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Chapter 79: Yul

A blade cut across her cheek and another scraped along her back, cutting through her robes and colliding with the armor that Arwin’ had made her. The armor shimmered and magical energy poured into it.

Reya squeezed her eyes shut a moment before a brilliant flash lit the night. Surprised yells rose up, but it was too late. Reya used the distraction to slip away, sprinting into the alleyway.

It was too late to stop the brawl, though. The fight had started in earnest, and as long as they didn’t know where Reya was, it would continue for at least a little while. It wouldn’t be long before the Iron Hounds came looking to figure out what in the world was going on outside their guild hall.

Reya slipped into the darkness, where Rodrick stepped out of an alley to meet her, a stone in each of his hands.

“Nice work,” Rodrick said. “You didn’t get hurt too badly, did you?”

“Just a cut on the face,” Reya replied, wiping the blood from her cheek. The wound was a little deeper than she’d initially thought, but it wasn’t anything too serious – though it would probably scar if Anna didn’t take care of it.

“Good,” Rodrick said as the clamor of battle intensified behind them. “That’s our role, then. Let’s go meet back up with Anna and see if we need to bail Arwin and Lillia out.”

“I thought the plan was to let them handle things on their own because it was too dangerous?”

“I made the plan, so I get to change it,” Rodrick replied. “Arwin is a better fighter than I am, but he’s terrible at relying on people for anything that’s important. Lillia is the same, even though she’s not as vocal about it. With any luck, we won’t have to do anything at all. But I’d rather be overprepared than underprepared.”

“Me too,” Reya said with a nod. “I’ll be right behind you.”

They headed into the night, and Reya hoped that Arwin and Lillia’s side of the plan had been having just as much success as hers did.

***

“How are we supposed to know what Yul looks like?” Lillia asked as they stood in the darkness of the alleyway, listening to the fight start to break out in the distance. “What if someone else is heading down the path that he chose?”

“We’ll just have trust that Rodrick’s information is correct,” Arwin replied. “But we can always ask. Just stick to the plan the moment we confirm who this is.”

“You’re kidding,” Lillia said, but Arwin didn’t have time to reply. Hurried steps echoed down the street in their direction. Arwin didn’t have to step out to meet them. He’d already positioned himself with his back turned, while Lillia had kept to the shadows to conceal her demonic appearance.

Arwin craned his neck as if in surprise as a middle aged, balding man strode down the alley in the direction of the guild hall, his expression taut.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Arwin asked, lacing his tone with concern as he studied the man. He really didn’t look like anything special. His robes were those of a mage that preferred to avoid heavy armor, and the only weapon he carried was a dagger. Just another adventurer.

“No, but I’m headed to find out,” the man replied. “Who are you with? Another new recruit?”

“Me? I was actually heading over to apply when I heard the commotion,” Arwin said. “I heard you lot were looking for smiths.”

“Oh, right. We are. Good thing I found you before the shitstorm made it this far,” the bald man said. He snapped his fingers impatiently. “Follow me. I’ll get you to the guild hall and then go deal with the idiots outside.”

“Sure thing,” Arwin said. “I’m Arwin, by the way.”

“Pleasure. I’m Yul.”

Arwin nodded a greeting, and Yul turned to head back toward the guild hall.

Arwin’s hammer slammed into his hands and he swung without an instant of hesitation. By some sheer stroke of luck, Yul managed to notice something was awry. He flung himself to the ground, but it wasn’t enough to completely avoid the blow.

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Verdant Blaze shattered his shoulder with a loud crunch, sending him spinning. Yul let out a pained snarl as rolled to his feet, right arm hanging useless at his side. The left arm crackled as flame bloomed between his fingers, swirling together into a hissing and popping ball.

Explosion magic. If I didn’t know for sure before, I do now. I just wish I killed the bastard with the first blow.

“Idiot. Who are you, really? Actually, I don’t care. I’ll let Jessen figure that out himself,” Yul snarled as he poured power into the spell, holding it in front of him. It was a clever strategy for a mage with immense destructive ability. By keeping the spell between himself and Arwin, he basically ensured that Arwin couldn’t close the gap without getting hit.

But, the longer he waited in attempt to find a hole in Yul’s defenses, the stronger the spell would grow. Arwin had seen the strategy used before to devastating success, and the best counter to it was generally someone else with range. But, there was one problem. Yul didn’t have the whole strategy prepared. Mages never fought alone.

The shadows snapped forth – not at Yul, but at Arwin. At the same time, his armor slammed into place. A tendril struck the back of Arwin’s legs with a loud thud, sending him stumbling forward.

Kinetic energy poured into Arwin as the greaves, having already been largely filled with kinetic energy earlier in the alley, were topped up. [Awe] activated and Arwin’s body blurred forward as he activated [Scourge], sending the power into his legs.

He couldn’t even try to control himself at the speed he was moving. His head didn’t run as fast or as strong as his legs did, but Arwin didn’t need to control himself. Mages of nearly any sort were deadly, especially on the battlefield.

Their magic could control fights more than almost any other class, and their destructive power was second to none. But almost every single mage shared a very common weakness – the same weakness that Anna had.

Arwin brought his wrist up, pulling the bracelet off it. The Mesh shimmered for an instant before him, even as he brought the metal ring to his mouth.

Metal Bracelet: Average Quality

[Happy Feet]: This item was forged faster than it should have been, resulting in some imperfection in an otherwise decent band. It can provide increased movement speed at the cost of magical energy.

[Greedy]: This item draws more magical energy than it needs, causing its wielder to lose strength while its ability is active.

Arwin bit down. The bracelet turned to liquid heat and poured down his throat. Yul’s hand raised, but power was already thrumming through Arwin’s body. It poured into his legs, even as he felt his hammer grow considerably heavier in his hands and it dipped, pulled toward the ground.

Fighting normally with it would have been nearly impossible.

He had no plans to fight normally. Arwin blurred forward, his speed magnified by the powers of the bracelet. He slammed into Yul, throwing the man to the ground. The spell that had been forming in the mage’s hands went wide, hurtling past Arwin and striking a building behind him. A massive explosion ripped through the air as a ball of fire rolled into the air behind him, but Arwin barely even took notice of it.

His hammer fell. There was a sickening crunch, and then there was no more. Arwin’s eyes ignited like molten coal as his helmet activated, releasing a wave of oppressive aura around him. He lifted his hammer, staring down at the body at his feet. Yul wasn’t the first mage he’d killed. They almost always went down in the same way.

“It’s easy to forget just how weak you are when you wield that much power,” Lillia said as she walked up beside Arwin. “That was… sad, honestly. I wanted more. A fight. Something. He did so much fucking damage, and this is it?”

Arwin dismissed his equipment, and the blood that had covered the hammer’s head splattered to the ground beside Yul’s body. He still felt weak from the negative effects from the bracelet, but speed was paramount when fighting a mage. They couldn’t afford to take any risks. The drawbacks would fade soon enough.

“I suppose it’s apt,” Arwin said. “Disappointing, but even a Journeyman mage is still a mage if he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Yul seemed… worse than he should have been. Even for a mage, standing around in the face of a threat is arrogant. The strategy he used only works when you’ve got someone else guarding your flank. That’s the mistake of a novice who has no clue what they’re doing, not a mage that made it to Journeyman.”

“I just wish he begged for his life. Something to give me some damn satisfaction,” Lillia said, clenching her hands. She delivered a powerful kick into Yul’s body. Arwin put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back.

“What happened to the speeches you were giving me yesterday?”

“They’re easier to give when you were standing outside and didn’t see anything,” Lillia snapped. “The bastard got off light. He–”

“Is dead,” Arwin finished, his grip tightening on Lillia’s shoulder. A huge part of him wanted to join her in raining blows down on the dead man, but she’d been there to keep him stable, and now it was his turn. “And now there are two. This isn’t for us. It’s for Zeke – and for anyone like him in the future.”

Lillia ground her teeth, then gave him a jerky nod. “Right. Lead on. Yul was the tough kill, and he went down like a worthless little worm. Let’s get rid of Erik and go home. Should I deal with the body?”

“As much as I’d love to say no so we could let Jessen realize exactly what’s coming for him, you probably should,” Arwin said. “It’s probably going to be relatively obvious already, but there’s no need to help our enemies figure out who we are.”

Lillia clenched a fist and two Lesser Imps rose up from the darkness, crowding in around the corpse and starting to devour it.

“They’ll handle it,” Lillia said. “Shall we?”

“Lead the way,” Arwin replied. “I take it you remember the direction Anna said Erik would be coming from?”

“Yeah,” Lillia said, setting off into the dark with Arwin at her side. “It should be a little while until Erik makes it since he was farther. We don’t know anything about him, so hopefully he isn’t too difficult to spot. The fight is getting bigger behind us, so the guild might have gotten involved.”

“Good. That’ll buy us all the time we need,” Arwin said, but he couldn’t shake a building unease in his stomach. Yul was dead – of that, there was no doubt. Their plan had gone exactly how he’d wanted it to, but the man had truly been far too shit of a fighter to be a Journeyman. Something was going on, and Arwin didn’t like not knowing what it was.