Chương 8: A duel between masters

The Headmaster's office was a shrine to violence. Monster heads were mounted on the walls: gargaps, borgins, and mutated chimaera, all looking down onto a room lined with weapons. Crossbows, pole arms, blades of every type and size were neatly laid out on racks and mounts. Most of them were enchanted, or of very high tier. The Headmaster was what we'd have called a gun nut back home. A broad back was all that showed behind a desk laden with paperwork and a collection of fancy-looking daggers.

Red velvet covered his shoulders, and as he rose up from whatever he'd been doing, a bright ginger beard and unruly hair were revealed.

"Headmaster, young von Heffleslump has conjured an intelligent undead," Jester said as he led us deeper into the taxidermist's paradise. Stuffed animals occupied the spaces not filled with racks of weapons that gleamed and glittered in my magical sight. This guy was a collector.

"Debatable. Speculator Visus! Speculator Visus." Holding very still, I didn't try to contest the spell, which would allow the ginger giant to see my class, stats, and levels. Not a simple brute, despite the way he made the large desk look like it was intended for use by toddlers.

"I can assure you I am intelligent."

"Boy, you jumped three levels since the last time I saw you. Explain."

"S-Sir, last night Dusty and I went hunting undead in the Moulders."

"At my insistence. The kid doesn't have a horde, and I needed to get some XP as well."

"Details of the contract." It was an instruction, not a question.

"I was summoned with the Profligator Paradox—" I held up a bony hand as the Headmaster opened his mouth to respond, "—and I've already explained how Jannibaum's Orthodoxy would have been a more sensible choice. I will be ensuring the kid chooses less insanely dangerous summoning systems in the future."

"Other than the Orthodoxy, what would you suggest?"

"Anagogic Anaphylaxis, or possibly Prenderghast's Protocols."

"What's the difference between them?"

"Anaphylaxis requires better breath control, whereas the Protocols need more expensive materials. They both have a much lower risk of MBTU." Bork and Jester had been glancing back and forth at the rapid-fire exchange, and both their gazes settled on the Headmaster as he considered my words.

"What's MBTU?" Jester asked quietly.

"Mage Blew Themselves Up," the Headmaster replied.

"An archaic abbreviation. It used to go at the end of magical accident reports a hundred years ago. These days, we call it an Oopsie. It's still a far too common end to a promising wizard's career. Your stats are off, summon. Explain." He bent back down behind his desk, and snipping sounds filled the room.

"I'm a hybrid class, and have access to ways to increase my ARM stat without using stat points. I'm an experienced melee combatant and started with a reasonably high magic stat."

"Bloody toe beards… So you reckon you can fight?"

"Yes, Headmaster. I'm willing to serve as an instructor in accordance with section 2. 4. 98, subsection twenty-three, clause F."

"Know the rulebook as well. How do you deal with a misformed homunculi?"

"Ranged attacks to soften, then restrain it and apply a tincture of Albermarle to return it to its component parts."

"Tough little bastards."

"And usually rather angry, sir." He rose again, then lowered himself into his throne-like chair.

"Skrelnachts?"

"Light magic, if no mage or priest with the appropriate skills is available, drag them out of their nest at dawn. Ideally, you should use summons or constructs to prevent them from empowering themselves with their blood magic."

"And the kilgistan?"

"You made that one up, sir."

"Ha. How about a wager?" He poured amber liquid from a decanter into a crystal glass, then took a long sip before placing it back on his desk. The bastard. I fought down my envy.

"It's not even nine in the morning, sir."

"If you get what you want, you'll wish you had a liver as well. A wager?"

"What is the nature of the bet?"

"Beat me in combat." Ungore the Unrepentant Unhungable Level 43 STR 80 AGI 56 MAG 42 ARM 125"Perhaps I could request someone who is more evenly matched?" His stats were completely out of proportion to his level. He ought to have perhaps a hundred total stat points allocated. Whatever else this man was, he was a prodigy of violence. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. His green eyes narrowed, locked on my flickering blue ones.

The red moustaches writhed as he did something I couldn't see with his lips.

"I will limit myself. It'll be a fair fight. Bork, if your summon succeeds, you may consider this a point in your favour. Dusty, if you succeed, you will be assisting me in the some of the melee training classes." I raised a bony finger. I knew where this was going.

"Even if Bork switches to a stabler and more cost-effective method to resummon me, it is an unfair burden to lay on a student. In the event I am destroyed, the Academy will foot the cost to return me to unlife."

"Agreed, on the condition it occurs as part of your duties. I had planned on going easy on you, but if we can break you and not worry about it, that's a plus. It's rare for an undead to start as a lich with a biophylactery."

"I'm not what you'd call a traditional lich. But if Bork repeats the ritual and I'm not… here, I will be called back. The kid isn't a phylactery, I'm just soulbound to him." A bushy eyebrow rose.

"I didn't follow more than half of that," Jester muttered.

"The boy has an excuse," Ungore intoned. Bork stopped nodding in response as the Headmaster spoke and froze like a rabbit in headlights.

"You do not, Monitor. It's rare but not unknown, and you are aware how I feel about ignorance in my staff?"

"I'll spend some more time in the library," Jester said morosely. The giant looked at me and possibly smiled. It was hard to tell with the facial hair, but his eyes twinkled.

"Don't tell me what your abilities are! I want it to be a surprise. You can go all out against me." Ungore stepped around his desk, and all three of us looked down at his feet.

"You don't want to deal with the saffron farm they turned your feet into?" I asked.

"Just a matter of time till the powder wears off. Let's head out to the arena and see what you're made of."

"Mostly calcium, sir," I offered as he led us back to the magical elevator.

"Higgle! You're docked eight points. Get the hell out of my sight. Jester, return him to his class." The child who had been waiting as we entered flinched at the verdict but didn't dare to question the undisputed lord of this place. Having a level in the mid-forties meant the Headmaster was tough. He had a lot of stats that I couldn't easily overcome. I had magic, experience, and tricks, but he had power. He also had magic, as evidenced by his use of a verbal Identify spell. This would not be an easy duel.

He entered the elevator and turned to face me. Due to the rapidly growing hair on his feet, he appeared to be wearing fluffy orange slippers along with his blood red doublet and hose.

"Jester, take young Heffleslump back to class as well." A brief rush of panic ran through me. I needed Bork alive. Mostly. The kid had grown on me, and whatever his destiny might be, I no longer had any desire to see him snuffed out too soon, even if it would mean beer and a steak dinner I could taste.

"You do care. A somewhat willing servant." The Headmaster was annoyingly observant. I didn't have muscles that could twitch to betray my feelings.

"That's a point in your favour. Well done, boy. Off to class with you." The doors closed, and we stood in silence for a moment before they slid back open. When they moved, instead of the opulence of his foyer, sand and burning sun greeted me. The massive warrior strode out and turned to wave me forward. As soon as I stepped through, the doors snapped closed behind me.

I couldn't entirely rule out betrayal at this point; necromancers, their summons and pets were widely despised, but the Headmaster didn't strike me as the type. If he'd wanted to kill me, he could have done it as soon as he saw me.

"Weapon of choice?" he asked, stretching like a big cat, then pausing to shake the sand out of his foot fur.

"Gladius." I shucked off my cloak and pulled my blade from the spine of bone it had been hanging on with my left hand. I turned it side to side in front of me to let him get a good look.

"Stabbing sword. Like a type thirteen. They used to use them to break formations of pikes. Lunatics armed with bucklers and thirteens would roll under the points and cut their way into the formation. An easy way to die, taking that job, but they were brave." He nodded approvingly.

"Bone's no good for weapons."

"It has some advantages for me." He looked me up and down, then a short sword appeared in his left hand. We circled each other as we moved deeper into the arena. The space was perhaps half a mile wide, sheer walls rising to enclose us. Above, a projection of a desert sky glowed brightly. Spatial magic was at play; this area would occupy nearly a quarter of the Academy in the real world.

"A student of Thibault?" I asked. My own sword was held horizontally at waist height, close to my body. My free hand extended before me, twisted slightly so my bone shields were pointed towards the mammoth of a man. His own stance was simpler. He had turned side on and held his sword out at shoulder height, the point aimed at where my throat ought to be. His free hand was curled back and held against the base of his spine. It was a classic fencing pose, not well suited to a short sword.

A trickle of bone dust began slipping out of my pouch and sliding down my leg to mingle with the sand. I waited patiently; my non-existent muscles wouldn't get tired.

"And Capporeira. You have good form, but how will you close the distance?" he asked. He was fatter than I'd thought at first. His doublet flared, hiding the extra weight he carried on his gut. A brief flare of jealousy at the thought of being able to develop a beer belly washed through me.

"Patience. I find that the Blodyn y Frwydr style counters both." I shifted my blade forward slightly, raising the tip so it was aimed at his heart, and moved it further away from my body. Ungore dropped his swordhand to waist level but kept the point aimed at my neck. He stepped smartly to the side, each foot settled before the other moved, and he looked like a flightless bird of prey moving towards a meal. I didn't retreat.

My feet shuffled in the sand, carefully raised with each step so they didn't get bogged down when the time came, and I kept my body aimed at him.

"Never heard of it."

"The Flower of Battle? Fleur de Bataille? It has a lot of names."

"Still nothing." He took another step towards me. Close enough to almost be in range to lunge. Bloody long arms were always a problem, and his stance changed; his back foot slid closer to the heel of his leading leg.

"You've shifted to Ganville's Guard. You do know it."

"No idea what you're talking about." As he said, "about", he made his move. The size and weight advantage counted in his favour, but true to his word, he was limiting the impact of the gap between our stats. The clean lunge was swept aside by the small shield on my right forearm at the same time as my counter moved towards his guts. He used the impact of my block to help shift his core out of range of my attack, backing away and spinning around to bring a hairy foot slamming into my pelvis and knocking me back.

As he settled back into his stance, I moved in.

"Your footwork is good." Grudging respect in his voice.

"Yours is acceptable." He was good, no denying that, but I'd been doing this shit for a long time. The moustache curved, and he struck again. His blade flashed toward my skull, but I'd already bent and twisted away from the line of his attack. The bone dust I'd let seep out into the ground reacted to my thoughts and shifted the sand beneath his back leg, throwing him off balance. Before he could adjust, all six of my shields detached and swept low to knock him down.

He crashed to the floor, throwing up a cloud of sand. As he blinked his eyes clear, the first thing he saw was the point of my sword an inch away from his nose. The shields had taken up a defensive orbit around me.

"Best of three?" I offered.

"I have something to tell you," he said as he stood.

"I'm not left-handed either, dude." The gladius settled in my right palm as we reset.