by Matthew Peed
“Cousin, we are here to help,” I said, hoping he was smart enough to understand.
“General Gersa welcomes yous! Wants you stay here till trust yous more,” the little goblin said almost clearly.
I nodded. “That’s fine. The town to the east has been dealt with, so you should be safe for a while.”
The goblin concurred and ran back to the hatch and disappeared without another word. I chuckled and went back to work. Just then my comms suddenly blared.
“Warning from Boss! Incoming terra wave. Sensors picked it up just after the message. Only it’s stronger than the message states! Five minutes!” the comms officer yelled to everyone.
“Get back in the airship and take it to a hundred meters!” I ordered, running over to the steel door. “Brace your people, General Gersa. A wave of terra mana is going to hit this location in five minutes!”
Message delivered, I ran back and jumped into the open bay door as the airship started to rise and hurried to the bridge. I had them pull up the best image of the wave they could. Several lines of green rippled along the ground as it tore its way toward us. After the wave passed, everything looked fine, but that was only for a few seconds—then the ground exploded. Areas around trees survived with much less damage, but even then it was dangerous.
Finally, the wave reached us. When it collided with General Gersa’s dungeon, it weakened significantly as the dungeon absorbed a large chunk of the mana from the wave. From there it was like a stone was thrown in a pond. The wave broke around it but everything past the dungeon was in less danger. It finally passed out of sight.
“Alright! The camp received some damage, but we need to get back down there and get to work!” I shouted before ordering the airship back down. I had to make Boss proud. It didn’t hurt that I didn’t want to be banished from the dungeon. Where else would I be able to build weapons like Bervin?
Chapter 27
Xenio Blackheart
The smell of a delicious source of mana met me as I journeyed throughout the realm. Travel was different for a disformed soul. When I was a Celestial, it only took thirty seconds to move where I wanted. But as a soul, I could be there in twenty seconds, or it could take me months. This time it had taken months.
I looked down into the crater in front of me. The distinct aura of a dungeon emanated from it, but the host was, in mortal terms, not home. Deciding to take the chance, I moved in. The sweet taste of dark mana was all over the crater, but the calling I was sensing was not the cause of this mess.
Moving along the dungeon, I found an empty void where two dragons were battling. I could tell with a glance who the victor was, so I moved on. The next floor had numerous floating islands. The aura of life emanated strongly from several of them. The source of the calling was located on one that was tucked away in the far side.
When I arrived, I found what looked like a ruin on it. I floated through the walls to look around. Whatever was calling me had saturated the place, making it hard to pinpoint. Looking at things in the old-fashioned way, I traversed the ruin until I came upon a sealed room. The dungeon obviously didn’t trust whatever was inside, as there was no way to enter the room, and I could sense strong magic flowing off the walls.
The dungeon had messed up, however, and had only set it for mortals. I slipped past the wards with ease, my form causing them to malfunction and pop. I finally made it through the wall. If I’d had a mouth, I would have whistled. The walls were nearly two meters thick, made from materials that could buy a small city.
Once my vision stabilized, I could finally see what drew me here. A body lay on a stone table. It was still alive but seemed to be in a coma. The soul had vacated the body weeks if not months ago, leaving it open for the taking. The body’s mana base was a little weak, but a few months should fix that.
It was a male by the looks of it. Something had changed the body to one of living metal. If the insides weren’t still flesh, I would have turned right back around. This body would be hard to kill. The veins alone seemed to be composed of mithril.
I checked one more time to make sure the host was still out before jumping into the body. The sensation of flesh slammed into me, knocking the breath out of my new lungs. I groaned as I sat up. Moving my hand to eye level, I flexed my fingers. A grin broke across my face.
“Finally! That fucking bitch Lelune is going to pay for what she did to me and my brother!”
I stood up. The floor cracked when I jumped down. I had used too much strength.
“Whoops! Well, thank you good dungeon for the new body!” I said with a bow toward where the core was located. I snapped my fingers, and a pool of darkness formed behind me. I smiled, then fell backward into it. Right as I crossed the border, I sensed something I hadn’t since the day my brother was betrayed—if only a little. The sensation of the Flame of Knowledge. I made a mental note to return here when I was stronger and meet the host personally.
Oparens Wanderer
“Master Oparens, here are the reagents you requested,” said a page as he handed over a box. I could never remember their names. If they didn’t reach the next rank in magic by three months, they were expelled, after all. No point in remembering something that would change in three months either way.
“Thank you, young one,” I said, not even paying attention to the boy anymore.
I walked back into my laboratory with a serious expression. After a hundred-plus years of life, I knew myself pretty well. Few things moved me in this city, which seemed to never change. After I set the box on the table, I couldn’t help but break into a grin as I observed the materials inside. Rapturous wood, from a tree on the surface over a thousand kilometers straight up.
A caw came from the other side of the room, where a raven made of flames glared at me like wife who’d found out her husband had cheated on her. I chuckled at him.
“What? Don’t want another friend, Qez?” I asked the grumpy raven.
“Caw!” he squawked with an accusing tone.
“I would never! You are the older brother. You need to guide this new sibling when they form,” I said, with mock surprise.
“Caw,” Qez squawked again, with a tone that said he wasn’t sure about this.
“I know. You and nature won’t get along, but I would appreciate it if you at least tried.”
I moved to the next room and placed the wood in the center of a massive ritual diagram. Articles of nature were represented all around the ten-meter circle. I cut my finger and allowed some blood to pool in a circle on the edge. When there was enough, I quickly bound the cut and moved on to the next step.
Grabbing my staff, I moved to another section of the ritual. I began chanting, working the spell that had taken me thirty years to create. The three gems on the staff began to glow as mana circulated through and between them. Arcs of mana started to manifest as the spell took shape.
All around me, motes of light appeared. I looked around carefully, trying to find the one that had the correct hue. Finally, I found one that almost appeared to be hugging the wood. The spell reached a crescendo, and the world around me froze. Qez was frozen midflight as he moved to another perch.
“Hello, little elemental. Would you like a physical body?” I asked the only thing still moving in the room.
The mote of light floated for a moment before it was sucked into the piece of wood. The world suddenly accelerated around me. I resumed my chant before the spell broke. Mana flowed into the wood as the other materials were absorbed by the central piece. It took the look of melted clay as it started to reshape itself.
A wooden creature soon formed in front of me as the spell came to an end. It stood on four legs extending from a large body. Deadly looking antlers emerged from its head, and it shuddered as the elemental took full control of the body. The mana in the air dropped significantly.
“See, Qez. No problems like the last one. The body didn’t explode,” I said, waving the raven off.
“Caw!” Qez crowed, annoyed.
While I examined the body of my newest companion, the room started to shake. At first, I just ignored it, as the city experienced minor quakes every few days, but this time the shaking didn’t let up. Then a sound that hadn’t been heard in a hundred years since the last great battle buzzed throughout the city.
The loud hum of Rose Bloom city’s shield activating meant that whatever was happening could potentially destroy the city. Rose Bloom had existed for a millennium since the ancestors migrated here after being driven from the surface. With the population being primarily the high races, little could threaten us.
There was a banging at my door, and before I even tried to stumble over, it burst open. “Oparens! A wave of terra mana unlike anything we have ever seen is heading for the city. Hell, it’s heading for, well, everywhere! All the masters are being called to the Central Spire to channel mana into the barrier!” said the voice from the other room, who I recognized as Kolu.
“Let’s go then, Kolu!” I shouted.
I channeled some mana into the air around me and took off, hovering to avoid the shaking. Kolu copied me and we quickly made our way out of the labs. We were soon joined by every master in the city. The Central Spire of the mage district rose above us. I almost stopped and gaped when I saw the barrier that was thought to be impenetrable cracking from the massive amount of energy slamming into it.
The masters gathered around the giant crystal that floated at the top of the spire. Each of the over two hundred masters began channeling our mana into the crystal. The shield pulsed with the influx of mana and the cracks started to recede, as did the shaking the cavern was experiencing.
For a moment I thought the danger had passed, then there was the roar of thunder—something not often heard in this subterranean world. Parts of the ceiling broke off and impacted the shield. I felt like a great hand was pressing down on me when another wave of terra mana struck the shield, this one even stronger than the first.
Even with our massive mana pools, masters started to drop from the sky as they felt the feedback from the shield. There was a pain like a knife driven into my temple, nearly knocking me from the sky as well, but I was able to withstand it. Suddenly, I felt an influx of cooling mana that reduced the pain greatly.
Syi, my water elemental companion, wrapped around my neck and infused me with mana. I nodded my thanks to him, unable to speak for fear of feeling more feedback from the shield. I redoubled my efforts to make up for the masters who were incapacitated.
This time we managed to see the wave that passed the city. A rippling, almost alive, shock wave of energy crawled over the city’s shield to continue past. Its power was reduced, but even several kilometers away, I could tell it was feeding on the natural terra mana of the planet to grow in power.
“Quickly! Before the third wave, channel all your remaining power into the shield!” Grandmaster Gulori shouted, immediately following her own advice.
We barely had time to return the shield to full strength before the last wave hit. If the second had been like a hand pressing down, this one was akin to a god dropping a mountain on us. All the masters were slammed from the sky from the pressure and impacted the ground, making craters surrounding the spire.
The sound of glass breaking echoed around the cavern. I managed to prop myself up, though I wished the impact had knocked me out. The shield was spiderwebbing as it fought to resist the wave. I sent up a silent prayer to any god that might be listening that it would hold out.
The wave finally passed as quickly as it came, parts of the shield missing as it broke. Just as the wave finished passing, the crystal on the spire exploded into fragments that began raining down. I could only gape as I watched the majestic jewel of the city vanish right before my eyes.
A figure suddenly landed next to me. Unlike the rest of us, she had managed to stay in the air. Soon, two more figures landed next to her. They all had a regal force that brooked no argument.
“Master Wanderer,” Grandmaster Gulori said.
“Grandmasters,” I replied, trying to stand up but failing.
“Rest. It’s time for your services. You are the only one who has traveled farther than the Wastes and survived to tell the tale, which earned you your name. With the Grand Shield gone, we cannot afford to leave the city. Go! Seek out the source of this attack and return to us,” Gulori said with a force that made the air crackle.
“As the grandmasters have commanded,” I said, bowing my head, which was about the only part of my body I could move.
The masters nodded before walking away. The new elemental companion I’d summoned before this crazy thing had gone down walked up to me, and I felt a soothing flow of mana enter my body.
“Thanks,” I said before passing out.
Chapter 28
Thirty Years Ago
How long have I stared at the wall now? How long has it been since I last saw the sun? I don’t even care about revenge anymore. I’m sure my accusers are long dead. What I wouldn’t do to feel the sun on my face again . . .
Ten Years Ago
“Get back here, you street rat!” shouted a man in a splendid robe as he chased a boy that bobbed and weaved among the crowds. The boy was more at home in the streets than a goblin in the forests. Nothing could catch him.
The boy didn’t even pause. In fact, he sped up. He took corners at a speed that might harm another person, but that was just the extent of his desire to escape the man. Onlookers merely turned away, helping neither the boy nor the man in the robe. The boy whispered something under his breath, and he appeared to go even faster.
Finally, after an hour of chasing him, the man lost track of the boy. He cursed before he left. Not two feet from where he stood, a homeless man leaned forward, and the boy emerged from a hole in the wall.
“Thanks, mister,” the boy said without a change in expression.
The homeless man sighed when he saw the lack of expression. “The world’s rough out there. Fight! Fight with all you’ve got,” he said with a toothless smirk.
The boy nodded and took off. He made his way along a complicated almost mazelike section of the slums until he reached a lean-to. He was careful as he lifted the sheet. The occupant couldn’t handle light well.
“Sera, I’m home,” the boy called softly.
“Yuno. Another day that you return,” Sera said morbidly with a grin.
“Too bad for you,” Yuno responded flatly.
“Once you die, I will be allowed to die,” the girl said, never losing her grin.
The boy sighed and began pulling things from the inner pockets of his shirt. Food comprised the majority of it, but there were a few articles of monetary value as well. Today had been a good day for Yuno the street rat. He made two settings of the food and handed one to Sera. Her eyes glinted, which as Yuno grew older, he started to realize was what the adults called madness. Thankfully, his little sister still ate when given food.
As the pair ate, Yuno looked over the other items from the day. A few silver coins that would go a long way to keeping them fed. Some type of charm that had a gem in it. From the smoothness, Yuno hoped it was worth a lot. Finally, a parchment that had several different shades of red on it.
Something about the parchment made him stop eating to examine it. As he unrolled it, he felt a shock on his fingers, but it quickly passed. Yuno just shook his head, as he sometimes got shocked when he touched surfaces around the city. He couldn’t tell anything different about it this time.
“Yuno, what do you have there?” Sera asked.
“I don’t know.”
He set it on the ground and slowly unrolled it, being more careful than he had ever been before, as the parchment felt like it would crumble at any second. Once it was fully unrolled, Yuno found that it was a map of the city. Only it looked like the city was a lot smaller. The only reason he knew it was the city to begin with was from the Church of Lelune’s cathedral in the middle.
A path was drawn on it that led to a place Yuno
sometimes had to frequent when people grew too aware of him. The sewers. Only, the path led farther down. Yuno had once tried to go there, but fear of the unknown had stopped him.
“A treasure map!” Sera cried, then covered her mouth, glancing around. After nothing happened for a good minute, she removed her hand, the ever-present grin still there. “Let’s go! I want to find the treasure! Let’s go tonight!” Her excitement creeped through, even though she was whispering.
“Dangerous. I’ll go alone,” Yuno said with a shake of his head.
“Once night falls you can’t stop me. Either take me or risk the gangs finding me,” she said with a chuckle.
“Witch,” Yuno mumbled.
“You know what they will do to me if they find me,” she whispered into his ear.
“Shut up! You’re not going,” Yuno said, his expressionless face actually forming a frown.
“A whorehouse or worse. I might end up a slave to some fat bastard that wants to use me for his pleasure,” Sera said, getting louder rather than quieter.
Yuno growled. His features suddenly elongated as he grew several centimeters in seconds. It stopped, then he shrank back to normal as he regained control of his emotions. He glared at Sera.
“Fine!” he said, his expressionless face reverting back.
The two made ready, as the sun was soon to set. Yuno and Sera weren’t sure, as they’d never had a chance to ask their parents, why Sera couldn’t handle the sun, but she’d said it felt like someone was burning her the last time she’d attempted to go out. It was a mystery that they knew would probably never be solved.
The two checked the area before they quickly ran into the night. Sera kept pace with Yuno with some effort. She wasn’t an invalid, just malnourished. If the gangs of the slums weren’t always looking for new blood to throw in the brothels or their own personal harems, Sera would have tried to get a job at a tavern or something similar.