The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon

The sounds of fighting had started spreading through the warehouse district, accompanied by flashes of magic that lit up the surrounding buildings.

But as Sala lowered them all back down to the ground, Namyis was much more concerned about Ariom than she was about the nearby chaos. Breaking through the barrier had clearly taken a lot out of him, and the surprise of seeing Emberhawk's attack on the power supply building right afterward hadn't helped.

He'd talked about wanting to fight alongside his father when he was young and how he'd realized it would never happen. Having his words proven wrong so soon after he'd said them was obviously a bit of a shock. Namyis couldn't tell if he was happy or upset about it. His expression simply looked...confused. Like he didn't really know how to feel.

Well, the magic exhaustion was probably getting to him, too. Using up a lot of magic power at once like that was much more disorienting than draining it gradually, especially if you weren't used to it.

Ariom stumbled a little as his feet touched the ground, and Namyis quickly held out an arm to help steady him.

"Looks like you overdid it a little," Red said, coming over to them. He took out a bottle of moondust, opened the lid, and handed it to Ariom. "Here, drink this."

Ariom took the bottle and stared at it for a moment as though he was trying to figure out what to do with it. Then he slowly raised it to his mouth and took a sip.

Red looked over at the twins. "Can one of you make a chair or something? I think he needs to sit down for a few minutes."

Silverwater obligingly released a stream of silvery metal that formed itself into a chair before solidifying. Red put a hand on Ariom's shoulder and tried to guide him toward it, but he pulled away.

"No, I'm fine," he said, shaking his head distractedly. "I don't need to sit down. I just—"

"Ariom," Kathia cut him off, her voice firm. "Sit down and drink your potion. That's an order. We'll be heading into the base in a few minutes. If you haven't recovered enough to fight by then, we're going to leave you behind."

"Ah." Ariom blinked a few times, and his eyes became a little more focused. "Right. Sorry."

He obediently sat down and took another sip of moondust.

"Not used to dealing with magic exhaustion, are you?" Red smiled wryly, patting Ariom's shoulder. "Don't worry, that's normal for a newbie. Just sit there quietly for a few minutes. It'll pass soon."

Ariom nodded and continued drinking his recovery medicine, keeping his eyes on the ground.

Namyis exchanged glances with Ziryi and then went over to where Kathia was standing.

"It's not just the magic exhaustion," she said in a low voice so that Ariom wouldn't hear. "He seemed pretty shocked to see Emberhawk here. He was telling me just a little while ago that his father would definitely find an excuse to not participate in the raid once he found out Ariom was involved. So seeing him here so soon after he said that...."

Kathia sighed. "I understand. We'll just hope he snaps out of it soon." She looked back at Ariom and shook her head. "That silly boy. Of course Riomel was going to come...."

Namyis raised an eyebrow, but she held back the questions she wanted to ask.

Later. She and Kathia were definitely going to have a nice long chat about this later.

Namyis moved back to her place at the end of the formation, but she kept watching Ariom. She knew Kathia wasn't kidding about leaving him behind if he couldn't pull himself together. It actually wasn't uncommon for new trainees to have to drop out of their first battle early. And Ariom had already made a huge contribution by helping them get through the outer barrier so quickly, so none of them would shame him if he had to quit here.

But Namyis knew he would be furious with himself if he couldn't see it through to the end after coming this far.

Fortunately, Red's prediction proved to be correct, and Ariom seemed to recover quickly. When Kathia told them to get out their weapons and stand by a few minutes later, he was able to stand up, take out his green bow, and get into formation, with no sign of his previous unsteadiness.

Namyis took out her own weapon—a white crystal staff decorated with silver vines and flowers made of violet gemstones.

Most of the weapons that battlemages used weren't really designed for physical combat. They were focus tools, which assisted in channeling and shaping magic power. Some barely even resembled weapons. Ironfish and Silverwater both wore enchanted gauntlets. And Red's staff was like Namyis'—more decorative than practical when it came to physical attacks.

Ziryi's petite form wasn't well-suited for physical attacks in the first place. She carried a long, thin dagger which acted as a sort of reverse lightning rod, helping her direct bolts of lightning through the air. She could also use it to stab enemies and then channel her magic directly into their bodies.

Rockbrawler's magic was generally focused on his own body, so he didn't use a weapon at all. Instead, his combat suit had a special enchantment on it that allowed him to cover it in thick stone plates, which served as both weapon and protection.

Apart from Ariom, the only member of their team who was using a proper weapon was Kathia, who had a blue halberd with curved silver blades that resembled the tiger stripes on her armor. She was good with it, too. Namyis had sparred with her quite a few times and usually lost when they had a straight weapons duel.

Being Sword Queen's adopted daughter, Namyis was naturally a competent swordswoman, and she also carried an enchanted sword in her armament storage. She would have used it if she were in a vanguard position. But her main job tonight was securing their path, and the staff was better for that.

An air of tense anticipation came over the team as they all stood in formation, weapons in hand. Waiting.

They couldn't see the Order's base from where they were, but they could hear the sounds of battle ahead. Shouts. Explosions. The occasional scream of pain.

Magic flared up over the buildings here and there. Or fell from the sky as the aerial support team sent down attacks to help their companions on the ground.

There was no further sign of Emberhawk's fire. He'd probably finished destroying the barrier's power supply and gone back to his assigned team in some other part of the building complex. Hydra should have had enough sense to make sure that he and Ariom were fighting in different locations.

Though the fact that the two of them had come together for a brief moment to take down the barrier.... That was quite interesting. Namyis couldn't help wondering what sort of effect that moment might have on Ariom's attitude toward battlemages in the future.

It would be nice if he could learn to like them a little better....

A few more minutes passed.

Then, finally, Kathia touched her communication device again.

"They've cleared out our path as well as they can," she announced. "It's time to go. Fight well, everyone!" She raised her fist in the air.

"Fight well!" everyone but Ariom and Kino echoed, raising their fists.

But when he saw that even the two familiars put their paws in the air, Ariom awkwardly lifted his own fist, a beat behind everyone else.

Namyis couldn't help laughing a little when she saw it. That guy really was cute sometimes.

"Rescue team, move out!" Kathia ordered.

They all broke into a run, heading toward the battlefield.

Ariom hadn't had time to study the maps of the base thoroughly, so he only knew the general layout and had to rely on the others to lead the way. He followed closely behind Red as the team ran toward the research center, weaving through various buildings on the outer edge of the base.

He could understand now why Aunt Kat had warned him about getting confused during the battle. They hadn't even started fighting yet, and he already felt disoriented and a bit overwhelmed.

Some of it was probably the lingering effects of his attack on the outer barrier. And of seeing...that.

But there were also the unfamiliar surroundings, made even less familiar by the way the shapes of everything kept changing under the glow of different magic attacks and the way the sounds of fighting echoed strangely through the buildings, making it difficult to pinpoint where they were coming from.

Were the others all used to this kind of thing? Ariom couldn't see their faces, but they all ran forward without hesitation. Rockbrawler led the formation confidently, seeming to know exactly where he was going. Maybe he'd studied the map extra carefully, assuming that he would be placed in the lead.

"Trap on the left!" Ziryi shouted over her shoulder. "We can go around it!"

She sent out a bolt of red lightning that formed a circle around the dangerous area, and the team veered to the right in order to avoid it.

As they passed, Ariom glanced at the spot she'd marked and saw what was probably a pitfall trap formation. He remembered seeing traps like that in the diagrams Eteon had given them. But he couldn't examine it closely enough to be sure. He didn't dare to keep his eyes off Red's back for too long.

They encountered their first enemies soon after the trap—a group of six or seven guards who suddenly ran out from behind a building ahead of them.

"Glory to the Order!" one of them screeched as he sent several large rocks flying in their direction. "Death to our enemies!"

"Glory! Death!" his companions shouted in response, throwing out their own magic attacks.

Crazy fanatics.... But at least there was no doubt that Eteon had directed them to the right place.

The rescue team slowed down but didn't completely stop. Rockbrawler charged fearlessly toward their opponents, smashing a rock out of the air with one hand and batting a fireball away with the other, while allowing a second rock to shatter uselessly against his stone-plated chest.

The enemy seemed to be an earth mage. His rocks were weak compared to those of an actual stone sorcerer.

Ziryi ducked behind Rockbrawler when the attacks started, but she popped out just long enough to send a streak of dark purple lightning toward the man who'd thrown the fireballs. Ariom could see it clearly with his magic power-oriented magesight, but it seemed to take the fire mage by surprise, since he didn't even try to avoid it.

He convulsed briefly as the lightning hit him before collapsing to the ground.

Silverwater created a large amount of liquid silver, forming a shield that covered him and his brother and was able to repel the rocks and fireballs that came toward them. It even held up against a spiral of wind that slammed into it, trying to knock the two metal mages off balance.

In the meantime, Ironfish created a large number of metal shards that passed easily through his brother's shield and flew toward the enemies. The shard formation twisted in midair to avoid Ziryi and Rockbrawler, like a flock of birds all changing direction together. Then they rained down on the Order members, causing several of them to stagger backwards, howling in pain.

Rockbrawler didn't miss that opportunity, leaping forward and smashing his stone-covered fists into several of the distracted guards. Two of them were sent flying, and a third staggered and fell to his knees. Rockbrawler brought one of his huge hands down on the man's helmeted head, and he collapsed completely.

The last two guards were tackled by large white tigers that looked identical to Sala but were actually Aunt Kat's watermimics, disguised with a little bit of light magic. The real Sala was floating somewhere overhead, keeping a lookout for other enemies.

Aunt Kat had excellent shaping skills and could mimic a variety of different creatures, but replicating her own familiar was her favorite fighting technique. That was how she had gotten her call name: Copycat.

Ziryi took advantage of the two guards getting soaked by the watermimics and sent a couple of lightning bolts in their direction. They both fell to the ground a moment later.

"That's all of them," Aunt Kat called out. "Keep going!"

The team continued forward, jogging around the fallen guards like they were rocks or fallen tree branches—mere obstacles in the path, nothing more.

This indifference unnerved Ariom a little. At least some of the collapsed men were simply unconscious, not dead, and there was no reason to feel guilty about hurting or even killing people who'd been trying to kill them.

But he didn't like to think about how much death his teammates must have seen to be so blasé about the whole process....

What was it that Namyis had told him earlier? Just pick up your weapon, fight the baddies, and worry about what it all means later?

Maybe that was how they did it. They'd simply trained themselves to focus on their goal and not think about anything else until the mission was over.

"Trap ahead!" Ziryi called out, bringing Ariom back to the present moment. "It's across the path. I need to disarm it."

"Team, halt!" Aunt Kat ordered. "Cover Darkbolt!"

They slowed to a stop. Ziryi continued a short distance ahead, and started working on a trap enchantment that was spread across the gap between two buildings, blocking the way forward. The others grouped around her, watching the surroundings warily.

"Above!" Red shouted suddenly, holding up his staff. There was a large quantity of red mist spewing out of it.

Something hit the cloud of mist and exploded into flames over their heads. Silverwater quickly created another shield to protect them from the heat, and Namyis pointed her staff at the firebomb, encasing it inside a large chunk of ice, which Kino blew off to the side with a targeted gust of wind.

"Sniper to the right, on top of that building!" Aunt Kat waved her halberd, releasing a mass of water, which condensed into the shape of a bird and flew upward, heading toward the roof of a nearby building.

Following its trajectory, Ariom saw a man holding a large crossbow and preparing to shoot another bomb at them. He paused when he saw the water bird coming toward him and adjusted his aim to shoot it down instead.

But before he could pull the trigger, something large and white fell onto him from above, knocking him to the ground. Sala quickly moved away, leaping back into the sky, and Ariom could see the man starting to get up again. But he only made it halfway before the water bird reached him. Its shape melted away just before it hit its target, and the water wrapped around the man's body, holding him in place.

"Ariom!" Aunt Kat shouted.

Understanding what she wanted, Ariom took a page out of Ziryi's book and pulled an arrow enchanted with lightning magic from his quiver. He raised his bow and shot it toward the man on the roof. It pierced the water surrounding him, lighting the entire thing with a brilliant blue flash.

When the light faded, Ariom saw the man fall limply onto the rooftop.

"Nicely done," Red said with a grin, reaching over to pat him on the back.

Ariom made a face and didn't reply. He didn't feel comfortable accepting praise when he knew perfectly well that Aunt Kat could have handled the sniper by herself if she'd wanted to. She'd deliberately held back in order to let him get in a hit, just like she might have with a new trainee.

But he couldn't deny that it felt nice to be able to contribute a little bit....

"Trap's down!" Ziryi called out a minute later.

"Good," Aunt Kat replied with a nod. "Keep going, everyone! We're almost there!"

They started moving again, leaving the gap between the buildings and running along a paved road toward what looked like a large warehouse.

Since this area was more open, they were able to catch glimpses of other battlemages fighting in the distance, along with more guards wearing armor similar to the ones they'd just fought. But the other teams had apparently done a good job of luring the Order members away, because no one else intercepted them as they went up to the building and partway along one side.

They finally reached their destination—a small loading dock with a simple ramp leading up to a large door. There were no guards in front of the entrance, but Ariom knew from Eteon's diagrams that there were several layers of enchantments protecting it. This was probably the most difficult barrier they would encounter tonight, apart from the high-powered one that had been protecting the entire base.

"I'm going to need your help with this," Ziryi said, turning to look at him as they went up the ramp.

Ariom nodded and put his bow back into his armament pocket. Then he moved ahead of the others, joining Ziryi in front of the door.

"Everyone else, keep watch," Aunt Kat instructed.

The rest of the team circled around the two enchanters, protecting them as they worked.

"We should disarm the traps first," Ariom said, looking over the parts of the enchantment that were visible from the outside. He pointed toward one side of the door. "Take care of that alarm trigger, will you? I'll handle this explosive trap."

"You're sure? Shouldn't I be doing the more dangerous one?"

"Normally, yes." It hurt Ariom's pride a bit to admit it, but as a sixth-rank sorcerer, Ziryi could handle the force of an explosive trap much better than he could, despite her diminutive size. "But I've been dealing with this guy's explosive traps all day. It's better if I do it."

"Ah, I understand." Ziryi nodded and went over to the alarm formation. It was a relatively simple trap that would set off an alarm in the building if the door was opened without the proper procedure. It was better not to trigger it, but it wouldn't cause any immediate harm if they did.

The explosive trap, on the other hand....

Ariom took a deep breath, focusing his attention on the enchantment in front of him. He took a long, slender knife out of his armament pocket. He'd been using Eteon's stasis inversion formation without a physical knife because he didn't want to cut the body they were examining to bits. But there was no problem with poking a few holes in this door.

He went over the lines of the inscription, finding the spot where the trigger mechanism connected to the explosion formation and then carefully checking to make sure that cutting through that spot wouldn't cause any unintended reactions.

It was a pity that Iggy couldn't be here. Ariom didn't want him to be in danger, of course, but he'd really come to rely on the little dragon's magic senses for things like this.

But there was no helping it. If he wasn't here, he wasn't here. Ariom made his decision, coated the knife in magic, gritted his teeth, and cut through the trap formation.

He waited a few seconds before letting out a small sigh of relief. No explosion. He'd read the enchantment correctly.

He looked over at Ziryi, who seemed to have already finished disarming her trap and was watching him with interest.

"You're good," she said, giving him a nod of approval. "You're a proper thaumaturgist, aren't you? I know most void mages study thaumaturgy to some extent, but it's rare to find someone who can use it at such a high level."

Ariom gave her a slightly suspicious look. Why was she suddenly flattering him like that?

She seemed to notice because she quickly explained, "Ah, I studied thaumaturgy when I was trying to find a way to hide the heat and light from my lightning. I learned to do just a little, but it was really hard, so I didn't get very far. So I'm impressed that you can do it so well. That's all." She turned to look at the door. "There were only those two traps on this layer, right?"

Was that why Aunt Kat had wanted her to go along when Ariom had taken down the outer barrier? Because she knew Ziryi was interested in thaumaturgy? That made sense.

But this wasn't really the time for a thaumaturgy discussion.

Ariom also turned his attention back to the door. "Yes, that's right. We'll have to open this door to get at the next layer."

Ziryi nodded. "Leave that to me. I know how to trigger the opening mechanism. You should stand back just in case there are enemies waiting on the other side."

Though he was a bit unhappy at needing to be protected by a woman who was more than a foot shorter than he was, Ariom knew her suggestion was a practical one, so he obediently went over to the side and stood behind Red as Ziryi started fiddling with the magic formation that would lift the door.

It would normally require some kind of key to activate it, but the lightning mage seemed to have a lot of experience with picking magic locks because she was only working on it for a minute or two before she paused and turned to look at Aunt Kat. "Ready whenever you are."

Aunt Kat nodded and looked around the team. "Defenses up, everyone. We don't know what's waiting for us in there."

Several people nodded in response. Silverwater put up his liquid shield. Red created another cloud of mist to protect himself, Ariom, and Kino. Aunt Kat created a large watermimic that looked rather like Rockbrawler, which stood protectively in front of her and Sala. And the real Rockbrawler stood back to back with Namyis, who was in charge of guarding their rear and was now the only person not facing the door.

"All right. Go ahead, Darkbolt."

Ziryi turned back to the door and prodded at the opening formation again. There was a clanking sound, and the large door started to rise. Ziryi quickly backed away from it.

But she wasn't quite fast enough. When the door was about a quarter of the way up, a huge wave of sand suddenly burst out through the opening. It hit the tiny lightning mage, knocking her off her feet, and pelted against their defenses. Rockbrawler had to hold up an arm to protect his face.

It looked like the Order had quite a powerful sandstorm mage working for them. One who was very determined to not let them pass through that door....