The Crimson Warlock

by Paulo Meireles Junior

  “I do not know…” was his answer.

  INTERLUDE II

  THE ELVEN ARCHER

  Lorelai Alfaerr Heryan

  “Are you certain?” I asked her.

  “I do not know as of now. Maybe...” was her response.

  “Well, I think uncle Lucius will approve of your request” I responded, she blushed and avoided eye contact “but now it’s not the time”.

  “I agree, I just wished to get that out of my chest. I might not have been quite myself these past few days...” Alexis frowned.

  “My dear cousin… It is but normal to be in your situation” I was quite hoping that would happen, not that I would voice my opinion “remember, we have a lot on our plates now. Given the fact of the mysterious murders of three of our nobles, I am quite certain that they were in cahoots with the false priest” I closed my eyes and massaged my forehead.

  “Yes, poor brother now has to wait until father’s agents fully investigate the incident, his marriage has been delayed indefinitely” she sighed.

  “Aye, but we are also in danger. Until James deals with our enemy, we should presume that no one is safe” at the mention of James she looked at me.

  “I know we already talked about this. Let me ask, my mother and I were wondering... Sir James seems to lack avarice, which is why he is so interesting. Was he always like this?” she looked determined to find the answer.

  “Yeah, as I told you before. On Earth, our job was to investigate crimes and bring criminals to justice, when I met James... He had no family and no friends...” I took a sip of the tea before continuing “at first I thought he wouldn’t open up to me, he used to be extremely objective, only really caring about work. With time I began to see his true self, he cares about people, it was just difficult to see him showing that… Truth be told, ever since I remembered my life on Earth I’ve been sad because I couldn’t see or talk to him. In the time we worked together, we became like family, he was the brother I never had, I may be selfish to confess this but I am thankful for that priest’s interference, because it led me to see him again. I’m sorry, I know that you were captive, the event is a bad memory for you” she shook her head.

  “I appreciate your honesty. Do you know why you are my favorite relative? It is not because of the fact that we are of the same age. Ever since you recovered memories from your past life you’ve been bold enough to voice your opinions, to get what you want. I respect that, in fact, I admire you for that” she smiled “now, I seem to remember Sir James telling us that you are the reason that he is here so I for one am also thankful, he not only saved us, but put a light in your eyes, I have never seen you so lively as you have been these past months”.

  My childhood was difficult, ever since I remembered my past life. My parents were constantly worried about me, no one knew what was going on, I was not certain if my mind was playing tricks or not. Thankfully, in the end we uncovered the truth, I started getting stronger and tenacious enough to convince my uncle that I wanted to be trained, both in melee combat and magic arts.

  It is true that James’s arrival put me in a better mood than I have been in years, I think that as much as this is my life now, my old memories also shaped me to the person I am today and for years James was my brother, I truly thank the god that sent him here and I pray that he is strong enough to raise above the present obstacles… I cannot lose him again.

  “If I may make a suggestion” I said “we should train to become stronger. While it is true that our kingdom prospered for decades and our parents have not gone to war, we will not be safe inside ramparts if we do not know how to protect ourselves. I know you have been trained in magic as was I but improvement can always be achieved”.

  “I have been thinking about that lately, I was so angry at that wedding, my anger was not related to the fact that I was a hostage but that I had no way of defending myself, everything happened so fast...”

  I knew what we were supposed to face in the future, the question in my mind was: were we prepared?

  I arrived at the guild to look for James in the same afternoon, Clara, the innkeeper, told me that he was summoned by the guildmaster so I walked the short distance from the inn to the guild to meet with them. Luke was near the desk and waived at me, beckoning me over.

  “Lady Lorelai, to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?” he bowed in respect.

  “I’m looking for James”.

  “Ah, he is with the guildmaster. Please follow me” he went on ahead and I followed.

  We covered the distance from the desk to the guildmaster’s office and I waited while he knocked at the door, after a short moment he opened the door and we found Yuna sitting behind her desk and James sitting across from her, her office was a mess, there were parchments and books all over the place.

  “Oh my, lady Lorelai, such a pleasure. Please don’t look around too much, my office is a mess” she blushed.

  “I keep telling you to tidy up this place” James crossed his arms. Yuna pouted at him before waiving her arm, the room completely changed in a few seconds. The books and the parchments all flew around to find their respective places and just like that, her office was now organized.

  “Cool trick” I said looking around “Pardon me. I was looking for James, are you free later?” I asked him.

  “It seems that the guild has a problem that needs resolving. I don’t know how much time that is going to take me”.

  “Oh, cool. Can I help?” going on a quest, this was better than what I had in mind, I initially wanted to train.

  Yuna looked at James and he shrugged. He turned to me and seemed to think for a second before nodding. Looking at the scene, Luke then excused himself leaving us in the room. I sat at a chair near James and waited for them to start talking again.

  “Okay… As I was saying. Something strange is happening near Saurian, we had reports of people going missing. All of the people missing left the town to gather supplies or hunt in the forests surrounding Saurian” Yuna mentioned “the citizens contacted the guild and the guards sent messages forward, but until soldiers from Elistera respond, I fear we might lose more people. The fruits and the animals or monsters that reside in the forests around Saurian are integral to the town’s survival. Even afraid of not coming back, people will still leave the town so they can find food or hunt monsters and animals, many people depend on the hunts and the harvest of food to either eat or sell for profit”.

  “I assume adventurers have also been dispatched to investigate?” James asked.

  “Yes, unfortunately they did not return. We also sent a scout to look around, that scout is also missing” she responded.

  “Alright, we will investigate” he looked at me and I nodded, it would be interesting.

  “Thank you” Yuna smiled, clearly relieved. She seemed to think very highly of James, that was nice to see.

  We arrived at the inn a few minutes later, James had to eat something and while he headed for the canteen to get us lunch I waited and chatted with Clara. Beth, the chef, made some burger buns with lettuce and white wolf meat, the food was delicious and I didn’t blame James for liking the Sun’s Blessing so much.

  “Should we inform your family that I’ll be taking you out of town for a while?” he asked, his mouth half full.

  “Nope, I already told them I wanted to train with you, they know we usually do it outside of Sunnara” the last thing I wanted was for my parents to worry about me.

  “Okay, we might run a little late since it’s one o’clock now”.

  “And how do you know that? Did you buy a watch? Those are expensive” I asked.

  “No, I have a… spell that tells me the time” I didn’t know whether to believe him or not but I let it pass.

  After we ate he extended his hand so I took it and after an unpleasant sensation, the scenery around us changed, behind us was Saurian town, I never visited the town but I passed this way before when uncle Lucius sought counsel with the High Elves that lived be
yond the valley.

  “Yuna told me that the people went missing in this general direction” he motioned the forest in front of us.

  “So, how do we find them?” I looked at him.

  “First things first” he looked at me and whispered a few words “I just put a shield around us, I need to put a camouflage too but we will need to maintain physical contact, that way we will know where the other is” that made sense, I guess.

  I put my right hand on his shoulder and he used a spell that made us blend with the scenery. If not for the fact that I was touching his shoulder I wouldn’t be able to tell his location. I concealed my presence because I was used to doing that when I needed to be furtive and we then entered the forest to look around, the plan was to walk and make the least amount of noise possible. If this place had a predator, we were bound to find it.

  At first the only disturbances we could find where drag marks and broken branches, there were no signs of blood or struggle so we ventured on for a while. The forest became quite dense and James stopped for a moment and whispered that there were multiple monsters ahead, his magic obviously afforded him to either see or feel the enemy. He sighed, we went straight forward and stopped behind a bush.

  The scene in front of us was not for the faint of heart, multiple Kobolds gathered in front of a bonfire, I could see a naked human female tied with ropes, she appeared to be unconscious. To the side, I could see what was left of multiple burned bodies, probably the others that came here and disappeared. This turned out ugly really fast.

  “I think we found our culprits. The question is: what are they doing?” he whispered.

  “Considering that they are Kobolds, I think they mean to sacrifice that woman” I responded.

  “I can sense more of them nearby” he sighed.

  “Do you have magic to kill them in without making sound?” I was worried about alerting the others.

  “No, I think-” he was about to say something when an arrow made of light perforated two Kobolds at once. The other three looked around and before they could make more noise three more arrows appeared out of nowhere, all of them instantly killing the Kobolds.

  We waited for a moment while a figure dropped from the top of a tree, the elf was wearing a green robe covering most of her body, except for her head, her young and pale complexion was contrasted by her long purple hair, she held an intricate short bow and I couldn’t see a quiver or arrows on her person, which meant that her arrows were made in the moment using magic.

  Looking back at the dead Kobolds near the bonfire my suspicions were confirmed because their heads were perforated but I saw no signs of the arrows that killed them. She looked around them for a few instants and crouched near the naked woman before saying.

  “I can feel your presence” she turned and looked right at us “you can come out now” she said getting up and crossing her arms.

  “Well...” James said. We went in her direction and he dispelled the camouflage on us “I didn’t feel your presence, which means that there are a lot of things that I’ve yet to learn. I’m James Hunter, this is Lorelai” he introduced us “the guild sent us here to look into the disappearance of Saurian’s citizens”.

  “Two of you? I can only feel your presence, James, was it?… You do look like the adventurer type. I am called Phaedra Laventure by my tribe” she introduced herself “these Kobolds have been wreaking havoc all throughout the valley. Two of our children were killed by them, these bastards dismember males to use them as baits for monsters and sacrifice females to their shadow spirit, M'allekh” she went from calm to furious in an instant.

  “Huh? Just my presence? But wh-- ah, I remember” James whispered to himself ignoring some of Phaedra’s words, he turned to face me “I had forgotten that you can conceal your presence, some time you gotta teach me that”.

  “Yeah, just ask me when you have the time to learn and I’ll teach you” I smiled. He nodded and returned the smile before looking in front of us and talking.

  “There are a few more Kobolds near this location, how many of them there are in total?” James asked.

  “These are the last few. We have been hunting them non-stop for the past few days. They moved from up north to the outskirts of Saurian. Bunch of idiots! Like someone wouldn’t notice people suddenly disappearing...”

  “So, if we clear these last Kobolds, the people of Saurian will be safe” he mentioned “can you tell me more about these Kobolds? I found some in a sentient dungeon once, they didn’t look like these ones”.

  “These are normal Kobolds, you can tell by their long pointy ears, their charred skin and their wolf-like faces” Phaedra responded “what is the difference between these and the ones you found inside the dungeon you mentioned?”

  “The ones inside the dungeon had a dark green skin and were taller than these ones you killed” she looked startled for a moment at his description of the different Kobolds.

  “I thought that tribe was wiped out a long time ago. But inside dungeons? That is intriguing… The ones you found are thought to be extinct, despite their visual difference, they are basically the same. Kidnapping people and making sacrifices to their spirit and all” he nodded at that.

  James then closed his eyes for a moment “I can sense at least fifteen more Kobolds ahead”.

  “Can you sense people among them?” I asked.

  “Yes, there are at least three people alive in the midst of them” he responded.

  “How do we approach this?”

  “Fast, I will put a shield on the people held captive and we can kill the Kobolds without worrying about harming the hostages” was his response.

  “Can your shield hold that long?” Phaedra asked.

  “Yes, I can hold the shield for as long as needed” he said and she held eye contact with him, probably looking for an indication that he was lying.

  “Okay, I will trust you with it then” she said after a few moments, holding her bow high, she looked back at James “which direction?”

  “That way” he pointed to our right “I will also put a shield on this woman” he whispered something without even looking at the naked woman, this time I saw a purple light enveloping her before disappearing.

  James went on ahead and we followed him close, after a few moments of walking, he looked behind and put a finger in front of his mouth signalizing us to stay quiet. In front of us we saw many Kobolds dancing and making noise around their camp, two women and a man were tied to a tree, unlike the woman from before, these people were still fully clothed.

  “I can take the ones on the left” Phaedra said looking up the trees, she pointed to a branch “I’ll take a sniping position there”.

  “Roger that, I’m shielding the humans now” James said “Lorelai, can you use your wind magic to tear the ones on the right?” I nodded “I’ll slice the middle ones”.

  Phaedra jumped with incredible skill and landed on the right branch, positioning herself to use her bow. I made sure to count my four targets and concentrate on them before taking my position behind one of the trees.

  Phaedra signaled that she was ready, James looked at me and raised his hand. When he motioned forward, I used a 『Wind Barrage』 to trap my four targets inside the walls of wind, I then used 『Ice Needles』 and a cluster of clouds formed above my targets firing needles made of ice, continuously. Phaedra used her light arrows to repeatedly kill the Kobolds on the left while James cut the ones around the fire with a powerful wind spell. As fast as it started, the fight was over. Our targets laid there, all of them dead, the commotion had woken up the humans that looked frightened at the scene.

  I comforted the hostages and promised to escort them back safely to the town. Phaedra thanked us for the help and said that she was going to scout the rest of the forest before meeting back with others of her tribe. James ripped the fabric off of one of the makeshift tents and handed me the thick cloth, I used it to cover the naked female, it took us a few moments to wake her and after assuring her
that she was safe, we then escorted the four survivors to Saurian.

  The guild clerk was happy to see James and thanked us for taking care of the Kobolds. I thought about the events that occurred a few moments before, this world was so savage in so many ways, yet I was glad that I had the stomach to witness such a barbaric scene, that made a difference, in situations like those, freezing out of fear could result in my death.

  My time at the homicide division taught me that I couldn’t see dead people as normal individuals, they unfortunately were sometimes our only links to a murderer that could continue to terrorize citizens unless we caught them.

  James dropped me off home after we ate some pasta at the bistro I first took him when we met in Sunnara. Our time together completing this quest only made me realize that I could do more for myself in the future, now I only needed to support James while he completed his mission and pray that I could convince my parents of letting me work with him in the future.

  CHAPTER VII

  END OF THE ROAD

  “James, how goes the tracking?” Mega asked me.

  “I’m keeping the spell active, right now the Reaper is somewhere very far from Sunnara, I can’t pinpoint his exact location though” I responded.

  “Can you feel it if he approaches Sunnara? We need to head to Yokana, you did promise the Emperor to purify that crater today” he commented. The range on the spell wouldn’t extend to Yokana, if he approaches when I’m there… Well, Yuna can contact me, can’t she?

  It had been two weeks since the completion of the spell, I left the spell constantly active while resolving last minute errands. As I surmised before, the guild contacted me again with an offer directly from the Empire, they needed to purify the crater outside of the city because it was starting to attract too much attention, giving the fact that I could extend the range of my 『Purify』 spell, clearing the whole area wasn’t much of a problem for me.

  “I’m not sure because of the distance, but Yuna can contact me if something happens. We will go to Yokana as soon as I eat something. Beth woke up earlier than usual today and I can smell the food she is preparing from here” that made my stomach protest, I didn’t eat anything when I woke up today.