Grag’s POV

  The world seemed to move on its own as Grag tried to steady himself. Bright lights blurred his vision and made it hard for him to see. For a moment he thought he was standing, but then he realized he was on his back looking up. His ears rang with noises he had never heard before.

  Something black and white moved in front of his face. After a moment, Grag realized it was his own hands as he tried to rub his eyes, but he couldn’t tell how far they were from his face.

  He rolled over, vomiting.

  Slowly, he could hear yelling. From his side he tried to get onto his knees. He was shaking. What happened?

  Sight started coming back to him as he looked around. The yelling started to make sense again.

  A small tug brought Grag’s attention to his steel armband. It was moving on its own, away from him. The small goblin looked in the direction the armband was trying to flee. All kinds of metal were gathering at the feet of an elfish looking woman as she was drawing runes on the ground.

  Yes. He remembered. The elf-like woman.

  She had long flowing hair with small sparks of lightning going from individual strands. Her hair was mostly white with some streaks of a reddish rust color. It didn’t float in the air, like it was in the wind, like Lady Liora’s, it floated as if in water.

  Her green eyes narrowed in on Grag. His stomach dropped.

  “Thaulia.” A human in metal armor covering him from head to toe called out. “You are pulling me into the pool.”

  “Sir Garos.” Thaulia pointed at Grag. “That one has magic. He may be the necromancer.”

  “Got it.” Sir Garos started for Grag. “Goblins, even magical ones, are no match for Sir Garos Relm of Port Viiriin.”

  A rush of mana poured into Grag as his will returned. He could sense the remaining skeletons and told them to fire arrows at the lightly defended elfish mage. Their arrows wouldn’t pierce the armor of the knight.

  “Humans.” Grag spat. “Why have you come here?”

  “To destroy evil!” Sir Garos roared as he charged Grag.

  Arrows started to fly at the mage as she brought up a static-looking shield.

  Turning towards the nearest longhouse, Grag ran away from the knight for a moment as he gathered more mana for a spell. He remembered countless hours pouring over the Master’s spellbook and he knew of a spell that would at least slow the knight down.

  After taking shelter behind the longhouse, Grag began to cast. The knight was not far behind. So little time. Grag cast as fast as he could.

  Weaving runic signs into the air, Grag thought of the knight and his armor. Then the knight, ready to swing, came around the corner.

  Just after finishing his spell, Grag let his Will lose on the knight.

  Firesurge Crucible.

  Sir Garos’s armor started to turn red. The knight stopped. For a moment he did nothing.

  “What did you do to me?” He asked.

  Despite being in the middle of a battlefield the knight tried to peel off his armor. Then he started to scream as the metal turned redder. The smell of burning flesh came from the armor, before Sir Garos fell to his knees and his armor started to slide off him.

  Grag slumped against the wall as the knight continued to scream. Eventually, he stopped, before falling facedown in the dirt. The armor turned into liquid and burned through the man’s body, leaving nothing but charred remains.

  The smell was horrid. The goblin fire mage turned up his nose at the smell and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to breathe it in, but he needed to catch his breath.

  Then he remembered the elvish wizard woman, Thaulia. With ease the attackers had gotten into the palisade. It had been made to defend against Deepwood attackers, not a highly skilled army of whoever these people were. Once they were in, the elvish mage started causing all kinds of havoc.

  Within moments Grag had gotten to the front line and he had seen her casting a spell. Purple and white light focused on the middle of a giant sphere. The goblin began calling mana and sent an unfinished fireball into the center of the Thaulia’s spell to disrupt her casting, but then he felt a tug at his Will.

  His mana began being syphoned through his unfinished spell and he could feel the other caster’s Will along side his own, and she was devouring his mana. He pulled back quickly unsure of what to do, but she clung to him. Doing the only thing he could think of doing, Grag began pulling more mana from his source, filling his core before it was depleted.

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  Then he started to pull at her mana to fill his own core. Filling his core from hers was faster than taking it from the source. He could feel her surprise and sudden shift in thought and power. Before he could drain her, he felt Thaulia cast a spell, and the world exploded as her original spell, still uncast became unstable and collapsed in on itself.

  Grag fell around the corner stumbling and landing on his hands and knees. Thaulia looked at him with furious venom.

  “Where is Sir Garos, necromancer?” A quick lightning whip from her fingers almost hit Grag.

  It was hard for Grag to concentrate with all the yelling and screaming. Heavy boots thundered through the smoke. He looked to his left and a dwarf charging at him. The burly creature knocked the small goblin mage over, smashing Grag in the head with an ax.

  Casting as fast as he could, Grag only managed a small spark that landed on the dwarf’s chest. A silvery mist overcame him and his pain and panic went away. Looking up at the attackers, Grag knew he was going to die and was fine.

  “Pathetic.” He said in a gruff voice, kicking Grag in the side.

  “Let’s kill it quickly so it can not summon more undead.” A bald man in white robes said, walking over from the right.

  Thaulia moved between them. “It will be a pleasure.” She said a massive crackling of lightning manifested in her hands. Thaulia’s hair crackled with white fire again. “You stole my mana, you little animal. I’ll peel the spellbook out of your skull.” Lightning roared up her arms, coiling into a spear of white fire.

  A fist came through the woman’s chest. She barely had time to look at the wound or respond before she went flying to the left. Her body hit something Grag hadn’t seen before, but the moment of the crash, a lot of the soldiers disappeared and so did some of the mages.

  Standing in front of Grag was the Master, bloody hand already grabbing the dwarf’s ax. The Master stomped on the dwarf’s leg, bending it back before punching the stout man in the head, putting him on the ground. Without a word the Master turned to the human in white before he could cast a spell and snapped his neck.

  Another human female came running at him with a spear. The Master dodged, easily, and ripped the fleshy throat out of the hero to be. He looked down at Grag.

  Flinching slightly as the Master put a hand on Grag’s chest, the Master healed the goblin. A cold rush slid through Grag’s chest as the Master’s hand touched him. Bones knitted. Bruises dissolved. Breath returned. His jaw dropped as he looked himself over.

  “Thank… Thank you Master.” Grag stuttered.

  “You did well.” The Master said, without any warmth. “Next time, have mana stored for your spells so you aren’t scrambling to cast without any in critical moments.”

  “Yes, Master.” Grag looked down.

  “Come.” The Master said as he started walking over to where he had thrown Thaulia.

  “Another hidden power.” Rikkard said. “Didn’t know you could heal.”

  “I heal the valuable.” The Master said.

  While Rikkard bristled a bit, all Grag heard was that he was valuable to the Master. The Master liked him enough to heal him, where he didn’t heal others. A wide smile made its way onto his face.

  In the distance, standing by a longhouse, was Pasxi. Her eyes were wide as she watched them, silver threads still fading from her fingertips. There was nothing left to fear with the Master here though.

  Under Thaulia was another human male, older and grey, and unfit. He couldn’t get the female mage off him so he could stand. At the sight of the Master, the man on the ground froze.

  “I… I surrender… Please.” He begged.

  “Why should I care about you, old man?” The Master asked.

  “I am a master illusionist, Magus Seris Valdor.” The old mage said.

  “Magus made all the people that disappeared?” Grag asked.

  “Seris.” The Master said.

  “What?” Grag asked.

  “Magus is a title, like chief or lord.” The Master said, not taking an eye off the old man. “Seris Valdor is his name.”

  “He’s like a chief of invisible people?” Durnakh asked, looking around.

  The Master touched his face.

  “Illusions are things that only exist in the mind. The people that disappeared when he got hit weren’t real.” The Master explained.

  “Useful.” Rikkard commented, but Durnakh snorted.

  “Why does he want to be a chief of people that aren’t real, Master?” Grag asked.

  “A Magus is like a chief of mages or wizards. He commands other spell casters.”

  Grag looked back down at the old man… Magus Grag.

  “Why are you here?” The Master asked.

  “We were just on an expedition to study some ruins, but Brother Athemar saw a skeleton patrolling the woods and wanted to see if there was a necromancer in the village. We were here for him.” He nodded to Grag.

  Before Grag could respond, the Master held up a quieting hand.

  “Take him to the longhouse with the ones we captured outside the walls.” The Master pointed to a longhouse. “I want a ring of guards around it day and night. Vael,” The Master looked at a goblin version of Lady Liora. “Stay in the longhouse with them and watch them closely.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Vael responded before walking towards the longhouse.

  Two people were being walked through the hole on the palisade. A human who was dressed in finer looking clothes, he didn’t look as old as Seris, but he didn’t look young either. There was also an elven female. Neither looked up or around. They seemed soundly defeated.

  “Gather the dead.” The Master said.

  In the chaos of the battle, Grag had thought there were hundreds, if not thousands of warriors running around. Not gathered, there were the two mages, and five others, plus the four they captured. Swallowing hard, he felt incompetent if so, few could so easily overrun them.

  The Master raised skeletons out of the five dead warriors, but then he stopped over the two mages. He closed his eyes and whispered a spell. Dark mists came from him as soundless screaming spirits started climbing from the two mages. Mystified by the magic, Grag couldn’t turn away as the spirits crawled from their old bodies.

  The bodies turned to dust shortly after their rise, the Master’s mana consuming the final life-echo to force the spirits free instead of forming new corporeal undead.

  Grag understood the principle now.

  The law of singular exchange.

  A spell could only manifest one outcome. Paul could either raise flesh or summon spirit, never both from the same corpse. The same was true for Grag; every weave of mana could be shaped into only a single effect, channeled through a single mana focus at a time.

  Of course, Grag realized. If mana could do everything at once, no mage would ever die. Power had to choose its shape.

  “You will answer my questions.” The Master said.

  The two spirits nodded. The Master looked at the sky.

  “Come to my hut and we will talk of you plans and spells.” The Master said as he started walking away. “Calculate our losses and the damage done. Then we will talk tomorrow.”

  The Master walked over to Pasxi. “The silver mist was you?”

  Pasxi swallowed. “I only meant to help… I didn’t want him to suffer.”

  “Spirit tether.” The Master scratched his beard. “Rare. Valuable. You will train with Grag.” He looked back at Grag. “Keep this one close. Spirit users steady the dead.”

  “Yes Master.” Grag said with a bit of pride that Pasxi had magic like him.