West Wind's Protection

This spell is a part of the Air's Constant Flow spell chain and is found in the Air's Constant Flow rune stone.

Seal of the Airs taught the aeromancer to share the air's favor evenly - a little more belonging to everyone at once, spread thin enough that no one person gets more of it than anyone else. West Wind's Protection is what happens when the aeromancer decides someone in particular deserves more than an even share.

Rather than spreading thin, the West Wind gathers close around a single chosen target and goes still - not gone, not a barrier anyone can see, just calm in a way the air around it usually isn't. That stillness has teeth for anyone who crosses into it uninvited: a melee attacker who closes the distance and swings finds the air itself pushing back, hard, dealing 3d12 magic damage for the trouble. An arrow or a thrown blade fares only a little better - it has to cross real distance to arrive at all, and the same stillness can nudge it just enough that a quarter of the time, it strikes someone else entirely instead. Magic, though, never has to touch the air to land. It arrives already arrived, the way a thought does, and against that the West Wind's calm has nothing to push against at all - magic attacks pass through untouched.

The West Wind doesn't seem to mind the gap. Some fights, after all, are still won with a blade in hand rather than a spell, and against those, this is more than enough.