AO 6 Ch 5

"So, what's on the other side of this wasteland?" I asked as we sat atop a rocky outcropping, having lunch. The horses were currently elevated on a slab of ice, munching away on their oats.

We had already needed to revive the horses four times after entering the Badlands. It was pretty clear that nobody without a healer was going into the area or at least not very far. 

"Ocean?" Maribelle frowned. "What did you think would be over there?"

"I don't know. An ocean doesn't make sense, though. I thought Garrish had no good ports. Well… perhaps the poisonous everything around here isn’t helping."

"True. Nobody wants to live in a city in this hellish place." The maid gestured widely to the Badlands.

"That, and you need more than water for boats, Ard," Zuri commented.

"Great. Let's pretend I don't know what else we need," I smiled at her.

"We need natural formations to help protect any docks. It might sound simple on the surface. But the bay at Faylin plays a greater role than you understand in ensuring that everything remains stable for unloading. There needs to be a way to move goods from the port into the kingdom, otherwise it is just a stop for people traveling. That’s not nearly as valuable."

"So, there's water, but no ports," I said, gesturing out past the ruined landscape.

"Pretty much. Garrish would absolutely kill for a port. They hate being as landlocked as they are," Maribelle added. "Technically, it was one of the reasons that they started this whole war.”

I made a face, but didn't comment further. It seemed like a stupid reason to kill people over, then again there were probably wars fought for less.

After our experience thus far in Garrish, it was clear that the war was largely a cover for other horrifying events happening in the country. After all, it wasn't their need for ports that drove them to kill all of their mages and use them as experiments.

"Maybe we could make a boat and sail up to the barbaric north," I offered, only to receive incredulous looks from all of the ladies. 

"What? Bad idea?" I asked. 

"I think I can speak for us all, Ard. I'm not sure I want to ride in a boat that you made," Emlyn cocked an eyebrow at me in challenge. 

"Unless it was shaped like a nose," Aurelia offered before biting into her sandwich, "then I bet it wouldn't fall apart." 

"Who said anything about it falling apart?" I took offense. 

Maribelle patted my knee, "Ard, you do good work, most of the time." 

I squinted at her, "Most of the time?”

“There's just a level of error that I don't think people would be willing to take when it comes to getting on a boat." Emlyn shrugged helplessly.

"Fine, you guys all enjoy walking through this scorpion-infested hellhole." I crossed my arms, looking to the side of the platform that I had made and smoothed out so there were no cracks, only for a curious scorpion to come up around the corner.

Maribelle flicked her wrist and a small sticky ball of death magic rolled off her fingertips until it splashed on the scorpion, doing far more damage than any poison would have done.

Its body crumbled and curled up as if it had been left out in the sun for weeks. It lost its footing and fell off the side from a gentle breath. 

"We can handle what we’ve seen so far." Maribelle offered. 

"I still hate this place," I said. “Going to have trouble sleeping here.”

The ground was so dry. Foot-deep cracks in the soil were everywhere and there was a small teeming ecosystem between those cracks. The ground sometimes shifted beneath your feet, and if it did, insects often came scurrying out.

A singular bird call sounded across the area. As it darted through the air, I squinted trying to tell if it was the incredibly poisonous variety or not, however, it was difficult at this distance.

Regardless, Zuri twisted her bow to an upright position and snapped off three arrows to hem it in and nail it with a fourth. It fell lifelessly to the ground. 

"While we have the daylight, did you want to try any more of your soul magic?" Eva asked. It was not the first time they had offered. It appeared everybody was curious to see what would develop next. Which I assumed was because they were in awe of me and not because there was little to no entertainment around.

"Well, I guess this isn't a half-bad time to play with fire." I pinched my fingers together, creating a small bead of the blue-nearly-white flame before flicking it off in the distance. It exploded with a force far greater than would be expected for a ball of that size.

The ball swelled up to nearly the size of a carriage, the heat and power rippling off of it, even more explosive. Everyone quietly watched, as if there would be something else while their hair blew back from the explosion. 

"Well, that's a little lackluster," Emlyn commented, "Seems like you didn't pick the right element, Aurelia. Not that lightning is that much better.”

“Hey, that lightning affects the soul. It's very good lightning.” I was insulted.

“We may also not see additional properties when he just makes it explode. Perhaps there's value to it that would require a living person with a soul to bring out its potential." Zuri offered.

I wrinkled my nose at the idea of using it on someone just to test it. "Well, then we'll figure that out on the fly. It's not like I can set one of you on fire." I replied.

"I mean, you could," Emily corrected me. 

"Was that you volunteering?" I grinned at her and made a spark of fire in my hand. "Just come a little closer, Emlyn." 

"Uh-uh. Nope." She jumped and hid behind Eva. 

The princess then slowly looked over her shoulder at Emlyn. "Really? You're going to use me to hide?”

“You're the newest, therefore the favorite. At least for now," Emlyn said, and I couldn't help but notice the way Maribelle's eyes narrowed dangerously at the idea that someone else was the favorite.

I gave Emlyn a look. She knew better than to use that word around Maribelle. We didn’t want any misunderstandings. I cleared my throat. "There are no favorites.”

“Just temporarily favored," Emlyn hedged.

"There's no favored of any kind. You are each unique and wonderful." I shook my head. "And if we have the energy to argue about that, perhaps it's time to get back on the road, if you would call any of this the road." 

The group grunted in agreement and quickly began packing up our belongings. 

"I know this ocean over here isn't good for finding a port, but perhaps we can find food. There hasn't been exactly much to eat out here. Unless, of course, you want to go dig up rocks and eat bugs," I offered.

"Perhaps Ard can improve our confidence in his boat making with a few fishing trips." Zuri grinned.

Maribelle dusted off her skirt as she got to her feet, packing the carriage once again. She wasn’t concerned about this conversation, she’d follow me off a cliff if I asked. 

"A fat chance of that ever happening," Emlyn said.

"Well, maybe we can get you to play with your other types of magic," Eva suggested, curiosity gleaming in her beautiful eyes. That conversation had just begun when I was cut off by a quake in the ground. The tremor caused the little rock outcropping we were on to crack and crumble to the side, pieces of it shearing off.

"Carriage. Now!" Emlyn shouted.

I really didn’t need the nudge. The carriage was looking pretty good at the moment.

Cyam whinnied for my shadow. Without hesitation, I threw him out of my shadow. Together, he and I stretched tendrils of shadow around the existing carriage horses, and a the sheet of ice they had been standing on.

The rest of my party was quickly getting to safety themselves. Aurelia had Eva thrown over her shoulder, while the rest had jumped on the carriage.

"Any idea what the rumble is from?" I glanced at the fiery-haired Virel. "You think it's a monster?"

"I was thinking it was an earthquake," she said as Cyam and I pulled the carriage and two horses into the sky.

The horses were throwing a fit, having been spooked. But thankfully, with Cyam pulling and myself concentrating on keeping the magic together, we managed to get everyone up into the sky just in time.

What erupted from the dirt a moment later was unlike anything I'd seen thus far. It was a wyrm-sized crab claw that broke free of the ground, the muck, and everything else only for the rest of its body to emerge like a small island. One of its claws was far larger than the other and reached into the sky like a titan that wanted to tear the clouds down.

"Nope, definitely not an earthquake," I said, glaring briefly at Aurelia. "Wanna try again?"

"Har har," Aurelia laughed humorlessly. "Not an earthquake. But also, I have no idea what the fuck that is." She stared down at the massive crab. "Or where it even came from."

"Well, I'm assuming it's using Earth magic, otherwise I have to agree. Even if it's really that big, there's no way it's moving around underground.” I observed.

“You'd be surprised how strong these monsters can be." Aurelia told me.

"No, I don't think I'd be surprised at all," I retorted. "After seeing that colossal wyrm, I think I've completely become immune to giant monster surprise."

"While you are comparing notes, how about a plan for how to get rid of it, Ard?" Emlyn called out.

"Oh, that?" I shrugged. “I don’t have a clue.”

Emlyn just stared at me.

"Did you expect a different answer?" I asked.

"No, but I was at least hoping you would be moderately helpful," Emlyn sighed.

Zuri patted her on the shoulder.

"I think we knew that unless we needed a joke to solve the problem, Ard's skills were limited.” Emlyn shook her head.

Zuri glanced incredulously between the two of us. "Really, Both of you?”

“You should probably not distract him. He's the only one who can actually do anything right now. I mean, unless one of you wants to start throwing giant nose-mountains down on the monster." Aurelia watched from the side.

Meanwhile a crab the size of an island was making a mess of the landscape below us, occasionally making it hard to hear the conversation.

Emlyn grunted. "Perhaps Ard is rubbing off on me. Because rather than do anything, I just cracked jokes."

"See, it really is helpful," I offered. "You just make this all far easier for us to relax. It’s just a little crab."

The rocky outcropping went flying up in the air, like a house sized ball.

I launched and wove the platform to avoid it.

"I'm happy you're finding this so amusing, Ard." Emlyn answered.

"Well, one of us has to do something." I smiled as I called on my magic, drawing deep from the earth.

My magic surged as I pushed it into the earth, like fingers into garden soil, trying to mold the earth around a massive crab.

However, the second the soil touched the crab, it slid off like water, or perhaps more like wet sand. Even as I tried to coil it, to harden it, the ground did nothing to restrict the crab that skittered around, snapping its massive claw angrily up at us. 

While I tried to move the earth, I was working with Cyam to keep the whole group in the air. Realizing I needed to focus on my own stability, rather than shadows, I used the ice to buoy the carriage and the horse, as well as everyone inside of it.

Ice magic was firmer, more solid, and could hold the load better than dark magic. Cyam came down on top of the carriage, pawing at it as I made sure everything was stable on the ice platform while I unwound the dark magic I had been using. The crab's claw clicked down below with the same deafening boom as cannon fire. 

With the shadows no longer tangled up and holding everything afloat, Zuri had her bow out and fired an arrow of light down into the crab, only for the arrow to scatter in a spray of sparkles. 

"No offense, Zuri, but I think our weapons need to be the size of nose mountains. I don't know if any of us are gonna put a dent in that. If it's like a crab, the back's the hardest part," Emlyn said, consoling the other anchor. 

I could see Eva focusing as a man-sized twisting horn of shadows erupted from the bottom of the crab, only to ping harmlessly off its underside. But that attack did get its attention. The crab used its small claw snapped down and shattered Eva's magic before hammering the ground with its claw, just to make sure whatever hit it wasn’t going to do it again. 

"Well, how's it going for you, Ard?" Eva broke her concentration. 

"Earth magic's doing absolutely nothing. Every time I try to hold it, it literally just walks straight through anything I've built." My words caused a few raised eyebrows amongst the group.

"Well, have you tried anything else?" Emlyn asked. 

"No, Emlyn, I was too busy making sure the sheet of ice that we're all sitting on and that is currently keeping us all alive is solid. Would you like me to focus on attacking?" I started slowly dipping us just a little bit.

"Oh, no, no, no, please take your time." Emlyn patted the air with a smile on her face. 

"Yeah, that's what I thought," I teased her, bringing us back up.

"Well, now would be a good time to try to see if that soul fire of yours does anything unique, don't you think?" Eva asked. 

It wasn’t a bad idea. I pinched my fingers together only to slowly pull them apart, this time making a bright blue ball of fire the size of my fist. 

I dropped it off the side of the ice platform down on the crab. I probably could have thrown it, but multitasking with the multiple magics was difficult.

The concept of dropping it fit more neatly into my head. I kept my fist closed tight, not letting it explode until, of course, it reached the crab below.

At that point, I stopped compressing the ball, and the resulting explosion rocked even the icy platform above. The blue fire washed over the massive crustacean as it began running back and forth, its many legs scrambling for purchase amongst the hard-packed dirt. 

"Well, look, Emlyn. That was effective, and it wasn't even nose-shaped." I told her. 

Eva snorted while Emlyn rolled her eyes. "Why don't you really impress me and do it again?" Emlyn challenged. “So far all you seemed to do was panic it.”

I opened up my fist to show her another ball of fire that was slowly growing in my hands. I was currently having to split my focus.

The ice magic was already existent by way of the sheet of ice. I simply had to continue to reinforce my will upon it and keep it floating.

Meanwhile, I was spinning up more fire magic from my fox sphere, as I pushed soul magic into it, preparing for my next hit.