“Raaar!”, Gaillardia jumped onto Aureate with her war pick ready, but the man didn’t move or seemed to care a bit.
Then a golden arm sprung from the ground, and flew straight towards my wife, holding a golden knife.
“Beware!”, Grace called, and a wall of roots sprouted before Gailardia and blocked the attack. Only for a bunch more of golden arms to come forward, each holding a different weapon.
“Ground eater” I passed my fingers over one of my belts, reading the spell recorded in the beads that composed the ornament, and entered the second world, seeing Aureate, as expected, conjuring second level spells.
I manipulated the manitou around him in the superior reality, making the ground close on his spectral image to cancel his spells in the first world.
I was surprised however, when the Council Member was not only conjuring multiple spells in the first world, but also was able to defend himself in the second world too, conjuring a golden statue of himself that stopped the ground from closing on him like a maw.
“Spellbreaker, close-ranged attacker, and long-ranged attacker. You picked a good team to fight me. But you’re still not destined to greatness”, Aureate said, and the multiple arms he had conjured continued to extend themselves forward even while we retreated three, four, five, six meters! He was already totally out of our range, but his attacks kept coming, and at that point we could only focus on blocking or evading them and staying alive.
Gaillardia dodged the arms with expertise, and blocked their daggers, knives and spears with her war pick using body-enhancing magic and overgrowing her muscles to keep up with the volley of attacks.
Grace conjured trees and vines to stop and correct the trajectory of the arms, not being as nimble as her partner due to her advanced age; splinters were flying everywhere trunks were being perforated by heavy golden tips, and dozens of vines were barely able to bend the metal.
I, on the other hand, was able to only cancel a few spells of the attacker, the golden arms that came growing in my direction suddenly vanishing in shining yellow particles of waste magic.
“We have to get closer to him! We have to take the offensive back!”, I shouted, barely able to keep up with the volley of attacks; how much magic was that guy able to control?! Not only he was conjuring a heavily taxing element like gold, but also multiple arms at the same time!
“That’s why I am here!”, Gailardia screamed through gritted teeth, and boosting her legs with muscles, she dashed in between the many golden arms, running towards the attacker, sliding beneath spear-gripping hands, jumping over hammer-like fists, and dodging long limbs with supports touching the ground every few meters.
Once my wife got close enough to Aureate, most of the golden arms that were coming for me and Grace disappeared in magic waste, and we were finally able to run toward the Council Member again.
I immediately started to focus on spellbreaking, and unmaking the attacks he was throwing at my wife, and Grace helped with her wooden magic, protecting Gailardia on her charge.
Finally, my wife reached our opponent and threw her first attack. To what Aureate parried with his bare hands, and punched her with a gold-covered fist right on her stomach.
“Guoh?!”, Gailardia bowed over her hurt belly, and Aureate changed his golden glove to a dagger.
“Protect me!”, I asked Grace, and sat down, getting completely in a trance.
Touching my belts, I reminded myself of a myriad of spells, and focused exclusively on breaking the Council Member spells on the second world: I manipulated the Manitou in the rocks around him, and made them roll to his otherworldly projection, and the water Manitou in the air rained down like spiky icicles.
Aureate conjured a sphere of gold all around him, blocking all the attacks, and those served as only a small distraction to break only a couple of his spells. But that wasn’t all that I could give: I manipulated the air maintou, concentrated it well around his sphere of gold, and conjured flames around it, immediately raising a spiraling ball of fire around his defenses. In no time, the metal started to glow red, then white.
The golden barrier vanished, and the figure inside fell to his knees, sweating profusely and with his skin tinted red from the heat: I had broken all of his spells.
I opened my eyes to see Gaillardia reaching a mentally tired Aureate, who held his head with gritted teeth, pulled back her war pick, and struck. Only to have her weapon’s trajectory diverted by the man’s bare hands.
A volley of punches and kicks pushed my wife back, hitting her on her arms, legs, torso and face and leaving red bruises and split bleeding skin behind.
Grace tried to stop the Council Member with vines, but they merely slowed him down, and though I wanted to help, I had to stay one hundred percent focused on breaking Aureate’s spells so to not get us all impaled by his golden arms.
Gaillardia was pressed into blocking, dodging, and diverting the Council Member’s attacks, but with Grace’s interference, she finally got enough space to start counter-attacking: as the Council Member threw a punch against her face, she spun around, grabbing his arm, and hurled the man over her shoulders onto the ground. Only for him to fall on both feet and even in a weird position, throw another punch with his free hand against my wife’s nose, breaking it.
Aureate fixed his pose and started kicking, but vines grew over his entire body, and he was caught in a weird position. A fistful from Gaillardia right on the side of his chin broke him free from the entanglement, and sent him spinning around.
“Sorry buddy, but we can’t have you blowing up the great games”, my wife jiggled her fingers, stretching her knuckles.
“Pushu!”, Aureate spit a mouthful of blood and a teeth. “Hu. Yeah, that’s almost funny.”
“Because we’re not ‘chosen’ like you?”
“Thinking about it is a waste of time. You are practically dead already!”, the Council Member closed his fists, gritted his teeth, and frowned until his eyebrows were almost touching; veins pulsed visibly in his neck and forehead, and blood dripped from his mouth and nose.
Then he broke the spiral of flames I kept swirling around him in the second world with sheer brute strength, conjuring a huge sphere of gold, bigger than one that I could actually deal with.
“Oh, no!”, He was free to cast spells again, and he didn’t waste this opportunity.
“Raaaar!”, Aureate shouted, a hundred golden arms flew in every direction with the Council Member in its center, each holding a different weapon, a wave of gold too massive for us to dodge.
“Glance!”, Grace called, “We have to finish this here”, her eyes were serious, and the message was clear. I nodded.
I closed my eyes, and manipulated every Manitou in reach, air, soil, water, wood, stone, and caused as much damage to the sphere of gold before me as I could only slightly interfere with Aureate’s conjuration, and break only a few of his golden arms.
In the first world, Grace conjured entire trees from the ground, in which the gold arms hit and got stuck, or bent in awkward positions.
With a dozen spears, axes, and daggers coming in our direction, we opened a clear path for Gailardia to run through, and experienced enough to not hesitate, she dashed straight towards the Council Member.
My body and Grace’s were perforated, slashed, and bashed, but at the same time, an antler war pick pierced through the side of the Council Member, perforating his ribs, and heart.
Before the golden weapons and the hands that held them could reach any of our vital organs, they vanished in magical waste, as Aureate fell to the ground, and his mirror necklace was turned opaque with his own blood.
Grace conjured her a wooden staff, which she used to keep herself straight, but I was too tired for such a thing, and my legs were starting to tremble.
“Glance!”, Gaillardia came running in my direction, and held me in her arms before I fell onto the ground. I felt consciousness slipping away from me quickly, but at that moment of high adrenaline and ecstasy from the victory, I felt more courageous than ever. And I had something to tell her.
“Gaillardia… If you lack purpose in your life… What do you think… about… being the mother of my children?”
She looked astonished at first. Then she displayed a sweet smile.
“Of course”, she kissed me, and I fell asleep.
The rest was with Council Members Elytrus and Umbra.
*
“It is just the two of us, you can take off your hood now”, I said, combing my beard with my claws.
“…Don’t want to”, Umbra violently shook her head from one side to the other.
“What a shame, for such a beautiful girl to be always hiding herself under baggy clothes…”
“I-I’m not beautiful…!”
We were both walking up the stairs to the highest vertebrae tower, to the bedroom of our target, but as we were sure he wouldn’t go anywhere else until the Great Games started, Council Member Umbra and I took our time.
I sneaked my hand behind her, and pulled back her hood, revealing her delicate albino features; very long white hair, pink eyes, easily blushing cheeks, the type of face that made you want to protect her no matter what.
“See? Beautiful”, I said, brushing away one strand of her hair that fell before her face.
“…Womanizer.”
“Hahaha! No, no, there was only ever one woman in my life, and she’s not with the living anymore”, I laughed at the suggestion. I just wanted my partner Council Member to be a little more confident! It was painful to listen to her voice cracking whenever she needed to speak in public, her tone shifting all the time.
“There ‘was’?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, she’s not amongst the living anymore.”
“Does it have anything to do with your… wings?”
“In a certain way. You see, I used to be part of the proud clan of the eagle-men! We took into the skies, and flew alongside the birds, we saw the world from a perspective that few are privileged enough to see!” I could still envision that view from high up the skies, when I felt bigger than the world itself. Sometimes, I dreamed about flying. “…But I suffered an accident. Rocks from a cliff fell right over my wings. They were mingled beyond anyone’s treatment, and had to be amputated. My wife didn’t survive the incident”, the most tragic day of my life. I lost my two most precious things, and my only comfort was in the belief that whenever she was then, it was a better place. “I feel into a deep abyss of sadness afterwards. I couldn’t get out of bed, or feed myself, or take care of me in the slightest. Then, our tribe’s shaman started to make visits to me to try to animate me a little bit, and he played magical tricks of all sorts”, he pulled flowers from behind my head, created images with flames over his fingers, and multiplicated the number of seeds he hid beneath mugs to entertain me. The only light in my world back then. Looking back, it wasn’t surprising that I became obsessed with magic in those days. “I begged the man to teach me magic, and though I was already a grown-up man, well… Here I am today. Determined to bring the same life that came into my life to the life of as many people as possible.”
As we reached halfway to the top, I stopped to admire the moon outside. I still missed my wife, flying, and the life I had before, but with a new purpose, it didn’t hurt so much anymore.
“What about you, Council Member Umbra? Have you ever had someone special in your life?”
“I… I do have someone special to me”, the poor girl threw me a glance from under her hood, her pale cheeks blushing intensely.
I feigned ignorance, however, and tried to change the topic: “And how did you end up learning magic?”
“I have been taught by my adoptive father… I don’t have any memories of my real parents. They left me before my adoptive father’s shack when I was still a baby”, she spoke without remorse. “The shack owner, a shaman who kept away from everyone decided to take care of me. He was harsh in his care, and I even came to despise him for much of my life, but looking back… I believe he knew that he wouldn’t be around for too long to see me growing into adulthood and independence. He was already an old man when he adopted me, and wanted to make sure I would be safe once he parted away. So, he taught me magic, and how to survive in the wilderness. He passed away when I was just six years old. I spent the next ten years all alone in that snowy forest, all by myself”, she spoke with objectivity, as if it wasn’t her own story. But people dealt differently with their past, so I didn’t comment on that. “Until, one day, a lost merchant found my shack, and stayed a few nights with me. And I finally noticed… that collaboration makes someone's life so much easier. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have to spend all the wake hours working just to keep myself alive. I could finally appreciate the beauty of the untouched scenario around me. It was such an enlightening experience, I decided to leave that isolated shack behind in the same day”, Umbra was placidly smiling. I had never imagined how life would be without anyone else around me, but she had experienced that, and then company. It must have been the greatest revelation someone could possibly live through. “I ended up in quite an isolated tribe after that. There, I got the attention of a few people because of my spells, and I ended up teaching them how to use it. It was when I learned that, the more strong people I have around me, the easier my life is. I even got a hobby then! I learned how to sew dolls. So I decided to teach magic to as many people as possible… Then I naturally ended up here.”
“That’s a beautiful and inspiring story, Umbra, thank you”, I said, scratching my beard, truly motivated. Then we were right before the doors to Tanka’s bedroom. I pushed the doors open with conjured wind, and inside we found our target, comfortably seated on a huge pile of cushions, staring at the ceiling above. “What about you, Tanka? Would you like to tell us your story and repent?” He smiled.
