Mage Among Superheroes

Though it would have been convenient to remain in Entheas and have Zeb train with a beastmaster forever- we could likely even find people of other classes- we ultimately had things to do.

Like finding the laser people. Our simplest contributions were informing people about how Energy Ward would probably be effective. We’d given that information as soon as possible, but I was called upon to demonstrate to local mages.

“It’s extremely concentrated light,” I said. “And that can cause burns, like high level light combat spells.” I paused to think through the options. They hadn’t really been relevant to me. “Like Sunbeam. Though they don’t have a connection to sunlight.”

“Is there a relevant difference?” Bolster asked.

“Lasers hurt vampires just the same as people of similar biology,” I said. “Instead of turning them to ash.”

“How is sunlight special?” Bolster frowned. “Is it UV?”

“It can also be a conceptual function,” Malaliel interjected. She was around because the elves would feel more comfortable with an angel compared to an orc. Though Duke Ruvyn was quite reasonable towards me, not all elves would be as decent. I wouldn’t mind if people just wanted to brawl, but that wasn’t really a solution elves used. Of course, people would be on their best behavior as we were guests, at least publicly.

I couldn’t really blame anyone who thought orcs were terrible. I’d felt that way for most of my life until I learned better. Now I knew that it was just some orcs who were terrible. So being wrong wasn’t an issue. It was remaining incorrect that would bug me. But hopefully the word of one of the reasons for violence spread and made sense. Seriously, who didn’t like experience?

Though I do believe elves were slightly inclined towards Aspect of the Sage, so combat wouldn’t do some of them any good. Just like study wouldn’t do anything for people with Aspect of the Barbarian, no matter how much they might want it.

“Other weaknesses of lasers… enchanted mirror shields would be useful,” I explained.

“You could make them like retroreflectors!” Zeb added with excitement. “They might not be very good normal shields though.”

The elves were then quite amused to hear a doglike individual explain how corner cube reflectors worked. No doubt there were high enough quality mirrors in elven hands to do the job, but whether or not it was practical to form a corner cube and carry them around would be another matter entirely.

After that we explained other weaknesses… like limited ammunition and the like. Even if they had some way to recharge the laser weapons, it would take time and some form of energy. The elves no doubt suspected that already- but knowing was useful.

-----

When we were informed about the actual enemies in question, nobody was surprised. Well, not most of us. Zeb was.

“What do you mean it’s other elves? Are there bad elves? There aren’t any bad Bunvorixians except- oh.” Zeb frowned. “Are there… tiny elves making people fight?”

Ruvyn blinked several times. “I… don’t know anything in particular about the height of those leading them. But yes, there are bad elves. In this case, there are dark elves under our lands who have been attacking our towns and cities.”

Boom scrunched his eyebrow, keeping his voice low to only be heard by Power Brigade members. “Dark elves… That sounds… kinda racist.”

“It might be,” I said. “But if so, probably blame Doctor Doomsday. I think he sought them out first. I believe you have been informed on their history in the city. Along with orcs.” I shrugged. “I haven’t had the option to really talk to any of them so they might call themselves underground elves or cave elves or… whatever. But they both are dark and live in the dark.”

It seemed like Ruvyn might have heard some of that. At the very least, he noticed us talking. But he moved on without mentioning anything.

“We have called upon the Order of the Lion because we don’t have sufficient soldiers trained in tunnel fighting tactics, and those who have been trained are currently scouting out tunnels to catch any entrances we don’t know about. We’ve had enemies popping up all throughout Linduel, and have mostly been in a stalemate defending our people. We have been at peace with those living below for a significant time, so the number of those trained for proper counter offensives is lower than perhaps it should have been.”

“And that’s where we come in,” Sir Kalman said. “We will seek out enemy encampments, and your people will confirm the source of the weaponry.”

“There were a few issues with that from our side,” Ruvyn explained. “We haven’t been able to capture many of the weapons, and those few we did… seem to have exploded.”

“Oooh, tech safety!” Zeb said. “Though it would be more appropriate for them to melt. Unless you don’t care about your enemies I suppose.” Zeb seemed to ponder on that for a moment. “I guess explosions make sense.”

“How are explosions… safety?” Ruvyn asked.

“People are safer if their enemies don’t get their hands on good technology,” Zeb explained. “Obviously.”

“Do you know how to stop the destruction of such devices?” I asked Zeb.

“Absolutely! I just… don’t have any of the stuff I’d need to actually do that.”

“Hmm. Do you think it uses super tech? I might be able to dispel it.”

“Umm…” Zeb tilted her head. “I don’t know if anything Bunvorixian is ‘super tech’. It all just works. There are some important principles we discovered that rapidly pushed forward the effectiveness of our devices. Though I guess it might make them sensitive to unknown energy types. Like mana, maybe?”

“Actually,” Midnight said. “Whether it’s possible to dispel them or not would provide us useful information. If the origin of the weapons is extraterrestrial, it’s unlikely to do as much. I suppose Earth-tech does have laser weapons to some extent but I don’t believe they’re currently more practical than projectile weapons. But if a tech villain is the origin of the weaponry, dispel might disable some of them.”

“... We need to officially learn that,” I said, looking down at my staff. “Both so you can use it and so that it is usable at greater range.” I was also hoping to find some way to expand the capacity of mana stored in my staff, in general. Though I wasn’t certain if Vilhelmiina’s work would mesh well with anything from this world.

A generic Dispel was useful. In general, it was always the second or third best tool for negating something. If it was generic and the best, everyone would use it to prevent everything. Ultimately, the issue was mana efficiency. If you had an appropriate spell, you could negate certain effects. Like Haste and Slow, for example. Or if you could block a fire spell with an ice wall.

In general trying to stop offensive spells being flung at you with something that could fail to intersect was a terrible idea, though for my staff it didn’t expend the mana unless I actually hit something. So it was limited in range, but more accurate and efficient in that regard.

There were also certain thresholds of power that a Dispel simply couldn’t overcome, not even by repeatedly using it. Once the strength of magic reached a certain threshold, it couldn’t unravel it at all. That was relative to the power of the Dispel, of course, and in theory if someone focused entirely on that one thing… well, they’d be able to remove all sorts of magical defenses and maybe block incoming spells. And then someone could throw a spear into their chest.

Once you got to the point of adding good defensive spells and offensive options, you were just going into actually trying to make a balanced setup once again. It certainly wasn’t a cure-all, though maybe against superpowers with effects you couldn’t predict it would be more useful. Or less, since many supers didn’t get tired the way I would expect. It really depended on the individual.

-----

If the elves of Linduel knew precisely which tunnels enemies were coming from, they might have tried to seal them all. However, they had quite a large area to cover… and what they could seal the enemy could unseal with similar magic. Thus, they generally kept track of the main networks of tunnels they knew were connected near the surface, and left open any that weren’t in terribly inconvenient locations like in their cities.

More in depth tunnel closure could be enacted for problematic locations, making it so that anyone wanting to come in would have to spend quite a lot of time and magic tunneling out.

With the relatively peaceful recent past- though not completely peaceful like I had been informed- the monitoring had grown lax. But we still had a few locations to check out.

“Alright Fluffy,” Zeb said. “We’re looking to sniff down some lasers. So let us know if you smell any and I’ll let you eat… the second or third one we find. That’s fine right?” she said turning towards me.

Oh weird. I might actually be in charge of that. Well, probably Malaliel. “If we get sufficient evidence from the first ones, absolutely. And if they happen to explode into chunks… he could chew on the bits.”

“We’ll still need to inspect any remains,” Malaliel said. “So we’ll want to collect any pieces of the first few regardless of what happens.”

“Yeah, that,” I said. “But we can definitely promise Fluffy some stuff.”

We were moving through various tunnels, with the Order of the Lion being in charge of generally guarding the exits. Sir Kalman was coming with the Brigade and Malaliel to try to find any enemy encampments that we would then wish to gather forces to assault.

Our Power Brigade group certainly wouldn’t be able to beat an army- if we ran into too many enemies, we’d simply flee. Though the Brigade’s training had imparted some skill unto the Portal Squad, they also hadn’t been able to get levels and points until they came to this world. So people were no more than level 5 or 6. That was the sort of experience I got in one good battle, though that was skewed by lots of factors for me. Strong opponents, Aspect of the Barbarian, and a share of experience from Midnight.

That said, they were equipped in nice defensive outfits from Francois. Though it looked like clothing- or medieval cosplay, in some cases- it was effectively magical. I doubted it could actually be made magical on top of that, and I didn’t really know any enchanters. Maybe I should make friends with more high ranking people here.

Our squad was all outfitted with night vision goggles- except for Sir Kalman, Midnight, and me who didn’t need them to begin with. Well, Sir Kalman also wouldn’t have had them because it wouldn’t fit with his helmet. Oh right, and then there was Zeb. She hadn’t really been anticipated to come along, so we hadn’t prepared anything for her in the equipment. Not that we had much that fit canines.

Fluffy was fine, though. As expected, a mole navigated in the darkness just fine. That didn’t necessarily mean he could see, but he moved around without hesitation. And Zeb followed him, sniffing after the rust mole and potentially following their magical connection.

There were too many of us for Midnight and I to keep up magical defenses on the group ourselves, but Bolster and Bandage could both use Energy Ward as well, however, so that was sufficient. Boom could learn it, but he hadn’t had much success. We might have to make him take it with points, as it was very relevant for battles against supers. And it even protected against his preferred sonic energy.

Unsurprisingly Fluffy was the first to notice something with his bestial senses- plus he’d been promised the opportunity to eat the things we were looking for. Out of the darkness came narrow beams of light, focused enough to not completely destroy my dark adapted vision.

But the retaliatory orbs of light I threw would be far less kind to anyone they got close to. Rob had used light magic on people whose eyes were already ready for light and still blinded them- people crawling around in darkness would find things much worse. And even though I didn’t have precise locations to aim at, a general location was easy- back along the line of a laser.

Most likely our enemies had thought we would fall quickly, but even our weakest Energy Wards held up for the first part of the assault, the damage not even reaching the durable outfits below. With their surprise assault not causing the necessary damage, I saw some turning to flee. Dealing with skirmishers would be annoying. It was time to make some people fast.