The Krakos: Book Two of The Legend of the Artificer

Chapter 27

"What kind of trickery is this?" Jamison demanded as the massive spell circle burned into the ground finally activated.

"You know, I kind of hate people like you," Tibalt said lowly as he flicked his revolvers to the perfect features.

"What spell was that?" Jamison demanded, and Tibalt rolled his eyes as he raised his pistol to the ceiling and fired. The blob lunged forward, eager to please, but the second it hit the circle, the world slowed and ticked to a steady halt for it.

"Do you know what my first challenge was as an artificer?" Tibalt asked as the circle rotated and shifted across the ground. "Unravel a cosmic enchantment. Are you familiar, Mage Ultima?"

"Those don't exist," Jamison snorted, but his eyes were wide and full of concern. "No artificer is so skilled."

"I am," Tibalt said flatly and shot off another spell into the floor. "Time magic is not that difficult, really. Not if you understand time as perception, not anything immediately relevant. It's just a combination of waiting and moving, and everything in the middle."

"You just couldn't just sit there like a good experiment, could you?" Jamison snarled. "Do you think of yourself so highly? Too good to die?"

"Not really," Tibalt replied lazily and turned to shoot off a few more circles. Jamison lifted a hand to start forming a spell, and Tibalt tilted his head, eyes burning with a cold fury he had forgotten he even had. "After a while, you tend to figure out that living is much more difficult."

He had lost once, and he knew that accepting Dream's offer was his extension of a white flag to the monster that plagued his mind. Losing... losing left a bad taste in his mouth nowadays.

Jamison let the spell of pain loose, and with a tap, a twitch, Tibalt was shooting it down.

"You think you can challenge me so easily?" Jamison spat, his face twisting up in sheer fury, and Tibalt stared at him expressionlessly. The blob was making better progress than he'd expected. He should adjust the enchantment a bit.

"You brought me here for your temper fit," Tibalt said and laid down a few more traps with a bang-bang-bang! "Don't be so upset now that you're figuring out my capabilities. Did you think I was so stupid that I only had two spells and some fish?"

Idiotic. Tibalt had played more than enough video games in his life that he knew he needed to be a full party all by himself. Area control, defense, attack, healing, full range of movement... He had to have it all. He'd always been greedy.

"This is a pointless discussion, anyways," Tibalt said and laid five more just for good measure. "You've already decided I was a stupid, idiotic artificer, who has a mouth, but nothing worth listening to what comes out of it."

Jamison fired off another spell, but Tibalt shot it out of the air with a lazy twitch of his wrist. He'd studied the shield enough. Breaking it would be easy. There was always a weakness.

Spell after spell was lobbed at Tibalt, but moving targets weren't all that difficult when they were coming from the same direction. All he had to do was plant his feet and shoot them down, one after another, his magic easily breaking them in place as he switched to the next setting.

"Your resistance is pointless, but it's admirable to see you maintain a spell like that with your attention split," Tibalt said calmly as he started to walk forward. One spell, two, three, four, five, all shot down as Jamison practically foamed at the mouth.

"You think your party tricks mean anything here?" Jamison screamed, and Tibalt noticed, a bit distantly, that his hair was coming out of its perfect coif. There was a bead of sweat at his brow. How cute.