Chapter Twenty-Six: Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter Twenty-Six: Smoke and Mirrors

“You must prove yourselves,” Abbess Sunrise said with a feline smile.

Tom shrugged. He was keen to train against the monks while he was here anyway, but he didn’t think they’d actually indulge him. He was not so keen on the implication that he and Rosa would either not be a challenge for the monks, or would lose their nerve and back down, though.

“We accept,” Rosa said simply, not even needing to look at him. “When and where would you like this proof?”

The abbess’ smile widened. “There is no time like the now, and no place like here.”

“As you say, Abbess,” Rosa murmured, though Tom could pick up on her confusion.

“What are your tiers so we may make this as …fair as possible?”

Darius had explained this to Tom during their travels. For duelling, the monks added together every uplift under their Ideals to form a kind of rank. It allowed for fairer competition. Monks were allowed to challenge within three tiers of their own.

Simply pitting one Complete Idealist against another would not be worthwhile if one had one Ideal to the other’s three. Or even if one had all their skills bar one for each Ideal at Consummate.

Adding together skill totals, and then uplifts, allowed for more granularity in pairings. It also allowed for situations such as a complete Idealist with three Ideals potentially fighting an Exemplary Idealist with one.

“Tier eighteen,” Rosa said.

“Twenty,” Tom added.

“Javier!” A monk in deep red robes stepped forward. The sheer thickness of mana and vitality hanging about the tall, lean man told Tom that if he was not a Flawless Idealist, then he was so close as to make no difference. “Someone to face young Miss Raventos, please.”

Javier bowed, then barked a name. A fairly plain looking man rose from where he was kneeling and threaded his way through his brothers and sisters to stand beside him.

“Positions!” Sunset snapped, and the monks arrayed around the edges of the room immediately rose and shuffled closer to the edges before settling again. Perhaps twenty monks remained standing, directly in front of their kneeling brethren. All wore deep red robes, with the exception of four of them who wore robes of unrelieved white.

Tom expected the monks in the deep red robes were high-tier Idealists, there to contain the spillover from any skills reaching the audience, and those in white were obviously healers, there to heal any injuries.

Abbess Sunrise gestured for Tom and the others to stand next to their dais. They moved with alacrity, positioning themselves to watch the duel.

He had to admit to being surprised. He had not expected to duel anyone in the middle of the main hall of the monastery. The monks were keen indeed on their fighting. He watched Rosa as she marched out into the centre of the hall. She held her chin high and kept her expression imperious. She radiated confidence. But for her clothes, she could have been a Bloody Monk herself.

Only because Tom knew her so well could he read the tightness around her mouth, the slight stiffness in her posture. She was nervous, but that was to be expected. A duel with a Bloody Monk, some of the finest warriors anywhere in the world, in front of hundreds more of them, with no preparation, would give anyone nerves.

She glanced at Tom briefly. He gave her a fierce smile and nod. He watched as the tension bled out of her, and all that remained was smooth self-assurance.

Javier leaned to murmur a brief word to the unassuming monk. The man nodded, and then strode out into the centre of the room. He stopped across from Rosa, regarding her with a mild, almost dismissive expression.

The abbess and abbot surveyed the room, seeming satisfied. The abbot spoke. “I admit I am curious to see how a warrior of Wayrest fights. It has been long since we have had the opportunity. If the words of your new friend are to be believed, then this should be a good fight.”

Sunset gestured absently to his left. A monk robed in white knelt among others. Darius. His head was turned downwards at the abbot’s attention, and Tom caught chagrin on the man’s face.

“Of course, he may have just been spinning us tales to distract from his …lapse,” Sunset said.

“We will have to judge for ourselves whether his assessment was accurate,” the abbess said flatly.

Now Tom could see Darius’ neck and cheeks flushed with red. He bowed his head lower. It seemed he had been thoroughly chastised for abandoning his duties as a healer to fight. He was also correct in that the monastery obviously felt healers were too precious a resource to take it much further than that.

Finally, their attention shifted from Darius, and back to the pair in front of them. They stood alone in the middle of the great hall, one to either side, both watching the dais.

“You are aware of our rules, Miss Raventos?” Sunrise asked.

Sunset didn’t wait for her to answer. “The Goddess wills her warriors fight always at their utmost. Weapons and armour allowed.”

“Win conditions?” Rosa asked.

The abbot looked briefly puzzled. “Victory, of course.”

Rosa nodded. She turned to face her opponent, as he turned to face her. She rolled her wrist, and the armour Cub and Scriber forged and enchanted for her blinked onto her body over her clothes. Her daggers appeared buckled at her hip, but she left her hands free.

A low murmur went up around the hall at this. It was exceedingly fine armour. Better than the vast majority of Idealists would own. Tom wouldn’t be surprised if it rivalled whatever Sunrise and Sunset wore when they did battle. It had been enchanted by Scriber, after all.

Her opponent turned his head to Javier. They exchanged a meaningful look, and then Javier clicked his fingers. One of the younger monks in yellow robes moved to the doorway then took off at a run.

Javier paused a moment, then glanced at Tom, seemingly considering something. Then he spoke, loud enough for the hall to hear as they waited. “Mateo, fetch yours, also.”

A big man rose from the floor. He moved with the same inevitability as a boulder rolling downhill. A much larger stir went through the crowd. Tom supposed this was to be his opponent. Judging by the monks’ reactions, he guessed there must be some import to the man being named.

The big man slowly worked his way to the front and then to the door. Javier called to him. “Don’t fuck around, Mateo! This won’t be long.” A low ripple of laughter swept the room. A knot flexed in Rosa’s jaw.

Tom turned to her opponent. He assessed the man, trying to glean some hint of his abilities. From what he could tell with Hunter-Gatherer, he was more or less an even match for Rosa, though Tom didn’t think the monks would ever try and pit her against someone unfairly. They seemed to take all this very seriously.

In a few minutes, the young monk returned bearing an armful of metal and leather. He stopped by Rosa’s opponent and helped the man don his armour quickly and efficiently.

Tom noted the enchantments on the plate, though they were nowhere near as delicate and dense as Scriber’s work. For that matter, the armour itself was not as well-forged. Perhaps this set wasn’t owned by the man, but was rather for use by anyone of a given rank. Or perhaps Tom had simply grown spoiled by being friends with two enchanters.

The man buckled a sword to his hip and hefted a shield. Both glowed softly in Tom’s senses with similar enchantments to his armour.

He was willing to bet they wouldn’t help him.

Finally the man was ready. Rosa faced him, relaxed and ready. The man jogged his shield against his shoulder and swept his sword a few times. They stilled, watching each other.

“Begin,” called the abbess.

The man advanced cautiously, taking even steps and covering himself with his shield. Rosa merely watched for a moment. Then she raised her hand.

A bar of fire, white-hot surged from her open palm. The air in the hall screamed as it tore towards him. The man stopped, crouching behind his shield.

The bar struck home, or seemed to, but at the last moment it turned, deflecting up towards the roof at an angle. Before it could hit the roof and set the building alight, a small portal swirled into existence, directly in its path, and the skill was swallowed.

The monk began to advance again, slow and steady. A half-sphere of dim blue light rippled in front of his shield where the fire had hit it and disappeared.

Tom grimaced. He had felt the mana rise in the man as he’d deflected the skill. It was no ability of the shield’s that had managed to deflect Rosa’s attack.

Rosa, however, was undeterred. She struck out again, once, twice, three times, with bars of fire. Each time, they hit the same blue shield and deflected. Even worse, Rosa had aimed for his head and his legs this time too, and it became apparent that the skill-wrought shield gave the monk full body coverage.

Luckily, Rosa had more tricks up her sleeve.

Before the bars of fire could be swallowed by more portals, or otherwise dispersed by the high-tier monks, she grabbed them with her control skill and looped them back around behind the man, punching them directly into his back.

It was clear the man had no sensory skill, or if he did, it didn’t alert him. The bars of fire speared into his back, and Rosa grinned with anticipation.

The grin turned out to be short lived. Though the man’s eyes widened when he felt the impacts on his back, the same shield flickered into existence and reflected them again.

The skill must have been either fully passive, or channelled, Tom thought. Whichever it was, it was incredibly strong. Tom had to wonder what the man’s other skills were, though if he had to guess, he would say he had a tank-like build, similar to his own, and was probably weighted more towards other passives.

The monk continued to advance. Rosa frowned, but her face quickly smoothed again. She swept her hand in front of her, and fire spread in a line between her and her opponent, quickly flaring into a wall.

The monk simply continued on. As he walked through it, the wall parted, spitting and hissing as the fire rebounded from the shield and down into the marble floor to either side of him.

Rosa wasted no more time. She held out both hands and invoked her surge skill, Immolation Mosaic.

Fire erupted under the man’s feet in a conflagration so dense and hot it seemed almost a physical entity. For a moment, all Tom could make out was a reedy black silhouette amongst the flames.

Then he stepped through.

A moment passed, and then the blue shield rippled into existence, then faded as it snapped back into place. His armour was gently smoking, so it seemed that Rosa’s surge skill had broken it, even if only momentarily.

Tom’s attention passed back to Rosa, and he noticed flames swirling around her. His eyes widened. When the monk’s shield had broken he must have somehow reflected the remaining burn damage back to Rosa.

Of course, she had a control skill for fire and could not be injured by it, but the skill was impressive. If it worked how he thought it did, it was similar to Sweet Suffering, just passing damage over time back to the enemy instead of buffing the Idealist.

It had been a hugely risky move for Rosa, as the surge skill cost an extreme amount of mana, and would have left Rosa low. The monk seemed to realise it too, and picked up the pace, now jogging forwards.

Rosa was not stupid though, and had figured out that neither her direct attacks, or passive burn damage were going to win her the fight. As the monk closed with her, raising his sword, Rosa disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The man stumbled slightly, but to his credit, he recovered quickly. Any decently trained Idealist would expect some kind of escape skill from a caster build. He turned about, searching for his opponent.

Rosa had reappeared back where the monk had started. She stood watching him, tapping her chin in thought.

Tom knew what would happen next. She would take the bow Scriber had enchanted for her out of her spatial storage. She couldn’t damage him with her fire, or burns over time, but she was more than talented with her physical weapon of choice.

The monk was wily though. He immediately began to charge at Rosa full tilt. Tom understood his reasoning.

He had baited out a surge skill, and knew she couldn’t cast another. He also knew her main methods of damage were completely useless against him. He knew she must be low on mana. He knew she couldn’t run from her forever.

He was planning to tire her out. She could only use her escape skill so many more times before she had to face him directly.

It was a good plan, on his part. But Tom knew two things that he didn’t.

The first was that with her familiar, Coal, subsumed, Rosa gained a bonus to her speed, her endurance, and her stamina recovery. Her Ideal of Speed was also much less obvious in a duel like this, but with both factors combined, even when she ran out of mana for In a Puff of Smoke, she would still run rings around him for longer than he could keep up.

The second was that she was fucking good with a bow. And she had a fucking good bow, too.

It was because of those two reasons that what happened next surprised Tom so greatly.

Rosa disappeared again as the monk reached her. She reappeared where she had started. She let out a great, theatrical sigh.

She flicked her hand, like she was shooing a small child.

A great cloud of smoke bloomed in the hall. This time, it was the man who disappeared.

Rosa’s hand twitched, and the cloud of smoke rose a little. The man’s lower half reappeared, turning about as he tried to orient himself.

Rosa drew in a deep breath and threw her arms out wide.

Then she brought them together.

The smoke collapsed inwards, roiling, and gathered into a sphere. It was so solid it looked almost like a ball of oil. It was just bigger than the size of a man’s head. Which was by design, because that way it was perfect for suffocating a man.

A few seconds passed, then a few seconds more. The monk stumbled about, then lashed about himself with his sword. Rosa moved the smoke with his motions to keep it securely fixed about his head.

Finally, he collapsed. Healers rushed in.

And the hall broke into thunderous applause.