Mined Games chapter 30 (Patreon)

I told Cecily after class what Alec had mentioned about the expedition, and after a discussion we decided we needed to step up our game. We were going to rent one of the training fields and actually try sparring, now that I had a combat spell. Which brought up an obvious question actually. “Hey, do you have any job points?”

Despite being here for a week or two now, I hadn’t taken a single job. Now that I thought about it I probably should have looked into that sooner, but I’d just been busy. I added it to my growing list of things to do as we made our way out to the training ground. This one was a forest clearing with dark metal aligned trees lining it. It created a mostly secure combat circle, and looked useful enough for our purposes.

“This is a favorite for duellists, so we should be able to spar here.” Cece said calmly. But as she took up her place across from me, she didn’t get into position or ready the knife I’d given her. She just stared at me.

I chuckled nervously. “Do I have something on my face? Or did you just suddenly realize that I’m your type. Traditionally dinner is a better first date than trying to kill each other with magic.”

She glared at me harder. “You are hiding something.” I felt my stomach twist, but I put on a confused expression, trying to play innocent so she didn’t get even more suspicious. The last thing I needed was for her to find out about Terry.

“I don’t know what you’re tal-” I started, planning to deflect, but I was cut off before I finished talking.

“Don’t.” She said coldly. “We are…we are friends, aren’t we?” She said quietly. I could tell she wasn’t comfortable being this open about her emotions, and I didn’t blame her. But she was clearly worried about me. “You are worried. Distant. Not yourself.” She flushed. “I have grown used to your mannerisms, and they are different. As your friend, I demand to know what is wrong with you.”

That last part startled me so much I had to choke back a laugh. This wasn’t a confrontation about what I’d done. It was an intervention. I held up my hands placatingly. “Whoa. Not really how you usually ask about things like that. I appreciate the sentiment, but I have some personal things going on I can’t talk about.”

She snarled in frustration. “No. That isn’t how this works. I’m supposed to force you to tell me and then you have a moment of emotional catharsis after which we grow closer as friends. That’s what all the boo-” She froze. Snapping her mouth shut tightly as her face turned a bright scarlet red.

I had to actively fight not to smile as I asked her mildly. “Cece. Are you…researching friendship so you can be better at it?” It was SO HARD not to laugh. Not derisively or anything, but because that was the sweetest and most adorable thing anyone had ever done for me. It was just so… Cecily, that I didn’t even know how to take it.

It was also profoundly sad. Because even as lonely and isolated as I had grown up I knew how to be friends with people. Granted I had Tara, who was as socially well adjusted as you could get, but still. My red haired friend looked away sulkily. “Research is a perfectly legitimate way to develop skills in a subject.”

“It is.” I agreed warmly. “But people are complicated, and situations are varied. You can’t really apply knowledge from a book to all situations and expect it to be perfectly viable. In this case, this is something I need to handle myself. It’s personal business I’ve already talked to my dad about, but I can’t bring anyone else into it right now.”

She looked conflicted. “But…I’m supposed to help. You’re clearly in emotional pain, and I can’t just…leave you like that. I don’t like seeing you so distracted and upset.”

I smiled at her fondly. “You did help. This conversation has cheered me up quite a bit. Not to mention we’re about to spar, and I hear combat is one of the best ways to help someone work on pent up emotion.”

Biting her lip, she nodded, brow furrowed. “I suppose that’s true. Exercise can be cathartic.” Her pensive face turned into a small smirk. “I won’t let you win though. It won’t make you feel better if you just get handed the victory.” She paused. “Will it? That doesn’t seem like it would be as satisfying but-”

“No.” I laughed, cutting her off. “It won’t. You should do your best. Our outfits should protect us, since we’re only using tier two spells. So just give me everything you’ve got once we start.” I withdrew a knife, the light attuned knife I’d used earlier. I really needed to make myself an actual focus with a real effect soon.

Unfortunately…I didn’t have a proper spell to apply to a weapon. Spatial magic didn’t really lend itself to that kind of thing. Having a knife that could teleport would be a bit impractical since it would probably just pop out of my hand. I was hoping once I could get my mana control up to a better spot I would be able to make something I could use.

For now the light knife was pretty decent. Excellent Form meant I could weave spells easier and theoretically control them when cast, though neither of my current spells would really work that way. Cecily took up her position across from me, smiling shyly as she got in position. She was clearly as nervous about this as I was.

See, I had magic now that would help me in combat but…I didn’t know how to fight. Like at all. It had just never really come up for me. I’d come close a few times, but whoever was pushing the bullying on various groups when I was a kid knew enough to warn them not to actually physically attack me, presumably because they were terrified of dad.

“Ready?” I said tensely. And she nodded. As soon as she did, I cast. I’d been working on my timing for Blink for a while now, and I could cast it in only a second or two, but I also started as I’d been asking her if she was ready, so by the time the sparring session started I was already vanishing, appearing ten feet off to the side as I focused on my knife to weave together a spatial arrow.

Sadly my cast was interrupted as I had to throw myself sideways to avoid a flame arrow. The blazing spike of fire slammed into one of the metal aligned trees around the training ground and exploded, not doing much damage, though I doubted it would have been quite as harmless to me.

Cecily was already casting again, and I cursed myself for forgetting that she was using a knife that, while not enchanted, WAS saturated with fire mana. Which not only amplified the effect of her own through resonance but would make casting effortless as she shaped the mana. It was even a pretty well made knife, and the Form would help her-

I yelped and hurled myself aside, having to roll this time as she CURVED the damned arrow. I’d been afraid of that. I scrambled to my feet, casting a spatial arrow again, this time forcing myself to structure the spell even as I dodged, aiming for her arm.

As I dodged, I managed to finish the cast, and there was a flash as the spatial mana arrow ignored the intervening distance slammed into her arm. Cecily hissed, her fingers opening as the impact injured her arm even through the light armor she wore.

The knife dropped, and I triggered Blink, which I’d started preparing as soon as I released the arrow. I felt the world blue as I vanished, reappearing right in front of her as we both dove for the knife.

She got her hands on it first, and I howled as she drove the damned thing through my fucking wrist, lashing out at the closest appendage. As I tried to yank it out, she closed in and started pummeling me with her other hand, closed fist smashing into me. I wondered why she was so damned strong, until I remembered the knife would be resonating with the mana in her crystalline body like the life knife did for Tara.

As she lifted her arm to punch again, I jammed my own knife, which I still had on my non-stabbed hand, up under her armpit and into the shoulder, getting an animalistic snarl as she stumbled back in agony, pulling her knife from my wrist as mine came free of her shoulder when we separated..

This was really fucking painful, but our Apprentice bodies made injuries like this much less debilitating, and healing potions meant it wouldn’t be a problem to fix the damage. Crystal beasts wouldn’t take it easy on us, so we couldn’t hold back on each other.

Still, I had kind of underestimated how painful a live spar would be. Also how painful it was to get stabbed. I’d kind of expected the crystalline structure of our bodies would make it hurt less, but that did not appear to be the case. At all.

Cecily kept her cool, hissing in pain but not actually screaming or letting herself get distracted. I was kind of jealous, because my vision was getting a bit darker and I had to physically force myself to breathe through what I suspected was the beginning stages of passing out.

Oddly, I was saved from that by Cecily herself as she completed and launched a series of spells. I threw myself sideways, already beginning the use of my Blink spell, and triggered it for the third and final time I had in me to escape the explosive fire arrows. I landed ten feet away in an awkward position, and scrambled to my feet to turn and take aim.

I started weaving mana into the knife…but stopped with a sigh. “I forfeit.” I called through gritted teeth. I was tapped out. Blink was a complicated and difficult spell for its complexity, and the mana arrow had used up what little I had in me after three jumps. I sighed as I slumped to the ground. I really needed to make some progress on condensation.

Cecily strode stiffly across the clearing, holding out a hand when she reached me. Taking the hand (the one of her non-stabbed arm) with my own uninjured one, I slipped the knife into my inventory via my pocket, and pulled out a healing potion, offering it to her for a sip. She gave me a relieved smile and took it, taking a pull before handing it back so I could take mine.

We both groaned in relief as the tingling sensation of the potion working overtook the pain and allowed us to relax a bit. “Not bad.” I said with a grin. “I should have known being able to cast more spells would give you an advantage.”

She just shook her head. “I think you were the one with the advantage, you just don’t know how to take advantage. You really should get some knife lessons. You’re not using your biggest asset properly.”

I knew she was right, I’d considered it before, but it would make me ten times more effective in combat to get some lessons with a knife or short sword. “I’m looking into it. In the meantime, I’m hungry, let’s go get something to eat.” I turned and headed off into the trees back toward the guild. “Oh and by the way.” I said cheekily. “First one back pays.” Then I took off toward the guild building, ignoring Cecily’s squawk of outrage as I ran.