Lillene

Enjoy!

:We should draw them out: Rissa sent silently to Serenity. :I don’t know what they want, but I think we need to find out. I think they might be why I had that vague bad feeling earlier.:

Serenity nodded. He’d noticed the timing as well. He wished Rissa had a shield; while he’d recover from damage to his head, she wouldn’t, and anyone who was going after her first … well, the only good thing was that people were taught to aim for center mass. His armor-self would stop that. 

Wait a moment. He had his shield and his armor-self was him. Was there any reason it wouldn’t protect Rissa?

A grin spread across Serenity’s face as he realized that there was indeed no reason it wouldn’t. He was used to keeping it up around only his own body, but there was no reason his other selves couldn’t use it. He just hadn’t thought of it that way.

Shield of Death

A modification of the standard Shield Skill, this Skill does not create a force bubble. Instead, it kills anything that tries to pass through it and should not, including momentum.

It only took a moment of concentration to activate the Skill. While this particular shielding Skill wasn’t particularly demanding as long as it wasn’t blocking anything, maintaining it in two locations would put a noticeable dent in his mana regeneration, even if it wouldn’t put it actually negative while he was in Aki’s dungeon. 

Anywhere else on the planet, at least anywhere outside a dungeon or ley line, he’d lose noticeable amounts of mana to keep both going. One shield slowly drained him there, even before it blocked anything. He hadn’t needed it yet, thankfully, but it was worth the cost whether he needed it or not.

They had another long moment before anyone would see them, so Serenity took Rissa’s hand and laced his fingers through hers. Partially, Serenity wanted to look unconcerned and taken by surprise, but mostly he wanted to reassure Rissa. It was surprising how much better he felt when her hand gripped his in return. :Together?:

:Together,: Rissa confirmed with a smile before she turned back towards the direction they’d been traveling.

They only made it another few steps before Serenity saw someone come around the bend towards them. The man in the lead was quickly followed by three others. All four were dressed in the light armor common to delvers, a compromise between protection, movement, and affordability made of modern materials that worked well against threats up to Tier Two or Three even without enchantment. Vengeance would have been envious but Serenity wasn’t; his dragonscale armor was far better, even though it was similarly unenchanted.

The fact that he was Tier Eight might have had something to do with that.

The group of four was three men and a woman. Two of them, one of the men and the woman, carried swords, though only the woman had a small shield tied to her arm. It was very small, clearly intended to be used for deflection more than blocking, but Serenity knew that with the right fighting style that could be very effective.

The other two men had long knives at their waists, but their primary weapon was clearly magic. One carried a full-sized staff, while the other had a wand in his hand. It was the man with the wand who was in the lead; since he led by several feet, Serenity suspected he was the one they’d overheard earlier.

All four of the delvers had a badge sewn on their armor. It depicted a sword, point down but clearly unsheathed. Something about the sword’s details seemed familiar to Serenity, but he couldn’t place them. Aide was no help either; he’d have to build a reference from Serenity’s visual images before he’d be able to search through them. It wasn’t something he’d ever thought to index.

It probably wasn’t important; many different delving groups had adopted symbols like that to differentiate themselves when they delved together frequently. It was reminiscent of the Silver Blades on Asihanya and groups like them; a name helped in getting a reputation and a reputation helped attract new people. Serenity suspected it didn’t make much difference yet, but someday it probably would, at least for the groups that managed to become famous. It might eventually even be like sports teams.

Serenity doubted they’d answer truthfully, but he still intended to ask them why they were headed this direction once they were close enough to talk. He probably couldn’t direct the conversation from there, but Rissa definitely could, especially since she’d be able to get an idea of what the four felt as they talked. 

He didn’t get the chance. 

“The Vala is never wrong!” The man in front called out loudly as he pointed his wand at the pair coming down the path towards him. 

A lightning bolt sparked from the wand and made Serenity reevaluate who it was pointed at: it was squarely pointed at Rissa, since she was the target of the lightning bolt. The attack was too fast to do anything about other than block, and Serenity felt the drain on his mana as the shield he maintained over Rissa killed the lightning. 

It was expensive; he’d probably spent two or three times as much mana to kill the lightning as the sorcerer had to make it. Lightning wasn’t hard to kill if you had a place for the energy to go, but in this case Serenity had to kill that as well. He couldn’t afford to have it run through Rissa. He might have made a different decision for himself, but he doubted it. There really wasn’t time to think with lightning.

A connection sparked in Serenity’s mind: he didn’t know what a Vala was, but she’d clearly known Rissa would be here. The last attack that was directly aimed at Rissa had also come from someone who could at least sort of see the future, a woman who wielded a sword in the Timestream. Serenity suspected the swords on the delvers’ armor was no coincidence, even if he couldn’t be completely certain it was the same sword.

Whoever they were, they’d attacked Rissa and clearly intended to kill her. Serenity wasn’t about to allow that. He dropped Rissa’s hand as she pulled away from him and ran for the four ahead of them. His Crystal Hilt was exactly where it was supposed to be; the blade leapt out of the sword as he pushed Death-attuned mana into it with no hesitation at all.

:I’ll tell Ita to get Blaze!: Rissa yelled in Serenity’s mind. :Don’t kill them! We need to know what this is about!:

Rage colored Serenity’s vision but he pushed it to the side at Rissa’s words. She was right, he knew she was, even if he didn’t want to leave anyone alive. He once again had to stop people trying to harm someone he loved without killing them. It was frustrating.

A second lightning bolt scorched towards Serenity, only to die on his shield. As before, there simply wasn’t time to do anything about it, not without a Skill or a wand that let him try to manipulate others’ Skills. If he’d had his Wand of Sundering out, it would probably have worked, but short of that he simply had to take the hit to his mana pool. He could sustain it against one mage of lower Tier, but two mages and two physical assailants acting together would bottom out his mana pool before they ran out, and then they’d be able to attack Rissa. He couldn’t allow that.

The man with the staff raised it and threw a ball of fire at Serenity. Oddly enough, fire was far easier to kill than lightning; the fire was fueled only by the mana present, it was not truly burning, and that meant it failed easily and far more cheaply than the lightning. Chances were good that that meant the fire-caster’s Concept for Fire was weaker than the lightning-mage’s Concept for Lightning, but Serenity didn’t have the spare thought capacity to worry about that.

Serenity growled and thrust at the man with the wand, only to have his sword-arm knocked out of the way by the woman with a shield strapped to her left arm as she hurried to get between him and the lightning-mage. He twisted his arm and raked his manablade through her hand; since it was Death-attuned, it wouldn’t cut, but the effects should at least weaken her grip.

It worked far better than he expected. The woman’s sword clattered from her hand. Serenity couldn’t focus on her for long, but he was able to see her stare at a hand where only the thumb responded as she tried to move it.

Maybe disabling them without killing them wouldn’t be so difficult after all. 

Another fire blast diminished into nothingness as it hit Serenity's shield. He felt another slight hit to his mana, but it wasn’t a problem yet.

Serenity swept his manablade through the woman’s knee. She seemed shocked, but he couldn’t count on that removing her from the fight. Limiting her mobility as well as making her use her sword in her off hand, however, should work.

The man with a sword charged towards Serenity and attempted to skewer him. He must have thought that Serenity wasn’t paying attention, because he didn’t try to do anything more complicated than stab the air in front of himself as he ran.

Perhaps he’d picked up bad habits by fighting monsters instead of people? That wasn’t a habit that worked well, even against monsters, but it was probably not deadly at low Tier. 

Serenity stepped to the side and tried to catch the man’s shoulder with his own. He was braced for it, while the other man wasn’t. More importantly, and surprisingly, the man didn’t even hit him; instead, he hit Serenity’s shield and sort of rotated around it, in time with a sudden drain on Serenity’s mana. Serenity had read how the shield could kill momentum but he hadn’t expected it to be quite so literal. This shield was going to take some getting used to.

The man’s sword clattered to the ground as he grabbed his right arm with his left and screamed. Serenity knew immediately what happened: enough of the man’s arm had hit the shield that it was partially dead. Serenity doubted that was comfortable, but for the moment it was more important that the second enemy had disarmed himself.

Possibly all too literally.

Serenity stepped around the screaming swordsman, far more comfortable in the protection of his shield now that he’d had the chance to field-test it. He was still in good shape in terms of mana, as long as he didn’t take too many more lightning bolts. 

Serenity tried one more time to hit the wand-hand of the lightning mage. This time, only the mage’s lightning protected him; he threw another bolt from his wand as Serenity closed the distance the two melee fighters had managed to let him reach. Serenity simply took it and kept going; the faster he took out the lightning mage, the fewer lightning bolts he’d have to kill with his mana pool.

The fire mage unleashed a barrage of fiery blasts that were clearly designed to make the target shy away from them; they were bright and loud but as Serenity moved through them, they cost very little mana to kill. All he had to do was trust his shield and try not to be blinded. If anything, they were more helpful to Serenity than to the fire mage’s lightning-based ally; no lightning bolts came Serenity’s way until the barrage stopped.

By then, Serenity was just barely within reach of the lightning mage. He lunged forward, aiming to catch the mage’s wand hand with his sword. 

The mage danced backwards and released another bolt of lightning. The bolt splashed harmlessly into Serenity’s shield, but pulling his arm back did have one effect: Serenity’s manablade hit and passed through the wand instead of the mage’s hand.

Lillene

People at Tier Two should not attack people at Tier Eight. It doesn’t go well for them.