“Rune mantle,” Clive said. “It consumes a random rune to trigger an effect each time you’re attacked.”

“Do you have anything that doesn’t require a monster to hit me?” Jason asked.

“If the monsters can’t hit you,” Clive said, “then what do you need extra magic for?”

“He’s got you there,” Humphrey said. Dragon-scale armour appeared around him, the giant wing sword appearing in his hands. It was too big to swing in most of the complex, but the hall they were in had plenty of room.

Clive pulled back a flap on the front of his robe to reveal a surprisingly ripped torso, covered in runes of blue and green. The runes floated off his body and through the air, where they came together as a ball of light that transformed into Onslow, Clive’s rune tortoise familiar. Jason didn’t bother pulling out Colin, who would have little impact on the combat dummies.

They formed up, Jason and Humphrey in front, Clive in the rear with his familiar.

“Ready?” Humphrey asked, looking at the other two.

“Ready,” Jason said, drawing his sword.

Clive pulled out a magic wand. “Ready.”

“Alright,” Humphrey said. “Auras out.”

You are in the area of an ally’s [Dragon Might] aura. Your [Power] and [Spirit] attributes are increased.

You are in the area of an ally’s [Lord of Magic] aura. You are continually gaining mana-per-second. Resistance to mana drain effects is increased.

The combat dummies reacted immediately, all twenty-eight moving towards them. Like Clive, they were hampered by the knee-deep water, but Clive was the first to act. His wand fired a bolt of red and silver light that blasted the arm off a combat dummy.

At his side, a bolt of lightning flashed from Onslow's shell. It arced out to one of the peripheral dummies, avoiding Jason and Humphrey. Clive touched a hand to the rune that dimmed on Onslow’s shell, feeding mana into it. The rune started to slowly light back up.

Humphrey stepped forward, cleaving two dummies into pieces with one strike as he waded into the most clustered group. Red light flashed as the dummies lashed out, Clive’s retribution spell blasting chunks from their blunted limbs as they hammered on Humphrey’s armour.

Jason was more mobile, using hit and run strikes as he danced over the surface of the water, building up charges on his sword. Unhindered by the environment, he ran rings around the dummies. When a cluster converged on him, he tossed out a throwing dart from the bandolier on his chest, one of the darts with the red cord. It blasted a dummy apart and he escaped through the gap.