Wizard's Tower - Arc 3 - Chapter 27

Of course, he bounced right off my defensive wards. If I fell to every physical attack that came my way, then I would have long ago perished. It would take a creature the size of the hydra broodmother or larger to strike me through my wards. Cyrus, the vampiric gnome, looked more surprised at his own actions than he did that he bounced off my wards. The wee little fellow glanced down at his hands in shock, as if they had acted on their own. 

That, of course, was the last time I looked at him, as I turned and fled as quickly as I could. I knew better than to fight a magic-user of his tier in his own home. Or at all, if I could help it. The warding on the doors was potent and would take time to bypass. The warding on the walls around them didn’t exist. The doors fell outward leaving a loud clang against the stone ground, but I was already flying over them as they fell.

I recast my invisibility spell as I flew over the shocked faces of the shamans. I sped through the mines, over the bridge and goblin villages, and through the long earthen corridor. I could hear the pitter-patter of little feet behind me. Cyrus was much, much faster than I imagined. Nearly as fast on foot as I was in flight. Nearly.

I flew out from the mouth of the cavern and into the night’s sky around the plateau. I slowed there, turning to see if he would continue to follow me, but he wasn’t. He stood at the entrance to the cavern with his eyes closed. I waited and watched, with only the sound of my heart beating fast at first. 

Then as I calmed, I heard other things. The dense night jungle around the plateau was alive with the sounds of violence. The screams of many beasts in a near-constant struggle filled what was once a quiet place. Not peaceful, but quiet.

Then, I heard Cyrus speak, his voice deep and powerful. Not what I would have expected from a person his size, but the sound of it and the way his eyes shone in the dark sent a tremor down my back. 

“This smell is quite exquisite.”

It seemed every beast in the nearby jungle paused in their struggles, afraid of what had spoken. What answered him was the piercing cry of an enormous crow to the south. So loud, my head jerked to the side of its own accord. 

I wanted to flee, but I hesitated. If Cyrus was as he claimed, a powerful being from the ancient past, and I released him onto the people of Tervan—how would that be different than the fires I had spread so long ago? 

Yet when I spared a glance away from the gnome, I saw the Mirktallean priest casting unholy magics on the bodies of the dead bloodmages. The bodies and parts had been dragged from where they fell onto a platform of wood that looked constructed for this very purpose. Around the mage’s corpse were dead beasts. Corpses of mutated snakes and birds, of panthers and hydra, and other men were being cut apart with bone saws and sew together into something new. Streams of blood flowed through the air around them. Their forms had been twisted to horrific purpose, mutated by the power of their blood god into something I knew would give me nightmares for years to come. 

I waited no longer, turning and flying North as fast as my spellcraft could carry me. This entire country was mad! If it were a person, they would be shrieking in the throes of mind sickness and plague. Thrice I had come across a vision of my death. The blood god. The broodmother. The ancient vampire. Thrice I had escaped. These people can have their mad country, and I hoped the hydra swallow them all. 

The flight North into Sena, and then west towards my tower was a speedy one, but it still gave me time to think. To fear. The ground sped by beneath me, and I paid it no mind at all. Instead, thoughts circled in my head forcing me to relive everything of note that occurred in Tervan.

I wasn’t strong enough to fight one of those three beings. Even if the bloodgod prevailed, if one hydra broodmother existed, surely another did as well. That didn’t speak well to humanity’s survival even atop plateaus. 

I needed more strength, more power. With the additional mana from the dungeon cores, I could cast something truly devastating if I had a spell for it. Yet, I hadn’t found one within my Authority over the spells of earth. I still hadn’t looked behind all of the doors available, but I felt I had looked through enough. 

I knew it was fear of what I had seen that pushed me. An overwhelming anxiety that the world was coming to an end, and myself with it. A fear that I would be eaten alive or worse. I wished that I had the time to consider my options more carefully. Truly, I wished for so many things. My wishes, though, were ashes in my mouth. 

I accepted it. There were no other options. 

I would choose a new authority.

Hi! Sorry for the short chapter. Chapter 26 was long, and 27 was short - something that will likely get fixed during the editing process.