I duck as a chair gets launched in my direction.
Shit, he’s noticed me.
“He can’t move from that spot, so the ward around him is limited, but no matter what we try to do, nothing is able to penetrate it, so it's strong as fuck. He’s been in it since we opened the safe room, and there is no sign of the magic weakening,” Reed explains quickly. All while dodging and diving out of the way.
“Although he’s a mage, it’s not magic that he should have,” Doc adds. “We know that much for certain. We all felt his magic when he was in the safe. He’s a fucking weak mage. He shouldn’t be able to wield this.”
Doc’s right, but it’s surprising because Rana said that he was pretty strong when she was talking to us about him. It makes me wonder if he’s somehow managed to buy something that would make him seem stronger than he actually is, and that for some reason, now that he’s triggered the extremely strong ward, it’s made the glamor or whatever he was using to change his power level fade.
That’s my best guess, but it’s not really important right now anyway.
“He must have bought it from someone, and someone fucking powerful at that. My money is on Murray,” Coen replies. He pulls out a knife and throws it with precision at The Owner, only instead of hitting him between the eyes as it should have, it simply bounces off the ward and clatters to the floor.
“That’s the third time you’ve done that with the same result,” Doc points out, “at some point we’re going to switch over into the insanity part of the saying!”
Coen shrugs, a playful smirk playing on his lips as he replies, “Aw, you guys thought I was sane. That’s cute. Thanks, guys.”
I burst out laughing despite the situation and the fact that it really isn’t appropriate timing.
“Does anyone have an idea of what to do?” I ask as we all continue to duck and dive out of the way.
The fact that he isn’t killing us and is only throwing random objects at us gives away his power level, or rather lack thereof. If it were one of us inside a ward like that, then we would have killed whoever was attacking us within seconds.
He hasn’t, and he’s stuck in one spot, so the ward isn’t even made out of his magic. It’s a spell he’s bought from someone, which means it has limitations to it that it wouldn’t have if it were made from his own magic. Of course, he is a mage, and you would think that would mean that he would use his own magic to create the ward, so that he can still move around and defend himself, but he hasn’t, which is just another sign of how weak he is.
He still could have weakened us enough to escape even as a lower-level mage, and the fact that he didn’t and instead went straight into the ward is confusing.
I don’t know how he’s managed to accrue the power that he has, but he must be really fucking smart and think strategically. That’s the only way that I can think that he would have managed to gain the non-magical power and reputation that he has.
“We tried our magic, or at least as much as we can do in this small space,” Reed starts to explain, “it’s a really strong ward, and nothing got through. I can’t unleash my full power, which may be able to get through it, because I can’t risk it reaching any of our people and putting them on the floor and in a compromising position. There’s no way to know whether if I focused it just on The Owner, whether it would bounce back and hit any of us before I can control it again. I don’t want to risk it.”
“That’s fair enough,” I reply.
He continues, “Coen can’t shift for obvious reasons, and Doc’s hands are pretty much tied.”
“That leaves me then,” I grin. “You guys distract him, and I’ll build my power. Water has a way of getting through when other things can’t. Hopefully, it will work. All I need is a tiny crack, and I should be able to use that to shatter the ward.”
Reed nods, along with the others.
“Alright, you got it, boss,” Coen grins, knowing that I find it weird when one of them calls me boss.
I roll my eyes but quickly make my way back out into the hallway, so that I have the space to build my magic properly.
Something tells me that it’s going to take a lot of magic to break through the ward, and I’m not even sure that I’ll be able to do it.
We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
I can hear the guys shouting, heckling, and launching things at the ward that The Owner has wrapped himself in, and I know that it’s only going to be a matter of time before one of them gets hurt.
Reaching for my magic, I’m surprised when, alongside my usual magic, another answers the call. It must be the magic that the Choosing gifted me, because other than the brief glimpse of it that I had earlier, I’ve never felt anything like it before. There’s no mistaking that it is mine though, I’m not being influenced by other magic, and it’s not someone else’s magic trying to control me.
I know that much.
I’m going to need all the help that I can get, so I decide to risk using the new magic without knowing what it does. All I need to do is get through the barrier. Once I’ve done that, we should be able to take The Owner into custody with ease.
Unless he has something else up his sleeve of course, which is entirely likely, considering he obviously likes to buy spells.
My magic builds, and I step back into the doorway, ducking as The Owner spots me immediately and throws a knife my way.
