Fable - Ask Combat Class

[Pomrick Bloomsfield]

Open to students of Elbion College.

Spoiler: Music

The grand Hall of Nullification enveloped the throng of students imperiously, its gilded marble floor and arcane glass enough to make any novice develop an increasing sense of inferiority. Its dome loomed so far above, any spirited youngster would have to crane their neck well backwards to see it. Its vaulted ceiling and oppressively tall alcoves seemed to tower over them all with the same glacial arrogance and starkness of distant mountains in the Spine.

Standing admist this cold grandeur, a robed figure leaned against his staff, both hands clutched around its withered wood. His bald head gleamed like a polished pebble in the light of lanterns and enchanted glass, his robes and cloak forming a long trail behind him. He alone seemed to belong to this environment, awaiting the milling students with all the restrained patience of an incoming avalanche. His baleful glare skewered any chattering air-heads, and his veined hands crunched wood with soft cracks - either from the popping of his own knuckles or its bark, who could say - soon rendering the hall silent. A second staff stood in perfect, vertical alignment beside him, with no apparent support, seemingly made from some silverite material, a crystal ball of snow-white glow crowning its top, bedecked with runes glinting like ice caught in moonlight.

Pomrick shifted amongst the other students. This was not a mandatory class, so every soul here was a volunteer. Well, almost everyone, except for him. For the teacher of today's session was none other than his own master: Maester Krellos Thunderbeard. Upon his bidding, Pomrick had arrived. And he knew what it meant to disobey his master, unlike some of these other students.

"Salutations," the maester said, practically chewing and spitting out each syllable of that singular word, the room echoing his voice like distant thunder. His tone and demeanour seemed more reminiscent of a gaoler locking them all up and throwing away the key. "You have all made it to this extra-curricular class on countering the hostile invocations of malevolent magi." He allowed those words to sink in, taking note of which faces appeared the most confused. Unsurprisingly, his own student's jaw remained as slack as ever, eyes drifting about like snowflakes. Particularly to him, Krellos specified: "Combat class."

 

[Mirthwind]

Mirthwind reclined casually, almost jadedly, against a column, fingers lightly tracing a dormant rune carved into his plain-looking elmwood staff. He suppressed a smirk at the rumbling but curtly clipped syllables now shaking the souls of the suddenly reconsidering, wide-eyed fifth and sixth years. It was old hat to him, though. He was rather fond of that echoing voice cantrip himself.

The ever-ambitious tenth-year had a true ace up his sleeve this time. Of this fact, the slim, confident half-elf was as certain as he had ever been, which was saying quite a lot. Today, he would not change his staff into a shield in one blink before turning the stone beneath his opponent into a neat yard-deep pool of water the next. And he certainly wouldn't waste all the reserve magic he had been siphoning away into his rune-rings all week long conjuring up the same cliched wards before, say, seizing an opening to momentarily turn his opponent's staff into a natty gray scarf. Though that finisher might be grand for some future bout... No! - it was finally time to debut Mirthwind's Papillonious Permutation - and then he would rakishly strike the winning blow whilst the opponent was fascinated with the sheer gorgeous novelty of his creation.

Part of him hoped today's victim would be old Maester Thunderbeard himself. If he managed to impress that scowling old bastard, he'd be styling himself a Maester in but a few short months. But the half-elf was also more than a little curious how his newest twist on transmutation might perform against Thunderbeard's apprentice, Pomrick Bloomsfield, a few years his junior. While Mirthwind was a prodigy, one of the annoying type that turning one thing into another 'just came naturally' to, Pomrick had the exceedingly rare gift of wild magic, pulling completely unexpected effects right out of the weave itself. Mirthwind's green eyes nonchalantly turned to regard him for the briefest moment, before drifting back to the Maester.

No one knew, not even Maester Ulman, whether the scruff-headed lad dreamt it all up instant by instant in some panicked stream of magical consciousness, whether he just conjured the magic itself in whatever form it had just happened to be in where-ever it had been the previous instant, or if the gods themselves had decreed him to be preserved beyond the end days by the very most mysterious-seeming means. The gnarled old maester and most Elbion students hounded poor Pomrick to the point he was spooked by his own shadow. Mirthwind knew better. If that awkward lad ever developed even a jot of self-confidence, we'd end up having to rename the whole damn school for him.

Pomrick Bloomsfield

 

[Pomrick Bloomsfield]

Spoiler: Music

Mirthwind. His sheer name was near enough to set Krellos' teeth crunching against one another. The most senior student of this rabble, and happy to show it in his languid, insouciant lounging against a column worth more than the accumulated student debt of them all.

There weren't many means of disciplinarian action that the maester could take outside the regular decorum of the classroom. However, perhaps there was a way of both chastising and humiliating the cocksure transmuter . . .
"Whoever wins the most matches shall gain a staff from my personal inventory. The Staff of Hoarfrost. Capable of summoning or taming a blizzard, should it be so desired. Needless to say, it is illegal to use on the premises of the college. But, when your travels take you out of this college's safe walls . . . it may present its usefulness then." His eye snapped to Pomrick like lightning, and his whiplash voice soon followed: "A demonstration is in order, I believe. Pomrick Bloomsfield. Step forward."

Pomrick jolted out from his dreaming, still staring at some of the enchanted glass. Clearly, he had heard little of Krellos' instruction, since he pointed at himself in question.

"Yes, you, you simmering pot of broth. Come thence!"

To the tune of snickering students, Pomrick waddled forward, hands fidgeting to find somewhere to belong: in his pockets, in his belts, touching his own neck, his nerves taking command over his restless body. Krellos' finger pointed then, snapping to Mirthwind, curling into an insidiously beckoning finger.

"And, ah, Mirthwind, I think. You two shall be the first to exemplify to the class what I mean by combat. Step forward."

A nasty smirk nearly threatened to take over Krellos' features. If he could shatter Mirthwind's ego and his reputation by losing to the Arcane Guinea Pig, so much the better. Besides, should Pomrick lose, it would hardly be a surprise to any. But perhaps, Pomrick's curious quirks of magic might make up for his lacking skill . . .

Mirthwind

 

[Mirthwind]

Mirthwind sauntered forward, saluting the old codger and his opponent in turn, a light smirk drawn upon his lips as he walked a smooth arc to his position within the dueling circle. The glower in Thunderbeard's eyes told him in no uncertain terms that he was hoping, no, expecting great things from his apprentice, even as he mercilessly cowed him. If his own eyes gave anything away, it was curiosity. One really never knew what might leap from Pomrick's fingers, particularly when panic started to set in. It could prove exciting to find out. He began circling, staff held to one side, its runes glowing faintly as he focused on Pomrick, awaiting the younger student's first move.

Pomrick Bloomsfield

 

[Pomrick Bloomsfield]

Krellos noted Mirthwind's preparation, giving a nod of satisfaction. He turned towards Pomrick and the rest.

"Magic is inherently volatile. It is imperative to note this before we even begin to toy with the idea of using it for martial purposes. Physical combat is already a chaotic affair. Now imagine if you bring together two such unpredictable elements." Krellos' eyes flared dangerously, even with a faint twinge of static charge. "Unbridled chaos. Often with disastrous consequence for either side. They say that in a knife fight, there are no winners. Only an immediate loser, and the one who dies from their wounds later. Now add to that twenty-fold the danger, and you will begin to have an inkling of arcane altercations. Which is why we find ourselves here."

His hand swept out illustratively at the Hall of Nullification.

"This hall will neuter any magic before it turns deadly. But trust me, I will know if one part would have turned into a charred corpse or a frozen statue." He folded his arm behind his back, pacing back and forth like a cougar, penetrating each student with his stare, words rumbling like a gathering thunderstorm: "More often than not, the final outcome boils down to luck. Chance. Circumstance. But you may tilt those odds in your favour, if you heed this one, crucial lesson."

Without warning, Krellos stopped. The room fell silent - but for Pomrick's tapping foot, kicking off seemingly by its own accord. Sweat was perspiring down his brow while he blinked and attempted to hold a steady gaze with Mirthwind, who seemed like he had done this a hundred times before.

But Pomrick looked at the wrong attacker. Swift, precise gestures of Krellos' arm, a hissed incantation and he launched a ferocious lance of ice, spearing through the air for Pomrick's chest.

"Defend yourself!"

Pomrick managed to turn his head and raise his hands, before the lance struck his chest. But when it did, it splashed harmlessly against him, and runes in the floor flared, neutralising the spell into a mere splash of water, wetting his tunic. Now soaking wet, Pomrick looked down at himself, jaw frozen mid-gasp, not even having the time to exclaim.

Another laughter was beginning to ripple among the crowd, but Krellos' mortal gaze stilled them. He was deadly serious.

"Had I launched this at any of you, you would have suffered the same. And had we not been here, you would have been dead as a doornail." He allowed that to sink in, along with his practical demonstration of failling defences against such a swift attack. His once evoking hand lowered, smoothing down the front of his robe. "Action beats reaction. Every time. If you are attempting to figure out what the opposition is casting before you invoke your response, by the time you get started, they will have finished their spellcasting. And you will have perished, most like, or met a fate even worse than that." Krellos tapped his temple, glancing at each one in turn. "Anticipation. You must think ahead of your opponent. You must predict, as well as you can, what they will do. And respond appropriately. You will have no time to study them in the thick of the fray. Your mind must be ahead of the battle by precious seconds." Finally, his gaze ended on Mirthwind, laying heavy on him with significance. "That is your only chance."

Krellos stepped out of the trajectory of the two duellists, settling amongst the other students. With his admonishing, they stepped further back. The floor was delivered to Mirthwind and Pomrick.

"You will begin on my word, after my countdown. I shall go by the count of three."

Spoiler: Music

Pomrick swallowed the increasing lump in his throat. It felt as if the room kept expanding around him, isolating him further and further, rendering him a small, dripping pinprick within its majestic maw. Anticipation. Right. Seconds to prepare. Think ahead. Of course. But what would Mirthwind do? Pomrick struggled to remember. Which schools was it that countered one another? Abjuration countered evocation, or something? No, no, necromancy, he was sure of it. Or was it transmutation?

"Three."

His eyes darted around, feverishly drawing a wand of his own to channel his power. Trying to read Mirthwind, but he saw only his self-assured smile. That could mean anything. He was known for transmutation. Maybe he would transmute? But what was it that countered that? Right now, hundreds of hours of lectures crumbled into sand in his mind. All he could think of was defence. Protecting himself.

"Two."

But then again, maybe the half-elven transmuter would expect that? If he conjured a shield of aetherfire before him, devouring and dispelling frontal magic, perhaps he would attack him from some other angle? So Pomrick should do something else.

"One."

But maybe he thought that he thought that and would anticipate it! So he if went on the offence, he would have some sneaky counter. So if Mirthwind expected him to expect he himself would go defence obviously he would think he would do the opposite, so if--

"Begin!"

No time! Pomrick closed his eyes by instinct, waved wand and hand in an upward arc and sought to preserve himself.

Mirthwind

 

[Mirthwind]

Mirthwind sighed sympathetically at the panicked apprentice, his voice magically echoing out "Aquando!" as he leveled his staff not at the ward Pomrick seemed to be feverishly willing into existence around himself, but at the thick marble floor beneath him, attempting to turn it into a pool of water about five feet across and three feet deep. He loathed repeating past tricks, but a mercifully quick out seemed the best thing to offer the beleaguered lad.

Pomrick Bloomsfield

 

[Pomrick Bloomsfield]

The sphere of blue flame that manifested around him quickly snuffed out, as its caster fell downward. Splash. It seemed Pomrick's fate today was to get continually soaked.

But if he had learned one thing, it was how to get out of a tricky spot quickly. It wasn't his skill of the arcane that saw him flopping out of the water like a dying seal, rolling back onto the floor, but his unintended training of athleticism, in the many times he had had to run errands on the other side of the College.

He flopped a few times over his own back, gaining distance from the spontaneous water pool that was once marble, prone and soaking wet, but still in the game! At least, Krellos hadn't called out his immediate defeat yet.

He needed a reprieve. A single moment to breathe. Distance. A distraction. Anything. What was the first spell he could think of?

He needed to disappear, and so wove a quick incantation, stuttering through the requisite arcane words and having to repeat them a few times before he got them right, quickly spitting out one of his favorite spells for avoiding attention, ingrained so deeply in his memory even he couldn't forget.

Mirthwind

 

[Mirthwind]

Taking advantage of the precious seconds Pomrick spent escaping the pool, Mirthwind immediately stepped forward into a followup spell, aiming his staff directly at Pomrick this time and speaking “Testudande!”, meaning to polymorph him into a large tortoise.

Pomrick Bloomsfield

 

[Pomrick Bloomsfield]

For once, Lady Luck favoured Pomrick. At least in terms of regaining his footing.

In his blind panic, he had cast one of the spells he knew best. Invisibility. And when Mirthwind's staff levelled at Pomrick towards the end of his incantation, with a small plop, Pomrick vanished from sight, foiling its targeted parametres.

Krellos' stoic silence broke.

"That's it! Now, press the attack!"

Self-awareness returning to the teacher, he cleared his throat behind a hand, thinking that reasonably, this statement could have sounded aimed at both of them. Keeping his impartial integrity and all that.

Soaking wet and shivering, Pomrick crabbed to the farthest corner of the room that he could, rooting around in his mind for a new response. Attack? What attack? His master only taught him spells to do dishes and menial labour! Minor telekinetic forces had absolutely no--

Wait. That might just be it. Nothing to fling in the room, but maybe, he could sneak up with an unseen servant, a simplistic entity usually conjured to grant him an extra pair of dumb hands. Perhaps those hands could sneak up and snatch that staff . . .

Along the way, water dripped and soaked on the floor, revealing a snail's trail of water from the (nearly) invisible apprentice.

Mirthwind

 

[Mirthwind]

Mirthwind smiled appreciatively, until he saw the water dripping off. Assuming Pomrick’s eyes were on him, Mirthwind mimed a spell motion on his own eyes while aiming his staff just ahead of the falling drips. “Aquando!”-and another pool of water opened in the floor just in front of his invisible opponent.

Pomrick Bloomsfield

 

[Pomrick Bloomsfield]

It seemed Pomrick's lot today was to dump into watery holes.

His unseen servant only made it so far, until he lost control of the spell and most of his faculties were dedicated to swimming and staying afloat in the water.

This felt an awful lot like the regular fountain-dumping he had experienced at the hands of older students. A small mote of anger bubbled in his chest amongst heaps of desperation. Well, if he was going to be in water all the time, perhaps he should turn into something aquatic.

Mirthwind

 

[Mirthwind]

Mirthwind felt a familiar crackle in the weave and grinned. He nudged his staff toward the pool, summoning an illusory cayman at the pool’s edge. The half-elf started to saunter along a circular route around to the opposite side of the pool as the illusionary predator began to slide into the pool, with a loud ventriloquismal grumble noise added for effect.

Pomrick Bloomsfield

 

[Pomrick Bloomsfield]

He managed to transform himself into one of the few, animal forms he had mastered: a catfish. As agile as ever in the small pool of water.

Unfortunately, Mirthwind appeared to have had the same idea -- and had transformed himself into the natural predator of Pomrick's form. Or at least, that was what Pomrick thought.

If fish could scream, this catfish would have blared out its despair. Instead, it floundered in the water, swimming in circles to avoid the lazy approach of the crocodile. Finally, seeing no other way out, Pomrick the Catfish leapt out of the basin to slide down the stones and flop around uselessly.

Unfortunately, his animal panic caused him to forgot how to transform himself back to his human form. Breathing turned a real struggle.

In the end, to keep his student from perishing by self-inflicted asphyxiation, maester Krellos stepped forward and unbound Pomrick's polymorph spell with a grumbling incantation.

It took many seconds for Pomrick to realise he was human again, still mimicking the tail-flopping, mouth-gaping and neck-wriggling efforts of his previous scaled form. Much to the roar of laughter from students and the increasingly darkening face of Krellos.

"The winner is Mirthwind," Krellos snapped so swiftly his words could easily be overheard in the din. But the turn of his snapping robe caught the attention of students well enough.

Mirthwind

 

[Mirthwind]

Mirthwind saluted Pomrick and Maester Thunderbeard in turn with his staff, his expression unusually somber. It was cruel of the old bastard to nearly let the poor guy pass out. And nearly as cruel for the other students to guffaw and point and carry on as though they would have fared any better against a senior student. He arched an eyebrow, turning slowly around the room, his green eyes meeting each student in turn, as if to press this point home - it could have been you!

Pomrick Bloomsfield

 

[Pomrick Bloomsfield]

Finally, it seemed Krellos and Mirthwind would agree on something. Indeed, in the tail of Mirthwind's baleful stare, Krellos swept past his students like a storm of rippling blue cloth and staff stomping the floor for silence.

"Many of you will have less dignified defeats! An arcane duel is rarely pretty or elegant. It is as brutal and swift as any hand-to-hand combat. If not more so. Now; what mistakes were rendered in this duel? I will want a summary of the events you saw transpired. What schools of magic did you see at display? What strategy did our duellists employ?"

His questions hammered over them like a judge's gavel in a court hearing, demanding answers. People's shoulders slumped and they herded together like bewildered sheep, no one willing to be the first to open their mouth.

Meanwhile, Pomrick struggled up from the floor, rubbing his neck and learning how to breathe again.

Mirthwind

 

[Mirthwind]

Mirthwind waited a long, awkward moment for any of the younger students to answer. Finally, he cleared his throat. His voice was calm, and, he hoped, professorial enough for the occasion.

"Bloomsfield enjoys a profound, fundamental connection to the Weave that other students and even Maesters here may only envy and marvel at. He furthermore has the ability to warp the magic near him with his whims. For whatever reason, he struggles to fully control this connection and master this ability. So, my strategy was to overwhelm his senses, keep him off balance and uncomfortable, and prevent him from focusing. I deliberately chose lower power spells for the most part, to mitigate anything he might warp back at me. I chose to use transmutation magic once I gained the upper hand. Never be afraid to fall back on what you're best at! Just recognize that there is a counter for everything - such as when Bloomsfield turned invisible, foiling my attempt to polymorph him. Had his next move panned out, he might have seized the upper hand at that point. But I was able to get him off balance again, recognized a transmutation spell about to happen, and countered it with an illusion."

Pomrick Bloomsfield