Chapter 150
Part 22
Prince Jaromer of Thon and Princess Pimall of The Warm People came by for a few moments, during
which Jaromer proposed a toast; “To a long lifetime of love and happiness, and to having the biggest
marker on the gameboard!”
This brought a heartyugh to most at the table, but the children had to ess Talia’s memory of her
first wedding here before they got the reference.
Osbald, Emeroth, and Senchak came to offer their well-wishes, then they took Yazadril aside for a
private ten-minute consultation.
There was music and dancing and disys of artistic magic, but most of the rulers spent their time in
conversation, and they began saying their farewells only an hour after dinner.
By the time another ny minutes had passed, only the closer of the friends and family remained,
along with the wedding party, some one hundred in all. The atmosphere of the gathering rxed
somewhat, and everyone who remained brought their chairs over to the head table, some sitting inside
the ring, some outside the original circle of chairs.
“Did you know,” Dilimon asked as he waved a tankard of mead, “I’ve had reports that The Healing of
Valentia prevents extreme drunkenness, hangovers, and alcoholism. But it doesn’t prevent moderate to
almost-extreme drunkenness, and I can testify to that right now!”
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As augh went around at that, Six poked Karzog in the shoulder with a friendly bit of Force and said;
“Let’s fight.”
“What, now?” Karzughed.
“Sure, up above the flowers.” Six grinned.
“Well I’m sure not going to fight you in this elf Simcrum; I haven’t even practiced in it.” Karz dered
with a grin of his own. His teeth looked startlingly white against the otherwise unrelieved ckness of
his confident face. “But I’ll go for swords and magic if you want.”
“Done!” Six called as he cast a glowing transparent yellow Challenge Sphere from eighteen to two
hundred meters above the ground, filling much of the volume of the great clearing in the redwoods.
“Don’t you think that cape will get in the way?” Karz teased as they Translocated to the center of the
Sphere, he assumed his true form, and they Retrieved their sheathed swords.
“Naw.” Six chuckled as he drew both his sabres and swept them about with a few warm-up swings.
“This is a Battle Wizard’s outfit, after all. They must have techniques to deal with it, so I can too.”
“The cape is there to help you blend into dark ces!” Alilia called up with augh. “We generally take
them off when we’re dueling!”
“Well I think it makes me look dashing, so I’m keeping it!” Sixughed as he flew around the sphere a
bit, noting its angle of trail behind him.
“They’re having an aerial sword fight? Six against Karzog?” Sana asked with a worried look as she
noted Karzog warming up with a four meter short sword.
“Their regr swords, no other weapons, no armor.” Fire exined. “Unlimited magic and Karz’ fire are
in, but no psionics.”
“So we can assume that Six’s magic is good enough to counter Karzog’s physical ability and fire?”
Tithian asked.
“Sort of.” Valughed. “Using magic makes the physical battle a lot more even, since they can both use
Shielding to block swords as well as spells, and they can use magic to cast as attacks or to augment
their sword strikes. And Karz is no slouch at the magic. It’s not gonna be even though, it’s gonna be
chaotic. Either one could win or lose in a blink from a lucky or unexpected move.”
“Ready?” Karz asked as he finished his warm-up and brought his sword to bear as he flew slowly
around just inside the perimeter of the sphere.
“Go!” Six called, then cast an attack as he Translocated.
There followed a quick chase and counter-chase sequence of short and violent flight maneuvers full of
sword-strikes and spell-casting interspersed with many sudden Translocations.
zing spells were discharged in every direction, but were contained by the Challenge Sphere, which
also contained thebatants on one asion when they collided with the inside surface at a
ncing angle.
The bout came to a sudden end when Karzog cut Six’s leg off at mid-thigh. He immediately let his
sword fall to the bottom of the sphere, snatched Six out of the air with his left hand and the separated
leg with his right, and jammed them back together as Six screamed with a blood-curdling shriek.
Mark saw a quick sh of magic around Six’s leg as The Healing of Valentia did its work.
Six caught his breath and rubbed his leg with both hands while Karzog Retrieved his sword and struck
a proud pose in the air with it.
“And there is a winner!” the young ck dragon happily dered.
“If you used your psionics to detect where I was going to emerge, that’s cheating.” Six grumped as he
Retrieved his own swords and stretched.
“That would be no more the use of psionics as an attack or defense than your use of it to cast the
Translocation in the first ce, and that’s not what I did anyway.” Karz stated with a grin as Six
dismissed the Sphere and they flew down to the table. “Read me if you want. You let a pattern develop
in your jumps. I anticipated you and momentarily put most of my power into the Cut spell on my sword,
and swung at where I thought you were jumping to, and that was all there was to that!”
“Yah, good win.” Six admitted as he gave the dragon a friendly p on the shoulder. “I’ll have to watch
that in the future.”
“Good fight!” Fire called as she pped and stood, and many others joined her in apuding.
Talia popped over to Six and hugged him with one arm while rubbing his leg and casting Diagnostics on
it with the other.
“I’m fine, Mother.” he assured her with a smile.
“I know, but I wanted to check anyway.”
“Yah, I had to as well.” he admitted. “I trust Val’s spell, but still, that really hurt a lot.”
“You crazy kid!” sheughed in loving exasperation, and hugged him tight.
“You’re growing like a weed.” she proudly noted as she stepped back with her hands on his shoulders.
“Soon you’ll be taller than I am.”
“I’ll take after Father that way, I think.” Six told her with a grin. “Going byparisons to other children
my age, I should be pretty tall. Maybe not as tall as Father, but taller than average for a human. Maybe
as tall as a Sylvan. I’m d Fire got the ck hair and not me, or I might end up being mistaken for
one.”
“No one could ever mistake you for anything but your father’s son.” Yazadril assured him. “Even with
your blond hair it’s unmistakable, you take after him in so many ways, and the girls do almost as
much.”
“I’m d you think so, but I see their mothers in them every minute I’m with them.” Markughed.
Val stood and raised her cup of tea. “Here’s to being astute in our choice of parents!” she called with a
“I’ll drink to that!” Talia agreed with a warm smile for Yazadril and Nemia as she raised her ss, and
everyone else joined them in a drink and augh.
“You don’t really have liquor in there, do you?” one of the forest elf girls asked Val as she indicated her
cup.
“No, we refrain from drinking as a mercy to our parents.” Val giggled. “We already do a lot of things that
most children don’t, simply because they can’t, like sparring with deadly force and ruling nations. Our
parents are really good about it, but we know it has to be pretty strange for them, and they do worry.
We figure that if we also did the things that children are actually forbidden to do, like drinking, even if
we’re sure we’d be fine with it… Well, we might make them get a little crazy about it.”
“And we most sincerely thank you for your consideration!” Aliliaughed as she swept her daughter up
off her chair and into a twirling hug.
“Oh they’re good little cubs now!” Bezedilughed, lounging with one arm around Dalia as she poured
him another drink. “It’s a good thing they grew out of scaring the crap out of everyone all the time!”
“Hey, I haven’t done that on purpose since I was five months old!” Fire protested.
“Yes, and thank all the gods for that!” Bezedil retorted with anotherugh. “You scared a decade’s life
out of me when you did it to me! “I’ve never been that scared outside of warfare!”