Ends of Magic

The sea cutters schooled around the Grace of the Mists in a cyclone of armored scales and razored fins. They scored gashes in the railings and threatened Nathan with dismemberment with every moment.

But he danced through the openings in their swarm. It would have been impossible if he’d been stuck on the deck, but by moving with the rhythm of the monsters he avoided their strikes. He swum through the air like one of them, darting and dashing in spurts that coincided with their abrupt jerks of acceleration. The rapid starts and stops pushed his movement abilities to their limit as he tried to understand just how the sea cutters were moving so quickly.

Each time one of the monsters changed course there was a twist of water mana, but the magic wasn’t strong enough to accelerate them as quickly as they were going. Additionally, the shape definitely wasn’t a spell. But Nathan could feel a nearly instantaneous flash of wizardry accompanying each motion, though it was too fast for him to probe into.

Wizard fishes. What will Davrar come up with next?

Gunfire and the sound of heavy bodies striking panes of force sounded below Nathan as the Heirs fought against the onslaught. They were nearly invisible at the eye of the storm, waves of scaled bodies striking and being repulsed. Blood sprayed widely as Sarah and Aarl struck out at the swarm, but the violence just seemed to feed the frenzy of the attacking monsters.

Nathan extended his aura out tentatively, intersecting with the nearest fish and trying to interfere with their magic and see what happened. He succeeded, though not entirely. The fish nearest him still changed direction, but they did so without control. Several of them slammed into each other and more blood gouted as their fins cut through metallic scales like a sword through paper.

I still don’t really understand what’s going on here. This is a much smaller and more efficient application of wizardry than anything I’ve seen before.

Tranquility 2 achieved!

Then lightning blasted out from Stella, chaining through the school of fish. The spell was paired with a magnetic containment field to keep the lightning contained above the ship and prevent it from touching the water. It seemed that she'd listened to Eolinne, and wanted to avoid tempting any other monsters. She still managed to hit every single fish that was over the ship - and Nathan.

The lightning stung a bit as it coursed through Nathan, with Stella’s skills partially converting the magic into natural lightning. But his antimagic was powerful, his body was tough and this wasn’t her most powerful spell.

She’s generally pretty good at keeping that out of the spells that hit me.

Stella's spell also knocked nearly every sea cutter out of the air. A curtain of flesh dropped to the decking all around, more fish falling into the ocean on both sides of the ship to float in the ocean. A few of the monsters closer to the Heirs were steaming with the amount of energy that had been conducted through them, but the rest were still weakly flopping around. They regained energy with every passing second.

Nathan saw Aarl step out to and slash apart the nearest dozen fish with a quick combination of blows. But then the fish started to twitch, and he stepped back into formation. The Heirs all took a second to reset their stances. Sarah slid fastloaders into her pistols while Khachi reset his shield and renewed the dome of golden force that protected the Heirs. Stella started channeling another spell, strengthening the magnetic spell to contain a stronger lightning burst. The monsters recovered from Stella’s magic in a wave that started at the farthest corners of the ship and converged on the Heirs. They leapt back into the air like a single body to resume their swarm, accompanied by a wave of water magic that fueled their flight.

This time there were enough sources of the magic repeated in quick succession for Nathan to figure out the effect. It reminded him of the drilling motion the fire elemental in Fireface pass had used to drill into the mana pools of dead mages. The one Nathan had copied to learn to drain and then break mana pools. Except the sea cutters were doing just enough to “hook” into the metaphysical barrier that divided the realm of wizardry and exert force on it to propel themselves.

Arcane Insight 3 achieved!

I didn’t know it was possible to use that barrier to generate physical force.

He fit himself back into the pattern of the schooling fish, darting in sync with their movements. But this time he mimiced what they were doing, hooking his antimagic into the mystical barrier that coated all of reality and pulled with a hefty Stamina investment. His aura had never before been a conduit for force, but it worked well enough. Nathan was sent jetting forwards, directly off the side of the ship and through a swirling blender of sharp fins.

Arcane Nullfield 8 achieved!

The notification was the first thing he saw as his eyes came back together from his unintended journey through the storm of sea cutters. He shook himself free and used his aura to drag himself back towards the ship, feeling the muscles of his right leg and left arm heal as his left foot and right arm started to grow back.

At least they didn’t manage to cut through my spine. I need to get better at healing dismemberment. It seems to happen frequently, and it’s annoying to have to wait a few seconds for the limb to grow back all the way.

He used his functional appendages to get back into the dance of the fish, but was forced to rely more and more on his aura to dodge an onrushing monster. It was jerky and completely unlike the motion of his muscles, and Nathan started spending Focus in addition to Stamina in order to control the motion and avoid throwing himself through another scaled blender. It worked well, and within moments he was coordinating kicking off of thin air and pulling himself around with his aura.

Congratulations, you have developed the [Acceleration] utility skill into [Impulse].

Utility skill: [Impulse]

This skill allows you to accelerate very quickly in any direction with a Stamina expenditure and precisely control your direction with an efficient Focus expenditure.

Well that’s new, but gratifying. I’m glad I took a moment to understand the fish.

Nathan spread his aura out to encompass the airspace above the ship, suppressing not just the water magic but also the wizardry used by the monsters. Now that he understood the trick it was relatively easy to shut down their little trick. The fish fell out of the sky again, bouncing off the golden shield that surrounded the Heirs and littering the deck in a solid layer of flesh. But this time they weren’t stunned. The fish started flopping around the moment they hit the deck, scoring gashes in the wood and in each other. A few managed to flip themselves over the railings but most remained trapped on the ship.

Nathan answered the Heirs’ questioning looks. “They’re stuck. Let’s clean up.”

The Heirs split up, each taking their own approach to slaughtering their way through the beached monsters. Stella brought out a plasma torch and carved her way through the monster’s scales, spreading the smell of charred fish over the entire vessel. Khachi swung his hammer like a blacksmith, each blow crushing the head of a different fish. Sarah moved carefully, lining her pistols up with a weak spot on the forehead of the sea cutters and pithing them with single shots.

But Aarl killed as many as the rest of the Heirs combined, striding around the deck like he was out for a casual stroll as two greatswords swung around him in a blur of barely-visible metal. He neatly decapitated most of his targets, but a few swings ended up cutting through two or even three of the sea cutters at a time, leaving bisected chunks of bleeding flesh on the deck.

Nathan abstained from joining the massacre. Instead he descended to the railing and looked down at the water, watching the ocean with worried eyes. Shapes flickered below the surface and a few more sea cutters shot into the air. They tried to adjust towards him and uniformly failed as soon as they entered the reach of his aura. Most fell right back into the water, but one arced up at him and swung a fin. He pivoted on his heel and punched it right in the head, sending it back into the water with a splash. But the sea cutters weren’t what Nathan was concerned about. He eyed the blood gushing through the runnels and off the deck of the Grace of the Winds, staining the water below a right red.

Is all of that blood going to attract something nastier?

He turned around as Khachi brought his hammer down one final time, shattering the skull of the last living sea cutter. The splash of gore dripped off his armor, leaving the shining metal spotless. The Heirs shared a series of satisfied nods, looking around the field of slaughter with pleased expressions.

End of Magic has leveled to 759! You have defeated a school of sea cutters that attacked you on the open ocean!

Spellslayer has leveled to 536! You have won an open battle against a swarm of monsters!

The stairway morphed out of the decking, pushing some of the carcasses aside and allowing Eolinne to climb up to survey the deck. She looked around with an expression that was somewhere between disgust and gratification. “That was a harmony of slaughter.” She waved a hand towards Aarl. “Would you butcher them and store the meat? The stasis cabinet is against the port wall.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Should we be worried about the blood causing a frenzy?” Nathan asked, pointing down at where blood continued to run out through the runnels.

Eolinne followed his finger, then shot a quick glance over her shoulder towards where the continent was fading away behind them. “The scavengers this close to shore are not aggressive. They would only attack if we were to promise a meal and withhold the bounty. Toss most of the flesh overboard and we will have no more attackers, only followers. That will warn off the other opportunists who seek to investigate our ship.”

With a shrug Nathan got to work, helping Khachi and Sarah toss most of their victims over the side. Soon enough the waters around them churned with activity as other ocean-dwellers tore the carcasses apart. There was some amount of fighting, but most of it was a bunch of different scavengers frantically scrambling to claim their part of what was left of the school of sea cutters.

Nathan watched for a moment before turning away with a slightly green face. He’d seen tentacles six inches thick and at least twenty feet long curling along the surface of the water, questing for pieces of fish. They gave him the shivers.

I’ve definitely fought scarier things before, but it’s the thought of not being able to see in murky water, of not knowing how big that creature is or how many there are that’s scary. I think that’s called thalassophobia. But right now that seems like a very reasonable fear. It could be something like a jellyfish, or a shark with tentacles for a mouth, or… I dunno, a hivemind of tentacles stretching across the entire ocean. I don’t know, and that’s what's scary.

Aarl quickly harvested hundreds of pounds of fish and joined in cleaning the decks while Eolinne surveyed their work like a queen watching her subjects do labor. As soon as they cleared each section she flicked her finger and the decking cleaned itself as if scrubbed by an invisible crew. That’s not what it was - it was a simple application of wizardry that detached everything that wasn’t wood from the deck and then gave it a little kick overboard.

After they were done she drew out her flute and played a calming song that caused the gashes in the hull to heal over seamlessly. It also accelerated the process of the ship repairing the wound from Litcliff’s siege weaponry, though that would take a while longer to be completely fixed. Once she was done she withdrew the white wood from her lips with a flourish that made the flute vanish into her dress and clapped her hands together with a vulpine smile. “Let us enjoy the bounty of the sea that has delivered itself to us!”

—

The meal was excellent. Aarl was a pretty good cook, but Eolinne danced circles around him in the kitchen. It was obvious that she’d been doing this for a long time and had customized the equipment to her exact tastes. And they were good tastes, Nathan had to admit. They lingered around the large dining table, sipping a light cordial and luxuriating in the feeling of eating at a proper table with food that hadn’t been cooked with the enchanted cooking equipment stored in their dimensional bags.

Aarl raised his glass to their host. “A cheer for Eolinne! Our savior from a nest of hydras. May the Grace of the Mists run circles around Questors to the Ending of History and beyond!”

“Cheers!” The rest of the Heirs mirrored the action.

Eolinne gave them a brilliant smile, her teeth white against red lips. Then her look at the Heirs deepened, taking in their upright postures. “How many battles has it been since you had a respite? A true period without fear of attack?”

“Does that include the sea cutters?” Sarah asked, jerking a thumb up towards the deck.

Eolinne dipped her head silently and allowed the silence to stretch, prompting an answer.

“Eleven?” Sarah said in response, her tone unsure. Stella shot her a disbelieving look, so Sarah clarified. “Since leaving Halsmet to investigate the Monastery of Quaz. Then we saw the fall of the Academy, fought our way into the city, joined Nathan…” She trailed off, glancing towards him. “It’s been even longer for you. All of the time we were in Halsmet, you were in Giantsrest.”

“Yeah,” Nathan said, letting out a tired breath. “It wasn’t all battle. But even when it was quiet - I was still in Giantsrest. It really feels like that night in the Edrani Empire ruin was the last time there wasn't something hanging over us. After that was Kozar and the fortress foundry, then that thing with Taeol. We’ve been at war with Giantsrest ever since. We haven’t even really won, since our real enemy was always Badud.” He looked back towards Eolinne. “Can you win against a Questor?”

“Not truly,” She replied, words slow and bitter. “You can hinder their interests, destroy what they build. But you can never end them. They will always return, and they only need defeat you once.”

She shook her head, banishing her thoughts before returning her attention to the Heirs. “I hope this voyage is a harmony of peace for you. I have seen true powers ground down by constant warfare, always considering the next battle and never their whole lives. I bid you each to seek your center and set your eyes on the horizon.”

She paused again, but none of the Heirs interrupted her. The captain of the Grace of the Winds clearly had experiences beyond any non-questor they’d interacted with before, and it would be foolish to turn down her advice.

“Consider your developments, and what efforts may complement them. Use this time to practice with your new abilities and ready new Insights for your future challenges. You must rest, but true power emerges not just from battle but from careful thought beforehand. This is the time for that thought.”

The advice seemed to resonate with Nathan in a way that felt like a mental skill. He took a second to probe what Eolinne was doing, but it definitely wasn't interfering with his decision-making process. It was trying to help them unpack the advice she'd just given, to convert something that sounded superficial into the deep principle it was.

Closer to [Tutoring] than [Leadership]

Eolinne watched them all over the rim of her glass, studying their reaction to her words.

“I need to be faster,” Sarah started them off with a shrug. “I need Insights for rapid aiming. There are always targets, and I need to hit them quicker.”

Aarl picked up where she left off. “I need to practice combining the different parts of my arsenal. I have a dozen weapons that would each be considered a relic, and I need to figure out how to use them together, and use them while flying.”

Khachi’s voice lacked the confidence that Nathan had grown familiar with. “I - I must understand my ethos,” he said hesitantly. “I began my path mirroring the principles of Deiman, but now the principles that matter are my own. I must decide what they are.” He sounded a little lost.

Stella’s expression was sour. “I need to learn water mana. It’s a weighty power when on the ocean. But it’s not the path I want to walk.”

Eolinne frowned slightly at Stella's response, but then turned her attention to Nathan.

He blew out a heavy breath. “I need to understand my new class, and what it means. I haven’t been using it to its full potential.”

Utility skill: [Acceleration]

This skill will help you accelerate very rapidly in your desired direction, and decrease the Stamina cost of doing so. Cannot be used to move in directions you could not without this skill.

Utility skill: [Impulse]

This skill allows you to accelerate very quickly in any direction with a Stamina expenditure and precisely control your direction with an efficient Focus expenditure.

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Arcane Nullfield 8

Permanent Talent 2: Immortal Body 6

Permanent Talent 3: Airwalking 7

Class: End of Magic level 759

Bottomless Stamina : 58135/76900

Indomitable

The Undeniable Strike of the Antimage

Stamina Burn

Momentum Mastery

Stoneflesh

Arcane Nullification

Galefoot

Close Quarters Mastery

Boundless Aura

Denial of Mysticism

The Ending of Magic

Aura Projection

Selective Dispel

The Living World

Class: Spellslayer level 536

Regenerative Focus: 5460/5460

Catastrophic Blows

Battle Stealth

Mage Infiltration

Forgettable

Sneaky Blow

Antimagic Stealth

Magical Manipulation

Lethal Index

Wizard Resistance

Magic Jammer

Controlled Failure

Utility skills:

Tranquility 2

Inspiration 8

Impulse 1

Mystical Discernment 2

Alertness 10

Arcane Insight 3

Effortless Dodge 10

Mental Vault 5

Tutoring 7

Parkour 8

Visibility Control 4

High-tier Disguise 5

High-tier Battle Cry 2

Aura Control 4