There was a few seconds of silence as Lazarus processed our statements, a brief flicker of hope flashing in his eyes before it vanished, his expression hardening.
“Do you think you actually have that much reach with your feed to make a difference?” he asked in a disbelieving tone. “Because as much as I want to believe this, it all sounds like a pipedream at best. You’d be betting Eberia on wishes and prayers.”
“Honestly, wishes and prayers are about all we have right now,” I replied. “This lull we have with Carver isn’t going to last, not long at any rate, which is why we’re looking at each and every option we have available to us.”
“Well, I’ve only heard of one option so far,” Lazarus said. “What else is up your sleeve?”
“Sending the three of you back to Eberia,” I answered, offering the group a thin smile. “You guys have been wanting to go back home, right? Well, here’s your chance.”
“Send us back?” Sawyer said slowly, completely surprised by my statement and the fact that I hadn’t mentioned it earlier. “Wait, but what about all this stuff with Carver?”
“Forget Carver, what about Stanton?” Ransom interjected. “He’s barely even said two words to us since everything in the grove went down. Will he even let us leave?”
“I don’t see why not,” I replied, turning my head to look at the warlock. “With the ley line now fixed and this whole crisis he brought to our doorstep resolved, he has no real reason to keep you here. Especially not if I point out to him that I need to send you three to Coldscar to recruit more adventurers to help us out here. Not to mention, we should probably let Marshal Tarius know that we’ve encountered orcs again too; there’s really no telling what they might be up to.”
“That is a good point on both accounts, but on that note, have you guys finally found players worth inviting?” Lazarus asked, having been kept in the loop of that particular part of our long-term goals.
“Two guilds’ worth,” I replied, nodding at the man. “We’ve managed to reach out to them about a meeting, but the timing sucks a bit. Earliest chance we have to talk isn’t going to be for a few days. Hopefully, once we do connect, we’ll be able to officially extend an invite and see where things go. That said though, if we can send you guys along ahead of time, then we can at least keep Aldwin, Veronia, and the other NPCs in Aldford in the loop without their meta-game filters kicking in.”
“Huh, I’d forgotten about that,” Ransom grunted, looking down towards Amaranth who had curled himself into a ball by my feet, completely ignoring the conversation so far. “Do you really think that’d make a big difference though about them knowing how we’re recruiting adventurers?”
“I do,” I said, giving the half-orc a nod as I followed his eyes. “In fact, I tested it by telling Aldwin this morning that I suspected that Graves might be involved in something in Eberia. All he gave me in response was a blank stare before changing the subject to our construction efforts.”
“Oh,” Ransom replied, a frown creeping over his face. “So much for that, then.”
“Hm,” Lazarus mused, making a thoughtful sound as he took a few moments to think. “All right, color me interested about going back. But tell me, what does your end game look like here? And what exactly would you want us to do about all this shit happening in the city?”
“Fix it?” I asked with a hopeful tone. “From the latest feeds that we saw, which I might add, are already ten days old, the nobles were at one another’s throats, the king is off doing who knows what in the palace, and the military has next to no support in Coldscar. If that keeps up and Eberia stays divided, any war with the Ascendancy, or a civil war for that matter, is going to be a brutally short and violent one.”
“And not in our favor long-term,” I added after a few seconds of silence. “Because if Eberia falls, Aldford is going to end up isolated and alone, which I doubt is going to work out long term.”
“That’s…a pretty tall order, Lyrian,” Ransom said, his tone sounding wary as he spoke. “If what you’ve told us is true, then they’re already one step shy of civil war, if not already there. Assuming we even could do anything, we could easily cause things to spin out of control and get even worse.”
“It’s already spinning out of control,” I told the half-orc flatly. “Right now, I’m looking at this as damage control and a way to stop that spiral, because if we can’t find a way to get things moving in a better direction…we’re in trouble.
“The only bit of good news that I can offer is that House Denarius doesn’t seem to be involved in any of the shit that’s plaguing Eberia right now,” I continued, turning my head towards Lazarus. “From everything I’ve heard and seen in your feed, and the others I’ve watched, they’ve managed to stay clear of the trouble.”
“Of course they have,” Lazarus said, his face turning into a scowl. “That’s because they’re focused on their own agenda. They’ve never cared about what’s happening to the common folk of Eberia.”
“Be that as it may, they seem to be the only major faction in the city that isn’t focused on making things worse,” I replied, meeting his gaze. “And we hardly have the luxury of being picky.”
“Lyrian is right, Lazarus,” Sawyer chimed in softly. “If things are really this bad…and we do this, we’re going to need help. That’s going to mean going back to Emilia and getting her to own up to her deal and free the Grim Shadows. Then we’re going to need to get more players involved too, because sure as hell, we’re not going to be able to manage all of this with just the three of us.”
“I know,” Lazarus said, giving the dark-haired man a nod before turning to look back towards me. “Are you sure you realize what you’re asking for here, Lyrian? Sorting this mess out in Eberia isn’t going to be as simple as getting people to sit down and talk. It’s going to take something drastic, something violent. Eberia might not be the same after it.”
“I know,” I replied in a hard tone, not looking away from Lazarus as I spoke. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
Chapter 10
“All right, guys, this shouldn’t take too long to sort out,” Constantine announced, his eyes moving between Lazarus, Sawyer, and Ransom as he spoke. “In…uh, anticipation of your agreement, Lyrian and I here preemptively laid some groundwork yesterday to make this as smooth as possible. All we’re going to need to do is have a quick chat with our producer, electronically sign some papers, then transfer over your feeds to the studio. So, an hour, maybe two tops if you have questions or anything along the way.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Lazarus assured, biting through a yawn as he spoke. “Just give me the chance to throw back a cup of coffee or two and we’ll get this sorted out.”
“Works for me,” Constantine replied. “Okay, if no one else has anything else to add, we can log off and regroup in reality. I’ll call each of you in let’s say…ten minutes then?”
“Sounds good,” Sawyer acknowledged, Ransom chiming in with the same reply a second after.
With that, the four of them all logged off from Ascend Online, the expressions on their avatars going blank for the briefest of instants before their offline task lists took over, sending the quartet walking in the direction of the crafting hall.
“I guess that leaves you and me,” I said to Amaranth, the cat having been mostly silent throughout the day, all of the out-of-character and meta conversation this morning being wiped away by the in-game filters.
“Biggest thing for the day is interrogating our new guests and seeing how they’re liking our hospitality so far,” I replied, motioning for him to follow me as we walked through the noise that consumed Aldford. “But first, I want to check in on Caius to see if he’s found those spell scrolls we were looking for. Then we should fill in Stanton about our plans to send Lazarus back to Eberia to make sure that he’s on board.”
; Amaranth replied thoughtfully.
“Or maybe I can volunteer you to Léandre and have you help pull something heavy and give our poor horses a rest,” I countered, watching the cat’s eyes shoot up towards me and narrow, an unamused growl sounding out a second later.
Laughing at the reaction, I let the matter drop as we walked through Aldford to where I knew I’d find Caius, my mind filtering through the morning’s events so far. It hadn’t taken long to bring Lazarus up to speed with our plan once I’d broached the subject—and hardly any effort after that to convince him and the others to head back to Eberia. All three of them had eagerly jumped on the near impossible task that I’d presented them with, provided that I could clear the way for them with Stanton.
Something that I had to admit, if only to myself, that I may have slightly oversold to the trio, not knowing in the slightest of how the spy might react.
Oh well, I thought with a mental shrug, realizing that the moment had already passed, and I was committed. I’ll just have to figure something out if he pushes back.
Moving quickly, it didn’t take long for Amaranth and me to reach our destination—a rough and unremarkable cabin on edge of the town’s square. It was one of the few original buildings in Aldford that still stood, many of the others having been torn down or so extensively remodeled that they were more new than old. Walking up to the building, I didn’t break my stride as I put a foot up onto the wooden step leading inside, my hand reaching up towards the door in front of me.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on! Sto—” Caius’s panicked voice shouted out from the behind the door as I pushed it open, feeling it bump into something hard halfway and immediately stop, which was promptly followed by a loud shout and thud, followed by the sound of countless falling objects hitting the floor. Lasting for several seconds, the avalanche of noise seemingly refused to stop before finally beginning to taper away, ending in an eerie silence that had me staring down at Amaranth beside me, the cat’s eyes just as wide as mine.
“Uh,” I started, holding the door in place, stunned by the noise that I’d just heard. “Are you okay in there, Caius?”
“Ugh…Lyr,” a pained moan echoed back at me in response. “Did…did any of that sound okay to you? Oh, ow…we really need to get a ‘knock first’ sign made up…”
“I’m sorry, man, I had no idea!” I called back as apologetically as I could. “Can I come in now?”
“Please, by all means,” Caius answered testily amid the sound of rustling before it stopped. “Shit, on second thought, I think I need help. I’m stuck under all this crap.”
“Oh, boy,” I said with a sigh as I began to push the door open again, only to have it stop once more after moving an inch. “Give me a second.”
Putting my shoulder into the door I slowly forced it open, the sound of something heavy scraping across the floor in the process. After some work, I eventually managed to get it open wide enough that I thought I’d be able to squeeze my thin frame through. A quick peek inside though told me that there was no way a large cat like Amaranth had any hope of getting through.
“Looks like you’re going to have to wait out here,” I said, turning myself sideways to fit through the entranceway, seeing my familiar backing away from the door warily. “Things are looking a little cramped in here…”
my familiar replied with undisguised relief in his mental voice.
“That’s probably a good idea,” I said to the cat, seeing him walk up to one of the windows on the side of the cabin, bringing himself up to peer inside, placing his paws on either side of it for support. Shaking my head at the sight, I sucked in a deep breath and turned to squeeze my way through the door…and into chaos.
“Oh, geez…” I whispered under my breath as I took a look around the cabin, its appearance now a stark contrast to what I had remembered the last time I’d been in it. Back then it had essentially been a large four-walled room that we’d decided to repurpose after its original inhabitants had moved out of town, the family choosing to start a much-needed farmstead to the west. In the time that had passed, the once-cozy home had undergone a drastic transformation as it was pressed into service for the one thing that had yet been missing from Aldford—an arcane laboratory.
Granted, the rustic cabin was far from what I’d envisioned an arcane laboratory to actually be, but it was the best place that we had available to us for the time being. In my mind, I’d planned to see the place filled with a few workbenches, magical tools, and whatever other things were needed to research all the artifacts that we’d pulled from the Naffarian ruins below us. At a glance around the cabin, however, it seemed that somewhere along the way, Caius, Halcyon, and the other mages had interpreted that vision as “cram the cabin with every single magical or potentially magical scrap of Nafarrian technology that we have, with no consideration for how a person can move around.”
“Are you even coming, Lyr?” Caius’s voice filtered up from the floor on the opposite side of the cabin, snapping me out of my dazed inspection of the room. “Because this is starting to really hurt.”
“Uh, sorry, I was just appreciating what you guys have done with the place. Hang on a second,” I said, shaking my head in bewilderment at the mess that I was standing in as I moved to close the door I’d entered through, giving me a clear view of a stack of boxes that had tipped over, along with one of Caius’s booted feet sticking up into the air. “Okay, I think I see you.”
Shuffling over as best as I could in the cluttered space, I made my way over towards the disaster that I’d caused and slowly began to dig the mage out, seeing Amaranth’s all too smug expression watching me through the nearby window. Pointedly ignoring the cat, I began to shift the fallen boxes into the space that I’d vacated, feeling like I was trapping myself inside with each one I moved.
“Ugh, what did you even put into these things?” I grunted as I heaved a particularly heavy crate off Caius’s leg, feeling my arms strain under the weight. “Stone?”
“Uh, yeah in some of them actually,” Caius answered, breathing a sigh of relief as I moved the box. “We disassembled or cut out everything we could from the ruin and brought it up. This was some of the last stuff we had to move.”
“Great.” I grunted as I dragged another crate free. “You know, if we really need to have all this stuff handy, we’re going to need a bigger place than this.”
“I said the same thing to Léandre the other day,” Caius said amid a rustle of noise, the warlock finally having enough room to pull himself free of his temporary prison. “His response was to assign me a plot of land and hand me a bunch of surveying tools. The implication was pretty clear.”
“‘Do it yourself.’” I snorted before looking out towards the rest of the cabin, shaking my head at the mess. “Well…not that you can really tell, but I guess I’m sorry about messing things up. I just finished up with Lazarus and figured I’d come by to help you look for those spell scrolls that we were talking about last night. Hopefully, we’ll be able to finally read them by now.”
“Oh? How’d everything go with Lazarus?” Caius asked eagerly at my mention of the half-giant and his group, simultaneously turning to look to his right with a thoughtful expression on his face. “And about those scrolls, I actually found their tube a few minutes ago and set them to the side, uh…somewhere over here. Or maybe it was there…”
“He and the others are completely on board. Constantine is sorting their feeds and stuff out right now,” I replied happily, watching the dark elf shuffle around his side of the room as he searched for the aforementioned tube of scrolls that had escaped all of our collective memory.
Originally part of our haul from the Irovian tower months earlier, the scrolls that we were looking for were among the collection of spells that we’d found. At the time, though, we�
��d only been able to identify the spells contained in five of the six tubes that we’d found, the others being too high of a level for us to read. Over the weeks that followed, we’d all ended up forgetting about the spells as the new settlers arrived in Aldford and the ruptured ley line in the Twilight Grove became our center focus, followed by the war immediately after. It wasn’t until yesterday while I was skimming through our feed with Graves that I’d spotted the tube in a scene and wondered if we’d finally be able to make sense of them now.
Assuming, of course, that we could even find them in the first place.
“Did they? That’s great!” Caius exclaimed as he picked up a stack of papers that I recognized as bearing Donovan’s writing and looked under them, shaking his head with a frown. “Damn, not there…where could they have—oh!”
Dropping papers unceremoniously back onto the pile that he’d lifted them from, Caius spun around before dropping down into a crouch, vanishing out of sight for several seconds. Hearing a brief grunt, the warlock then reappeared, this time holding a vaguely familiar tube with a triumphant expression on his face.
“Found it!” he exclaimed with a smile. “Forgot I kicked it under the table after I tripped over it earlier.”
“Uh-huh,” I grunted, watching Caius shuffle over to me as he stepped over something else out of sight. “Did you guys ever think that you need a new organizational system by chance?”
“Psh, it’s not so bad,” Caius said with a shake of his head before indicating a section of the room with his chin. “I know exactly where everything is in my corner of the cabin. It’s this side that keeps getting new stuff added to it.”
“I’m sure,” I replied in a disbelieving tone as I glanced over to the area and noticed that it was even more cluttered than any of the others. “How about we take a look at these scrolls, and then maybe I can escape from here because I’m starting to feel a little bit claustrophobic and afraid that I’m going to get crushed by something.”
Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4) Page 13