Sparring match

Jin

I met with Erinara outside of the citadel just shortly after the sun rose.

“Okay, so just to be sure, you want to have a sparring match where I am supposed to pelt you with runic magic while you mainly defend?”, Erinara questioned, repeating the idea I proposed.
“Yes!”, I answered enthusiastically, “You’ve already taught me the theory of how runes work. I’m hoping that seeing them in action will make me understand them a bit more.”
Erinara tilted her head slightly.
“What’s confusing me is that you don’t want to attack.”
“I mainly wish to observe how you use magic in combat. Since I first gained a grasp of spells in my fight against the simulacrum way back when, I’m hoping to recreate that experience. If I think it becomes a requirement for me to attack, I will say so during our match. Sound fair?”
“If that is your wish. I will not use any magic types other than runic. I won’t use component-based rune magic either.”
We had decided to stick to rune magic for this sparring match, as I understood that one the most. I drew my swords. Sparks seemed to gather around Erinara’s hands.
“Ready?”, I asked.
“Certainly. Let us begin”, she answered.

Erinara raised her right hand to the left side of her face before bringing it down in a diagonal motion. Four runes appeared in the air in front of her.
‘Seriously? Just like that?’, I thought to myself. It seemed to take zero effort for her to create the sigils. The markings along the runes clicked into place, followed by them starting to glow. I recognized this configuration, it looked similar to the heating rune she showed me when we first met.
In the next moment, fire began surging from the inside of the runes.
“A mana gathering part, that then transforms the mana to heat, correct?”, I asked as I swiftly dodged to the side.
“Correct”, Erinara confirmed, “that was the warmup.”
“Isn’t that already past what other warlocks would call their secret weapon? You just summoned four runes without so much as an incantation”, I said, slightly amused.
“And you have avoided them, so don’t go acting like that was too extreme”, she smiled in response.
The ground I stepped on suddenly emitted a crunching tone. Ice surged out of the earth. I instantly jumped vertically, the ice growing upward beneath me. Did Erinara predict I’d dodge to this side? I looked to the left of my previous position. Another rune laid on the ground there, with the same design as the rune spouting ice at me this instant. Erinara’s fire attack forced me to dodge either left or right, and she prepared a trap on both sides in the time it took the first runes to activate. She was clearly adept at quick planning in combat.
Above Erinara, a new rune had already appeared, this one crackling with electricity. I heard a soft hum behind me. Without wasting even a second, I kicked off of the icy pillar, launching myself to the side. A burst of lightning connected from the rune ahead of me to the one behind me. I noticed differences in all the runes’ small markings.
“A rune that requires touch to be activated as a trap, and then a lightning attack that needs another rune to anchor to”, I commented.
“Correct. Did you see how they did it?”, Erinara asked.
I landed back on the ground.
“Yes, there was a string of symbols between the rule that collects mana and what I assume to be the rule that enforces the element on the mana”, I said.
“Precisely, I’m impressed! The first part of those runes gathered magic. For the ice spell, the second part defined it to activate only when touched by another source of mana, in this case, you. The lighting spell has to anchor somewhere or it shoots to the ground, so the second verse here was to define the blank rune behind you as its anchor. And as you stated, the last symbols defined the element”, Erinara explained.
“So there is a consistent pattern to every rune?”, I inquired.
“Not quite, but in essence mana gathering is the first rule of a rune. The second rule then defines a trigger, or an anchor. The third rule creates the element. That is for the common cases, at least.”
“So you have to think backwards when creating a rune?”, I asked.
“Runes are incredibly versatile. It’s better to think of every rule you can force onto the magic as building blocks which then combine into a specific effect. Take these for example.”
Erinara created a rune with four circles for a body.
“For simplicities sake I’m showcasing this one with rings. The outermost ring collects magic. The next ring allows for a switch of output. Then, the two inner rings are two types of elemental discharge.”
After a few seconds, a blaze of flame shot out of the rune’s third ring.
“And if I invert the second ring…”, Erinara began, waving her hand to the side. The second ring flipped over itself. During this process, the fire stopped. Once the second ring stabilized its position, a shard of ice grew from the fourth ring, while the third remained inert.
“…I can change the rune’s effect. Then I can combine this rune with another one. Better keep your guard up”, Erinara continued, speaking casually.
A new sigil formed ahead of the icicle. It contained new symbols I haven’t seen before. As soon as the icicle’s tip touched the second rune it accelerated drastically, shooting forward at me.
“Did you just create a canon?”, I spouted in surprise while cleanly slicing the ice before it could hit me.
“Kind of. It can only shoot in this one direction though. I’d need a lot of acceleration runes to change the direction once it already fired. Oh, right, let me explain. The new rune simply uses mana to accelerate whatever it touches into the direction it’s facing. The object has to fully fit into the rune and enter it itself though, so it’s not exactly useful outside of projectile setups such as this one, where the ice continuously grows to touch the accelerator.”

My head hurt even just thinking about everything Erinara just said.
“And you do this on the fly?”, I asked, baffled. Taking one step to the side, singular icicles continuously shot past me every couple seconds.
“That is how you use runic magic in combat, yes”, she said cooly.

“Ready to continue?”, she asked with a glint in her eyes.
“Of course”, I answered.
“Perfect. Then it’s time to show you some actual firepower.”
More firepower? I suddenly realized that every rune she used so far had been collecting mana for itself, whereas she had once told me that combining runes gives them greater effect.
I dashed to get some distance between us.
Erinara had stretched her right arm, drawing a large circular rune in front of her. I suddenly noticed movement, as if there was an ever so slight visual effect around this sigil. It looked like tiny, translucent droplets were being drawn into the rune.
Erinara punched her arm through the rune, followed by creating a triangle with the movements of her hand.
Just ahead of the massive circle, a second, triangular rune flashed into existence.
“This is a simple combat glyph”, she simply said.
“Did you just say simple? Look at the size of that thing!”, I objected.

An almost imperceptible connection occurred between the tips of the triangle and the circular rune. Mere moments after, the symbols in the triangle began glowing white.

A windstorm shot at me from the glyph. I buckled down, forcing myself to walk through the hurricane rushing past me. After a few seconds, the wind’s assault ceased.
“You seriously can not tell me that was ordinary”, I huffed.
“I never said it was ordinary, I said it was simple”, Erinara said with a cheeky smile, then she added: “And guess what, an ordinary man would have been shot halfway through the forest by that attack. Besides, we both know you could have avoided it if you wanted to. Why didn’t you?”
“I got distracted. It looked like the air was being drawn into the circular rune, followed by flowing into the triangular rune next”, I explained.
Erinara beamed with happiness.
“You’ve seen it! That’s amazing! The ‘air’ you noticed was mana being drawn from the surroundings!”
“How come I only noticed it on your last attack though?”
“If I had to guess, it was because that one moved a large amount of magic at once. But even then, being able to see that at all is a massive improvement! Now you know what to look for. Honestly I’m impressed you’ve gathered this much information in a fight.”

“If anything, your teaching is more impressive. You’ve matched my pace perfectly and explained what happened during combat. Speaking off, is it okay if I attack as well now?”, I asked.
“I was worried you’d never ask”, Erinara said, preparing for battle.