Allanther

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 34

My return to the tower was smooth, with my only complaint being the mists of the morning leaving me feeling damp. Fire magic took care of the actual dampness, but did nothing for the feeling that returned the very moment I was dry. Rather than fly with a flaming beacon to attract notice, I made do with the feeling and dried out again on the tower’s roof. Lilly met me there, looking worried and tired, still wearing the same clothing from the day before.

Despite how tired we both felt and looked, I had suggested we work with the mushroom men in the dungeon until this evening and take ourselves to bed early so that we would return to sleeping at a normal time. She didn’t ask where I had gone or what I had done, and I didn’t speak of the matter. Instead, we spoke of the changes in the mushroom men’s behavior while occasionally glancing at their statue of Walker.

The dungeon itself hadn’t changed much beyond the extra room I had created. The mushroom men had moved their village and statuary into that room and turned the first over to the gardening of the Asrid Flowers. Their village had changed some.  The original village being made of hollowed mushrooms that functioned as little houses, but now they had strung together different mushrooms into a pyramid shape with a triangular entrance.

They had also grown several inches in height. Instead of their tallest barely reaching my ankle, the top of their tallest was now reached midway up my shin. It was a little disconcerting to see both their social and physical growth occur so quickly, especially when that growth also involved creating insect farms. Still, Lilly seemed happy to work with me as we recorded the changes and, together, we theorized on the reasons for or against them. We had yet to see the mushroom men actually eat anything, so we were both quite lost as to the reasons for their insect farms.

The morning turned towards afternoon, and with it was lunch. Today we were again served eggs in abundance, this time a scramble of eggs, sausage and celery. Not the best combination, but Lilly seemed to enjoy it and I had been presented with a missive that arrived from the Duchess. I waited until after lunch to go to my study to read it, but what I found was surprising.

Greetings Wizard Nemon Fargus, Alderman of Lark,

It is with great pain that I write to you this day to request that you attend me in court. I am summoning all nobles and powerful figures throughout my Duchy in effort to combat our common enemy.

A week past, I received news that my beloved husband, Duke Eiston was slain while bravely leading a charge against the heinous Mirktallean infantry. His bravery and valor will be remembered no less than his love for his family and ours for him.

Not only has our king refused to take retributive action, he has withdrawn kingdom forces in Eistoni as he gave his word to do. I do not know what King Sena has done to wrong you so. I know nothing of the Pestilence you spoke.  I fear that if Mirktal is not stopped there will be no Sena to fight against the Pestilence to come.

When King Sena did return my missive requesting aid, he also provided me with the authority to declare you outlaw should I choose. He would see you exiled or slain for not joining battle, and only my word in your support has stayed his hand.

I command that you attend me as soon as you are able.

Cordially,

Duchess Eiston, widowed

While I read the scroll, I noticed it was written with a shaky hand. Stains of teardrops smudged some of the words, but there was no denying it was the duchess’s seal. There was also a mild enchantment on the scroll, something to let whoever enchanted it know when it was opened. Likely the work of whomever was appointed her court mage. It was nothing I couldn’t bypass, but I had no reason to do so.

It was also strange to receive it so shortly after I had taken action against Mirktal myself. If I had waited a day or so to receive this and then met with the Duchess, I could have used my experiments towards proof of my actions supporting the way. It would have delayed testing of the spell and the ring, as well as delayed the release of some of my own anger over Walker’s loss, but it would have likely gotten me pardoned from whatever role she hoped I would play for Eistoni.

I also had to admit that I was tired. It had been a long night and the day had dragged on. I didn’t compose a response immediately, instead checking in on Lilly. I found her asleep on the bed in Leslie’s room, though the bed had once been hers.  The nature elemental was watching her sleep with a face that showed concern. A vine crept through the window and brushed her hair softly and slowly.

We exchanged glances but said nothing. I was too tired and I doubted the elemental would harm her given how she hadn’t in the past. Instead, I took myself to sleep early as well.

The next morning found me busier than I expected. Lilly, Kine, Rhela the Red and I ate a breakfast of omelets and pear juice from the tower top as we watched the sunrise. What should have been a pleasant morning discussing small things turned toward surprise light rose high enough to show us that the forest on the other side of the river was encumbered with refugees. Men, women, children, all with only what they could carry on their backs sleepily woke from where they camped as we looked on.

Of course, they would likely still be there when we finished breakfast, so I sent the guard on duty to question them. When she returned, she reported that they were refugees from Llal. Baron Llal had ordered all his villagers and townsfolk to depart his barony, to go either South to Froom’s lands or East to Lark’s.

Given where my tower was positioned, and the wetlands between, I could only sigh when I realized how many miles these people must have traveled. I was glad that it was still a warm summer, which would mean less deaths on the way, but I wasn’t happy that they had chosen my lands to come to. It was as I ate my last bite of the omelet and frowned at the folks across the water that Kine spoke.

“Master, I think—” he started.

“Certainly,” I answered before he could speak further, “This looks like a matter that is entirely under your purview. I will not stand in your way as you deal with the people as you see fit.”

I dabbed a napkin against my mouth as I finished speaking and then took a sip of the juice before turning to look at the man. For Kine’s part, he just sighed and shook his head. Beside him, Rhela giggled softly and squeezed his arm.

I watched them descend the stairs after they finished eating to deal with the matter, satisfied that my former assistant would do well. When I turned back to the refugees that had ruined my morning, I was surprised again. There, in the lake, dead beasts were rising. Undead zombies and skeletons with glowing eyes and water pouring from holes in their body stood to their former height.

Behind me, the guard gasped, ‘By the dead sea gods.”

I waved in her direction, and ordered, “Go find Pyl for me and ask what he’s doing.”

As she departed, Lilly and I watched as the refugees panicked, the undead were creeping towards them though their movements were sluggish. The risen monsters were hindered by water and mud on top of a natural lethargy. That didn’t stop the men and women from screaming and running in a hundred different directions.

In the lake, my mudmen rose to their full height from the sands beneath. Dirty water splashed away in all directions. Their rise caused more villagers to panic, some throwing rocks and sticks at anything that moved within the waters. My mudmen, thankfully, ignored those things. Instead, they worked to put the undead into the cellar under the lake.

However, when they opened the cellar, more undead—these ones covered in frost and ice—emerged. Their frozen bodies creaked and cracked; sounds I could hear from even the top of my tower. The cold air from within the cellar gushed out in a thick rolling fog that obscured half my lake. It trapped the sounds of splashing and creaking and the harsh moaning or growling of the undead into a growing cacophony of horror.

Author's Note: Special double-chapters today!  As I currently owe you all back chapters, I am giving you this one now.   Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed.  

New Cover!

Cover art for those who haven't seen it!  A friend of mine and excellent artist did this for me and I'm super happy with it.  It beats the stock photo I'd grabbed from google.  

Some of you might have already seen it, and for those of you who have, I'm sorry for the repeat.  For those who haven't, feel free to let me know what you think!

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 33

After I had paced myself to lethargy, I took a hot bath with a glass of wine and a plate of cut pears. The events of the day had distracted not only myself but others from our meals. It was the small hours of the morning when I finally took myself to bed.

I woke around midmorning, and after dressing in my white robe with blue sunbursts, I found myself eating a late breakfast of roast flame boar and fried eggs. For some reason Chelsea had cooked an enormous helping of the eggs. It was likely an overage of the order, something that I had hoped my new seneschal would work out, but given this was the first instance since his hire I discarded the matter.

I had brought Walker’s tome with me to read again, looking to see if he identified where his orders came from. I knew that if this were a command from the king, then the order would be issued by a general of some renown though I wasn’t familiar with the modern generals. I wasn’t certain how long I had sat there reading a picking at my food, but I did notice when Lilly joined me.

She looked a little better, having caught up on some of her rest. Her face still looked gaunt, but most of the puffiness of tears had faded. Her eyes, contrary to yesterday’s despair, now had a glint of determination. As she sat down with her platter of only fried eggs topped with melted cheese and scallion slices, she smiled. It wasn’t a big smile, nor one of wonder or joy. A small smile, though, was more than I had hoped for any time soon. I closed Walker’s tome, and gave her a soft smile of my own.

“Good morning, Lilly. How are you today?” I asked softly and gave her a small smile. I knew she likely still hurt and would for some time, but I wanted her to know that she was cared for. I’d seen grief make monsters of people and didn’t wish it on my pupil.

“Good Morning, master,” she answered by rote, and then scooped a helping of eggs into her mouth. She wasn’t looking at me when she spoke, but her platter of eggs—which was fine. Her eggs did look particularly appetizing.

I waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts while she ate. It was a few rather large bites later that she seemed to reach some kind of decision.

“Master?” she asked.  This time she looked at me as she spoke. I nodded and motioned for her to continue.

“I know it isn’t fair to ask of you, but,” she trailed off as if searching for the right words. When they came to her, those words tumbled out like rocks falling, “But I want vengeance for Walker. They killed him. My brother is gone and someone should hurt for it like I do. It isn’t fair. Mirktal should pay.”

I nodded and took a bite of my own eggs as I thought. In part because I felt responsible for his death as well. I could have retained him as an assistant for longer. I could have trained him in a different field of magic. I could have dissuaded him from joining the army. I could have offer him better protection or warning. Guided him more closely. I could have bent to the king’s request. There were a thousand things I could see that if I had done just a little different would mean the young man would still be among us.

I wasn’t without responsibility here, nor without a feeling of guilt. Not that I would burden someone else with my emotions, nor was it the first time I had felt this way. I was more than familiar with the doubt that plagues one’s mind in grief, the questions one asks.

I was also familiar with the anger one felt, the desire to blame something or someone. My eyes had never left Lilly’s as I chewed, and hers had never left mine. It showed me that she was adamant about her request, and would more than likely do something foolhardy if I didn’t act on her behalf. With a small sigh, I sat my fork down and clasped my hands in my lap.

“Lilly, tell me what you know of Mirktal and their armies,” I commanded her, but with no hint of anger or reproach. An order said as simply as ‘pass the salt’.

Rather than answer me, she clenched her fork tighter and shoveled another huge helping of eggs into her mouth. She had chewed and swallowed half of them by the time she next spoke. I was slightly bothered by her lack of manners, talking with her mouth full, but now was not the time to admonish her for it.

“I know. They’re slaves and they have no choice but to do their masters bidding. Whoever killed Walker likely didn’t want to. But that makes it worse! They can’t all be slaves! Someone ordered his death.”

I nodded slowly, “Certainly.” Then I waited.

She kept talking, letting her anger out with poisonous words I dreaded to hear from any woman’s mouth. The sheer amount of vileness was appalling.  Yet I kept still and listened, waiting for her anger to run its course. When it seemed to finally fade, for now, she slumped forward.

With tears in her eyes, and hair hanging over part of her face, she grimaced in pain as she spoke, “Please. Do something. Anything.”

I had already planned on it, so Lilly’s request wouldn’t change anything. In fact, going into Mirktal again would serve several purposes. I had spells to test as well as the changes to the ring I fashioned. I could disrupt their armies and supply lines. If their armies were disrupted, then I could reduce the number of refugees coming this direction. I could relieve a portion of the righteous anger I felt. Adding relief for Lilly’s anger to all those things wouldn’t slow me at all.

I nodded and chose my words carefully, “Child, I swear those responsible for Walker’s death will suffer the consequences.”

The words at the forefront of my mind, the ones I didn’t speak, were that some of us already were paying that price.

Afterward, we made small talk until we finished eating and I asked her to follow me around the tower. There were several new residents and additions that she should be aware of. Many of those people were more surprised at my appearance without the illusion than they were at meeting the young lady. While she was normally outgoing and very pleasant, I think that she enjoyed the shift in attention while she still grieved.

I left her in the care of Rolf, Fin, and Jax as Jax discussed he and his brother’s experiment with the wolf pups. I knew that I should be spending this time with the young lady and watching her more closely, but I had also given my word to take action.

With that in mind, I advised my seneschal that I would depart shortly to return late this evening or tomorrow morning. It was only a matter of an hour later I had taken flight North into Mirktal with my gargoyles. I’d flown over the armies and battlefields at a height were few could see me and under the cover of an invisibility spell. The barony of Aide was indeed paying much of the price for the war, and several villages and towns were nothing but burnt husks.

When I reached the first town in Mirktal, the one closest to the border I stopped. It had been the first town I had visited on my raid for couches so I was more than familiar with its location, though seeing it in daylight made me appreciate the organized structure better. From above, the spiraling town and farmlands made for a scenic view.

With the shape and size of the town in mind, I began casting a spell that stretched nearly a mile beyond the town’s edge and encompassed the forests and plains that surrounded it. For nearly three hours I spent working my craft, pulling power through the ring to supplement my own. Night had begun to fall by the time I was finished and with the final word I released my spell to watch it in action.

At first, the ground shook and trees along the edge toppled. Next, I could see a crack form in the plains, a crack that spread in a jagged circle around the town. Then, it began to lift. The very earth rose up, lifting the town, the farms, the people, the spire higher and higher to the sky. I waited to the sides, both so I wouldn’t be close enough for any spellcasters to detect, and also to fully witness the effects.

When the spell was complete, I knew I had more work to do. The stone that lifted the city was fine, more than fine. It was a hardened granite that I doubted the hydra would be able to chew through if they tried. Yet, the top of the new plateau wasn’t solid. There, the earth slipped and fell hundreds of feet down from the sides in great clumps. The plateau had raised too quickly as well, leaving several homes and buildings with cracks. Even the spire looked tilted from how it stood before.

I took notes on the changes that would need to be made. Slowing the ascent was a minor change, though I would want to keep the first part of the spell that separated the new plateau from the rest of the ground the same so no residents would escape. The loss of ground at the top was worrying, but I planned to see about adding a wall around it. A few hours of altering the shape of the plateau in my spellcraft should be able to accomplish that. I wasn’t certain that any of the minor earthquakes that the spell caused could be mitigated, but I also added that just for good measure.

By the time my magic had recovered, I was already at the next town for the second test. The travel and the alterations to my craft had placed me here around midnight, and the cool breeze that normally came from the mountains felt chilly from this high in the air. Despite my irritation with the temperature, I cast the spell a second time. This time, it seemed to work perfectly. The town rose slower and lost none of earth at its top. Even the shaking was smaller due to the slowness it rose.

Still, I watched for places to correct or adjust. The wall holding the earth seemed to hold, for now, though I could see cracks in it that meant I should make it thicker. The townsfolk from the first town had panicked when theirs occurred, but these townsfolk seemed more amazed as they came curiously from their buildings. By the time I had finished here, it was almost dawn.

I stopped at the third town and debated for a few minutes whether to cast it now or come back later. I was tired and wanted to return to my tower. My mana had recovered, but the ring was too far distance from its source to use, which meant I would be using most of my mana for this. Yet, if I didn’t cast the spell tonight, Mirktal’s mages may develop some kind of safeguards against it.

It was ironic to think that any safeguards against my spells would be their doom when the Pestilence came, but what swayed my mind was that the nobleman over this town and his priest had offered me tea. They were a cordial pair, and didn’t deserve doom from the pestilence. Not that anyone deserved such a fate, but that my knowing them however briefly in such a good interaction meant I would regret not offering them some means of survival.

So, with that in mind, I cast my spell on the third town, and watched it rise for a quarter of the way. I wasn’t going to stay the entire time, but ensuring the spell worked appropriately was worthwhile to me. It was a pity I wouldn’t get to see the faces of the townsfolk as they realized that when the sun rose today, so did they.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 32

As I walked up the stairs, I had several concerns regarding Lilly. House Shielding had sent me a missive several weeks ago detailing her use of my name inappropriately to garner a position in the guard for another orphan. While I still hadn’t responded to them, mostly because it was beneath my concern, I had put aside that knowledge to address with Lilly in our next correspondence.

The correspondence I received from the Arcanum master regarding her also indicated that while she did well in her studies, she was socially ostracized in many instances.  Her time at the Arcanum should be one of the most memorable of her life, where she should be making lifelong connections and friendships. This wasn’t acceptable in my eyes, especially for one of my pupils. A modicum of pride, certainly, but she should be leading those groups not standing outside them.

I found my brows furrowed as I reached the top of the stairs, only from them to raise in surprise at what I saw. Lilly stood several feet inside the doorway holding tightly to a tome and an urn. Her yellow eyes were bloodshot, and she stared vacantly at the ground before her. Her normally brushed hair was frazzled and I could see her face was puffy from crying. Behind her, a man her age dressed as a guard from Sena looked at her with a helpless concern.

“Lilly?” I asked, my own concern coloring my voice.

She slowly looked up from where she had been staring and her despondent expression turned to that of pain. Without concern for tact or propriety, she ran towards me to wrapped her arms around me. I had adjusted my defensive spells in that instance, barely in time to allow her to hug, as she collapsed against me. My illusion spell, normally strong enough for many things, faded in and out until it disappeared entirely, leaving my real visage apparent for all to see.

Though I paid it, and the others in the room no attention as Lilly began bawling. Her face buried in my robes and the hard tome and urn pressed stiffly into my back. I held her like that for an undeterminable amount of time and rubbed her back as I shushed her. She was thinner than when she had departed, but I knew how grief could hurt an appetite. When we finally broke apart, she looked at my real face in confusion for only an instant before holding the tome and urn before her.

“Dad, this. This is all that’s left of him,” she said, anger and sadness both strong in her tone.

I looked at the urn and the tome, knowing that a single word could push her back into tears. The urn was the type the army issued when returning the remains of departed soldiers, or at least those soldiers of a rank to warrant it. The tome was the parting gift I had given Walker not that long ago.

The quickness of his death was startling, and even without Lilly’s presence my heart felt wrenched in two. This was the very reason I tried not to get close to others. The very reason I held myself separated so far from those around me. I knew it was only a matter of time before I added them to my book of the dead. That Walker would have an entry so soon made it feel even worse.

The man never had an opportunity to start a family. No children or grandchildren. I wouldn’t get the opportunity to see what greatness he would achieve in his life. I thought I had separated myself enough from him and Lilly and Kine not to feel this pain, but it was another task I had failed at. It was one of the reasons I wanted them to go, one of the reasons I limited my assistants to only work for two years’ time.

With a meaningful look at Lilly, I took the urn and tome from her hands, and said a single word, “Come.”

I walked down the stairs, the two items I held feeling heavier in my hands than they were. Behind me, Lilly’s sniffling nose and shuffling feet created an eerie chorus on the stairwell.  Together, we entered my Hall of Valor, the place where I kept my Book of the Dead. The entrance overhead where I had once pridefully sculpted the words ‘For the Glory of Sena’ now felt a sarcastic quip.

I cleared a space on one of the pedestals for Walker’s tome and urn. There, I quietly removed the remaining enchantments I had placed as his introduction into ‘wizard tricks’ and instead bounded it with protection wards to keep to tome strong and the ink from fading.

Lilly watched in silence, and I barely noticed that Rolf, Chelsea, Eni, and Tond had joined us, though they kept their distance from us and stood at the entrance to the hall. I didn’t know if they were afraid to step in, or if they were purposely giving us our space, but I ignored them just the same. As soon as I was satisfied with the placement of Walker’s effects, I moved to the reason I truly came. The Book of the Dead.

Opening the massive tome to the next blank page, I began to draw a sketch of Walker as I remembered him, and Lilly came to my side to watch. When I was done, I began to write. I wrote everything I knew and remembered of the young man, from the day we met to the day we departed. I wrote of his magical strengths and weaknesses, his friendship with Kine, his romance with Mena. I wrote of his eagerness to achieve greatness in battle and his pride in service to me. When I had done my part, I moved to the side and offered Lilly the quill to add her own remarks.

She spoke aloud as she did, “My brother had always been there for me. He protected me from the ridicule of other orphans over our hair and eyes and skin. He helped me when I was having trouble with my letters and numbers. He showed me how to tie a knot.”

She spoke faster than she wrote, so she paused here to allow her writing to catch up. Tears fells on the book, but they wouldn’t be the first or the last, so I said nothing. Soon, she wrote and spoke more, “There was one time when the other kids were really mean, I found myself crying in a corner. The nun, Matron Adila, found me and told me that they were just jealous. That I was likely a princess from the quad islands that had gotten lost. I knew the lie for what it was, just an attempt to make me feel better.”

“Walker knew that too, but he went along with it anyway. Called me princess with a smile. Stupid. If I were a princess, then he would be a prince, but he never brought that up. I knew it was childish to call myself a princess. A mask to keep from getting hurt or showing my feelings. Yet he never said anything.  I loved him for that.”

We went on like that, the day turning into evening. The others had their own stories about Walker, and some even made it into the Book of the Dead. By the time night was in full, Lilly could barely keep her eyes open, and I had Eni carry her to one of my new longchairs with a pillow and a blanket.

The young guard that had accompanied her took watch outside the room. Despite looking tired and weary, he also looked resolute in his desire to do so. I didn’t know the man, so I set Tond to stand with him.

It was only after the others had been situated and gone to sleep that I returned to the Hall of Valor. There, I read through Walker’s tome. It detailed the training and spells he learned with the Army. How well he did there. His advancement in rank almost immediately. The handful of mages he led and what he thought of them and his leadership.

Buried within his words, I also found what I was truly looking for. The orders that sent him to the front lines to do battler, despite him being a geomancer. A geomancer, to all of my knowledge, would normally be held to fortify defensive positions. Sending one to do battle was either desperate or intentional. Not that it would always mean death, but it was unusual. It was when I checked the date of that entry, I realized that they had done so after my meeting with the king.

Despite my pain in his loss, or maybe because of it, I found myself sneering at his tome imagining the smug face of the king. Sending an assassin after me wasn’t enough? They had also moved against Walker for my slight? I carefully closed Walker’s tome and moved through my tower in quiet but angry steps. I had thought that all my plans for vengeance were sufficient. The two plots I had enacted to counter the tea would be sufficient.

I no longer thought that. Instead, I let my anger roll through me, as I paced the top of my tower. No, I wouldn’t move now, or do anything immediately. I had more self-control than that. I would, however, avenge this injustice. The king had made this an entirely personal matter, and I would not be letting it go.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 31

I watched from the top of my tower as the newest beast wave approached. This wave was composed of condors, wild frost elementals, and yeti.  All of which were led by a powerful ancient yeti, whose mere presence caused frost to form around it. I wasn’t terribly worried about the beasts, and wouldn’t have even bothered to oversee the attack if concern over Kine’s village wasn’t on my mind. The flock of condors was the most concerning, even if the villagers had retreated into their homes and my apprentices had constructed a wall.

The trees opposite my reflection pond were being pushed down and the bushes trampled as the latest horde emerged. Around me, my apprentices, Kine, Loralie, and all the other magic-users had gathered. While it would be easy for cast a spell like [Tempest] and dismantle the entire horde, I wanted those around me to have the opportunity to test my improved [Advanced Fire Blade] spell. The third-tier spell might be too much for some to control without supervision.

The ancient yeti stood proudly on one of those fallen trees, letting loose a mighty roar that froze part of my lake. In turn, a serpent made of water rose from the center, it’s undulating body swaying in something like a dance. Both creatures eyed each other in a contest of will that lasted only until Kine released his [Advanced Fire Blade] from the top of the tower and into a crowd of yeti. At least a dozen of the monsters were cut down, not to rise again. A handful more attempted to crawl away with injuries too severe to stand.

I nodded at the man, satisfied with his performance and he smiled back as he wiped sweat from his balding head. Jax and Philipe were next, releasing theirs out into the flock of condors, the blades cutting through the monsters like a scythe through wheat. It took most of their mana, and Jax needed to sit down on a bench to recover. I was still proud of them for their efforts.

The witches went next, their spells cast a little different. I understood the reason for it, as their magics were normally ritualistic instead of direct-casted, but the effect was the same. Loralie seemed more than confident in her casting, with an easy smile and a relaxed posture. The other witch, Grena, was more focused and intense in hers. When she had been originally introduced, the forty-something year old woman had said her name was Ninkat, which I found out only later was her making mockery of Fintak the Illusionists moniker. Apparently, they had known each other for years, and exchanged barbs like wizards exchanged tricks.

The witches two spells crashed into the remaining condors, leaving only a handful still in the air. Those few didn’t stay for long, abandoning the battle to fly back west with frighten squawks. It gave me a sense of relief that I didn’t know I needed. With the flying monsters out of the battle, the villagers would be able to defend themselves should the need arise.

The others, the illusionist, Pyl, and Rhela the Red I expected to have a more difficult time with the casting. Specializing in a third-tier class often came with a natural ease of learning spells in that field at the cost of difficulty learning spells from another. I was surprised however, when the other spell-casters moved to aid them with words of encouragement or advice.

First came Rhela, who had somehow endeared herself to my former assistant Kine. He smiled and nodded in her direction as she practiced her the motions and words needed to cast the spell. I did quick check on my former assistant to ensure that she had used none of the charming magic she was known for, but found nothing of the sort on him. If she had charmed him, then it wasn’t magical in nature.

The witch Grena helped the illusionist, or I assume it was a form of help. She insulted everything from the way he stood to how he drew upon his mana. The entire time, she challenged everything from his skills to his very manhood. It made me glad that I had not attracted her attention myself, not that she would ever find any weakness in the way I cast spells.

What surprised me the most, was Loralie and Pyl. While I knew they were friends of a sort and came from the same general barony, the way that she whispered encouragement to him seemed more than just that. It was only when she placed her hand on the small of his back and turned to give me a brief look of victory that I understood what she was truly doing.

I knew that I had rejected the offer of a relationship with her, and all that entailed. With her actions now, she was telling me that she would have one with Pyl should I not change my mind. If she hadn’t already began to see him romantically. It burned a little, the feelings of jealousy. They weren’t logical, I knew that. I had rejected the woman and had no say in who she saw. Instead, I turned away to watch the monsters as the spells were cast.

Pyl’s did well. He could have aimed it better, but the spell was cast correctly. Fintak’s sputtered out in a miscast that left him looking more angry than hurt. I suspect that Grenda’s barbs were more distracting to him than he let on, but he recast it almost immediately with no concerns, the spells hitting a crowd of the yeti and leaving them in smoldering pieces. Rhela had the most difficulty with the spell, but I suspected she might. Kine needed to help her shape the spell before she released it and even then, it crashed into the lake instead of into the beasts.

My patience, though, had been broken. While I had initially planned on watching them recast the spell as many times as it took to get it right, I was no longer in the mood for it. Whatever game Loralie was playing with me had left me feeling irritated. With my lips pressed together firmly, I cast several chain lightning spells out into the horde.

After the flashes of light from the spell faded, I turned to look at the other spellcasters, “Please continue to practice as you see fit.”

Without another word, I descended into my tower towards my laboratory to seek refuge amongst my work. I had considered letting Loralie know about my research into longevity, and what that could mean for a possible us, but her actions today left me feeling bitter towards the woman. It was, of course, entirely reasonable for her to start a new relationship if I turned her down, that wasn’t what bothered me. What bothered me was how quickly she did so.

For the two of us, who can see in decades instead of years, to make a decision such as that within a month was… I couldn’t think of the proper word, I was so irritated. Instead, I decided to throw myself back into research until I had calmed.

It was easy to get lost in my work. I periodically checked on the experiments I was running on the hydra. The fifth-tier elemental had not changed in regards to killing more or less of the beasts, but I didn’t think that it was sufficient to affect their overall numbers. Maybe if I had summoned ten or twenty of them and had the boulders rolling in constantly changing patterns, I could have dealt death to a tenth their number. Still, it was worthwhile to watch, if only for the satisfaction I felt seeing it roll over the monsters.

The illusionary rabbits continued to attract attention and cause the monsters to fight each other. Often times that didn’t result in their deaths, which was unfortunate, and the moonstones I had used were subject to being disturbed and causing the illusions to only work for part of the day. Which was a more accurate result than I could claim for the parasitic mushrooms.

On my last review of this experiment, the infected hydra had been isolated, an island within the ocean. I’d reacted by using the air elemental I watched through to spread the spores out from the island. It was disappointing that I needed to take a more active role in the experiment, and should I return to that canyon—a thought which caused me to shiver—I would attach an air elemental to continue the spread of the mushrooms from the start.

The current experiment, though, was a mess. Rather than an island, the infected hydra battle against non-infected in an enormous squirming hill of the beasts.  I could barely tell one monster from the other, as they bit and tore and ate each other only to regrow moments later. The regenerative effects of the monsters surpassed that of trolls.

I had watched those experiments, and proceeded with several others for two days straight when I was interrupted again. My seneschal knocked at the door, and drew my attention.

“Lord Fargus, you have a guest,” he informed me in a toneless manner.

“A guest?” I asked, my eyes going back and forth from my current experiments to him. If this guest wasn’t important, then I planned to have the man deal with the matter.

“Yes, lord. A Miss Lilly has arrived and she looks distraught. Shall I dismiss her?”

I stopped what I was doing to look at the man, “Lilly, you say? I’ll be up shortly.”

Ch delayed

Today's chapter will be released at a later time than usual today.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 30

My air elementals held me in the air over a Mirtallean town, and my gargoyles flew nearby. I hadn’t planned this foray out, not really. The idea had nested in the back of my mind like a giant spider and crawled out every now and again when I was planning out my revenge against Sena or thinking on the war. It was only the fifth-tier assassin that moved my hand.

The town below, like all of the villages, towns, and cities in Mirktal was build in a spiral. The very center building was a spire housing the Mirktallean equivalent to a noble. A path led around the spire downwards and turned into a spiraling road with buildings to either side until it led far enough away from the spire to become farmhouses. I estimated that the population could only be a little larger than Lark unless they built down into the ground.

Like the spire itself, the other buildings in the town were round with a spiral rooftop. I imagined that when it rained, the waters all rolled around in interesting shapes. Yet, I had not come to admire the architecture. I had dithered in the air long enough. I had come to plunder. This night would not be my finest night, and I likely would hold no pride from what I was about to do.

I left the gargoyles flying above me, as I lowered towards the spire. I first passed by the very top where worn flags flew.  One for Mirktal, and another local one.  Then by the mounted manacles, where unfortunate slave corpses hung from their arms for the entire town to see what would happen should an order be refused. The stench clung in the air; the summer heat had cooked their bodies.

The first window I came to, one large enough to fit through, showed the slave-priest for the area who was laying across his bed being entertained. He was a bald man, with a strong physique, and the slaves around him all seemed to be some ideal of beauty. They all held black hair, and brown eyes, slim and well-toned. Elsewhere around the room I could see the tools of slavery, the whips mounted on the wall, a podium holding some holy book, torture devices and more chains that I cared to count. I just shook my head and continued further down.

I stopped to peek through the next window, seeing no one about. The room seemed to be a sleeping chamber, posh rugs and curtains slathered the room, with finely carved dressers and tables. Likely the local lord’s bedchambers. On the other side of the room, a doorway led to the first part of the spiraling pathway curving around the outside of the spire. Stairs were on the left side. I detected some small enchantments for alarms and defense, but nothing I couldn’t overcome.

I flew around down further until I found what I sought. The next floor held two rooms, a bathing room, and a sitting room. The nobles seemed to be enjoying themselves in the bath, each at the opposite ends of the great heated pool. Standing around them were more slaves, all barely clothed, serving fruits and wine.

While I had no interest in the occupants of the room, and it did seem a little ostentatious, I stopped for a moment to take notes on where my own bath’s decorations could be improved. Fountains carved like lion’s mouths leaked steaming water into the bath keeping it hot. Golden braziers hung from chains on the ceiling, with decorative crystal covers that sparkled in the light. The lower half of the walls were covered in polished brass plates, that served to reflect the light and make the room feel larger.

Yet, the next room was my goal. I disabled the defensive spells about the window to it, and stepped through to decide upon what I wanted to plunder. Along the walls were shelves and bookcases holding trophies and scrolls. In the center of the room was a large round wooden table that came up to midthigh. Around the room were various sitting chairs and other furniture. I walked slowly inspecting each one. The chairs were placed in a circle around the table with the other furniture a circle around that,

While I had no need for sitting chairs at the moment, the designs of the ones here were different than the ones in Sena. Instead of the high back, it had two, one low and then a higher one behind it. Very odd to look at, but not what I came for. Behind the chairs, I approached my goal, only to be met with shock.

What I had first thought to be couches were instead something else entirely. The one I first observed resembled the sitting chairs I was familiar with, but it was it someone had lengthened the seat. Like a chair and a footstool combined into some kind of monsterized version of a chair. With a scowl, I stomped around the circle of these things, checking each one individually to see if there was a couch hidden amongst the lot.

“Who are you and why are you trespassing?” A woman’s voice called out to me.

I slowly turned to look at the entrance of the room. There, stood a naked noblewoman, dripping the waters of her bath. Around her, slaves and guards armed themselves for combat. Behind her, what I assumed was her husband, peeked out in fear.

I straighten my back and gave her a nod, the same one a higher-ranking Senan noble would give to a lesser, “Good evening, madam, perchance you could help me. Where are your couches?” I inquired with all the politeness I could muster.

“Couches?” she asked in clear confusion.

I waved my hands at her lesser furniture, “Yes, couches. To sit upon.”

“There are no couches here. Who are you to question me? Did the king send you?” She asked, seemingly taken aback. Her tone was one of polite interest, even if the words seemed hostile.

“Ah, my apologies. I am the Wizard Nemon Fargus. It is a please to meet you…?” I greeted. If she was going to be polite, then I had an obligation to be polite as well. I would have no one ever say that I wasn’t polite.

“Nemon Fargus?” she asked, still a bit confused. Not that I blamed her, she just had her bath interrupted. In fact, it felt nice that she didn't immediately recognize my name.

“Indeed, and you are?” I inquired.

That seemed to shake her from her confusion. She breathed deep and stood taller in her nudity, “I am—”

“Silence, mistress! There is power in names, and he may use yours against you!” A booming voice called from behind the group. The grouping of near-nude slaves shifted allowing the entrance of the slave-priest I had seen on the top floor.

His words, though, confused me. Power in names? What kind of folktales are they spreading about wizards in Mirktal? If there was power in names, then I’d long ago have discovered and used that. I could only shake my head at the ridiculous posturing.

“We know who you are, Stormslayer. Sena’s secret weapon holds no power here. We shall not bend to your threats no matter how many lives you take! Mirktal shall always triumph as we hold to the–” The bald man’s blue eyes were alighted with religious posturing or perhaps strong drink.

It had been a long while since I had been called Stormslayer, though. I tapped my chin as I thought about when it last was. It wasn’t the last battles I participated in.  No, it came from a battle thirty years before that, when I had first mastered the triple-cast of chain lightning. That was… no, I mastered that forty years before I left the Mage Corps, not thirty. That would be the battle of—

“This is why you shall fall today!” the priest’s scream broke my thoughts. He had donned his clawed gauntlet and finally stepped forward from the grouping. It seemed like he was prepared to lead an attack on me, as if I would stoop so low as to engage in physical combat. That kind of fighting should be relegated to other types of men.

I waved my hand, and one of my gargoyles burst through the window, snatched the priest, and carried him out the doorway. Both I and the others in the room watched as he was flung from the spire to fall to his death, a scream announcing the event.

I turned back to the noblewoman. Her skin was showing goosebumps from the night breeze coming through the newly opened window, but I tactfully ignored it, “As we were discussing, madam, where do you keep your couches?”

Later that evening, I landed on the roof of my tower with my owls. Four more Sad Chairs that they had carried landed with them, and two of my new guards quickly arrived to carry the chairs inside. The room that used to be the guard’s barracks and armory was being converted to sitting rooms until I could make a proper one. Still, it wasn’t the best of raids. Three different towns, and not a couch between them. I’d worked late into the night in my raid, and had twelve new pieces of furniture to show for it.

The chairs, which the Mirktal’s called by some other name I didn’t bother to learn, I called Sad Chairs. Mostly because it saddened me that they were not couches. In fact, their design was poor, to begin with. If I wished to sit with my legs straightened before me, I could simply put cushions on the wall and floor. Still, I couldn’t very well justify to myself calling my evening a raid if I didn’t plunder something, and the Mirktalleans seemed very proud of their Sad Chairs.

It was already the early hours of the morning, and the evening had been stretched too long, despite the later super of roasted quail and peas the town’s lord offered me on my last raid. That was quite a pleasant surprise, and he and his slave-priest were most cordial. Though they did spend an inordinate amount of time trying to discuss the religious details of their slave-god to convert me. Then again, I doubted they had many other topics to discuss.

With a feeling of disappointment, I carried myself to my bedchambers. I could always try to raid again further north. I’m certain there are couches somewhere in Mirktal.

Sorry for the delay and thank you for your patience!  Back up and running now!

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 29

I couldn’t help but frown as I gazed at the newest tower attached to my wall. Lutha had arrived that morning with fifteen other dwarves from her clan. They’d been cast out from her home in Sena City due to some dwarven clan hierarchy rules that I didn’t quite follow. She didn’t beg for refuge, but she didn’t have to. I was more than willing to accommodate her and her family’s needs, though she brought some interesting news with her.

Apparently, the Pestilence wasn’t simply our problem, but a problem that originated in the vast underground tunnels that lay beneath the ground. During the war with the Seafolk gods at the end of the last age, they had flooded many of the tunnels with saltwater in an attempt to drive those that lived beneath out. While they weren’t successful, much of that water remained and it provided a perfect breeding ground for the Hydra. Now, the dwarves were fleeing to the surface to escape.

My frown, however, had nothing to do with the reasons they came nor the news they brought. I frowned because of the addition of a third smaller tower, this one opposite of the other two.  It meant that I was slowly losing my much-desired separations from the trappings of civilization. If this continued much more, I’d have an entire town built up around my tower.

The newest tower, still shorter than mine, housed all the dwarves and their kilns. While Ram had been a blacksmith, his wife’s family were simple potters. The bog seemed to provide the clay they could work with and they were happy with their new location. I couldn’t see myself doing their work. The idea of being around a kiln when the summers were already hot just didn’t appeal to me.  Then again, these were a people that enjoyed living beneath the earth, so their sensibilities might not be entirely aligned with mine to begin with.

It was as I looked down from atop my tower, I noticed the aldruane had gathered around the new tower. While I was certain they had been warned against harming any residents or guests, I felt the need to ensure that they were behaving themselves.

I hadn’t made it two steps beyond the door to my tower when the nature elemental in my ivy cried out to me.

Master! Save us! Her musical words whispered across my mind and her falsely beautiful face twisted into one of pain and horror.

I glanced around but saw nothing that was attacking them, “From what?”

The faces among the flowers turned as one toward the tower that housed Loralie and the others.

Do you not feel it? The mana from that tower? Please! I shall be forever grateful!

It was curious that there was something that could frighten these nature elementals, and I couldn’t help but suspect a trick or a trap. With my [Mana Sense], though, I did detect a small trace of death mana originating from the tower. It should be enough to harm the nature elementals, but perhaps it was their opposite.

My tower had a bridge that led from its door to the gate, but the other towers only had doorways that led outside. It meant that I would need to walk outside my tower and along the wall to reach theirs. I still hadn’t committed to a shape for the fourth-tier earth elemental I planned to task with guarding my front door, but now I was considering ideas that would include bridges to the other towers.

When I arrived at the tower, I knocked but received no answer. Feeling curious, I entered this tower for the first time. The inside of the first floor seemed to have been constructed in a way that mirrored my own tower, though the fireplace was unlit logs and it had none of the elaborate gem and copper decorations I had made. The stone table that curved around the fireplace was a smaller version, but with wooden cushioned seats in contrast to my stone ones.

No one met me inside, but I could sense the death mana grow stronger. It was a clear sign of necromancy at work, as most necromancers aren’t formally trained enough to place wards to contain their excess mana. That they even had excess mana was a sign of inefficient spellwork.

With a sigh, I began walking downstairs to where the mana was originating from, the two underground levels of this tower having been divided into laboratories for the mages to work. Upon entering the room the mana came from, I was confronted with a very haphazard and cluttered necromancer. To either side of the room lay vast piles of death crystals, a type of crystal that resembled obsidian but grew solely around crypts and old battlefields.

In the center of the room, the necromancer Pyl was humming as he stitched together some amalgam of dead beasts with a needle the size of my forearm. His back was to me, and he seemed deep in concentration, happily working on his creation. I knew too well the irritation one felt to have their work disturbed, so I turned to grasp one of the crystals from the pile and cast a second-tier enchantment that would cause it to gather and absorb all the free-floating mana.

“What are you—oh! Master Nemon, welcome,” Pyl said as he turned from his work to see me.

I lifted the crystal and held it up before me, “Necromancer Pyl, why is there death mana leaking all over my tower? There are children that live here.”

I meant it more as a light scolding or gentle ribbing from one practitioner to another, but his reaction showed me he didn’t take it that way.

He bowed to me three times as he spoke, his words tumbling out quickly, “Wizard Fargus, please excuse my actions! Dead flesh is easier to animate once the area is saturated with death mana. I did not think it would spread so far so quickly!”

I waved his words away as I began pacing around his laboratory. It was a complete mess, and I didn’t see how he accomplished anything. Parts of beasts, scrolls, tomes, and what looked to be a dirty robe all in one pile. Animal teeth were mixed in with crystals. The wooden table he worked from was missing a leg, with a large femur jammed in as a replacement. I tsked with every mistake I saw, and he flinched each time.

“Necromancer Pyl,” I began, “You are a mage in service to humanity. One who’s spells may yet save an entire race. Your race, not mine. What would happen if you discovered a spell that slays the hydra but misplace the reagents needed to cast it underneath all of this?” I asked and waved my hand at a random pile of frozen monsters.

He looked down ashamed, and I watched him for a few moments. “Why did you not ask for assistance in organizing? I have two mages at my beck and call that I pay for such matters.”

He cringed again, but this time an undead rat with additional tails attached all over its body jumped atop a pile and hissed at me.

“Tails, no!” he cried as it leaped towards my face.

I simply stepped aside and watched as it flew and landed into a different pile of dead things.

“Come here, Tails,” Pyl called and wiggled his fingers as if he were calling a dog.

“What is that?” I asked, out of morbid curiosity. I could see a tuff of the stiff dead hair on the thing scrape of as it crawled out of its pile.

“Tails is my undead familiar, a creature I made to assist me,” the necromancer answered, though by his tone he seemed to fear reproach. Tails began scurrying across the floor towards the man.

“How does it assist you?” I inquired. I had two animals, a parrot and a tortoise in my laboratory awaiting my decision, though the parrot spoke more to the ex-slave than it did me.

“Tails, he fetches things when I ask,” Pyl answered.

“Does he?” I felt a little shocked that an undead of such low quality could handle such a complicated tasking as fetching a specific item. Especially, if that item was in one of these piles. With a wave of my hand and the use of earth manipulation, I constructed a few alcoves. “Please have it put all death crystals in these, sorted by size.”

I watched the necromancer whisper to the rat-thing and then kept watching as it began to do as instructed. It was interesting to see that it was capable of what it had been told to do. I created several more alcoves, a bookshelf, and mounted the enchanted death crystal I held along the wall. After a satisfied nod to myself, I turned to the young necromancer, “Come with me. I have a tome or two on warding in my study that will help you to construct a ward that keeps all death mana contained. One should always take precautions when before you experiment.”

Tomorrow's post may be delayed for personal reasons.  Letting you all know in advance!

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 28

I spent the rest of the day on the top of my tower, though I had to use ice magic around midafternoon to combat the heat and sun. Ram’s wife, Lutha, didn’t arrive that day, which turned out to be a good thing. The realization that she was coming did a lot to put my emotions in perspective. Here I was, angry with the loss of a potential partner, and she’d lost her husband. A dwarf who she expected to live the rest of her days alongside.

To say I felt small after I looked at it from that direction would be calling a cantrip magic. It was a good measure however of the different swings in emotion I felt after I stopped drinking the tea. That I overreacted to Loralie’s admissions did leave me feeling slightly ashamed, but compared to my earlier emotional instabilities this year I was improving.

I had retired for the evening early, both because of how I felt and because of how much the heat had drained me that day. I simply wasn’t used to spending the day outside in the sun. So, when I was awoken from a deep slumber in the early hours of the morning by guards shouting, I wasn’t in the best of moods. I didn’t even bother to change from my nightwear, a soft fur robe of extreme comfort, before I arrived back at the commotion.

There, to the surprise of everyone but myself, I found an assassin caught in a trap. Around him, three of my guards were quarrelling amongst themselves. I could hear the baying of wolves as Eni had taken them out on immediate patrol.

“I can’t see him! What magic is this?” Tond growled as he aimed his bow in the general vicinity of the man but not actually at him.

Two of the new guards, whose names I couldn’t remember at the moment, stood on either side of Tond with clubs held ready. I was a bit disappointed in realizing that they weren’t wearing the uniforms I was accustomed to for my guards, instead weathering random worn leather armor pieces.

The assassin laughed at Tond’s failure, mocking him for whatever reason from behind a cage of glowing blue flames. I was disappointed in that. This was one of the lesser traps I had placed about the tower.

I recognized the man from meeting him in the capital. Cothram, a fifth-tier assassin with a class of [Dark Blade]. He was a small wiry, man with lean muscles barely visible underneath high-quality armor. With a dark countenance that suggested less than honorable actions, he watched the group of guards in humor until he saw me. Then, he immediately through a small knife or dagger of some sort in my direction.

I sighed as it caught in a magic ward for a second before falling to the ground. I watched him a moment, evaluating his strength and skills before dismissing them entirely. Even after all this time, he was barely into his fifth-tier and while could possibly harm me if I was caught unaware in a moment of weakness, this was no longer the case. Moreso, I saw the veins of magic I had come to recognize as the effects of the Asrid Tea glowing within him.

After watching his blade fall to the ground, he threw three more in quick succession that all met the same reaction. I gave him a look of annoyance, to which he responded with a shrug.

“Can’t level the capital out here, can ya?” he said with a grin.

I pretended to consider the matter, feeling great satisfaction when his smug expression fell. With a wave of my hand I placed a small spell on him that would paralyze him at my choosing, and dismissed the cage that held him.

As the cage faded from existence, both he and the guards gave me a confused look, but I turned away towards the stairs, speaking loudly enough from them to hear, “Come along then. I don’t have all night and the king sent you for a reason.”

I walked downstairs without looking back. If he attacked, I was more than confident my wards would trigger a defense much greater than he expected.

“The king sent me to kill you, and you turn your back on me?” he whispered heatedly but didn’t attack. It was all the answer I needed. If he had attacked right away, I would have needed to slay him then and there, but that he followed meant that he was curious enough about what I wanted to show him. That or he was waiting for a moment of weakness.

Either way, that was all that was said between us before we arrived in my laboratory and stood before the monsterized versions of the Asrid Flowers I had grown. The soft glow of magical lanterns along the walls highlighted the monsters and magical equipment in soft blues and purples. I would need to correct that later, but for now we could see well enough. It was much too late at night to turn all the light spells on.

“Do you know what there are?” I asked softly as I turned my head to look at him as he stood beside me.  This close to the man, and I expected to smell oil or leather, but there was no scent at all.

“Monster plants,” he said with distastes.

“Asrid Flowers in their true form,” I corrected him, adopting a tone I used when teaching students

He looked between me and the flowers in clear confusion and his hand, which hadn’t gone far from a large knife at his waist inched closer.

“Do you know why the king really sent you to me?” I continued. My plan wasn’t entirely complicated. In fact, it was quite simple. Yet, I’ve found that simple plans are often the easiest ones to achieve. This one hinged on his certainty, a certainty I hoped to shake.

“He wanted you dead for defying him in court. Only a fool would do so,” he spat the words out in anger.

I shook my head, “You don’t think he knew I would decline his request? Do you think so little of the king? How else could he send you to me without alerting his enemies?”

His anger didn’t dissipate, not exactly, but a look of confusion did appear in his eyes, and his brows became less furrowed. “You are working some magic on my mind, to ensure your own life.”

“Well, you may certainly ask any other mage about such a thing after this meeting to see if it is true. Yet, if I valued my own life so much, why didn’t I simply kill you in that cage? Do you think that spell was the greatest of my magics? No, you are no threat to me.”

His hand drew the knife at his belt so quickly it was halfway the distance between us before he found himself paralyzed. Pale yellow light coursed around his body like waves splashing on a beach.

Again, I sighed and shook my head before moving to sit at the chair near my table. The man’s whole body wouldn’t be able to move until I released him, though he could still breathe and blink. His gaze followed me as I sat, the look in his eyes quite intense.

“If I release you, will you stop that? It is quite bothersome to have a conversation that would need to stop every few minutes,” I asked the question, but I knew he couldn’t answer. I tapped my finger on the desk for thirty heartbeats, enough for him to realize that there was no way to escape my spell before I waved it away.

“Uh--!” he cried as he stumbled away from where he stood.

I simply waited and watched, as he checked himself and his body to ensure he was free. Not that he would be able to tell. When he finally stopped checking and appeared calm, I raised my eyebrow.

“Speak then,” he said through clenched yellow teeth.

I almost reprimanded him for his tone and arrogance in thinking he could give me a command, but I didn’t want the meeting to last longer than needed. It was better to resolve this quickly than risk failure.

“Asrid Flowers, when brewed in a tea create a magical compulsion, one of obedience,” I said and then waited.

“Obedience to what?” he asked as he gave the monster flowers a quick glance.

“When monsterized, to themselves. The version the King Sena and the rest of us drink, however goes to something else.”

“To what?” He asked puzzled.

I raised a finger and said loudly, “Exactly!”

He flinched back, and then gave me yet another look of confusion, before his eyes widened as he took in the implication. “Mirktal,” he whispered.

“Who else concerns themselves so much with control and obedience?” I asked.

“Then why didn’t the king just say so?” he demanded.

I gave him a resigned look, and lied yet again, “The king drinks the tea as well, it binds his hands more than any other.”

“And the war… no wonder Sena fairs so poorly…” he said to himself more than to me, putting together a conspiracy of his own design.

“So, you now comprehend what the king wants, correct?” I asked.

He nodded, but then glanced with me with suspicion. His hand clenched his knife tighter.

I opened my hands wide and smiled, “I will be here.”

The next morning, my curses rang throughout the tower, and maybe beyond. I am uncertain how he managed it, whether he had an accomplice I didn’t detect or a skill I hadn’t accounted for but he had hurt me severely and leave a message all in one act.

He didn’t hurt me physically, nor anyone else, and I had checked thrice for poisons and traps after I found his message to confirm that it was only this, but the fool had destroyed my single remaining couch. I had warded it well to keep others from sitting on it and prevent regular damage or fire from harming it, but I hadn’t warded it against fifth-tier skills.

I had that couch for seventy-five years! I had to purchase it secretly from a noble family that had lost much of their estate to a monster infestation and smuggle it through the City of Sena under eight different illusions. This couch meant a lot to me.

By overlooking that protection, I had cursed myself.  Had he still been nearby, I would certainly have slain the man for this slight. It was only Lutha’s arrival with Little Ram that broke me from my preparations of tracking him down.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 27

Several days had passed since I had spoke with Loralie on the tower top. In that time, I had decided to stop some of my experiments. The pits outside my tower were not going to provide results before the Pestilence arrived, and most of the monsters within were useless to me otherwise.

At Eni’s request, I allowed Philipe the opportunity to go towards Lark to solicit volunteers so that the wolves had the opportunity to continue living. I had taken some of my anger and hurt out on the snakes using magics far beyond what was needed to kill them that day I spoke with Loralie. While I had planned to introduce them to the bog to hunt the lampreys, my water elemental had already done most of that work.

The flame boars I gifted to one of Kine’s villagers under the direction that they should continue breeding them for taste, a gift that went over well enough to cause an impromptu festival there. Even Chelsea joined in the festival with a barrel of the sweet molasses while I watched them from the top of my tower.

My emotions, despite the anger being released, were still in turmoil. I hadn’t craved the calming effects of the Asrid Flower tea in some time, but now more than ever I salivated at the thought of it. More than once I had one of the servants prepare a cup for me, only for me to stare at it in self-loathing and toss it away. I had considered the matter thoroughly, and believe I was angrier about the difficulty controlling those emotions than the emotions themselves.

Three new guards had arrived, and I met them only briefly to take their oaths and threaten them with the deaths of their minds, body, and soul should they betray their word. Two men and a woman, shouting an oath on quivering legs does wonders for my entertainment. While I had no means magical or otherwise of enforcing their oaths, unless one counted a good smiting, the event still served as a good short distraction to me for half a day.

Today, though, might be even worse. I had two guests set to arrive and no clear idea of their purpose. Baroness Nix had sent a missive stating she would be by, and that missive also included information about a certain dwarf widow who had brought her child with her to see me.

I hadn’t spoken to or written Ram’s wife since the day of his death. Her words that day sometimes still haunted me at night, but I had taken them to heart. She told me quite clearly that she never wanted to see me again, and I had vowed to accept her decision in all that entailed. It was the least I could do for Ram. I wasn’t sure why the woman would seek me out now, but I was certain I would likely bend to any reasonable request she asked of me.

I was standing atop my tower in the early afternoon, just past lunch, when they arrived. I had spent the morning watching my assistants practice their earth manipulation by filling in some of the empty pits and completing the spellcraft needed to raise a plateau. I was almost done with it and would need to test it soon, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look it over a fourth or fifth time to ensure that all the pieces were in place.

Baroness Nix’s white carriage was a pretentious thing with flapping banners and jingling bells. It made its way down the road slowly, as if on parade from victory. I could only sigh at the unneeded pomp that travelling with the woman entailed and hope that didn’t mean she expected with any unnecessary ceremony on my part.

I made my way down the stairwell to assume my seat at my table on the first floor only to notice the food that Chelsea had set out. Unlike the normal platters served, she had fruit cut into an array of animal shapes that looked just as tasty as it did interesting. The influence of my new seneschal, no doubt.

While I didn’t see the woman anywhere nearby, he gave me a silent nod as he waited by the door. Fentworth Aide had done much to improve the functions of those in my tower, from clarifying duties to training formality. Improvements that I very much appreciated but hadn’t taken the time to invest my own efforts towards.

When he opened the door to announce my guest, he did so with such grace I imagine court administrators would be jealous.

“My lord, presenting the fourth-tier adventurer, hero of Stalled Woods and Gray’s Canyon, Baroness Nix of the Nix Barony, first of her name,” he announced with the customary bow.

The woman who entered, while clothed in the excesses of nobility could never be misconstrued as gentle. While she had a pleasant enough face for a woman in her forties, her black hair was tied back in a ponytail instead of formally styled and her demeanor spoke more of readied vigilance than of courtly acumen. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for possible dangers before feigning interest in my décor.

I stood and offered a smaller bow and waved the seat before me, “Welcome Baroness, please join me.”

She offered a bow back, which was graceful if obviously not well practiced, and spoke as she walked forward, “Good day to you, grand Wizard Fargus.”

I sat and watched her as she took the seat before me, and then immediately shifted her wait in discomfort. I spared a glance at the door, but Fentworth had already closed it. It would just be the two of us then. “Good day to you as well, Baroness. I hope your travels were safe.”

She snorted before answering, “Safe enough.” Then she did something simply outrageous. The woman reached into her blouse, straight from the neckline, and withdrew an entire book. Granted, the book was only two handspans wide, but the manner in which it was kept left some room for etiquette. I politely looked away while she was doing so, and dismissed my seneschal. He shouldn’t have to see this kind of behavior even if I did.

With a light sound, she careless slapped the tome on the table and slide it across. I almost dismissed it out of hand, glancing at it and then at her, before the cover drew my eyes back. An elaborate symbol marked the cover of a design I had never seen. When I looked back her she simply raised an eyebrow. So, I did what any researcher would door, and reached to touch the book, which was a mistake.

Immediately, my soul scroll appeared in my vision and began flashing in a turquoise color I hadn’t seen before. Bewildered, I allowed it to open, and it moved of its own accord to my quest list. My quest list was something I hadn’t looked at more than a handful of times in my entire life, as it rarely benefitted me. I certainly knew others who used it to good effect, keeping track of their daily duties and such, but I felt that was something I didn’t need it for.

The scroll moving through the list and new writing began to appear under a quest I had only discussed after a fashion and never truly endeavored to complete.

You have received a high elven tome that may contain the place Ansolia, the Goddess of Knowledge, lay enchained. Translate this work and free her to gain the Blessings of the Goddess.

I dismissed the scroll from my vision and turned to look at Baroness Nix, only for it to begin flashing again. When I selected it, the quest was the same but the rewards had changed.

You have received a high elven tome that may contain the place Ansolia, the Goddess of Knowledge, lay enchained. Translate this work and free her to gain the Blessings of the Goddess and be named a [Priest] of Ansolia.

Much to the Baroness’s amusement, twice more I dismissed and reopened the quest to see the reward increased from [Priest] to [High Priest] and then to [Prophet].  While I certainly had sympathy for the goddess, I had too many things to consider at the moment than to chase down a quest that would require months or years of effort to translate this tome. She had already waited countless centuries, and a few more years to ensure I survived the Pestilence would not change matters.

With a complicated look to the Baroness, I slipped the tome into the sleeve of my robe. I considered casting a cleaning spell on it first, but hadn’t the opportunity to see how such a spell might interact with a high elven tome.

“Thank you for this, Baroness,” I said with a forced smile and a small nod of my head.

The Baroness looked pleased, and tapped a single finger on the table as she spoke, “I am glad you appreciate my efforts. Between sharing knowledge, the gems and supplies, and that book, I had hoped to make a good impression on you. Now I would like to discuss payment.”

She said it in such a confident tone, it was hard to believe she had ever provided these things under the guise of a gift. “Payment?” I asked, not because I wasn’t open to negotiation but because I wanted to clarify our starting positions.

“Yes, payment. The way I see it is that when this Ocean of Pestilence Alred talks about all day gets here, my gold and secrets won’t mean single thing,” She pressed her lips together as if the word idea behind the words she spoke was an insult to herself.

“So, you seek to spend it now, and believe you can purchase something from me?” I asked, more to get her to continue than any real desire to know. It would be interesting, though, to see what she thought I could do.

She held up two fingers, “Two things I ask of you, small things really. The first should be easy. You see, I don’t think you will fall before this Pestilence. So, wherever you go, or however you escape, I want to come with you.”

With the lines on her face and the scars on her hands, I could tell she hadn’t lived an easy life. Not a surprise given her class, but it led me to estimate that she had maybe fifteen years of life left. Maybe twenty. Even if she were more annoyingly talkative than Chelsea, I believed I could tolerate her presence for that length of time. That this was an easy answer meant that her second request would likely be a tougher decision.

“Go on,” I answered.

“The second is more personal. I was born noble, you see. Nix is my first name, my family name is Rim.” She said these words slowly and carefully, as if unveiling an enormous secret. Which, it may have been for her, but meant next to nothing to me.

There was an awkward moment where she watched me to see if her family name brought any shock or surprise to my face before her mouth twisted as if she had bitten something bitter, “House Rim was a Barony under Count Lahal here in Eiston. My family was killed so they could install a distant cousin into the seat under the family name Pulk. A hundred years of loyalty gone in a night.”

I stroked my beard in thought. While it seemed by her words she was asking for assistance in enacting her revenge, I didn’t know exactly if that were true and what that entailed. I also didn’t see the point in involving me. As a fourth-tier rogue, she should be able to easily assassinate many of the new baron’s house and likely a good part of the count’s before she was caught.

“And what would you ask of me for my part in this?” I inquired.

She gave me a malicious grin, “In the revenge? Nothing. But should they discover who committed the revenge, I want asylum.”

That was an interesting request. I could easily offer asylum from any count level nobility. It wasn’t as if their forces would be redirected from fighting Mirktal now or the Pestilence later. I already set defenses against thieves and assassins. I could think of no other mage that could possible break through my wards, even in a cadre of ten.

A high-tier [Priest] or [Paladin] might have luck though. I couldn’t help but frown at the thought. It meant that I would need to install a permanent chapel in or near my tower. Maybe as yet another tower along my wall. I nodded as I made the decision to install the chapel along the wall, and then paused to look at the Baroness again.

“I can agree under two conditions,” I said, holding up two fingers to mirror what she had done before, “The first is that your revenge not take place until the kingdom realizes the threat of the Pestilence.”

She snorted in response, “And the second?”

“No children killed,” I said firmly.

That’s when the baroness snarled at me. Snarled! If she were to stay in my tower for a decade or so, I’d require she learn etiquette. It was such a shame to see a noblewoman behave so poorly, even if her lands were similarly placed to the Larks. Still, after some fruitless growling and mutters, she acquiesced.

“Then the deal is struck,” she claimed before spitting in her hand and offering it to me to shake. I had just taken a piece of fruit from the platter to snack on, and that type of handshake was the kind of tactless behavior that I would have expected from a Tervan savage.

Yet, I set my food down to shake her disgusting hand and immediately used a cleaning spell afterwards. I chose a very flashy cleaning spell that would demonstrate the full breadth of my distaste.

We made smalltalk for a few minutes afterwards until she departed. I didn’t offer her to stay the night as I had no rooms to accommodate someone of her title. After I finished nibbling on some more fruit, I returned to the top of my tower to await my next visitor.

Author's Note: Special double-chapters today!  As I currently owe you all three chapters, and didn't like that this Friday's chapter ended on such a sad note, I am giving you this one now.   Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed.  Will be back Monday.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 26

A week had gone by in a flurry of activity. The towers were complete, two of them. Loralie and the mages with her had moved into a tower attached to the wall surrounding my own tower. Three stories tall, and nearer to the back. If I drew a line from my tower to it from above, the line would continue and point directly at the cellar beneath my lake.

My new assistants had done well in the construction, with two basement laboratories and several decent-sized bedrooms. The beds and other furniture ordered from the town of Lark for Kine’s village had been diverted, but those villagers never complained to me about it. My former assistant was looking more worn by the day, but such is what comes with true responsibility.

The other tower to complete was my guards’ tower.  Situated next to the gate, the tower had been increased in size from just the kennel for Eni’s wolves to now hold several bedrooms, an armory, and a larger bedroom on top. With just Eni and Tond living there, it gave them a lot of room to themselves, but Leslie had sent word that a handful of renounced bandits were making their way here to pledge into service and I didn’t especially want them sleeping in the same room.

While I trusted Mena, Meathead, and Leslie’s opinion on the matter, and held no fear of these bandits harming me, I didn’t want them to be a corrupting influence on Rolf or Fin. Who knew what bad habits they would bring with them? I no longer had the time nor the interest in sorting them out, either. I would leave that task to my current guards Tond and Eni whenever they arrived.

I was currently watching the sunrise from my tower and could see Loralie and Pyl doing the same from the top of theirs. A whispered cool morning breeze blew down from the mountains. The new wines I had brought from Sena City had done much to provide a needed variety for my drink and I was sipping on a delicious plum wine that reminded me of the vintage served at the castle. Chelsea had even prepared a breakfast of fruit-bread for me to nibble at. While it didn’t have the same sweetness as what I had tasted, it was close enough.

While the sunrise was interesting to watch, I was doing two other things while I ate. The fifth-tier assassin I suspected the king to send for me would arrive any day now, and I was retooling one of nearly thirty different traps for the man. I wanted to catch him alive, and I wasn’t sure entirely what his class skills would contain. In other times, it would have been a risk not worth taking, but I wanted revenge for the tea and needed the man for a step in that process.

I was also listening in on Pyl and Loralie’s conversation.

“I love it here! I am not looked down on by any of the villagers. My work is respected. Respected! And we work under Wizard Fargus, one of the most famous men in the entire kingdom.  I am entirely glad to have come,” Pyl was telling Loralie in an animated fashion.

Loralie gave me an occasional glance that told me that not only did she know I could hear everything, but that she started the conversation just for that reason. With a mischievous smile, she asked him, “So, it sounds like you are happy here. But things cannot be entirely perfect. Surely, you have some complaint.”

Pyl sighed and shook his head, “No, nothing of substance. There is only one thing that bothered me the entire time we’ve been here. Other than that, it’s been a dream.”

“Oh?” Loralie egged him on.

I smiled to myself and took a sip of my wine as I waited for his answer as well.

Pyl looked up at the sky and muttered to himself for a moment before straightening his robe, “Yes! It’s those stupid chairs at his table! For a wizard as powerful and famous as he is, why does he have such uncomfortable chairs?! I thought my rear had turned to zombie flesh that first day we met.”

Loralie laughed, a beautiful melodious sound, and smiled, “Yes, it does beg the question why would he have those chairs. Even I was uncomfortable.”

Pyl went on, almost as if she hadn’t said anything, “Uncomfortable is the wrong word for it. It rises above things like comfort. I believe those chairs are designed for torture.”

I chuckled to myself at the melodramatics. Pyl certainly was an energetic fellow for a [Necromancer]. They continued on in that fashion, describing the painstaking effort it took to remain seated when we met until the sun rose.

I’d finished my breakfast and the latest trap for the assassin, and had only stayed after the sun rose to see if there was anything else of importance they were discussing. Pyl took his leave and left as Loralie leaned out over the small wall around the top of her tower. Her illusion made it look like the crone was resting her head on her hands, but her real body was propped up by her elbows.

“Did you enjoy that, Mister Fargus?” she asked, just loud enough for me to hear but no one else.

I smiled, “It was,” I paused to find a good word, eventually settling on a word that was close enough, “entertaining.”  Knowing that my chairs caused the desired effect was a good start to my morning. The feeling of satisfaction paired well with the taste of plum wine.

“There is some distance between us,” she said, changing topics. While she could mean the physical separation of the towers, I somehow doubted that. “Do you know how long we half-elves live?”

It was a question I didn’t know the answer to. I hadn’t met another half-elf my entire life, and the one time I had tried to reach out to full elves I learned how they thought of my kind. If elves looked at humans like dogs, then half-elves were an abomination, evidence of a perversion. Raised with full elves, they might have looked at me as a pet. Raised outside I was a stray. “No,” I answered.

She gave the wind a pained smile. “Five hundred years, when we aren’t murdered. I have met three others of our kind, older brothers and sisters. Truly, we are likely siblings as well. Not many elves would lay with a human.”

I stored that knowledge carefully as my hopes of romance started to wither away, but she just tightened the noose on my emotions even more with her next words.

“Even as siblings, I could look past it. Being infertile has some advantages. However, there is something you should know about me, Nemon.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before speaking, “I am four hundred and eighty years old. You would have more time with a human than I have remaining.”

She turned then, to look at me, and I could see the shimmering of tears not fallen in her eyes, “I am still interested, if you so choose.”

I was stunned by her words and the emotions she lay bare. Was she telling the truth of her age? Was this some kind of test to see if I would choose her even if she would die in a few short decades?  Was she telling the truth that we might be siblings?  I felt my palms begin to sweat and my mouth went dry.

There was a part of myself that had hoped, even when I knew I shouldn’t have. I thought I had prepared myself better for such an event. I thought I had divested myself of the dream of not being alone year after year. But, in a few short meetings with her, in less than a season’s time, I had my hopes raised and thrashed.

How could I be so arrogant to think that fate would find me a companion? Allow me love without the pain of loss? I was angry. Not with her, but with myself. Perhaps, because of that anger, I made a hasty decision, but… but I couldn’t find it in myself to extend more than I already had. There was only so much hope that could be lost.

With resignation, I looked back at her and dropped my illusion. The least I could do is show her my real face as I answered. Yet, I didn’t need to answer at all. The look upon my face must have been clear enough for Loralie.

I watched as a tear rolled down her cheek only for her to pat at it with her hand. “Oh, I’m crying. I thought I’d forgotten how, Mister Fargus.”

She said nothing else to me as she returned into her tower. I waited until she left to breathe a shuddering breath.  The feeling of guilt I felt from my decision mixed with the loss of hope and the well of loneliness inside me to set my stomach rolling.

Of all the ways today could have gone, this was perhaps the worst. The morning’s chilly breeze felt much colder now.

Not a chapter

Sorry for the delay - caught a bit of a chest cold and today and tomorrow's chapters will  delayed.  

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 25

As I was flying back to my tower the next day, I couldn’t help but chuckle. The Bakers’ Guild, for all their normal posturing, was simply not prepared to be nominated to the duty of verifying mages’ spells to combat the coming threat to humanity. The faces of the mages when they realized who would do the recordkeeping and the faces of those recordkeepers was a treasured memory to me now.

Unlike the flight to Sena City, I wasn’t held back by the need to stop in route, nor did I spend any time rescuing lost children. I saw one bandit camp in the woods, but it might have been hunters as I didn’t look very closely. Instead, I put off enjoying the view and the wind in favor of speed to get home faster. While the bed at the Scholar’s Delight wasn’t bad, it wasn’t my own bed.

The summer sun was just setting as I arrived, and I landed on the top of my tower. It was the perfect time to view the sunset, and I sent a surprised guard, Tond, downstairs to fetch me some food and wine. I hoped Chelsea had cooked something that could be eaten by hand so I wouldn’t need to tear my eyes from the view of the sunset over the water.

It was only moments later that my new prospective seneschal returned with Tond, carrying a glass of very plain strawberry wine and a steaming platter of fish stew. I eyed them both with hesitation, eating and drinking sparingly as I watched the sunset.

“Lord Fargus, would you like me to report the ongoings of your estate since your departure?” Fentworth Aide asked as he stood behind me and to my right for whatever reason he chose to do so. I took the smallest sip of my wine and considered.

While I would normally be opposed to interruption while I observed my reflective lake, the quality of the fair had already disappointed me. At the moment, I just wanted to watch and then take myself to sleep in my own bed. Yet, surely, he would have waited to the morning unless he felt it was important enough. I waved for him to go on, while sparingly sipping at the wine.

The man began summarizing, “My lord, your assistance report that tracking your experiments continues as normal. Alderman Kine has reported that the village requires additional stone. We have spent thirteen silver and eight copper with the latest merchant. You have six guests that arrived claiming it was at your invitation, however, your tower’s protections would not let them enter, so we have housed them in the village until your return.”

“Guests?” I inquired.

“Yes, my lord. Mages, I believe,” Fentworth answered.

I withheld my sigh. Housing guests in a villager’s home until I returned? That was just shameful. Yet, if they were well-known, then I doubted they would have tolerated such treatment. Likely unemployed mages looking for work and thinking they could find it here. I tore my eyes from the beautiful view of the sunset to glance at him, “Any notable names?”

“Yes, sir. One [Necromancer] Pyl and a [Witch] named Loralie both claimed your personal acquaintance.”

I couldn’t help the sharp intake of breath. I knew that Pyl would arrive at some point in the future, and I had extended an invitation to Loralie, yet I hadn’t truly expected them to arrive this soon. Logically, it was a reasonable amount of time, and Pyl’s arrival would not change much of my normal routine.

Loralie’s arrival was the one that gave me pause. When I had met with her, she had frightened me. No, I wasn’t frightened of her. I was frightened of getting my hopes up. Not just a possible companion that could live to be my own age, but a possible romance that I wouldn’t have to watch whither away. Seeing something that had only been a dream of mine made real made me fearful.

What if wasn’t meant to be? What if she hated me? What if we fell in love, or married even?  Would she move in?  The idea of sharing my entire tower with the woman was daunting. Or worse, sharing my laboratory! No, I couldn’t let that ever come to pass. Even in the best-case possibility, one where she was perfect in every way I could imagine, that perfection would include leaving me to my research uninterrupted.

I stroked my beard in thought. It was too early to get my hopes up. I would meet with them on the morrow and see about providing hospitality to them. Still, it was a difficult decision to go to bed now. Should they learn I had arrived and not offered better accommodations for the night, that might offend Loralie. Yet, I also didn’t want to meet with her—with them—unprepared.

I turned over the decision several more times before waving Seneshal Aide away with a command to prepare a meeting with them tomorrow at midmorning. That would give me enough time to prepare.

The next morning was busy for me. After breakfast, I went through our pantry to select what I wanted Chelsea to cook for a mid-morning snack, and brought out the bottles of wine I had purchased in Sena City to add to the stock. The shelves holding wine bottles were nearly stuffed with the new bottles, and the strawberry wine was moved to the cellar.

Afterward, I took a bath and selected the best body oils, trimmed my hair and beard, and picked out one of my best robes.  It was a dark black robe with an orange silk embroidered around the collar and sleeves. While the orange matched my eyes, none but Loralie would know that the black matched my true hair color.

The guards and assistances had also gone through quick castings of cleaning spells, and I gave the boys Rolf and Fin a tasking to see to the children in the village and let my guests know I was now available. I took a seat in my chair and waited impatiently for them to arrive. It wasn’t long until Seneschal Aide opened the door, leading the guests into the first floor.

“Lord Fargus, now presenting [Necromancer] Pyl, [Witch] Loralie, Fintak the [Illusionist], [Mage] Bimly, [Witch] Ninkat, and Rhela the Red.”

I stood from my seat to nod at them, and then gestured to the stools in front of me, “Welcome, please have a seat.”

Loralie was in fine form today, her illusion spell exactly as I remember. Still, after meeting with her, I had spent a few moments piecing together a bit of spellcraft that would allow me to see through her illusion easily. She hadn’t changed much at all, her golden hair only grown a knuckle or so in length. I watched as they all gathered about their chairs, each one bowing to me before taking a seat.

“Good morning, Wizard Fargus,” Loralie spoke first, “I contacted the other local spellcasters that you had told me you wanted to meet.” She said it with a smile and a twinkle in her eye.  That smile was something.

I gave her my best fake smile in return. She no doubt knew I could care less about these little talentless magicians. That she called them with her to meet with me, to lay bare my tiny lie was just… petty. Still, I could dance that dance, “Thank you for that. I trust you all know why I called on you?” I glanced around briefly at the others, but my eyes fell back onto Loralie quickly, “Did you see what was over the mountains?”

At my words, her pleasant smile dropped. So quick wasthe change it almost shocked me. The others in the room were likewise solemn in their manner in response to my question. No one spoke for a few moments until the sounds of an argument from the kitchen downstairs reached us.

“I will assume that you did, that all of you have seen it, otherwise the gravitas would be lost on you,” I said when no one spoke.

“Master Fargus,” Pyl began. “We had to combine our magics, but we did glimpse what warn us about. We are just at a loss as to, what we can—”

“I said I ain’t helpin’ ya woman! Don’t ask me no more! Why don’t you ask our boss if it’s that important!” Tond yelled loudly as he stomped up the stairs. He paused at the top, seeing me meeting with several spellcasters. I could see the realization that he’d interrupted in the widening of his eyes and he quickly and quietly made his way out the door.

“Tond, you get back here!” Chelsea shouted as she followed behind him she reached the top of the stairs and saw him slip out the door, but just stood there with her hands on her hips.

My eyes turned back to Pyl, who had also turned to watch, but now he began speaking again. “Erm, yes, we discussed the matter of this plague of beasts, but even with our skills and expertise combined we stand no match for even one, let alone—”

“Master Fargus, I have a question for you,” Chelsea stomped over, completely ignoring our ongoing meeting. Without waiting to respond, she started speaking, “You see Rolf is a good boy. A very good boy. And while he was down there at that village, some little hussy decided that she wanted him to be her good boy. Now he’s a talking about how she’s with child. Will ya do something?”

I looked up at her, despite the growing smirks on the spellcaster’s faces, and raised an eyebrow, “What would you have me do, Miss Chelsea?”

“Just make it go away. I’m worried about Rolf’s future. He’s too young to have a child,” She answered, leveling me with a look that told me she was serious.

“You are asking me to kill your unborn grandchild?” I asked tonelessly.

“Well, um, now that you put it like that. I ain’t about killing no babies no. But you got great magic! Can’t you just make her not have the baby for a while?”

I was confused by this question, as I don’t think I’d ever heard such a request before, “What do you mean, Miss Chelsea?”

“Oh, something like five or six years would be good, I think. Not too long, but enough time for Rolf to grow up some. I think that would be good. Eight would be too many.”

It was at that answer, the others sitting before me couldn’t withhold their laughter. Oh, they didn’t bellow obnoxiously. Truly, it looked as if they were trying to contain it, but started with a snort became a snicker in someone else, and a chuckle in a third. Fairly swiftly, all of them at my table showed faces full of mirth.

I don’t know how Chelsea hadn’t seen them before. Maybe she was just so focused on her problem that she hadn’t taken stock of her surroundings, but seeing them laughing at her made her face go read in embarrassment. She muttered, “I’ll-I’ll be right back with your strawberry muffins, sir.”

I wasn’t certain I had ever seen my cook move as fast as she did down the stairwell, and could only sigh and shake my head. I wasn’t certain what folktale she had heard to even imagine I claimed such magics could delay childbirth.

After the laughter had passed, I began the discussion on what I knew of the Pestilence and what I knew could harm them. Ideas were bandied about, and we were deep in conversation when Miss Chelsea returned with several plates of hot muffins and glasses of wine.

My seneschal stood behind hard with arms folded looking none too happy. I imagine he had borne witness to the entire foolish question and had discussed the matter thoroughly with the woman. The conversation lasted well into and after lunch and only when the sun was setting did the spellcasters agree on different plans for things they could help with.

Fintak the Illusionist, a short man with short hair and a round body, though he wore an illusion of a man with a warrior’s body, agreed to learn my illusionary rabbit spells and begin enchanting gemstones with it.

Rhela the Red was a woman that was young and opinionated. She practiced illegal charm magic that had gotten her barred from polite society, but not at the skill level that would make her able to cast either of the spells I had constructed. I’d gotten her to see the value of my assistants’ animal-bonding spell, and agree to worth with them to further their research. Honestly, that was something just to keep her busy as I worried she might accidentally sabotage our efforts otherwise.

Bimly was a normal-looking man with brown hair and eyes, and had the scarred hands of a craftsman. was some time of unique class magic user that focused on carving totems. He wasn’t proficient in any other magic type, and the totems he carved seemed of limited value to me, but I promised him an unlimited supply of timber to see if he could find anything at all in his class that might help.

Pyl the [Necromancer], and the [Witches] Ninkat and Loralie had discussed the possibilities of using summoned spirits of the dead to combat the Pestilence. While I wasn’t certain it would work, I thought it held the best merits of any of the other options, as the Pestilence didn’t seem to have much in the way of magical attacks.

With an agreement on their contributions in place, I bid them farewell. I’d promised to have my assistants construct another tower nearby they could work from and sleep at but made no promises on the location or type.

I made my way to the top of my tower to watch the sunset and consider the day’s events. Loralie had said nothing specifically to me the entire day beyond the topic of the Pestilence. Not a hint of the flirting woman I had met in the forest, no smile or wink. While a part of me hoped that she would have, another felt a massive relief that she hadn’t.

The new wine, a tart blueberry wine, went well with the summer’s thick heat this evening. While I watched the sunset, my mind drifted elsewhere. My hopes and fears fought battles around and amongst my plans and dreams for the future.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 24

I had spent most of the evening taking in the sights and sounds of a city I had lived in for many years, determined to make them a memory to be held for when the Pestilence leaves it a ruin. It was a somber walk, one where I paused to take in the laughter from taverns or the arguments of couples. I watched children play in the streets and merchants haggle with customers.

Moreso, the disappointment I felt in King Sena’s reaction plagued my thoughts. While certainly, he had to defend his people against the Mirtallean threat, it was his dismissal of the importance of the Pestilence that bothered me. I hoped the threads of loyalty the tea has woven into the other nobles would garner my warnings enough attention to make them act if he wouldn’t, but I harbored doubts as well.  It almost felt like a betrayal of sorts.

I returned to the Scholar’s Delight feeling quite useless, even though I knew many of my other plans could potentially work. I had come to the realization that I had hoped the king would see the merit of my warnings, and having that hope dashed created a feeling of futility in my actions. This did not lead to a pleasant sleep that night. The morning provided a breakfast of oatmeal with chunks of chicken and grapes, which seemed to be the regular meal of the inn.

The next morning I didn’t wear my military robes, instead donning a rather plain, if particularly soft, burgundy robe. The robe had additional angular cloth pads on the shoulders with golden embroidered lines at the edge, an imitation of priestly garments.  It hailed from a time when wizard academies and priestly orders competed for prestige, though I doubted anyone would remember. I hoped to re-introduce the style as a method of uniting the two in common cause.

I looked forward to spending today in the city, but every time the door opened, I saw a figure standing there, right outside the inn. A figure I knew waited on me. The man was a rotund man wearing an apron splashed with flour, and under his arms, he bore three tomes and six scrolls. I could only grimace at the visage and the implied threat.

A representative of the Baker’s Guild had somehow found where I stayed, and now I was faced with a possible confrontation with a powerful demon of bureaucratic warfare. I ate slowly, as I planned my escape.

I wasn’t certain it would work, given I didn’t know how the man had tracked me to where I stayed, but I had no choice to but commit to it. There were many folktales of powerful wizards, warlocks, witches and the like that could transform into animals to travel. A witch that took the form of a raven. A wizard transformed into a fish to swim away.

It was ridiculous, in my opinion. Even if one could accomplish such a change, it was fraught with quite a few misconceptions. A bird’s mind couldn’t possibly hold the entirety of a wizard. Birds were, by and large, very stupid animals. I couldn’t imagine the nightmare it would be to transform into one and realize that one’s mind was now limited to hunting for worms. Regardless, it formed the basis of my plan.

So it was, that when I stepped from the busy tables of the Scholar’s Delight Inn and into the crowded streets of Sena City, I cast an illusion spell, two in fact. One cloaked me in invisibility, while the other provided the image of me transforming into a bird and flying away.

I was quite satisfied in the shocked faces of others in the crowd, and even more satisfied with the look of consternation that crossed the representative’s face as he squinted as the slowly disappearing bird. With a sigh of relief, I managed to make it three streets over without bumping into anyone and there, I dropped the invisibility in favor of an illusion that made me appear as a common scribe and took the shortest route to the Arcanum of Elementalus.

The stop there was quick, I’d dropped the illusion to meet with Dean Scot to organize a meeting of all the Masters that evening, and made my way to a busy market to seek out niceties that I missed. After lunch at a tavern, the orphanage was my next destination.

The orphanage was as I had left it, but the nun who opened the door didn’t look pleased with my appearance.

“Greetings, Wizard Fargus,” The nun said with a bow before turning to let me in. I didn’t recognize her, but that had been a common occurrence throughout the last few decades as I paid less and less attention to the women overseeing the children.

When I followed, I noticed that even the children didn’t seem to be as excited as they normally were when I visited. The two-story building, which was normally filled with the active sounds of playing children or lessons was instead quite subdued. It was their lunch time, so I joined them for a meal of thin soup and old bread served on wooden dishes.

I considering filing a grievance with the Baker’s Guild on their provisions, but that would need to wait. The nuns seemed to pay neither me nor the children any attention as they whispered to each other in the corner.

The child sitting next to me was a girl of maybe ten years of age, with long brown hair tied back into a single braid. I leaned over and whispered to her, “Why is everyone so quiet?”

Given that no one else was talking but the whispering nuns, the eating seemed to stop and the eyes of all the children fell upon me. The girl looked about, surprised, then at me.  Then her eyes darted back to the nuns nervously.

Another boy, thin with dark hair and of about twelve winters, loudly answered from across the table, “The army man came by. Said everyone over fourteen had to join the war.”

Even the nun’s stopped whispering at that, but the child seemed to take pride in having been the one to speak such poor news. Other children fidgeted about nervously in their seats or moved their spoons about in the bowls.

“Now, Peter—” one nun began, but I raised my hand towards her to stall the conversation.

Conscription was a common occurrence throughout the kingdom, even when there was no war in effect. Orphanages were also normal places to gather young soldiers, as the children didn’t have parents to hide them and didn’t have a class path in mind. I, myself, had been conscripted from this very orphanage once upon a time.

“I see,” I answered, and went back to eating the cheap soup as I thought the matter over. The children followed my example.

“Wizard Fargus,” the nun I had interrupted approached a few minutes later, the other two not far behind.

“Yes?” I asked, pausing in my meal to look up at the woman.

“We know you have great sway throughout the capital, and wanted to know if there is anything you could do to save these children from this future?” she asked.

I looked at her, seeing real hope and fear in not just her eyes but the other nun’s eyes as well. It was heartwarming to see that they cared about the children, as that wasn’t always the case. Yet, I didn’t have a good answer for them. I didn’t have enough sway to exclude them from conscription, nor the time to sort the matter out.

In all honesty, I had no idea how to go about it, even if I wanted to. I wasn’t certain I did. While becoming a soldier might lead to some deaths, having combat classes may also save their lives when the Pestilence arrives.  All I could do is shake my head, “I am sorry. Short of adopting them all, I see no path I can take to help. Surely your order could press the matter?”

The nun shook her head as well and they retreated back to a corner to continue whispering. After the meal, I took the children outside to do my normal enchanted toys and story-telling. While at first, they didn’t seem interested, within an hour their moods had lightened much. By the time late afternoon had arrived, the group of children was almost too tired for dinner. I bid the children and their caretakers goodnight as I departed to travel to the Arcanum.

While the roads and paths to the Arcanum were normally a swift walk for me, I found myself taking longer due to the need to circumvent several Baker’s Guild representatives. It seemed they were insistent to see me, for whatever reason, but I had neither the time nor the interest in seeing to their mountains of records and forms.

When I finally arrived at the building no less than three of them were standing in front. Two women and a very thin man, all in floured smocked. Beside them rested a pushcart with a stack of scrolls resting on top. I had returned to my normal illusion, that of an older man, when I turned the last corner to get to the Arcanum, and they spotted me straight away.

“Wizard Nemon Fargus!” one of the women called, crossing her arms as if she a mother about to scold a child.

I smiled and waved as I approached, “There you are! I’ve been looking for you. Right on time. Right on time.”

The remark was enough to halt whatever prepared speech the woman had, but not the man. His nasal voice spoke with an expectation of listening that I just didn’t have, “Wizard Fargus, we only have seventy-six documents for your review. We could be done by—”

“Excellent! Now follow me, there is much to do,” I cut him off as I entered through the Arcanum and headed towards the lecture hall. The three Bakers all rushed to begin pushing their cart behind me.

The Arcanum of Elementalus consisted of four buildings and two towers. The foremost building housed most of the administrators, and I walked through that building to get to the courtyard behind it. The courtyard was in the center of all four buildings, with a lecture hall to either side and a dormitory opposite the administrative building. I could see the Masters making their way to the lecture hall to my left, and followed behind them.

Calling the entire building a lecture hall wasn’t entirely accurate. It consisted of one large lecture hall and six small, with the smaller ones broken up into three on each floor. The Masters, those who taught the students of the academy, wouldn’t themselves be found learning in anything less than the larger one.

As I entered the hall, I found that it was almost entirely full, nearly thirty rows of a hundred seats all occupied with mages of different calibers and specialties. Even a few of the students had managed to make their way inside, no doubt the favored upcoming mage of their particular master.

“For those of you joining us, Wizard Fargus has called this meeting to give a lesson this evening. Wizard Fargus is one of the founding members of the Arcanum, and has recently achieved the fifth tier. With over a hundred years of teaching here, many of your own spells and courses were designed by him.” Dean Scot spoke from the podium at the center of the hall, his voice echoing out over the crowd.

I walked down the broad stairs between the seats and made my way to stand by his side.

“Wizard Fargus, are you ready to begin?” he asked in a low tone. The man’s once salt and pepper-colored hair had taken a turn for mostly salt, though his face was just as youthful as when we last met.

I answered him, though I spoke loudly enough for the enchantments in the podium to catch my words and carry them across the audience, “Seal the doors and ward the room, and I shall.”

While this measure startled some, stealing secrets was one of the harmless hobbies practiced amongst the various academies, and responded quickly enough. When the mages were finally settled, and the Bakers’ Guild representatives standing awkwardly near the exit, I reached into my bag of holding and began placing items on the podium.

On my right side, I stacked tomes and on the left side I stacked scrolls. Once I had done so, I magically reinforced the enchantment to carry my words and spoke as clearly as I could, “Here, I have the test,” I pointed a finger on the tomes, “Those mages who learn these spells in their entirety will be granted the opportunity to read these.” I moved my finger towards the scrolls on the right, “These are the written requirements for fifth-tier classes.”

I didn’t include all the classes I knew, of course. Only the most basic ones. But considering how closely that information was guarded and the price one had to pay to get it, what I was offering was worth a mountain of gold.

The reaction among the audience, the sheer eerie silence that pervaded a room filled with hundreds of people reflected that. I saw greed and hunger on the lips of nearly everyone in the room. Only the students looked about in confusion.

“Now that I have your full attention. Let’s talk about why.  Because surely, you that thought has crossed your mind,” I began.

Interlude Chapter Options

Hi!  I wanted to see if any of you would be interested in an interlude chapter from a different point of view.  I've put together a list of some of the characters to choose from, but if the option you want isn't on the list, feel free to comment below to add it.

This format isn't indicative of what the interlude chapter would be about.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 23

Among the people shouting, the loudest was the fat attendant who sputtered and shouted, “You refuse?! This is a lawful order! To refuse is treason!”

I shook my head and waited, watching as the king looked from me to his attendant and back. He leaned forward, looking down on me from his throne. It may have been more intimidating if he weren’t staring at my beard. The large red banner behind his throne, a white crown over a star rippled with his every movement.

“Explain yourself,” He commanded. The way his voice echoed across the chamber silenced everyone, and I detected a skill being used, one that even my wards only partially blocked.

Luckily, I had planned to explain myself, “My king, the honors I have earned from the kingdom are vast. I wear them proudly on my chest and sleeve,” I shook a few medallions at him in case he wasn’t bright, “I have done much for my kingdom, but this order would place the kingdom at greater risk.”

I stopped speaking then, watching how the tea in the king and the others reacted. I wanted to see if I could leverage their own loyalty to the kingdom to alter this ridiculous summons.

The king simply motioned for me to go on. I took that moment to look about the other higher nobility present. The houses of Eistoni, Birktoni, and Laxtoni were all nearby. Duke Laxtoni looked miserable, no doubt the fall of his seat changed his standing. The eastern duke’s face was powdered, which was odd on the tanned skin and blonde hair, but I could see he looked gaunt underneath.

Duke Birktoni looked to be a fat, jovial man with whiskers down the side of his face and a balding head with strings of red hair. He looked as if he were related to the king’s attendant.

Duchess Eistoni was a matronly woman with an upturned nose and a unibrow. While she held those same features, along with the cleft chin, she lacked the metallic irises.

“My king, the end of our age is upon us.  Soon the Pestilence will gather in numbers unstoppable. I endeavor to prepare the kingdom as well as I can to meet this threat. I had hoped you would have heard the message I passed through Count Shielding of this. Should I stop now, you and many, many others, might very well be the last of their line.”

Chuckles from the crowd were my response among them, though I didn’t pay it any more regard than that. Instead, I watched the king as a smirk crept onto his face. It wasn’t the pleasant kind of smile, but one of arrogant triumph.

“Baron Shielding did notify the kingdom of this ‘threat’ two years past,” he started to answer, the emphasis he placed on the new title left no doubt in my mind that the Shielding’s had paid a price for carrying my message. He pointed to my right, to where Duke Laxtoni stood, “And for two years, I stalled our enemy.  What would you have me do? Turn a blind eye to their armies as they pillage Laxton Bay enslaving our craftsmen?”

His voice was demanding, and as I watched the magical effects of the tea in those around him swelled as he spoke. Yet, the words he spoke showed me more than I think he expected. Laxton Bay was a larger city on the coast of Sena, but it only had two main exports—fish and couches. Mirktal had an abundant coastline of their own. That they attacked and enslaved the people of this Duchy likely meant that this entire war was over couches.

I glanced over at Duke Laxton and couldn’t help my eyes widening as this realization hit me. The king must have seen this, and the words that were about to come to my lips because he spoke again before I could respond.

“My Scouts have reported no such beasts as you claim. In fact, no one else in the entire kingdom has. I am to believe you over thousands? I think not. No, I know where your home lays. You will take up arms in defense of Sena, even if I must pull kingdom forces away Eistoni.”

“My liege!” Duchess Eistoni cried in complaint but silenced when the king raised his hand.

“What say you, wizard? Will you defend the kingdom?” the king asked as he glared at my chin.

I pursed my lips and looked up in thought. It wasn’t polite to make the king wait, but I had all the information I needed with regards to the tea. Everyone drank it, but only the king appeared immune. Half strategies for evading partaking in this war were useless with this information, but I wasn’t without a plan.

I answered with a smile, “Of course my liege, I would be happy to defend, yet I would desire recompense appropriate to my power.”

“What do you desire?” The king’s smug grin told me that the matter was finished.

“Thirty couches, your highness. You see, for the past century, I have been denied a single couch from your stalwart coastal defenders. Every ten years, I asked, and every ten I have been denied regardless of how much I offered.”

The king glanced at Duke Laxton, who subtle shook his head no. It seemed the duke didn’t want to discuss the matter, but the king wouldn’t tolerate it.

“Duke Laxton, why have you denied this man a couch?”

The duke scowled, an expression that didn’t do him any favors with how hollow his cheeks were, “My liege, Wizard Fargus always insults our name! He writes every single letter calling us the Raxton family!”

I scoffed louder than needed before he could go on further, “My good sir, Raxton is your family name. Your great grandfather had a speech impediment and when he spoke of his family is sounded like Laxton. Calling your family Laxton was an insult made by his detractors.”

I turned back to the king, “Is this how men are rewarded in Sena under your rule? Count Shielding offered you fair warning of dire threat, and so have I. He loses his title, and I am shunned for being the only person alive to not insult—”

“That is enough,” the king stated flatly, his words cutting through my own through some use of a skill.

“Duke Laxton, can you provide thirty couches?”

The duke shook his head, “I’m afraid we have no craftsmen left, and our warehouses stand empty.”

Ah, so that was what the duke’s posturing was about. He didn’t want to admit how poorly his house stood.  I almost regretted it, but confirming the war was over couches took precedence.

“Wizard, what other payment do you seek?”

I shook my head, “Couches I have been long denied and couches I seek. Surely our powerful kingdom could not be suffering from a couch shortage?”

The king snarled at me, his metallic eyes reflecting the light, “No other payment? Wines? Gold? Lands?”

I went silent for a moment, then answered, “My king, it seems we are at an impasse, for I only desire couches.”

“Then your decision is made,” the king stood and pointed at one of the men nearby, a man wearing an officer’s uniform, “If the wizard will not defend his country, we will make him. Order our troops from Eistoni borders. They can defend Freetoni lands instead.” Behind him, the banner shook as if showing anger that the man was too disciplined to display.

He turned back to me with a glare, “You will have a good view from your tower to see what you have wrought. Now begone.”

I bowed again and left in a stately manner. There were many ways that could have gone. My magic was sufficient to defend myself and I was glad it didn’t come to that. I had hoped for a better outcome but knew that there was no true way to decline participation without offending him. I just hoped I had offended him enough to send his fifth-tier assassin after me so that I could move forward with the next step of my plans.

After I had left the castle, I considered what other things I wanted to do while I was in Sena City. I planned to visit the Arcanum and maybe call a forum there so I could speak to the masters. Telling stories at the orphanage would be a good relief from my considerations and pressure of this afternoon’s summons. The market wouldn’t be open much longer, either.

Still, those things could wait for tomorrow. Instead, I walked the way back to the inn taking in the sights and sounds of the city.

So, I will be working to push another chapter tomorrow to make up for earlier this week, and a poll for interlude chapter POVs.  

Also, next week Tues and Wednesday chapters may be posting later in the week.   If I'm unable to make those posts as normal, I'll make it up as soon as I can.  Thanks for reading!

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 22

I arrived a few days later at the western gate to Sena City.  While I may have made an entrance landing before the gates from the air, that was not my intention. The guards in their fanciful armor and orange cloaks were quick to allow me entry after I told them my name.

My first stop was at an inn called the Scholars’ Delight, an inn that was a refuge for scholars and academics, teachers and mages. With walls lined with bookcases displaying a great volume of random literature in no particular order, it presented a delightful atmosphere I enjoyed. I didn’t have the opportunity to spend much time enjoying that during my last stay, so I checked into the inn early, and sent a messenger to the king’s court to let them know I had arrived and would be available to be presented tomorrow or a day after.

After a decent meal of mushroom cakes and lager, I perused the different tomes and scrolls shelved throughout the inn. While a guest could take and read any book during their stay, there was an unspoken rule that any who took one to keep should replace it with another. It was a good rule that was surprisingly well adhered to.

So, I took advantage of it, to choose six different tomes that sounded interesting to me. A book describing the creatures and plants of Ice Vale. An autobiography of a retired general. A book on the wine varieties of Mirktal. A religious study written by a merchant describing their various trades with different orders. An account of a woman who barely escaped sacrifice to Tervan’s bloody jungle god.

Each one, gathered from different parts of the inn, I replaced with copies of the tome my assistants transcribed. A way to further spread the spells that needed to slow the Pestilence.

When I finished, I retired one of the many small alcoves to nurse another lager and read one of the tomes that had partly interested me, but not enough to take. It was there that the messenger returning from the King’s court found me and informed me that my summons would be tomorrow afternoon. With a tip of two silvers to the girl, I continued reading and planned my day for tomorrow.

The next morning, I arose feeling rested. The travel from my tower must have taken more from me than I had suspected. After a breakfast of oatmeal with chunks of chicken and grapes, a fare I considered mediocre at best, I began preparing for court.

The robe I had brought with me for the occasion was a soft burgundy with yellow stripe, the formal wear issued to warmage officers when I served. I hadn’t the occasion to wear it in a long while, and though it almost certainly was no longer in use, I thought it perfect to the occasion. Several awarded medallions of honor I had earned were next.

The golden squares hung from thin purple ribbons, each with a different emblem. Several armbands followed, six in total. Though I had more than twelve, the others were lower honors. These six represented six historic battles that I once fought in, achievements hard-earned with killing and grief.

The next preparation I made was a more delicate matter. While my wards would protect me from poison and attack, I had to cast multiple spells upon myself to protect again charm and charisma-based skills. This was trickier than most suspect, as many believe a skill like [Beautiful] affected only the user, making them more beautiful. My research had proven that incorrect, as when such skills were disabled, the user reverted to prior appearance. I ascertained that this meant the skill affected how the skill-user was perceived and not how they actually were.

To make matters worse, there were several higher-level skills that contained aspects of such skills while also having other effects. A skill like [Etiquette Erudite] for example was a combination of active behavior change, an elevated chance to teach others, and a subtle charming effect.  I’m more than certain that the nobles I would be near today had similar skills.

The wards I wove to protect myself from these effects had several nuances that took more than an hour to complete. When I was finally done, I made one last change. The illusion of an older human that I wore for decades now, I modified. It might be petty of me, but I took Loralie’s example and made a small hunch in my back so that the illusion’s eyes were at the level of my real chin. I brought with me my finest staff, a thing of mithril and gems that caught the eye like nothing else I had created and intended to feign using it for support.

With little else to do and most of the morning spent, I departed to take a carriage to the castle. The ride was peaceful, but I felt surprised that I found myself looking forward to the event. When I arrived at the gates, an [Administrator] and several [King’s Guards] met me at the entrance. The [Administrator] looked to be of the normal weaselly fellow that took up that class, even if he dressed in more elaborate robes. The guards, though, stood and walked with a stoic discipline that was quite refreshing. So great was their discipline that not even their eyes moved.

While the administrator tried to rush me along the long hallway to the king’s hall, but I knew I was early enough to maintain a slow and stateful pace through the castle. I could count on two hands the number of times I had been inside, and I was eager to view the expensive and tasteful décor. I paused to take in tapestries of battles, some I had fought in, paintings of historical figures painted to be more handsome or beautiful than I recalled.

One particular painting caught my eye, that of the last Queen of Sena, a dignified and rigid woman. She had held her lands in a firm grip, tolerating no bribery in her kingdom and implemented severe penalties for crime. I had quite admired the woman at the time, as it was her leadership that led to the war that grew Sena to include the northern lands of Freetoni.

Now that I had the effects of my tea contained, though it squirmed inside me the closer we came to the throne, I realized I didn’t care for the woman. Bitter at the loss of her husband and first child to Mirtallean assassins, she waged a war that cost the kingdom so many lives and never even received the vengeance she desired.

With a slight shake of my head, I kept walking until we reached the foyer to wait for the court to announce us. I marveled in the room, a heady display of opulence. The walls were lined with matching couches that promised a more comfortable seat than any I had seen. A great tapestry covered the entirety of a wall, one that displayed a map of the entire kingdom. Ten servants waited to either side of the room, standing between couches and holding trays of expensive fruits and wine.

Several other courtiers of various standing waited in the room as well, though we ignored each other with equal distaste. I sampled some of the delicacies as I waited, though I forewent any of the tea in favor of the wine. The wine, a fragrant coastal vintage made from oranges and blackberries, tasted wonderful. I made sure to ask the name of the vintner so that I could see if anyone sold it later.

I was sipping at the wine and nibbling at a sweetened strawberry pastry when the doors to the hall were opened by the guards. From within I heard a crowd laughing, and I saw a well-dressed dwarven woman stomp her way out. Metal boots sounded against the floor, even through the plush carpet. Her face was so flushed with anger, I feared she would start a brawl then and there.

She glared all around her as she walked, as if looking for someone to relieve her anger. Her eyes flew past me and came right back for just a moment before she kept going. I hadn’t heard the dwarven language in a few years, and I considered myself grateful that I only recognized half of the foul language she was muttering on the way out.

I spent the next hour or so lounging on a couch and nibbling on the king’s fruit and wine before a courtier found me to let me know I would be next.  I used a quick cleaning spell to rid myself of crumbs and to my place beside the man to wait for the doors to open.

As they opened, the man beside me called out, “Presenting Nemon Fargus, fifth-tier wizard!”

That was it? After all I had done, this was how I was presented to the court? I snorted in distaste and walked slowly into the room. As decorated as the rest of the castle had been, the room that held the king’s throne was even moreso. The pathway I walked wasn’t carpeted, but rather a collection of pearls that shifted underfoot. On either side of the pathway, ran thin ponds filled with beautiful tube-shaped flowers and schools of small colorful fish of red and white.

Beyond that stood courtiers and nobles, merchants and priests standing on rising polished wood benches. A gathered crowd of the kingdom’s most influential, all oozing with condescending arrogance masked within tasteful garments.  The styles had changed since my last visit, and most wore loose silk pants and tight vests with no undershirt. Berets of multiple bright colors topped heads, some with ornamental feathers and jewels. Not that it was easy to notice the jeweled hats over all the other jewelry these men and women wore.

I ignored their ridiculous murmurs as I walked down the path. Instead, I gazed and the ornately carved pillars and the stained-glass picture placed on the ceiling. It was an ambitious picture of knights riding down a rolling hill and slaying their panicked enemies constructed entirely from thousands of tiny crystals.

With enough gems, I could do something similar in my tower, though my bedroom was the only room I could put one in the ceiling. I wouldn’t be doing that. Perhaps windows? That seemed a better use and would be easier to accomplish. I would need to decide on what I would want the image to be, as I was certainly not planning to replicate knights charging or something else so mundane.

When I finally reached the throne, a garish thing polished white stone with red velvet cushions, I offered the customary bow for the situation and waited.

“Rise,” the king called, a young man of maybe thirty summers. Wearing a suit of mithril armor with more decorations and minor enchantments than I thought necessary, I had to admit he dressed the part of a king. His face bore all the noble features I would expect, the angular cheeks, the cleft chin, the upturned nose, the regal unibrow, and eyes with metallic irises that looked on with excitement.

As was customary, the more important courtiers gathered at this end of the hall, and I could see the ducal houses stood closest to the throne, but I didn’t look closer at the moment as I was waiting on the king’s words.

The king didn’t even speak, though, he simply waved a hand at one of the attendants that stood next to him, a fat and sweaty man, who unrolled a scroll to read from.

“Wizard Nemon Fargus, you are hereby recalled from your retirement to be reinstated to your prior rank and privilege.  You are to report to the garrison at Fort Freetoni for immediate commission.”

I had listened and waited for him to finish. The magical remnants from the tea squirmed desperately inside me, but the cage was strong. Yet, I had not just been idly gazing at the decorations as I had walked through the crowd, I had also been looking for all those who held the effects of the tea within themselves. I was not surprised to see it in nearly every person present. I was surprised to see it within the king himself.

I had hoped and planned for this. I’d planned for many other possibilities as well, but this was one of the ones I looked forward to the most.

“Respectfully, I refuse,” I answered. Of course, my answer sent a tizzy of anger and cursing through the crowded room.

No chapter tomorrow

Hello!

Just wanted to let you all that there won't be a chapter posting tomorrow.  Sorry!  I'll try to make it up with double chapters later this week or an additional chapter this weekend.  

Thanks for understanding!

Allanther

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 21

It took two days for the summons to arrive. I spent the night I’d found out that Laxton Bay had fallen pouring over my plans and notes and preparing. Much of the next day had been wasted with recovering from that excess with sleep.

Against her wishes, I’d moved the former slave scout Murettita’s cell to the edge of my laboratory and installed a doorway so that she could be fed. While she wasn’t pleased with the change, the creation of an alcove for her chamberpot soothed much of her complaints. That she moved the chamberpot out of the alcove and cowered in it, didn’t bother me.

Rather, after finding Rolf and Fin tussling over something Rolf said about Fin’s mother, like most boys their age do, I assigned them extra duties to separate them. Not only were they responsible for feeding Murettita, they each had either a morning or afternoon assigned to reading out loud nearby her cell. The other half of the day, they were tasked with rounding up the children from Kine’s village to teach those youths letters.

I’d rechecked my experiments and projects. The parasitic mushroom was developing nicely, though the surrounding hydra had distanced themselves from the infected ones. It wasn’t anything that a liberal use of the observing wind elemental couldn’t mitigate.

The fifth-tier elemental boulder had assumed a figure eight path that destroyed the monsters on a regular schedule, however it was now surrounded by the lesser hydra that swarmed into the path behind it to consume their fallen kin.

I’d feared for how to feed the hatched spider in my tower until Eni suggested his wolves bring back mice and squirrels. The idea of intentionally having pests inside my tower gave me shudders, but I reasoned that it would only be until my return, at which point I could remove them.

The summons arrived the morning of that second day, delivered by a kingly courier, a well-bred young man on an even better-bred horse, both wearing fine silks. The morning itself was overcast with thin clouds that dripped light rain and a small, warm breeze that came in from the south. An auspicious day, given that I had completed everything I could think of to prepared for my return to Sena City that very morning.

After confirming what was in the missive, an urgent demand to report to the king’s court, I bid farewell to my tower’s servants and took flight on an air elemental. I still did not enjoy flying. It wasn’t the act itself that bothered me, but rather the need to wear pants. Robes, by their very nature, were superior clothing, and pants simply too confining in theirs. I resolved myself to check in the capital market while I was there to see if any ingenious tailors had recently resolved the issue.

The flight itself was pleasant. The warm southern winds made the light sprinkling rains feel pleasant in a refreshing way. The sun would sometimes strike my upper back and provide a welcome warmth. It was a novel experience, as I didn’t fly often. I passed by Lark quickly and was halfway to Eiston when I saw the smoke of a burning farmstead and decided to investigate.

It wasn’t that I didn’t heed the urgent summons of the King, it was that my curiosity had gotten the better of me. As I approached, I saw what was likely regular occurrence across the kingdom. An older homestead being overrun with goblins. The farm had two wooden buildings, three small fields, and a pasture. With the exception of a small wagon trail, the lands surrounding it were all forest. I could see the bodies of dead goblins caught in hunters’ traps and their kin who stopped to eat at them. The two buildings burned brightly, releasing thick clouds of black smoke. Between them huddled a family. A family that consisted of a mother and five children.

The father lay slain and being eaten, and only a girl of maybe twelve or thirteen armed with a pitchfork kept the rest of the family from immediately meeting that same fate. I watched for only a moment as she jabbed at goblins only slightly smaller than she was, before I intervened. A series of magical darts spread from my fingertips, each striking a single goblin.

Out of the dozen or so of the monsters surrounding the family, they all fell. With a quick glance to make sure the monsters wouldn’t get up, I turned and sent another series of magic darts into the goblins in the woods. I scowled when I missed three who took of running. I was out of practice.

When I was certain that the goblins weren’t returning, I turned to the burning buildings and used my [Fire Manipulation] to end the flames nearby. Only then, did I lower myself to the ground to stand before this unfortunate family. I realized as I did that what I thought were five children, were actually seven. The mother held two babes in her arms, guarding them carefully.

I regarded the family for a moment, considering what I should do. The farm was closer to Eiston than it was to Lark, but not by much. Of the children, the girl was the oldest, but I imagined that caring for all these children on the road by herself would put a massive strain on their mother. Yet, I knew myself well enough to know that I would likely cause more hindrance than aid should I try to aide them in their travels to the nearest town.

“Are-are you here to claim my babies?” The mother hesitantly asked.

I looked at the woman in confusion. Just what kind of folk tales did people tell about wizards around these parts?

I shook my head, and surveyed the children. It looked like the attack began early this morning, as most were wearing nightwear. Smudges of dirt and ash on scared faces struck at my heart, and I feared if I stayed much longer I would find myself trying to do everything in my power to lift this family back up.  I closed my eyes to sigh, and look away.

Helping them recover was the responsibility of their local lord, and maybe also the local priesthood. I already saved their lives. I wasn’t responsible for this family. This wasn’t my duty. I had bigger tasks on my shoulders. The king’s summons, the war with Mirtkal, the coming Pestilence. These were the tasked I needed to focus on.

Two days later, we entered Eiston. I bid the Anne Farmwell and her children farewell after we had secured them lodging and reported to the local guard what happened. Giving the kids a taste of flying wasn’t enough to shake them from their loss, but I didn’t think it would be. The smiles on their faces when we first started flying, that brief moment where they could forget everything that happened was more than worth the spellwork. I even left them with a small bag of coin and a letter.

Neesa Farmwell had been valiant in her defense of her kinfolk, fighting the goblins at thirteen years old with a broken ankle.  I wasn’t aware of the injury until later, and it made me glad I had flown them to the city. The letter was an accommodation of her bravery and a recommendation she apprentice to the guard of any noble house when she came of age. I read it out loud to them before I sealed it, as neither mother or daughter knew their letters.

The city of Eiston was the largest city in western Sena. It’s hay-colored stone buildings and grey cobblestone paths made little difference against the heavy farming culture that invaded from the surrounding hills. The kind of city that smelled of vegetables and manure.

Within moments of my departure from the lodgings for the Farmwells, I had already assumed a new illusionary guise. That of a fattened merchant I met in Sena City sixty years ago. A figure and face that wouldn’t look out of place here, but also not be one that anyone would easily recognize. With this new façade, I made my way to the local adventurer’s guildhall. One of three plans I had decided on would begin here with a simple quest.

The guildhall was two tall perpendicular buildings connected by a walkway, one of the largest structures in the city. I entered through the main door, and then took the door to the left for customers. There, a line of townsfolk of all types waited impatiently for the plump older woman at the front of line to finish.

I moved to the back of the line and was forced to listen to her irate complaints.

“Thirteen years I’ve been a customer here! And when I say I have rats in my cellar, I mean there are rats in my cellar! You think as many times as I’ve come here, Derk, that you would know I wasn’t making this up!”

“No, ma’am. I believe you, I do! But the last adventurer—” The young man behind the counter gave the woman, us, and the rest of the world a helpless look when he was cut off.

“That fella didn’t even go in the cellar. He spent the whole time drinking tea and talking with me. Which was nice, don’t get me wrong, but how’s he to know anything if he didn’t even look?” She wrapped her knuckles on the counter as she spoke.

“Ma’am, records indicate that forty different adventurers have investigated—”

“Then they ain’t good adventurers! Where’s that Nullen lad? He was a good boy.”

“Ma’am, [Paladin] Nullen died six years ago in a bear attack,” the scribe said, though by his tone he’d told her before.

“Such a shame, such a shame. He was a good lad. He would’ve found these rats easy!”

“Yes, Ms. Erstall,” the administrator answered tonelessly.

“So, are you gonna send me a good adventurer this time?” The woman’s voice creaked through the room.

“I’ll post your quest again,” the defeated scribe answered.

I tapped my foot impatiently. A short man with a beard in front on me, a barkeep from his smell, sighed. The woman in front of him, who looked to be a tailor, fidgeted. The clerk in line before her, readied himself in preparation of the monumental task that would be stepping forward by one pace.

It was two long, long hours before I finally made it to the counter. I had four scrolls waiting in my hands, ready for the task.

“How can I help you, sir?” The scribe droned, still suffering from his earlier defeat.

“Four quests, three message quests and one to be posted here.”

“Name?” he asked as he scribbled not even looked up.

“You don’t know me? I am the esteemed [Merchant] Mirkhome, the honest,” I declared, assuming the demeanor of the man as I remembered him, though I changed the name. I didn’t recall any house by that name, and adding the word ‘Mirk’ should redirect anyone to a clear enemy of the kingdom. Even if they saw through it, there would be no way to discover I was responsible.

The scribe graced me with a single glance before scribbling down Mirkhome, “And the quests?”

“These three scrolls need delivered to the adventurers’ guildhalls in Birktoni, Freetoni, and Sena City,” I answered as he continued writing.

“And the fourth quest?”

“To be posted here, this scroll contains the details. The others are the same quest, can I pay here?” I answered, lifting one of the scrolls.

The scribe paused in his writing to read over the details, “Find the source of Asrid Flowers? Tier three? Is that correct?”

I nodded as arrogantly as I could, “Yes! I want to cut out the middleman, he keeps raising the prices. ‘For war’ he says, but I don’t believe him.”

The scribe jotted down more information, and then spoke, “That’ll be four gold pieces and six silver.”

I feigned outrage, “What kind of rate is that?! That’s preposterous! I demand…”

The scribe had pointed at a sign above his head when he began that read ‘Merchant’s Guild members get a ten percent discount. No negotiating.’ He didn’t even look up from the tome he was writing in when he did it.

“I see,” I answered and then laid the coins down on the counter. A few more details and a signature and I departed.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 20

The last two weeks had been fraught with several annoyances that were luckily matched with several successes in my experiments. I was currently doing the recording keeping in my laboratory next to the greatest annoyance I’d had to deal with.

Murettita the Quivering Mess was the remaining scout I’d freed from slavery. I had already created five different wands with the disenchantment spell needed to free any future slave scouts and handed four of them out to my guards and assistants. I was proud of those wands, too, as I had crafted them from a polished dark oak that I had shaped like keys. The fifth, of course, I kept with me in my bag of holding.

Murettita absolutely refused to be moved. Even using [Earth Manipulation] to try to move her cell had set the woman off into hysterical screams and fits. With nothing for it, it required me to carry her food from the entrance of my laboratory to her for every meal. I had considered putting her back to sleep and then move her entire cell, but I suffered from a bout of emotional weakness that caused me to pity whatever life turmoil had left her in her condition.

My assistants, Philipe and Jax, were on their way with lunch soon. I planned to pause my record keeping to eat and then display the tests and results to them so that they might learn. Until then, however, I had to deal with trying to write and answer odd questions from my prisoner who wasn’t truly a prisoner.

“Why are you so old and frail for a man? Where are your muscles and scars?” she asked, though her tone made it more of an accusation than a matter of curiosity.

“I am a wizard. I do not require muscles and scars for my work,” I answered while scribbling. It took exactly ten days for the Asrid Flowers to monsterize. All of them. This was unique in that most other plants and beasts, even of the same species, varied in the timelines for their change. I needed to obtain samples from other nonmonster species that came from monsterized plants to see if the ten days were common among all or just this type of plant.

“I do not see how you can call what you do work. Where is your Matron? She should have raised you better,” Murettita demanded.

“My mother? She died of old age in this very tower more than a hundred fifty years ago,” I answered with a sigh. Perhaps the numerical details could wait. I should be able to illustrate the monsterized version while I was tolerating her questions.

In a series of containment cells across the room from me, six monsterized Asrid Flowers grew. They behaved like normal flowers until another living being grew close. In height and leaf, the plants didn’t look much different than the flower I was already familiar with.  Broad green leaves, a straight stem, and petals that grew in a cup shape. The coloration was different on the petals. Instead of bright yellow, they were bright orange that melded into yellow tips.

The greatest difference, however, was noticeable when a live animal was nearby. Then, the plant released a puff of pleasant-smelling yellow pollen that induced loyalty and calmness. I had used mice to test and found that if they were too close to the flower when it did this, they would also fall into a deep sleep. Those that fell asleep were then attacked with sharp roots that drained their blood.

The mice that weren’t too close when they smelled the pollen would change their behavior to one of guardianship towards the plant. I imagined that in whatever dungeon these flowers came from, they lived in an area that contained other beasts that worked in tangent with them.

“You have lived for more than a hundred years without a matron to guide you? No wonder you look so frail!”

I glanced up at the woman and smiled, but she wasn’t even looking at me. Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed I’d had brought for her to sleep on and stared at her hands. She had come a long way in the past two weeks. When she first started speaking with me, it was to beg for her death. After two days of that, she must have realized I didn’t plan to kill her, so she changed her tactic to one of insults.

Or rather, insults that would be effective maybe in Furing. They were useless against me, especially when I knew she only insulted me in some strange attempt to incite her own murder. I actually chuckled when she told me I wasn’t truly a man. The look on her face when I told her I was half-elf was worth it though.

A knock at the doorway shook me from my thoughts, and I waved down the wards to allow my two assistants to enter. Each one walked slowly as they carefully balancing four sets of plates and cups. Murettita darted from her seat on the bed to huddle in the small space created between it and the wall. I stood and accepted a plate and cup from Philipe to carry to her, slowly setting it down just inside the cell’s wards.

Both Philipe and Jax were polite enough to remain quiet and not even look in the woman’s direction, a behavior I very much appreciated considering she had screamed and pulled out a clump of her own hair when Jax last tried to make conversation. I took my plate and cup from Jax and bid them to take a seat with me around my record-keeping table.

The meal smelled delicious. One of the recent successes was my project to induce an elemental Flame Boar. I had tested the boar meat on the snakes first, and then the wolves to ensure that the poison element was entirely replaced. Now, I’d left it to Chelsea to find the best use for the meat.

That is not to say that all the specimens were successfully converted. There was one pit that produced a creature that [Analyze] showed to be called a Noxious Boar that released flammable, poisonous fumes. Four of the boars in that pit had converted to this type, but further study showed they were not immune to each other’s gases. I verified my suspicion that the gas was flammable when only one remained.

I didn’t try to replicate that unintended result, though, because even after the fire, the meat smelled awful. The Flame Boar meat, though, had an interesting flavor. Chelsea had prepared this meal with thick chops of the boar smothered in a honeyed molasses sauce that paired perfectly, even if it were messier than I would have preferred.

It tasted so good that the three of us ate in silence. Even my captive had found herself unable to resist and was devouring the meal with loud noises from where she sat on the other side of the bed.

The young men finished before I did, likely because they had decided to eat the meal with their hands like savages than to use a proper fork and knife as I did. I gestured to Philipe, the taller of the red-headed men, to talk while I continued to eat.

“Master, we believe that we have fully prepared the spell needed to bond with animals. We couldn’t bring it below tier one without risking the integrity of the spellwork, but I think it can be used.”

I raised my eyebrow as I chewed.

“Here, we brought a copy with us,” Jax, the shorter of the two chimed in, unrolling a scroll on the table beside my plate. I almost chided him for smearing the sauce on the document, but he quickly muttered a cleaning spell to clean both the scroll and his hands.

I grunted and looked through their work as I ate. The boar was really filling, but by itself didn’t feel like a complete meal. The spell they had designed looked nearly satisfactory. It should work for the purposes they wanted. I checked it three more times, finding small weaknesses, but nothing that would compromise the integrity. Rather the weaknesses were closer to loopholes that would allow another mage to affect the bonding magic.

“Hmmm,” I said as I leaned back in thought. I couldn’t help but pat my full stomach as I did. The questions that came to my mind were if those same loopholes worked for other types of bonding. Could I interfere with a [Ranger’s] Companion Bond skill through this manner? Who could I find that would allow me to test this subject?

After a few moments of silence, I looked back at the two brothers. Their freckled faces did nothing to hide their nervousness.

“You’ve done well, it appears,” I told them and watched as they both gave each other an excited look. “You may proceed to the next stage, and solicit volunteers.”

Jax raised his eyebrows, “We aren’t testing on ourselves first? I already picked out a pup with Eni.”

That got a chuckle out of me, “Not a chance. That should have been a rule taught in the Arcanum. It’s disappointing that they no longer cover it. No, you will solicit the nearby villagers for volunteers, but keep in mind that no children should be used.”

“Yes, master,” Jax answered with Phillipe shortly afterward. I was glad the two brothers were cooperating so well on this project. The misgivings they had towards each other over Leslie had been a concern for a while, but separating their duties to keep them apart seemed to have worked for now.

Then again, I’d seen siblings bond and feud over the tiniest of things before, so their future wasn’t set in stone. We made small talk until I was done eating, just time spent getting to know each brother a little bit better. When I’d finished and cast a cleaning spell on myself to get rid of the sticky sauce, Phillipe coughed into his hand.

“Yes?” I asked, seeing that both brothers looked uncomfortable.

“Master, a merchant came by today with some news we thought you should hear,” Philipe began.

“He said that Laxton Bay had fallen to Mirktal,” Jax followed.

Both men seemed uneasy with the news. They should be. Laxton Bay was the seat of Ducal House Laxtoni, and one of the five major cities of Sena. I ran my hand through my beard and sat back down to consider the matter. Laxton Bay was the second-largest city in Sena and contained the largest port in the kingdom.

I glanced up at the two brothers, who both wore worried expressions, and waved them away, “We’ll review the results of the experiments at another time. Continue your duties, as they take precedence over your own spellcrafting. Also, I want you two to begin writing papers either supporting or denying the validity of Alchemist Dextro’s assertion on the taste of Flame Boar. You may consult with Chelsea to have her prepare unaspected boar in the same manner as a comparison.”

Both apprentices bowed as they departed, but my mind was now focused on the political ramifications of that the loss of the city would entail. The Laxtoni Ducal house was responsible for a small navy and seafaring trades. Many of the commodities that came from that port would no longer be available.

The loss of saltwater fish, crabs, and eels wouldn’t affect my diet too much, but the House was known for one thing above all others—their monopoly on couch production. Part of me reveled in the news that they had fallen. It served them right, after denying me couches for a hundred years over a tryst I barely remember.

The other part of me feared what this meant for the kingdom. The loss of a Ducal Seat would not go unanswered, and the battle to take one could not have been small. In a time when the kingdom should be preparing for the Pestilence, Sena was instead forced into this wasteful bloodshed that could threaten all.

Worse, what this meant for me was that I would no longer be able to avoid taking part in the war. Or rather, I could but it would cost me much of my reputation with the kingdom, a reputation I would need to leverage soon if any were to survive the end of the age.

I returned to my study and pulled a tome I had secreted there. The same tome I had used to track the effects the Asrid Flower tea had on me had also been used to formulate nearly twenty different plans for revenge. Some of which, of course, weren’t feasible to begin with, and others would take up too much time. Yet, I had come up with several that would be perfect to use when I was inevitably summoned to the King’s court for whatever appointment they designed to secure my aid.

With quill and tome at hand, I worked late into the night to further develop my plans.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 19

When I awoke, I was greeted with some good news. It seemed that compared to the last few days of detailed work that wasn’t to my benefit, I had been somehow rewarded by fate.  I was eating a breakfast of sausage and peppers cooked into eggs, something a little too spicy for the morning, and Philipe arrived to inform me of visitors.

Recently, I had been delegating the task of dealing with visitors to my apprentices and guards, only stepping in when I needed to. Now, my new seneschal, Fentworth Aide, could come along to be shown how I wanted certain visitors dealt with.

Fentworth carried himself with a decent amount of pomp and dignity, enough that I would be satisfied if he greeted guests on my behalf. Today, I wore a robe of dark blue with white clouds, and he somehow matched it with a suit in the same colors. This was quite the coincidence. I briefly considered asking him if he had a skill to that effect, but then shook the thought. If he did, I would no doubt have evidence of it in the future, and it was generally rude to ask about such skills.

As we approached the gates, I took measure of the multiple people outside. A group of low-level adventurers dressed barely better than peasants stood to the left, eager to pick up the corpses of beasts from my swamp under the lake. A Scout [Ranger] in the uniform, here for delivery of Asrid Flowers and to inspect my abode sat proudly on his horse. A merchant from Lark to the right of, talking happily with Chelsea.

I frowned at that. She had to have known that I would be delegating the purchasing of sundries to my new seneschal. If she has been allowing her running mouth to spills secrets, I would need to replace her. It would be a great loss if I had to forego her baking skills, but an even greater one if any enemies learned secrets they weren’t supposed to.

Then again, what secrets did that woman really know? None that I could think of, so maybe I was overthinking the matter. It’s not as if I preferred her speaking with me instead of someone else. Letting her run her mouth out here was actually a better option than hearing it myself.

Behind them all rested three larger wagons carrying more stone I had ordered from the quarry. I had intended to use it to raise or thicken the walls, so it was a pleasant surprise to see it ready. I should have four more wagonloads coming in the near future as well.

“Mister Aide, I will first instruct you on what the normal procedure is, and then I will instruct you on what makes today special,” I began, as I eyed the Scout. She was a tall, thin woman with brown hair and green eyes, who carried herself proudly with a straight back and a raised chin.

“Yes, sir,” Fentworth answered.

“Should you accept this position, you will be responsible for greeting all guests that arrive at these gates. One of your duties will be to see to our food and supplies. The man Chelsea is speaking with is a merchant who comes by regularly,” I paused and squinted at the man to make sure. I wasn’t entirely certain as I wasn’t the one who purchased the supplies, but neither was I going to admit that to my prospective seneschal.

“The Scout in the center normally come by on a mission to deliver flowers and possibly purchase some of the beasts as companion animals for their [Ranger] classes. You may delegate the purchase of animals to Eni, as he has a good eye for such matters. Today, though, will be a special case and I don’t expect the conversation I have with him today will occur in the future. At least I hope not.”

Fentworth eyes me curiously, but his facial expression didn’t change. I saw that as a good sign, and continued, “The adventurers on the left have a recurring quest from the guild to pick up and deliver beast corpses from a cellar behind my tower. A simple task to test their resolve. You need only greet them and point them in the direction they should go. I care not if they take more than proscribed, as I have no use for them beyond this.”

“A cellar for beast corpses, sir?” he asked, his voice sounding wary.

“Well, yes. After a beast wave, I can’t leave them out to attract other beasts, can I?” I shook my head at the thought.

“You do not simply burn them?” he asked.

“Not at the moment, but I may consider it in the future,” I answered. I didn’t care if they were burnt or buried. To be fair, I hadn’t even considered the cellar in over a year and only seeing the young men and women reminded me of it. Maybe I should consider the matter.

“And the stone?” Fentworth asked, interrupting my thoughts. I almost rebuked him for it, but I was in a forgiving mood.

“Yes, we need stone,” I answered with a nod and brushed my hand through my beard.

“I see,” he answered.  Which was a good answer. I didn’t need him asking about everything that gets delivered to the tower, at least not until he accepted the position.

Since I felt satisfied that I’d explained these duties, I waved for Eni to open the gates and for us and approached the Scout.

“Good morning, sir!” she called with a salute and started rustling through her packs.

“It is a better morning than you think,” I answered with a smile that caused her to stop what she was doing and blink, “If you please, I have something to show you. Please follow me. Mister Aide, you may assist Chelsea in her duties until I return.”

Without waiting on the Scout, I turned and walked back towards my tower. With a thought I allowed her passage, noting to myself to deny it to her again after she left.

“Sir, what is this concerning?” she asked as she jogged to catch up with me.

“You’ll see soon enough. I believe it is a matter of great importance,” I answered and clasped hands behind my back as I walked. She followed, pausing for only a moment outside my tower door to act like she was mustering her courage before entering. I withheld my sigh for her melodramatics and turned to my right to take the stairwell down to my laboratory.

As I entered the laboratory, the smell was the first thing I noticed. I cast a cleaning spell as quickly as I could, slightly embarrassed that I had forgotten to provide for a chamberpot. My embarrassment was quickly lost, however, when I heard the sound of a knife being drawn.

I turned to look at the woman behind me, who was pointing her blade at me with two shaking hands. I had been startled with the sound, thinking that the Scout was an assassin in disguise, but her shaking hands and the words that followed disabused me of that.

“You—you fiend! You’re kidnapping women for some evil torture! They were right to suspect you!”

She wasn’t an assassin. She was an idiot. I couldn’t hold back my sigh and barely held back asking how many head injuries she had suffered.

I raised a finger in the air to address her concerns, but before I could speak, I heard one of the Furing women answer on my behalf.

“Hey! Want me to kill this twit for ya?” the one on the left shouted as she began cracking her bones in a disturbingly threatening manner.

“What?” the Scout whispered.

“Child, what’s your name?” I asked.

“Why, does that give you power over me? I’ll not tell you my name!” she said and backed away, still holding the knife between us.

I turned and began walking towards the woman that spoke. The other was still huddling in her corner.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Milliki, second daughter of Louwreni. Hunter Mistress of Furing,” she announced with pride, standing tall.

“Milliki, if I offered you a chance to tell the Scouts of Sena everything you know from your time as a slave of Mirktal, would you take it?” I asked, loudly enough that all could hear.

“Aye! Any chance to hurt those slaving rats is a chance I’ll take. If the Scouts of Sena don’t wanna listen, then give me a knife and I’ll go myself!” she answered, just as confident and as boisterous as before.

I turned around to the woman standing behind me, who was looking at us in surprise. “Would you accept the task of delivering this woman to your commander? I also have a copy of the spellwork needed to disenchant the new slave collars.”

She looked from me to Milliki and back before her eyes fell on the other woman. She pointed at the woman with her knife, “What about her? Is she coming, too?”

The second freed slave must have been listening because she threw herself at the wards containing her in her cell screaming, “No! No! I won’t go! I won’t say anything.  Kill me! Please!”

Milliki tsked.

The Scout turned to look at me with a question on her face and I could only grimace as I answered, “The trials of slavery affect the mind. She seems to have suffered more during her time in chains than others. It may be some time before she is ready to speak.”

“I won’t talk! You can’t make me!” she screamed and I ignored her.

“Will you convey Milliki, second daughter of Louwreni, to the Scout Commander? This will be a mission of the utmost importance and must be carried out swiftly,” I spoke, hoping she agreed. I didn’t fancy keeping war prisoners any longer than needed.

The woman finally sheathed her knife and bowed low, “I will accept your quest.”

I waved my hand, allowing the wards in front of the cell I held Milliki in to collapse. She stepped out proudly and saluted me in the Furing fashion, her left hand grasping her shoulder, “I will not forget this.”

I nodded and answered, “You may repay any debt to the Kindgom of Sena with your knowledge.” I didn’t want a repeat of what happened with House Shielding.

I saw them off, more so to make sure they were actually leaving than for any sentimental reason. It also allowed me to ascertain how Fentworth was taking to his new duties. As the two women left, I was approached by Fentworth and Kine, both of who seemed eager to speak with me.

“Master,” Kine bowed.

“Sir,” Fentworth bowed, intentionally just a little lower.

I nodded and glanced around. The adventurers and the merchant had finished their tasks and were waiting for the [Wagoneers] to complete the unloading of the stone I purchased. Both Kine and Fentworth had waited until I looked back at them before they spoke.

“Master, I wanted to ask about your plans with that stone,” Kine began.

Ah, he wanted the stone for the construction of his village I assumed. Yet, why assume when I could ask, “Why?”

“Master, I was hoping to use it to aid in the construction of the village. I am willing to purchase it from you if needed.”

“Hmmm,” I answered and glanced towards Fentworth, “And you?”

“Sir, I wanted to know if such a decision would be within my purview,” he answered with a second bow. I wasn’t certain of the purpose of the second bow, but perhaps it was a social affection that had recently come about.

“Very well. Kine, you may purchase the stone at cost from me. You may also task either of my assistants with helping in construction so that they may practice their [Earth Manipulation]. Fentworth, should you accept this position you would be responsible for collecting this payment and securing additional stone to replace what was sold.”

“Thank you, master,” Kine gave me a relieved smile.

“Yes, sir,” Fentworth answered with a nod.

I left them there, to discuss the matter and returned towards my tower. I had a prisoner with a very fragile mind that I need to somehow dispense with so that I could continue my work. The sooner I had a solution to the woman’s situation, the better.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 18

The next morning, I was, admittedly, grouchy. Despite several projects moving forward, my heart wasn’t in them. I was considering the implications of the assassination attempt last night.

Of the two breakthroughs, I had achieved the first in ascertaining the correct measurement of mana to infuse. It had moved to the second stage, which meant that now I had set up several plants to determine the length of time it took for infusion to result in monsterization.

The spider egg I held near my tower crystal had hatched. The baby spider looked nearly transparent with a pale white shell, but I knew that the coloration wouldn’t last long. I set out several different pieces of meat from the larder and a dead snake from the experiment pits to see what it preferred to eat before sealing the room in even more protective magics.

I had spent most of the morning with the spider and the flowers while I considered the assassination attempt that involved risking an entire village of people. This was not acceptable to me for many reasons, none less than the continued intent to take my life. Putting an entire village at risk was a close behind.

I had originally considered that it was one of the many noble houses within Sena that had found some new or old slight. I also considered it may have been one of the other Academies, seeking vengeance for my influence on the Arcanum. I even considered, however unlikely, that it was from other staff in the Arcanum.

Those options were all available before this attack. Naturally, those had all existed when I lived in Sena City as well, so I shrugged them away as the price of my station. That and a whole host of defense magics that protected me while I was there. Now, though, I was forced to consider other options. Options like these assassins being directed from another country.

With war now declared, should Mirktal wanted me dead they wouldn’t hesitate to risk villagers in the aftermath. If the country had targeted me, that also meant that other powerful figures throughout Sena would also be facing similar attacks.

While I could send missives to confirm if this were true, I wasn’t entirely sure it was worth my time. The attack, while despicable in the manner it was conducted, wasn’t truly a threat to me. If the country aimed at others in similar positions to me, then I’d likely hear about it in the near future as those types of rumors spread quickly.

Unfortunately, even these thoughts and experiments were interrupted.  Four Furing scouts, all women, had been captured last night. My water elemental had been off hunting lampreys instead of defending my lands, a matter I dealt with on its return. My mist elementals, however, had confused and led these scouts into pit traps that Kine had directed constructed.

Trapped in pits and unconscious due to a sleep enchantment in them, they had been transferred to my tower by Eni and Tond. The two men were not enamored with the task, but I hoped to settle the matter before they had to carry it out again.

Furing was a matriarchal nation situated to the north of Mirktal. They forced their men, and any other men they captured, to fight in arena battles for breeding rights. It led to a robust people, taller and more well-muscled than other nations. That they were often less intelligent was likely the only reason the other four nations still existed.

The three women sleeping in my laboratory were captured slaves that Mirktal controlled with enchanted slave collars. Fifty years ago, I had been tasked with finding the spellcraft to dispel this magic, and had done so successfully. When the wands that dispelled the enchantments were introduced to that war, it led to Sena’s victorious defense.

The fourth collared woman had promptly bashed her head into a wall until she was dead when I woke her from her magical slumber. It meant that I had to put aside my current research to study and dispel the new versions of the slave collars before the women starved to death.

It was a task I was more than prepared to do after lunch. With a sigh and a glance at the women, I left my laboratory to enjoy a bowl of fish chowder served with a hard, sweet biscuit.  Kine joined me for lunch, though his manner indicated he did so more because he had something he wanted to discuss than because of the meal.

I waited until his foot was tapping on the floor before I even glanced his way and spoke, “Is something the matter?”

He answered with a tight, contained smile that told me he knew exactly what I had done, but he sighed and spoke, “Master, I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Do what?” I asked innocently as I dipped my biscuit into the chowder. I think that was what the biscuit was designed for, as I knew that Chelsea could bake softer biscuits.

“This. Be an Alderman. Twelve people died last night, and I was responsible for them. Many more would have died if you hadn’t helped, but that does nothing when I have to look at their widows and children.”

I stopped eating and looked at Kine more carefully now. His face looked worn and weathered. Rings under his eyes spoke of little or no sleep. His robe was stained with blood and mud. Even his hands were caked with dirt. I don’t think I had ever seen him more exhausted.

“You are tired and weary, yes?” I asked.

“Beyond weary. I am ready to give up. Being the one everyone turns to—it’s not for men like me,” he sighed and leaned forward onto the table.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Tond enter the room from the stairwell, look at the two of us, and then quietly step back out. I’d have to talk with him later about that. For now, I needed to address the weight on Kine’s shoulders.

“If not you, then who?” I asked.

“Someone. Anyone would do better than me. Twelve dead, and I could do nothing.”

I understood how he felt. There were times during war when those under my command perished and I felt solely responsible. It wasn’t an emotion based on logic. Logically, Mirktallean forces killed them. Emotionally, my decisions did. It was a feeling of base helplessness and a weight that threatened to crush one’s soul combined.

What could I say? That he wasn’t at fault? He already knew that. He couldn’t have stopped the mother spider even if it were by itself. He wasn’t strong enough. That it was my fault and this was a distraction to kill me? That would be as if I told him the lives of those villagers were worthless. That it was happenstance? That these things happen?

No, those answers wouldn’t help because answers wouldn’t help. This wasn’t a problem that could be solved with words or magic. But magic could help some. I placed a hand on his shoulder, patting it at first, and then leaving my hand there until he looked at me. He wouldn’t be able to tell, but I was working my way quietly around his magical defenses.

“Kine,” I spoke softly and seriously.

“Master?” he asked with his head tilted down but his eyes looking at me.

“Sleep,” I cast and held him up so he wouldn’t fall in his soup. It was an awkward position because he weighed more than I suspected and I was leaning over the table from my side. I strained to hold him upright.

“Tond?” I called the coward.

“Sir?” Tond said, stepping slowly into the room.

“Carry Alderman Kine to his chambers to rests. If he’s asked for, let them know he over-extended his magic last evening and is now paying the price for defending their lives,” I ordered. The villagers might not like it, but it would be better to have their Alderman in a more functional state.

“Yes, sir!” Tond saluted and then cringed at his own volume. When Kine didn’t wake, he moved his head under an arm to lift the man and carry him away.

I didn’t bother with the rest of lunch. I was no longer hungry. The disheartened feelings from having lost comrades had risen to sympathize with Kine’s plight and I was busy trying to place the morose memories back into their barrel.

The next two days, I spent diligently working on dispelling the enchanted collars. The spell I cast on Kine was only temporary and not a solid enchantment like what these three women were under. He would wake like normal, but feel well-rested, even if he wasn’t happy.

I had erred with one woman, the spell disabling the collar but missing a hidden enchantment that caused her collar to shrink and suffocate her. It was some kind of sympathetic link between the control spellcraft and another spellform likely used for training.

Her loss, like the first woman’s death, was unfortunate. I spend hours going over my notes and re-analyzing my disenchantment to find the error, but there was nothing for it. I had found four hidden contingency spells other than that one.  There had been only two on the collars I had analyzed in the past.

I spent hours more checking to see if there was a sixth, but couldn’t find one. It was only the risk of starvation that pushed my hand to find an answer for them, and I hesitantly tested the next version of my disenchantment. When the collar clicked off, I whooped excitedly and called for Chelsea to prepare two bowls of light soup and bread before disenchanting the last woman.

I destroyed all four collars in bitter anger, releasing the sense of guilt I held in destructive magics before awakening the ladies.

The first, and attractive woman with dark hair and a sharp chin, bellowed in laughter and exclaimed, “I’m free! I’m free! This isn’t a dream!”

The other, a tad shorter woman with dull eyes and thick lips crawled into a corner and held her knees to her chest in panic. “No, no. What have you done? They’ll catch me. Catch me. When they catch me, they will make me suffer. No. No.”

I watched her carefully before sliding their food into their cells, ensuring the second woman wouldn’t bash her head into a wall as well. After I ensured they ate, I made an exhausted retreat to my bed to sleep for the first time in three days. I felt my success warranted that much.

So this chapter I am still not happy with.  I've re-written it twice already, but it will be subject to some vigorous editing and rewriting in the future.  Thanks for your understanding!  Oops - posted it early.  This will be the chapter that normally is posted tomorrow.

Interlude - Adam - Meathead - Lilly

Interlude – Paladin Adam

I called forth the power of Bi and swung my fist into his face, knocking the man back into his comrades. A spear squealed as it scratched across my armor, but I snatched it away with my other hand. Now I had a weapon. All around me Mirktallean spearman circled, jabbing at me with skittish strikes.

Another battle, the tenth in a fortnight as my Order charged it its way across northern Sena on our bulls. Yet, our enemy had grown wise to us. This battle, unlike the others, they had prepared a trap. A simple trench dug and hidden so that when we charged, our mighty steeds faltered. I was one of the lucky ones not to be crushed beneath my mount

Instead, I flew forwards in a heavy roll that left my leg feeling broken and my back clenching in pain. I wouldn’t let that stop me though. These men had done a disservice to themselves with their dishonorable tactics. To deliberately harm a bull? That was an afront to my god.

“For Bi!” I cried, letting any other [Paladins] know that I was still with them. I heard the sparse answering cheers from behind me and knew I wasn’t alone. Which was enough. I used the spear like a club, beating back the enemies until it broke. Then my fists, until I snatched an axe that had lodged in my shoulder plate.

Honestly, I thought this was the end. The cheers I heard from my troop had not been loud enough. I fought alone and encircled instead of standing side by side. The fight was one of ferocity and savagery, not the orderly charges and shieldwalls I preferred.  Yet, who stands before a raging bull? I could only charge and keep charging until either I or they fell.

Another two men dead at the cost of a speartip in my elbow. Four men at the cost of a blow that dented my helm. One man, a commander in shining ring mail and a blue cloak, beheaded but I took a sharp blade to the back of my knee. I tried to stand, but the leg wouldn’t support me.

The enemy surrounded me, intent on finishing me off. I could see their eyes beneath their iron helms, but that only made it worse. These men and women were slaves. Their red armor was poorly made leather. Their black boots cracked and torn. They didn’t want to fight. I took no pride in their deaths. There was no valor to be won here. I felt a certainty that this battle was my last.

The hesitant circle of foes around me grew from five to ten to twenty soldiers, all looking to see who would strike first. Knowing that I would deal death for injury and not wanting to be the first. That was when I heard the battlecry. Another charge, coming in from behind, and those enemies turned to look away.

From the rear, they were under attack. An ambush to their ambush. I don’t know why I thought that, but it made me chuckle. The chuckle became a laughter, and that laughter shook my foes. In panic, the dropped their weapons and fled, but my spirit and strength had been spent. It was all I could do to stay kneeling upright and hold my trophy axe in the air.  I closed my eyes and prayed, certain that one of the enemy would surely strike me down as they fled.

“Are you [Paladin] Adam?” the man’s voice shook me from my reverie.

I looked up, seeing a large man with a round nose, a thick beard of grey and black on his chin. Behind him, more than a hundred men rallied as they pilfered the dead. Their mismatched armor and dirty bodies made it clear they were bandits.

I looked him in his eyes, if he were here to kill me he’d have to remember my face, “I am.”

The man gave a great sigh, and placed his hands on his hips as he looked up, “Finally.”

A hired killer then? Did some other order place a bounty on my head? It would not be the first time. Yet, this time I was unprepared to defend myself. Even now, I felt my blood pooling down into my boots.

Before I could say any last words, though, the man reached down and offered a hand.

“It took me weeks to find you. A wizard named Nemon Fargus sent me. Name’s Michael,” his gruff voice was matched with a lopsided grin. “And I need you to do some truthseeing.”

Interlude – Meathead

The market was nice. Lots of things to look at. The people were nice too. They kept bowing and calling me ‘champion’. It was a good day. Mena and Leslie were gone, but that was okay. I would meet them soon in front of the adventurers’ guild.

Lots of people at the market, too. I hadn’t seen this many folks in a long time. It was easy to get lost. I was walking around when I heard the lady yell, “Cabbage rolls! Wizard approved!”

Cabbage rolls sounded good and I was hungry. I started going that way, but stopped to look at some toy horses. Wood horses that looked fun to play with. I bet Rolf would like one. It was too bad Mena only gave me five coppers. The man said they were one silver a piece. Even when I looked sad.

“The Grand Wizard loves these cabbage rolls, ask him yourself!” the woman shouted again.

I kept walking. If boss said they were good, I wanted to try one. When I got there, there was a long line of people waiting. The woman selling cabbage rolls took up three whole booths. Almost the whole side. On the other side there was a man selling chairs. A woman selling flowers. Another man who stood behind a fire with meat sticks.

He seemed sad, so I went over to ask what was wrong.

“What’s wrong?! I can’t sell any of my—hey, [Champion]! My apologies, I didn’t know it who I was talking too,” The man started to sound scared and say he was sorry a bunch of time.

“It’s okay,” I told him. I don’t like people being scared of me. Unless they’re bad people. Bi says I should scare bad people.

“Say, [Champion], do you wanna try a racoon stick?” he said and gave me a meat stick. I bit it because I was hungry and he was nice. It was juicy but it tasted okay.

“Really good, right?” He asked.

I could tell he wanted me to say yes, so I nodded, “Could I have some more?” One stick wouldn’t make me less hungry. Two would, though.

“Certainly, certainly! How many?”

I had to think about it. Two would fill me up, but then there wouldn’t be any left for Leslie and Mena. I needed three more to share. I held up three fingers and he gave me more food. What a nice man! He even shouted about me like the lady.

“Get your meat sticks here! Champion approved! Eat what like real [Champion]!”

I needed to get these meat sticks to Leslie and Mena while they were hot, so I left to go to the Adventurers’ guild. It wasn’t that long of a walk to get there. Lark was pretty small. I looked around out front of the building but didn’t see them.

Waiting was easy. I was good at waiting. I did it all the time at Boss’ gate. I even had a meat stick to eat while I waited. After my second meat stick, I decided to walk around. Maybe they meant inside the guild? They weren’t in there. Maybe they got lost? I should walk around back to see.

I found them!  It was dark and dirty behind the guild.  Mena and Leslie were hiding and talking to another wizard when I walked up. Was this a game I missed?

“Thirteen gold?! I don’t have that much. I have eight,” the wizard lied.

“You don’t have thirteen gold for a spellbook written by Nemon Fargus?” Leslie asked, tapping her foot. That was good she knew he was lying.

Mena talked too, “You don’t wanna know what happened to the last fella who tried to cheat us.”

She sounded mad. I bet she was hungry. So, I walked closer.

“Hello, you want your meat stick?” I held out the meat stick to Leslie and Mena. I would have brought one for their friend if I knew he was here. Oh well, if they’re mad at him maybe he shouldn’t have one.

Mena seemed to really like her meat stick! She bit into it right away. A big bite.

Leslie looked at her meat stick first, but took a bite as well.

The man looked scared of them. Was it supposed to be scary when women ate food? I wasn’t ever scared. What would boss do? I thought about it. Boss would place his hand on my shoulder and tell me something nice like ‘you can do this’. Maybe that’s what the guy needed to hear.

I placed my hand on his shoulder. He had tiny shoulders. Then I told him what boss would say, “You can do this.”

He nodded his head fast and lied, “Okay, okay! But thirteen gold is the highest I can go!”

I shook my head. Lying was bad, but Rolf gets embarrassed when I tell him he’s lying.  I leaned forward to whisper so he wouldn’t get embarrassed if Mena and Leslie heard. I told him, “Lying is bad.”

He started shaking, like he was scared again. I had to hold his shoulder harder so he didn’t fall over.

“Okay, okay, thirty gold is as high as I can go,” he lied again, with a squeaky voice.

I shook my head at him.

“Forty gold,” he said lied through clenched teeth.

I only looked at him confused, “Does lying that much hurt?”

He was shaking and sweating all over like he got the pox. I didn’t understand. If lying hurt so bad, then why do it?

“Fine! Fifty-two gold! That’s the best I can do!” he said very loudly and knocked my hand away.

That was rude. I was just trying to help.

“Deal,” Leslie said and held out a book. He gave her a purse of coins, and then ran away with the book. What a weird guy. No wonder they didn’t want to share their meat sticks.

Interlude – Lilly

I threw the book down in frustration. I had already learned more herb names at the tower than the entire book contained, and was just pretending to study in my room to make it appear that I was diligent. Studying wasn’t working. I was meeting with my brother today, and I knew, just knew, he was going to ask me how I was doing at the academy.

I just didn’t want to tell him the truth. My grades were fine. I wasn’t learning anything new, but all the school’s masters were impressed. ‘The next Leslie’ they called me. As if that bossy girl could compare to me. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the other students just didn’t like me.

I wasn’t accepted by any of the girls from nobility because they knew I was an orphan. Clarista went out of her way to remind me I was every single day. I wasn’t accepted by the common girls because they thought I was putting on airs. As if wanting to act politely was above my station. The boys didn’t like me. Sure, some ogled, but they were the ones who ogled every girl.

I was alone here. At the orphanage, I had friends. Even at the tower, I was accepted for who I was. Yet, I can’t even eat in the dining hall without students moving their seats away from me. They treated me like a disease! But who could I tell? If I told any of the masters or my brother about it, that would only make it worse.

If I told dad, who knew what he would do? I pictured him flying over the Arcanum and blasting it to bits with fire. I knew he wouldn’t go that far, but I hoped he would be just as upset about my rejection as I am. If only I could tell him. I didn’t want to let him down. They weren’t belittling me for anything he taught me, but for how I acted.

I reached to the scroll on my desk, an easy reach from the bed. My room was so small here compared to the tower that I felt cramped. The scroll, dad’s last message to me, made me smile. I could just picture him wagging his finger at me at the beginning.

Greetings, Lilly, Pupil and Student,

As I have instructed before, please do not refer to me as your father in our correspondence. That is not the correct form of address.  While I may consider you in some of the ways a father might, I would be remiss to not to continue your education however possible. Please address me as Preceptor Fargus in your missives until you graduate.

It pleases me greatly that you are advancing so well through the academy’s teachings. You are making me very proud by advancing your education, and I expect you to be a great mage in the near future. I hope you retain your enthusiasm for exploring magic in the world around you and endeavor to complete all assigned work even if the subject is something you have already built a foundation upon.

I apologize for the manner in which Master Edwards spoke to you on his behalf. The man is a twit, and always has been. That he doesn’t understand the fundamentals of air currents and pressures is just an example of his failings. His treatise on the use of bird feet to mitigate the mana expenditure of air spells was met with wide ridicule throughout the community, ridicule he accurately blames me for. This is why he was relegated to solely instruct on base spells to new students and precluded from research opportunities.

That he uses his position over you to strike back at me for a slight from twenty years ago only shows his pettiness and inaptitude. I would disregard his behavior, unless it hinders your education. Should it reach that point, please consult with one of the [Administrators] there to request a knowledge testing for advancement.

Chelsea, Rolf and the rest send their regards. You are missed here, and we all eagerly await your return in two years upon completion of your studies.

Cordially,

Preceptor Nemon Fargus

I smiled as I read it, before rolling it up and putting it in my satchel. I checked the mirror for a second look at my hair and the matching yellow dress that would make me stand out among the blue buildings of Sena City. It wasn’t as fancy as I was used to wearing, but it wouldn’t look like I was putting on airs either. I was combing my hair for the third time when Bonnie, the academy’s caretaker, came to let me know Walker had arrived.

I met him in the courtyard outside the dormitory, and he looked very sharp in his red warmage robes.  I ignored the other students that had gathered around to gossip to give my brother a hug. There were no classes today, and I was determined to enjoy myself for once this month.

“You look good, Walker! The robe suits you,” I said with a smile. He turned and offered his arm, which I skipped up to take.

“They call it a battlerobe,” he said with a grin.

His voice had gotten deeper, and his arms were more muscled than before. Could a few months do that to a person? “A battlerobe? I’ll remember that.”

We made small talk as we walked. I told him about the masters that were teaching me, and he told me how warmage training went.

“Why didn’t master come to your graduation? I thought they would have loved to see him!” I asked offhandedly. When Walker stopped walking, I turned away from watching the street to look back at him. His face told me everything.

“You didn’t tell him when you were graduating, did you?” I should have known. I bet he forgot.

Walker rubbed the back of his head and cringed, “Well…”

I huffed, “You did write him, didn’t you? Or did you forget that too?”

“No! No, I wrote him. I just may have forgotten to tell him when I was graduating. I’m sure he would have been too busy—”

“Nope!” I shook my head, and then pulled his arm to start walking again, “You know master Nemon would have come. He wouldn’t have wanted to miss it. I don’t know why you wouldn’t think to invite him.”

I opened my mouth to keep explaining why it was important, but something caught my eye, “Tyrel?” I asked, uncertainly. There, sitting at the entrance to an alley was a boy that had been in the orphanage with us. A young man now, but he looked so much smaller than before. Wearing dirty, disheveled clothes, and stinking of ale, Tyrel was nothing like the happy boy I remembered.

He looked up, his eyes going back and forth between me and Walker before recognition lit them up, He gave a short, bark of a laugh, full of mockery before his face twisted, “Well if it isn’t our very own princess, eh? Come to kick me, too? Some of us didn’t get adopted. Some of us got kicked out on our own. And guess what? I’m better for it!”

He pressed his hand against a wall and struggled to stand before falling back on his rear.

I was shocked that this was what he had become. I covered my mouth in surprise, but when he fell, I called out, “Tyrel! Are you—are you okay?”

Tyrel’s brown hair covered his face, so oily and dirty it looked wet, but he pushed it aside to spit at my feet, “Don’t you worry about me, eh, princess. Trash like me ain’t worth your time.”

“Ma’am, is this man bothering you?” A guard’s voice cut in.

“No, no he’s not,” I said and shook my head. I wasn’t sure where all the anger Tyrel had for me came from, but that didn’t mean I was angry back. I didn’t want to see anything happen to him. I didn’t even turn to look at the guard, my eyes were still watching as Tyrel’s face went to a more guarded expression.

“This one has been causing problems of late. We’ll take him in, just to be sure,” the guard spoke.

“I don’t think that’s needed,” Walker answered him.

It took a few seconds for the guard’s words to get through to me, but when they did, I turned and shouted, “No!”

Then when I saw both the guard’s and my brother’s surprised faced, I realized I had shouted. Softer, I kept going, “I mean no, this man, he’s—he’s our cousin. We thought he was lost as a child. His parents, his parents were in an accident you see.” I spoke quickly, but soon realized that the guard wasn’t alone, but with two others and none had expressions that said they believed me.

“Ma’am, unless you are of noble birth, then we’ll be taking him in,” the foremost guard said. He was a heavy-set man, shorter than my brother but nearly an inch taller than me. His face was round, but the chin and eyes were familiar.

I looked towards my brother, but he shook his head. I nervously looked around, as I came to a decision, “Well, we are of noble birth, but you see, we must keep it a secret. A family secret, if you understand.”

My brother rolled his eyes, but luckily it was from an angle that the guards couldn’t see. The guards didn’t seem to believe it either, and moved towards Tyrel, but I stood in their way.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Ma’am, unless you have some proof of your birthright, we’ll be doing our duty,” the guard said, as the other two moved to step around me.

“Wait! Wait, I have proof. Just hold on. Tell them to step back. I’ll show you, but you have to promise not to tell anyone what you see.

“Lilly,” Walker said with a note of caution in his voice.

I reached quickly into my pocket and pulled out Nemon’s scroll. It wasn’t much, and I didn’t know if dad was truly a noble or not, but it was my last hope for making sure Tyrel didn’t get into trouble.

The guard shook his head in disbelief and took the scroll, “You heard her, step back.” He unrolled the scroll with obvious nonchalance, and glanced at it before looking back at me. Then his eyes widened, and he looked back at the scroll intently for a few long quiet moments while we all waited before he rolled it up and handed it back to me.

With a small bow and an apology, he turned and led the other guards away, “Come on boys. Better get going before captain has our heads.”

After they had gone, Tyrel’s bitter voice came from behind us, “I hope you don’t expect thanks for solving a problem you created.”

“Now look here,” I started with my fists on my hips, but Walker just put a hand on my shoulder. Then he reached down to offer his other hand to Tyrel.

“We’re headed to the orphanage to visit. Would you like to join us?”

Tyrel blinked away tears, and then gestured at his clothes, “In this? Like this?”

Walker gave him a smile, “That’s up to you. I’ll pay for a visit to the bathhouse and some clothes, if it would convince you to join us.”

Tyrel mumbled something I didn’t quite hear, but Walker must have because he took the man’s hand and pulled him up.

A few hours later, we were standing behind the orphanage with children sitting around us. Some I recognized, but most I didn’t. Walker had gone first, talking about his life. How he wasn’t adopted but received the scholarship to the Arcanum. How he studied under dad and recently graduated into the army as a warmage.

I talked about how Walker had adopted me, and how dad accepted me. How lucky I felt to have a family. How sad I was to leave the others here. How hard I worked to study and how I felt so alone at the Arcanum. That I didn’t feel like I fit in with anyone but my brother.

Then, Tyrel spoke. His voice was jagged like breaking glass, and he didn’t hold back his anger.

“This morning, I was alone too. Sitting in an alley in a puddle of my own filth. I didn’t get a scholarship. I didn’t get adopted. When I was old enough, I was just told to leave. Three apprenticeships, I failed. The common folks out there—they used me up. I did every little chore they gave me without complaint and when they couldn’t think of another, they kicked me out too.

But there’s something you can learn from me, too. Don’t do what I did. It’s okay to be angry. To be sad and to cry. To feel. I shut out the world because of what happened to me. I should have listened more. Even this morning, I thought Lilly and her brother had come to laugh at my failures. I thought that because I thought they didn’t care. That no one cared. But they did. They do. There are people out there who do care about you, if you let them.

They aren’t the ones handing you a drink, or telling you what to do. They’re the ones pestering you to be better. No, none of us asked to be here. This pain, is ours. But we aren’t alone, even if it feels like that. When you need someone, find those who wanted you to become better and ask for their help.”

Then, surprisingly, he turned to me and Walker, with sad eyes he asked, “If there’s any way you can help me find work, I need it. I need something to do, anything. I’m tired of living like I have. Please.”

I wasn’t certain what to say. I didn’t know anyone that could give him work besides dad, and I didn’t know what would happen if I told him to go and dad said no.

Walker, though, put his hand on Tyrel’s shoulder just like dad would do. With a smile, he answered, “Sure, we’ll help. You said it right, we aren’t alone.”

All three of us were surprised to see the ten guards standing in formation in front of the orphanage when we finally left. Even more surprised, when they all knelt except their captain, who bowed. He looked like the brother of the guard we saw before.

“Lilly Fargus?” He asked after he completed his bow.

Unsure of how best to respond here, I curtseyed back, “How can I help you?”

“I am Knight Felix Shielding the third. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Do you perchance have any orders from our savior?”

“Savior?” I repeated in confusion.

“Erm, the wizard Nemon Fargus, I mean,” he said words like he was uncomfortable using dad’s name, but neither his expression nor his tone said anything but confidence.

“Hmmm,” I answer with a tap on my fingers. I would have stroked a beard like dad does, if I had one. Then I snapped my fingers, “Yes! He did. We were actually on our way to see you currently. This man here, Tyrel, is looking for work and would make a fine addition to your guard if you would train him.”

This didn’t look like the answer the man wanted, but he didn’t say anything, so I kept going, “Surely such a thing is within your capabilities, Knight Shielding?”

“Well, yes, we Shielding are the best guards in the entire Kingdom, so training another guard would be an easy task for—”

“Excellent!” I cut him off, fully adopting my noblewoman’s guise. “I trust there will be no misunderstandings when you train him to be the best guard in the entire city, then. Now please, excuse us for a few moments so we can say our farewells.”

When the guards marched down the street far enough, both Walker and Tyrel turned toward me with questions in their eyes.  I scoffed like dad would, “I told you I was a princess, didn’t I?”

Well!  I hope you enjoyed the interlude's sorry I didn't put out a vote this time, but I will have a vote coming up in a few chapters for more interludes - I wanted to do these three now because I wouldn't be presenting them as options on the next one.  

As before, interludes may or may not make it into the final version of the book.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 17

It had finally happened. I was sitting on the top of my tower watching the sunset with a disgruntled frown as I looked down into my cup. I should have expected it. It was truly only a matter of time. Perhaps it was the season, or perhaps it was my own choices, but it was still quite disheartening.

I swirled the wine in my cup and sighed as I watched it spin. I had grown tired of strawberry wine. The novelty had just worn off. Given that I’d been drinking only strawberry wine for nearly two months, I should have been more prepared for this day to come. Worse, it was the most common wine on the market this season. All the others I would drink in its stead were out of stock. Or so the merchant said.

I could go into Lark to verify his words. I could also send someone that way, traffic between the town and my tower had been increasing now with the presence of the refugees. More and more seemed to be coming to start a new life in Kine’s village. I glanced over, noting that they were having some kinda of celebration with lots of fire and loud screams on the southern part of the village.

I didn’t mind. They had so little to celebrate that I wouldn’t belittle what they did have. A night of fun would likely help their morale and make building the village go faster. The faster it was built, the sooner they would settle down into a regular lifestyle that would impact me less.

“Sir,” Tond said as he came to stand beside me to look out at the village.

I grimaced through another sip of wine before glancing his way.

“Are you going to do something about that?” he asked and nodded out towards the fires.

“Hmm,” I thought about whether or not to reveal my thoughts to the man before answering, “Would you like to join them?”

His mouth twisted into a painful mockery of a grin, “I fear it might go out of control if left alone.”

I waved him away, “Very well. See to it, and take whoever you feel will help you.”

I was still sitting on the roof an hour later. The sun had long set, but I hadn’t finished my one glass of strawberry wine. I looked at it hesitantly, not wanting to waste it but not wanting to drink it either. That was when I noticed an explosion of fire from the village that attracted my attention. Startled, I stood up and walked to the edge of my tower. I had to squint to get a better look, but it appeared what I thought was a celebration was actually a battle.

I called for my wind elementals to take me closer, the gargoyles also taking flight alongside me. As we approached, I saw the villages fighting with axe and spade against a swarm of spiders. Behind the swarm stood the massive fourth tier spider from the edge of the bog.

Maybe it was a fifth-tier beast. It was so large, now that it was outside its lair that I could see its legs would stretch around my tower if it came that close. In the back of my mind, I knew that I was at fault. Two years ago, I had decided to list a quest at the adventurers’ guild for its slaying, with the intent to do so myself if no one was successful.

Yet my focus on the Pestilence had caused me to forget. I would need to spend a few days in thought to ensure it was the only thing I had put aside that I should have dealt with. In fact, I was so upset at having forgotten, I might have just slung the rest of my wine out of the cup!

Beneath me, I saw the villagers fighting behind a makeshift wall of stone and wood that did absolutely nothing to stop the spiders from attacking. The smell of bog water and insects and blood carried on the wind. Tond stood atop a mound further back launching arrows that exploded in bursts of fire and lightning. Eni was fighting at the fore, surrounded by a pack of monsterized wolves that must have counted nearly fifty. Kine stood atop of the foundation stone of what would one day be the center building of the village lobbing huge stones overhead like a catapult.

I realized that even these fighters wouldn't be enough to stop the horde, so where were my other elementals? The mud elementals were likely still in my lake, but the water and mist elementals should have joined the defense. Regardless, I should do something now and look into them later. With this in mind, I sent my gargoyles to scythe through the horde and focused on the mother spider.

Unfortunately, half the spells that came to mind were too destructive for the circumstances. A [Tempest] or [Firestorm] would hurt just as many villagers as it helped. I regretted that I didn’t stop by my room to pick up my warstaff, as my options would have been multiplied.  I closed my eyes and calmed my mind. The sounds of fighting and the battle below had influenced me with a sense of urgency, but the right spell in the right moment would do far more to benefit them all.

I reached out my left hand towards the mother spider, where most of the horde lay, and lifted the other into the air. I reached out my left hand towards the mother spider, where most of the horde lay, and lifted the other into the air.  I curled the fingers in my left hand as I cast a [Chain Lightning], while above my right hand a ball of clear ice began to form. The lightning struck quickly, and spread even faster through the bog water than normal. The smaller spiders near where it hit were killed in an instant, and the rest twitched and convulsed.

Even the mother spider lifted its front four legs up into the sky and let out a hiss of pain. I waited as the ice formed until it lowered its legs back to the ground before casting my second spell. [Frozen Ground] wasn’t a widely used spell because it caused so little damage. It was most frequently used by warmages to freeze a river to allow troops to walk over.

In an open field, it would cause the ground to ice over and feet to stick to the ground. Good at stopping a charge if cast at the right moment, but otherwise not a spell with frequent use. Why slow an enemy when you could kill them for the same mana cost was the mentality. Here, though, it saw a great effect as the ball of ice landed and split apart, the bog waters froze over like a pond in winter.

I watched in satisfaction as the ice spread across the waters trapping and freezing spiders by the dozen. Eni’s wolves went wild as they ran across the ice, and the villagers cheered to see that beyond the spiders still fighting the rest of the horde was stuck in place.

I allowed myself a small smile, but that was the moment I was attacked. From the trees beyond the village and the bog dozens of arrows arced towards me. I had an instant to move, but I knew those same arrows would hit the people below if I did. Instead, I commanded the wind to circle around me, knocking them from the sky.

Most were blocked in that fashion, but one kept flying true. No doubt a skill from some type higher tier archer was in use, but I wasn’t without defense. Guardian wards placed decades ago sprung to life to block the arrow. A shield of shimmering blue magic stopped it midair. A burst of blue lightning sprung forth from the shield back towards the thick canopy hiding the assassins, a retribution well earned. It landed with a flash and an explosion that knocked trees aside.

I turned back towards the mother spider, wondering if perhaps it was lured here instead of simply hunting. This night had become more complex than I desired, and I was already annoyed by the lack of options for my wine.

I cast four [Chain Lightning] spells in quick succession that blasted into the mother spider. I wasn’t certain it was dead, but with only two legs left, I didn’t think it was much of a threat any longer. When I flew towards the woods to see if more assassins lay in wait, I only found the smoldering corpses of slain killers.

I glanced at the moon overhead, trying to determine how late in the evening I had stayed awake playing with monsters and men, but it was too cloudy to tell. I glanced back at the cheering villagers who still slaughtered trapped spiders, the fearful wives and children peaking out of doorways and tents, and decided I’d helped enough for one night. They would wake me if this wasn’t the end of the battle.

Hopefully, they’d wake me with a cup of plum wine. Or pear brandy.  This had turned out to be a rather poor evening and I could only hope that tomorrow would see improvement.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 16

I watched from my rooftop as Baron Froom’s ostentatious carriage being pulled by four fancifully carved wooden horses rode slowly down the road to my tower. The horses were a dark, polished wood and the carriage itself seemed to be made from living plants. No doubt it was his druidic wife’s handiwork.

With a sigh, I stood and walked down the stepwell to meet him. A week ago, we had a feast to see Leslie, Meathead, and Mena off on their journey. Not as lively as the feast that saw Walker and Lilly on their way, but pleasant all the same. That feast used the remainder of our larder that wasn’t plain food, at least until a new merchant arrived.

Kine had returned from Lark two days ago, with a story concerning how the Baroness required him to reinforce parts of the town’s stone wall. The local builders didn’t have the full knowledge needed for construction, and were in the process of learning as they went. Which led to a wall that cracked in parts and dipped or swayed precariously in others. I find myself dissatisfied in her request.

If Kine hadn’t taken the duty, what would she have done? Denied him the position of Alderman? The position only benefited her and her holdings. The man willingly established such the village at his own expense, and, rather than reward him, she sought to further use him. It was another reminder of the reasons I didn’t care for the woman.

I stopped by my study on the way downstairs to grab two scrolls and a tome I had prepared in advance for the Baron. Our last meeting, he had mentioned his plan to find a way for humanity to escape to the planes to wait out the Pestilence. I wasn’t entirely sure his would work, as I wasn’t entirely sure the Pestilence could be waited out.

That didn’t mean I wouldn’t support him, and a description of the [Planar Lord] class and its requirements was more than enough to offer him in trade. Such a thing would warrant at least five thousand gold coins or innumerable secret spells should I offer it for trade in the capital. The other scroll and the tome were likely less important to my former assistant.

As I reached the first floor, I nodded to Chelsea. She was dressed in a freshly cleaned servant’s smock of good make. She’d prepared the table for dining with the finest plates and cups I owned, and stood ready to serve a good meal. Tond had hunted and foraged the swamp for ingredients. My only regret was that the boars in my pits had not yet adapted to the fire element. I could only imagine how well they would taste once that occurred.

I made my way around the table to my seat, and waved at Philipe to go greet our guest. He was likely still minutes away on the trail, but it wouldn’t hurt appearances to have on of my assistants waiting for his arrival. I sat in my chair, carefully placing the scrolls and tome to my right, just beyond the forks and spoons.

I spent a few moments straightening my dining wares all out so that they presented perfectly while I waited. My cup was only a hair out of position. My fork was slightly crooked. Chelsea’s annoyed grunt was music to my ears. It wasn’t long before Phillipe opened the door.

“Master, presenting Baron Alred Froom and his party,” Philipe said with a bow and moved to the side to hold the door open for them.

I stood to greet the man with a smile and a nod. Baron Froom hadn’t changed in appearance since I last saw him two years ago, still a weathered old man. His clothes had changed, though. Unlike my own well-designed blue robe and matching square-brimmed hat, he wore an elaborate robe of pale yellow with white swirls. The matching hat on his head, though, was simply a round brimless cap, likely designed more to hide evidence of balding than for fashion.

I wouldn’t belittle the attempt, however, because I was surprised to see him turn to his side and hold out an arm for an elderly woman in a druidic vestment. Her sharp eyes quickly took in the appearance of my room before settling right on me.

“Natali, this is my old mentor, Nemon Fargus. Wizard, may I present my wife, Natali Froom?”

“A pleasure,” I said with a smile and a more formal bow designed for meetings of equals.

“Likewise,” she answered.

Her bow back, was nearly the exact replica of mine, so I felt our introductions were in order, “Please have a seat. Chelsea, if you would?” I gestured to the chairs before me, and glanced at Chelsea to send her off to bring the meal.

As the Baron and his wife walked around my decorated firepit, I heard the Baron murmur, “One moment, darling.” With a grin on his face, he reached into his bag of holding and pulled out two pillows that seemed sized exactly for the uncomfortable stone stools I had created. I had to hide my scowl, though I think he caught hint of it. His preparations were ruining my fun.

Behind the Baron and his wife, two other men followed. One, a blonde mage assistant was carrying to wooden cages with him, though the young man seemed to struggle with the weight. The other, a thin, well-dressed middle-aged man of reserved demeanor walked with his hands clasped behind his back.

As the Baron and his wife sat, he waved at the assistant, “Just set them on the floor there, and go back to the carriage to wait.”

The Baron’s voice had changed when he spoke those words. Instead of the pleasant, friendly tones he spoke to me with, his voice carried more weight and authority. The assistant, set the cages down and bowed low before departing. I heard the rustle of animals within, but couldn’t make out their type.

I nodded at Philipe as the other assistant left, “Why don’t you go keep him company? You can discuss whose master makes you work harder.”

That got a chuckle from Alred and his wife, and I gave them a sly smile before turning a curious eye to the third member of the Baron’s group. The man had black hair with speckles of grey, and wore an outfit that was well-fitted and properly designed. Somewhere beneath a nobleman’s attire but not as outlandish as a merchant’s.

“Nemon, this is Fentworth Aide, one of the distant cousins of the Baron Aide. His family focus on arithmetic leads to excellent [Merchants], [Administrators], and [Seneschals].   I employ another cousin of Baron Aide at my own estate, and thought to introduce you, should you have need.”

I nodded at the man, and he returned it with a low bow.

“At your service,” he announced as he bowed.

“Hmm,” I answered. I could use a seneschal, yet I wasn’t certain I wanted to further involve myself with the local politics. Though, considering I had a hand in giving permanent refuge to displaced residents of the Barony of Aide, it might do well to sooth any potential grievances with the Aide Barony to also employ this man.

I turned back to the Baron and his wife, “Does he know?”

Both the Baron and his wife shook their heads, and I tapped a finger on the table in thought, before smiling at the man, “Very well. There is an empty room on the floor above us for your accommodations. You may wait there until we discuss your employment. I will see to your return trip should we not come to an agreement.”

Fentworth Aide bowed low to me again, and departed back out the main door. I took my seat, and Alred and his wife both took theirs following my lead. Chelsea began carrying in the food on serving trays with Rolf and Fin following with pitchers of wine. A roasted elk leg with some kind of herbs spread over it, served with bowls of steaming mushrooms, and a crunchy bread baked into the shape of a tower. We all took a moment to observe each other and the meal as we waited for them to finish serving and depart.

“It is good to see you again, Alred. I hope the duties of your Barony don’t interfere too greatly with your research,” I began, the statement somehow warranting a chuckle from his wife.

“Alred leaves most of those duties to others. His focus has been more research than living of late,” Natali answered for him with a pleasant smile and an accusing glance at her husband.

Alred, with a tact I admired, sipped on his wine and responded to my question with the words, “This strawberry wine is excellent. Dear, you must try it.”

We continued to make small talk as we ate, discussing the annoyances that came with authority and telling small stories of unusual occurrences in such things. The Baron had an adventurer that demanded to fight naked, and led to all sorts of unfortunate gossip.  I spoke of one of the students at the Arcanum that had managed to accidentally cast a spell so wrong it caused him to grow two additional fingers on his chest.

Throughout the conversation, my potential seneschal made two trips to the carriage and back, lugging trunks that he seemed barely strong enough to carry. Kine had stuck his head in once to see if he were needed but departed. Soon enough, the meal was over and the time for more serious discussions was upon us.

I dabbed my napkin on my lips gently and ensured no juices or crumbs were in my beard before I began, “I believe now is the time to exchange gifts. I have something I believe will be of great benefit to you.”

Baron Froom held up a hand to stop me, and leaned over with a smile to his wife. Natali, in good nature, just rolled her eyes and stood as she muttered about wizards and their secrets before bowing to me.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Nemon. I believe I spotted a few nature elementals outside, would you mind if I spoke with them?” she asked, though her tone indicated it wasn’t truly a question.

I didn’t know why the Baron didn’t want his wife to be privy to the conversation, but was certain he had his reasons. The nature elementals in and around my tower would also not be of any threat to a druid, so I saw no reason to deny her. I spread both my hands open as I answered, “If that is what you wish.”

She gave me a mock smile, and a meaningful glance at Alred before she departed outside. Alred watched until she left, and then sighed. “My apologies. Last time she accompanied me to a meeting of wizards she decided one gift didn’t meet the worth of another and had me enchant the man’s house. Then, she decided that my enchantment was worth more and required the man to enchant my robe. It took three days of going back and forth until she was satisfied.”

I politely chuckled in response, but on the inside, I was certainly thankful for the Baron’s precaution. Without further discussion, the Baron lifted the two cages onto the table and I slide the two scrolls and the tome over to the man.

I peeked inside the cages, seeing a small colorful bird in one, and a tortoise in the other. I watched them for a moment as the Baron lifted the tome and began thumbing through the pages with pleasant noises. It was only after the Baron shut the book, and picked up one of the scrolls that I coughed politely into one hand.

“Ah, yes!” he startled, “In light of your impressive lifespan, I spoke with my wife concerning potential animals with similarly long lives and commissioned adventurers to find them. The tortoise could live upwards of a thousand years, and the parrot, that bird on the right could live at least five hundred.”

“Parrot?” I inquired. It appeared similar to one of the birds found in the Tervan jungles, but I hadn’t heard of the name before.

“Yes, that parrot has a vocal talent that allows it to learn words.  Unfortunately, my wife has already named both animals. The tortoise is Eliot and the parrot is Noisy. Either animal might work as a familiar for you.”

“Noisy!” the bird cried loudly in a voice that wasn’t anything like a voice I’d heard before. It startled me enough that I leaned back away from the animal.

“Hush, bird,” Baron Froom said.

“Noisy! Hush, bird!” the parrot copied him.

“Yes. Hush, bird,” the Baron said with annoyance.

“Hush bird!” The parrot cried out again.

I watched for a few minutes as my former apprentice argued back and forth with a bird before I interrupted. He clearly wasn’t appreciative of its ability to speak.

I gave him a contained smile as I spoke, “Yes, well, thank you for such thoughtful gifts. The scroll in your hand is a copy of my research on the Pestilence. I travelled over the mountains to test several combat spells and their effects.”

Baron Froom pursed his lips and tapped the scroll against the tome, “So the tome is the spells you have altered that are more effective against these creatures?”

I nodded, “Indeed. While it certainly isn’t enough to slow or stop them, it might save some.”

“Nemon, that was risky. Too risky for you to do alone. What would have happened if you didn’t return?” Baron asked seriously.

I hadn’t considered his question, truthfully. Perhaps, I should. I had been around so long that I took such a risk without truly informing anyone of where I was going or doing. Had I not returned, I wasn’t sure what my servants would do. I could only shrug and tilt my head to his question before changing the subject, “The last scroll, though, is what I think you will find most important.”

I smiled at him slyly and sat back in my seat to sip on the strawberry wine. Alred looked at the scroll and then at me, and then at the scroll again. I kept the smile on my lips as I waited.

It didn’t take long for his curiosity to get the best of him and he unrolled it. His eyes widened at the contents, and his lips whispered his thoughts out loud, “A fifth-tier class. Planar Lord.”

I continued to sip and watch as he read, re-read, and then read the scroll a third time. I didn’t doubt he was committing its contents to memory. Eventually, his gaze returned to me, “I bear a noble title. I assume that contracting with Nobility means summoning a fifth-tier elemental?”

I nodded.

“And the requirement to visit another plane? When did you do that? How?”

I scowled at the memory, “Never trust a Nature Elemental, Alred. Those things are…” I tapped my fingers as I tried to think of the best way to describe a being who seemed entirely focused on finding ways to betray everything around them. The Baron didn’t have the patience to wait for me.

“So, you visited the Plane of Nature? How?” He asked as his body leaned forward and his hands gripped the tables edge as if he were about to fall off his stool.

I waved my hand dismissively, “If you coat any mirror large enough to step through with a layer of crystal two fingers thick you can step through it with enough intent. You can return the same way. I thought you were familiar with the gates?”

The man sat up straight and ran a hand through his hair, “What’s to stop something from coming out of the gates?”

I half-smiled at him, “Aside from any wards or enchantments you place? Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“So that’s where they went,” he murmured to himself while looking at the scroll in thought.

I furrowed my brow, “That’s where who went?”

“The wood elf village I told you about. My wife went to discuss a common defense with them, but they were all gone. Only a doorway of amber, similar to what you described, remained. I had it brought to my laboratory to study, but it was too thick with green magic for me to be able to determine the spellwork without breaking what I was trying to study.”

“Hmm,” I answered, but we were both lost in our own thoughts for several minutes. Only Chelsea’s arrival to clear the table brought us back to the present. With a shake of our hands, we parted ways. It was only as he left, I remembered to [Analyze] him, and I cursed at myself for not doing so sooner.

The man was a third-tier enchanter now. I bet it was the golems that allowed him to advance. I would need to add experimenting with beast cores to my projects.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 15

The next morning, after a breakfast of grilled fish over corn, I was approached by Jax.  I was headed downstairs to my laboratory, when I noticed him following behind me.  Jax was the third of my attendants, the shorter brother of Philip, who made up for his lack in height with a greater number of freckles and a brighter shade of red hair.

“Master,” he called, his voice sounding soft and uncertain.

I paused on the stone stairwell, two steps above the illumination spell, and turned to look up at him. The young man was standing another five steps above me, but hurried down to my side with his black student’s robe swishing along the way.

“Yes?” I asked, and turned to continue downstairs once he caught up.

“Master, I—I was wondering. You assigned additional duties to Philipe and Leslie. They’re learning new spells and copying tomes. Philipe is working on the spellcraft for our animal bonding idea, and Leslie says she’s preparing for an important task. Have I done something wrong?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle, “Jax, the copying of tomes was a test for them. They had a number to copy by a certain time. Had they asked for your aid, it would have lightened their duties. Yet, since you feel a distance removed, you can take one of the tomes from Philipe and provide me with ten copies within a week’s time as well.”

Jax grunted in a way that expressed his displeasure without actually forming words. Given that he was still following me, I could only assume that meant he wanted even more tasks to complete, “You may also seek out [Geomancer] Kine outside the tower when you are free. Let him know that your duties also include the design and construction of pits traps for any Mirktallean scouts. I suspect it won’t be long until they arrive.”

“Yes, master,” he paused on a stair to bow.

When he made to follow me further, I glanced at him with a raised eyebrow, “Did you require any more additional duties?”

He stopped on the stairwell, “Er, no master.”

“Very well, then,” I waved a hand and continued to my laboratory leaving the man behind. I needed to check on the ongoing experiments there, though I suspected they hadn’t changed much in a weeks’ time. It reminded me that I also need to work to develop a Stasis spell. I’d looked through all my current tomes and couldn’t find a single hint that such a spell existed.

It was after lunch when I met with Kine again, this time outside my tower where I looked on at the pitiful state of the refugees. Their tents were poorly constructed, often of cloth not meant to weather conditions. Barely clothed children ran about unattended. Several campfires were still lit as women cooked stew made from monster meat and bogwater.

The lack of organization astounded me. I suspected that Kine had more difficulty in arranging matters with these people than he let on. Of course, the man stood at my side and whispered, “See what I am dealing with?”

Only some of the people seemed to even notice our presence. I felt dismayed at the sheer lack of—of everything. This haphazard sprawl of humanity seemed almost a plague on my eyes.

I looked at Kine again, less impressed now with the man than I was yesterday. I was ostensibly meeting him here to further yesterday’s conversation. I had intended to openly discuss the Pestilence and my current studies on the matter. Yet, this disorderly camp offended my sensibilities, “Do you wish my intervention?”

He seemed uncertain, and looked around at them again before answering, “I think not. I see in my mind how it looks. I’m just uncertain where to begin.”

“Show me.”

He took a breath, and then began constructing an illusion before him, a village built from stone and wood that stood on stilts out of the water. The homes he imagined were simple constructions, round with wooden shingles. Though they looked sturdy and well-built all the same. The image was only half the height of a man and maybe three paces across.

There was a larger, central building made of stone that was round in the center. Around it trails led away in five directions, each to create a circle that led to five homes facing each other. He added the bog to the image, showing two fisheries on the southern end of the village, and a trail that traveled around the far end of my beast pits and connected to the road that led to Woodhoot.

I watched carefully, but also noticed the disarrayed refugees had grown quiet and were now looking in our direction. “Make it larger,” I ordered him.

Soon the illusion grew until the buildings were as tall as me, “Larger again, and move it to where it will be built.”

I saw Kine grimace and begin breathing hard with exertion as he tried to comply, the illusion travelling south past were my beast pits lay until it was out on the bog waters. I placed a hand on his shoulder and led him down the trail so that he could concentrate on his spellwork. The refugees, even the children, all followed silently behind us.

When we reached the correct place, far enough from my tower not to bother me or for lights from the village to disrupt my reflection lake, we stopped. I pulled out a moonstone from my bag of holding, and tied Kine’s spell to it, making the illusion stand on its own. Kine sighed in relief, his thin brown hair wet with sweat the evidence of how hard the task was for him.

The crowd of people surged past us to walk among the illusionary village, staring in awe and muttering to themselves as they took in the sight. Children ran under and through it, playing games that involved a good bit of flying mud.

Narwick the miner walked to stand beside us with his arms crossed and grunted. I looked over at the man, ready to begin a game of who can speak less and raised my eyebrow.

“Do this?” he growled, and motioned toward the village as if he were grabbing it.

I smiled and nodded. He grunted again and walked away gathering men around him.

I looked at Kine in satisfaction of my victory in the game, only to seem him with his hands on his knees and panting. I was surprised that the illusion took that much out of him, but I suspected it was more a lack of practice in the spellcraft than lack of skill. I wouldn’t let his wheezing bring down my joy at winning though. I clapped his shoulder and handed him a scroll I’d prepared.

“Give that to Baroness Lark when you next travel into town.”

Kine nodded and accepted the letter without looking, but otherwise kept panting. I left him to his recovery, satisfied that the new villagers were now building their homes a good distance from my tower. The last thing I wanted to hear about was some poor mother crying because her idiot child slipped and fell into a wolf pit. We would have time to discuss the Pestilence later, and I hoped that he would be able to reserve more focus for the matter then.

When I arrived back at my tower, Eni came out of the small building by the gate to hand me a message scroll that had been dropped off in the short time I had been away with Kine. The scroll case bore Baron Froom’s marker, four squares of the elemental colors, but didn’t hold any of the wizard trick’s he normally enchanted his missives with. Instead, it only held a single enchantment that would bar any other than myself from opening it.

Or so I thought. The Baron got me good, with a hidden enchantment inside the only one I found. When I opened the scroll case, hundreds of multicolored illusionary birds flew up and away in a shimmer of feathers and wings.

To the Illustrious Wizard Nemon Fargus, Mentor and Friend,

I will be calling upon you at your tower in approximately two weeks’ time as I travel towards Eiston to meet with the Duke.

Cordially,

Baron Alred Froom

It was a simple enough letter, and I appreciated that he didn’t entrap it with a myriad of complex enchantments as he did before his last visit. I still hadn’t opened that first letter from two years ago. That he managed to sneak the illusion past my senses made me both proud and embarrassed. I could have and should have taken the time to more thoroughly examine the scroll case. With my mind on a dozen other matters of import, now was not the time to forgo cautiousness.

I made my way to my laboratory trying and failing to contain all the different items that snagged at my attention. My current experiments hadn’t changed much in the time I was gone. The only one that wasn’t doing well was the more aggressive strain of parasitic mushroom. It had consumed the entirety of the Hydra scale provided and was dying off without more sustenance.

I could only frown at my oversight.  I had been in the presence of a multitude of the beasts and hadn’t thought to obtain more samples at the time. It was another example of the stress I was under being pulled in so many different directions. The Pestilence was the most important work I had at the moment, yet I still prepared for so many other things.

The kingdom’s war was a looming annoyance, a threat should Mirktal specifically target me. I didn’t doubt that I had the means to survive an attack from anything less than an heirloom artifact, but that didn’t mean that my research and tower were well enough defended. Certainly, they could withstand the might of a single army, but the damage would be a hindrance.  Two armies would put even that certainty in question.

My plans for the tea, something that I had prepared for two years or more, were also in consideration. I had spent many nights considering the topic. I had half-convinced myself at one point that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. That all the other nations had similar, even more egregious, controls in place. Mirktal with its slavery. Tervan with it’s sacrifices. Furing with its matriarchal society.

I also considered that my actions needed to be equitably retaliatory for the offense against me. That the kingdom was threatened by so many outside forces made me want to stay my hand even more. The citizens of Sena did nothing wrong, and yet they would be the ones to carry the costs of any changes in the stability of the country.

I wasn’t even certain that those thoughts were not influenced by the tea, and had that scared me. That I was justifying to myself the kingdoms actions only made the matter even more obfuscated. The part of me that wanted to see the good in humans died a little with each consideration, and I was glad I was so far from civilization at the moment.

I sat at the table on the right the wall of my laboratory opened the tome on my desk that represented another hurdle. When I ascended to the fifth tier, the class I was given indicated that I would be able to hold Rights of Authority in three magical fields, but didn’t provide any other information than this. The worry I had was that I didn’t know what this entailed.

In my soul scroll, it didn’t provide any options whatsoever. My tower crystal had likewise proven useless. None of my tomes held any relevant knowledge on the subject, and the tome I was writing my notes into would likely become the foremost literature on it. Yet, given that the class [Planar Lord] was subject to some type of Rules of Conquest, I was uncertain if whatever field I chose would also make me beholden to some type of rules I didn’t understand.

The last thing I needed was to choose a field like Elemental Fire and be forced to combat the king of that plane in a battle to determine whom held the highest authority on the subject. I also didn’t want to accidentally choose an authority that might cause on of the gods to react. While I was familiar with the local gods, who knew if the seafolk worshiped a god of magic?

I could only lean back in my chair and sigh at the feeling of being overwhelmed. As I composed my thoughts, I decided to, once again, postpone the consideration of Rights of Authority. The Pestilence was my highest priority. With that in mind, and my memory of the green-skinned natives of the plateau, I began designing an earth magic spell that would lift land to create a plateau. A massive work of spellcraft that would take more mana than even I possessed.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 14

I sat at the curved stone table on my first floor, looking at my four guards as we ate a meal of pork stew with biscuits. I had allowed Chelsea to open some of the pantry to support the refugees at Kine’s request, but I regretted the loss of chicken. This stew would have been twice as good if it were made with chicken instead of pork. In hindsight, I should have made that specification, but it was only a temporary setback.

My guards were quietly slurping at their dinner, and none had yet to open the conversation with me. Chelsea was hovering about on the stairs, no doubt her relationship with Tond one that caused her to fret about what I would be discussing.

I was still pondering Lilly’s letter, though. Her letter had espoused how happy she was as a student of the Arcanum and all that she was learning. She claimed she was thrilled to be leagues ahead of her studies than her peers and expressed how my tutelage as the reason why. Yet, she didn’t mention any friends or acquaintances or how well she was received by her peers.

Of course, my reply, still upstairs to be delivered, was one of encouragement and confidence. I wouldn’t question her on her social standings, but that didn’t mean I didn’t worry. She had been sheltered for most of her life, and I imagined that equated to several harsh lessons she was receiving at the moment.

“Hey, boss,” Mena said, causing all three other guards to stop eating and put their spoons down.

“Hmmm?”

“You wanted to see us?” Mena asked, apprehensively.

“Yes, I did,” I answered, and sat my own spoon down beside my bowl. I clasped my hands and sat them on the table before giving each guard an inspecting look.

Tond and Eni, both were slender men with a sneaky look about them. Eni, a crooked nose and a way with animals that lead to his [Beastmaster] class. The owl on his shoulder ruffled its feathers and looked about. Meathead seemed to glow with a quiet confidence, no doubt a side effect of his new [Champion of Bi] class. Mena, who I’d met as the sole female bandit in a group of them, held the same confident and cunning manner as she always did.

“We need to speak about your future,” I began and ignored the widening, fearful eyes of all but Meathead, “You four have performed admirably over the past year. With only a few exceptions,” I directed a pointed glance towards Mena, “I have decided to release you from your indenture to me provided you seek only honest work. Should you wish to stay, I will offer you pay in accordance with my expectations.”

I looked among the four, noticing that three were deep in thought. Meathead had gone back to eating.

“Sir, I’d like to stay on, if that’s okay,” Tond said, while he glanced back at the stairwell in Chelsea’s direction.

“I as well,” Eni spoke up immediately afterwards.

Mena was still thinking, but I got an affirmative noise from Meathead through the food in his mouth.

“Boss, I have a question,” Mena began, her words softer and more serious than usual.

I tilted my head and looked at her.

“There are other bandits out there. Bandits like us that might deserve redemption. What do ya think?” She asked with a tense body.

I could tell this was important to her. It might also be a good source of new guards for Kine’s village. If word went out that I was recruiting bandits, it wouldn’t be long until Kingdom soldiers were at my doorstep. Mena, though, had been a boon while she was here. Extremely competent when needed, and I couldn’t think of anything she asked for besides something similar.

It was oddly contradictive to think that the woman would want to help other bandits. I suspected a hidden motive, but the superficial reasons more than made up for it. In addition, I wasn’t eager to pry into the lives of my subordinates.

Though, a tasking like that would be an excellent grinding stone to dull Leslie’s ambitions for authority. It would also remove a contentious personal matter from my attendants’ minds to give them time to heal.

More than that, I had personally proven that some of the bandits, most even, had the capability to change for the better if the circumstances were right. I doubted Meathead would have been selected as Champion by a god if he were still a bandit.

I had doubts about the success of such an undertaking though. How many criminals would accept such a deal if their lives weren’t on the line? And even if she were successful, and I was able to provide a place for them to better themselves, that would once again put me at risk of a moniker like Nemon the Merciful.

I glanced at Meathead who was thoroughly enjoying the biscuits, “Meathead?”

“Huh?” he asked with crumbs falling from his mouth.

“Does Bi allow you to see the truth?” It was a hunch I had. The former adventurers’ guild guildmaster in Lark, Adam, had been a [Paladin] of Bi and had that ability.

Meathead tilted his face up towards the ceiling, “Second boss, can I do that?”

We all waited and watched as Meathead nodded a few times towards the ceiling, and then went right back to eating without a care in the world.

“Well?” I asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“Huh?” Meathead stopped with a biscuit halfway to his mouth. “Oh! Yup. I can do that now.”

I withheld my sigh and closed my eyes to gather some more patience, before I looked at Mena.

“If you take Meathead and Leslie with you, I’ll permit it.”

“Yes!” Mena exclaimed and jumped from her seat. She ran all the way around the table to give me an unwelcome hug. I patted her arm in return. It was a mildly endearing moment that I didn’t especially care for. Surprisingly, I was saved from it continuing for too long by Meathead.

“Hey, Mena! You gonna eat your biscuits?”

After dinner, I went back to my study to read the missive from the Baroness. Responding to it would be a great opportunity to request Kine’s appointment to higher authority. Yet, I was apprehensive about the contents. I hoped that between the few short interactions I’ve had with the Baroness that she had come to an understanding of what her authority meant to me. Her most recent interactions, however, caused me to doubt that hope.

The scroll itself was the standard fair for nobility. Well made parchment rolled inside a polished dark wood scroll case, then end stoppers engraved with trees for some reason or other. The letter inside was anything but normal. Instead of the polished handwriting I expected from the Baroness, it was written in a barely legible scrawl that took moments to interpret.

To the Great Wizard Nemon Fargus,

Thank you for your attendance at our wedding. Thank you for sparing my life. Thank you for sparing the lives of my soldiers. I will never forget my debt owed to you for allowing me to meet my love Olivine.

The wine gifted was interesting and I will never forget its taste. My bride thought you meant to offend her with it, but I spoke on your behalf.  I pleaded with her that tastes in wine differ across Sena, and you had no intention to cause offense.

I have had much time to consider my actions. I write to you to inform you that while my station is now above yours, I recognize your power and authority to be greater than my own.

I swear that I will never seek vengeance against you for your actions. An oath I took this morning before a priest. Even now, my stomach turns at the thought.

While our meeting was not on the best of terms, I hope that we can work amicably together if need be.

Thank you for attending our wedding.

Cordially,

Baron Mirm Lark

I sighed, and rolled up the letter, shoving it back into the case. His letter was useless to my purposes. I couldn’t be bothered to respond to the thing. Not with anger or agreement or even the request on Kine’s behalf. It did remind me of the copper bracelet I had made for them.

I glanced around the study, looking for a servant or guard to fetch Meathead and Mena for me, but I only saw the new child peeking around the corner.

“Fin,” I called out and motioned for him to come to me.

“Yes, your wizardliness,” the child answered and walked slowly forward as if he had just been caught doing something wrong. The brown-eyed bow with a hawkish nose had made himself right at home with Rolf and Meathead when he came to the tower. He took to lessons quickly and eagerly, even so far as to pretend to stand watch on the roof with one of the guards until he fell asleep and they carried him back to his bed.

“Go fetch Meathead and Mena for me,” I ordered.

“Yes sir!” he saluted and ran off. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

I played with the bracelet while I waited, altering the forms of the earth elementals from boars to bulls. Small bulls that only stood thigh high, but bulls none-the-less. It seemed an appropriate thing to do for a servant of the god Bi, and if I didn’t do something with the bracelet it would likely sit in my bag of holding unused for years.

When the two guards appeared, I handed the bracelet to Meathead.

“What’s this, boss?” he asked.

“It is a gift. Now, find Leslie and tell her to attend me. Afterwards, go out beyond the wall, put on the bracelet and say the word ‘bull’, [Champion],” I instructed only to watch as he almost immediately went to place the bracelet on his wrist.

“Meathead,” I said, attracting his attention.

“Yeah boss?” he asked in confusion.

“Give it here. I’ll let you play with it after you bring Leslie to me,” I said, keeping my exasperation from my voice.

When he departed, I turned to Mena, “I’ve given your request more thought. In a week’s time, you will begin your journey. I’ll provide you with a missive for the adventurers’ guild in Lark to ease your way. I expect your return in no less than a year’s time. You will send correspondence monthly, yes?”

Mena gave me a formal bow, something that I had only seen her do on more formal occasions. Normally, she offered a military salute. I waved her away and poured myself a glass of the strawberry wine as I waited on Leslie and Meathead. When they returned, I handed the bracelet to Meathead with two words, “Only outside.”

Leslie stood before me as I sat in the chair, her eyes trying to hide a worry and concern in her summons. I took a sip of my wine and watched for a moment, but she never moved. That she kept to a rigid discipline that was nice to see.

“Assistant Leslie,” I began with a frown. She took in a large breath, but otherwise didn’t move. “I fear that your time as an assistant is close to an end.”

Her eyes widened in panic, and she opened her mouth to protest, but I held up a single finger. “It is not your behavior or skills in magic. Nor is it related to your poor choices. Rather, I have need of a mage in a position rather different than that of an assistant. One that you will find yourself more suited to, I believe.”

Her panic didn’t entirely dissipate, but her face clouded with confusion, “What position, master?”

I considered how best to phrase it. No doubt she was preparing herself to protest if I called it by any title less than that of an Assistant. Errand runner wouldn’t likely be taken well.

“Hmm,” I began. “I don’t think there is a name for this yet. I intend to charge you with a quest. A very important quest. Two of them in fact,” I looked into my cup. “Mage quester? Quest mage? Journeymage? No.”

I glanced back up to see her look even more confused. “I’ll allow you to name the position yourself so long as it isn’t too ostentatious. In a weeks’ time, you will travel with Mena and Meathead as they journey to seek out bandits Mena believes are in worthy of redemption.”

Leslie tilted her head as she considered it, but I continued on, “This will be only part of your charge, to journey with them and see their cause successful.  The remainder of your charge will be dedicated to spreading copies of the tome I gave you this morning. To any and every mage you can.”

This likely went against everything she had learned. The mages in the capital tended to act as though their spells were to be guarded as secrets of the highest order. To actively spread spells would be met with disbelief as best, but more likely suspicion. It was no simple quest that I had given her, but a most challenging one.

“Why, master?” she asked.

I was being questioned by my own attendant?! “Child,” I began, speaking the word harshly, only to stop myself when I saw her shirk back. I set my glass down, and folded my hands in my lap.

“Leslie,” I began again, in a softer voice. “This journey I send you on is of great import. It may very well be the most important thing you ever do in your life, even if you reach a fifth-tier class. You will know why in time, and when that time comes, the question you will ask yourself will only be ‘could I have done more’?”

“Yes, master,” she said with a bow, and I dismissed her with a clap on her shoulder. It was almost sunset, and I wanted to go to the roof to watch it on my lake.

On the roof, I found Kine sitting on one of the benches looking out into the lake. Eni was standing near the owl roost giving instruction to children Rolf and Fin on how to feed the newly hatched owlets.

Seeing the howls faces snapping up at the piece of bread he held in his hand sent a shiver down spine and I shied away. It seemed that my journey over the Pestilence wasn’t without harm. In that moment, I felt the overwhelming urge to go brew a pot of the Asrid Flower tea, and I struggled to pull myself back together.

I nearly stumbled in my step, but made my way to one of the nearby stone benches near where Kine sat.

“Good evening, master. I see why you enjoy this,” he said softly, as we watched the hues of the setting sun reflected across the waters.

“Indeed,” I answered him. We both sat quietly for a while, each in our own quiet contemplations before Kine spoke again.

“Master, what do you think of the war?” he asked.

I looked behind me, and saw that Eni and the children had gone quiet as we sat.  I also noticed that they seemed interested in my answer as well. “Eni, take the children and go see Assistant Philipe. Ask about his personal research.”

“Yes, sir,” Eni answered with a salute that was poorly mimicked by the two boys to his sides. Children teaching children. I chuckled and shook my head, before turning back to Kine. The young man was studying me now, with a sad look in his eye that I recognized. A look that indicated saw something horrible he struggled with.

“Kine,” I said and looked back out at my reflection pond. I recognized the emotion easily. It was one I had struggled with myself for a long time. I doubted he had the additional twisted sense of guilt that came along with causing whatever devastated him, but the freshness of his wound likely more than made up for that.

“Some things are not easy to see,” I said, trying my hardest not to think back to my own past. Those barrels in my mind were sealed in a corner for a reason. “I fear you have only begun to open your eyes to some harsh truths. The war… is a mistake.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw his head turn sharply towards me, but I kept looking out over the waters.

“A mistake?” He asked, a quiver in his voice.

“Indeed,” I answered softly.

“All those people dead, and it’s a mistake?!” His voice scratched raw with barely contained anger.

I turned to look at him, barely keeping the sadness from my eyes. That anger he felt, I knew it too well. I gave him a half-smile and shook my head, “Not a mistake in the way you have taken it, young man.”

“No?  How should I take it then?”

“Kine, did you know that we are on the cusp of the end of our age?” I asked. Of course, I knew he didn’t. It wasn’t information I shared freely. I’ve heard nothing concerning my warning to the king, and I doubted the news had traveled far, if it traveled at all.

Kine closed his eyes as he took a shaky breath and stilled his trembling hands. When he opened them, he reflected a calmer demeanor, “What do you mean?”

I pointed out over the water, in the direction of the distant western mountains. From here, we could only see their vague outlines over the treetops, “Over those mountains lay a threat like this kingdom has never faced before. Ever day it grows closer and closer. Instead of preparing, we instead fight useless battles that drain away our strength.”

“What threat? Why tell me now?” he asked, the disbelief clear in his voice.

“Because, mage, you are ready. You lead and protect those who cannot help themselves. If you are to be successful, you must be aware of what you will face. We can discuss more tomorrow, but do not share the news with anyone for now.”

The sun had finished setting while we talked. I patted his back a couple times as I passed him to go towards the stairs, leaving the man with more worries than those he tried to escape.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 13

With my illusion back in place, I arrived on the top of my tower near the middle of the night. The moon was high in the sky but I couldn’t see any reflections along my lake. Instead, the front of the tower seemed to host a variety of people camping in tents. Dwindling fires glowed throughout the encampment, with tents circling each one. No doubt those fires were intended more to keep monsters at bay than to ruin my view. Though, I suspected they were more successful at the latter than the former.

Surprisingly, it was Meathead on guard duty on the top of my tower when I arrived. Meathead was always a large man, with a brutish body shape. Though I hadn’t noticed it before, the week away made it clear to me his small gut had returned. It had disappeared for a while when he was patrolling the bog, but I imagine his friendship with Rolf had likely earned him more treats from the kitchen.

“Hi, boss!” He smiled and waved.

I nodded back and headed towards the stairwell that led inside, but I couldn’t help but stop when I heard him speak again.

“Yup! That’s my boss. You can’t be boss, if I got a boss,” he spoke to the air cheerfully.

“Meathead?” I asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, boss?” He said as he took off his helmet to scratch as his lopsided head.

“To whom were you speaking to just now?” I inquired.

“Oh! Boss, I met your talking circles. They wanna be my boss too,” he answered with a smile.

“My… talking circles?” I thought for a moment, but hadn’t the feintest idea what he could be referring to.

He nodded happily with a smile. Which wasn’t helpful in the slightest, though I mentally applauded his enthusiasm, “Meathead, what’s their name?”

He looked confused for a moment then looked up and around before smiling again, “Oh! They say their name is Bi.”

Bi… as in the god? What would the god want with—I stiffened. I couldn’t help but start putting the pieces together. I had always suspected there existed a connection between [Paladins] and a diminished mental acuity, but now I had proof!

This evidence could mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. I pulled forth my tome, and began to scribble down my thoughts and observations on the matter in rapid sequence, but was interrupted again.

“Hey boss?” Meathead asked.

“Yes, what it is?” I answered offhandedly while I continued to write out my thoughts. This information could lead to a revolution in the social placement of [Paladin] Orders throughout the kingdom! It was urgent that I follow the proper documenting formats and compose the study results in a way that could be replicated.

“—and I need to go pee. Can I?” Meathead finished whatever he was asking.

“Certainly, you may,” I answered. I needed to further study this matter, as it was clear by Meathead’s example that [Paladin] class selectees didn’t need to be diminished from birth, but could be due to injury. I wonder how high the limit was on the injury? Is it—

“Both things?” he interrupted again as he hopped from leg to leg in a dance every child knows.

“Yes, yes. Hurry back,” I waved him away.

In the time he was gone, I finished with my notes. It occurred to me there should have been a chamberpot up here, but a glance in the corner confirmed it was full. I pressed my lips together in thought.

I had taken up the responsibilities for my pupils and servants easily, but at times like these I considered that perhaps I needed a [Seneschal] or [Overseer] to manage the holding while I conducted my research. My assistants would be more independent in a few months, of course, but the day-to-day operations that I relied on Kine and Walker to handle in the last year would be better monitored by a more permanent employee.

I was looking out at the campfires when I heard footsteps coming up the stairwell. Being that they weren’t the heavy thuds I recognized as Meathead’s footsteps, I turned to see who was joining me. Surprisingly, it was Kine. It was almost as if me thinking about the man brought him to me. Then, based on the look on his face, I could tell it wasn’t.

With an expression of helplessness, he spoke, “Good evening, master.”

He followed it up with a low bow, and I knew immediately he had a request. With a frown, I answered, “Do not ‘master’ me, Kine. You are no longer my assistant, and have returned for a reason. What is it you request of me?”

He had the good tact to look chagrinned for a moment before answering, “Master, as you know, I went north when we parted to prospect more gem mines for the Aides. While there the North has come under heavy attack. First the Barony of Nix, then Aide. The peoples there fled, and somehow, I ended up leading them south.”

“To here?”

He shook his head, “No, most went to the town of Lark of Woodhoot, but both are filled beyond capacity. Without a place to stay, I feared for them. So, I brought them—”

“Here?” I interrupted.

“Yes, mast—yes, sir,” he answered. I could see by the look in his eyes, he feared reproach for this. No doubt, he knew my temperament well enough that he knew I wouldn’t be pleased with these people so close by.

I wasn’t pleased with it, either. It meant, at the very least, I would need to construct a wall around my reflection waters if I wanted to keep enjoying the view. Yet, I was satisfied with his decision in a way. I had worried that his ambition would lead to greed that would lead to something more unpleasant in his life. That he forewent his own endeavors to support these refugees was admirable.

“Hmmm,” I answered, allowing him to twist in his own anxiety until I tired of watching. “Very well, we will discuss it tomorrow. Gather yourself, any other representatives of—of that lot, and meet me on the first floor for lunch.”

He breathed a large sigh of relief, and I could see the feint traces of sweat that I hadn’t noticed in the dark as he bowed again.

“Thank you, master!” he said earnestly.

I half-smiled, “Don’t thank me yet. Remember, you brought this on yourself. Now wait here until Meathead returns.” I patted him on the shoulder as I passed him to return to my room for sleep.

When I awoke, I donned a flowing robe of orange silk with embroidered bright yellow lightning bolts. I’d had it commissioned by a high-level tailor to commemorate my victories in one, but hadn’t worn it in a long time. There was a seed of embarrassment associated with the robe, a tiny kernel of resentment too, but that didn’t mean that I shouldn’t wear it. It presented the perfect image of wealth and power that would do well to impress whoever Kine brought with him this afternoon.

Downstairs in the dining hall, I found my guards and attendants circled around Meathead, offering congratulations. The poor man seemed unsure what to do with himself under all the positive attention.

“Boss, you’re just in time!” Mena called out to me as I entered the room.

“Oh?” I asked.

“Meathead got his third-tier class!” she spoke with an excitement that seemed more enthusiastic than the occasion required, and the intense look in her eye hinted that she was prepared to enjoy my reaction.

“Congratulations,” I offered, “What class did you choose?”

The others around him quieted to watch, and Meathead gave me a bashful grin, “I’m a [Champion of Bi], boss. Like you said I could.”

The roomed seemed to still to an immediate silence, as if the others were holding their breaths in anticipation of how I would react. [Champion] classes were rare. Almost unheard of, and then only in times of war or great turmoil. Which made sense in a way. There was a war, and the Pestilence presented an even greater threat.

“Good,” I answered with a nod, and took a seat to await my meal.

The chatter soon returned and I was presented with a plate of sausage, onions and toasted bread to dine on.

I briefly considered Meathead’s new class. It was unfortunate, but I would need to discharge him soon to go on his way. The [Champion] of a god would need to obey that god’s orders, and I could foresee a time where those orders did not coincide with his duties here. I had no wish to anger a god in that fashion.

On the other side of the coin, Meathead wasn’t entirely suitable for an independent journey. He would need a reasonable caretaker to travel with him and ensure that he fully understood his actions. In a way, I felt a little disgusted at the god Bi. I felt like he was taking advantage of the man, though that wasn’t a line of thought I followed for fear of hypocrisy. If the [Paladin] Adam was still nearby, it would be easy for me to discharge Meathead into his care.

Still, I doubted that I would be encounter conflicting orders anytime in the next few days, and that would give me opportunity to find a replacement guard.

“Boss, are you okay? You’re playing with your food,” Mena asked, and sat down.

I realized she was right, but I no longer felt as hungry as I was before. The weight of the future felt heavy on my shoulders at the moment. I responded to her question with a half-smile and a sigh.

“Anything I could do boss?” She asked. Her elbow was on the table, and her head was held on her hand as if she had all the time in the world to listen. She didn’t. She had morning sword lessons to give with the two children, and should have already started them.

I didn’t comment on the matter, though. Instead, I stroked my beard in thought before answering her, “Times of change are upon us. You four guards will gather to me this evening to discuss our future.”

After saying such, I took myself to my study to prepare. There were several spells I tested that were more effective against the Pestilence than others, and I wanted to transcribe those to share among the magical community. While I this effort wasn’t likely to turn the tide of the end of the age, I also foresaw that there may be singular instances where a mage armed with a better spell could save the lives of a handful of people.

The hours flew by, and I had barely made it through half of what I wanted to transcribe when Kine came to notify me that the people were ready. The poor man’s eyes had bags under them, and he walked with a slouch that told me his efforts to gather these people likely took much out of him. This was a good introduction to true responsibility, so I was satisfied in that regard.

One the first floor, two women and a man were seated at the table across from my chair. The table had been prepared with plates, wine, and a large platter of steamed meat buns. Chelsea was busy entertaining them with some nonsense story or other as they ate, but she quietly removed herself when I took my seat. I waited as the three scrambled to stand and offer bows of greeting, before waving them back to their chairs.

“Master, I present to you Narwick the miner,” he began with a gesture towards a giant of a man with thick, unkept brown hair and pudgy face. He looked the type of man who had engaged in rigorous work in his youth, but those muscles had descended into fat.

“Linda, the seamstress,” he gestured to the next woman, a matronly older woman that looked as if she barely could move her own arms. Her wrinkles and sagging skin didn’t take away from the sharp look in her eye. The type of woman that had a tongue so sharp that it commanded obedience.

“And Sara the merchant,” he finished, with a flourish to a younger woman with black hair and brown eyes. Her serious expression and demeanor seemed as if was garnered in preparation of some expected challenge.

I nodded and smiled at the lot, before motioning for Kine to sit beside me. Then, I took a meat bun and ate. I felt famished, having forgone most of my breakfast. The meat bun was stuffed with a shredded pork in some kind of sweet sauce that dripped into the breaded crust as I bit into it.

“Master, these folks are all weary travelers who have forgone their homes in the north. Many have given up their livelihoods and belongings to escape Mirktallean chains. Neither Lark nor any of the surrounding villages can support more people, and they don’t have the coin to travel to Eiston. Neither do they have the classes to find work there, if they did.”

“Hmmm,” I answered as I continued to eat and chew.

“With your permission, I’d like to establish a village nearby. South of your tower, past your beast pits. It would offer a sense of safety should Mirktal continue south,” he finished his request and placed his hands in his lap.

It was a decently constructed plea and I was half convinced already. That didn’t mean I would make it easy for him. I gestured towards the miner, “Miners can’t find work in the quarries? Or with the loggers?”

The man rumbled, almost a growl, before he answered in a deep voice, “Stone ain’t metal. Trees ain’t neither.”

The way he used such concise language was startling in its effectiveness. It was as if the ideal of verbosity was presented before my very eyes. I needed to see how truly skilled he was in this field, “And you can mine in the bog?”

He shrugged.

That was impressive. I could agree to keep him around, if only to take lessons from him. I glanced at Kine with a raised eyebrow.

“Master, there are a few places with iron ore that might lead to a seam,” Kine answered, though his tone indicated he didn’t believe that himself.

“Hmmm,” I answered and tapped my fingers in thought. That I wasn’t immediately agreeing cause Kine and the two women to begin talking all at once.

“I knew we shouldn’t come here, a wizard he said,” the bitter root of an old woman stabbed her words at me in some attempt to guilt me into action. That her words were slightly louder than the others seemed intentional.

“Many of our people can fish. If we set up hatcheries, this land could provide you with a fresh bounty,” the merchant tried to negotiate with an offering of appeasement.

Fish was tempting. A baked fish, lathered with butter and salt was something I hadn’t tasted in a while.

“Master, I’ve also brought you the fish you wanted for your moat. The black-finned perch is more common the further north you go,” Kine bribed me with something he knew I was weak against. The very type fish he helped me pick out from a bestiary. The fish no single adventurer in all of Lark had provided.

“Very well,” I started, and waited for them to relax.

Then I added, “But. There are details we need to cover before your people settle. I am not willing to oversee your village. I will write to Baroness Lark to request she appoint Kine as Alderman.”

I pointed at the miner, “You will answer to him and oversee all labor.”

I pointed at the merchant, her eyes widening, “You will also answer to him but oversee all trade and supplies.”

“And you,” I pointed at the old woman, “You can advise Kine with your nagging all you like, but if I will not see your face in my home again. Do not test my patience on this.”

Finally, I turned to Kine, “I trust you know my preferences for now. We will discuss the details later.”

I gathered three more of the delicious meat buns in my arm and my glass of wine after I spoken my terms, and departed to my study to continue my work.

It only took me a few hours to finish the tome of specialized spells. After which, I sought out my three attendants. From their proscribed duties, two should be in their rooms on the second floor. The third should be attending to feeding my experiment pits and recording the numbers. I arrived just in time to hear the ending of an argument.

“Why should I care if you visit the aldruane, Leslie? You visited Jax behind my back. If there was anything between us before, there isn’t now!” Philipe, my tall red-headed attendant hoarsely whispered at Leslie. She stood in his doorway, half-undressed. Both their faces were heated with anger, and Leslie looked as if she had been crying.

“You—you’re always like this. What did I ever see in you?” Leslie scrunched her face up as if she had bit something sour. Her voice echoed into and then out of Philipe’s bedchambers. Combined with the evidence of crying, it truly didn’t suit her short black hair.

I coughed, loudly, in interruption. Both my attendants looked shocked before they jumped to bow in greeting.

“Master! I didn’t know you had returned!” Leslie said from her bow.

“Welcome back, master,” Philipe’s answer was a little better thought out.

“Hmmm,” I answered them, waiting to see how they would react. Philipe kept bowing, but Leslie stood up.

“Apologies, master! I—we—beg your forgiveness. Right, Philipe?” Leslie said, giving the man a sharp look.

“For what? I did nothing wrong,” Philipe answered her while still bowed.

She didn’t seem to have an answer to that, but she also seemed to grow acutely aware of her state of undress. A hand slowly reached to her robe to adjust it back to the proper fit. Still, she kept talking in an effort to somehow escape the circumstances, “How can you say that? You should just tell him.”

His only answer was to sigh as he rose as well.

Philipe opened his mouth to speak, but I lifted the tome in my hand to attract their attention, “All three of you will memorize these spells and make ten copies of this spellbook. Each. There are blank tomes in the study.”

“Yes, master,” the both responded.

“In addition,” I added but paused to give them both a meaningful glance, “You will both compose an essay to describe the appropriate behavior a mage of your standing should demonstrate. I expect both tasks to be completed within the week without effecting your other duties. Philipe, with me.”

I floated the tome over to Leslie to begin her new task and turned with the expectation for Philipe to follow as I headed back upstairs to the study. I had three missives on the table there, one from the house Lark, one from Lilly, and the third from Walker. I was eager to read two of them, but apprehensive about the Baroness’s letter.

With a deliberate slowness, I sat in one of the chairs, and opened the letter from Walker. Philipe stood to my side, ready to speak yet I made him wait on me. Walker had included a minor enchantment to keep anyone else from opening it.

The message itself was one of hope and pride. He’d been accepted into the mage’s corps of the army with eager arms and was attending a combat training for the next few months.  He apologized if that interfered with his ability to write me during that time.

He also included a brief story concerning how his trainer tried to open the tome I’d gifted him and had his hand turned into a claw for a week. ‘Claw-handed Jurl’ wasn’t happy about the matter, but the other trainers were in high-spirits.  I chuckled, and poured myself a glass of wine, before looking up at Philipe. The man was growing more and more nervous as he waited.

“Please, sit,” I gestured toward an empty sitting chair, a plush green one that was more decorative than comfortable. I placed the missive I had just read from Walker back on the table, and considering having Philipe wait while I read the other two. The desire to write back, though was too great, and I didn’t want him waiting the entire time.

Philipe had taken a seat on the edge of the chair, his back straight and his hands on his knees. He held his expression well, though the freckles on his face made it easier to see where it wasn’t perfect.

“Do you know what I wish to speak to you about?” I began. I wanted to talk about the potential of the animal bonding spell Leslie and mentioned, but, given the conversation I had just overheard, I suspected there were things my three attendants weren’t telling me.

He grimaced and looked away as he spoke, “Master, I—I’m sorry I failed you. I let my anger overcome my better judgement. What Leslie did to me, it hurt. I wanted her to hurt too. I promise I won’t return to see them anymore.”

See who? This fool had gone back to the aldruane after they nearly killed him once? Or did he do something worse? I shook my head in disappointment. Don’t these children have enough duties to keep them occupied? I’ll see the end of that, “Very well. If I find your hands too idle again, I suspect you’ll look back on this day with great regret.”

I watched as the tall man slumped in relief before I continued, “Now, Leslie mentioned you and your brother were working on an animal bonding spell?”

His face lit up in the way only a true researcher or religious zealot could, “Yes master! Jax and I grew up on a farm and we had a pet dog that saved us from a monster attack. Broomie, a long-haired wolf-hound. He didn’t make it, but we did. If we had a bond, we could have saved him too.”

“Hmm,” I waited.

“Jax and I, we have narrowed down the connecting components of the familiar bond spell after taking out the telepathic and energy transfer components. We reduced it from tier three to tier two, but are missing something that could take it down to the first tier.”

“And what green magics have you consulted?” I asked, and took another sip of my wine. I really enjoyed this vintage of strawberry wine. I would need to order more soon.

“We looked the charm animal spell, but it wasn’t a permanent effect. So, we dismissed it. The library at the Arcanum didn’t have much in the way of green magic. The druidic teacher there also wasn’t much help. He said that by domesticating animals was a plight against nature already and refused.”

“I see,” I stood and started looking through my library for a specific book. When I found it, I pulled it out and tossed it towards Philipe, who caught it with only mild surprise.

“Mastery of the Verdant Forests?” He asked and read the title.

“Yes. I treatise that implies that it is our duty to keep the world’s forests and plains free from civilization. Obviously, written by a moron who has no concept of the dangers of unkept monster breeding grounds. However, I think you’ll find the components of the green magic spell Speak with Animals enlightening in your efforts.”

Philipe stood and bowed in gratitude.

I shook my finger at him, “This will not interfere with your current duties, and you will track your spell development with the appropriate measures. I want to see your framework for approval before you begin testing.”

“Testing, master?” He asked.

“Of course, testing. We have recently come into an abundance of test subjects, man and beast, for such a spell. You think I would allow you to release some drivel without proper testing?”

“Yes master! I mean, no master! I’ll see to it,” Philipe said with his eyes never leaving the book. I could tell that anything else I said to the man wouldn’t likely be heard.

“Very well, go about your duties,” I waved him away and returned to my seat.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 12

In the morning, I ate cold travel rations with a frown, and then prepared several moonstones with enchantments. The bunny illusion had worked well, and it would be negligent of me not to take advantage of that fact. The enchanted moonstones would hold the spell for a half day and recharge under moonlight. I only brought three tiny stones with me, so I wouldn’t be able to do more with them.

With those prepared, I ordered a wind elemental to lift me away in the direction I had seen the Earth Elemental depart. I doubted the spores would show much more than a small infection with less than a day’s time, but I would check those next.

When I caught up with the enormous boulder, it was still rolling through the sea of monsters. Unfortunately, it appeared that most of the monsters had become aware that it wasn’t food and it meant death. They were also much swifter than I imagined they could be for their size. I held in a sigh of disappointment, and departed towards where my elementals had dispersed the spores.

There, miles and miles from where the elemental was failing to kill enough monsters, I floated over the testing site. Unfortunately, from this distance, I couldn’t see any sign of infection and needed to send an elemental lower to see. Even closer, I found only small signs of the mushroom’s growth. I left that elemental their to watch and return in a week’s time, and headed eastwards, dropping the moonstones a few miles apart as I flew.

When I arrived at the eastern mountains, the cliffs that separated the kingdoms of men from the monsters, I landed along one peak. The events of the past week caught up to me in a flash, and I found my hands shaking and my body shivering. The aftereffects of deep fear that I had ignored in order to carry out my experiments.

It had been a long time since I felt such fear, and for hours I was overwhelmed by it. Or, more accurately, my body was overwhelmed. Mentally, I watched myself as I curled into a ball, one of instinctual effects of being so frighten, and one I hated that I could not naturally control. When the shaking and shuddering had past, I once again took to the air to travel.

Morning turned into afternoon, and I found myself floating over Baron Llal’s keep and hesitating. I needed to return to my tower to continue my research, but I was also very close to the witch’s hut. I had promised myself to try again on the return trip, but I was also very eager to design new experiments to combat the Pestilence with what I had learned.

I still harbored dreams, though, of a person who could match me and that’s what led me to the decision to visit. Within in a few moments, I was being lowered to the ground by the air elemental, and casting a cleaning spell on myself. The hut hadn’t changed at all from the first visit, as far as I could tell. Still a home grown from a bramble, with a curtain for the door. The firepit showed signs of recent use, and the hares hanging to drain had recently changed, but nothing greater than that.

“Good Afternoon,” I called out once I landed, and was greeted with the sounds of movement from within. Ah, I would finally get to meet the witch!

A few minutes of waiting, with a bit of uncertainty on my part, and the lady exited her cabin. She wore an illusion of an old crone, maybe three and half feet of stooped elderly woman in a baggy cloth robe and a sharp crooked nose half the size of my arm. The crone walked forward, with one hand on her lower back and the other on a gnarled cane.

My eyes, however, weren’t on the illusion, but the person inside the illusion. A misty magic stopped me from seeing all but the silhouette of a woman and the luminous yellow irises.

“Ah, it’s the trespasser!” the aged voice called and the illusion mouthed the words.

“Trespasser?” I started.

“Yes, trespassing in my home. Snooping about as if it were your own,” the illusion fussed and shook its cane at me.

“I say, wizards do not snoop,” I retorted.

“Yet were did you not come inside my house and rummage through my things? Snooping wizard,” the illusion hacked a spit at my feet, but I ignored it.

“A bit of professional curiosity, nothing untoward,” I scoffed.

“Professional curiosity, eh? Snooping, I saw. Now look me in the eyes, boy!” the crone screeched.

I considered that. This witch held an illusion of a crone about herself that was shorter than she was. And to demand I look it in the eyes? What was the point? To have me lower my eyes before her? It seemed a petty bit of… hmm. Perhaps my illusion should be a few inches shorter as well. It wasn’t that bad of an idea.

“Well? Are you going to ignore me? Look at me, you ingrate!” the illusion screeched again.

“That is entirely uncalled for,” I said and swept my hand to the side, dispelling both her and my own illusions. I stood at a very handsome six and a half feet tall, with luminescent orange irises, shoulder-length thick black hair and a well-kept black beard. A lean frame and a dashing face, both of which had gotten me into more trouble than they were worth.

The woman, a half-elf as well, stood a handsbreadth shorter than me, with straight golden hair that came to her chin, and yellow luminescent irises. She was dressed in leather jerkin and trousers, both of which seemed hand-made. Her figure was leaner than mine, but no less womanly for the slenderness. She had a pretty and youthful countenance that would have been perfect, except her cheekbones were a little too wide, and her two top front teeth were slightly bigger than the others. It was a disappointment, but I didn’t show it.

Instead, I gave a formal bow for a peer, and spoke, “My most sincere apologies for disturbing your home my last visit. When I arrived and you did not answer, I feared you ill or injured. Otherwise, I would not have entered your home.”

When she didn’t respond, I stood back up and cocked my head in confusion.

“My,” she whispered and covered her mouth as her eyes traveled from my head to my feet and back up. She seemed to get ahold of herself momentarily after that, and assumed an arrogant attitude, “Don’t think you can use your handsome face to cause me to forget your slight.”

“Not at all. I have recently moved into the area, a tower near Woodhoot by way of Lark, and sought to introduce myself to the nearby magical community,” I said it all with a faint smile.

“So, you’ve introduced yourself to Fintak the illusionist, Rhela the Red, and Bimly already?” She asked and raised an eyebrow.

I coughed into one hand, “Erm, no. Not yet. You, of course, were the top of the list. I’m certain I will meet them in time.”

She put a hand on her hip and squinted at me, “I think you came this way to court me.”

It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. I didn’t trust my tongue to remain tactful in my response so I said nothing. Which, of course, she took the wrong way. At least, I assume she did by the way she blushed and looked to the side.

“Madam…?” I began, hoping to regain control of the conversation.

“Loralie,” She answered with a happy smile.

“Nemon Fargus, wizard. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I answered.

“Nemon Fargus? I’ve heard that name before,” she whispered to herself as she tapped a finger on her chin. “Oh! There’s a song I’ve heard about you. How did it go? Oh, I remember!”

She cleared her throat and began to sing. Her voice was so melodic that I didn’t recognize the song at first. By the time I had, it was too late.

“In the battle of Farmers’ Mound,

Where two figures flew above the ground,

Nark the Tall spoke words none could hear,

A taunt whispered in Nemon Fargus’ ear,

It caused a rage so much that so,

That the clouds gathered and the wind did blow

The thunder clapped and soldiers fell,

All before the mage provoked so well,

An army ran in fright and fear,

From anger so great lightning shot out his—”

I coughed loudly to interrupt her, “Yes, well, I’ve had to hear that song for night on a hundred years.” I paused only briefly to ensure she was not prepared to continue singing.  It only happened that one time, and I’ve had to hear about it for a century! If I hadn’t already dealt with that bard, I’d do it again.

“Madam Lorali, I must admit, that I did come for more than one reason,” I said, affecting a calm steady tone as one would do with a wild animal.

“Oh?” She looked at me both fearfully and intrigued with her bright yellow eyes, and I wasn’t certain entirely what thoughts were running through her mind at the moment. I doubted I would approve of them.

“Indeed. Do you know what lay over those mountains?” I asked.

Whatever she had been thinking, I watched it come to an immediate halt and her expression fell to one of disappointment and confusion. The change happened quickly, but it was evident she hadn’t practiced keeping her emotions from her face in a long time. I almost smiled at that.

“No,” she answered hesitantly and shook her head. “Nothing returns from over the mountains. Nothing ever has.”

I grimaced at that, “I came from over the mountains this very morning. I don’t suggest the trip to any other than myself. But if you have the magics to peer beyond, I recommend you do so.”

She brushed a stray strand of golden hair behind her pointed ear and looked at the ground in thought for a moment, “It would take me a week to even prepare such a spell. What could be so important?”

I titled my head forward, and furrowed my brows to show how serious I was.

“Miss Lorali, I fear nothing else is more important. I speak of what I suspect to be the end of our Age.”

I took a deep breath, changing the subject, “Now, I have things I must go do to prepare, so I must depart. Please feel free to call upon me if you wish to—” I paused. Normally, I would say ‘have some tea’, but that was no longer an option in my mind. Belatedly, I finished with, “—have an honest discourse.”

Unfortunately, I could tell by the look in her eyes, that she took my pause as an implication for something else. Something that I suspected I might regret the implication of. I opened my mouth to try to clarify, but then shut it back. I had too many things on my mind than to try to correct the assumptions of the ignorant. That was only my forte when I was instructing pupils, and she was no pupil of mine. I had my elemental lift me away at that moment, cursing my own social cowardice in my head.

I glanced back for only a moment, to ensure that she wasn’t casting some hex on me for leaving, but only saw the swish of the curtain in her doorway. “Loralie,” I whispered to myself, as I tasted the name on my tongue.

Wizard's Tower - Arc 2 - Chapter 11

Four days later, Mena and Leslie arrived. They arrived with the merchant from Lark that normally came to sell us food and sundries. The addition of the lad from Woodhoot, Fin, came as no great surprise and I had him settled into a partitioned room near the kitchens that he would share with Rolf.

The ladies were suitably chastised and embarrassed by their performance as my attendants, or at least tactful enough to act that way. They also seemed to have come to some kind of understanding, even if it was only the kind that they agreed not to speak to each other more than necessary.

Over the next two days, there was a pretty large quarrel when Leslie discovered that Philipe had visited one of the nature elementals. Evidently, they were in a youthful romantic relationship and Philipe’s actions broke a trust. A trust that was already broken by a not-so-secret entanglement between Leslie and Jax.

In the end, the argument made all three of them sulk about for a few days until I assigned extra duties to keep the three separated. I would need to evaluate their morals separately, as none of them displayed the refinement of character I expected from my pupils.

Leslie and Mena had also been tasked with seeing to Rolf and Fin’s education. Fin needed to be brought up to speed on his reading and writing, though he seemed very astute with arithmetic already despite not knowing the written numbers. Leslie saw to that with exacting standards. Mena, on the other hand, led the boys in an afternoon practice of swordsmanship with wooden swords. Meathead helped, in his own way.

Within five days of their return, I deemed it time to travel.  I donned my flight attire, a set of weather-resistant tunic and trousers. The trousers were incredibly uncomfortable, not because of their make but because they were trousers. The things were fine for other people, such as [Loggers] or [Cartwrights], but a wizard should wear a robe! Yet, a robe can easily lead to impropriety with an errant gust of wind. It was the type of conundrum that left me wearing a thin robe over the trousers in an effort to remain minimally fashionable.

Six of the wind elementals and two of my gargoyles were sufficient to carry me and my experimental materials. My gargoyles were stone owls, each inhabited by a fourth-tier earth elemental and two lesser-tier wind elementals. One gargoyle carried the large emeralds, and the other carried my most dangerous experiment, the triple-sealed case with the parasitic mushroom spores. My six wind elementals followed with what was needed for my other experiments as well as food and sundries.

My assistants and underlings all came to the top of the tower to bid me farewell, and I waved them goodbye.

Once in the air, I got a firsthand look at my magnificent tower and the surrounding dismal bog in which it lay. I could track the pathways that Kine and Walker had created as they looped back and forth among the waters, and easily saw the smoke from distant towns and villages. Though time was too short to enjoy the sight, I took a moment to take it all in before directing my elementals to travel southwest.

It only took a few hours’ time to make it. The sights along the way were trivial, mostly bog and forest with the occasional hunter or adventurer until we reached Mist Town. A misnomer, as Mist Town was only a little larger than a village, built along a crevasse that a mountain stream fell into. The stream's waterfall created a pleasant ever-present mist that gave the village its name.

Turning west from there, I headed to Llal Town, the Baron’s seat. From what I’ve been told, it was once a town called Bark, but neither names were terribly imaginative, so I didn’t see much of a difference. As I approached the town from the air, I was not impressed.

Three roads connected to that eastern entrance, a wider dirt road that ran north to south, and the path I followed from Mist Town. I could see calvary that patrolled the length, and assumed that the wider road likely led in the direction of the Baron’s adventuring party’s domains. The entire town itself looked in among four large forested hills.

While there were several larger buildings, including a church and the stone keep that was the baron’s home, the keep looked to be in disrepair. The church was under construction. A flimsy wooden arena was built beside the keep, and a large stable constructed beside a field at the entrance of the town. Most of the homes were made from unprocessed logs with mud or clay sealings and some kind of dried wooden leaf used for the roof.

I paused over the town, ignoring the strange looks I received from the townsfolk and scanned the hills for anything that could identify the witch the Baron had mentioned. Eventually, I started flying back and forth over the surrounding forests until I came across a clearing and a building that I suspected belonged to her.

Even more hidden than the town, the witch’s hut was a pocket of bramble grown and shaped into a dome.  To the sides of the hut were a thick assorted garden of vegetables, and a ring of stone for a fire was in the center of the clearing. The entrance was marked with only a curtain, and several skinned rabbits hung nearby to drain. With careful direction to my wind elementals, I bid them to lower me slowly to the ground. I brushed my wrinkles out of my robe and cast a quick cleaning on myself before I spoke.

“Good Afternoon,” I called with a smile in my voice.

After a moment or two with no answer, I called out again a little louder. When there was no answer the second time, not even a rustle, I couldn’t help but frown. Is she not home? It was presumptuous of me to assume she would be. Perhaps she is ill and requires my aid? I paced back and forth, running a hand through my beard as I thought.

The chances of her being injured or ill are very slim. It’s likely she was out hunting more rabbits or other game. Though, if she were injured or sick, and I left her alone she would hold that against me, wouldn’t she? If I were in that circumstances, would I hold it against someone else? It’s not as if I know where she is okay or not. A quick peek is all I need to be certain, after all. One quick peek.

It was moments later, as I flipped through her magical tome that doubled as a journal in an empty hut, that a bird song reminded me of what I should be doing. The hut itself was rather plain of magical supplies. A few potions. Two or three books on a shelf beside a crystal ball and other assorted nick-nacks. The rest of the hut was a small bed of furs and a small table with a single chair.

Still, the spellcraft in her tome seemed to be an assortment of curses and hexes, with the odd cantrip here and there. Much of it seemed to be puzzled out over time, indicating she was self-taught. I saw no indication of a longevity spell, other than a simple life-drain ritual that was too crude to work correctly. Eating the beating hearts of animals? My tastes are much too refined for that nonsense, even if it did work.

With mild disappointment, I left her hut and called out a greeting to the woods. When nothing answered, I ordered the wind elementals to lift me away and head for the western mountains. As much as I had idealized the opportunity, I had more important tasks at the moment. I would stop by again on my return trip, but if she wasn’t there that time, I would dismiss my whimsical dreams.

The western mountain range spanned the whole continent from north to south. The peaks remained snowcapped year-round and contained all manner of beast and monster. Traveling by air made the trip easy enough, even if I had to fend off the occasional harpy or mountain drake. I was careful about my travel as well, keeping myself and the gargoyles hidden within an invisibility spell and an illusion of us that traveled twenty yards ahead.

I did once need to circle around a flock of wyverns that nested at the very top of one particular mountain. They frightened me much more than any of the harpies, yetis, or ice wisps. But hundreds of tier four monsters should frighten anyone with reasonable sense.

When I finally emerged from the range, it fell off leaving sheer cliffs on the entire other side. Below me, hundreds and hundreds of feet, I witnessed the horror in person. Oh, I’d sent an air elemental a year ago to verify Baron Froom’s tale of pestilence. It wasn’t that I doubted him, but rather that I needed to see for myself what he meant by an ocean. With that elemental, I had seen enough to confirm his words. In fact, the word ocean seemed to be too small a description.

For as far as I could see, the ground was covered with the squirming bodies of the Pestilence. From this far in the air, they looked nothing more than an ocean of squirming snakes. I could see them digging in and out of the earth, gnawing on the trunks or roots of fallen trees, moving over and under and around each other. Whatever other life that had once existed in these lands was dead and gone.

The Pestilence weren’t all like the one I had originally fought, either. There were Armored Greater Hydra here, but there were also Greater Hydra, normal Hydra, and Lesser as well. Some even had elemental descriptors, like the Poison Hydra or the Earth Hydra. I couldn’t get a full accounting of them from this far up, not that any closer would give me any better perspective with the way they constantly moved about.

I stopped the illusions of myself before I flew out over the ocean of monsters. I flew until I could see the cliffs no more. There above the horde, I stopped. With nothing I could see all around me but the monsters, it was enough to make me feel very insignificant. The creatures devastated everything in their sight. Not even small grass or shrubs were safe from their onslaught. The kingdoms as I knew them would have no defense against this.

That didn’t mean that I intended to give up or surrender to what might be the inevitable. I was here to test several ideas I had worked on over the past two years. The first, and simplest was a charm spell. I had redesigned it into two different types. One would target every being in an area. The second allowed me to designate multiple targets, up to twenty. Granted, this wouldn’t be that useful against a monster like I had first battled, one with hundreds of heads and a significant resistance to magic in general.

So, with little needed preparation, I cast the area charm on a small number of hydra directly beneath me. From this far in the air, I didn’t have a tome prepared to record the effect, so I watched carefully. It seemed to have worked wonderfully on the lesser hydra, but only marginally on the normal ones. The greater hydra and the ones with descriptors showed no effect.

That was unfortunate. I watched as the charmed hydra attacked the others mercilessly, only for the general area to devolve into a squirming ball of snake-like monstrosities. A handful of minutes later, nothing remained of the charmed hydra. I tsked and shook my head. A failure then. Even if cast hundreds or thousands of times, it would only weed out the lesser versions and leave the greater ones intact and well-fed.

Next, I wanted to try the variable charm spell. I didn’t expect better results, but I couldn’t just not test it after I developed it. I wanted to ensure it worked, even if the outcome was the same. Finding one from amongst the ball seemed as if would take some time, so I switched to another spell that I had developed. A mass sleep spelled geared towards snakes. Mass Sleep and Grand Sleep were already established spells, I spent some time testing variations on my snake pits to see if I could specialize it further.

Upon casting it on the twisting ball of hydra beneath me, I was surprised at how well it worked. Only the Greater Hydra within the ball remained awake, and even those had half their heads affected. That was much better than I had hoped. Still not enough to make a difference in the grand scheme of things, but if used in conjunction with a carefully laid trap it could prove wildly successful. It was also one of the types of spells I would be willing to share among the magical community.

Finding a Greater Hydra with a few awakened heads amongst the sleeping ones made it an easy target for my variable target Charm spell. Though even after casting it a few times, it didn’t work on the monster. After the failure of the mass charm spell, that was expected.

My next spell test involved a variable target Dominate spell. The Dominate spell was illegal in all Kingdoms but Mirktal for a reason—it made magical slaves. It was the basis for their slave collar enchantments, and very, very few people wanted to even consider the type of magic as possible. Regardless, as one of the few wizards and enchanters tasked with overcoming the collars used by that kingdom in the last war, I had more than a little familiarity with it.

I chose the same Greater Hydra I had been testing the Charm spells on, a six-headed brown-scaled creature that was covered in mud. The monster seemed to know where I was, even though I was hidden within an invisibility spell and my wind elementals would have hidden any scent. I wasn’t entirely certain how, but I imagined that whatever organ gave it resistance to magic also gave it an awareness of a sort. If I could trap a few to experiment on, it would be interesting to narrow down the organ and see if I could replicate it somehow.

When I cast Dominate on all six heads, five of them took—which had very interesting results. The five heads immediately attacked the sixth only for it to regrow as two more. Then they attacked those two. Which became four. The four heads ate one of the five before being devoured themselves. Those four grew back as eight, and the fifth head that was eaten grew back as two as well. None of the ten new heads were under the effects of the Dominate spell. By the time it was done attacking itself, the thing had eighteen heads instead of the original six.

Still, I cast the spell four more times on different Hydra to verify the results. Also, because I wanted to see what would happen if a Hydra had all heads completely dominated. Unsurprisingly, a completely Dominated Greater Hydra was immediately attacked by any others nearby, and the event turned into another twisting knot of squirming giant snakes.

Next, I tested a few more spells. An Advanced Fire Blade, which still wasn’t enough to sheer through a Greater Armored Hydra, was one. A water spell for Variable Suffocate was overcome by their magic resistance. An earth spell Giant Stone Hand had dismal results. The earth spell Giant Earth Spike Field spell was surprisingly well suited for Hydra, as the spikes killed the heads in a manner that didn’t allow them to regrow and severely damaged their main bodies, often fatally. Though few mages would have the mana for that, and even a hundred casts of it wouldn’t make a difference in the volume of monsters.

One of the best results I had was a simple illusion spell. That of a giant rabbit that hopped along a Hydra’s body that attracted attacks from the other monsters around it. This broke whatever held that monster back from attacking its kin, and the outcome was once again an enormous ball of squirming hydra all trying to eat each other. Given that the illusion was formless, I had the illusionary rabbit hop about repeating the results at least twenty times before the spell ran out of mana.

I carried on with these tests and others for four days, pausing only to eat the travel rations I packed. Once I was satisfied that the minor tests were complete, I began flying further eastwards. While I did plan to release the parasitic mushrooms and watch how quickly they spread, I wanted that to occur as far away from human lands as possible. I also needed a large mass of stone for my final test, and wanted to be standing atop a cliff far outside of these monsters’ reach should I run out of mana.

As I traveled, I realized that I was closer to the other side than I imagined. The land invaded by the hydra turned out to be a massively wide canyon, as if some great power and shorn through the center of a mountain range to level it. I had been testing the spells at perhaps three-fourths the way across to the cliffs on the opposite side. I hadn’t been certain that was the case and had prepared myself to find a single tall mountain to experiment from.

I also discovered that there was a flat grassy plateau near this side that would be perfect to test from. Unfortunately, it was currently occupied by some kind of goblin-human hybrid. A large muscular people who slung stones from the mountaintop and laughing.

As I approached, still under the veil of invisibility, I found them to be closer to human than goblin in form. The skin was green and they had small tusks jutting from their lower jaw, which lent them a savage look. Though their clothing and mannerisms were little different than humans I was familiar with. Most humans lack sufficient discipline and propriety, so the standard they met wasn’t high.

I watched them for a moment, first because they were a race of people I wasn’t familiar with, and then to see if they had any spellcraft that was unique to them I could learn from. Unfortunately, the only spellcraft I saw was a blend of shamanism and druidism related to adjusting their physical bodies to incorporate aspects of animals. Nothing I hadn’t seen in the jungles of Tervan already.

I did confirm they weren’t monsters or a monsterized people though, as a quick analysis of a few displayed that they held classes. While these people were interesting in the way they decided to increase their levels and tiers by dropping stones from a cliff onto monsters, I moved further south on the plateau away from them to conduct my experiments.

The first experiment was rather simple to begin, but I doubted I would see immediate results unless something went horribly wrong. After removing some of the protections on the sealed stone container that held the variant parasitic mushroom, I had my wind elementals take it half a mile into the canyon and crush it so the spores spread amongst the Pestilence. I ordered them not to return until they ensured they were clean of spores, just to be certain.

While that was taking place, I used [Earth Manipulation] to pull forth a giant piece of stone and shape it into a boulder nearly as big as a Greater Hydra. When I finished, it stood taller even than my tower. Then I removed the fifteen large emeralds from my other gargoyle and used [Earth Manipulation] to begin combining them. It took nearly half a day to do, as the larger crystals needed careful and exact manipulation to ensure they melded correctly. It wasn’t as if I could just melt them together.

When I had finished, I took time to eat and nap, before reviewing my work on the grand-sized emerald I made. The crystal was nearly my height, and larger in diameter than most tree trunks. Sending my will into the crystal was easy, but my contact with the master of that plane was surprisingly antagonistic.

Mortal, why seek my kin?

Unlike the lords of the fire and water plane, I couldn’t tell identify a gender to this one. Its thoughts echoed around in my mind like the ice cracking.

I sent back an image of the boulder and imagined it rolling around and crushing the Hydra beneath it, over and over again.

I felt more than heard a rumble in my head. I couldn’t tell if it was an angry growl or laughter, but my head hurt as if I had beat it against a wall.

Why?

This was the first time any of the elemental lords had seemed reticent to lend me an elemental. Even more, it was the most contact I ever had from a being this powerful. I was so surprised that I didn’t give an immediate answer. That didn’t seem to bother the elemental lord at all, though, as it waited for me with the patience of a… rock. Ah, such humor made my headache a little lighter.

I thought about everything I knew of the earth elementals. They were slow, steady. They didn’t think or feel much. Even the fourth-tier ones in my owls seemed satisfied to sit on the roof of my tower. Perhaps, it was the tier of elemental I was calling, or perhaps it was the act of moving. I wasn’t certain.

I sent back an image of the boulder rolling around in the canyon below and the feeling of happiness, hoping that would sway the elemental. Instead, the connection stopped abruptly. That must have been the wrong decision.

I paced back and forth before the crystal on that plateau, ignoring the return of my wind elementals. The abrupt denial of my request was both new and unusual. It had never happened before, and the last fifth tier elemental I had summoned—the only fifth tier elemental I had summoned—had been one of fire. It was more than happy to come to this plane.

I reached out through the emerald again and sent the image of the boulder and how awed I was at the size and shape. I compared it to myself and how I had to look up at it. The master of that plane didn’t even respond before they ended the connection.

I paced again, not sure if I should keep reaching out. If I annoyed this lord, could it hurt me? I imagined if they could, they would have already invaded this world. So, it was unlikely it could reach me without my connecting to the plane first.

For all the reasons I considered that this experiment could fail, this wasn’t one of them. It bothered me that the rejection was stopping my progress. More than that, it bothered me that I didn’t know if the elemental lord had a way to harm me and I had never known. I cast several spells to protect my mind, and then took a deep breath. I reached out through the topaz again, showing the boulder falling from the cliff and breaking to pieces.

I wasn’t sure if the elemental master would consider that an insult or a threat, but I felt determined to see if it could truly harm me through this connection. This time, the connection remained open but I heard no response back. I began pacing again. It wasn’t as if this master of an entire plane would be scared. It wasn’t as if I could harm it directly without traveling there, and I was not suicidal enough to try that.

I feared that I had erred, though. What if, instead of harming me directly, it interfered with my access to summon elementals from the plane of earth altogether? That would be embarrassing. I’m not certain I could live that down should anyone find out. I would need to put together a geas, or a curse, that activated if anyone realized, one that was related to a silence spell and had several behavioral limitations like—

I received an image back from the lord of the plane, one of the boulder rolling down the cliff and splattering over the hydra in its path. The image had an uncertainty about it as if it were a question. I sent the same image back to it without the uncertainty and soon I felt an elemental flow through the gem into the boulder. A powerful one. One with a willpower more than I had ever felt, a willpower so solid that it couldn’t be swayed.

I didn’t even need to direct the boulder, as it began to shake and rattle before it rolled off the cliffside and tumbled down into the seething mass below. I watched as it landed amid a hill of twisting hydra that gathered beneath it in expectation of a meal, only to be crushed completely. Other hydra around snapped at the remains of their kin only for the boulder to rumble and roll away. Slowly at first, but faster and faster, until it was gone from my range of vision.

I spent the rest of the evening writing down the results of my experiments so far. I so desperately wanted to visit the green-skinned people and learn more about them, but I resolved myself to only record what I had learned so far and try to speak with them another day.