NORTHERN MARKETS
Episode 89: Lethal Magic

The vast surface of the Lake of Time was frozen solid, and a thick dense fog set in. On the rocky shores nearby, plants of all sorts of alien species sprouted, and grew, but they, too, appeared frozen stiff.
The surface of the lake didn’t look like it was covered in ice, more like water, but stopped in a photograph.
Like miniature mountains, the waves by the shore stretched along, about 5 feet apart like dunes of water, covered in a forest of droplets.

She stood on the water surface, lines rippling out from where she stood. The young woman wore woven maize fiber pants and shirt, both garments dyed black, which hung loosely on her body. Covering her long dark blue hair was lined bandana from one of the local fabric farm. She had a sleek beautiful face that menaced with rage. Her aquamarine eyes sparkled with a fury as she stared down the mob of enemies that surrounded. All these men and women wielded anything for a weapon from knives to pitchforks to guns to stars.

She identified them as people from one of the fade towns on the edge of Nipawin County. She had no idea why these people followed he into the Lake of Time, or why they were so pissed they wanted to kill her.
The girl slowly turned her hands around without letting these ‘fadies’, and began injecting micro bolts of magic into the air around her.

“Give it up, mage! You’ve got nowhere to go! All these guys are armed to the teeth; you got no chance. Pop one of us, and the rest of us will be on you!” the fat guy with a beard shouted in Saskwa.

The woman said nothing as she continued to spread small unseeable magic into the air.

“We’re sick of you mages casting us back and forth into the other realm! Your constant foul play left thousands of us dead! Well now is time to pay for it! Surrender now, and I make it quick and painless!”

Using magic, she sucked air towards her and split air into fibers, each a tube of air coated with magic. This kind of windcrafting was unheard in all of Maple World. She carefully mixed the air fibers into two long invisible machetes, each about four feet.

“That does it! Get her!” the man shouted.

Azure Rainbow couldn’t remember much beyond her training, but she knew she was definitely not going to let a mob of hicks take her down!

Another man fired a gun, shooting a two inch mithril pellet at her.
In a split second, Azure brought her magic blades to life and threw up a magic claw AT the bullet! The bullet hit the claw and as it zinged through, Azure’s godly, and i mean GODLY magic claw blade SPLIT the bullet into a hundred shrapnel fragments! The shrapnel blew past Azure’s face, missing her completely, and split open the heads of 25 guys behind her! They all grunted in death as they hit the ground.

“what?! Impossible!” the man with the musket shouted.
The men charged at the mage, their polearms, blades, stars, tools swinging. Azure charged, slicing them all up with over 150 magic claw shots a second! Heads sliced off, arms chopped loose, thighs sliced open with muscles, tendons and bones flying, legs shattered by the hell storm of superfast magic claws, hip bones crumpled, organs shredded.
One man looked and saw a striek of bright blue- The magic claw sliced him in half right down the center! Both halfs of the shredded man twitched as death seeped in.
Next Azure made a third magic blade, charged it with magic, programming it with the Magic Claw spell, thew it around like a boomerang, it independently shooting out magic claws! She threw out one of her own ai blades to do the same, and weilded her last one like a samurai sword and and charged, like a ninja! She swung, slicing men by the dozen as the rest were chopped down. Azure also had to doge her own magic claws or they would nab her too- she knew she hadn’t mastered that skill completely.
In less than 45 seconds, it was all over, and Azure stood on the frozen water surface, surrounded by bodies and broken weapons and tools. Not a single corpse or item was intact.
Well, except for the guy with the gun. somehow that lucky f**ker didn’t get hit and as Azure stared him down with her glare of “Im going to fuqking kill you now!”, the poor bastard knew he had it.
“W-w-wait! I give up! I give up! It was his idea! I told him not to!” the panicked peasant said, pointing to the mush of flesh that used to be the fat bearded man.
The guy collapsed to his knees, the time-frozen water splashed like mud, and he slammed his hands together, begging for mercy.
“P-P-please don’t hurt me! I won’t do anything, I swear! I’ll go back and tell the others to lay off!” he cried in Saskwa.
Azure picked up one of her magic-ai crafted boomerangs. The thing glowed bright blue after dispensing its own resources of magic. Azure dropped it and blew on her hand- the thing was too hot. She picked it up again, and this time, with the guy watching in horror, she changed it into a long phantom staff.
“O.m.g! Please don’t kill me! I-I got a wife and 3 kids!”
Azure pointed at some mangled bodies behind the guy. That was his family.
He croaked as tears streamed down his face, and Azure had not single ounce of human compassion. She was as cold hearted as a serial killer hacker.

Using her staff, Azure charged up a ball of blue magic. She used the staff to channel most of the excess magic out of her body and into the bubble.
Then she grabbed it with her own hands from the air, and threw it as hard as she could!

The ball of radiactive magic slammed into the man, swallowing him whole, and it vanished in a loud pop!
The guy’s body was glowing blue and he stood there in shock and pain. then he fell down again and vomited blood. Then his hair started falling out. Severe acute radiation sickness. ure just threw a million rads of magic radiation at him.
He screamed as he ran off, then actually fell into the colder-than-ice water and drowned.

Azure just stared impassioned into the fog.