The Accidental Archmage Edmund Batara (books you have to read .txt) 📖

fifteen feet from him.

Too late, he remembered why he didn’t practice with his fireball spells.

“DUMB! DUMB!” He shouted to himself as the projectile was flying straight into the

ground. It exploded in a small fireball. Unlike the silent simple blades, the fireball-in-a-blade exploded in a fiery roar.

Shaken by the sound disturbing the forest quiet, Tyler quickly looked around. Birds

were flying away from treetops and the bear was ambling towards the cover of a bigger

tree. FREAK ME!

Then the success of his experiment said hello to his worried mind. His jaw

dropped. YES! AND THE CROWD ROARED! He was exhilarated and did the cha-cha in a

circle, doing fist pumps all the time. YES! YES! YEESSSSS! He stopped when he saw the

bear watching him.

“Oh, hi, Brovi.” He waved his hand, “Nothing to watch here boy.”

Now I am embarrassed by a bear. Will wonders never stop?

Thinking back to what he had done, how he wished for a bigger practice area. A barren

field. He wanted to try bigger and bigger blades! He wanted to see the biggest blade he

could fire! He was his own artillery battalion! Too excited to sit down, he paced around

his shelter, thinking about the possibilities and uses of other fire-infused forms.

Blade forms can be targeted projectiles, he mused. In addition to its armor-piercing

abilities, now I can have a delayed fireball to go with it. It may work against magical

barriers. Against magical armor?

Then he had a brainstorm.

Orbs! Multiple fireball orbs! Launched like howitzer shells! And smaller ones, utilized like grenades! A flat, wide and sharp blade form! Like an elongated ax head! Infused with

fire when flung towards an on-rushing enemy, then detonated when it gets further into

the attacking mass! A broadsword form, used in combat! No, bad idea. The explosion

will get me too.

His brain was racing, going through his repertoire of spells, trying to think of possible

useful combinations. But his mind was otherwise occupied with his new discovery,

rendering futile his brain’s voyage of discovery. He did grasp that his limited number of

spells also restricted his capacity to experiment.

He named the new derivative spells FIREBALL BLADES, FIREBALL ORBS, and FIREBALL

GRENADE. Again, lame names but simple and easy to remember. He grinned. Three

new spells in one morning! But if he ever gets the biggest single fireball blade spell to

work, he resolved to name it The Big Kaboom. Thinking about the process by which he

came up with the new abilities, he realized that exposure to modern technology did

help. His new ideas were derived from historical developments in gunpowder

technology. It appeared that knowing what could be done is half the battle in creating

new and innovative magical spells.

Feeling hungry, he realized it was way past lunch. He went to the table and did a quick

meal from the leftovers of breakfast. Eira must be really busy, he thought. That means

the threat to the forest must also be serious. He did notice that his stamina during spell

casting had improved. Tremendously.

With his stomach full, he tried to think about his journey to Scarburg the following day.

He would be alone. No one to watch his back. He wondered if it would be possible to

maintain a four-sided barrier around him all the time, not too strong, enough to deflect

arrows. Thinking about it, he revised his idea to a triangle shaped shield, one less side

to maintain. He just needed to position it about a foot away at the barrier’s closest point to him. When resting or sleeping, he merely had to change the shape of the

shield. At the very least, the barrier will protect him from surprise physical attacks.

When he started practicing again that afternoon, he had the three-sided barrier around

him all the time. He wanted to determine how long he could keep it up and if such

continued use will strain his body in any way. While the shield was up, he experimented

with forming intricate three-dimensional energy shapes. He hoped the exercise will help

advance his focusing and precision skills. Before long he had progressed from simple

geometric shapes to forming animal structures. He tried to form a sculpture of Brovi but

the bear moved too much. Especially when he saw Tyler staring at him. At one point,

the bear hid behind a tree. After his practice antics plus the staring, Tyler believed the

bear thought him abnormal, even for a human.

One thing did bother Tyler. His magical effects were not coursed through runic

channels. He remembered the water jug with its purification rune. Do his magical

manifestations, such as the lamp, have a limit to how long it can maintain such a form?

The water purification rune merely needed to be charged. But in the kind of magic he

was using, no such physical element anchored the magical effect. He realized he had to

test the duration of some of the spells in his repertoire but time and circumstances

made that impossible for now.

During dinner, as Tyler was going to start again with left-overs, Eira showed up. She

looked tired but gave him a smile as she joined him. She waved away the left-overs and

conjured up a new meal.

“You look tired, Eira. Bad day?”

“Busy, rather. Jotnar are increasing on the north and west sides of the forest.

No dokkalfr yet. But these jotnar are testing our defenses. Though somebody is trying

to make it appear as if the attacks are random and not organized. I don’t know if they

intend to bypass Maljen and take the forest instead. That would give them free passage

to the eastern part of Skaney and take the port of Agder through the town of

Grimmsdalr. If successful, then the plains of Vestfold will be open to them. Maljen they

can isolate. But Fossegrim cannot be ignored by them if they do intend to take Maljen

before moving east.”

“Sounds bad, Eira. I wish I can do something to help.”

“The forest will stand, Tyler. Unless Ymir himself comes forth, Fossegrim will stand.

Now that we know they intend to move against the forest, they will not pass. Worry

about your journey instead. And don’t forget my request. Scarburg awaits you and I try

to help you when and if I can. But I believe you can be whatever you want to be.