Ancient Barons and the Returned Assassin

by Weiqi Wang

  ‘This is…?’ Soarame took a blue soulcore and tried to figure out what kind of magimal it was from. He was confident that it was a Level-6 one, but couldn’t really tell what exactly. Moelmos’ name was carved on the soulcore, followed by that day’s date.

  ‘Those are the two best soulcores that I got during the mission. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any Expert ones.’ Moelmos said. ‘According to wizards’ tradition, we send gifts to our rescuers for gratitude — usually it’s the best gain before or after the rescue.’

  ‘Oh, man. I didn’t know this.’ Soarame was enlightened. ‘But you don’t need to do this. We are comrades, aren’t we?’

  ‘Even so, you and Halg did save me and Moelmos.’ Sophie walked by too with her soulcores. ‘And here’s mine.’

  ‘Just take it as an exchange of souvenirs.’ Halgon took out two soulcores, carved his name, then handed them over to Moelmos and Sophie. ‘It’s a pleasure.’

  ‘Thank you!’ Sophie’s eyes shone up when receiving Halgon’s gift. The four took a little while to finish the exchange and then Moelmos had to leave. Before he stepped into the carriage, he waved at the three. ‘I look forward to seeing you all in the Alliance!’

  ‘You won’t wait long!’ Sophie waved back. She then turned to Soarame and Halgon. ‘When are you guys graduating?’

  ‘Don’t know yet.’ Soarame shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’ll probably take a while.’

  ‘Come on, man!’ Sophie wasn’t convinced. ‘What about you, Halg?’

  ‘No idea.’ Halgon signalled at Soarame with his eyes. ‘We should start our meditation now. I’m tired.’

  ‘Yeah, let’s do it together.’ Sophie walked closer to Halgon. ‘By the way, why haven’t you bonded with your badge yet?’

  ‘Sorry, but I wanna pee.’ Seeing the girl trying to stay with Halgon, Soarame tried to help him out. ‘Where’s the best spot?’

  ‘Me too, actually.’ Halgon understood right away; he smirked and agreed. ‘Let’s run!’

  ‘How old are you, to pee together?’ Watching the two rushing into woods, Sophie stamped. ‘You really think I care to chat you up?’

  ‘How was that?’ In the woods, Soarame was proud of his action.

  ‘Helpful.’ Halgon laughed. ‘In case you don’t know, you’ve almost got a reputation for “peescape”.’

  ‘No way. I upgraded to “laxescape” a while ago.’ Soarame laughed too. ‘By the way, why haven’t you bonded with the badge anyway?’

  ‘Because I believe that, once you bond with it, they can use it to locate you,’ Halgon said. ‘They mean to protect you in that way, but I don’t want it.’

  ‘Fine.’ Soarame nodded. ‘Such a shame, though. You can’t use an Epic magigear without bonding first, right?’

  ‘Positive. But it’s still useful as a weapon, for its hardness.’ Halgon shrugged his shoulders. ‘Jankide is indestructible by any ordinary means — you can’t burn it, melt it, corrode it or anything. Only extremely powerful magic spells can reshape it, with the help of a series of confounding conditions.’

  ‘Wow. So it’s not easy even for Sunrise Alliance to produce a badge like this.’ Soarame took out the badge and looked it up and down. ‘But what exactly can it do? Why are they so keen to keep it a secret?’

  ‘Well, take time to find out then. When you do, don’t forget to tell me.’ Halgon was throwing the arrow-like badge up and down. ‘For me, it’ll be a fearsome dart!’ With that, Halgon hurled the badge towards a rock — it went completely into it as easily as if the rock was made of clay.

  ‘Shit.’ Halgon jumped up in the next second, casting a windblade at the rock. ‘Soar, help me get it out.’

  ‘Dude, your dad is right, you are reckless.’ Soarame laughed and also spelled windblades at the rock. It was the first time that Soarame had seen Halgon’s windblades — of Expert level, they seemed even sharper than Soarame’s.

  ‘Halg, your wi…’ Soarame suddenly froze —

  ‘Hi there, how’s the pee going?’ A hundred feet away, Sophie was staring at the two with a teasing smile.

  ‘It’s going well,’ Soarame said. ‘You knew we were peeing but you came anyway?’

  ‘Not only that, I’ve been peeking at you while you’ve been “peeing”.’ Sophie’s words totally choked the boys. ‘Halg, you wanna say something?’

  ‘Something like what?’ Halgon was instantly alerted, but he looked very calm. ‘Thanks for peeking?’

  ‘Like your windblades!’ Sophie watched Halgon with bright piercing eyes. ‘You only have gifts in Earth and Darkness, right?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Soarame hurriedly spoke up. ‘Those are my windblades, come on!’ The boys were so regretful for letting loose right after the beastide finished; but who would have expected Sophie to be peeking anyway? What if they really had been pissing?

  ‘You think I’m an idiot?’ Sophie stared. ‘You think I can’t tell what I saw?’

  ‘You are a smart girl for sure, but you suffered poison plus a concussion due to the battle — don’t forget that.’ Halgon walked towards Sophie. ‘I know you look fine, but they can still cause illusions, especially the concussion.’

  ‘Really.’ Sophie crossed her arms before her chest. ‘Convince me with another illusion.’

  ‘As you wish.’ Halgon stretched out a finger and pointed at Sophie’s forehead, half an inch away from her and straight between her eyebrows. ‘It’s a simple test to see if you have concussion — if it itches, that means you are not recovered yet and need some rest.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Sophie frowned right away — it did itch. ‘It shouldn’t be… it must be a spell of some sort!’

  ‘Oh my god.’ Halgon rolled his eyes. ‘If you don’t believe me, do it yourself!’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Sophie put her own finger before her forehead, and felt itchy again. ‘Oh no…’

  ‘You even saw illusions, meaning it’s really bad — you must try to recover soon, or it may leave brain damage.’ Halgon shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t know this; it’s just common sense.’

  ‘Don’t waste any more time!’ Soarame stopped Sophie arguing back. ‘You wanna risk brain damage? That will put you on the headline of our campus newspaper.’

  ‘No. I’ll go and do some meditation now.’ Sophie looked really worried. ‘Keep your mouths shut! Don’t tell anyone about this!’

  ‘If you promise us you didn’t really see us peeing!’ Halgon stared at Sophie. ‘You only saw us after we’d done it, correct?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I never saw that… that.’ Sophie hurriedly nodded and hastened away. ‘See you later… Remember your promise!’

  ‘Hoo…’ Halgon patted Soarame’s shoulder. ‘That was close.’

  ‘Indeed, we’ve been reckless.’ Soarame was also relieved. ‘Concussion? Thank god.’

  ‘No, thank Moelmos.’ Halgon chuckled. He put a finger at Soarame’s forehead. ‘By the way, I think you might have concussion too.’

  ‘Haha, cut it out. Where did you learn that anyway?’ Soarame punched Halgon’s chest. ‘For a second I thought you were Kardiac!’

  ‘He’s not the only one who knows how to bluff.’ For some reason, Halgon’s voice suddenly became heavy. ‘It was… my dad.’

  WHO ARE YOU?

  ‘Your dad?’ Soarame didn’t follow.

  ‘Dad used to trick me to go into hibernation by doing that.’ Halgon sighed, shaking his head. ‘He said due to some early accident during my birth, I had a concussion. Therefore, whenever I felt itchy that way I needed to go to sleep.’

  ‘Poochee!’ Soarame couldn’t hold it. ‘You must have been naughty, and he wanted to you hibernate and level up faster.’

  ‘Partially correct.’ Halgon’s gaze became more distant, as if he was immersing himself into the memory. ‘It only took me hundreds of years to realize it was no more than a trick. So I thought that the concussion story was nothing more than a lie either.’

  ‘It must have been… must
n’t it?’ Soarame was confused.

  ‘Now I actually doubt it.’ Halgon turned to look at Soarame. ‘Remember we talked about my mom’s difficulty in labour yesterday? Can you repeat what I told you back then?’

  ‘Sure. Your dad said a dragon’s bloodline was too strong and invasive. Even an Expert wizard wouldn’t be able to cope with it.’ Soarame recalled it. ‘It therefore caused your mum’s difficulty in labour.’

  ‘Hold on.’ Halgon gestured. ‘Think about that. Didn’t you have doubts about it as soon as you said it??’

  Soarame puzzled. He actually didn’t recall what he said until Halgon reminded him — ‘So that it caused difficulty in labour?’

  Soarame was thinking in silence. Although he was far from understanding labour and delivery stuff, the story itself didn’t make sense — if a dragon’s bloodline was an invasive one that even an Expert couldn’t cope with, how could dragon blood be such a great healing medicine? Furthermore, if it were invasive, it probably should have killed Halgon’s mom, instead of allowing a new life to form inside her.

  ‘So… what do you suggest?’ Soarame frowned.

  ‘I don’t know. But things have got to be more complicated than I thought’ Halgon looked disturbed. ‘Too bad we only talked about it yesterday; otherwise I could have asked dad before I sneaked out.’

  ‘Relax, you may just be overthinking it.’ Soarame tried to comfort his best friend. The two talked a bit more but didn’t get any useful insights, so they went back to join the group for meditation and the picnic after that.

  The picnic was very welcome, though this time everyone became temporarily vegetarian due to their memories of the over-baked magimals. The two enjoyed the celebration as much as everyone else, but Halgon could sense someone peeking at him from time to time — Sophie. Soarame would have teased his friend for that, if he had not been being watched himself — it was the queen this time.

  ‘It’s not gonna be an easy one.’ Soarame raised his eyebrows at Halgon. ‘Sandoray is serious about us, so get prepared for a tough battle that we won’t win.’

  ‘Soar! Halg!’

  ‘Kardy? Guys! You’ve been waiting?’

  When the triumphal Grade-6s passed the Libral Gate and returned to the campus the next day, they suddenly noticed that there were quite a few gathering by the entrance, cheering for them. Obviously, the school had announced their success in the mission and their returning time. Soarame and Halgon joined the crowd like everyone else, and were told that the entire school had been on celebration break since the previous day. The gate would stay open for the rest of the week, so that everyone could fully enjoy the celebration.

  While the rest of the school was happy, Soarame and his friends locked themselves in the dorm, looking solemn. They had finally collected enough Expert soulcores — they’d brought back two, from the deerhornet and the beautifox, plus they’d exchanged their other gains with Effith for the bufflox soulcore. Plus, Soarame had got the crystal ball back from Gazbell. So now they were ready to activate the magic array of Myriad Eyes.

  Watching the six shining Expert soulcores positioned on the blueprint, forming a magic hexagram, everyone tried to slow their quickening heartbeats — it was real! They had really made it happen!

  ‘Ready?’ Soarame took a deep breath and put the reassembled crystal ball in the centre of the blueprint, on top of the twisted curve pattern. His hands trembled as they moved, but they did position the crystal ball in the right spot.

  Seconds later, the blueprint began to shine. The energy inside the soulcores was stimulated, covering them in magic aura. At the same time, the friends could feel the energy start to gather towards the crystal ball. Soarame, on the other hand, saw something more in his Magneer vision —

  What’s this? Soarame was surprised as he saw the entire crystal ball emitting a silver colour, which was invisible to everyone else. As the emission continued, a number of curvy threads stretched from the crystal ball — it looked like that the twisted curves in the center of the blueprint jumped out of the parchment and became real. The curvy threads kept stretching and extended to the ceiling — Soarame felt that the threads were not material objects, so that they went through the ceiling and kept extending to the high sky. But he didn’t have a chance to check his guess, because a hologram was cast into the air, gradually becoming clearer and clearer — the array had been successfully activated.

  The hologram was a dynamic one, with the crystal ball at the centre of it. Everything surrounding the crystal ball in the hologram was cast as a live scene, thus revivifying what had happened during the last operation on the crystal ball. The live hologram was almost as big as the entire living room, so that it embraced the friends standing within it.

  The living room darkened, because the hologram was showing a darkroom, with candles lit here and there. The table that the crystal ball was sitting on in the hologram was about the same size as the real one in the dorm, so the friends were still surrounding it, just as they had been previously.

  ‘Ahh!’ Catheray suddenly screamed — she just noticed that there was a man in the hologram, who happened to be right behind her.

  ‘It’s fake. Don’t panic.’ Kardiac hurriedly held Catheray in his arms.

  Everyone let out a breath after the sudden shock, and looked at the man. He was wearing a dark, loose cloak, which revealed a remarkable contrast between his fat belly and the empty sleeve for the right arm. Looking closer, the friends saw that the man had a half-bald, pear-shaped head with a wide jaw; even the glasses on his nose weren’t as wide as his jaw. Soarame’s breath became heavier and heavier once he’d got a clear view of the man’s face — it was Max, in person!

  Plonk. Max threw something on to the table, beside the crystal ball. It was a broken arm, covered in blood.

  ‘NO!!’ Dileys screamed as she pounced on to the arm, before anyone realized it. But the arm, like everything else in the hologram, was just an image, so she only ended up bashing herself on the table.

  ‘Calm down, Dileys!’ The friends dragged the crazy girl away. She cried and struggled, until a few seconds later —

  ‘Lucky you, Rodka.’ Max muttered. ‘Don’t let me find you again!’

  Everyone silenced. They watched Max activate the crystal ball to make a live recording of the broken arm. Soarame stepped in front of Max, staring him straight in the eyes while the latter spoke —

  ‘‘Soarame, the next one will be you!’’

  The hologram disappeared in the next second, leaving Soarame staring towards where Max had been, his veins twitching. Around him, everyone else was enraged too, their fists clenched in silence.

  ‘Crack, crack, crack…’ The soulcores were used up, and broke, which also broke the silence.

  ‘The good news is that Rodka did survive.’ Jemario was the first to speak, holding Dileys in arms. ‘We can confirm that now.’

  ‘And he actually escaped from Max!’ Dileys’ eyes brightened up; she smiled through her tears. ‘I told you — I have faith in him!’

  ‘But the bad news is that we didn’t get much of a clue as to where Max was, because the darkroom didn’t even have a window.’ Soarame propped his forehead on his hand. ‘But Max wouldn’t do his seamy business out in the sunshine, so that was only to be expected.’

  ‘Correct. But there were still some details that might be useful.’ Ericson said. ‘Like the snow boots in the corner — you probably didn’t notice.’

  ‘The snow boots?’ Soarame tried to recall, but his brain suddenly felt dizzy. ‘What…’ Then he lost consciousness.

  Plonk, plonk, plonk. All the friends lost consciousness one by one, banging their heads against the table or the floor, until the very last one —

  ‘You…’ Halgon struggled to stand up, but got a hard knock on the neck and passed out too.

  ****

  ‘Soarame, wake up!’

  In a dark room, Halgon was shaking a comatose Soarame harshly. ‘Dude, wake up now! We don’t have much
time!’

  ‘Halg? What’s going on?’ Soarame barely managed to open his eyes. Beside the boys, Snower and Icer were also there, both in a coma. ‘Snower? Icer?’

  ‘They are fine. I don’t know what’s happening or why, exactly, but it was Ericson!’ Halgon said anxiously. ‘He somehow drugged us and locked us in here!’

  ‘What?’ Holding Snower in his arms, Soarame struggled to regain his sanity. ‘Ericson? What are you talking about?’ He sat up and looked around, trying to clear his mind.

  ‘Why did he do this? Where’s everyone?’ However unbelievable it sounded, Soarame knew that Halgon wouldn’t make things up. ‘Why are Snower and Icer here, but no one else? And where are we?’

  ‘I don’t know either. But I’m almost certain that we are inside a palatorium.’ Halgon checked his surroundings carefully. The room was not big, with some fluorescence in different colours by the edges and corners. ‘The roof, the ground and the walls are actually boundaries of this palatorium space…’ He tailed off when he looked into the fluorescence here and there.

  ‘A palatorium?!’ Soarame was startled to hear the words. According to Scankeen, a palatorium was even rarer than a space-ring, due to its superior capacity to contain living things, such as people. Soarame would never forget the old days when he used to practise Wind magic in Scankeen’s palatorium, where he also met Richie, the mini horse, and heard Volsta’s pained moans from the castle. Although this space was much smaller than Scankeen’s palatorium — it was perhaps of similar size to Soarame’s bedroom — how could Ericson have a palatorium in the first place?

  ‘Careful, it looks like a broken one.’ Halgon stepped back from the fluorescent spots. ‘The fluorescence is probably due to a leak of the turbulent space outside this steady one.’

  ‘Turbulent space?’ Although Soarame didn’t really understand the concept, he was alerted. ‘What exactly does that mean?’

  ‘You should know about it.’ Halgon was surprised. ‘I can’t believe this — your master gave you a space-ring but didn’t tell you the basics?’