Eldritch Guidance-Chapter 135 – Fire vs Mushrooms and Vows

A blue-glowing card sliced through the air toward Scarlett, humming with unstable energy. Just like the others, it ignited mid-flight, consumed by her flames—but as it burned, the enchanted paper split apart with a sharp crack. A secondary effect activated, and jagged shards of ice exploded outward in a deadly spray, hurtling toward her with unnatural speed.

The attack was faster, sharper—more cunning than anything Mitra’s group had thrown at her so far. But, still disintegrated in midair, melting away before crossing the forty-foot mark.

Scarlett barely had time to smirk before the ground near her trembled. With a wet, tearing sound, colossal mushrooms erupted from the earth—thick, towering things as tall as ancient oaks, their caps unfurling like umbrellas. A thick, shimmering mist seeped from their gills, swirling through the air in a deliberate attempt to smother her fire.

She scoffed. With a flick of her fingers, a concussive blast of heat erupted from her around her, scattering the mist in a rippling shockwave. The mushrooms blackened instantly, crumbling into ash before they could fully release their mist.

But as the haze cleared, something even stranger emerged.

Dozens of small, shuffling figures stood in the scorched earth where the mushrooms had been—creatures no taller than three feet, their bulbous caps serving as heads atop stumpy, arm-legged bodies. Mushroom men.

Scarlett stared at the mushroom men.

For the first time since arriving in this forest, her flawless composure cracked. Her flames flickered, not from exertion, but from sheer disbelief.

They were adorable.

Tiny, wobbling creatures with caps too big for their stubby bodies, their little spore-spears raised in what they probably thought was a terrifying battle formation. Some even had what looked like faces—pinched, determined expressions beneath their fungal helmets. One of them sneezed, puffing out a tiny cloud of spores.

Then, with a chorus of high-pitched squeaks, they charged.

Scarlett almost felt bad.

The instant the first wave crossed that invisible fifty-foot boundary, her flames roared to life in an all-consuming inferno. One second they were waddling forward with misplaced bravery—the next, they were nothing but ash, drifting lazily to the scorched earth.

The air filled with the faint, nutty scent of toasted mushrooms—then her gaze snapped upward, drawn by movement in the distance.

Two squads of the remaining fungal warriors were retreating through the scorched undergrowth, their bulbous forms straining under the weight of their burdens. Between them, carried atop a woven lattice of living mycelium, lay Torran and Fuse—unconscious, but alive.

Her attention shifted to the figures gathered near Mitra and Alan.

Kneeling beside Mitra was a woman whose presence seemed to hum with latent power. Yaren Zuzanna, Archmage of Alchemy, her green robes embroidered with bioluminescent sigils that pulsed faintly in the shadowed clearing. Her ebony skin glistened with a sheen of sweat as her hands moved in precise, practiced motions over Mitra’s burns. Strands of her thick dreadlocks, woven with tiny living plants that bloomed, swayed with each movement. The air around her smelled of damp earth and crushed herbs—sharp, medicinal.

But it was her eyes that gave Scarlett pause. Dark, unwavering, they flicked up to meet hers for the briefest moment—not with fear, but with the quiet, unshakable focus of a woman who had spent centuries mastering the rare art of mycomancy. One of the few in the world who could bend the fungal networks to her will.

The burns beneath Mitra’s fingers knit together with speed, her flesh healing under the influence of some alchemical symbiosis between magic and spores.

And then there was him.

Standing between Scarlett and the others, as immovable as a monolith, was Dakka Vinko.

The Archmage of Vow Magic wore his authority like armor. His gray robes, stitched with the inverted sigils of the Grayscale College, hung loosely over a frame that seemed both unassuming and unnaturally still. His short black hair was cropped close, his glasses catching the firelight in brief, reflective flashes—but behind them, his eyes were the true danger. The eyes of a man who had seen some of the worst things in the world from studying black magic. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

His hands were clasped behind his back, relaxed. A scholar’s posture. But Scarlett knew better.

Dakka didn’t need gestures to cast.

The reinforcement Mitra had mentioned had arrived.

Yaren: “Mitra, are you all right?” she asked with concern.

Mitra: “I’ll live, but Yaren, please. My disciples.”

The mushroom men brought Torran and Fuse to Yaren and gently placed them in front of her. Yaren didn’t say anything or make any expression, but the archmage could tell it was bad. Both were on the brink. They would have to get them back to the city as soon as possible to treat their wounds. Yarn reached into her storage ring and pulled out some powerful potions hoping that this could stabilize them long enough to get them to a proper healer.

Dakka didn't turn. Didn't flinch. His hands remained clasped behind his back, his posture that of a professor about to deliver a lecture to a wayward student.

Dakka: "Scarlett," he said, his voice carrying the weight of sealed contracts and oaths. "You dare show yourself here?"

A slow, molten smile spread across Scarlett's face. She gestured broadly at the smoldering forest around them.

Scarlett: "I do dare show myself here. It's a free country." The flames dancing around her pulsed brighter, as if laughing with her.

Dakka adjusted his glasses with one finger. The lenses flashed, momentarily obscuring his eyes.

Dakka: "I won't let you take that chronomancer."

Scarlett: "Chronomancy?" her brow furrowed in genuine confusion.

She half-turned toward where Cid lay unconscious, Fenny still pouring potions between his lips. The realization struck her like a spark catching dry tinder.

Scarlett: "I see... Well, good luck stopping me," she said before turning back to face Dakka. "Maybe if Lazerus, Linda, or Jenna were here, they might be able to do it. Even Marly of Lionheart would have a better chance. But you two?" A dismissive wave. "If we add up your stars together, you technically equal a five-star mage. But that ranking system was always woefully inadequate for measuring people's abilities."

Yaren chose that moment to stand, her green robes whispering against the scorched earth. The plants woven through her dreadlocks pulsed with angry bioluminescence.

Mitra: "It's been years, Scarlett," she said, her voice thick with the promise of fungal vengeance. "A lot has changed. You won't find it so easy this time."

Scarlett's laughter crackled like wildfire through dry brush.

Scarlett: "Changed? Let's see." She counted off on burning fingers. "You're still storing magic in paper talismans to release them later, Dakka. And Yaren, those mushrooms still burn just fine." The air grew heavy with the scent of charred parchment and roasted spores.

She let the flames die down just enough to make her next words cut deeper.

Scarlett: “I'll offer you the same deal I gave Mitra. You're both on the list—but not high enough to make this worth my while." Her gaze flicked to Mitra's unconscious disciples, then back. "I'm more vindictive than ruthless these days. I've already made my point."

Dakka's fingers twitched—the barest hint of a spellform beginning to take shape in his palm.

Scarlett noticed. Her smile turned feral.

Scarlett: "Ah. There's the Dakka I remember. Never one to back down." The temperature spiked as her power gathered. "Shall we see if it's enough?"

Yaren moved with the quiet inevitability of a spreading mycelium network, taking her place beside Dakka. The air around her thickened as she gathered aether, her dreadlocks writhing as the air around her swelled with gathered power. Tiny spores drifted from her sleeves, each one glowing faintly with stored potential - a living arsenal waiting to be unleashed. The earth beneath her feet darkened as fungal networks responded to her call, creating intricate defensive patterns only visible to those who understood mycomantic sigils.

Alan's knees nearly buckled as the atmospheric pressure of gathered aether reached crushing levels. His vision swam with afterimages of power - Dakka's magic appearing as shimmering silver chains in the air, Yaren's spores forming fractal patterns of green light, and Scarlett's flames burning holes in the air itself. His stomach heaved; the magical resonance was so dense he could taste it - metallic like blood, bitter like overbrewed tea, with an undercurrent of something fungal and organic.

Sweat poured down his face as he fought to remain conscious. This was magic on a level he never thought possible—this was the fundamental forces of creation being pulled apart and rewoven by masters of their craft. His nose began bleeding freely, the crimson droplets floating upward before vaporizing in the charged air. Still, he forced his eyes to stay open. Historians would kill to witness this moment.

The prohibition against archmage fighting each other existed for good reason, especially those who had achieved multiple stars in their rank. The potential for devastation was too great; the damage caused by such a confrontation could scar the environment for generations. Yet here, before Alan, stood some of the most powerful mages of the modern age, their aether swirling like a storm, ready to unleash their fury upon one another.

Alan's teeth chattered uncontrollably as he realized with dawning horror that he was about to witness something that could very well reshape the geography of the region and become the defining moment of this time. The air itself seemed to be holding its breath, the usual forest sounds replaced by an eerie silence as even nature recognized the coming storm.

Dakka reached into his pocket space, his fingers brushing against the familiar texture of the talismans he had prepared. With a swift motion, he pulled out three cards, each inscribed with intricate runes that pulsed with latent energy. Without hesitation, he hurled them at Scarlett, watching as they flew through the air, each glowing a different color—emerald green, sapphire blue, and a deep, ominous purple.

As the talismans hit Scarlett’s kill zone, they incinerated in a brilliant flash, but not before unleashing their magic. The first talisman erupted in an explosion of earth, sending shards of rock and soil flying in all directions. The second unleashed a torrent of water, creating a wave that crashed against the ground with a deafening roar. The final talisman released a surge of purple necrotic energy, a dark wave that twisted and writhed as it spread outward. The combined force of the explosions was so immense that it filled Alan’s vision, a chaotic display of elemental fury.

The shockwave from the blasts was staggering, threatening to knock Alan off his feet. He braced himself, digging his heels into the ground as he fought to maintain his balance.

Before the first attack had even finished dissipating, Yaren was already in motion. She slammed both palms against the ravaged earth, and the ground bulged ominously before erupting into a churning tidal wave of mycelium. The fungal mass moved with terrifying sentience, its leading edge forming grasping tendrils while spores in its wake bloomed into noxious clouds. Alan watched in horrified fascination as the wave reached sixty feet high, blotting out the sky - until its center began glowing orange.

A pencil-thin beam of red-hot fire lanced through the fungal tsunami, vaporizing everything in its path several yards near it. The beam carried such concentrated heat that the air around it shimmered like a desert mirage, and where it passed, the remaining mycelium instantly carbonized.

Dakka reacted with inhuman speed. A dozen fresh talismans flew from his sleeves, arranging themselves in a perfect fractal "X" formation twenty feet out. As the fire beam struck, the cards flared brilliant gold, their interlocking fields absorbing and refracting the energy in a mesmerizing dance of redirected force. For one heart-stopping moment, the beam’s energy suspended between the talismans before screaming back toward Scarlett with undiminished fury.

The rebound collided with an invisible force thirty feet from Scarlett's outstretched hand. The deflection sent the beam screeching upward at an angle, where miles behind Scarlett, it struck Mount Gol's with apocalyptic force. The resulting explosion sent house-sized boulders arcing through the sky like meteors. Alan watched in mute terror as some of the rocks from the explosion were heading towards them

Yaren didn't even look up as she summoned a gargantuan mushroom cap - easily fifty feet across - that unfurled above them with a wet, organic sound. The falling debris pounded against its spongy surface like hail on a rooftop, each impact sending cascades of luminous spores drifting downward.

As the dust began to settle, Alan surveyed the devastation wrought upon the landscape. The once-vibrant forest was now a scene of destruction, with charred remains of trees standing like skeletal sentinels amidst patches of fungal growth.

The eastern mountainside now bore a glowing, molten scar that would likely remain visible for centuries.

And at the epicenter of this devastation stood Scarlett, her boots having not moved an inch from their original position. Alan's breath caught as he realized none of the archmages had so much as shifted their footing. This wasn't just combat - it was some perverse display of dominance, a deadly game where conceding ground meant conceding superiority. Their pride was literally reshaping the landscape around them.

To Alan, the two archmages appeared evenly matched with Scarlett, their powers clashing in a dazzling display of elemental fury. Yet, as he glanced at Mitra, he noticed the worry etched across her features.

Mitra: “This is bad,” she said, her voice low and urgent.

Alan: “What? Why?” he asked, confusion knitting his brow.

Mitra: “That was Dakka's most powerful defense spell—Dakka’s Reflection. But he used twelve talismans to deflect that.”

Alan: “What does that mean?” Alan pressed, his heart racing as he sensed the gravity of her words.

Mitra’s expression darkened.

Mitra: “Dakka has to store his magic in talismans ahead of time for later use. He only has so many talismans that contain that defensive magic. If he has to use twelve talismans of his most powerful defensive spell to block one attack…” Her voice trailed off, the implication hanging heavily in the air. There was a clear limit to how many times Dakka could block Scarlett’s relentless onslaught.

As if to punctuate her point, the floating talismans that had been used to deflect the attack burned up in a flash of light, their one-time use extinguished. Alan felt a chill run down his spine at the sight.

Yaren: “Dakka…” Yaren said, her voice tinged with concern as she too recognized the implications of the situation. It was alarming that it took twelve castings of his most powerful defense spell to stop a single one of Scarlett’s attacks.

But Dakka stood firm, his resolve unshaken.

Dakka: “We cannot let her leave here with Cid. Chronomancy—magic thought impossible. Who knows what kind of devastation she could cause with access to time manipulation? Even if it costs us our lives, we need to stop her from getting that magic, at any cost.”

Yaren: “I know,” she replied, her voice steadying as she met Dakka’s fierce gaze.

The air crackled with tension as Dakka's voice cut through the charged atmosphere.

Dakka: "I have a plan," he said, his words measured and deliberate. "I need you to flood the area with enough water to give me an opening. I'll defend and counter while you keep attacking until I see my chance."

But Scarlett didn't grant him the courtesy to converse with Yaren further. With a vicious grin, she clapped her hands together—a thunderclap of force that sent shockwaves rippling through the battlefield—then pulled them apart, drawing forth a searing string of condensed fire that hissed and spat like a living thing. The energy whip extended impossibly far, thousands of feet of molten destruction coiling around her like a serpent ready to strike.

Then she swung.

The whip lashed sideways with apocalyptic force, slicing through the ruined landscape like a blade through parchment. Where it passed, the air itself ignited, leaving behind a trail of superheated distortion. The few remaining trees, already charred and broken, were cleaved clean through, their bisected trunks glowing molten red where the whip had touched them. Stones shattered midair, their fragments reduced to slag before they even hit the ground.

Dakka moved with preternatural speed. Twenty talismans flew from his sleeves, their runes blazing to life as they arranged themselves in a shimmering, golden barrier that stretched protectively the archmages and at the side of Mitra and her group. The fire whip struck the defensive line—and for a heartbeat, the world held its breath. The talismans flared brilliant gold, drinking in the whip's energy, their delicate paper trembling under the strain but holding firm. Beyond them, the whip continued past them, its devastation shearing through the landscape with contemptuous ease.

Then, with a sound like a hundred cannons firing at once, the talismans shifted. Their formation pivoted as they, now facing Scarlett, and unleashed the absorbed energy in a barrage of fireballs—each one burning with the same apocalyptic intensity as Gregor's legendary Meteoractive Burst. The projectiles streaked through the air, trailing spirals of flame, the heat so intense that the ground below them burst into spontaneous combustion.

Scarlett didn't even flinch. With a lazy swipe of her hand, she sent the fireballs careening harmlessly aside, where they impacted the distant landscape in a series of detonations that sent plumes of fire and debris mushrooming into the sky. The ground trembled underfoot.

Alan's breath caught in his throat. Mitra had said Dakka was at a disadvantage—that his talismans were finite, that Scarlett's power was overwhelming—but watching this clash of titans, it was impossible to believe. The sheer scale of their combat defied comprehension. Every spell was a cataclysm; every counterattack reshaped the land itself.

“They have to win,” Alan thought desperately, his fingers digging into the dirt. “Please, Light, let them win.” Alan wasn't particularly religious, but at that moment, he sent his plea skyward anyway. Because if Dakka and Yaren fell here, there would be nothing left to stop Scarlett—this infernal force of nature wrapped in human skin—from taking Cid and killing them.

And as the dust settled, Scarlett stood untouched, her smirk widening.

Scarlett: "Is that all?" she taunted, flames dancing in her palms. "Or are you just warming up?"

The battle was far from over.