Probably the latter, since she quickly started insisting he should take her with him next time he went into the sewers to meet the aranea matriarch. She’d only get in the way and try to get him to spill his secrets to her, so he refused. Taiven didn’t like that at all, but seemed to realize nothing would be gained by pressing the issue directly. Instead she switched tracks and suggested she should help him develop his combat magic. Zorian knew this was a trap — that she simply wanted to wipe the floor with him in a ‘friendly spar’ in order to show him how overmatched he was against a serious opponent (and thus be more amenable to take her along like she asked) — but he agreed anyway. He was curious how long he would last against her, and he had nothing to lose except perhaps his pride.
That was how he found himself facing Taiven in her family training hall, fingering his rod of magic missiles and trying to decide how to approach this… practice spar. The training hall was, according to Taiven, heavily warded to protect people inside from spell damage, but usage of lethal spells was still not recommended. Sadly, while the ban on lethal spells was totally sensible for a spar, it completely eliminated a lot of his arsenal. He never really put much thought towards battles that weren’t the ‘kill or be killed’ sort, so his spell choices tended towards the destructive end of the scale.
«I see you invested into a spell rod,» Taiven said with a confident smile. «Must have cost you quite a few pieces.»
Left unsaid (but heard loud and clear) was the implication that the money was wasted. Zorian had no chance in hell of overwhelming Taiven’s defenses with magic missiles, and they both knew it. That’s why he didn’t even intend to try — getting into a battle of attrition with someone who had bigger mana reserves than he did was a fool’s game. The prominently displayed spell rod was a deception, intended to give Taiven the wrong idea about his opening moves. His real ace in the hole was the shielding bracelet hidden under his right sleeve.
«I made it myself,» Zorian said. «So it didn’t cost me anything.»
«Really?» Taiven said, surprised. «I had no idea you were that good at spell formula. I mean, I knew you were interested in them, but…»
«You have your talent for combat and I have mine,» Zorian said smugly. He was quite pleased with himself for getting so good at spell formula — not only was this something he had been interested in since before the time loop, it was also something that could easily ensure his financial independence once he found a way out of the time loop. Spell formula were widely known to be a difficult field to master, and experts in the field were well paid for their services. Zorian was already good enough that he could start taking commissions today if he was so inclined, and would only get better as he went through the restarts.
«Whatever. In the end, you are overmatched even in the equipment department, despite your fancy self-made spell rod,» said Taiven, stretching her hand to the side of her and causing a staff mounted on the nearby wall to fly straight into her palm. He knew it was a spell staff even before Taiven channeled a burst of mana into it and caused a series of glowing yellow lines to light up across its surface.
«Show-off,» he said. He was definitely learning how to do that himself one of these days.
«Ready?» Taiven asked, pointing the staff threateningly towards him.
«Ready,» confirmed Zorian, twirling the spell rod in his hand.
Taiven reacted immediately, sending a small missile swarm consisting of 5 magic missiles at him. She was fast, far faster than him, and Zorian could see in her face that she considered herself already victorious.
‘You are way too presumptuous, Taiven,’ he thought, raising the hand that held the spell rod in order to erect a shield in front of him while throwing a vial full of white liquid at her with his other hand.
The missile swarm crashed into Zorian’s shield like a hammer. If Taiven had been facing old Zorian, the one that existed before the time loop, then this would have been the end — any shield he may have erected to defend himself would have been sloppily done and would have broken like glass under the onslaught. But she wasn’t. She was facing Zorian the time traveler, who had spent quite a lot of time repeating this month. Almost two years, by his count.
In the great scheme of things, two years was not a huge amount of time. Nonetheless, that was still two years of continual combat magic practice, most of it focused on a handful of spells — including shield. His shield spell was nearly flawless. The plane of force was practically invisible when not under strain, and Zorian could overcharge it a great deal to strengthen it further.
The shield held. The missile swarm crashed against it ineffectually, causing the nigh-invisible surface to turn opaque under the strain but doing little else of note.
Before Taiven could collect her wits and try another attack, Zorian sent a mana pulse at the vial flying towards her. The vial shattered in midair, as if crushed by some unseen fist, and a thick white smoke billowed forth from the spot as the liquid turned to gas.
The vial wasn’t anything special, just a simple alchemical mixture that caused coughing fits in whomever inhaled it, but it was enough to incapacitate Taiven, who stumbled out of the smoke dazed and off guard. Zorian mercilessly used her moment of weakness to send a smasher straight into her torso, hoping that was the end of the fight but half-expecting Taiven to throw a shield at the last second to save herself.
Something, perhaps his empathy, warned him to dodge when Taiven suddenly thrust her staff towards the incoming missile (and by extension, him). It was a good thing he did, because she didn’t cast a shield — she launched a massive battering ram of force that batted his attack aside like a snowflake and continued towards him unimpeded. Sadly, his dodge was only partial, and while he avoided the main thrust of the attack he was still caught in the outer area of effect. The attack sent him spinning like a rag doll and he soon found himself crashing head-first into the cold, unforgiving floor of the training hall. It was probably only because of the cushioning wards in the room that he didn’t end up with a cracked head or a concussion at the end of it.
Since Taiven seemed to be more interested in coughing her lungs out than trying to finish the fight, he remained on the floor for a while, waiting for his head to stop spinning. Apparently he made the coughing gas a bit stronger than he intended. He laboriously climbed back to his feet and walked towards the recovering Taiven.
«You have a very strange definition of non-lethal,» he told her.
«Serves you right, you *cough* cheater!» she growled.
«I got you good though, didn’t I?» Zorian smiled.
She huffed and swung her staff at him lightly, obviously expecting him to dodge the slow-moving object. In the interest of showing off, Zorian erected a shield instead, causing the staff to bounce off and wrench itself out of her hand.
Taiven looked at the shield curiously and gave it a couple of good hard knocks. The plane of force didn’t even turn opaque, much less give way to her hits.