127, 1/2

While most of the tribe was spending the morning in bed and recovering from a night of drinking, those with other tasks and daily duties had been awake for a while. Those with children had even less free time, now that the tribe was in Treehome for Festival. Kids rushed through neighboring tribes, finding other kids to get into trouble with, and almost always finding ways to get out of doing their own chores.

But not this one, though that was only because his mother had caught him before he could sneak off to play with his new friends.

“Come on, now,” said the mother. “That dough isn’t going to knead itself!”

With his tiny fists just sitting upon the mass of brown dough, the boy sighed wistfully, as he gazed across the road. His new friends were already gone for the day. He muttered, “Stupid bread.” He looked to his mother, and started a new, old argument, “We can buy bread in—” And then something else caught his eye through the spaces in the canopy.

“We’re not buying bread when we can make it ourselves.” The mother said, “And besides. This bread is special bread. We put all that sugar in it, you—”

The kid interrupted, “Mommy? Is that an attack?”

The mother almost reprimanded her kid. But then his words sunk in. She glanced upward. She felt the blood drain from her face, and then she put on a happy mask, for she could not worry her child, though she was very much worried herself. She said, “Now don’t panic on me, but these are the drills we practice for. That is an attack up there. High level mage. It looks like Syllea’s spellwork, but I don’t know.” Her kid’s eyes went wide as she lifted up the little guy, heedless of the flour, accidentally tipping over the table in her haste to get to her child. Dough fell to the gravel floor of the campground. She wrapped him tight in her arms, and whispered, “We’re going to hunker down, and wait it out.” She yelled to the rest of the sleepy, vacationing tribe, “Attack on the—”

A piercing wail echoed through the trees. The mother covered one of her son’s ears, and pressed his head against her chest. He started to cry. She comforted him as best she could.

The entire campsite was awake in under a second. Mages reacted with [Ward]s. Warriors [Blink]ed into positions, either on top of the main caravan, or around the perimeter. Some people reacted slowly, but others made up for the difference. The mother held her son in one arm and grabbed another scared child up under the other arm. With two kids accounted for, she rushed for the main [Ward] next to the main caravan and took a spot with the other non-combatants.

And then the campground on the other side of the street exploded into glimmering light. The kids started to cry. The mother told them that everything would be okay, and that the archmages and Arbors would save them.

Stars glimmered overhead, falling faster, and faster; a sky full of diamonds, upended onto Treehome.

A warning blared out from the water tree in the center of the campground, talking of a cultist attack, while children huddled together, a neighbor roared out trying to find their son, a mage attempted a long-range [Dispel] against the falling stars, and dough sat on gravel, slowly rising.

– – – –

Some clerk announced, “Full Arbor defenses operational in one minute.”

Koropo was already speaking to a dozen people through [Telepathy], but he took the time to speak to Erick, saying, “Do whatever you can.”

Erick said, “Already on it,” as he summoned Ophiels to replace the ones he had lost.

– – – –

An Ophiel, stationed near the center of the sky over Treehome, and by a [Cascade Imaging] map, switched the map over to search for Omaz. He didn’t show; not yet. But he had been out there, for sure. Erick switched his attention to the falling stars.

A high-mana Ophiel lightstepped to the edge of the massive spell, right before most of them reached the smaller trees that loomed over the campsites and itinerant lands between the Arbor Districts. A few had already touched down, and Erick hoped that the people down there were safe, but he knew there had to be some casualties.

He cast a 36,000 mana [Grand Dispel] at the closest sparkling light drop. Dark magics impacted that drop, then spread like a shockwave of shadows and sound, popping thousands, tens of thousands, and then a full third of the [Starlight Fall] that had come to Treehome. The only reason Ophiel’s spell didn’t reach further, was because he wasn’t the only one combating the attack.

Two other casters in other parts of the sky released their own [Chaining Dispel]s, taking out another third of the [Starlight Fall]. Here and there, other mages cast smaller [Dispel]s, some which popped hundreds of falling sparkles, some which only destroyed a few. The spell was gone, and yet…

And yet, still, some of those countless falling stars made it through the countermagics. Trees had exploded. [Ward]s had popped. People had died.

Erick had zero time to spread blame, or to think he hadn’t done enough. He thought he had. But the propagation of his [Grand Dispel] was a lot slower than the fall of the stars. In less than ten seconds, the whole of that spell had fallen from the sky to the land, like a rain cloud releasing almost all of its rain, all at once.

The map in the center of Treehome briefly blinked blue on the other side of the city. Omaz had blipped into the sky. The sky over there turned to stars. And then Omaz left.

Erick was much faster with his [Grand Dispel] this time.

Ophiels moved with lightstepping brilliance, directly into the center of the swarm. A single 36,000 mana [Grand Dispel] pulsed into the sky, directly into the center of the falling stars. Theoretically, Ophiel could have spent half of that. [Grand Dispel] had a double modifier for the purposes of erasing a targeted magic. But Erick wasn’t going to take that chance.

The entire brilliant sky shimmered with stars, and then shadows ate them all from the inside out, spreading like a shockwave, turning explosive power into disjointed mana. Briefly, other shadowy [Dispel]s tried to strike the starfall, but Erick’s spell had already cleared the whole thing from the sky.

Erick was even faster with the third starfall. The spell had barely been in the sky for two seconds before an Ophiel was in the center of it all. This time, Erick could make a mistake, so he had Ophiel throw 18,000 mana at the sparkling sky. It was enough. The whole of the starfall vanished in a shadowy shockwave. That was good! Erick relaxed a fraction. He didn’t have many of these high-mana Ophiel’s left. He couldn’t throw out 36,000 mana [Grand Dispel]s all day long, and he needed to save his own mana for the important parts of the fight.

Ophiel responded to Omaz’s next appearance half a second before Erick even realized Omaz had appeared again.

Erick briefly looked upon Omaz. Omaz briefly looked upon Ophiel. Omaz had already lifted his arms to the sky. Less than a fraction of a second passed as Omaz filled the blue with sparkling stars. Almost instinctively, Erick queue’d up a [Harmonic Blood Ooze] for 3000 of his own mana and launched it at the man, while a separate high-mana Ophiel stepped into the air above and dispersed the stars from the sky. The first Ophiel, who had arrived on scene before Erick could think to send him, cast a [Ward Destruction] at the cultist, flashing power against Omaz’s skin, shattering whatever defensive [Ward] he had running.

As Omaz began to fall, and before another Script Second passed, the blood ooze wrapped around him, preventing his next cast. Erick watched as he bubbled with mana, but the blood ooze bubbled with shadows, canceling whatever Omaz had tried to do.

Time, which had seemed slow, sped up rapidly. Omaz fell through the sky. Other people blipped into the air. Some Special Forces people grabbed the man, locking Omaz down with even more spells while they arrested his fall, and arrested him, too. The blood ooze tried to carve into Omaz’s skin, but Omaz had Constitution, at least. That ooze couldn’t do much more than prevent him from casting.

Someone asked Erick to call off the ooze; they were having trouble attaching the drain collar to him because the ooze would attack whoever got close enough. Erick was pretty sure that the ooze was being a good boy and not attacking anyone, but the jailers seemed to be scared of the bloody spell, so Erick canceled it. Omaz was rapidly wrapped up in several other spells from other people and decked out with a whole suite of drain collars, one for each limb. He wasn’t going anywhere, and if it weren’t for the [Silence] spells cast upon him, Erick was sure that the man would have been yelling plenty of obscenities. He could read the man’s lips, after all. He was glad he didn’t have to listen to that as they took him away. He had more pressing concerns than the murdering Cultist, now that he had been dealt with.

– – – –

Erick sat up, and breathed. He turned to Koropo. The man had a smile on his face and was almost about to speak, but Erick said, “Syllea is Raging right now. She’s windstepping this way. I have an Ophiel on her, and she’s getting much faster with her windstepping, and I’m pretty sure she’s not just windstepping anymore. She’ll be here in ten minutes. What do you want to do?”

The stoic Witch Hunter, the Warchief of Treehome’s Special Forces, paled, briefly, and then he turned hard again. He narrowed his eyes, and said, “We do to her exactly what you did to Omaz.” He turned and stared across the room, his eyes quickly scanning the room, as he announced, “We will get Syllea under control before—”

A clerk interrupted. “[Grand Fireball]s reported near the commune. Twenty seconds ago.”

Koropo instantly ordered a woman standing by some viewing screens, “[Witness].”

The woman looked to the air, her eyes flickering ruby red. The [Viewing Screen]s near her shifted, and played back what had happened, right as the woman came back to herself, and said, “Someone attacked the commune as we were dealing with Omaz.”

“Stuff Omaz in the Hole and retask Team Takedown onto Syllea. Our priority is Syllea, IF she comes close to Treehome. The normal guard should be able to deal with the commune since they were waiting for it to explode anyway.” Koropo turned to Erick. “Where is she?” He immediately added, “Nevermind.” He looked to Poi. “He’s a Mind Mage, yeah? You’re conscripted. You already know who to talk to, so get it done. Coordinate with your Archmage.”

Erick was perfectly fine with that—

Which was likely why Poi said, “Of course.” A bevy of telepathic lines erupted from his head, as he added, “On it.” Poi spoke to Erick’s mind, sending, ‘You’re connected.’

Erick went back to Ophiel.

– – – –

Syllea had changed a great deal in the minute since Erick had left her to focus on Omaz. She was no longer flesh and blood, for one. No longer did she simply windstep across the sky. She was radiant and dark and flaming and frozen, all at the same time. She stepped through the trees of the deep Forest. Canopies, trunks, branches, and a great deal of wildlife, scattered at her undeniable passage, falling to the Forest floor as ash, or frozen shards, or melted slush, or to simply drift away as mist and gloom. Red, yet prismatic lightning gathered in her eyes and flickered across her airborne footfalls. She took a step and moved a hundred meters, causing the sound of thunder to soak into the dense Forest all around. Syllea was not being quiet, at all.

Her Rage didn’t present like Teressa’s Rage. Was Syllea still in there? Somewhere?

Poi’s voice came to him, his words much faster than if he were speaking, ‘Some orcols Rage differently than others. I am being told that Syllea’s Rage is documented. This controlled sort of Rage is normal for her, but her Rage will not end with killing her target. It never has. So try to get through to her, if you can. If you can’t, then Bayth is going to try. She has experience with this.’

Erick heard and understood.

He wrapped an Ophiel in [Pure Reflection Ward], and stepped him forward, into Syllea’s path.

Syllea flickered with prismatic lightning as she bounced off of Ophiel’s sunform, scattering all around, her entire body dispersing then coming back together on the other side of Ophiel like a sandcastle destroyed then instantly repaired. She didn’t even look back as she continued to step through the Forest, destroying everything in her path, except for Ophiel, apparently. Erick tried again.

This time, Ophiel formed a bowl that Syllea ran right into. Before she could disperse around again, Ophiel’s sunform became a sphere, trapping the archmage inside. Erick could barely believe that had worked.

Erick spoke fast, “We’ve captured your brother. Omaz is in custody—”

Syllea reconstituted into herself, inside of Ophiel, but she was still radiant and dark and a roil of elements. She pulsed with some sort of Force-based spell. It rebounded off of Ophiel’s inner reflective surface, crashing back into Syllea. She growled.

“—We have Omaz in custody,” Erick repeated, fruitlessly.

Syllea pulsed with another sort of magic, but Erick had been aiming a [Harmonic Counterspell] at her. 270 mana drained from Erick. A ripple of shadows destroyed whatever Syllea had attempted. She paused. She cocked her head, almost playfully, as she looked upon her prison made of light. She smiled, her lower fangs showing, her face looking ready to devour something. She cast again. Erick automatically counterspelled it again, but this time, it drained him dry. Over 5,500 mana, gone, just like that. He had bottomed out.

Erick came back to himself, briefly, feeling like he had been kicked by a horse. Blood trickled down from his nose. He reached for Ophiel’s connection and managed to get back to the fight right as Syllea did the same magic, and Ophiel tried the same [Harmonic Counterspell] before Erick could have him stop. Erick briefly recalled a warning from Quilatalap about using his [Harmonic Counterspell] against someone who knew what he was doing; Such a person would then use specially-made magic to trick him into wasting all of his mana to [Dispel] a worthless magic.

Erick adjusted his view to a different Ophiel in the area as the one around Syllea burst into nothing. Ophiel had tried to [Harmonic Counterspell] Syllea, too. That [Harmonic Counterspell] had cost that Ophiel his body.

Back in the conference room, Erick downed a mana potion he had already set aside for just such an occasion, then went right back to it.

‘Poi. I need a mana drainer on her. I’ll give them an opportunity. They need to take it.’

‘Understood.’ Poi added, ‘They’ll be ready in thirty seconds.’

‘I need enough time to regen, anyway.’

As Erick’s broken Mana Regen gradually ticked up, he gradually felt more and more nauseous, but he toughened through it. The edges of his soul flickered, breaking, but they were small breaks; barely noticeable. He could do this. He summoned enough Ophiel to bring him back to full, then had them buff themselves into reflective sunforms, and had them run [Hunter’s Instincts] and [Mana Sight]. He sent them in.

Syllea was ready this time. She saw Ophiel approach, and she smiled.

She touched the world, and the world responded. For a kilometer all around her, trees, each hundreds of meters tall, turned to ash, not even turning to fire, first. Ash wrapped around ash, a hundred columns of the stuff at the same time, turning denser, harder, then flashing over into something sparkling and sharp. Diamonds. A hundred swords, each fifty meters long, each made of sparking diamond. They twirled into the air, half of them surrounding Syllea like they were shields, the other half spinning around her like she was a blender.

The air whispered, “I can make diamonds, too.”

The sun beat down on the new clearing in the Forest, glittering off of a hundred diamond swords as those swords fell into the telekinetic control of the one who made them.

The first Ophiel cast a thousand point [Grand Dispel] right at Syllea, but the spell caught on a sword. Every single diamond sword briefly faltered. They did not disappear. They were not summoned constructs, but actual diamonds.

Syllea mumbled, “Do better.”

She reasserted her control over those diamond swords much faster than should have been possible. Another Ophiel cast another [Grand Dispel] at her, faltering her swords again. But she controlled them right away, reasserting her control much quicker than the first time. Erick ran through his Ophiel, one right after the other, each one casting a thousand mana [Grand Dispel], each hoping to strip away whatever control Syllea had over those swords. Some of the swords fell out of her power, but she maintained enough control over some of them to turn them into missiles, or cleaving edges, catching two of Erick’s Ophiel with what were obviously some sort of [Strike]s that also avoided the necessity of the Script Second.

Two Ophiel exploded, followed quickly by two more. An Ophiel threw a [Harmonic Blood Ooze] for 8000 mana at Syllea, before Syllea carved that Ophiel in two. Syllea tried to block the blob with a sword, but the red blob sailed through the sword and crashed into Syllea’s brightness.

The next [Grand Dispel] onto the swords brought a much larger falter than before, as the blood ooze soaked into Syllea’s prismatic form, bursting a single bit of shadow, before it went dormant again for another Script Second.

Syllea ripped one of her swords through her own body, scattering her form, but failing to dislodge the ooze—

No. Her body reformed well away from the blood ooze, dropping the offending bit of magic to the ground.

“Ha,” Syllea laughed, once, then went silent, as her swords swept through the sky.

“Stop using Quick spells!” Erick said, “It makes you much harder to take down without hurting you!”

Syllea laughed again, louder this time, giving three chuckles before falling silent, all the while swinging swords through Ophiels. The feathered [Familiar]s began to dodge her attacks; it took a bit of practice, but they had acclimated to her cadence.

Poi’s voice briefly came to Erick, ‘Backup cannot get close to her, but she seems focused on you. They want you to wear her out. Bayth will appear when Syllea is weaker.’

A hundred swords, each a hundred meters long, whipped through the air, filling the battle with a great keening sound as swords turned to little more than blurs. Ophiels popped off manually-cast [Force Beam]s, a dozen apiece, attempting to carve into the maelstrom of slicing diamond, while simultaneously getting into a rhythm of their own, each one popping off a [Grand Dispel] when they could, and switching it up with a [Harmonic Counterspell] against whatever auras Syllea flooded into the battlefield. Swords sometimes shattered. Shards became even more dangerous than the swords, carving through Ophiels like telekinetically controlled swarms, before coming back together, reforming the diamond sword it had been before.

Erick sent back, ‘She has a lot more mana than I thought she would!’

Bayth’s voice came to Erick, ‘She’s manually restoring her mana. It’s a trick she learned long ago, and the Rage lets her do it effortlessly.’

‘What about rad condensation?’ Erick asked, as another ten seconds of the battle passed, and he summoned an Ophiel with practically every single one of his Script Seconds. while waiting for his mana to refill enough that he could cast something larger. ‘And why can’t I [Dispel] her [Prismatic Form]? Why are my [Counterspells]s not landing properly?’

Bayth instantly sent, ‘I can’t tell you her secrets. She can, when she comes back from the edge.’

‘Just tell me if it’s her Domain, Bayth.’

‘… I cannot tell you her secrets.’

So it was her Domain. Erick had a lot of tricks left to learn about Domains.

Erick let his conversation with Bayth go, and focused on Syllea.

The woman was a four-meter tall pillar of light and fire and darkness that bled into her surroundings like a blot of radiant watercolors. And Erick’s current tactics were not working. Syllea cut down three Ophiel at the same time as she stepped across the battlefield like a woman taking a stroll through a garden, picking off Ophiels like she was selecting flowers for her bonnet. She was acclimating to this fight much, much faster than Erick.

Just to be sure that he wasn’t missing something obvious, he threw a [Prismatic Breaker] at Syllea, right as she advanced on an Ophiel. Briefly, she flickered, her light and power fading, before coming back even stronger than before. The next [Prismatic Breaker] failed completely, as Syllea laughed like she had just heard the best joke in the world. All the while, she continued her slice across her targeted Ophiel, sundering the [Familiar] with a [Quick Strike], or something similar. Erick wasn’t quite sure how she was able to cast so many spells so fast, but she was certainly stronger than any of the Shades he had ever met… Or maybe not. Hard to say, really.

Was she manually casting every single one of her spells? Maybe she was.

Erick tried a new tactic.

With a coordinated cast, several Ophiel dodged, as they pulsed mana. High above, where the sky was bright and clear, motes of Force coalesced into something stronger. An inevitability took hold of the upper range of the fight, waiting to fall as it could.

Syllea glanced upward, then paused, wondering why the spell wasn’t coming down faster.

And that was enough of a distraction. Every single Ophiel released their Handy Aura. They attempted to grapple the diamond swords. Most of those telekinetic, airy hands failed to do more than get cut by the spinning swords. Some managed to grab. Some even managed to hold on. It was enough. [Teleport Object] sent those swords away. About ten kilometers back the way Syllea had come, actually.

One second saw the removal of seven swords. Two seconds saw the removal of six more swords from the fight, for Syllea had cut down an Ophiel while he tried to blip away the sword. Syllea’s joy temporarily turned curious, then angry, as she frowned, and every single sword became a mess of prismatic might. Erick was waiting for that. A [Harmonic Counterspell] from one of his fresh Ophiel negated Syllea’s magic just long enough for the removal of even more swords. If she wanted to get more she’d have to get to more trees, but she didn’t look interested in that. She only had lightning-eyes for Ophiel, and she was determined to take him down. Syllea tried something else, but an Ophiel had snaked a Handy Aura hand close enough to her rainbow form.

A blip moved Syllea up, up, all the way to the edge of the Script, high, high above, putting her even further out of the range of backup physical objects, like those swords. Ophiel followed her into the sky.

‘Where did she go?!’ demanded Bayth.

Poi answered, ‘To the edge of the Script. Erick didn’t want her to have any more resources and she was going to overcome the removal of her swords soon enough.’

An Ophiel was already waiting for Syllea to appear. This time, when the Archmage crashed into Ophiel’s bubble of a body with its reflective interior, Ophiel swarmed, and locked her inside, flooding the area with a [Domain of Light], denying almost all other resources to Syllea. It was enough of a mode-shift that Syllea flexed out several Quick spells that instantly turned to sparkles, giving the rest of Erick’s Ophiel enough time to swarm upward, and lock the Raging archmage behind even more reflecting [Lodestar] forms.

Syllea flashed some bright spell at them, only to have it bounce around inside the cage of Ophiels. Another ten Quick spells flexed out, some of them turning to weak light, some of them turning to sparkles, and nothing more. Erick did not relax, instead, he focused harder.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Erick watched through an Ophiel’s [Mana Sight] and through another Ophiel’s mana sense as Syllea began flickering with some test spells, small things, taking control of the air around her with gentle brightness. Erick didn’t even bother counterspelling those attempts at magic. The airblades she made with the bright air merely bounced from Ophiel’s reflective surfaces, while the air itself was more like a gentle breeze, once the magic was stripped from it.

The flat horizon had become a curve of green all around as the blue sky was replaced with utter black, and stars glittered just beyond the Edge of magic. Syllea’s rainbow watercolors began to shift, and expand. This was her Domain and her [Prismatic Body], for sure. Erick hoped he could withstand it with his own Domain, half-removed from his personal control.

Bright fire bloomed inside of Ophiel’s cage, while luminescent ice crashed upon the other side. Erick selectively let that ice crash through, not bothering to defend where he didn’t need to defend, for Syllea was not just using her Domain to push against Erick’s, she was also trying to escape, and with his mana sense and Ophiel’s [Mana Sight], Erick watched as the fire part was her main body, and the ice part was not.

The ice crashed through Ophiel, taking some of Syllea’s radiance with it. The small bits of Syllea that managed to escape, just dissipated. Her main form remained inside. Erick watched as she tried again, flickering light and shadows in different directions, but she was in the light, and the shadows were just a diversion.

Erick realized a flaw in his prison a second before Syllea realized the same. He had a second and third Ophiel flicker around the first Ophiel, forming a compound shell, just in case Syllea tried to trick him with her own control over her mana. In case she pretended to be the larger bit of herself, but was actually the smaller bit.

Syllea flexed out a hundred bolts of radiant ice. Erick let some of that ice get through, into the next shell of Ophiel.

Syllea, much diminished, fell into the second shell of Ophiel, while her main power remained behind. Erick quickly extricated that main part of her body from the prison, leaving Syllea in the second shell, while the radiant watercolors in the first shell naturally lost cohesion; like sugar dissolving into tea, Syllea’s former intent-filled body dissolved back into the manasphere.

Erick held Syllea onto the inner surface of that second Ophiel, then constricted the shell, pulling Syllea together into a small space perfectly sized for her, as he spoke through Ophiel, “We have your brother in custody. You won’t be able to attend the execution unless you can be a part of Polite Society again.”

She suddenly turned fully physical, abandoning her [Greater Prismatic Body]. Red, prismatic lightning flickered in her eyes, but she said nothing.

Erick would have to ask her, later, if she had never learned how to recreate the [Teleport] spells, for surely she could have gotten away if she had learned those magics. But that thought was gone as soon as it occurred. Syllea cast a few more low mana spells at her Ophiel cage, before trying to trick Erick with a sudden expenditure of mana. She held her hand up and out, and mana roared. An Ophiel beyond her cage, but with a part of himself sticking through the reflective surface of that inner Ophiel, tried to [Harmonic Counterspell] Syllea’s new major magic. That second Ophiel popped as his entire existence was demanded to pay the cost of that [Harmonic Counterspell]. It still wasn’t enough.

A tiny star appeared on Syllea’s open palm.

… A tiny star packed with enough mana to beggar Erick back when he was wearing that +150 All Stat belt. Not a trick, then!