B3 – Chapter 17: Freeze and burn

As Tristan scanned the ice elementalism Third Order spells, he picked out the two that seemed the most important; an offensive, and defensive option.

Winter’s Wrath (Third)

Spell Phrase: Die Macht des Winters steht mir zur Verfügung. Diejenigen, die sich mir nähern, werden den Zorn von Eis und Wut spüren. Unerbittlich (The power of winter is at my command. Those who come near will feel the wrath of ice and fury. Unrelenting).

Spell Gesture: Hold your hand in front of you, with the fingers curled into a ring (as if you are holding a cup), with the thumb on the top. Blade your stance, and line up your arm with your shoulder. Then, rotate the wrist so that you are looking through the ring formed by your fingers and thumb. This will necessitate bending the elbow – the less bend, the faster the storm will gather. Essence should be focused into the ring formed by the thumb and fingers.

Other Notes: This spell creates a zone of razor-sharp ice and bludgeoning hail that follows the user, and persists as long as essence is utilized. It has a maximum radius of ten feet from the user, but takes a few seconds to build up to that level of potency. Your vision will not be obstructed, though other’s may have difficulty seeing through the sleet.

Frost Screen (Third)

Spell Phrase: Frost védj meg most. (Frost protect me now).

Spell Gesture: Ball your hand into a fist (either hand), raise it in a diagonal across your torso (so that your chin is above the forearm, it extends up and towards your cheek, and the elbow is down closer towards the stomach). Essence should be focused into the forearm.

Other Notes: This spell creates a vertical “screen” of ice crystals that can take the impact of a large object (such as a siege weapon’s bolt or boulder). This barrier manifests near-instantaneously, and so is good for reacting to sudden attacks. For more sustained assaults, stick to Frost Wall (First Order). The spell fades after five seconds.

Tristan set the book down and stood, turning back to the practice wall. Okay. First off let’s just try this screen. He raised his forearm in front of him, crouching his stance instinctively a little bit and pulling his shoulder in towards his chest by reflex – just like if he was blocking a punch with his forearm. “Frost schützt mich jetzt,” he stated as he surged essence into his forearm.

Silvery and icy-blue crystals exploded out from his forearm – catching him off guard for just a moment. They spread and formed a large, circular, sparkling screen of floating ice crystals that connected into a lattice, making a net with a thin layer of ice in the middle. A few seconds later, the ice vanished.

Very neat, he thought. Okay. Let me see what type of hit it can take. Once more he spun his crucible and pushed the power into his forearm. “Frost védj meg most.” As soon as the screen popped up, he unsheathed his sword and swung at it. The sword hit, stuck, and he felt it hold still in the screen before it cut through and the screen vanished. It can take a hit, and block it, but not deflect it, he thought. He also saw the frost built up along the blade, and when he exhaled he noticed his breath coming out in small wisps that were visible. And it is really chilling.

Then he spotted the ice building up along his legs and thighs. Ah, right. The backlash. He used his hand to break off the ice chunks which clattered onto the ground before it began to slowly, slowly melt thanks to the ambient temperature. Right, so I have a nice defensive spell that can be used rapidly, for fairly little essence, keeps my hands free – wait, I should try that. He reached to his dagger, gripped it in his fist, and then repeated the spell once more.

To his dismay, he did not see the spell manifest. Right. So I have to have the hand unencumbered. No holding something. That does work with my lighter sword and overall combat style – but with the maul it is going to be less beneficial. He sheathed the sword and dagger, then turned back to the Omnitome, double checking the instructions for Winter’s Wrath. Okay, next spell.

Following the spell gesture instructions, he spun his essence crucible – noting it was about halfway drained of the vital power – and focused the energy into his fingers. “Die Macht des Winters steht mir zur Verfügung. Diejenigen, die sich mir nähern, werden den Zorn von Eis und Wut spüren. Unerbittlich.”

The air around him exploded, and he felt his energy drop precipitously and continue to drain as he drew in ragged breaths. The air became frigid, with icy shards and rocks the size of his fist spun about in a churning tornado with him at the center. It slowly expanded the more he fueled the spell, and he had to shut it off as he sank to the floor, gasping for air. He coughed a few times as his breath caught in his throat, and he felt the chill of cold through his body.

That’s…that’s what backlash is like at Third Order? He felt cold. Not horribly chilled, but he knew that a regular person’s teeth would be chattering. Only his heritage’s innate resistance kept him somewhat comfortable, if cool. I need ice dragon blood, he thought as he struggled to his feet, grabbing for the chair that had been behind him.

But his hand met cracked wood, and he glanced down, wincing as he saw the obliterated piece of furniture. Thankfully he hadn’t fueled the storm enough to harm the desk or his Omnitome, but it still felt really bad to have broken something that wasn’t his. Okay…I’ve got time. He went to the desk and leaned over the Omnitome, I should practice these two spells without using essence just to get the phrase and gesture memorized.

The next two hours were spent doing nothing but drilling himself on those two spells, and going through his full list of already-memorized spells to ensure he wasn’t rusty. Not using essence, just letting it refill and going through the spell phrases and gestures. He had to check himself a few times as he felt slightly off from earlier muscle-memory, and to his slight satisfaction the reason was that he had bulked out ever-so-slightly. Not as much muscle mass as Bertram, but traveling, fighting more frequently, sparring with The Matriarch – all of that had developed a small but noticeable difference.

Which necessitated him re-training his muscles, and he passed another hour refining and refocusing on his spell gestures to really lock them into his body and mind. Right, I think that’s about good. Time to check out those fire spells.

He felt slightly overwhelmed at the sheer selection available to him. Fire was extremely combat oriented. I don’t need the defensive spells, he thought noting from his earlier jotting that they were mostly oriented around preventing people from getting close to the essence-weaver, or destroying projectiles by heat alone. Which, to him, were not very useful given he was wearing armor that, with a single spell, would become far more defensive. And, with his ice elementalism spells, he felt more comfortable.

The author’s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Offense it is. It looks like there’s two paths that these offensive spells go down. These “ignition” spells that continue to cause the person to burn…but each subsequent use increases the severity. Or these “burst” spells that consume the “ignition”– he double checked his notes, or “ablaze” in order to trigger a larger, more damaging effect.