Ruinous Return

Lyn sparred for several minutes with Gael, not using any internal spells, just testing her combat capabilities in this new form. Thankfully, somehow, when she was banished and reverse-summoned herself back to Ghomar, the muscle memory came along. Wielding weaponry was like second nature to her. The spear in particular. She kept Gael on the defensive the whole time, and even had two other warriors join in an assault against her. She was able to maintain her edge and hold them all back, but she felt her legs quaking from the exertion, and waved for them to stop. She dropped to a knee and breathed heavily. Mana channels still recovering. Fuck. I'm going to be sore tomorrow. She was correct in her earlier assessment of her body's state. If not for the internal spells supporting her physique, she would have collapsed.

"We're done with the sparring for today," Lyn muttered.

Gael nodded, "Yes, my Lady."

I need to test out other external spell types. Lyn used the spear to push herself up and walked to the external spell training area. Over the next ten minutes, she tried a variety of external spells. First, she performed simple blasts with each elementalism sub-type, except for lava and air.

The rest of the elements did not respond, and the spells did not take effect. That irked her. Being able to use multiple elements – even as simple as a small puddle from the water elementalism– was a drastic game-changer for versatility. She looked at Gael, "Is your mana sufficient enough for external spells?"

He smiled slightly, his demeanor shifting for the first time from sheepishness to pride. "I'm only capable of water elementalism."

"Really?"

Gael nodded, "My sister and I were nicknamed the water twins."

She recalled when the heroes were freshly summoned, maybe a week since they got their hero cores, and were practicing in one of the castle courtyards of Kor's Hold. She remembered failing to use fire elementalism and healing external spells. She had approached Thomas and Misty, and the two came up with an odd explanation. "For some reason, the Heroes are limited – except us two, Knowledge and Mage. The rest of you will have to get more spell types by consuming dungeon or monster cores."

"What about other people?" Lyn had asked. I saw kids in the market square tossing water and wind balls at each other."

"Well," Misty began, "Everyone on Ghomar can use internal spells, and mana charge a tool – normally a weapon. They can also use every type of external spell…the issue is that their mana cores are, for the most part, weak. Especially compared to us. Those kids were probably using all their mana for a single, tiny water spell."

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Thomas nodded and added, "External spell types generally have a much larger mana cost. So, if they don't have enough mana, they can't even use the spell type despite having access to it…unlike most of you. A few are born with some type of…genetic trait that reduces the mana cost of an external spell type. But it's like a rare mutation. The mutation is most common for the healing external spell type…but even then it can't be more than a few percent of the population."

Lyn returned to the present, nodded at Gael, and turned back to the testing range. Time to try out more. This is going to take a while. Thankfully, she could drain the mana out of the amulet around her neck, and the Destroyer mana core was so potent that she could cast spells for days on end if she had a mind to. I don't think I'll ever run out in a fight unless shit goes sideways before hitting the fan.

She spent a good thirty minutes cycling through the various external spell types. Lava and wind elementalism came to her naturally, as if they were second nature. The former was easy to manipulate, and the latter would require training…but the feeling was similar to when she had approached her two friends. If she wanted to use more spell types, she'd have to find cores.

Continuing her various incantations, she spotted several Duskari chatting around her, hearing their whispers clearly with her improved hearing.

"Making custom spells? That's risky, right?"

"Yeah, that's why we stick to memorized verses. She's dangerous."

"I heard that she doesn't have her memory."

"She doesn't look like she could kill an army."

"I wouldn't mind sneaking into her chambers if she'd have me."

Lyn turned to the one that commented on her appearance not being suited to destroying foes. "You! Approach."

The man who had said that came to attention before slowly approaching. She could tell that he was scared, the same look in the eyes of the heroes that had abandoned her. "Y-Yes…my Lady?"

"Repeat what you said. To my face." She stared slightly up at him.

"I…Um…"

"Say. It. To. My. Face." She made sure that every word was filled with as much malice she could muster, and she heard her voice drop to that draconic guttural tone.

The sweat began to bead upon the man's forehead, "That you don't look like you could kill an army."

Lyn held her arm to the side – down range. She spouted off a series of words at a pace that would rival some of the fastest rappers back on Earth. Years of practicing rapid incantations, to demonstrate the sheer difference of mastery to the other heroes. "En aníra le / anor hên / arost a nartho / erin ethraid uin angol / losto a gadar / I thand an-uir nin ganuin / a then thalion nin / an hain i thia." She felt the mana roil within her – more than it had ever done – and she fully loosened her mana channel. It surged along her arm with a pleasant heat, as if eager to destroy as she had commanded. To devour and consume the far end of the cavern as incanted in Elenthir. The lava exploded from her hand in a cone. As if a floodgate was opened and a dam let its water loose. The whole room lit up and immediately all but Lyn began to sweat profusely.

Gael used a water spell – perhaps instinctively – to cover himself in a shell to protect from the worst of the heat. The rest of the Duskari ran to the back of the cavern – save the one that Lyn had commanded approach. He was rooted to the spot, staring in fear and awe, as a torrent of lava consumed the whole spell range, splashed against the far wall, and then sat, bubbling. He gulped and began to stutter, "F-f-forgive m-me."

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Lyn looked at him, feeling very calm and relaxed as her mana core was almost empty from the enormous blast. She felt it slowly bubbling, refilling once more, and tapped her foot to keep a time count. "Dismissed," she muttered to the one on the ground. "All of you!" she shouted, as the room cleared out. "Except you, Gael."

The Duskari spearman nodded, "Would you like me to cool this patch?" he asked, in awe and slightly bewildered as the whole football-field sized space in front of them was a blazing hellscape of molten rock that glowed with fury.

"Yes. I have more testing to do," Lyn replied. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. She kept count with her tapping foot. Gael incanted several times, over and over, a simple water production spell. Over the course of ten minutes, he was exhausted and had used up all of his mana. Lyn felt her mana core bubbling over again, and she had to divert the power into the amulet. Ten minutes to fully recharge my mana. That was…awesome! She had so much magical power at her fingertips. So much potential to what she could do.

…If she had the other spell types. She raised her hand towards the still bubbling patch and continued a litany of spells. After thorough testing over the course of an hour, she determined that she had access to no other spell types save for internal spells, wind, and lava elementalism.

But there's one more thing I want to try, she thought as she recalled the words of Lawrence, the Shifter hero. The memory was vivid – the first time they had conquered a Dungeon as a group. Lawrence had a special ability granted by his mana core that allowed him to take on shapes of creatures he ate. "Just remember," he said as his body shifted and morphed, his voice distorting to a deep baritone. "Anyone can shapeshift. Hybrid forms are less risky, and you can stay one for longer." His body shifted and finished morphing into that of a car-sized tiger. "Unless you're me – fully shifting is risky. You might get stuck that way unless another person uses a spell to fix you."

Lyn took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Carefully word it. "En aníra le / thalion min / ananno nin i barad o amarth-drakon / sui I maethor bo nin úath / bartho nin uin del / anno nin madhras a nagrann / erin ennas."

She looked down and sighed as the spell fizzled, the mana remaining within her body. For now…shifting is out of the question. The spell was intended to cover her body with dragon scales and give her claws, trying to see if any trace of the Demonic Dragon's mana core was subsumed like her Scout hero core was.

In her last summoning, she had not been able to shift very well – it was the most mana intensive of the internal spells, and it required a level of refinement and concentration she couldn't muster up. But she had seen the hybrid transformations that some of her allies could pull off, like Ben taking on aspects of a turtle to boost his defensive capabilities. She chuckled, recalling the jokes they shared about shifting just certain body parts instead of hybrid or full shift spells. "I'm done testing for the day. I want to return to my chambers."

Gael nodded and led the way back through the complex. Lyn had already mapped it mentally thanks to the Scout hero core. Looking at his broad, muscular back she suppressed a grin and kept a stern demeanor.

The large tower went completely silent. A solitary vantage point that looked out upon the whole of the ruins of Elent. Not even the chittering of bugs and the chirps of birds permeated the artificial silence.

In the top of the tower, Thomas Harrow – the Knowledge hero – was digging through dozens of books and scrolls, tossing them aside as he tried to find a single sheet of parchment. "Where is it?" he muttered frantically as he felt his mana core pulsing in his chest. The pulsing rose and fell like the crests and troughs of waves upon the seas. A notification that something had been triggered. "Ah!" Pulling the tome from the shelf, he set it on the nearby table and began to flip through it. He pulled his large, wooden, padded chair up and pored over the pages.

The passage was clear, and Thomas whispered it aloud to himself – a habit he had picked up from academic competitions to help cement memories – not that he needed to anymore. He remembered everything that he saw, read, or heard. "In the age where the heroes vanquish the Destroyer, whatever form it may have taken, a new vessel will rise. Thus, the cycle will continue endlessly, until all are combined." He closed his eyes and rifled through his encyclopedic memory, going back to the day that the heroes had assaulted the dread fortress, ten years ago.

He remembered the aftermath they had witnessed. The Demonic Dragon's body was missing its head, and they found plentiful brain matter indicating to him that it had exploded. Misty's spell to look into the past in a localized area confirmed what he had theorized – Lyn's spear had stabbed into the creature's eye and released a burst of wind magic. Excellent use of physics, he thought as he played back the conversation the heroes had after they heard the mighty explosion.

"What do you mean we can't find her body?" Misty had said in between tears. "She fell right there!" she said, pointing to a pool of blood, an empty suit of light armor, the artifact spear, and a few other magical items that Lyn carried on her person.

"Calm down!" James, their de-facto leader had yelled at her as she cowed into submission. "She's gone. We have to decide, right now, how we're dealing with this." He looked to the rest of the nine heroes. "I say we take credit."

"I agree," Cecily replied with a voice that barely contained a hidden glee at the death of someone she despised. "There's no point giving her the credit. She's not here to benefit. Just a simple ceremony."

From then it devolved into squabbling arguments, but ultimately, James and Cecily won out. The story would be that the heroes had fought the Demonic Dragon together, Lyn fell in combat, and James struck the killing blow. They would have Kory stick around, continuing to kill the various servants of the villain that remained, and ensure no one entered the dread fortress. Because if someone else did the same spell Misty did…they'd find the truth. Kory was all for the plan, having become addicted to the bloodshed and violence.

And the heroes went their separate ways. Rarely, if ever, speaking to each other. Thomas was the exception, however. He made sure to keep in touch with every single hero on a consistent basis. He knew that he could, if needed, get in touch with each of them. Call a council if necessity required.

Thomas sighed and pushed the book away, putting his head into his hands. A new vessel will rise…that definitely explained the inscription that was triggered. He had placed several inscriptions around the dread fortress and in the mountain pass that led to and from the mighty edifice. When lava elementalism spells were used in that area, the contingent spell would activate, and his mana core would flow in response.

There was no doubt in his mind. The Destroyer had returned. Demonic Dragon, or Raevan, or some other, new form of it. He took in a deep breath and grabbed his trusty flask, taking a sip of the endless container of whiskey before grimacing as the burn scorched his throat. I have to be sure. I can't call on the others without proof. Not after what happened. He stood up, grabbed his pack, and left the tower – sealing it behind him with a powerful inscription.

Until all are combined. He rolled that phrase over his head as he whistled for his mount. A trained wyvern that was his one constant companion. The elephant-sized, winged creature flapped down from the top of the tower, landing next to him with a massive thud before nuzzling his arm. He pet the snout and scratched the eye ridge. "What do you think it could mean, Hector?" The creature let out a mix between a whine and a growl. "Oh, you just want attention! Dontcha boy!" Thomas chuckled as he mounted Hector's back, lodging himself between the spines just behind the wing joints as he scratched the scales right behind the eye ridge. "I'll give you a good scrub down later. Come on boy. We've got a long way to go."

The wyvern took off, flapping its wings mightily as they ascended through the skies.