With every would-be wizard we’d gathered being self-taught and low level, our knowledge of spell craft was extremely limited. I imagined that, at a regular academy, this was the sort of cursed thing one of the instructors or high-level students would simply dispel without a second thought. Except we didn’t have any instructors, and our highest-ranking members were rank twos. Hell, we didn’t even have the books to look up what this thing was. The barge I’d grown up on had possessed a better library.
Azarin stuck her head over the edge of the roof above and shouted down at us, “Is it dead yet?”
“No. It’s stuck in the front door and chewing a bigger hole in the wall. I think it still wants to kill Sifuso for waking it up.”
“The earth monster makes a reasonable point there, Carnavon.”
“Not now, Trax.” But that gave me an idea, and I turned toward our lacertian. “Get out of here and hide. Maybe if you’re out of sight, it’ll calm down.”
“This is wise.” I didn’t know if he actually believed it was wise, or he was just happy to be long gone by the time it broke free and killed the rest of us. Either way, he scurried off.
A moment later, we were joined by the last two members of our less than illustrious student council, as Rade and Krachma appeared. They must have been out on some business in the Under Slump, and were puzzled as Sifuso ran past them. When they turned our way and saw that our front door was filled with furious dirt, Rade shouted, “I go out for one morning and they destroy my house!”
Rade had been living in these ruins first—House Tartaros in Exile, as he called it—and after we helped him out, he’d invited the rest of us to practice magic here, seeing as we’d had nowhere else to go. Like all deadlanders, Rade was white as a blood-drained corpse, and had solid black eyes. Despite the eerie appearance and the reputation his people had for being glum, he was a remarkably cheerful individual. He was from the Elemental Plane of Death, a dreary land where the living were constantly harried by ghosts and undead, so he probably knew about as much about this breed of earth creature as Trax did.
Krachma, on the other hand, was from the Elemental Plane of Earth, same as our problem beast, and he was a rank two, which allegedly meant he was better at magic in general than Azarin or me. Hopefully, he’d know what to do.
“This is aShape Earthspell gone wrong. Can you stop it?”
Krachma was a lob—a warrior race supposedly created by powerful wizards long ago by infusing hobgoblins with earth magic. The gigantic orange fellow was nearly seven feet tall, muscled like a draft animal, and his many scars took on the appearance of black rock. He didn’t talk much. It was assumed that was because he didn’t know much of the trade language that everyone else used in the Core, but I figured even if he’d been fluent, Krachma would remain the strong, silent type.
He scowled at our mess. “Krachma has seen this before. It is bad.”
“You don’t say?” I asked as the blob knocked more heavy stones out of our wall. “Do you know how to make it go away?”
Krachma slowly shook his large head in the negative. “Wild spirit snared in spell, tries to grow into real Elemental. Krachma does not know the spell to cleanse.”
We certainly couldn’t allow that here, because true Elementals were incredibly dangerous. I’d made my living trapping Fire Elementals, and if an Earth Elemental was even half as mean as those, letting one loose around innocent bystanders would be a travesty.
“If we can’t banish it back to where it came from, we’re going to have to do this the hard way, then.” I pulled out my bag of Red and prepared to use up the rest of my precious element. “Just don’t hit it with any earth spells. That just makes it bigger.”
“Obviously. That’s just basic magical logic,” Rade said. “Which brainless imbecile tried that?”
“Rufus,” Azarin shouted from above.
“Of course it was. As I so ardently stated the last time we argued about this, Carnavon, we shouldn’t let in every fool who dreams of becoming a wizard. Yet you continue to take in every stray regardless of their ability, whether it be magical ability or in their ability to pay us, so now we’re impoverishedanddrowning in a sea of imbecility.”
The blob knocked out another stone. One of its mouths found the sheet we’d painted the wordsOutcast Academyon and hung next to our door as our banner, sucked it in like a noddle, and began chewing.
“Can we postpone this debate until later, Rade?”
He drew his dueling saber. “Very well.” Then he looked at his sword and contemplated what exactly he was supposed toaccomplish with that against a murderous hill. “We really do need to add some more destructive spells to our repertoire.”
Rade wasn’t wrong about that. The one requirement we put on our applicants was that they had to be willing to share a spell with the rest of us to learn. This had gotten us to a grand total of two dozen spells between us all, of which I currently held the record at being able to cast the most. But the Outcast’s spells were homebrew experiments, and only a few were really potent. Meanwhile, the real academies had shelves full of spellbooks and magic that could shake the worlds at their fingertips.
“Right now, we’ll make do.” I reloaded my pistol. “Let’s kill this thing.”
“Descend.”Azarin stepped off the roof and floated down to land gently next to me. She was a lot better at that spell than I was.
Trax pulled out his weirdly twisted coral sword. Krachma had left his mace home, but he went to one of the nearby shacks and wrenched a big board off the side of one. He seemed satisfied there were nails sticking out the end of it. At least the residents of that shack had already left, so no one yelled at him.
Sending Sifuso away hadn’t calmed the beast. On the contrary, it seemed even more agitated now that its chosen prey escaped. It got even more quivery and bitey when I hit it with a secondShroud of Fire, engulfing our now broken door with flames. Azarin struck it with another lightningJolt, as did Rade, as he’d recently learned that spell from her. Once the fire and sparks died down, Krachma—who knew only earth magic—and Trax—who knew no spells at all—took turns hitting the part that was sticking through the doorway.
All that accomplished was using up more of our valuable magical element and knocking some bits off of it. The blob pushed a whole section of the wall over, and we all scrambled to get out of the way. Now it was free.
Most of our school’s spells weren’t that destructive, but I did have one enchantment that I’d discovered years ago by accident which had proven to be especially dangerous. I pulled out the iron snail shell I always kept on my person for special occasions, and held it up so my friends could see it. “Take cover.”
“Snail grenade!” Azarin shouted as she dove behind our neighbor’s chicken coop.
