Chapter 3: Trayalla

  Trayalla had spent the rest of her time trying to analyze the sight Elias and she had shared. She wrote down most of what she had experienced the morning after. She was now spending her time making notes about all of the details she could recall. She had also been helping Elias by preparing more of her diluted sleeping drought for him at night. His condition had noticeably improved, however, there was an unintended consequence.

  Rumors had started to spread of her and Elias spending their nights together. While Trayalla would claim that she didn’t care, deep down it did bother her slightly. Why did people often resort to base thoughts when two people of different sexes were together.

  “well he is attractive, in a youthful way.” Catching herself she shook her head, placing a hand to her face. She was too tired, her mind was slipping from her control if she was having such childish thoughts.

  It’s not as if she was some young girl ignorant to the world. She sighed and returned to her notes, as she did so her mare Illyiat snorted as if in a laugh. Trayalla stared at her mare’s head and the mare looked back at her. Trayalla sensed a bit of playfulness in the mare’s eyes. Someone was getting a pepper in their food tonight.

  As Trayalla contemplated schemes to punish her horse for judging her she noticed another rider approach her. She closed her book tucking it into a pouch on her saddle. When she appraised the rider it was the girl Erika. She was riding a simple horse of no noticeable size or stature. Her saddle and bags were of good quality as were the riding clothes and harnesses she wore.

  At her side was a saber, it was plain and unadorned. Her hair was just short of her shoulders, golden like the sun those blue eyes of hers were shining even in the daylight. Erika and the group she was a part of were assigned to Trayalla’s section of the caravan. Trayalla did little to direct them, she just told the magician Merrik to keep the group alert.

  Trayalla found that adventurers often needed little direction in the first place, and it wasn’t like she was leading one of the patrols. All they needed to do was to was to watch behind the caravan periodically. Erika’s group seemed fairly competent at this, unlike the other two adventurers assigned to the rear. A pair of solo males who had previously professed their love to her. It happened sometimes Trayalla had found, in her century of life no fewer than a score of young males had professed their undying love to her. Sometimes it was quite useful, other times it was detrimental.

  Beauty had its advantages after all. Trayalla was also certain that Erika understood this as well. When the girl smiled Trayalla could sense an almost imperceptible magic coming from Erika. Trayalla thought it to be some sort of charm, though it wasn’t one powerful enough to truly affect anyone of sound mind. It could possibly nudge people of certain predilections, though without seeing the exact sequences or effects Trayalla couldn’t be sure.

  Trayalla also wasn’t sure if it was Erika herself who cast it, or if it even was a spell in the first place. As a Templa Trayalla could get a general sense of the magical aptitude of an individual. Skilled magicians often would have certain tell tale signs around their bodies, the way the magical energy around them would flow, its shape, its feel was almost always unique.

  Trayalla turned to Erika, the energy around her was the same as most anyone. Erika noticed Trayalla’s gaze and smiled. Trayalla felt the charm’s magic flowing towards her, but it was rebuffed by the passive mental barrier Trayalla usually maintained.

  “A wonderful day, isn’t it Trayalla” The day was nice, the caravan had finally made progress near the edges of Hartland. They would soon be approaching the border to the Fomagus forest, as well as the Krantz plains. Progress was slow, mostly due to having many of the pilgrims walking alongside the wagons. They were barely making 15 or so miles a day.

  “Yes I suppose it is…” Trayalla made to move away to seek some privacy.

  “there are rumors going around you know.” Trayalla looked to Erika. The girl wore the same innocent looking expression. Trayalla eyed the girl

  “What sort of rumors” Erika looked away as if embarrassed then looked back.

  “That you and… ahem… ser Elias were…” Trayalla was surprised that the girl was blushing cheeks reddening. She is young after all. Trayalla herself wasn’t as inexperienced, and with men often professing their love to her she had long since mastered her emotions.

  “These are foolish notions, there is no such thing, I have been simply assisting with a malady of his. So as to preserve his privacy I will say no more.” Trayalla had tried to say it calmly, but she felt it somehow came out snappy. Her feelings were confirmed when Erika started slightly pensive.

  “I..I see, but. Is he alright?” Trayalla sighed

  “Yes young girl, the young knight will be fine. It is a malady I am well versed in treating.” Trayalla stopped, thinking of the sight she had witnessed with Elias.

  “But if I were to ask, what does it matter to yourself? You haven’t even spoken to the young knight as far as I am aware.” Trayalla needed more information, she felt that Elias wasn’t the best source of information. Considering the nature and intensity of the sights he was having, she needed more to go on to interpret them correctly.

  Erika herself looked surprised,

  “I’m just concerned, you weren’t present but we did speak at length while we were gathering the other adventurers for this request.” Erika looked genuine in her facial expressions.

  “He took up the front position so I haven’t had opportunity to speak to him again. He seems friendly enough I was hoping we could be friends.” Erika then smiled, again the magic of the charm trying and failing to breach Trayalla’s defenses. Trayalla worked to suppress a second sigh.

  “young girl, if you wanted to know, you could just go up to the front and talk to him yourself.” Erika hesitated,

  “I could but, the problem is that-” Mid sentence Trayalla noticed something. It was at the very edge of her sensory barriers. Trayalla held up a hand to Erika who stopped talking. Erika seemed to notice as Trayalla looked at their surroundings. The caravan had finally entered the beginnings of the Fomagus forest, the territory of the Eternal Domain. Along the road the number and thickness of the pines was noticeably increasing. To the right hand side ran a river, it was starting to widen with a stronger current than the light water way that had preceded it.

  To the left the density of the pinewoods that marked the caravan to still be in Hartland, was thick. With the darkness that only a deep forest could provide trying to reach out to the light of the road and snuff it out. It was in those pines that Trayalla’s sensory net had been triggered. Well it was less of a trigger and more of a light touch. A less experienced magician may have thought it a rouge magic current that ran into the barrier that Trayalla had created.

  However, Trayalla was experienced. Old instincts kicked in and she expanded the sensory barrier, she had picked up the habit to always leave her barrier just short of where she could extend it. A habit a battle mage had taught her during the war. As she quickly pushed the sensory barrier to its maximum coverage area, she saw a faint flicker. Merrik, the mage in the same group as Erika rode close.

  Trayalla noticed the boy’s mage lines were active, they were emitting a soft blue light. Mage lines were another innovation brought about during the war. They allowed normal magicians to take in the passive magic in their surroundings and convert it into personal magic. They also allowed magicians to use this converted magic to invoke pre prepared spell sequences. By changing the composition of the inks, and patters of the lines, more and more complex spells could be written onto the body.

  This revolutionized the field of enchantment, as normally trying to write a spell on a living being had been incredibly costly. No longer did expensive gems have to be crushed up along with other rare materials. In order to create the inks for spell inscriptions on the body. Just normal magic infused ink could be infused into the body. Trayalla even had several along her own arms, though she had to formulate a brand new ink to use. As Templa magic processing was different to normal magicians.

  “Miss Trayalla, Ser Elias has a report from patrol leader Naesh” Merrik pulled a small white stone from a pouch beneath his robes. A thought stone, they had been another trinket mass produced for the war effort. It allowed communication between two stones so long as both wielders were able to link them through a spell sequence. The requester Lewis had provided each of the group leaders one. Trayalla had passed hers to Merrik

  Concern began to well up. Why did Elias have the report and not Naesh himself? Trayalla nodded to the young magician,

  “Patrol leader Naesh reports a large group of goblins engaged, 2 of his patrol were injured.” Trayalla nodded again then thought to ask.

  “Any word from the barbaton woman?” Merrik shook his head.

  “from miss Vlattu? No miss Trayalla.” Trayalla took a moment to think placing a hand to her chin. There was a mass of goblins large enough this far north to cause adventurers of decent veterancy trouble. That touch at the edge of her mental barrier. .

  Something was wrong, Trayalla had learned long ago to trust these sorts of feelings. She turned to Erika

  “Young girl, gather the rest of the group tell them to muster!” Erika almost fell out of her saddle as Trayalla gave this sharp command. Turning to Merrik she spoke another command.

  “Message ser Elias and have him do the same, then tell that Barbaton to return to the caravan I beli-” Her commands were cut off by three loud cracks of thunder. Immediately Trayalla’s senses were assaulted as her mental barriers and thought fields were assaulted and simultaneously collapsed. She clutched her head, she noticed Merrik doing the same. A small drop of blood came from Merrik’s nose.

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  Through battle honed instincts she reconstructed her barriers and started writing defensive spells in preparation for a conflict. Merrik recovered slower, obviously not used to a simultaneous assault on sensory magic. Trayalla on the other hand was all to familiar with the tactic. For she had been on both ends of it.

  As she rebuilt her sensory net she immediately attempted to connect to the joint barriers and was shocked by what she felt. All 3 of the sensory barriers had collapsed, expanding her reconstructed barrier she felt them. Dozens of flames of life to their immediate left. She spun Illyiat running a hand along the side of her neck forcing magic energy into the faint mage lines that were hidden by her beautiful coat.

  Erika had already left to find the rest of her group, and Merrik was looking to have recovered.

  “Young mage, you must tell Elias and the other group leaders the caravan is under attack!” With that she moved near the forest line, pulling back on her sensory barrier. By concentrating it to a smaller area the more accurate she was with her senses. A dozen of the small flames that filled her senses were close within 50 yards or so. So close! How they got so close without any of the barriers triggering Trayalla didn’t have the time to figure out.

  Whistling out of the pines were half a dozen small arrows. Covering her face all but two missed, with the two hits impacting her robes and falling harmlessly to the ground. Trayalla removed a riding glove from her left hand. Along the back of her hands were 5 snow white mage lines. They wrapped around each of her fingers, originating from a single spiral from the back of her hand.

  Pointing her index finger she focused on the closest of the flames. The mage line pulsed bright for a fraction of a second, as a small bolt of pale white light shot from the fingertip. The projectile slashed through the air, violently entering the pines. A faint sound of impact could be heard from the tree line. Trayalla felt the flame disappear from her senses. The moment she confirmed the kill she had already snapped to the next target firing another shot of the spell.

  The magic bullet, a spell of her own design. A modification of the classic spell magic missile. She had found the old, reliable spell, to be anything but during the war. The Romans often needed many of those projectiles to even be knocked on the ground. Add its slow projectile speed and the Roman countermeasures. Then you get an essentially useless spell sequence.

  Trayalla took a page from the Imperial’s own tome. She had modified her own mae lines to remove the tracking feature, and she had compressed the size parameters to the smallest they could be while retaining the mass. Increase the speed of the projectile and you got a magic bullet. It was horribly efficient, not only for herself but all the other non Templa magicians she had taught the spell to.

  What it was especially good at, was killing. Pure magical energy, with no impurities or modifiers. Is highly toxic, and actively tears through normal material be it living or not. Thus the spell could penetrate even the magic resistant Romans and their fortifications given enough magical energy.

  Using her sensory net she guided her hand in swift practiced movements, firing off a dozen magic bullets. The flames of life disappearing from her senses. She turned to see if Erika had gathered the others when she noticed something. A faint flicker, the smallest hint of movement in her sensory net. Movement that was there, but also wasn’t. Trayalla was confused for only a brief second before instinct and memory shocked her senses.

  She quickly shattered her sensory net and rebuilt a new one from scratch. As soon as she finished the new sequence and cast her mind deep into the pines before her. A sharp spike of cold fear pierced her stomach as she noticed dozens of flames rushing forward. As her senses were flooded with information she almost missed the small green figure flying towards her.

  A goblin wearing a crude mishmash of various pieces of leather and metal came flying out of the pines. Its chipped dagger gripped in its grubby claw in a downward grip. Trayalla, her combat instincts taking over adjusted on Illyiat and pointed at the goblin. She didn’t take the usual time to adjust the output of her spell. The result was a magic bullet many times larger than normal screaming from her finger tip. It slammed into the goblin stopping its flight and slamming the goblin into a pine. Much of the goblins flesh and armor were gone revealing a rib cage with the tendons and muscle exposed.

  Trayalla noticed another dozen of the creatures now pouring out of the pines. With a simple thought Illyiat already turned and started moving away from the tree line, making sure to angle Illyiat so she had a full range of motion against her targets. Trayalla fired another 3 magic bullets striking and killing an equal number of the goblins. This time the impacts were correct, with the magic bullets entering with a hole no larger than a gold coin, and exiting with a hole the size of a fist.

  Just as the 3 corpses collapsed another dozen goblins were charging, their war cries a mixture of screams and guttural noises. The pilgrims had finally taken notice of the carnage. Well over half started to panic, mostly the women and the children. A group of the men and a few women didn’t hesitate and took up their makeshift weapons.

  Elias had determined that given their number the pilgrims should form a small militia of sorts just in case. He had taken it upon himself to train the militia on simple group tactics at night. One of the adventurers whom Elias had make some crude spears had asked what the point was.

  “Some training is better than no training.” Elias had said this in such a simple and assured way, that Trayalla almost believed that he was an authority on the matter. Watching them now, Trayalla could see the effect. The pilgrims stayed together shoving their makeshift spears at the goblins. Who’s weapons were to small to make up the difference in reach.

  This gave Trayalla time take up a position and fire off more magic bullets. A goblin had ducked the spears and charged at a young man, the goblin sneering at his prey. Trayalla’s bullet smashed its skull, the creature’s forward momentum carrying it to the feet of the man it had intended to kill. Trayalla moved to fire at another when another group of arrows whistled out of the pines.

  Trayalla examined the source as a score of arrows approached her, just before they reached her they bounced off an invisible wall between them and her. With her barrier up the arrows were meaningless. The number of goblins pouring out the trees was increasing. Another volley of arrows crashed against her barrier. Trayalla noticed more than the last volley.

  Trayalla pondered how to stem the tide cutting down another 5 goblins. She made to shoot another when half a dozen pale blue missiles slammed into the small horde. Each of the missiles tearing chunks of flesh from the goblins they struck. Merrik came into view his mage lines glowing with magical power. Charging past him flew the rest of Merrik’s group. Thon bulldozed into the goblins swinging his war mace with quick violent strikes. Crushing the heads of 2 goblins. Noticing a third he smashed its skull with his shield. Ray brought up Thon’s rear carving up goblins with a pair of strangely shaped blades. Even the Tikalmith’s tail slammed into a goblin sending it flying.

  An iron bolt buried itself in a goblin’s chest, followed shortly by a second to the throat. Trayalla looked over, and noticed the half elf Queth was aiming at a second goblin now. Trayalla noticed the weapon of choice of the half elf, an auto-bolt. The self loading crossbow another innovation brought on by the war. A popular weapon of many of the men at arms. Using pre loaded cylinders and magical sequences the auto-bolt could loose a dozen bolts by the time you loaded and shot a traditional crossbow.

  Queth fired another 2 bolts at a goblin killing it. Sending her remaining bolts she quickly ejected her cylinder and loaded another from her belt. Slamming the cylinder into its slot, she started loosing more shots into the horde. Finally darting forward was Erika, her saber was drawn and she quickly started carving into the goblins. Trayalla was mildly surprised at the clearly well practiced movements, more shocking was the complete lack of hesitation as the beautiful girl slashed at necks and other vital spots with her weapon.

  While the group was killing a decent number of the goblins, there were still more pouring out of the pines. Trayalla looked to the militia members, 3 had been killed while the rest sported at least one wound. With the numbers increasing Trayalla made her decision. Looking to Queth,

  “Keep them occupied, and I will deal with them.” The half elf had a small look of hesitation, then nodded in understanding. It was quite good to work with experienced teammates. Taking a deep breath she started pulling on the surrounding magical energy. Removing her glove from her right hand, she closed her eyes as she felt the swirling of the energy she drew towards the pale white flesh of her now exposed hand.

  Unadorned by any tattoo or mage line, save a for a single lavender dot on the back of her hand. A mark that has been with her since birth, and proof of her status as a Templa. The external magical energy now began to rush towards the dot in a torrent as Trayalla pulled on an amount near her limits. She dared not push those self imposed limits, using the energy she began to weave a spell. Using the magic bullet mage line as a focus she began to write the sequences in her mind. Her thoughts taking form as the energy surrounding her felt heavy and chaotic.

  She dropped her personal barrier, and shattered her sensory net. She couldn’t spare the mental energy on those. Holding her left index finger in front of her face she focused on the sequence within the mage line. Using that pre written sequence to help formulate this new spell. She tuned out all other senses she couldn’t rely on those right now, as the sequencing of the spell was already trying to go out of control.

  The chaotic nature of the external energy was trying to be free of such constraints, but it was stronger than normal, Trayalla ignored this she had to focus. Everyone in the direct vicinity felt a chill go down their spines as Trayalla finished her sequence. Trayalla’s right hand now held above her head felt like it was going to be torn apart. Finally her hand which was clenched in a fist, now pointed to the sky her index and middle fingers sending the built up energy sequence to the heavens.

  Above the battle field a massive deep lavender spell circle was hanging in the air. Trayalla opened her eyes, her entire body was now engulfed in pure ecstasy as the energy was expelled from her feeding into her spell. The anticipation of unleashing the magic tempting her senses. She had forgotten what it had been like to wield this much power. She allowed a smile to form, as she saw the fighting had stopped in their small little section of the caravan. The goblins frozen in fear, the adventurers frozen in awe. As they should be…

  Curiously though of all the participants the only one who wasn’t afraid or awed, was the young girl Erika. Erika’s features were that of curiosity or interest, not of awe. The thoughts of the girl were momentary, fleeting things. As Trayalla was taken in again by the awaiting pleasure of Templa magic. Trayalla’s eyes were taken by a fierce tumultuous blue light as she brought her right arm down. Saying a single word.

  “Invoke” As the word escaped her lips. The spell activated. The deep Lavender circle, made up of the natural energy generated by the life around them. The various command sequences written into the circle’s makeup activated. Glowing with the magical energy Trayalla had gathered. Using Trayalla’s now fully reconstructed sensory net, she immediately identified the adventurers and pilgrims in the vicinity, and isolating them as non targets.

  If the enemy had someone who could fool the net, better to just isolate those she could verify and exclude those targets. Using this information she fed it into the spell, the final component and sequence activated. In her pleasure she allowed herself to look up at her work. The circle glowed a bright vibrant blue and in the blink of an eye her magical senses were flooded by the flash of the energy. In the place of the circle, and now filling the sky well over a hundred magic bullets.

  With only a moment of delay the bullets hovered, then screamed downward, slamming into their targets. The energy they possess is an order of magnitude greater than the regular bullet. The effect was obvious. Each goblin they slammed into was turned into a small crater, with limbs, weapons and gore filling them. The force impacts even caused the large Thon, and Ray to stumble backward from the reverberations in the earth.

  Queth stood shocked, and the Pilgrims were shocked at the display. Some even turned towards her with looks of near worship. Trayalla still high on the pleasure of using Templa magic allowed these looks to give her more mental sustenance. Her face now plastered in the face of ecstasy. Not only did the horde here perish, but a few dozen of the bullets had slammed into the pines, with the sound of trees falling being evidence of the destruction within.

  Trayalla was still basking in the after effects of using her spell, when at the tinge of her consciousness she felt something. She couldn’t identify the exact nature of the feeling, but a small part of her mind felt like it was speaking to her. Focusing on this small almost annoying part of her mind. She cleared away the mind fog that was causing her thinking to be cloudy. She finally cleared enough of her mental clouds to comprehend what her mind was telling her. Danger

  Forcing her senses to return she just managed to see the merest glimpse of a spell sequence between her and Queth. Luckily she was able to summon up a meager barrier between her and the spell. For as soon as the flimsy barrier was up it was slammed by 3 powerful gusts of wind. The wind was honed concentrating the power of the wind into blade like projectiles. The first two shattered her already flimsy barrier and dug into her arms as she raised them.

  The enchantments would have held if the third blade didn’t crash into her, she sensed her enchantments overload and break under the strain of the magical assault. The force of the impact threw her from her saddle, with a thought she told Illyiat to flee. The loyal mare did as she was told and sped away as soon as Trayalla hit the ground. With her mind clear by the present danger, old instincts kicked in. She tucked into a backwards roll and faced her attacker.

  The sight sent fear down her spine. With the invisibility spell breaking her assailant now stood in plain view. A medium built humanoid stood on the same cart that Queth had taken as her position. A simple half scepter was in the figure’s right hand. A handle made of a plain unassuming wood, topped with a multi colored gem. Faint magical wisps were emanating from the green within the gem. The mage wore a simple top and trousers. With a half cloak reaching to his waist, the hood was up with a shroud covering their facial features.

  Trayalla felt a wet stinging sensation in her forearms, She didn’t need to look to know that they had been cut badly. The pain, however, was a good sign, it meant she still had feeling in her arms. She steadied her breathing and focused. Clearing all thoughts, focusing on her now single overriding goal. To kill this mage before her.