17. Battle Magic
1330 Words
All of us eat while we wait for Ashe to get back. She comes in with Exalos.
"I would like to introduce you to Exalos. He can not stay long. But I want him to check something. It's Tre. His projection is altered somehow."
He puts his hands on Tre. "Interesting."
Alden rubs his eyes. "Not this again."
Clark and Victor crack up laughing.
"Lots of things are interesting, Alden."
Alden waves him off and nods.
"This boy can project with people. An anchor would be absolutely necessary."
"They have a few. I believe Alden's is altered like that as well."
He walks down to Alden. "Yes it is. Who is the anchor down here?"
"Clark and Mayra."
"Wonderful. I will teach that as I can."
Clark hands over his paper and rubs his eyes.
"Victor, I will teach teleportation and possession. Nothing else seems exceptionally dangerous. The exorcists will come with him this week. Have a wonderful day." He walks out the door.
Ashe takes the paper from Clark. "I will teach, battle, barrier, abjuration and charms. I love charms." Then she leaves.
Jenny smiles. "I can teach conjuring, collecting, and I know a bunch of the basic spells I can teach you. Even like the exposing magic spell that's making weird areas glow."
"Can you show us that too? It seems convenient."
"Of course. My first class. Can someone tie their soul to this please? I want to see if we can see it with this spell going."
Nadine jumps up. "ME."
She redoes the glowing spell, and we can see the bow being tied. "That was amazing. Go ahead and close your eyes to untie it. We don't want to leave it like this."
She teleports to Jenny and jumps up and down. "I can do it too."
"You did good."
30 minutes later, we have successfully made the sitting rooms glow in weird places. Then we're back in Alden's office. I'm bored though. Jenny is still talking.
"Everyone here has battle magic, right?"
"Correct."
"We know they test battle magic by reaction time. If you shoot out an orb fast enough, you have battle magic. But that's not what battle magic is."
I smirk and swirl my finger. Clouds swirl around the ceiling.
"Battle magic can be anything." The wind picks up. "Do not hit me with lightning please."
"It can be a storm, a boulder flying at someone, tornadoes, a million forks flying at a person. It can be almost anything."
I turn the wind up like 500 times. Everyone grabs the table and her feet come off the ground. Mason grabs her out of the air and puts her back down.
She cancels it out. "Thank you for that demonstration." She tries to push her hair back down.
I laugh. "EVERYONE'S HAIR."
They laugh and fix themselves.
Then she talks again. I make tiny tornadoes on the table and send them to people. They don't do any damage. They're only like 6 inches tall. They hit someone and break apart. Then they feel a gust of wind. I send 1 to Tre. It picks up his paper and smacks Dipak in the face. Half of us crack up laughing. Then Tye, Johen, and Victor make tornadoes with me. We keep sending them to people. All of a sudden, we must make them to close together and a 3-foot-tall tornado shows up on the table.
We jump up and Jenny runs over. She does something and it goes away. Then she goes back to talking.
"I KNOW. I HAVEN'T PLAYED THIS IN FOREVER." I run to my office in the royal house and grab a game. Then come back. "It's a game to learn battle magic. We'll make teams. Me, Tye, Clark. Against Nadine, Victor, and Johen." I lay out the board. "It's kind of like chess. My team is red. So I put a little red man on each square in those 2 rows. You do the same with black. Now, there's dice. Black goes first. Nadine, you roll."
"I got a 2."
"You can move any of your people 2 spaces. Any direction. 2 spaces. And you can't land on a box that has another black piece in it. Keep in mind it's a magical game though. Sometimes the squares change."
"This says earth. I'll go here."
She moves her piece to it and the box shows up behind her on the floor. Then it changes to a sinkhole. Her little black piece starts getting sucked in. It's all life-sized right behind her.
"Now you have to try and save him. If he gets sucked in, you lose that piece. And your team can work together. Unless it says single player, all 3 of you can help each other and talk. But you can't go physically touch him."
She panic's for a second.
All of a sudden, a plant shows up beside the black piece. She uses it and reaches a vine for the man. He grabs on and she pulls him out.
Victor puts his arms up. "I conjured a plant. I remembered you were earth."
"Good job. Good thinking. I could not come up with anything."
"We're a good team. What now?"
"Now you have your skills and magic, but the little man also has your magic. Say Nadine has concealment magic, the man could have went invisible. But it will only have whose turn it is magic. Does that make sense? Like it's my turn. The army man will have my magic, not Tye or Clark's." I roll the dice and get a 3. "I'll pick water. And it switched to earth." The man shows up behind me and the floor shakes a bit. Then a huge rock golem appears. "Oh my."
Tye jumps up, and a tube thing appears beside my player guy. "Shoot that at him. Pick it up and pull the trigger. I don't know how to make him pick it up."
"I control that part." I pick it up and point. Then pull the trigger. Something goes right in the golems huge rock belly. Then, all of a sudden, the office is full of different colored flaming fireballs. The golem shatters apart. "WE DID IT." I jump up and down and the little man stays on the board. "Your turn Johen."
He rolls the dice and moves to an air box. Then a tornado comes for his man.
Nadine throws up an 8-foot tall mountain in front of the guy. "We just need a second to figure it out." Everyone cracks up laughing and she glances back. The mountain stopped the tornado.
Jenny smiles at us. "Earth is usually stronger against air. Water is stronger than fire. Fire is stronger than wind. Air is strong against water. But played right, any element can be taken down by another. It's all in how you use your skills."
Tye takes the dice. "Let's do this." He moves his spaces and it flashes urban warfare. Survive 60 seconds.
"Ok, so this is war in the city. You have to keep him alive for 60 seconds."
Victor laughs. "It's zombies."
"What's that mean?"
"Undead. Their brains have to be damaged to kill them."
Tye puts a sword on his guy and starts stabbing them in the head.
I do that abjuration thing around him.
"Thank you for that. It helped. There's so many of them."
Tye makes it through the challenge.
Nik looks at me. "Can I play too?"
"Yes, it's the first round. So, you roll the dice for your turn. But keep it even. Can someone else join us too?"
Tre smiles. "I will."
"Why don't we move it to the ballroom though? There will be more room and everyone can sit and watch." Jenny takes a picture of the board pieces. "Game, we are moving to the ballroom. Everyone follow me. We'll have more room this way. Servants, set the ballroom for a magician's match."
"Yes ma'am."
- Writer
