“Mister Tolondur, I must ask that you please leave our premises. We do not want to fight you and this is a peaceful establishment,” Florence said, not even fazed by the mage’s aura or his display of power. I wonder what would have happened if we didn’t have the defenses keyed up, so that all Mana not coming from a Stone Raider is absorbed by the vault soul gems?
“You dare to—” Any words Tolondur was going to say turned into choking noises as the staff he was lowering to point at Florence dropped to the ground and he was forced to his knees.
“Ugh, well, he was a loud one.” Kim yawned as she came out the back of the guild hall. “Florence, do you have any nectar of Egun?” She scratched her head idly.
“Yes, I believe we do. Hector knows where it is,” Florence said.
“Thanks.” Kim yawned again, not showing any strain of putting Tolondur on the ground with her aura alone.
The guards looked from Tolondur to Kim and Florence.
Florence raised her eyebrow; the guards released their weapons slowly. She gave them a nod and stepped around the counter. She touched Tolondur’s shoulder; the man collapsed into unconsciousness.
“It seems that Mister Tolondur is under the weather. Could you see that he gets home safely? Could you also inform him that he is banned from our guild hall here and the Stone Raiders and their affiliates will no longer trade with him or his father. We would be willing to discuss possible terms of lifting this ban with Lord Gesar, but for insulting my fellow guild member and my guild, Mister Tolondur is banned for life. Thank you.” Florence nodded to the guards.
“Thank you, milady,” one of the guards said as the others gathered the noble up.
“Uh, you wouldn’t perhaps have any job openings?” the same guard asked in a low voice as he got close.
“You would have to talk to one of the fighters. You can find them at the teleport pad. They will know more on that side of things.” Florence smiled. They were probably good fighters and were smart enough to know when to fight and stay their blades. If they were kicked out of Tolondur’s employ, well, the Stone Raiders were growing and she needed dedicated guards, not just Stone Raiders taking a break from raiding across Emerilia.
Tolondur was escorted out.
“Ah, the young—so rash,” an older and refined-looking gentleman said, walking up to the counter.
A few people who saw the man went big-eyed and talked to their fellow shoppers.
Florence appraised the man.
Alamos Ecanil
Level 310
Human
With her extra senses, she could tell he was a mage, a powerful one. There was a flash of a badge under his robe but she didn’t get a long enough glance at it.
“I was wondering if you could help me. I was told by an old friend that you Stone Raiders might be able to get me some of these items.” Alamos produced a list and handed it to Florence.
She took the list and checked over the items. Nearly all of them were rather hard to find and she knew of their numbers and stock because of their rarity. “I think we can get most of these items. Might I ask who gave you our name?”
“You know Deia?” Alamos asked.
“Yes, she was one of the people who helped the Exdar’s and Raiders unite.” Florence smiled.
“Ah, well, her dad is an old adventuring friend of mine and Jelanos.” Alamos grinned.
Jelanos...that sounds familiar, important in the—Wait, he doesn’t mean the Jelanos? Then Alamos is the second arch mage? Wait, Deia’s dad plays this game? But then how does he have a past with the leaders of the arch mage’s college and guild?
“Oh, I will have to thank her for that. Might you be Arch Mage Alamos?” She lowered her voice.
Alamos took on an amused look. “Seems that I can still hide under the radar in places. Thanks for not yelling my name out.” He winked.
“No problem. If you want to come with me, I can show you these items.” Florence held up the list.
“Thank you. That would be great.” Alamos looked more like an excitable kid than a venerable mage.
“Florence, we need to reinforce the back room. I think I nearly melted the west wall,” Kim said, heading back to her bedroom turned laboratory.
“Use the damn lab in the back!” Florence hissed under her breath.
“Aw, but it doesn’t have any heating, or windows!” Kim complained like a two-year-old. She even stomped her feet.
“Cause you keep blowing out the damn windows and you know how to do some enchanting!” Florence hissed back, catching Alamos’s amused look as he followed behind them.
Kim made annoyed noises and frowned.
“Didn’t you know that Dave is going to be teaching people how to magically code things?” Florence said, getting an idea.
“He is?” Kim perked up.
“Said he’s opening up a school in the guild. I think Josh posted it. Best to get there before someone else takes your spot,” Florence advised.
“Turn that teleport pad on! I’m going to the guild hall!” Kim took off at a run.
“Don’t forget your experiments!” Florence yelled after her, seeing Kim leave out of a door and then run back in and rush upstairs.
“Quite lively in here.” Alamos chuckled.
“Ugh, ever since they got back, it’s been hectic.” Florence sighed. Weaving past appraisal rooms and stacks of different items, she stepped down a wide set of stairs.
Alamos followed. “Yes, I have heard of a number of Stone Raiders joining the college. It seems that they are quite powerful. I have a meeting with the leaders of Devil’s Crater in a week. I’ve heard from the students we’ve taken on that you are a force to be reckoned with. Even the POEs have been buying recording stones with the videos from the battle of Devil’s Crater.”
“Miss adventuring?” Florence smiled as she led to an elevator.
“Some days,” Alamos said as the lift started downward. “I didn’t believe that your storage was so vast.”
“Well, we do have a large number of items.” Florence smiled. Don’t need to tell him that all fourteen floors underground are filled with wards and traps, that we just use the trader hub the Aleph gave us and a drop pad in the basement to move goods between our guild halls and to our customers.
After all the information they had been getting from their scout automatons, they were not taking any chances with their goods. Lord Esamael wanted them gone and all signs pointed to him trying to take the throne of Gudalo for himself.
Lucy was the one dealing with that: gathering information, creating contacts, and preparing them for whatever might come.
***
Malsour stretched as he got up in his bedroom; he’d been assigned one at the housing facility. He grabbed a water skin of juice and headed out of his room.
“Hey, Malsour, this is awesome!” Gelimah yelled from the first floor, where he was drinking with a bunch of rowdy Stone Raiders.
Well, that answers why I woke up. “Don’t get too drunk.” Malsour rubbed his eyes.
He walked to the edge of the balcony; a shadow pushed him over the banister. He controlled the steel in his shoes and the ground beneath him, slowing his descent.
He yawned and rubbed his head as he headed deeper into the guild hall. Gelimah wasn’t allowed any deeper but Malsour knew that his brother could see everything that the guild hall was going to become.
Gelimah liked to stay with his baubles and his experiments, much like Malsour used to be. When did I start thinking of him as a recluse? I used to think of him as the most sane one out of my family.
Malsour snorted at his own thoughts. He yawned, extending his senses as he did so; he continued yawning but his face turned to alarm at what he sensed. The heck is going on?
He saw Josh walking around, talking to Lucy.
“Josh, what is happening in the city?” Malsour asked.
“Not sure. Dave’s apparently in there doing something.” Josh shrugged. “Said something about needing to speed
things up.”
“He’s also bought a bunch of land and space for factories, smithies, and the rest. Gave Alkao a good price for all the work he’s doing,” Lucy said. “Well, Suzy was in charge of the negotiations. Though it seemed to be his idea.”
“I think you might want to give that to him for free. If I’m right, he’s doubled the number of miners out there. He’s already cutting out the exterior runners to turn the city on and he’s hooking up a massive power system, I think. Can’t really get all the runes.” Malsour frowned and picked up his pace.
“What? I thought he was just looking for a place to tinker,” Josh said.
“I’ll check on him, but he’s got fourteen vault-classed soul gems all powered up and working on different projects.” Malsour had to yell as he was too far away for normal talking and broke out into a jog.
“What the hell are you doing now?” Malsour shook his head, even as an excited grin appeared on his face. Well, at least one of us has to look like a respectable and upright pillar of society, not an engineering madman!
***
Dave floated around on his floating spinning chair. It had got annoying on the uneven floor to deal with the rough edges, so he’d add in a levitating ability.
Now he pushed off the walls, humming to himself as he worked with a carver, entering the last rune on the metal box he was working on. He floated back down. He pulled off some melted silver from the burner and poured it into the runes. A conjured blade appeared in his hand. Scraping away the excess, he placed the box down on a table top filled with boxes.
He had been working for hours. His eyes were itchy when he closed them. Oh, that feels pretty nice. Work to be done, and I need my eyes to be open for that! Well, I kind of do have Touch of the Land.
Dave floated through his workshop. It had grown since he’d first started. There were multiple different factories he’d set up, from a small repair bot factory, to a factory of miner bots around the size of a dog, and a runner factory.
He floated over to the runners.
“Well, these should work.” Dave looked at the metal. The ebony, Mithril, and silver runners would be embedded on the cylindrical walls of the city. They would act like opposing magnets, pushing against one another, imparting velocity onto the city and keeping it suspended. They would turn the city fast enough, so that all of its interior could be used. Their power requirements were large and each of them were as large as a large garbage can. Hundreds would be put all over the city.
A beeping noise drew Dave’s attention. He sped over in mid-air toward the noise. Dave checked one of his interfaces.
“Whoa!” Dave yelled, pumping his fist in the air as he spun around in his chair.
“Dave! What are you up to in here?” Malsour asked, from the entrance of Dave’s workshop.
Dave rushed over, stopping right before Malsour. “Malsour! Okay, so, I made these boxes—they’re basically upgraded magical code of my Touch of the Land spell. Then I made a bunch of repair bots to take them and put them across the city, so we can know what the heck’s around us. They’re really good and they gather a ton of information. Unlike me, where I use the spell once and see what’s in a limited area. These ones send out a continuous pulse, mapping everything around them for as long as they’re powered. Really good at it too—found some nice deposits of materials.”
“Dave, you’re rambling. What are you talking about?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry, got more Endurance, so I wouldn’t need to sleep. Anyway. Seems that they found a ley line. Now I need your help in putting together those dots on portals and teleport pad. Once I’ve got that, then I could maybe open up a hole near the ley lines and we can send miners in to make us a power station!”
Malsour didn’t say anything for a while.
“What? Do I have something on my face?” Dave rubbed away anything that might be stuck to him.
“No, just—what is this all?” Malsour pointed to the different machines.
“Well, I needed a few things to help me out and it’s cheaper to make factories, so that I don’t have to deal with it all the time. These are all conjured, most I engraved again, so it costs less and I can work longer.” A repair bot moved out from under a table, carrying a hot cup of Xer.
“Thanks, buddy! Just what I needed.” Dave grabbed the cup, about to take a drink.
Malsour took the cup instead.
“Dude, I need that,” Dave said.
“Dave, you need some sleep, a shower, and then you can tell me what you’re doing,” Malsour said in a measured tone.
Dave looked as if he wanted to argue. He looked around and sighed. “Okay, get someone down here to deal with this. I’ve got everything programmed into the bots for the most part. Thankfully Shard’s helping me out on that side of things. Makes things a lot easier.”
“Hello, Malsour,” Shard said from a speaker above.
“Hey, Shard, you okay by yourself?” Malsour asked.
“I will be able to continue Dave’s projects. I have been trying to get him to rest, but as he has become more reliant on Xer, he’s refused the need for sleep.” Shard sounded exasperated.
“Thanks, Shard. Okay, Dave, let’s get you some food, a shower, and then some sleep.” Malsour guided Dave away.
Chapter 36: Two Too Alike
Fire appeared in her home. Mal stood beside her, watching as Deia stood on top of the boiling magma of the volcano.
Mal doubted that he could break her concentration, nor did he feel he wanted to with the aura and strength that permeated the air around her.
Denur poked her head up next to Mal and Fire’s balcony, her large eyes focused completely on Deia.
“They grow up so fast,” Fire complained, resting her head on Mal’s shoulder.
He wrapped his arm around her, smiling as he kissed the top of her head. “That they do.” He looked back to Deia, using a Mana sight spell, and augmented his eyes to see the Mana in the air, running through Deia and the mountain. He let out a rush of air as he saw the amount of Mana at his daughter’s fingertips.
“When did she get so much more powerful?” Mal complained.
“Well, she does take after her mother,” Fire said proudly, preening like a cat, looking up at Mal.
“Yeah, you two are troublemakers.” Mal kissed Fire before she could say anything. She made to try to break his embrace, giggling like a little girl at his antics.
They parted. Fire relented and leaned against him again.
“Here we go,” Denur said, concentrating completely on her sister.
Mana that had been coating the volcano now reacted to its mistress’s call. Deia’s hair flared up around her; the entire volcano shook as she raised her hands as if they were weighted down by Emerilia itself. The cold core at the bottom of the volcano started to shift and break, the mantle showing fissures and cracks as superheated magma rolled and shook, excited by Deia’s Mana.
More power poured out of Deia. The magma rose itself higher and higher, expanding under the heat Deia was conjuring inside it. With her Mana, she was pushing the volcano to erupt.
She rose up higher. It seemed as if she were dragging the magma up with her. As it became more excitable, the amount of Mana she put into the volcano was staggering. She rose like some angel of fire, her eyes closed the entire time as the volcano responded to her commands.
Fire’s arms became tighter. Mal looked over Deia’s Mana. She was feeding it outward but her spells seemed to be degrading as the extra Mana seemed to dissipate and run chaotically through the magma or escape into the air. Deia sweat, not from the heat of the volcano, but the level of concentration it took for her to carry out her task.
Mal put up a heat barrier, the temperatures getting too high for his body to completely annul.
Deia let out a primal yell. Her Mana came back under control as she surged upward, forcing the magma up by changing it and driving her Mana to work.
Magma started to exit through holes in the walls.
&
nbsp; Mal knew that the outside of the mountain would be leaking magma, or blowing out a hardened flow in an attempt to escape. Deia made it eighty percent of the way up the inside of the volcano.
She let out another yell. The magma pushed upward again but then sagged as Deia’s Mana fled her.
She wobbled in air, falling slightly, clearly unconscious. Mal was about to rush forward when he felt the air lurch. Denur easily plucked Deia out of the air with her hand, circling around the inside of the volcano and came back to Fire’s balcony.
Denur changed from her Dragon form to her Human form, carrying Deia as her wings retreated and she stepped onto the balcony. “Well, she’s going to need some rest after that.”
She really does look like Fire in a lot of ways, Mal thought as Denur put Deia down on a couch.
Denur looked to be in her mid-twenties while Deia looked like she was just entering them. They both had the same fiery red hair and eyes. Their bodies were also similar in shape. Deia was taller, with Mal’s pointed ears, sharper chin, and almond-shaped eyes.
“She always pushes her limits every chance she can get,” Mal said proudly.
“Well, she’s growing a lot faster than I thought she would. She keeps on talking about thermodynamics and Earth terminology, but she keeps growing stronger. That said, she needs a break. I think a trip to the mage’s guild for some reading, a bit of relaxing might be a good idea,” Denur said.
“We can take her with us. I thought that Dave was meeting us tomorrow anyway, so that will work perfectly.” Fire smiled.
“Seems like someone approves of the boy,” Mal said gruffly, mixed feelings about letting his daughter go.
“I’m not the only one, especially when someone starts opening one of those fire whiskey bottles he was gifted by a certain son-in-law.” Fire poked Mal in the side.
“Fine, he’s not too bad,” Mal complained.
Fire rolled her eyes and sighed, looking to Denur, who simply laughed and shook her head.
“Mind if I tag along? It’s been awhile since I saw some of my kiddos,” Denur asked.
“We’ll need someone to carry her.” Fire smiled.
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