Chapter 60

  Mages

  “So what is a mag dump, anyway?”

  I look over at Ayre when he asks the question and give him a big grin. “Oh, so that did get through to you! I thought you were spaced out for sure!”

  I can see his gaze getting flatter, so I widen my grin in reply as I give my answer. “Well, a mag dump is exactly what it sounds like! It’s when you discharge, or dump, an entire magazine, or mag, in one go. There’s a few niche scenarios where it’s called for, but it’s generally considered overkill and a waste of possibly expensive ammunition.”

  I gesture at the bundle of spent brass at Ayre’s feet to illustrate my point.

  Ayre follows my gesture down to the floor and I’m treated to the sight of a blush creeping up his neck and into his cheeks. “You … said there are times when it’s good?”

  “There are times when it’s appropriate,” I emphasize as we begin making our way out to the main hall again. “Like when you’re stress-testing a firearm or attachment, or testing your high-speed accuracy and control.”

  “So it’s … not for real situations?” Ayre turns toward me fully. “I’ve seen you do these dumps before, Remmi.”

  I nod in agreement to his second half. “I have. It’s not usually for real situations,” I confirm, “but there’s unusual situations, too.” I hold up my hand as I begin counting on my fingers. “Normally, it’s for suppressive fire, forcing the enemy to stay behind cover while your allies advance. Concentrated fire can also be used to overcome a hardened or otherwise stubborn target when you don’t have a better shot to take. No matter the defense, be it a riot shield, the stone body of a golem or a defensive barrier, saturating a target’s defenses with the kinetic energy can overwhelm and break them, especially with the right bullets.”

  Korrigan actually speaks up from behind us at that. “I don’t know what kind of special shield type a riot shield is, but saturation is about the only way to bring down a barrier spell if you can’t get to the caster, themselves. You have to overstress it with powerful blows until it shatters. Grandpa says that’s the big role of siege weaponry on the battlefield, to take down defenses so regular forces can actually reach the enemy.”

  I immediately begin bobbing my head. “Exactly! It’s the same concept where I’m from, siege or artillery weaponry is used to break through fortifications and defenses. We even have defense systems that function by shooting down incoming attacks, and still the most reliable solution is overwhelming them through saturation. It’s the same thing with one-on-one or small-scale combat like what we do. It’s an acceptable strategy to just soak the target in lead to achieve penetration!”

  That makes Leuke’s nose wrinkle. “Lead? Why would you use lead for your weapons? It’s so soft, it just folds up!”

  I give a snap of my fingers as I point to him. “That’s actually exactly why we use it. The deformation is a feature, not a bug. Bullets move so fast that if they were made out of a harder metal like steel, they’d shoot right through you and out the other side with minimal damage. Unless it directly passed through something vital, you’d still be coming at us with little more than a stagger slowing you down. But the lead smashes down and tears apart, spreading the damage out over a larger area. It gives the projectile a larger footprint on impact without killing its aerodynamics getting there.”

  I can see Korrigan’s little mind working away admirably at the physics of the problem. “But doesn’t that just make it splatter against harder targets like the barriers?”

  “It would,” I agree, “but that’s why we have different bullet types for different situations. Just like how Ayre uses a hooked arrow for hunting to make sure the arrow stays in, but uses those things with the long, wicked spike on the end for taking down an armored target, my people developed splayed bullet heads, called hollow points, to maximize shred against soft tissue and jacketed or solid heads to increase penetration. In fact, my main round I use for combat combines both features and a high propellent concentration for an all-purpose, high-energy projectile. It’s what I would choose to use for breaking a barrier, along with Spiral Shot’s increased penetration bonus.”

  “I see,” the little oni observes, holding her chin in thought. “So you’d saturate the target with bolts specialized for penetration until its defenses failed.”

  “Exactly,” I nod again. “That’s a perfect example of when a mag dump would be warranted in actual combat.”

  Ayre’s gaze breaks away from my face and goes down. Down toward the hole in the abdomen of my dress. “... But not when saving a friend?”

  Aww, how can I resist throwing an arm around his shoulder and pulling him into a hug after a line like that? I’m grinning as I pull us up cheek to smooshed cheek. “Saving a friend is a great reason to mag dump,” I assure the archer enthusiastically. “I can hardly think of a better one!”

  His words are slightly deformed by the pressure I’m putting on his jaw. “Then why’d you make it sound like a bad thing?”

  I consider that, not releasing my best friend from the hug. “Well, it’s not that it’s a bad thing, just a wasteful thing. I know you were panicking, but the appropriate course of action would have been to pause after a few rounds, assess the progress, and then apply more as needed. It’d be like dumping our entire supply of healing items on me when all I needed were a couple. If I couldn’t just buy more rounds from the System, what would we do for healing going forward? We’ve probably still got two more boss fights ahead of us.”

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  “Yeah, I guess that makes sense when you put it that way,” Ayre admits. “Sorry I wasted your bullets.”

  I just hug him harder. “Sorry?! You saved my life! And I can just buy more! I’m just helping you learn for the future! Firearms are a big responsibility, after all!”

  “... Why are you talking like I’m going to have to learn all about them?”

  Instead of answering him, however, I go about ordering restocks on ammunition. After all, we’re standing in front of the door marked, “Arena of Guile.”

  A few more minutes, and we’re walking into the arena, itself, though after the literal nature of the previous room with its roped-off dirt floor, it almost feels wrong to call this one an arena. It’s more like a library, the walls covered with nooks filled to the brim with rolled-up scrolls, soft candlelight illuminating the space in contrast with the wrestler’s hot torches.

  “Everyone, stay alert and ready,” I advise even as my eyes roam around to take in all of the room’s features, immensely curious as to whether the scrolls have anything real on them at all or are just decoration. I’m definitely nabbing all of them auto-loot will let me before we leave just so I can sate my curiosity. It’ll bug me for an eternity if I never find out if they’re all nonsense or not. “We’re obviously about to face some sort of mage for this one, and I doubt he’s going to be the Magic Missile and Incinerating Ray type. Heck, we’d be lucky if he’s the Turns You Into Sheep and Frogs type.”

  Ayre gives me a sideways glance I’m becoming familiar with. “For a place supposedly without any magic, your people seem to have a lot of mages. What kind are you thinking, then?”

  “Illusions, definitely,” I affirm. “Misdirection and even outright illusion magic were central to the entire Hall of Guile.”

  “Just illusions?” Leuke asks foolishly. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “No, illusions are actually really bad in the middle of battle!” It’s Ayre who’s fervently correcting him, fists clenched before his chest. “What are you supposed to do when you can’t trust your own senses? Or trust them too much and end up hitting an ally?”

  “It’s true that, on their own, illusions are the most harmless offensive magic,” I put in. “Illusions are dangerous because of what they hide, not what they do. I fully expect it won’t be ‘just’ illusions, only that illusions will definitely be there. I suspect he’s going to have something nastier than just those alone to take advantage of them, or to make them worse and really mess with us.”

  We round the corner, and there’s a bent, old ogre mumbling senilely over a scroll, jotting down random thoughts before that ever-present three-eyed mural. Identify calls him a “Warlock Ogre,” again the same level as the two before him, despite his emaciated frame.

  “There’s a lot of things that pair well with illusions,” I answer, now more on guard at this disarming sight than before. “Just be ready for anything.”

  The ogre’s laugh splits the air suddenly. He doesn’t rise or stop writing, he just tosses his head back and cackles. “GAHAHAHAHAHA!!! So you’re the clever one who made a mockery of my Hall!” His voice is like wind through dry reeds, but he rolls the scroll up and slips it into his robes, then begins mumbling incantations and making flowing hand gestures.

  Slowly, a storm cloud collects underneath his cross-legged form and lifts him up into the air, turning him around to face us. “You challengers who have overcome the Trial of Guile, now prove your worth to me!”

  At the clearly ceremonial standard greeting, my hand moves to my holster. “You’re the first one to speak before issuing the challenge,” I observe.

  He pauses and peers down at me with one eye, leaning over his cloud to do so, though he keeps his hands raised before him, wrists back, his fingers seemingly compulsively twitching and wiggling. “Hmm? And you’re the first one to understand anything besides the challenge. Aren’t you a curious one! You must be a Hero, then! Though it’s impressive even one of you has learned to talk with us.”

  “You’re the second dungeon monster to recognize what I am,” I answer calmly. “Though I actually first talked to dungeon monsters by pretending to talk like a pirate. The System seems to have learned since then, or dungeons have.”

  “Pirates? Desert Cove!” he immediately deduces. “Did you know those ladies are even older than I am?!” That’s followed by a dry, coughing laugh.

  Behind me, I know Ayre and Korrigan can only follow half of the conversation, but I feel their tension, just waiting for my lead. I, however, continue to engage in pleasantries. “They’ve held up better.”

  That just makes him laugh all the harder. “They had the good fortune to find eternity when they were young,” he boasts once he catches his breath. “I had the good fortune to find it when I was wise. But there is always more to learn! For instance!”

  Where he reaches, however, he pulls out nothing, and confusion passes across his ancient mein. He begins to pat himself down. “Ah, where did I put it?” He begins to turn on his cloud, digging around behind him on his left side.

  “Right hand!” I immediately declare, and an arrow and lightning bolt both go shooting by the old man’s upraised hand as he only barely jerks it out of the way in time.

  In fact, he doesn’t quite manage it. There’s a red line across his palm from Ayre’s arrow. He looks down at the blood with the face of a startled, lost old man, but then he licks it and begins to laugh again.

  I’m grinning a little, too. “Sorry, Mister Warlock,” I tell him smoothly once he’s settled down enough to hear me again, “but I’m afraid my people have a long history of fascination with legerdemain. You weren’t looking for anything with your left hand. You were tracing a spell with your right, all of your fidgeting to get us to ignore it as more of the same.”

  He leers over the edge of his cloud again, a wide, manic grin on his face. The doddering senility is gone, but there’s a deep madness in its place. “And I’m about to start a long history of fascination with you, Miss Hero! What an intriguing specimen! I can’t wait to find out what makes you so special!”

  His cloud swivels back out and to as great a distance from us as it can manage in the enclosed space, his cackling driving us all to ready our weapons. The time for talking is over. Now, it’s time to face the Master of Guile.

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