Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)

by Luke Chmilenko

  “Nothing like a bit of existential terror to get the legs moving,” I said in a halfhearted tone, feeling my lungs finally stop burning now that I managed to have a few seconds to stop and catch my breath.

  After our discovery of the behir broodmother, we hadn’t wasted so much as a second before we’d found ourselves promptly turning around and rushing away from the cave’s mouth as quickly as we could. As we did, we practically ran headlong into the others who had been following a few minutes behind us, a hurried warning of the masked level raid mob being all it took to convince everyone to turn around and move in the opposite direction. Moving as quietly as we could manage at first, we made sure to put a fair distance between us and the newly named “Soh-Khan’s Grotto” before picking up our pace until we were practically flying through the forest. It was perhaps overkill and paranoia on our part to think that the gargantuan beast would even detect our brief presence near its nest, let alone choose to follow us through the forest if it did. But the last thing that any of us wanted to experience was an all paid express trip back to Valor’s Point courtesy of an unbeatable raid mob.

  Especially after we’d taken pains to skirt around an already high-leveled portion of the forest.

  If our experiences with the Beast taught us anything, it was to never underestimate the sneakiness of a hungry animal, I thought, a shiver running down my spine as I tried to imagine what the raid boss equivalent of a fully grown behir would be capable of. As it was, the lesser version that had ambushed us had been a close enough call for us. All it would have taken was a bad twist of luck on our part and we could have easily had our entire party wiped out.

  Which would have left us in a really shitty situation to deal with afterward, I added, pushing the spiraling thought out of my mind and turning my attention back towards the others.

  “All right, I think that’s a long enough break,” I said while scanning over the party and seeing that everyone had mostly recovered from the demanding pace we’d set. “Let’s see if we can’t get a refresh on buffs and get moving again. That little run was louder than I liked, and I’d like to beat feet before another deadly critter living here in the forest decides to take a closer look at all the noise we’ve made.”

  “You don’t need to tell me twice,” Theia replied in an eager voice, the lizardwoman already in the process of renewing her magic on the party. “Give me ten more seconds and we’ll be able to run straight until the sun comes up.”

  “Oh, god, please no,” Halcyon grunted, the mage still struggling to fully catch his breath. “No more running, please. I don’t think my lungs can take it.”

  “Maybe they could if you decided to, uh, oh I don’t know…put a couple points into constitution next time you leveled?” Caius said to the man while pointing to himself. “I know you have that whole ‘sickly mage’ thing going, but at what cost?”

  “DPS,” Halcyon replied in between wheezes. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that, am I right?”

  “Only enough to know that you can’t do that while dead,” the warlock countered as a chorus of snorts passed throughout the group. “Or winded either.”

  “That’s…a fair point,” the mage conceded as his breathing finally began to even out. “Maybe next level I’ll drop a few points there to even things out. But in the meantime…”

  “You’ll just need to suffer,” I said to Halcyon as his eyes shifted over towards me with a vaguely pleading look in them. “That’s the price you pay for making constitution your dump stat.”

  “Wait, Lyr, please, I don’t think—” the mage started to say, his words abruptly ending as he saw all of us begin to move once again. “Oh, hell, please at least give me a rest break once in a while!”

  “We’ll see,” I called back to the mage as I fell in line behind Kilgore, the scout having taken the point position of our group and blazing a path for us all to follow. “Until then though, keep your ætherscope handy and call out if you see anything light up around us. We should be a few hours or less away from the city, and I’d rather not trip over a hidden ward if I can help it.”

  Receiving only a pained gasp in response, we resumed our journey through the Hartwyld at a brisk, if not quite demanding, pace that we’d just taken a break from, valuing the increased stealth it brought over our earlier need for speed.

  Well, if nothing else, at least we now know there’s another raid mob on the loose in the Hartwyld, I noted as I followed through on the advice that I’d given Halcyon and drew my own ætherscope in my free hand, trusting that it would alert me to any signs of magic in the distance. Though I have no idea what we can do about it going forward. Maybe if we didn’t have this war to worry about, we could have ground our way through Hartwyld until we hit our mid-thirties and tried to take it down. But short of putting an end to the war, our best bet is to do everything we can to avoid it…and hope that it doesn’t find us on our return trip back to Aldford.

  Feeling a slight quiver of nervousness shoot through me at that particular thought, I promptly did my best to bury it and instead forced my thoughts towards our upcoming attempt to raid the orc city. Depending on how that particular task went for each of us, a return trip might end up being a completely moot point, should we all end up dying—or perhaps even worse, get captured during our attack.

  Continuing with our journey from there, the next few hours passed without any difficulty or surprises of note, our trek falling back into the same pattern that we’d enjoyed the night before. We would move as stealthily as possible through the woods on a northward track, detouring occasionally to evade rough terrain or creatures that we didn’t have to fight. When that wasn’t possible, we carved a path through whatever obstacle stood in our way, be it land or animal. It was a pattern that I was beginning to fear would repeat itself endlessly, resulting in us accidentally bypassing the orc city as we continued even farther into the unknown depths of the Hartwyld—or even worse, whatever lay beyond it, leaving us truly lost and out of place. Fortunately, however, that particular fear didn’t have a chance to fully manifest despite my growing anxiety as shortly after the sun began to rise, a cloud of magic suddenly appeared in the distance, prompting everyone save the spellcasters to stop.

  “I think I see where it’s coming from now,” I said in a whisper as I crept forward, breaking the hushed silence we’d all fallen into the moment that our discovery had been announced. “Look at it from over here. You can see a strand of magic reaching back to connect to a single point.”

  “You can? Hang on, let me see,” Halcyon replied eagerly while moving over towards me and my vantage point as the less magically inclined members of the group waited patiently behind us, no doubt eager to find out why we were staring into the forest so intently.

  Moving over towards me in a crouched position, the mage fell in beside me and stared at the magic ahead, letting out a soft grunt as he inspected it. Allowing him a chance to work at his own pace and hopefully figure out what exactly we were dealing with, I turned my attention back to the magic ahead, giving it a second glance.

  Appearing as if it were a billowing curtain made from a faint azure mist, the wall of magic stretched for as far as we could see on either side of us. Thin and wisplike in nature, the magic danced slowly through the air as if it was being carried by an invisible wind, dissipating into nothingness the closer towards us it traveled. Looking deeper into the mist where it was thickest, I could see a half-dozen faint strands of magic also floating through the air, their lengths stretching out to encompass the entirety of the wall.

  Which I think is what is creating the mist in the first place, and then that, in turn, is powered by whatever that spot of magic is there, I noted as I followed the various threads back to their source, seeing that they all reached back to connect to a single origin point on the far end of the mist.

  “The magic ahead of us is definitely part of a ward,” Halcyon whispered as his inspection came to an end, confirming our initial suspicions when we’d spo
tted the magic. “Now that I know what I’m looking for, I can see each of the ward posts supporting the magic that’s curtaining off the area ahead. There’s one roughly every sixty feet or so from the looks of it.”

  “Then this what we’ve been looking for, isn’t it? We’ve found the orc city?” Kilgore asked. “Wards don’t tend to spring up on their own, especially not in the middle of the forest.”

  “No,” I agreed as I turned to look back at the group, seeing several eager expressions looking back towards me. “That they definitely don’t.”

  “Can you tell what they do if we trip them then?” Cassius asked. “Because if there’s a wall of them blocking the way, we’re going to have to go through them, right? Or search for another route to take.”

  “Maybe. Hang on a second, let me check something,” Halcyon said in a curious tone as he took a cautious step towards the magical mist followed by two more in quick succession. Pausing for a second right at the edge of a thin section of mist the mage cautiously reached out to touch it, only to immediately stop as he got close, his voice filtering back to us. “Huh, I don’t want to get any closer.”

  “Uh, then you don’t have to?” I replied back to the man, feeling a spike of anxiety shoot through me as I saw him reach out to touch the mist.

  “No, but that’s just it,” he said, shaking his head and briefly glancing back towards us. “I do want to get closer, at least when I’m standing here. But if I try and reach out towards the magic here…I think I want to go home.”

  Watching the mage as he spoke, I saw him try and reach out again into the mist, only to abort it the instant he came in contact with a floating wisp, pulling his hand back towards him. Though this time, however, he also took a single step backward, a shiver passing through his body as he did so.

  “Whoa,” he said as he shook off whatever had afflicted him. “That second time was a little bit more intense, but that does confirm what I thought these wards were designed to do.”

  “And is it designed to stress out your entire party while you play the worse game of charades ever?” Constantine asked in an anxious tone. “Because some of us lowly non-mages here are having a really hard time following what’s going on, especially when you’re touching things that could bring a ton of orcs down on us.”

  “Well, you can relax, because that’s not going to happen. The ward isn’t designed to do that,” Halcyon explained as he continued to shake off whatever magic had afflicted him. “And if it was, then it would drive whoever set it up absolutely crazy with constant alarms every time a critter came near it. Looking at this, I’m pretty sure that this ward was designed to keep wandering forest creatures from passing through it by encouraging them that they should go somewhere else if they get too close.”

  “Like home, for example,” I said, my earlier anxiety fading away into curiosity as I recalled the mage’s words when he touched the invisible mist for the second time. “It’s a sort of…repelling ward then.”

  “I suppose that’s as good a name for it as anything,” Halcyon agreed with a nod, his attention turning back to the line of wards that continued either side of us as far as we could see. “But then that does beg the obvious question: what is it trying to keep creatures away from? To have this many wards all chained together is a pretty big investment. Whoever made these will have to recharge them every couple days or so, or they’ll run out of magic and stop working.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, it definitely sounds like it’s worth us taking a closer look at whatever’s behind them then,” Constantine replied. “Assuming you know how we’re going to get past these wards. I get the feeling it won’t be as simple as running straight through them, will it?”

  “Uh, well, that might work if we tried hard enough,” Halcyon allowed, motioning towards me as he spoke. “But the experience would probably suck and isn’t really necessary. Now that we know where the ward post is, we can simply destroy it and the magic will dissipate, or if you want to, Lyr, you can use your mana draining ability to see if you can’t just disenchant the thing. That might be a little less conspicuous if someone comes by to recharge these things and sees one of them broken.”

  “That is actually a pretty good idea,” I said, taking that opportunity to look back towards the party and motion them forward. “What do you all say then? Shall we keep moving and see just what exactly the orcs are up to here?”

  “Damn straight,” Constantine replied as he and everyone else readied themselves. “It’s about time all this sleep we’ve been missing finally paid off. Let’s go see just how big of a mess we can make.”

  Hearing similar exclamations from the others, we wasted no time in readying ourselves to move once again, everyone falling in behind me as I strode towards the ward’s boundary. Careful not to step too far, I stopped just short of the floating mist before shifting my attention towards the glowing ward post, True Sight combined with my Irovian ætherscope painting it a bright blue in my vision.

  “All right, here we go,” I announced to everyone before raising a hand in the direction of the object and summoning the hunger that lurked within me, shaping it into my Mana Leech ability.

  Responding instantly, I felt my stomach twist sharply, followed by a cool stream of mana flow into me, the glow of the distant ward post gradually fading from sight. No sooner did it do so, did the lines of magic leading away from it, the azure strands simply unraveling themselves and vanishing as the energy sustaining them abruptly ended. Then lastly, so too did the wisplike mist begin to disappear, at first becoming thinner and thinner the farther that it floated through the air before finally fading away into nothingness.

  And leaving us with a wide-open path ahead of us.

  “Well, that was easy enough,” I said as I lowered my hand, watching the last of the ward’s magic fade from sight. “Now let’s go see what else is in store for us.”

  Chapter 37

  “Someone tell me that I’m not the only one seeing what I’m seeing here,” I heard Cassius say in a faint whisper from somewhere behind me. “Because this…isn’t at all what I expected to walk into.”

  “Oh, believe me, you’re seeing what you’re seeing here, all right,” Constantine’s voice filtered back a second later, its tone tinged with wonder. “But it’s making me wonder if we’re even in the right place now. Maybe we took a wrong turn somewhere…”

  It had barely been twenty minutes since we’d passed through the gap that I’d made in the repelling ward, the nine of us stalking our way forward into the protected grounds beyond. Proceeding with the utmost care and caution that we could muster, our progress at first was slow and measured as we anxiously scanned our surroundings as if expecting to run headlong into a waiting orc warband. Instead, however, we were greeted with a nigh perfectly silent forest all around us, devoid of any signs of either people or creatures inhabiting it, causing a peaceful calm to fall over each of us despite our trespassing on unknown ground. So soothing was the experience that it even caused the general anxiety that we’d grown accustomed to while traveling through the Hartwyld to fade away.

  If only for a short while.

  Lasting for as long as it took us to push onwards through the tranquil forest, the peace and quiet that we’d found ourselves suddenly enjoying came to an abrupt end as the trees ahead of us began to part. Beginning slowly at first, the forest around us gradually began to transition into a partially shaded glade dominated by a handful of particularly tall and thick trees, their branches stretching out to cover a wide area. Of course, that in itself wouldn’t have been a concern or surprise to any of us, each of us having spent the last few weeks under the boughs of Aldford’s ætherwarped oak tree. It was instead the massive garden that encompassed the entirety of the clearing ahead that caused us all to pause and gaze onwards in wonder. With no other word fitting enough to describe it, the entire expanse ahead of us was filled with an endless bounty of growing vegetables, fruit trees, and nut-bearing bushes, along with dozens of oth
er plants we couldn’t even begin to identify.

  All of which happened to be several orders of magnitude larger than anything we’d ever seen before, to the point where some of the various vegetables and plants towered high over us.

  “And ended up where exactly?” Caius’s voice echoed out silently, breaking the silence that had followed Constantine’s words. “A giant’s back garden?”

  “That would definitely fit,” Constantine whispered back. “I mean…look at all of this! Just that apple alone over there is bigger than my head! And is that thing over there a head of lettuce? Whatever it is it’s nearly taller than I am!”

  “I think the better question to ask right now is who could possibly need to grow this much food,” Cassius stated. “This could keep us all fed in Aldford for ages…assuming we could preserve it all.”

  “Who else would you think?” I replied as I finished looking at an oversized tomato plant and glanced back towards the group, seeing them each in the process of inspecting the various giant plants around us. “We always wondered how the orcs managed to keep their armies fed, didn’t we? Well, it looks like we’ve found our answer. A magical garden. Or I at least assume it’s a magical one. It’s the only thing that would explain the size of everything here.”

  “You think the orcs are responsible for this?” Cassius asked with a doubtful tone in his voice. “I never really pictured them as gardeners…or vegetable eaters either, now that I think of it.”

  “Neither did I,” I said with a shrug. “But I also can’t think of anything else that fits, and it explains why this area was warded and kept separate from the forest. They don’t want the animals eating their harvest.”

  “Shit,” Cassius cursed as he glanced around the place with a renewed interest. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense then. But if that’s true, what are we going to do? This place is just too big to—”