Immovable Mage

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 218, Season of the Setting Moon, Day 68 –

It took all of Terry’s self-discipline to choose his current direction. With every step during his run, he had to remind himself that he was not in some mana-forsaken pocket realm anymore. He remembered his uncomfortableness when Brandon was getting interested in the story of how he flipped off the city guards after their disrespectful interrogation tactics that had wasted his time.

Remembering the blackened eye on the boy’s face, Terry found it difficult to stay his current course. The one thing that helped him persist was the self-blame that came with being the one that had given the boy a magic item for which the boy had been beaten up.

Terry took a deep breath and entered the guard post. He saw a familiar elven guard with dark greased-back hair. Last time, he had seen the elf work the entrance desk on the second floor.

At the moment, the elven guard was dealing with a human woman.

“I’m telling you!” The woman appeared slightly hysterical. “Those greedy portal bastards probably had something to do with that hellish thunder! They’re the ones that stood to gain! And now they’re extorting everyone for money! Charging to solve a problem they have created! They’re parasites! I’m sure they had—”

“That’s enough, thank you very much.” The elven guard was obviously irritated. “Someone take her away.”

“How dare you! I’m telling you!” The woman huffed in anger. “Where I come from I was—”

“I don’t really care.” The elven guard looked at another guard to escort the woman away.

“I’m telling you!”

“I’ve made a note of your accusations.” The elf put his hands over his face and took a deep breath. “Another note that another arrogant foreigner has a grudge against the portal keepers and knows nothing about the country they chose to come to. Every child here knows about the origins of that forbidden zone and those… Bah! Seriously…” He cursed under his breath. “And of course they try to pin it on the first person they don’t like. Bloody ridiculous. And then they—”

The guard looked up to find Terry standing at his desk. “Yes? Let me guess. You’re here to tell me what I should do too?” He paused and then his expression darkened. “Oh, it’s you. Great. Just great.” Sarcasm oozed through his tone. “What do you want?”

Terry wrestled down his own irritation. This was not about him. “A group attacked one of the orphans in the Flower House.”

“Sounds like someone should deduct your pay.” The elven guard seemed to revel in the opportunity to throw Terry’s own snide remark back at him. He retrieved a form from his desk despite their hostile relationship.

“Didn’t happen in the Flower House,” gritted Terry through his teeth. He took deep breaths to control his own rising temper. This was not about him.

“So what happened?” asked the elven guard.

“Earlier today, Brandon was robbed and beaten up,” started Terry.

“I know the boy.” The elven guard took notes. “How is he right now?”

“Healed,” replied Terry. His irritation softened when the guard showed what seemed like honest concern for the kid.

“Good, but also bad,” mumbled the elven guard while taking further notes.

“What?” exclaimed Terry incredulously.

“Good that the boy is okay, but bad since we didn’t get a chance to record the injuries.” The elven guard explained off-handedly. “Unfortunately, that means we’ll have to focus on the items stolen.”

“Not just stolen, robbed,” stressed Terry. “A bunch of grown-up pricks beat up a child.”

“What was taken?” asked the elven guard in a barely suppressed manner of annoyance.

“An imprinted magic glove I gave Brandon for training his mana sight,” replied Terry after taking a deep breath.

The elven guard added the information to the form and then paused. “‘For training mana sight’?” He raised an eyebrow and continued in an accusing tone: “You gave the boy an uncloaked magic item? And then what? The boy just paraded around the city with it?”

“What the Wastes does it matter what the boy was doing?” barked Terry. “Since when do you guards care about what the victim was doing at the time of the crime?”

“Weren’t you the one insisting that it mattered?” retorted the guard with a sneer before composing himself. “I’m just saying that if that’s what happened, the boy is lucky to be alive, especially with the growing number of refugees. Some of the shit we have to deal with…” He shook his head and then snarled at Terry. “I’m not blaming the boy, I’m blaming you. You should have known better than to give an item like that to a kid.”

Terry took measured breaths to calm himself. “I can bring you to those who did it.”

“No, but you can tell me what you know about the group.” The elven guard was rolling his eyes while moving his pen to another section in the form.

“One man had a prominent scar on his throat.” Terry could see something in the guard’s expression change. “I know where they are. I can sense my magic glove. It’s six blocks into the—”

“No.” The elven guard cut him off. “Some guards will come by later to take the statement of the boy and some more…” He looked dismissively at Terry. “...credible witnesses for the boy’s injuries than a suspect of another crime who bailed on their interrogation.”

Terry clenched his fists and stared at the city guard. “I know where my glove is. If you get a few guards, I can take you there and—”

“No.” The elven guard cut him off again. “There aren’t many people with scars from having their throat cut walking around. Among the locals, just one.”

“So you are going to arrest them?” Terry could not shake the bad feeling he wouldn’t like the answer.

“No, I don’t think so,” said the elven guard matter-of-factly.

For a few moments Terry just glared at the guard. “They robbed a kid.”

“Barking up the wrong tree,” hissed the elven guard. “You’re an adult. I’m telling you how it is. Without recorded injuries, the assault charges are difficult to press. So we are talking about theft at best. With the city as it is, there are too many thefts and too few guards to investigate. So—”

“I can bring you to them,” stressed Terry. “Right now. I can sense my magic glove. No big investigation necessary.”

The elven guard rolled his eyes. “I just love it when foreigners try to explain my job to me.” He hissed at Terry: “Not that simple! That glove of yours? Was it purchased in the city?”

Terry shook his head.

“Well, then you don’t have much of a way to prove who is the rightful owner,” spat the elven guard. “Additionally, we have a long backlog of reports and we can’t just have you jump the line. Finally, if it’s an item you casually gave as a gift to a kid, then it’s questionable if the item’s value exceeds the threshold for pursuing charges.”

Threshold for… Ridiculous!

Terry gritted his teeth.

“If no charges are going to come out of it, then it’s a waste of our time,” ended the city guard.

Terry glowered at the guard while taking several deep breaths before speaking. “A kid was beaten up by a group of adults and you consider going after the perpetrators a waste of time?”

“Do you have any idea who the person you are accusing is?” asked the elven guard with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t care,” growled Terry.

“Well, unfortunately, we have to,” retorted the guard. “Consider yourselves lucky that the boy is unharmed after healing and that the only loss is in a magic item you could afford losing. We can’t go to the Whisperer’s group and thereby rile up both the Import-Export Cooperative and the hunters over something like that. Tensions in the city are bad enough as it is.”

Terry took a deep breath and gave it one more try. “I would like to speak to one of your superiors.”

“Wouldn’t we all?” quipped the elven guard. “Unfortunately, my superiors are out because some absolute jackass thought it would be a great idea to put one of the refugee camps on fire. Just what this city needs. More tension and arsehole escalation. Yesterday some arsehole refugees robbed a local store while injuring the owner and today some other arseholes went out and committed arson.”

The elven guard had become agitated and he exhaled sharply. “Even if my superiors were here, they couldn’t afford to escalate the mess, especially not over something that won’t even end in charges. We’re not poking the bear for nothing.”

Terry’s eyes rested for a moment longer on the city guard and then he turned around to leave. He had understood what the guard had been saying. On a purely rational level, it made some sense from the perspective of the guards. With limited resources, they had to prioritize. With increased tensions, they had to pick their battles.

He thought it still sent the wrong signal overall, but he could understand their perspective.

There was only one problem that arose in his head whenever Terry recalled the scene of the beaten boy at the Flower House.

One problem that overruled all of Terry’s understanding for the perspective of the city guards.

I… Don’t. Care.

***

Terry saw the large two-sided entrance gate and allowed himself to drop from the divine layers onto solid ground. It was a large building. While it did not bear any excessive decorations, it appeared to be made from expensive materials. Septimum, teakwood, some kind of marble stone.

His mana washed over every nook and cranny in the large building. Every person inside was an adult mana user. All kinds of mana aspects. Every person was carrying at least one magic item. The mana signatures varied from average cultivator to strong enough that they could probably beat the young geniuses from the martialist sects whom Terry had encountered in the pocket realm.

Step.

Terry walked forward and pulled at the wider mana bubble he was keeping around himself. He preferred to have all his mana close.

Step.

He could feel the shapes of beast corpses inside the inner courtyard, which meant those people probably included the hunters whom the city guard had mentioned. Hunters of mana-corrupted beasts implied people with combat experience. That matched the fact that the stronger mana signatures appeared mingling with everyone. They were not positioned like hired guards.

Step.

The most ominous thing was that he could sense death aura creatures as well. Some skeletal warriors were actually working to dismantle the corpses. Someone must control them which either meant a necromancer or a death whisperer that caught them.

He could also sense advanced warriors, which in the case of the necromancer option, implied either a high enough skill to directly raise evolved versions or a necromancer that also acted as a curse mage to infect the raised skeletal warrior with the death aura curse.

A part of Terry’s mind was screaming at him to stop. To be cautious. To be patient. To be rational. To be—

Step.

He retrieved his king spear and clenched it tightly.

Terry could not forget the scene of the boy with the blackened eye. He could not take his eyes off the mana signature at the far end of the hall behind the doors. The mana signature of his Blinding Flash glove. The magic glove that was rightfully Brandon’s. The glove that was supposed to help the boy enjoy his mana foundational training more.

Once again, Terry was picturing the blackened eye on the boy’s face.

With a furious burst of mana, he rushed forward and stomped with all the power he could muster. The tall entrance doors caved in. The left door’s metal frame bent and the teakwood splintered. The right one ripped the hinges out of the wall and fell forward.

“What the—?!” Behind the noise and blown up dust, all the people inside were staring at the broken entrance.

“Who the fuck are you?!” roared a man from the far end of the hall. He was one of the strongest mana signatures present, but he was not the one that interested Terry.

Terry withheld his mana from entering into the concealment necklace and dropped his cloaking. He circulated mana into his barrier visor and king spear. The pole extended and a thin layer of lightning began snaking around it.

The expressions among the crowd darkened as soon as he had revealed his mana foundation for everyone to see.

“Some of you have attacked a defenseless boy this morning.” Terry spoke in a cold and detached manner. “You stole his magic glove.” His eyes fixated on the woman that was wearing the glove that rightfully belonged to Brandon. Next to her stood a man with a scar on his throat. Terry’s eyes grew brightly from an involuntary flare of his own mana and he growled: “I was the one who gave it to him.”

The same man that had initially addressed Terry began shouting: “We don’t harm chil—” He stopped himself because he had followed Terry’s gaze and read the expression of the scarred man that had stepped in front of the woman with the glove. The speaker cleared his throat and glowered at Terry. He barked: “I don’t give a shit what happened. You shouldn’t have barged in here! You’re going to pay for those doors!”

“Yeah!”

“I don’t see a glove here, do you?”

“What’s it to you?”

The crowd howled and sneered.

“How are you going to pay for the damage you have caused, boy?!” The speaker demanded. Behind him, many skeletal warriors and death knights arrived from the courtyard. Among them were two large death reavers.

It had been a while since Terry had seen one of those. He knew that the creatures would absorb both his health and mana with every wound they inflicted. They would heal with every successful attack.

He did not care.

The times when a pair of death reavers could intimidate him were long past.

“She has the glove.” Terry pointed with the spear. “And he was involved.” He pointed at the man with the scar on his throat. “Six people total. Four men and two women. I want to know who.”

“Fucking prick, I don’t give a shit what you want! You’re not giving any orders here! I asked you a question! How…?” The speaker’s voice trailed off when Terry began walking forward.

The first hunter lost his patience and attacked Terry when he was close.

Terry swiftly transfixed the man’s bracer and with a fluid thrust and twist of an elongated king spear around the immovable fulcrum, the man’s arm broke right at his elbow.

The blood-curdling scream was accompanied by many incoming spells. About two thirds of them were meant to harm Terry while the remaining ones were healing spells that targeted the injured man.

Terry noted that their attack spells were limited since they were trying to avoid hitting each other while he fluidly continued his spear movements. Simultaneously, he ripped apart all spells with an intense disruption pulse while he forced the injured man to the floor and pointed the spearhead at his throat. “I will take back the glove.” He talked firmly and in a somewhat detached tone. His eyes lingered on the pair with the magic glove and scarred throat.

“This glove?” The woman behind the scarred man sneered and lifted her arm. She leered at Terry and then lifted a dagger towards the glove.

Terry tilted his head without losing the detached look in his eyes. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“I do what I want,” hissed the woman and tried to cut the glove apart. However, her dagger refused to move after Terry had transfixed it. “What?!” She glared at Terry but quickly smirked. Instead of moving the dagger, she simply moved the arm with the glove, only to find her arm trapped in translucent layers of golden mana.

“You shouldn’t have tried that,” growled Terry, who was quickly running out of what little patience he had arrived with. He involuntarily grinned. “You want to destroy the item I gave as a gift?” His grin contorted into a grimace of madness. “You want to see who’s better at destroying items?!”

In an instant, Terry’s mana bubble contracted and his mana invaded the magic items he could sense. Guided by his mana touch, even the slightest gap in mana shielding was enough to pick through it and no cloaking would prevent his touch from locating the central imprint. He glared at the woman and cackled while ripping every single imprint apart.

“What the—?”

“My wand!”

A commotion broke out and even the speaker from before was standing up to stare with mouth agape.

A pair of hunters lost their temper when seeing their valuable magic items destroyed. They ignored the captive man threatened by Terry’s spearhead and charged at him.

Terry chose to press the spear slightly down, just enough to draw blood from his hostage but not enough to seriously hurt the man. When the pair of hunters refused to stop, he growled and transfixed the king spear in place.

He managed to trip the first one with the divine hammer inscription while blinding the second with his radiating light inscription. In contrast to the past, he did not need to drop the blinding light to continue fighting. His mana touch was a suitable substitute for his vision.

When the light returned to normal levels, one of the two rash hunters was unconscious on the floor while Terry held a keen dagger to the throat of the other. Next to him, the king spear was still threatening the first man, who was trying to use his one uninjured arm to pull at the spear, but with no success.

Terry knew that the spear wouldn’t budge just like he knew that he was unable to actually kill the pinned man without using his hands. By contrast, none of the hunters knew what kind of magic he was using.

The weaker ones began distancing themselves from Terry.

“You can thank her for your lost items.” Terry glowered at the woman whose arm remained trapped in divine mana.

The woman paled while the scarred man next to her flushed with fury. “You damned piss-ant!”

“Now you owe our family a lot of items,” barked the speaker from the back.

Terry clicked his tongue and sighed before getting an idea. He was not afraid of a full-on confrontation, but with the strength of mana signatures he could sense, it would get messy. He had not planned this in the beginning, but perhaps there was a cleaner way.

After all, he had already started with the imprinted items.

“Six people.” Terry barked back. “And I will take the glove back. Some of those…” Terry looked at the scarred man. “...piss-ants attacked a child and stole what was his.” His eyes returned to the speaker. “If you don’t ‘give a shit’, then I’ll have to find a way to make you care.”

“Are you threatening me?” growled the speaker.

“I want the ones responsible,” growled Terry. Without anyone else noticing, he was moving a small but intense disruption field along the ceiling where some kind of inscription had been placed. He assumed it a kind of protective or strengthening inscription for the building itself.

Terry did not care for their mutterings and focused his gaze on the man with a scar. “A mana user beating up manaless. And worse, a grown man beating up a defenseless child.” He glowered. “Who else?”

“Fuck you!” spat the man with the scar. “The brat had it coming!”

“You’re dealing with the brother of the Whisperer’s left-hand man, you know!”

“Wrong answer.” Terry looked at him coldly and then glanced at the rest of the crowd. “Everyone that stands with child-beating scum can stay. Everyone that’s not a piece of shit should leave.”

“You want to fight everyone here?” The speaker interjected with a sneer.

“Only the scum that stays,” retorted Terry unfazed.

“Everyone stays.” The speaker declared while his eyes continued dancing back to the man with a scar on his throat.

Terry noted for the first time that there was some resemblance between the speaker and the scarred man.

“Get ready to kill,” ordered the speaker. “And stop whimpering around.”

Unexpectedly, Terry’s first hostage had chosen to escape by pressing forward which meant cutting his own throat. The man was clutching his bleeding throat while healers surrounded him for treatment.

Terry could not help but raise an eyebrow at the determined escape. He considered disrupting the incoming healing spells but decided against it. He did not want to draw attention to his disruption variants at the moment. Not while his small disruption field was busy grinding through the inscription in the ceiling.

What little compunctions Terry had had about his plan were fading away fast. He had said his piece and the hunters had chosen to stay. They were not weak. They had considerable mana foundations. There were plenty of healers around.

They would survive.

Probably.

“If you don’t tell me who the other people responsible are, then I guess it’s all of you,” said Terry in a detached tone. “You better remember what’s about to happen.” He sneered at the spokesperson who was apparently the left-hand man of whoever owned the place. “So you have a reason to ‘give a shit’ in the future.”

“If you think you’re getting out of here alive, you’re mistaken.”

I’m not sure if ‘getting out’ is going to be the right phrase in a minute.

Terry scoffed but chose not to reply. He returned his keen dagger to its sheath and pushed his remaining hostage away. It was like someone had given a signal for all the stronger hunters to charge at him and prepare their attacks.

He did not care.

It only took a moment to fetch the king spear and ram the blunt end onto the floor.

Another moment to transfix the septimum rings at the pole and force a torrent of mana into it.

When the spearhead was right in front of the ceiling, the first blast of intense lightning erupted.

His disruption field had already worn down the defensive inscription. The spearhead that was empowered by the lightning pierced into the ceiling and the accompanying synergetic blast crushed through it.

In a succession of electric explosions the floors broke apart. There was an ominous moment of silence while the king spear extended into the sky to attract the heaven’s fury. It led the furious lightning towards the large building and the whole building came crashing down with a thunderous roar.

Terry felt as if time had slowed down even beyond what he expected from the burst technique he was currently cycling. He could see the shock in the eyes of the hunters. No one had expected him to have the ability to bring down the building and the fact that he chose to do so with himself inside was beyond anyone’s imagination.

While everyone else was panicking or preparing their magic to survive the collapsing building, Terry was darting towards the woman with the glove. He secured a path for himself with his Immovable Object spell, divine hammer barriers, and the unbreakable king spear.

The scarred man tried to protect himself and his girlfriend from the falling rubble but found his spell structure torn apart by Terry’s disruption discharge and ended up buried underneath.

The woman was protected by divine barriers but had no cause for relief. With Terry’s arrival, she found her neck and arm trapped by metal rings that he had shaped around her and then transfixed. She stared at him with terror while he removed the Blinding Flash glove from her hand.

With the glove in hand, Terry used a gap in the falling debris to dart outside. He watched until the dust had settled. His mana washed over the rubble to get an idea of everyone’s conditions.

“Damned demons, what happened here?!”

Terry refused to greet the arriving city guards. He was not surprised that there was a group of spectators. After all, neither the heaven’s fury nor the destruction of a building was even remotely subtle.

“By the Lady…”

Terry moved his gaze when he saw a group of followers of the Bright Lady arrive on the scene.

The strongest channeler among the group was an elven woman with brunette curls. She glared at Terry with an expression that made him uncomfortable. He was used to getting hateful looks from members of that circle after the incident with Bright Willow, but that woman was looking at him differently. More chiding than hateful.

It took a moment for Terry to realize why the look bothered him. It reminded him of the look in the eyes of his accepted mother after he and his siblings had blown a hole into Lori’s wall.

“Quick, dispatch the healers!” The elven woman ordered the members of the circle. “I don’t think there is a need for triage, just help wherever you can. Also check with the innocent bystanders to make sure everyone is okay!” She glanced at the collapsed building, shook her head and muttered to herself: “What a vulgar display of power…”

“You! What did you do?!”

Terry allowed himself to drop to the ground and turned around to see a familiar dwarven city guard glare at him. Jasmine had called him Edmund. Instead of focusing on the dwarven guard, however, Terry looked coldly at the elven guard that had taken his report about the assault on Brandon. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“Bloody bastard, you…” The elven guard quickly whispered to his dwarven superior.

“You!” With a loud bang, some of the debris was blown away and the earlier spokesperson emerged from the rubble. His furious eyes landed on Terry before taking note of the crowd of spectators and the guards.

Edmund did not hear the end of the elf’s story and instead barked at Terry. “You’re under arrest!”

Terry could not help but snort. “I don’t think so.”

“You think you can just cause rampant destruction and walk free?!” demanded the dwarven city guard. “Screw the knights, you have no idea what you have gotten yourself into.” Edmund appeared oddly calm and Terry started to believe he was missing something.

He did not care.

“I think…” Terry was still keeping his eyes on the elven guard with greased back hair. He spoke with derision. “The guards don’t want to ‘escalate the mess’, well…” He looked at the collapsed building. “I can help. There is no need to ‘waste your time’...” He returned his gaze to Edmund. “I can make time. I’m used to messes.”

Terry clicked his tongue while staring down the dwarven guard. The question you have to answer is if you are willing to escalate with me after I’ve shown to be willing to escalate with those whom you were wary of.

Edmund leaned slightly closer and whispered for Terry to hear. “You’re a fool, you know that?”

Terry furrowed his brow but did not have time to dwell over it since more and more hunters emerged from the destroyed building. He did not know if he should feel happy or disappointed that his initial estimate had been correct. They survived even if the building didn’t.

“What do you want here?!” A familiar voice barked at an unexpected target.

Terry raised an eyebrow when he saw the hunter’s glare settle on the city guards instead of on himself.

“Who called you?” demanded the spokesperson.

“It appears that there was an attack,” muttered one of the guards.

“Bullshit!” hissed the spokesperson. He gestured at the collapsed building. “We’re just doing a few renovations.”

An odd atmosphere was spreading where Terry was not sure what was going on anymore. The hunters chuckled tensely while the city guards looked increasingly uncomfortable.

“If, hypothetically speaking, there was a suicidal fool, we certainly don’t need a bunch of uniforms to settle it,” snarled the hunter.

Ahh… So that’s it.

Terry felt both the desire to roll his eyes and to start laughing. He believed that the hunters did not want to appear weak and therefore refused the city guard. He moved his eyes back to Edmund to find the guard looking back at him with an expression that betrayed…

Terry was not exactly sure. Worry? Pity? Curiosity?

He looked back at the hunters. Perhaps they simply wanted to deal with him without interference from the guards.

He decided that he did not care.

“I’m late for work,” declared Terry and he walked away under the glares and stares of everyone present.

He did not know how things would continue from here, but he had shown as much restraint as he could muster while picturing the pitiful appearance of the boy this morning.

If the hunters or the Whisperer or whatever cooperative the elven guard had mentioned decided to escalate further, then he would deal with it when the time came.

***