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Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.14 (129)
🕑 Added 2024-03-12 22:30:01 +0000 UTCNick heard the sergeant call for some crowd control. Immediately closing the mental connection to Nero, he pulled his perception field away from his assigned area. Letting his psychic presence flood the area around him, he made sure the mob wasn’t close enough to be a problem. Seeing that it was all clear, he checked to make sure that Cathleen, Rose, and Nero were close enough for him to get started.
Seeing that they were all within range, he carved a simple construction spell form. Known as, ‘earth-shape’, the spell was designed to copy the ground’s local signature and created a construct in whatever shape the caster wanted. It was perfect for temporary combat walls. As he watched the walls rise up, he frowned at seeing his construct was mud again. ‘Why the hell do I keep pulling in so much water with this spell. I really need to spend more time practicing. Oh, there it is. I included a moisture accumulation effect in the secondary essence accumulator node. I wonder if I can reverse the polarity like Nero did on that ‘heating/cooling’ spell he he made…” Nick’s mind wandered at lightning speed, he’d long ago given up on trying to reign in his scattered thoughts.
Nero’s voice snapped him out of his internal world, as he heard the young man shout, “They’re squirrels. They can jump. Walls aren’t going to do shit. You know what…. Fuck this!”
Nick looked over to see Nero stepping over the growing mud wall, heading toward where Sergeant Wesker was preparing to combat the incoming mob. He could see the mob’s spawned avatars breaking through the brush in the distance. With one last glance at Nero, he returned to his full attention to the spell-form he was using to build the walls. ‘I’m sure Nero will be fine. If not, then hopefully he’ll learn not to be so over-dramatic. After all, it shouldn’t take long for Sergeant Wesker to force the mob to materialize. The idiot should be able to survive with nothing more than few bites if he manages to remember to bring out his shield,’ he reassured himself.
Altering the mental image of his intended construct, he watched as the walls started to slope inward. Soon, the open area above their 15ft wide haven began closing in, the walls forming a dome. He made sure to leave a 2 foot circle open at the top, allowing some light in. ‘Perfect. Now I’ll anchor a trap or two in case any of the mob’s avatars make it past the sergeant,’ he thought happily.
Just as he was finished carving a ‘rotary saw’ spell, he heard what sounded like a group of cats being strangled outside their enclosure.
“What the hell was that?” asked Rose, while white-knuckling her bow with an arrow at the ready.
All three of them stared up at the little opening in the rounded ceiling above their heads, the shadowed environment making the small section of the forest canopy seem overly far away.
Cathleen was the one to answer Rose’s question. “It sounds like multiple animals in pain. Some kind of area of effect spell?” she asked, turning her head to look at Nick.
Nick finished anchoring the spinning construct under the hole in the ceiling. While part of his mind was focused on maintaining his constructs, he tried to reach out with his perception field to get an idea of what was happening outside. His eyes widened in surprise at what he found, “Uh… you could say that. I’m not exactly sure how, but we’re surrounded by what looks like walls of fire. It’s hard to see exactly what’s happening, the mob’s field has overtaken us and I can’t get a good look.”
Rose started panting, and asked, “Do you guys feel that? Is something wrong with the air?”
They looked up to see their little window being covered in smoke. Nick felt his construct drying out, the moisture evaporating back into essence. They could all feel the temperature rising. Seconds passed in silence, as they listened to the horrifying sounds of burning animals all around them.
Nick’s voice was full of concern as he realized what was happening. “The fire isn’t a construct any more. It’s the forest itself, it’s on fire. The oxygen is being consumed to fuel the flames. Despite our circumstances, we probably will have safer air in here than out there.”
Cathleen’s voice was calm but serious. “Hazardous conditions? Do we need to cast purification or support spells?”
Nick’s focus was on trying to figure out the air’s current composition in their impromptu shelter. With all the overlapping fields, the combat, not to mention the agitated essence conditions, he was having trouble isolating the air’s signature with his field. The seconds stretched while Cathleen and Rose waited for Nick to respond. Yet, he remained silent.
Rose and Cathleen watched as Nick’s face contorted from curiosity to confusion, and then to annoyance. “I can’t tell. There is too much going on. But I think we’re alright. Our essence fields should be enough to clear out some of the smoke, and I think there is still enough air to keep us safe for a while,” he said with some hope.
Cathleen nodded, but kept her eyes on the ceiling’s hole. The dark cloud blocking the opening was getting worse. Not one to take chances, she cast a simple air purification spell, creating a thin bubble of clean air over her mouth and nose. The spell looked like a shimmering wave of air around her lower face. It was a spell commonly known to soldiers and hunters alike. It didn’t take much center or skill to cast, and it was handy when dealing with unsafe environments or when fighting underwater.
Nick didn’t bother casting anything. His field shouldn’t have a problem filtering anything harmful in this type of environment. And while he may not specialize in body stats, but he was no slouch either. If worse came to worst, he’d just drop the constructs he had active, and then cast a ‘sheltered breath’ spell. But, he doubted it would come to that.
Neither Nick or Cathleen noticed Rose’s struggled breathing. They were both too intent on staring at the ceiling hole, watching the smoke grow thicker as the minutes passed.
Rose was too low-leveled to have manifested an essence field, but she wasn’t willing to remind them of that. From her perspective, keeping her head down and staying inconspicuous was the key to living through this assignment. Worst case scenario, she passed out, but hopefully this would all be over before that happened. She was only here to keep her eyes and ears open, while making sure that no one paid much attention to her. The last thing she needed was them realizing how useless she was compared to the them. Her combat ability wasn’t what she was here for anyways.
She just needed to get through the next 6 months, and then she’d be set. She’d be living her life as an elite hunter, paid well for doing what she loved. Already she could see the level gains from her training. For the heaven’s sake, she was almost level 10 already. Her first pillar was within reach. ‘Just keep it together Rose. You can do this,’ she told herself harshly.
So, she panted in silence, hoping that she could hold out until they were able to bring down the walls. Seconds turned into minutes, and her mind became fuzzier every second. Inside their isolated shelter, the temperature was rising quickly, and it was getting harder to breath. Her head ached, and her eyes watered. Her heart rate spiked, and she felt herself blacking out. As she fell, she reached out for help, her hand loosely pulling on Cathleen’s arm.
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Despite everyone looking at him like he had just won the ‘asshole of the year’ award, Nero was feeling pretty good. It had been nice to let loose, and even better, he’d figured out how to deal with mobs. It felt like ages ago when he had theorized how environmental spells could help with getting through essence fields. Now he had proof of concept!
He saw Nick patting Rose gently on the back, assuring her that she was fine. Meanwhile, Cathleen’s eyes were scanning what remained of the forest for threats.
Nero’s attention snapped to Wesker when the man said, “We deserve some answers Walker. How did you cast while inside a mob’s field of control. That shouldn’t be possible.”
Before Nero could reply, Nick replied for him, his voice full of anger. “He didn’t. Nero just skipped trying to fight with magic and lit the entire forest on fire. It was lucky he didn’t kill us all with his recklessness,” he said while turning his glare on Nero.
Nero threw Nick a shocked look, mildly affronted at the accusation. “Hey, it wasn’t THAT reckless. I created a fire wall in front of the charging mob. They had to run through a furnace to get at us. It worked out exactly as planned,” he said.
Nick stood up, his hands landing on his hips as if he were a principal berating his students for smoking behind the gym. “Rose nearly died Nero. We all could have been caught in the fire. Look around, the entire area is nothing but charcoal! Was that according to plan?” he asked with no small amount of anger.
Nero looked down at Rose, who was still sitting on the ground recovering from her brush with death. He had to admit, the poor woman looked a little traumatized.
Sighing, he walked over to her and knelt down to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know that would happen. I just realized that walls weren’t going to stop the mob from over-running us, and I went with a plan I had come up with to get around the mob’s essence field. For the record, I will always bring you back if you fall. You have nothing to worry about when I’m around,” he said, channeling his inner hero, or whatever passed for one if someone were to squint and give him the benefit of the doubt.
Rose smiled at Nero’s heartfelt apology, and replied, “It’s fine. Like you said, it worked out. It’s my own fault for not telling anyone that I was having trouble breathing. I was standing next to a mage for heaven’s sake. My pride almost got me killed. It won’t happen again.” She finished with a surprising amount of iron in her tone.
Nero gave her an appreciative nod, then stood up to face Nick again. “I’m not saying it was some brilliant plan or anything, I’m just saying that it worked. Remember when I said that environmental effects could overcome level disparity? Well, look around, here is proof that I was right,” he said with a smile.
Nick glanced quickly at the destroyed surroundings, then returned his scowl to Nero. “I, and every other mage, already knew that environmental damage is capable of ignoring level disparity. You’re borrowing the identity of the world around you to give life to your constructs, of course the results will be more powerful. That’s why your ‘air bomb’ spell earned you so many points in the noble war, it was a novel application of a proven theory. But what you continue to ignore is that environmental spells are, by their very nature, nearly impossible to control. Your own spell nearly killed you when you fought Dorchen’s forces in the Center halls, and now you almost killed a team-mate due to your recklessness. If you truly plan to follow the path of the mage, you MUST learn how to control your magic, not just unleash it,” he said, sounding every bit the experienced magic user that he was.
Nero met Nick’s stare, but couldn’t manage to hold it. Breaking first, he looked away from his friend, and replied, “I hear you Nick. I get it. I didn’t expect it to get out of control so quickly. Though, it really did seem like a good idea at the time. And you have to admit, it DID work. But, in the future, I’ll be more careful. Also, for the record, we had plenty of time. Rose only passed out because you were all hiding in a kiln, for God’s sake. That’s on you.”
Nero recognized that he had lost control of the situation, but he refused to back down completely. The plan worked, and the only ‘casualty’ wasn’t really his fault.
Sergeant Wesker had been watching their interaction, trying to follow along with what they were saying. He’d been around a long time, working with mages from various backgrounds, so he could almost translate what they were talking about. He thought he understood what they meant by ‘environmental effects’, but he felt the need to make sure that he wasn’t missing anything.
When the two mages went silent for a moment, he saw his chance to interject. “So Walker didn’t manage to overcome the mob’s field. He just set everything on fire and let the mob’s spawns burn through its potential. Then when the mob manifested, he killed it quickly, knowing that he had to put out the fire before we all died along with it. That about sum it up?” He made sure to keep his tone controlled, not allowing any of his inner turmoil to cloud his words.
Hearing his blunt summary, everyone looked to see what Nick had to say.
Nick took a moment to think about it, then started nodding. “That’s a good way to put it. Nero set a trap, expecting the mob to die before it became more than we could handle,” he said without sugar-coating it.
All eyes turned to Nero, who just shrugged at their judgmental looks.
The sergeant contemplated what had been said, weighed the pros and cons of Walker’s plan, then turned to Nero and said, “You’re an idiot. There was no reason to take the chance. We had a plan, a time-tested strategy which has been proven to get results with minimal danger to the team. There was absolutely no reason to improvise.” His voice was hard, as if he were stating facts rather than opinions. His long years as a military sergeant silently reinforcing his point.
Nero wasn’t going to fall for it. Nick may have had a point about environmental effects being uncontrollable, but calling a strategy that was JUST proven valid was ridiculous. That’s the kind of logic that is reserved for politicians and managers who feel like coming down on their underlings who succeeded in a way they didn’t like.
Rolling his eyes, Nero responded in a mocking tone. “Oh really? So, what about the fact that the mob’s little squirrels were climbing the trees and hopping around all over the place? They would have over-run the walls the moment they saw them. Nick adapted, but I couldn’t have known he was going to do that. There was no prearranged strategy to deal with a mob like that. You’re just being pissy because the fire scared the crap out of you. Back home, we called that ‘monday morning quarterbacking’, and it was for politicians and desk jockeys,” he said, then turned his head to look at Cathleen.
Nero saw her still scanning what was left of the treeline, her posture relaxed, but ready. “Hey Cathleen, what do you think? We haven’t heard your opinion,” he asked, interested in hearing what she had to say.
Rose stood up slowly, joining the group in waiting to hear Cathleen’s take on the situation. They watched her give one final scan of the surroundings, before turning her hawk-like gaze on Nero.
“Young warriors often push the boundaries of good sense. They must find their limits through adversity. You saw a potential weakness, devised a strategy, implemented it. Whether or not it was a mistake is something you’ll have to decide for yourself after reflecting on the battle. Now isn’t the time to concern yourself with the opinions of those who are only alive because you acted. It’s better to act in ignorance, then to hesitate and die. If you manage to live through your mistakes, never repeat them. As there is no way to know what would have happened if you hadn’t done as you did, it’s pointless to debate it. Now, we’ve talked enough. It’s time to move on. Sergeant Wesker, the mob is currently dissipating, you might want to deal with that before you lose more of Lord Walker’s spoils,” she said, her voice devoid of anything resembling interest. She could have been at the DMV for all the emotion she was showing.
Nero couldn’t help it, and started chuckling. “Yeah, for all future war-time opinions, I’m going with her. She’s got ice in her veins,” he said, full of respect for the 5’6’’ bad-ass warrior chick. She only had two inches on him, but on the battlefield, she stood taller than anyone he’d ever met.
Comments
Ocean Breeze
Yes!
Skyra
If environmental effects work as i think they work and he wants to stick with the lasers couldn't he make air lase by pumping it directly with essence and creating mirrors? That is of course that is if he knows how laser actually work since if i understand it correctly until now he only created coherent light out of essence directly.
