After we obtained access to the final volumes of The Six and Their Heroic Curses, the next day was a blur of information. Midnight and I were the ones most qualified, as we had been trained to perform magic, but honestly it was beyond our skill level. The two angels had some insights about curses that were helpful, but it wasn’t enough.

  I sighed as I looked at some of our notes. “Normally, I would say I was confident in casting any spell. I have the free points to learn anything, and more than enough fatigue limit. But…” I slumped on one of the desks in the guest house we were staying in. “I’m not strong enough for this.”

  Midnight comforted me. It was nice, even if he didn’t fully believe it. “We almost have it. We just need six people with the ability to use magic at a proficient level. I’m sure we can find who we need.”

  The number being six was of course significant. It seemed to be of magical significance in this world. Whether it was always that way or became that way after a long period of practice was irrelevant. It was sufficient to say that right now, it was a rule.

  “We can’t just grab random people,” I said. “The less skilled someone is, the more they would drag this down. Of the people we know, maybe Ceira and Jerome might be close, if I could hold up the top end of things.” That wasn’t true. I was lying to myself. There was no way they would be sufficient, even if Ceira was greatly skilled in one area and Jerome was an excellent learner in a wide variety of fields. “Not that I’d bring them here regardless.”

  I didn’t just mean Aidura. The Capital. I meant this world. Jerome was still very much a teenager- younger than the other four, but he was now fifteen years old. Ceira wasn’t much younger than me, but I didn’t want to risk ruining her life any more than my apprentice. And even if I suspected they would resist any weirdness because they already had magic, not being able to guarantee it meant the option wouldn’t even be considered.

  Malaliel knew when to offer comfort, but she was also a practical minded sort. “The two of us wouldn’t be sufficient either. Our innate magic will leave us lacking in this department, even if we can weaken the curse.”

  Evija wasn’t even being considered, because with no insult to her she’d probably need a decade to be of relevant magical skill. She had potential not because of innate talent but because of endless curiosity. She stuck with her learning until she got results. But she was just a few weeks into learning magic now. Not enough to upset a worldwide phenomenon that might have divine workings.

  Any other powerful magic users I knew probably wouldn’t have any investment. Would they want to come to a potentially hostile foreign world? I doubted it. The various archmages wouldn’t fit. Wrickle… didn’t practice the right kind of magic. Spellshot was good in his niche, but the only way he could remove a curse likely would involve shooting someone. His magic was less functional outside of his chosen scope.

  Of course, there was one more option. It was just that involved significant risk. Careless action could backfire to an unimaginable degree.

  Sometimes you had to make a risky choice. And sometimes, even a slight hesitation took that choice out of your hands.

  -----

  “The king and queen have invited you for a formal audience.”

  That was what the messenger said. He presented an official looking envelope that was concerningly magical. I tried to suppress the explosion as I gingerly took it… but it didn’t react negatively to me. So it wasn’t the same as the book wards, then. Relatedly, the ones from the library were stronger than Fort Seire’s, to the point it had almost been a problem. Fortunately, they hadn’t been throwing the books at us like Yalith. Indeed, the several tomes handed into our possession only did so with great care.

  “Thank you,” I said. What else did you say to a messenger? He might not even be able to accept a polite rejection even if I knew how to give it. I could only accept the envelope that might explode when I opened it rather than when I touched it. I carefully set it on the table, the messenger already gone.

  It didn’t take long for the others to gather. For the last couple days, we hadn’t been disturbed except to have meals offered. With some trepidation, I opened the actual letter.

  There were a lot of flowery words I had to read several times to really get, but ultimately it said that the king and queen were inviting the leadership of our little mercenary band to an audience. Among other things, we were to be given thanks for helping to slay that dragon. Even though Riala had done a large part of that. Speaking of which, we hadn’t really seen her around. I hoped she was recovering from her injuries properly.

  “Well…” I said. “This was one of the options. And now I guess it’s the only one.”

  If we needed someone powerful and motivated to do something about the curse, the king was absolutely the right choice. I could literally feel him from a district away, his aura of power projecting down upon The Capital. Eyes Focused on Grandeur… was that referencing the city or the king? I wasn’t good at dealing with arrogant people. Then again, at least this guy had a reason to back up any self confidence.

  Nobody else seemed keen to jump in, so I continued. “We kind of have to go. One of you should do the talking. I’ll probably just make him mad on accident.”

  “Or on purpose,” Inasyah said.

  Malaliel nodded. Then she stabbed me in the back. “But we’ve already established the precedent that you are the leader of this group. So you need to be the one to speak.”

  I looked to Midnight for support. He just gave me a look. “Well I’m not speaking for you. And she’s right. Just… think carefully about whatever you say. Since they are bringing you there to thank you, just be polite and accepting. Fewer words is usually better. I’m sure someone can coach you a bit. When was it again…?”

  “I think in an hour.” I checked the letter again. “We should probably ask someone what ‘when the light of the sun stands tall over the fifth ring’ means.”

  “Not very subtle,” Midnight said. “People should know that, probably.”

  “Yeah…” I said. “But we don’t. Maybe Riala will brush it off, if we can find her.” I could cast Sending, but I couldn’t explain that. “We’re probably going to have to be honest at some point. And also be prepared to teleport the kids away.” They were sneakily listening from behind a door, but they weren’t any good at hiding their magical signatures. “We’re not going to risk your lives,” I spoke directly to them.

  Ayat stepped out. “If we don’t do anything, we’ll be stuck here forever anyway. And while powers are awesome, I don’t know if that’s worth it.”

  “Yeah,” Meter said. “I want to see my family.”

  The others concurred.

  “We need to judge their intentions first,” I said. Of course, that meant Malaliel would be the one doing it. “We don’t know this king and queen’s motivations aside from what we’ve already heard. Which is certainly only a small part of the picture.”

  -----

  Whether or not the time limit was to pressure us, it definitely didn’t leave us much time to overthink things. So we quickly decided on a plan. It wasn’t a good plan, admittedly. Midnight would be staying with most of the members of Extra, ready to Teleport out of the city if I was in mortal peril. Then he would Gate away everyone except the teens.

  I would be responsible for fleeing with the others, assuming the king hadn’t killed me instantly. I was usually confident in my ability to survive, but… clearly the king’s intimidation factor was working.

  Three of us would enter the royal palace. If we were in actual danger, I wouldn’t hold back on unusual spells. Haste would be first, and one of them would grab me and start flying. I’d focus on defensive spells before casting Fly on myself to allow the others maneuverability.

  We had plans… but we hopefully wouldn’t need them.

  “I’m still confident in my reading of Riala,” Malaliel said. “So as far as she is concerned, there shouldn’t be any hostile intent. Unfortunately, you’ll have to use your own judgement on when to bring up our issues.”

  The thing was, we had to get help with the curse. Or I could have immediately thrown all my power at trying to remove the curse myself, disregarding the inevitable consequences from doing it the wrong way.

  This one had more personal risk to my own life, but… I didn’t mind. And it wasn’t because I wasn’t afraid of battle. I wasn’t, but I was afraid of death. This could be it. But this random group of teens had grown on me, and I wasn’t so callous that I would let them die to save myself. Here was the moment I actually proved that, because the rest hadn’t been a risk.

  I tried to send Midnight calming feelings. Then I forced it with magic, because we were in a feedback loop of worry. That was not going to help. Mental Freedom didn’t actually suppress normal feelings, but it would help cut off that loop. And… there was a secondary effect. It helped me ignore the oppressive weight of magic in front.

  After this, I was going to have to talk to my therapist. It was probably normal to be afraid, but I didn’t like it. I would feel better if I thought Meteor Swarm could solve this, but the palace seemed far too sturdy.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  I only vaguely took in the architecture along the way. I passively noted that the gates we passed through on the way to the final ring of the city were extra enchanted. Everything looked nice. And then we were standing in front of two very large doors.

  “Names?”

  I blinked. Didn’t they know who we were? I’d shown people my letter. Oh right. This guy needed to announce us. “Turlough.” I couldn’t remember the angel’s cover names.

  “Ragna,” Malaliel spoke for herself. “And Edel.”

  The herald nodded. “Very well. Your majesties-” I got it now. That was the word I’d been missing. “The mercenary heroes and dragonslayers. Turlough, Ragna, and Edel.” This guy was pretty good at his job. He didn’t even stumble with my name despite it being unusual for the language. I probably should have faked my name too, but I knew I would have screwed it up.

  The doors opened. At least I knew where Riala was now. And she looked like she’d been healing up just fine.

  Also, she sure was bigger than I remembered. The king too.

  The two of them were massive. It was like they were sitting right in front of my face, but they were at the far end of the audience hall.

  No, they couldn’t be that big. Riala was normal sized. Even an absurd Enlarge wouldn’t do that. An illusion? No, it was more like-

  “You may approach.” The king’s voice was… commanding. Not magically, but I felt like I had to do it anyway. Partly because I could barely think.

  The three of us approached, with myself in front. What was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to wait to be addressed? Should I stop halfway? Go to the very edge of the carpet?

  Someone really should have told us how that worked. Riala should have told us. She was smirking at me. My tension suddenly lowered. I hadn’t realized how stiff I was until that moment.

  “Esteemed dragonslayers, this is our first meeting.”

  Sometimes your body reacts on instinct. That can be from excessive stress or relaxation. Proper training can also hone defensive instincts for survival. Maybe there was something subconscious that made me react to the king’s hand symbol. Or maybe I was just stupid.

  But if I was going to justify it, it was probably very rude to refuse a First Meeting Duel with the king, wasn’t it?

  I returned the gesture, just like I had with Velsolis. Everything went quiet.

  Damn. This was one of those things where it was rude to accept, wasn’t it? I kept my glare at Riala internal. This was her fault.

  “Oh?” The king turned to the woman next to him. “You are right. This one is bold.”

  Her smirk only got bigger. Maybe I had been set up. This was only my second First Meeting Duel, so I didn’t really know the traditions.

  The king turned back to me. Purple irises. Relatedly, I could see his skin was a sort of cyan, with horns that curved to almost match the line of his jaw. Everything about him exuded confidence.

  “What arena do you wish to compete in? Wrestling? Weapons? Magic?” There was probably only one correct choice. “Personally, I prefer magic.”

  “I love magic,” I said.

  He grinned. Were his teeth sharp? They looked sharp. “So I have heard. Is that your choice?”

  I would lose wrestling for sure. He had a large polearm with a hooked blade on the head standing next to him- I had almost mistaken it for a torch, especially with its magical glow.

  Wrestling was probably the safest. And I would lose any sort of match, so it was probably the correct one.

  “I want to choose magic.”

  Riala laughed. I hoped that she wasn’t laughing at me choosing death. First Meeting Duels were probably not supposed to involve actual harm. But maybe… I should change my answer?

  One step. The king took just one step and he was suddenly far closer and yet… similarly towering. Not an illusion. Spatial distortion, somehow. There was no way I could pick out the details with the massive amount of wards in this room.

  “I’m ready,” he said. “Don’t hold back.”

  His enchanted armor could probably take it. Surely his stuff was at least equivalent to what Riala had. I could only really do one proper offensive spell, so a lighting bolt it was.

  The man blocked it with his hand. No, he absorbed it. Some sort of active magic, but he hadn’t chanted anything or made a single somatic gesture.

  He was cheating. Sure, that was literally how I did most of my magic… but that wasn’t how people worked here.

  He could absolutely sense magic manipulation. I was as sure of that as I was that something was about to come my way.

  Darkness. He absolutely didn’t have to gather it in his hands, but he did. Slowly and deliberately. It wasn’t just darkness, though. It was cold. I needed Energy Ward. To resist cold? No, to resist that. It wasn’t actually that far from Darkstarfire’s stuff, if I thought about it. I just needed to perfectly match that magical wavelength to avoid being annihilated.

  I still threw myself out of the way, though. Standing at the epicenter of the blast would be crazy. As I tumbled across the sudden ice, I got a glance at the two angels. Their demeanor was very serious. Malaliel was probably an instant away from pulling out her sword and joining the battle. I should signal that everything was fine.

  But I didn’t have room to talk. If I didn’t force the king onto the defensive, he would probably keep chucking death at me.

  Chain Lightning. I didn’t quite know how to target it. It was difficult to judge distance when he always appeared one step away from me. I could only rely on my experience. The lightning flew forward, and he held out his hand to block. At the last instant, my spell curved- but the path was already predetermined as it curved around behind him to strike his lower back. The path was a bit longer than it absolutely needed to be, because I wasn’t certain how big he actually was.

  He instantly shifted his magic behind him, but this time my lightning sprayed everywhere instead of being smoothly absorbed.

  “Not bad,” he said. “Worthy of being called a lightning specialist. But I heard you can do better.”

  Had Riala really been paying that close of attention? Of course she had. I didn’t want to simply throw more mana into a single spell. If I actually hit him, I might replicate the thing where Riala got lightning in the back of her head. Yeah, she’d been shot with a couple dozen stun shots too, but it was too much of a risk.

  First I had to deal with my own lightning bolt. I hoped it wasn’t a breach of protocol that I blocked it with my staff. Though if he complained, I was just going to complain about my staff.

  Seriously, I had just got that replaced and enchanted. Now it had a smoking hole through it, and my jacket was singed too. If he’d given me another half a second to form a whole Energy Ward, maybe it wouldn’t have been an issue.

  I wasn’t standing in place. The king moved like he was taking a leisurely stroll across the room, but the ice had faded rapidly and I was sprinting around to get different angles of attack and defense. That was what my next spell was going to be. I wanted to demonstrate skill, since I couldn’t win in terms of power.

  Lightning shot above him, then it split into eight points on every side around him. It was still basically Chain Lightning, but it was doing all its jumping at once. I had infused extra mana beyond the normal limits, but the total power of each bolt wasn’t anything impressive.

  The lightning flashed, whiting out my vision. I could still feel magic, though. The king twisted the incoming power downward… and I was able to confirm a few moments later that it had all been directed into the floor. The carpet was ruined. I hoped I wasn’t expected to pay for that.

  “Not too bad, but I’m sure you have something more exotic.”

  He just looked at me. Then I was on my knees. I was a worm that deserved to be crushed. I could barely breathe under the oppression… and that was with Mental Freedom already being active.

  “There are only so many things I know,” I said slowly. “How can I say what would appear exotic in your eyes?”

  “Guess,” he said. “For comparison… though you have green skin, tusks aren’t something I am used to seeing. That blue and yellow hair is quite unique.” He gestured to his own face. “We all have horns, obviously.” He turned slightly. “And those wings… I’m reminded of ancient legends.”

  Oh. I didn’t even notice he had something that could pierce through Disguise among all of his other magic. Or maybe that was a natural ability. Willpower, maybe.

  “So… are you going to do anything else, or…?”

  I stood, not that it would actually make a difference in my spellcasting. “I’ve got one more thing that might impress you.” I could throw out other different elements, but I couldn’t imagine it would make much difference. I was pretty good at spatial magic, but I wasn’t sure if something like Spatial Rift would work here, and if it did it might cause significant trouble. But the hall was big enough that I could just manage to squeeze in my biggest spell.

  Was it a good idea? I had no idea. I was far beyond the part of this where anything seemed like a good idea.

  “You asked me not to hold back?” I said.

  “I did. But you seem to have done so anyway.”

  I grimaced. “It was more for my sake than yours. But I do have one thing I can show you.”

  He watched me gather mana. I could feel his own mana rising in similar quantities, so he was obviously keeping track of what I was doing. I took a few steps back. He still seemed to be just as close, but I wanted to be away from the center of the room. The various people watching the battle should be far enough back.

  I didn’t hold back. I just kept a little bit of extra mana in reserve to protect myself from myself. 20 mana. I’d never actually gotten to hit a person with this. Technically, I still wasn’t going to do it.

  Four meteors appeared high up in the room. I needed that distance for the spell… and I also needed to be near the edge of the blast zone. Anything smaller, and I simply couldn’t cast this spell inside.

  I dramatically waved my arm. The meteors were aimed to pass just over the king and detonate around him. I never expected him to jump up to meet them.

  A sparkling swirl of magic surrounded him as he spun around. As he connected with each meteor, they exploded in sequence- but the flaming energy they released was directed away from the king… and mostly upward towards the ceiling.

  I still needed every scrap of Energy Ward I used, and even with my arms covering my face my hair was still singed. I pinched bits of it to smother the fire.

  I sure hope he wasn’t interested in making the number of attacks even. “That’s all I’ve got,” I said. Technically, I had mana left… but with the various offensive and defensive spells as well as overcasting, I was already in the negatives. If he wasn’t trying to kill me, I didn’t want to risk more magic. If he wanted to kill me… I’d just die.

  “Shame,” the king said. “I was hoping to see some of those other spells Riala talked about. But I suppose they didn’t really suit the situation.”

  He turned and walked back towards his throne. I walked back towards the remains of the carpet in the center of the room. Hopefully, he would be amenable towards weird outsiders showing up in his throne room.