“Yes, “ Lance said, “I knew exactly where you were going to swing. Anyone familiar with the style would know exactly what you were planning when you follow the training moves so closely. You lack real combat experience.”
Frustrated, Thane stabbed his spear into the ground and walked over to the weapon rack. Most of the audience was speechless, although it had only been around a minute since the fight started, countless blows had been exchanged, some of the rookies had trouble following what exactly was going on. “When I said I didn’t have a specialty, I wasn’t exactly telling the truth.” He thought for a moment before grabbing two identical longswords from the rack. There were actually two styles he specialized in, both were deemed “highly unusual” by Castor, but they were taught to Thane by his father many years ago. Most of the advanced learning had to be done from manuals in his teenage years, but Castor knew enough about them to assist him in learning.
“Two long blades? Thats...” Lance paused as Thane began walking towards him with both swords lowered at his side like an upside down V. “Twin Wing stance?”
Thane didn’t know the stance had a name, but Twin Wing seemed fitting. He watched Lance shift his grip to the middle as Thane had done before as preparation to intercept two weapons at once.
What happened next was difficult for half the audience to follow. Thane’s attack was a flurry of a confusing mix of wide slashes, quick stabs, and seemingly unnecessary spinning and body twisting used to gain momentum and crush attempts at guarding. Lance’s counterattacks were quickly dodged by Thane and neither man seemed to be getting an advantage. Lance began to slowly lose ground, stepping back as Thane pressured in with relentless attacks. Soon it was Lance’s turn to get frustrated and he gave an angry shout and used all the force he could to shove Thane back, making space between the two again.
This time he held the spear by the end with both hands, holding it vertically towards the sky and Thane felt a large magical force gathering.
With a mighty shout, Lance yelled out the name of the patron deity of nobles and rulers “ASHRAN!”. The holy energy of the Father of Dynasties began to flow through his weapon glowing with a bright holy light and the paladin brought the empowered weapon down on Thane.
Thane brought his swords up to block as he gathered magical energy of his own. Almost too late he realized that the blow coming down was too strong to block and he used all his strength to leap backwards, not caring about how graceful his landing would be. The ground shook as the holy power infused weapon struck the ground, followed by Thane falling unceremoniously on his buttocks.
The two swords that were in Thane’s hands that he tried to block with were now shattered, but the magical energy Thane had gathered was ready to go. Using a trick he learned from Castor he didn’t form a true magic spell, instead layering three identical projection circles on top of each other. The result was a blast of pure magical force that sent Lance flying backwards several meters to land in the same position Thane was in.
Thane was already preparing a second spell as his opponent tried to stand up. “If it’s a light show you want, I can help with that.” His hands began to crackle with lightning, and as Lance was standing up ready to get back into the fight, he let a powerful bolt fly.
The air crackled with energy, but the lighting bolt disappeared before impacting anything. Standing between the two men was Liam, his bracers were crossed in front of his face and were generating a soft glow. Whatever enchantment was on those bracers, it was enough to stop a bolt of lightning. “I get it, both of you hate to lose, but if you keep escalating like this someone is going to get seriously hurt, and more importantly YOU'RE GOING TO BREAK MORE OF MY WEAPONS.”
He emphasized his last words with a stomp that almost sounded like a thunderclap, and Thane felt like the ground beneath him suddenly dropped five centimeters almost causing him to lose his balance.
Whatever people that were in the fortress but had not come to watch the fight were now there after the explosion caused by the fight between the two. They found Liam standing in a large crater between two men with shattered swords and a broken spear. Liam looked over to Lance, “You’re paying me back for the weapons you broke, and make sure you get this hole you made filled in. Also you might want to pay me back for stopping the spell that would have left you twitching and drooling on the ground. ….so did you get the answer you were looking for?”
“Yes, and a few more questions to go with it.”
Liam shook his head in frustration and went back to address the recruits he had just sparred with. He found Marcus waiting for him there. “So what’s your verdict?”
“The kids are smart, usually kids like them come in all cocky thinking they can beat me. These three all treated the fight like it should have been, as if they were fighting against a superior opponent. Not one of them came at me with the usual swagger and overconfidence. It was actually disappointing since humbling the young ones is why I do this with an audience. I really think I need to give Thane a good thrashing though, I never got to put him in his place.”
“Maybe later, I will have you observe them on their first job tomorrow.”
“Oh, will the fun never end?”
Before they parted Thane had one last question. “You said you could count the people in the Southlands who could beat you in a fair fight on one hand, who would they be?”
Liam smiled and brought his and up with fingers extended, he brought down his fingers one at a time as he listed the names. “Since I was the second sword, obviously Lugh the first sword could beat me, I honestly think I could take the new second sword in a fight so let's not count him. Second would be a fine cambion fellow who simply likes to be called the Red Hand. I’m not calling him a fine fellow sarcastically, after the hole he put in my gut healed we went out drinking a few times. Third is Cante the Blackstone Wolf, and fourth would be Queen Serras.” He wiggled his thumb, now the only finger left extended, “I like to keep the last one open just in case there is someone out there who can surprise me.”
“Wait...the Queen? Our queen?”
“Have you ever heard of the five city slaughter? She did that when she was not much older than you. Don’t think that just because she has a few kids now that she can’t introduce you to your great grandparents.”
“Before you commit lese majeste in front of a royal observer, I’m going to stop you there. Gailwyn still wants to take a look at their magic. Make sure you four come to see me after she is finished with you, I’ll have your first job ready.”
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Unlike the public display that Liam put on with his testing, Gailwyn examined the new recruits in her study in private. They each took their turns once again leaving Thane for last. Her study was fairly empty, only a single small bookshelf and a large desk with a few mounted crystals on it. The book she always carried with her was placed open on the desk and already had the shimmering screen floating above it. She motioned to a chair on the other side of the desk for Thane to sit in.
“To be honest, you were the only one I was really interested in. It will be amusing to study Kisha’s nature magic, but I already knew everything I needed about the others. I saw you used lightning magic in your little scuffle with Lance.”
Thane nodded and she continued, “Interesting choice, lightning is considered extremely difficult to use. Unlike, say, fire, it is difficult to form a concrete mental image of lightning, and due to the nature of electricity, many mages end up shocking themselves without a conduit of some sort.”
“Castor always said I was extremely skilled at manipulating mana.”
“Hmm…” she was looking through the distortion over her book at Thane, but this time, the magic was much thicker.
“That’s different than last time, the strength feels like at least a sixth circle spell.”
“You can tell that just by sensing it? If you were trying to convince me about your mana manipulation skills I should tell you that I never doubted you.”
“No it’s just, I was wondering why you were using such a strong spell this time.”
“Well, if basic scrying doesn’t give me the information I need, I just have to look deeper right? So tell me, have you summoned any demons recently or have you had contact with any demons?”
“No. I used chthonic mana by accident a couple days ago though.”
She paused for a moment, “Explain please. Chthonic mana isn’t something that can be used by accident.”
He related the story about how he got so angry when one of the villagers was killed. “It wasn’t just the bandit I was angry at, I was angry at myself for quibbling about so much without taking action.”
“Emotions shouldn’t be enough to break through the aether...well, maybe for shadow magic, but the night realm is tied to emotions by its very nature. Getting so mad that you pull mana from the hells isn’t exactly something that happens normally.”
“But that is exactly what happened.”
“Hmm….do you think you can duplicate it?”
“That doesn’t sound like the best idea.”
“What about the opposite then? I wonder if you can pull mana from the high heavens just as easily as you can pull from the hells.”
Thane remembered the voice he heard when the chthonic mana entered his body, “Won’t whoever or whatever I take the mana from immediately know about it?”
“What do you think priests and clerics do on a daily basis? Borrowing power from the gods is nothing new, you saw Lance do it earlier today. The only difference is that you will be doing it without permission. But I doubt he will notice or care.”
She seemed really excited for a moment and sketched a magic circle on a piece of paper, before sliding it over to Thane. I’ll summon another looking glass for you to use, I want you to memorize that circle and prepare to make a mental construct of it. Also can you make a base scrying circle?”
“Yeah I should be able to. This circle... single...answers a single question?”
“Exactly, but it is still fairly weak so it will only give you a single phrase or image. I want you to think, think very hard about a question you want answered. Something that is important to you that you really want to know. Do more than just think about it,you need to really want it, almost like a prayer even, but don’t think of a god directly. Perhaps it would be good to think of the question as something only the gods know. Can you do that?”
Her instructions seemed all over the place, it was apparent she didn’t really know herself what exactly needed to be done. It was true that Thane did have a question like that, it had been bugging him for a few days now. The woman that was spoken of by his teacher and master. The one that his father and Castor used to love. He knew this woman was important, extremely important, but nothing else. It seemed like both Castor and Maria were unwilling to speak of her. Thane wanted to know more.
“I’m ready.” He constructed the two circles in his mind, and made a prayer seeking knowledge. The energy from the spell was like nothing he ever expected, so strong, yet cold, dispassionate. When he looked into the scrying glass, he didn’t see what he expected.
What he saw was a young girl, probably less than 10 years old. She was cold, sitting in front of a campfire at night wrapped in a thin cloak and hugging a sheathed sword tightly. It was a longsword made for an adult, but to her small stature it seemed about the size of a greatsword. Just as quickly as the image appeared, it disappeared, leaving Thane lost in thought.
“I can’t believe it worked, that was definitely Orin’s energy, the mana of the god of knowledge. That should have been impossible for anyone but a priest.” She smiled and turned to Thane, “Congratulations! You just successfully stole from a god!”
“Do you have to put it like that?”
“Tapped into the power of a god then.” She stood up and walked over to the door. “Okay, your examination is over, I have a lot of research to do so go along to Marcus. He has a job for you and your friends.”
This was the most animated Thane had ever seen her. He couldn’t believe this was the same stoic woman full of suspicion that he met a few days ago. He looked at his hands and clenched and unclenched his fist. His body was still tingling from the divine mana and still didn’t quite feel right. She did say that she could help him with his magic, and this was already a big breakthrough.
“Come on Thane, we’re about to go speak to the boss.” He heard Mahs calling for him and hurried to join his friends.
When they met with Marcus he didn’t bother with any greetings or questions and got straight to the point. “I need you guys to go hunt some orcs. Maybe more than a few, maybe more than orcs. I don’t know yet. I’m sending Liam with you to watch and observe and make sure you get out alive if it’s too much. We don’t know if it’s a few castoffs, a raiding party, or a full Malkin horde, but I want you to find out.”
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