Millennial Mage

Tala immediately pulled out a tungsten sphere and began increasing its pull towards the middle of the griffon’s spine. I should still be able to get some good harvests from it, then. Even if it absolutely blows through the creature.

She was very careful in the implementation. She didn’t picture the griffon in any particular state of health. In fact, with Alat’s guidance, they locked onto the feel of the griffon’s magic, which should even ignore its drop in level, if they had to fight it down through the ranks. That’s a well thought out lock, if we do say so ourselves.

-And we do.-

Tala didn’t try to place any effect on the griffon at all, only targeting it for the effect from the sphere in her hand. I really should have gotten the claw fixed.

Cazor glanced her way. “Mistress Tala, that’s a lot of power.” He seemed half nervous and half impressed.

“I aim to obliterate.”

He snorted a laugh.

The power must have been even more significant that Tala realized, or since the creatures had come looking for them, they were more sensitive to workings of magic. In either case, the bird-lion immediately snapped its head around, orienting on them.

Two, slightly staggered, overlapping pulses of power swept across the three as they floated there, one seeming to originate from each of the magical creatures.

Cazor cleared his throat. “Alright, then. No strategizing, just fighting.” He looked her way. “Well, a little strategizing: here or there?”

“There, or at least not here.” She chose quickly and decisively. Between them and the beasts they were about to fight, they were the most likely to be thrown around, and being near an ending-tree grove when that was happening sounded like a bad idea.

Cazor nodded and immediately moved them towards their opponents, even as the griffon and blob-thing seemed to decide that the humans were better opponents than each other.

Tala continued to ramp up the pull, using three massive void-channels towards that end, even as she transferred the sphere into her off hand and drew Flow. “You with me, Terry?”

Terry gave a low fluted trill from beside her ear. It sounded, to her, half-way between hesitant and down-right pessimistic.

“You know what? I’m a bit nervous about it, too.”

Cazor shouted over the rising sound of wind. “They will risk magic to fight us, in the hope of killing us.”

Tala gave him a thumbs up. What magic can we expect? Lightning, fire, earth, and air came to mind, as well as enhanced strength and healing, but she’d studied too many monsters recently for specifics to come to mind instantly. She could recall if she bent her mind to it but didn’t want to take the time.

-Funnily enough, the griffon will have bodily reinforcements similar to your own. But he will have more power behind the reinforcements and have a higher starting point, given his magically created, bestial body.-

That’s what she’d thought she read on the creature, but Alat’s confirmation was appreciated. It was less than ideal, but she could work with that. Anything else?

-Some have access to lightning, some fire, and a few can manipulate earth, but the most common simply have a degree of control over the air, to help with flight, given their massive bodies.- After a moment’s pause, she added. -To be clear, all of them have that control over the air. It’s just the most common for them to only have that.-

Right, it’s limited because creatures of magic don’t go through founts or get more abilities from them.

-Precisely.- Alat filled in a few more details on the griffon, such as any limits on movement, preferred methods of engagement and the like. Thankfully, Alat could help Tala review the information she’d read on the beast much more quickly than she’d have been able to recall it on her own, so it took only a breath or two for a full refresher.

The blob-thing? It was a slime…muk? No, that’s not quite right.

-Close: Silmuk. Its connection between the parts of its body exists mostly in the domain of magic. Many believe that it’s the magical result of dasgannach who live long enough, but most don’t think so. It’s acidic and can morph at will. It’s also not really able to be hurt by mundane means. Cuts? It doesn’t have innards to expose. Bludgeon? You just spread it out? Piercing? Like poking yourself in the side with a finger.-

So, resilient, but those don’t seem like wide ranging powerset.

-They aren’t Archons, Tala. Magical creatures usually don’t have a massive spread of abilities, but what they do have, they back with power and instinct.-

Tala continued dumping as much power as she could to ramp up the connection between her tungsten sphere and the griffon even as they moved toward the magical creatures. She’d chosen one without an Archon star within, because she didn’t want to accidently force a clash of will between herself and the griffon. She had the strong impression that she would lose.

The griffon was streaking towards them, but somehow it seemed almost lazy in its flight, like it could go much faster, if it wanted to.

The silmuk looked like nothing so much as a massive multi-colored drop, rolling their way.

It’s probably waiting for its ally of circumstance. There are two of us, so it’s being safe.

“We should stop here!” Tala shouted. We’re far enough from the grove that it shouldn’t be a problem.

Cazor’s response was easy for her to hear, even over the wind. “If you’re sure.”

She nodded, and they slowed, lowering to the ground so that Cazor could reclaim his iron for the upcoming fight.

They stood on an open rise with good visibility all around them and solid footing underneath in the form of deep, springy turf. It was blessedly free of snow, likely because of how exposed it was. Any that fell would simply be blown away.

Tala’s eyes widened as power filled the air above them and the ground below, clearly coming from the griffon still a considerable distance away.

Cazor saw it too.

In less than a couple of heartbeats, she saw tendrils of power stretch out like the uncounted branches of the tree, each slashing upward from the ground towards the sky, leaving behind something that was obviously magically manipulated. Hundreds of long, thin, magnetic fields? She couldn’t see the magnetic fields themselves, but it was probably a good guess.

As his magic had been lashing out, iron dust was pouring from his pouches, already dispersing through the tendrils his power had left behind.

From her sensing the buildup of power to the lightning’s release, barely more than a second passed, but Cazor had reacted with long honed instincts.

Because of his quick reactions, the power flowed through the iron dust, completely bypassing them, though it did make the air around them uncomfortably warm and vaporized a good portion of the dust Cazor had used.

In the aftermath, Tala’s hair rose. There almost seemed to be enough static in the air to lift her braid. That’s ridiculous. I read about the range and capability of lightning griffons, but it is rather more…awe-inspiring in person.

Alat just grunted. -Oh, so it’s a lightning variety. Good to know.-

The griffon shrieked in irritation as its attack had done nothing. They lose the power for good. I doubt it will be willing to try again, when it was so unsuccessful.

That is what the manual had indicated, though it had cautioned that individuals varied on this particular point. The griffon had used more power in that one attack than Tala could hold in her entire body.

True to that assumption, the griffon looked a marginal fraction less yellow and more orange than it had before the attack. It was so minuscule that even with incredibly refined mage-sight, excellent vision, and a specific desire to look for a change, she wouldn’t have seen it, without Alat interposing her memory of the thing’s aura from a moment earlier.

-Yes, that was less than tenth of a percent of the power it would have to use to drop from yellow to orange.-

And now we know.

She continued to channel power into the tungsten sphere. The mental model that she used was a slightly modified version, which Alat had helped her to create. With it, her working was finally freed from its static 10% per second manipulation. This still isn’t going to be enough to be an effective attack, before it gets here.

She needed another plan for an opener to the fight.

Hesitantly, Tala extended her hand towards the griffon. It probably wouldn’t work, but she was fighting a Refined -Elder?- creature. She needed to at least try.

This seems unsporting…and it’s going to ruin my harvests if it works.

-Better to live?-

That’s a bit pessimistic. We’ll live just fine. We might not win, but we’ll live. She knew enough to be able to ensure that, assuming things didn’t go catastrophic in more than two ways. Maybe three. I think we can handle three catastrophes.

She could still feel the heat and static from the lightning attack.

Yeah, best to try.

Tala targeted the griffon, moving to increase its gravity. And the beast of magic easily shrugged off her lock. More than anything, it felt like she was a child who’d grabbed an adult’s belt, only for the adult to keep walking, breaking her grip without even noticing.

Well, that’s about what I expected.

And then, their enemies were upon them.

Terry flickered in a blur of teleports around the griffon as it covered the last couple of hundred feet towards Tala and Cazor.

The result of that was a veritable cloud of blood, which misted out of the beast from innumerable cuts. Cuts which immediately began to close.

-Ball!-

Tala easily understood exactly what Alat meant and threw the ball, aiming to have it arch over the griffon.

The sphere was still having its attraction towards the griffon ramped up, but it wasn’t quite to the point that the pull was very noticeable.

She was throwing off-hand, so toss was likely a better description of what she did, but her training and magical refinement had made her strong. Her daily practice had made her accurate in all kinds of throws and tosses. Regardless, she used her already established lock on the sphere and prepared to enact a second modification to the tungsten.

-Now!-

CRUSH. She poured power through that mental construct, sufficient to match four enactments of her old “crush” ability, immediately increasing the ball’s pull towards the ground by a factor of two-hundred-fifty-six. She felt two rings burn away from the back of each of her hands.

The ballistic sphere streaked downward, even as Tala continued to dump as much power as she could in the ball’s connection to the griffon, without using any more of her rings.

Alat’s timing had been perfect, Tala’s aim was good, and the tungsten sphere hit the griffon directly between the wings, cracking its back and driving it downward to slam into the ground. The ball then passed completely through the griffon’s body and sank into the turf below.

Tala grinned from ear to ear. Got it!

She immediately charged forward either to harvest or finish off her opponent, she didn’t much care.

Terry used that moment to flicker in and rip off portions of the large beast, continuing to cut at it with his talons even as he ate long strips that he pulled free.

Both bird-like creatures were massive, now that she saw them closer up. The spine of the griffon would easily be above her head, if it were standing, and Terry had taken on a size to match his head height with that of his opponent.

The terror bird was taking no chances, ripping into the griffon with a fervor that almost made Tala blanch.

As she began to move forward, Tala caught the beginnings of the conflict between Cazor and the silmuk. It mostly seemed like Cazor was deflecting its blows and severing its limbs, and main body with planes, blades, plates, and other creations of iron. The Archon did not appear strained or worried in the slightest.

Will that even work? She saw an odd, oscillating quality to Cazor’s magic, and the iron dust seemed almost to be quivering, even as it swept and countered the silmuk at his direction.

Before she could turn her attention fully to that other conflict, however, she noticed through her mage-sight that the power around the griffon hadn’t changed in the least.

Her gaze turned back to it, even as her feet carried her forwards. Flow can take its head and remove any lingering life. She wasn’t actually sure about that, as it largely depended on the type of healing the beast had.

However, before she’d taken three steps, the griffon pushed itself back up and screeched at the sky, pink frothing spittle spraying from its open beak.

It was rusting furious.

Terry took that moment to flicker in and scoop out a truly massive portion of its throat.

But the gaping wound on its neck, the hole in its chest, and the uncounted other wounds across its body closed quickly. The griffon had fully healed before Tala had taken her fifth running step.

-That is ridiculously fast healing, Tala.-

The creature’s eyes locked onto her, and she felt a moment of fear. Well, I’ll admit, that is faster than I understood from the texts. We may have miscalculated.

-Not fatally, but it does seem like we did.-

So, that’s one catastrophe. Still well within expectations.

Even within that fear, she didn’t stop.

She broke the lock linking her tungsten sphere to the ground at the massive increase, while continuing to pour power into its link, drawing it towards the griffon. That’s my end game.

She’d been ramping that up for more than three minutes, and the ball was starting to twitch within its hole. The layer of rock the sphere had managed to bore into beneath the thick, rich soil was holding it firm for the moment, however.

The griffon was barely twenty feet away as Tala cocked her arm back. A flick of power transformed Flow into a glaive in the same instant that Tala snapped her hand forward. The practiced motion sent the magical weapon lancing forward towards the griffon’s heart.

She kept running forward.

The griffon obviously saw the attack coming, even if only at the last moment. It jerked to the side, so that Flow missed its heart. Instead, the heat-field of the cutting edge sheared off one of the great creature’s wings. The appendage fell free with the sizzle and smell of roasted meat, leaving behind a cauterized stump.

Good luck healing that quickly! Tala knew firsthand how much of a pain it was to heal burned flesh.

The griffon shrieked again. As Tala grimaced against the piercing noise she easily saw magic blossom outward from the creature, dumping power into the air.

The burned stump exploded.

Cauterized flesh splattered the ground beside the beast as its wing reformed, the rate of regeneration only marginally slower than that of any of its other wounds.

Fire or heat usually greatly inhibited magical healing and were classic go-to means of dealing with such abilities. Alright, I’ll call that catastrophe number two. We can still make this work.

Tala growled, sending a thought to Alat as she continued to close, already calling Flow back to her, hopefully in a way to gain another cut on the return path.

Does every fight with a magical creature require hacking through all its power? More than anything, the question was an expression of frustration.

-All those that can heal, probably. From what we read in the texts that Grediv provided, that is basically all of them.-

Great… She’d known that, but she had hoped to be able to damage it in such a way that it wouldn’t be required. Cauterizing the wounds should have been more effective.

­-It’s a battle of attrition. As you know, that’s why most people avoid magical creatures entirely. Even if you win, it’s expensive.-

Tala had closed the distance while the griffon staggered, though it was quickly recovering.

Flow snapped back into her hand in the form of a sword, having burned another line down her opponent’s flank and part of its newly repaired wing. Weapon in hand, she went to work. All the while, Terry was flickering around, cutting tendons and superficial major arteries and vessels, if the fountains of red liquid painting the surrounding grasses were any indication.

How does he even know where those are?

-Instinct? Or some vision into the infrared? That would explain it pretty well, actually.-

Tala gave the creature dozens of cuts, including hacking away at the beast’s leg, and she caught its expression out of the corner of her eye.

It looked shocked.

Not hurt.

Not angry.

Genuinely, confusedly shocked.

Tala tried to imagine what would cause that look on her own face. If a toddler just drew a knife and tried to stab me. That would do it. That was a bit insulting.

The griffon recovered from its disbelief quickly. Prey did not attack a griffon. The griffon was the aggressor. The griffon knew this and would prove it in blood.

Its beak snapped forward, the quick, short motion hitting Tala harder than a blow from Force.

She would have flown far, but the strike took her in the shoulder and drove downward.

Tala felt ending-berry power burn away to protect that shoulder as well as the entire length of her back from the twisting impact.

Even as reinforced as she was, that single strike would have snapped her spine and torn her spinal cord in a dozen places.

Instead, she was thrown to the ground, facing away from the griffon, most of her defensive power consumed in an instant.

Well, rust. That hurt. Knowing how hard it would hit, and taking the hit, were entirely different things. Still, within expectations.

The creature pounced on her and drove its talons into her back; its beak snapped at the base of her neck.

Tala thrust Flow behind her wildly, even as she was bounced against the ground, like a child’s ball. The ending berry-power that she’d gained by sucking juice from uncounted seeds was being used up all too quickly, and even with its protection, her body was already aching.

Blessedly, some of her calculated, behind-her-back stabs seemed to have struck true, as the beast staggered backwards briefly.

And Terry probably hamstrung it, again, too. That does seem to tick the thing off. Even so, it was focused on her, not Terry. Not the core concern, right now, Tala.

-Human. It’s because you’re human. There, now you know. No need to contemplate later.-

Right, she’d known that, but the stress of the situation had kept the knowledge from coming to her easily.

She felt a bit better for having cleared up that oddity.

There was an odd grating of stone on metal, followed by an earthen pop as the griffon stepped back over the hole that contained her sphere.

The ball blasted upward, blunt-force severing the griffon’s spine, before coming back down to smash into the already healing flesh and bone.

Hah! Justice.

-It didn’t actually harm your back.-

But it tried, Alat. It tried… a lot. Tala giggled, feeling more in the rhythm of the conflict than she had before. She rolled away from her opponent, returning to her feet.

-Now is hardly the time for puns, Tala.-

The griffon had obviously felt the damage each time and was in agony now. It raged, flailing about with its front legs, even while the lion legs in back had gone limp, toppling to the side. The ball rested exactly where she’d put it: In the griffon’s spine, right where eagle and lion portions met.

The ball had oscillated just a bit, while the spine healed, the flesh pushing the ball aside. Even so, the small sphere was putting a ridiculous amount of pressure on the spinal cord, pinching it off even after the nerves had fully healed.

Tala felt herself grinning, right up until she felt her hair stand up on end.

She jammed Flow into the ground, changing its form to a glaive, and huddled close without touching. Hopefully, it would act as a lightning rod and spare her some of whatever attack this was.

A net of lightning blasted outward from the griffon in a dome, tearing up the grass and leaving bare earth behind.

Terry was caught by the barest fraction as he flickered away, but Tala saw singed feathers on one of his vestigial wings as it twitched, seemingly uncontrollably.

The power was drawn to Flow briefly, but the weapon was thrown away and Tala, herself, was struck by the sweeping strike.

At first, the lightning stayed confined to the iron on her skin. That was both a blessing and a curse.

It was a blessing because for that brief moment her insides were spared. It was a curse because her iron became super-heated. She felt every drop of ending-berry power torn from her at once as the iron burned it away and crisped her skin in barely a moment.

Once the iron was gone, the lightning had its way with her insides, coursing through her, jumping between her dense bones.

The cage of protection around her brain kept her head from being fried, but that was just about all that was spared.

She collapsed to the ground, convulsing violently, her muscles not responding in the least.

-More power, let’s get this purged. Direct the magic to your consumption scripts, too. That flesh is cooked. It won’t heal, we need to repurpose it.-

Alat directed Tala internally as quickly as Tala could follow, while she desperately fed power to her various inscriptions at the direction of a voice in her head.

The griffon was dragging itself across the ground towards her. She’d only gained a few dozen feet from her hasty retreat and being thrown by the lightning blast.

Tala heard Cazor shout, and a line of iron, glowing dull red, cut into the griffon from the side.

That seemed to be enough for the beast, as it screeched again, spread its wings, and took to the sky.

Terry flickered around it for a moment longer, but the beast was retreating, cutting its losses.

That ball’s never coming out.

-True.-

I should have stuck a dimensional anchor dart into it. She didn’t actually think that would have been a good idea.

-I’m glad you didn’t-

Yeah… me too. But there goes all our potential harvest.

-And look, here is our life, still ours to live.-

Tala let out a little grunt. Should I release the lock on the sphere?

-If you did, the griffon would eject the ball from its body and heal almost instantly before returning to kill us, but you’re free to, if the pain is too much.-

Tala gritted her teeth against precisely that. I was trying to distract myself, you jerk.

-Enough distraction, focus on healing.-

Tala continued to meticulously direct her various spell-forms, sweeping through her body. It was a bit grisly. She was forcing her digestive inscriptions to eat her seared and charred flesh, so that the regenerative magic could replace it.

I’m eating myself to make room for more, me.

-And at about seventy percent efficiency, too. We really must thank Holly for such fine work. Our understanding brings it to its peak, but she created that peak for us to reach.-

Well, Lyn did say that Holly wanted us to drop through every day. Let’s do that when we get back?

-If Cazor doesn’t lose, and the silmuk doesn’t kill us, then, sure. That sounds like a wise plan.-

Terry flickered over to her, looking down at her with a critical eye.

Then, he struck, his beak hitting her in the chest, hard. He squawked and fluffed his feathers, then squawked again.

The attack didn’t break anything, but it added another pain to the myriad she was already dealing with.

“Stop that, Terry.” Her voice was raw and came out barely louder than a rasp.

He let out a series of short, irritable squawks.

“Yes, you were right. I apologize.”

He seemed to pause, before trilling again.

“Yes, that’s right. I shouldn’t have ignored you and engaged the griffon.”

He lifted his singed wing.

“I am very sorry that you got hurt. I’ll take you by a healer.”

He let out a definitive trill of satisfaction, and flickered to crouch on her chest, appropriately sized to not increase her pain.

Off to the side, Tala could hear what sounded like sizzling fat and a disconcerting chittering.

Cazor called out to her. “You alive?”

“Yeah.” It was barely above a whisper, so she tried again. “Yes!” It hurt to yell, but he did need to know she wasn’t in danger, or he might get himself hurt trying to come help her. “Just healing up.”

The Mage Hunter walked over to her, somehow unconcerned. “You know, I’ll give you credit: You did handle the griffon.”

Tala glared up at him. “Silmuk?”

“Have a look.”

Tala groaned but found herself able to sit up. Terry flickered to her shoulder as she did so.

Six spherical clouds of iron swirled as they glowed and radiated immense heat.

“How did you heat the iron?” She was finding it easier to talk. Her self-healing was nearly complete, after all. And it just took a couple dozen pounds from my reserves…lovely.

“Oscillating magnetic fields can be used to heat up iron.”

That’s what I saw him doing. She felt like it was likely a lot more complicated that he implied, but she didn’t press.

“The method works really well for dealing with amorphous opponents.”

One of the spheres briefly bulged outward. Tala had a moment of alarm but as she watched, a glowing spike pulled together in line with the potential breach before driving inward with quick, decisive force.

All six spheres emanated a high-pitched whining chitter.

Tala regarded Cazor. “You’re a bit terrifying.”

“Why, thank you, Mistress.” He wore a broad grin.

“What has you so happy? Just your victory?” Tala pulled out some jerky, tossing a piece for Terry and beginning to chew on one herself.

“I’ll be able to be raised to Mage Hunter with Standing. I have a few other requirements to meet, first, but the hardest one is defeating an opponent two levels above yourself in open combat, without assistance.”

“So much for a foolish choice to attack. You needed to do something like this.”

He shrugged. “Eventually, but it was a bit foolish to do it without any obvious back-up in the wings.” His grin widened again. “Mistress Jean is going to be livid.” He laughed. “Oh, I can’t wait to tell her.”

“Are you two…?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. I was interested for a while when she wasn’t, then she was but I wasn’t any more. Now?” He shrugged. “Might happen, but the right time hasn’t really come along.”

Tala grunted. “Back to Bandfast?”

Cazor gave her an odd look. “It’s not dead yet, Mistress Tala, and I’m not dragging it the whole way, while it roasts.”

“I knew it wasn’t dead. I didn’t really think beyond that.” She was so hungry.

“Well, it’s not going to be dead for at least an hour or so, and there is no way I’m not claiming this kill, now that I have it in the bag… Or, well, the balls.” He chuckled to himself.

Tala groaned slightly, but then nodded. “Fine, but if that’s the case, I’m making some food.”