Chapter 67: Hunter

I have known many heroes and had the great privilege to call some friends. While my efforts helped in these wars, the deeds of my friends and other heroes like them are what led us to victory. They put their lives on the line, when all I had to do was solve problems from the comfort of a magical tower in another realm.

—Burg, Levar. Heroes.

Kole found them near the center of the maelstrom of stone.

Harold and Gray were traveling together, leaping from rocky island to rocky island. At first he thought they were the only two left, but stil Doug’s words lingered in his mind.

She’s got to be here somewhere he though.

Harold looked to have suffered a wound of some sort that for whatever reason he’d been unable to heal. Gray looked fine, his Ice Armor was full and not missing any plates, and he leaped with the enhanced grace and force of his Jump spell. Kole followed them at a distance, formulating a plan while watching out for Mouse, when suddenly he saw movement at the island next to him.

He froze, afraid he’d be spotted, despite his enhanced Invisiblity. Moving his head slowly, he turned it in time to see Mouse leap from one stone wall fragment to a floating stone door, then immediately onto another large section of wall.

She was tailing her teammates, using them as bait.

Kole knew what he had to do, having had ample time in this solo adventure to plan out avenues of attack should a situation just like this occurs.

He followed her, positioning himself so that she was perfectly between himself and Gray. Three leaps later, when she her view of her ally’s was blocked—and conversely their view of him was as well—he stuck.

Kole cast Silence on Mouse, ending his invisibility by casting such a high tier spell. Three Koles appeared, looking down through a window set in a wall as if it were a hole in the ground.

In his early training with maintaining his concentration, he’d been delighted to discover that casting Mirror Image while he was invisible both worked in two ways. If he cast it while he was invisible, his mirror images appeared invisible, returning to visibility when he did. If, however, he cast it while visible and then turned invisible, the Mirror Images remained why he did not.

With Silent Image active, Kole couldn’t hide from Mouse, but he didn’t need to. He drew his blasting rod, and sent a barrage of bolts at her as quickly as he could.

Three darts flew across the void, visible as dim purple motes in the blackness.

The first missed, and she caught the movement of the breaking stone from the corner of her eye and reacted immediately, spinning around with her bow drawn. She saw the next six—which was in reality two triplicated by his Mirror Image, and dodged those as well, sending an arrow at the opening Kole was still looking through.

Kole was impressed, and adn’t thought she’d be able to dodge the actual bolts, let alone all six copies. Mouse tried to scream to alert her team, but her eyes grew wide as she realized what Kole had done.

She sent another arrow at Kole as she ran for the edge of the stone, and he held his position, and sent two more blasts at Mouse once more triplicated. In her flight to get out of the bubble of silence, Mouse only dodged half of the bolts, but two of the three that struck her were real, and she stumbled, just as she was about to leap off the platform.

Kole sent one more blast at her as she floated out into the void. The bolt struck her just as she exited the bubble of silence, dealing enough damage to send her out of the match, but not before she let out a brief cry of alarm.

By then, the central platform was only a few leaps away. He saw Gray and Harold look around but not find him before taking off for the center.

Kole got up to follow, noticing that one of his illusory selves had been hit by Mouse, leaving him with one.

This can work, Kole thought, using the last of his Will to cast an enhanced Invisibility.

He drank his second potion of clarity, and moved to follow. Kole found very quickly that trying to hide when you were visible was a lot harder than when invisible. Obviously this was something he knew intellectually, but after spending however long he’d been in here as an unseen hunter, he was intensely aware of how visible his illusory copy was beside him.

I don’t know how Mouse and Runt do it, he thought.

Kole followed them at a distance, remaining unseen, but sacrificing a lot of speed to do so. By the time Gray and Harold had landed on the platform, Kole was still two jumps away.

Decision time, he though to himself. Let them get the ball and ambush them, or try to take them two on one?

He weighed his options and regrettably had to go with the second. Kole had no idea where their starting platform was, if he did, he could just wait there for them. Once they got the sphere, they would take off back to theirs in a straight line, and since they—like Kole’s team—had taken a circuitous route, that direction was likely not towards Kole. It was either ambush them here, or see if he could travel faster than them.

Kole was keenly away of Gray’s ability to cast Jump, and extremely confident he couldn’t keep up.

He leapt out of hiding, making sit to his second leap, the one directed at the central platform, when he was spotted.

“It’s Kole!” Gray shouted, getting Harold’s attention.

Kole landed in a roll and stayed low as a bolt of ice shot over his head. He recovered his feet, ready with a shield should he need it.

“You know, If I still hated you, I’d be giving a really cool speech right now about how wrong you were about me,” Kole shouted, hoping to buy time.

Kole and Harold both laughed, but looked around cautiously.

They don’t know I’m alone, Kole realized.

“What happened to Esme?” Kole asked.

“What happened to the rest of your team?” Gray asked instead.

“Nothing,” Kole said, pointing to the side.

As they turned to look, Kole went to the Font of Illusions, and drew upon his latest trick. At discovering it, late in his room the night before, he’d been rather disappointed. He’d discovered that as a cantrip, he could use the Font of Illusions to create an illusory replica of any of his first tier spells. For Mind spells, nothing happened, and for Sound spells, the sound was muted, but for Light spells, he could create perfect replicas of the attacks for free.

Kole drew upon this power now, and send a glowing golden bolt at Harold—or at least, just to the side of him.

Harold looked back at Kole, enraged at the underhandedness of his ‘attack.’ Just as Kole had hoped he would. He ran right at Kole, or at least, the copy of Kole standing beside the invisible Kole.

Had Kole cast a real Radiant Bolt, he may have him Harold, but he doubted he’d have taken him out, and then his Invisibility would have failed, and they’d know he was there.

Kole waited, making faces like he was about to cast another spell, only narrowly ducking under another Ice Bolt that nearly destroyed his Illusion, allowing the duck to serve as justification for his failure to complete the spell.

“Wait!” Gray yelled to Harold, but Harold didn’t listen.

Gray and Kole had dueled on many occasions, and Gray knew how quickly Kole could cast each of his spell—at least the ones he’d seen. He knew something was off.

But, Harold didn’t, and all he saw was an exposed wizard, all alone.

Harold came closer, and Kole prepared. Leading with his sword, Harold came down with a sword strike, the blade glowing with a power granted by his god, one that could likely cut through a wizard’s shield if Runt’s dossier was correct—which it had so far proven to be.

The glowing blade passed through the visible Kole, and he vanished—just as if the Dahn had whisked him away.

Harold turned to celebrate, just as Kole appeared beside him, hands splayed out before him.

A crack of thunder roared from Kole’s extended hands, sending Harold flying over the edge, and out into the void.