(tentative) Play It

The first thing about myself that i was aware of as i opened my eyes, to a golden dawn heavy with combined golden clouds in the sky and a vague mist about the island, was that my leg no longer felt like a balloon stretching to the point of bursting in my pants from the swelling of fluids. My leg was still thick and heavy when i carefully rolled my ankle, but the pain that came from my leg was merely an echo from my last session even as i rolled over onto my hands and knees to start picking myself up. "Life gets a little better every day," i mumble to myself tiredly, walking slow and carefully to examine the functionality of my body on my way to stoke the embers of the fire.

Returning to my nest to fetch a new liter of water to make tea from while downing the remains of my last liter from under a finger held across the tube to keep the cold rocks inside from hitting me in the face, i take the same rocks back to the now disheveled pile of small stones beside the fire that i had gotten them from before holding my hand over the stones around the fire to find any that were still hot. Placing several stones that were still scalding to the touch in the embers of the slowly growing fire under freshly broken kindling on the smoldering remains from last night and handfuls of now smoking coconut husk, i set to work at my water chest preparing the herbs to put in my new liter after drinking deeply from it to lower the water level while the other rocks continue heating to brew the next concoction. Actually kneeling with only a little discomfort by the fire with both my tea cane and my coconut of cream that was keeping much better than the last, i set the coconut of cream down to chopstick one of the stones from the embers and into my tea that i swirl about in one hand to keep the rock from burning the cane while lowering one side of my pants with the other hand to start applying the cream.

Dropping the next two rocks in one right after the other to bring it close to boiling for a little while, i pull my pants up and trade hands to start smearing more of the cream on my face over the dry and crumbling remains of last night's treatment. Now prepped with an estimated healing rate of one day in two hours after adding the fourth stone that extends the high simmer of my brewing tea, i continue swirling the steaming medicine in its cane as i slowly but casually go through my food crates until i find my boar shoulder and cut off a large hunk of meat to spit on the end of a skinny length of cane. Planting the length of cane deep in the sand next to the fire to start heating the meat back up, i wait until tea is only vaguely steaming in the already misty air swirling upward from around the growing thermal draft of my growing fire before finally taking a sip straight from the liter to find its flavor somewhat sharper than last night's and without the sour candy aftertaste.

Enjoying my tea slowly for a few minutes whilre turning my meat spit about to heat it thoroughly, i wait until after the hunk of meat is hot before adding more wood to the fire and lazily taking a bite from the meat while it was still speared on the length of cane. Enjoying my breakfast while lounging nearby the fire, i roll around until i can look out at the beach and water where i can see the steadily strengthening glow of the rising sun through the curtain of steam surrounding the archipelago from its underwater ventilation system. Even now, if i closed my eyes and let my mind drift away, i could feel the slightest of static charges in the air, the whispers of the latent magical energies in the steam rising up into the charging clouds overhead to be released as a magic triggering etherfall.

Getting up from my nest once my food was finished and my tea was close to half empty, i feed the fire once more and nestle my cane of tea in the sand nearby the nest as i fetch the crude sled of several large logs bearing scorched areas Emma was said to have made for transporting hot rocks and make my way down to the beach to check on the hot tub she had made. As expected from the conditions of the fireplace and from sands displacement in water, there were still stones inhannel leading to the six foot wide, round ocean-fed tub dug in the sand and the tub itself had been weathered down by the constantly flowing water into rough lumps leading down to the bottom less than six feet below. Stepping carefully down into the channel to retrieve the small boukders of lime and clay, i line them up between the logs of the sled one by one across and up until all eight of them were on the sled and i could climb out of the trench leading out even into the shallows of morning low tide.

Hauling these rocks back to the fire where i simply dump them in the sand beside the fire, i use two large sticks to maneuver five of the largest rocks remaining on one side of the fire onto the sled before quickly replacing them with the eat from the tub. Trying not to rush my leg or be slow about the rocks burning the logs enough to bring up growing tendrils of smoke, i haul this load of hot rocks out to the trench where i dumpe them safely into the sand before using the same stick to roll and toss two of the rocks on either side of the trench before dropping a third rock between the two to close the gap in the sizzling trench, These rocks would probably not last longer than a few minutes at this temperature before winding down, but that should be enough to turn the water flowing through the tub hot long enough for me to prepare a few more stones and pieces for the bath after hurrying back to camp with the sled.

Transfering all of my herbs into a single back, i crumble and cut some of each herb to fill the bottom of Emma's bag with before pulling the drawstring tightly shut to one side with enough excess at one end to tie onto the end of a short length of can. Taking the partial tube of gelpie venom from the lid of my water chest to dip my knife into after holding the blade in the flames for a few moments, i pull my pants down as the blade cooled in the venom with only the slightest of hisses before holding the point of the knife against the outside of my upper thigh where my swelling had been the greatest during my examinations last night. Just the contact of the oily venom seeping onto my skin was enough to ask as a topical anelgesic after several moments of mentally preparing myself, but eventually i was able to clench my teeth and drive the tapering point of the skinning knife over and inch deep into my thigh that actually spurts a viscour mix of blood and other fluids out over the sand.

The initial pain was enough to draw forth a roar of pain not unlike the croc's from my previous session in the game, but after a few moments of keeping the blade in place there was enough venom in my functioning circulators to start slowly spreading numbness into my leg until i could only just barely manage to support my weight on the sleeping limb. Walking about until i could move somewhat confidently in my newly weakened state, i return to the fire to add more wood and retrieve my stick of herbs before loading another four stones onto my sled to bring back to the hot tub with me. Crossing the distance with only forty pounds of hot rock was no easy task with pretty much only one working leg, but i eventually made it back to the tub where the rocks were still vague steaming in the channel several feet back from the entrance.

Reaching down into the water to feel that everything for halfway down was at least lukewarm or higher after dumping the sled in the sand, i drop first a middle stone just a little ways back from the entrance of the channel into the tub before maneuvering a hot rock on either side of the middle rock just behind it to bring the temperatures in the tub even higher from the water already heated by the stones behind them. The final rock went straight to the bottom of the tub where it trailed a constant stream of steam bubbles as it sank to the bottom and sat, and not long after the last rock i was also entering the water with my cane bearing the tied burlap sack of herbs after stripping off all of my clothes. Sinking down into the bottom of the tub off to the side of the bubbling rock swiftly raising the temperature at the bottom of the tub, i plant the cane as close to the rock as i can get my hand in the scalding water emenating from it so that the floating back of herb bits will catch in the underwater geyser and start steeping its contents.

Floating lazily back up to the surface of the pool with a contented sigh, i lay out on the incline of the back wall of the tub with only my head resting in the sand above the water and watch as the water of the tub slowly but steadily darkens outward from the surface bubbles like the tea i wish i had thought to bring with me. There was a constant, lazy stream of blood rising up to the surface of the water from my leg, but it was not long before all of my accumulated healing buffs coagulated the wound with the changing water and then it was only another minute or so until the water was so dark from the bag of crushed herbs under the water that i could not see the blood anymore. "Magic," i murmur as i let my eyelids droop and start to count my breaths, "awaken."

The presense of whirling energy about my awareness was the first sign that told me i had reached the level of introspection necessary to percieve myself and my magic, so i decided to stop counting my breaths to better focus my attention on making my way to my leg only for the whirling power of my magic to fade from awareness. Bringing myself back only a few minutes later after opening my eyes and then starting over, i maintain the zen counting exercise to maintain my zen state while directing my awareness through the energies coursing through and about my lower body. Because i had put my leg to sleep with gelpie venom, there were no barriers of pain to desensitize myself to before approaching the injury so that i could slip right through my own body to that underlying terror territory between my hip and the muscles of my leg.

With the functional method of imagining myself as a grasping and guiding force, i was able to quickly spread my consciousness of focused energy about every square milimeter of the damaged bones and tissues to fill in the gaps and replace the connections of tissue in preparation for attempting to slam everything back in place and seal it by relative force. My concentration on the area seemed to have the a speed buff of its own on the injuries coated thickly with the focused energies left in the wake of my awareness, allowing the torn bits of muscle to more easily stretch out to one another and connect with small static bursts but this also seemed to be ending the numbing paralysis in my leg which shortened the amount of time i would be able to withstand the process. A scream instead of a roar, raw and unguarded in horrified pain, tore itself from more lips, amplified by uncontrolled magical awareness to the point of distorting the misty air in a broadening field the further it travels toward the sea, after i finally slammed the bones and muscles and ligaments back into place to be sealed by my magic and instantaneously healed the paralysis in that very area of my leg to leave me experiencing every moment of awful agony that my body spends healing.

I could tell that my leg was finished healing more from the fading pain in my lower body than from actually testing the leg itself, but still i remained in the tub who's rush of bubbled had faded to a more concentrated pillar of steam among the rest of the vague steam rising up from the borderline scalding tub that i ad acclimated to during the slow increase. I was still recovering from the magical surgery in my head, the blinding pain slowly fading so that i slowly regained my coherency, but even after i had fully come to from what had to be an immense expenditure of energy from the dampening and slowing of the whirling energy i could just vaguely feel about my body i remained in the healing waters and simply rolled around to stretch out across the shallows at the top of the incline. The sun had only risen a few inches over the horison in the distance, but it had only been about half of the way over the horizon when i had started meditating which meant that this procedure had taken as much as an hour to complete not including my current lethargy.

Even as i climbed out of the water i could still kind of feel my EMF around me, flowing only as far out as a few feet from my body before returning into me to cycle outward again like an actual magnetic field, but if i let my eyes lose focuse and stare at nothing it particular, i could sense more than see the underlying and overlapping fields of currents traveling about in all directions and hear it vaguely crackle as it gathered charges from the mist precedent to etherfall. After having already awakened my magic either in the healing waters possibly affected by the ether mist caused directly in the ether mist, my magic seemed to have a replenishing buff that actually allowed my EMF to expand by most of a foot in all directions after several moments of the mild meditation. My magic was not yet in overcharge as i dragged the sled back to camp walking in completely normal fashion for the first time in what felt like forever, but it was still perpetuating which was probably prolonging my magical awareness as some form of passive skill that was probably also diminished because of the replenishing of my magic.

Back at camp, i find myself thinking about the Ignition spell that Doc had taught everyone during breakfast while i now added wood to the fire in a small box of stacked logs, and reflexively hold out my right hand to will the energy of my magic to flow toward it and stay there in a slowly growing orb of churning, intangible energy. Considering the options offered, i use churning of my EMF to carry the air around me about the orb while i coat my fingers in a thin layer of potential energy from the orb that i use to amplify the kinetic friction of my fingers and the thermal energy it creates into a burst of super-heated energy that ignites the compound of concentrated potential and oxygen in my hand to form a softbaccl-sized sourse of rising orange flames in the balm of my hand. Grinning foolishly like a child, i aim my hand out toward the beach and flood the ball of fire with an outward rush of energy that catches fire and churns into a long, searing hot spiral of flames for over twenty yards with heat and thermal expansion from it so powerful that it momentarily cleared a large tunnel of empty spage of the mist.

"Ignition, Flamethrower, and Napalm," i say aloud in triumph, storing surges of air and energy within the constantly fed ball of fire before leaning back and than forward into a near-perfect fastball pitch straight across the across the beach toward the opposite side of the island leaving a spiraling wake of soot and steam like the tail of a comet in its path. When it finally touched down ain the sand after spending most of its stored fuel, the fireball splashed out for several yards of thunderous expansion and a storm of glassed sand and liquid fire just like its namesake. My EMF, howeverm had now shrunk down to little more than a foot of aura churning the mists around me, but my level of awareness of my magic had yet to diminish and i could only hope it was a good thing as i settled into my nest to finish my tea and recover.

The recovery time of my aura in the mist seemed to be one foot every two minutes, but still i waited to continue playing with my magic to see exactly how large my EMF actually got to be while gathering several of the nicer obsidian and flint and quartz blanks from their nearby pallet to keep myself busy while studying them with my magical awareness. The grains of all of the quartz blanks were smooth and pristine, as were many of the others, but there were faults and stress factures in all of the others as if they had been crudely fashioned and damaged in the process of separating them from their original bodies. "You guys in perfect shapes and quality are minigame rewards... and since the rewards were blanks, making blanks must have been the game and rushing to make a bunch is probably why most of these are so shoddy," i say tiredly a full fifteen minutes after my EMF had stopped expanding at eight yards in every direction including underground.

Then, making contact with each of the perfect blanks to gather them to me and return the lesser blanks to their stacks without moving from my seat, i delve my energy deep into the different stones to map out the desired impact and flaking patterns that i wanted for every weapon and tool headpiece while waiting for the missing two feet of my aura to replenish from moving the physical objects around me. When my aura was replenished once more, i tap my fingers physically into the central stream of my conscious potential energy reaching out to all of the stones around me to connect my fingers to the magic and act as the catalyst for changing the network of potential energy into kinetic by once again snapping my fingers. Almost half of my aura was gone in the same instant that the surfaces of the crystalline blanks fractured in perfect place of the layers of stone i wanted to remove, but for fear of sending bits of stone flying out in all directions i had not administered enough energy into the initial attempt.

Excercising my control on my magic by feeding the same amount of energy as before from my dampened EMF to all of the stones around me and once again tap into them with my fingers, i misjudge the original amount of power used by sending glassy shrapnel of stone flying out from the newly completed blanks in all directions but my body within my EMF. Getting up to gather the almost peferctly shaped and edged stone pieces by hand while my aura once again replenishes, i set about picking out lengths of cane to use for handles and prep them by splitting and trimming their ends as necessary. Biding my recovery time by breaking down lengths of rope that would probably be harder to do with magic than by hand and clumping the individual fibers in individual fashion, i lay out each length of stripped cordage one by one as i pull them free until my EMF had once again recovered and i could exercise my awareness by enveloping the cordage in my awareness and pulling it about with my energy to swiftly braid and cut it into appropriate lengths.

I was left tired and breathless after trying to turn the rest of the stripped cordage into one long rope of six-strand belt, holding myself up on my hands and knees after wearing my aura down to only a few inches of existence half of the way through the entire rope's length of three different braids. Even though i had magically overheated myself, the mist dampened both the physical and surreal affects of overextending myself to only a few minutes of recovery until my aura had stretched back out to somewhere over a foot away from my body. "Twelve inches is critical," i tell myself sternly, setting drops of potential energy in my churning aura at twelve inches around my body that would cause small spurts in my energy consumption to warn me of reaching critical mass.

The sun was still a few hours from reaching its zenith behind the thick curtain of clouds in the sky by the time i finished putting the spears and axes and thin but strong and blunt-faced hammers together by hand as well as one foot of my aura per tool that i used to complete all of the quartz and obsidian spears during my work. Estimating my recovery times and how much time i had left before the etherfall actual, i skim through the remaining faulted blanks for any with quality areas exceeding the proportions of two inches wide and thick and eight inches long and separate then into a single stack of twenty-four lined up by the desired proportions that i was outlining with impact potential carefully tweaked by individually inspecting the blanks for their strengths and weaknesses to tell where to formulate this or that much kinetic conversion and constantly detach the individual blanks from my aura to constantly recover the lost energy of each crafting spell. Finally, when every blank was primed and ready to go, i simply set about flicking all of theor orbs of stored potential energy to convert into a widespread but controlled kinetic impact that cleanly shears the myriad of crystalline blocks from their fracturing bodies.

Storing these blanks about my person in my many thick pockets to constantly apply further energy to with half of my attention while gathering up all of my belongings on the pallets as well as i could manage, i set to work tying ropes to the front corners of either pallets that i tie together in the middle to pull the pallets as sleds by before doing exactly that to haul my first sled out to the beach where i remembered leaving my raft. Unloading the wood from the pallet into the middle of my raft after a quick fifteen minutes spent reorganizing the materials already present and slamming the stored energy catalysts about my body, i empty my pockets of the fragments remaining from the dagger blades that i had finished crafting, before dragging the empty pallet back to camp. Filling the pallet with my fur nest and the remaining wood that could not fit on the food pallet, i drag both pallets back to my raft in line with one another to load up before untying my oars and anchors to disembark from the shore.

Experimenting with my oars from my seat on the fur covered wood pallet with the magic i had used the day before in my leap of faith, i focus my energy into my arms as i leisurely pull the oars through the water to bring about full-stroke results that brought me swiftly gliding inland around the island where i stopped near the back washout that flooded into the bowl of the island. "Doc!" I call out with a lightly magically amplified voice to the sky after anchoring both oars in the shallows.

"Yes, we get it, you have magic," is the almost immediate response from behind me on my raft. "What were you seeking help with?"

"I still have some time before etherfall, can i go into the bowl and not lose my minigame?" I ask quickly, pointing vaguely into the clay belly of the island. "I just want to make some molds and stuff with magic real quick that would probably take the group an entire day do otherwise."

"I honestly have not come up with a suitable minigame for you yet, i was going to wait until etherfall to test your limits, but you've done that very thoroughly on your own," is his roundabout reply. "I suppose i can allow you this one time, since you are obviously healed of your injuries which more than meats the requirements of your orders. By all means, go forth and help your team prosper, but they are already firing molds they made last night as a group. Would your magic not be more useful there?"

Rolling my eyes tiredly from all of my suddenly wasted effort, i ask, "Alright, level with me, why do you want me at iron island so badly? Does it have something to do with whatever the surprise you mentioned was? Spoil the surprise for me, would you?"

"It's a boss battle," he says with a broad, earnest smile that was terrifying in that it actually seemed to meet his wickedly gleaming eyes for one of the first times since i had met him. "Individually, during the day two etherfall you would have all sought out your tutorial threats early, but everybody did that anyway and have joined forces instead of splitting up into small groups. Later on after being in small cells, i would have pitted each group against a fitting mini-boss of sorts, but now i get to throw something big and fun at you guys and you're currently carrying everybody's weapons- but nobody can know. Isn't this exciting? Tick.. tock..." he adds pointedly before disappearing completely.

Checking the sky to see that the sun was still several lengths from reaching midday, i pull up my oars and row myself out into the main canal betwen the front row of islands and the next that flowed straight for iron island. I measured my strokes in broad, slow magic fueled motions that ate up a foot of my EMF at a time, but i streamed along with the current so quickly that i left a distorted wake in the fog of the world that thinned out as i got deeper into the archipelago. The handful of miles between the iron and clay islands disappeared in less than twenty minutes of exhausting rowing, spending twice as many feet worth of my aura in that space of time to maintain my speed.

The yellow sand of iron island's beaches were stained a vague rusty brown from the combined surface layers of oxide and quartzite granules, making for a thickly adhering mud to anchor my oars into after circling the island to find a gathering of variously designed rafts not unlike my own parked halfway on the beach. From here i could see the darkened pillar of wafting smokine rising up through the thinning mist from somewhere a few hundred yards into the slate outcroppings and rubble of the island, the destination to which i set about dragging the roped and netted together contents of my raft to over the pebbly beach. I was forced to use my magic to adjust or even move my massive cargo by the rocky terrain on many occasions, bringing me to my critical points three times before i finally made my way around and through three small slate ridges that rose as high as nine feet overhead to find a large clearing of island space around the massive slate slab of some fallen piece of nearby outcropping on which the others had set up camp.

There was one main large fire burning in the middle of the slab, circled by makeshift cane structures of all kinds covering or containing everybody's personal belonings, where most of the group were milling about in small groups grounding out slate tools or off to the side of the slab smashing away at large oxide boulders to expose their dense cores and even a two-man team of cooks manning drying racks- my own included- and rotisserie spits of all sorts of meat and animals that everybody had killed. I just stood their listening to their voices drifting through the misty air as they worked, talking and laughing and making light of the obviously trying labors they were working at, enjoying the air of comraderie that even i as a natural soloist liked to be a part of from time to time.

"Oi," i call out to the camp without magical amplification as i start dragging my burdens to the edge of the stone slab, catching the attention of only the cooks some thirty yards away through the mist who not only called back to me but also to the others. "It's me! Zai! Somebody come help me get all of this crap up here!" I shout as loud as i can while clambering over the three-foot side of the slab.

One of the cooks took off across the slab, their lithe and somewhat short form leaving their post behind to run toward me and eventually come into view as Emma happily running over to greet me while the other cook keeps yelling back and forth with the other work groups. "You're way earlier than I thought you would be," Emma says somewhat sheepishly when she comes to a stop in front of me by the edge. "I have been working on making you a shelter all day... it's an A-frame bed with a lean-to roof, but the roof is still incomplete because it's kind of big and we have been waiting for the away team to return with supplies again."

Smiling tightly and looking away, trying not to show my reddening face, i say, "I really appreciate the thought and effort, this totally more than makes up for voting me off the island. But, yeah, I'm all healed up now. In fact..." i trail off, kneeling down and holding a hand out toward her wounded leg to direct my magical awareness. "This might hurt a little," i add, examining the remains of her injury that were still over an inch deep underneath scabbed and scarring tissue in the middle wound while closing my energy around them. Then, before she can formulate a response, i close her wound with the charged healing energy that crackles the same visible amethyst purple and dark golden amber as the static bursts i had glimpsed after my first procedure.

Whatever pain i had just put her though must have been a great deal because it brought her down to one knee on the slab, but she never made a sound as the painful affects of the magical surgery fade from her trembling leg. "Thanks... i think," she says unsteadily as she climbs back to her feet with the sounds of footsteps from the others coming in through the misty air. "Is that what it was like for you last night?"

"Probably," i agree carelessly as the few inches lost from my aura steadily grow back as i lose focus on my magic. "But, like Doc said, once you meet your magic it's always there, just gotta get to it again to stimulate it. Once you can achieve awareness of your magic, you have awakened it and can use it pretty much at whim... fundamentally speaking. It will be easier to discuss after the event, though," i add as the others finally come into view as Harold and Maxine coming over to join us.

"Can you do that Ignition spell Professor Harlen was teaching us this morning?" Emma asks in full range of the others, ruining any surprise i might have made of my magic to the group as the pair who had come over to assist are stopped in their track by the question.

Smiling at them more than at Emma as i raise a hand with my index finger pointing skyward, i bring to mind the process of creating a flame and say, "Ignite," to enact the spell that spark a small matchstick flame at the end of my finger. Then, changing the flame to my middle finger as i draw it in to my thumb in preparation of flicking the flame, i pack it full of compressed potential and oxygen before flicking it out at a nearby outcropping of slate that quickly erupts in a quiet roar of expanding liquid flames that cling to the rock's surface for several brightly lit moments. "I even have a form of telekinesis," i add boastfully, spending a few inches of my aura snatching my quartz dagger up into my hand from its sheath before i climb back down from the slab to start passing up my goods.

"Biggest issue with my magic right now is consumption, i need to take a couple of hours to do some meditation and learn how to use as little energy as possible in everything i do," i go on almost gleefully, excited to be sharing my pent-up experiments and results. After today, when everybody has some idea of the presence of their magic, you guys will need to set aside a few hours a day as well to meditate and start tapping into your potential- literally as well as figuratively. Compared to my healing magic, Ignition and telekinesis are a walk in the park to learn. With group permission, Harold, i would like to take that free meditation time now to continue learning new applications of my energy before the event starts so that i can help everybody else learn how to use spells."

"Considering you're climbing up and down with no problem, i have no problem saying yes after that fireworks display," Harold says as he helps ferry the bulk of the weight around the slab to make room for the stuff i kept bringing up while Emma and Maxine start cauling my trunks into camp between them. Waiting for the others to distance themselves while even more were inbound, Harold whispers, "Is there anything you can tell me about the event?"

"Rain," i state simply in a low voice before calling to the others, "Picking something to carry and bring it back to camp, there are loads of weapons and tools and materials we're in need of here and they need to be put to work quickly." Climbing up onto the slab after chucking up the last armloads of wood, i climb up to start picking up my belongings as well as the others walk off back to camp while calling greetings and congratulations on my recovery. Then, as i loaded up on cooking wood, "This event is a local version of a phenomena that Doc said was called etherfall, it's basically distilled magic from the archipelago's thermal venting system it uses to travel by when it stays in one place for x amount of time. This mist is rising up into the clouds to make a maagic rain. That's all i feel like i can get away with spoiling that the professor himself has not already explained."

"Any ideas about the surprise he mentioned?" He asks swiftly despite my closing statement.

"You're guess is as good as mine, i have been too distracted with studying my magic before the etherfall to worry about his surprise," i answer with a sad shake of my head. "Whatever it is, I'm sure the entire group will probably A, enjoy it, B, survive it, or C, both. It's a video game, what's the worst that could happen? We all die?"

"Did you kill yourself to get a quick heal?" Harold asks suddenly as he loads up on the rest of the firewood.

"Oh, totally, because suicide is how you activate your magic," i retort with a snicker. "You should kill yourself some time."

"Real mature," Harold mutters under his breath, passing me by with his much larger load as Emma and Maxine start returning from their trip to camp for the net full of loose tools and blanks.

My shelter was obviously the tall A-frame missing most of the ten-foot cane poles necessary to finish the base for its roof whose underside of the frame bed had been stuffed with my personal chests and belongings by Emma and Maxine. Spreading my furs piled on my frame bed of long cane poles, i climb onto the bed a little hesitantly before sprawling out happily and reexamining my aura. My EMF and the magical potential it presented had grown since this morning, now reaching a little over twenty-nine feet from the excessive strains that i had put myself through and even the currents seemed to flow a little faster, a little stronger.

Within the reach of my aura i not only senses the presence of the others and their small but thick dormant fields, but what caught my attention more than them were the smaller bodies of stored potential currently being scattered about the camp as everybody picked out tools and weapons from the crystalline gear that i had made with my magic. The energy seemed stable and dormant, expanding gradually like the grains of sand accumulating in an hourglass from minute discharges of energy in the ether mist, but it had some become integrated into the crystalline microstructures of the different stones as though it were now a part of them. The strongest and fastest growing of the crystalline weapons in camp were, despite having been made by hand before the awakening of my magic, my crystalline daggers and spear that had been passively absorbing the energies of my EMF that they had been exposed to for so long.

Drawing out a similarly strong body of energy from my trunk of gems to find a small piece of geometric ovaloid garnet only a little bigger than my pinkie nail, i delver into the tiny stone to find my awareness relatively consumed by a seemingly infinite space of refracting light. Coming back to reality to find that my presence in the garnet had charged the stone with several inches of my EMF, i much more carefully one-way tap into the garnet to study my stored potential. Experimenting with the energy in the stone by using it to fuel a brief Ignition spell, i quickly cut the flow of energy to conserve the rapidly decreasing power in the garnet before flooding it with several feet of my aura.

Wondering at the possibilities presented by the stone and my weapons, i tap into the stone's energy with my awareness and integrate myself with the stone at a microscopic level in its crystalline structure while tapping into all of the power present at once. I merely fed it at first, watching the stability and levels of energy change in different areas before flooding over into the next milimete or space and then defragmenting to seep more seamlessly into the rest of the stone, but soon i began wanting to attempt giving the stored magic a purpose by thinking about the healing processes and stimulations that i had experienced. Not creating a health item or enchantment on the spot just to test its possibility was a hard choice to make, but knowing that a boss fight was on the way made it more important to simply have the potential for diversity rather than a purpose that was only good for after the fact of injury or during a fight.

Freeze was an easy and quick spell to work after having had the process of stripping heat away from coalescing moisture in the air spelled out for me, but Plasma Blast was something that simply alluded me. When describing the other top two spells besides Ignition, Doc had described it as the store and release of energy spell, which meant that it probably worked on a similar basis to the methods of Freeze and Ignition by focusing power into a single area but with no guidelines for what to do with that stored potential i was just left with fodder energy to feed into my garnet. Until it finally occurred to me that plasma was not just the greater portion of fluid in my veins but also the physical body of lightning and electricity.

"The physical body of energy itself..." i muse aloud as i get up from my bed and walk out away from the camp of structures toward where nobody was working, gathering up a handful of energy. "Which means... Plasma Blast is just throwing potential energy." Gripping the wad of compressed magic tightly in my hand, i perform another fastball pitch at a nearby slate obelisk rising up from the sand that is struck a glancing blow by the ball of raw magical energy that exploded with crackling amethyst and amber arcs of energy in a concussive blast so strong that the twenty-foot slate formation cracks up on one side and leans over with its greater weight to fall sideways along the edge of camp. "Name's not right... blast is usually a prolonged burst or something sustained like my Flamethrower, this is pretty much an electrical version of my Napalm, so... this will be Plasma Bomb because Plasma Blast should look more like this," i muse, gathering more energy in my hand to project outward as it was to unlease blooming waves of St. Elmo's Fire coronas of energy for nearly the extent of my steadily waning aura.

"Okay so... Magic Scalpel, Ignition, Flamthrower, Napalm, Freeze, Telekinesis, Plasma Bomb, and Plasma Blast are my current spells without that strength boost... Rush," i recap aloud, memorizing the thoughts and processes behind each spell to concrete their functions. Looking up at the sky to see the sun growing ever closer to its zenith, i just start to worry about how time i had before noon when thunder ripples out across the sky as if to taunt me for being to only person actually preparing for a boss fight. "I need something else... something less of a starter spell and something more of a signature move."

Even though the magic that i had just named Rush was something i had come across on my own after mimicing the magic of my leap of faith, but it was not something that was actually of my own design even if i could adapt and change most of my current spells based on the simple flow of energy, and Magic Scalpel was not a skill that i wanted to professionalize in or be known for because of its painful nature even if i could integrate with my own or somebody else's nerves to possibly shut off sensory feed. No, i needed something multi-purpose and of my own inspiration so that i could claim it as my own and show it off as its applications and power grows. I needed to come up with something high-level to master as a novice.

"One thing... that can do anything," i tell myself, considering all of my known applications for my energy whether to myself or the world around me while predicting ways to manipulate the world around me. And that was when it hit me. "Matter," i whisper with a satisfied smile, taking a seat on the edge of the slab while slipping into a meditative trance to travel about my EMF with my mind. I was growing more aware of the world through my aura the more i interacted with it and the time it took to reach a meditative state was now only a few short minutes, but the steadily growing frequency of colored light in the sky and thunderous echoes from about the archipelago were telling me that i was running out of time.

The slate slab around me was too strict, too set in its ways to try and manipulate at my level of power because of its density and the strength of its structure that i realized i would have to particulate to manipulate, so instead i turned my attention to the finite grains of sand and rust making up the ground of the island covered in brownish gray slate and found that the minute grains of sand were already prepared for me to pick up and start piecing together little bit little by little while only losing milimeters of my aura for every grain. Fitting togther the grains of sand like the world's smallest puzzle that was steadily growing more and more lifesize as time wore on, i soon developed a featureless human body of the same size and proportions as my own body that only took the same space of aura to create as my own body. Fueling myself and my energy into the fragmented crystalline microstructure of the dummy, i fill in the spaces between each grain of with my potential energy and watch as the grains of sand solidify together more cohesively.

Raising my right hand while connected to the golem, i watch as the sand golem that i had created also raises its mirroring hand in greeting before i wave to make it wave and then childishly clap my hands to my face ti make the golem cover its empty face with its hands. Hopping down from the slab and onto my feet to turn off to the side away from camp, i perform a quick combo of two jabs and a sharp knee that the golem mirrors in almost perfect form despite its sandy makeup. Snapkicking ahead of me to follow with a wide left haymaker and a swift right uppercut, i keep kicking and punching my way down the length of the slab further away from camp with my golem as my aura steadily dwindles away to nothing.

When i finally hit the alarming spurts of energy fueling my connection to the golem, i relinquished all magical output and watch as the sand me crumbles into a loose pile of dirt on the ground before me as if it had never really been there at all. "Matter... not quite right. It's the manipulation of matter around me like psychokinesis instead of just moving matter around me, but i can't outright call it psychokinesis because then it would be too easy to replicate. What to call this new spell..." i muse as i start to climb back onto the slab when a drop of water suddenly hits the back of my hand.

After that first drop, i did not need my magical awareness to start noticing the light drips of water on rock or sand around me every few seconds as the build up of water in the sky was finally nearing the release point as clouds crowded together. I could not exactly call out about the etherfall, but i still had to let the others know what was going on as my aura started expanding with every drop of water to hit my body, so i fueled some energy into my body and called out, "IT'S STARTING!" The mist was beginning to settle down to the ground with the changing barometric pressures, thinning out swiftly as the etherfall finally picks up to a constant sprinkle of water that began sparking through my aura with the enigmatic amber and amethyst arcs as i climbed up onto the slab.

Then, as my aura began expanding out past its usual bounds, the world came alive with light and color and rampant swirling energies that seemed to emenate from the world itself and every living creature in view including my own body of energy. I could finally see instead of just sense my aura, its ethereal flare of transparent blinding amethyst and amber currents of light refracted through water sourced from the fires of twin gold and black suns somewhere within my very existence that i soon recognized as the combined sources of my mind and body spreading through my body like twin fluctlights of existence at war with one another to create rampant storms of brightened black amethyst and darkened gold amber that made up the field of my aura and the energy i used. The others around the camp and mining area off to the side of the other end of the slab shone like beacons of varying colors with similar auras of watery light and colors sourced from only their chests like the beating of a heart from their heads like the constant input and output of information and commands. I was the only person in the group, however, to bear the colors of black and gold and amethyst and amber, even though a few of the others whether from their chests or from their head bore sources of white energy that burned with an intensity rivaling my own suns.

Everybody in camp was aware of my approach not only from my warning call a few moments ago but also because of the maelstrom of overcharged energy that swirled outward from my body for over fifty feet while even the other suns in the group who were burning at over one hundred percet could only exude auras as large as my normal one. Harold was the first to actually recover from the start of the event, brushing aside whatever he was experiencing and barking out, "Magic hour, people! I want everyone away from camp while we get used to this crazy shit, no reason to accidentally blow up everything we have been working so hard on. No body is allowed back at camp until they can use the Ignition spell!"

"Bring your tools and weapons," i tell the others loudly as they simply start walking away from camp and their work positions, earning a suspiciously questioning look from Harold. "Just because we get to play with magic right now doesn't mean we just abandon our priorities. There's plenty of iron deposits around the island from the beach we all moored the rafts at and we're not the only things that are probably reacting to the rain, we need to be ready for any wildlife to spawn in."

"Zai has a point, suit up and bring the chests!" Harold emphasizes my warnings with orders, though i was unsure if it was because he was maintaining control while comparing his white dwarf to my own super nova and black hole or because he still believed i knew things he did not about what was going on. I figured i was about to find out, though, because he was soon making his way over to me after grabbing his own pair of quartz axes and matching spear bear a broad, leaf-shaped head that i had not made and now shone with the same white energy as his heart. "I need to ask you something," he says quietly when he stops a few feet away from me on the edge of camp. "Will you show everyone how to use Ignition? Something is going on even if you don't know or won't tell me and, knowing the professor, anything that can make him this happy is something that A, will make us very unhappy, B, kill us, or C, both. Probably C."

He was right. "I can show everyone my process for Ignition," i agree instead. "But, i can't start showing them everything i know, not just because i like having a competitive edge but because it will hinder their personal developments to rely too heavily on tank characters like you and I. I will show everyone Ignition, then everybody can practic Freeze like i did, and with luck they will teach themselves Plasma by the end of the day. If anyone gets hurt, i don't mind performing surgery, it only takes like a fifth of an ounce of my gelpie venome to numb a limb, but if they want to learn my Magic Scalpel spell they will have to pay attention and learn it themselves."

"Magic Scalpel? Seriously?" Harold asks dryly despite the thickening etherfall that was finally beginning to wet the surface of the slab faster than it could dry.

"It's literally a surgery," i argue with a grin, "i go in with my mind, feel around, and push bits back together with enough potential energy to supercharge the area with like a maxed out healing buff or whatever. Small parts are instantaneous, like a couple of muscle fibers, but i learned herneated tissue needs to be packed and loaded with power to fuse back together during the 'push' part. It's incredibly painful without gelpie anesthetic, but i am working out a way to do a different, gradual heal like more of a controlled healing buff that i can sustain and cut off with little problems."

"Just make sure nobody dies," he says at last after several moments of thoughtful silence, finally accepting the situation for all of its obvious plot possibilities and turning to head back to camp with the other. "Get your shit and get ready, we're moving out in less than five."

"Sir, yes, sir," i reply sarcastically, wondering exactly what weapons i would need. Settling finally on just my daggers and a pair of thick flint hammers that weight nearly eight pounds apiece atop their short, one-handed handles from the growing arsenal of tools and weapons in the largest, hut structure that served for storing the group's food and gear, i use my aura to take apart one of the now empty pallets that Emma had made and break down other unused canes from nearby to craft a large cane chest and line it with my boarskin. My aura was diminished by roughly ten feet by the time the chest was done in less than five minutes, but i still had plenty to go as i wore my empty trunk by its rope straps hanging from the lid after wrapping them over the ends of the chest to secure it closed.

The now mist free air was abuzz with anxious and excited conversation about playing with the game's magic and speculating at the suppposedly endless possibilities as we made our way out to the beach where Harold believed there was the most oxide ore to work with. For the first time i was the center of attention in the group and i found it more than a liitle unnerving, more like being a pre-teen back in high school than being a young adult explaining our work missive to other people my age who had only just graduated. I did my best to answer every question patiently and clearly instead of reflexively mumbling, but after a while the questions just started circling as people had trouble grasping what i was telling them- such as how a physical mage would need to gather their power by hand probably by moving their hand through their aura to learn the motions while a mental mage would simply need to focus on the energy.

When we finally got to the beach only a few minutes after the others realized i was probably not a very good teacher, i decided i would just have to come up with a physical way of showing over half of the group how to use their magic for Ignition. "You sorcery people can feel the magic moving in and around you like wind or water, i can feel it the same way i am simply aware of it when its active," i explain to the group who were all nodding along while visually examining themselves in a semi-circle in front of me. "So, when you raise your hand up, pay attention to the brush of energy against your skin and remind yourself that this is your energy and hold onto it in your hand," i go one, displaying exxactly that by raising a cupped hand to chest heigh through my aura and gathering the energy there. "You are now holding the currents of your EMF, gather up and store the energy passing through these currents to guide all of your currents into that one anomalous area.

"While doing so i want you to think about the oxygen in the air of your EMF also being dragged along those currents with every drop of water distorting the air or every breath you take," i explain crudely, struggling to find adequate examples of airflow in their EMF besides just the wind around them. "This oxygen is fuel for the fire, just like Doc said at breakfast, stored in the same hand you are going to produce thermal energy from kinetic friction with your fingers. I personally just dip my fingers in the stored fuel and use magic to amplify the friction heat created by snapping my fingers the same way i use it to amplify the soundwaves of my voice, and, viola," i finish, snapping my fingers into the palm of my hand to ignite the energy there.

After my display, everybody started attempting to learn the Ignition process while i casually walked around saying, "Ignition," and bringing to life candleflames at my fingertips. Some people got it on their first few tries, like the sorcery users, but the witches and wizards in the group had to struggle to find their own alternatives to the snapping measure. I offered helpful physics advise about how all energy created heat and concentrating energy on a single point could superheat the air there, but then they once again had to figure out their own methods of fueling the fire with the air around them to create an actual flame instead of just hot space.

Finally, after over half of an hour a scorching bursts of air or randomly projected fire by unwieldy sorcery, everybody in the beta group could ignite and maintain a solid ball of fire in their hands and even begin experimenting with throwing it out into the water or far across the beach as well as testing to see how long their overcharged auras could sustain torrents of flame on the large slate rocks litering the area. I was unbelievably proud of how well everyone was doing, especially of how some of them were branching out with their own energy manipulations of the air in powerful gusts of wind or small controlled cyclones in the sand as well as experiments on the ground around them in tremors or waves of liquid-like sand. I innocuously worked on the manipulation of my aura itself, strengthening my bond with my magic by sending out tendrils of my aura as far out as i could manage to stretch the entirety of my aura out along the ground with enough awareness to collect sensory data in a constant sweep around almost one hundred yards of area but after a full ten minutes of this mental stretching there was nothing to detect from the area but the multitude of droplets hitting the sand and water of the beach.

Not long after i had finished my searching, Harold finished practicing his sandy cyclones eroding small slate boulders to come over and join me on the pile of rubbled slate from which i was watching the others. "Find anything interesting?" He asks at last after several long moments of just standing in the evaporative rain.

"Nothing but fish and sediment samples," I reply honestly, not having to hide anything on that front. "Once everybody can learn how to use their magic without the etherfall, we will be able to do all of our work on the road. Even though all the waters lead to the center of the island, the islands get bigger and bigger and more diverse in their resources, which means the distant to the volcanoe even from here could be over a hundred miles, so daylight on the water and rest at a good beach for the night and spend the day resupplying on wood and maybe meat. None of the food we have here will last more than a week at best and my boar was already cooked the night before last so its got a couple days left on it if its stored with minimal exposure, so it would be more profitable for us to hunt something at every island. I don't know how many people have how much in the way of hides, but once we all settle in i am going to be using mine to make some armor."

"How long do you think we should stay here?" Harold asks thoughtfully.

"Every island has at least one creature specifically there for us, everything else is just a random spawn or hunting game," i say more to myself than to Harold. "This island is relatively barren so it likely has no game of its own, only our opponent. Once we find it and take it out, the island is pretty much secured except for wandering game from the other islands- things like more adult versions of the crocodile Emma and i took down. From there, we stay here to make trade goods for when we finally reach civilization- nothing like full-on weapons and armor unless you guys know where to get other metals or ores and lime to refine it, just ingots and gems like my own stockpile and the few other lucky finds i noticed absordbing energy during the etherfall. So, maybe another two or three sessions overall."

Facing away from the group as i notice auric experiments similar to the ones i had just recently performed, i go on with, "I'm honestly surprised i only see Emma and Sasha with bows, they're fairly simple to make and obviously useful, why have they not been prioritized?"

"Because we haven't needed to actually go hunting yet, just defend ourselves while out at other islands," he replies simply. "The few groups we have sent out have scored some small game like these six-legged squirrel rabbit things Doc calls chitters and the group i went out with this morning had a brush with some weird felines. I wounded the main challenger, the pack or pride leader, in the back leg and when it took off in the trees so did the others. After that, the last team sent out was sent to the islands we came from, and otherwise everybody has their own hide or hides they have salted and stretched from their islands. Emma's croc skin was pretty tricky, but we managed to get all the body off and then the legs, she had plans to trim the body skin down and make a kind of poncho-slash-tunic from it and use the trimmings with the leg skins for shinguards. You're the only person, though, how got hides with their portion of the boat, or at least the only one to claim them."

"But no encounters with enemies from the island?" I ask to change the subject from my stock of crafting material. "That either means its rating is below most of our people's and it stays away, even if reactive to etherfall." No, what i am looking for will be ether reactive just like us, it's the only fitting boss for the circumstances. But... where is it?

"Not far," Doc's voice says in answer to my thoughts, startling both Harold and I. "The away team is parking their raft just a couple hundred yards away with the others as we speak. Since Harold knows something is coming and it really is now too late to prepare for it, i had no qualms with saying the boss battle is about to begin. I was hoping for an ambush of the group, but if you wait and listen closely you can hear when they start screaming after the boss makes their appearance.

Harold immediately took off calling for the others, but i just stood there and stared at the professor in horror as both male and female voices can be heard yelling to each other well beyond the range of my aura, wondering what horrifying monstrocity Doc had loosed upon our fellows. "Grr," i say emptily to the professor as i slip into my awareness trance and fuel energy into the fibers of my muscles, turning toward the voices and leaping high into the air to sail for dozens of feet as a blinding flash of light illuminates even the thounderous sky overhead from the beach in the distance. The entire area was engulfed in slurries of wet sand following the light, the slurries of erupting beach caused by the massive explosion of energy created by the light as i touched down, took one step, and leaped once again into the air.

Even though it evaporated soon after contact, my body was still perpetually soaked and running with etherfall that made it hard to see through the magical rain even from as high as twelve feet in the air, but it was not long before i came within range of a twenty-foot outcropping of oxidated slate where i could drop into a low crouch and launch myself skyward to land awkward on the gritty but slick wet spine of the curving outcropping at the very top. From here halfway between the impromptu marina and our current training grounds and over twenty feet off of the ground, i could see the lights of two small aura running among the rocks toward camp with the massive, winding EMF of something winding its way about the rocks after them from only a few dozen yards behind. Supercharging the air in my lungs to match the muscles of my bodies, i loose a wild roar across the island toward the foreign aura in the form of blooming waves that particulated the rain droplets and eroded away at rocks as i sustained the scream.

Across, the distance, my sonic attack could do little more that tremor and mishape the wet sand of the island, but when it made contact with the enemy aura it caused massive distortions in their overcharged currents and caused the body to tighten in on itself as it underwent sensory overload from its stimulated magic. "TO ME," i call out to the others who had stopped on their way to camp after my assault on the enemy's EMF, letting them know where friends were and that it was not another monster of some sort that had entered the fray. Even as my teammates started running back toward the beach and the source of my voice where the others were finally starting to gather nearby, the very literal boss was already recovering from its disabled equilibrium and winding back through the rocks not toward the others but in a relative beeline to me.

I did not really believe that i could face the boss on my own, no matter how much i had gained in magic or how much strong my energy was compared to the others who collectively overwhelmed me almost tenfold, but i did believe i could last long enough on my own for them to form a defense or strategy of sorts even before i was leaping down and away from my perch while screaming at the top of my lungs. I took another two leaps until i was at least two of the enemy's aura's away from the others, making the enemy i was beginning to suspect was a giant serpent to double back on itself through the rocks. "What did you have in mind," Doc asks from somewhere unseen as i find a perch on a tall ridge of slate some thirty feet in the air, channeling raw energy about my hands and storing it full of oxygen and hydrogen in one-to-one gaseous ratios.

"Survival," i say simply without taking my eyes off of the enemy's aura as it swiftly approached, revealing glimpes of a long, sinuous body through gaps in the rocks sporting a long ridge of webbed spines down its back. Finally, the beast revealed itself in full as it slithered its massive grayigh-blue, slimy eel head over the top of a nearby ridge from twenty feet away, spotting me easily white and blue crackles of energy sparked about the dozens of spine-like protrusions about the serpent's solid black eyes and triangular face. Realizing it was preparing an attack as the crackles grew brighter and larger as it coiled more of its body along the ridgeline, i Ignite the energies into Napalm that i send flying from either hand for the slate ridge supporting the serpent's massive body before leaping down and away from my ridgeline.

No sooner was i in the air than the world around me was aglow with blinding white and blue light from the sudden chain of dozens of arcing lances of lightning released from the eel's mouth, tearing through my small attacks that exploded in the air with enough force to disrupt the flow of the enemy's attack, but that only allowed some of the energy to arc over and around the ridge i had sought to hide behind. Landing in a tight roll amidst a storm of whirling wet sand and rocks from the surrounding explosions of the eel's warped attack, i end the roll on my feet and leap away from my position while turning around in midair in time to see the crackling lights of another build up through the top of the settling storm on the ridgeline that i had abandoned. Sliding backward through the wet rusty sand after landing backward, i funnel more of my perpetuating magic into my hands and bring them together to combine the flow of energy pulling at my aura and wait until the blinding flash of light from the enemy's mouth that preceeded the lightning.

My overcharged Plasma Blast of sine pattern wave blooming coronas of electrical discharge met the shit storm of lightning arcing wilding through the air toward me, not only blocking and disrupting the enemy's flow of magic from head on but also breaking apart the electrical chains feeding each other and allowing the attack to stretch over immense distances. Even though i could stop the attack, that did not mean the conflicting forced of magical energies could not push my much smaller body back in a slow slide through the sand until both the enemy's attack and my aura were spent. Even as spent bolts of lightning scorched stone and glassed sand in the area where our spells had met, the literal electric eel was slithering down the rocks building up more charge in the friction of its at least seventy-foot body that crackled about its head, but i was beyond critical with only a few sparse currents flowing about my body even with the etherfall fueling me and could do little more than stand there and wait.

The others auras had been winding their own ways among the rocks, centered around Harold's blazing spear and heart climbing my original outcropping perch to form a pincer around the approaching eel and I, but the eel was already coiling in preparation to release its next attack as my aura was just growing out passed its critical size. The eel flashed as i reached for my daggers both physically and magically, lightning starting swirling and arcing in a straight line across the distance as i started drawing my knives and awakening their power, but even as i slashed my knives through the air upon drawing and unleash twin waves of scything air to distort the attack, the lightning was already upon making contact with my aura. My aura itself seemed to distort the flow of energy from the attack, creating bursts of discharged coronas in all directions, but from little over a foot away the plasma making up the lightning's presence was enough to singe my hair and blister my face before it finally discharged through my aura with small arking lines of St. Elmo's Fire that raked across my body like little arc welders.

Breathing was the only thing that i was away of as i collapsed in a heap on the ground, my clothes and hair and blacked exposed flesh smoking and steaming in the ethrfall, but i was still breathing and that was all that mattered as the eel once again began closing the distance and slithering right into the vice the others had formed. From where i lay on the ground watching the eel crackle hungrily in my direction, i could see the auras of the others climbing rocks or stepping out from behind cover to launch a barrage of magical attacks that rocked the ground around the serpent with great blooms of fire or distorted its EMF and ability to build energy with screams similar to my own. The eel, however, was covered in a thick slime much like the gelpies and was sustained by the etherfall, rendering all but the concussive blasts of the fire attacks useless against its physical body that was coiling in on itself under the sustained magical wails from nearby.

The eel attacked physically for the first time, striking out like a snake at a pile of rubble where two of the screams were coming from with enough strength to level the area and fill the air with clouds of debris as it coiled up once more with seemingly no damage sustained. Harold was finally at the top of my outcropping as everyone who could unleashed another barrage of fiery bombs to keep the eel busy, holding his spear out more like a wand or staff than a spear that steadily glowed brighter and brighter until it was almost illuminating the entire island. Plasma on a leveling rivaling my two-handed attack was what Harold unleashed from his spear, crackling and sizzling through the air as it rushed down on the coiling serpent, but a sudden, somewhat dimmer, flash of light unleash a short chain of lightning that met Harold's blast in midair.

Ending the flow of power in his attack after contact was made to avoid being pushed from the slate by the short but fierce collision of energies that rocked the rainy air with an immense expansion of concussive energy, Harold started unleashing several short bursts in the same way the eel had while more wails entered the fight to disrupt the eel's magic. The snake's entire body crackled and sizzled with white under the awesome electrical attack, drawing forth a demonic shriek of agony that filled my ears with pressure and caused more than just the ground i laid on to tremble, and the following explosions were enough to rock the eel's body up and away back toward my ridgeline, but the visible damage itself was just a few vaguely scored areas of its body to show where the energy had managed to fry away the serpent's slime. My aura was back at full power, but i still could not move from the pain of my deep reaching burns all over my charred person, rending me almost incapable of doing anything to help as the eel whipped its tail through several slate formations to send massive chunks of debris flying in all directions toward us.

A boulder bigger than i was flew over my prone form by only a few feet, but i couldn't even flinch from the electrical feedback frying my already strained and tearing nervous system, just lie there and watch as half of the vice was forced to draw back and regroup while the others hid and randomly launched fire attacks from their cover. Harold was now using his Plasma Blasts to shoot down boulders in the air over the others, leaving him open for the attack that the eel was charging from the crest of my ridgline over Harold's head.I could not move, but my magic could, and i reflexively sank into myself to switch my consciousness completely into my magic that i sank into the sand. Shaping my aura in the sand to a form rivaling the eel, i sink myself into the head of my own sand golem serpent that raises itself from the beach beneath me so that my golem will not be limited by the reach of my aura and strike its fifty feet of body up into the air between the eel and Harold just as the next attack flashes.

I allowed the sustained lightning attack to convert my sand snake's body into molten glass, but i used my aura coating and filling the sand to keep my serpent intact as it dove through the lightning and evolved into a molten golem whose mouth i opened to reveal crackling quartzite fang that had stored the residual electricty in my serpent's body and now released at the eel in a Plasma Blast that tore apart the ridgeline. Slithering in under the cover of the cloud of debris i had intentally created, i strike-jump my molten golem all of the way up to the top of the ridge within follow-up strike distance of the eel even as my golem's body began breaking apart from the consumption of my aura. A short burst of lightning tore through the air as i made the final lunge along the ridge, ripping through the back half of my dissasembling golem, but the head was already in motion and landed in perfect form to lock its jaws tightly about the eel's throat where i Freeze the molten snake head into a permanent quartzite vice about the serpent's neck.

My body fell like a rag doll from the destroyed remains of my golem, hitting and cleft on the ridge from over eight feet off of the ground not unlike my fall from my slate bluff, but this time i simply lay there unmoving as the eel thrashes about wildly trying to free itself of its glassy death. The eel was definitely a water aligned creature because of the wavering spinal ridge running down the length of its body and around the end of its tail, and depending on how much breath it had it could still be anywhere from ten to twenty minutes before it was strangled to death. The eel also seemed to realize that it had time to find a way to free itself as it rose ominously from the other side of the ridge and shook its head about looking for me, raining dark blood from the many wounds seeping crimson around the fangs and mouth of my golem's head, but even after the spell had ended my golem was still fighting for me by keeping the eel's head and upper neck arched so that it could not see me from around the car sized quartzite snake head.

Until, of course, the serpent quite intelligently slams its body down on the ridge, cracking away pieces of the crystalline golem head as well as several large pieces of slate ridge that roll down to the beach where the others were gathering for another offensive while a few of their glowing auras broke off deom the ground to sneak through the ruined beach toward the ridge. My aura was once again replenished by the second smash of the serpent, breaking away what remained of the neck of my golem and dangerous fracting much of the back and back of the head, but the only things i had to work with were the slate and the etherfall and time left me with only one option. Charging the water in the air and in the sanf around my aura with my magic, i reach out a massive, liquid arm and fist from over my body to crudely hook the eel around the back of the head and send it rolling on itself down the ridge toward the others.

Not even caring about my body at this point, i form another serpent from the remaining water and power at my disposal and develop of proportionate ten-foot version of myself around my body entrapping a bubble of air about my head in the heart of my new golem. Splashing down the ridge on legs that i had to rebuild as i ran down to the beach, i soon added substance to my body by shrinking the golem down around me and a thick shell of wet rusty sand wielding club-like fists of jagged slate and frozen sand. The others were already launching their attack by the time i made my way around the serpent toward the splinter group only a hundred or so feet away, unleashing yet another barrage of close-concentrated fire attacks that peltedall about the eel's body and dusted up a storm of fire and molten sand that screened from view their follow-up of several short wails completed by a sustained tail of Harold's spear-guided Plasma Blast.

Emma and Sasha were the two who had broken up from the main force, both capable of not only wailing but also Freeze that was being put to use throwing up walls of frozen sand off to one side of their position when i arrived. I never even got the chance to try and communicate when i finally showed up, Emma just barked out, "Help Sasha put up shields for us to hide behind, i have to make these arrows!"

Nodding my golem's head as assent, i leap over to the front of the growing frozen sand field and simply disperse my golem outward in a broad ten foot high wall that hid my collapsing body from everybody's view as the eel loosed a new shriek of pain under the second barrage. Even though the electric damage to my body was mostly superficial, i was still incapable of even recieving sensory data from anything below my jaw, but this did nothing to dampen the growth of my aura until i was back to full power and could make a new golem around my body one only enough of a shell to move my body for conserving the rest of my magic for moving around and casting maybe a single spell before i would have to stop somewhere and recharge. Emma was running into the myriad walls to rejoin Sasha as i used all of the magic i was not storing for mobility in Freezing another, thick outer wall that stretched out to cover the front of the entire area, which is where i was soon hopping over walls to get to as well.

At the epicenter of the walls was and area not unlike my big outer wall but that one had been made much thicker with more time to put into it, produced by Sasha who was flexing her bow while her magic recharged and Emma dumped out an armful of ice arrows shafts tipped in glowing red glass. "If Harold was right, all of the pressurized energy in these glass heads with make an electric explosion upon breaking and fry the slime from the snake's just like Zai's and Harold's plasma attacks. Sasha, take a handful of these and go out to the side of this wall and aim your attacks, I'm going to stay here and just keep arcing shots at wherever i think it is to keep it occupied. Zai, since you're here, go out to the other side and see if you cant lob some plasma of your own or at least try shooting the arrows with magic. Ready? Go!" She says without waiting, drawing an arrow already nocked on her straing and aiming upward toward the sky before leveling forward several inches.

Dipping the clubbed hand of my golem on the pile of arrows to stick several of them in my mud, i jump to the top of Sasha's main wall and then twenty yards off to the side and out of everybody's view where i could collapse and recharge for a moment while the third barrage's fire attacks resume upon the ridge that the eel was being forced to retreat behind after all of the explosive attacks had freed it from my snake golem's jaws. Emma's first arrow struck down at the base of the ridge where the snake had once been, exploding in a massive pulze of crackling electricity that expanded swiftinly through the rain in the air for over a thirty foot radius of the actual arrow that melted and tore slate away from the ridge as well as threw up a wave of molten glass across the beach. The next arrow landed nearby higher up on the ridge, but the third arrow struck lower down on the beach as Sasha's first was aimed at the top of the ridge toward the crackling light of the eel charging an attack.

Forcing the muscles of my throat to function with magic, i painfully scream, "Emma! Behind the ridge!" Because the following fourth and fifth arrows were stall landing around the bottom of the ridge and keeping Harold's vanguard from pursuing the charging eel. Six and seven landed at the bottom as Sasha's second and third tore apart the top of the ride and inhibited the charged eel from taking as with the support of flames produced across the distance from Harold's spear while Maxine and Billy used gusts of wind to try and advance. The eighth arrow was the last to land near the bottom of the ridge, nine landed roughly halfway of the fracturing body of the slate formation several carefully aimed moments later, but ten landed closer to the mark between the ridges on the other side, forcing the aura of the serpent to retreat along the valley between ridges while Sasha's arrow's arched after it in line with the retreating blue and white EMF.

Developing another shell golem around my body with slender arms surrounded in icy arrows, i take off from the blockade of walls as the crackling head of the serpent comes around the end of the ridge formation and unleashes a wild beam of electricity sweeping across the landscape. My outer wall crumbled and melted under the strength of the beam that i was forced to dive and roll under to avoid as arcs of energy melted scores of glass across my frozen shell, but none of the walls behind it were touched as the beam was cut short by a combination of Harold's Plasma Blast and his companions wailing into the beam. Rolling forward over my head and left shoulder to get back onto my feet in midstride, i raise one arm while gathering a pocket of compressed air behind one of the arrows embedded in my forearm and take aim at the serpent coiling back from the sustained wails before releasing the compressed air with several hundred PSI of force to send it whistling loudly through the air.

My arrow struck the broad side of the coiled snake just as it began to strike into the watery air distorted by wailing, exploding with enough arcing energy to rock the surrounding twelve feet of body up into the air and force the serpent into a roll as the electricty sizzles throughout the slime coating its body and dries much of it away. Sasha must have been playing spotter in my absense as i went back to closing the distance, because Emma's arrows were still following the snake's rolling movements away from the ridge with three arrows landing in line with one another that kept shocking and rolling the eel away as Harold lead the vanguard forward. Taking up my original perch on the curved outcropping of slate that Harold had been forced to abandon as Harold himself and the others used their combined spells to force the serpent up against the broad side of a ridge where it was trying to dig itself into the sand for ether to replenish its slime over a body that was now at least thirty percent blackened, i take aim with both arms and concentrate more pockets of compressed air behind all of my arrows as Sasha's and Emma's arrows crumbled much of the ridge down on the serpent.

Harold and the others were trying to glass the sand with a massive stream of concentrated fire from the group as a whole, but the explosions of arrows touching down around the serpent not only kept them at least a hundred yards back from the serpent but also distorted their flow of power like EMPs so that the fire could do little more than dry the area of ether to keep the eel vulnerable. Smiling in the moment, i whisper, "Electro-Magical Overkill," before bursting the compressed air and sending all thirteen remaining arrows screeching through the air like fireworks. The combined power of two sets of cirlcing explosions not only leveled a thirty-yard molten area of the ridge behind the serpent but also ripped apart and disintegrated everything from about ten feet below the holes in the eel's throat to its tail in a settling storm of wet soot and ash and ether.

"Overkill indeed," Doc agrees from behind my golem shell, actually patting the glassy sand on its head. "My oh my, what a show... would you believe me if i said this was being broadcast to the cafeteria and lobby? The entire building was in an uproar over your claim of the kill. Now, i know the ligaments along your spine were seared and you're a vegetable right now, but just bear with it for a little while. The entire team has earned a full restore, even though the worst injury is a concussion and gash on the forehead from the serpent's tail debris, but that's all thanks to you as well."

We simply stood and watched as Harold and the others converged on the head and remaining neck of the eel that still steamed in the etherfall, watching as the whooped and celebrated in the settled cloud of ash and waved to us from our perch less than a football field away. My golem shell was cracking apart at the joints, though, so using any energy to move would cost me the numbing cold of my golem and the privacy of my injuries. If the others had seen my state during the fight, they would have been divided into an extra team or person to try and get me off of the field and would have been demoralized to lose their strongest piece from the field in an attack like that concentrated electricity.

Letting my golem crumbled away into a pile beneath me that my body sits on and falls back from to lean on the professor, i find myself staring up into Doc's proud gaze beaming down at me before he finally patted my head again and released a wave of warmth through my body that simply erased my injuries as it passed. "Now, let's go claim the remaining prizes. The skin itself is actually very fire retardant, which is how it and its slime managed to survive for so long until you guys started utilizing your own electric discharge," he goes on, holding me by the back of my restored and even cleaned jack as he steps over the side of the slate.