Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 38: Forfeit

“Someone from Earth?!” Lance shouted.

“Four hundred years? And he didn’t make it back? Sounds like we are reaching for an impossible goal.” Allie added.

Cole patted Allie’s hand, as the healer’s arms started to shake. “Impossible is a stretch. He just didn’t manage it.”

Alex sighed heavily as he looked at everyone processing what he had just said. After leaving his little meeting with Erich, he had gone straight back to the villa Lady Xhiu had been providing them and called everyone into a meeting to explain what he’d learned.

As he expected, they weren’t taking things very well.

“And there’s another guy, someone who came over during Fukushima?” Kate added.

“Look,” Alex raised his hands. “I know what he told me, that’s all. What we do from here is up to us. But it sounds like this guy understands this world far more than we do. Even if he is playing us, how different is that from what the Empire is doing?”

“True, but going against the entire continent? Alex, that’s insane.” Garret said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m almost always down for your insane plans, but come on.”

“We are assuming we even get into the Inheritance, and further assuming any of us get something worthwhile once we get in there,” Peter said. “And we don’t even have to hand everything over to this Erich guy. We owe Lady Xhiu some, and we can pay our due to the Empire, then work with him involving all the rest.”

“Again, if we get anything.” Garret made sure to reiterate.

“Are we forgetting the part that he has apparently been here for centuries and still hasn’t made it back to Earth? Our whole push here has been surviving this fucking Trial Quest, and then finding a way back home.” Allie began to raise her voice now, Cole’s attempts at soothing her failing.

“He might have given up after being here for so long. The world he would go back to now, it’s not at all the same as the one he left.” Zach pointed out.

“And if we take just as long? How many years would have passed? How many of our loved ones will be long dead? My parents? Garret’s brother? Peter, you have a wife back on Earth.” Allie didn’t let up.

Everyone went quiet then. Allie was right, there was a timer on them in far more ways than just the Trial Quest. Playing mage and fighting monsters was fun fantasy, for as long as they didn’t think about Earth and how much it would be moving on without them.

“We are forgetting something important here,” Holly said, stepping forward to get everyone’s attention onto her. “If this Inheritance is as important, and contains the kinds of treasures that everyone claims, there might be something inside that can help us figure a way back, no?”

“That… might be true,” Alex said.

Garret looked to Holly with a face filled with soured hope. Alex knew that Garret had been thinking about his little brother since the very beginning. They had even talked about it way back when they first arrived here. He didn’t think for a second that Garret had let himself forget.

Getting his hopes built up, crushed, rebuilt and dashed over and over again. It would take a toll on anyone. He looked at the end of his ropes emotionally.

“Nothing is guaranteed,” Alex said carefully. “But that means us being stuck here isn’t set in stone either. We keep trying.”

Garret nodded but said nothing.

“Now, with that in mind.” Alex stepped up next to Holly. “I say we keep this option open. This Erich, or the Empire, either can help us, we just need to figure out what our best bet is. But we don’t need to put all our money down right now. We can wait.”

“He’s right,” Kate said.

Zach looked from her to Alex, and frowned.

“Right now, we focus on what we can do in regards to the tournament. Kate, Holly, Garret, Henry, and I are the only ones left in the tournament. Given we’ve now made it to the double elimination part, we can at least one or more of us will make it to the top fifty and into the Inheritance. But only if we win our next fight.”

Having only five of them left at this point wasn’t great. Alex had hoped for twice that number. But the competition was fierce. Selka and Ghrukk had lost in their last fights. Given they each were Peak adepts with at least two Meridian Imprints, it went to show just how powerful their opponent’s had been.

“The bracket is already set, so we know who we will be fighting.” Kate flicked the braid of her hair over her shoulder. She seemed confident in who she was up against.

“Did anyone get a bad match?” Alex asked.

“Me.” Henry finally spoke up.

Alex raised a brow his way, but the large man didn’t say anything further.

“He is fighting Shava Yaldeerin,” Allie explained.

“Oh.”

Alex bit his lip nervously. Shava was not a good fight for Henry. She was a top ten contender, easily. So far in her fights, she had shown less than Alex even had. She had shown only one spell. It generated impossible powerful fire that she could control freely both for offense and defense. The flames burned almost anything that came her way to near crisps.

“You have a plan?” Alex asked.

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Henry nodded.

“Alright then, anyone else?”

“I’m fighting Seilor Geyrick,” Holly mumbled.

Alex took a second to recall that name.

It was one of the fighters that Lady Xhiu had pointed out to them. A woman with a strange mode of casting that involved drawing sigils in the air with her aether. He overall power wasn’t grand, from what he had seen, but she appeared to have a spell for almost any situation.

“You have the speed to overwhelm her, I’d lean into that,” he said.

“That’s my initial plan. If that doesn’t work, then I have a new spell that I have been hiding, but it requires me leaning heavily onto the Meridian Imprints that I unlocked,” Holly grimaced.

He didn’t know exactly what she was talking about. He knew that Holly had managed to open three Meridians, and given how much the options opened up based on previous choices, he couldn’t guess what she had ended up picking for her third option. Based on how hesitant she looked, it appeared it wasn’t a pleasant one, maybe something like his own [Backlash Devourer].

“Do what you have to.” He rubbed the small of her back comfortingly, and she leaned into him.

“You know who you have to go up against tomorrow, right? You feeling like you have it in you?” Garret asked.

“Oh, I’ll be ready.”

***

The bubble around the platform Alex was watching was obscured by a heavy rain that Henry had conjured with his spell.

Large droplets of aether-infused water riddled the floating metal surface, as well as pouring over his opponent, who was covering herself in brilliant bright red flames.

One might assume that with Henry being a water elemental mage, he’d have an advantage against Shava and her fire spell.

But the dominating heat of her spell might mean that simply wasn’t the case. Even as the droplets fell around her, they evaporated far before ever getting close to her skin or clothes. It was so sudden that steam didn’t even erupt from the water, it was simply gone.

Meanwhile, Henry looked to absorb the water that fell on him, and long, thick vines of thorny plant material were growing around him in all directions. The tentacles of greenery were thicker than Alex’s arm, and moved with impressive speed.

But again, Shava’s flames made that useless.

Just as the water, any vines that Henry sent her way were consumed by the fire around her body and burnt to ash before ever becoming a threat.

The “fight” had gone on for a couple of minutes now, and neither of them had moved from their starting position.

Henry had been trying, and failing, to find an opening in her defensive fires. But be it super-pressurised jets of water, rain, or vine, he was stopped. He couldn’t dare get close to attempt a melee strike or else get burned himself.

It was as if he was helpless to even lay a single wound on her.

He watched at the large man finally pulled the horsechopper halberd from his back, the weapon’s three foot long blade looked light as cardboard in his hands. It would be a serous blow if he managed to hit her with it. If, he could.

The rain inside the bubble suddenly stopped falling, the many droplets hovering in the air all around them. Then, with a wave of his hand, Henry pulled the water toward him and began forming it around his weapon’s blade.

Within a few seconds, the water had condensed and shaped itself to extend the halberd’s metal head, transforming it into an awe inspiring ten foot long crescent. It almost looked laughable to see him lift the thing, even with his large size.

“Is he gonna just go for it?” Garret, sitting to Alex’s left, asked.

Alex only shrugged. “I mean, what else can he do? He has to try something.”

“It’s something you’d try.” Holly flashed him a wry grin.

“Yeah, and I always seem to be half dead after such things.” He sighed.

Henry’s muscles bulged under his skin, and a sheen of blue aether built up around his body. He was activating another spell, an augmentor boost of some kind. At least that was what Alex thought at first, but the blue aura around him began to deepen in color as something else was going on.

Alex activated his [Aether Sight], finding that Henry had begun drawing on something from his soulgate, probably activating a meridian imprint of his own.

Now a dark blue, the halo of energy traveled from his body into his weapon, and settling into water that he had built up on it, empowering the weapon even further.

It looked like he really was going for an all-out approach.

“Here we go,” Lance whispered, leaning forward in his seat.

Henry bent his legs and exploded forward, bringing down his weapon in an overhead swing.

The water met the flames and started boiling of immediately. But Henry’s strength pushed it further into the fire, his arms still bulging from the effort.

It looked like he would get through, if only for a second.

The water coating boiled off, even with its hyper-condensed state, this time steam did form, erupting upward and outward in a spray. Alex’s sight of what happened after was cut off from the billowing cloud of vapor.

All he saw was mist and light.

When the cloud finally dispersed, Henry was still standing, the haft of his weapon held in his grip. But the other end of it was… gone. The water coating and metal blade both were burnt away, a puddle of steel slag sat on the platform between him and Shava.

She was still standing as well, her fire pulled in close to her body and collected in front of her. She had to focus the flames for her defense, which was more than she had done for any other fight, but Henry’s attempt still hadn’t been enough.

Henry straightened his shoulder, dropping what was left of his weapon.

Shava raised her hand, and the fire in front of her began changing, taking the form of a long lance.

Henry raised his hand above his head, palm facing outward. “I forfeit.”

***

“It was a tough situation. You did amazingly well, man.” Garret slapped a hand on Henry’s shoulder when he met them back in the stands.

“Mmm,” Henry hummed in return.

He didn’t look disappointed. It looked like he had accepted his loss already. And it wasn’t like he was out completely. It was double elimination now, so he still had a shot. It was just a set back, even if a large one.

“They are about to start,” Kate said, pulling everyone’s attention back to the platforms.

Now standing on the far right one, was Holly.

She already had her sword in hand and raised it in a guard. Across from her, Seilor Geyrick stood in her lavish purple robes, a cordial smile on her lips.

The bubble rose into place around them, and the announcer’s voice followed, signaling the start of the next rounds.

Right away, Holly ran forward, explosions of air trailing from her feet similar to how Alex used [Aether Burst] to enhance his own movements.

Seilor was already tracing a large sigil in air in front of her, and she completed it just in time to erect a barrier of aether between herself and Holly.

Holly’s bladetip struck the defense, the weapon cracking the surface but not breaking it. A follow-up strike shattered it and Holly swiftly moved through the falling shards as they fell.

She reached Seilor in scant seconds, but it was still enough time for her opponent to finish another sigil spell.

The shards of aether from the barrier transformed into long tethers of energy, wrapping themselves around Holly’s body even as Holly was bringing her sword down towards Seilor’s head.

Holly was stopped in mid-air, the tethers pulling taught and arresting her momentum just as her blade was inches from contact.

Then she was rocketed backward and tossed into the floor. Holly bounced once, spinning to reorient her body and land on her feet before she could be sent into the platform’s barrier.

“Damn, she really is fast with those sigils huh? She’s gotta be fast then even the wind if she wants to get a chance to hit. Good thing our gal is the best air mage in the Empire huh?” Garret said happily.

“Our gal?” Alex shot him a frown.

“Your gal, our gal, you know what I mean.”

“Just watch,” Zach said from his seat behind them.

Alex looked back to the fight in time to see Holly’s new necklace to light up, and crescents of air formed around her body. There were dozens of them, all razor sharp. He didn’t even know Holly had the aether pool for such a spell.

He suddenly realized he was about to have quite the show.