AUTHORS NOTES:
Archer1eye: But.. but… but.. They're cows! It wouldn't have been anywhere near as funny with sheep! Ahhhh! We'll just have to wait and see how Sharein's seeming affects her elemental spells! (They won't all be insta kills. Lower level spells will do less damage, higher level spells will do more damage. Against kobolds, goblins and some orcs they might be instakilly, but against higher level monsters your basic Elemental Bolt spell will barely faze it.) As to Malkarov, I'm trying to show you what sort of person he is ;-) I'm glad you picked up on that, Sharein is very logical and can think through problems, but she is young and she is FULL of emotions! It might be a little bit, but comprehend languages is such a useful spell that it will be used quite a bit.
Drouppi: At the moment, Sharein has only so far seen that her magical abilities are boundless, endless and so much more powerful than anything else she has ever experienced (sans Shard, possibly). Combine this with: as a teenager her inability to understand consequence AND her overriding anger and shock. She definitely had a moment of not thinking, that she kind of regretted halfway down. Then again, she didn't learn lesson from it, so it's entirely possible that this behaviour will be repeated. Hmmmm… I tried to highlight, and I might go back and update to spell it out more clearly… at 13 she IS an adult. She is included in conversations with other adults, she can vote at council meetings, she could even marry. The only reason people might think it a bit strange that she started her apprenticeship early is because of tradition, not because she is only barely an adult. In fact….
Slyksylva: Yes, Shard will be back at some point :) Not this chapter though.
Chapter 3420th Day of Late Winter 768 n.c
As we walked back to the tower, Malkarov demonstrated and had me cast Invisibility (which made us completely invisible!) and See Invisibility (which allowed us to see invisible things). Once at the base of the tower we both had a turn at the Knock spell, which unlocked the front door. But we did not use the front door to go into the tower, instead Malkarov locked it again.
I looked at him in confusion, "How are we going to get in then?"
"We climb!" He announced loudly with a grand gesture.
He cast the spell and then climbed straight up the side of the tower as easily as a bug climbing a tree.
"Spider Climb!" he announced when he was nearing the top.
I cast the spell myself, feeling the magic come out of my hands and feet, coating over my palms. Tentatively I touched the tower and discovered that my hand was sticking to the stone but only when I put pressure down. When I lifted my hand back, it came apart as normal. I tried to copy Malkarov's movements and discovered that it was much easier than I thought it would be, as if I were much stronger than I was or weighed much less than I did. Within short order I was standing with him at the top of the tower with a wide grin on my face.
Another wave of exhilaration surged through me, it was electric. I felt like I could do anything!
"What other spells are you going to teach me?" I asked Malkarov excitedly, almost vibrating with barely contained energy.
In rapid order he taught me Mirror Image, Web and Elemental Sphere. Mirror Image was an illusion spell that created copies of myself that would move around and confuse enemies. Web caused thick sticky strands to appear between two surfaces, we cast it between two trees down below, these strands would catch things between them and prevent them from moving. Elemental Sphere created a large black ball that I could direct in a fairly rapid path. Malkarov's created a great ball of wind that would throw anything it hit away almost as fast as a stone loosed from a sling. When his ball went down to the ground it flicked up such a storm of dust around it that it was hard to see the ground at all.
"My Elemental Sphere can be very dangerous to enemies that are near a cliff or an edge, or if there are stones scattered on the ground. A water seeming Elemental Sphere can be especially dangerous to enemies that breath," Malkarov explained, "while my Elemental Sphere pushes everything outwards the water seeming pulls everything inwards. It's big enough to surround a person, so a water seeming Elemental Sphere that hits a person will suck them in and can potentially drown there, leaving a wet and very dead corpse in its wake."
"The most interesting one I ever saw was an earth seeming Elemental Sphere in a castle siege. A giant ball of rock that could be directed directly towards a wall, or directly up at the battlements?" Malkarov told me, "They were used with such devastation that the castle wall was reduced to mostly rubble."
"Where was this?" I asked.
"A pair of orc war witches at the siege of Darkenwoode castle in Darkholm. Those Elemental Spheres killed a great many of our soldiers before we could discern where they were casting it from. Once we did, we bombarded the area with our own spells and killed the pair of them," he replied a little sadly.
He brightened suddenly. "Shall we try Elemental Explosion?" He asked and I eagerly agreed.
Unfortunately, even though I could feel the resonating pulse of magic when he cast the spell, I could not force it out. No matter what I did, the block was there. I couldn't hide my disappointment. Malkarov too, looked a bit disappointed.
"It looks like we've found your limit after all," he said, "you're not tired at all?"
"No, I'm not tired," I admitted, still feeling on top of the world.
"Then why don't we stay up here until dinner practicing your spells? The more you cast and the more you stretch out your magic the quicker it will increase and you'll be ready to cast the spells of the next level. I'll be interested to see, once your body and magic are ready, whether you will be able to cast Elemental Explosion without another demonstration. But that will need to wait until that time," Malkarov said to me, "for now, we will work on just your elemental spells. Elemental Sphere, Elemental Grasp, Elemental Bolt, Elemental Ray and Elemental Projection. I'll name a situation and you cast the appropriate spell as quickly as you can."
Malkarov called out some different scenarios as I stood looking out over the tower's battlements, "The stump down there is a lone kobold!", "There are ten kobolds in front of you ten feet away, spread out!", "There's a lone kobold right in front of you!". He switched it up and included other monsters like orcs, ogres, trolls. After about twenty such scenarios we stopped so that he could explain to me the advantages and disadvantages of the elemental spells.
"If an enemy is close enough for hand to hand combat then you really have two choices: Elemental Grasp and Elemental Touch. Elemental Grasp is good against unarmoured foes as it only works against skin, it stays active for a long while and can be used in multiple hits but it doesn't do very much damage." Malkarov explained, "Elemental Touch has the potential to do more damage, and works through any armour your enemy might be wearing but only works once with each cast."
Malkarov continued, "For a single enemy at a distance you have two options: Elemental Bolt and Elemental Ray. The distance your Elemental Ray reaches is about half as your Elemental Bolt, but for most apprentice wizards it would usually be much shorter. Elemental Ray does the least damage of the two, but like Elemental Grasp needs to hit flesh. Elemental Bolt doesn't do much damage, but has a much longer range. It does work well against armoured foes though."
"Like the other scenarios you have two options when it comes to multiple opponents," Malkarov went on, "If they are all within fifteen feet and close together, your best best will be Elemental Projection, it will do more damage than Elemental Sphere but only within this limited area. For enemies that are spread out; Elemental Sphere is the way to go, but remember that you need to actively concentrate to move it and it only moves as fast as a person jogging. Monsters can run away from it."
We ran through scenarios again and I found during the course of these practices that while I couldn't concentrate enough to move the Elemental Sphere and cast another spell, I could keep it active and sitting in place while I also cast another spell. This prompted an experiment to see how many Elemental Spheres I could keep active at one time. I kept one hovering out in front of me and let go of my active control of its movement to cast a second. When I cast the second and the first one remained in place a flash of excitement rippled through me, a confirmation that it was possible. I had cast two spells simultaneously before, but not two of the same spell. Putting a third black glowing ball next to the other two was just as exciting. When the fourth appeared I truly wondered how many I'd be able to do. As I cast the fifth one I could feel a sort of headache start to form in the back of my skull. I frowned a little and remained determined to continue. The feeling of excitement grew with the sixth and seventh, along with the pain. When I set up an eighth some black spots appeared in my vision but I blinked them away. The line of large glowing black spheres in front of us was really quite impressive. After I finished the ninth I felt a little light headed, I shifted my feet and managed not to waver too much.
I couldn't remember finishing the tenth.
