Chapter B2C50 - Eyes of Magick

Chapter B2C50 - Eyes of Magick

“Uhhh, Dove?”

“Yes?”

“There is a giant monster that looks like it wants to trample my guts into the ground standing in front of the rift.”

“Yeah, they do that. Both of those. They stand around the rift, and trample your guts into the ground.”

“You’ve seen this thing before?” Tyron hissed.

“What? No, of course not. I’ve never seen any monsters from this particular rift before. But there’s almost always some big ass thing trampling around right next to the rift.”

The beast turned its head to Tyron and suddenly, his army of skeletons had never felt quite so small. Covered in dense, white fur, the monster's skull jutted forward just above its small, burning red eyes. Air steamed from its fang-lined maw, flanked on either side by huge curved tusks formed of pure rime.

“Yeah... you’ll probably need to kill that. Or distract it.”

“You didn’t think you should tell me about this?”

“Honestly? I didn't think the rift would be large enough to let a prick like this get through. I fucked up. Sorry about that.”

Tyron growled under his breath, but restrained his anger. There wasn’t any point getting angry at Dove, especially since he was only hours away from a proper death.

How in the name of the Abyss am I supposed to deal with something this big?

Only skeletons with spears and swords would be able to damage it by thrusting through that thick fur, but if they got close, they’d be reduced to powder in a blink. His archers probably couldn’t scratch it. An arrow through the eye may be effective, but it would be almost impossible to make the hit. Of his revenants, only the Slayer would be of any use, though the others could distract it if they were fast enough to avoid it. Ghosts may be effective, he would have to try.

As for his magick.... Death’s Grasp wasn’t going to hold something this size, and magick bolts would be little more than irritating to it. It was possible he could restrain it with Suppress Mind, but a kin this strong... that would be a risk.

Distract it and look for an opportunity. Preserve as much of my force as I can.

There was no other viable plan. With a mental command, he sent his revenants forward, along with the spirits. The rest of the undead pulled back to protect the archers, who shifted to a better angle for targeting the monster’s face.

Tyron placed himself between the two groups. He didn’t want to draw the monster to his vulnerable skeletons, but it was a risk to expose himself.

The frozen-mammoth reacted as the burning skeletons drew closer. It appeared reluctant to separate from the rift, but with opponents drawing near, rage overtook it. The kin trumpeted in fury and smashed the ground beneath its massive feet before it rumbled forward, swinging its massive head, sweeping the ground with tusks of ice.

Arrows shot through the air to shatter against the monster’s face. No damage appeared to be done, but the beast was even further enraged. With every bellow, hot mist filled the air around the mammoth’s face.

Even being twenty metres away, the presence of the kin was overwhelming.

If I could turn that into an undead....

The thought was tempting, but so far, he’d not been offered the ability to make anything non-human into a minion. It was definitely possible, Arihnan the Black had at the very least undead horses within his horde, with garbled descriptions of other undead constructs. Something like this would be a spectacular servant. Likely it would suck his magick dry in half a second, but still....

Magick bolts crackled in his hands and he flung them at the monster as it completed its charge. His slayer revenant had neatly rolled to the side. Quick and deadly, his servant had slashed out as it rose, cutting a shallow wound on one of the beast’s legs.

The spells did little, thudding into the creature's hide and barely staggering it, but at least the mammoth became distracted from his other revenants.

Not blessed with the combat skills of their compatriot, the other three had been far more clumsy in their dodge. Two were able to get out of the way, but the third had been smacked by a tusk and sent tumbling, bones rattling against the stone.

The pain sparked the monster to even greater heights of fury and Tyron grit his teeth until blood ran down his chin, trying to hold it in place. After eight seconds, his hold broke and the huge monster reared back, before it crashed to its side, dead.

“Hole-eeeee-fuck, kid. Nice work!”

Tyron spat the blood in his mouth onto the ground and coughed.

“No problem.”

“Stop jerking yourself off and let's get a good look at that rift. No time to waste. Another one of those fuckers could come through any second.”

“Right.”

Tyron shook off the malaise that gripped him and arranged his minions between himself and the rift before he gazed at it properly for the first time.

At first, all that happened was that his eyes hurt. The warping effect that occurred around the rift was at its strongest here, and looking directly at the source was difficult to say the least. Eventually, his mind pieced together what he was seeing and he gasped in shock.

It wasn’t that large, perhaps only ten metres across, a whirling vortex of magick and light that seemed to tear reality at its edge. He could almost feel his realm being broken as the rift swirled, chewing away at his world one tiny piece at a time.

He was reluctant to do this part. Once he’d examined the rift, he would have checked off the final item on his list with Dove. Once they returned, he would have to honour his promise and free his friend.

Tyron stilled his thoughts and focused on the magick that Dove had taught him. As promised, the ocular enhancement spell had been complicated and carried tremendous risk. Failure during the cast could lead to permanently damaged vision, or blindness, or worse.

As his skeletons protected him, Tryon quickly constructed the spell, making sure he made no mistakes along the way. Dove grumbled quietly about ‘gifted shitheads’ and ‘genius scumbags,’ but the young Mage ignored him. Instead, he chose to stare at the rift.

Dove’s eye enhancement spell allowed him to ‘see’, in a limited sense, magick and its movement. This allowed him to examine the remnants of rituals after they’d been cast, or view the magickal properties of objects by looking at them, or track down sources of Arcane energy.

In this case, Tyron used the spell to stare at one of the sources of magick in the realm directly.

Viewed through the green lenses produced by the spell, the rift blazed in his eyes, bright as a sun. Energy poured from it constantly and into this world, even before the rift had fully formed. What’s more, he could see beyond it, into the realm on the other side. Unsurprisingly, it appeared like an icy, desolate wasteland, teeming with kin desperate to find a way out.

Taking it all in strained him. Sparks of pain lit within his eyes and he was forced to squint.

“Dove? What am I looking for?”

“You should see the magick flowing out of it.”

“I can see it alright.”

“Basically, you’re seeing if that’s a steady flow or erratic. When the amount of Arcane energy coming through the rift is increasing or decreasing in an unsustainable way, it’ll cause eddies and disruptions, like someone tossing a brick in a stream. This rift should be expanding, which means more magick over time, but as long as it’s gradual and controlled, we don’t have to worry about another break.”

Tyron examined it as best he could. He wasn’t an expert, but it seemed to be fine. There wasn’t anything like what Dove described, the magick flow was steady as a drum beat.

“Looks fine to me,” he said finally, letting the spell lapse as he sighed with exhaustion. “I can’t believe how much energy is coming through it.”

“That’s nothing. You should see just how saturated it is on the other side. It’s like crack for Mages. If you can tap it, you can cast some seriously funky shit. I contracted both my most powerful Astrals beyond the rift, since I could supercharge the ritual on that side.”

“Couldn’t you do the same over here with enough materials?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t fucking rich, was I? Over there, the magick is free. Now stop yammering. You need a sleep and I need to die. Let’s get down the mountain and get this show on the road.”