Magekiller: From The World of Theria

“Don’t discard your blade. Don’t use your blade for anything other than an opponent. A sword deserves better than that. And sometimes you’ll encounter an opponent who won't fight with the honour of the sword in mind. That much is only natural.” Even in the dead of night, Karl’s sword shone. An unbelievable polish, a standard Ulfric couldn’t hope to match. The ageing man, Ulfric’s master, spoke with a gruff voice like a gently roaring bear. He swung his sword in perfect strokes as thought his muscles were constructed specifically for swinging a sword.

Every movement made Ulfric jealous, and he foolishly struggled to imitate. “Why would someone do such a thing?” He asked. Even though he too was a trained warrior, his attacks looked clumsy compared to Karl’s.

“Respect for the sword is not common sense, my son.” Karl stopped, glancing at his blade pensively. “Just as there are those who do not respect you, yourself.”

Ulfric took a step and swung, another step and swung. His sword sliced the air with a whistle. “And when we encounter a person like that… What do we do?” He asked.

Karl smiled, and sat himself down gently by the firelight. In the dead of night, in the middle of the woods, this was the only safe haven. He watched Ulfric swinging, giving no sign for him to stop, and intensely critiquing each strike as he always did. “An opponent who doesn’t respect the sword doesn’t respect you. Such an adversary should be eliminated by any means necessary… A friend who does so may be taught, but an enemy should be annihilated.”

“Annihilated–” Ulfric repeated. “What exactly is the purpose of a sword, master?

Karl gave a slow sigh. “You’re getting better,” he said. “What do you say we turn in for the night? I”m sure your father will be expecting me.”

Ulfric hesitated, but turned his head down in disappointment eventually. “Fine.”

“But first, come here.” Karl placed out a palm. Resting in it was a strange item Ulfric didn’t recognize. It was red, with characters from a different language. A charm, perhaps. “For you. For your sword,” Karl said.

“What is it?” Ulfric asked, taking it into his hand.

“A charm. I picked it up while I was in Hinomori. It means intellect in their language. Apparently Ryuma Hajimori had a similar charm on the end of his sword.” Karl scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “The salesman told me it referred to intelligence, and… Well. It reminded me of you,” he said.

Ulfric clenched it in his fist and smiled. “Thank you, master.”

* * *

Tuesday, September 3rd, 996 ABE

How things change. If you could see me now, Karl, I’d likely never hear the end of it.

The charm fluttered on his blade, and Ulfric stalked into the night. Sometimes he leapt across the rooftops, and sometimes he dashed down alleyways. Lancaster usually didn’t care to notice. The average citizen didn’t care about a war being fought in the night between the ordinary and the extraordinary. They hardly bothered to look out their windows to see those boots thumping across their roof or the clashing in the alleyways. Those things were dangerous, and the average person wasn’t much for danger.

Ulfric, however, thrived in danger. He considered himself a very simple man. He enjoyed competition, challenge, fighting, and the adrenaline in his veins. If he could attain these things while fighting criminals, it was all the better. He’d come to Lancaster Academy because he knew there would be a challenge for those looking. Dethroning Cedrick, the Academy’s most powerful, would be a difficult task, but it wasn’t difficult enough to keep Ulfric satisfied.

Because of that, he took to the night. The nobles of the city were corrupt, just like their king. They funded the Academy and lobbied their way into controlling the law enforcement to their will. They used the magicless like slaves and killed them if they glanced at them the wrong way. It was time for the noblemen to have fear struck into their hearts just as Ulfric once had. Because of that, he stalked into the shadows, the one and only reaper of Lancaster.

Edwin Orion had lied about the locations of the criminal hideouts. Ulfric doubted he knew the true locations anyway. What mattered is that he more or less had confirmation of their existence. From there, it was easy enough to find. Criminals commanded by the nobility tended to be careless, seeing how the Dragon Guard were paid to not arrest them. They could often be found with their dens wide open, airing out into the night. Despite the collapse of house Orion, there was still enough doubt about the Magekiller’s existence for them to remain careless.

Ulfric was heading to the one and only den he was able to get concrete confirmation of, which was mentioned on a ledger inside of a hideout in Orion territory. When he’d interrogated one of the criminals there, he’d found out that a certain Roxanna Adler apparently made an appearance at the hideout in question every Tuesday night. Finding out why was an important question, but it didn’t really matter. Ulfric wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to catch the eldest daughter of the Adler household off guard.

Ulfric fell from a roof and landed in a dank alley. He’d already crossed Prospector Bridge. This part of town was Adler territory. The bricks were perfectly maintained but running wet with a light rainfall. The water splashed beneath Ulfric’s feet and discarded itself into the nearest drain. The infrastructure in the more expensive parts of town were immaculate compared to the valley, where human faeces clogged the streets, and any amount of water would flood.

A light came from the end of the alley. Two human figures were just barely visible through the fog of the night. Ulfric approached slowly. There was no rush to action. He wanted people like that to wallow in the fear before they died. Anyone who accepted money to menace civilians deserved it. Ulfric gripped the pommel of his first sword, and shuffled through the rain.

The two guards waited beside a metal door, small mana-light illuminating them. Under a small awning, they were able to have a cigarette without interruption from the rain. On each of their hands, they had small circular tattoos. To the common person they meant nothing. To the law they were ignored. To criminals, they were identifiers. The two men heard someone approach, and turned almost in perfect unison.

“Bacharach, God of blades. Witness as I unsheath this sword in your name, and know that this is a mercy killing for the sake of the world,” Ulfric whispered. He drew the blade in a quick, fluent motion. Even in the dark, the perfectly polished weapon glistened with what little light it could find. The longsword had magic runes engraved all the way down its length in an ancient language.

“Magekiller!” One of them cried.

Ulfric advanced. He pushed the man closest to him into the wall and sliced his throat. The body slid down the bricks, cigarette hitting the ground and hissing out in the rain. Ulfric turned to meet the remaining guard, sword neatly raised at his side. The man drew a dagger from his interior pocket, but not before Ulfric could relieve him of the arm that grabbed it and spear a blade through his chest. The man coughed blood, and died soon after the sword was wrenched from the gaping wound, hitting the ground in a massive heap.

An unlucky fellow near the metal door heard the commotion and opened it to investigate. In return, he received a sword in his mouth that pierced his spinal cord and killed him instantly. Ulfric kicked the body inside and heard the collective gasps of surprise as it hit the floor in an explosion of blood. He entered the room, boots leaving bloody footprints from the two bodies outside.

Five enemies, he noted, not much between me and them but a table. They’d been sitting in the centre of the room and playing a card game called Farka. They abandoned the game immediately, each grabbing whatever weapon they could scrounge. For three of them the weapon of choice was a dagger, for one it was a full-sized longsword, and for the last it was a six-shooter.

Ulfric immediately drew a dagger from his belt and flicked it at the enemy with the gun, who he’d determined to be the most potent threat. Mana enhanced reflexes allowed him to block with the pistol, a shower of sparks raining through the air as the dagger was deflected into the ceiling. What he didn’t account for, however, was the second dagger following right behind it in a nearly identical trajectory. He was struck straight between the eyes and fell backward into the chair he’d just stood from. Ulfric stifled a laugh, works every time.

Three of the men rushed head-on, while one remained to recite a spell incantation. Ulfric prioritised the man with the biggest weapon. Though the swordsman was enhanced by mana, he wielded it with a sluggishness and predictability as if he was afraid of his own weapon. Ulfric sliced through the defence like a knife to butter, weaving delicately between his arms and blade to cut his torso clean in half.

The top half of the body flew into the air, and Ulfric caught the lapel of its shirt, heaving with a grunt to throw it at the nearest dagger-wielding opponent. It hit him straight on, sending him to the floor with a comical thud of metal gear. The body of his dead comrade pinned him down, and he writhed around desperately trying to escape the obstruction. Meanwhile, Ulfric confronted the remaining enemy.

The last dagger-wielder on the field was on top of him, and Ulfric barely managed to sidestep a few vicious slashes before ultimately catching the man’s hand and jerking the muscle to release the dagger. He released, punched him across the face to send him reeling away, granting himself enough space to slash him straight up the chest. About five seconds had gone by. The incantation was now complete.

Ulfric faced it head-on. A fireball plumed from the man’s hand, gradually growing in size until the sizzling flame consumed the room. Then, unlike what might usually happen, the fireball vanished. The man who’d casted it fell to the floor in a bloody heap. Ulfric sliced through the fireball, effortlessly dispersing the magic into the air. The runes on his sword glowed a vibrant white, pulsating as if begging for more. He huffed out, and moved to question the survivor.

The man was struggling beneath the body of his friend, the swordsman who’d probably been wearing at least one hundred pounds worth of gear. He only managed to slink out from underneath as Ulfric arrived, quickly disarming him and slamming him into the wall, hand clenched around his throat. The man coughed in pain, spittle striking Ulfric’s mask.

“Roxanna Adler,” Ulfric stated.

“She’s here,” the man pleaded. “Down. Downstairs.” He raised his hand slowly, pointing to the one and only door in the room. “This… Is only the entryway,” he explained. “The warehouse is–”

Ulfric slashed the man’s throat and discarded his body to the side. He flicked the blood off of his sword and wiped what remained off on his cloak before sheathing it. One last look around the gore-filled room, and he proceeded to the lonesome door on the other side. The smell of iron was staunching the air by then. Ironically, Ulfric never much enjoyed the smell of it. Stay focused, he reminded himself.

The door led to a spiral staircase into the darkness. Ulfric lingered at the top for only a moment, but proceeded after due hesitation. He didn’t fear the darkness, but something about it all felt a little bit strange. Why would the heir to an all-powerful royal house be inside such a place? He felt as if he was about to stumble upon a conspiracy larger than his mind could imagine. These thoughts made every step more hesitant than the last. Ulfric was a lot of things, but cocky was not one of them. I should withdraw. Go back, get backup… No. No. I can’t wait another week for this chance.

Voices sounded from the bottom of the stairwell. Mana fluttered through the air. Ulfric stepped out into the darkness and immediately crouched down. It really is a warehouse. There were rows upon rows of industrial shelving that ran into the distance and disappeared into various dark corners. All of it was underground, an unfathomable amount of space. How the hell do they keep this hidden? Is this the only entrance?

He stood on a metal balcony. To his left was a staircase down to the warehouse level. He had a clear vantage point of almost everything, and quickly surveyed everything before ducking away. Wooden boxes lined the shelves, but with what? Directly below Ulfric was a potential answer. An opening in the shelves, a clearing occupied by ten or so people. One was a tall woman with brown hair. Roxanna Adler. It must be. Ulfric kept down and leaned closer to hear the voices. In times like this, he often wished he could enhance his ears like a mage could.

Roxanna leaned against one of the many boxes in the clearing. She wore the outfit of a noble in a very dishevelled way, a dark red button-up shirt was unbuttoned a few from the top, just enough to be seductive. Her hair was tied into a remarkably tight ponytail, eyes sharp and distrusting. It wasn’t the type of sophisticated outfit you might wear to a ball, but rather a toned down version of a noble, someone expecting to fight but without any suitable brawling outfits available. I like her style. Much superior to her sister, Ulfric smiled.

“You’ll have your payment,” she said. “This is it?” She asked, regarding with curious eyes the box she’d been resting on.

“One hundred thousand crowns a unit,” the man replied. He wore a lab coat, with a bald head and a spectacled face. “This is the prototype. We’re only able to provide that singular unit for now.”

“A reasonable price,” Roxanna replied.

What could that possibly be a reasonable price for? Is it a magic item? Magic items that helped enhance power in some way or form were the only singular items Ulfric had ever heard of reaching that price. Even so, every single magic item he was carrying wasn’t even worth that much combined.

“Only the most reasonable price for our top benefactor. This will also be the first unit we hand out publicly.” The man gestured for his two underlings to open the box. “The mana gauntlet mark five. Feel free to put them on.”

The Adlers are paying people to manufacture mana weapons? Whatever it is, I’ll probably lose my chance to eliminate Roxanna here if she’s able to put them on. Ulfric raised his fist and clenched it, rings glistening in the dull overhead mana light of the warehouse. I’ll kill Roxanna here, and destroy that weapon! The four magic rings each had a spell embedded into them. They were single use, though refillable if a mage could be obliged to do so. In other words, for now, they were single use. One fireball, two shields, one healing.

Fireball! The mass plumed from the ring and exploded away from him like a meteor raining down upon the Earth. The man in the lab coat was covered by a quick-reacting guard and ushered away. Light flashed through the warehouse, and then the explosion as it impacted the ground. Ulfric covered his ears, and in the next moment leapt from the balcony into the fray.

At least half of the guards were obliterated in the blast. One of them had run away with the man in the lab coat. When the smoke cleared, four remained. They were the only ones able to cast a mage-shield quick enough to survive the blast, the blue hexagonal magic slowly dissipating as the danger subsided. Roxanna had her arm raised, shielding her eyes from the blast. Unlike the others, she didn’t appear particularly surprised at the occurrence.

“The Magekiller,” she noted, seemingly uninterested. “I’ve been looking forward to the day I might meet you.”

“Likewise, prodigy of house Adler.” Ulfric drew his sword and took up a combat stance. I’m outnumbered, and to top it off I have no clue about the girl’s abilities. This doesn’t look good.

“You three…” Roxanna contemplated the weapon in the box for a moment, but ultimately decided against it. “Go. Get out of here.”

“My lady! We won’t leave!” One of the men said. The three that remained seemed to be from Roxanna’s security detail.

“This is the man that wiped out house Orion just the other night. You’ll only get in my way.” She walked past her men to take the front, rolling up her sleeves. Mana swirled the air around her, focusing on her hands. The only item of note on her was a pocketwatch, which she drew from her belt and stared at intently. “Five minutes,” she said. “If I’m not done by then, fetch help.”

“It will be done, my lady.”

She’s intending to fight me by herself. Why do I feel as if my odds haven’t changed? Ulfric watched her closely. Despite the fact that she didn’t carry a weapon at all, he had the sensation that her fists were all she needed. A carefully tempered sense of excitement set in as they circled around each other, waiting patiently until her underlings disappeared from sight.

“Shall we, Magekiller?” She asked.

“My pleasure,” Ulfric replied. He shifted his stance to something a bit harder hitting, sword over his shoulder as if preparing to swing a bat.

They dashed. Ulfric swung, and Roxanna met the blade with her bare fist. Ulfric prepared for the sensation of his blade tearing through flesh, but instead was stopped in the middle of the motion. The power of the strike reverberated into his shoulders and tore a muscle somewhere on his arm, but he steadied himself and conquered the panic. This is…!

Roxanna’s other fist struck out, ringing off of Ulfric’s blade as he deflected it. The force sent him sliding across the brick floor of the warehouse. He wedged his sword in between two of the bricks to stop the movement with a grunt. The charm on the pommel of his blade fluttered playfully.

“Intellect,” Roxanna said. “You adorn your sword like a child.”

“You don’t even use one,” Ulfric noted.

The woman shook her head. “A sword only serves to slightly sharpen a dull set of skills. A true fighter doesn’t need something silly like that.”

“You misunderstand the definition of a sword,” Ulfric hissed.

“Then show me.”

Don’t be provoked. Ulfric remained patient. Roxanna had somehow shielded her fists to make them impervious to attacks. More than likely, a single strike from one of them would be enough to knock him out of the game entirely. This combined with whatever else she had in the arsenal meant he was outmatched. Rushing straight in is a stupid idea. I’ll get clobbered.

Roxanna didn’t wait for Ulfric to work out his strategy. The air between them broke, and Ulfric shielded himself milliseconds before his midsection could be annihilated. One of his rings fizzled out as he was sent flying into the nearest shelf, toppling them like dominoes. Dust settled throughout the warehouse, words echoing in his head like a persistent bell. Enemies who don’t respect the sword should be annihilated.

Ulfric sidestepped an incoming attack with a slash of his own. Roxanna’s forehead slowly revealed a line of blood that ran down into her eyes. What was once white was slowly polluted, and her eyes became red, perhaps more befitting of her demeanour. She stomped aggressively, unleashing a deadly flurry of punches at Ulfric who struggled to duck and weave under and around all of them.

Ulfric broke through, and cut her chest open with a cascading slash. She fell backward, narrowly avoiding a fatal wound with powerful instincts, a fall to the floor just narrowly prevented as she managed to keep her balance. She pushed mana into her legs to keep herself upright, centering it weakly around the wound to stop the pain. Unfortunately, Ulfric knew the blood loss from such a shallow cut wasn’t enough to keep her out of the fight for any amount of time worthwhile.

She rushed forward, Ulfric ducked, wind of the strikes blowing his hair wildly. With each small movement and micro adjustment of his body he moved ever so slightly backwards. In time, he’d be backed against the wall, and was already beginning to be boxed in on either side by the shelves that had yet to be knocked over. All that remained was a laneway, a path directly to the opponent, and a small amount of space behind him. Do or die, he thought.

He pushed forward into what seemed to be an impenetrable defence. The noblewoman raised her arms, fists clenched like a boxer, only a boxer wouldn’t fight an opponent with a sword. On paper it seemed foolish that the matchup would even be a challenge at all. Unfortunately for Ulfric, her talent for a combination of shielding magic and mana enhancement meant that her fists not only had the durability of bricks, but also hit like a brick too, despite having the unnatural speed of a magic user.

As he edged closer, it was like moving closer to annihilation, closer to the sun or a black hole. Her fists became harder to dodge and easier to die from. Two fists converged on him. He leapt upwards and kicked down, redirecting the blow into the floor and sending himself further up. The room shook as the fists connected with brick, rattling everything in it to the bone, including the shelves which confined them.

Ulfric hit the ground behind Roxanna running. His priority wasn’t to defeat her, but destroy or acquire whatever was in that box. He ran for it, wishing he had another fireball in stock to simply destroy it. However, by the thundering steps from behind him, it seemed he wouldn’t make it that far. Roxanna had ascertained his goal, and she’d decided to get to them first. Even from underneath the fallen shelves, she effortlessly shook off those restraints and charged straight ahead. That was the utter brute strength of a warrior mage.

A shadow fell upon him, and he turned to greet it. The ravenous beast flew in the air above him, fist raised for a mighty ground-pound. The wind-up was long enough to allow a dodge, but the shockwave as she slammed into the ground laid him out flat, struggling against the earthquake of reverberations. The entire warehouse shook, the shelves threatening to topple, the lights swinging wildly back and forth like chandeliers. Despite that, she took off with mana-enhanced legs across a dangerous landscape of her own design.

No! Ulfric did not vocalise this thought as the enemy neared his prize. He clenched his teeth, climbing onto a knee despite himself. He assumed a pose not unlike someone throwing a javelin, only with a sword, his sword. It was an enchanted blade, and one capable of absorbing active magic and discharging it. This was the final resort. Mana gauntlets. If they’re run on mana, this will destroy them! He winced in pain from a torn arm muscle, and threw the blade with all of his might.

The charm fluttered through the air. Intellect. He thought about what exactly that meant. What did intellect mean to a person in a battle? Was the meaning simply to make the right choices in combat? To have proper judgement? Ulfric thought it more than that. Intellect was the art of knowing exactly what to do, and when. When to hold fast on your beliefs and when they didn’t matter. Right then, Ulfric knew his own beliefs didn’t matter. The time to atone was later, and the time to act was now.

Two of the fundamental sword arts. Don’t discard your sword. A sword should be used only for attacking a foe. Ulfric had broken those rules more than once, but he’d never broken both at the same time. Thinking about it made him smile, and he thought he could hear the voice of his master scolding him. Such a thing would get a swordsman removed from most dojos, thrown out remorselessly into the dirt. Breaking the sword arts was to them as blasphemy was to a priest.

Ulfric held a belief that was fundamentally different from the average ‘serious’ swordsman. First and foremost, that the sword was ultimately an item used to serve the user and the greater good, and that it should be used and discarded as such. Where the average swordsman would’ve charged, been too late, and gotten beaten by the gauntlets, Ulfric threw his sword without a moment of deliberation. This was the fine line, he believed, that separated intellect from stupidity. There’s no room for honour or ‘rules’ in a world like this one. Only winners and losers.

One of the first things Ulfric had learned was that the real world wasn’t as idealistic as those swordsmen believed. They fought for honour and respect, but the average person fought to win. I fight to win, Ulfric thought. To hell with your rules. My sword is different than yours, master. Ulfric saw Karl standing, watching over him. My sword is efficient. My sword doesn’t serve made up rules. My sword serves me. My sword does the job without hesitation, without honour, without respect. My sword wins. Shun me, put me down, it doesn’t matter. I’ll win. That is the purpose of my blade.

Roxanna’s mana enhanced eyes caught the sword at the corner of her vision. It wasn’t targeting her, but the box containing the gauntlets. With any luck, it would pierce straight through and destroy them. She wasn’t going to allow that, though. Her next move was something that made Ulfric realise he’d underestimated the importance of those gauntlets. Roxanna stepped into the path of the sword, the blade tearing straight through the middle of her back.

“Magic absorbing. Interesting!” She mused. She’d attempted to use a mana shield for her back, but the sword had devoured it and struck through. The weapon hadn’t struck anything vital, and the bleeding wouldn’t be significant so long as it remained in her body. She stomped forward as if she hadn’t been attacked at all, and reached into the box.

Ulfric drew the pistol from underneath his coat and emptied it in her direction. Four bullets bounced off of a mage-shield, clinking onto the ground harmlessly. He growled like a ravenous dog, hand coming to rest on his second sword. He gripped tightly, and drew it as he began to run. It was a race with only seconds remaining to beat the clock before she could put the mysterious weapon to the test.

He started by grabbing the hilt of his sword and pulling it free. One sword in each hand, he prepared to strike. However, Roxanna was ready, turning around quickly with a terrifying weapon raised over her head. It was like a gigantic gauntlet, only mechanical and pulsating gently with blue mana. It clinked as she clenched her large, grey fist as if it was struggling to do so. The weapon had a core, a place that was pulsating more so than the rest. That’s it, Ulfric thought, but it was far too late to consider vulnerabilities.

The weapon came down upon him. He used his remaining shield, but it was shattered instantly. The two swords he’d crossed over his chest to block with snapped in half with perfect unison, and several of his ribs were broken at once, flying about inside of his chest and puncturing several important places he was sure. He spat blood, and was sent flying across the warehouse, flipping over himself and sliding weakly to a stop on the cold, hard floor.

“Phew.” Roxanna clenched and unclenched the mighty fist. “Not bad,” she said. Her tone was like a parent admiring her newborn.

Ulfric lay still. I’ll die, he thought, I need to get out of here. His eyelids fluttered, struggling to find stable ground. The blades and their fractured pieces lay scattered around him, one of which even found its place embedded in his shoulder while they flew. I failed. He placed a hand on the floor and attempted to pull on a nonexistent well of strength. Can’t win. Need to run.

Roxanna, though she was human and wounded, had now become something beyond Ulfric’s grasp. A single strike multiplied her strength enough to break two enchanted blades. It couldn’t be quantified. Such power was unnatural, especially in the hands of one unworthy. Ulfric, in this realisation, felt pain from his inside. Severe, emotional pain. All of this time. I’m not good enough.

He clenched down and the final ring sprung to life. This spell had been bestowed upon the ring by an S-rank warrior. To get another would be expensive, no doubt, but it was better than being dead. Something that far surpassed the trivial healing magic of Maya’s healing overcame his body, bright green healing energy. For the ten seconds it was active, Ulfric’s regeneration would be powerful enough to make him invincible save for decapitation. His ribs quickly healed, the wound on his shoulder closing over and popping out the fraction of his blade. Even the scar around his eye disappeared, not that Roxanna could see it. To Roxanna, he should’ve been dead, and yet he stood.

You… Are the antithesis to the sword. I’ll destroy you, Ulfric thought.

This swordsman isn’t ordinary. He’s willingly discarding all of the tenets of their craft just to beat me, Roxanna thought.

Roxanna had seen similar things before. S-ranked mages were the peak of the magic world, and only a few thousand existed in the entire world. In the entirety of Lancaster, there was only a single S-rank who lived there, and that was the principal of Lancaster Academy. These high ranked mages were the only people she’d ever witnessed using a spell of self healing. To them, things such as getting an arm or a leg cut off were only an impediment for a few seconds. Seeing Ulfric rise from the ground and heal himself in such a way lead her to only one conclusion. She’d underestimated him, and fatally so. If Ulfric was an S-ranked warrior, the gauntlet would not be enough.

She’ll get away! Ulfric took a few steps to chase after Roxanna as she fled into the recesses of the warehouse. Not only was she faster than him, but it was also a stupid idea. Part of himself wanted to take credit for the transgression, but it puzzled him nonetheless. Unlike most of his plans, this victory seemed to be by accident or coincidence. The self heal? He wondered. That must be it. Well, I’m glad that using such a rare spell turned out to be worth it.

Pain lingered, even though he’d healed. It was a strange feeling. The brain knew he’d been injured, and was doing gymnastics to cope with the fact that it vanished suddenly. One of the many effects of magic on the body was that the brain was forced to adjust to unnatural circumstances or simply shut off. Brain lag was the term commonly used for it. Calm down, he spoke into the echo chamber of his head, you’ll be alright, it's only magic. But speaking to himself did nothing to quell the vertigo.

He shuffled to the box and looked inside to confirm that Roxanna had taken both gauntlets. Shit. He shook his head. Failure loomed over his head. This was the first time he’d had such a close encounter on one of his nightly excursions. Compared to Roxanna Adler, the entirety of house Orion seemed to be rather incompetent. Ulfric cursed himself under his breath, and begrudgingly began to leave the warehouse from the way he came.

At the top of the balcony, his master waited for him. A hallucination or maybe a product of the brain lag. Neither, Ulfric thought, just his past wanting to haunt him as usual. He confronted it head on, cradling the broken shards of his blades in his hands. The man looked down on him. Karl had always been tall.

“You insist on following your own code, Ulfric. Look where that got you,” he said.

“This would’ve happened regardless. Your tenets have nothing to do with it, old man.” Ulfric brushed him off and tried to walk by.

“Your thirst for victory over your superiors corrupts you. You’ve become rash. Headstrong.”

“I’ve become strong! This is what it takes to surpass my limits! You wouldn’t get it!” Ulfric yelled at nothing. Only when the vision vanished did he freeze, breathing heavily. “A good man can’t do this job,” he said. “The good men are off somewhere doing something more important. Lancaster gets me.” He leaned against the wall near the doorway, and stared at the ground intently as if he might find the answer there. “Get out of my fucking head,” he said. “I don’t answer to you anymore.”

He opened the door and lingered there for a moment. Looking back over the warehouse, he frowned. It was a shame he couldn’t investigate further, or even destroy the place entirely. Whatever was inside, however, didn’t seem to relate at all to the manufacturing of the mana weapons. That proof would be found at the Adler estate, his next target.

“See you soon, Roxanna Adler.”