My Best Friend is an Eldritch Horror - Chapter 242 (Patreon)

“You won’t catch me dead reading one of those things,” Damien replied, shaking his head with a grin.

“They aren’t that bad. A little unrealistic, I suppose, but they’re kind of entertaining.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Sylph punched him on the arm – a light blow for her, but it was still enough to sting slightly. “When we get back from this, I’m cashing in my day where I get to choose what we do.”

“I’ll look forward to it, then,” Damien said. “Do you already have something in mind?”

“That’s a surprise,” Sylph said with a sly grin. “Go get ready. Make sure you’ve got everything you need before you leave.”

“Now that you mention it, I should probably get some more runecrafting materials,” Damien mused. “I’m a little low, and if Quinlan is doing something big, I won’t have enough.”

“I’ve got some shopping to do myself,” Sylph said. “I can’t imagine Kingsfront will be particularly hospitable to a Blackmist student, especially after we crushed them at the tournament.”

“Good luck,” Damien said.

“Likewise.”

The two split off, heading into campus to gather their supplies. Hours passed quickly and the day soon grew to an end. Damien realized that Delph hadn’t actually told them where he’d be, but that turned out to be inconsequential.

A vertical gray line split the air before Damien. He took a step back, gathering Ether from his core as a portal split open and Delph emerged from within it. The professor raised an eyebrow.

“Planning to attack me?”

“Considering it,” Damien replied, lowering his hands but keeping the Ether close to the surface. “I don’t particularly trust you right now.”

“Good,” Delph said. “Trust is weakness. Only the strong can afford it, and you’ve still got a ways to go. Everyone is playing at their own game.”

“Are you really trying to pretend like this was all just to teach me a lesson?”

“Just?” Delph repeated, cocking an eyebrow. “The lesson was just something that happened to come along with the rest of the package. I’m doing everything I can to keep the Mortal Plane as it is, Damien. You’re no different.”

Damien’s lips thinned. “We’ll have to agree to disagree. I don’t lie to my friends.”

“Don’t you?” Delph asked. “Then I’m sure Nolan and Mark know all about where you spent the month after Forsad.”

“That’s different. Knowing about it would actively put them in danger,” Damien defended.

Delph pierced him with a flat stare. Damien’s eyes narrowed and he met the professor’s gaze.

“You’re not going to make me feel guilty, Delph. These are different circumstances. I’ve been fighting against the Corruption for just as long as you. Mark and the others aren’t nearly as involved, and the information I know could get them in trouble with the Mage Colleges too. You nearly got me killed.”

“Keyword is nearly,” Delph said. “You’re my student, Damien. As is Sylph. When you came to me asking for training and I agreed, you knew what you were signing up for. I don’t settle for mediocrity, and ‘barely good enough’ isn’t going to save the Mortal Plane. I’ve made just as many sacrifices as you have.”

“At least you chose to make them yourself.”

“Not all of them,” Delph said grimly. “But you’ve got a backbone now. Good. You’ll survive Mountain Hall.”

“Do you really think I’m in any more danger from then than I am from you?”

“Depends,” Delph said with a mirthless grin. “Am I actually trying to kill you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Good,” Delph said. He snapped his fingers and a portal stretched open at his side. “It’ll keep you on your toes.”

“You are not making me particularly eager to walk through that portal,” Damien drawled. “I don’t suppose there’s another way to get to Mountain Hall?”

“Nope,” Delph said cheerfully. “Auntie is busy, so she won’t be sending you anywhere anytime soon. Of course, if you’ve already got the abilities to portal this far on your own, you’re welcome to do that. If it matters, I’ll promise that this takes you directly to Mountain Hall. I’ve got no reason to waste all the effort we’ve gone through making you. Any death I might give you would be for the greater good.”

What do you think, Henry?

“Huh? Sorry, I’m not really paying attention,” Henry said, sounding distracted. “I’m sorting through all the Void you’ve got floating around in you now. There’s quite a bit, and catching up is taking longer than I thought it would. Delph probably isn’t going to try to kill us for no reason. I’d bear with him for now, but there’ll be a price to pay for what he and Mel did.”

Damien grunted in agreement. He strode forward and entered the portal. Space compressed and he felt himself accelerate, flying through a shimmering gray tunnel and squeezing down into a thin line.

With a snap like a rubber band breaking, the spell spat him out. Damien landed on his feet atop rough stone floor. He instinctively pulled Ether to himself in preparation for an ambush as he took in his surroundings.

The room he’d arrived in was a massive cave, complete with stalactites and stalagmites. Two huge pillars rose up behind him, covered with runes to aide with targeting portal spells. The rest of it was rather plain, with the only decoration being some faint rune work that lit a path that led out of the large room in dim yellow.

A brown and yellow robed student stood at the exit of the cave, watching Damien with a guarded expression. The boy looked a little older than Damien, but his uncomfortable stance revealed that he likely wasn’t very powerful.

“Is this Mountain Hall?” Damien asked.

“What’s it look like?” the boy asked.

“A cave. Do you have any idea how many caves I’ve gotten teleported into?” Damien asked.

“Yes, it’s Mountain Hall,” the boy said, shaking his head. “I’m Billy, a Year Three. Why is it that a Year Two is doing a school swap?”

“Personal reasons,” Damien said, starting to grow annoyed at the other boy’s attitude. “I kept breaking the Dean’s toys, so she got rid of me for a little while. Is there somewhere I’m meant to go to report that I’ve arrived?”

Billy nodded reluctantly. “I’ll take you there. My professor will be supervising you, so I’m meant to be your guide for the duration of your stay.”

He turned and strode out of the cave. Instead of running to catch up, Damien just teleported to fall in step slightly behind Billy. The other boy flinched, but he managed to repress his startled curse before it escaped his lips.

They walked for a few minutes. The path sloped down, deeper into the mountain before twisting out and widening into an open-air plateau. Billy and Damien walked up to the edge.

Mountain Hall stretched out below them. Huge stone buildings, all connected by arching walkways and paths, stretched out below them. The school was nestled in the center of an enormous valley ringed by jagged mountains, one of which they currently stood on.

Like the cave, the school wasn’t decorated. While the carving of the stone was exceptional, it was mostly drab. Aside from a few green splotches from sparsely scattered trees around the campus, it was almost all the same color.

The only exception was a short mountain at the back of the school, which had glowing red runes covering it. A faint line of black smoke rose up from its tip, but it was too far for Damien to make out anything in detail.

“This way,” Billy said, walking over to a small translucent portal that had been erected at the edge of the plateau. “There’s a short range portal that will take us to the arena, where my professor is waiting.”

He walked through the portal without waiting for Damien to respond.

“What is it with these damn schools and having professors meet students at arenas?” Damien griped, following Billy through. There was a small pop, and he found himself standing in sand.

Mountain Hall’s arena was identical to Blackmist’s in all but appearance. The size and shape were indistinguishable. If the walls had been obsidian and purple, he would have thought he’d been sent back to his original school.

Several students stood in a semi-circle before where he’d appeared. Most of them looked to be third years, and Billy had joined their ranks. There was no sign of anyone old enough to be a professor.

“Where’s the person I’m meant to meet?” Damien asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Or am I meant to find him? They did something similar at Blackmist, but I thought that was just something for Year Ones.”

“You’ll find him eventually,” one of the larger boys said. “But we’ve got something to take care of first.”

“You’ve got some balls on you,” a beautiful, tattooed girl said, glaring at him. “Coming here when we all know you had something to do with Bartholomew and Drew’s deaths. You’ve got strong defenders in Blackmist that stopped Quinlan from dealing with you, but now that you’re here…”

“We’ll deal out our own justice,” another boy finished, cracking his knuckles as fire started to flicker along his skin.

Damien snorted. “Seriously? Are you schoolyard buillies? Drew and Bartholomew got themselves killed. It’s got nothing to do with me. I swept the floor with Drew when we fought in the tournament. If I beat him, what makes you think you can beat me?”

“He was a Year Two, and there was just one of him,” the first boy said. Ice stretched out from her fingertips, forming into claws. “There are six of us.”

Damien’s fingers twitched. The Void crept into his mind and the staff pressed itself into his palm, begging him to use it. His hand was wrapped around the cold wood before he could stop himself.

For an instant, gray washed over the world and Damien’s emotions muted. He gritted his teeth and forced his hand to let go of the staff. Color returned to normal just in time for Damien to see a flaming fist flying toward his head.

He reacted instinctively, ducking to avoid the strike and driving his fist into the attacking boy’s shoulder. As soon as Damien’s hand connected, he fired a miniature tear from his palm. Blood sprayed and the boy screamed, staggering back.

One of his friends ran up to him, golden light filling the arena as he healed the almost-invisible cut.

“You brought a healer?” Damien asked, his lips quirking up.

“Just to make sure we can really make sure you understand what happens to people that cross Mountain Hall,” the girl said, baring her teeth in a feral smirk. They circled him, each bringing their Ether out in a spell as they closed in.

“I only count five of you,” Damien said abruptly.

The girl blinked, pausing for a moment. “Then you’re a moron. There are clearly–”

Damien teleported, appearing directly in front of the girl and driving his fist into her throat. To her credit, ice erupted between her skin and his fist, blocking the majority of the strike. It was an incredibly fast reaction that would have bought her a few seconds against any other student.

Damien bared his own teeth and cast Gravity Sphere. He kept it small and shifted his hand down just slightly so it detonated at her left shoulder instead of her neck. There was a gruesome symphony of cracks and she screamed in pain.

The fire magic boy lunged at Damien, rearing back to punch him. Damien spun the girl around, catching the strike with her stomach. She cried out again and Damien flicked his hand, grabbing the kid’s clothes and launching him into the air with telekinesis.

He cast enlarge on the ground beneath his feet, firing three spikes into the closest students. Two of them blocked the attack, but the last hit Billy, shooting up through his foot and eliciting a yelp.

“Keep attacking and she might bleed out,” Damien said, yanking his captive upright by her hair. She whimpered in pain. “Are you seriously Year Threes? That was one of the most pathetic attacks I’ve ever seen.”

“Let her go,” the healer growled, taking a step toward them.

Damien formed a Gravity Sphere in his other hand and moved it next to the girls’ unbroken arm. “Come closer. See what happens.”

There was a crunch behind Damien as the boy he’d thrown plummeted back down, smashing into the sand. He groaned in pain but didn’t move.

“He’s a monster,” Billy muttered.

“You’re the idiots that tried to attack me,” Damien said, shaking his head. He spotted one of them trying to edge out of his vision, but Henry acted before he could. A tendril shot out from his Mage Armor, grabbing the kid by the leg and whipping him into the wall.

“Oops. That sounded painful,” Damien said dryly. “Anyone else want to try something?”

Everyone who wasn’t already crippled raised their hands defensively and backed up.

“You’ve made your point,” Billy stammered. “We won’t bother you anymore.”

“Gee. How magnanimous of you. I’m honored.”

“Can I take care of their wounds?” the healer asked nervously. “Some of them look pretty bad. They could get permanently hurt if I don’t do something.”

“Well, considering you were planning on offering me the same service, I don’t see why not. I’m not trying to kill you idiots,” Damien said with a shrug.

The healer rushed over to the fallen fire mage and took care of the worst of his injuries before scrambling to take care of the boy that Henry had thrown into a wall. He approached Damien slowly, reaching out to heal the girl as well.

Damien watched him with sharp eyes. The girl’s bones snapped back into place and she drew in a jagged gasp. Ice shot from her shoulder as an incredibly fast blade flicked out for Damien’s chest.

The world went gray. As the Void rushed into Damien, begging him to use it, one of Henry’s cloak tentacles whipped out and stopped the spell. Still enveloped by the gray, Damien grabbed the girl’s wrist and twisted his body, slamming her into the floor.

He drove a foot into her back, using telekinesis on his own shoe to bring it down harder. Blood sprayed from her mouth as he reopened wounds that the healer hadn’t had a chance to repair yet.

“Wrong move,” Damien said, keeping her pressed into the ground. The gray trickled back into the background and he pressed his lips together. “And now you’re not getting healed.”

“What? But…”

“She’s not about to die, is she?” Damien asked. “She’s a Year Three, so her body should be strong enough to withstand most physical blows. You already patched most of the injuries, didn’t you?”

“The worst ones, but–”

“Worse than the wound she would have given me if that ice spear hit?” Damien asked. “Answer that carefully.”

The healer swallowed. “No.”

“Then please feel free to excuse yourself. All of you. And, Billy? Find that Planes damned professor.”