What a shame. If we’d gone at this as a proper fight, they would’ve been pretty tough, but here they were being wiped out without even knowing why. It was hardly fair to them. If they hadn’t chosen to raid this canton and pick a fight with me, then we could’ve had a decent scrap on more upright terms. It could have happened somewhere you didn’t need to hide your death once it came for you.
“Into formation...” I muttered.
However, the unfairness wasn’t over yet.
“Huh? Whoooa!”
The man I had hit with Schutzwolfe found his sword being ripped away. Between the three I’d just stolen, the two I’d salvaged from the soldiers the Flashbang had dropped, and this last one, I had a half dozen dancing blades to field in my Unseen Hands. I assigned each a number in my head and assigned my marching orders as I slashed at the open air with the practiced grace of a conductor.
The swords which had been assigned odd numbers pointed upward; those with even numbers pointed down. I’d arranged them in a perfectly symmetrical formation. At my whim, they spun into the air, each blade paired to a mate in the opposite rank. I ended the dance by gathering the swords in front of me in an arc and consolidating them into a cone, leveled dead-on at the enemy.
“Gather together, my blades, my kinsmen...”
All this pageantry served a purpose beyond looking sick as hell, mind you. Spells, as a general rule, twisted and warped the fabric of creation, and in this world, that wasn’t all that separate from “consensus reality.” The more you could get an audience to buy into what you were doing—the more “normal” it was, you might say—the firmer a spell’s claim to reality became. Archaic incantations, magic circles, showing off your catalysts with an ostentatious bit of stage business: All this business helped you economize your energy costs.
Of course, if you were to ask a magus, they’d tell you that only vain, spineless, petty magicians without the will to polish their own skills would resort to such methods, but I was a barbaric adventurer. I didn’t need to play their games of elegance and decorum. Plus, y’know, it put the fear of God in folks, y’know? If my target was scared shitless, I could wear away at their reflexes and tank their morale.
Only six swords, you say? Well, I hadn’t been sitting on my butt doing nothing. As I formed my sword circle, I picked up the lances that had been thrown aside.
Back when I was a child, I had stopped at only six Unseen Hands because it was the cheapest way to achieve the desired effect. Thanks to how much Limelit had expanded my experience budget, I’d doubled that number to twelve. It was like how you only bought single card packs or snacks with freebie toys as a child, but when you were an adult you bought them by the box. This was the power of experience funded by personal virtue.
My multiplied arms crawled forth and secured the lances from the seven felled cavalrymen. This was one more than I could manage, but I had my reasons. My Hands were only constructs of force, but they functioned like human hands in the abstract, with five fingers apiece. Of course, their shape was malleable, but following a human body plan made them way more intuitive to steer. What’s more, most tools were designed to be used for hands which had opposable thumbs and four fingers anyway. And there were fun little perks to these practical concessions too. With Giant’s Palm, I could fit four spears in my finger gaps—similar to how children play with chopsticks.
It was impossible to perform difficult maneuvers with four spears in one hand, but it was enough to create a threatening spear wall. By just charging forth with them, I could drive my enemy to a halt and knock their weapons from their hands. What’s more, my Hands could extend as far as I could see and had no physical form to harm. They were invisible soldiers, unburdened by anything so cumbersome as a body. I could send a sword out to disarm my opponent without worrying about them striking back to harm me. If this wasn’t unfair, what was?
What’s more, I took up my crossbow and the enemies’ bows in my spare hands. My formation was thus: six swordsmen, one spear wall, and two archers.
“March on, and strike down my enemies.”
With that, the spell was complete.
The result was multiple actions, range as far as I could see, armor piercing, and the ability to shut down my opponents’ reactions. The data munchkin in me wanted a bit more firepower, but concessions had to be made if I wanted to keep my energy costs manageable.
Now that I thought about it, this was a spell that I had practiced many a night in Konigstuhl after I’d whipped it out for the first time on that miserable damn mission. I hadn’t given this whole combo a name! If I muttered the name of every skill I was using each time, then the mid-campaign clash would end up taking two hours. I’d lost my sense of wonder! What was happening to me?
I’d thought about a name for this combo during its second showing, but I couldn’t think of anything cool. To be fair, I wasn’t at the table and nothing in this world required that I yell out the name; as long as I knew what I was doing, that was fine. I’d ended up calling it the Order, but now I thought that it was a fitting name. It echoed the Fellowship of the Blade.
All right, I hope you lot are ready for this...
[Tips] Incantations have fallen out of fashion in the College, but there are circles among common folk which continue to use them.
As the situation evolved at a dizzying pace, the leader of the cavalry racked his overheating brain for the best course of action.
They had suffered enough losses to make retreat a viable option, but he was keenly aware of what it meant for him to run away. He was under strict orders to not leave a single trace of evidence, and that included leaving anyone behind. The group had lost their advantage to a wholly unexpected, outright preposterous twist of fate. No one had even mentioned that it was possible for weapons that had been tossed aside to rise from the earth and approach them. No one had mentioned that Goldilocks was a magician! He had confirmed as much with his superior, his informant, and just for good measure, all those mindless, simpering ballads.
Screaming to the heavens that this wasn’t part of the deal would not divert the storm of abandoned arms coming his way. He ordered his men to gather and dismount. At this stage, a lance charge was off the table. Goldilocks’s swords and lances had formed a wall. Before they even reached him, they would be tossed from their saddles. The only option was to dismount and cut their way ahead.
Their armor was heavy, but they were career soldiers who had learned how to run about and ride in it as a matter of course. Their breastplates had been constructed with the expectation that they would have to fend off arrows, swords, and spears in the chaos of battle.
Their number had been pared down to eight men. All the same, their leader’s morale was not yet broken. Even though they had not chosen this battlefield of their own accord, they had taken on this dishonorable mission, vowing to use all their strength and accept death if necessary. It was a dirty job, to assault a canton full of innocents—even if their village head did have tainted blood.