Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

But none of those things were what I was searching for. My eyes scanned every surface for anything glowing that looked out of place. I wasn’t disappointed. I found multiple splotches of brilliant color on pillars, on carpet, even a bit on a wall.

Dried blood.

Either Katashi’s or Keras’.

Honestly, at this point, I’d take either.

And, hand over hand, I started crawling toward the closest source — a splotch on the chamber’s central stairway.

Derek arrived at the entrance to the chamber before I got there.

“Derek’s here!” I managed to shout, hoping to alert the others in time.

Sera spun, discarding her binding web, and hurled a broad blast of frost at the doorway.

Derek’s hand twitched, then a flaming sword was in his hand, cutting through the ice.

Sera jumped backward. Then she was floating upward, carried by air mana, and hurled more blasts of ice. She winced after the third attack — the effort finally seemed to be taxing her — but Derek was undeterred, walking forward as he struck her spells out of the air.

As Sera paused between breaths, Derek rushed forward and leapt.

I twisted toward him and fired a blast from my gauntlet, but he slapped that aside with the flat of his blade.

“Wall.”

A wall of ice appeared between the two of them. Derek took a chunk out of it with a slash, but the wall was too think to part in a single strike. He impacted the surface and fell back to the ground, beginning to burrow into it with more swings.

Sera floated higher… and started to cough.

Resh. She’s running dry.

Could I get the flask back to her? No, probably not at my current angle, and giving her more was probably dangerous, anyway.

I took another shot at Derek’s back. He deflected it without even looking.

I was wasting my time.

Vanniv flew over me, the wyvern managing to smash him with a swipe of its tail as he retreated. He crashed into a nearby wall, recovered quickly, and continued to retreat.

I wanted to help him, but he wasn’t the priority right now.

I kept crawling, but the splotch on the middle of the stairway seemed like miles away.

Derek was almost done cutting through the ice wall. What could I do to stop him?

I turned my head toward him. “Hey, Derek. What’s your greatest weakness right now?”

He paused his attack immediately to turn toward me. “Arguably my susceptibility to magic rings.” He blinked. “And apparently I’m still forced to answer your questions honestly.”

I grinned. Finally, something to work with.

“Okay, Derek. What would be the easiest way to free you from the ring’s control?”

“You’d have to take it off.” He turned back to swinging at the ice wall after answering, but I wasn’t done with him.

I kept crawling, talking while I moved. I needed to keep him busy. How?

Oh, I’ve got this.

“What is everything that happens in the first book of the Blackstone Assassin series?”

It was a pretty fair gamble that he’d read it. Practically everyone in our generation had, and it was required reading in a lot of schools.

He turned toward me, frowned, and began, “Well, it’s supposed to be his life story. He begins by talking about…”

I tuned him out. More crawling, less Blackstone.

He turned back to the task of chopping at the wall, but he was clearly distracted. His swings were going slower and seemed almost aimless.

I was half way to the blood splotch when Orden appeared at the top of the stairway and turned to Derek. “Derek, stop prattling and knock these children out. Start with Sera.”

“Yes, Professor Orden.”

Resh.

I turned around, finding Professor Orden stalking toward me.

“That was a clever idea, Corin, but it’s over now.” She shook her head, preparing another globe of flame.

A glance downward showed me Vera’s location — face-down on the floor, unmoving.

I turned back to Professor Orden with a grimace. “You’re quite right, Professor. You’ve put up a great fight, but it’s time for you to surrender.”

I reached into my pouch.

“Cute. But you’re the one out of tricks.”

I raised a single eyebrow. “Am I, now?”

I threw the bell at her.

The bell rang mid-flight, but it wasn’t charged with mana anymore, so I didn’t vanish.

I fixed that with a gray mana blast from my gauntlet when it got close enough for her to be in range.

With my attunement on, I saw air mana and transference mana swell out of the bell to envelope Orden — only to dissipate with no effect.

Orden shook her head. “Adorable. You must be getting desperate to try to teleport me, Corin. Teleportation defenses are the first thing a Wayfarer learns.”

I probably should have expected that.

“Since it’s obvious you’re not going to surrender, we’ll do this the hard way.” The globe of fire in her hand swelled from fist-sized to pumpkin-sized.

There was no way my barrier could handle that, even with the amount I’d recharged it.

I raised my gauntlet, hoping to hit the sphere and combust it, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough.

Orden raised her hand to throw the sphere — and then her head jerked forward. And she fell.

Jin appeared right behind her, shaking his head. He had a pistol in his hand, facing backward. He’d smacked her over the head with it. “She really needs to stop forgetting about me.”

He kicked her body once, flipping her over and down another couple stairs, and then knelt and put a hand on her forehead. I saw a ripple of mana appear over her body. “That should keep her out for a while.

He hit her from so close that her shroud barely cushioned the blow, I realized. Not a bad tactic. But what did he just do to keep her unconscious? Was that an item or his attunement?

I was about to ask when Derek landed next to us and punched Jin straight in the chest.

Jin flew backward off the stairway and out of my sight.

I turned my gaze up to Derek. “I was really hoping that knocking her out was going to free you.”

Derek turned his head down to me. “No such luck.”

He jumped to dodge a lance of ice from Sera, then turned his gaze back toward her.

I reached forward to try to grab Derek’s ring hand, but he just pulled it out of the way and then jumped upward to swing at Sera.

Vanniv flew in the way.

Derek slashed him across the chest, drawing a streak of blood, and Vanniv crashed to the ground.

Sera screamed as Vanniv fell, and pointed a hand at Derek. “Wyvern, handle him!”

The wyvern swept downward as Derek descended from his jump, aiming to pierce Derek with its tail. He side-stepped, grabbed the tail, with his off-hand, and chopped the barbed end off with a twitch of his wrist.

Sera hurled another blast of ice at him, but he deflected it as the wyvern screamed in pain and flew backward.

Derek leapt upward again, swinging his sword and sending a golden shockwave of cutting force toward the wyvern.

The wyvern fell to the floor in two pieces, vanishing a moment later.

I blinked. That was a powerful attack. I’d never seen anything tear apart a spire guardian like that.

We were in a lot of trouble if he decided to hit us that hard.

As Derek landed, he swung a backhand. Jin reappeared, staggering with a bleeding nose.

“Not going to work on me,” Derek remarked sadly.

Sera turned her head downward. “Corin, Jin, I need you to buy me thirty seconds!”

Thirty seconds? I doubted I could buy five.

I debated options.

Jin just set his jaw and jumped on Derek’s back.

Curse it, I could do that, too.