From the bottom of my heart, thank you to my p4tr0ns: Morpheaus, and RTB <3 <3 <3 Become a p4tr0n too and read up to FOUR chapters ahead!:
h t t p s : / / w w w . p a t r e o n . c o m / t r a s h w I t h g l a s s e s
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The village had spent the whole day tending their wounded and mourning their deceased in their own manners and transforming the dead enemies into corpses to be controlled. They also sent people to cut out ice blocks from somewhere beyond the crater, and rebuild their destroyed homes.
We spent the whole day helping the villagers, though Blizz was too exhausted and had to stay behind in her house to rest. During the night, the villagers put up some patrols around, though the fraternity was too tired to help with that: we rested during the night.
Or at least, most of us did.
Once more, my ears perked up, and I noticed movement inside the dark ice house. I opened my eyes just enough to see a spiky figure getting up, and delicately walking towards the exit. I waited until she was far enough that she wouldn't notice me before I started following her.
The thorn lady made it through the guards of the crater with ease, and then slid down the slope controlled. She walked through a forest guided solely by the northern lights, and then she got to a plain of snow. Far in the distance, there were lights burning, an encampment or village. Only then, when I understood where she was going, I revealed myself to her.
"This is far enough if you just wanted to use the toilet, isn't it?", I got up from the snow-covered ground and shouted.
"Oh? I didn't even notice you there. You better at sneaking than expected…" Visk Cera pointed, turning around. "Is there something else you've been hiding from me?"
I ignored her question.
"What are you planning to do going this way?"
"I'll eliminate all the enemies of Blizz's village."
"That seems like a straightforward solution", I could see the logic behind her decision. That wasn't why I stopped her, however. "Why will you do that?"
"You've heard about them as much as I did. A collective of tribes uniting themselves and sharing and gathering magical and technological knowledge… Doing the Bear Mountain's role. That is inadmissible."
…I knew it. I had known from the beginning, I just didn't want to see that becoming true.
Slowly walking closer to my geography teacher, I asked: "Wouldn't the Council Members say that sharing knowledge is everyone's duty?"
"Some of them would. Some of them never had the experience of exploring the sea."
"Tell me, teacher Visk Cera, how did you get banned from the sea again?"
"I finished one of my jobs as an adventurer, crushing revolting mob to the last one of them. I never imagined the sons and daughters of the protesters would grow up and join forces with another two shamans just to seal me away from the ocean. Truly a tragic story."
"Sounds tragic to the kids whose parents you slaughtered."
"Sacrifices I was willing to make for my own sake. I had so much to explore… I had so much to grow!", she opened her spiky arms wide, and I stopped right before her.
"Are you with the Moon Mirror Order?"
"Yes."
"Then we are enemies", I said, raising my arm, pointing my palm to Visk Cera and-
"No, we are not", the thorn lady replied, immediately conjuring a red spike that passed through my jaw and cranium, killing me instantly. "You're not even close to the level for me to consider you an enemy."
A flesh of light later, and I opened my eyes, broke the spike, and pulled it off my skull as black smoke regenerated all of my brain and bones. I pointed my palm towards the geography teacher again and conjured an explosion point blank.
"Oh, how interesting, I was sure you I killed you just now", Visk Cera commented, having pushed herself away from my explosion with her conjured spikes. "Is there a trick to it?", she asked, and at the same time that I conjured a shower of burning oil over the woman, she conjured a whole forest of spikes around me.
I danced around the red spikes, but more and more of them kept sprouting from the ground, and even with my supernatural reflexes, it was getting harder and harder to find a place safe to step where there were no spikes growing. I planned to surprise her with my explosion magic, but it seemed Visck Cera had never underestimated me, and the plan failed, and then I was being assaulted by so many spells that I didn't even have the opportunity to retaliate; I had to step away from her, and use my long-range advantage.
I jumped backward, hoping to evade the attacks of my geography teacher, but to my surprise. The woman jumped forward, moving seamlessly through her own forest of spikes, and not allowing me to get out of her range. Before I could react, "Slash!", another spike pierced straight through my heart. I felt lacerating pain, my vision went dark…
Then I opened my eyes again, feeling my bones trying to regenerate only to get broken again, and my heart trying to beat even though a red spike was nailed into it; the pain was excruciating, but I had to free myself from that thorn, so I pulled my body off the impaling red pole, and saw the hole in my chest getting filled with black smoke.
"I see. Whenever you die, one of your tattoos changes, and you regenerate yourself. Marvelous, I must make you tell me the secret for that spell. Then I must murder you."
"Do you think you can?", I cleaned the blood I vomited with the back of my palm.
"I just need to kill you seventy-three more times."
"I guess you're right… except you're missing one detail", I got up from my knees, as the thorn lady kept me just in her range, but didn't give one step closer. "Each time I come back stronger!", without moving, I conjured explosions all around me, in the entirety of my range.
A sphere of twenty-three meters in diameter filled with explosions rocked the whole plain sending a shock wave in all directions, scattering the snow below my feet to reveal that we stood above a frozen strip of ocean, which now stood full of cracks all over it.
Once the smoke vanished as I stopped my spell, I saw a ball like a rose of spikes moving its thorns to reveal just a Visk Cera without an arm and a leg supporting her body on her remaining knee and hand. She started to conjure spikes to replace her lost members, but it was too late already. There was enough blood and bits around.
"I thought I had been cautious… Have you been this much power…?", Visck Cera Asked, struggling to get back up with her newly replaced limbs.
"No. I've been fighting against it", I pointed to my geography teacher's amputated arm and leg, and started to spell that would end her: "First…", before I could finish it however, as the blood and flesh were gathering in a ball in the air, the ice bellow us cracked even further, and then, finally, collapsed.
I lost control over my most powerful spell, and the blood and gore fell down on the water as I conjured a shield and an explosion beneath me to keep me away from the freezing cold waters, and I was about to curse, but then I saw it: Visck Cera's curse in action.
"Aaaargh!", the thorn lady screamed as her body convulsed, and the water around her evaporated; electricity ran up and down her body, and fried her alive. With her muscles tensing up, she shrunk and sunk down into the ocean even more, and the waters lit up with electrical arcs, bubbles coming to the surface from the frying body, until, suddenly, there was none left. Visck Cera disappeared in the dark waters, and her curse finally ended.
I was left alone again, this time in the frozen ocean under the northern lights. I had murdered my favorite teacher. And with news to tell the council members and the fraternity.