Chapter 65: Rematch

Not all surface dwellers were so convinced however. Faust’s agents had infiltrated many nations prior to the invasion, and through subterfuge or greed many were brought to the evil god’s cause.

Cedric Bospian. In The Last Dragon War, 1st ed.

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A handle appeared on the previously handless door and a bell chimed.

They all looked at each other, and then Zale strode forward, holding her shield up as she threw the door open and jumped out.

“Clear!” she called from within, and they all followed out into the... somewhere.

“Where in the world are we?” Doug said, looking around at it all in equal wonder.

“I don’t think we are in the world at all,” Kole said. “I think we are in a pocket realm.”

“It’s the Dahn,” Zale said confidently, but chose not to elaborate.

The ground they stood on was black stone and extended thirty feet in all directions where it ended in a jagged line. All around them platforms of the same stone and varying sizes floating in an endless abyss of a familiar blacker than black. Debris floated between the large islands, books, wood, and paper—lots of paper—all making viewing too far difficult.

The countless stone platforms rotated about a central one. Kole cast his new cantrip Looking Glass and examined the platform as it became visible amongst the floating chunks of land. In the center he saw a white stone plinth, and floating above it sat a golden sphere the size of an egg.

Kole relayed what he saw as he surveyed the other platforms searching for the other teams through the fields of debris, but he couldn’t see anyone.

Rakin was busy testing his ability on the stone floor, happy to find that he could shape it while Zale and Doug kept a watch on their immediate surroundings.

“We should move towards the center,” Zale said.

“How?” Rakin asked. “Can ye fly now?”

“That platform is close, we can jump,” Zale said, pointing to one nearby that was at a steep incline from their current one but moving in the same general direction.

They moved over and Zale made the jump first. Her running leap started out normal, but as soon as she crossed the edge of the platform, her trajectory stopped falling toward the ground. She sailed in a straight line at an upward angle until she passed over the edge of the next platform where she landed awkwardly from the unexpected shift in gravity.

“There’s no gravity between the platforms,” Kole said, already running to make his own leap.

They made it to the next platform easily enough and then risked further jumps. Now that they were moving, Kole noticed that not all the platforms were sections of floor. The third one they landed on was a piece of wall, a broken stained-glass window set in the center. Others were just large chunks of unworked stone.

The continued on this way, heading ever inward at an angle towards the center until Kole sensed the drawing of magic nearby.

“Attack!” Kole shouted, spinning around towards the source, shield bracer activating.

A beam of Fire struck Kole’s shield, while two more streaked for other targets. One hit Zale, striking her armor, while the other went for Doug but missed as he’d reacted quickly to Kole’s warning.

Zale let out a hiss of pain, but it didn’t seem to slow her.

Up on a platform above, Kole saw a gnome crouching back behind cover.

“Isem Bongledoom!” Kole shouted to alert his friends, for once intentionally saying the gnomish last name incorrectly.

“Bobbledun!” the gnome shouted back from cover.

Kole scanned the surroundings for the other members of Kalka’s fist, but it wasn’t hard to find them. Parrotsong the Iron Vein barbarian crashed into their midst from above just as Shalin appeared with Duldin.

Zale moved to engage the pair that teleported in, trying to strike Duldin before he could recover from the disorientation.

Shalin’s rapier slashed at Zale’s sword, turning the felling strike into a glancing blow. The dwarf hissed in pain as he brought his mace around on Zale.

Rakin smashed the stone he’d been holding this whole time into the ground and it shattered into grains of sand which quickly formed a cloud around him and charged at Parrotsong.

She met him in the middle, and just before Rakin could land a blow, Duldin’s mace struck the stone platform, causing the ground to tremor violently. Parrotsong was unaffected, drawing on her primal powers to remain rooted. Rakin stumbled and was caught in the shoulder by Parrotsong’s giant wooden club.

He flew across the platform, his dust cloud falling to the ground where he’d been.

When the tremor struck, Kole knew he’d struggle to remain standing, and threw up another shield, just in time to take the trio of force darts that struck toward him.

Zale vanished just as the tremor occurred, slipping into the void just in time for Shallan’s prepared attack to pass through where she was. She appeared behind the space primal and swung back. The two girls began a repeat of their strange multidimensional game of tag.

Doug began firing arrow after arrow at Duldin, retreating to the edge of the platform to leap to another to find cover. The dwarf raised his shield and began to chant. All around Doug the stone splintered, turning into grit and it around him in a spiral. His vision was quickly obscured as the particles of sand peppered his exposed skin.

Kole wanted to help the others, but the wizard was his responsibility at the moment.

Kole drew his blasting rod and sent a bolt at Isem as he too tried to get to a different platform for safety. He chose the blasting rod as it was the attack he could form the quickest in his mind, and he kept up a constant barrage of the projectiles to force Isem to stay behind cover.

He planned to cast Shatter, but the casting of that spell took longer than most and he needed to buy some time.

Kole took a chance on Shatter, but Isem jumped up with an attack ready and Kole had to abandon his spell to throw up another shield.

Isem ducked after the attack and Kole risked it, constructing Shatter again. Isem was standing and firing another spell when Kole completed his own, and they let them go at the same time. The shrill whistle reverberated strangely off all the stone in the air, and it briefly drowned out the din of the battle.

Kole dropped flat to the ground after losing his spell, his fingers still in his mouth from the whistling. Isem’s beams landed all around him, one leaving a burn down the length of his calf, just grazing him but causing him to cry out in pain all the same.

He readied a shield for the next attack that didn’t come, and looked around the battlefield to make sure that the gnome wasn’t hiding elsewhere. With Isem nowhere to be seen, Kole judged he’d sufficiently harmed the other wizard with the spell to see him sent out of the match.

Kole's friends were still struggling with their foes. Rakin, once more surrounded by his cloud of dust, was fighting against the barbarian—the much taller girl’s head sticking above the cloud of dust that surrounded him. The girl looked haggard, but the large staff she’d been carrying had started to grow vines from it that, judging by the smoke coming out of the cloud and the glow Kole saw within, were wrapped around Rakin.

Doug and Zale had switched foes, and now the Space primals were battling it out. Doug would teleport away to put distance between them to loose an arrow, and Shalin would follow, trying to stab him before he could get away. Her face was on of utter furry and she looked like she wanted to actually kill Doug.

Zale now was battling the enemy dwarf, and he was on the defensive. He was relying heavily on his own magic to keep a dust storm up around him. While Zale’s Willsight allowed her to see in many situations others could not, a magical storm of dust was one it would only blind her further.

Kole began casting Mind Lash, a second-tier Mind spell he’d yet to cast on a person. He thought back to the dossier as he chose a target. His initial instincts had directed him to target the big barbarian with the mental attack, but something in Runt’s pilfered horde of knowledge suggested that would be a mistake.

He wasn’t sure how she’d acquired this information, but the dossier had contained everyone’s grade for the mental defense training from PREVENT and, counter to Kole’s expectations, Parrotsong had been in the top of the class. Shalin, however, had been near the bottom.

Kole formed a triangle with his hands, and waited for Shalin to teleport, not wanting to risk her disappearing the moment he cast the spell. He didn’t have to wait long as Doug vanished from in front of her, appearing twenty feet away facing the wrong direction—he still hadn’t gotten the hang of aiming the ability.

He spun around just in time to dodge Shalin’s first attack as she teleported to behind him. Doug wouldn’t have been able to react to a follow-up, but Kole was ready. As soon as she’d disappeared, he’d targeted Doug with his hands and waited.

When she reappeared beside his friend, Kole sighted on her and unleashed the spell. The effect was instantaneous, she didn’t recoil in pain and clutch her hands as was Kole’s experience with Mind Spike, but her whole body went rigid and she began to twitch, as if she had to fight to get her body to obey. Her attack slowed, and Doug easily side stepped it bringing the flat of his bow around to strike her in the side of the head.

Kole had never been struck by a bow before. His initial thought was that it wouldn’t hurt too bad, but seeing how Shalin vanished, whisked away by the Dahn to prevent her from dying, it must have been far worse than he expected.

At his leader’s disappearance, Duldin let out a roar.

“I’m doing it!” he shouted, giving Parrot some prearranged signal.

Whatever Duldin was planning, Kole planned on stopping it, as he began to cast Silence. Zale had a similar idea, and the chant Duldin had begun ceased as Zale activated her own silence aura.

Duldin swung his mace at her, sending her back, and he resumed his chanting just in time for Kole’s Silence to appear and mute his casting.

That last spell exhausted the last of Kole’s Will, and he drew out the first of his two potions of clarity. He reveled in the renewing of his mind as he drank it and noted that he’d almost missed the horrible taste.

The action distracted him from the fact that Parrotsong had broken away from Rakin and was charging right for Kole.

Rakin’s dust cloud had faded and he was covered in burning vines. He looked to be on his last leg, but so did Parrotsong. Kole sent a Radiant Bolt at her, but even as it struck her she kept coming. One of Doug’s arrows hit her, and vines sprouted around her from it trying to entangle her, but she ripped them and the arrow away without slowing.

With no time left, Kole summoned a shield through his bracer, and held his arm up, braced for the blow that was about to come.

The full force of Parrotsong’s charge was transferred through the bracer, and into Kole’s arm. The bracer shattered before Kole’s arm did, but not without some serious bruising, sending Kole flying back nearly to the edge of the platform.

The blow had been so intense, Kole’s mental thread of connection to the Silence failed, and he heard Duldin chanting once more.

Before Kole could do anything else, the dwarf, who’d begun running away from Zale, slammed his mace into the stone ground with the completion of his chant.

The ground trembled, and cracks propagated out from where he’d struck it in the center.

“Get off the platform!” Rakin shouted, still only halfway to Kole.

Kole spun around looking for somewhere to flee to and spotted a large chuck of stone nearby. He clambered to his feet and jumped off the edge, trusting in his momentum to carry him over the distance.

The cracking sound behind him grew louder, and whatever magic caused the platforms to float gave out, as all the pieces dropped into the void.