We ate in silence after my words, though the meal didn’t last much longer. The return to Gold Castle was a pleasant affair, the warmth of the sun wearing away the morning's cool breeze, and the grassland path we walked made for a pleasant stroll. Not for the servants who carried the tables and dirty plates, perhaps, but for me it was leisurely.

Count Wilchrest walked beside me and spoke of what Baroness Nix had learned while dining.

Apparently, the Mirktallean armies had depleted their food supplies. One of her fourth-tier skills was suited towards learning secrets, which explained her ring of thieves and spies. I would have liked to take credit for this, with the raising of my plateaus, but the Baroness’s rogues also poisoned and sabotaged their supplies.

When we reached the town, many went their separate ways to prepare, myself included. While the Count didn’t expect an immediate attack, I didn’t want to be ill-prepared for one. Soldiers, mercenaries, and adventurers rushed through the streets.

Townsfolk huddled in their homes where they could. I could see equal amounts of hope and fear in their eyes as I walked.

My destination was the keep at the center of town. Baron Aide’s seat, despite being the size of an inn, still stood as one of the tallest buildings, as if the rest of the town built lower out of respect. The gold-painted building was easy to get to, and Tond accompanied by the two Sisters of Elora, met me along the way. From the glances and blushes between the three, I suspected their previous absence was related to a special kind of comradery that was built on the eve of battle.

Yet, besides a nod of greeting, I said nothing to chastise the three. If they would have asked me, I would have warned of my own experience. Still, I was comforted by their presence. Despite Tond’s small stature, he was an excellent marksman. The nuns also were tasked with defending me against any holy magics of the slave-priests. I could contend with the other mages, but religious magics weren’t so easy to defend against.

Inside the keep, we were escorted to the top in a pleasant fashion. From the top, I could see the entirety of the town, and peer over the walls into the fields beyond. It was an excellent vantage point, and one I intended to keep as long as I could. As servants followed us to bring chairs, tables, wine, and cheese, I used my staff to create an enormous magical barrier that covered Gold Castle in a half-globe-shaped ward. The archers that were already present made way for us all, moving themselves to two sides.

It only took a few breaths to cast but had an immediate effect. Not just in tinting the light over the town to a light blue color, but also in the general attitudes of the soldiers inside. I could hear a cheer rise along the wall, and see a small bit of the tension disappear in the guards and servants. I wasn’t done either, but that would be the most visual of my spells.

For the next step, I cast shields and wards on all those about me. Simple spells that any third-tier mage could dispel given enough time, but ones that would turn an arrow or spear should some skill allow an enemy archer to strike at a distant target. Finally, I watched and waited as the three armies positioned themselves outside the three gates to the city. I had several powerful spells readied, but wanted to use them to counter Mirktal’s mages should they strike.

Yet, waiting was all that I seemed to do as the sun slowly shifted from morning to afternoon. It was clear, as the enemy made camp, that they would not be attacking immediately. With nothing further to do, I sat and nibbled at the array of foods prepared for us. The nuns prayed or flirted with Tond, who himself went back and forth between them.

Night fell, and the stars were shining brightly in the sky when Count Wilchrest arrived. It was impossible not to hear the man coming as he and his retinue of guards were covered in plate mail that clanked together as they stomped up the stairs. When he arrived, he gave me a small bow before coming to sit beside me.

“Good evening, Savior,” he said with a self-satisfied smile.

I nodded in return, and continued to survey the town and sip wine. The nights felt cooler here than at my tower, and I suspected I had the bog to blame for that. Compared to the afternoon sun, it was a welcome relief.

It wasn’t long before the Count spoke, the urge to share whatever made him happy seemed to almost overwhelm the man. “Baroness Nix and her band of nightmen are striking Dulther tonight. If successful, one army will be taken off the field before the battle even starts.”

I had no idea who Dulther was. One of the Mirktallean nobility, no doubt. Assassinating the slavers and leaving a slaver army indisposed had been a common tactic for Sena for as long as I could remember. If successful, it would prove a mighty blow. Yet I doubted they failed to take measures against it.

I didn’t want to dampen the man’s excitement, either.

So, with a soft smile, I asked, “Oh?”

The count looked out over the town and let out a wistful sigh. “Baroness Nix is… quite a woman,” he said. “She is like a rose. So beautiful, yet dangerous. I see in her the potential to be—"

I began ignoring the words.

I could tell what words he would be speaking next, having heard them so often. I forced myself to keep my soft smile, but inside I couldn’t help but be irritated. What caused these humans to tell me when love strikes them? Don’t they realize who they’re talking to? Even Count Wilchrest, who knows he sat next to the most powerful mage in Sena.

He could ask questions beyond the realm of everything he knows, mysteries that have laid unsolved for a hundred years. Instead, he tells me about his feelings for a woman.

Still, as much as it irked me to listen to, I did. If nothing else, him prattling on about his infatuation helped the time go by quicker.

It was well past midnight when the results of Baroness Nix’s attack became evident. Even from the distance, we could also see the roaring pillar of flame that burst up from the eastern camp. The light from it shone for miles around. Our soldiers and mercenaries began to rush up the stairs leading to the nearest wall with shouts of alarm.

I stood from where I sat and turned towards the west to prepare should I need to involve myself. The flaming pillar provided enough light to see the slave-soldiers prepare and march towards the gate. I had a suspicion at this point, but a warranted one. I’ve seen Mirktallean commanders give orders to their armies that should they fall the army should attack until no soldier remained. A complete sacrifice of their troops, but one that caused morale to plummet among the Senan soldiers tasked with defense against their suicidal charge.

I sneered as I watched as those soldiers charged forwards. Their archers dropped bows to draw swords. Their cavalry streamed ahead as if to batter the gate with their horses’ heads. Even the servants gathered up knives and bowls to join. It was an example of everything I despised about the country.

The archers along the wall let loose volleys on the incoming horde, felling many. It did nothing to stop the charge. I saw Meathead and Mena standing before the gate ready to meet the charge. Behind them, their retinue of reformed bandits screamed and yelled for the glory to come.

Mages along the wall began to cast a joint spell, and I guiltily hoped they were from the mercenary troop and not the mages under one of my apprentices. A field of stone spikes would certainly stop the charge, as the slaves would have no choice but to impale themselves to follow their orders.

Yet, before the spell could be cast, the flaming pillar began to move closer to town leaving a trail of flames burning in the grasslands. I started preparing several spells that could counter flame magics, as I moved closer to the edge of the tower. I could see now, inside that flaming pillar floated the fat [Pyromancer] I had met earlier in the day. His shoulder and chest were gashed open, and flames writhed around the injuries. The blood that dripped from his tattered robe caught fire burning out before it even touched the ground.

Still, I waited. I had tasked Loralie to deal with the mage, and I trusted her to do so. I also was keeping an eye out for how the other Mirktallean armies would react. If we saw the flaming pillar, no doubt they did as well. I couldn’t spend time trapped trading spells with this mage only to allow the barrier to fall to the others.

I didn’t have to wait long. I could see the witchcraft the moment it was released. From a window in a far building below, a blue twinkling appeared.

It flashed several times in an array of patterns, before going dark again. Not a spell that I was familiar with, but I could judge the effects well enough when it hit the pyromancer. The bleeding wounds on his body covered in ice. His scream of pain echoed out louder than the roar of his flames, and his arm and shoulder grew fat before exploding.

His fires died out and he began to fall from the sky. Archers along the tower made shots at him, but the arrows fell short. I considered intervening again, yet I wasn’t certain if Loralie was done. A spell like that, to freeze a man’s blood inside his body from that distance, was a powerful working of spellcraft. I hadn’t seen it in her grimoire when I read it once upon a time, but I had plenty of spells I hadn’t written in mine either.

Before I could see his body hit the ground, a great cascade of fire magic lit up the northern part of the barrier. In the skies above the wall floated the other Pyromancer, Silverflame. She was battering at the barrier with powerful fifth-tier flame spells that caused the dome to shake with each hit. The army with her approached, but at a defensible speed and positioning.

I scoffed at the woman. It would take weeks for her to get through at the rate she was going.

Yet, then it occurred to me.

If she was attacking here without hope of bringing down the barrier, then she was trying to draw my attention. I turned towards the west. There, my elemental was under attack. Mirktallean riders were circling my summon at a range the tentacles couldn’t reach, an attempt to draw it away from the wall it guarded.

In the skies above them, I saw the [Grand Magus] in his bearded glory working on a spell of his own. I recognized this one too, my recent Right of Authority already proving its worth. He was in the middle stages of casting [Earthquake], though I couldn’t tell if his target was the city or the elemental.

Not that it mattered, either one would have a devastating impact on the battle. With the counter-spells I prepared, I might not be able to disrupt the magus in the time I needed it to. I released the spell towards the man in a yell. The enormous bolt of lightning likely wouldn’t harm him through his own wards, but the sheer force of it should cause him to falter in his casting.

The lightning struck.

His wards flashed. His spell faltered. From the distance, I couldn’t see his expression, but a backlash of fifth-tier magic would be severe. To the side, Silverflame paused in her assault.

She didn’t stop for long, though, and soon I could see her working her magics on her own summon. Could she also bring a fifth-tier elemental to battle? It was possible, especially so because she specialized. While her spells couldn’t break my barrier alone, an elemental alongside them could have them down in an hour.

I readied myself again to interrupt her casting, but the [Grand Magus] had already recovered. I could feel his clumsy attempts to dispel my barrier, though the power he used was shocking. He held in his hand an artifact as well. It looked like a lantern, though it was something much, much more. Something that seemed to double the mana he had available.

I couldn’t allow this to continue, caught between the two. I had my air elementals lift me into the sky, and readied some of my most powerful spells to rain down on the two. It would drain me and the tower, but stopping them here was important. I turned towards the pyromancer first. While the magus could reap lives if he brought the barrier down, it would be nothing compared to what a fifth-tier fire elemental would do.

I stretched out my hand and pointed a finger to cast, but before I did, another spell struck the woman.

A fifth-tier spell in the shape of a flaming blade. From the top of the wall, above the very gatehouse, Diedre stood proudly. The blade was swift and powerful, striking the woman across her stomach and cleaving her in half. The summoning spell fell apart, and I sighed for relief.

With this, I could deal with the [Grand Magus] on my own. It would have been more taxing to deal with all three, but now I could take my time with the man. Instead of immediately attacking, I floated over the town towards the western gate. I stayed inside the barrier and waited for the man to finish his casting.

It took a few minutes, even with the extra mana in his artifact. An artifact I realized was an enchanted cage built around a repurposed dungeon core. I hadn’t considered using mine in that fashion, but now that I had seen it, I would be able to replicate the lantern after a little testing. I should take a different dungeon core for the testing first.

I had enough time to plan out several designs for thefts of cores before he finished. His finish was a spectacularly powerful spell that cracked the barrier open like an egg and left him breathing heavily in exertion.

I gave him my most patronizing smile, before using my own artifact staff to recast the barrier. I don’t often enjoy being smug, but the way his face fell after he realized that all his hard work was for naught made it the appropriate moment.

Neither of us acted immediately. I had seen the fall of two of the three already. They would have been put to better use against the coming Pestilence, if I had my say in the matter. Yet I didn’t.

Instead, from where we floated in the sky, we saw the layout of the battle. Here at the western gate, my elemental was tearing through the army.

None of their weapons or skills doing more than splashing mud. Belatedly, I realized I had forgotten to give it instructions to capture instead of kill.

On the eastern gate, the army was almost entirely dead. The few survivors were those that had impaled themselves on stone spikes in a manner that left them alive but unable to move. That it was my mages who had cast it felt distasteful. The bandits that had been so excited for combat were now mournfully putting to rest those slaves who fell but didn’t die.

On the northern gate, the battle continued, but it was mostly a stalemate. Here the slave-priests had gathered and were still driving their army forward. It was doubtful they’d take that gate, but victory was far from assured if they did. More troops from elsewhere about town were heading to the northern gate already.

When I looked back to [Grand Magus] Ison, he saw it too. With pursed lips, he shot out a flare of green illusion magic that lit up the sky. The sun just now began to peek over the horizon, and below us, soldiers started to call for the retreat. I gave the man a smile and a hearty laugh as I spoke, “Do you think it will be that easy?”

The preparations for the spell had already been made, the spellcraft waited for only my trigger. I didn’t move a muscle as I made it. I didn’t have to. The effects were clear enough. Three miles away, the earth cracked. A great circle formed around the town, and the earth began to lift.

The retreating forces stopped at the edge; a few unlucky soldiers fell into the cracked earth below. Others panicked and fell to their knees.

The [Grand Magus] turned about as he stared at me and sneered, “All your mana must have gone into that spell.” I could see the spells start to form in his hands, but I simply smiled back. I was out of mana, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t draw on my tower ring’s power even if he had a spell that could bypass the town’s barrier and my personal wards.

With a quickness that surprised me, he raised both his hands and cast. The spell's name was shouted from his lips, "[Ward-piercing] [Magical Onslaught]!" Thousands of spells, each bearing needle-shaped mana at the front formed around him. While individually, the spells were no more than second or third-tier, combined it was an attack worthy of a fifth-tier mage. The damage something like this could do to a unit of soldiery was untold. I had seen such an attack before, but not with the man's signature ward-piercing spellcraft.

I grinned. Most of the spells failed to pierce the barrier I had around town. Light flashed as they exploded against it into sprays of ice or gouts of flame. Too many types of magic to truly name. The few hundred that did pass through the barrier crashed into my personal wards, lighting up the globe of magic that surrounded me. I made no move to dispel the magic as the ten or so that pierced through my wards met my feathered robe and were absorbed into the feathers.

Rather, I had cast my own fourth-tier spell, a combination of divination and lightning magic that I called Arcane Test, though I wasn't satisfied with the name. The lightning shot from my upraised hand and struck his wards, crackling around the spellwork he used to protect himself like spider legs. While it would certainly hurt to get hit directly with the spell, that wasn't the goal. My lightning instead tested different parts of his wards, shifting to a multitude of different types of magic with each strike. Fire became ice, ice became wind, the spell would keep shifting as it worked.

When it shifted to poison, he closed that hole in his warding. Several times, small strikes from unusual elements got through, but he learned too quickly for me to take advantage of the gap. As his spell finally ended, and mine was nearing completion, he drew another artifact into his hand.

One with power so immense it frightened me. It looked to be the shriveled heart of a man staked through by a silver spike. Holy and Unholy magics intertwined in a way that radiated danger. I hadn't expected this kind of magic here. The Sisters of Elora were back on the top of the keep and would offer no protection. This thing, whatever it did, could pierce through my barrier and wards, of that, I had no doubts.

Yet, while he focused his attentions on the artifact, my Arcane Test found a gap in his defense that he didn't close. A gap that one of the newest spells from my Authority would be perfect to combat take advantage of. Sure, I could try other spells I had prepared. Fifth-tier magics, but I wasn't certain they would work before he finished preparing his artifact. So, I pulled on the tower ring's power. I lifted my staff and pointed. I spoke the word of the spell that I was certain would stop him. With the power flowing through me, the word echoed out across the battlefield.

"[Petrify]!"

Within a heartbeat's time, Ison had turned to stone. An unremarkable pale grey stone. Then he fell hundreds of feet down. There, he shattered into pieces, a statue lost. I sighed and shook my head as I looked down at the remains of the former magus. It had been a long night, and I couldn’t account for everything. No doubt, the aftermath of the single night would take several days.