DearSpellbook
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Chapter 7: Brawl
🕑 Added 2024-09-09 08:00:05 +0000 UTCWallow Willowwaddle 412AF to -
Male, Halfling 74 lbs
A beekeeper by trade, Wallow was taking a potion of serpentine grace created with the concentrated essence of kobold kidneys. The potion was a regular part of his beekeeping arsenal which he used to perform his harvest without disrupting the hives. One day, Wallow was bitten by one of his bees, and the arm swelled up to six times its normal size. Wallow survived the bite, but forever after, if that arm was stung, it would once more swell to the absurd size. Further study of this phenomenon revealed that kobolds have a severe bee allergy that can be temporarily passed on through ingestion of any part of their body save their scales.
-Pains and Deaths Recorded, An Alchemist's Reference, 48th Ed
Rakin broke into a charge, flames trailing from his hands, the ground lifting beneath his feet to propel him forward.
The Iron Vein girl, who had been watching him, broke into a run as well to meet him. The distance between the two groups was only forty feet, and they met in the middle. Rakin tried to dodge around her to get to Shalin in his blind rage, but the girl grabbed hold of his shirt, lifting him from the ground and throwing him back towards Kole’s group.
Rakin hit the ground in a roll, and sprung back up, this time running straight for the tattooed warrior.
Behind them, Kole saw the other two preparing for a fight. Kole risked a quick glance to Zale and Doug and saw them standing at the ready but unsure what to do.
Flood, flood, flood. Kole cursed internally.
He reached into his shirt, feeling the holster, and drew out...
He looked from his target to his hand and saw he held a wooden spoon.
Flood.
Kole began crafting a spell in his mind but then stopped himself.
What am I doing?
He watched as Rakin and the giant of a girl fought with their fists, but no one moved to aid either side. It was just a fight among students—magically gifted students, but students nonetheless.
“He’s a Faust-cursed Fire primal too?” Shalin said in disbelief. “You lot really are the forsaken.”
“AHHHHHH!” Zale screamed as she ran at Shalin.
Kole looked at Doug, who had his bow drawn, but no arrow nocked.
“What do we do?” he asked, equally unwilling to shoot fellow students, even if they were racist jerks.
Kole felt a flicker of something tingle at the back of his neck.
Without thinking, he spun around, back towards the brawl, constructing the mental construct for a spell as he did so.
He thrust his palm out in front of himself and said. “Bo.” Infusing the words with his Will, creating a conduit for the magical energy other than his body.
A semi-transparent dome appeared before his hand, just as three beams of red light streaked across the battlefield toward him and Doug.
Two struck his Shield, the barrier flashing red briefly, but the third went for Doug. Kole felt the intense heat billow around his shield, as he heard Doug shout out in pain.
“Are you insane?” Kole asked, looking at the gnome wizard who’d just cast a second-tier spell at him. “That could kill someone!”
The gnome only smiled and began casting another spell. By then, Zale had reached Shalin, and the two girls were locked in a fistfight, far less physically impressive than Rakin’s but impressive in its own right.
Shalin was faster than, Zale, and kept ducking out of her punches, so Zale had tackled the other girl to the ground. But, before Shalin hit the ground, she vanished, reappearing a few moments later a few feet away. With Zale on the ground, Shalin jumped on top of her, but then it was the part voidling girl's turn. Zale vanished in a short-lived cloud of black motes, appearing in the same spot, this time on top of the fallen Shalin.
The two girls continued to roll around, wrestling and conserving their primal abilities when caught in a bad hold. Zale was the better wrestler, stronger and better trained, but it seemed that Shalin had more uses of her magic to her name.
Kole ducked behind a tree, as three more streaks of light flew past him, striking trees and charring their trunks.
Kole saw that Amara was hiding further in the forest, and was already moving to extinguish the budding fires with her runed gadgets—all while staying out of sight from the crazy gnome
Doug, now had an arrow nocked, but he had a bad burn on the side.
“Entangle!” Kole called out to Doug.
Doug drew back his bow, and lined up a shot, but then winced, holding it a moment longer before he vanished. Kole heard the snap of the shot firing a moment later, outside his vision, and began to do some math.
Scorching Ray, second-tier, at least 8 Will. He must be a second-year if he has that spell and isn’t in my classes, or he’s a prodigy...
He ignored that last thought. If this gnome was a prodigy, Kole probably would have remembered his name... probably.
So he’s down at least 16 Will. If he’s a sorcerer, he has 35 max.
Kole decided that the other student likely only had two shots left to him, and settled on a plan.
Around him, he heard his friends locked in battle, and it didn’t sound like it was going well.
What’s the dwarf doing...
He turned invisible. It wasn’t an ability he wanted to get out, but he hoped he could banish the spell behind another tree, disguising his means of travel.
He left his spot and ran across the clearing towards the gnome.
Rakin and the Iron Vein girl were still trading blows, neither making much effort to dodge the other’s attacks. The girl held a shattered log, while Rakin used his fists. The tattoos on the girl had started to glow green, and she was dripping with sweat from her proximity to the Fire primal.
Chunks of wood seemed to be stuck to Rakin, covering his body and restricting his movements. The wood, however, was burning as the air around Rakin shimmered with his uncontrolled power.
Well, that's not good. Kole thought, hoping Amara saved some extinguishers.
Zale and Shalin still rolled around, neither using magic now, and they had moved closer to the gnome in their fight.
The gnome held his hand at the ready, focusing on the tree Kole had just left, and behind him, Kole saw what the dwarf was up to.
Just a few feet away, roots were reaching out of the ground, trying to pull him down, but the ground itself seemed to be flowing away from the roots. Doug continued to fire Assuine-empowered arrows at the dwarf, but each that grabbed hold was quickly ripped from the ground as the earth spit it out. The result was a dwarf covered in vines, able to move around, but getting more encumbered by the moment.
Kole made it to a tree a few feet from the gnome, and ducked behind it, banishing his invisibility and activating Fade.
He stepped out from behind the tree, already building another spell as he ran at the other wizard. The spell came together, but it was slower than he expected, like he was trying to write his name with a quill that weighed five pounds—doable, but surprisingly difficult.
As he did it, he felt the Will drain as Fade tried to tell the gnome that there wasn’t in fact a human wizard running at him. The ability failed, and Kole suddenly felt the weight gone, he completed his spell just as the other wizard began to cast his own.
“Silence!” Kole shouted, hoping Zale had the Will left in her as he thrust his hands in front of him and sent his spell construct out into the Arcane Realm.
A crack of thunder roared before him and echoed back at him off the trees around him. Whatever the gnome was going to cast, ended as the dapperly dressed diminutive figure flew across the field. The spell hit the dwarf as well, but his stout frame resisted the push, though the gnome that crashed into him a second later served to knock him over.
Zale, it seemed, did have a small reserve of Will in her, because Shalin let out a scream of pain and clutched her ears as the spell hit her, and Zale capitalized on that to pin the other girl to the ground.
The dwarf, wrapped up in vines as he was, was unable to recover his footing, and flailed around the ground, the vines on him grabbing onto the gnome and restraining him as well.
“Make him stop!” Kole heard a desperate plea, and turned to see the severely burned Iron Vein girl gasping for breath as she fought to keep the rabid Rakin at bay.
Comments
TK523
That is a mistake on my part with tier access
Govir Drauka
Hmm, definitely something wonky. Chapter 8 showed up for me before Chapter 7. But current timestamps imply 7 did come before 8. I thought you just skipped over the fight :)
TK523
In now sure how this happened but I appear to be a chapter behind on Patreon. I will post it later today. I'll need to edit it and write the epigraph. Sorry about that!
