B6 Chapter 644: The Pit, Finale

A swell of excitement rushed through Ianmus as his opponent called him to action. He’d always wanted to test himself against a counterspeller — and it was just his luck that he got to now that he had invented keyseals.

What better way to learn more about his art than to have it tested?

“Try to stop me from casting my second tier spells?” he asked.

Weavebane nodded.

Without waiting, Ianmus sent his Will flooding into his body. His mana waited there, a current of boiling potential that lay dormant in his marrow. Generated in his soul, it flowed outward to saturate his body. With the metaphysical nature of his inner fire, it simply looked like the energy was multiplying in his bones.

Twisting out dense streams of the energy, Ianmus contemplated his approach. One of his solar keyseals would be the best to start with, as he was far more familiar with that affinity than he was with lunar. Perhaps the Keyseal of the Weeping Saint. It would certainly be the safest option. If Weavebane did manage to disrupt his cast, he didn’t want to detonate an unstable Preeminent Halo on top of the two of them.

Mana moved blood and muscle like the channels of a normal mage, a building crescendo that flowed towards his staff. At first, it brought the cold tingle of unaspected mana like he had doused himself in a mountain stream. Drawing on Shaper of Dusk and Dawn he transmuted the energy to the golden glow of sunlight. The warmth of the summer’s breeze swallowed him whole.

Across from him, Weavebane narrowed his eyes and stared with the focus of sailor who’d just watched a fish take flight. The mage tilted his head, tracking the welling surge of mana as it coursed down Ianmus’s arms.

“Well,” Weavebane muttered. “That’s not something you see everyday.”

Ianmus just grinned. His opponent wasn’t idle either. As he grew closer to casting, Weavebane summoned his own mana. It flowed through the man’s channels, surging out of his staff to spread out in a distinct cloud of violet-blue arcane mana. From what Ianmus knew of counterspelling, the man didn’t need his own mana, since he could just use raw manipulation skill to contest Ianmus for control — but it seemed likely that he planned to use the arcane for additional methods of disruption.

Solar magic coursed into Ianmus’s staff. The second it reached the conduits, the focus’s enchantments went to work, empowering the current until it was a forceful torrent. That was the other reason he’d picked a solar seal — a lunar one would not have been as quick or as forceful to weave.

Soon, it would be replaced with something more neutrally beneficial.

A golden ball of light built within the faceted crystals at the tip of his staff. A small hint of disappointment flitted through him at the thought of replacing the thing. He’d never even had the opportunity to test out the glave-like blade of light it could summon. Ah well, he’d never been one for staff-combat anyway.

Once his magic was sufficiently concentrated, Ianmus pulled on the Keyseal of the Weeping Saint. Golden light spilled from his staff, coalescing into a thick cable of energy. Guided by his Will, it arced to the left, beginning the process of carving out the edges of his seal.

He made it a bare span before he slammed into an iron wall of hostile intent.

…

Weavebane grinned, his fascination sinking him deep into the consuming glow of his manasight. He could see every eddy and mote in the entire arena — even the pulsing light of his fellow delvers as their souls released excess energy in a slow boil.

Ianmus stood out like a wolf among sheep. His mana suffused him utterly. Unlike the leaking fuzz of every other person in existence, Ianmus was a shining figure of light. Mana threaded his bones and coursed through his veins — was he part bloody spirit? The treatise had mentioned the man had run into some dire circumstances when initially creating his keyseal, but he hadn’t suspected something this drastic.

It begged the question, was a similar change necessary for every would-be conjurer? More importantly, what difficulties would it create for his work?

Weavebane couldn’t wait to find out.

He pounced as soon as Ianmus started to cast. Ignoring his diffuse cloud of mana that gathered around him, he reached out with Stitch and Unravel, snatching at the dense thread of solar magic. It was like trying to wrest a bone from a direwolf. Forged Will held the magic stable, urging it forwards despite his best efforts.

A small frown tweaked on Ianmus’s brow. Weavebane laughed in delight, a throbbing ache pounding behind his eye. Gods, the man had the control of an archmage.

But there was far more to counterspelling than simple brute strength. Falling into Tripartite Mind, Weavebane split his focus in three. The throb behind his eye swelled into a red-hot spike, cutting shards of pain ripping through him in time with his pulse.

He ignored the pain, the arena falling away until all he saw was magic. With one thread, he maintained his initial resistance at the forefront of Ianmus’s spiralling magic. The other two focused, searching for weakness. The mana was slightly less condensed as it first left his staff. If he could slip past Ianmus’s control, he might be able to braid a thread of foreign mana into the cable.

It would be hard — he could see the deep connection the mana held with the man's soul, just as described in Ianmus’s treatise. With that natural advantage, there was no chance he could slip in a diametrically opposed affinity like umbra, night, or darkness. He needed something closely aligned to avoid an immediately energetic reaction, but still different enough to destabilise the weave. That limited his options — lunar would be his best bet.

One of his remaining thoughtstreams snatched out to the diffuse arcane mana that had spread out around them. Right behind Ianmus’s shoulder, he forged a gleaming needle of magic, barely as thick as a hair. Focusing on its point, he forcefully shifted the affinity. His mana burned prodigiously as the scrap of mana shifted further from his main speciality.

He needed to move fast. Already, branches of golden light were spreading from the outer curve of the seal that Ianmus forged. Each split into finer lines, a spreading and layered fractal that would eventually dominate the circular seal. But the more complex the spell grew, the more it would draw on Ianmus’s focus, and the harder the mage had to work on fighting off his resistance.

Grinning wildly, Weavebane’s last thought-stream dived towards the source of Ianmus’s spell. In an instant, his first abandoned its efforts to stifle his opponents focus. Working in tandem, he shaped two streams of Will into a cleaving blade — and ripped away his opponents control for the barest fraction of a second.

…

Ianmus’s eyes widened as a hungry Will tore at his control. He’d been so focused at pushing against the grinding resistance slowing his channeling that he barely had time to react. Gritting his teeth, he wrenched back control — right as a streak of familiar silver shot over his shoulder and punched into the thick cable of gold he was using to weave his spell.

Solar magic roiled, pulsing and bulging as destructive instability ripped through his half-finished seal. Weavebane’s smile widened, and Ianmus could do nothing but scowl as he seized his magic with his full Will.

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Three separate claws of Will ripped into his spell construct the second he diverted his focus. How in the hells had Weavebane managed that? It had to be a Skill — probably a Class one. Gritting his teeth, Ianmus pushed on, searching for the hostile mana.

In a river of gold, he found a cutting shard of silver. It slid through his seal without resistance, but its very passage threw the orderly currents of his channeling into total chaos.

He blinked, then started to laugh. A soothing balm to the raging heat of his magic, he recognised the affinity immediately. It was lunar magic! Extremely clever — it formed a natural dialectic with solar: they were intimately linked, but still opposed. Most oppositional affinities would have broken down violently moments after touching his spell, rather than acting like a fragmented arrow-head that festered within the body of his spell. Unfortunately, it was quite possibly the worst choice to use against him!

Ianmus shattered the needle with a thought.

….

A growl rumbled in Weavebane’s chest as his connection to the lunar needle was shattered. Damn.

He considered smacking Ianmus in the face with his staff. Physical disruption was a vital tool for combat applications of counterspelling.

No, that would have been in bad taste. The upstart had gotten the better of him — that’s all there was to it. Still, he hadn’t anticipated the man could control lunar just as adroitly as solar mana.

….

“You left being a dual affinity mage out of your treastise.” Weavebane scowled.

“I did!”

It was irrelevant to keyseal theory, and he wasn’t so much a fool as to give away all of the secrets of his abilities.

Ianmus pushed his seal on. He had to fight for every hair's breadth of progress. Weavebane circled like a shark, each of his thought-streams constantly jabbing at his focus. When Ianmus had to focus on a particularly delicate part of the weave, his opponent tore into a distant section. Sometimes it was a pure battle of Will, others it was a violent injection of raw arcane magic, yet more it was a swarm of precise and delicate needles of oppositional affinities. More than once, an entire segment of his keyseal collapsed entirely, and Ianmus had to frantically bolster the rest of his construct. Once, he narrowly avoided an entire collapse. Weavebane had fired a shard of compressed arcane magic into the very base of his keyseal. It was followed by twelve different needles layered from umbral and darkness affinities. Somehow the man had identified the intersecting points of two layered henicosagrammic geometrics that were key for stabilising the spell. Even he hadn’t known it was that vital until his entire spell had threatened to explode in his face!

But bit by bit, he made progress. He fought for every handspan, but if Ianmus was confident in anything, it was that his Will was iron. It was something that went far deeper than his outsized stats for his level. Walking the path had changed him irrevocably.

Weaveborn struck from different angles, and his Glassmind was there to shore up his channeling while he patched the holes in his weave. His existence had been remoulded via cycling when he reached the second tier, and bolstered further by three stages of Refinement. It left him sovereign over his own mind, and his focus a honed thing of steel incapable of breaking under the constant onslaught.

Plus, he hadn’t even touched his Authority. That would be unsporting to use so early, though. It was clear that Weavebane was a master of his craft, and utterly devoted to the mysteries of magic. Not once had Ianmus seen the man use a system-granted Spell. That meant Weavebane was a sorcerous freecaster to the bone, with a full suite of enhancing Skills and metamagics to empower his channeling.

It wasn’t the Gold’s fault he’d been born too late to take easy advantage of the Path. Gods, Ianmus could barely imagine how much of a terror Weavebane would be with a Glassmind and Authority.

Golden light pulsed as his Keyseal of the Weeping Saint snapped into completion. Fully stable, Weavebane’s probing intent broke against it like a wave on the shore.

A moment later, his opponent withdrew. No longer needing to wholly focus on his work, Ianmus was suddenly aware of the low chatter coming from the stands. Most of the delvers were only half watching, but he immediately spotted four mages who’d gotten out of their seats to lean over the wall into the Pit.

Ianmus grinned and put the spectators out of mind. Already his keyseal was going to work, drawing in atmospheric mana to fuel his spells.

Weavebane scowled. “Drat. I was sure I had you for a moment there.”

“You nearly did,” Ianmus said, grinning. “How did you even identify that geometric was so critical?”

“Chaotic currents in the weave from some of my earlier attempts smoothed out just a hair as they flowed through it. It was mostly a lucky guess.”

If that was what the man considered a lucky guess, then he was a perfectionist to the extreme. How sharp was Weavebane’s sense of mana? Ianmus hadn’t noticed that, and it was his bloody spell.

A moment later, he felt a few testing prods of Will against the structure of his Keyseal.

“You’re right about the stability,” Weavebane mused, stepping forward to peer up at the seal. “Now that it's been cast, I don’t think I could disrupt this without resorting to brute force. But I'm very curious about whether I can slow it down.”

A moment later, Weavebane’s Will spread out into their surroundings. In an instant, his seal’s draw on the ambient mana was cut in half. His opponent's face twisted with focus. Spreading himself so thin must have been strenuous in the extreme — but Ianmus let it continue uncontested.

He was curious himself, for one, but there was also the fact that his seal drew in mana passively. Ianmus could contest Weavebane’s control over their surroundings, but he couldn’t directly bolster its absorption.

Sweat beaded on Weavebane’s brow, but the well of power within Weeping Saint continued to build. Eventually, it reached the point where Ianmus was ready to cast Dolmor’s Triage — though it took twice as long as normal. Something he would keep in mind for the future, even if it had taken a dedicated Gold counterspeller so much focus that he would be entirely vulnerable in a true battle.

Ianmus, on the other hand, could have woven a quick solar ray at any time he wished.

“Ready for the spell?” he asked.

Weavebane shook himself, rubbing his head.

“Yes — but by the gods’ that is strenuous. Not really worth the effort, I think. I’ll have to figure out some other countermeasures. Maybe poisoning the mana it's drawing in with oppositional affinities would work. Though, I did see it filtering and transmuting the mana, so maybe not.”

An interesting idea, but given his solar seals had worked in the Crater, Ianmus suspected it would be more difficult than the Gold anticipated

Taking another deep breath, Weavebane nodded and met his eyes.

Magic surged within his keyseal, concentrating on its centre as it aided Ianmus into forming the intent and weave he needed for Triage. Compared to sorcery, the process was lightning fast — but still nowhere near as quick as his friend’s glyphbinding.

Weavebane pounced, his Will tearing at Ianmus’s progress. Multiple shards of caustic arcane magic snapped into existence, racing in.

Authority ripped out of his soul in a wave. Bolstered by his raging Aspects and fortified the fires of his soul, Ianmus threw his entire Will into stabilising his spell.

He crushed Weavebane utterly, throwing off the man’s attempt. The man staggered back, staring at him in shock. Then he grinned, and more hostile shards snapped into existence. They punched into his half-formed spell, raw mana dispersing to shake its foundations.

Bolstered by his Authority, Ianmus held his magic in an iron grip — forcing it to stabilise.

A golden ring snapped into existence, engulfing the pair of them in warm energy.

Weavebane clucked his tongue. “Yet another reason to find myself a Droplet.”

Ianmus grinned, any retort drowned as his friends broke into a cheer. The three of them leapt into the arena, racing towards them. They’d cleaned up at some point, still damp with alchemical cleanser.

He was yanked off his feet in moments.

“You did it!” Porkchop cheered, tossing him up with a single paw.

Ianmus yelped, wheeling his arms — until Kaius caught him and set him down on his feet. Grinning at his friend, Ianmus looked back and saw Weavebane smiling. In moments, other delvers jumped down into the sands, and a dozen hands clapped their shoulders and backs as seasoned delvers offered their welcome with wide smiles.

“To the tavern!” Gars yelled from close by. “I wanna see how much it takes to get them drunk!”

A cheer rang out, and Ianmus let himself be carried away by the current of the crowd. A drink did sound nice.