The Archmage: Chapter Forty-One (Patreon)

The second day, I was far less accosted by nobility. I wasn’t sure if that was their way of attempting to punish me for the stunt that I’d pulled the day before, or if they’d just burnt themselves out the day before, but I was grateful for it either way. 

Once again, there were large scrying mirrors that had been set out, and I idly calculated how expensive it would be to set up the arrays for such complex spells. Even if they used as many purely mundane components as possible, creating such a long and stable connection had to cost several thousand crowns per use…

“Well, after the upstart of the last round, I think we’re all excited to see what our little firebrand witches will be able to cook up for this round of the tournament!” Justin called, breaking me out of my revelry. 

“Who are you betting on?” I asked curiously, leaning into Osheen. 

“I don’t know your kids, but out of mine… Olive. That’s the sound and light sorcerer. They’re excellent at stabilizing veils, and have good pickpocket skills. They’ll absolutely be in the top ten. The other two, Tessa and Faye, are both good too, but Faye’s better. That’s the flame sorcerer.” 

He grimaced. 

“I feel bad. I don’t know if she’s better because of hard work and talent, or if it’s because I’m a flame sorcerer, and thus I’m able to give her more useful attention and advice.” 

“I know what you mean,” I said. “Willow, the enchanter who had the mass burner activation? She’s smart, but I don’t know if it’s because her speciality overlaps mine, and thus I’m able to give her more direct advice.” 

We watched as the ten swords were slowly lowered into the ground and their enchantments activated, and after a few moments, Justin called out for them to begin. 

Donovan and Alyssa began at the same instant, doing the same thing, and I narrowed my eyes as I realized they must have coordinated this together. 

Both of them pulled out small potions and drained them, then, as the light spun over their body – focused on their legs – dashed away towards the furthest hill. Alyssa waited at the base, her hand over several potions, as Donovan  shot up the hill and activated his spherical shell ward around himself and the sword. 

Osheen let out a laugh as when one of the other witches – this one from a class I didn’t teach – approached, and Alyssa leapt at him, swinging with a barrage of enhanced punches that knocked him back. 

Olive, Osheen’s top pick, quickly proved why, as they unleashed a litany of sights and sounds, while their form split into three, and raced up different hills. 

That caught several mages off guard, but Willow managed to shield her eyes and flee. She was a bit wobbly, clearly temporarily blinded and deafened, but she made it out, and was able to activate her force armor, the one based off of Osheen’s. With her vision returning, she rushed up a hill of her own, also going for one of the outer hills. 

The witches in the center fought with flashes of burners, foci, and even a few artifacts – I noted that with some pride, since I knew there was no way Travis would have allowed a first year near an artifact, they had to be from my course. 

Once Donovan had claimed a hill with Alyssa’s help, he tossed her the sword, and then climbed up a second hill, while she stayed at the base, fending off oncomers. It was a good strategy, all things considered. 

Faye staggered out of the central battle, and unleashed a series of four flame orbs in the air at where Olive might be, but nothing seemed to happen, and after only about ten seconds of dodging, the sword vanished entirely, and Faye cursed, turning to try and claim a different hill. 

Willow claimed her blade, but when Tessa approached, firing off force bolts, she flinched back and dropped it. Willow’s armor deflected the spells, but her poor combat instincts caused Tessa to snatch the blade up and force Willow to retreat to another hill, where she pushed people away with bursts of force magic from a leather wrap around her hands. It wasn’t the standard attack spells, but rather a shoving spell, simply pushing them out of the way, off the hill. 

Jonah, to my surprise, managed to claim one of the hills quickly. The taciturn witch had rarely spoken in my classes, but he’d shown an interest in his familiar, and had managed to complete the task I’d given him, creating elementally-attuned defensive spells. He used these to bait Faye out, where she claimed a sword, and he then used his mite to attack her, while she was unable to harm him, and he physically wrestled the sword away. 

Faye did manage to claim a sword of her own, and I had to admit that I saw why Osheen thought she was skilled. She was talented, and if I hadn’t given Jonah spells specifically for elemental style magic, she would have definitely claimed a blade already. 

In the end, Alyssa, Donovan, Faye, Jonah, Olive, Tessa, and Willow, alongside a pair of druids I didn’t know, and a witch from the class I didn’t teach wound up as the winners.

This time, when I led the ones who didn’t want to network away – Alyssa joining the group this time – Willow tapped my shoulder, and I turned to look at her. 

“What is it, Willow? Good job by the way. Your enchanting was solid, you just need to work on the combat instincts now.” 

“Thank you,” she said. “I was wondering what sort of advice you had for what we should pick out for our rewards?” 

“Oh, a fair question. For you… Well, you’ve got a balance of offense and defense, and have some tricks up your sleeve, but you need to last long enough to use the tricks. Support style artifacts are good, but so would getting another layer of defense that doesn’t interfere with your force armor, like charm based defenses.”

I turned to examine the class as a whole. 

“Donovan, your defenses are good, but you had to rely on Alyssa for offense. That’s not inherently bad, but in the single elimination duels, it will be a problem. I recommend artifacts, but you’ve enough aura size and density to make use of a good foci too. Alyssa…” 

By the time I finished, Osheen was grinning ear to ear, and I glanced at him. 

“What?” 

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s cute.” 

I smiled at him, and we again waited for a bit, then publicly went for dinner, instead heading out to work. 

The following morning, the awful schedule was starting to get to me, but I dragged myself out of bed to watch the fights. 

Being a ten person, round based elimination fight, there were a few people who would need to fight an extra time in order to make it to the top ten, and as the brackets were announced, I wasn’t shocked to see that Alyssa and Willow were both up, and paired off against one another, while the other team of extra fighters was one of the druids against the witch who wasn’t in my class. 

Oh, sure, the tournament organizers claimed that there was an ongoing tally of contributions, and that the two worst and two best had to face off, to make the matches more exciting, but the reality was that this forced one of the top witch contestants off the bracket. 

If the nobility couldn’t win, they’d at least seed the tournament so that my students wouldn’t.

Unsurprisingly, the fight between the druid and the witch not in my class was over in moments. The witch raised his hand, condensing the Impetus glyph, but the Druid conjured a suit of wind armor from a faerie boon, leapt across the space with an empowered leap, and stabbed the witch in the chest. 

The fight between Willow and Alyssa, on the other hand… 

Alyssa started by throwing a potion bottle at Willow, who responded by tossing a burner into the air that released a burst of high pitched noise that caused the glass to shatter. Alyssa’s eyes widened, and she tried to drain her potions before Willow could release more sonic attacks, but it was futile. Three more strips of leather joined the first, and Alyssa’s vials exploded, drenching her in potions. Willow then released a burst of aura at Alyssa, and some of the brawny woman’s offensive potions activated, fire rushing over her. 

The spells pulled her out a moment later, and Osheen let out a whistle next to me. 

“She’s good,” I agreed. “It was clever to prepare something for someone who she knew she had good odds of fighting.” 

I’d never delved that deeply into engineering specific countermeasures, focusing instead on trying to work out the most general, broadly applicable defenses and offenses, but I’d also had several factors pushing me that way. It was a viable combat approach for an enchanter. 

And for all that she’d had to show off her aura clinging spell that could activate burners, she’d yet to show off the special burners prepared to work with them. 

The next fight was between Olive and Jonah, and I was curious to see how it would go. Jonah was competent, but I wasn’t sure how he’d have the skill to take the sorcerer down. 

The fight opened with blasts of light and sound, but to my surprise, Jonah didn’t try and run from it, instead slipping down a blindfold and shoving something – wax, probably – into his ears. 

“How can you hit me if you can’t see or hear?” Olive taunted, but I caught a note of concern in their voice, and they turned invisible the moment after they spoke.

A moment later, a force bolt shot out of Jonah’s hand, and there was a wumph as it struck something – Olive, most likely, unless they had an invisible familiar too.

Olive started running, but Jonah was somehow targeting the invisible mage. 

Oracle was the one to pick it out first, actually. In the air, well above Jonah’s head, was a small bug – the fire elemental mite that Jonah had bound. 

It must have a degree of heat senses that it was able to use to track the veiled mage. 

It was clever, but in the end, it wasn’t clever enough. While Jonah used burners and the wand that he’d gotten as his reward to pepper attacks at Olive, Olive dropped the veil and just started running. 

Jonah’s aura gave out, and the mite dissolved back into his aura, and Olive hit Jonah with another round of lights and noise, before drawing a sword – not a magical one, just a normal sword – and stabbing Jonah.

The guards pulled Jonah out, and I nodded my approval. Jonah had done far better than I’d expected, all in all, and I was suitably impressed.

The next fight, between the second druid and Donovan, was boring. Donovan activated his ward, and while the druid tossed small balls of fire at the ward, it was more than tough enough to resist that. The moment the druid was still for a moment, Donovan activated his tournament reward, a foci knife that released a spray of force knives in the direction you swung it, and cut the druid down. 

Faye won the round against the first druid – the one who’d beaten the witch not in my class – in an equally boring fashion, simply flooding the arena with fire until she was declared the victor. She channeled the fire through a large crystal sphere, which I thought was a booster of some kind, focused on expanding the size of fire spells cast into it.

When Tessa and Willow stepped forward, though, I leaned forward again. Whoever won would fight Donovan, and then would be up against either Faye or Olive for the finale spot. 

As much as I had faith in Willow, this was also a poor matchup for her. A force sorcerer would be able to counter most of Willow’s force based attacks…

“Begin!” shouted Justin.