The fight downstairs had spread into the entire front porch once one of the Sterath had the bright idea of going through a window. Unfortunately for them, that didn’t really matter; Ita didn’t really have good direct attack spells, but what she had was perfect for the situation: she reflected Katya’s armor onto Rissa. It was a channeled spell; she had to concentrate on it to hold it in place. It was completely worth it.

With Katya’s excellent armor instead of her own, Rissa could fight the Tier One Sterath warriors one-on-one and win. She’d finally managed to start to figure out her previous Path, and it helped her be where her enemies weapons weren’t and put her spear in the enemy. The fact that, with her link to Serenity, Rissa had a way to see in the dark and the Sterath didn’t made it far easier than it should have been and tipped the battle even farther in her favor.

Raz stayed behind Rissa, keeping her from facing too many opponents at once. He did have a useful offensive spell, even though most of his abilities were more utility than combat. Just as importantly, he’d been trained in how to deal with mass charges; they were common enough in dungeons. He carefully piled up bodies around the group, making the enemies’ footing treacherous.

They could be overrun if things went badly, but as long as they kept retreating slowly and they were able to kill the Sterath as quickly as they reached the group, they would be fine. Even if someone tripped and fell, with two people who were very hard to injure they’d be just fine. There wasn’t even much the Sterath could do to change things, without magic - and all of the mages were tied down upstairs.

Up on the second floor, Serenity could hear the enemy leader yelling orders; he seemed to be in the hallway. More importantly, he seemed to be under the impression that Serenity was the true assault; he was calling the warriors that weren’t already outside the house to climb the stairs.

Given how many of the hard-to-replace mages Serenity had already killed, that was a reasonable decision. It was unfortunate for the commander that it was also the wrong decision; had he rushed the larger group, he might have been able to overrun them, and it wasn’t possible to get more Sterath into the room Serenity was fighting in than were already there.

Serenity killed a constant stream of low-Tier mages as they entered the room with the broken windows, but somehow the mage that had caught him when he first dove into the room was still alive, even with a damaged arm. He’d made sure there was always someone else between him and Serenity, and kept throwing spells at Serenity. Heat, cold, lightning, acid; none of them were enough to take Serenity out of the fight, though the acid definitely caused severe skin irritation.

“What are you?” Serenity could hear the Sterath mage muttering over the sound of the fighting and the commander’s yelling. “Launching yourself through the window like that, nearly immune to magic, skilled with a blade? Where did such a backwards species find a mage-killer?”

The muttering mage was the last of the magic users in the room, but their places had been filled with warriors eager to prove themselves. For one futile moment, Serenity wished he had some of his old spells; they could have simply cleaned out the building and he’d have been done.

Of course, it would have cleaned out the building by killing everyone, and that wasn’t what he wanted either.

Serenity sliced down the nearest warrior; they were barely even training dummies, given how brainlessly they threw themselves at him. “If I’m a mage-killer, why are you still alive?” Serenity started working his way towards the commander; there didn’t seem to be a large mage threat left, so taking out their leadership was the next goal.

The mage stopped in the middle of casting another acid ball, clearly shocked. Serenity took care of two more warriors and made it to the door out of the room before the mage pulled his thoughts together. “You’re not a local. Why are you here? What makes you fight?”

Was he really trying to turn Serenity in the middle of a battle? His timing seemed a bit odd, but Serenity supposed there wasn’t going to be any better time.

“My family lives here.” If talking would keep the mage from attacking while Serenity took out his leadership, Serenity was happy to keep talking. Serenity stepped into the upstairs hallway and was confronted with a packed mass of Sterath. There were too many Sterath for them to move freely; too many Sterath to fight well.

They were sitting ducks.

Even the ones he could see that seemed to be Tier Two to low Tier Three were sitting ducks if they couldn’t get some space.

“We haven’t attacked any … bird-kin…” The mage stopped well inside the room, outside Serenity’s reach but within his sight. He trailed off as he saw the packed crowd. “IDIOTS! SPREAD OUT OR DIE!”

Serenity moved forward. They were actually packed together well enough that the dead didn’t always fall immediately, held up by the bodies of the others. There wasn’t room to spread out.

Still, the mage was looking like more of a problem than he’d thought. Serenity paused his advance on the commander long enough to spin and throw his ax at the mage. There were only a few Sterath in the way, but one of them managed to tap the ax as it flew by, knocking it slightly off course and making it tumble.

Instead of hitting the mage squarely, the top of the axhead smacked into the mage’s shoulder. Serenity could see where the ax cut its way through a weak shield before it connected; the mage had to be stronger than he’d thought. Serenity still wanted the commander dead, but the mage had firmly taken the second spot on the list.

Serenity called his ax back and went back to clearing out the packed-together Sterath; most of the ones surrounding him now were likely Tier Two, but they weren’t much more difficult since they still didn’t have room to move. The mage was starting to chant, but Serenity didn’t have time to figure out what the spell was. It seemed to be in an old dialect of Sterath rather than the usual nonsense words.

Serenity saw some space starting to open near the commander and realized this was his chance. He triggered his boots’ teleport and struck at the commander before he realized Serenity was there.

As the commander fell, Serenity felt the spell the mage was building come together far too quickly. Even with the delay to kill the commander, there should have been plenty of time to teleport to the mage before he could finish the spell. The mage was trickier than expected if he could do a non-Path spell this quickly and had a shield.

There were only a few words Serenity recognized from the old Sterath; it was similar to modern Sterath but not the same. The ones he did recognize weren’t hopeful; “sacrifice” was never a good thing to hear in a spell, and he was fairly confident the mage had called on Tranquil Conviction.

The fact that the mage broke into profanity after Serenity killed the commander instead of finishing the spell was much better news.

Serenity turned to face the mage and saw that all of the Sterath between the two of them were slumping to the floor; not only that, the new bodies seemed to be collapsing. The ones Serenity had killed didn’t change.

The local magic level was rising, and it was definitely the spell. Even though the mage was no longer casting, the spell was still active. Serenity knew what that meant, in a spell that called on a “higher being”: it meant that Tranquil Conviction was managing the remainder of the casting. It probably also meant that this was a preprepared spell, which would match well with how quickly it had gone off.

With the effect it was having on the formerly-living Sterath, Serenity was glad that they’d managed to kill most of them before the mage triggered the spell. It would be vastly weakened by the lowered sacrifice.

The mage screamed. As Serenity watched, he could see the mage becoming larger and larger.It didn’t look like he was prepared for it at all; he’d fallen to the ground and was writhing as he screamed.

Serenity hunted for the spellform holding the spell together. It wasn’t at the mage, but he caught a glimpse of it as he spun around. It was centered where the commander was standing, right behind Serenity. No wonder the mage started swearing when he killed the commander; if it was the enhancement spell it looked like, the commander must have been the original target.

There were several ways to deal with a spellform, but Serenity took the fastest: he smashed it with his ax. With a normal ax, that wouldn’t have done any good, but there were many reasons his ax was made to cancel magic.

This wasn’t the main reason, but it was definitely helpful.

The spell snapped; Serenity could feel magic it had gathered twist, then explode. It knocked Serenity over and he skidded backwards until something large and soft caught him; it felt almost like running into a cushion.

As Serenity picked himself up, he heard the mage’s screams from right behind him, but he also heard laughter. A quick glance told him that the “cushion” he’d felt was indeed the mage; the spell seemed to have backfired badly. The mage had outgrown his carapace; most of it had split, leaving him soft and unprotected. The parts that hadn’t split were still much, much too small for the mage.

Serenity didn’t know if the transformation itself was painful, though he guessed it was likely that it was. The undersized arm and leg armor was clearly part of the problem as well. Serenity didn’t see any need to wait for the mage to recover; he had his ax, and an unarmored Sterath was even more vulnerable than a human.

A moment later, Serenity was alone with the source of the laughter.

Tranquil Conviction himself stood just inside the broken window, still laughing.

“Somehow, I get the feeling you didn’t like that mage.” Serenity put his ax back in his Quick Belt. He didn’t need to try to fight a god; it seemed like a seriously dumb idea. He’d be weaker here on Earth since the mana level was so low, but that didn’t mean he was weak.

The manic grin looked odd on a Sterath. “I take my Shameless where I can get them, but you’re correct. He wasn’t one of my favorites. He liked spells like that, throwing away others’ power and lives permanently for a temporary aid in a situation. Seeing that spell backlash was worth it; he finally paid some of the cost himself.”

Serenity had known people like that. He was pretty sure he’d done it himself, a time or two. “I’m trying to avoid that, myself. Why are you here?”

Tranquil Conviction’s grin faded. “I was called, and I’m watching for you. Your presence is known.” He vanished.

Serenity couldn’t feel him there anymore, so he probably wasn’t just invisible. Serenity took a moment to check the area and unless Tranquil Conviction had some way to become invisible to light, Eyeless Sight, and magic all at once, he was gone.

Serenity sighed and walked out on the roof then carefully hopped to the ground. There was still some light in the sky; even though it was “dark”, the fight had been fast enough that the stars weren’t out yet.

The others were a few steps into the yard, watching the house cautiously. “We’ll need to check the house, but everything should be dead. A mage cast a spell that killed everyone, then I broke it and killed him too.”

Lillene

Tranquil Conviction seems far less angry now.