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Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 57
🕑 Added 2024-02-04 05:23:28 +0000 UTCBack at the 2nd last carriage of the convoy, 3 men were fending off 5 bandits.
Those 3 men were Albert Cox the Royal Invigilator, Albert’s escort, Walt, and lastly, the last surviving coachman on the carriage who had a hatchet embedded in the left side of his chest, he was breathing hard and wheezing from a punctured lung, but still relentlessly shooting and reloading his crossbow.
The only reason the coachman was not dead was because the bandits had bigger problems to deal with than some rando plinking them with bolts they could easily defend, they were more worried about the mage that killed 2 of their group when they got close.
The 4 bandits on horseback were doing all they could to keep the mage busy, because if they did not, their boss, Dome Dasher Dom, who managed to board the carriage, would be open to magical attacks from the mage. But even as Dom was able to board the carriage, he was unable to get to the mage because he was currently engaged in combat with the mage’s escort, Walt.
At this point in the fight, Albert was in a continuous loop of whack the mole with the 4 bandits on horseback trying to stop him from casting spells.
Whenever Albert tried to aim his spells at Dom, the bandits would either try to close in to attempt a boarding action or disrupt his casting by throwing projectile weapons at him, and they had all run out of projectile weapons to throw, all except 1 bandit.
It was not a projectile weapon per se, but it did have incredible reach. The 1 bandit that was the biggest threat to Albert at the moment was a bandit who was swinging an aura-infused meteor hammer over his head.
The attack rate of the meteor hammer may not be very fast, but Albert was forced to expand a spell he readied just to play point defense with the incoming steel ball, lest he be battered by the meteor hammer. And whenever he cast a spell to try and take out the meteor hammer wielding bandit, the other 3 bandits would step in to play defense by manifesting their aura beyond their weapons and slashing at the incoming spell.
In terms of energy expenditure, this was a very expensive way for aura users to counter spells, especially for low level aura users like them. They had to expand a significant amount of stamina to manifest their auras beyond their weapons, only for the aura and spell to consume each other out.
At this point, Albert was very tempted to just throw down an Area of Effect (AOE) spell to wipe out the bandits, but he knew he was too close, so any AOE spell would most likely damage the carriage he was on and send them all flying. The other reason he was tempted to cast an AOE spell and be done with it was because as skilled as his escort was, Dom made up for his lack of skill with sheer brute strength and ferocity and was actually pushing Walt back toward Albert.
Albert needed to find an opening to get an advantage to help Walt and he needed to find 1 soon.
***
As i looked at the 2 battles, 1 just in front of me and the other many carriages down the line, I thought about which fight i could make a difference in. i looked at the fight on top of the carriage in front of me and quickly ruled it out.
Why? Because there is no way in hell am i going to try to jump to a carriage 10 meters ahead of me, especially with its projectile barrier up, my whole body will most likely be considered as a projectile. I would most likely be bounced off or slowed down, fall to the ground, and promptly run over by the rest of the convoy. Besides, those knights seem to have things well in hand… i think.
I looked behind to the other battle to see how i could help.
4 riders seem to be harassing Mr Albert who in turn cannot support Mr Walt… Hmmm…
As i pondered on what i could do, an idea came to mind. Maybe i can disrupt the riders.
Because i have many witnesses around, i use circle magic to try and cast an earth spike in the path of the bandit riders, but as my spell travels through the air, it impacts the projectile barrier before it hits the ground and fizzles out. “Huh… i suppose it's called a projectile barrier for a reason, and most spells are projectiles i suppose. Let's see if i can cast it within the barrier.”
I looked directly off the side of the carriage and noticed I have slightly over a meter clearance between the barrier and the side of the carriage, so I decided to just have my spell just make a small hump, no worse than a mild speed bump in my previous world, and it works! The earthen bump passes through the barrier without issue.
So if I want to create obstacles to obstruct and distract the bandit riders, I have to either disable this barrier so I can cast outside the barrier, or get the horses to shift out of the convoy line and cast the obstacles directly behind the carriage.
I looked to the front of the carriage to see that along with the driver seat, the reins were also missing. Did that perverted bastard bandit destroy that too? Or did the reins just fall between the 2 horses?
It was when i was looking for the reigns that i saw a glowing metal plate where the driver’s seat once was. When i went over to it, i saw it was a simple Trigger Array that acted like an on/off switch.
I filled my eyes with mana to see the array traces and followed the array line to the center of the carriage. Unfortunately, like most commercial arrays being sold, the array was scrambled to obscure its formation, but that was not important at the moment.
What was important was turning off this barrier, and by the principles of deduction, this array was the only magical thing that could be producing the barrier, so i went to the metal plate and injected some mana into it.
As soon as i did that, the projectile barrier dissolved and i leaned over the side of the carriage to get a better look at where i was casting.
I started raising spikes, pillars, low walls, and even made some small ditches with a thin brittle crust of dirt to cover them.
After i was done, all i could do was wait and watch, i may need to do more casting.
***
Albert dodged to the side as the meteor hammer shot through where his head used to be and retaliated with a fire bolt he had on hand, which was promptly slashed out of the air by 1 of the bandits.
‘Shit! Their timing and coordination are getting better as the fight goes on, if this goes on any longer, i may be forced to cast an AOE spell and pray the carrage and all within holds up.’ Albert thought to himself.
It was then, at the corner of his eye, that he caught the sight of earthen obstacles being raised in the path of the bandit riders. “Clever boy”, Albert whispered to himself as he changed tactics.
Instead of spells that had the firepower to take the bandits out should they hit, Albert started rapid firing weak 2nd circle spells at all the bandits in a bid to keep their attention off the incoming obstacles.
After fending off and being hit by a few of the weak spells, the bandits decided to tank the spells and only defend their faces and horses, they did not even need to manifest their aura beyond their weapons to slash these spells without worry.
Sure enough, the bandits were too focused on the spells flying at them to notice the obstacles in front of them. So when the first set of obstacles came up, their horses swerved from side to side to try to negotiate the obstacles, making them drastically lose speed and fall behind the convoy.
The moment they were a safe distance behind the convoy, Albert was done weaving a 4th circle spell and cast it.
“Burning Impact!” Albert shouted as he pointed at the bandit riders who just got out of the obstacles. A brightly shining ember flew out of his finger and shot to the ground in front of the bandit riders. After a second of nothing happening, the ground suddenly erupted in an explosion of fire and dirt.
