Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

Zorian’s good mood was short lived. While the invaders were indeed hard-hit by the lack of their initial bombardment, the invasion wasn’t called off, and they appeared to have made Zach’s mansion one of their primary targets, probably because that’s where Zach was and they were specifically targeting him. Perhaps if the students had witnessed the artillery spells hitting the city, Zach could have used that to assume control and organize some kind of proper defense, but as it was the attack caught them all completely unprepared. Not even Zach, with all his mighty magic, could stop the flood of invaders gaining entry into the mansion, after which several groups of students were isolated from the main group containing Zach. Zorian was in one of those.

He, Tinami, Taiven, Briam and four other students he didn’t know had ended up barricading themselves in one of few untouched rooms in the mansion, desperately trying to keep the invading forces at bay. The four unknown students were almost entirely useless, but the other three were worth their weight in gold. Briam had summoned his trusty fire drake to his side the moment he realized they were under attack, Taiven knew how to cast some kind of incredibly destructive fire vortex that actually made the invaders reluctant to continue their attack for 10 whole minutes, and Tinami… well, she was clearly no stranger to fighting and behaved completely differently in a combat situation than she did in normal interaction. She didn’t know any fire spells, but she did know how to fire some kind of purple beams that caused even the biggest of war trolls to collapse on the ground screaming. The beams did no obvious damage, so he assumed they were simply pain spells, but that was useful enough on its own — Tinami didn’t spam those beams mindlessly, instead concentrating on causing pileups, breaking up charges and interrupting enemy spellcasters.

«Zorian, I really hope you’ll be done soon, because this position is rapidly becoming untenable,» Taiven shouted.

Zorian ignored her, carefully inscribing the last set of explosive runes on the walls of the corridor behind them. You didn’t rush this sort of task, unless you fancied blowing yourself up before the enemies even got to you. A minute later he finished the set and rose to his feet, his knees cracking painfully from the long period he spent crouching.

«Done!» he shouted. «Everyone retreat through the corridor!»

Just as Briam, Taiven and Tinami covered him while he set up the explosive runes, he now focused on covering them while they fled deeper into the mansion. Technically one of the unknown boys helped him in this endeavor, but he wasn’t very good at it — his only offensive spell was magic missile and he was firing them at the war trolls charging on them (who could soak such hits easily and keep going) instead of at the robed mages supporting them (who were a lot more vulnerable and had to concentrate on spellcasting). Zorian, aware that he didn’t have the mana reserves to tank the entire enemy assault force, decided to take out the mages out of the equation first. Thus, he raised the spell rod he smuggled into the mansion and fired a weak disintegration beam towards them. He didn’t aim at the mages themselves — that wouldn’t have done much — but at the floor in front of them, which had no spell resistance to protect it. The beam gouged a jagged line in the floor sending billowing, irritating clouds of dust in the air. That should at least mess up their aiming.

He then turned his attention to the rapidly approaching war trolls. There were very few tricks he could do to stop a war troll charge, and none of them could be done on a moment’s notice. Thus, he decided to simply sacrifice a good portion of his mana reserves and hit them with an overpowered flamethrower.

It didn’t kill them — Zorian’s flamethrower wasn’t strong enough, and these particular war trolls seemed to be particularly tough ones, brought to deal with them after Taiven cast that flaming vortex spell — but it broke their charge, and Zorian used that momentary reprieve to conjure another cloud of dust with his spell rod and fled down the corridor after the rest of the students. The other boy had broken his position and run ages ago, the useless coward, so he really hoped their confusion would last long enough for him to gain some distance. He wasn’t fast enough to outrun a war troll.

A furious screech erupted around him, and he could suddenly hear one of the war trolls rapidly gaining on him. Damn it, he hated dying.

A sinister purple beam suddenly cut through the air next to his head, hitting the war troll behind him. The monster screeched again, this time in pain, and collapsed to the floor. Zorian gouged another line in the floor with his spell rod, cloaking the corridor in more dust, and then he was inside their newest sanctuary.

«Thanks,» he said, breathing heavily.