Chapter 234: Broom Battle in the Clouds

The first volley of magic missiles miss us by a long shot thanks to my evasive swerving, but already the henchmages are preparing a follow-up attack. Opal, her long and curly brunette hair flowing majestically in the wind, doesn’t seem all that impressed. “How dull...” She says, turning up her chin. “You don’t mind if I have a little fun, Dear, do you?”

“Opal, I would VERY much like to finish this up as fast as-”

“Of course you don’t,” The stacked witch smirks as she interrupts me. “You’re a good boy, after all, unlike these disgusting little hedge wizards.” Opal raises her wand and draws a circle in the air with it. A glowing, complicated-looking magical sigil appears at the tip as she chants, “Poisonaire!”

Her spell echoes out from her lips with a thunderous boom. From out of the sigil bursts an explosive, swirling maelstrom of deep purple smoke. Opal inputs several minute movements with her wand, which commands the smoke to form into six tendrils. From here, the tendrils rip across the sky aimed at each of the Crystal Sage’s men.

Each enemy counters with different wind spells, brushing the smoke away into the clouds- all except for one unfortunate mage whose wind magic wasn’t strong enough to dispel Opal’s attack. I watch as he swallows a lungful of the magical smoke. In a matter of seconds, the henchmage’s skin becomes splotchy and turns a putrid shade of blue until he resembles a drowned corpse. This poor man scratches at his blemished skin, screaming as he falls out of the sky. Even if Opal’s spell isn’t lethal, I worry that she really did just mercilessly kill this man until I see his broom begin to glow. As the enemy mage falls, his broom summons a magical parachute to protect him from crashing.

Convenient.

Suddenly, we both hear the voice of the Crystal Sage as he and his squadron draw closer. “Don’t underestimate her. The magical might of the Nightshade is never to be forgotten as it is the deadliest of flowers and does not produce an enjoyable high. I have tried... tired? No, tried...” He says while inhaling another large influx of whatever drug his hookah is filled with.

Opal is silent, though I can feel her anger beginning to flare up at the Elf’s words for whatever reason. One of the henchmages pulls ahead of the pack and stands atop his broom, similarly to Opal, making large swings of his arm to accentuate whatever spell he’s casting. Water pours out of a nearby cloud and concentrates in front of the enemy Mage, freezing and sharpening into a scary number of spear-sized icicles. Rather than waiting for Opal to start a counterspell, I line up a shot with the pistol resting in my right hand, and I pull the trigger for the first time.

A magical, lemon-sized bullet explodes out of the barrel, with barely any recoil to speak of. The speed at which it flies is remarkable, and whether it’s beginner’s luck or actual talent on my behalf, the bullet collides with several of the spears before piercing the Mage in the shoulder.

“Oh, my...! Nicely done, Dear.” Opal looks at my handiwork, impressed and giggling to herself. “See if you can do it again, quickly now, before he launches those spears!”

“Right,” I hold the gun out, and using all of my focus, I pull the trigger yet again. Just like the first, the second shot pierces through more spears and flies straight into his opposite shoulder, forcing him to drop his wand before the spell is completed. Each of the spears dissolves back into water, and he plummets out of the sky.

Now I know for sure why Luxy gave me this weapon in particular; it’s a perfect match for the power of my eyes. My aim with this pistol is nearly flawless. While I certainly won’t be stepping foot on the battlefield any time soon, I’ll at least be able to take care of myself if push comes to shove.

“This wasn’t in the Halfling’s intel,” The Crystal Sage remarks as he watches his man tumble towards the earth with glossy eyes. “Overwhelm them. Grind them into a fine powder with which to snort, my magical... magic men...”

At the command of their questionable leader, the remaining ‘magical magic men’ fly off in different directions and prepare various spells to stop us in our tracks. From above, a mage summons a dark and brooding cloud packed with roaring lightning. The cloud cackles with electricity before unleashing its payload, only for Opal to raise her wand casually into the air with a playful smile.

The lightning hits the tip of her magical tool, causing sparks to fly off like fireworks as she absorbs the spell. Like a conductor leading an orchestra, she gracefully twirls her wand like a baton and redirects the electrical magic towards one of the other mages. This mage was in the midst of opening some sort of portal, but whatever he was attempting to summon is prevented when the lightning bolt hits him square in the chest.

During the lightning mage’s panic, I take a well-placed shot and destroy his wand with another magical bullet. Rather than sticking around, this villain turns tail, swerving with his broom to desert the pack. The Crystal Sage sees this and does not take kindly to it.

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“I warned you all that this would be ride or die. Unfortunate that you would... ah... what was I saying... yes, unfortunate that you would choose the latter.” He raises a hand towards the speeding away deserter. Curiously, the Sage casts a spell without an incantation. While non-verbal magic is ordinary enough, it’s made even more curious by the Elf’s decision to cast this without a wand or a staff. From out of his hand shoots a narrow purple beam that hits the deserter, piercing his heart and killing him instantly.

“Interesting,” Opal smirks and cups her chin, seemingly unphased by the Mage killing his own henchman. “Now that’s a class you don’t see all too often...” She thinks aloud.

I don’t have time to question her about whatever she means by this because her attention quickly shifts towards the next attack. One of the Mages flies to our left side and holds up a small leather pouch. He chants, “Metallier!” and from out of the bag pours a coarse, iron powder. The powder transforms into a large, floating spiked barricade held up by his wand. The enemy tries ramming us with it in an attempt to impale us on the spikes, but I pull us out of the way at just the right time for Opal to launch an attack of her own.

The old witch casts “Rafflesiolve,” and from out of her wand sprouts a large red flower with spotted petals that produces the single most disgusting smell I’ve ever had the displeasure of smelling. If my stomach wasn’t fortified by an anti-puking smell, I would surely have just lost my breakfast. The flower has what looks like a large central chamber that puffs out and begins spraying putrid yellow bile all over the spiked, metal wall. In a matter of seconds, this liquid eats and corrodes the metal until there’s nothing left to protect him from my bullet.

I take out his wand while he’s surprised, and perhaps out of pity, I send a follow-up bullet to this enemy’s leg so that he has an excuse to fall to the earth without the Crystal Sage turning on him. Call it my good deed of the day.

The two remaining henchmages are clearly weighing their options, but their contemplation is cut short when the Crystal Sage sighs deeply and flies in between them. “I suppose if you want something done right, you have to... ah... flowing, yes. All things must flow, and so must you two flow into me. But not sexually, that would be most odd... I think?” Both of his henchmages panic at this incoherent rambling because they apparently can parse out the meaning of this nonsense, whereas I cannot.

The two flying mages dart off in opposite directions in an attempt to escape the drugged-up Elf, but this quickly proves in vain as the Crystal Sage points his palms toward them. He takes another deep drag of his hookah as two magic circles appear at his elbows. The next thing I know, the Mage’s forearms stretch out like they’re made of rubber, and he grabs his fleeing minions by the back of their skulls. Their brooms fly off without them, the Sage’s strength now the only thing keeping them from falling to their deaths.

Both of the poor men wail and whine, begging their master to let them go. The Sage doesn’t take this into consideration, his hands beginning to glow a bright blue. Soon, their eyes and mouths both start burning the same color as his hands. What appears to be raw, concentrated mana tears out of their faces and into the Crystal Sage’s nostrils. The henchmages appear to age rapidly until becoming little more than skeletons wearing paper-thin skin.

The Sage’s emaciated, drug-addled body begins to rejuvenate until his appearance looks almost on the verge of being called healthy. His darkened eyelids pop with vigor, the many visible veins recede into his body, and his sinewy limbs and skinny torso fill out with muscle. Once he’s harvested all the mana he can, he releases his minions so that they may meet their ends.

As I stare at this bizarre spectacle, unable to say a word, the Crystal Sage only makes things that much stranger when he’s hit with a random mood swing. “It’ll be alright. Just keep the flow going... the flow... don’t think about it... don’t think about it... work... work...” He cries, opening his mouth to reveal a disgusting display of diseased gums and rotten teeth. Tears fall off his face like a burst dam as his reinvigorated form trembles and shakes.

“What the fuck?” I ask no one in particular, unable to make a more astute observation. While I learned my lesson not to judge the Duke of Dewhurst’s forces the hard way by writing off Sir Pimpington as a joke and nothing more, I thought for sure that the Crystal Sage was just a rundown mana crystal addict. I assumed he failed upwards until somehow falling into the crimelord’s good graces. To say that I was wrong in my assessment would be putting it very lightly.

“This is... troublesome,” Opal stands atop our broom and crosses her arms. “More so than I thought. Dear, you know very well that as a healer, I have a strict stance on non-violence. Furthermore, unlike Nikita, who would surely help you if she mentally could, I don’t want to fight your battles for you. Those girls of yours wouldn’t become stronger if I did. Strength is gained through pain, suffering, and hard work... but, that being said, I’m going to make an exception just this once.”

I ask her for clarification, unsure of what I’m hearing. “Are you going to kill him, Opal?”

“No, Gloomcrest wants the leaders alive, so I’m going to capture this pesky Elf here and now so that the girls don’t have to do it in the future.” The powerful witch takes a deep breath before striking an elegant pose and pointing her wand at the druglord sitting atop his magic carpet. A dark and sickening mana pressure exudes out of her body. Despite the stomach spell protecting my gut, bile barrels up my throat as soon as I feel Opal’s aura. I’m only barely able to force back down. “Put your gun away, sweetheart. You’re going to need both hands on the broom; Mommy is about to fuck shit up.”

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