Millennial Mage

Tala… may have gotten carried away.

She pulled the metal away from her mouth as she spat blood to the side.

The iron was instantly stripped away as the thick fluid left her mouth, leaving a clear splatter on the rock beside her.

A hundred yards away her opponent hunkered low and let loose a roar that shook the ground and caused the nearby trees to tremble.

The sound was like a mix of a heavy, rasping breath and the beginnings of a growl, projected at volumes that would break mundane eardrums.

Yes, this fight might have been a bit much for her to take on while simply traveling between cities.

Tala had been nearly halfway to Bandfast when she decided to divert into the mountains just north of that city as a way to take a new route back there.

As she traversed the increasingly rugged terrain, she had sensed a powerful collection of magic coming from within a moderately well-hidden valley, easily a dozen miles deeper into the mountains than she had planned on going.

Even so, she’d been curious.

The valley was only two or three miles long and just over a mile wide, tucked high in the mountains.

A lake dominated one side, trees filled much of the remainder, snow capped the surrounding mountains, and the air was positively dripping with power.

Tala could sense no less than a dozen founts in caves surrounding the valley, all of which felt like they were earth or plant related, at least at a cursory inspection.

Alat had checked immediately, and Tala was not authorized to remove these founts. They were known and allowed for various purposes.

Since she was in the area, she was offered two gold to investigate the integrity of the area and ensure that nothing odd had cropped up.

As it turned out, something had.

Tala had noticed unusual movements in the zeme of the area near a cave in the northern most extreme of the valley. She had barely drawn near, in order to investigate when this creature had lunged forth.

The magical beast was seemingly a newer addition to the valley as it hadn’t been there a decade earlier, when the last Archon passed through the area.

As Alat reported the situation via Tala’s archive link, the reward had been upped to ten gold if she slew the creature and brought back the body. That said, defeating the monster was only to be her third priority behind, maintaining the integrity of the valley and keeping the corpse intact.

She should have asked for more.

The magical beast was a compact, four-legged, feline beast.

Its muscles bulged and flexed, looking more like those belonging to a bodybuilder than a standard specimen.

The flesh and fur were striped with browns, greens, blacks, whites, and oranges, letting it blend in perfectly with the surroundings to her mundane sight.

Its eyes were a bright blue, like a glacial lake, and its fangs and claws were the pure white of new fallen snow.

The big cat registered as green to her magesight, and it had a depth of power within its own body that would make chasms envious. Additionally, it was intimately connected to the valley in which she stood.

While she had fought magical beasts before, she’d never actually fought one on its home turf before, in the seat of its power. The prospect had seemed intriguing.

All told, the big beast looked reminiscent of a mundane tiger save its coloring, and its size.

It was as large as two caravan wagons and built like a city wall.

Magical beasts… A check through her memories—of the books that Master Grediv had given her so long ago—told her what it was.

It was an upland tiger.

The name was insultingly mundane given the truth of the creature.

It was quick.

Not in the way Terry could quickly reposition himself around a battlefield, but in the sense of reactions, reflexes, and the flexibility to distort in seemingly impossible directions to avoid her blows.

They had only clashed once in a rapid series of strikes given and received.

Tala had scored a cut deep into its side, causing clear blood—drained of its iron—to splash the ground beside them. The tiger had ignored the hit in order to backhand—Back paw?—her so hard that her mouth had filled with blood even before she’d slammed into a rock formation more than a hundred yards away with shattering force.

Thus, she had spat out her own blood as she pulled herself to her feet. It roared at her, and she realized that she might have been a bit hasty to pursue this fight.

Her magesight easily saw the torrents of power being drawn into the feline from the land around it, the slice on its side sealing in barely a breath.

Just like the book said…

-Well, we can only see information on the Refined version.-

Yeah, even so. It seems like it can’t heal while attacking, like the Refined variant can. It is using its roar as an area effect to give it space and time to enact its healing.

-Yeah. It also does seem to be tied to the land even more closely than most magical creatures that have areas as their bound source.-

The only hope is overwhelming power before it can heal, otherwise we’re fighting a well of resilience equivalent to a mountain valley.

-A magical mountain valley.-

Yeah… that does probably factor in.

-We also need to keep in mind that it could be more powerful or more capable in some aspects. Hopefully its known weakness still holds true: It can’t heal from anything that would instantly kill a normal animal.-

That’s basically only a beheading or brain obliteration. Even ripping out a heart takes a moment or two to lead to death.

-Severe trauma can kill something instantly. I’d recommend a dissolution breath to the head, like with the thunderbull, but more powerful, but we have to keep the corpse intact.-

Yeah, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to enact that level of trauma on a Paragon creature without ruining the body… wait, is it more correct to call it Honored?

-Seems like either is correct. But more importantly, the fight?-

The tiger crouched, the very ground around it seeming to compact and harden beneath its paws before it launched forward.

Tala grinned as she called Flow back to her hand, pushing power through it to change the form into a glaive as she set her feet against the charge.

In the second that it took the massive feline to close the distance between them, Tala felt her footing shift.

It was so unusual a sensation that she oriented one of her mirrored perspectives specifically downward.

For the fraction of a second that she had before impact, she watched in fascinated horror as the very ground beneath her feet seemed to break apart into loose sand and gravel, undermining her footing and stealing her ability to brace against the oncoming assault.

Well… rust. That wasn’t in the book.

-We did only read about the weaker version of this creature…-

Flow still took the tiger in the upper left shoulder, digging deeply even as the impact drove Tala into a backward slide.

Its right paw came in from the side in a sweep containing power closer to that of a battering ram than a conventional melee attack.

In response, Tala willed her upper layer of iron to aspect mirror Flow’s resistance to damage. After all, Flow—in sword form—was effectively just a wire, and yet it had never bent or deformed, regardless of what she’d put it through.

She hadn’t actually attempted this aspect of her power, having only seen it as theoretically possible in the vision she’d seen when merging Flow with the dasgannach.

There were several things that Tala did not account for.

First, and possibly oddest, was the fact that all the iron containing the mirrored aspect both heated up and vibrated to a crazy degree under that first blow.

It all began to glow a dull red almost instantly, having absorbed roughly half the kinetic energy of the hit as heat, the rest being converted to a buzzing vibration which rattled her teeth and almost caused her to lose her grip on Flow’s haft.

Second, the focus and will-power required to maintain the aspect mirror skyrocketed as the aspect was stressed by the blow.

The heat imparted to her outer layer of iron radiated inward almost instantly, but Tala was able to cool the white-steel with an additional flexing of her will.

All told, it was too much. She couldn’t hold the new aspect mirror under the stress and her concentration shattered at the second blow, this time from the tiger’s left paw.

Blessedly, Alat was able to help keep her cognizant enough that she didn’t lose her hold on Flow or her footing.

The first two strikes were far from the last, as tiger’s front legs were long enough for it to immediately begin a surprisingly rhythmic series of slashes, tearing through Tala’s iron, white steel, and flesh with equal ease, the left paw strikes only marginally weaker than the right.

That wasn’t to say that her defenses did nothing.

The feline forelegs bulged with straining muscles as it powered through each swipe. Its back legs shifted and braced to continue to push forward, lending it more power than even its considerable weight should allow.

Tala stalwartly held onto Flow, trying to shift to minimize the damage she took, even as she healed after each hit, pulling together and attempting to thicken the metals struggling to protect her from the beast.

Flow continued to work deeper, the clear liquid that flowed down the shaft mirrored by a stream of iron that she could feel flowing into the dimensions of magic around the weapon.

Despite what the books indicated about the lower powered variants of the upland tiger, this one seemed to be able heal while it was directly engaged, even if not to the same extent as when it was able to dedicate its focus.

The wound was actively closing around the still embedded glaive-form Flow, even if the gash was leveraged opened again almost immediately afterward. Additionally, the amount of blood-fluid and iron freely leaving the beast indicated that either it had some form of dimensionally expanded spleen, or it was generating new blood.

Or, it just has a massive volume, given the fact that it’s massive.

-Yeah, we haven’t been fighting it very long.-

Still, they looked at the increasingly slushy ground all around them, and they had to admit that it should have been at least slightly negatively affected by the loss of blood.

There was also the fact that they could see power flowing into it from the surrounding land, coalescing all through its body in patterns reminiscent of Tala’s own healing magics.

For her part, Tala wasn’t using that much of her reserves. The swiping claws certainly rent her open, but they didn’t actually remove that much material. As such, the wounds were magically expensive to repair, but not materially so.

Even so, she could easily see an issue.

They were both ‘take the damage and heal’ type fighters, and between the two of them, the tiger was doing more damage and looked to have deeper reserves to draw on.

True, Tala was fighting with several rather frustrating handicaps, but the state of things was still inarguable as they stood.

She could change the odds by using Flow in a void-form, but that would likely destroy at least a good part of the corpse, if it was effective at all.

It should be effective, but it would either be devastatingly effective to the point of being harmful overkill, or it would be useless. Thus, it wasn’t worth testing.

Or, I could just ignore the stipulation to preserve the body? She seriously considered it, but she was tired of doing things sloppily. She wanted to learn how to do things properly and as she aimed, without unneeded collateral damage or unintended results.

She briefly considered using a siege orb, but those had the same issue as Flow’s void-forms, plus more besides. Not only did she not trust that one would be sufficient to instantly kill the creature, she’d been asked to minimize damage to the valley and maintain the corpse, if possible.

All told, she was operating under pretty crazy restrictions.

It highlighted all the more clearly an issue she’d been noticing in her capacities. She could easily deal with weaker threats, and she could respond with hopefully overwhelming force against more powerful foes, but she had little that she could do in delicate situations if the threat was anywhere near her own power.

Then, as she was temporarily disemboweled for close to the fiftieth time, an obvious thought flickered into her mind, Well, you know, I don’t have to do this alone.

-Yeah, you are a flock now, right?-

Tala willed Kit to open at her waist, even as her abdomen was riven open yet again.

She was continually sliding and stumbling backwards, even as she continued to leverage and torque Flow to cause damage, and her lungs were only functional every other second or so.

Still, she managed to shout. “TERRY!”

Slice, lungs venting and unable to hold air.

Heal, quick inhalation and, “FIGHT!”

That was seemingly sufficient as the terror bird flickered out with an aggressive screech.

The avian’s eyes widened as he took in the creature Tala was facing, but he didn’t retreat. Though, Tala left Kit open so that he could if he needed to.

After all, Terry was only an arcanous creature, however powerful, and the upland tiger was a magical beast of significant advancement.

It was almost immediately obvious that Terry would have the same issues against the tiger as he did against Tala.

His talons couldn’t seem to pierce the fur and flesh, nor were his strikes strong enough to break the underlying bones.

Even so, he was strategic in his attacks, stealing the beast’s footing and allowing Tala to finally set herself enough to push back, even with the ground beneath her seemingly animated to rob her of footing.

Her surface area enhancing scripts were proving their worth as she could tell that she’d likely have sunk in deeply without them, rather than simply struggling to maintain balance and stability.

Additionally, she internally blessed the little furball of an Eskau, De-arg, for all his stability training. That monster of an animated teddy-bear-look-alike had put her through training and fighting on far worse footing than this.

Even so, it was still incredibly difficult.

Terry took up a harrying role, even as the tiger pulled back and drew power into itself to quickly close the deep, gaping wound in its shoulder.

Tala tried to press the momentary advantage, but it roared again, forcing Terry to flicker away and Tala to grimace against the pain of enduring it from so close this time around.

Her ears were magically reinforced, as well as being encapsulated under iron and magical steel, and she still felt like they were in danger of succumbing to force and magic within the sound.

As soon as the roar died down, Terry was on the offensive once again, his talons now focusing on the feline’s eyes and other vulnerabilities.

The tiger was livid at the bird’s assault, but Tala was able to close the distance despite the increasingly difficult terrain.

With a bit more time to line up her strike thanks to Terry’s distractions, she managed to hit the front leg of the beast just where it joined the paw, and Flow cleanly severed the appendage, skipping off the bone to glide smoothly through the joint.

She had only an instant to grin in triumph even as she continued the attack sequence by driving Flow up to its sword-hilt in the tiger’s chest.

Her mirrored perspectives saw the severed paw reverse course mid-fall and seamlessly rejoin its limb just in time to slam into her side and throw her, skipping across the ground once more.

Rust. I thought that would give us a momentary advantage.

She righted herself, thankfully not needing to clear her mouth this time. She’d managed to twist with the blow, dissipating much of the damage potential of the swipe, even though it had still thrown her with ease.

As she considered, standing up once more, she realized exactly what that meant.

To anything else, she should have the inertia of a couple of thunder bulls, but this upland tiger was tossing her about with relative ease.

It was ridiculously strong.

Even with Terry’s help, this might be an impossible fight given the restrictions she was operating under.

Her avian friend seemed to have reached the same conclusion, because Terry took that moment to flicker to Tala’s shoulder and rock backwards, pulling her directly away from the tiger.

She frowned, slightly surprised that they’d come to the same conclusion. “You want to flee?”

Terry trilled, the sound containing the increasingly familiar sense of ‘obviously!’

“Are you sure?” Tala looked back toward the tiger as it crouched low. She really wanted to beat the big kitty despite the difficulty…

He bobbed before flickering away, appearing far behind her, turning back to regard his partner.

Tala almost shook her head in frustration, ignored the bird, and settled in to continue the fight.

He wants to be a flock, to test that out. Being a flock, fighting together… that requires trust.

So, that was the question: Did she trust Terry’s judgment?

No one’s life was on the line.

She was fighting for a few gold at the most.

If she left, some other Archon would be dispatched to deal with this overgrown tiger.

With that understanding solidified, she made her choice.

Rocking backwards, she leapt away, following after Terry.

The tiger paused, clearly surprised by her retreat.

It didn’t relax, nor lower its guard, but it also didn’t pursue.

It was protecting its den, its land, its source of power.

It seemed to have no need nor desire to pursue her.

She blinked at that, then began to laugh internally.

She had suppressed her through-spike.

She was covered in iron.

She wouldn’t look like a human, magically speaking, so the odd almost-compulsion that magical creatures seemed to have to attack humans, didn’t seem to apply.

It would have had flickers of that while it was tearing into her, which likely explained its ferocity and persistence during those attacks, but now? Her power was effectively veiled, and it didn’t have a compulsion to pursue.

A minute later, she was out of sight of the tiger.

Even so, she and Terry didn’t slow down, and soon, they were at the southern end of the valley, in the pass through which Tala had entered.

Terry flickered to her shoulder and headbutted her cheek.

“Thank you, Terry. You were a big help.”

He chirped happily.

“You were wise to have us retreat, too. It was a dangerous fight with little reward. Thank you.”

He trilled happily and settled down.

She briefly informed him how the fight had come about and about the restrictions she had been operating under.

That seemed to help him relax further, the little bits of confusion she’d detected from him leveling out. When she finished, he headbutted her again.

“You were confused why I wasn’t using certain tactics and skills?”

He bobbed, chirping in affirmation.

“Yeah… I actually think I could have taken it out with relative certainty, but it would have been… messy.”

He gave a warbling, undulating, and descending note.

Tala snorted a laugh. “Yeah, that was a bit of an understatement, wasn’t it?”

He bobbed one final time, and then flickered away, heading out of the valley.

“Yeah, let’s get back on the right track.”

She turned to look south and a little east, to where she knew Bandfast lay.

It had been an interesting diversion, but she still wanted to get there that day.

“Alright, Tala, let’s get to it.”

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