As Tristan scanned the ice elementalism Third Order spells, he picked out the two that seemed the most important; an offensive, and defensive option.
Winter's Wrath (Third)
Spell Phrase: Die Macht des Winters steht mir zur Verfügung. Diejenigen, die sich mir nähern, werden den Zorn von Eis und Wut spüren. Unerbittlich (The power of winter is at my command. Those who come near will feel the wrath of ice and fury. Unrelenting).
Spell Gesture: Hold your hand in front of you, with the fingers curled into a ring (as if you are holding a cup), with the thumb on the top. Blade your stance, and line up your arm with your shoulder. Then, rotate the wrist so that you are looking through the ring formed by your fingers and thumb. This will necessitate bending the elbow – the less bend, the faster the storm will gather. Essence should be focused into the ring formed by the thumb and fingers.
Other Notes: This spell creates a zone of razor-sharp ice and bludgeoning hail that follows the user, and persists as long as essence is utilized. It has a maximum radius of ten feet from the user, but takes a few seconds to build up to that level of potency. Your vision will not be obstructed, though other's may have difficulty seeing through the sleet.
Frost Screen (Third)
Spell Phrase: Frost védj meg most. (Frost protect me now).
Spell Gesture: Ball your hand into a fist (either hand), raise it in a diagonal across your torso (so that your chin is above the forearm, it extends up and towards your cheek, and the elbow is down closer towards the stomach). Essence should be focused into the forearm.
Other Notes: This spell creates a vertical "screen" of ice crystals that can take the impact of a large object (such as a siege weapon's bolt or boulder). This barrier manifests near-instantaneously, and so is good for reacting to sudden attacks. For more sustained assaults, stick to Frost Wall (First Order). The spell fades after five seconds.
Tristan set the book down and stood, turning back to the practice wall. Okay. First off let's just try this screen. He raised his forearm in front of him, crouching his stance instinctively a little bit and pulling his shoulder in towards his chest by reflex – just like if he was blocking a punch with his forearm. "Frost schützt mich jetzt," he stated as he surged essence into his forearm.
Silvery and icy-blue crystals exploded out from his forearm – catching him off guard for just a moment. They spread and formed a large, circular, sparkling screen of floating ice crystals that connected into a lattice, making a net with a thin layer of ice in the middle. A few seconds later, the ice vanished.
Very neat, he thought. Okay. Let me see what type of hit it can take. Once more he spun his crucible and pushed the power into his forearm. "Frost védj meg most." As soon as the screen popped up, he unsheathed his sword and swung at it. The sword hit, stuck, and he felt it hold still in the screen before it cut through and the screen vanished. It can take a hit, and block it, but not deflect it, he thought. He also saw the frost built up along the blade, and when he exhaled he noticed his breath coming out in small wisps that were visible. And it is really chilling.
Then he spotted the ice building up along his legs and thighs. Ah, right. The backlash. He used his hand to break off the ice chunks which clattered onto the ground before it began to slowly, slowly melt thanks to the ambient temperature. Right, so I have a nice defensive spell that can be used rapidly, for fairly little essence, keeps my hands free – wait, I should try that. He reached to his dagger, gripped it in his fist, and then repeated the spell once more.
To his dismay, he did not see the spell manifest. Right. So I have to have the hand unencumbered. No holding something. That does work with my lighter sword and overall combat style – but with the maul it is going to be less beneficial. He sheathed the sword and dagger, then turned back to the Omnitome, double checking the instructions for Winter's Wrath. Okay, next spell.
Following the spell gesture instructions, he spun his essence crucible – noting it was about halfway drained of the vital power – and focused the energy into his fingers. "Die Macht des Winters steht mir zur Verfügung. Diejenigen, die sich mir nähern, werden den Zorn von Eis und Wut spüren. Unerbittlich."
The air around him exploded, and he felt his energy drop precipitously and continue to drain as he drew in ragged breaths. The air became frigid, with icy shards and rocks the size of his fist spun about in a churning tornado with him at the center. It slowly expanded the more he fueled the spell, and he had to shut it off as he sank to the floor, gasping for air. He coughed a few times as his breath caught in his throat, and he felt the chill of cold through his body.
That's…that's what backlash is like at Third Order? He felt cold. Not horribly chilled, but he knew that a regular person's teeth would be chattering. Only his heritage's innate resistance kept him somewhat comfortable, if cool. I need ice dragon blood, he thought as he struggled to his feet, grabbing for the chair that had been behind him.
But his hand met cracked wood, and he glanced down, wincing as he saw the obliterated piece of furniture. Thankfully he hadn't fueled the storm enough to harm the desk or his Omnitome, but it still felt really bad to have broken something that wasn't his. Okay…I've got time. He went to the desk and leaned over the Omnitome, I should practice these two spells without using essence just to get the phrase and gesture memorized.
The next two hours were spent doing nothing but drilling himself on those two spells, and going through his full list of already-memorized spells to ensure he wasn't rusty. Not using essence, just letting it refill and going through the spell phrases and gestures. He had to check himself a few times as he felt slightly off from earlier muscle-memory, and to his slight satisfaction the reason was that he had bulked out ever-so-slightly. Not as much muscle mass as Bertram, but traveling, fighting more frequently, sparring with The Matriarch – all of that had developed a small but noticeable difference.
Which necessitated him re-training his muscles, and he passed another hour refining and refocusing on his spell gestures to really lock them into his body and mind. Right, I think that's about good. Time to check out those fire spells.
He felt slightly overwhelmed at the sheer selection available to him. Fire was extremely combat oriented. I don't need the defensive spells, he thought noting from his earlier jotting that they were mostly oriented around preventing people from getting close to the essence-weaver, or destroying projectiles by heat alone. Which, to him, were not very useful given he was wearing armor that, with a single spell, would become far more defensive. And, with his ice elementalism spells, he felt more comfortable.
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Offense it is. It looks like there's two paths that these offensive spells go down. These "ignition" spells that continue to cause the person to burn…but each subsequent use increases the severity. Or these "burst" spells that consume the "ignition"- he double checked his notes, or "ablaze" in order to trigger a larger, more damaging effect.
He pondered for a few moments. On one hand, focusing on those ignition style spells to ramp up damage to a target over time would be great for larger foes like that demon lord – or more notably, dragons – but they were not very good for large groups of enemies. For those, hitting someone near the center with an "ignition" style effect, followed up by one of the "burst" spells would result in the most mass harm.
One item that helped simplify his decision making was that the spells that set a target ablaze were every odd numbered Order, whereas the burst spells were ever even numbered Order. Then I'll do one Second Order burst style spell, and one Third Order ignition style spell.
Fiery Burst (Second)
Spell Phrase: "Herz des wütenden Herdes, ich rufe dich an, auszubrechen und meinen Feind zu vernichten" (Heart of the raging hearth, I call upon you to burst forth and obliterate my foe).
Spell Gesture: Hold your hand out in front of you, palm up, at chest height. Keep all fingers flat, as if you are trying to hold a tray. At the conclusion of the spell phrase, push your essence into your fingertips, and quickly flick all of your fingertips (except the thumb) up so that they are perpendicular to the palm. Essence should be directed to the fingertips.
Other Notes: This spell has no effect if a target is note affected by the Ignited / Ablaze condition from a prior fire elementalism spell. If the target is ignited, then the effect(s) will be consumed, and an explosion will emanate out from them. This explosion increases in ferocity and size depending on how many ignited effects are present on the target. Can affect any Ignited / Ablaze target, regardless of distance, as long as you set the effect.
Inferno Trigger (Third)
Spell Phrase: Die Wut eines tosenden Waldbrandes findet dich und wird weiter brennen, bis nichts mehr übrig ist außer Asche. (The rage of a roaring wildfire finds you, and will continue to burn until nothing is left save ash).
Spell Gesture: Hold your hand out in front of you, palm up, at chest height. Tuck in the thumb and pinky into the palm, hold the other three fingers out in front of you (the same spell gesture for the First Order spell Fireball). Then raise the middle finger skyward, and lower the index and ring finger toward the ground. Essence should be directed to the center of the palm.
Other Notes: This spell sends a spark up to five-hundred feet away, and immediately consumes the target in fire which will burn at them until extinguished with water. More nefariously, it will burrow into the skin, meaning that the person must be submerged to fully extinguish the flame, or the flesh must be removed.
Tristan nearly recoiled as he read the other notes for Inferno Trigger. That…that's just barbaric, he thought. I would never use that against a person. Dragon? Sure. Other more monstrous thing? Yeah…but against people? He felt a little sick to his stomach from the idea of setting someone ablaze and their only course to remove the heat would be to maim themselves – as many battlefields did not come with ponds or lakes to jump into.
Once more, he realized just how dangerous essence-weavers could be. If this is what Third Order is capable of… he didn't even want to flip to the later pages for fire elementalism, dreading that he would find even more horrific spells that would continue to linger.
But he stomached the discomfort and turned to the wall, pulling out his maul – which he knew could take heat thanks to being forged from Starmetal – and set it against the surface. I still need to learn and master it, he thought. First, let's use that Inferno Trigger. No clue if it will work against something inanimate or without flesh like this…and I am not testing this on a living person.
He followed the spell gesture instructions, and spoke softly with measured and precise enunciation. "Die Wut eines tosenden Waldbrandes findet dich und wird weiter brennen, bis nichts mehr übrig ist außer Asche." (The rage of a roaring wildfire finds you, and will continue to burn until nothing is left save ash). The essence that flowed down his arm and into his hand was warm – comfortingly warm and soothing.
He saw the faint spark of silver, crimson, and black shot out from his palm and impacted the mace head. It began to glow a soft, warm orange before rapidly becoming a fiery red. It can affect inanimate objects. Neat. Okay, time to try Fiery Burst. He grabbed his Omnitome, put it inside his chest plate, and got to the corner of the room. "Herz des wütenden Herdes, ich rufe dich an, auszubrechen und meinen Feind zu vernichten" (Heart of the raging hearth, I call upon you to burst forth and obliterate my foe).
He reflexively crouched down and covered his head as the effect was instantaneous. The moment he performed the "flick" of the spell gesture, and the last syllable left his lips, the room exploded. He felt the warmth against his face, and felt the whoosh of a minute shockwave from the sudden explosion. The desk was on fire, the maul was rapidly cooling and returning to its silvery-white hue, and his armor was warm to touch.
Standing up, he put both his hands at his midsection, and bent his fingers so that each was like a small crook. Interlacing them, he pushed the palms outward. "Ich befehle dir, Flamme und Hitze, zu verschwinden. Kehrt zurück in die Asche, aus der ihr gekommen seid." (I order you, flame and heat, to recede to nothing. Return to the ash from whence you came).
The essence loss was negligible, and he saw to his satisfaction that the desk was instantly extinguished, a faint line of smoke rising into the air before pooling at the ceiling to join other billowing clouds. Tristan sighed and reached into his chest plate, feeling relief at the untouched Omnitome. He quickly checked the rest of his gear to determine if anything was damaged, but thankfully nothing was save for some scorch marks. Note to self, don't do that indoors, he thought.
He had one lingering question though and flipped through the book back to the fire elementalism section. He found his answer quickly. Right, so I cannot just use fireball over and over to stack up these ignition effects. Each spell can only apply a single instance of the effect. I would have to use Fireball, then Inferno Trigger, before then using Fiery Burst. He chuckled as he realized the genius of the spell gestures. Fireball and Inferno Trigger are extremely similar – almost like they are meant to be used back-to-back, and then detonated with Fiery Burst which has a similar starting position.
He felt a newfound appreciation for whoever spent the time designing these spells, coming up with the gestures that they would blend together so well. But, he thought as he set the book down on the charred desk, I'm not going to use these ignition spells on people. He swallowed a little bit as he reinforced that silent vow to himself. It is too…evil, to just set someone alight like that…maybe as a last ditch effort…but not in general. I'll stick to ice elementalism. He began flipping the pages, but stopped himself. Nope. Hold off on the lightning elementalism. Practice.
He stood up and continued to practice the spell phrase and gesture for the two fire spells, and then went between using Fireball, Inferno Trigger, and Fiery Burst in that order. Not using essence, but just practicing rapidly incanting each in turn and cycling through the spell gestures until he knew he could rapidly use all three in quick succession in a pinch.
Confident he had that down, he turned back to the Omnitome, feeling a sense of glee as he flipped to the section on lightning elementalism.
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