Arawn751
patreon
Arcane Apocalypse ~ 59
🕑 Added 2024-11-08 17:00:15 +0000 UTC***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NkyWFVHbMn7nah2mXiNGXfic6lskYDrJ5syBL5IhtqE/edit?usp=sharing
*****
Zeigler took in a deep breath, then grabbed his mug filled with hot white chocolate. It was a rare indulgence for him, ever since he’d found out he had a high chance of diabetes down the line, but he needed it to stay calm at the moment.
He sat with his fingers steepled on his desk as he stared at the bulky radio unit and the prehistoric phone on its side.
It rang, and with a soulful sigh, he grabbed the phone and held it to his ear.
“Colonel Lars Zeigler,” he said into it, his voice toneless and neutral in a way that spoke of decades of practice. “What can I help you with, Sir?”
“Zeigler,” Brigadier General Eisenfaust’s voice crackled over the radio. It was the voice of a man that clearly loved to hear himself talk, but forced himself to maintain some faux professionalism when speaking with other officers. “I need two other platoons. Our line is getting pushed back. I want it by tomorrow at the latest.”
“Understood, Sir,” Zeigler said, only his iron will keep him from gritting his teeth. That will be the fifth platoon of his that the moron threw into the meat grinder. “But I’m afraid any more than that will spread as much too thin, the beastkin have begun their raids anew with renewed vigour. I fear we’ll lose our provisions if we leave them with any less protection than it has at the moment.”
“Just bomb the damned insurgent animals,” Eisenfaust said coldly. “I’ve left you enough heavy artillery for that, have I not? I need men for urban warfare with these wretches, but you can handle your own problem from afar. I won’t hear of this again. Handle them, Colonel, or I’ll have someone else do it in your stead.”
Zeigler closed his eyes, took a quick breath and considered for a moment how it’d feel to strangle the man on the other side of the radio.
“Understood, Sir,” Zeigler said, his voice cold and stoic. I’ll give him the problematic platoons he hoisted on me. Maybe the green monsters will finally gut him with those morons protecting him. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Zeigler would have dearly loved to take Eisenfaust up on his offer and blow those blasted beastkin that kept gutting his soldiers to kingdom come.
Alas, that hill was damned huge, and the mansion that werebear spoke of was emptier than Eisenfaust’s head. He couldn’t burn down an entire hill. Not if he didn’t want the fires to spread through the city.
“Good,” Eisenfaust said with evident self satisfaction. Probably thinking that all of this debacle would have been over and done with if all of his subordinates were as competent as he was. Right. It would. We’d all be fucking dead if that were the case. “You have it easy, only having to blast those animals hiding in the trees. I have monsters to deal with … and that wretched thing holed up in his fortress.”
“Sir?” Zeigler asked, eyebrow rising at the hatred seeping into the general’s voice.
“Whatever,” Eisenfaust said, likely to himself. “I’ll deal with that insurgent once the goblins are dealt with. You have your orders Zeigler. Eisenfaust, out.”
Zeigler slowly put the phone back down and massaged his head. Things were going sideways real quick, and he was starting to suspect he was going to have to send for reinforcements soon.
Eisenfaust is going to either lose horribly soon, or when the next round of Rift Breaks comes around in a few weeks. We’re so fucked.
Then there was that other group of insurgents the general mentioned. Though, with how that man was, that might have referred to an angry citizen telling him to sit on a cactus.
“Kelvin,” Zeigler called out. “Do we know of any group of survivors holed up in a fortress around where the General is fighting?”
“Yes, Sir,” his aide answered, pulling out a small report from the middle of a pile. “Here.”
Zeigler grabbed it and leaned back to read it, his mug of hot chocolate back to his lips.
“‘The Devil’ aka Sgt. Jefferson Addler,” Zeigler read, snorting at the moniker. Then he saw the picture and his mirth died down. Those cold, dead eyes were something he’d seen on many soldiers who’d been forced to go through something no human could come out of entirely whole and sane.
Dishonorably discharged, showed symptoms of clinical sociopathy and severe PTSD. Gross insubordination, volatile, refused any kinds of treatment. Dishonourably discharged after being court-martialed for breaking the jaw of his commanding officer.
“What the fuck,” Zeigler said, then his gaze landed on the final bit of attached report. “Fortified an entire apartment block by magical means and turned it self sufficient. The entire building is entirely impervious to even heavy artillery. Suspected of holding hostage upwards of 200 people.”
“If I might add, Sir.” Kelvin said while Zeigler stared at the attached picture of the apartment building in question. “The report had been written by the General’s men. It is highly likely that those ‘suspected hostages’ are remaining inside entirely out of their own volition.”
“I know,” Zeigler said, then shook his head. He put down the report. “Doesn’t matter. They are turtling up and staying safe. If all goes to shit, they might be the last survivors of Graz in that fortress. They didn’t even attack anyone according to this, what got Eisenfaust’s panties in a twist about them?”
“The ‘Devil’ supposedly told the General that if he wanted to requisition their food, he had to come in and take it.” Zeigler suppressed a smirk. “Which the General attempted, and failed at five times to date.”
Zeigler snorted. “Well, fuck him. Also, send Herman’s platoon over to the General along with the other problematic lot. If I have to lose more soldiers, at least let them be the useless ones.”
“Sir,” Kelvin said after a moment, touching the earbuds in his ears. “Our scouts found the group that broke through the barricade. Your orders?”
“Where are they?” Zeigler asked, a thoughtful look coming over his face.
“Out in the woods, half an hour to the northeast,” Kelvin answered. “They are building what looks to be a permanent camp.”
“Leave them,” Zeigler said. “They didn’t kill any of our soldiers, I don’t even want a report of them being found. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” Kelvin said. “Should I have the scouts keep an eye on them?”
“Leave only one,” Zeigler said, rubbing his beard. “Still no sign of little Maria’s group?”
“No Sir, not since our trackers lost them in the forest.”
“A monster attacked them again?” Zeigler asked. “Any casualties?”
“It was a … hamster,” Kelvin said, having grabbed the report associated with the mission. “A hamster attacked and mauled Private Fergus. He is in the ER, but he’ll live. Lost an eye though.”
“To a fucking hamster?” Zeigler asked, raising an eyebrow.
“From a ‘fucking hamster’, yes, Sir.”
Zeigler downed his hot chocolate. Hell, he was trying really damned hard to adapt, but … a hamster? Really?
I should have added whiskey to that chocolate.
***
Mia sat under the old willow tree, the early rays of the waking sun warming her face as she went over the spell circle in her runic-model for the twenty-fifth time. Yes, she was counting them. No, she wasn’t exaggerating.
On her lap, ‘Archmage Leondrus’ Guide to Runic Theory’ was wide open. She reached up for one of the markers, flipped over to the page and read the section again.
***
‘Symmetry is what differentiates adequate spell circles from great ones. Though, even adequate circles have to have some middling symmetry to them if the mage doesn’t want them to blow up in their faces.’
‘Be it central point symmetry or mirror symmetry, one must always think about which runes will have metaphysical links to other runes in the circle through symmetry.’
‘One of the big Don’t-s of symmetry is to never place the mana battery and an explosive function across from each other.’
***
Everything had to be symmetric, the runic weights had to be good, the flow of mana had to be fluid and the different functions and compartments of the circle had to activate in the right order.
Mia was still having a headache just trying to think about all the rules and laws of spell craft. It didn't help that the book she had was for Junior Mages, since one of the prerequisites to be named as such was to be Rank 1 with a Tier 2 ‘Mage’ Class.
Still, if Mark was right the book in her lap was invaluable.
“One of the fundamental tenetsteachings of the System is that ‘Knowledge is Power’,” the dwarf had said. “If I'm right, then the System treats Knowledge and Power as havingto have equal value. Meaning, if your Tier 2 Class doesn’t have to teach you the knowledge in that book, it’ll give you more Power instead!”
Mia returned to the now and squinted at the spell circle. It was tiny, only using 8 runes just like Arcane Bolt.
She’d been learning, reading, revising, scrubbing and remaking the damned thing over and over for the last five hours. This was her prototype, the first test, the first ever spell circle that she didn’t learn from a book or was given by the System, but made herself.
Grabbing her wand, she glanced at Carmilla splayed out on her back a few metres over and Lina beyond her playing with a pair of small cyclones.
“I’m going to do it,” Mia said, catching both of their attention as she pulled out a Greater Healing Elixir from her fanny pack slung over her shoulder. “If I start bleeding out of my eyes, please feed me that.”
“Sure,” Lina said, sitting up to face Mia. Carmilla likewise nodded and scuttled over to grab the healing concoction.
Mia took a deep sigh, then flicked her wand and cast the spell. The circle formed, and not even her scrutinising gaze found anything wrong with it.
The wand didn’t shatter, her fingers didn’t burst apart, and she didn’t feel like she was having a stroke.
She carefully tilted her wand over to see its tip. There was a finger-length nail made out of pink arcane energy extending out from it.
Grinning, Mia turned and experimentally poked the poor willow tree with her spiked wand. It sank in a few centimetres, going through the bark, but it stalled there and with Mia not wanting to force it and break her wand, she relented and dismissed the spell.
Which was when the nail, half lodged into the trunk burst apart and sent arcs of destructive arcane energy jumping all over Mia’s lower arm.
Shrieking, Mia let go of her focus and scampered away on all fours. She glanced down at her arm, seeing lines of scorched skin up to her elbows, pink and raw, but that was it.
She activated her healing ring, and the injuries went away quickly. Gingerly picking up her wand, she examined it for any cracks, but thankfully it was made of sterner stuff than her arm and survived the debacle with just getting dunked in mud.
“You alright?” Lina asked, peerking over her shoulder to look down at Mia’s arm. “That wasn’t supposed to explode, was it?”
“No,” Mia said, pouting a bit. “It was not.”
Carmilla just gave her an examining look, making sure she was alright before nodding and throwing the Elixir back to Mia who scrambled to catch it.
Why did it explode? Mia wondered, diving right back into the book with a severe frown. The circle didn't even have a single explosive rune, nothing at all. Just a mana battery and a shaping function that maintained the nail form. Must be something with symmetry.
Mia went over every rune, checking neighbouring runes for conflicting types and such and compared every rune to the one they had mirroring them diagonally on the opposite end of the circle.
Only after wasting the next hour by doing so, did she stumble across the answer in not even the initial book, but in her Conjuration Runic Lexicon.
In the description of the Spectral Blade spell to be specific.
***
‘This small set of runes forcefully stabilises Grey grade chaotic arcane mana. This is a must for any spells intended for use by Arcane Mages not yet capable of manually pacifying their mana.’
***
“Shit,” Mia mumbled, then slammed her head against the tree behind her. “Owwww.”
“Mia?” Carmilla looked over, a butterfly of all things resting on her index finger as she laid in the grass.
“Sorry,” Mia grimaced, rubbing the back of her head. “I just realised what the problem was and am feeling mighty stupid. Don’t mind me.”
So this wasn’t mentioned in Leondrus’ book because these functions and problems are unique to Arcane spell craft? Mia wanted to bash the Archmage over the head with his stupid book for not covering that bit. Wish we still had the internet. There would have been forums about spell craft in the first week, wikis with runes and books by the second and Indian guys making step-by-step tutorials about assembling spell circles by … the first hour?
Mia shook her head a little, then jumped to her feet. She’d spent the last six hours out here learning and brainstorming, her bones were creaking and she was starving. “I’m getting something to bite.”
With nods from the two girls, Mia headed in to raid the freshly dug-up fridge for something edible.
Mia glared at the ajar door of the house as she stepped inside, a flare of anger washing over her before vindictive amusement overpowered it. Dumb cunts. Broke in but didn’t expect the fridge to be buried, did you?
She thumbed the amulet hanging in her neck, a boutsurge of anxiety surging through her, but she calmed herself. The Amulet would protect her from an ambush even if the beastkin raiders came back later.
***
[{Newcomer} Title’s effect triggered]
[Generating Description … ]
[Amulet of Lesser Warding (Common/White): Making use of an intricate enchantment woven into the crystalline structure of this amulet, it reacts to attacks with lethal force heading towards the wearer by deploying a Lesser Ward.]
Activates Reactively.
Recharges by draining mana from the wearer. Efficiency is extremely low for Light, Darkness and any derivative mana types of either element.
The closer your mana type is to pure Arcane your mana is, the more efficient the enchantment’s recharge rate is.
Current cooldown: ~15 minutes.
***
Opening up the still dirty fridge, Mia grabbed some flatbreads Helene had made over a fire not long ago and a bit of butter and garlic.
Humming, she made herself the apocalypse version of a garlic bread by rubbing the clove of garlic across the slice and then spreading butter over it. Mia thought for a moment about the next Quest they had to complete … once Brent was back on his feet.
***
[{Newcomer} Introductory (13)]
Objective:
Raise all three Main Attributes to above 10.
Reward: A Natural Treasure that grants +1 Attribute to all 9 Sub-Attributes.
***
Annoying. I’ll have to work out a bunch or something. Perhaps I’ll get another one of those Unleashed Potential Potions this week from the Realm Event. As she munched on that snack, her thoughts curved back around to the spell circle and ideas about fixing its explosive defect.
Should she add the entire function from Spectral Blade? Copy-paste it all in? But that was likely a huge overkill for such a tiny nail. Plus, it’d be an absolute pain since adding in five new runes would throw off every balance, symmetry and mana flow she’d worked out so far.
Her head was aching just thinking about it and she felt absolutely dumb for not knowing the answer to a question seemingly this simple. This is just like programming, just in a graphic language. What a pain.
Still, she couldn’t stop the cogs in her head from turning. She knew, she just knew that she could solve this problem and that when she did, she was going to feel even dumber for having taken so long.
But the payoff, that catharsis when everything snapped together at the end … that was addicting and the only reason Mia’d suffered through years upon years of learning how to code properly.
The stairs creaking under her mother’s feet caught her attention.
“Hi, Mom,” Mia said, glancing over at the older woman. “Is he getting better?”
Helene had taken upon herself to care for Brent while the man recovered, which included feeding him and keeping him from falling off his bed among other things Mia was very happy she didn’t have to do.
“Better,” Helene smiled wearily. “He’s starting to speak again, not too coherently yet, but I can see the progress.”
“Great.” Mia nodded in relief, then pointed at one of the remaining slices of makeshift garlic bread she’d made. “Want one?”
“Sure,” Helene said, practically gliding through the air to perch atop the chair across from Mia.
Brent … Mia didn’t like to think too much about his situation. He’d saved her life more times than she’d bothered to count, and he was one of the strongest members of their group.
Yet, he’d almost died. Hell, he probably would have if he didn’t have his Ki and his high Body stats.
Mia wanted to help him, but she could do nothing. He’d drunk an Elixir and Zeigler’s best healer — a man who’d been a doctor and got some minor Light healing — had looked him over.
The man said Brent was hopeless and practically braindead by the looks of things, then the supposedly braindead man told him to “fuck off” before falling back into a coma.
That scared the shit out of the healer and if Mia’s nose had been right, he’d pissed himself right then and there.
All they could do was to wait and pray for his recovery.
“Do you think we should feed him another Elixir?” Mia asked, thumbing the vial she’d taken out in case the backlash from her experiment somehow blew right through her wand and into her hand. “I wouldn’t mind giving mine-“
“He’s recovering, dear,” Helene interrupted, gently patting Mia’s hand over the counter. “You save that Elixir in case you need it, alright? Brent still has three Greater ones in his own pack.”
“Okay,” Mia mumbled, putting the vial back into her pack.
Carmilla ambled in not long after, looking around before she awkwardly walked over to the mother-daughter duo and sat down in the chair next to Mia.
“Food?” Mia asked, gesturing at the flatbreads again as she tilted her head.
“Yes please.” The redhead nodded eagerly, but with her face neutral as a statue.
Mia went to raise and make another slice of something edible, but Helen gestured for her to stay down as she herself stood up.
“You just eat, dear,” Helene said over her shoulder as she opened the fridge, letting out a thoughtful sound. “We have some smoked ham and cheese, will that do for you Carmilla?”
“Yes,” the vampire said, staring at Helene like she was some mythical beast that jumped right out of a fairy tale.
Well, she’s a Pegasus so I guess that fits. Mia thought, looking on in amusement as Carmilla in turn watched Helene assemble a simple ham and cheese sandwich from another flatbread.
“Here,” Helene handed over a plate to the vampire with a smile. When she took it, Helene nodded. “I’ll go ask Lina whether she wants something.”
As the woman glided out of the room and the door closed behind her, Carmilla stared after her and then down at the sandwich on her plate.
She looked up at Mia, an indescribable, but mostly confused look in her eyes as she murmured. “Is that what mothers are supposed to be like, or is she just special?”
Comments
ZephanyZephZeph
Mia's heart is gonna shatter next chapter isn't it? Mine would after hearing that. Mia and Carmilla supporting eachother is peak
FanObooks
Thanks for the chapter
