Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 17)

Fabrisse had forgotten he had a skill called Shadowed Reposition Protocol until a hare the size of his torso shot straight toward his face. And today, he learned he could cast that skill only by thinking about it.

[SKILL CAST: Shadowed Reposition Protocol (Rank II)]

[Displacement Radius: 0.479m]

The world tilted. His body whooshed into a darker spot in the woods where the canopies covered fully, half a meter to the left. The hare passed through the space where he’d been standing, so close its whiskers brushed the air against his cheek.

To Veliane, it must have looked like Fabrisse simply wasn’t there for a second. Her eyes widened in disbelief. “What spell was that?”

“I don’t—” A second hare smashed into his face. Its claws spread like a rake, and the impact knocked him back a step. He yelped. “Ah! That hurts so bad!”

[Damage Taken: Negligible Hurt Blown Out Of Proportion] 

Veliane swung her stylus not so gracefully.  A sharp gleam of copper bled through the glyphwork, and the spell itself shook violently as it formed into a web-shaped glyph. When a hare slammed into it full force, the construct shuddered. Fabrisse thought it would snap.

But instead of breaking, the net convulsed and tightened, holding the hare in place with a brittle vibration. The creature thrashed and squealed, but the mesh clung on, trembling like it could unravel at any second.

[Spell Detected: Minor Containment Array (Quickcast)]

Copper is the color of confusion. I don’t think she planned on channeling that . . .

[Nibberhare Count: 3/5]

[SYSTEM NOTE: The count might fall if creatures manage to escape.]

“Herd the rest over to that direction!” Veliane pointed at the general direction where her and Sven’s traps were spread most densely. Fabrisse made some quick calculations and saw a non-zero number of hares, possibly ten.

“You didn’t tell me there are that many!” He hurried back, chanting the mnemonic for Whirlweave. He swung at a random spot in his vision, but since there were so many hares, it smacked directly into the cheek of one. The force didn’t topple it, but the impact puffed out its fur and sent it staggering with a strangled squeak. Instead of running straight, the animal careened in a lopsided pattern, legs scrabbling out of rhythm like a cart with one wheel missing.

“I didn’t see there are that many!” Veliane ducked an incoming hare. “You saw the mirage from my glyph.”

A darting figure tore through the undergrowth. Liene barreled in, hair bouncing, and a pouch she had brought with her (filled with unknown content) swung by her side.

“Yes!” Fabrisse muttered under his breath, stepping aside. She’s got this. There are some great crowd-control light spells in the notebook she jotted down . . . Flashstorm; Solar Scatter; Prism Panic. The last spell has ‘Panic’ in its name!

Liene raised her hands and whispered the incantation, clearly aiming to prod the hares into motion. A faint wisp of pale light drifted from her fingertips, fluttering like a nervous firefly. It meandered a few inches and sputtered out, barely reaching any of the animals. The hares didn’t even notice. They all ran past her. 

That’s her control spell?

“Why’d you cast that?” Fabrisse whispered, exasperated.

“I was afraid I’d scare the little things too much!” Liene admitted as the last of the hares ran past.

“Now’s not the time! Contain one!” Fabrisse yelled, sprinting toward the nearest cluster of hares.

“Danger! Behind you!” Liene shouted as she traced patterns with her finger.

“Where—?!”

Instinct took over. [SKILL CAST: Shadowed Reposition Protocol (Rank II)]

[Displacement Radius: 0.582m]

The world tilted again. Fabrisse’s body slipped into a darker patch beneath a thick canopy, half a meter to the right this time.

He landed, ready to act—only to realize the ‘dangerous’ hare he was trying to reach was still way too far off, streaking across the clearing.

Thwack.

A spell hit him square in the back of the head.

[Spell Cast: Violent Snare (Lite)—Air Thaumaturgy Tier 1]

He staggered forward, hand on his skull. “Ow! What? I—” He then turned around in amazement.

“H-how are you there?” Liene gasped. “I’m sorry! What spell did you cast?” 

The hare he had been trying to reach raced on toward the traps, completely unbothered. Before Fabrisse could even rub the back of his head, Liene spun on her heel and bolted after the fleeing hares.

“Not that way! That’s my—” Veliane shouted, but it was too late.

With a startled squeal, Liene barreled straight into Veliane’s partially active containment trap that she’d just set.

A clacker of beige lattice wrapped around her legs, stopping her in a tangle of half-formed glyphs. She flailed, satchel swinging as she tried to extricate herself while the hares zig-zagged past with near-military precision into the decidedly non-trap zones. Something flew out of her satchel and she was too off-balance to catch it.

Fabrisse stumbled over, still wincing from the Violent Snare. “Uh… Liene? That’s not how we were supposed to do this!”

“I—I didn’t see it!” she cried, hopping and twisting as the lattice tickled and clamped. “I was just trying to—ugh! Why is it here!”

“We didn’t expect you to join in . . .” Veliane murmured.

“Can this get any worse?” Fabrisse walked over, careful to move enough to the left to avoid the trap. Then, he stepped on something else. The thing that had dropped from Liene’s satchel earlier.

“Oh no, my—”

A miniature light trap activated. A sudden flare of pale light burst, punching straight into his eyes. The brightness felt like it drilled through his skull. He squinted and flinched, stumbling forward, then backward, then forward again. 

“Ah! Not again! My eyes!” Fabrisse yelped. Why? Argh! Lights! Why? I am hurt! Why is my best friend a walking sunbeam?!

“Sorry! It’s meant to spook skittish animals!” Liene cried.

“I am a skittish animal!” Fabrisse clutched his eyes. 

“I—I didn’t mean for that to—” Liene twisted her head to see what had happened. The trap reacted exactly as it was designed: the more Liene fought, the tighter it gripped. The strands coiled and cinched around her legs and arms, pulling her into a crouch. “Ah! Veist! Undo the glyph!” She wailed.

Veliane gave the slightest sigh as she dissolved the spell.

[Nibberhare Count: 4/5]

Then, Sven’s enthusiastic voice travelled from afar. “Great work, team! We got one more!”

[Nibberhare Count: 3/5]

The nibberhare from earlier broke free from Veliane’s hastily-cast copper glyph and dashed off.

[Nibberhare Count: 4/5]

“I got another!” Sven yelled.

[Nibberhare Count: 3/5]

“Never mind! It got away!” Sven yelled.

Veliane walked over to Liene and offered her a hand. “So . . . what now? The hares are scattered all over the forest.”

Liene turned to Fabrisse, who was still rubbing his eyes. “Do you want to continue?”

“We can’t end it here . . .” Fabrisse whispered, moreso to himself. “It’ll be embarrassing.”

“Agreed,” Veliane said.

Liene raised her hand, fingers tracing precise arcs in the air. A brighter, more controlled glow gathered around her palm. “Fine. Let’s do it for real now.”

Author’s Note: This spell is first mentioned in Book 1, Chapter 14.

Spell Profile — Shadowed Reposition Protocol (Rank II — Intermediate Stealth Spell)

Type: Concordance (Stealth) — Short-Range Displacement & Spatial Masking

Description: Allows the caster to instantly displace their body into the nearest zone of lower attention density (e.g., shadows, obscure terrain), minimizing visibility and exposure. Primarily used for evasive maneuvers or tactical repositioning.

Displacement Radius: 0–0.6 m per cast (Rank II) + 0.1 per RES after 10 (capped at 15)

Displacement Speed: Practically instantaneous; effective latency ≤ 0.05 s from thought to relocation

Environmental Limitation: Requires an adjacent area with at least minimal occlusion (shadows, cover, or darkened terrain) within displacement radius

Duration of Effect: Instantaneous; spatial masking remains for ≤ 2 s post-displacement (Rank II)
Aetheric Reaction Equation: 100% Innate Recognition — the spell relies entirely on the caster’s subconscious awareness of surrounding spatial and attention density gradients