Advent (Red Mage Book 1)

by Xander Boyce

  The group they were in the process of releasing right now? They looked to all be about the same age, which meant there was bound to be a bunch more groups of people. How was he going to protect everyone on the way to the stadium? What was he even going to do with the people in this room while he went to get everyone else? Hoping that Sarah had a solution for that, he headed back towards the main group, freeing four more people with his acid darts without a word. The four teenagers followed him nervously.

  "Does anyone have any combat xatherite? Healing, attacks, or buffs?" Sarah asked a group of about ten teenagers.

  Drew mostly ignored the responses; they added a couple of situationally useful skills and spells between them. His focus was on Robbi and the group he was doing quick training with on how to hold the long daggers they had recovered from the trolls. Feeling the paper, it was like a hot coal threatening to burn its way through his pants.

  Trista walked over to stand next to him. He glanced over and gave her a nod. "What are we going to do with all these kids?" She asked quietly.

  "Still trying to figure that one out myself, any ideas?" Drew responded in kind.

  "Hole 'em up somewhere and have them sit tight until we get back."

  "Could work, if they have enough xatherite to create a barricade or fight back, so it wouldn't be suicide for them. Wish I had Katie here, we could use some more lights and walls."

  Trista laughed, "Yeah, no joke."

  It would be easy to ask Trista who Kara is, but he wasn't sure he wanted to draw attention to his anonymous source. He would just wait and ask Daryl when they had a minute. Drew turned, "When you were here, were you ever kept in this room?"

  Shaking her head, Trista looked around, "No. Nothing like this. They had us separated. But we only had a couple hundred people total. There looks to be a lot more teenagers here than we had in our original group. I don't even recognize any of them."

  Another problem then. The trolls had been gathering people the entire time, which meant that there were probably more tunnels out of this place. Were there tunnels into Anacostia, Berry Farm, and Congress Heights? He didn't imagine they would go much further than that, but if there was a tunnel under the river to Reagan Airport, that was only a mile from home. The idea of searching for such a tunnel was appealing to him.

  "Daryl said he saw people transporting stuff. They must have been down the other tunnel," Drew said. Looking around, there didn't seem to be a point of the captives here. What were the trolls doing with them other than trying to sacrifice them to the mana storms?

  Drew made eye contact with the kid that had tripped a troll for him and beckoned him over. The kid immediately dropped what he was doing and ran over to them.

  "Yes, Mr. Michalik?"

  "Please, just call me Drew. How long have you guys been here and where did you come from?"

  "Most of us have been here for a few days, I think. Hard to tell time down here. I used to live off Iverson Street on the Maryland side. A group of about fifteen of us were heading to Bolling, hoping the military was doing better than everyone else..." He trailed off and glanced around. Drew and Trista both had remnants of military uniforms on.

  That was a good distance away. "What happened? Where did you guys get captured?"

  "We were sleeping in a church off MLK Ave when the trolls broke in. They killed a couple of the adults and took the rest of us. Until a couple days ago we were in a big group with a bunch of other people, but then there was a bunch of commotion and they put us in here. We've been here for a night, maybe? A lot less of the green guys here than there used to be."

  They had been with a larger group but separated everyone into individual cells right about the time the attack happened. Easier to guard them this way maybe? Drew pulled at his stubble as he considered the information. "The rest of the kids the same?" The goth kid just nodded his head.

  "Did you guys hit them recently sir? Is that why we got moved? Did you kill all those bastards?"

  Drew blinked at the vitriolic nature of the kid’s words. "Yeah, we killed a lot of them. Don't worry; we'll get you all somewhere safe." The kid seemed satisfied and he sent him back to what he was doing before. But Drew wondered how true his words were; was the stadium going to be safe? He was beginning to warm to JP and Robbi, but Daryl's note ensured that he wouldn't trust Robbi for some time yet. As representatives of the stadium, was he leading these poor people into danger?

  "Penny for your thoughts," a female voice said. Drew looked up, realizing that Sarah had come up to him while he was lost in thought.

  "Just trying to figure out what to do with all these people."

  "Any good ideas?"

  "Trista suggested we hole them up somewhere. If they have some decent xatherite, they could defend it pretty easily."

  Sarah bit her lip and looked around, "Well, they've got a bunch of decent attack skills. They could probably do it, although I'd feel safer if they were up with Katie and JP."

  "We'd need to send someone to escort them at least," Drew said, glancing at the kids.

  "Daryl?" Sarah asked looking around for their scout.

  "I mean, he would be the obvious choice, but I don't think he'll be leaving until we find his wife. Plus, I haven't seen him since we came in. Do you know where he went?" Drew asked.

  "No," Sarah said. Trista shook her head as well.

  "Alright. Let's head back to the entrance; we'll post them up there, have them make some barricades or whatever they can use to defend it. Hopefully, Daryl will be back by then." Drew looked around and raised his voice to get everyone's attention.

  "Alright everyone, we're heading out to the tunnel we came in through. We need you guys to hold that position while we search for the rest of your friends and family. I'll go first, Robbi, Trista, and Sarah will be the rear guard. If you have ranged attacks, come with me near the front. The rest of you stay back, keep together, and we'll have you somewhere safe as soon as we can."

  It took more cajoling and shuffling than Drew would have liked, but they eventually got all the teens moving. They set up a base camp where they had broken in and Drew saw several of the kids start to fashion walls and barricades out of thin air. One of them created walls of ice, and he saw a few others try out some weak attack skills, swinging flaming swords. A particularly nerdy kid held what looked like a lightsaber. Although he clearly had no idea how to use it; his neighbors kept yelling at him to put it away before he hurt someone.

  Shaking his head, Drew wondered how these kids still managed to be so...normal. The kids had started to gather in groups, and it was obvious the lines they had drawn around each other. Having been through a literal apocalypse and then captured and enslaved by a band of human sacrificing trolls, they still segregated into jocks, nerds, and cool kids.

  From the tunnel they had come down, they heard one of the kids shout, "Something is coming!"

  The four adults pushed through the crowd of kids who were trying to move in the opposite direction, Trista's gun out and lining up a shot before Drew managed to slide into a spot next to her. Down the hall, they could see a form stumbling towards them.

  Passing next to a torch, it became obvious that it was Daryl. Covered in blood and clutching his arm close to his chest, in obvious pain, the smile on his face seemed very out of place.

  Sarah and Drew rushed out to meet him, "Stay here, guard the kids," Drew shouted back to Trista and Robbi before they left.

  When they got to Daryl, Sarah cast a heal, and immediately Daryl regained some of the color that had been missing from his face. He still cradled his arm though.

  "I found her Drew. I found my wife," he said, with a weak grin.

  "That's great Daryl... What happened?" Drew asked, gently lifting his arm and probing it with his fingers. There was an obvious fracture, his forearm bent at a significant angle. They led him back to the group, "Tell me when your cooldown is up Sarah. I'm gonna put this back in place and then I want you to heal it," he said while he cast energize on
the wounded scout.

  "I found them,” Daryl’s voice was breathy, punctuated by grunts of pain. “Twenty trolls in a pit. Prisoners digging. My wife, digging. Hundreds more. Tried to get her. I slipped, landed wrong. Barely got out. Can’t focus on invisibility." They were back with the rest, and Drew had Daryl sit down.

  "Here, bite this," he said giving the man a folded-up shirt he pulled from his backpack. "This is gonna hurt." Glancing at Sarah, she nodded her head and Drew placed Daryl's arm on the table, the only flat surface they had, then with a crunch pushed the bone back in place. Sarah immediately cast her heal again, which cut off Daryl's muffled scream.

  "There, you're right as rain. We're gonna go rescue her in a few minutes, so get your strength back," Drew said, patting Daryl's uninjured shoulder. He then turned to the group around him. "Get the kids ready; we're leaving in ten minutes."

  Chapter Forty-One — Duty

  Sarah wandered off to go deal with the kids. Trista stayed nearby while Robbi had only gotten halfway across the room before turning back to give basic pointers to the kids holding the swords. "Trista, can you give Daryl and I a minute?" Drew said, without looking up from Daryl.

  "Sure thing IT2," she said before heading out to talk to one of the groups of kids.

  Drew crouched down next to the other man, his voice soft. "Two things, Daryl. One, you shouldn't have gone off on your own like that. If we lost you..." Drew trailed off, trying to think of a way to explain to the other man how important his intelligence was. "We'd all be sitting ducks." Daryl was still gingerly holding his formerly injured arm and he just nodded. "Especially now that we know you can’t hold your invisibility when you're injured. I know your wife is important to you. I promised you I would help rescue her, and we will, but we both have more obligations than just our personal preferences." He gestured around to the kids around him.

  Daryl looked suitably chastised, so Drew let that section of their conversation drop. "Next, I need to know more about what you gave me. Who’s Kara?" Daryl looked confused by this.

  "Kara? She's one of the girls in the group." When nothing registered on Drew's face, Daryl shook his head, "You know, the brunette that isn't Katie?"

  Drew blinked again, was there another brunette in the group? "Okay. Let's pretend I'm not a terrible person and know people’s names. How reliable is she? What do you think this other group Robbi is talking to is up to?"

  Daryl's switched to his telepathy. A glance at Robbi indicated his preference was not to be overheard. "Kara is pretty reliable. I mean, I don’t know her super well. As for the group, who knows? It could be another faction in the stadium that's working against the senator, or they could have a different origin and objective completely. When we get back, you can ask her yourself."

  Frowning slightly, Drew gave a furtive glance around the room. "Alright, we'll figure this out when we get everyone rescued. How are you feeling? You sound a lot better."

  "Better. I'm sorry for running off like that. I just...I needed to know. I needed to know that she was still alive, Drew."

  "It's okay; like I said, I get it. When we get out of here, I'm going to tell you a story about what happened when I was asleep. Let's just say there’s more to this whole Advent thing than we realized," Drew said, helping the other man to stand.

  Three kids were standing off to one side, clearly waiting for their one on one conversation to be over. Drew noticed that goth kid who had tripped the troll seemed to be the group’s leader. "We want to go with you." His brave words were ruined slightly by the fact that he gave an almost audible gulp before saying anything.

  Drew blinked, then looked at Daryl, who shrugged. "Hey, what's your name?" he asked, while his eyes searched the room for Sarah. The Ensign did much better at these kinds of conversations.

  "I'm Gary. This is Mike and Lewis," Gary said, pointing to the two boys on either side of him. Mike was the lightsaber kid from earlier.

  “You can call me Juice though,” the kid Gary had introduced as Lewis said.

  "We've got red xatherite. We can help," Gary continued after shooting Juice a glare.

  "Gary, how many people in this room have effective red xatherite?"

  "Uh, I dunno. Like five of us. Kim and Nora are staying behind to protect the others though."

  "And how many trolls can Kim and Nora kill if this room gets attacked?"

  "I dunno, like two or three?"

  "And how many more can you three kill?"

  Gary gave the two guys backing him a look as if considering them. "More than that," he said reluctantly. "But, that's not the point, we want, no we need, to help rescue our families."

  "I get that, Gary. I want to make sure my family is safe too. The problem is that if I did that, you and all of your families would be stuck here, with the trolls." Drew shrugged softly, "I need to be here, this is my duty. Just like you need to stay here and protect these people so that I can go rescue your families. I won’t be able to fight as well as I need to if I have to keep worrying about if they’re safe or not." He let the three teens think about his words for a moment. "Besides, I need someone to be in charge here. You’re the only one I can trust to do that, the only one who helped in that fight. Stay here and I’ll get your families back, I promise.”

  Drew immediately wanted to take those words back. He had no idea if those kids’ families were even still alive, and he had just promised them he would bring them back. There was no way that wasn't going to come back to bite him. He tried to cover the wince he wanted to display with a tight-lipped smile before turning away from the kids.

  "Alright team, let's get going. We're burning daylight," Drew said, and everyone drifted over to him. He turned back to Gary, "Alright Gary, you're in charge here. Make sure everyone stays safe. If we're not back in a couple of hours, head up that tunnel.” He pointed at the exit tunnel, “Head east to the soccer field. You'll find the rest of our group there." When Gary gave him a quick nod of understanding, he looked at the rest of his group. Daryl seemed eager to leave, while Sarah and Trista looked nervous. Robbi didn't look nervous, but he held a white-knuckled grip on his longsword. Wait, longsword? Wasn't it a katana earlier? Drew shook his head, and cast refreshing rain on the group, giving the kids the benefit as well.

  One blonde girl in the corner started to complain about getting her hair wet, but everyone else seemed to take it in stride and enjoy the cool rain. When the rain finished, everyone looked ready for action and Drew mentally kicked himself for not casting it earlier. He took a moment to recast all his buffs and let Sarah do the same, then they were back down the tunnel.

  Daryl walked invisibly ahead of the group, the rest of them trailing along behind him. Drew tried to use mana sight, but the brightness of the nearby ley lines made his eyes hurt if he used it for more than a few seconds at a time.

  They walked down the tunnel, passing the room where all the kids had been kept. As they progressed, they passed several more rooms full of empty cages. There was enough room for hundreds of people. Where were they? How big was this pit they were going to? Why did the trolls need so many of them?

  The trip down the tunnel was filled with that same tense silence that Drew was beginning to associate with dungeon dives. That had never been in any of the books or games he used to enjoy. His shoulders itched from the tension. After what seemed an eternity, the silence was broken by the sound of shouting and digging ahead of them. Daryl appeared, holding a finger to his lips.

  "They're just ahead. There’s room for one person to get a look at everything, but you'll have to be careful." The group nodded and by silent agreement Drew went first to get an idea of what was ahead. Drew hoped that Daryl's telepathy would be able to project images soon; that would be highly helpful.

  The entrance was wide, a strange, almost organic looking substance framing the door and webbed across the ceiling. Whatever it was, it clearly had great structural support. The pit was massive, looking to be several hundred feet across and nearly a hundred
feet down, dug in a spiral until it reached a strange shiny blue metallic structure. A massive gate was partly visible on the building, almost entirely excavated at this point, although there was clearly significantly more of the structure still buried. A quick pulse of mana sight told him that the ley node for the building was housed in that structure.

  Hundreds of humans were digging to expand the pit. Trolls walked among them using long, thin whips and shouted curses to hurry the work along. It was exactly like some dark age period piece, to a level of similarity that made Drew wonder if he hadn't fallen into some video production. There were only about twenty trolls, but that was more than enough to keep everyone in line if none of these people had offensive xatherite or the will to use them. He almost missed the ledge near the top of the pit in his survey, which was at least twenty feet above the spiral down. The troll shaman he’d seen sacrificing people a few days ago was pacing across its surface.

  The cold indifference on its face sent a chill down Drew's spine. He backed out the way he came. When he got back to the group, he described the room to everyone else. "I need to take out that shaman before he can escape again. I'd like to try to sneak as close as I can and then I'll blink step up to him. While I'm doing that, you should be able to free some of the prisoners and take up a defensive position near the entrance. The trolls are spread out enough that they shouldn't be able to come at you more than a couple at a time."

  "After I kill the shaman, I'll snipe the trolls from the high ground. I didn't see a way up there, so they'll have to jump if they want to get up. Should be easy enough if they come after me." Left unspoken was, of course, the issue with how long it was going to take him to kill the Shaman. When he’d fought Chakri, it had taken him a few minutes of wearing the orc down, but he had more spells at his disposal now and they were much more powerful. He should be able to alpha strike the boss to death if he opened with everything he had.