Wizard Battle!

"I did," says the elf standing before me.

He didn't say it with a conceited snarl, or as some declaration of war. It was a calm, controlled recitation of facts. 'I did this thing.' Behind the mage, the brute is still shaking off the twenty or so fists he took to the body. I recognize the gorilla-sized bastard. He's the one who had cornered me with the mage back in the alleyway back in the city. The gigantic man's knees are wobbly. But he's still standing, so... you know. That's unfortunate. Still, if I wasn't so concerned over Veronica and Clyde, I'd still be in awe at the effectiveness of my new Raining Knuckles Spell.

Behind me, the slime covering the reanimated wyrmling bubbles and gurgles. The three idiot slimes—Tom, Jax, and Other Tom—puppet the dragon's body, opening its mouth and emitting a low, deep buzzing signal. Jelly Boy sits high on its back, buzzing with regal menace.

I look down at Veronica again. She's alive, but barely. Eyes closed, cheeks hollow, limbs twitching against the glowing black chains. The black chains coiled around her body pulse with a sickly energy. I focus on my Aura Sense and see several dark shades of magic snaking their way through the iron chains. Whatever magic this is has to be keeping their Health at zero to prevent regeneration. That's not good.

Ding!

NEW QUEST!

A System message springs to life on my interface.

Oh, come on. Now? Really?!

I scan the neat, glowing text unfurling in front of my face.

New Quest: A Hero Arrives!

Description: Members of your party are in trouble. If you do not save them here, their fates will be in jeopardy.

OBJECTIVE: Rescue Clyde Richmond and Veronica Sampietro.

Reward: Advanced Spellcaster's Chest.

BONUS OBJECTIVE: Defeat Illrune Abascal and Dain Wraithart.

Reward: Advanced Spellcaster's Chest will be upgraded to a Legendary Spellcaster's Chest.

Legendary.

Normally, the dopamine monkeys in my brain would start banging pots and pans. Now, I simply blink away the notification.

Because I don't care about some reward being dangled in front of my nose by the System.

Not when my allies—my friends—are on death's doorstep. Not when I'm the only thing between them and getting out of this Realm alive.

"Fuck your legendary loot," I growl.

"What are you muttering about?" asks the elf mage.

I glance up at him. He and the brute must be Illrune and Dain. They're the only two still standing. I examine the mage.

Identified: ??? – Elf Mage – Level 17

Then, I examine the hulking figure, who's now stepping forward, cracking his neck, face twisted into a snarl.

Identified: ??? – Half-Elf Enforcer – Level 13

I scan the battlefield—flicking through the notifications on my HUD. A quick examination shows that none of the downed men are System-marked corpses. As I scan them, the System conveniently marks them as 'Downed' or 'Unconscious."

A part of me is relieved at that fact. None of them look like they're getting back to their feet anytime soon. That's the important part. And perhaps I could walk away with Veronica and Clyde and without needing to spill blood?

The Quest's primary objective is to simply save my allies. The bonus objective distinctly didn't make reference to killing my enemies.

I try and push down the angry fire still raging in my chest. The power of my magic is still flooding my veins—pushing me to act, to fight.

Instead, I breathe. A slow, deep inhale. Hold. Then an even slower exhale through my nose. There's no need for this to end in violence. Jelly Boy and I got here in time to save them. That's all that matters.

"Alright," I mutter. I look up, locking eyes with the mage. "You've got something that belongs to me," I say, voice low.

My eyes drift towards the carriages, finding a slab of earth carrying a glowing, spherical and glass-like, filled with crackling purple electricity.

I continue. "You've lost nearly all your men, and I've got a slime dragon. We don't need to fight. You let me leave here with my friends and the dragon core, and I let you leave with your lives."

The elf raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow, but says nothing.

I breathe in again, then let it out slowly.

"Look," I say. "We really don't have to escalate this." My voice is firm. Calm. Controlled. And every word tastes like blood that's about to be spilled. Still, I hold onto hope that this elf can see reason and choose to walk away.

"I know who you are now…" he says. "I know what you are now." His voice is low and filled with certainty.

Certainty was the last thing I wanted to hear. Certainty is what MLM reps wear to brunch. Certainty means he's about to do something very stupid and very dangerous.

"Err… I'm flattered," I say, and maybe my voice cracks a little, because I just realize his hat is glowing. His hat. The big, floppy wizard hat—stitched like Frankenstein's laundry, half-cocked. How could I have forgotten about the hat?

The stitched threads on the hat snap and split, peeling apart like the seam of reality when Sloth's portal appeared back at the dragon's nest. The open stitches form a mouth, a tongue of fire licking the air.

"Oh, shit," I mutter.

The mouth unleashes a silent roar, opening wide. A fireball erupts from the hat's gaping jaw and screams as it rips through the air. My body moves before my brain does. Adrenaline kicks in and I snatch up Veronica's limp body and I dive to the side. The back of my neck burns like I'm bacon under a broiler but the fireball misses me for the most part. I'm not on fire but my Health ticks down as a reminder that I just came a hair's breadth away from being incinerated.

Health: 125/140

While the fireball missed me, it doesn't miss the wyrmling. With me jumping out of the fireball's path, the slime-controlled dragon is left as the next target in its path. The dragon—already an awkward, dead puppet—doesn't stand a chance. It turns its head just in time to catch the spell square in the chest. The slimes surrounding the dragon scream, their high-pitched buzzing wails splitting the air.

The blue coating bubbles and pops. The wyrmling stumbles, then crashes sideways like a building in a budget demolition video. Its charred hide crackles, smoke pouring from its melted, already-deteriorated flesh. Jelly Boy is flung from the collapsing dragon, only to land right in the path of its body, which slams down onto the President Slime.

"JELLY BOY!" I scream.

Three wet plops echo across the battlefield. Tom, Tom, and Jax eject from the body like boogers from a sinus rinse. They splatter across the ground, reforming into their humanoid shapes. All three look stunned. Jax is upside down. One of the Toms is missing an arm, which I realize is a few feet away, inch-worming itself back to the rest of its body. The other Tom is just laying flat on its back—clearly questioning its decisions.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

This is a disaster. I clench my jaw. My eyes burn from the sizzling air, the heat from the explosion still cooking the edge of my vision.

So much for diplomacy.

My hands ball into fists as I rise to a crouch, facing my opponents. I flex my biceps and cast Wizard's Fist. Twice.

Lefty and Righty appear in twin explosions of silver mist. Lefty emerges from its puff of mist, flipping me off as it appears. Righty flexes, spectral forearm veins bulging.

"Alright, guys," I mutter. "Big guy over there. Do your thing." I mentally add: Try not to kill him. Just teach him to nap. Very aggressively.

The spectral hands each give me a thumbs up. They take off with a whoosh, knuckle trails gleaming through the smoke.

I stand. My hands are shaking. Why are my hands shaking? I've fought monsters. I've killed monsters. But this feels different.

I face my opponent. The smug bastard is smiling now. And why shouldn't he be? He just leveled the playing field. I guess the guy who throws the first punch often wins the fight.

I spit to the side and take a fighting stance, steeling my resolve. I ran back in that alleyway. I wasn't running this time.

The elf is fast. One second he's standing there. Then blink—he's gone, appearing out of thin air to my right, further away. He throws his hand forward and a beam of red energy lances through the air. I dodge, casting Force Blast. And so, the wizard battle begins.

Every Force Blast I launch at him, he twists, spins, and slices through, at first with a nervous sense of desperation. Eventually, he settles in and does so with a lazy flick of the wrist and a shimmering shield spell. I zigzag across the battlefield, each step a thudding slap of boots against dirt.

"Come on!" I yell, hurling another Force Blast.

Fwoom!

He deflects it with a condescending little wrist swirl, then fires back.

Pop pop pop!

Chunks of stone lift and sling themselves at my face with sniper-like precision.

I cast Slimy Shield, and the spell forms a shimmering disc of lime green ooze. It quivers but holds as the rocks hit with wet slaps, splattering goo across the earth. I glance in the direction of Veronica and the slimes, and try and clock Clyde's position too. I can't let the fight drift their way.

I keep moving—left, right, slide-step, blast, duck, shout, block with another Slimy Shield. I still have plenty of Stamina in the tank? But my focus? Not so much. Every Force Blast I fire is a little weaker than the last. I realize that it's because I'm half-assing the spell's focus poses, essentially casting using a physical shorthand.

It's ironic, really. Turns out spellcasting is exactly like lifting weights: form is everything, and if you half-ass it, you will blow out your magical hamstrings.

Boom!

The sound of a large, refrigerator-shaped body hitting the ground echoes from behind the elf mage.

I chance a look.

Lefty and Righty have done it!

The brute is out cold. He's faceplanted, slack-jawed and drooling into the grass. Lefty gives a little triumphant flex. Righty floats there as though it's checking the time.

This is exactly what I was waiting for. Despite my Stamina still doing well, I had no way of knowing how the elf's mana reserves were doing. And to make matters worse, I was essentially stuck with Force Blast and Slimy Shield. I was quickly becoming predictable.

If this was going to be a long-distance spell-flinging contest, it was likely a matter of time before I lost. I needed to take the fight directly to this mage.

I sprint forward, arms pumping. Magic surges in my veins like lightning flavored pre-workout as I signal my commands to my Wizard Fists. They zip in, flanking the mage.

The elf's eyes narrow. He chants something in a language that sounds like a tax code having a nervous breakdown. The ground violently rumbles.

Shunk!

Walls of earth explode upward around Lefty and Righty—four walls with a fifth forming a flat roof—boxing in the two spectral hands.

Aw, shit!

My mind wants to dismiss the Spell and re-summon Lefty and Righty. But I'm already mid-swing, a right hook aimed right for his jaw.

He ducks, realizing too late that it's a feint and I come in low with a left uppercut.

My fist punches through air and a thin layer of my pride. Blink. He's gone, standing on top of the earthen box he put my punchy guys in.

I curse, backpedal, and dismiss the fists with a snappy mental command. Lefty and Righty vanish, and even though I can't see them, it's like a mental weight's been lifted from my brain.

"Alright," I growl, flexing.

Pfoom! Pfoom!

Lefty and Righty reappear, hovering beside me with vengeance in their knuckle-shaped hearts. I send them after the mage and they're happy to oblige.

Just then, the ground beneath my feet turns to liquid. It ripples like a disturbed pond surface, before erupting in a splash of muddy water. A man, grinning like a hyena, explodes out of the ground, twin daggers gleaming in each hand. He's lean, sharp-eyed, and fox-faced.

"Surprise," he hisses, mid-air, knives spinning.

A scream tears itself from my throat—loud, angry, mindless. I twist hard as the first dagger whistles past my face, the blade slicing the air with a malicious hiss. Pain blooms in my upper arm as the bastard's other knife grazes my bicep—just a nick, but deep enough to draw blood in a clean red line.

"Too slow," the man laughs.

The first blade comes back around, reversed in his grip, a silver blur arcing toward my gut. No time to think. I throw my arm forward and slam my forearm into his wrist. The knife stops, centimeters from my stomach, the tip trembling with tension, but only for half a breath.

His arm explodes. A wet, red spray arcs into the air as his shoulder gives up on existing. Blood, bone and muscle splatter in every direction, soaking my entire body. The man's eyes go wide with shock.

Ping!

You have triggered [Dismember].

Target has been inflicted with [Bleed].

Target has been dismembered.

The rogue howls and spins away, blood spraying in a macabre spiral as he collapses to the ground, clutching the hole where his arm used to be.

Before I can blink, I dismiss Lefty and Righty, who were midway through trying to brute force their way through the mages shield spell. I flex my biceps and cast the spell again. They appear in two sprays of silvery mist and slam into the downed rogue before he can even think about getting up. A left hook. A right jab. A tag-team of ghost fists. Two more strikes before I receive a change in the man's status.

[Status: Unconscious]

Okay. Good. One down—

Fwoosh!

My world turns into light and pain as a beam of searing magic slams into my chest.

"GaaaAAAHHH—!"

I'm launched off my feet. I sail twelve feet through the air and land on my back with a crunch that echoes through my entire skeleton. My HUD blares.

Health: 68/140.

Stamina: 76/295.

I'm staring into the sky and trying to remember how to breathe.

"Oh god," I wheeze.

My vision pulses at the edges. My ribs are broken. Definitely broken. I try to roll over, and my body laughs at me. I still have enough Health that I can feel my ribs and body bending itself back into the right shape, but it's a lot slower than I'd like.

Worse: my cut on my arm hasn't healed yet. Instead, it's still burning with a hot, sharp pain. I'm met with a devastating System message.

You have been inflicted with the [Strength Sap] debuff!

[Description: This debuff lasts for 1 minute. While you are under the effect of this status condition, you cannot restore your Stamina. You will gradually lose Stamina until your Stamina reaches 0. This debuff can be stacked.]

Well, that's not good.

My Stamina bar is shaving points like sand in an hour glass.

From the edge of my hearing, I catch the elf mage's voice, calm and cold.

"Are we done now?"

"Not… quite…" I hiss, trying to sit up.

The elf bastard lifts his hand again, palm glowing with magic. "I know how your magic works," he says, voice calm, arrogant, like he's about to serve me a cupcake made of condescension. "You can't last much longer."

Yeah. No shit, asshole.

Another searing beam flares to life in his palm. I lurch to my feet—knees creaking, ribs shrieking, lungs feeling like they're being wrung out like wet towels—and I make it exactly one half-step before the beam slams into me.

Burning, white-hot agony racks my body. My stomach takes the brunt this time. I hit the ground like a sack of regret. But I roll, teeth grit, and come up on a knee. There's blood on my lips. I snarl.

Lefty. Righty.

They appear on cue, my beautiful ghost bros, floating to my side like angry gym spirits.

Go! I mentally command.

They shoot forward as though fired from a cannon. The mage flinches, then snarls. He slams his hand to the ground—stone ripples like water—and the terrain erupts again, boxing in my boys before they can reach him.

Dammit. Did the same trick just work on me for the second time?

I surge forward, casting Slimy Shield just in time to intercept another beam. It splashes across the jelly like a high-powered super soaker, the ooze spraying across my body and mixing in with the rogue's blood.

I'm moving slower as I close the distance between us. I'm not just winded—I'm crashing.

Stamina: 17/295.

I'm not running anymore. I'm jogging. More like shuffling, if we're being honest. My legs are wet sandbags. My lungs are glass bottles being stepped on. My muscles are screaming at me in seventeen languages. I don't care. I keep. Pushing. Forward.

The mage sees it though. He recognizes my fatigue.

He raises a hand. A fresh spell begins to form. This one is a crackling orange mote of energy.

"You're out of juice," he says, smiling like a snake in a sauna.

He's right. I only get a couple yards closer before a flashing red light pops up in the corner of my vision.

My Stamina hits zero.

Every step forward is like dragging a mountain behind me. My arms feel like anvils. My heartbeat is thunder in a blender. My body is screaming at me to stop moving!

I'm done. I drag my feet forward. One step. Pause. One step. Pause.

"And you thought you were sparing me…?" he sneers.

He lifts his palm. The spell charges, forming a large arrowhead of magic.

And that's when I remember that I have one last trick up my sleeve.

I focus on my cape, silently activating its ability and casting my one free-of-cost cantrip. A smile touches the corner of my lips.

Wizard's Fist.

FWOOM!

The spell snaps into reality. A left hand, glowing and beautiful, rockets into existence and smashes into his smug, pretty-boy face mid-cast.

His eyes go wide.

"Wha—"

WHAM.

His spell dies in his hand, sputtering before blinking out entirely. He flies backwards like he's been uppercut by Zeus wearing brass knuckles. His body skips across the dirt and lands in a heap.

I examine him and a box of text appears over his limp body.

[Status: Downed]

The world is spinning. My vision is swimming. But I lift my arm. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. Like I'm front shoulder raising the weight of the world.

My fist clenches.

The spectral hand zips over, still glowing, still humming with residual power.

It gives me a fist bump.

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