Wizard's Tower - Arc 3 - Chapter 41

The earth magic spell I used to draw plateaus wouldn’t work well with Laxton Bay. It could lift the city, but the bay itself would spill out. Then the city would follow, being as it wasn’t built on firm ground but rather sandy beaches. I knew from past travels here that some of the wooden buildings had poles mounted deep within the sand, but those few buildings weren’t enough to call raising the city a success. In addition, without the bay and its waters, I would be saving the people from beasts only for them to starve. 

Even if I saved the bay, they might starve, as it wouldn’t connect with the ocean and the city relied a lot on imported food.  Yet, on the other hand, I wasn’t certain how much of the population hadn’t already been dragged away in chains. I could still see the lights from candles and fireplaces flickering through the darkness and illuminating the windows of many of the buildings. I didn’t know if that meant civilians or Mirktallean soldiers were housed within.  I bitterly thought of leaving the entire city to fall to either Pestilence or starvation should they be northern soldiers and slavers, but I shook my head of it quickly.

Saving these poor souls from the jaws of the Pestilence came first, and I could consider how they would live after. With deep concentration, I altered the complex layers of the spellform to pull tough stone from deep underneath the city, forming it into the shape of an enormous saucer with edges that rose above the ocean in a grand, curved wall. Waves crashed over one side into the bowl I had created, filling the bay with more water than normal. The heavy rains did as well, I imagined, but it was a combination of the two that created a rising water level that I did not want to leave unattended for long. 

When the base was completed, I began to raise the city. Slowly at first for fear that the shaking would spread fires and there were few enough trees growing in the area around the city. As I watched it rise, though, I saw hydra approaching the shore in great numbers. Groups of five or ten, each headed directly for the city itself. The broodmother was still battling some giant of the sea off the coast, but the other hydra paid it no mind as they drew closer and closer. 

I increased the speed of my spellwork, pouring ever more of my depleting mana into it so that it would lift faster. I could have tried to actively defended the city from the attack, but the monsters seemed without end. The mana I could use to fuel my spells was already lower than I would have liked, and I felt a small twinge of shame for not arriving at the city sooner. Had I arrived later, there would be nothing left, and I feared for how many towns and villages I didn’t reach because I allowed myself distractions. 

The first few hydras that reached the rising plateau bit and struck at the rising rock chipping some away, but as more arrived they began to flow around it and focused on consuming the plants and animals nearby. I watched with amazement as one large creature nearly choked itself swallowing a whole tree. The city on the plateau seemed an afterthought for them, and I made a slow cautious circle around the plateau and nearby areas looking for anyone who may have been hiding from the Mirktallean slavers. 

I found a family in hiding inside a broken barn on an abandoned farm. Two adventurers were in the process of freeing a group of slaves from their overseers. Another child, a boy of eight perched in a tree, and a small undisturbed village located inside a thick grove with a rocky overhang, the village one that I had overlooked in my previous journey because of that same overhang. I dropped all the people I had found in that village and proceeded to raise it onto a plateau as well before returning to the city of Laxton Bay. 

The sun was rising, and rays of light were piercing through the clouds overhead when I arrived at the newly formed plateau city. The storm was settling, and now only scattered rainfall pattered down on the city. I could see the surprised faces of Mirktallean soldiers and slavers near the edges watching as hydra invaded and blocked their way home. I saw more than a few weary faces of the original citizens of Laxton Bay peaking out windows and doorways. 

Yet, what drew most of my attention was in the courtyard before a castle that used to belong to the duke. Mirktallean slaver-priests, in their thick robes and a clawed gauntlet on their hand, had gathered there for some kind of elaborate ritual involving the sacrifice of slaves upon a stone altar. Their chanting was loud enough to be heard now that the winds and rain were gone. With rising anger, I saw a man and his son, both struggling against their rope bindings on the stone and a slave-priest slicing their throats as he raised his voice in prayer. On the sides of the altar, I saw the bodies of the dead piled high, with no regard to age or gender. With each death, I heard the chains of their god in the back of my head pressuring me to submit.  

I would not submit to that. Never. This kind of foul ritual might be understandable from the Tervans to the south, but Mirktal was supposed to be a civilized country. Ritual sacrifice? Of slaves? I found my anger growing, and not the kind of anger I had held days ago for Loralie’s killer. No. It was a righteous anger at an injustice so revolting my hands and arms shook with it. I could not allow this to continue!

And I didn’t. Without regard to my depleted mana reserves, and without regard to how my actions would be perceived, I arrived like a storm interrupting their ritual. Lightning bolts and chain lighting, pillars of fire, spikes of stone, my spells swept across the courtyard as if I were knocking stones from a table. The altar itself was broken and destroyed by ten different spells; the shattered stone became glowing pebbles strewn into the wall. I held nothing back and didn’t stop at just the courtyard. 

I flew across the city in a rage, hunting down any of their priests I could find, and giving them no mercy other than a quick death. Some tried to run, those easily tossed off the plateau with wind magic. Some tried to hide, but their holy magics gave them away. When the city was cleared, I returned to that courtyard and used [Earth Manipulation] to pull down the walls of the castle itself. I wouldn’t hunt through it to find any remaining priests, and whoever lived in that building and oversaw the horror below without action—I felt no sympathy for them. 

The castle crumble before me as the Mirktallean soldier advanced from across the city into the courtyard. Spears and halberds pointed in my direction; archers stood ready behind them. I was soon surrounded by no less than five hundred men and women, each watching me with an intensity of rivaled hatred. I breathed deep as I looked about, waiting for their commander to come forth. I had little mana left, maybe enough to fly away. The mana in my artifacts was empty, and I was too far away to draw from my tower. 

I took the time to regain my composure and straighten my robes. I very much wanted to pull at the seat of my trousers, as the material was creased in a way that was mightily uncomfortable—something that robes wouldn’t do—but I couldn’t in good conscious do that with others nearby. 

As I fixed myself, the soldiers became uncomfortable, their lack of discipline showing in scared whispers and jumbled shifting about. Heavy breathes steamed into the morning, and more than one soldier glanced back towards the archway that led into the courtyard as if they planned to run. 

When no commander showed himself, and I heard no commands, I looked about these soldiers with a tight smile on my face and an inspecting eye. I arched an eyebrow and clasped my hands behind my back, “So, I assume you have gathered to me because you want to live?”