Chapter 1 #2
“Great. You two get in here. If it tries to eat Sifuso, we’ll blast it. Morton, go fetch Krachma. He’ll know what to do.”
Krachma was a lob from the Elemental Plane of Earth.
He was by far the strongest among us at this type of magic, and also the source of this particular spell.
Unfortunately, Krachma was also a lousy teacher who barely spoke any of the trade language everyone else spoke in the Core, and none of us were fluent in Lobbish.
I suspected if Krachma was better at explaining how earth spells worked, then our gang of morons probably wouldn’t keep unleashing monsters to eat our basement.
“On it, Mr. Carnavon, sir,” Morton the gnome shouted as he sped off on his short little legs. I probably should’ve sent somebody faster, but it was already too late.
I yelled after him, “And send Trax Bloodtrail if you see him!”
“Trax is a monk, not a wizard. What’s Trax going to do to a living dirt pile?” Azarin asked. “Punch it?”
“I don’t know. He’s handy, though.”
“True,” Azarin agreed. Because say what you will about our Squalo friend, the toothy fellow was comforting to have at your side in a fight. Though he was a lot more useful when the enemy was something edible.
Instead of the lethally efficient Trax, we’d have to make do with two of our newer students: Rufus the dwarf from Bergwald, and Danny, a local human.
Neither had exactly impressed me with their magical aptitude so far, even though both had papers from a tester declaring they’d been born more gifted than I’d been.
Danny was so scared, he looked like he was about to piss his pants.
Rufus’ mood was inscrutable, but I’d found that to be true with most of the dwarves I’d met so far.
It was probably because their beards covered up so much of their faces.
He caught me eyeballing him and puffed up his chest. “Never fear, hotlander. This pathetic brute is nothing to a mighty war mage of Clan Rudnik.”
Rufus’ tester papers marked him as a rank two, but war mage sounded like it should be a lot more impressive an office than a mere two. Rank ten Gaul Haddar didn’t even have a title like that, and I’d seen him shrug off getting hit by buildings.
“That’s great.”
“Aye. I am great,” Rufus said.
Rufus was also something of an idiot, with a history of spectacularly failing at most of the spells he’d attempted, so I spoke real slow in the hopes he’d get it. “Don’t use any magic until I say so.”
“Right, Mr. Carnavon,” Danny said as he readied a wand. Except his hand was shaking so much, I thought he was going to drop it.
“It’s going to eat me!” Sifuso wailed.
“Nobody’s getting eaten. Everybody stay calm.” I wasn’t particularly calm myself, but I did a pretty good job of hiding it, I think. “We’ll take this nice and easy. This is a low-level spell. Hopefully, it’ll fizzle out on its own.”
The blog wasn’t growing any more that I could tell, but it finished eating the bench with its one mouth, and the shelf with its other, then, once deprived of furniture, it began slowly rumbling its way up the wall toward our lacertian.
It didn’t have any apparent eyes or a nose, but it still seemed to know where there was something else edible.
“The spell’s not fizzling,” Azarin warned.
It didn’t look like Krachma was going to make it in time. “Alright, if it’s a fight this thing wants, it’s a fight it’ll get. We’ll take turns hitting it with spells so we don’t get in each other’s way. Azarin first, get its attention.”
“Oh, here we go!” Being an air-realmer, who were a violent yet flashy people, Azarin had a certain dramatic flair as she threw back her cape to reveal the pouch full of copper rods on her belt. She drew one, cocked back her arm, and shouted, “Jolt!” as she threw it.
The rod flashed blue as it spun through the air. It hit the dirt blob, sparking and popping for several seconds. I knew from experience when those rods stuck to flesh, it hurt like the dickens and made all your muscles twitch uncontrollably for a few seconds.
Except the blob didn’t seem to notice the minor electrocution. Then it absorbed the copper rod and went back to trying to eat Sifuso.
“Well, that’s a bit of a letdown now, isn’t it?”
I patted her on the shoulder. “It was a good effort.” I looked to our next would-be mage. “What’ve you got, kid?”
It was probably unfair to call Danny a kid, since he was only a year or two younger than me, but those were the perks of leadership. He held up the stick he’d enchanted. “I’ve been practicing my ice magic spell.”
I’d found out that particular water spell was a relatively common enchantment in the Slumps, popular among criminals because they could hit people with a blast of cold to subdue them for an easy robbery.
A rather potent version of that spell had once been used by a local gang to ice over a drainage ditch Trax was sleeping in to immobilize him.
I made no comment on how Danny had learned that particular spell, because it wasn’t like I had a perfectly clean record, spotless from any criminal acts, myself.
“Give it a go, then.”
“Right.” Danny pointed the wand and scrunched up his pimply face in concentration, trying to awaken the Blue he’d embedded in the stick.
There was a shimmer between us and the blob.
A cold breeze washed by, causing me to instinctively flinch.
I’m from Fogo, on the Realm of Fire. I hate cold magic.
This whole city is perpetually chilled far too much for my standards as it is.
And this was legitimately cold enough that even being close to the beam made me pull my cloak tight in a desperate attempt to remain warm.
Unfortunately, Danny’s aim was trogshit.
Sparkling ice crystals formed across the top of the dirt blob, but also on the wall, and then all over poor Sifuso.
“What’re you doing, stupid?” the lacertian hissed.
“Sorry!”
Our lizard man could cling to regular stones, but apparently not when they became iced over. As his limbs lost strength, he began to slip. Clawing desperately, Sifuso slid down toward the hungry blob.
He needed a distraction, fast. As I rushed to get in range, I pulled out a pinch of Red dust. I flicked it toward the monster, then concentrated on awakening the energy embedded in the magical element.
There was a flash as the Red ignited. The outer edge of the blob was scorched and blackened. The sudden warmth was a nice bonus.
I don’t know if my Shroud of Fire actually hurt the thing, or if it merely sensed something else fleshy to eat was now in reach, but either way, it started lumbering in my direction. I backed up quickly, and as it followed me, that gave Sifuso room to drop to the safety of normal—not-alive—ground.
“While it’s watching me, go around,” I told Sifuso as I kept retreating. Some of the bits of wood the monster had absorbed caught fire, but that didn’t seem to bother it in the least as it gradually avalanched my way. “Anybody got any ideas?”
“I’ve got this,” Rufus announced as he stepped forward with his battle axe. He lifted it high, then brought the shaft down hard against the hard-packed dirt. “Crush!”
Too late, I realized which spell Rufus was using… He’d just launched an earth spell at an out-of-control Elemental spirit from the same plane.
The blob began to shake. Pebbles rolled down its sides as it absorbed more of our floor.
I looked at Rufus, incredulous, and had time to say, “You absolute moron,” before the blob rose up, twice as big as before, and crashed in our direction. “Run!”