Chapter 39

Mind and Body Myst are powerful enhancement elements, but not without danger. Body Myst is highly addictive and can only improve certain aspects of the body. While Body Myst can make reflexes faster and muscles stronger, it can’t make bones denser. A muscle or tendon enhanced too much can snap the bones they are bound to are cause other bodily damage. Mind Myst has its own dangers. Also addictive, Mind Myst can enhance response time and cognitive power or make an individual smarter for a period. However, overuse of Mind Myst can cause degradation of mental faculties, permanent brain damage, or even death. Because of the dangers of the elements and their addictive nature, they are only allowed to be used in regulated and controlled environments under most circumstances. Adventurers can use the elements but require strict mental and physical checkups after spell use.

Day 381 Quenchenday

I stood in the center of the room, Rose just to my left. The tingling from the hemo-pills had subsided, and I was no longer dizzy, so I was as close to top form as I could get in the time given. I slowly and thoroughly stretched my arms, legs, and back before double-checking the straps of my Catlar. During my break, I double-checked my vitals and the status of my body and Mystwell. I was happily surprised to find that, at some point, my Mystwell capacity had bumped up from thirteen to seventeen. I had no idea where the jump came from, but I wasn’t about to laugh at the dragon offering free gold.

Meanwhile, Rose performed her own stretches and cracked every joint she could. Thallos lazily watched us with mild disinterest, hands in his pockets, back bowed into a relaxed slouch, his eyes half-lidded. As he watched, Rose leaned in close, drawing her lips close to my ear. “Don’t think that I’ve forgiven you for telling your uncle about my situation. While I don’t want you dead, I still have every intent of burying your face under my boot.” She seductively hissed.

I reflexively gulped in fear, not daring to move lest she strike like the viper she sounded akin to. She leaned back and gave me an innocent smile that seemed the antithesis of the words she had just slithered into my ear. “So do your best, horn-boy.” Almost like a switch was flipped, her voice was so bubbly and light. Only deeply ingrained training stopped me from plainly showing my disturbed fear. 

She took a few skips away, her feet light as leaves on the wind. She playfully strolled over to the weapon racks at the nearby wall without being told. I watched with an almost magnetic focus as she fingered weapon after weapon in an almost teasing fleeting thought. She brushed her fingertips across a spear, a lance rifle, a gelatine fist, a rapier, a scimitar, a thorn whip, punching daggers, elemental pistols, kinetic pistols, bastard sword, maul, morning star, war pick, javelin, kinetic burst gauntlets, and greaves. She was trained and proficient with each and every tool of death her fingers danced across. Thanks to her, I knew the sting and bite of everything. She even toyed with the thought of picking up. But my gut clenched when I saw what she selected for the match. She pulled from the display a Serpent Sword, a blade of edged segments bound together with a wire-thread cable. If she pulled the cord at the pommel, the segments would lock together. The extended cord could end in either a bladed hook or a string of razor barbs. The one she picked ended in a hook. Bad news for me.

Thallos had armed himself while I had been focused on Rose. He still looked so casual, lacking in posture, and absent-minded even as he toyed with his playthings. A bandolier crossed from his left shoulder to his right hip, armed with throwing daggers. Peeking out from over his right shoulder was the hilt of a bastard sword. Strapped to his hip was a short sword. The blade swung back and forth in a lazy sway as he checked the cylinders of a kinetic revolver. After I took note of the revolver, I noticed his belt was lined with quick reload packs, allowing him to empty spent shells hook the open cylinders back up, and lock back in place, full and ready for use. He had never used a gun before in matches. Magic and a gun. This was going to be tough. On the magic side, I had to be ready for any spell short of instant murder… I hoped. But I couldn’t take a chance with the pistol and expect rubber rounds.

A wild card and potential life threat from a master warrior on one end. And a partner that would turn traitor in an instant, armed with a weapon with impressive reach, unpredictable movements, and the ability to catch and snare, stood beside me. On top of it all, I had burned a huge chunk of stamina dealing with Mallrimor and his thugs. I was on the losing end, no matter how I looked at the situation. 

I still saw no spell focus on Thallos’s person, so how would he cast? How could he cast? Even as Rose walked back towards me, her steps even and measured, I scoured Thallos’s person with my eyes. From boots up, I tracked my eyes over him. Leather combat boots with steel toes, reinforced cargo pants, no doubt laden with ammo or other tactical nastiness, a simple demon face branded t-shirt under a leather jacket with copper studs, bare hands, a lackadaisical expression masked his face, but the merest flash of his shark teeth told the true story.

Rose stepped up beside me, locking her weapon into a solid bar of bladed steel. She took a combat-ready stance, her blade held horizontal at brow level, freehand loosely gripping the cable, ready to swing the hook. Pulling free my Vekenna, I hurried to mimic her. I held my armored right hand back in a fist in a position ready to strike in an instant and bared the blade in my left hand before me in a vertical pose, the chain that bound the Vekenna to the Catlar held lax. 

Thallos took his own ready stance, pistol held in his left hand with its barrel pointed skyward, short sword in his right hand in a reverse grip, arm crossing his chest. He bent his knees in a ready-to-pounce stance. As my muscles grew taut, ready for all hell to break loose, he spoke, his words calm and gentle despite his predatory stance. “Don’t forget, boy, if you can prove yourself in this fight, I’ve got something to talk to you about. Prove to me your worth.”

As he coiled his body, I saw it. A flicker of silver color over his hand drew me to the answer I needed. His right hand wasn’t bare like I first thought. A dark ring banded around his middle finger, so dark that it seemed to eat the light rather than reflect it. I tried to draw from my memory of the training that Thallos engrained in me. What classification used a ring focus? 

I could find that answer later. First, I needed a response to his summoning on Body Myst. That could only mean one thing. A frontal charge at hyper-enhanced speed. Or did it? He knew me. He knew I would notice the drawing. He would know my first instinct. 

I went against impulse, and instead of readying myself for his attack, I drew a claw of my Catlar along the length of the outside of my left forearm, and I cut deep. The moment I felt blood break the surface, I drew on Mind and Body Myst. I pulled six Vells, three for Mind and three for Body. The crimson along my forearm shimmering gold and silver before vanishing. The world slowed but was nowhere near the same degree as I had used earlier. I summoned a tier-one mental boost that should last for a minute and a half. I matched the cognitive boost with a tier-one physical speed enhancement at the same time. I knew the threat of using these elements, and at that moment, I didn’t care.

I took in the room: glassy black paneled walls, black tile floor, and thirty-foot-high ceiling with evenly spaced indents brandishing intense lights. The minor magical improvements were enough to save me from the first attack. I saw the barest movement of Thallos coiling for his attack before he was a blur. Almost as fast as thought, the Wild Elf shifted into a blur that lanced to the wall at my left and struck the surface only to redirect and shoot to the wall at my back. My body was moving drastically slower than his, even with my physical enhancement, so every fraction of a second counted. Without a second to spare, I brought my blade up in defense. I held my Catlar just in front of my chest at an angle, sweeping my Vekenna in a tight circle before me.

I was mostly lucky. Before I saw anything, I felt a strike land against the guard of my Catlar, my hand was forced against my chest. My sweeping blade forced the strike to the side before it knocked me clean off my feet. Instead, I staggered back. I caught my balance just in time to sidestep a downward slash from Thallos’s short sword. 

With my body turned sideways, I struck out at the Elf with an uppercut aimed at his chin. He leaned back, dodging my strike with ease. His response was a kick aimed at my knee. The blow landed on the inside of my left knee, but I knew it was coming. I only barely mitigated the damage by bending with the attack. I caught a flash of motion out of the corner of my eye. From where the motion originated from, it could only have been Rose. I caught sight of a thrust from her blade that Thallos parried to the side with minimal effort. But what I really should have expected was the hook of her weapon wrapping around the ankle of my posting leg. I felt the metal hook before she gave an aggressive yank, tearing me from my feet to slam my back against the floor.

Thallos took advantage of my position by drawing sights through his pistol to aim it at my chest. I rushed to pull the width of my blade against the shot, but he fired first. Pain lit my left shoulder, but not the pain of torn tissue and broken bone. I got lucky. The rubber bullet left only a blackening welt at the joint of my shoulder. “Bang. You’re maimed.” Thallos uttered in a mocking monotone, “If I were aiming for a kill shot, you would be dead now.” He leaned in, drawing his face close to mine. “But I want to play with my meal.” I could smell the predatory hunger on his breath. That was not the Thallos that I had known for the past year. This was something that I had only caught glimpses of. Something dark, hungry, ravening, and what I could only describe as caco-maniacal. The term referred to a hostile person with a disturbed mind who derived pleasure from the pain of others. Right at that moment, I felt the term fit the man like a hand in a glove.

Thallos drew his revolver sights to my brow, an instant from pulling the trigger and ending my exam. I snapped my jaw closed in a hard bite, my bottom lip set between my teeth. I carved out a fresh gouge, drawing a well of fresh blood. As I saw the muscles of his hand begin to tighten, I pulled a single Vell of Eldritch Myst and forced what could barely be called a spell from between my lips with a rush of air from my lungs. Black and green power erupted from the blood of my lip in a berserk rush of force. The blast forced Thallos to take a step back.

I was secretly surprised by the result of the blast. I had used half the Vells that I used to blast Mallrimor and the gang, and I had expected half the result. That casting was only slightly less powerful than the previous use of the element. There was something more at work there, but that was not the time to get distracted.

Rose took advantage of his defense motion. She thrust out her weapon, the blade doubling in reach as she drew it into a lash against Thallos’s calf. Taking advantage of the distraction, I rolled to my feet as my uncle took another step back. I centered my stance and readied my blade.

I rolled together a mass of blood and mucus in my mouth and charged it with a single malicious Vell of Fire.

I held the charged loogie as I took the claws of my Catlar and drew them across my chest, through the fabric of my shirt. Five long slashes crossed my chest from my left clavicle to the right side of my abdomen. These were no thin rivulets of blood. Crimson welled in the gashes before spilling over my chest in thick and warm red streams.

If Thallos was going to toy with me because I wasn’t enough of a threat, then I had to prove my worth. I locked my Vekenna back into the surface of my Catlar, not bothering to collapse it. I took my newly freed left hand and scooped a fist pull of thick blood, pressing power into it. I already felt the side effects from the Eldritch I had already used, murmurs seeping into my reality even as I drew on even more. With time slowed, I did some desperate math.

I had already spent six for mental enhancement and one on the panicked escape method. That meant I had ten left, not counting the one Vell I held in my mouth as a loaded gun. I estimated the amount of blood in my crimson fist even as I used it to pull and shape the raw elements of nature. Three Vells of Dark Myst, one Vell of Water Myst, one Vell of Eldritch, two Vells of Wind Myst, and I took a gamble with two Vells of Death Myst, despite the final element being prohibited. 

No rules held in a true fight to the death, and that was my excuse for the madness I was about to pull. I pressed my cocktail into the blood in my hand and into the blood weeping from my chest.

While I concocted my idea, Rose pressed her advantage. She stepped in, lashing her blade around Thallos’s foremost ankle, forcing him off balance. She flicked her wrist even before the master could recenter himself. The blade lashed up, aiming to wrap around the forearm of Thallos’s left side. The blade caught hold, cutting into his arm, even as he worked to free himself. At that moment, I made two realizations. First, Thallos’s body enhancement was spent, and he was back down to just shockingly fast. Second, as Rose drew blood, I realized that at some point, Thallos had to have replaced the weapons in the room. And there I was, fighting with a training Vekenna. 

While Rose had Thallos locked in place, I flung out my scarlet hand, the blood across my palm and finger welling together in droplets that shot forth like bullets. My hand loosed seven crimson shots, each a lance three inches in length and a width close to that of a pen. The first struck Thallos in the shoulder, catching his attention. The rest landed home across his upper chest. His jacket and shirt ruptured with seven small bursts, and the flesh below tore into just as many gaping wounds, each an inch and a half in diameter and just as deep. The maimed flesh blackened and withered into dead tissue in the space of a second, thick, black sludge that had once been blood leaked from the micro craters.

Rose paused in her onslaught, horror written across her face as she gaped at the rotting wounds. Thallos calmly and smoothly unwound his bloody arm, pulling the bladed edges of the segment after segment of Rose’s weapon from his arm. Once he dropped the coil with a casual flick of disdain, he then eyed the necrotic wounds across his torso before he flashed me a look of pure annoyance. “Is that really the best you can pull, boy? A ruined shirt and a few spots of gangrene. I expected better.” His tone reflected just how disappointed and peeved he was with my attempt.

That was everything that I had, and it still wasn’t enough. By the time my Mystwell refilled, the Mind Myst would have long since worn off. I needed to step up my game.

The blood on my chest was still charged with Myst, but it was the same elemental ratio as the last spell, and I would need to pull something bigger. The Dark Myst I used was meant to slow his physical speed, but it looked like my attempt would only have minor results. 

I eyed the master as he traded blows and jabs with Rose. Rose pulled her blade into a single piece before thrusting it at his throat. Thallos sidestepped the thrust and pushed it aside with his short sword before drawing aim with his pistol at her face. Rose pushed inside his guard, past his range, rendering the attack worthless. She threw her sword’s hook in an arch to wrap around Thallos’s throat. The Elf saw the throw and ducked out of the grip of the attempted chokehold with the cable. He spun to the side in an elegant twirl and landed an elbow against Rose’s temple, staggering her backward. As she fell back, he followed through to fill her recently vacant space. 

I decided that since Rose had taken a shot at me before the match turned to a free-for-all, I would let her do some heavy lifting for a little while I recouped my lost Vells. I stood back and let the two duke it out for a while. Any time Thallos tried to fire a shot off at me from his revolver, Rose took that advantage and pounced, sometimes literally. I had no doubt that Thallos knew what I was doing, and if he really wanted to, he could disengage from Rose and catch me in a matter of moments if he used another physical enhancement. And I was ready for him to lash out against me at any moment.

I pointed my Catlar at Thallos even as he brought his short sword at me in a wide arch. I could tell this was a feint, so I stepped back and launched my Vekenna at the master. He leaned to the side, easily avoiding the attack, but I had planned for as much.

Two minutes had passed since I had cast the last spell. I had four Vells, but I needed to play for more time. As he leaned aside from my flying blade, I wrenched my Catlar to the left, adjusting the trajectory of the weapon. The chain made contact with his neck. I took three steps to my left and yanked. For good measure, I used one of my few remaining Vells to magnetize the chain link at the base of the blade and the knuckle guard of the Catlar. The spell was minor, barely anything more than an adjustment to trajectory.

Thallos’s neck acted as a fulcrum to bring the blade back around. The Vekenna spun as it reached the apex of the chain I had allowed it to, arching back toward me in a wide swing. As the weapons closed in, about to wrap the chain around Thallos’s neck, he bent forward, ending the fulcrum point as he closed in on me. He timed his duck so that my Vekenna would nearly strike me, drawing my attention to the so-called self-made threat.

Now the blade was arching back towards me. I turned my right side forward and caught the weapon in a reverse grip with a little help from my magnetic trick. With a mere thought, I set the chain connecting my Vekenna and Catlar to retract at top speed as I threw a snap kick with my right leg. I aimed the strike to land at Thallos’s Adam’s apple as he closed the distance, leaning forward.

Thallos angled his torso by the slightest amount, letting my kick pass by, close enough that I could feel the skin of his cheek against my shin. He swung a slashing strike at my chest, but I was already in the motion of turning my failed kick into a sideways evasive tumble. As I came up, I double-checked the state of my trap.

With a mad smirk, I took a defensive stance, intentionally leaving a slight opening at my right side. Thallos stepped in and aimed a thrust from his short sword aimed at my face. A faint. I could already see the throwing dagger in his backhand, mostly hidden behind his body. I did the last thing he expected. I rushed him.

I intentionally let the short sword stab my shoulder as I closed in. As Thallos made to correct for my response, I spit a burst of fire into his face. At the same as my gout of flame, the chain from my gauntlet caught him at the knee while it retracted to me.

The Wild Elf was taken totally off guard, but his sword didn’t stick in my shoulder as I had hoped. As soon as the blade slipped from my body, I made my move even before he hit the ground. Quick as a thought, I slipped my Vekenna into my left hand even as I moved both hands to ensnare Thallos’s blade hand in my chain. In a fluid motion, I wrapped the chain around his blade and struck his wrist with an upward backhand from my Catlar. The backhand loosened his grip; the chain arrested his movement with the weapon. With a sharp jerk, the Vekenna came up against the hilt of the Shortsword, and Catlar went down against the sword’s blade; the weapon tumbled from Thallos’s grip.

I was so smug in my success that Thallos caught me off guard with a twin push kick to my chest while he was still on his back. I fell backward and reflexively rolled into a ready stance. Meanwhile, the Wild Elf kicked his legs into the air in a kip-up and landed on his feet.

That was when Rose stepped in with another sweep from her serpent blade in whip form. The lash was aimed to catch Thallos at the knees, but he performed a feat of acrobatic flaunting. He threw himself backward over the serpentine strike, his body completely horizontal and spinning. Even as his body made its second rotation in the barrel roll, he drew his pistol to aim at me even as he flew through the air.

Throwing myself to the side, I dodged the first rubber bullet. As I rolled to a crouch, I realized I needed a diversion. With arm outstretched, I shot out three of the secorus disks to form a smokescreen. As the gas jetted from the disks, Thallos was already sliding to a halt and aiming to draw another deep on me. Normally, I could have hit the instructor with the high voltage and used the gas as an amplifier. But since I was short my shock bites, the conductive gas was little more than a simple obfuscation at the moment. I backpedaled in a zig-zag pattern to make a harder target while I played for time. If I had really thought about it, I would have picked up more tools, daggers, a pistol, something. But I had an idea.

I tapped the dial at the head of my Catlar as Rose jumped through the conductive fog. She locked in her blade in a single smooth motion as she chopped at Thallos’s neck at the same time as she swooped her cable in from below to hook his feet. Thallos sidestepped the hack at his neck with ease and stepped over the leg hook like it was little more than an annoying puddle. He drew and threw two daggers in one hand from his bandoleer, aimed at Rose’s chest. She deflected the flying blades with the flat of her own weapon. 

Thallos drew the massive blade at his back and did so in a massive swing, aimed to take off Rose’s head with only a single hand, his left hand still armed with the revolver. Rose kept her running momentum and turned it into a slide across the floor on her knees. She ducked under Thallos’s wide swing, sliding past. As she passed him, Rose turned and tried for another leg sweep with her cabled hook. At the same time, I lunged at him with a downward slash from the claws of my Catlar aimed at his face while wearing an illusion making me look like Rose.

I felt a thrill of satisfaction when I saw the shock and confusion scrawled across his face as I leaped through the cloud. But the reaction was only there for an instant. As I brought the claw down, he raised the leg, about to be hooked by the real Rose. He lifted it, straight-legged and arced it across his body and upward in a sweeping motion, carrying the momentum to cleave the kicked downward, catching my gauntlet and pushing it aside. The whole motion was a simple crescent kick, except rather than using it to strike an opponent across the head with the side of his foot, he modified it as a deflection. He hadn’t taught me that use before. I’d needed to take note of that one. 

When Thallos deflected my strike, I was still mid-jump, and my momentum was diverted. Thallos’s foot landed only a heartbeat before I hit the ground and rolled. I landed in a crouch just behind my mentor. But he was already making his next move. While I rolled to land on one knee, he had seated his kicking foot against the floor and brought his other leg around in a roundhouse kick aimed at the back of my neck. I only deduced these actions after his kick struck. My head whipped back with the force before the entirety of me was hurtled forward. I face-planted against the tile floor and skidded for another three feet. 

As I pulled myself back to my hands and knees, I heard the buzzing chime of an alarm. I pull the HUD of my therra-node up to see a timer reading triple zero, under the numerals, read three simple words ’Free For All’. I had just taken in the phrase when a shadow fell over me from above. “Shit!” I cursed as I rolled to my left, pulling myself up into a crouch. As soon as I landed on foot and knee, a mass of black fur with copper stripes struck the floor where I had been not two heartbeats before. The furry blur landed with a resounding clang of metal on stone, paired with the sound of cracking stone. As the dust cleared, I found Rose kneeling over her whip sword, in a single piece at that moment, and she buried it point first into the tiles at her feet. This feat of strength shocked me, and I had a strong supposition of MyCast being in use.  

I had ten Vells, but if I used any of it on Rose, then I’d likely fail the magic portion of the exam. Rose had me outclassed in mobility and flexibility with her serpent sword and her experience. If she really was using M-Juice, then I was in serious trouble. Before, she was just interfering, but now I had to take the very real threat she was, seriously.

I lept to my feet with a lunge away from the berserk Primal. Rose lashed out with her weapon, the blade extending out like a striking viper aimed at my face. I batted the serpentine strike aside with the back of my Catlar. I slammed my Vekenna back into the slot of my gauntlet, blade still open. The action dispersed the illusion I had been wearing of Rose. I was about to rush the cat girl when I thought better. I decided it was best to focus on Thallos.

I threw myself into a dash aimed straight at the master. I still kept the blood on my chest at a stable level charge with myst. The elements held there were still the same ratio from the past big spell I cast. But with how fast the blood was flowing, I needed to constantly shift the body of charged myst to the front-most mass of blood. I closed in Thallos as the secorus gas began to dissipate. He saw me coming, shouldered his bastard sword, and drew aim at me with his pistol. I quickly barricaded myself behind my Catlar. The Vekenna, still being open, acted as a wider shielding surface, if only slightly. I felt the first shot bounce off my forearm. The second deflected off my blade near the left edge. A third struck my exposed left shin. The rubber round stung like an enraged wasp and caused me to stagger but left behind little more than a welt. I quickly recovered and pressed on. The fourth shot of the volley glanced past my ear, the friction drawing a burning red line across the serrated edge of my left ear.

I had kept a close count on his fired shots. Since the start of the match, Thallos had fired eleven shots and only reloaded once. That meant that he was down to the last round of his revolver. I doubled my stride. From around the corner of my armored forearm, I saw that I was eight feet from the man. There was another muzzle flare, but something was different.

Something struck my unarmored left shoulder. But the projectile didn’t bounce off and leave a welt. I felt a pressure in the meat of the shoulder, a line of numbness trailing behind the tugging sensation. I lost my footing, spinning toward the injured shoulder. The trail of numbness was replaced with a line of scorching lightning. I tried to right myself before I fell, but was stopped by something wrapping around my right ankle. Cold metal constricted around my leg, blades biting beep as the foot was yanked out from under me. I fell atop my Catlar, and the Vekenna dislodged and skidded away.

My head would have been clouded by a haze of pain if not for the brutal training the trog of an uncle had put me through. I pulled the gauntlet out from beneath my weight. When I tried to reach forward with my other arm, the lance of pain in my shoulder ignited to a raw blaze. When I looked down to find the origin of the pain, I found a bleeding hole in the tattered remains of my jacket. I snarled against injury as I forced the arm to move. I pulled myself to my elbows through the pain, only to feel a boot stomp down against my upper back, forcing me back to the floor and knocking the wind from my lungs. I was getting really tired of being stepped on. 

“I told you that I was going to grind your head under my boot, so guess what.” She stood on the foot planted on my back and slowly pressed her other boot against the back of my head, forcing my face into the floor before she ground her boot back and forth.

The act was more indignant than painful, but I kept the focus on my stored spell. I didn’t pay attention as she gloated, instead, I adjusted my spell. Used those Water Myst Vells and drew the fresh blood from my chest, around, and to my back beneath my uniform. 

I was dimly aware of Thallos closing in on me. I bided my time, letting them think they had me beat. Rose tugged on her whip blade rhythmically as I heard the blade's sheath in front of me.

I judged the trajectory as best I could and unleashed hell. A bramble of black-blooded spikes erupted from my back, shredding my uniform jacket and shirt to tatters. I felt more than saw Rose get pierced, her weight lifting off me for a moment before she staggered off, a fast liquid patter trailing behind her. With a mighty effort, I flopped over onto my back before crawling to my feet. I turned to see Rose struggling to remain standing. Even Thallos was mildly wounded. Rose clutched at a cluster of necrotic punctures centered around her upper abdomen and lower chest. Compared to the girl, the Wild Elf was barely scathed, bearing only a few more small wounds than when I hit him with my needle spell. As with the first collection of wounds, these new ones also blackened and necrotized.

I checked my right ankle, the serpentine blade was still wound tight. With a level of aggravation and pain, I knelt down and pried my ankle free. As I tossed the coil of metal blades aside, I watched Thallos draw his massive blade again. I started to retract my Vekenna back when the motion was brought to a sudden halt as Thallos drove his blade down against the chain, cleaving it. The severed end reached me, and I found myself at a massive reach disadvantage. I stood favoring my left leg and coddling my left arm against my chest. 

Only one idea came to mind. I had never pulled this trick off before, but this was a now-or-never kind of moment. I checked my Mystwell level and found myself topped off at seventeen. So I pulled one Vell of Eldritch, one Vell of Death, and eight Vells of Dark. I drew the runes in my mind and shaped the spell. I reached my right clawed hand out to the side. Thallos adjusted his two-handed grip on his weapon as he strolled towards me. His stroll shifted to a jog, an amused smirk on his face. “Show, me, your, mettle, BOY!” he punctuated each word with a step in his pace towards me, the final word in his proclamation the only warning before he threw himself into a preternatural sprint. I hadn’t even noticed him draw on Body Myst.

As his shape-shifted into a blur of black and grey, I dug the claws of my gauntlet into the palm of my right hand and cast my spell. I pulled free the bladed tips of each armored finger, and blood gushed from four holes in my palm, each only a half-inch wide. I called upon my charged blood even as I pressed the myst of my spell through the spell’s Kellar to saturate the runic formulas and take shape through the spell’s tech. This all only took the merest moment, thanks to countless hours of practicing and failing at this spell.

The visual result of casting this spell was dramatic, and I admit to a degree of enjoyment in the showmanship. The blood pouring from the open wounds of my hand turned black and emitted smoke-like shadows before halting mid-flow to take a shape. The shape that sprouted from my hand shifted as if made from liquid and smoke before hardening into something as solid as steel and razor-sharp. A weapon the length of a claymore sword lay in my hand, as light as air. The gently tapering blade swooped back only the lightest degree near the point. At the hilt was a basket guard, covering my hand and wrist on the right side. A blade of razor-sharp darkness, the shape sapping the ambient light and the warmth from my hand and forearm. The menacing weapon dribbled vaporous shadows and held wisps of dark green and purple.

The Shadow Blade had been a total shot in the dark, based on faith in the theory that had been percolating at the back of my head since the fight with Mallrimor. Until that successful casting, I had failed to form even the base Shadow Weapon spell. The idea I got had been from all those close shaves with the lethal weapons of Mallrimor’s goons. Originally, I had only been visualizing a black outline of a weapon, like a shadow cast by a weapon in the light. Before I got my ribs rattled and cracked, I had the thought that I should add detail. Not a cardboard cutout made from darkness, but an actual three-dimensional weapon, from the razor-sharp blade to the shape of the guard and pommel.

I had only just shaped the blade when Thallos closed the distance. The slash came in from my left, and I blocked it with my weightless weapon point. I had an itching fear that the attack would pass right through my blade, but that thought was dispelled when the weight of Thallos’s blade came to a jarring stop. I thought it odd that the clash made no sound. The strike that very well could have broken my guard with the mass being thrown, but the shadows seemed to have dulled the impact. 

I passed his strike over my head before I brought my blade back around with a flourish. Thallos adjusted his body’s momentum to follow his blade away from me by kicking off, causing my impulsive slash to sever only his shirt and jacket at the upper edge of his right shoulder.

Thallos ground in his heels to bring himself to a total stop at my right flank, even as he made his next move. With a flourishing twirl, he swapped dominant hands on his hilt before he came at me with a cleaving hack aimed at my chest. My response was to curl in my arm, blade braced against the outside of my shoulder, point down, and my free hand reinforcing the defensive act with another point of counterpressure at the flat of my blade.

His strike sent my feet sliding across the floor a good six inches, but I held my stance. Before he could retract or shift into the next strike, I slide my back foot to alter my direction of resistance and the location of my body. His force pulled him forward as I then stood at his flank.

But Thallos seemed to see this coming as he took the momentum gained from my tactical shift and spun it around in a chopping strike that looked like it could’ve bisected me cleanly. I didn’t want to count on my new tool rendering the force of the strike null, so as I brought the weapon up to block, I angled it to slide down the length of the blade. Just as before, the force of the attack wasn’t totally mitigated but dulled it enough that my strength could stand against the blade better than if I had wielded a mundane blade. 

I wanted to try something. I focused on the shape of my shadow sword and envisioned the blade inverting instead of extending from the bottom of my grip. The shadow lost its solid shape, flickering for a moment before pulling into my palm and extending out the other side.

As Thallos was pulling his weapon back, I lunged at him with a slash from my reversed Shadow Blade aimed at his neck. He brought the guard of his weapon up to block the blow, but I had hoped for as much. The moment by weapon connected with his, there was a burst of eldritch power at the point of contact. Thallos dropped his two-hander as he leaped backward. The moment he landed, he drew two daggers and judged me with an estimating eye.

I tested the functionality of my leg that Rose had caught with her serpent sword and found it in a less-than-ideal state. When I blocked Thallos’s hacking chop aimed at my head, the leg had been upfront, so it didn’t take most of the pressure from the assault. I counted myself lucky for that fortunate setup. The leg could hold my weight, and I could keep a stance with it if I was careful, but I was pretty sure that running was out of the question.

I definitely was not in a position to stay agile, and if Thallos was pulling out daggers, I’d need to stay light on my feet. With that option out of the question, I decided to try something new. I was on a roll with testing what could be done with this Shadow Blade trick, so why not push a little further? I honed in my focus on the weapon, pulled half of the shadow mass back into my person, and then extended it out my other hand. That function was trickier. I needed to split my focus between the two weapons. The second weapon stuttered and flickered between a solid mass and vaporous smoke. The twinned focus was an alien sensation, akin to learning two-blade fighting for the first time, tracking the locations of both weapons and moving them in separate motions. 

Thallos rushed me, one dagger held fore grip, the other reverse grip. I chanced a glance at my off-hand weapon to find it still flickering between states. I cursed under my breath as I tried to shift my weapon grips. I shifted the blade in my right hand to a reverse grip and centered my focus on my left blade. Thallos closed the distance and lashed out with a stab aimed at my posting leg. I pushed the strike away with my own blade, flicking it up at the last second, drawing a thin cut along his inner forearm. The scratch blackened, toxic green cracks spreading from the wound. I pushed the offensive with a slash aimed at his face. My aim was to force him back and get myself some breathing room, but he only leaned back, still taking the wound but minimizing the damage. The gash lined his left cheek from jaw to nose. The result was the same as the wound on his forearm but only magnified twofold. 

Thallos stepped back with his right foot, pivoted on his left, and spun around with another stab aimed at my wounded leg. I attempted to hook the blade with my reverse-dripped shadow weapon. My blade made contact with his dagger just in time for my shadow weapon to shift to smoke, allowing his dagger to pass through.

I had been afraid that would happen, but planned accordingly. When my attempt to hook his dagger failed, I pushed the motion through, throwing his strike off course, instead glancing off my Catlar. I took the opportunity to stab at his chest with a thrust from my left hand. Thallos hooked my hand with the inside of his blade and drove my strike down and away from him. The only result was another slash in his jacket and shirt. This new slash met with the other one I had made, forming a flap of fabric to hang limply open. 

I struck out with my right hand, a slash aimed to cross his bicep. His response was to pull that side away from me and thrust at my chest. I kept the momentum of my attempted slash and adjusted the trajectory of the blow. If my blow landed, I could very well sever his hand at mid-forearm. Thallos saw this coming and threw his attempted stab wide, instead drawing a glancing slash across my left shoulder. But even that attempted divergence didn’t completely save his arm from damage. I drew a groove across the width of his forearm. This wound was the worst yet. I could smell a stomach-churning mixture of rotting flesh and ozone. The green cracks reached up to his elbow.

When that last wound finished its reaction, Thallos took two steps back and dropped his combat stance, holding both hands up in surrender as he dropped his daggers. With his hands still raised, he examined the worst of his wounds.

“Alright, boy, I know when I’m beat.”

I released my hold on the spell, Shadow Blades dissipating into unnaturally black smoke, and I fell backward, landing on my ass as I gasped for breath. I looked over my shoulder to find Rose being treated by Tessa, her wounds mostly healed, though her shirt was in tatters, but probably not as bad as my own.

“So, uncle, what’s the verdict? Do I pass?”

“Slow down. Geez. Let me get patched up first, boy.”

The mentor strolled over to the Gnomish girl as Rose stepped away. She took a seat on the floor away from me but facing Thallos, the same as me. He knelt down to reach Tessa’s face level. Tess began undoing damage as Thallos began his verdict lecture. He pointed to Rose with his undamaged hand. “Girl, you pass. You took advantage of openings the boy made and made your own when he was overwhelmed. When The timer for teamwork clicked zero, you adapted without hesitation. Something you’ll both need to learn is the ability to kill a teammate if the need occurs.”

“Kill a teammate?” Rose asked.

“Sometimes allies turn traitor, or you need to end a partner to prevent sensitive information from getting to the wrong ears. Friends are all well and good, but you need to be ready for the worst case at any time.” He brought his attention to me. “And as for you. You pass the combat exam.”

“And the magic end of it?”

“Oh, I lied. That initial trick was enough to pass. It would have put down almost anyone else. The trap when she had you pinned was quite impressive and took her out of the fight before she caused you too much trouble. But you get the gold star for the Shadow Blade spell. When did you master that one? You’ve never used it in training before.”

I looked away bashfully. “I definitely would not call it mastered by any means. I’ve had the idea for a while after you told me about the spell, and when Rose did the same thing with light, I was set on learning it. But I hadn’t figured out how to work it till just then during the match.”

“Very impressive.” He gave me a nod of respect.

“Passing is great and all.” I started, “But since when do you use live rounds in a match? I could’ve died.”

“Pssh!” He waved off my concern. “For starters, I’ve never used a firearm in sparring that is saved for next year. The point of the revolver was to see how you would act when facing a new and outmatching threat.”

“And the live rounds?” I pressed.

“Your life was never in danger, but I wanted to make sure that you learned your lesson if you got careless.”

By this point, Tessa was almost done restoring Thallos to peak condition. As soon as she finished, he sprung to his feet as if the match had never occurred. He strolled across the room to a black training bag I had only just then noticed. “Now I promised you a talk, boy. So go get patched up, and we can have a life-changing conversion.”

count on my new tool rendering the force of the strike null, so as I brought the weapon up to block, I angled it to slide down the length of the blade. Just as before, the force of the attack wasn’t totally mitigated but dulled it enough that my strength could stand against the blade better than if I had wielded a mundane blade. 

I wanted to try something. I focused on the shape of my shadow sword and envisioned the blade inverting, instead extending from the bottom of my grip. The shadow lost its solid shape, flickering for a moment before pulling into my palm and extending out the other side.

As Thallos was pulling his weapon back, I lunged at him with a slash from my reversed Shadow Blade aimed at his neck. He brought the guard of his weapon up to block the blow, but I had hoped for as much. The moment by weapon connected with his, there was a burst of eldritch power at the point of contact. Thallos dropped his two-hander as he leaped backward. The moment he landed, he drew two daggers and judged me with an estimating eye.

I tested the functionality of my leg that Rose had caught with her serpent sword and found it in a less than ideal state. When I blocked Thallos’s hacking chop aimed at my head, the leg had been upfront, so it didn’t take most of the pressure from the assault. I counted myself lucky for that fortunate setup. The leg could hold my weight and I could keep a stance with it if I was careful, but I was pretty sure that running was out of the question.

I definitely was not in a position to stay agile, and if Thallos was pulling out daggers, I’d need to stay light on my feet. With that option out of the question, I decided to try something new. I was on a roll with testing what could be done with this Shadow Blade trick, so why not push a little further? I honed in my focus on the weapon, pulled half of the shadow mass back into my person, then extended it out my other hand. That function was trickier. I needed to split my focus between the two weapons. The second weapon stuttered and flickered between a solid mass and vaporous smoke. The twinned focus was an alien sensation, akin to learning two-blade fighting for the first time, tracking the locations of both weapons, and moving them in separate motions. 

Thallos rushed me, one dagger held fore grip, the other reverse grip. I chanced a glance at my off-hand weapon to find it still flickering between states. I cursed under my breath as I tried to shift my weapon grips. I shifted the blade in my right hand to a reverse grip and centered my focus on my left blade. Thallos closed the distance and lashed out with a stab aimed at my posting leg. I pushed the strike away with my own blade, flicking it up at the last second, drawing a thin cut along his inner forearm. The scratch blackened, toxic green cracks spreading from the wound. I pushed the offensive with a slash aimed at his face. My aim was to force him back and get myself some breathing room, but he only leaned back, still taking the wound but minimizing the damage. The gash lined his left cheek from jaw to nose. The result was the same as the wound on his forearm but only magnified twofold. 

Thallos stepped back with his right foot, pivoted on his left, and spun around with another stab aimed at my wounded leg. I attempted to hook the blade with my reverse-dripped shadow weapon. My blade made contact with his dagger just in time for my shadow weapon to shift to smoke, allowing his dagger to pass through.

I had been afraid that would happen, but planned accordingly. When my attempt to hook his dagger failed, I pushed the motion through, throwing his strike off course, instead glancing off my catlar. I took the opportunity to stab at his chest with a thrust from my left hand. Thallos hooked my hand with the inside of his blade and drove my strike down and away from him. The only result was another slash in his jacket and shirt. This new slash met with the other one I had made, forming a flap of fabric to hang limply open. 

I struck out with my right hand, a slash aimed to cross his bicep. His response was to pull that side away from me and thrust at my chest. I kept the momentum of my attempted slash and adjusted the trajectory of the blow. If my blow landed, I could very well sever his hand at mid-forearm. Thallos saw this coming and threw his attempted stab wide, instead drawing a glancing slash across my left shoulder. But even that attempted divergence didn’t completely save his arm from damage. I drew a groove across the width of his forearm. This wound was the worst yet. I could smell a stomach-churning mixture of rotting flesh and ozone. The green cracks reached up to his elbow.

When that last wound finished its reaction, Thallos took two steps back and dropped his combat stance, holding both hands up in surrender as he dropped his daggers. With his hands still raised he examined the worst of his wounds.

“Alright boy, I know when I’m beat.”

I released my hold on the spell, Shadow Blades dissipating into unnaturally black smoke, and I fell backward, landing on my ass as I gasped for breath. I looked over my shoulder to find Rose being treated by Tessa, her wounds mostly healed, though her shirt was in tatters, but probably not as bad as my own.

“So, uncle, what’s the verdict? Do I pass?”

“Slow down. Geez. Let me get patched up first, boy.”

The mentor strolled over to the Gnomish girl as Rose stepped away. She took a seat on the floor away from me but facing Thallos, the same as me. He knelt down to reach Tessa’s face level. Tess began undoing damage as Thallos began his verdict lecture. He pointed to Rose with his undamaged hand. “Girl, you pass. You took advantage of openings the boy made and made your own when he was overwhelmed. When The timer for teamwork clicked zero, you adapted without hesitation. Something you’ll both need to learn is the ability to kill a teammate if the need occurs.”

“Kill a teammate?” Rose asked.

“Sometimes allies turn traitor, or you need to end a partner to prevent sensitive information from getting to the wrong ears. Friends are all well and good, but you need to be ready for the worst-case at any time.” He brought his attention to me. “And as for you. You pass the combat exam.”

“And the magic end of it?”

“Oh, I lied. That initial trick was enough to pass. It would have put down almost anyone else. The trap when she had you pinned was quite impressive and took her out of the fight before she caused you too much trouble. But you get the gold star for the Shadow Blade spell. When did you master that one? You’ve never used it in training before.”

I looked away bashfully. “I definitely would not call it mastered by any means. I’ve had the idea for a while after you told me about the spell and when Rose did the same thing with light I was set on learning it. But I hadn’t figured out how to work it till just then during the match.”

“Very impressive.” He gave me a nod of respect.

“Passing is great and all.” I started, “But since when do you use live rounds in a match? I could’ve died.”

“Pssh!” He waved off my concern. “For starters, I’ve never used a firearm in sparring, that is saved for next year. The point of the revolver was to see how you would act when facing a new and outmatching threat.”

“And the live rounds?” I pressed.

“Your life was never in danger, but I wanted to make sure that you learned your lesson if you got careless.”

By this point, Tessa was almost done restoring Thallos to peak condition. As soon as she finished, he sprung to his feet, as if the match had never occurred. He strolled across the room to a black training bag I had only just then noticed. “Now I promised you a talk, boy. So go get patched up and we can have a life-changing conversion.”