Last one…disables all functions, maybe?
That was good enough information for now.
I pulled my engraving rod out of my bag. We weren’t allowed to have magic weapons, but Teft hadn’t said anything about tools.
I started carving a new rune. The tile already had a system for changing functions — I just needed to add a new way of doing that. One I could control.
It was a decent idea up until the point where an energy blast knocked the engraving rod out of my hand, sending it flying three tiles away.
I looked up.
Patrick and Sera were advancing, firing while they walked. Marissa was struggling even harder now, taking a hit to her left leg while I watched. As Patrick and Sera got closer, it was getting easier and easier for them to fire accurately.
“Corin, little help ‘ere?” Marissa had switched into a sideways stance that exposed less of her own body to attacks, but that meant that more of me was exposed.
“Almost got it.” That was almost true.
I glanced at one more tile — a green one right next to me — and identified that rune as the beam blast one.
I stood up, thinking while I pulled the dueling cane off my belt and finally began to return fire.
Patrick and Sera scattered as I fired, stepping on colored squares.
Nothing happened.
I blinked.
Our opponents advanced.
I didn’t have any idea how they were managing that, nor did I have time to think about it. Patrick hurled a bolt of lightning that split into three.
Marissa managed to jump and smash one of the branches of the bolt, which was pretty impressive, but the other two smashed into me and left deep cracks in the barrier. I felt the mana in my phoenix sigil sink to just over half.
Panic got my mind working.
If I was right that earth magic meant vines, that meant orange and green had been directly swapped.
I dodged Sera’s next attack directly onto a red tile.
Slowly, gray mana began to trickle upward and recharge my shield.
Now we’re talking.
I aimed at Sera and fired three shots in rapid succession. She dodged easily, still ignoring the color of the squares below her entirely.
I leaned closer to Marissa, who was still standing on our starting tile. “Red is helpful, so you can dodge to those. Think green is the energy blast one, don’t get hit by that.”
I knew yellow was probably beneficial, too, but red seemed like a better bet until I could identify the function.
“Got it.” She nodded, immediately scanning the ground for red squares. Patrick tried to take advantage of her distraction to hit her with a lightning blast, but she just swatted it out of the air without even looking.
Marissa hopped to a red tile, and I saw the same kind of energy wash over her.
We were both recharging now, which was good. The problem was that it was slow, and we weren’t doing any damage in return.
When I turned to fire at Patrick, he was more sluggish in his response than Sera, but he still managed to blast my own attack out of the air with one of his.
I hopped to another red square to dodge Patrick’s return fire, but Sera anticipated my movement and hit me with a shot from her cane as soon as I landed.
Their teamwork was better than ours, too. They’d been practicing together for months at this school alone — and known each other for years before that.
We needed to even the odds.
But I was taking too long, so Marissa was the one who acted.
She ducked a pair of shots, plunging a fist into the ground. A fist that was, as it turned out, surrounded by a cutting aura like I’d seen her demonstrate for Keras.
In a moment, I understood. I jumped closer to Marissa, deflecting two shots from Patrick and returning an ineffective barrage of my own.
It only took a few more moments for Marissa to cut the green square out of the floor, then pull it up by the edges. It fired a harmless blast into the air.
Sera must have seen what she was doing, too. I couldn’t parry her attacks fast enough, but I stepped into the way and took two hits. This was worth the cost.
Marissa flipped the square to face Patrick and shook it.
A blast of energy flared out, too fast to dodge. It slammed into Patrick, knocking him back and damaging his shield.
The attack carried him back several meters, but he never triggered any tiles. And I finally saw why—
He was floating. Both Sera and Patrick were. They were only an inch off the ground, so it was almost impossible to tell.
As an Elementalist, Patrick had access to air and fire mana. He usually mixed them for lightning attacks — but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use them on their own.
Marissa shook the square some more. Nothing happened.
“Probably needs time to recharge. Let’s get to safer squares.”
Together, we fell back.
Sera opened fire directly at the square that Marissa was carrying. She managed to get it out of the way, but the effort knocked her off balance. I stepped in and caught Marissa before she could fall on a more dangerous square.
Marissa looked chagrined. “Sorry, not fightin’ at my best.”
“You’re doing great. Better than I am. Just keep firing that thing as it recharges and we should wear them down.”
Patrick and Sera were backing off, too, which surprised me. I saw why in a moment. Sera ducked down with her dueling cane, produced the bladed portion, and began to cut out a square of her own.
That’s bad.
Fortunately, the blade on the dueling cane wasn’t meant for cutting stone, even when empowered with mana. It was taking her much longer than Marissa had.
I raised my cane and fired at her, but Patrick was right there in front of her a moment later, batting my attacks to the side with practiced ease.
This isn’t working.
“Hand me that. I’ll use it, you’re better at melee range. Close in and smash them before they can finish copying you. Yellow squares are probably safe, but I don’t know what they do.”
I hooked my cane on my belt. Marissa handed me the square and charged.
Patrick settled into a fighting stance.
Normally, he wouldn’t have had a chance in a physical fight with Marissa. But she was still sick, and Patrick was the kind of friend who paid close attention to everything about the people he cared about.
Including, it seemed, how to fight us.
Marissa was nearly in striking distance when Patrick threw his dueling cane at her.
She ducked it, closing in further, and threw a punch at him.
She hadn’t noticed that in the moment he’d thrown the cane, he’d charged his shroud with lightning.
Patrick blocked with his left arm, shuddering at the force of the blow, but the effect on Marissa was far worse. The electrical charge jumped into her, bypassing her barrier entirely because she’d been the one to make physical contact.
Her shroud might have absorbed a fraction of it, but from the way she shuddered and staggered backward, I could tell it hadn’t done much.
“I am so sorry about this.” Patrick stepped forward and shoved an open palm into her chest.
Marissa convulsed again as the electricity surged through her, and she fell to a knee.
I stepped to the side to get a better angle and shook the square in Patrick’s direction, but nothing happened. Connecting with the mana in the square told me that it was critically low. It did have a mana recharging function built in, but it seemed like it wasn’t meant to be triggered several times in rapid succession. Maybe it would have recharged faster if it was still connected with the other squares — I saw some transference runes I didn’t recognize.