Ends of Magic

Nathan spent a little while trying to describe wizardry to his rapt audience as they jogged around Halsmet and towards the valley where the wyvern had been sighted. Sarah and Aarl usually stopped paying attention when he started talking about magic, but this time they were both listening and asking questions. They wanted to understand this entirely new domain of magic, especially if it let their enemies rewind time.

Unfortunately, Nathan’s understanding of wizardry was limited. His new abilities were geared towards countering it, and while he could explain some of the fundamental differences between wizardry and mana, he had no idea what sort of Insight made somebody into a Wizard.

But when forging into the unknown, knowing that it’s possible is half the battle.

Stella soaked up everything he had to say, clearly trying to think about how she would access such power. Over time her excitement turned to frustration. “Harpy’s tits! I wish I’d learned this before my class Development. Then I could have gotten a wizard class! But now it’s too late.”

“A witch class?” Aarl supplied, one eyebrow raised humorously.

The short mage rounded on him, her eyes flaring with light. “I don’t care, I just want the power!”

“What are your class choices?” Khachi interjected, speaking calmly. “With our tally of deeds, they should be weighty.”

Stella frowned at him, deciding if she was going to let herself be distracted. After a moment she heaved a deep sigh and explained. “I mentioned [Skymaster] earlier. My dad gave me the Insights for that. It focuses on flight. Skills for casting [Fly] and [Mass Fly] easily, as well as more control over those skills and advantage in aerial fights.”

She chewed on her lip unconsciously. “It’s the class he’ll want me to take, I’ll bet stalker teeth to dragon bones. The class will move us to problems fast and keep me safe from most enemies. Flying neutralizes most monsters.” She raised her eyebrows and mimicked Dalo's voice. "Never be in danger from Stalkers or Siegebears again!"

“You don’t seem to like it. Why?” Sarah spoke curiously, though her eyes were on the mountains around them. “It seems a gem of a class.”

Stella blew a raspberry, then shook her head. “No, you’re right. It’s the safe option. It follows the Path of my father. But I fight differently than he does, I have different teammates, and a different goal. Why should I walk the same Path?”

“So what are your other options?” Nathan asked. They were getting close to the farm that had sent the news of the wyvern, and he was hoping that it would be drawn to their presence without them having to hunt it down.

“[Lady of Light and Lightning], [Archmage of Science] and [Avatar of Mana].” She said offhandedly.

Aarl whistled, loud and long. “Those sound worth their weight in Adamant. [Archmage of Science] seems to continue your current path. Is there a hidden trap?”

Stella threw her hands into the air. “It ties all of my future magical improvements to learning more science!” She rounded on Nathan and stabbed a finger at him. “And my teacher refuses to teach me many powerful Insights.”

Nathan frowned, not sure how to neutralize the situation. His friend was mad, and it didn’t seem like she’d respond well to a plea for calm.

The finger dropped and Stella stepped back, taking a deep breath. “Sorry. I shouldn't be farting ice. My magic is powerful, more powerful than any other mage of my level. But to see the might of the archmages and the Questor, and be told they’re casting magic more profound than anything I know...”

She shook her head. “Apologies again. I shouldn’t be mad at you, especially with all of the grand Insights you’ve shared with me. I appreciate everything you’ve told me, but I don’t want to rely on your knowledge for all of my power. Knowing the reality of the world is part of my Path, but I don’t want it to be the only part.” She stopped talking, smiling apologetically at him. It seemed to be a silent request for forgiveness.

Nathan returned the expression, indicating he hadn’t taken offense. “That makes sense, you’ll be stuck with this class for a long time. It seems important to make sure that you’re happy with the Path it sets you on.”

Nathan sighed, eyes rising to study the mountains around them for any sign of their quarry. “That's especially true with me leaving for Giantsrest soon. We don’t know what will happen, and I don’t want you to tie your build to my knowledge. If nothing else, eventually I’m going to run out of things to teach you, and then you’ll need to discover things yourself. If your class isn’t set up for that, you’ll stall. ”

That killed the conversation for a moment. Nobody addressed the topic of Nathan leaving. They’d talked about it almost a dozen times, but now the time was rapidly approaching.

I think we all hope that I’ll come back and it’ll be as if nothing had changed. But who knows? I could die, I could level up so much that it doesn’t make sense to be on a team with me anymore. Or we each get drawn into conflicts of our own. If I'm gone for years then we might be different people.

They’d reached the end of the road and looked at the farmhouse that stood there. It was in better repair than most of the others that Nathan had seen. There was a barn and paddocks for animals, but they were all empty right now.

Khachi broke the uncomfortable silence as they started circling the area. “What of the other two classes?”

Stella lifted one shoulder slightly. “I like [Avatar of Mana] the most. Faster mana channeling, a skill to allow more exotic mana types and a skill to make it easier to invent spells. I don’t just want to cast a few spells really well. I want to be able to experiment with every spell, and find the combination that explodes the hardest.”

Nathan started chuckling, ramping up into a skill-enhanced guffaw that boomed out across the valley. The other Heirs looked around it him with confused expressions.

Still chuckling, he glanced back towards Stella. “I think that’s your Path. Don’t worry about your future opponents, leave aside theorizing on the most advantageous style. Pick what will let you make the biggest explosions. It's what makes you excited to push yourself harder."

“There’s the muckgrabber.” Sarah interrupted, snapping her rifle up and firing almost straight up. An eerie shriek sounded from high above, and Nathan looked up to see a limp blue-and-gray shape fall out of the clouds. It impacted in the fields a short distance away with a surprisingly loud wumph.

“It was in the clouds. Came down to see us after you laughed.” She explained, storing the rifle back away.” Then she swapped her gaze from Nathan to Stella. “His advice is a light to follow. It’ll be years before the next class Development. Pick a Path you want to follow.”

Stella looked pensive, pursing her lips and tilting her head at Sarah. “What of your own class Development? What are your choices?”

“Doesn’t matter. My choice was clear as polished gems. I’m a [Sniper] now.” The tall woman said, gesturing towards the corpse of the huge lizard. Her shot had gone straight through the bottom of its jaw, through the brain and out the top of the skull. It looked like the elephant-sized flying creature had died instantly.

She strode to her kill, posing over it like a big-game hunter. “That’s my Path. Killing far away, before my target even realizes they’re in danger.”

Aarl nodded sagely. “You have been using the rifle a lot more than the revolvers, even when they’d kill the problem better.”

Sarah didn’t respond to her brother, running her hands along the stock of the enchanted rifle. She pulled the bolt back with a precise motion, slotting another round into place with a surety born of long practice and shooting home the bolt before sliding the weapon back into her dimensional pouch.

Then she gestured towards the corpse. “Well, I killed it. Let’s bring back the meat.”

Her brother sighed. “The butchery is my task, isn’t it.”

—

Nathan frowned around at the farms as they returned to Halsmet. A few people were actively working to grow food, but most of the field sat abandoned, waiting for planting or plowing.

It’s a safety problem. People don’t want to live out here, where they might randomly get eaten by things like wyverns. Or stalkers. Or castlebears. Or one of the other monsters that are so common on Davrar.

One of the farmers waved to him, and he waved back. The Heirs didn’t stop to chat, but it was good to know that their presence was seen and appreciated.

We have to make the outlying areas feel safe enough that people are willing to move back here. I think Myrla was talking about increasing the rewards for farming to lure more people out, but Halsmet needs Adventurers to patrol its farmland.

Nathan’s musing was interrupted by Khachi.

The big wolfman who spoke carefully, as if afraid of giving offense. “When are you planning to depart for Giantsrest? You spoke of teaching your Talents, so I do not expect it to be tomorrow.”

“Right, I gotta figure that out,” Nathan replied, rubbing his forehead. “Always more to do. I need to talk to Faline but we were going to wait for Giantsrest to come out of lockdown before leaving. I also want to try and train some antimages, as well as talk to Sudraiel about the library idea and get that running. Two weeks? Giantsrest has to be reeling after the defeat, so we'll hopefully have a bit of a break.”

He looked around at his friends. “What about you? Are you planning on going back to Gemore soon?”

“I would stay and aid Halsmet.” Khachi said, his voice resonating with the barest hint of divine power. “They are in need of aid, especially as other Adventurers return to Gemore. But I do not speak for us all. What do you think?” His gesture encompassed all of the others.

“True aim.” Aarl said. “The city was freed because we were here. I’d be filled with sadness to leave it now. We should make sure there’s still a city here when Nathan returns.”

Sarah merely nodded, conveying her agreement.

Stella seemed less sure, but was hesitant to speak up. Only when it became clear everybody was looking at her did she mumble something. “I want to learn magic from my parents, and they’re already back in Gemore. They’ll teach me spells worthy of a Questor now that I’m level 243.”

Aal shrugged expressively. “Ask them if they can come to Halsmet every week. Their flight makes the distance an easy obstacle.”

“Yeah, I could do that,” the mage replied. “My flame calls to Halsmet. Gemore needs an ally, and Halsmet needs Adventurers." She gestured to the empty fields around them. "The cooks here are better than those in the Adventurer’s guild too.”

Nathan licked his lips in anticipation. “I’m looking forward to the wyvern.”

—

The next morning, Nathan studied the crowd of thirty young people gathered in front of him. They stood in the courtyard of the mansion on the second-tallest hill, the place he’d fought Stella and killed Taeol dho Droxol.

The stone around him was still broken and battered from that fight, since fixing up the entryway to the guest mansion wasn’t a priority when Halsmet’s limited supply of builders were busy razing the slums and various warehouses to build new houses. But this was the place that Myrla had chosen to put the candidates for Nathan’s antimagic. They were staying in the mansion's many rooms, with dozens more left over.

There were more people here than he expected. Myrla had asked how many he’d be willing to teach, and he’d said thirty. He’d also required that they be older than fifteen, have a Stamina class and two free Talent slots. He’d expected that to limit the pool of candidates pretty far, but he seemed to have been wrong.

Liluce had told him there’d been fights over who would get to learn from him. She’d had the elites break them up and interviewed the candidates yesterday to separate out those who were willing to listen to authority and those who just wanted glory.

It’s not the worst qualifier. After all, she’s the person who is going to have to manage them once I leave.

Most of the people in front of him were young, between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one. It was a bit weighted towards men, with eighteen men and twelve women. Nathan recognized a number of the candidates. Raf was here, the brown-skinned teenager who’d been digging in the trenches and accosted him as the Heirs had come back from their patrol to fireface pass. A few more were familiar as messengers from when Nathan had run all over the city breaking mind magic.

One of the girls was giving Nathan coquettish looks, and he remembered that she’d made a pass at him on the first night after Halsmet was freed. She was damned good-looking, with languid eyes, an athletic build and long, curly black hair.

Bah. Keep it professional. You’ve not sleeping with your students. There's enough Earth left in you for that.

He’d had thought about this, and had decided to be a harsh teacher, at least at the start. The biggest qualification here was motivation, and he wanted to separate out those who would never quit. With that thought in mind he started his planned speech. “You’re here because you want to learn antimagic. I can give you that Insight, granting the Talent that will make you immune to mages and their magics.”

He hopped atop the crushed fountain that had once occupied the center of the courtyard, mangled during his fight with Stella. “I have used my antimagic to kill dozens of mages and four archmages of Giantsrest. One of them died right there.” He pointed at the fallen balcony that had crushed part of the colonnaded walk around the courtyard.

“I’m immune to mental magic, fireballs and [disintegrate] spells. It’s helped me conquer dungeons and monsters. I am immune to magical traps, can see through magical stealth and can kill undead with a touch.”

He swept his gaze across the crowd below, meeting each of their eyes for a few seconds with as much intensity as he could manage. “I also cannot be healed. [Cure] spells do nothing, and neither do healing potions. I cannot use enchanted weapons or armor, and no beneficial spells of any kind can be cast on me.”

Nathan paused, watching to see who understood the significance of what he’d just said. Most people just watched him expectantly, but a short and somewhat pudgy dark-skinned guy seemed to recoil slightly. After a moment his brows drew down in thought and he opened his mouth slightly as if to ask a question. Then he closed it and looked curiously at Nathan.

Good, I found somebody who thinks.

Nathan started tracing places where he’d been injured. “I’ve lost my arms and legs multiple times and been stabbed in the gut more than once. My neck, spine and skull have all been broken. It’s impossible to avoid injuries when you can’t use magical weapons or armor and have to fight from close up to use your Talent. Antimagic is not armor.”

Most of the students had seen the conundrum at this point, but they were too awed to interrupt.

He pressed the point home. “To be an antimage, you must be capable of perfectly healing yourself from any injury, or else you will die. The second Talent slot you all have is for a powerful self-healing Talent. I will teach the Insights for that Talent, and only those who learn it will receive antimagic.

“Because make no mistake, without that Talent you will die. It will either happen quickly when a monster eats your guts and you cannot be healed, or slowly as you take weeks or months to heal every injury, and are left with a broken body and too few levels to challenge any foe.”

A few of the people in the courtyard looked less than certain about being there, but they didn’t move.

Nathan struck at their uncertainty. “Of course, the healing Talent will not prevent the monster from eating your guts. It will just mean you can survive it, and get back up to break its spine while poison burns in your veins. The path of an Antimage hurts. You will be a frontline fighter without all of the Talents of one. If you take classes that focus on antimagic then you won’t be able to fight people of your level on an even footing, but you will survive things nobody else could. You will be injured. You may be killed. This is not an easy Path to fame and glory.”

Some of his audience fidgeted, but nobody moved to leave.

“This is your choice to make. I want students who will keep going despite hardship, who can think through pain, who will fight through an Ending because they want to protect their city from all of the terrible magics of Davrar.”

Nathan bared his teeth, evaluating his audience. About half of them looked a little taken aback by his speech, glancing around and biting their lips uncertainty. The rest looked serious, and Raf and the flirtatious girl both seemed downright eager.

Nathan pointed towards the open gate. “This isn’t a commitment. You won’t swear any oaths today. If you want to leave at any point, I’ll let you go. The only people who will become antimages are those who want it. Anybody?”

None of the students moved. A few threw surreptitious glances towards the gate, but peer pressure was enough to keep all of them in place. Nathan marked them. Unless any of those students particularly surprised him, they’d doomed themselves. He didn’t want people who were here to impress their friends, and he'd single them out to see if they broke like he thought they would.

“Alright, let’s get started. Before we get to the Insights we’re going to go for a run. Drop out if you need to, we’ll meet back here in an hour. At that point I’ll answer questions and start explaining the Insights for self-healing Talent. Follow me.”

Nathan started out of the gate, jogging casually. His students followed him, but it was a hard pace for many of them. They all had Stamina and different levels of physical fitness, but Nathan outleveled all of them several times over, and he wanted to judge them regardless of their current class. He was going to drain their resources and evaluate them on how hard they were willing to push themselves on an empty tank.

Anybody who dropped out because they were breathing hard wasn’t going to last long. He wanted to find the people who would keep running until they threw up, then stand back up and keep going.

—

An hour later and five circuits of the city later he returned to the courtyard with four people following him. Twenty more were waiting for him to resume the lessons, which confirmed that several people had decided this wasn’t for them as soon as there weren’t eyes on them. But Nathan was focused on the four who’d stuck with him the whole time. He’d slowed down once it became clear that none of them were giving up, but they still staggered into the courtyard with him.

I think I might have my top candidates right here.

The first was Raf, the intense teenager who had been working on the dirt fortifications a few days before. He'd challenged Nathan to teach him antimagic, and seemed committed to following through on that. He was probably nineteen years old, with a wiry build, light brown skin and a thick mop of dark hair. He’d run without complaint, focused on his feet and breathing mechanically.

The second was the curly-haired girl who’d been making eyes at Nathan earlier. Her name was Shai, and he’d expected her to be among the first to drop out. He’d made an effort not to give her any attention, expecting her to deflate and quit when rebuffed. But she’d demonstrated a dogged determination that had surprised him. When he’d asked the group if anybody needed a break, she’d replied challengingly even as everybody else had been heaving for breath.

The third and fourth were siblings, a brother and sister. The brother was Shom, and he was the short pudgy black guy who had noticed the drawbacks of antimagic first. He’d had the hardest time keeping up at the start, but his sister had encouraged him with a few words. During a short break he’d asked for some tips about running and Nathan was pretty sure Shom had taken a running utility skill after that.

I think he figured out that I have one, and decided to follow suit. He’s smart, curious and asks lots of questions. I like him.

Shom’s sister was Hetal. She was shy, and hadn’t said a word to Nathan yet. That was clearly a common occurrence, and her brother had introduced her. She was a few years older, with clear black skin, long limbs and straight black hair that was tied back but still went down to the small of her back. She seemed to be the highest level of all of the students, and had only run out of Stamina twenty minutes before.

Nathan ran his eyes over his diminished audience, marshaling his thoughts as they dug into the lunch of boiled grain and vegetables he’d arranged to have waiting for them.

He was definitely going to stick to the highlights at first, but he needed to explain enough for them to have a chance at [Regeneration] in the next week or so. The plan was to trim the number of students down quickly, so he’d be able to individually tutor those who remained.

“Nathan Lark. We must speak.” Faline’s voice came from the rubble of the colonnade, where her shadowed form lurked out of sight of everybody but him.

With a sigh Nathan walked over to the assassin, leaving his students to their meal.

“Time to talk about Giantsrest?”

The black-clad woman dipped her head gravely, the streaks of iridescent color in her hair shimmering at the motion. “Indeed. We will depart soon to fulfill the prophecy of death cast upon them.”

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Aura of Antimagic 9

Permanent Talent 2: Perfected Body 9

Permanent Talent 3: Airwalking 3

Class: Void of Magic level297

Deepened Stamina: 8031/9210

Void of Feeling

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Implacable Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Magic Anathema

Airborne Agility

Hand-to-hand Expertise

Voluminous Aura

Denial of Wizardry

Mana Severance

Class: Magekiller level 117

Regenerative Focus: 1193/1270

Catastrophic Blows

Battle Stealth

Mage Infiltration

Forgettable

Unsuspecting Strike

Antimagic Stealth

Spell Redirection

Lethal Index

Utility skills:

Battle Meditation 10

Leadership 8

Acceleration 2

Wizard Senses 2

Alertness 4

Wizard’s Intuition 1

Effortless Dodge 1

Mental Fortress 6

High-tier Lecturing 7

High-tier Tumbling 10

High-tier Noticeability 2

Low-tier Quiet Movement 4

Low-tier Disguise 4

Mid-tier Battle Cry 7