Caster's Burden/ my fanfiction

[youngstormlord]

Burden Of The Casters

In the middle of the night, he woke up to the feeling of Her snuggling closer to him. Lucas, Luke to his Side, always thought of Nyx as of Her, the same way he knew she thought of him as Him, with capital ache for both of Them. He liked Her, and for the last twelve turns they joined physically after turn’s end, the same way they linked during their side’s turns. It was enjoyable for both and it kept them balanced, especially now that they had to produce 10 more scrolls per turn than usual... He stopped thinking, for Nyx has opened her chestnut eyes and was watching him.

“Would you like to... you know... “She asked shyly. “One more time?” she lowered her eyes and blushed. Nyx blushed! They knew each other for so many turns, yet she actually blushed!

“I’m afraid not. Dawn will come soon and our turn will start sooner than I would like, almost following the light of the day.” he said, not unkindly, uncoiling from her hug and getting up. “And our Lord will need us in the casting room at the start of the turn.” Luke finished, starting to dress himself.
He heard as she sat up behind him, pulling the blanket around her slender frame and he turned to look at her. She was thin as a spear, so delicate, so wonderful, the most beautiful woman in the world, at least for him.
Nyx stretched like a cat and started unravelling small tangles in her short black hair. She found them quickly and expertly, separating hairs with hardly a thought, better than any comb could.

“I wish we didn’t have to go up.” she said suddenly, not interrupting her work. “I wish we could have this turn off, just for ourselves. We could go to Magic Kingdom and get back in touch with our friends. We could ask for their help or just run away, hide and relax...”

“We cannot. It’s our Duty.” he said simply, turning around, to continue with suiting up. “We are our kingdom’s biggest asset. Without us, it produces one random scroll per turn. With me alone, it jumps to five Healomancy scrolls per turn in addition to that random one. And with two us linked... Fifty scrolls, easy, with enough parchments and red gems. Even sixty! And tomorrow, with Merry...”

“I don’t want to talk about tomorrow. Or Merry.” Nyx interrupted in annoyed voice. “I don’t want to talk about her. She scares me.”

“Have you forgotten?” Luke turned to face her again. “Without Merry at THAT time in THAT place, there wouldn’t be Healaid kingdom or Healaid side now. Our side!” he reminded her. “If she weren’t there, if she didn’t risk disbanding on the spot for treachery... we would have never linked. Our Prince would have croaked in second turn of the battle and our King in fourth, instead of during third, like it happened. We would have been either croaked, captured or disbanded. Or turned barbarian at best.”

“But we DON’T need her, not any more. We can heal one garrisoned unit thousand times or every single one once, per turn. Or we can produce 60 Healamancy scrolls per turn instead! I don’t see why we need her!” she repeated.
Luke looked her in the eyes and saw that she was arguing from feeling of terrified certainty, certainty of the future that was going to happen if the three ever linked again. He just wanted to hug her, look her in her chestnut eyes with his own black ones and tell her not to worry, they don’t really need Merry, she doesn’t have to do it, and they can just take two turns for themselves, no pressure. But he couldn’t, ‘cause they had Duty.

“We DO! We have our orders.” His face hardened and he seemingly changed the point of conversation. “Tell me, Findamancer, if you remember, where have you found the closest Archon to us yesterday, at the end of our turn?” he asked nonchalantly, trying to sound cold and distant, all business like, as if they were just two random casters talking.

“Over garrison, in our airspace.” Nyx replied gruffly.
-“And the second closest one?”
“Over our tower.”
-“And the third and fourth one?”
“Over our outer walls.” she replied.
-“And two veiled ones?” he continued.
“Over our court, near the courtroom windows.” she said meekly.
-“And how many in hexes surrounding our city? Twenty, right?” he pressed on.
“No, around thirty, maybe more. I didn’t have enough juice left to find them all after making scrolls.” she corrected.

-“And THAT’S why we need Merry.” Luke triumphed, in morose voice. “So we can produce 150 scrolls per turn. So we can give over nine thousand heals in ten hex circular radius around the city instead of one thousand in the city. We need her to have a chance!”

“I still don’t like it. And I don’t like her.” Nyx said, suddenly saddened. Her eyes sparkled and she almost started to cry. “Last time we linked, so many turns ago... It was amazing! I could see so far! I could find our unit with lowest hitpoints on the whole battlefield and I... we could heal it in an instant! We saved our Prince a hundred times that day and by the time our turn was over, he was King Galen the Third and invading army was destroyed! We started producing enormous amount of Healamancy scrolls and reached two thousand in just eleven turns! It was the most wonderful feeling in the whole Erfworld!” she went quiet, euphoria drained from her voice and, all of a sudden, she was sullen again.

“And then Merry had broken the link.” Nyx said, her voice flat. “It was the most horrible feeling in my whole existence! I felt as I was going to croak... something red was gushing from my eyes, and I couldn’t see... My hands, cold and wet, as my hit points drained through them, through my feet, I couldn’t breathe...” She took a shallow breath, shaking her head. “I couldn’t see, but I felt... you. Trying to reach me, but you were hurt as well, she had hurt you too... And then connection, I’ve felt your power, healing me, repairing me, juice draining from your body and I reached, searched, I’ve found the rapport, the... remains of connection three of us shared and... felt safe...
After that, I couldn’t cast for twelve turns, but Merry could. I’ve spent them in a daze instead, but I remember the pain, the hurt every time I tried to remember, to recall who I was, to break the link... so small, so wounded... my only safety in you, in your power, in your discipline...” her eyes wandered off in the distance, tears falling out of them and down her face. “I don’t want that happening again, EVER! I DON’T! Ever!!” she whimpered, shaking from convoluted sobs.

Luke approached his pair, his love and gave her a hug, pulling her close to his chest and gently rubbing her naked back through the blanket with his right hand. The other one stroked her hair. He had felt the same way about Merry and the big link: one of the Titans themselves at one moment and in deepest pit the very next one. He was lost and searching, looking for himself, and it took all the power of master level Findamancer to find remains of the broken link, to find all of his pieces, and put them together, and then find a way to the light... And that Findamancer was Her.

“I know, Nyxie. I don’t want that either.” he said quietly, gently rocking her.. “But we don’t have any choices left. Our whole treasury depends on the scrolls, since we are the only kingdom specialised in scroll production, the only one filling its coffers from them. You know that. But here’s what you don’t know.” he made a pause and gave her a kiss on her black hair.

“Sixteen turns ago, we have produced 40 Healamancy scrolls per turn for 200 Shmuckers each and sold them to anyone who had 1000 Shmuckers to pay for one. Fifteen turns ago, Charlescomm forbade us to sell the scrolls to anyone else but them and offered us 1200 Shmuckers per scroll, while at the same time forcing us to increase production to 50 scrolls per turn. And just twelve turns ago, Charlie had pressed our king to produce 60 scrolls per turn, and is currently paying 1500 Shmuckers for each one. We had 5000 healamancy scrolls in our treasury as reserve 15 turns ago. We have only one thousand this turn. Others were sold to Charlie.” Luke’s voice actually shivered at that point. “We are forbidden to sell to Gobwin Knob, our former biggest buyer via Sizemore the Brown, so all our income comes from Charlescomm. His full forces are at most 3-4 turns away from us at all times, depending on the Archons and number of moves they have, since his base is in that area, and Charlie listens to all Thinkagrams. And our treasury is almost empty, since Lord Bandage is using all of our funds to buy as much anti -air defences as he can, doing his best to upgrade our towers as much as possible at the same time. It might turn moot though, since Charlie can force some other side with infantry to attack us instead. And the last time Healaid fought against Charlie’s Archons, our whole side almost ended. Without link-up, we don’t stand a chance.” he finished morosely.

“I know.” Nyx said quietly, her voice muffled. “Charlie has first turn and he can use the scrolls we sold him against us. Four thousand, eight hundred and seventy Healamancer scrolls, plus any other ones he had beforehand, on Archons, almost undefeatable flying knight-type units. I only wish it was different.”

“So do I.” Luke replied, gently breaking a hug. “Get dressed now, and eat your rations. Our turn will start soon.”

“I will, Healamancer.” She joked, smiling through tears, that sparkled in the rising sun.


//Please tell me other healing/health puns you can think off. Also, King Galen is reference to Roman surgeon Galen.

[youngstormlord]

Once they got to the casting tower, Lucas found Lord Bandage in loud argument with King Galen. King’s face was livid with rage, but he still listened to his Chief Warlord, albeit barely.

“... two hundred o’nurses and fifty hello’nurses, sire. They sacked and razed the city afterwards, and returned to their capital. City of Alcohol is no more.” King actually hit the table with his fist, such was the strength of his anger.

“Titans teats!” he exclaimed. “How could this happen? Undertakers were never able to threaten us before, let alone take last of our level 3 cities. How could this ever happen?”

Lean figure of Thinkamancer got out from behind the shadow of the supporting pillar.

“Warlord Intravenous reported seeing two stacks of Archons lead by a Shockamancer before he croaked, your highness. Thanks to natural healomancy of Hello’nurses, he was able to stand quite a lot of punishment, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Enemy Shockamancer used more than fifty Healomancy scrolls. Our scrolls. Sorry, sire.” Merry finished.

She looked the same as the last time Lucas had seen her, in long black and white dress, her tight grey bun peeking behind the hat of darker grey colour, the same colour as her eyes. The only difference between now and then was the lack of “Umbrella”, made by now extinct Headmistress tribe; it was rumoured that King Galen the Third had it destroyed, since he didn’t want “The flight of Bobbins” repeated; it had meant his father’s life the last time that item was used.

Suddenly, Lucas realised that Nyx stopped walking and turned around, only to find her watching Merry with her mouth wide open, her whole body shivering in silent terror. He got back to her and gently took her hands in his, rubbing them until she stopped shaking. Merry didn’t react at that outburst at all, too busy watching the exchange between King and Lord Bandage to notice.

“What a despicable, underhanded, cheating...” King was overwhelmed by his own fury and finished the sentence in completely unintelligible gibberish. Lord Bandage turned to face him again and started speaking:

“Your highness, this changes everything! The last time Healaid fought against Archons...”

“Shut up!” King shouted at warlord. Lord Bandage did so immediately, his jaws clenching shut in the middle of a word.

“Do you think I have forgotten, you old fool?! I have started that turn as Prince Galen and ended it as King Galen the Third! Do you really think Royal forgets a thing like that?!" King asked, getting off his throne and starting to walk up and down the hall. “Do you, now? I remember it as clearly as it was yesterday and there were just three stacks of Archons in that battle. Three!
And we are facing at least five, right here and now, five stacks of Archons flying around our capital and ready to take our beautiful Aspirin by force at merest thought from Charlie. We don’t have nearly enough units to take Charlescomm down and, since the fall of Unaroyal, no allies either.
Even if we win this battle, the only sides powerful enough to save us are Gobwin Knob and Coalition, and they are fighting against each other as we speak! And I’m not even sure we’ll have enough warlords to defend ourselves if Charlescomm chooses to attack us this turn...”

“Maybe if we summon Prince Scalpel and Surgeon Amputate back...” Bandage tried.

“Are you insane?” King gave him incredulous look. “I’ve sent my heir far away, sent him to relative safety just in case I get croaked, and your advice is to call him back? No, I think not. Go wait in the court. I have matters to discuss with my casters.” King Galen dismissed him.

Lord Bandage angrily stormed off.

[youngstormlord]

Once the door closed behind the warlord, the king motioned to one of the courtiers to approach him. “Go to Lord Bandage and tell him that I’m ordering him to gather 40 of our archers and 60 of our highest level, best pikemen from the garrison in a single stack, stack with them and lead them to the outer walls. He is also to read the message I’m about to give you now, and then send me a thinkagram when he does both. Got that?” King Galen said, giving a piece of parchment to the courtier.

“Yes, my liege.” courtier replied, still bowing.

“Then what of mine are you waiting for? Lemon?! Move!” the king shouted, losing patience. Courtier literally fled the room. Lucas smiled. The king has chosen his courtier well; this one was the leanest and the fastest of the bunch. Even Nyx grinned. Then King Galen turned to them.

“You two! Link up and make two healomancy scrolls in here. Then cast heal on two of our pikers on the outer walls. I want you ready and warmed up for some serious casting!”

“Yes, my king.” Lucas started, but they finished it together. Nyx winked at him, then removed a strand of hair in front of his face.

“I’ll start this time.” she said, raising her right hand and spreading her fingers wide.



“Marco.” she sang, so sweetly, so melodically.

“Christopher” he sang back, taking her hand with his left.

“Florence” she said next, raising her left.

“Polo.” He replied, taking it.

“Gregory.” She said, her grip tightening.

“Nightingale.” He replied, pulling her closer to him, until their heads nearly touched. He was already feeling her feelings, excitement and eagerness.

“Colombo.” she said, lowering her head on his right shoulder and closing her eyes.

“House.” he replied, doing the same, words of power that the spell was made of pulsing clearly in hir head. Then the feeling of the moment come, power overwhelming.

“Callahan’s.” two mouths whispered as one and the world widened. It changed colour too, when hir’s eyes were opened. As usual, everything was tinted with grey. Hir unarm separated and s-he had left and right hand again.

Four eyes looked around the room, to see Merry with her mouth open wide and eyes bulging, like if they are going to pop out from surprise and shock. Female mouth gave a wide, wolfish smile, lots of teeth showing, and a soprano thought came “You didn’t know we can do this, Merry, did you now?”. Male mouth just gave a small, disdainful smirk. “Scrolls and pikers, remember?” a thought came, in pleasant baritone.
“Fine.” soprano replied, “Let’s spend some juice.” they thought in unison, and the very next moment they’ve found the first red gem and the closest piece of parchment. A thought, some miniscule amount of juice spent, and one healomancy scroll was now in the tower, popping on the king’s table.

***

She watched the two for a full minute before finally remembering to close her mouth. It was impossible, what they did. It WAS supposed to be impossible! - she corrected herself.

Merry had heard about the link-up without a thinkamancer, but this was the first time she has ever seen it. King Galen had forbidden her to see them doing it before on the threat of disbanding on the spot if she ever tried to sneak behind his back and just do it, so Merry didn’t. It was almost sacrilegious to her discipline, to thinkamancy as a whole!

Merry knew that they were both talented casters before they’ve linked for the first time, able to cast out of their respective disciplines but this... it was unimaginable yet... they were still doing it! Her king asked her a question, unease clearly visible on his face.

“Tell me, Merry, what is the effect on casters of having 10th level Chief Warlord in the same stack with them, on the tower hexes?” he asked.

“Ten percent increase in juice and casting range, my lord, but only on the tower hexes. Half of that on any other.” she answered, still stunned. “If I may be so bold, why do you ask, sire? Lord Bandage is our highest level warlord and he is just level eight.”

“That’s not completely true, caster.” King Galen replied, with a sad smile. Melancholy, Merry thought. “Thank you for the answer, anyway.”

A hat on his table moved, knock knock. The king approached it, said “Pizarro” then read a message. He gave a wide grin, smiling for the first time today. King Galen crumbled the paper and put it in his pocket. He clapped his large, strong hands, very loudly.

“Ladies and lords” He growled “I want everyone who is not an archer or a caster out of this tower and in the courtyard. NOW!”

His order was barked, at ear shattering intensity. ‘Level ten warlord?’ Merry pondered for a few seconds, while the tower cleared and king kept watching over the hall. Another two healomancy scrolls popped on the the table. ‘But, it is not our turn! It’s Charlescomm’s! And we don’t have any level 10 warlords!’ she thought, still shocked by the link up. Then, familiar tingling of unit asking for Thinkagram, and Merry’s senses finally came back to her.

“Lord Bandage is in place and asks for a thinkagram.” she declared.

“Well, give it to him. Let’s hear what my Chief Warlord has to say.” her king replied, then sat behind his table and sharpened the quill. He smiled, oddly.

***
King Galen smiled, watching the tower empty. He felt almost like a prince again. World was much simpler then, he thought. He didn’t need to think about politics much. All hard questions went to the king. Should we besiege that city? Ask a king. Should we give that royal Barbarian a place to hide from the small army pursuing him? Ask a king.

And king always gave him good answers. No, you shouldn’t, it’s already besieged by two armies bigger than our own. Yes, you should. Provide him with royal escort.

They were good answers, ‘cause they made them some allies, and Healaid always needed allies. They weren’t strong enough on their own (their greatest exports were healing units to other sides, so no one liked to attack them much, less those exports stop coming and many units croak) and other Royals despised them, practically since their side’s creation, hundreds of thousands turns ago.

It was said by other royals that Queen Galenika the Traitor was barely a royal of the plaid tribe when she had defeated Cheese-eaters of Squirm and razed their capital. When she had returned home victorious, her king spurned her sexual advances and everybody knows what is said about women scorned. Because of her hideously low loyalty, she defected and made a new side where proud Squirm once stood. And all historical accounts agree that Queen Galenika never knew what was that entire Royal fuss all about, and why the other Royals tried to destroy her.
But prince of Healaid needs to know the truth. It was King’s advances that were refused. When she did so, King Saline the First had ordered her disbanded on the spot. It was her hideously low obedience, not loyalty, which saved her and allowed her to escape. She was loved by king’s own troops more than the king himself and the third of them had low enough loyalty to follow the good Queen to the birth of the new Side.

The rest was a history of battles fought by princes and princesses and negotiations lead by queens and kings. Prince Galen always liked to fight. The problem was, he was King Galen the Third now and forced to negotiate.
King’s world was complicated. World of a prince was simple. Simple problems and very simple answers, usually involving violence and gore. The problem was Charlie. And Galen was going to enjoy the answer to it.

“Well, give it to him. Let’s hear what my Chief Warlord has to say.” he told Merry when she asked. Nasty piece of work, that one. Almost croaking two casters because of her cowardice, trying to save her own skin. There was a lot of bad hitpoints between his casters because of it and King Galen kept them separated. Until now, that is, when his back was to the wall.

His thinkamancer was upset by Lucas and Nyx linking up without her. The grey shine of their eyes was upsetting to him as well, but the look on Merry’s face when she saw them linking for the first time was priceless.

Then Lord Bandage’s face flickered into focus in front of his eyes.

King Galen disliked him. Bandage was quite a weakling and pretty unimaginative tactician to boot, winning all his battles with pure numerical superiority and huge personal stacks. And arrows, lots and lots of arrows. At least he was properly paranoid, like a true royal he wasn’t, else king would have disbanded him long ago.

“I have positioned our archers on the outer walls for target practice. Prepare to heal our pikers as archers increase their accuracy modifiers. You on the tower better watch out, these archers are so green they are pooping grass. There will probably be arrows everywhere and some of the volley may hit the tower.” Bandage said.

“Understood.” King Galen said then turned to his linked casters and tower archers. “Move away from the windows and into the corners of the room, please. Thank you.” He finished then turned back to his Chief Warlord. His own table was near one of the walls and nowhere near the windows. “Done. Over and out.” he told him. A few arrows indeed entered the tower, shattering on the marble floor. The king waited for the screams to die out and rain made of steel, wood and feathers to stop.

“All healed. Two pikers are back on their feet, just as predicted.” Pair said in unison.

“Good.” the King walked up to them then whispered in Nyx’s ear. “Find me all the archons closest to the tower, please.”

Pairs eyes flickered, once, twice, three times.

“Three veiled ones near the tower window, unmoving, my prince.” she whispered back.

“Which one?” he asked, pleased by the title his ears haven’t heard for thousand of turns.

“South”.

The king walked back to the table and scribbled something on the piece of parchment with his newly sharpened quill. He put it in the hat, said “Earhart” and it disappeared. Few seconds later, the hat knock knocked again.

‘I’m going to enjoy this’, King Galen thought, while giving everybody on the tower a wide smile, showing lots of his pearly whites. “Casters, cast again. Heal.” he said, savouring the moment.

***
Lord Bandage was always a simple archer at heart. His promotion to Chief Warlord came as surprise, those thousand turns ago. The only surviving of his stack, the highest level unit in the field, the highest accuracy and the best eyesight... it had some sense. But, he wasn’t Royal and this plan was too complicated for his liking. Why not just blast the archons out of our airspace with spells? Of course, they were veiled, but he has spent the last twelve turns stoking air defence spells on the tower and even if only every third hit, they’d still have some left.

The hat knock knocked, Lord Bandage received the message and prepared his archers for another volley. He was the one that shot poor pikers, while his elite archers had intentionally missed. Lord Bandage took his longbow again, carefully choosing an arrow. He notched it, pulled the string to his ear and waited.

Then it happened.


He saw blonde archon's shocked face for much less than a second before he served. The other two were watching the king and had their backs turned to him and his stack. Big mistake, the biggest one of their lives. His arrow had hit the blonde straight between the eyes, ending her shout, but not one arrow missed. One was close, though, hitting red-headed archon's leg. Lord Bandage turned to his stack, as proud as he was tall.

"Men and women, that was a fine good stitching. They croaked before they hit the ground." he said, getting cheers and grins from his elite strike force. Then he turned to (almost) luckless archer. "John, aim a little higher next time. Remember what I told you about distance and the air units?"

"Sorry, Novak." John said, wiping one sweaty hand on his green tights. "I got nervous. This is my first time against the fliers."

"Don't worry. You are still low level, John." Lord Bandage said, giving John a reassuring pat on the shoulder and having to stand on top of his toes to do it. He was tall, but John was taller. "It will pass once you get higher level. Now, let's end this dirty business." he added, notching another arrow. Another archon got unveiled by heal, right there over garrison and had barely had time to make her fingers in thinkagramming pose before Roger, Rafael and Serena ended her transmission and the others had finished turning her into goose.

Lord Bandage smiled, without firing second arrow, before his smile curled like two turns old milk rations left on the sun. He saw a blur on the horizon, just on the edge of his eyesight but it wasn't there when he turned to look. It was starting, for real this time.

[youngstormlord]

***
"So, at long last, you stand alone." said Lord Hearse. His stack was large, flaming sourmanders mounted by reapers. More than two hundred stabbers on flanks. The throne room seemed small to accomodate them. King's own forces seemed small and lost, like tourists lost inside archery range.

"No, not alone." said the pair as one, with Mary's voice lagging half a second behind, producing echo. King Galen smiled. His casters entered the room with the stack of cloth gollems, breaking the wall in the process.
"Pfft, cloth gollems. And only 12 of them?" Lord Hearse mocked. "And you don't even have Dollamancer to fix them. Do you really think 12 dire bears can stop me from croaking you and capturing your precious trilink? Sourmanders, set them on fire."

His casters retreated to a spot behind him, King Galen saw. Gollems took the brunt of the fire storm. Then another. And another. But they didn't topple. They just stood there and were on fire. And sourmanders had no flame left for the fourth volley.

"Healaid was always diplomatic kingdom." King Galen said finally to wide-eyed lord, his face bathing in the fire of the bears. "Casters from all over Erf have bought our scrolls. For friendship. And alliance. I'll offer you one chance and one chance only. Surrender now and I'll spare your miserable lives."
"Never! Your tricks will not work on me!" shouted Lord Hearse.

"In that case..." King said simply then ordered "Gollems, transform and ROCK OUT!"

'Thank you, Sizemore the Brown. Old friend, I tell a good word for you in the hall of the Titans.' King thought, as claws broke through the burning cloth on hands and feet, and hard rock golems removed their steel-wool hoods. The king got up from his throne, unsheated his sword and lead his stack to his last battle. Lord Hearse was already croaked by then.