Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

I blew the two closest spheres of flame out of the air, dispersing them with kinetic force. Keras moved quickly enough to slash five of the others, successfully deflecting the last of the projectiles aimed for Keras and the child.

The last sphere struck him in the back.

The force of the impact barely staggered him, but his vest ignited instantly. He shivered for a moment, wincing, and reached toward his back with his left hand.

The flames pulled away, gathering in his hand.

A wave of his hand across the blade of his sword. The flames swept across the weapon, the weapon’s edges shifting to glow crimson.

I could see the burned skin across his back as he rushed toward the stairs. He was still fast — faster than anyone I’d seen before.

But I could see him. He was slowing down, the wounds weighing on him more than his expression showed.

I looked back at the book.

I will try, child. I will try.

You must leave the room.

He didn’t have to tell me twice.

“Vera, we need to go.”

Vera gave me a curt nod, shifting the burden on her back. The boy was nearly as tall as she was; I was surprised she could carry him at all.

I flipped the book and quill into the pack. Katashi turned his head. He’d heard me, but Keras had nearly flown up the stairs. He didn’t have time to intervene.

The door behind me opened. Vera pushed through.

I gave a last look toward Keras.

He’d reached the top of the stairs. He waved his left hand, and the five remaining daggers slipped out of their scabbards, floating in the air behind him. As I watched, their blades extended as they hovered in formation. They were wings of steel.

He gripped the hilt of his weapon with two hands, the blade still glowing with inner light.

I took a deep breath, retrieving my backpack as the swordsmen began to circle each other, and I fled the room.

My right hand was trembling as I gripped the hilt of the dueling cane. Part of it was the pain from drawing too much mana, but a larger part was my state of mind.

I’d sided with a prisoner against a visage of the goddess and I… didn’t feel guilt. I felt like I should have done more.

I’d left Keras behind.

I shook my head, trying to regain my focus. Nothing in this tower was safe, and if Keras did fall, I had little doubt that the visage would follow us and finish what he had started.

This room was rectangular, maybe forty feet across. It was clearly divided into sections that were about ten feet each, each section being elevated a bit above the previous section.

I could see a few tiles in each section that were just a sliver thicker than they should have been — probably traps.

There were dozens of fist-sized holes on the side walls of the room. Probably more traps.

Those weren’t the real problem, though.

Each of those elevated sections in front of us had a set of monsters, and each was more dangerous than the last.

And, predictably, the sole visible exit was on the opposite side of the room.

The monsters in the section right in front of us were the simplest threats possible. Teardrop shaped creatures of gelatinous acid, barely intelligent. Slimes. They were already hopping forward.

Behind them, two massive creatures that resembled bears, but with brown scales and three vicious horns. Barghensi. They were extremely resistant to physical damage, but magic would work — including my dueling cane. Unfortunately, I could barely even hold it at this point.

There was a cylindrical pillar in that section, right between the barghensi. It wasn’t solid stone like the other ones in the previous room; it was some kind of transparent crystalline structure. Maybe just thick glass, but I doubted I’d be that lucky.

Inside the pillar, I could see a sheathed sword floating in what looked like mid-air. At a second glance, I realized my mistake. The sword was submerged in water.

Finally, right in front of the door, an eight-foot tall bronze statue. It had six arms and each arm carried a different weapon.

Its eyes were glowing with crimson light.

Pretty sure that’s a spire guardian.

Spire guardians were deadly monsters that guarded the ways up to higher floors of the tower. I wasn’t supposed to have to face any during the Judgment. They were strong enough to fight fully trained attuned. I knew I didn’t stand a chance by myself.

Vera glanced at the slimes, then back to me. “Switch.”

I understood her meaning immediately, slipping the dueling cane into her grip and lifting the child out of her arms. I didn’t know what level of skill she had with the weapon, but it was our best chance.

Vera swept her arm across the room, rapidly tapping the button on the hilt as she moved. Blasts of force rippled out of the cane’s tip and slammed into an invisible barrier at the boundary between our section and the one in front of us.

Vera grimaced. “Should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. I’ll have to get up there to take care of those. Wait here for now, yeah?”

I nodded as Vera crept ahead. She ducked at the border of one of the raised tiles and felt along the side of it. Fortunately, she didn’t press it down, but I had no idea what she was doing.

Something to do with her attunement, maybe? Some kind of trap disarming magic?

I didn’t see any visible effect when she moved away from the tile. She did something similar along the wall, putting her hand right up against one of the sides of the holes. Then, after a moment, she stuck her hand inside. She pulled it back out a moment later.

She turned her head back toward me. “Don’t step on the raised tiles.”

I’m pretty sure I could have guessed that on my own. “Right.”

Then she stepped on the tile closest to her.

She didn’t.

I stepped backward out of instinct, but it wasn’t necessary. The traps weren’t aimed at me.

A hail of arrows fired out from the holes in the wall directly in line with Vera.

She just grinned, stepped forward, and caught one of the arrows with her off-hand as they whizzed by. She tilted her head to the side after the flurry subsided, inspecting the arrow. “Yeah, these’ll do.”

Then she charged.

She leapt onto the next raised section without resistance. Apparently that barrier was only meant to stop magic, not people.

As she landed, the slimes hopped toward her with surprising speed.

She blasted the first one with the dueling cane three times, then stepped backward as it recoiled, triggering another trap.

Vera dodged the incoming arrows again. The slimes didn’t.

The arrows took care of three of them.

The sole slime she’d already bombarded wasn’t airborne, so it was low enough to the ground that it didn’t get hit. Instead, it just sort of slid across the ground toward Vera until she blasted it twice more. Then it vanished.

And the other slimes vanished along with it.

Not bad.

Vera wasn’t done, though.

She walked forward, avoiding the rest of the traps on that section, and came to rest next to the next one. “Move up,” she instructed me.

I complied quickly, but I moved slowly. Both because I was carrying someone else that was almost my size and because I really didn’t want to set off an arrow trap.

I made it to the next section without incident.

“Great.” Vera hopped onto the barghensi platform.

The barghensi charged.

Vera took a couple shots at the lead barghensi, then tried to step back down to where I was to avoid being barreled over by the still-charging monster.

That, it seemed, was not allowed.

The barrier popped into existence and she bounced off it, stumbling backward.