Near and far, the leaves danced... Just then, Gourry sliced his sword through the air, letting out a sharp sound!
“What?!” Tessius cried as he leaped back, surprise openly visible on his face.
“Hey, Gourry! What are you doing?!” I shouted, roused from my sleepy stupor.
...Wait, sleepy stupor?!
“What did you do?” Gourry snarled.
“You noticed?!” Tessius demanded, sounding truly shaken.
“Wha...? What happened?” Amelia asked uncertainly.
“I think... it was a Sleeping spell,” I answered. “He offered a reasonable compromise to get our guard down while someone else cast Sleeping on us from a distance, I’ll bet.”
Gourry had realized it and drawn his sword to create a sudden tension that overrode the spell’s effects. If he hadn’t... Well, even if we hadn’t actually fallen asleep, it would’ve left us pretty damned flat-footed.
“I didn’t feel like I was letting my guard down, of course,” I added. But I couldn’t deny that the spell had been taking hold of me.
“So that’s what he was up to... Stay vigilant, everyone! Their casters are a cut above!” Zelgadis shouted. “Tessius, I thought you were being unusually reasonable... but if that’s your game, there’ll be no negotiations!”
“Tch!” Tessius clicked his tongue and leaped back.
When he did, four figures appeared from the underbrush behind him. The new figures threw something at us that howled through the air. And then...
“Diem Wind!” Vwoosh!
Amelia had probably been chanting while Zel and I were talking, and she didn’t hesitate to let her spell rip! Diem Wind didn’t do anything more than create a powerful gust of wind, but that was sufficient to knock the unknown projectiles off track. Most were blown away, and as for the handful that kept coming...
Zing! Gourry batted them out of the air with his blade. I caught a glimpse of one out of the corner of my eye as it fell to the ground harmlessly—it was like a dark, knife-like object.
The four new figures stepped forward as if to back up Tessius. Zel and I began chanting.
“Foggul.” Tessius activated a spell of his own a moment before we could finish. I didn’t recognize it, but—Bwash!—with a burst of sound and pressure, a white mist suddenly swallowed up my field of vision.
A smokescreen?! I exclaimed internally. The fog was just beginning to obscure Tessius’s figure, when...
“Flare Arrow!” Zel incanted. A dozen or so flaming darts streaked through the white hovering mist... Or not. In actuality, the mist coiled around the bolts and silently extinguished them.
The mutual cancellation phenomenon?! He used his spell to negate them both... That was what I thought, but the mist remained in place.
“What?!” Zel cried in shock.
“Freeze Arrow!” It was now my turn to sling a spell, and I conjured the icy version of the Flare Arrows that Zel had fired. Instead of disappearing, mine sailed toward Tessius. If they hit, their subzero chill would do anything from inflict frostbite to freeze him in place. I figured it would slow him down one way or the other.
But in response, Tessius unleashed a wind spell that scattered my volley of frigid projectiles. “Diem Wind!”
That jerk! He sure knows how to cast fast! Nevertheless, Gourry was hot on the trail of my Freeze Arrows. Yet before he could get in close...
“Ziglous,” a new voice incanted from behind Tessius. Through my still obscured vision, I could see a few streaks shoot up from the ground.
What?!
They looked like spears thrusting upward... but then they reached an apex and arced back down at us.
Zel, Amelia, and I stifled cries of surprise and moved to dodge the incoming attack. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see one coming straight for Gourry. He stopped to slash at it with his sword, tearing it into pieces.
The spear-like streaks then twisted and raged like whips or tentacles, as if seeking out prey to ensnare. I could now see that they’d grown out of the projectiles from before. Had the caster used knives as an intermediary to summon the tentacles? Another spell I’ve never heard of?!
I couldn’t escape the feeling that something strange was going on. Obviously, not even I knew every single spell in the world... but still, something about this was off. The shape of it was all wrong. But I could find out what the spell was later!
Amelia took one step to the side. “Elemekia Lance!” she cried, launching her brilliant javelin at Tessius.
But Tessius wasn’t about to just stand there and let it hit him. He dodged it effortlessly with a big leap backward. The light passed in front of him as he did—and nailed one of his friends!
That must have been why Amelia had shifted positions. She’d lined up a trajectory crossing two targets so that even if Tessius dodged, she’d hit the guy behind him. And since Tessius had been blocking his friend’s view, the dude probably hadn’t seen it coming until it was too late. He lurched slightly, then... dissipated without a sound!
“Huh?!” Amelia let out a cry of surprise. Elemekia Lance dealt damage directly to an opponent’s spirit. It couldn’t physically hurt its target, but it would knock them out. It wasn’t the kind of spell that should vaporize someone.
Tessius continued to draw back, getting his distance from Gourry, as the remaining three figures came forward to take his place.
That’s when I cast my next spell! “Blast Ash!”
Vrrrm! With a low rumble, I produced a black sphere. But instead of at Tessius and his pals, I chucked it about knee-high at a tree a little ways away. The blackness expanded to the width of the trunk and then disappeared, taking that section of the trunk with it. With nothing to hold it up now, the tree began to tilt...
Krshfshfshfsh! The leaves of the falling tree shook violently as it crashed toward Tessius’s three friends. My plan was to snipe them individually as they tried to dodge... but they didn’t so much as move. They just let the tree crush them and then sprang up again as though nothing had happened!
What?! Obviously, no ordinary human could do such a thing.