Marissa winced at another use of “explodey punch” to describe her technique, but didn’t say anything.
“There’s a flash as the punch ignites the air, but the dragon is unfazed. Doesn’t even slow down. Snaps its jaws right around Mara’s chest.” Sera put the back of her hand against her forehead. “I screamed in vengeful woe for my fallen comrade, summoning a storm of ice to tear into the dragon’s scales. It screamed into the air, injured,” she ignored Marissa’s mortified mutterings in the background and lifted her chin, “and breathed another blast of flame toward me. I raised an ice wall, but the dragon’s flame was too intense, and I didn’t have Mara to protect me.”
Marissa was flame-red. She had one hand up to cover her eyes.
Sera dropped the dramatic pose. “The next thing I knew, I was waking up outside the test room.”
I considered the story. “Probably did better than I would have,” I concluded.
Sera shook her head. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about that. Your sword might be the key to that fight. The dragon was definitely weaker against ice.”
I looked down, dejected. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not allowed to take it into tests anymore.”
“Oh.” Sera was silent for a moment, then put her hand on top of mine. “Well, it doesn’t matter. We’ll find another way to handle it.”
“Yeah.” I thought for a moment. “Seems like we both lost to fire, actually. And ice was useful on both sides for this test.”
“True. You thinking we should learn more ice spells before the next test?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’d be good for you and Patrick. I can’t cast ice. Not sure about Marissa.” I sent the Guardian a questioning look.
“No’ at my level,” Marissa denied. “I’ve ‘eard some Masters can, but I’m a long way off from that.”
That was interesting. I hadn’t heard of higher levels of attunements giving access to more types of mana. I’d have to research that more later.
I really needed to do more research on higher levels of attunements in general, especially after that conversation with Vellum. If being a Carnelian Mage was going to be necessary for manufacturing anything useful, I needed to make that a high priority goal.
Patrick pointed at my glove. “Couldn’t you make an ice gauntlet or something?”
I chewed my bottom lip, considering. “I’d need help from you or Sera, but yeah, it’s possible. Not sure if the gauntlet is the best option. We seem to need defense more than offense.”
“Could you make us shield sigils that use ice magic?” Sera asked.
“Maybe. Not sure how exactly that’d work. I think I’d have to find a rune that detects fire mana or just generally intensive heat to turn the shield on, then trigger an ice barrier. The problem is that ice is harmful to us; that’s how I nearly killed myself.”
I took a moment to think about it. “If I could make the ice barrier show up outside of our normal shield as a first line of defense, theoretically our normal shields should protect us against the cold...but I’m not sure the shield sigil would even activate. Maybe I could link them so that the normal shield always activates when the ice one does...”
“Could you make the ice shield a second function of the same item, like how your gauntlet can do two things?” Sera offered.
“That’s not a bad idea, but I’m not sure our normal sigils have the mana capacity to handle a second function. I might have to make new ones from scratch, probably out of a higher capacity material... but that’s not a bad idea. I could make the normal shields stronger, too, that way. It’s just expensive.” I nodded anyway. “I’ll look into it.”
“I can’t learn ice spells,” Patrick mused, “but if it’s a flying monster, maybe I could learn some air magic.” He turned to Sera. “Any chance you could teach me that ice storm thing? I mean, I couldn’t cast the spell itself, but if it’s half air and half ice, I could probably learn the air part. Maybe I could make a lightning storm by modifying it or something.”
She shook her head. “I can try to teach it to you, but I don’t know if you could learn it. I’m directly invoking one of the creatures I have a pact with; it’s not the same kind of spell that Elementalists use.”
“Oh. Shame.” Patrick frowned, and then shook it off. “I’m sure I can find something.”
Sera tilted her head to the side. “We could still try it... Let’s talk about it later. Besides that, I thought you were training with Meltlake? Wouldn’t she be able to teach you better air spells?”
That was news to me. Sera seemed to be keeping better track of Patrick than I was. Not surprising, really... I was pretty bad at keeping up with what my friends were doing. I’d need to improve on that.
“Uh, she’s training me,” Patrick confirmed, “but Meltlake doesn’t really teach air spells.” He looked sheepish. “Or lightning spells. You know how a lot of people don’t live up to their name? Yeah,” his voice cracked as he drew out the word, “she’s not one of those people. On the plus side, I know lots of ways to light things on fire.”
That got some snickers from the group, but it also got me curious. “Has she given you any hints on how she does the big stuff? Like, you know, whole lakes?”
He shook his head. “She’s been pretty tight lipped on that. I’ve heard some rumors from the other students, though.”
“What sorts of rumors?” I asked.
“Well, the most popular one is that she’s ascended.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “Seriously? I know Meltlake is impressive, she’s probably one of the most powerful people here, but... Are Ascended Attunements even real?”