The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 37

Chapter 37

“I’m sure she’ll be fine, won’t she?”

Larek nodded at Norde’s worried question, his concern over his sister plainly written all over his face.

“I should be there,” Larek said, wanting the exact opposite, but unwilling to let one of his good friends face the danger of the Scissions without him there to help her. Not that she couldn’t take care of herself, of course, but she could always use some assistance. Or maybe I’m selfish and don’t want to sit in here worrying about someone I’ve come to care about while she’s in danger.

As he moved to grab his axe, which was leaning up against the foot of his bed, Verne stopped him. “You can’t go out there, Larek. They’ll kick you off as soon as they discover that you can’t cast any spells. As much as you want to help, you’ll just be in the way.”

He hesitated for a moment as his roommate’s words penetrated the panic he felt over Nedira’s well-being. On the one hand, Verne had a point in that he would be in the way because he couldn’t cast any spells; on the other, he was fairly confident he could help defend her if anything came close enough to hurt her. Maybe not against a dragon or something powerful like that, but his axe could cut through just about anything.  But then he thought about actually finding her among the thousands of students heading to the walls, unless he got lucky; he could be searching for her on the northern wall when she was on the southern, or she might even be somewhere else entirely – perhaps not even on the walls. If that was the case, then he’d be unnecessarily putting himself in danger, which was something he’d vowed to avoid if at all possible.

It was while he hesitated through indecision that the door to their room burst in, practically being ripped off the metal hinges by a powerful force of hardened air. Blown back by the rushing air that slammed inside, Larek watched Verne and Norde sent flying off their feet, slamming into the wall with bone-crunching force. As for himself, he was sent tumbling backwards, fetching up against the same bed that his two roommates thankfully landed softly upon. He felt one of his ribs crack along with the wood frame of the bed, but before he could gather his wits about him, he saw a flash of a light-yellow robe followed by a hard hit to his head.

His vision blurred and he attempted to ward off another blow by holding his hands up, but it couldn’t prevent yet another hit to his head that made his vision to fade almost completely, followed by a final strike that sent him straight into unconsciousness. It had all happened so quickly that he didn’t even have the opportunity to activate his Healing Surge anklet; it was only when his vision turned completely black that he realized he had never actually gotten it back from his instructor. Shinpai had given him the steel plates back, but had either deliberately kept the anklet or forgotten in his haste after the arrival of the Scissions.

Regardless of the reason, Larek didn’t have anything on him to save himself from blacking out after his head was beaten numerous times, so he was forced to submit to the sudden unconsciousness.

* * *

“That was entirely too much, Ricardo. I think you might have killed those two kids.”

Ricardo Floris, second seat of House Floris, glanced at the two foreigners before turning his attention back to the other – and much more important – unconscious person in the room. Gesturing to Marano and Phyllia, he instructed the two Martials-in-training to pick this Larek individual up.

“They’ll be fine. Besides, casualties happen during a Scission.”

“Yeah, on the wall,” Marano commented, while at the same time gripping the large, limp body under the armpits and lifting it when Phyllia was in position by the feet. “But this will call attention to what we’re doing here.”

He had a point, but Ricardo couldn’t spare the time to heal them or risk them knowing he was even there. They had to get in and out quickly, and while his dramatic entrance into the room was muffled through a spell for anyone else on this floor, that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t come investigate the disturbance soon.

“There’s nothing we can do about it now. Let’s get moving.”

As soon as the Martials were ready to move, Ricardo cast a quick Light-based spell of his own design over Larek’s unconscious form, making him virtually invisible to anyone but those directly touching him. It was extremely difficult to hide all of them and maintain the spell, as he’d run out of Mana within a minute or less, but Hidden Ward was an altered version of the Light Bending spell that worked on a separate object other than the caster; any voluntary movement taken by the object would break the spell, but with Larek unconscious, he would be effectively invisible as long as Ricardo maintained a steady trickle of Mana and stayed within 10 feet.

Ricardo led the way, his steps quick as he left the half-demolished room and moved through the hallway, passing by a few people as he went. Maintaining a serious and determined expression on his face, no one seemed to question his presence, nor did they do more than glance at the pair of Martial trainees following closely behind him, their burden effectively camouflaged by his spell. It wasn’t a perfect bending of light and therefore wasn’t true invisibility, but with everyone rushing around at the moment, no one paid them any more attention than a single glance.

Ten minutes later, they arrived at a set of stairs leading down, where the elaborate system of rough-hewn tunnels and rooms underneath the Academy stored everything that kept everything up and running, from food to clothing to the toiletries that every student employed to perform their daily ablutions.

Descending the stairs, Ricardo was relieved that none of the staff seemed to be around to see him and the others disappear into the storage areas. It wasn’t as if they had been able to plan out this operation based on staff schedules or anything; instead, they had jumped at the opportunity that the appearance of the Scissions afforded them.

Granted, there was a part of him that was still panicked over the appearance of a quartet of Scissions right outside the walls, but that was also why he was doing all of this. Abducting Larek and interrogating him had been the plan since the he arrived at Copperleaf, but it had been for an entirely different reason. With the appearance of the Scissions, the plan had been moved up to immediately and the reason had changed.

After another 15 minutes of walking through the veritable maze of tunnels, they finally arrived at an area that had been essentially abandoned decades ago for a variety of reasons, with the foremost being that it was too far from the entrance to store fresh foods, while also suffering from some crumbling infrastructure. It had previously been maintained with Fusions carved into the rock to keep them strong and secure, but those had been abandoned years ago. While the potential for a cave-in was small, it was still considered dangerous for traveling through and was therefore abandoned.

That also meant that it was entirely dark down there, and if it wasn’t from the pair of iron cubes he pulled out of his robes that had Activatable Illumination Fusions on them, they’d have been unable to see where they were going.

“Are we almost there?” Phyllia asked, her strong voice slightly breathless for once. “This guy is heavier than I expected.”

“Yes, but keep it down; sound carries a long way in these tunnels,” Ricardo snapped back at her in a softer voice that wouldn’t carry too far. “We’ll be there in… actually, we’re here.”

With the help of the two Martial trainees, Ricardo had prepared an abandoned storage room over the last few weeks, specifically for this purpose. Thankfully, he had learned enough basic Earth-based spells, the antithesis of his Air-based specialization, to help him create a crude stone door that blocked off the empty passageway leading into the 20-by-20 foot room, which was easily sealed from the outside.

A few Fusions that he had learned how to create in his basic Fusions class in his first and second years at Copperleaf allowed him to strengthen the stone to the point where it couldn’t be broken even by a Martial with 30 Strength. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very adept at creating much more than that, but he did manage to learn the Muffle Sound Intermediate Fusion before his pursuits led him to other areas. It was this Fusion that would allow him to keep Larek there without anyone else the wiser, as any sound from within the room would be muffled. By his estimation, someone would have to be within 20 feet of the room’s entrance to hear someone screaming inside, and that was almost an impossibility because no one ever came down here.

Placing him on the floor inside the room, Marano and Phyllia stepped back and placed themselves up against the walls, prepared to beat Larek into unconsciousness if he required it. Ricardo certainly hoped it wasn’t necessary, because they needed to know some things, and this was probably the only opportunity that they’d have to get it.

“Are you going to, you know, wake him up?” Marano asked, startling Ricardo as he stared at the unconscious body on the floor. Shaking himself and steeling his nerves with determination, he placed the Illumination cubes on separate stone shelves near the door to have his hands free. As he knelt down next to the head and began casting Minor Mending, a spell that almost every Mage was required to learn if they had the ability, he began to worry about the response Larek would have after being abducted like he was.

He didn’t necessarily fear that he would suddenly be inundated by spells, because Larek was only a first-year and all the information he had gained said that he couldn’t even cast a spell. On the other hand, Portia – after an amusing run-in with the overly tall student – told him that Larek was apparently talented with Fusions and was in a fourth-year Advanced Fusions class with Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai. Another informant from the class told him that Larek hadn’t even created any Fusions that he knew of, only that the Grandmaster was teaching him directly without any prior proof that he was talented in Fusions.

If that didn’t prove that this Larek fellow was a half-breed, then he wasn’t sure what kind of proof would do it. Someone as old as Shinpai had been around a long time and had likely learned plenty of secrets that shouldn’t be shared, but when confronted by a secret in the flesh, he’d no doubt had accepted Larek as a student immediately.

Ricardo felt the healing energy pass through his hands and into the head of the unconscious student, Larek began to stir almost immediately. Seeing him waking up, he canceled the spell and got up, stepping away from easy reach.

As soon as he saw the Larek’s eyes open and look around in complete confusion, there was something in them that he’d only seen once before. An anger that transcended humanity emanated from his ocular orbs, a palpable force that indicated the presence of a Great One.

Or at least a hint of a Great One.  As a half-breed, it wasn’t quite as powerful as what he’d experienced only once before, for which Ricardo was thankful; once was quite enough for a lifetime.

But a half-breed out in the wild? He’d only ever heard about them, never having seen one before, because they didn’t ever leave the capital due to their typical sickly nature. To find one who was healthy and seemingly “normal” was unheard of – which was why Ricardo needed to discover Larek’s purpose in attending Copperleaf Academy. Was it to keep an eye on the faculty? The students? Some other nefarious purpose?

With the dramatic changes to the Scissions all over the Kingdom, he was beginning to believe it was the latter – which was why he had done all this now, so that he could warn his House. If the stories were true, then they didn’t have a lot of time to prepare.

Seeing Larek struggling to rise, Ricardo cast Binding Loops, creating a pair of hardened air loops that wrapped around the half-breed’s torso and knees, binding his arms to his sides and his knees together. It would only last 30 seconds, but it was fairly inexpensive to cast a few times, if necessary; if it was still necessary after a few minutes, he’d just have Marano break Larek’s legs.

He needed answers, and he would do whatever it took to get them.

“Half-breed,” he said calmly to the struggling student, which caused Larek to freeze immediately. “How did you get out of your cage?”

The half-breed just stared at him in apparent confusion instead of answering.

This might take longer than I thought.

Book 2 Chapter 38: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-83919847