After the class finished, about half the people shuffled off, ready to go get dinner, practice magic, or attend a late night class, while the other half – including me – stuck around to get a better look at that fifth circle spell that he’d briefly shown off. Once the class had all settled down, professor Gemheart gave us all a wide smile and re-animated the chalk, causing it to leap up and start writing the spell out on the board again. This time, I was able to get a better look.

  I had been right to compare it to the rubblewall spell, but not entirely. Rather than simply gathering up loose material and compacting it into a wall, the spell seemed to slowly draw stone up, stick it together – though I wasn’t sure ‘stick together’ was correct, and then raise it on a fairly solid foundation. It was rather impressive to look at, in all honesty, and I had a hard time fully grasping the spell. Still, I had a guess as to which spell it actually was.

  “Wall of Stone?” I guessed, and professor Gemheart pointed the end of his pipe at me.

  “Exactly! This spell gathers local material from the topsoil, subsoil and substratum, as well as bedrock if needed, and pulls it together. It then chemically bonds the stone, fusing them into a unified stone, and stabilizes into a wall. For those unaware, subsoil and substratum are the layers beneath the topsoil, but above bedrock. Now, speed is one of the core factors of this spell.”

  “Is it quick enough to be a battle spell?” one of the third years who had stuck around asked, and professor Gemheart shrugged.

  “That’s why it’s a core factor. You ever heard the phrase ‘good, cheap, or fast, pick two’? Well, this spell works similarly. Your abilities and knowledge of stone is factored in when fusing the stones together, and can alter the efficiency of this spell. Want a stone wall fast and cheap? It’ll be a loose collection of rocks barely piled together with basically just mud as mortar. Not nice ceramic style mud, either. Just mud. Want a fast wall that’s well crafted? Be prepared to pour absurd amounts of ether into the spell to create it, since you’ll have to compensate for paying no attention. Want a good wall that’s not too taxing on your ether pool? Be prepared to cast the spell over an hour, slowly working out the stone and combining it in better ways.”

  “How long does the wall last?” someone else asked, and professor Gemheart grinned.

  “Well, that’s the kicker. A wall of force might be as tough, tenacious, and stable as your ether can make it, but it’s limited in time. This spell might be more limited by the actual stone reserves around you, but it’s not limited. It’s not a spell effect, it’s true transmutation, permanently shifting the world around you. Even if you hit a wall of stone with a general dispel, nothing will happen. There’s no magic to dispel. It’s like baking a cake – a process that goes one way.”

  I raised an eyebrow, and the personal estimation of the spell I’d initially been holding onto shot up by quite a bit. Being able to temporarily slap together something tougher than rubblewall was fine, but that spell was held together by kinetic force. Something like this had application in fights, in wartime sieges, and in construction. That put it above planar adaptation or greater paralyze, at least in my personal book.

  “What shapes can it make?” I asked, pausing for a moment.

  “Well, the spell creates panels of stone that are ten feet high, and five feet across. They can be flat or curved, with the angle of the curvature being based on your skill at holding that shape while ether shaping. Now, since you all were kind enough to stick around for a bit, let me give you a trick that most people don’t think about when using the spell – it doesn’t have to use material local to the environment. Oh, don’t get me wrong, that’s easiest. But if you carry stone of another sort – say, if you were to expand your Etherius Locker – and place that stone down? That stone could be utilized instead.”

  I nodded quickly and wrote both of those notes down in my grimoire. I didn’t have access to a large Etherius Locker currently, but I was hoping that as my skill with conjuration magic progressed, that would change. If I had a way to open portals to other planes, that would be ideal, but I’d settle for the ability to simply trade with my summons. There had to be some sort of spell in that realm, didn’t there?

  Professor Gemheart spent a while longer talking about the spell, helping break down the spellform for us, before waving us off, telling us to go get dinner. It was getting late, especially with an extra half-hour lecture, so I followed his advice, before heading to bed.

  The next day I started the early shift at work, after which I pulled my money from my locker and began to peruse the components for sale. Fifth circle components were absurdly expensive, and even with the ability to purchase them at cost I didn’t want to buy them. But the store did sell dappled radiant hawthorne wood, the same material that my staff’s body was made of. The component was rated at fourth circle, so I would probably still need to replace it eventually, but it would be infinitely better than the shambling shrubbery wood that I was currently using. It also cost almost five times less than the cheapest fifth circle components, which was rather important to me.

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  After performing the ritual and integrating the richly colored, spotted wood into my wand, I met up with Salem, and we made our way to the Crystal Caverns trial site that we’d tackled the year before. Once again, we were teleported all the way out to Tall Mesa, at which point each of us began to cast. I spun out my buckler, layered a pair of shields, greater arcane armor, and a shield from arrows over each of us, while Salem wove enhancements into our mental defenses, a divination spell that would allow us to identify most traps, as well as one to help locate vulnerable spots in a variety of creatures. With that done, I conjured Orla alongside a pair of two additional gadhar to help protect us, a steel crocodile to lead the charge forward, a lightning ermine for its agility and striking power, and then Amos with two more wadjetktt to round out some support from the air

  Casting so many third circle spells back to back left my magic fairly drained, and I was forced to use Maugrim’s surge to draw some ether back into myself. Still, it was worth it, if for no other reason than the reaction from Salem. His eyebrows shot up, impressed, and he shook his head.

  “Well, ‘at’s quite an army there,” he said, shaking his head and laughing. At that, we set out, moving down the fifth circle challenge, using Salem’s magic to avoid the traps that filled the hallway down, until eventually we stood in what seemed to be an empty room. I took a deep breath, but there wasn’t much of a scent here. By the same token, there was just enough of the smell of earth, stone, and magic that it didn’t seem like all scents were being wiped out. Just as I was about to ask Salem if he could sense anything, there was a flicker from the side, and then one of my shields shattered. I spun and lashed out with my wand, casting abjure shadows. Nothing was revealed, but Salem was chanting even as one of his shields exploded.

  An instant later, a form shimmered and appeared in my vision. The monster looked like a praying mantis, but was easily the size of a minotaur, and moved with absurd alacrity. Now that Salem had revealed it, I could smell its bloodline, a mix of dreams, perceptions, and light that had allowed it to avoid my attention, but not Salem’s. Despite most of its power being focused on stealth, it was able to reinforce its long, blade-like arms with the power, and it swung down at Salem’s head once again.

  This time, though, the mantis was intercepted Orla and her two backups barked, and the shields suddenly glowed with the reinforcement of their angelus magic. The blow slammed down, but while the shield cracked, it didn’t break. There was a flicker then, and a small, snow-white ferret-like form, crackling with lightning, appeared in front of the monster. It bit down on the mantis’ carapace, lightning coursing from its mouth as it left dark burning scars across the monster. The mantis let out a shriek and swung at the ermine, but said ermine vanished fast enough that I was forced to engage my bloodline just to follow the movements. In a second, it landed, scampered across the ground in a semicircle until it was behind the mantis, and leapt upward to bite into the monster again. The mantis spun as if in slow motion, buying Amos and the other wadjetktt time to begin pouring their sunvenom into the wounds left by the ermine.

  That wasn’t the end of the battle, but it was certainly a turning point. My steel crocodile charged in and bit down one of the legs, spinning and giving a death roll to the monster, after which Salem and I stood back and let my summons finish him off. We headed deeper into the caverns after that, once again using Salem’s magic to avoid the traps, runes, and poisons that had been laid out to stop or slow us, before we encountered a puzzle. It was made up of dozens of pieces scattered around the room, which required either some form of telekinesis or teleportation to finagle into place. When we finally finished that, there was another round of traps, before battling a giant bone monster that was nearly impervious, save for a single gap in its interlocking bone plates that Salem’s spells identified. Then came more traps, another puzzle room that involved mapping the stars that Salem was able to solve with ease, more traps, and the final monster room. Within there stood a huge scorpion, easily as tall as Salem and I would be standing on one another’s shoulders, with a stinger dripping with a venom that smelled like nothing so much as death and destruction.

  We stepped forward, and as we did, there was a flash of light. In that instant, all of my summons, save for my familiars, vanished. All of my defensive spells crumbled away to nothing. Salem’s mental enhancements and divinations faded out of existence. And the scorpion began to move.

  I was shocked for a moment, but quickly got my feet under me. While this was bad, it wasn’t the end of the world. I engaged my bloodline and launched myself forward, calling up a triad of shields around me, while Orla barked to reinforce them. The scorpion thrust its pincers forward, and I spun the shields, catching the blows on them, while using the combined power of my buckler and shield to deflect the piercing tail attack that came in an instant later. Salem launched a wind blade, slicing against the carapace of the scorpion, but doing little.

  I spun and launched myself to the side, then raised my wand and tested one of the newest spells I’d learned. I formed the pattern for dessicate, then began weaving my suffering based dehydration curse into it. A thin beam of greenish blue magic shot from my wand and struck the scorpion, which began to scream.

  Moisture flowed from the form of the monster as it began to shrivel up, screaming all the while. The limbs on the side that I’d targeted began to crinkle, then they fell off entirely. The scorpion screamed louder as it toppled over, tail lashing at me with its deadly venom for a few last swipes, before it finally went still.

  I stared at the destruction caused by my spell, and wondered how exactly I’d managed to start feeling bad for a scorpion. It had been somewhat horrifying, but hells, it had certainly been effective.

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