Wizardly Dude

[EOE] (316) 5.12. Dirty Bubbles

“Whatever you’re thinking about, don’t do it!” Scule cried as he swam through the air, splashing into the same bubble Vin was in and turning to poke his head out. “You’ve got that stupid look on your face that always gets us in trouble!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Vin argued, still staring up into the sky. “I’m just wondering how high up those bubbles go.”

“Knowing our luck, there’s probably some horrible flying monster that lives up ...

[TEA] (185) 4.27. How’s The Paid Leave?

Upon hearing how the lich they were after had already summoned two more greater demons and realizing that they needed some additional firepower, Asher had immediately thought of Moxy as his first choice, devoting most of his brain power toward coming up with a way to convince her to join their cause. Now that they’d found her and she was on board…

He realized he hadn’t actually given too much thought as to what actually came next.

Thus, Asher quickly found himself sitting ac...

[TEA] (184) 4.26. An Offer You Can’t Refuse

Asher was admittedly surprised when Top Hat actually came through with his payout, congratulating him on his winnings and letting him know the arena hoped to see him around. Six hundred thousand shards was a massive amount outside of noble circles, but seeing as the odds had been two-to-one in favor of Berserker, the arena’s own home champion and favorite to win, Asher wondered just how much money the underground fight ring had ended up making from that one fight alone. Thousands of people ...

[EOE] (315) 5.11. Water Under and Over the Bridge

As they skimmed across the water, with Vin pumping as much air into the sail as his spell could handle, they explained to Alka what had happened since she’d been gone. The plan to escape the warana had been simple, yet shockingly effective.

“We knew the Sailors blew air into their sails to propel the pads, so we came up with an idea to prevent that from happening,” Shia explained. “While Scule caused a distraction, I went to the two sails of the ships we’d be leaving behind an...

[TEA] (183) 4.25. A Tough Pill to Swallow

Asher was brought back to the very first time he’d witnessed a full on battle involving elements from the people of this world. He’d been in the middle of rescuing Rosh from Loratta’s compound when Draken’s coalition had attacked the main entrance. He’d gotten the chance to peek around the corner and see nearly a dozen different elements being thrown around in only a few seconds, and it was a sight that he vividly remembered to this day. Naturally, he’d been through plenty of his ...

[EOE] (314) 5.10. Fishing for Slayers

Vin spent the rest of the afternoon answering questions from Paul and Eleanor, before the two of them decided they needed to take some time to digest everything. They weren’t all that happy to hear that they’d need to spend another night on the water with the warana, but seeing as they were reliant on Vin and his team to make it back to Terra, there wasn’t much they could do about it. Vin left the two of them to their own devices as he found his friends on one of the many pads. Shia was...

[TEA] (182) 4.24. What are the Odds?

The noise and electricity in the air yesterday couldn’t even hold a candle to the current state of the underground arena. Every single available seat had been snagged by someone in preparation for the big match, and Asher was glad they’d arrived a half-hour early, as the crowd of people struggling to see down from up above looked like it would have been a pain to try and watch through. There were a number of preliminary matches taking place to warm up the crowd and get them ready for the ...

[EOE] (313) 5.9. Ribbit Rally

Getting to watch the warana pilot their lily pad with nothing but their breath was quite interesting, and Vin felt his Common Ally passive grant him a little more information about the new race of people they’d discovered. The warana were amphibious, unlike Lumel’s people who couldn’t survive for long outside of the water without magical protection. Though also unlike Lumel, who could breathe both water and air, the warana couldn’t actually breathe underwater. They were capable of hol...

[TEA] (181) 4.23. Brainblast!

Asher and Samantha watched Moxy bask for a few moments in the aftermath of winning her fight before she turned and walked out of the arena. A young man hurriedly opened the cage door for her as she reached it, and Moxy nodded at him before vanishing into the crowd. Samantha opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by a loud voice that boomed out over the crowd.

“Well that was a battle to remember, folks! With the defeat of Grit, that brings our newcomer to a record of twelve...

[EOE] (312) 5.8. Talk About Hot Air

The five of them all looked at one another, before peering over the side of the cloud they were standing on. Already, some of the marine life was returning with the monsters gone, but none of them could see further than a few dozen feet below the surface of the water. There were fish and bits and pieces of the late Reginald’s Ride…

But no Alka.

“I tried finding her with a wide cast of Sense Magic… But I didn’t hit anything,” Vin admitted. “I...

[TEA] (180) 4.22. Is That Moxy?

Asher had to admit, he wasn’t sure exactly what reaction he was going to get from the various goons when they realized they were trapped. Part of him expected them to drop their weapons and fall to their knees, begging for mercy as they assumed he was some sort of noble in disguise based on his powerful skill. Another part of him wondered if they’d act like trapped rats, launching themselves at him with everything they had in a desperate bid for freedom.

In the end, they did neither...

[EOE] (311) 5.7. Not A Hugger

Water enveloped Vin as he fell beneath the surface and tried to keep his bearings about him. The water was murky enough that he could see a dozen or so feet in front of him, but anything beyond that was too difficult to make out. He knew from his swimming practice with Lumel that he was capable of holding his breath for far longer than a regular person could, but there was still a deep, almost unconscious reflex that screamed at him to get out of the water as fast as possible before the monst...

[EOE] (310) 5.6. Sailing the Low Seas

To Vin’s surprise, Shia decided she would in fact be tagging along on their quest to find the missing Earthers. While monsters would decompose far faster than regular creatures would and getting as much of the magic-dense epic monster over to Erik before that happened was critical, according to her, there really wasn’t much more she could do at the moment to help. She could only maintain Living Giant for a short while, which meant she really wasn’t all that well ...

[TEA] (179) 4.21. Information Gathering is Easy!

As much as Asher enjoyed the company of Brant and his team of mogrants, there had to be something said about the ability to fly from one city to another in only a few hours. While Samantha wasn’t quite as fast as a pegasus whilst carrying him on her back, and Long Flight was still low-level enough that she needed to break every so often to recover her energy, they still made fantastic time. The sun hadn’t even touched down across the horizon by the time Vildelph came into view, and Asher ...

[EOE] (309) 5.5. One Down. A Lot to Go.

Vin knew asking for a few hundred suits of armor or the metal required to make them was a tall ask, and he hadn’t expected to get them without doing anything in exchange by any means. But he was still surprised by what Nohral asked to get in return.

“Our mines seem to slowly replenish all on their own now that we are on Edregon, and even if they didn’t, we still had plenty of metal to work with on our old world. Not to mention our Smiths are always looking for any excuse to swing ...

[TEA] (178) 4.20. Let’s Get Started

The next day, after informing Bellod of their preferred date for the auction of their goods and dropping off the lich’s three staffs for the man to thoroughly check over for anything resembling a curse, Asher and Samantha shared a heartfelt farewell with Brian before he left for the truthseeker program. For Asher, it was strange, as he knew they’d be seeing him in only a week’s time. Because of that, it didn’t really feel like a goodbye as much as they were sending him off to summer c...

[EOE] (308) 5.4. One is Better Than None

Vin’s successful adjustment of Sense Soul was a fantastic revelation, but he quickly discovered things weren’t going to be quite as easy as he’d hoped. He spent the next hour doing a loop of Terra’s fragment, casting ‘Sense Earther’ in a cone at each of the surrounding fragments. To his dismay, he quickly discovered that none of the missing Earthers had been scattered in any of the immediately adjacent fragments. Or if they had, they were already dead.

Techn...

[TEA] (177) 4.19. Mild Reassurance

“Asher. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Donvath asked, glancing up from his desk. It turned out, while the High Prince seemed to prefer spending his downtime in one of his beanbag-filled lounge rooms, Donvath did in fact have an official office, complete with desk and what looked like a few dozen filing cabinets.

“Lily told me this was where I could find you,” Asher explained, looking around the sparse room in mild surprise. While he didn’t know Donvath all that well just yet,...

[TEA] (176) 4.18. A Sudden Goodbye

Once Bellod had regained consciousness and finished his initial examination, the auction master explained that he would need a week’s worth of time to both finish appraising and organizing the different books, as well as to give the kingdom’s largest bidders a chance to actually either make it to the auction to bid in person, or time to send an intermediary. When Samantha had asked how many shards the greater demon’s corpse was worth, Bellod had emitted something that was halfway betwee...

[EOE] (307) 5.3. A Rather Small Tweak

Of the six fragments surrounding Terra, only one of them was easily traversable and entirely devoid of people. Thus it was that Vin found himself jogging through the red desert directly south of them, marveling at his fire resistance amulet as he ran. He knew from prior experience that the temperature of this fragment was significantly hotter than their pleasant, grassy meadow, but to him, it was simply a tad warm. His Artifact Extraordinaire passive increased the strength of his own artifact...

[EOE] (306) 5.2. Why, That Was Downright Decent

Throughout his many travels, Vin had encountered no end of friendly faces and people he enjoyed being around. Erik, the grandfatherly dryad from the Sacred Forest who was always happy to listen to his adventures and help in a pinch. Eithan, the head of Sakis’ stone mages and one of his first ever magic instructors. Forpurt, the wandering Capillan and Trusted One of his tribe who enjoyed sharing information. The list went on and on, and Vin never ceased to be amazed at how helpful and kind p...

[TEA] (175) 4.17. Best I can do is Five Bucks

To his credit, Bellod got over his shock at the body of a lesser demon appearing before him out of thin air rather quickly. The man clearly hadn’t earned the title of auction master by being bad at his job, as he quickly snapped into action, jerking to his feet and going over the demon’s body like an archeologist over the find of the century.

“This is remarkable,” Bellod whispered, his hands hovering just over the corpse as they trailed up and down the demon’s body. “Other t...

[TEA] (174) 4.16. For Sale

The rest of the wizard tower didn’t hold anything worth noting, and Asher and Samantha wrapped up their investigation before long. In the end, their haul included ridding the universe of another chunk of demon forces, as well as collecting a solid portion of the lich’s personal library, a Knowledge element, some griffin bones, the corpse of a lesser demon, a handful of enchanted weapons, and some of the lich’s own personal staffs. Not to mention the skill levels that the two of them had...

[EOE] (305) 5.1. So… Where are They?

“Talk about an overreaction, am I right? You would have thought none of these people had ever seen a mile-long, gigantic monster made entirely of flesh and evil before!”

“Spur,” Witherson frowned, looking none too happily at the Commander and official head of Terra as the council convened their first meeting since the battle for wave five. The battle had only taken place the evening prior, and since then, roughly seven hundred Earthers had been brought over to Edregon via the Go...

[TEA] (173) 4.15. The Hidden Sticks

Never before had Asher run out of energy solely from overusing Personal Rift, but he supposed there was a first time for everything. By the time they’d cleared out the library, he’d had to pause on two separate occasions to catch his breath and recover energy, which was strangely embarrassing, seeing as he was simply walking around and laying his hand on different books. Thankfully, Samantha kept the teasing to a minimum.

It might have helped when he jokingly threatened to withhold ...

[EOE] (304) 4.83. The Fifth Wave

As per usual, the moment the battle came to an end, all those who participated wanted nothing more than to sit down and relax.

Unfortunately for them, there was far too much that needed to be done.

Despite his mana-headache, Vin let himself drop to the ground and quickly began checking on the warriors scattered around the battlefield, offering his Renewal to any who needed it. The flesh puppets of the epic monster had each been about as strong as a regular elite m...

[TEA] (172) 4.14. Who Needs a Library Card?

Thanks to Eternal Regeneration and a heavy application of Samantha’s Soothing Spring skill, Asher was back on his feet in no time.

Which was good, as while it turned out there was only the one lesser demon left behind to greet anyone unfortunate enough to trigger the trap that had been put into place, the tower was far from empty.

And the infernal welcoming committee that met them in the library weren’t quite as scared of his Sever the Thread skill as he would have hoped.

[EOE] (303) 4.82. All Together Now

“It has to be some sort of natural defense mechanism,” Golrim postured, staring at the small army that was being grown out of nowhere. “It’s protecting itself so it can reattach without issue.”

“I don’t give a damn about the reason, we need to deal with it, now!” Spur said, unsheathing his sword and hopping off the wall as he shouted one last order. “Tell Mei the plan, have her redirect our forces!”

“This is going to be a bloodbath,” Golrim muttere...

[TEA] (171) 4.13. Surprise Renovations

Unfortunately, while Asher’s demon hunter class informed him that there were demons somewhere within the tower, it didn’t function like any sort of radar. For all he knew, they could be all the way down on the ground floor, or slowly creeping up right behind them. The best they could do was keep their wits about them and make sure they weren’t wandering into any sort of trap that might have been left by the lich.

Cautiously, he and Samantha made their way down to the next level, w...

[EOE] (302) 4.81. Don’t Worry, It’s Padded

Vin had all of about a half second to panic as he shot through the air before he felt a band tighten around his core and the world lurched around him. Rather than becoming the first Earther on Edregon to fly from one fragment to another, he was snapped backwards, suddenly finding himself lying on the top of the wall beside Golrim, Spur, and Lumel right where he’d started.

Letting out an appropriate groan after having gone from stationary, to hurtling through the air, to stationary onc...