Wizard Tournament: Chapter 134 (Patreon)

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          Thanks to Tenna’s ongoing battle with Death that Draevin could no longer see he had ice again! Korack was the first to recover from his shock at seeing Draevin suddenly rising back to his feet. He shot out a compressed bolt of fire from his wand. Draevin raised a small wall of ice and tried to stop the bolt as it came for him. He formed the wall at an angle so most of the force would be deflected because he knew better than to try and match Korack’s power, but when the fire hit the wall it punched right through like his ice was made of paper. It had to be that wand of his!

          The Flame Lance struck Draevin square in the chest. It was the same spot Korack had hit Peter’s illusion in his first match, right in the heart. The fire tore through his chest and made an even bigger hole than the one Caelnaste had made. If Draevin hadn’t already been dead, he would have been now.

          “Nice shot,” Draevin called back mockingly while gathering up all the ice he could reach. “You shot me in the one place you knew for sure didn’t kill me last time. Did you think this was some sort of trick?” Draevin waved a hand in front of the hole in his chest, which was now wide enough to let light through. “Or are you just that dumb?”

          Korack shot jets of smoke out his nose and bared his teeth at Draevin. “Incinerate him!” Caelnaste shouted behind him. “Burn his body to ashes!”

          That… would probably work. Antagonizing Korack probably hadn’t been the best idea, but it sure had felt good. After decades of losing to the guy Draevin was finally in a position to beat him and he couldn’t resist the chance to gloat a little. What he needed to do was get Haedril’s crown back. It was the only thing that could repair his broken body in time before Tenna lost her battle with Death.

          The air between Draevin and Korack shimmered for a moment, then broke in half. A sliver of ground beneath the shimmering air simply disappeared. There was no sound and no warning. Korack flinched back. Several more spans in his direction and Draevin’s Korack-problem would have just taken care of itself.

          “What wass that?” Korack hissed.

          There was an explosion of ice a moment later in midair near the source of the attack. Tenna and Death were still duking it out. The idea of being killed by a random attack he couldn’t see coming seemed entirely unfair to Draevin, but he wouldn’t mind if Caelnaste or Korack were caught in the crossfire.

          Draevin grabbed the ice as it rained down and pulled it into a new pair of Frost Armor robes. “That would be Death,” Draevin said. “Nice guy, but he’s a little upset at the moment. You should probably keep your distance if you don’t want to be reaped.”

          Caelnaste lined up a bolt of hellfire with Dred’Slynt. “Ignore that. Take him out,” she said calmly. Draevin wasn’t overly concerned about that bow at the moment. It had already shown it couldn’t kill him, after all.

          A pillar of ice the size of a carriage erupted out of the ground off to the right. It was immediately bisected by another plane of force. The top half fell into the lake of lava. All Draevin saw was enough ice for an entire battle. He pulled it in without hesitation, turning it into a tidal wave of ice that swept across the field towards Korack and Caelnaste.

          Caelnaste shot her bolt of hellfire, but she missed. The streak of red fire darted past Draevin’s left shoulder. Korack conjured up a wall of fire to block Draevin’s ice. The two attacks crashed together and exploded into a blast of steam that nearly knocked Draevin over. Jets of mist shot out of Draevin’s robes and stabilized him without even thinking about it. Beyond the field of steam, Draevin could no longer see clearly. He could only make out a reddish glowing spot, probably where Korack was still standing. Draevin formed a handful of massive spears of ice out of the moist air and rained them down on that spot. He sent hundreds of smaller needles on a more roundabout trip to come in from the flanks at the same time that Korack hopefully wouldn’t see coming. The larger spears left eddies in the mist as they punched through it. The red light of Korack’s fire flashed brighter for a moment, followed by a howl of pain from the lizard-kin. Draevin smiled. “Got ‘im!”

          “Did I—did I just die?” someone asked from Draevin’s back. It was Wix. Draevin turned around to face her. There was a smoking hole in her chest.

          Caelnaste hadn’t missed after all.

          “Probably,” Draevin told her. “Just hold tight. Tenna is keeping Death occupied at the moment. She followed me here from wherever she was before. I don’t think anyone in the world can die right now. You just need to get healed before she loses and you’ll be fine.” Hopefully, Draevin added internally. There weren’t exactly any guarantees with these things.

          “That bitch actually killed me?” Wix cursed. Her lips pulled up into a snarl. “I’m going to go return the favor. Can you get past Korack and find Istven’s crown? I didn’t see what happened to it, but if we need healing that’s probably our best bet at the moment.”

          Draevin remembered Caelnaste knocking it into the lake of lava, he just couldn’t remember exactly where at the moment. Between that and the limited visibility his chances of finding it in time felt miniscule. “I saw where she tossed it,” Draevin said with more confidence than he felt. “Leave it to me.”

          Wix nodded and flew off. She launched herself straight up into the air, then turned sharply and disappeared into the wall of mist and smoke. Korack replaced her a moment later. He leaped through the air on jets of fire and with flames dancing over his red scales. Just his luck! Draevin finally figured out how to fly and now everyone was doing it! Korack’s fangs were bared. Half a dozen finger-sized needles of ice were sticking out of his chest and head. By all rights he looked like he should be just as dead as Draevin. It seemed the temporary moratorium on death wasn’t a one-way street. As soon as Korack cleared the mist he shot a blast of fire from his wand straight in Draevin’s direction.

          Draevin knew better than to attempt to block this time. He dodged to his left with a burst of mist, then dipped under Korack’s attack. The flames just missed him. Korack unleashed a massive jet of flames from his back and launched himself at Draevin. As he flew through the air, the flames of his missed attack twisted and reformed into the maw of a great dragon of fire.

          “You’re not getting away from me!” Korack shouted after him.

          Draevin turned his mist jets around and reversed direction. He dodged around the fire-dragon and tossed a handful of Icicle Spears at Korack. The dragon flipped around and effortlessly gobbled up Draevin’s attacks. It then turned on him again. What was he supposed to do? Korack’s wand was making his fire spells especially potent against ice! Draevin didn’t want to find out what happened if his body was burned to ashes in his current state. He shot off to the side, then flew straight up. Thick black clouds hung in Hell’s skies. He thought that if he could reach them, he might be able to lose Korack. He had a bit of a lead, but once Korack and his fire dragon started to chase him they quickly gained on him. Draevin slipped into one of the clouds just before they reached him.

          Draevin’s vision went dark. He couldn’t see even his nose in front of his face. His eyes immediately started to water and he instinctively formed clear ice lenses to protect them. He also held his breath… or… he only just realized that he hadn’t been breathing in the first place. With the large hole in his chest he didn’t even know if he could breathe.

          Inside the cloud, Draevin flew around in random directions, hoping to lose his tail. At one point he saw a dim red glow, but it passed by and everything went dark again. He kept changing directions haphazardly until his head popped out of the cloud. He paused and held his position with just his head peeking out and tried to get his bearings. From his vantage point Draevin was able to get a good look down at the battlefield. It really was just a tiny island in a sea of molten red lava. Korack definitely had the elemental advantage.

          But Korack wasn’t clever. Not by a long shot. Peter had proven that when he’d beaten him with a simple illusion. It struck Draevin that a strategy like that might actually work for him as well. He thought back to the instructions the dragon emperor had given to covertly guide him into turning Tenna into… whatever she was now. At the time he’d thought the instructions were for how to create ice clones that could think for themselves. That hadn’t been what Tarrish was trying to teach him, but it was still a good idea.

          Draevin reached out to the cold inside him. He thought of what his failure here would mean. He would die, then Wix would die, then Caelnaste would execute Peter, Sylnya and even Kot. They would be left in Hell to burn and be picked apart by imps. Forgotten. Nobody would ever find them. It was… a depressing thought.

          It was exactly what Draevin needed to focus his cryomancy. A perfect icy replica of Draevin conjured itself in front of him. The replica was made of a cloudy blue ice: not nearly as elegant as the form Draevin had seen Tenna take on occasion. Draevin wondered if the thing would even fool Korack, it was so obviously made of ice and not flesh. The icy clone nodded to Draevin eagerly. It was kind of unsettling, but also exactly what he needed. The thing was under his control, but also had a will all its own.

          There was a bright spot among the clouds where Korack was floating. He coughed a few times, then shouted angrily. “Draefin you coward! Can’t die and you sstill can’t facce me in a fair fight!”

          “Keep him busy for me,” Draevin whispered to his creation. “I need to get that crown back before I run out of time.”

          The icy clone conjured a small cloud of Icicle Spears, then gave Draevin a cocky half-smile and winked at him. Winked at him! It waved him away dismissively and turned to face Korack. Draevin stayed just long enough to make sure it really had the right idea. His clone sent out several bolts of ice at the glowing spot in the clouds, then flew off into another nearby cloud. Korack let out another howl of indignation from within the cloud. His clone seemed to be far too confident for just a magical construct, but it had the right idea. Draevin released the magic he was using to fly and dropped like a rock out of the sky. The last thing he heard from Korack was, “You think a bit of ice can shield you from me?” He really was quite dense.

          As Draevin fell he could see the smoke and mist of the island being tossed around by gusts of wind. It looked like Wix was flying circles around Caelnaste while tossing rocks at her. It was a technique she’d used to great effect in the Tak’heem Aggression. The idea was to be flying too fast to touch whenever she came in for an attack so the enemy couldn't fight back. If it worked against entire archery units it could certainly work against a single archer. Draevin ignored that fight and focused on finding Istven and that crown of his.

          He spotted it. A trail of glowing white blood on the other side of their little island. Draevin could just make out Istven’s black shape against the rust-red ground. He had made it to the edge of the island by dragging himself. Draevin slowed himself with a bust of mist as he dropped to the ground next to him.

          Istven was still crawling, but the speed he was moving was absolutely pathetic. A snail could have out-paced him. Draevin watched as Istven’s left foot flailed and pushed him forward about the width of a hair closer to the edge of the island. His eyes were unfocused and darting around at random. They also weren’t glowing. Draevin could see them clearly for the first time. Istven had brown eyes. Not what he had expected.

          “Where’s the crown?” Draevin demanded as soon as he was close enough for Istven to hear him.

          “Dr-Draevin?” Istven called out. His eyes focused for just a second. From the angle he was at, Draevin could see that Istven was holding a deep wound on his torso closed with one hand. It didn’t look like he was doing a very good job. “I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone by myself. They were waiting…” he trailed off.

          “Istven. Focus. Where is your crown? I need it or I’m going to die. You too, probably. In fact, if you just let yourself die right now I bet you’d feel loads better. Death sort of isn’t working at the moment.” As if in response to Draevin’s words a giant shard of ice exploded out of thin air nearby. It flew through the air at high speed as though it had been launched by a kinomancer, then was suddenly sliced cleanly in two. The two pieces the size of draft horses flew past Draevin on opposite sides and plunged into the lava. They boiled away to vapor in seconds.

          Istven reached up with one hand. It was shaking and covered in red blood that barely had a glimmer of light to it. He pointed down into the lava below. “One pace left of the seahorse,” Istven said.

          “What? You’re not making any sense, Istven!”

          “One pace left of the seahorse,” Istven repeated. His eyes then rolled into the back of his head.

          Draevin scanned forward in the direction he’d been pointing. He didn’t see anything that—He saw it! A rock outcropping on the end of the island. From the right angle it was sort of shaped like a seahorse. Draevin ran over to it and studied the red bubbling lava one pace to the left. It didn’t look any different, but if Istven was right Haedril’s crown was at the bottom of the lava in that spot.

          Draevin conjured a scoop out of ice and dunked it into the lava. The lava bubbled and hissed in objection. He lost his connection to the ice almost immediately. It was just too hot. There was no way he could dredge through lava with nothing but ice! It was insane to even try!

          Draevin wracked his brain for a better solution. Tenna’s words from earlier echoed in his head, “I should have known you’d be too stupid to try anything other than ice magic when it wouldn’t work!” Right. He knew other kinds of magic… like… Telekinesis!

          Draevin recalled his impromptu training session with Faernyl on the first day of the tournament. He’d been so annoyed with Peter for arranging that at the time, but now he was just grateful he’d had a refresher course on Telekinesis so recently. He moved his hands through the motions for the spell. He repeated the words Faernyl had drilled into him. “Capto vis et no.”

          He felt the magic jump at his command. Invisible force sprang into existence in front of him. It gave off a soft purple glow, something Draevin knew to be a sign of an amateur casting. There was no time to worry about getting it right. He dumped the mostly-invisible force into the lava. It created a little divot in the otherwise smooth liquid as it descended. He dug around blindly for a few seconds then pulled his Telekinesis spell up. It was only carrying a blob of lava and—the crown! Istven had been dead on! Draevin’s control of the spell wasn’t very good, so he just twisted his whole body to turn the spell. When the blob of lava was over solid ground he released the spell. The crown dropped to the ground in a little puddle of rapidly-cooling lava.

          Draevin ran over and grabbed the thing before it could harden and stick to the ground. It burned his hands badly. They smoked, then caught fire. The pain was only there for a second before they went numb. The smell was horrendous, but not actually all that much worse than the smells that normally permeated Hell. His numb hands might have dropped the crown if the drippings of lava weren’t already melting them into some sort of grotesque claw of flesh and molten stone. He ignored all of that. The crown would burn everything away and make him whole again. That was what it did. He placed the crown upon his head.

          Pain burned through Draevin’s body. Hot and unyielding. Everything was burned away.

          He regained his vision of Tenna and the massive cowled specter of Death who were still locked in combat. When Death saw Draevin wearing Haedril’s crown it stopped fighting and dropped to one knee, Tenna forgotten. She looked battered and broken, pieces of her body missing. She barely had any physical form left to her, existing mostly as wisps of icy mist. “Mʏ ʟᴏʀᴅ,” Death said in its deep, booming voice. “I ʜᴀᴅ ɴᴏ ɪᴅᴇᴀ ᴡʜᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴇʀᴇ. Fᴏʀɢɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ.”

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