The Storm King

Some distance was made between Leon’s party and the Stormborn Oak—he didn’t know just what hitting the thing with purple lightning meant to create thunder wood might do, so caution was warranted. With Sasan right there, though, he didn’t think there would be much in the way of danger.

With some space and even a stone wall conjured by the giant in Leon’s party to protect them, Leon and Sasan, still standing on Sasan’s pavilion, looked at each other, nodded, and put their plan into motion.

Leon laid his spell on the table and activated it, using his power to direct the spell’s effect to the Stormborn Oak. At the same time, Sasan used his prodigious power to take more manual control over his large-scale enchantment surrounding the clearing.

As soon as the spell’s magic touched the Stormborn Oak, purple lightning flashed upwards, starting from its roots. The red lightning flashing amongst the upper branches intensified, meeting the purple lightning about halfway up the tree’s trunk, clashing in loud, powerful explosions that bathed the tree in more lightning.

Leon was a bit surprised; his purple lightning usually originated from the sky, not the ground. He couldn’t sense anything wrong with the spell, however, so he widened his awareness to more closely monitor the magic Sasan was working with.

A quick inspection was all he needed; he turned to the fifteenth-tier mage and said, his voice nearly lost amidst the booming thunder, “This will work better if the purple lightning comes from above, not below!”

Sasan frowned slightly, then his aura fluctuated minutely, and the lightning in the sky went from solely red to a mix of red and purple. The bolts still clashed, though this time it was among the branches rather than further down the trunk.

‘Still needs some adjustment,’ Leon thought, not thinking that the red and purple lightning should be interfering with each other as they were. Were it the Blood-Thunder Jaguar’s lightning, such interference would be more in line with expectations, but not the more nourishing sort of lightning that seemed to fall within Redspark Forest.

Working on the fly, he halted the flow of power into the spell for a moment, gratified to see that his skill had improved enough that the spell was still usable even after several seconds of extended use. His hands blurred across the page, making small modifications over several parts of the complex enchantment. Sasan watched him the whole time, but he didn’t say anything and kept a firm hold over his own clearing-wide enchantment.

Leon was finished in less than two seconds, and he returned to powering the enchantment.

This time, to his immense gratification, red and purple lightning started arcing amidst the boughs of the Stormborn Oak in greater harmony, only rarely clashing with each other. He supposed he could make greater refinements to his spell, but he could feel a building charge in the air that led him to believe that whatever Sasan was doing was working anyway, and the only need for the spell to be perfect was his perfectionism.

Throughout all of this, even when the lightning clashed as a matter of course rather than one or two bolts out of every hundred, the Stormborn Oak drank greedily of the violent energy. Every spark of lightning was eventually absorbed into the tree, providing the same sustenance for it as the lightning did for the rest of the forest.

And through it all, Leon could feel the charge continuing to build. This charge seemed to be concentrating at a point in the crook of the first bough as it split from the trunk, collecting like sap as it turned to amber. Sasan watched that point like a hawk, his unblinking eyes not wavering even as more and more lightning started flashing around this point.

Over time, the lightning grew more intense and frequent, the accompanying thunder starting to shake the earth—or perhaps that was the roots of the tree, vibrating in celebration as the explosively violent magic flashed and roared around the tree, transferring its energy down through the trunk and below the earth.

Leon kept his magic senses projected. He could feel the currents of magic as they whirled around the tree, seeming chaotic at a casual glance, but ordered and predictable after enough inspection. He could feel the strands of magic that Sasan was ‘plucking’, controlling the ancient runes that were a part of his enchantment as a musician would play the harp. The melody was incredible to witness, and when the raging storm of magic suddenly ceased, Leon couldn’t help but feel some amount of disappointment.

With the sudden cessation of the magic in Sasan’s enchantment, Leon’s purple lightning completely ceased, while the red lightning endemic to the Redspark Forest returned to normal. A light shone where the magic of the tree and all of that lightning had concentrated, however, drawing the eye, glinting noticeably even as the shaking branches returned to normal and their black, spatial magic facsimiles of leaves settled between Leon and the thing that had been brought into existence.

Sasan shot forward, Leon following only a moment later. Through the branches they raced, Sasan easily reaching the glowing point first.

Leon found the man standing upon the enormous bough, a look of muted reverence upon his face as he beheld what his enchantment had created. A sphere of intense lightning magic, a concentration of power beyond anything Leon had ever felt before, hovering in the air just off the bark. It was bright as an origin spark, yet its power was gentle and docile, in complete contrast to all that Leon knew of lightning. He couldn’t even feel any heat rolling off of the sphere.

“Such a small thing…” Sasan whispered as he reached out and took the sphere in hand. He held it close, resting in his palm like a glass bead as he examined it further. “It is always the smallest things upon which the universe turns…”

“What is that thing?” Leon asked, his question pulling Sasan out of whatever world his mind had gone to for that moment.

Smoothly, Sasan answered, “A confluence of magic. I… hesitate to explain any more.” He tightened his grip on this ‘confluence’, pulling it into his soul realm and removing it from Leon’s view. In its absence, the magic in the environment fully returned to normal—or what passed for normal in the Redspark Forest.

“I hope I didn’t just help a villain create a superweapon,” Leon replied only half-jokingly.

“No,” Sasan hurriedly said with a wave of his hand. “Confluences are not weapons, rest assured of that. However, what you have aided me in procuring is valuable, and that requires compensation.” He went quiet for a moment in thought, and Leon was quick to offer his opinion on what that something could be.

“My city requires aid,” he said. “If you can do anything to help us, we would be immensely grateful.”

“Of course, of course,” Sasan said. “I cannot act on my own, naturally, without drawing the Storm Lands into greater conflict. However, I can point you to something that will be more immediately helpful—it lies to the northwest, upon a tall mountain that few are able to climb to the summit. A lance, impaled upon the rocky peak. Its power is mighty—enough, I believe, to save your city if you are able to wield it to its truest extent.”

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“You speak of Kavad’s Lance?” Leon asked.

“I do,” Sasan confirmed. “A weapon that has grown into being something much more profound thanks to the strength and valor of the one it was made for. Kavad, a son of Khosrow, who wished for nothing more than to deliver mankind from the hands of the Primal beings who terrorized them, who lorded their power over humanity.

“It’s a relic of a greater time, a nobler time, a time of great conflict and greater heroes. It was a time when mankind was brutalized by those who thought themselves our betters, but a time of great honor and sacrifice. A time when mankind was united in purpose, and when our strength had reached its zenith. Those days are long over, the strength of humanity now a pale shadow of what it was in those days. But Kavad’s Lance is a bright recollection of that time, and not even a Despot can stand against it, if wielded correctly.

“You, Leon of House Raime, have proven to me that you are a man of certain virtue; you have shown compassion and insight I would not have expected of a man in your situation.”

Leon smiled in embarrassment but didn’t interrupt Sasan in his spiel, his heart hammering in his chest as he sensed that the old, powerful mage was getting to his main point.

“Ascending the mountain named after Kavad’s Lance is no easy feat, but one I’m sure you are more than capable of. Be that as it may, I can help you, by providing you with this.”

With a wave of his hand, a thick roll of paper as long as he was tall appeared in Sasan’s hand.

“Take this. It will make the ascent easier.”

Leon accepted the roll of paper gratefully. “It’ll show a way up the mountain?”

“In effect,” Sasan said. “It’s the most complete map of the mountain system that surrounds Kavad’s Lance that exists. I know because I made it myself. Should you have no other way up the mountain, refer to this map.”

“I thought the Lance was a single mountain divorced from any mountain range?”

“It is an enormous pillar, standing alone between a great plain and the sea. However, the power of the Lance causes thousands of other landmasses to float around it, like an earthy halo. Wind and mist spill from the mountain in a great curtain, preventing anyone from getting their bearings, similar to the storm walls that the Storm Lords use to protect their castles and palaces. This map only shows what is around the Lance; you’ll have to plan out your own way through.”

“Thank you,” Leon said gratefully. Though it wasn’t quite what he wanted, if Sasan said that Kavad’s Lance could help him, then Leon believed him. He didn’t have much reason not to, as it was.

Still, there was a hint of disappointment within him that the Stormborn Oak didn’t seem to have anything he could use to—

That thought didn’t have time to finish in his mind before he was hit in the head by a falling branch, snapped cleanly off the tree from somewhere far above.

It hurt more than he expected, and he nearly buckled.

“What the fuck…” he whispered by instinct as the fallen branch bounced several times on the wide bough but halted at his feet.

“Ha! It appears this great tree appreciated the meal you provided, Leon, and has given you something special!” Sasan exclaimed with considerable amusement.

As Leon rubbed his head with a mild frown, he took a closer look at the branch before him.

It was long and rather slender, indicating it was a fresh branch from high up the tree. It had to have fallen a long way to reach him, given the thickness of the other branches around him and Sasan—he and the fifteenth-tier mage stood upon a bough as wide as a six-lane road, and the branches coming off of it were as thick as a one or two-lane road.

No leaves remained at the end of the branch, but the bark still shone just as brilliantly as the rest of the tree did, and Leon could sense a considerable amount of power within it. What drew his attention even more, however, was a silvery acorn still stubbornly clinging to the branch where the black leaves hadn’t. It appeared to almost be made of solid light, though not in the way that Leon had seen light mages ‘solidify’ their power; rather, this was something natural, more in tune with nature and the power that flowed around it rather than an expression of a mage’s power forcing its way through the ambient magic.

Leon reached down and reverently picked up the branch, a smile spreading across his face as his skin came into contact with the smooth, glowing white bark. He had never sensed such power within a tree branch before, not even in the most potent and highest-quality thunder wood he and Tikos could make.

And the seed… If the Stormborn Oak was doing as he suspected and using the spatial magic in its leaves to seek out other sources of unique lightning, then that could mean that its descendent tree could do the same. If Leon could plant and grow this acorn into a new Stormborn Oak, then he could benefit greatly from it.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Assuming, of course, that he would ever have the opportunity—with Terris, and potentially other Ocean Lords if he were to defeat the Despot, bearing down on him, long-term planning was a luxury that he didn’t necessarily have.

Still, his smile deepened as he pulled the branch and the attached seed into his soul realm. Even if the seed couldn’t do anything for him, at least he could make a bow out of the branch.

“It seems we’ve both benefitted from this tree,” Leon stated.

“It seems we have,” Sasan agreed, punctuating his statement with a loud bark-like laugh. “Now, let’s head back to the others; I’m sure they’re eager to hear from their King how all of this went.”

Leon nodded in agreement and followed Sasan back down to the pavilion. They waved over Leon’s party, and as they returned to the pavilion, Sasan, in an impressive display of control over his power, returned the petrified trees to a living state. Leon did a double-take as he tracked Sasan’s power and realized what he was doing, especially as the trees returned to wood and bark where they had only moments before been stone, and all of the runes inscribed upon them vanished. The clearing returned to a primordial state, only the pavilion acting as evidence for Sasan’s visit as far as Leon could tell.

They remained for a few hours more, resting and celebrating reaching the tree and all they had done. Sasan laughed and joked with Leon’s party without restraint, showing not a whit of the kind of arrogance that Leon would’ve expected from a man of his power. He couldn’t help but like Sasan, not the least for providing him with some level amount of aid, small though it was, in his current predicament.

Kavad’s Lance sounded enticing, to say the least.

As the Origin Spark far above dimmed into night, Sasan finally said to Leon, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Leon. You are a champion of mankind, and I hope, a friend of mine.”

“I wouldn’t mind thinking of myself in that way,” Leon said jokingly. “In all seriousness, you will be welcome in Artorion, should you ever wish to visit, Sasan.”

“I may do just that one day,” Sasan responded. “I think I shall wait some time so that your people don’t have to scramble to provide some level of hospitality.”

“Hey, you could always come with me right now,” Leon unseriously suggested.

“I can’t interfere, my friend. I apologize again.”

Leon shrugged in acceptance. “May your Ancestors watch over you, Sasan. And may we meet again.”

“Indeed,” the man said as he rose to leave. However, the former werewolf, who had so far been almost completely silent ever since his return to human form despite some of Leon’s party trying to get him to talk and open up, darted forward and fell to his knees before Sasan.

“My Lord!” he declared. “Please, I beg of you, accept my fealty! You have saved my life, and so my life is yours!”

“That is unnecessary, please rise,” Sasan protested.

“My honor is all that I have,” the former werewolf stated, tears falling from his eyes. “All I had before was taken or destroyed by my curse. My family, my friends… all gone. I have nothing left save for my honor. Please… accept my oath, my fealty. Nothing else I have could ever repay this debt.”

“There is no debt,” Sasan said thoughtfully, but before the former werewolf could further protest, he sighed and added, “But I will accept what you offer. Rise. I have much to do, and I can find something for you to do if you accompany me, at least.”

The werewolf followed his new Lord’s order, and Leon smiled, grateful he hadn’t killed him when he’d found the werewolf in the forest.

So, with only one last exchange of looks, Sasan took flight, his power wrapping around the former werewolf and lifting him, too. The storm around the Redspark Forest, Leon figured, would present no problem to the fifteenth-tier Sasan, and sure enough, in a flash of light, the man and the former werewolf vanished.

“Well,” Leon said to the rest of his party, “that’s that. We can take a couple more hours to rest here, but then we have to leave. Time’s burning as we speak, and we don’t have much left to do what we have to…”