved another flat cube and placed it on top of the transfixed slab. He placed Lizzy on one of the cube’s squares and folded the cube around her. Last, he cast Immovable Object on the cube.

Another haunt appeared next to Terry, and he slashed it with his fire-aspected spear. He searched the area for the incoming death specter.

He gulped when he discovered more than he had bargained for. His eyes saw a translucent green death specter, but his mana sight saw another signature right next to the specter.

Dun dun dun. You’re dead. Honestly, I’m surprised you made it this far.

Terry hurled the fire-aspected spear at the invisible signature.

The impact caused a flicker that revealed a creature that resembled a death specter except for the foggy white mist that covered its translucent body.

“Phantom!” cursed Terry. “Why does a third rank have to appear here?!”

“Aside from invisibility, a phantom can materialize its claws. If that thing gets to Lizzy with its claws, then…”

Terry hurriedly retrieved the mana sublimator and loaded it with the mana core of a fire slime.

You only have one intact mana core aspected with fire.

Terry scowled and took aim.

If this doesn’t work, then…

“Shut up.”

The creatures flew rapidly towards Terry.

Terry ignored a haunt that attacked him. He could feel a stinging pain and the sensation of his remaining mana dropping. He kept his eyes on the death specter and phantom.

Th-this is n-not a g-good—

“Shut up!” Terry fought the haunt’s fear effect.

Suddenly, the phantom rushed ahead of the death specter.

Terry waited with bated breath, and then he channeled mana into the inscribed device. A blast of fire-aspected mana engulfed the phantom. Further in the back, the death specter also caught some damage.

With a screech, the phantom became visible. It seemed more transparent than during the flicker earlier.

“Waste it!” Terry retrieved a shield and used his gravitational attraction glove to pull back the fire-aspected spear.

The phantom materialized its claws and attacked Terry. Luckily, Terry managed to pull the shield back before the materialization finished and the attack was blocked.

A moment later, the attracted fire-aspected spear penetrated the phantom’s body.

The phantom flickered again and backed off from Terry.

“Die already!” Terry hurled the fire-aspected spear again. Simultaneously, he attempted to use his gravitational attraction glove. This proved a challenge even for Terry’s mana control because the spear was moving fast.

Fortunately, it worked and Terry had the fire-aspected spear-tip penetrate the phantom two more times.

Unfortunately, the death specter was attacking now and Terry could not take the chance to try to finish off the retreating phantom.

Terry caught the fire-aspected spear again.

Continue with the aspected spears or use another aspected blast? I still have some fire-aspected shards and some light-aspected cores from the shining dropbears…

Terry was torn over what to do when the sight in the distance made his stomach plummet. Another specter and a flying death mage had arrived on the plateau.

“Oh, come on!”

On the bright side, the hellfire is still flashing. So when you and Lizzy are dead, Devon can avenge you!

“Great,” exclaimed Terry sarcastically.

Terry considered taking Lizzy and stepping as far up into the air as possible…

Failing to defend the plateau…

Terry eyed the phantom’s mana signature and then exchanged weapons to equip the glaive. Its long fiery blade was better suited to attack the specter. Unfortunately, it was also a lot heavier than his short spears, which made dodging the haunts more challenging.

I wish I already had the imprinted pearls…

An idea entered Terry’s mind. He summoned a tertium slab and transfixed it into the air. He stepped on the slab and placed the glaive on top. Next, Terry threw out several octavum balls.

He jumped to one of the transfixed balls and used it as a follow-up jumping point. In the air, he retrieved and transfixed another tertium slab. Like this, Terry prepared the area.

Terry returned to the first slab and picked up the glaive. Next, he leaped from immovable item to immovable item while slashing at the death specter in the center. He infused more mana whenever required and used his imprinted boots whenever he had misjudged a jump.

Slash by slash, Terry wore down the specter until it went up in a puff of green smoke and disappeared completely.

One down.

Terry used the breathing room to reinfuse more mana into the cube, as well as into the warning tertium slab beneath the cube.

After Terry was done, he scanned the area again. While he was concentrating on his mana sense, he perceived a rumbling from somewhere deep in the Bulwark.

“What was that?” Terry blurted out.

Terry was close to screaming in frustration. Another death aura creature had entered his senses. The creature looked like a death mage with additional bones as armor.

The death summoner cast a spell and several skeletons crawled up from the earth on the plateau. Terry knew the undead did not really come out of the earth, but that was what it looked like.

The only difference between these skeletons and regular skeletal warriors was that these summoned skeletons were maintained by the summoner’s mana. They were his weapons. While a death summoner could raise proper skeletal warriors from dead bodies, it could not create them out of thin air.

Two more death mages flew up next to the death summoner.

Terry slightly shook his head. “Up then. No helping—”

He perceived rapid movement from the phantom signature and quickly switched to the mana sublimator.

You should have loaded that earlier. Nitwit.

Terry was about to load the inscribed contraption when a purple bolt hit the phantom and the creature evaporated.

“Where is Lizzy?” Ying had teleported next to Terry.

“Oh, thank mana! Up there in the cube.” Terry pointed and had the urge to fall down on his knees. He had to fight the urge because he was still airborne.

Ying flew towards the cube. He disrupted the imprints and cast a spell to levitate Lizzy. Afterwards, the two of them floated down to the ground.

Without waiting to arrive on the ground, Ying already cast spell after spell to deal with the spirit poisoning. He shielded Lizzy’s spirit to prevent it from further harm. He raised Lizzy’s spirit resistance to allow her to fight the poison. He strengthened her spirit so that she could overcome it more quickly.

After Ying had stabilized Lizzy’s spiritual condition, he cast spirit-aspected variants of the three fundamental healing spells. Unfortunately, there was no simple cure for a poisoned spirit.

It could be contained and treated, but it was difficult to outright cure the condition and the difficulty rose drastically the longer the poison had spread. In most cases, the best hope was for the victim’s spirit to overpower the poison. The spirit-aspected spell variations could only weaken the poison temporarily and thereby assist in the victim’s struggle.

“How is she?” Megumi had arrived next to Ying. Her face was drained of blood and her brow was sweaty.

“Not out of the water yet,” replied Ying, and examined Lizzy’s vital signs one more time. He looked Megumi in the eyes. “But she’ll make it.”

“Thank mana.” Megumi collapsed to her knees. “And thank Syn.”

The Captain clenched her teeth and stood back up.

“Captain, you should rest a moment, too,” said Ying with concern. “You have pushed your mana channels beyond their limits.”

“Thanks, I’ll take it easy then.” The Captain did not sit down again. Instead, she walked to Terry. “Thanks for holding the fort together with Devon.”

Terry gulped when he noticed the faintly visible blood vessels on Megumi’s face. Before Terry could think of a reply, the Captain was already in the air to engage the horde.

When Terry looked after the Captain, he could detect several cyan and yellow auras approaching on red sand from the horizon.

“The life signature in the Bulwark was a fake.” Yancey rose up from liquified earth. “They forged the signature with some kind of construct. I’ve heard of these, but I’ve never seen one before.”

“Someone really put some thought into this trap,” murmured Ying.

“Olivienne and I will take some of the others to go after the few that have breached the Bulwark. The crazy one has done a good job blocking the passage.”

“Mhmh. Did Saul say anything else?”

“If he has regained some sense, you mean?” jeered Yancey.

“I get it, ok?” Ying sounded tired. “I understand that it’s impossible for the citizens that have been left to fend for themselves by Tiv to…” Ying inhaled deeply. “To now enthusiastically risk their lives and afterlives to defend the very same Tiv. I get it.”

Ying sighed. “We’re not here for Tiv. We’re here to help the Captain and to show the promise of Syn.” He stared into Yancey’s eye sockets without interrupting the casting of healing spells. “So what did Saul say?”

“He and the main force will attack the horde from the north with the goal of securing a position at the Bulwark and then push back. Saul is mostly worried about the blood abominations. If they— Wastes, there we go already.”

Terry’s mana sense went haywire when it was drowned by blood-aspected mana. He stepped into the air to get a better view of what was happening. From there, he could see a crimson creature growing at a rapid pace. It looked as if it was absorbing hundreds of zombies into its own body.

*RUMBLE!* The whole Bulwark shook.

“Second act.” Yancey spoke leisurely. “It must be hungry.”

A gargantuan centipede with pincers on its head crawled out from beneath the Bulwark and lunged at the giant blood abomination.

“Waste it,” cursed Ying. “That thing may become even more troublesome than the horde.”

“Another reason to not involve ourselves here,” retorted Yancey. “Let the imperial dogs deal with their own prob— Why is my skull getting tingly?!”

Lightning flashed in the heavens, and something dropped out of the sky.

With a thunderous roar, the lightning turned purple and took the shape of a dragon before it impacted in the middle of the horde. Soon after, the lightning dragon went on a rampage and rained destruction on the horde. Here and there, flames and ice followed in its path…

Terry could make out the silhouette of a person swinging a sword.

His mana sight showed him a mana signature that could compete with Devon’s for the title of the most abnormal mana signature in existence. It seemed to consist not of a single signature at all but instead of several signatures layered on top of and intermingling with each other.

Some of the death mages cast a spell that unleashed countless death spears from the heavens.

A woman appeared out of thin air and erased all spells with one motion of her mage staff.

In the next second, the woman had teleported in front of Terry. The woman looked like the embodiment of a mage proper. She could have jumped directly out of Calam’s book on the Faithless Saints.

Terry’s eyes were glued to her staff when trying to identify all the precious materials. He spotted several purple mana crystals.

The woman glanced over everyone present and stopped at Yancey. “Well, this will require some further explanation.”

“Greetings, Amelia. I am called Ying. The cyan and yellow auras are allies. We are here to help. Please don’t target us.”

“Huh… Fancy that.” Amelia narrowed her eyes at Yancey. “He does not look like a summons.”

“I’m not,” retorted Yancey drily. “I’m Yancey. My daughter was a fan of yours.”

“Well, I’ll be wasted,” exclaimed Amelia with a raised eyebrow. “Some further explanation indeed. Alright, I’ll pass the word.”

“However, first things first.” Amelia’s eyes moved to Terry. “You’re Terry?”

Her eyes moved to Terry’s hip. “The famous bag is present. I don’t see some of the expected imprints tho— Ah, freshly cloaked, I see.”

Amelia grinned. “Already beginning to integrate into Tiv society, I take it?” She looked back towards the battle. “You should really have picked some different sights to visit though.”

Amelia looked back at Terry. “So? Terry or not?”

“Uhh… Yes, that’s me.”

“You better be. From what Matteo has told me, the Hammer is quite protective of her baby sister. If it turns out that you have toyed with her grief, I would advise you to get eaten before the old lady gets a hold of you.”

Amelia looked up and whispered softly. “Dargo, here.”

A mountain of a man that carried a large double-sided battle axe appeared next to her. Each of the bladed sides was bigger than Terry’s head.

Amelia pointed at Terry. “He’s the one.” Then she disappeared without another word.

The man nodded at Terry. Afterwards, he turned to observe the battle while watching the area for possible threats to Terry.

“I should go, too,” said Yancey and returned into the earth.

“Hello? What is going on?” Terry was glad that there were more people assisting in the fight, but he was also confused.

“He can’t hear you,” said Ying. “Dargones is a magebane.”

When Terry’s face revealed that he did not understand the implications, Ying elaborated: “Just like in biology, some mana traits come with spandrels, which basically means other conditions that accompany the trait.”

Ying raised his chin at the man. “A magebane is a single-aspected cultivator with the nullification aspect that is sometimes called anti-mana. Magebanes are special existences. A magebane can only hear the voice of their spirit-bond, and the spirit-bond is the only entity that can hear the magebane’s voice. They learn finger runes to communicate with others.”

Ying glanced towards the ongoing battle. “Amelia is capable of long-distance, unanchored dimensional travel. If these two are here, then the lightning before was probably Matteo, which means that—”

*BAM!* A giant bright translucent golden hammer head had appeared in the sky and whacked the gargantuan centipede to the ground. Terry could detect a mixture of what seemed to be the light and metal aspects.

“There we go.” Ying chuckled. “The Divine Hammer has arrived.”

On Ying’s face, relief was replaced with worry. “I hope the Kid can keep an open mind. He is renowned for going after undead and necromancers.”

***