Andrew Rowe - On the Shoulders of Titans

I turned to Marissa and leaned close to whisper to her. “I need you to cover me for a minute. I’m going to try to do something with the squares.”

“Can’t be makin’ promises, but I’ll do what I can. Not at my best right now. Ye sure we shouldn’t just charge?”

I nodded. “We’d win that fight if we could get close, but Sera will be ready for that. Not sure what they’re doing, but they’re up to something.”

“Bow to your opponents.”

We bowed.

“Begin!”

We had no more time to plan. I ducked down to look at the nearest tile, an orange one.

Marissa apparently took my instructions to mean “literally stand in the same square as me”, which didn’t give us a lot of space, but it did allow her to deflect the first couple of shots from Sera and Patrick’s opening barrage.

And barrage was definitely the right word for what they were doing. They were firing fast — and Marissa still too sick to move as quickly as usual. The distance was giving her time to batter blasts out of the air with her fists and the occasional kick, but she was struggling with it.

I had to help.

I looked at the tile, and by the goddess, it was complicated .

There were seven sets of runes on it. Not seven runes, seven sets.

At a glance, I could tell that five of them corresponded to different functions — presumably for white, red, orange, yellow, and green. They each had a different function rune, as well as mana storage and regeneration runes.

The sixth was the most important part - the ones that controlled which set of functions currently in use. I wasn’t able to identify all of these, but I guessed one of them tied the tile into some kind of central organization system, and at least one of them was a rune that responded to voice commands. Presumably Teft’s.

The eighth set involved a trigger rune for pressure, very similar to the one used for activating a return bell. It had another rune adjacent to it that I didn’t recognize, but that gave me something to work with.

I realized that not only was this whole situation absurdly complex, but that the floor of this arena was probably worth more than everything I owned by multiple orders of magnitude. Even if the enchantments were weak — and they almost certainly were — this was a crazy investment for just a couple tests.

Maybe they get some of the enchanting classes to build things like this as class projects? Wouldn’t take long if they’ve got hundreds of students…

A blast that just missed my head brought me back to focusing on my work.

Fight now, research later.

I turned on my attunement, observing the paths of mana flowing in the runes in front of me. As I suspected, only one of the five initial sections of runes was currently active. I couldn’t tell exactly what it did, but it had something to do with earth magic.

I grimaced, thinking about how much easier this would be if I could read all the runes.

Behind me, Marissa took a hit and staggered, nearly knocking me off my tile. She managed to steady herself quickly, though, and I braced my hands on the ground to prevent myself from falling.

I had to work fast.

I looked at the function tiles as a set.

First one is earth related.

Second one recharges shields.

Some kind of energy blast from this one. Maybe the one that was orange last time?

Not sure about this one. It uses enhancement mana, though, so it may be good.

Last one…disables all functions, maybe?

That was good enough information for now.

I pulled my engraving rod out of my bag. We weren’t allowed to have magic weapons, but Teft hadn’t said anything about tools.

I started carving a new rune. The tile already had a system for changing functions — I just needed to add a new way of doing that. One I could control.

It was a decent idea up until the point where an energy blast knocked the engraving rod out of my hand, sending it flying three tiles away.

I looked up.

Patrick and Sera were advancing, firing while they walked. Marissa was struggling even harder now, taking a hit to her left leg while I watched. As Patrick and Sera got closer, it was getting easier and easier for them to fire accurately.

“Corin, little help ‘ere?” Marissa had switched into a sideways stance that exposed less of her own body to attacks, but that meant that more of me was exposed.

“Almost got it.” That was almost true.

I glanced at one more tile — a green one right next to me — and identified that rune as the beam blast one.

I stood up, thinking while I pulled the dueling cane off my belt and finally began to return fire.

Patrick and Sera scattered as I fired, stepping on colored squares.

Nothing happened.

I blinked.

Our opponents advanced.

I didn’t have any idea how they were managing that, nor did I have time to think about it. Patrick hurled a bolt of lightning that split into three.

Marissa managed to jump and smash one of the branches of the bolt, which was pretty impressive, but the other two smashed into me and left deep cracks in the barrier. I felt the mana in my phoenix sigil sink to just over half.

Panic got my mind working.

If I was right that earth magic meant vines, that meant orange and green had been directly swapped.

I dodged Sera’s next attack directly onto a red tile.

Slowly, gray mana began to trickle upward and recharge my shield.

Now we’re talking.

I aimed at Sera and fired three shots in rapid succession. She dodged easily, still ignoring the color of the squares below her entirely.

I leaned closer to Marissa, who was still standing on our starting tile. “Red is helpful, so you can dodge to those. Think green is the energy blast one, don’t get hit by that.”

I knew yellow was probably beneficial, too, but red seemed like a better bet until I could identify the function.

“Got it.” She nodded, immediately scanning the ground for red squares. Patrick tried to take advantage of her distraction to hit her with a lightning blast, but she just swatted it out of the air without even looking.

Marissa hopped to a red tile, and I saw the same kind of energy wash over her.

We were both recharging now, which was good. The problem was that it was slow, and we weren’t doing any damage in return.

When I turned to fire at Patrick, he was more sluggish in his response than Sera, but he still managed to blast my own attack out of the air with one of his.

I hopped to another red square to dodge Patrick’s return fire, but Sera anticipated my movement and hit me with a shot from her cane as soon as I landed.

Their teamwork was better than ours, too. They’d been practicing together for months at this school alone — and known each other for years before that.

We needed to even the odds.

But I was taking too long, so Marissa was the one who acted.

She ducked a pair of shots, plunging a fist into the ground. A fist that was, as it turned out, surrounded by a cutting aura like I’d seen her demonstrate for Keras.

In a moment, I understood. I jumped closer to Marissa, deflecting two shots from Patrick and returning an ineffective barrage of my own.

It only took a few more moments for Marissa to cut the green square out of the floor, then pull it up by the edges. It fired a harmless blast into the air.

Sera must have seen what she was doing, too. I couldn’t parry her attacks fast enough, but I stepped into the way and took two hits. This was worth the cost.

Marissa flipped the square to face Patrick and shook it.

A blast of energy flared out, too fast to dodge. It slammed into Patrick, knocking him back and damaging his shield.