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Chapter 45: Flame and Stone
🕑 Added 2025-01-10 10:00:02 +0000 UTCOf the Bladed Knights of Illandrios, the Mirage Knight is the one most widely known. Many outside of Illandrios could be forgiven in thinking the cities connection to the Font of Illusions was the origin of this knightly order, but the Mirage Knights are the inheritors of a legacy that predates the discovery of the Font of Illusions
-Bladed Knights by Kysin, the 195th High Librarian
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A mote of flame streaked across the battlefield towards the four emerging leaders of the enemy force, accompanied by a magically projected crackling.
A familiar magically projected crackling.
The flame struck the four and exploded, sending soldier ants flying in all directions—including back into the rift. Kole looked around, following the path of the mote to find Professor Underbrook flying in the air, his robes billowing around him dramatically in the breeze as he conjured yet another Fireball in his hand.
Below him, coming out of a series of very familiar doors, each freestanding in the middle in the road, came Tigereye, leading an eclectic mix of adventurers. Some exited through the door and took to the air, or found a building to climb, but most followed after Tigereye’s charge.
Tigereye let out a bellow as he ran, and Kole heard it even over the sound of battle. As he ran, his exposed tattoos took on an orange glow. While he was still fifty feet away from the enemy, he threw his hatched into the waiting line of soldiers. The stone hatchet cleaved through an upraised shield, passed through the chitinous head of the soldier holding it, and buried itself in the chest of the next soldier in line.
Then Tigereye vanished, reappearing with his hand around the hatchet. He kicked at the chest of the soldier, freeing the weapon, and began to destroy the orderly ranks of soldier ants from within. The carnage mesmerized Kole as he watched his martial combat professor completely and utterly destroy the tight formation. The ants tried to rally and build a circle around him, but whenever he touched one of the shields, he imbued it with the primal magic of the Font of Bonds, causing it to stick to whatever it next touched.
You might imagine that having the shield bind together would make an impenetrable ring, but you would be wrong[PL1] . Instead, the shields became an unruly mass, a ring that those holding it couldn’t release. Tigereye danced within the center, teleporting in and out every time he threw his hatchet, and by the time the army he’d been leading got to him, very little left remained living of the small army he’d dove into.
He looked around at the carnage he’d created, and gave a curt nod to himself, before running deeper into the fray, an army of—if not equally—sufficiently terrifying adventurers in tow.
As Tigereye raged, people still fled, now forgotten by the soldier ants in the face of a force of enemy combatants. Amidst the battle, Kole spotted small portals opening right besides groups of fleeing civilians. The portals moved, engulfing the surprised people, before sealing and reopening besides another group. Once the portal opened so that Kole caught a glimpse inside, and he was both surprised and not surprised by who he saw beyond.
Professor Tailor, the most boring professor Kole had ever had on any topic, stood on the green of the campus, casually ripping holes into reality miles away, plucking people from the field of battle, and depositing them safely on campus. And despite all of that, he still had no flare. He just lazily waved his hands about and politely asked people to clear away so he could rescue others.
Underbrook wasn’t being so subtle. He continued to broadcast his voice over the battlefield as he taunted the enemies. When the flames had cleared from his opening salvo of Fireballs, he left out a few Torcish curses Kole had definitely heard Rakin say. Kole took that to mean that the enemy commanders were still alive.
All the while Kole fought with Zale to keep the ant people from fleeing, for they were trying to leave the area now that the full force of the Academy and city of Edgewater had arrived. Multiple times Kole was forced to use another Thunderwave to clear a group of enemies off Zale and a barricade of the dead built up in a ring around the alleyway. Kole had long since become too engrossed in the battle to think about the awful smell that still haunted him, but he knew that if he survived, he’d have nightmares about it.
Eventually, due to primarily the efforts of Professor Tailor, the area cleared of survivors. Doug and Amara began to provide covering fire, no longer busy saving the defenseless. Doug entangled large groups that tried to get close, leaving them easy picking for the roving bands of adventurers. The city guard had taken after Kole’s team and regulated themselves to barricading the lost section of the harbor to prevent further incursions, leaving the routing of the enemy to the more magically equipped adventuring teams that had arrived on the scene.
Kole was far too busy to watch the battle at the center, but the one-sided commentary of Professor Underbrook gave him a good approximation of the flow of battle. Underbrook single-handedly downed two of the stone men, forcing them to flee, before Tigereye’s force fought through to them. The ground shook, and pillars of stone shot out of the ground, only to topple and crash onto the combatants of both sides indiscriminately.
A wizard Kole couldn’t see switched from Fire to Lightning and Underbrook loudly called him a moron for all the battlefield to hear. The wizards quickly sorted themselves out and began shooting force projectiles at the center of the battlefield. The earth men retreated under the assault, back into the portal as their impromptu fortress collapsed around them. It took a little while for the bulk of the forces to climb over the ruins of the walls—and longer still for the heated stones to cool enough to be walked on, but when it was clear the battle was won and over, Kole ran out towards the rift.
He spotted Underbrook, still flying above and directing the teams of adventurers as they established a perimeter around the rift. Teams were already at work clearing the dead—the soldier ants to a large pile and the people to neat orderly rows.
I suppose the soldier ants are people too, Kole reflected morosely as he waded through the field of death he’d had no small part in creating.
He watched Underbrook work, wallowing in guilt.
This is all my fault, he thought.
Underbrook finally stilled for a moment and Kole cast Message, the cantrip for the Font of Sound at the flying wizard.
“This is Kole, I was through the portal. This wasn’t an intentional assault.”
He didn’t count the words, but he knew he was well under the limit. Underbrook’s head swiveled around, finding Kole immediately, and he flew down toward him.
“Explain yourself,” Underbrook said. “And it better be good, because you missed an entire week of classes.”
“This was all my fault,” Kole began, and began to recount the tale of the past week.
[PL1]Narrator talking to reader. Probably too little too late. Depends on earlier decision
