HP: Spirit Talker

I didn't have time for a moment, the girl I wanted to push away behind the crossed line ran into an almost transparent shield wall. It was still weak enough to be pierced by a few particularly strong, targeted spells, and I would have done it immediately, but I had to jump away and pull the confused girl behind me.

Several small fireballs hit the ice shards and immediately began to explode with bangs, spilling liquid flames all around and onto the ground. I pushed Fleur into one of the three available corners of the living maze, hoping desperately that I was in time, and then, after a few low rolls and a full flip, I dodged a few more fireballs.

Where had these people come from? Judging by some holes in the ground, they came from underground, which means they put on some clever cloaks-mantles, burrowed underground, and waited for their target, and as soon as the "mouse" entered the trap, the door was slammed shut, and now they are chasing the "mouse" so that it did not have time to claw anyone's fingers.

How unpleasant, because I really did not feel them in any way, not even emotions, even now I barely manage to catch them and their magic, and even then only thanks to their activity. Two tall figures of unknown gender (because of their long black cloaks) stood in the open in the middle of a wide clearing. One of the figures held a tall staff with a large stone at the top. The stone glowed and pulsed softly, sending clumps of fire in my direction.

Next to him stood a second. This mage held a medium-length battle staff covered in brightly glowing scarlet letters and patterns. He didn't attack, but stayed fairly close to the first one, shielding him from my rare attacks and raising the most effective and, more importantly, economical shields against my responses. "Bombardas" and "Reductor" with "Stupefy" tore through Protego's simple shields with minimal saturation. Fireballs were received on a shield I was unfamiliar with, made of many sparks of fire, and ice was met with small pale circles of glow that instantly dissipated into snow.

For the moment, I jumped, ran, and dodged, looking and studying everything in sight. I couldn't get near the shield — they just wouldn't let me, chasing me around the clearing, skillfully pursuing me. I could not sense anyone but these two, but I was under no illusions: there was no way the shield could be filled with power and stabilized by itself — that would require very expensive artifacts, created exclusively for one task, and the price of such a "trinket" would be no less than a living dragoness with a full clutch under her scaly tail.

And this, let me remind you, is just a huge amount of money: every adult dragon that is allowed to cut feeds dozens of families of thieving officials, and this is not to mention the "honest" money, so the example, I think, at least a little, but understandable. Based on this, there should be at least a few more magicians who, judging by the structure of the shield and its energy content, will finish their part of the work very soon and be able to turn their attention in my direction. And I don't have any hope that they will forget Fleur, no, if the girl doesn't get in the way, she won't be noticed for a while, but when they deal with me, they will take care of her.

I didn't stop for a second, even though I didn't do an acrobatic show, or overpower their spells with my shield, or even cooler — beam on beam, no, I just jumped aside in time, covered myself with pieces of turf and counterattacked. I even managed to get one of the attackers once — bluntly piercing his shield with power and burning part of his robe.

When I saw what was under the black cloak of the mysterious enemy, I even felt a little offended: Well, who would have thought that this time I would be followed not by a group of "sportsmen" who had become insolent because of their permissiveness, but by the most natural fighters in full enchanted armor made of riveted leather and chain mail, and on his head there would most likely be some kind of closed helmet, except that it was not made of steel, although this is not a fact — everything depends on the level of paranoia of the owner of the armor. For several tense minutes I tried to catch the second attacker, but it turned out to be much more difficult, because he created shields quickly and skillfully, so it wasn't surprising that the fighter didn't lack protection for himself.

And he reacted to various tricks as if he was lazily swatting away a fly... well, not exactly, but it was clear that life had brought me face to face with a seasoned veteran of the dagger and the whip, with an adaptation to the magical world. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it before the time was up — let all the cockroaches crawl out first, and then we could give them a spritz of dichlorophos and this and that. But I still managed to ruin the second fighter's cloak, confirming my hunch about the level of hired killers or kidnappers, but judging by the lack of attempts to establish a contact dialog, the first option is more likely.

In general, under the cloak of the second, there was also a leather armor with metal elements, and also heavily enchanted — this is if we judge by the flashing symbols on the armor, perhaps some runes, but it was not possible to examine.

Well, this circumstance makes it much more difficult to get out of here and to get Fleur out, and therefore it is necessary to take steps in this direction now. Jumping to the side, raising a shield, two seals-shikigami fly out of the sleeve of the hand lowered to the ground, and remaining on the ground, I continue to move in a circle, drawing attention to myself.

Retreating one step forward, one step back, three steps to the side. The lettuce-colored clot flew farther away, followed by the caustic pink ray of "Goodness and Friendship. I ducked, dodged the trajectory of another beam, responded with a bunch of explosives, rolled away from another thing that looked like a dark purple cloud, fired two more seals, set up a shield, another, rolled.

As I jumped and spun, my seals moved stealthily along the ground, toward the shield. The spirits inside the seals were given a simple command: drink the magic of the barrier, taking their time, but constantly. Characteristically, the spirits liked the order. The conductivity of the seals will not allow a sharp and therefore noticeable drop in the power of the dome, the spirits will slowly drink energy, reduce the stock of magic in the structures, reduce the time of the dome, and the more I drop the seals the better, but it must be done as discreetly as possible.

It would have continued like this if the one with the staff hadn't started to weave something I didn't want to interact with at all — I could just feel the hairs on my body stirring. In my mental vision, I could barely see the mages — they looked like translucent silhouettes of humanoids, but without any distinguishing features or peculiarities, it was not even clear if they were women or men, not to mention other details of their appearance.

But to see how an impressive amount of magic begins to gather around the wizard with the staff, and the staff unfolds a complex three-dimensional web of complexity, I would say the university level of geometry — if you compare the complexity with Muggle sciences. I couldn't do anything immediately — the scepter-wielding wizard took the matter seriously, and even the most unexpected tricks were not, it was as if he knew everything I could show him in advance.

I had to get a little more serious. The fire spear almost worked — it broke two of the many shields, but I noticed that the structure around the staff "swayed" in space, as if the wind had touched the leaves on the branches. Unfortunately, I don't have a ready strategy for such a situation, or rather, I could pull out my blade, but I feel that we are being watched closely, and therefore revealing to the enemy that I have my blade with me is not a wise choice. The seals have already been seen by the enemy, so I hang six seals in front of me....