Erage Sidestory: Banshee, the Army Slayer

Jaleb the Specialist commander had one hundred specialists under his command. They were all gathered with him here today as he had The Banshee surrounded. She was beginning to be a menace, performing assassinations against individuals with no real pattern between them. The Specialist Order could not ignore such a blatant threat. So they had sent a Specialist to take her down. And they had watched. It was not often that a Specialist got an opportunity to fight for real and not just in training. Most people knew that to fight a Specialist was to die. Entire armies would bend knee and surrender in the presence of a Specialist.

But The Banshee was different. She had won the duel. She managed to kill the Specialist by having a nearly unlimited pool of magic, which she called Vitra. It was a close fight. While she had more magic, she didn’t know how to use it, nor was any of her magic specialized or powerful. The versatility alone is what kept her alive in the beginning. She eventually took him down when she realized that having access to all magics, albeit weaker portions of them, allowed her to take advantage of the weaknesses of Specialists. That is that Specialists are really good at one thing. One specific type of magic.

When we say specific type of magic, we don’t mean, that’s a fire mage. No, we mean, that is a mage that shoots a 8,900 degree blast of fire that fires out to a location that is exactly 60 feet directly in front of him and expands out to a 20-foot radius sphere. This is amongst the only spells they can cast. They can probably cast one or two more fire spells, but they can only do like a maximum of four or five if they are to be called specialists. They never change the parameters of their magic. This allows them to use magic incredibly efficiently as they build a pool of magic that can only be used for that one spell, they generate a pool of magic for each spell. These pools grow incredibly quickly because of how specific the spell is.

If the enemy isn’t in front of you, too bad. You can’t cast the spell. You have to turn your body to face them. Versatalists are usually weaker but can sometimes defeat a single Specialist in combat by exposing the weakness of Specialty.

A Versatalist will know that a Specialist will always fire a spell if you are in front of them, so if they can keep themselves from being in front of the Specialist, then they can protect themselves.

This maneuver is exactly how The Banshee won. She phased through the ground, making it difficult for Alter-Mouth to know where she was coming from, then she would surprise attack him from behind.

Alter-Mouth died that day, but it was very close. Only in the end did The Banshee finally gain the upper hand. But now it’s all over for her. With so many Specialists, each with a different Specialty, The Banshee can’t exploit their weaknesses because the strengths of one complement the weakness of another. That, and she’s outnumbered. She probably could have been taken down by only two or three Specialists, but the council was terrified at her ability to kill a Specialist, no matter how close the battle was. So they send Jaleb and his entire army to take her down.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Banshee.” Jaleb shouts into the forest where Banshee is hiding behind a tree. “That forest didn’t do anything wrong, we don’t want to have to burn it down. Then we would have to pay compensation to the lumber guild.”

“Compensating the lumber guild should be the least of your worries.” The Banshees says.

“You can’t be serious.” Jaleb says, “Do you actually think you can defeat an army? You could barely beat one Specialist. I have 100 of them!”

“No, I could never defeat more than one of you.” The Banshee says, “So it’s a good thing I've got an army.”

Jaleb still isn’t worried. No army could stand a chance against Specialists unless it was another army of Specialists, which would be impossible. There is only one Specialis Order, and all the Specialists there are loyal to the council.

Black smoke materializes on the battlefield, blocking his vision like a dark fog. He rushes forwards towards the forest where The Banshee is hiding. If he can get close enough, he can launch his Ice Bolt and annihilate her in a single hit. His Ice Bolt is so frigidly cold that the air around it turns to dust and the water vapor freezes into ice, leaving a trail of frost in the Ice Bolt’s wake. Then the explosive expansion as the air quickly returns to the form of a gas makes a loud thunderous noise. So far, nothing has survived more than one hit from his Ice Bolt. He’s fought those that survive a hit, but a second hit is just too much for them.

Based on how durable The Banshee was, he wonders if it might take three Ice Bolts to take her down. Either way, it doesn’t matter too much. His Specialization allows him to produce Ice Bolts as often as he feels like. He would eventually run out of magic and need to recharge. But it is something that he doesn’t use often enough that he could even run out of in standard use.

He escapes the black fog and reaches the forest. “Where are you hiding, Banshee.” Sitting up in a tree branch, Banshee calls down, “Why would I be hiding? You’re the one that’s being chased.”

Jaleb almost finds it funny how The Banshee still continues to pretend like she can take him down. She’s just sitting up in that tree. She’s not even doing anything. Does she really think she can take him?

Now that Jaleb thinks about it. Something seems wrong. The Banshee was never this laid back in her fight with Alter-Mouth. Why is she so calm now? Has she just accepted her fate?

Jaleb feels a stinging pain in his back. He falls to the ground and turns to see a black shadowy mist in the shape of a person. It was holding an icicle that it was using as a dagger. So that’s what The Banshee meant. No matter, this foolish shade thinks it can take down an Ice Bolt Specialist with an icicle? Literally anything else would have been more effective.

Jaleb gets up. The icicle hurt him a lot more than it should have. Was it really an icicle? He should have enough Specialty in Ice to resist damage from it. Either way, he wasn’t injured, it was just more painful than he was expecting.

Jaleb walks backwards, trying to get the shade to be exactly 15 feet away, directly to his right. That’s how he fires his Ice Bolts. He has another Specialty that uses his left-side to compensate for flanks. That one is called Ice Dagger, it is a melee attack that strikes the enemy down with a dagger made of ice.

The Banshee is giggling like a child as she watches from up in the trees. He was worried that she might try to take him down while he was distracted and alone, but she seems to be content just watching him fight the shade. Jaleb knows that mistake will be her downfall.

He turns himself to the side and reaches his arm out towards the shade. An Ice Bolt flies from his hand at supersonic speeds, creating a shockwave, pushing him backward as it tears into the shade. Then he faces The Banshee who is up in the trees, and he prepares his third and final Specialty, a front-facing long distance Icicle Rain. It’s his only long distance spell. His only front-facing spell. His only area of effect spell. And it uses more magic than any of his other spells. But since it’s Specialized, it has its own magic pool, so it doesn’t affect his other spells.

The Banshee smiles as he gets into position. “Aren’t you forgetting something, commander?” Jaleb feels a sharp pain in his chest and looks down to see an icicle has impaled him. It doesn’t matter too much since he is resistant to ice. Hmm. But then why does it hurt so much. He doesn’t know if he can continue on like this. He desperately tries to pull the icicle out, but then he gets hit with another icicle through his left arm. He gives up on dislodging the icicles and looks around, seeing the shade preparing another Ice Bolt.

“So you sent another one after me?” Jaleb asks. “You won’t buy yourself any time. I may be unable to fight, but my army can still take you down.”

“Only created each of them once.” The Banshee says.

Wait, what? She only created each of them one. Each… oh no. Jaleb spares a glance out of the forest and sees that his army is fighting and losing to an army of shades. That wasn’t a black fog that she conjured, it was an army of shades. And to think that one of them could survive a hit from his Ice Bolts. How could this be? No mage can summon anything that is equal to a Specialist in power, let along an army of them. Even if she really did have unlimited magic pool as she seemed to have, her magic ability was that of a child just learning about magic for the time. She could cast the most basic spells an infinite amount of times, but that doesn’t mean she can cast high power spells. When she fought Alter-Mouth the most adept ability she displayed was to phase through objects and creatures. But he assumed she had Specialized in that.

Perhaps, she was just toying with them. Is her strength really to a Specialist as a Specialist is to a common person? With the power to summon an army of Specialists, only the convergence of all council branches could stand chance against her. Cooperation with the dragons and the recruitment of the vagabonds.