Page 12 of Roverpowered 6

A smile touched Lenar’s face that was almost wistful. “Ah yes, I recall your first Potion Containment spell. I suppose that was an oddity we should have paid more attention toward. To be clear, the amount of mana you’re able wield at only the imbuement phase is extraordinary. Truly incredible.”

Praise was unusual for Wanda, and she was still getting accustomed to the experience, though she found it quite lovely so far. Sadly, the moment was short-lived.

“Alchemists to the Main Deck! Bring whatever you can and get it up here fast. We need potions and we need them now.”

Captain Sharshaw’s voice echoed through the alchemy station and halls beyond, sounding as if it had briefly filled the entire bearship.

There was no more time to talk, as Wanda and Lenar both hurried to bottle her batch of potion as fast as possible. Before leaving, Wanda dashed over to the storage locker and grabbed as many of the roots covered in blue moss as would fit in her floating cauldron without rising past the skimmer.

So far as Wanda could see, the best benefit of a magical cauldron that stayed at her side was the ability to keep on brewing even while delivering potions to those in need. And with this many ingredients, they were more likely to lose the bearship itself than run out of potions.

A potential outcome that felt far more possible than Wanda would have liked.

SIXTEEN

Things were not going well on the Main Deck. While the combined efforts of their strongest pilots and wizards paired with The Ursender’s mana shields had held back the worst of the occorites, the number that slipped through had steadily worn down Captain Sharshaw’s motely assemblage of defenders.

With spare mana dwindling, she was fast approaching the point where her only option would be to divert everything they had left in reserve to the engines, propelling them past the swarm. If they were closer, that might herald true escape, but with over a day left before the nearest stop, it was a delaying measure at best. The flock was bound to catch up, and when they did, The Ursender would be without its shields.

Still, that reprieve might be worth it, if the break allowed everyone time to recover. For that to be viable, she needed the alchemists up on the Main Deck. While there was an enchantment to stabilize everyone in the case of rapid acceleration, Captain Sharshaw didn’t have enough spare mana to use the version that covered the whole bearship, just the Main Deck.

Given that her alchemists should arrive hauling potions, letting them get tossed about was likely to break the very salvation she was counting on. Most traveling wizards kept an emergency potion or two on hand to be safe, all of which she’d seen her defenders burn through as the occorites continued to dive and harry them. For the break to matter, they needed potions, and that demanded waiting.

As Captain Sharshaw scanned the deck once more, searching for a place to send a spell where it would do the most good, she missed the small group of occorites that dove, not at any of those fighting, but into an open door leading deeper into the ship.

Since Lenar didn’t have a magical cauldron that was actively brewing to maintain, he’d been elected to hold the bag containing their potions. While not magical, it offered ample padded compartments for bottle storage, having clearly been designed with this purpose in mind. Still, the container felt heavily vulnerable compared to sticking it in a portalable, or even if they’d used gellimer pods rather than bottles.

Getting the equipment to package her potions in gellimer was already high on Wanda’s priority list, but listening to every clack and clang as they hurried up the stairs moved it to the very top. Part of her wondered if there was a way to add that function into the magical cauldron, though she quickly dismissed it. That sounded far too convenient for just an imbuement phase spell. Then again, Wanda would have said the same thing about the functions she’d seen so far.

Even as they hustled up the stairs as fast a Lenar dared, Wanda was able to keep control of the brewing process. It wasn’t easy by any means, especially with so many of the roots and their moss all jammed together. But the very fact that she was brewing while moving at all was downright miraculous.

A growl from Wumble took Wanda out of her alchemic trance. With one sniff, she knew what was coming. The telltale scent of occoreal was wafting in from farther up the stairs, and now that she was listening for it, Wanda could hear what sounded like the off-rhythm flapping of wings.

“Protect the potions!” Wanda moved immediately, the very idea of occorites shattering their creations propelling her forward before even a shadow of hesitation could manifest. She dashed up the stairs, no longer concerned with matching Lenar’s pace. A familiar orange ball of fluff kept easy pace with her, wizard and familiar moving side-by-side.

Surprise set in swiftly at the sight, as Wanda had meant to protect her sweet Wumble as well. But for him to be moving as fast as her shouldn’t be possible… or should it? Whatever had been in that potion, if it affected Wanda to such a degree, wouldn’t that same power flow to her familiar, too?

That was the foundation of bonds, after all. Power shared, a journey taken together.

Wanda wasn’t given long to wonder. It only took two floors before the threats revealed themselves, swooping into view with loud flaps of their canvas and wood wings.

Multiple bent hunks of metal extended from the front of each occorite, snapping together like approximations of beaks, while longer sharpened shards jutted from the wooden pieces acting as their legs. With Lenar’s view blocked by multiple layers of stairs, Wanda had no compunctions about grabbing the cleaver stored in her portalable. Before she got the chance, however, one of the occorites tucked its wings and fell into a dive.

A dive where its scissor-like beaks were aimed directly for her.

“Scoot.”

As always, when Wanda tapped into Wumble’s imbuement, she felt the world itself slow down around her. Yet even with such a shift in perspective, she could see the occorite making progress. It had attained incredible speeds in a split-second, such was the trouble with fighting entities made of what was essentially manifested magic. Like wizards, they were often able to overcome the limits of reality.

There was time to dodge, yet if she did that, Wanda risked allowing the occorite past, where it could go after Wumble, or down more flights to attack Lenar and Karlisle. Rather than reach for her cleaver, Wanda fell into a familiar stance, one she’d spent several days practicing. Legs slightly bent, fist back, aim steady.

As the occorite arrived within range, Wanda gathered all the practice she’d put into throwing one simple punch and sent a jab directly into the occorite’s center, where the broken bits of wooden beam making up most of its mass resided. There was no mana to it, nothing but muscle, practice, and Escador’s advice all rolled together.

The occorite burst into pieces as its center of mass was pulverized by a powerful punch further fueled by the momentum of its own dive. In an instant, wooden beams became splinters which could no longer support the body built around it. With cohesion lost, the occorite collapsed into a mass of occoreal-infused ingredients that Wanda would normally pause to scoop up.

But there had been more than one occorite, so Wanda spun around, hunting for the next opponent who was likely already mid-dive. Except… there were no more occorites. None flapping in the stairwell, at least.

In their place, all Wanda could find were what looked to be the thoroughly torn apart remains of roughly three other occorites, all clumped up around Wumble, who had his rear in the air as he indulged in a long, apparently well-earned, stretch.