JÒN (to himself): I'm not going to fix anything if I just stand here moping about. She doesn't expect me to be a threat. She's overconfident. Maybe I can use that against her somehow. Maybe if I kill her, everything will come back to normal. Maybe if she dies, her spells will be undone, and everyone will come back to life. I won't know until I try.
I rush towards the cortana, but I suddenly feel a sharp pain in my stomach, as a rock flies into me and knocks me off my feet.
I struggle to catch my breath
Rakaia: Oh, I'm sorry, was that too rough? I'm not exactly sure how much damage you can take, since I've never really fought against a weakling like you before!
Rachel (cries more): Please, leave him alone!
Rakaia: I wouldn't want to kill you right off the bat. We should enjoy ourselves to the fullest, you know what I'm saying?
She flings another rock at me but I get up and sidestep immediately dodging it.
Rakaia: You are quite fast...
Before I get a chance to catch my breath, she appears right in front of me, and grabs my neck.
Rakaia: C'mon, Jòn! Make this a little challenging for me
She lands continuous blows on my face, and throws me on the ground. She then flings another rock right below my chest, and I can feel my breath leaving me again.
Rachel: Stop! You're hurting him!
Rakaia: Huh! Well, I always knew you were a weakling, but I never imagined it would be this bad. This is painful to watch, really. I think I'm just going to spare you the embarrassment and kill you right now.
Rachel: No, don't do it!
Rakaia: Good bye, Jòn!
She waves her hand towards me, and I can feel my whole body starting to quickly dry up.
Rakaia: It was fun while it lasted!
Rachel (shouts): Stop!
Just as the last echoes of her words fade away, everything around me freezes in place.
My body is not drying up anymore, Rakaia isn't moving, and Rachel's tears are floating in mid-air. Is this something that normally happens when you die? Is time supposed to feel like it's moving slower as you experience your final moments? I wouldn't know. I've never died before.
All of a sudden, everything begins to move in reverse, as I find myself spectating all of the events that lead to my death. I see Rakaia hitting me with the rocks, and then I see her kill Hagrid, and Leah, and then Damien. I see her killing the stillborn skeletons and then I see her breaking out of the amulet. Is this what they call one's life flashing before their eyes?
Wow, this is actually pretty entertaining. I never knew that dying could be this fun. Hey, look, that's Lily fighting the skeletal dragon. How the hell am I seeing this? Wasn't I supposed to be in the illusion while all this happened? Now the craters are all disappearing one by one. And, we're back at the moment where the two mages ambushed us.
The string of events unraveling before my eyes now comes to a halt, and for a few seconds, I find myself in a frozen state yet again, at the exact moment after we'd been ambushed by the two mages. Then, all of a sudden, time starts moving again, and everyone is looking around themselves, with very confused expressions on their faces.
JÒN (to himself): Wait a minute… Could this be possible? Was it not just my imagination? Are you actually telling me that I just witnessed time reversing itself and that everyone still remembers what happened?
I don't get a lot of time to think about what happened, because my suspicions suddenly get confirmed by an enraged Rakaia.
Rakaia (shouts from her amulet): A time wrath?! Are you kidding me right now? And it was Rachel, of all people?! You bastards knew this, didn't you? You all set me up! You knew that this would happen! You let me escape on purpose so you could laugh at me, didn't you? Well, you know what?! I'm done being nice! Next time I get out, I'm going to rip every single bone from your bodies and I'll make your families watch. You're going to beg me to give you the easy deaths I gave you today. Do you hear me?! I am going to make your lives hell! Stop grinning at me, you stupid lowlife dwarf!
Elyria: That's enough, Rakaia. I'm not sure what exactly happened after you escaped from the amulet, but I think I can get a general idea from what you just said. You lost. We won. Deal with it. If I hear any more of your whining, I'm going to close this amulet and never open it again. Do you understand?
Rakaia doesn't say anything, but I don't need to see her face to know that she must be fuming right now.
Totti: I'm… alive? But… how?
Zack (points at Rachel): It was the wench! I saw it all happen before my eyes. She reversed time! Do you know what this means? Do you know what it would mean if any of our gods could get ahold of this kind of power?!
Before the green robed mage gets to answer the question, a cone of ice flies straight through his head, and he dies instantly.
Leah (smirks): Your friend really shouldn't have told us that he canceled all of his protection spells two hours ago. That's just begging to be killed over and over.
Zack: I don't care about that sad excuse for a mage anymore. What I care about more than anything now is the woman you are travelling with. Hand her over peacefully, and I will make your deaths swift.
Hagrid (grins): It's a tough decision to make, but I'm afraid we're going to have to turn down your generous offer.
Zack: So be it, then!
He starts summoning his stillborn skeletons again.
Hagrid: Oh no, you don't!
He rushes towards the necromancer in order to kill him before he completes the spell, but one of the skeletons, who had only gotten the upper half of its body out of the ground, casts a powerful wind spell which sends the dwarf flying back towards us.
Damien: Rachel, get to safety! The necromancer and his skeletons may not be able to harm you due to the tournament's spell, but the same can't be said for us. If you stay too close to us you'll risk getting caught in the crossfire.
Rachel: Okay
She heads towards the opposite end of the market square.
Once the skeletons have fully surfaced, two of them start attacking us simultaneously with a flurry of fire and water spells, while another one creates a magical barrier around him and all the other stillborn. Damien uses his shield to create a magical barrier of his own around us all, but it looks like he won't be able to hold it for much longer if the stillborn keep attacking at this rate.
Two newly formed walls of rock are closing in on his barrier, trying to break through it by using brute force.
Damien: If anyone has any ideas on how we can get out of this alive, now would be a good time to let us know.
Elyria: We can't fight them head on. We need to focus on figuring out their weaknesses. They may be stillborns, but they're still only skeletons. If we examine them carefully, we are bound to discover a thing or two that we can use to our advantage.
Damien: Well, I'm not trying to rush you or anything, but I doubt I can hold this barrier for another minute. Realistically, it'll probably break a lot sooner than that. So, yeah, if you're planning to look for weak spots, you'd better do it quick.
Elyria is right. Even if they are stillborns, their frail undead bodies are bound to leave them with a few exploitable weaknesses. Gaius has shown us this much. Even if the necromancer has learned from his past mistakes and shielded them against sonic attacks, there still should be something we could take advantage of. Not to mention that the necromancer's spell only lasts five minutes and is limited to one use per day, so barring any more unexpected time reversals, we should be in the clear if we manage to hold out for the entire duration of the spell.
As I examine the skeletons carefully, I notice something peculiar about them. Even though their auras feel similar to that of Theo, their magical energy feels as if it were leaking out of their bodies at a very fast rate. If I were to venture a guess as to why that is happening, I would say it's most likely because their new bodies cannot keep up with the tremendous amount of energy they have at their disposal. I am honestly surprised that my stat device isn't reacting to any of this. I would have expected it to be beeping like crazy by now.
I look at my stat booster, and I find out to my surprise that even though I don't have any new points to spend, there is a flashing message in the corner of the screen saying: 'Emergency mode available. Tap here to activate.
JÒN (to himself): Emergency mode? Is this something that can only be activated when the device gets access to a great amount of energy? If so, then is this what Theo did to power up my device after he pumped it with energy before my fight with the dragon?
Unfortunately, I don't have much time to think this through. I'm going to have to rely on my guts, here. And my guts say that I should take this chance, while I still have it.
As I tap the emergency mode message, I suddenly feel a great amount of energy surging through my body, similar to what happened before my fight with the dragon, and just like last time, I realize that I now have access to an impressive roster of spells, as well as the knowledge required to be able to cast them. For a moment, I could see two additional stats being displayed on the device's screen, next to the nine existent ones. The stats were named 'Magical power' and 'Magical knowledge', but they disappeared almost as quickly as they appeared.
I think I may be starting to understand what's happening here. This 'Emergency mode' somehow powers up two hidden stats that I don't normally have access to, but it only does so temporarily, when the device gets ahold of a surplus of energy that it can't assimilate immediately. This is how Theo powered up my device for my fight with Qaerys. I'm sure of it. The feeling I'm getting is exactly the same as back then, even though I don't seem to have access to nearly as many spells as I did last time.
This time around, it seems that I don't have any flight or teleportation spells available, so I guess I'll have to move around the old fashioned way. I'm also missing some of the bigger spells I had access to last time, and I can feel that the power behind each of my spells is significantly weaker than it was when Theo powered up the device. Regardless, this is the best chance I've got to turn the tables around, and I need to take full advantage of this opportunity.
Let's see… There are five stillborns in total, of which four seem to be elementalists that each have mastery over a different magical element, and the fifth appears to be specialized in supporting the others, by either weakening the enemy's defenses, or casting protections on his allies. Given their perfect lineup, I'm going to assume that they were part of a squad during the still night, and that they died together, during one of their missions.
However, the five of them combined are nowhere near Theo's level. They may have a lot of magical power and energy, but besides that, they are not any different from regular mages. The elementalists don't have control over more than one element, the supporting mage isn't casting any other spells than the ones he is specialized in, and none of them seem to be able to ignore the laws of magic in the same way that Theo does.
Meanwhile, my stat device's emergency mode gives me access to all of the four traditional magical elements, as well as non-traditional ones such as ice, acid and electricity. I also think that my current power level is somewhat comparable to that of each stillborn, but I can't be one hundred percent sure of that because I've never had the opportunity to fight mages on equal terms before.
JÒN (to himself): The question now is what the focus of our fight should be. If our aim were instead to eliminate the stillborns directly, our best bet would probably be to aim for the necromancer, since the skeletons' main priority would be to defend their master, and this would serve to disrupt their rhythm.
JÒN: Guys, I think I may have a plan.
Damien: What the hell? What's with the crazy magical energy radiating from you all of a sudden? Don't tell me that Theo froze time again to give you magic powers!
I start to reinforce the magical barrier to give us some time to talk.
JÒN: No! It wasn't Theo. I just used my device to harness the energy that's being leaked from the stillborns.
Damien: You can do that now?
JÒN: Apparently
Damien: So what's this plan of yours, then?
JÒN: I think we should start going on the offensive. I have enough protection spells for everyone and I also have access to a lot of powerful spells, so we'd be better off putting some pressure on them than stalling for time. We should begin by focusing on the necromancer, because the stillborns will be forced to protect their master when we attack him, and that could make them break their formation.
I pause a bit to think before I continue.
JÒN: Damien, I'm going to cast most of my protections on you. Try to grab the stillborns' attention as much as possible.
Damien: Okay, I can do that
JÒN: Hagrid, I want you to put as much pressure as you can on their necromancer. Once we exit the barrier, you should run straight at him and hit him with everything you've got.
Hagrid (grins): Consider it done!
I turn to Lily
JÒN: Lily, you can fly, right?
Lily: Yeah, sort of. I don't know any flight spells, but I can make jets of fire come out of my feet, which propel me into the air and can keep me airborne for long periods of time.
JÒN: Perfect. You'll be coming with me, then. I don't have any flight spells either, but I think I can use air magic to fly around decently enough. You, Elyria and I are going to attack the skeletons from above, in an attempt to overwhelm their defenses.
Lily: Aye, aye, sir!
She performs a military salute with her right hand.
JÒN: And lastly, Leah since you specialize in long range attacks, I want you to stay inside this barrier and to observe the fight from afar. The skeletons will likely be ignoring you, so you will be able to analyze the situation calmly and to look for their weaknesses. They are bound to make some mistakes with the amount of pressure we'll be putting on them.
Leah: Okay, I'll be sure to punish them severely for any mistakes they make during the fight.
JÒN: Alright, that's everyone. We'll dash out of the barrier together as soon as I finish casting all of the protection spells. Get ready!
Once I finish casting the protection spells, we step out of the barrier and start putting our plan into action. Hagrid dashes straight for the necromancer and reaches him in a matter of seconds, but the air elementalist reacts quickly, and he uses a wind spell to push Hagrid back several dozen feet. By the time Hagrid gets back, the supporting skeleton places a magical barrier around their master, which the dwarf is now trying to break with a flurry of fists.
Damien heads for the five stillborns, and when he comes close to them, one of the skeletons shoots a powerful beam of fire towards him. Damien uses his sword to absorb all of the fire, and then he sends it back towards his attacker. The skeletons' barrier defends them from the blow, but Damien's actions seem to have caught the stillborns' undivided attention. They are now all firing spells towards him, while he uses his shield to block and his sword to absorb their elements.
This is what we were waiting for. I wave at Lily, and she nods her head, as she starts to run towards the stillborns. While running, she jumps high into the air, and she then uses her fire jets to propel herself higher, as she goes to position herself above the skeletons' barrier. I follow her lead and use my air magic to lift myself into the air. Using air magic to fly is nowhere near as easy as it sounds, and I'm feeling a lot clumsier than when I was using the flight spell in my fight with the dragon, but it should be good enough for my intents and purposes.
I catch up with Lily, and we both position ourselves some thirty feet above the stillborns' barrier, putting a bit of distance between ourselves in order to make it harder for the skeletons to target us both. We then start attacking the barrier with fire, water and earth spells from all sides, in an attempt to overwhelm the stillborns' defenses.
Rakaia (shouts from her amulet): No, no, no, you're doing it all wrong! Stop attacking the whole barrier and focus on just one point! Can't you see how slowly their supporting mage is reinforcing individual parts of the barrier? It's because he never learned how to properly localize his energy output! I kept telling him about it six hundred years ago, but the idiot wouldn't believe me until I demonstrated it to him by using a god-damned tree branch to break through his barrier and puncture his lungs.
Taking advice from Rakaia is not something I am particularly keen on doing right now, but as I take a look towards the skeleton's magical barrier, I can at least tell that she is not lying. The magical energy is spread thin throughout the barrier, which helps a great deal against spells with a wide area of effect, but it should leave it vulnerable against more focused attacks. I start charging up a lightning attack while I'm still in the air, and when it becomes powerful enough, I aim it directly at the supporting mage, making sure that all of the power behind my strike is concentrated on a single point.
My lightning strike goes straight through the barrier and it hits the supporting stillborn in the skull, killing him instantly. As the magical barrier starts to disappear, the other four skeletons that were hiding underneath it are now standing around, looking very confused. I take advantage of this and use a great deal of magical energy to create a large pool of acid underneath the stillborns.
The skeletons were caught unawares and they had no time to react. As they all sink slowly into the pool of acid, the air elementalist uses a wind spell to lift the upper half of his body that hasn't yet melted into the air, but I quickly raise two chunks of rock from the ground, and I use them to smash the skeleton's head between them. Eventually, all of the skeletons sink fully into the acid, and I decide to start heading towards the ground, before my device's energy depletes completely. Once I get down, the pool of acid disappears, but the skeletons had already melted completely before this happened, which means that the necromancer is now the only enemy left standing. The barrier around him begins to disappear.
Zack: No! I won't let it end like this!
Right after he finishes his sentence, the necromancer takes a knife out of his robes and he uses it to stab himself in the chest. He then gets enveloped in a bright red light, and soon afterwards, he starts turning into ashes.
Zack: The God of Death… shall have his prize…
As we all gather around to look at the pile of ashes that the necromancer has turned into.
Hagrid (laughs): As far as final words go, I've heard better!
Elyria: That wasn't just some empty threat
She looks around frantically, as if she were expecting something to blow up.
Elyria: That thing he just cast was a sacrificial spell. A kind of spell that requires the death of its caster as payment, in exchange for providing effects that would not be obtainable through normal means. The curse of death that the ogre shaman cast on me before we left the fort was also one of these spells. This isn't over yet…
Hagrid: Relax, If his all-powerful stillborn skeletons couldn't kill us, what do you expect him to do after he's already dead?
Rakaia: That's some tough talk coming from someone who couldn't even identify an obvious weakness in their enemy's defenses. You all would have been toast if it weren't for me. I'm the one who saved all of you losers. Where's my reward for that, huh?
Hagrid: Oh, I've got your reward right here!
Hagrid grabs Rakaia's amulet from Lily's neck, and he starts spinning it by the chain.
Lily: Wait. Don't do that! Didn't I tell you that she has motion sickness?
Hagrid (grins): Really? Huh. I guess it must have slipped my mind.
JÒN: Put her down, Hagrid. It's not worth the bother.
Hagrid: On the contrary, Jòn, I believe this is well worth the effort. In fact, I think I will be incorporating this routine into my daily schedule from now on! But I need to consult with Rakaia first. I wouldn't want to impose. What do you say, Rakaia, does ten in the morning sound like an okay hour for our daily spinning sessions?
Rakaia (shouts): Dwarf!!!
Hagrid continues to spin her.
Rakaia: When I get out of here again, I'm going to stick my hand through your throat and turn you inside-out! And then I'm going to hang you from a tree by your own intestines so I can use you as a swing!
Hagrid: So, ten-o-clock is too early, then?
While Hagrid and Rakaia are talking, I hear the sound of stones starting to crumble somewhere on the opposite side of the market square. I turn around, in order to try and identify the source of the sound, but I don't see anyone in that direction except Rachel.
Suddenly, the stones on the ground in front of Rachel get sent flying into the air, as a skeleton emerges from underneath them and quickly uses a rusted knife to stab her in the heart. Rachel had no time to react. At first, there was only shock in her eyes, but soon, her facial expression turned blank, while her arms hung beside her, motionless. As the light leaves Rachel's eyes completely, her attacker presses the knife harder into her chest, making her fall on her back, while the skeleton crumbles into pieces.
Damien: Rachel!!!
When he reaches her, Damien starts casting a healing spell, but Rachel does not react to it in any way. We all gather around the two of them, and watch them without saying a word, as Damien continues to cast healing spell after healing spell, while Rachel is staring blankly into the distance, without moving a muscle.
Damien: Rachel, stay with me!
Damien shouts, as he keeps desperately casting his spells.
It's no use… I'm sure that Damien must have realized it as well. Rachel is no longer breathing. She stopped breathing even before she hit the ground. She's dead. After all we've been through to bring her back home safely. After everything that's happened this past week. She died, just like that. And not even Damien can bring her back.
Leah: No… This isn't right. This has to be an illusion! The necromancer could never harm her like this. The tournament's spell would have prevented him! This has to be a—
Elyria: The necromancer is dead. The tournament's spell that was preventing him from hurting Rachel disappeared along with his aura. This trap was specifically designed to activate after his death, in order to circumvent the protection spell's effects. He used a loophole. This isn't an illusion. Rachel died, and the necromancer is the one who killed her.
Leah (cries): No, this can't be! She can't just die like this. This isn't fair. She didn't deserve this!
Leah stops for a few seconds, in order to rub her eyes with her hands, as she tries to hold back her tears.
Leah (in a lower tone): She didn't deserve this…
Damien: This is my fault… I was the one who offered to escort her home. I was the one who promised we'd protect her. I failed her. It's my fault that she's dead…
Hagrid: Hey, now, hold on there! You can't just go and blame this all on yourself. Rachel knew very well what she was getting into when she decided to stick with us after what happened yesterday with the noble. She made her own choice and she stuck by it until the end. She died with honor, and we should all respect her for that.
Damien (furious): What do you know about Rachel?! Do you think she wanted to live her last moments in a cesspool like this? Do you think she died happily, knowing that she left her little siblings behind to fend for themselves? Do you seriously think that everything in the world can be measured by your primitive values? What gives you the right to talk about Rachel this way? Tell me!
All of a sudden, Rachel starts to move, and she slowly raises her torso from the ground, as she looks all around her, with an empty expression on her face. But her expression is not the only thing that feels empty about her. Her aura is completely different from before as well. It feels hollow, almost lifeless, and her skin is much whiter, almost as if there was no longer any blood running through her veins.
Leah: Rachel! You're alive!
Damien (looks darkened): No! This isn't Rachel.
Leah: What do you mean? Of course it's Rachel. She's right there!
Elyria: Only her body is there, Rachel is dead. What you see before you is a revenant. An undead being that is born with the host's previous memories, but with a completely different personality. Now I understand why the necromancer went out of his way to cast a sacrificial spell before killing himself. It was so he could make Rachel into a revenant.
Leah: No, that can't be true!
Rachel gets up from the ground and starts to walk slowly away from us.
Leah: Rachel, tell them that isn't true!
Revenant: The one you refer to as Rachel is no more, I am a servant of Ulrake, the God of Death, and my task is to bring this time wrath body to him safely.
Damien (pulls out his sword): Like hell, you will, you undead scum. You're going to leave her body here, so we can give her a proper burial.
Revenant: You are in no position to stop me, healer. I am not like your friend, who did not know how to control her powers. I only have to freeze time for a few hours, and from your point of view, it will be as if I'd teleported out of the city. Now, if you'll excuse me, my master is waiting for me.
She then starts walking slowly away from us again, without even bothering to look back, as if she doesn't even consider us to be a threat. Damien's hands are trembling as he looks towards the revenant, and he appears frozen in place. Even if he knows that it isn't Rachel, it must still be hard for him to bring himself to attack her.
Revenant: Oh, one more thing before I go.
She stops and turns her head towards us. This time, the empty look in her eyes is replaced with one of regret.
Revenant: Take care of the kids for me, will you? I don't think that I'll be coming back to that house anytime soon…
Damien: Stop!
He then rushes towards the revenant and tries to slash her with his sword, but she disappears without a trace before he could land a hit, and the only thing that his blade gets to cut is empty air.
As we all stand there in silence, a loud booming noise suddenly starts to echo all throughout the city. The sky above us then quickly gets filled with very large holographic screens, as people are slowly starting to open their windows in order to get a good look, even if they seem to be too scared to come anywhere near us.
It appears that all of the screens are displaying the same thing, which is to say a gnome with messy hair, wearing protection goggles and an oil-stained lab coat, who is currently fiddling with some wires in some kind of a workshop, while he's humming a joyful tune. After a few more seconds of humming, the gnome suddenly looks towards us, takes off his goggles, and he glues his face to the screen.
Gnome King (backs away from the screen): How very peculiar! I could swear that I've already connected these wires a million times before, but I've never seen the red light turn green until now! Well, no matter! Can everyone hear me?
There is a pause in which we can hear a low murmur coming from the people watching the screens from their windows.
Gnome King: Wait, what am I saying? This is a one way transmitter. Even if you answer me, I won't be able to hear you. Okay, here's what I'll do. I'm gonna go ahead and read you this little speech I've got written here on my parchment, and if nobody can actually hear me, I'll just read it again some other time. Now, where did I put that blasted parchment?
The gnome disappears under the screen for about ten seconds, during which the murmur in the market place intensifies.
Gnome King: Well, I could swear I had it around here, somewhere! No matter, I'll just improvise, then!
The gnome clears his throat before he continues.
Gnome King: Ladies and gentlemen! Or should I just be saying gentlemen in this case? Since there aren't any women mages? Gentlemen and gentlemen! Welcome, to the Mage tournament! I am Gregor, the king of Thilias, and I have a public announcement to make. First of all, I would like to begin with an apology to all of the mages that have joined this tournament. When you first arrived on the continent, you were all told that you'd be receiving your objectives privately, but unfortunately, the device that was supposed to be relaying these messages to you broke shortly after your arrival. I have been trying to fix it ever since, but given that a whole week has already passed, I decided to use this old transmitter as a temporary solution, until I manage to get the original device to work properly. Normally, this transmission should be reaching all of the cities of Avalon and even some areas in the wilderness, but since I can't guarantee that every single mage on the continent will be seeing this, I would like to ask you all to pass this information to your fellow participants who missed the announcement!
The gnome clears his throat again.
Gnome King: And now that the introductions are out of the way. I believe it is finally time to give you all what you've been waiting for.
The gnome grins.
Gnome King: Your first objectives!
>>>End Of Book 1<<<