Chapter 69: Mind over Matter (Patreon)

The moon cast its sliver light over the courtyard.

That wasn’t me being poetic, the moon on this plane didn’t shine with the faint white light I’d grown used to, or even the rusted red of Nirn’s. Instead, it painted over the night with silver, sharper than even the brightest night from earth, and yet somehow graying over the edges with a metallic sheen.

It prickled against my skin, as if the light itself was pushing against me.

This entire plane seemed to ripple and almost writhe at times, as if to let me know that I wasn’t welcome here. I wasn’t a part of this world.

It was with these thoughts going around in my head that I came to a stop across from this Jace Beleren, as he’d introduced himself as. Raven continued to linger in the shadows of the courtyard. We weren’t expecting Liliana of all people to have company, it had thrown off our plans.

As shown by the fact that I was about to duel another Planeswalker for her, like gladiators before an Empress.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I muttered. 

Liliana placed a finger against her lips. “Hush now,” she said. Her words did nothing to hide her satisfied smirk. Like a cat that ate the canary. “Do your part, and I will do mine.”

I scoffed.

“If you ladies are done,” Jace called. “I’d like to finish this sometime tonight.”

I flicked my gaze over to him. He had his hood pushed back, arms relaxed, fingers splayed slightly. The classic pose of a spell slinger, as opposed to a duelist.

His eyes almost glowed in the moonlight. Was it a sign of his powers? I couldn’t tell.

All I sensed from him was confidence, and my own mental abilities were the weakest part of my skillset. If he was a psychic of some sort, trying to probe him would only open up my mind to a counterattack.

Best to just end it quickly.

Liliana’s undead minions carried an elaborate dais out into the courtyard, coming to a stop halfway between the two of us. She reclined into her chair, looking at the both of us once, before waving her hand, as if we were merely an afterthought.

“Begin.”

My hand snapped out, and a bolt of lightning raced through the night.

I had just enough time to savor Jace’s surprised face, mouth half open, before he spun.

My magic went wide, and the next spell shattered when he struck out with a lance of blue mana.

A control mage, then.

As a close adherent of the style, I knew itcocous weakness as well as my own.

“Not bad,” I said. “But can you do it again?”

I spread my arms wide, a barrage of spells arcing through the air.

For a moment, the courtyard was lit up by a rainbow.

Jace backpedaled, slipping between my attacks. “You didn’t tell me you were hiding a ringer!” he called, blue mana leaping from his fingers.

He was adept, I realized, picking out the exact spells he would need to dodge past, in order to blunt the rest of my assault.

For a moment, I felt an irrational urge to start throwing the heavier end of my arsenal at him, before I shook it off.

That would be idiotic. More spells just meant he’d have to counter less of them.

Instead, I lit the air with a dazzling display of magic. A wall of light reaching up into the sky, composed of countless stars.

He wouldn’t be able to dodge this.

Jace flinched back, eyes going wide, but…

He didn’t feel scared, or even apprehensive.

No, he felt almost triumphant.

My eyes widened, thoughts flashing back to the start of the fight.

His emotions changed in turn. 

For a moment my head spun, as I felt, as I finally noticed tendrils of his mind twisting around my own.

Almost—

With a roar I brought my hand down. Instead of flying at the Jace across the clearing—the fake—they carpeted every inch of the courtyard.

Except for a circle right around me.

Each spell hit the ground, detonating in a cavalcade of lightning and ice and fire. 

And I spun.

A rapier materialized in my grasp.

And Jace’s illusion shattered in a tinkling of glass as the Walker—the mind mage—leapt away from me just as my blade nicked his coat.

With a twist of my will, I used his laps in concentration to throw the man out of my mind. His gaze flicked back to me in surprise as I firmed up my own mental defenses.

He didn’t think I’d fall over just for a few parlor tricks, did he.

With a sigh, Jace looked down at his leather trench coat, fingering the long cut in the chest. “I just got this, too,” he muttered. 

“If you call it quits, I’m sure you could go get it mended,” I called.

He laughed, running a hand through his hair. “Not on a night like this,” he said.

I quirked my lips at that as a quartet of howls pierced the night.

The walls of Liliana’s mansion were enchanted, so we had nothing to fear, but clearly there were things lurking in the shadows just beyond those walls.

This plane grew less hospitable with every passing moment.

“I had wondered if you would succumb so easily,” Liliana said. “Still, as amusing as it was to see you flail at nothing.”

“I’ll show—”

I stiffened when I felt Jace’s fingers prying at my thoughts.

Turning, sword in hand, I charged.

Jace frowned, splitting into two. I cleared both illusions with a single swipe, but he was already gone.

I slapped the ground. A wave of force washed out, buckling the cobbles.

“You know, I do have delicate experiments going on.”

“Butt out,” I growled, even as I dashed across the courtyard again.

This time, I caught the corner of his hood, ripping another hole in Jace’s clothing as he flickered back into existence.

“Stop that!” He muttered.

“After you!”

He dodged my blade, and then I kicked his feet out from under him.

Jace hit the ground like a sack of bricks.

“Maybe lay off the tomes and start working on some weights,” I said, dryly, as he gasped for air.

He rolled, my sword clattering off the stone. Leaving behind a trail of duplicates all scrambling to their feet.

I leapt, sword piercing the farthest Jace’s shoulder—

Only for him to disappear in a whisper of smoke.

“I get by,” he said.

I spun, but saw only the smirking images of half a dozen Jaces in a crescent, even as the assault on my mind redoubled.

“Get out of my head,” I growled, lashing out.

A wave of force erupted from my hand, clearing the illusions. 

But the real one didn’t appear.

I had to find him, already I could feel my defenses starting to give away. 

He was better than me at telepathy.

Raising my hand, I started gathering my mana once again, into a massive wave that would wash over the entire courtyard. 

The star in my hands shimmered roiling as it condensed even further into a singularity.

This was a favorite of mine, after all, from as far back as Ivalice.

“Promin--!”

A lance of blue shattered the spell, sending me staggering.

Then I froze when a hand clamped down on the back of my skull.

That—I tried to move, only to find myself frozen in truth.

The pressure against my defenses let up immediately, revealing a incision that I hadn’t even noticed, targeting—

He…he tricked me into going for a big spell! He’d been trying to get me to stay still from the start.

I hadn’t noticed at all, until it was too late.

Or…was it.

“Does this count as my win, then?” Jace said. He sounded out of breath, even as he solidified his control over the outer layers of my consciousness, sealing off my ability to actively use magic.

But I had an avenue to my power that no other Planeswalker could possibly know about.

Liliana hummed. “I wonder.”

And a great deal more power than any Walker my age should ever have.

With a flick of my power, my body started to tremble, roiling as I released the hold I had on it.

“What more am I—”

Jace stiffened as he felt the change, as my body started to glow, and swell as energy did what it was wont to do.

And when you get enough power in a small enough space, it would only ever do one thing.

I felt Jace’s mind smash against my mental defenses again, but just because he’d locked me up, didn’t mean he had root access to my brain.

I through everything I had in the way.

All I needed was a second.

The air went from silver to gold around me.

All I needed.

Was for him to.

Jace shattered my barriers, lancing deep and grabbing hold of my—

[ORDER: LET. GO.]

I exploded.

For a moment, I blanked out, as I changed completely from matter into energy, into a vast outpouring of mana that was beyond anything I’d ever experienced.

For a moment, I might have even ceased to be.

Then I coalesced, again, face down on the scorched and shattered cobblestones. My entire body felt sore, and weak. For the first time, I could feel a noticeable drain on my amount of mana that wasn’t a result of outside tampering.

I’d just used…a lot of it, both in the explosion and in reforming my body afterwards.

With a groan, I pushed myself to my hands and knees.

I reached out for my power, breathing a sigh of relief when I found it undamaged from Jace’s attack. No, the problem was me, I’d drawn on it too much, as well as my connection with the Planes of Order and Chaos.

It left me like this.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to get back to my feet. 

Glancing over, I saw that Jace was still alive, still on his hands and knees.

Going by the scorchmarks on the ground, he’d managed to get up some kind of shield, that had diverted the worst of the explosion.

A new rapier settled in my hand as I took a step forward.

Jace threw himself upright, eyes blazing. 

We both stilled, this time, with no external magic involved.

Because of his barrier, my explosion had only thrown him a short distance away, close enough that I might even be able to run him through with my rapier before he managed to break into my mind once more.

Might, that is.

No doubt he was going through the same calculations, could he afford to restart his attack on my mental defenses? Would he manage to immobilize me before I spit him upon my blade?

He might.

Or he might now.

For a long minute, neither of use moved, neither of us drew upon the slightest hint of mana.

The entire battle was balanced upon the tip of a spear, and a single movement would send it all clattering down again.

No clear victor in sight.

Then, Jace lowered his hands, relaxing his power as his eyes faded from glowing blue back to their usual brown.

I regarded him sharply for a second. 

In theory, his actions had only increased my chances of victory.

But…what kind of person would I be, if I took advantage of such a clearly offered truce, in what was supposed to be a ‘friendly’ duel?

With a sigh, I dispersed my rapier back into mana.

It had served me well, this time, the physical attacks throwing Jace off balance enough that I was almost able to finish him off.

But you know what they say: Almost only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and spells of utter annihilation.

“Draw?” I asked.

“It looks like it,” he said, with a rueful grin. “I thought I had you there, if not for that weird construct in your head.”

I shifted. “It’s just something I picked up, I’d prefer if you didn’t go poking at my thoughts.”

“Only if you promise to refrain from stabbing me.”

I quirked my lips at that. I wasn’t sure if I’d get the chance to stab him again, should we ever fight for real.

I’d shown Jace quite a few of my tricks, while he’d fallen back on a repertoire of only a few, but those few tricks were so honed that I wondered if I’d be able to get to him if he didn’t make another mistake…

“I’m sure you are having just a wonderful little moment,” came Liliana’s voice across the courtyard. “But I believe I mentioned something about not destroying my home?”

We both glanced over at her. At first, I saw only a wall of charred corpses, before the rest of Liliana’s minions pushed the flash cremated bodies aside, revealing an entirely unhurt, but completely unimpressed necromancer.

Then her words registered, and I glanced around the rest of the courtyard. The flagstones were all blackened, many close to the epicenter were shattered entirely. The outer walls, with their protective enchantments, had held, but the inner wall of the mansion itself was… in worse shape.

“Oops…” I said. 

Liliana sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “At least with a draw I won’t have to pay either of you imbeciles for destroying my property.”

I grimaced.

In the head of combat, I’d almost forgotten the original reason we’d been fighting.

But a draw…

To the side, Jace looked just as annoyed. “In the case of a draw,” he started. “It usually falls to the judge to determine the winner.”

“Oh?” Liliana alighted from her dais, walking across the courtyard. “Isn’t it obvious? In the case of a draw, the winner is me.”

Jace and eye shared a look, both equally unhappy. 

But what could we do about it?

Then Liliana shot a look in my direction. “Or at least, I will be once my apprentice repairs the mansion, as she will do tonight if she wishes to have leave to continue staying here.”

I slumped at the words.

I still needed her help, didn’t I?

Well, at least scrubbing the walls and fixing everything else with magic would give me time to go over my contract with Ritz in more detail.

Might as well talk about both of my recent failures at once. 

***
***
A/N:  Originally, this chapter was supposed be Playing Nice but I messed up the chapter count, so unfortunately I didn't get to make the in joke. This is why I'll never be a youtube 'content creator'.

In this chapter, I did my best to show how Taylor, as a generalist and a dps style mage, matches up against some of her peers in the greater mutliverse. Hope you all enjoyed the fight!