Jackal Among Snakes

If Anneliese were to analogize being in the tephramancer’s storm of basalt with Llewellen’s [Life Cycle] empowering her, a perfect example came to mind at once. If she had been walking on the land as a B-rank mage, now she was swimming through a still ocean as a fish might. Up, down, or any direction she pleased—if she made the effort, she could reach it.

With magic pouring into her being faster than she could hope to use it, Anneliese sped alone through the black clouds of tephra. Partially concealed by illusion magic, she used her enchanted boots to propel her advance, heading closer and closer to the pounding boom of the tephramancers striking the earth. Her heart beat with their primal rhythms, stoking her boldness further and further like a flame in a dry forest. Anneliese prided herself for remaining calm, but that had no place here.

What few tribals blocked Anneliese’s advance she broke with a relentless barrage of magic. The tribal’s steel sung in tandem with their cries of war, cutting, stabbing, and gouging… but none met their mark. She danced beyond their range, employing illusion magic to further confuse them, then sent cold blades of her own. The Veidimen were born in the ice, and the sheer cold of her people’s ancestral magic sent them to an unmarked grave with frozen soil.

When Anneliese’s spells met flesh, she felt her magic flourish like a cut stem budding another a thousand times over. Their death fueled her life. Her focus was sharp enough that nothing seemed to escape her notice—not a soul came near to harming her. Such a thing was only possible because of her complete mobility in the confusion of the storm.

Her unrelenting advance towards the drumming led her to its first source. The woman readied for Anneliese the moment she was spotted, and her staff banged against the earth. Anneliese sent a spear of ice at her foe the moment she was able, yet a basalt shield rose to defend. The spear pierced it… and the ash degraded, the magic keeping it solid now sapped away by Anneliese’s spell.

Anneliese continued her unrelenting assault, sending wind, fire, and ice in waves at her foe who defended with that unyielding tephramancy booming against the earth. What magic she called forth was soon replaced. This is how Argrave feels, Anneliese realized, recalling well his state of destructive focus when he used his Blessing of Supersession. It feels as though the strength of the world is at my back, making all bend before me.

Eventually, the enemy slipped, and Anneliese finished the tephramancer with the B-rank [Glacier’s Garrote]. Innumerable knives of ice bound in a chain sprung from Anneliese’s hand and wrapped around the caster, then squeezed inwards until she was pierced a hundred times over. The moment she died, the storm waned slightly, and Anneliese felt the ambient magic dim slightly.

The roar of a crowd alerted her to foes coming. She turned and cast [Icebound Twinblades] without a moment’s thought. Two ice arms bearing blades as tall as a person appeared, then spun in a deadly whirlwind that cut through them all with ease. What few that did not lie dead fled immediately back to where the storm was denser.

Anneliese continued onwards without a beat for rest, hunting the next with the same reckless abandon. Cutting through dozens more and routing twice as many, she found the next. This one’s defense was a little weaker. As their number faded, so too did their power wane. She sent the cold ice of her ancestors, the roaring fire, the howling wind… and froze them, burnt them, cut them. Her adept maneuvering and skillful illusions ensured her safety—a costly feat of magic sustainable only because of the great wealth of ambient magic spawned by this tephramantic storm.

in tandem as they used the tephra to kill her. Yet for every blade they sent at her, Anneliese could return one of her own. The warriors threw their weapons or tried to surround her. Every one of them only met their end, replenishing her

fear. The Stormdancer. The title came from foe and friend alike, both witness to her feats all

numbers again and again and again… yet as the tephramancy waned, so too did the surge of magic pouring into Anneliese. She fought weaker foes with feebler defenses, yet she

booming magic was three, and still she hunted. The battles began to blend together in her head. She sent an illusionary form of herself towards her foe, then stole around from the back and ended him with a spike of ice through the head. When he met the ground, dead, they were two. The twisting blackness shrouding all vision faded, and Anneliese already moved towards her second to

with weak, rapid attacks aggressively, slamming his staff upon the ground in a desperate march of fear. She blocked patiently, receiving the now-weak blows with lesser wards. Each time the ward was hit, her magic was replenished. She caught a gap in his rhythm, then struck him down with

It shrunk in size, focusing around the last drumming tephramancer in the far distance. With it shrinking so, all around were revealed—hundreds of

basalt fell to the earth, its power gone, it revealed the one beyond. A man leaned on his staff, staring at the scene with wide eyes. The barbarians of Vysenn fell into disarray with their song of war gone. Basalt fragments fell to the earth, blanketing

first crackle of electricity echoed out, following by a scream of pain. Anneliese, unharried, looked to the distance. Sparking constructs rose to the night sky, replacing the

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barbarians of Vysenn

they were so unrelenting in their assault as to appear inhuman. Their strength was difficult to contest, and doubly so with their blood

shouted, his voice so loud as to cut past all the noise Argrave

The barbarians of Vysenn had charged towards their line relentlessly. But now, Argrave advanced into them, the Blessing of Supersession fueling his frenzy. And as they bled,

needed—were his shield, blasting away all that came near with powerful magic. His left hand conjured [Electric Eels]. The constructs of electricity would attack

past took down even mammoths with smart strategies on Earth. With the barbarians’ tool broken, their strategy cast to the wind, and their plan dismantled… the human weakness was plain

and lightning. He used the knowledge they intended to kill those that would fight for him as fuel for his advance. If they had succeeded… Elenore, Durran, all of them would be dead. And that was a fine fuel for the fire he needed. The men tried to resist him, but it was like trying to extinguish a bonfire by blowing on it or plugging a hole in a dam with