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“So, you’re saying I don’t need to dig downwards?”

Arkk stood in the middle of the largest room in the fortress. It took a full week for Vezta to convert the model temple room into a workable schematic. The room itself had been ready in two days. Compared to digging a straight line, where more than one lesser servant would just get in the way of any others, digging out a large room made space for many others.

But he was a little confused about the specifications Vezta had given him.

“The pool is supposed to be deeper than the floor of the room, which will be roughly where the floor is right now,” Arkk said, looking down at the tiled ground.

“The schematic was designed with this floor level in mind. Interestingly enough, should you decide to dismantle the room following the ritual, the floor will return to this level.”

“How?”

Vezta shrugged. “Fortress magic.”

Arkk gave the servant a flat look. “Considering I’m in charge of this place, I feel I should understand how it works a little better.”

“Even my former master didn’t understand all its nuances. I doubt any but the [PANTHEON] know how it functions.”

Zullie looked between Arkk and Vezta with a small shake of her head. “I’m still hung up on the fact that you can convert gold into entire rooms filled with all kinds of different matter. Gold is alchemically pure and magically inert. Introducing impurities the way you are should be impossible.”

The witch had a point, he supposed. The room construction itself wasn’t something he understood either, he had just come to accept it as part of the fortress. The whole place was as much a mystery to him as it had been the day he found it. It was just that it was his mystery.

Reaching into the treasury, Arkk pulled over several piles of gold. Almost a third of what he had collected thus far. A few months ago and he would have died from shock at seeing this much gold. Knowing it was all his still caused an odd sense of disassociation. “I really hope this works,” Arkk said. It didn’t quite feel real. Throwing it away on a flawed ritual would still hurt.

Taking a breath, Arkk focused on the schematic in his mind. Vezta, like the other schematics, had communicated what was needed in the [CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE], which shoved the concept of how to go about building this place straight into his mind. It wasn’t so much that he knew what needed to happen as it was that she had developed an instinct for it within him. However it worked, he could hear it working even with his eyes closed. Like an archivist using an enormous wooden block stamp to mark papers, the room around him shifted and changed.

Opening his eyes, Arkk looked around. The tiny model from a week ago had blown up to a truly staggeringly sized room. He, Vezta, and Zullie all stood in the direct center of the room, atop a platform with a detailed ritual circle carved into its surface. Intricate metal archways lined the edge of the pool, both around the central altar and on the far sides beyond the narrow bridges. Each bridge, stretching out in cardinal directions from the central altar, was engraved with a long pattern of maze lines quite similar to those in the [HEART] chamber and a few other areas around the fortress.

The maze designs on the bridge had Arkk frowning as he knelt to inspect the lines. “This wasn’t in the schematics. Is it going to cause a problem?”

Zullie joined him, bending to run a hand over the faint indentations in the stone walkway. “I’ll have to double-check whether or not magic is being channeled through these areas. If so, the design will likely cause resistance as the magic tries to work its way through the maze. That could cause a cascading—”

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Vezta said, standing tall just behind the two of them.

“And how can you say that? You don’t even know how this ritual works,” Zullie said, looking over her shoulder. “Need I remind you that you left its design to me?”

“This is true. However, while you may know magic, I know Fortress Al-Mir. It wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the intent of a room.”

Arkk raised an eyebrow at that, turning to Vezta. “Is the fortress alive?”

“The beat of its [HEART] is the beat of your heart.”

“I mean, how does Fortress Al-Mir know what the intent of the room is?”

“You know. It knows.”

“Alright. But I don’t know. I might be learning a bit about proper ritual construction from Zullie but this reverse evocation ritual is about a hundred levels beyond me right now.”

Vezta just shook her head. “[Fortress Al-Mir]/[HEART]/[Arkk]|[created by]/[placed by]|[PANTHEON]/[beings above all]. Attempting to comprehend the inner workings is likely an exercise in futility that— Zullie, I would recommend against touching the water.”

Arkk looked back to find the witch near the edge of the altar platform, hand stretched out over the glassy surface of the utterly still liquid. Her hand snapped back as Vezta spoke, looking at the servant with alarm.

“Why? It should be regular water.”

“The majority of this room is based on the temple. Arkk, you may recall passing a room with a pool of water during your initial exploration of this fortress.”

“I didn’t investigate too closely, but yeah. I remember. The lesser servants had eaten it by the time I thought about exploring this place later on, unfortunately.”

Vezta dipped her head in a nod. “My former master used the temple to gain boons from the [PANTHEON]. To do this, he would offer something to the temple waters. It serves as a gateway between this plane and theirs.” She paused, canted her head, then added, “Things that cross over rarely returned and, when they did, never in the form they departed in.”

“But the planes are disconnected,” Zullie said. “Reopening the portal to one of those planes is the whole point of the ritual here.”

“Still a bad habit to get into.”

Curiosity getting the better of him, Arkk approached the edge as well. He trusted Vezta enough to not touch the surface of the water, but he was still interested.

The surface was glassy, looking more like a polished silver mirror than water. Except, while it reflected the world around him—the rest of the room—he didn’t see his own reflection as he leaned over the edge. Zullie, still near the side, should have been visible as well. She wasn’t. Just the violet glowstones set into the ceiling—which was a great deal higher than it had been before constructing the room.

“Your former master would put something in and get something else in exchange?”

“This is correct.”

Pulling a gold coin from the treasury, Arkk held it in his hand for a slight moment before tossing it out into the water.

It slipped through the surface without causing any disturbance. Not even the slightest ripple spread out. The coin just disappeared. He couldn’t see it beneath the surface either. The way it simply slid out of the world made him shudder.

He wasn’t the only one. Zullie had almost the exact same reaction. As a chill ran up her spine, she slowly scooted back from the edge.

“This is no wishing well, Keeper,” Vezta said, though she sounded more amused than annoyed.

Arkk just shrugged. “You said to toss something in so I tossed something in.”

“Many rituals my former master performed were private affairs, even to me. I do know that he occasionally entered the temple room with captured prisoners and returned with loyal minions. Other times, he would enter with grand meals or livestock.”

“What if we tie a string to the coin?”

“I would suggest you do not offend the [PANTHEON] by attempting to retrieve your offerings. However, with access to the [PANTHEON] restricted, it is likely nothing will happen should you attempt your experiment.”

Zulllie’s eyes brightened for just a moment before she started scowling. “Great. Another magical mystery to add to my ever-expanding list. I’ve been here for a month and a half and it seems like my list doubles in size every other day.” She shot a glower at Arkk. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck recruiting more researchers? Or just laboratory assistants? An extra hand could go a long way.”

Arkk shook his head.

He hadn’t found anyone, not that he had an opportunity to try. Those inquisitors were still around Smilesville Burg. He hadn’t dared to return. In fact, he hadn’t left the fortress at all. The only thing he had done remotely related to venturing out had been ordering the lesser servants to dig a tunnel out in the opposite direction from Langleey Village, headed toward a burg roughly the size of Smilesville on the other side of the Cursed Forest. He didn’t know that Stone Hearth Burg would have anything that Smilesville didn’t, but at least it didn’t have inquisitors swarming around.

“I did scry on the gorgon mines,” Arkk said. “There is a human in there living with the gorgon.”

“Without being killed? A prisoner?”

“I don’t think so. I wouldn’t call their existence copacetic but the human does seem to be directing the gorgon around. The archivist mentioned something about mind magic. I assume that is how he has survived among them; he’s using them as his guards now. No idea how to approach that situation, unfortunately. I already know Rekk’ar and most of the orcs would riot and abandon us if I tried to tell them to go there.”

“Best to avoid that,” Zullie said. “We’re already short on people for this ritual.”

“I know. I’m thinking about solutions. It’s just those inquisitors aren’t making things easy. I know they’re here for me. Still, if I could get a message to Savren and offer him asylum in exchange for helping out in this ritual… The food alone has to be better than rats and mushrooms and…”

Arkk trailed off, squinting as he looked over the wide pool of water. While the pool was shaped like a diamond, the room was square. Each corner of the pool was at the mid-point of the walls.

Along those walls, he spotted several large pedestals that also hadn’t been in the schematics. Turning around, he found four pedestals against each of the four walls.

A few of them were occupied.

“What are those?”

Both Vezta and Zullie looked over, following his gaze toward one of the occupied pedestals. Following him, they crossed the bridge and came to a stop in front of a tall statue of a woman wearing a long, ripple-covered dress. She had her arms spread wide as she stood in front of an engraved decoration that looked like a tall closed door. The door had two half-circles, one on either side, that looked almost like large glass windows looking out onto a field of stars. The stars were just tiny glowstones, however. The door didn’t open either.

Probably.

The magic of the fortress could be strange at times.

Large thin tendrils reminiscent of Vezta’s extra limbs reached out around her from the false door, winding around her arms and wind-blown wavy hair. A large orb at the center of her dress looked like an eye, though not like Vezta’s many eyes. It was more like a mechanical depiction than burning suns set into a void.

Vezta gave a deep, respectful bow toward the statue. “Xel’atriss, Lock and Key. The member of the [PANTHEON] holding dominion over barriers, locks, boundaries, and separation. The Lock and Key’s presence is likely a good sign, indicating that we are on the right track.”

“It is just a statue though,” Arkk said, hesitated, then added, “Right?”

“This place is more connected to the [PANTHEON] than any other physical location in this world. If anyone can breach the barrier separating them from us, it would be the Lock and Key.”

That didn’t answer Arkk’s question in the slightest. Still, Arkk didn’t see any sign of intelligence or movement in the violet gemstones that sat in place of the statue’s eyes. Turning to the pedestal two away from this woman, Arkk asked, “What about that one?”

It wasn’t human. Humanoid, yes, but not human. With a head like the skull of a goat, four sets of horns stretched out in a long and tangled mass that wrapped around the depiction of the creature like a briar thorn bush. It held both hands in front of it, one hand above the other. An hourglass floated between, rotating end over end to keep the sand within from ever emptying fully into one side.

“The Jailer of the Void. Time. Eternity. Emptiness,” Vezta said, offering another bow to the statue. “I’m not sure why this one would appear.”

Arkk waited but Vezta didn’t have anything more to offer. Instead, the servant narrowed her eyes as she looked at another wall. Another pair of statues occupied two of the four pedestals.

The first was a woman cast entirely in gold armor with a large heart-like object placed within the breastplate. The headdress she wore over her full, curly, and golden-brown hair was large and extravagant, making her look like some kind of royalty. The serious expression on her face reminded Arkk of some of the times Abbess Keena gave the occasional harsh Suun lecture.

On the other end of the rows of pedestals, a tall man stood clad in golden light that hurt Arkk’s eyes to look at. Much of his chest was bare with only those thin lights of gold stretched between his muscles. He had a chiseled, angular jawline and short hair. Like his chest, most of his face was hidden behind a form-fitting mask of golden light.

“The Heart of Gold and the Holy Light,” Vezta said with ill-concealed hatred. “Traitors.”

From her tone of voice, Arkk didn’t think it was wise to ask further questions about these two. The servant turned on her heel, fists clenched as she strode across the bridge to the opposite wall.

Only one of the pedestals was occupied here. The last of the sixteen with a statue in place. This one was of another muscular man with longer hair striking a heroic pose. A spear in one hand and a staff topped with a fleur-de-lis in the other, the ends of both were planted near his feet. A long billowing cape was frozen in the air behind him, though Arkk wasn’t sure how it was attached to him. The man didn’t have a shirt on and, below a washboard of muscles, he only had a wrapping of cloth around his hips. Two feathery wings sprouted from his back, giving him the visage of a particularly humanoid harpy.

“The Almighty Glory,” Vezta spat. “The three instigators of the Calamity. Trapping the rest of the [PANTHEON] while they run free? Betraying their sisters and brothers to elevate themselves? Disgusting.”

“Should we… destroy these statues or something? If that tentacle woman is a good sign, surely these are the opposite.”

“I would leave them all alone,” Vezta said, her voice in a forced cool tone. “For now. In addition, I would suggest you avoid further experimentation with the waters of this chamber. Although I imagine it is unlikely that those present are watching us in any capacity, tempting that would be unwise. Avoid the room until we’re ready to use it.”

Arkk nodded, glancing toward the sole doorway. A translucent visage of a metal door appeared with his gaze. The work order would already be in the smithy.

“Right. Zullie. No experiments.”

“Am I the only one creeped out by these?” the witch asked, staring at the towering face of the Almighty Glory. “They weren’t in my plans.”

“This is the first room I’ve made that had unexpected changes,” Arkk said with a frown. He cast his gaze around the empty pedestals, wondering if they would populate after the ritual.

He eventually looked back to the Almighty Glory. Though he expected it to be looking down at him with his back turned, it wasn’t. The statue remained still and stagnant.

“As long as they aren’t manifestations of these beings…” He shook his head. “Let’s get out of here. Zullie, I don’t suppose you’re aware of any other outlaw spellcasters,” he asked as they started walking away.

Only Vezta remained, shadowy tendrils around her roiling as she glared at the tall statue.

Eventually, she turned away, putting her back to the statue as she left the room.

None of the five statues moved.

 

 

“Evocation is considered a lost art of magic. To the best of my not-inconsiderable knowledge of magic, no attempt at evocation has succeeded since the Calamity. There are highly detailed records, so we know it was an actual branch of viable magic at one point in time. To make matters more complicated, evocation, along with all planar magic, has been deemed High Anathema by the Abbey of the Light. Anyone caught researching or otherwise engaging with planar magic is immediately charged and, without trial, sentenced to summary execution.

“At the academy, we were taught enough to recognize when planar magic was involved so that we could abort whatever we were doing and seek absolution with the church before it got to the execution point. Nothing else.”

Arkk grimaced at Zullie’s explanation. “And you want to research it now? Even knowing that consequence?”

“Already have,” Zullie said with a wave of her hand. “I told you before that I’ve got experience dodging inquisitors. They weren’t hounding me because they were interested in my ability to stop incoming projectiles. There have been accusations against me in the past. Nothing anyone could prove,” she added with a grin.

“Why is it banned?” Arkk asked. He doubted he would change his mind about proceeding with their evocation magic to reopen the portal. The inquisitors thought Vezta was an enemy. Their opinion was clearly flawed. Still, it would be good to know.

Zullie, one arm across her chest with her hand holding the elbow of her opposite arm as she gesticulated, launched into a lecture. It was starting to become a familiar sight. After their disastrous departure from Darkwood Burg, it had taken a little under a week to return to Fortress Al-Mir. Arkk had been too weak for most of that to protest their abandonment of the burg. When he had recovered enough, they were practically back. Scrying on the burg showed no additional attacks since their departure, so he hadn’t felt up to insisting they return.

Arkk had enlisted Zullie in magic tutoring on the way back, mostly to distract himself from what he thought was a fairly unpleasant departure. Not only was proper magic something he always wanted to learn but it also helped Vezta with her objective of carrying out her former master’s final command. The last few days had been… a lot.

Still, Arkk felt he had the basics down. He knew much more about rituals and how to construct them. Learning what all the little symbols and runes did in a ritual circle had clued him into what he was doing wrong that caused explosions when he tried to work most magic. Namely, an utter lack of direction toward how magic was supposed to flow through a ritual spell. In a great number of rituals, the undirected collision of magic caused the explosion.

He wasn’t quite so confident about jumping into forbidden anathema magics. That didn’t stop Zullie from her explanations.

“Evocation is a branch of planar magic, dealing with other planes of existence. It is a close relative to summoning magics—which also used to be a widespread branch of magic but has since degraded into demon summoning and little else. It is banned for that reason. Very little good can come from pulling bits of other realities into our own.” Zullie shot a curious look to Vezta, who simply chose to lean up against the wall for the duration of every lecture, before adding, “Or so says the church.”

“Fair enough. But we aren’t summoning demons.” It wasn’t a question.

Zullie laughed, waving her hand back and forth. “No, no. We’re not stupid. We’re just trying to punch a little hole into this Underworld place. No Hell involved.”

“And,” Arkk started, glancing at Vezta, “breaking through to the Underworld isn’t going to end this world or anything, right?”

“I don’t see why it would,” the servant answered. “The planes have been connected before without ending the world. We’re merely reopening a door that has been closed for a long time.”

Arkk nodded his head, accepting her answer as he turned back to Zullie. “You’ve figured out how to do this? Work some ancient magic nobody has gotten working before?”

“It helps that we have someone who has seen this kind of magic working, knows why it stopped working, and has a general idea of how to fix it,” Zullie said, motioning toward Vezta. “When I publish, I will be sure to mention your names in the footnotes.”

“Is it a good idea to publish anathema?”

“Of course! Posthumously.”

“Fair enough. So, how do we do this?”

“Not easily, unfortunately.” Turning around, Zullie approached the large table in the library and whisked a cloth off the top.

Arkk took a few minutes to figure out what he was staring at. Several vaulted iron archways surrounded a diamond-shaped pool of water. Thin bridges reached out from all four corners, stretching to a pentagonal altar in the center of the pool. Several tiny runes were inscribed on the altar, each so small that Arkk had to get up and squint down at it just to see. As he did so, he noted several other pentagonal circles spaced around the outside edge of the pool of water, one placed beneath each of the archways.

“It’s only a model,” Zullie said. “Vezta tried to explain the schematics that let you build rooms but I didn’t quite get it. Instead, I got that blacksmith orc to build this to my specifications. Hopefully one or both of you can figure out how to build a large-scale version.” Zullie pointed at the altar in the center of the pool of water. “That altar should be large enough to fit a full-sized orc within the inner pentagon. The rest of the room, likewise, expanded to scale.”

Arkk’s eyes widened. He didn’t know for sure without measuring it but just from a glance, it looked like the central altar would be roughly the size of the meeting room table. The room would be massive. Larger even than the orc barracks.

“It is modeled after the temple,” Vezta said, not moving from her position against the wall. “You may or may not recall the room with the large pool of water. That is where my former master beseeched the [PANTHEON] for their boons. The ritualistic elements were added by Zullie to facilitate our ‘evocation’ efforts.”

“And this will work?”

“Never seen evocation work, remember?” Zullie shrugged. “No idea if this will do anything at all. We’re venturing into the unknown.”

“If it doesn’t?”

“Hopefully, we learn something.”

Vezta shoved off the wall, stepping closer. “While I may not know much of magic, I do know a few odds and ends. Evocation, as Zullie refers to it as, was not a type of magic commonly seen. A layperson would not have the magical capacity to reach through the walls of realities. It was the type of magic that required several spellcasters, advanced preparation, and,” she paused, motioning to the model on the table. “And a lot of work. It is no surprise that such magics have died off. Even a large number of spellcasters wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything with the way magic has withered away in this world.”

“But we will?” Arkk asked.

“It will still require work and personnel, but Fortress Al-Mir will make what others find to be impossible just within our reach. We should have the gold reserves to cover the construction of the temple,” Vezta said. “It will cause a sizable dent compared to your other constructions, however.”

“Not like I’m using it for anything else,” Arkk mumbled. “I suppose I’ll have the lesser servants start digging? If you can get me the exact size of the room, that would be appreciated.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Vezta said with a bow.

Arkk nodded, then looked back to Zullie. “I assume there is a little more to this than just building this temple?” Work and personnel. He could already see several points around the model that looked like they were intended for spellcasters.

Zullie let out a withering laugh. “A little,” she said with a snort before pointing at the central altar. “You’ll need to position yourself here,” she said. “From there, you need a spellcaster of at least my caliber at each of the four corners.” Her finger crossed from point to point. “Between each corner, at each ritual circle, you can have lesser spellcasters. I’ve been testing the orcs. Not many of those I’ve seen will suffice. You’ll need to find others for the remainder of the spots.”

Arkk did some quick math. There were five spots between each corner. Twenty in total. Ilya’s group of orcs had yet to return. If even half of those who had passed through the Fortress in the last few days were able to fill those spots, that was only about six orcs. Even if Ilya’s group were all able to fulfill Zullie’s requirements, that still left several empty places. And Zullie wasn’t sounding all that optimistic about the orcs.

Not to mention the four corners.

“Vezta can take one of the corners, right?”

Zullie shook her head, glancing at Vezta.

The monster’s many eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Not exactly,” she said, voice cool. “My magical capacity is pitiful. I might suffice in one of the lesser ritual circles, but even that is uncertain.”

“Rather than have her perform that role, however, I believe she would be better suited to standing in the central circle alongside you. You provide immense magical power. She provides a symbolic connection to this Pantheon thing. Symbology is quite important in ritual magic.”

Arkk pressed his fingers to his forehead, closing his eyes. “I don’t suppose either of you has suggestions for where we might find three more capable spellcasters and several others for the lesser slots?”

Uncomfortable silence greeted him. It lasted long enough to force Arkk to open his eyes. He shifted his gaze from Zullie to Vezta and back.

“Anyone?”

“I went through a list of all my colleagues at the academy. Of the ones who might be capable of helping, I only came up with one name who might be willing. And he is a fairly big might. That’s the biggest problem. Anyone in good standing with the Abbey of the Light is more likely to report us than help us.”

“Great.”

One problem after another.

Arkk stood outside the Smilesville Burg garrison. Compared to the garrison in Cliff or even Darkwood, it was a wooden hut that wouldn’t stand up to a stiff breeze. Still, it had mercenary jobs posted. Mostly local affairs. Things that needed doing within about a day or two of travel from Smilesville. It did have a few larger warrants out for enemies of the Duchy.

Now that he had spent a few days distracting himself from his pessimism with other work, he had become a little more optimistic.

He was starting to think that this would work. The mercenary business at Darkwood hadn’t exactly gone as planned but it hadn’t exactly gone poorly either. Sure, he had wound up poisoned and had to be carried away from a potential riot. That was a bit of a downer. But upon arriving at the Smilesville garrison, he found a letter addressed to him from Hawkwood full of praise for the successful defense of Darkwood. Arkk wasn’t sure who told Hawkwood but that praise meant something. It meant someone was paying attention.

If Hawkwood was paying attention, perhaps, just perhaps, the Duke was as well. He had heard that the Duke often invited various prominent figures, including the leaders of mercenary companies, to his lavish parties. That, as far as he could tell, was the best bet for getting into contact with Alya. He and Ilya had written letters to her several times over the years and never received anything in response. Arkk wasn’t exactly sure what her situation was right now, only that the Duke apparently listened to her. So, forcing a confrontation using one of those parties would work best.

But that wasn’t why he had come today. At least, not the only reason. It was definitely something he was keeping in mind as he browsed through stacks of papers at the Smilesville garrison.

Unlike Cliff where they posted jobs out on a signboard unless the weather turned bad, Arkk had to enter the garrison and browse through their files. They just didn’t get used often enough to justify having them out in the open. That meant that Arkk could go through even the older bounties that had never been claimed.

One of which he recognized. The sketch of Olatt’an depicted a younger, tusk-filled mask of snarling rage. Seeing that might have given Arkk nightmares as a child. Now, he found himself confused over how the easy-going elderly orc could possibly be the same person as the one listed as wanted for nearly every crime it was possible to commit.

Sliding that paper aside, Arkk browsed through the rest. Paper after paper went onto the discard pile, making sure to maintain their order so that the archivists here didn’t get upset with him. Eventually, however, he spotted something promising. Another scowling face, this time of a human that looked about ready to eat a whole pile of babies. Most of the sketches were of scowling individuals. Very few had normal expressions on their faces.

The bounty was old. Posted about six months ago. Wanted dead or alive, Savren of Hope’s Rest was accused of practicing foul magics of the most awful sort. What exactly those foul magics were wasn’t listed. Still, Arkk figured this was as good as he was going to get for now. He flipped through the remainder of the notices but failed to find anything promising.

Leaving the rest of the papers in a neat pile, Arkk headed up to the archivist.

“Has there been any more information on this Savren person?” Arkk asked, sliding the paper across a wide desk.

The woman seated on the other side of the desk adjusted her round glasses as she looked up. “Savren of… Oh. The Hope Killer.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, not sure he wanted to ask but, at the same time, he couldn’t stop himself. “Hope Killer?”

“From Hope’s Rest,” she said, a slight nasal tone in her voice. “Put the whole village to rest, didn’t he now?”

“Killed a whole village?” Arkk said, mentally groaning. He had been paying attention to the magic listed on the paper, not what the man had done with the magic.

“No. Put some kind of sleeping spell over all eighty people there. ’twas a few months ago and they haven’t woken up since. Mind magics.”

“But they’re alive?” Arkk asked with a frown.

“Sure are, but they don’t wake. Don’t eat. Don’t even breathe. Just sit, still alive but as good as dead,” she said. That sounded like a bit more than mind magic to Arkk but, even with Zullie’s tutelage, he was still far from knowledgeable. “The brightest spellcasters from the academy haven’t been able to wake them. As far as I understand it, they were taken to a larger church and are just… stored there until something can be done about them.”

“Then why Hope Killer?”

“Catchier than Hope Rester now isn’t it?” the archivist said, turning to a large paper-filled drawer.

“I guess,” Arkk said with a slight shake of his head. The possibility of recruiting this spellcaster was a little bit more palatable than it had been a moment ago. Zullie said that no one in good standing would help them out, leaving Arkk to track down people who weren’t in good standing. He knew what that meant, but he didn’t want someone who would callously slaughter an entire village.

He tried not to investigate the pasts of the orcs in his employ for much the same reason. At least most of them had fought against a demon summoning and were now making amends through honest mercenary work. More or less.

The archivist turned back with another paper in her hand. She laid it out on the desk, facing it toward Arkk. “Last news on Savren was reported three months ago. Other burgs might have more up-to-date information.”

“Spotted in the mines of…” Arkk started reading, only to pause as he recognized a name. It clicked a moment later. “Oh. Oh no.”

“Something wrong?”

“The mines of Silver City,” Arkk said, thinking back to his first outing to find mercenary jobs in Cliff. “I recognize that name. A den of gorgon moved in. It has been one of the largest outstanding mercenary jobs for… about three months. No one has dared take it up, I’ve heard.”

“Ah. Probably explains why we haven’t had any updates on Savren. He’s been turned to stone. Good riddance, I say.”

Arkk sighed, fearing he might have to go to a larger burg to find more information on spellcasters who might be willing to participate in an evocation ritual. “Mind if I get a paper to write all this down on anyway?” he asked. Might as well have Vezta scry the mines and see if it was full of gorgon or not.

If Arkk were trying to hide, starting a rumor of some of the most dangerous creatures in existence living around him would be a great way to keep all but the most dedicated of bounty hunters away from him.

The archivist handed over ink and paper in exchange for a silver coin. Arkk quickly scribbled down every bit of information, from the location of Hope’s Rest to the various villages Savren had been spotted in before winding up at Silver City. In the end, he thanked the archivist for her help and left the garrison.

He made it about three steps down the street before spotting something unpleasant. A black carriage, gleaming with the striped emblem of the Duchy on the side, sat just outside the local stayover. A familiar man with a wide black hat sat at the reins of the horses. Arkk didn’t stick around any longer. Ducking back into the alcove of the garrison’s entryway, just out of sight of the guards, he teleported straight back into Fortress Al-Mir.

And ended up in front of Vezta, who was currently trying to convert Zullie’s model into a useable schematic for construction.

“We have a minor emergency. Maybe a major one,” Arkk said, pulling a crystal ball to him.

Vezta canted her head to one side, looking away from the model to peer into the glass ball.

He held it out and immediately began scrying on the Smilesville stayover. The Smilesville stayover had an external staircase to four rooms, all perched over a tavern. It took only a second to flick through each of the rooms before finding the black-cloaked inquisitors in the third.

The short chronicler sat on the edge of the bed, reading from a small book. The purifier stood perfectly still at the window, watching outside. There was no sign of High Inquisitor Darius Vrox, but something about the purifier sent chills up Arkk’s spine.

Adjusting the viewpoint of the crystal ball, he let out an audible groan as he noted the direction the purifier was looking.

If she had been standing there a few moments ago, she would have had a clear view of him stepping outside the garrison and then ducking back in.

“I need you to keep watch on these people,” Arkk said. “I’m sorry, but until they leave the vicinity, this takes priority over the temple room.”

“I can handle both tasks at once,” Vezta said with a mild bow.

“Good. Thank you.”

 

 

“We’ve been searching for a week across this soggy marsh,” Olatt’an grumbled. He slapped at his arm, crushing more than one mosquito. “The exercise and fresh air were nice for a time. These bugs are not. How long are we going to keep looking?”

“They have to be here,” Ilya said, frowning at the bit of cheese on her stale bread.

She knew as well as he did that their time was running out.

Their provisions were running low. The wet marshlands and accompanying insects were irritating the orcs she had brought along with her. A week of trudging through the marsh, both on foot over the large islands and on a boat for crossing the wide channels, might have been fine if there had been an end in sight. At this point, they were just wandering aimlessly.

“My mother said that if I ever couldn’t stay with the people of Langleey Village, I should seek out the elves of Marrowland Fen. They would take me in.”

Olatt’an looked over the despondent elf. She caught his eyes wandering over the few other orcs who were taking a rest before ending up back at her. “Your mother,” he said, voice soft. “She lived in the human village for most of her life?”

Ilya raised an eyebrow. “She had a very long life. I… I was only a small part of it.” Maybe that was why her mother hadn’t looked happy to see her. Alya was over six hundred years old. Ilya was thirty-two. Only half of which had been spent in the presence of her mother. For the rest of Ilya’s life, her mother had been with the Duke.

The thought made her shoulders slump.

“When was the last time your mother visited her people? Didn’t she have a more accurate location?”

Ilya looked over at the toothless orc, pressing her lips together. She didn’t know. Her mother hadn’t left Langleey in the time since she had been born. From stories the other villagers told her, Alya had been a part of their village for at least a generation. Even the older villagers remembered Alya as children. Whether or not she left and returned at any point, Ilya couldn’t say.

“None of the villages we passed could point us toward an elf village,” Olatt’an said, voice still soft. “All they said was that elves would show up on occasion, but haven’t for a long while.”

Ilya swallowed a lump in her throat. “If they aren’t here anymore, where did they go?”

“Can’t say. I don’t know elves. The only elf settlement I’ve visited was down near the border of the Duchy of Mystakeen and the boy prince’s Principality. That was decades ago. No idea if it is still there.”

“Could you take me there?”

“To the Principality? That’s months of travel. Not to mention…” The old orc wrinkled his nose. “Elves have long memories. I doubt my face would be welcome.”

Ilya rolled her eyes. “Is there anywhere that doesn’t have an outstanding bounty on your head?” Throughout the entire journey, Olatt’an kept a bandanna around his face and a hood up anytime they ventured into a settlement. Even then, he stuck on his own, avoiding anyone outside their group. Most larger burgs, he and the other orcs had camped well outside their walls.

Olatt’an didn’t get a chance to answer her. Kazz’ak came running up. Ilya noted that he came running up to Olatt’an, not her, despite her being in charge of this whole operation. He didn’t look particularly excited to speak. At the same time, there was a worried intensity in his eyes.

“We… found something, Ripthroat.”

Olatt’an gave the younger orc a flat look. It was subtle, but Ilya caught the way his head twitched toward her.

Kazz’ak turned his head first before the rest of his body followed, looking at Ilya. “We found something,” he said again with marginally less respect in his tone.

“A village?”

“It… might be better if you came and saw for yourself.”

Not liking the sound of that, Ilya wrapped up her meager meal in a bit of cloth, pocketing it for later. “Keep watch here,” Ilya said, probably unnecessarily. The older orc wasn’t making any attempt to stand as he continued to eat his own food.

Marrowlands Fen was a wet marshy location far to the northeast of Langleey Village, right on the border with the Sultanate. Some parts of it were open to the ocean, the same ocean that Cliff’s harbor sat on, but large berms of grassy land kept the salty water mostly out. Were it not for the water, the land would likely be an incredibly hilly landscape, bordering on mountainous. Instead, it was more like large rounded islands dotted the greenish water. A few of the larger islands held settlements, though none were at all prosperous and wealthy. Even for all the gold Arkk had given her for this voyage, they weren’t willing to part with too much food for fear of starving themselves. Their farms were small, constrained by the islands, and most of their meals came from the fish both in the ocean and in the marshes.

So far, Ilya and the orcs had combed over the larger islands. Both those settled and those barren. Upon discovering that the settlements that were here didn’t know about any elf villages, she had been hoping that the elves were hiding their home with some kind of magic that she, an elf, would be able to see through. Just like in the stories of old. Unfortunately, she had yet to locate any sign of that. Even if the villages were hidden, there should still have been elves moving around, farmlands that couldn’t be concealed, or any number of other proofs that her people lived in the area.

Instead of heading inland on this island, however, Kazz’ak took her along the shore down to the second of their boats. The one he and his scouting team had been using to circumnavigate the island in an attempt to locate any sign of habitation. He joined two others aboard. Ilya followed.

Rather than circling the island, however, Kazz’ak directed the boat away from shore. Ilya’s sharp eyes looked into the distance, spotting a large mountain on their left and a smaller yet hilly island on the right. Using a long pole to push the boat through the water, Kazz’ak set the heading directly between the two islands.

As the boat sailed away from the island she had been on, Ilya spotted something that they were going to hit. It looked like a large grouping of cattails and a mess of reeds. As they got closer, however, Ilya realized that it wasn’t a natural formation. Cut reeds, wooden planks, and netting made from bulrush sedges formed the floating island. There were… constructions on the island as well. Small foundations of what might have been huts in the past. Now, it was clear that they had fallen into disrepair.

Kazz’ak pulled the boat up against the reeds, partially beaching it on the fake beach. Ilya had to wrinkle her nose. The entire island smelled of rotting plants. She had to wonder how long it had been out here, floating around with no one to maintain the island. It was clearly artificially made and would have to have maintenance to keep it from completely falling apart.

Following the scouting team, Ilya stepped onto the floating island. It wobbled a bit under her feet. Not enough that she thought she was going to fall through it. In fact, in its prime, it might not have felt different from solid ground.

“This way,” Kazz’ak said, waving a hand as he started across the surprisingly large floating island.

Passing one of the straw pillars that might have been a hut, Ilya paused and knelt. Something was sticking out of the straw that caught her eye. A smooth wooden shaft. Gripping it and wrenching it out of the straw, Ilya scowled down at the chipped metal arrowhead.

Ilya looked up to Kazz’ak, about to ask whether the arrow was one of theirs, when she spotted something beyond the tall orc.

Corpses. A dozen bodies piled up. The flesh had rotted and the bones had been picked clean by carrion feeders. Stumbling closer, Ilya found the scent of decaying plants replaced with the foul stench of rotting meat. The remains were still intact enough to tell that they had been humanoid. Judging by the tall stature, long legs, and thin builds…

These had been elves.

“We searched the area,” Kazz’ak said, voice mild yet uncaring. “Couldn’t find anything of value, though I can’t tell if that is because everything was looted or if these people didn’t have anything valuable in the first place. The bodies all look older. No children or youth. More huts than bodies too. Slavers, I would guess.”

“This couldn’t be too old,” Ilya said, warring with herself between getting closer and stumbling backward. “A few months at most or this entire island would be gone.”

“Think there are other floating villages? We might have been looking in the wrong place by checking over all the actual islands.”

“I…” Ilya’s voice caught in her throat. “Where would slavers have taken them?”

Kazz’ak shrugged. “The chieftain wasn’t in the habit of selling captives,” he said without any shame toward his former profession.

Ilya clenched her fist around the arrow in her hand. She felt sick. Sicker even than when her mother had turned away from her at the Duke’s manor.

Could she do anything about her people being captured? It had been months ago, based on what she saw now and what the other villages in the area had said about elf visitors. They would probably be gone in the wind without a trace.

Ilya let out an inarticulate cry as she dropped to her knees, slamming her fist down into the reeds.

She could only hope that Arkk was having better luck than she was.

The fires burned. A beautiful red-white glow licked the stone bricks of the long corridor, dancing under the wild choreography of Agnete’s dancing fingers. She basked in the flickering light, letting the fire flow around her in a whirlwind of purifying fury. This, Agnete thought, dropping the burning remains of her long coat to better feel the heat of the flames against her skin, must have been what humanity’s ancestors felt when they first lit their drab caves.

Light bright and hot enough to ward off the dark and the evils that lurked within.

Agnete strode forward, indomitable and relentless. The flames moved ahead of her, attacking all without mercy. Squeals of goblins, shrieks of fleeing insectoids, dismayed cries of all kinds of monsters… None reached her ears as her flames burned sound itself.

One of the mockeries of humanity appeared directly in front of her, claws already swinging through the air. Its hairless body caught fire the instant it manifested, but that didn’t stop its momentum. Agnete didn’t try to dodge. The monster’s claws skewered deep into her side.

A geyser of white flames erupted from the wound, fully engulfing the red-eyed ghast even as they burned away at Agnete’s skin. The keratine of the claws evaporated in the heat, leaving a wound that quickly seared itself shut. Mere pinprick scars remained behind. Agnete’s march forward didn’t slow in the slightest.

As the ghast died a fiery death, black smoke emerged from its disintegrating corpse. Bright red eyes glared at Agnete just long enough for the monster within to realize its mistake in approaching her. The black smoke burst into flames, causing the intangible being to fully manifest before her.

A human. Greasy black hair with a pointed beard. Neither remained on the screaming man’s face for more than a few seconds before being consumed by the flames. His purple robe and high collar caught fire and his skin began to char, but Agnete didn’t get to enjoy the process of purification before the man disappeared as quickly as the ghast had appeared.

Agnete continued forward through the hallways of this underground fortress. She didn’t make it far before a shudder in the ground threatened to throw her off her feet. A loud noise of breaking earth followed, bringing with it a blast of air coursing through the tunnel with such intense force behind it that it actually managed to snuff out her flames. Agnete’s fingers melted the stone wall, creating a handhold to keep herself steady.

As the wind died down, Agnete found her attention drawn to the wall she was gripping. Or had been gripping, rather. The thick stone bricks, reinforced with magic to the point where they managed to avoid more than cosmetic damage from the intense heat of her fires, began to crumble to dust, revealing bare dirt walls. The tiles under her feet, cracked and broken yet were still similarly reinforced, decayed.

The curiosity about the deteriorating fortress became a non-concern as a chill in the air made the hairs on Agnete’s arms stand on end. She drew in a breath, preparing to flood the area with the hot comfort of fire once again, only to hear a voice behind her.

“That is enough.”

Dry lips cracking into a snarl, Agnete turned around to face the one who dared dampen her heat. A man stood in the dirt tunnel, tall and lanky. Arms like noodles and thin glasses perched on his nose, he wasn’t a threat. He should burn for his—

The man reached into a pocket in his long black coat and withdrew a small clear marble. White fog of condensed air flowed around the man’s gloved hand, drifting to the floor like a waterfall of cold.

Agnete sucked in a breath, taking a fearful step backward. Ice replaced the molten heat in her veins as she stared with wide eyes. The ice crept inward, moving from her fingers and toes toward her burning heart. She opened her mouth, letting out a dry, croaking scream.

“I said that is enough, Purifier.”

Fight or flight kicked in, except she couldn’t manage either. Her feet had frozen to the ground and the fire contained under her skin diminished to mere embers in the presence of that marble of ice. All she could manage was a clipped nod of her head. Agree. Bow down to the ice in the hopes that it would grant mercy.

The man stared, a humorless smile plastered on his face. Nodding in satisfaction at something, he clasped his hand around the ball of ice and dropped it back into his pocket.

The moment it was away, Agnete collapsed, curling up into a tight ball on the dirt floor. She shuddered, rubbing cold fingers against her arms and legs in an attempt to bring back some of that heat from earlier. Slowly yet surely, feeling and warmth returned to her. It didn’t return in the same force. The out-of-control boil that threatened to spill over turned to a low simmer capped with a lid to avoid the possibility of that marble coming back out.

“Pick yourself up, Purifier,” Darius said, voice as cold as the marble hidden in his pocket. The disgust in his tone said more than words ever could. He stepped over her even as her shaking arms tried to heft herself up.

He held out a gleaming brass lantern. The white orb within was a gift from the Light, allowing vision even in the darkest of environments. Agnete hated the thing. For all its brightness, it had no heat. One could reach through the bars of brass and feel nothing at all.

Agnete stumbled to her feet, arms clasped tight to her body. She had to grind her teeth together to keep them from clattering. She dared to take her eyes off Darius, looking around back where they had come from. Sure enough, the short chronicler was coming up from behind. Holding a tablet in one hand and a pen in the other, he scribbled a few notes down. Probably ones related to her, how she almost lost control and burned them all or just how long it took her to recover from exposure to the marble. Whatever they were, she didn’t care at the moment. Her eyes were locked on the articles of clothing draped over the crook of his elbow.

Douglas squinted up at her, then, reluctantly, handed over a fresh pair of trousers and a long coat. He dropped the boots from under his arm and then continued after Darius without a word. Glaring after him for a long moment, Agnete tore off the remains of her burned clothes and began dressing herself. First the trousers, then the coat. She did up the six buttons across her chest before ducking down to don her boots. Once the buckles were secure, she let out a small sigh. The barrier between her skin and the cold air outside wasn’t much, but it helped.

Straightening her back and squaring her shoulders, Agnete began marching after her two fellow inquisitors. She didn’t speak when she caught up with them, merely falling in step behind Douglas. Agnete didn’t pay attention to the crumbling fortress around her, letting Darius lead them through the now silent corridors. He paused at a few intersections and peered into a few rooms, but didn’t stop until they reached a room unlike any other.

It was a large and rectangular room with a circular pit in the very center, surprisingly intact despite the ruins the rest of the fortress had turned into. Four thick columns stretched up, not quite reaching the peaked ceiling of the room. Each held carvings of profane symbols. Thick metal chains dangled into the pit from the tops of the pillars, perhaps having once held something aloft. Whatever that something was, it was gone now.

Stepping up alongside Darius at the pit’s precipice, she peered down into inky darkness. Not even the light from the holy lantern could penetrate the depths.

Douglass sat back, muttering under his breath into a small golden pendant that he wore around his neck. Prayers to the Light, asking for information. He paused and, with a nod of his head, looked over to Darius.

“Divine inspiration doesn’t tell me what this is. It… wasn’t so much of a non-answer as it was a rejection and refusal to answer.”

Darius frowned, dragging his long fingers from his cheeks to his chin. “Whatever it was, it seems to be gone now. Was it the purifier’s fires?”

“That information was not revealed to me,” Douglas said, squinting as he motioned to the chains dangling from the pillars. “All I was told was that we removed a great evil from this world.”

“Well,” Darius said, clapping his hands together with a false smile. “Not what we came here for. It is gratifying to know that we could eliminate an object of ancient evil nonetheless. If only the horror had been present.”

Douglas flipped back through his notes with a thin-lipped frown. “The truth is difficult to discern from an angry mob, but reports place the horror as defending the burg from the creatures of this pit.”

“Curious, isn’t it? Eyewitnesses put our old friend Mister Arkk working alongside it once again. I do wonder what dark magics he had to invoke to gain such control over a creature like that.”

Agnete, head remaining still, shifted her burning eyes to the back of Darius before flicking them back down into the deep pit.

“Perhaps it is time to visit that lovely village of Langleey once again,” said Master Inquisitor Darius Vrox.

 

 

“—brought the monsters here!”

“—heard they were after him—”

“—attacked one of my own the day before.”

“You see the company he keeps? No wonder monsters—”

“The one with the eyes… you didn’t see the way it fought. Ripped apart anything that got near without even blinking.”

“My advice? Hide until this blows over. Keep the kids indoors and…”

“That ghast spoke. Said it would leave us alone if…”

“Speaking ghasts? Nonsense.”

“Doesn’t matter. This ‘Al-Mir’ group is bad news. Kick them out before they draw more problems to the burg.”

“And just who is going to do that? You? Don’t make me laugh. You soiled yourself when that monster of theirs—”

Zullie carefully closed the door behind her, trying to avoid as much noise as possible. Only once she was inside the small room did she lower the hood of her cloak. “Boss isn’t very popular, is he?” she mumbled, wishing the relative privacy of the stayover room did more to relieve the tension in her shoulders.

“Irrelevant,” Vezta said, eyes locked on the unconscious form of Arkk as he slept on in the bed. Several tendrils moved damp cloth over his body, trying to keep his body temperature down. “Did you discover anything?”

“I spoke with the alchemist they mentioned. Ghasts have some kind of toxin in their claws. He gave me this,” Zullie said, holding up a small crystal phial of clear liquid, “in exchange for about ten times more gold than I know it would take to make something like this.”

“Gold is no object.”

“Still…”

“Will it work?”

“Hope so,” Zullie said, stepping closer to Arkk. “The alchemist refused to come to see Arkk. Said something about Arkk threatening him. So, if it doesn’t work…”

Dakka, standing watch over Arkk’s bed not far from Vezta, bared her tusks in full with a low growl. “We go out there to rescue his girl from monsters and he repays us like this? It wasn’t even a real threat,” she snarled. “Should have left the girl to die.”

“If it doesn’t work,” Vezta said, voice unnaturally calm, “I will be the one speaking with this alchemist.”

Zullie suppressed a shudder. Her first thought upon meeting Vezta had been one of fear and shock. The monster’s appearance alone was unsettling. Knowing Vezta was pre-Calamity? That was another level of shock. One that quickly gave way to interest and curiosity once it became apparent that Vezta wasn’t going to eat her. The problems they had been working on together were fascinating, to say the least.

An alternate system of magic with truncated incantations alone was enough to draw her interest. Then Vezta brought up her reverse evocation problem. Punching a hole through planes of existence to reopen pathways that had been closed for over a thousand years? How could she say no?

Evocation, summoning, and likely teleportation—Zullie was fairly certain that the teleportation ritual circles used planar magic to dig tunnels through reality for instant transportation—were all classified as High Anathema by the Abbey of the Light. Zullie knew the theory of summoning but had never been allowed to practice or delve deeper than what was required for recognition. Vezta helped out with that. The pre-Calamity monster didn’t know how to work magic but she did know how to explain what she needed to happen in such a way that Zullie could formulate ideas about how to accomplish her needs if not full rituals.

With such interesting problems to work on, she had almost forgotten just what Vezta was.

Having seen Vezta in a fight and, later, frighten off a mob of angry people, Zullie doubted she would think of Vezta as just another researcher anytime soon.

Deciding to not tempt the ancient creature by staring, Zullie hurried over to Arkk’s side, uncapping the phial as she moved.

“Ingested, injected, or topical?” Vezta asked.

“Ingested. Can you sit him up?”

Tendrils formed from the shadows around Arkk, lifting him into a sitting position. Zullie winced at the sight. He wasn’t completely limp nor was he completely unconscious. He drifted in and out of lucidity. While her mending spell had sealed the gashes in his front after far more effort than she had expected, a bramble of blackened veins marred his chest, stemming from the thin scars the magic had failed to heal. Parts of the black veins were creeping up his neck, threatening to attack his face.

“Alright, Arkk. I need you to swallow this as much as you can.”

Zullie’s boss didn’t respond. Not even a blink of his eyes. Was he weaker than he had been before she left?

Yes. Almost certainly. They wouldn’t need a potion if he was getting better.

The alchemist had given her a long glass straw to use to carefully administer the potion without spilling any. Dipping the straw into the phial and then covering the end captured a small amount in the tube. With Vezta holding Arkk’s head back and his mouth open, she held the straw partially in his mouth—not far enough to trigger a gag reflex—and let it dribble out and down his throat.

His breathing paused a moment. Just long enough for a weak swallow. That was a good sign. Zullie had been worried about accidentally drowning him on the concoction.

Zullie continued, forcing him to drink small amounts at a time until she couldn’t capture a meaningful amount in the straw, at which point she upended the remainder into his mouth and hoped that would be enough. Stoppering the bottle and setting it aside, Zullie watched as Vezta gently set him back down on the bed.

“How long before we see…”

Vezta trailed off. It wasn’t hard to see why. The black veins around his throat were already pulling back. His breathing, formerly labored, steadied out. The potion worked fast, it seemed. That alchemist, though antagonistic, knew alchemy.

“Good,” Vezta said. “As soon as we confirm the stability of his condition, we will be leaving. In fact, we ought to leave before he regains consciousness to avoid any protests on his part.”

“How will we—”

A pair of sharp knocks interrupted Zullie. Her head snapped to the door, worried the angry crowd from downstairs had decided to throw them out. Or worse. She dismissed the notion almost as soon as it came. An angry mob wouldn’t knock.

Vezta stepped toward the door, unfazed.

Zullie quickly inserted herself between Vezta and the door. “Maybe I should..?”

“I can handle myself.”

“It isn’t you who I’m worried about.” Zullie didn’t consider herself a creature blessed with social graces. Between a pair of angry orcs and an angry… whatever Vezta was, it was a bit sad that she thought she was the best option for a peaceful encounter with whoever was on the other side of the door.

Vezta stared a moment but dipped her head, clasping her hands in front of the eye that sat where her navel should be.

Taking a breath, Zullie carefully pulled open the door, ready to jump aside and let Vezta handle a potential angry mob. Only it wasn’t a mob at all. A well-dressed man stood on the other side of the door, gently running his fingers against the stubble on his chin. He looked surprised before a small smile wrinkled his face.

“Ah. Good day. Is Mister Arkk…”

“Doing better, now that he has had a healing potion.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I… I heard the alchemist when he came in. Mister Arkk went to help a woman who ventured outside the walls, asking little in return for his assistance. The monsters would have certainly followed anyone back, including that alchemist, so I know the others downstairs aren’t speaking with the entire story in mind.”

“That’s… much appreciated,” Zullie said with a forced smile. “Mister…”

“Wolf. Aron Wolf,” he said with a nod of his head. “Wolf Trading Company.”

“I’ll let Arkk know. I’m sure he’ll appreciate your visit.”

“Ah. I’m not here just for good wishes. I wanted to warn him that the crowd downstairs is getting… rowdy. Several guards have shown up. I would try to explain what happened myself but the hysterics of the situation seem out of my control. Letting you know so that there wouldn’t be any surprises is the least I can do.”

Zullie drew in a sharp breath. That didn’t sound good. What were they going to do? Throw them into the stocks? Lynch them outright? Zullie glanced over her shoulder. Neither option seemed likely to succeed with Vezta here. Either option would turn bloody.

Zullie’s hesitation to respond cost her. Vezta stepped forward, offering a polite bow. “Thank you for your warning. We were just leaving.”

The man stiffened, eyes going wide. He tried to speak only to cough on a bit of spittle. His coughing fit died out as he took a step backward. “Yes, well, I…” He cleared his throat more, pointing a finger vaguely away from the door. “I just… Better leave before… Good luck.”

Zullie watched him scurry off down the hall and could only shake her head. Vezta hadn’t even been trying to threaten him and she frightened him off. Hopefully, Arkk wasn’t going to be upset that he might have lost the one friend he had in this town.

Closing the door, Zullie turned back to the room. “How are we—What are you doing?”

“Avoiding unnecessary conflict,” Vezta said, pushing open the large shutters over the window. Her tendrils had Arkk wrapped up, held aloft and away from the bed. “Out the window. Dakka. Orjja. Zullie. I’ll follow.”

Neither orc looked impressed. “You want us to fit through that?”

The window wasn’t a large one. It had no glass. A vertical beam of wood bisected the opening, cutting down the total space to one that Zullie felt she would have a tough time squeezing through, let alone Dakka or the marginally larger Orjja.

Vezta simply looked back to the window, considering the problem. Before Zullie could offer any alternate solutions to the situation, tendrils wrapped around the frame and ripped a portion of the wall away.

“Out.”

Dakka didn’t argue again. With a casual shrug, she kicked aside a plank that was protruding before hopping straight out of the window. Orjja followed immediately after.

“Maybe we should leave some gold for repair—”

The noise of ripping away the wall must have alerted those on the ground floor. Heavy stomping moved up the stairs. Flipping the latch on the door, Zullie hurried over to the opening.

Vezta was already climbing out, using extensions of her tendrils to lower herself and Arkk carefully.

It wasn’t that high of a drop. The ground below was muddy and slick. Zullie’s mind started flipping through every spell she knew, trying to find one that wouldn’t have her breaking her leg if she landed poorly. A heavy slam against the door behind her made her mind go blank. Splinters of wood broke away from the latch with another heavy thud.

“Vezta!” Zullie shouted, jumping.

She wasn’t going to land well. Her arms spun through the air. She wasn’t just going to break her leg, her neck was going to snap against the muddy ground.

Oily black tendrils reached up and looped around her, slowing her down until her feet touched the ground as gently as if she were stepping down from one of the library’s ladders.

“Thanks.”

“Hurry,” Vezta said, not even stopping. “Arkk would be upset if I were to start a fight here.”

Zullie didn’t need telling twice. The angry shouts from above were more than enough motivation to rush through Darkwood Burg.

They rushed through the streets, moving directly toward the gate where all the fighting took place. Rekk’ar and the rest of the orcs stood outside the guardhouse, protecting the ritual circle within from a small contingent of guards who wanted to get back in. Zullie was honestly surprised that there hadn’t been a fight yet. Rekk’ar looked more than ready to start one.

The posturing of the guards died down as soon as one spotted Vezta approaching. Some must have seen her fight. They quickly pulled the rest away, granting them a wide berth to enter the guardhouse.

“Zullie. Get the orcs through the teleportation circle.”

“We’re taking the circle out? Arkk wanted to be seen leaving.”

“Then he should have been more careful.”

Zullie pressed her lips together but didn’t argue any further. It wasn’t that she was afraid of Vezta. The pre-Calamity monster did creep her out somewhat but she was fairly certain they had a good enough rapport between them to not come to actual conflict. Her lack of further protest stemmed from a definite desire to leave Darkwood behind and never return. Teleporting was simply the best way to put as much distance between her and the monster-infested woods as possible.

One by one, the orcs stepped inside. Zullie knelt next to the teleportation circle, activating it for each with only a small delay between. They all had done this before and knew they needed to clear the exit point as fast as possible.

There were more than just orcs inside the guardhouse. Two of those creepy lesser servants sat in one corner, bubbling and staring at everything while mouths and eyes formed and reformed across their pustulate skin. As Orjja, the last orc, made it through the portal, Zullie glanced at Vezta. “What about the servants?”

“Send one of them.”

“Only one?”

Vezta pointed a tendril at one. It carefully repositioned itself within the ritual circle. With a shrug, Zullie pushed out some of her magic. In a flash, the servant vanished.

“The other?”

“It will destroy the ritual circle after we have left then burrow straight down and discorporate,” Vezta said, narrowing her eyes at the few guards brave enough to stand at the doorway and watch what was going on. “Don’t want anyone following us.”

“Discorporate?”

“Kill itself.”

Zullie winced. “Is that really necessary?”

“It is just a lesser servant. It barely has thoughts of its own.” Vezta looked off into the distance over the heads of the few guards in the doorway. Zullie could hear shouts approaching. “Through the portal.”

“Sure.”

Zullie stepped inside and, with a light touch of magic, she found herself out in some nondescript forest. The same one she had traveled through on the way to the Darkwood Burg. The orcs stood around, casually chatting as they waited. They hardly took note of her presence, watching for Vezta and Arkk.

The two emerged a moment after Zullie cleared the circle. Vezta immediately destroyed the circle she had just emerged from with a liberal application of tendrils and then started directing the orcs through the next circle. The heavy rain, which had thankfully stopped, had disrupted part of the circle but Vezta was quick to clean it up.

As Zullie sent each orc through, she watched them, observing the way they looked at Arkk and Vezta. The end of the battle had been chaotic, to say the least. Just before all the monsters had vanished, they had broken through the gates. Zullie hadn’t seen it with her own eyes but she had heard from Dakka that, in the ensuing fight, Arkk had shoved Katt’am out of the way of the ghast’s claws.

Zullie barely interacted with the orcs. They lived in an entirely separate section of the fortress. Technically, she used the same mess hall for food. Practically, she ate at such odd hours that she most often scrounged through the kitchens to find food that she then took back to her room or the library. She wasn’t sure what relationship the orcs had with Arkk prior to today. She wasn’t sure what they had now, only that several were shooting him looks that she couldn’t quite parse.

Vezta left behind their final lesser servant to destroy the portal and then kill itself once again. The thought made Zullie a little ill at how callously Vezta just threw them away. Sentient or not, ugly though they were, she still found it disturbing to a degree. If Arkk was conscious, he probably wouldn’t have stood for it and would have insisted that they walk all the way back.

As Vezta destroyed the next teleportation circle without them traveling through it first, Zullie almost wished there were more lesser servants to facilitate their speedy return to the fortress. Almost. Not quite.

“Find the nearest burg or village,” Vezta said, holding out Arkk’s crystal ball. “We’ll head there for rest and transportation.”

Zullie couldn’t help but sigh as, an hour later, she located the nearest village far enough away that it would probably take the rest of the day and even part of the night to reach.

Maybe a little more than almost.

 

 

“Electro Deus!”

Lightning scorched the ground where the red-eyed ghast had been standing an instant ago. The ghast hadn’t jumped aside. It simply vanished. Arkk recognized the effect immediately as the same kind of teleportation he could do around Fortress Al-Mir.

“I did warn you, Master. It isn’t too late to flee.”

“Focus on the rest of them,” Arkk said, launching two more lightning bolts at the goblins attacking the gate. “Without an army, the other Keeper…” Arkk trailed off as the third goblin he tried to fry vanished much like the ghast.

It wasn’t just him either. Archers on the walls found their arrows passing right through where their targets had been. Farr’an tried to hit one of the snapping insects with a crossbow bolt, only for it to be whisked off elsewhere. Dakka and Orjja had procured bows from somewhere and were making efforts, but to Arkk’s eyes, it looked more like a waste of arrows than an effective battle tactic.

“Electro Deus.”

Five bolts laced out from each of Arkk’s fingers. Only two hit their targets. The Keeper was quick at getting the minions out of the way.

Zullie threw a few lightning bolts of her own. Like Arkk, the majority of hers struck nothing. Their combined accuracy was still better than any of the archers. Lightning was just a bit faster than arrows and they didn’t have to aim much at all. Just point and blast. Unfortunately for Zullie, she couldn’t maintain the output that Arkk could. After two or three bolts, she had to stop and take a short rest. That took out half their effective fighting force for several moments.

With a frustrated cry, Dakka shouted the incantation for lighting and fried a raptor that had tried to leap onto the wall near her. It looked like she tried for a second bolt but didn’t manage anything before collapsing, chest heaving up and down. Interesting though it was to note that she could cast that spell in a combat situation, Arkk was disappointed in her stamina with it.

Maybe training would increase her effectiveness? He would bring it up with Zullie later.

Arkk narrowed his eyes as he spotted movement in the distance. More monsters were approaching. Reinforcements? Or were they the ones the Keeper had whisked off coming back to rejoin the fray?

“He has territory nearby?”

Vezta, who hadn’t yet acted in an offensive capability as she stood next to Arkk, simply nodded her head. “I would expect nothing less.”

“We—”

Arkk cut himself off as a cry of alarm rose over the far end of the wall. A yellow and black striped insect had scaled the wall. One of the guards, bow on the ground and sword drawn, didn’t get a chance to strike out before the scythe-like pincers sliced him clean in two.

Arrows and crossbow bolts rained down as the insect started to lash out at another guard, only for the insect to vanish. That didn’t stop the arrows. One ripped straight through another guard’s thigh, eliciting a cry of pain.

The distraction allowed the forces at the wall to spring their attack. A ghast, using its powerful hind legs, leaped into the air not far from Arkk, intending to land on the wall somewhere near him.

“Electro Deus!”

A blinding bolt of lightning followed by a heavy thunderclap struck the flying ghast. Its limbs seized in mid-air but its momentum carried it straight toward the wall.

Tendrils erupted from the shadows around Arkk, ripping the ghast from the air. Arkk expected it to simply get whisked away to wherever the other monsters had gone, but it didn’t. Vezta’s tendrils wrapped around its limbs and began pulling, squeezing, and twisting. Pale blood dripped to the ground as if the ghast was a wet cloth being wrung. Finished, Vezta flung the broken body back into the crowd with enough force to crush a goblin.

“We should count ourselves lucky that this whole town isn’t within our opponent’s domain,” Vezta said in a conversational tone as she worked. “Not only would I not have been able to teleport directly to your side, but one of those large insects teleporting behind you would take off your head before either of us could react.”

“A few more of those and the wall will fall anyway,” Arkk said, looking around. “The Keeper just needs to kill enough guards to lessen the defense enough to where the majority of his force can rush inside unhindered. Until then, it is a battle of attrition and his teleportation tactic is giving him an advantage while depleting our stock of arrows. But…

“The Keeper isn’t fighting the way I would. He could have used his servants to burrow into the burg, bypassing the wall entirely. He is just throwing his forces at the wall. The heavily defended part of the wall no less.”

More reinforcements were coming to the gate. Soldiers from elsewhere. Even some of the mercenaries from the tavern.

Everyone was coming here.

“Dakka!” The orc wasn’t effective with the bow and couldn’t manage sustained lighting bolts. Arkk pulled out his crystal ball and tossed it over. “I need you to scry the rest of the wall. Make sure we aren’t fighting a distraction.”

“Me? Scry? I can’t—”

“It’s easy. If you can cast a lightning bolt, you can scry! Just think of where you want to see with a little touch of magic and the crystal ball will take care of the rest.”

“I… I can try.”

Arkk glanced at Zullie, who had given up on lightning spells in favor of some bird made of flames that swept outward from the wall before exploding in the middle of the monsters. It wasn’t killing anything—the wave of flame following the explosion wasn’t nearly as fast as lightning which meant that the Keeper could pull any monster that was in danger away—but it was doing a wonderful job of giving them some breathing room.

Vezta wasn’t actively attacking, but the few monsters that did make it within range either had to be whisked away before her tendrils could reach them or else she would crush them. It was like the Keeper couldn’t teleport anything away once she got her tendrils around them.

Both were too effective to put on scrying duty.

“Do it,” Arkk said, tossing the crystal ball. “Succeed and you’ll get a pay raise.” She tried to protest, but Arkk was already turning away. “Orjja!”

The green-skinned orc stiffened, loosing an arrow before turning to face him.

“Get down to the guardhouse. Take the teleportation circle. You should find another circle at the other end. Repeat that until you’re back at the fortress. I’ve shoved Rekk’ar and the other orcs into the armory—hopefully, they get the hint to gear up. Bring them back here.” Before she could offer the same protests that Dakka had tried, Arkk added, “You should be able to use magic enough to activate the circles.”

Orjja gave an uncertain nod to acknowledge the order but didn’t protest as she rushed down off the wall.

“Will a few orcs turn the tide?” Vezta asked, voice soft in the heavy rain.

“Not necessarily, but if we are being surrounded, I would rather have people I can count on to have my back,” Arkk said, eying a pair of the First Legion who were taking up the defense down the wall. “Can we destroy or otherwise nullify the Keeper’s territory? If the Keeper’s forces have to travel long distances after being rescued, that will at least wear them out. It should also slow down the attack, giving our side moments of rest.”

“Your lesser servants should be able to forcibly unclaim territory. They won’t be able to claim it in your name without territory of our own, but it would shrink our opponent’s effective area.”

Arkk, after launching a few more bolts of lightning, summoned a pair of lesser servants. “Burrow in that direction,” he said, pointing to where the reinforcing stream of monsters was coming from. “Find enemy territory and disrupt it.”

“They shouldn’t require verbal orders,” Vezta said, canting her head as she watched them leap off the wall and dive into the ground. A few monsters struck at the lesser servants, but they couldn’t follow into the tiny passages. The servants weren’t digging corridors or halls meant for others, just their own amorphous bodies. “The lesser servants are direct extensions of the [HEART]. Your [HEART].”

“So the ones I summoned earlier can be brought back to help those two?”

Vezta dipped her head. “For as much as they can help. You’ve seen them fight. The moment the other Keeper spots them, their mission will end.”

“They need escorts.”

“Master,” Vezta said, burning suns that were her eyes turning to bore into him. “Might I remind you that you said we were to defend only?”

Arkk fried a goblin and hit a ghast with lightning. The latter got back to its feet, unfortunately. “You know what they say about a good defense,” he said, gritting his teeth into a forced smile. “We just need to—”

“No we master. The Keeper is after you. If you step foot onto enemy territory, you will be surrounded and defeated in an instant.”

“If it is any consolation, I don’t think the Keeper wants to kill me. Just eat my brain.”

Vezta was not amused.

“I’m open to suggestions.”

Vezta drew in a breath of air and let it back out. “I will go after your servants. You will stay safe.”

“Will you be safe?”

Vezta’s eyes shifted back to the ground over the wall. She assessed for a moment before nodding. “If this is all the Keeper has, I won’t die.”

“And if he has more? If there is another of your kin around?”

“Then I will impress upon my sibling the utter mistake of attacking the master of Fortress Al-Mir.”

Arkk held Vezta’s gaze, looking for any sign of false bravado in her confidence. Finding none, he smiled. “Then I’ll leave this to—”

“Arkk!” Dakka shouted, moving closer with the crystal ball. “Sorry to interrupt. You were right. The guards along the northern side of the wall are dead. They look… eaten. Partially.”

Grimacing, Arkk looked back to Vezta. “If the Keeper is here, now might be the best time to go. Destroy as much as you can. Once you’ve been noticed, get out.”

Vezta hesitated, then bowed. “As you command.”

She backed up until she bumped against the waist-high barrier of the wall. She didn’t stop moving, tipping over backward. Arkk rushed over just in time to watch her land on her feet, somehow facing away from the wall. Tendrils covered in eyes and mouths whipped around her in a fury, striking at anything too close. The Keeper took note in an instant, ripping away any monsters that were within reach.

As soon as there was nothing left to attack, Vezta’s tendrils turned on her. They twisted around her, folding over and over as they tied her down into a tiny knot far too small to contain her full form. The tendrils turned and shrank until they were completely gone, pulled into the ground right where one of the lesser servants had burrowed into the ground.

A moment of silence covered both sides of the battlefield with Vezta’s departure. More than a few eyes turned in his direction. Even Zullie was staring down at the spot where Vezta had vanished. Arkk tried to pretend he didn’t notice. Instead, he used the momentary lapse in action to send a full-powered bolt of lightning at the nearest insect. The explosion of yellow globs of blood and viscera started the battle over again.

Twisting, roiling masses of tendrils erupted back onto the surface just after reaching a fortified wall through the narrow tunnel the lesser servants had dug. The entrance to the fortress was well hidden, poking out from a large boulder that might have been covering the entrance entirely up until this event started.

Vezta stared for a long moment, watching and observing as she tried to recall just who had commanded a [HEART] in this area. The area had the faint smell of death and decay still lingering even after a thousand years. The Eternal Silence, Vezta presumed. The only Keeper Vezta could recall who paid such tribute to the Eternal Silence would have been Duncan the Undefeated, who had obviously been defeated at some point over the centuries. Or… maybe he hadn’t. The Eternal Silence, a master of death and undeath, could have sustained a servant indefinitely.

Or so would have been the case before the Calamity.

As Vezta stood watching, a third lesser servant emerged nearby. Arkk had summoned five in total, three before she arrived and two after. She wasn’t sure where the missing ones were, but the three present should suffice for her current duty.

Disrupting the enemy’s ability to return their minions to the fight in a timely manner wasn’t a bad plan. It might make the opposing Keeper less inclined to rescue useless minions knowing that they wouldn’t be back in the fight for a long time in addition to tiring out those that did get rescued. It showed acceptable levels of tactical thinking, which was about all Vezta could expect from a novice. It was also a plan that only had a chance of success now. If the [HEART] of this fortress was connected to the [PANTHEON] the way it should have been, Vezta wouldn’t have made it more than a step inside before magical destruction rained down upon her for her insolence.

As it was, all she had to worry about were the monsters raining down upon her.

Vezta watched with narrowed eyes as a trio of monsters emerged from the long stairwell that led down into the depths of the fortress. None noticed the glowing eyes in the shadows of the Darkwood. They didn’t bother to look back, ushered along by their Keeper to continue their mindless assault on the human settlement. A pair emerged shortly after and another two after that.

Simply walking inside would see her caught. While Vezta had every confidence in her ability to escape, even should the Keeper make an appearance, the lesser servants would perish and thus she would fail her mission. Without the siege magics provided by a fully functional [HEART], burrowing inside wouldn’t be possible either. She could scour the area for an alternate entrance but that would likely consume too much time.

Vezta looked over the three waiting servants with a distasteful frown. If only she could carry out the task of destroying territory on her own. Alas, her former master had sacrificed much of her connection to [HEART] magics to make her a more effective advisor capable of autonomous thought and activity. It had been necessary for her to delve into the mysteries of the [HEART] failure caused by the Calamity.

Reaching down, she picked up one of the squirming masses of tentacles and began reshaping it much as she had done with the servant currently in charge of tailoring. Discarded bits and pieces fell to the ground around them as she rent the physical form of the creature, leaving it more or less in the form of a shadow between the stars. A few glowing eyes and one snapping set of teeth were all that remained. The rest of the darkness bled into the shadows of the brush under the trees.

Vezta performed the same treatment on the other two servants. They wouldn’t survive for long like this. They didn’t need to. Within the hour, she would finish her task and would finally be able to get her stubborn master away from this place.

Prepared, Vezta waited for a lull in the number of monsters emerging from the opening beneath the barrel. Her tendrils pulled her down into a shadowy form, though it wasn’t quite as hidden as while in Fortress Al-Mir or while near Arkk. The Keeper might notice if he paid attention. Some of the smarter minions could as well if they knew what to look for.

Entering the passageway with the other servants trailing after her, Vezta was surprised to find a total lack of doors. Had the Keeper relied entirely on the boulder as their method of defense? That, Vezta could only shake her head at. It was either an embarrassing display of incompetence, an embarrassing display of overconfidence, or an embarrassing display of ignorance. Whatever the case, her opinion of the Keeper fell even further as she continued down a long and straight corridor.

She no longer held any delusions that this might be Duncan the Undefeated.

The corridor was a mess. The tiles were cracked and broken and the gemstones, typical identifiers of [HEART] territory, were faded or missing entirely. Vezta could hardly believe that this area could count as territory without the linking stones carrying out the [HEART] magic. What were the servants of this fortress doing?

Vezta’s slithering march through the fortress corridor came to a pause as she considered that question.

Were there servants? Arkk only knew the spell to summon lesser servants because she taught it to him. If other servants of Vezta’s kind had withered away in the years since the Calamity, there might not be anyone around to teach the current Keeper of the [HEART]. Vezta was unsure how she had survived. The [HEART] going dormant without a master should have starved her. Instead, she had waited for a suitable master to come along and now lived to watch Fortress Al-Mir regain its beat.

Master Razerk’s modifications to her being might have been the cause. He truly had been a genius in the art of magic. If only he had lived to see her return with knowledge of what the so-called Light gods had done, he would have had the portal reopened in a week and the Calamity undone the next.

Thought discarded, Vezta pushed forward. If there were no servants in this fortress to reclaim the territory she destroyed, her task became infinitely simpler. She just needed to find the furthest junction of the territory. Fortress territory had to be contiguous for any given locale. If she disrupted territory as far from the boulder entrance as possible, she wouldn’t need to fight her way through minions every step of the way. Normally, that wouldn’t even be possible. She would have to start at the outside and work her way in on any proper fortress. Here? With the weak links between each tile?

She was honestly surprised that the fortification magic was still working. Destroying the territorial claim would be child’s play.

With the magic of the [HEART] disconnected, the servants would then be able to collapse the tunnel entirely, forcing the monsters to take a different route if the enemy Keeper wished to continue their assault.

Vezta found her junction after a few minutes of scurrying along the corners of the corridor. This tunnel was long and empty, much like those from Fortress Al-Mir that led to the nearby villages. It lacked the traps Arkk had installed and had no other defenses. Not even patrolling minions—they were presumably all involved with the assault. Vezta was disappointed with how easy this job was.

The servants under her command got to work with a mere gesture, fighting the weak magic of the dilapidated fortress’ claim on the territory. Vezta remained at the ready, fully prepared for the rain of minions.

Yet the tiles cracked and withered, collapsing to raw earth. As the last of the fortress magic dissipated from the area, a cascading effect ran down the corridor at Vezta’s back, destroying every tile and wall. Not questioning her good fortune at a lack of opposition, Vezta directed the servants to the walls to begin collapsing the tunnel.

Only after they burrowed within did the situation change.

A ghast appeared before Vezta, perhaps the same one from the initial moments of the assault. Frothing white foam dripped from its unhinged jaw as it looked around the corridor. Its tiny red eyes settled on Vezta after only a moment. Without a word or attempt at communication, it charged.

Vezta just waved, smiling wide as the tunnel collapsed down around it.

That wouldn’t have killed the Keeper. Even if he hadn’t been possessing a body, a simple teleport would have him extracted. With the collapse and no territory on this side, however, he was trapped over there. Vezta did not know where other entrances were or if there was another close route. That should still stall him enough.

Perhaps more than enough. A small part of Vezta wanted to agree with her master. Crushing this interloper entirely both for offenses against the [PANTHEON] and being such an embarrassment toward Keepers of the [HEART] would have been gratifying. Still, embarrassment though this Keeper was, her reasoning from earlier had not changed. Especially not now that he had been alerted to her presence. He would be on guard if he wasn’t completely incompetent.

With a small shake of her head, Vezta turned and started walking back through the dirt tunnel, directing the servants to continue collapsing the tunnel behind her until they inevitably expired.

Upon returning to the burg, Vezta took stock of the situation as she approached. The gate had been bashed in but there wasn’t any fighting going on. Bodies stained the ground, most from monsters but a few humans as well. No living monsters remained. The Keeper must have pulled them back, possibly fearing that they were under further attack.

Ducking under a ruined wooden beam of the gate, Vezta’s many eyes swept over the scene. The knot of fear pulled taut deep within her chest.

Humans stood on one side. Orcs stood on the other. Arkk was on the ground, blood staining his tunic from a series of thick claw marks across his chest. Zullie crouched over him, muttering something as she drew her finger over one of the wounds. The skin behind her finger sealed together as she moved, but whatever magic she was using didn’t work properly. The skin split apart almost immediately and her spell wasn’t doing anything about the black veins spreading out from the wound.

“Master?”

 

 

“Slave Natum.”

A trio of lesser servants appeared before Arkk. “Search the forest,” Arkk said. “Look for a fortress like Al-Mir. Failing that, alert me if you find anything that looks like a permanent dwelling.” They hadn’t even finished forming before they burrowed into the ground heading in the direction of the Darkwood forest, moving to carry out his commands. He wasn’t sure that they needed verbal orders. Around Fortress Al-Mir, they always just seemed to know what was needed at any given moment.

The verbal command at least removed any ambiguity on his end.

Ignoring the repulsed noises and cries of alarm from both his companions and the wall guards, Arkk closed his eyes and focused his attention afar.

Within Fortress Al-Mir, Arkk ripped one of the lesser servants through space remotely. It couldn’t reach him—he was far too far away—but he could pick it up and drop it down right in front of Vezta, stopping a discussion between her and Zullie. Assisting him from afar might not be possible. He still felt that she should be aware of the situation.

If it came down to it, Vezta had suggested chaining together teleportation rituals for rapid transit in the past. Both of them had been leery of actually doing so for the simple reason that it would leave a trail that led directly back to the fortress. Destroying the circles forced the one doing the destroying to walk the distance, which wasn’t an insurmountable problem but it was an irritating one.

With the lesser servant interrupting Vezta, a crystal ball appearing in its hand along with an alembic, he hoped Vezta would catch on. She was smart enough.

As soon as Arkk saw her pick up the crystal ball and start scrying with it, Arkk opened his eyes. It would likely take her a few minutes to find him since he wasn’t actually in the alchemist’s workshop, the first place he figured she would check because of that alembic. That gave him plenty of time to start scrawling down a few messages for Vezta to read from afar. The guards, after receiving a generous donation of far too many coins, had been more than happy to lend him some parchment and ink.

“I will be getting Gretchen back to my workshop,” Morford whispered. Gretchen was under the cloak once again, but Morford had a hand gripping the empty air, so presumably, he was holding onto her.

They started to turn, but Arkk held up a hand. “Wait.”

Morford stiffened. “I offered payment. I can offer more if—”

“I don’t care about payment or Gretchen at the moment. You said you had seen red-eyed ghasts before? When? Under what circumstances? Have you ever seen more than one at a time? How many ghasts are estimated to be in the forest?”

Arkk could feel the flat look he was getting despite not being able to see it. “Gretchen—”

“Is an excuse. Answer my questions, alchemist.” Arkk shot a look at Dakka and nodded his head toward Morford. “This is not negotiable. If you refuse, I will carry out the job I initially came here for. Rescuing Gretchen from her captor.” Arkk shot a pointed look at Morford as he said that.

“You wouldn’t,” hissed the empty air next to the alchemist as Dakka approached, arms crossed over her chest.

“I won’t need to if you just answer the questions.”

“An invasion of ghasts is unlikely at worst,” Morford hedged, sounding more resigned than upset. “They don’t work together.”

“Assume there is an outside force making them work together.”

“That is just as absurd. I have studied the creatures in an attempt to uncover the secrets of their creation. They possess a gland that secretes a substance which makes them angry and then turns their rage into strength and brutality. Unfortunately, a flaw in its design causes it to go overactive when in the presence of another of their kind. The smell of each other sets it off. Hence their territoriality.”

“Boss,” Dakka said, “we might be dealing with more than just ghasts.”

“How do you figure?”

Dakka shrugged. “You hired us, that witch, and Vezta, right? There are all kinds of monsters out in this forest. If this guy can hire these ghast things, who is to say that he can’t hire everything else?”

Arkk closed his eyes. She was right. He hadn’t actually hired Vezta—she had come along as a part of the fortress more than a minion—but everything else was accurate. What all was out in the forest? Undead, an insect colony, goblins, raptors… probably more besides those. Raptors were beasts more than monsters. Was it possible to hire them? If not, it was entirely possible that he would have people in his employ capable of taming them and using them as war beasts.

Pulling out his crystal ball, Arkk asked, “Morford, when you were out there exploring, did you ever come across old ruins, structures, landmarks, peculiar activity among the various monsters, or anything else of interest?”

The guards, though happy to hand over parchment in exchange for gold, hadn’t believed a word about an invasion. Monsters threw themselves against the walls of Darkwood Burg with a regularity that had become routine. None of those assaults were organized. If he could scry an army approaching and show it off, he might be able to organize a proper defense.

While Morford thought, Arkk quickly checked in on Vezta. She and Zullie were hovering over the crystal ball. A quick glimpse into their crystal ball showed it focused on him. Glad Vezta was such an adept at scrying, Arkk pointed over to the parchment where he had set it down on the gatehouse table. One of the guards was reading it as well, not that Arkk minded much. While he hadn’t written it in code, references to another potential fortress were vague enough that only someone familiar with them should be able to understand what he had written down.

Other parts of the message were less vague. A potential invasion on the burg chief among them.

“There is a lake in the center of the forest,” Morford said in their usual whisper. “When I and…” They trailed off, hesitating a moment before restarting their sentence. “When I first came to this settlement and began my research, there was an old church-like building that I observed some monsters making their home of. Raptors, for the most part. We caught a ghast not far from it and neutralized it with one of my potions before dragging it away for examination.”

Looking into his crystal ball, Arkk focused high above the forest. From there, it was easy to pick out the lake. It looked completely landlocked. No river flowed in or out. “What side of the lake? Closer to the burg or the opposite side?”

“Closer, around the southern side.”

Adjusting the viewpoint in the crystal ball, Arkk started scanning. “Dakka, write what Morford just said on the parchment while I search,” he said.

Image after image flashed by in the crystal ball, flickering from point to point around the lake. The vast majority of everything he saw was just trees, unfortunately. Thick black-barked trees with branches high over the forest floor formed a thick canopy that blocked even more of what little light there was today. Those must have been the trees Darkwood had been named for.

He found it. He wasn’t sure if it had been a church in its former life, but today, the ruins Morford had pointed out were little more than a mound of rubble. A full pack of emerald-feathered raptors was nesting within the crumbled walls. Each was as large as a horse, capable of moving fast to chase prey. Their hooked beaks were sharp enough to tear through flesh as easily as the kingdom’s sharpest sword. Or so Arkk had heard; this was his first time seeing one.

Moving the viewpoint of the scrying down below ground, Arkk sucked in a breath.

A familiar sight greeted him. Large hallways lit by torches and the occasional glowstone. If he squinted his eyes and blurred his vision somewhat, Arkk doubted he would have been able to tell the difference between Al-Mir and this corridor. Upon looking closer, however, the differences were obvious. Instead of clean tiles with a faint maze pattern and compass rose in the floor, the tiles here were old and worn, cracked and broken. There were still glowstones, these burning a dim red as opposed to Al-Mir’s vibrant violets, but several tiles were simply missing their glowstones. Checking from room to room, he had to frown at the sight. Most of it looked dilapidated. More like how he had originally found Al-Mir instead of its refurbished look after the servants had gone through to clean it up. The rooms that did have items and occupants looked less like they had been constructed using the fortress magic and more like the occupants had simply dragged in whatever they needed from outside.

Still, it was there.

And disturbingly empty. Al-Mir had a lot of entirely unused rooms but enough of it had activity, even with the currently reduced presence of orcs within its walls, that he felt confident in being able to find signs of life if he had to scry his own fortress. This place, however, was deserted. That might have filled him with confidence had he not received that warning about invasion earlier. As it was, it only made him think that this other Keeper’s forces were already moving toward the burg.

“Write down—”

A faint flash of light in the guardhouse cut Arkk off. He blinked twice and found Vezta, hands clasped at her navel, standing in the middle of a freshly formed teleportation circle.

“Master, I—”

“Holy Light!” the guard cried out, staring at Vezta.

That was the wrong thing to say. All of Vezta’s eyes narrowed as an oily tendril lashed out from her arm, wrapping around the guard’s throat.

“Stand down, Vezta,” Arkk said as soon as he realized what was happening. “He isn’t an enemy.”

The tendril remained in position just long enough for it to look like she was going to snap his neck anyway. It uncoiled, letting the guard drop into a heap where he quickly scrambled back against the wall. The tendril merged with Vezta’s arm as she gave a light bow. “As you command.”

Letting out a small sigh, Arkk looked over his servant, then dropped his eyes to the ritual circle. “You came.”

“Another active fortress is unexpected and warrants extreme measures.”

“What do you propose we do about it? I assume you have suggestions?”

“We leave,” Vezta said. Arkk blinked a few times, not quite sure he heard her correctly. She took that as a need for explanation. “We take this circle out of the city. It took four hops to reach you here. We will only use this, the shortest distance teleportation. The rest we destroy on our way back to Fortress Al-Mir. After we have gone, we can reevaluate the situation at our leisure.”

“This other Keeper is going to invade,” Arkk said, frowning. “You want to leave these people to fend for themselves?”

“They are not allied with you.” Vezta sighed, then pointed a tendril toward the parchment. “And if it bothers you to such an extent that you would throw your life away, consider that this Keeper is invading for you. If you are no longer here, there is no cause to invade.”

“And who is going to tell this Keeper that I’ve left?” Arkk shook his head.

Stepping closer, Vezta put a hand on Arkk’s arm. “Master, many of Fortress Al-Mir’s capabilities are not functioning due to the Calamity. I have no reason to believe that this fortress is any different. However, the capabilities Fortress Al-Mir does provide heavily favor defense. Assaulting an opposing fortress without offensive power—or, indeed, an army—will see you defeated and me bereft of a master once more.”

“But that’s—” Arkk paused as he felt a tug on the link between him and one of the lesser servants. Checking on it, he frowned. “One of the lesser servants I sent out to find the fortress just ran into a fortified wall that it can’t dig through?”

Vezta nodded her head as if she expected that. “As I said, we lack offensive capabilities. We would have to find a proper entrance, go through it the way the opposing Keeper wants us to, and deal with his traps and minions. Minions that he can move about at will just as you can yours within Al-Mir’s walls.”

Arkk pressed his lips together. “What kind of offensive capabilities?”

Vezta cast a glance around the room, narrowing her eyes at each of the individuals present who weren’t affiliated with Fortress Al-Mir. Taking Arkk by the arm, she led him off to a corner of the room where they could speak in quiet, hushed tones. “There exists magic capable of rending the fortifications. Siege magic. I know little about how to go about affecting such spells but do know that my former master, as powerful as he was, was forced to lean heavily on the [HEART]’s magical reserves when conducting these rituals.”

“Is the Heart capable of supporting that kind of magic right now?”

Vezta could only shrug. “Unsure. The [HEART] gains strength with additional territory and minions. It might be possible. It might be impossible with the effects of the Calamity looming over us. However, in either case, neither of us knows how to cast those rituals.”

Arkk closed his eyes once more but before he could say anything else, a shout came down from outside the guardhouse. “Enemies at the gate! To arms!”

Vezta tried to pull Arkk toward the circle, but he shook her off. “We can’t leave.” Before she could protest, Arkk said, “We won’t attack the fortress. We will help defend. Then we need to be seen leaving the city. Is that—”

Another faint flash filled the guardhouse. Arkk blinked and glanced over to the teleportation circle.

Zullie stood in the middle, looking down at her hands with a loopy grin on her face. “That was a hell of a thing.”

“Zullie, you know any offensive magics?”

The violet-eyed witch looked up, offense written across her face. “Do I know offensive magics? Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“A woman who said she had never been in a fight when last I asked.”

“I don’t know what that has to do with my magical knowledge.”

“Good. Zullie is here for the defense too.” Arkk paused then tilted his head to one side. “What about siege magic?”

“Siege magic?” Zullie sounded less certain. “What exactly would that entail? I’m sure some magic I know could be used in a protracted siege…”

“Never mind.” Looking back to Vezta, Arkk placed a reassuring hand on her arm. “Defense then leave. Alright?”

Vezta let out a long, incensed sigh. “As you command,” she said with a bow.

“Good,” Arkk turned, nodded to Dakka, then started out of the guardhouse. He paused at Morford, however. The alchemist’s dark lenses were locked on Vezta. Thinking back, Morford had been staring at Vezta since her arrival. Obviously, Arkk couldn’t see them blinking, but with how utterly still they were, Arkk wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Morford hadn’t blinked once since that initial flash of light.

Shaking his head, Arkk moved past the alchemist without a word. Morford wasn’t a minion of his. He couldn’t command them around. Not to mention that he had maybe threatened Morford just a little bit ago to get them talking about the fortress. Better to just leave them alone.

With Vezta here, Arkk wasn’t too concerned about whatever this Keeper might throw at the burg. They had the guards to back them up and, assuming she did know combat magic, Zullie could sling spells from the walls until she collapsed from exhaustion.

A set of stairs along the wall granted him access to the ramparts. He probably wasn’t supposed to be allowed access. Nobody stopped him. A number of guards were rushing up ahead of him, all brandishing longbows. Vezta, Zullie, and the orcs followed him up, also unimpeded. Vezta did draw a few looks and even an alarmed shout. However, the presence of a monster standing peacefully on the wall paled drastically in comparison to what was lurking in the woods that hugged the road out of the city.

Arkk started to wonder if his confidence in fighting off this force was misplaced.

Multiple ghasts lurked around a large group of raptors and goblins, running counter to Morford’s claims. There weren’t many and they were spread across the rest of this… army? Insects took up the backline. They were larger even than the raptors with thin, spindly legs and large snapping pincers. Others were more bulbous in shape, drooling caustic yellow slime. Arkk didn’t know much about insect colonies like this, unfortunately. He had no clue what they were capable of.

It was a small consolation that this army numbered fewer than the horde of goblins that had attacked Langleey Village. There had been two hundred goblins in that encounter, though about half of them had fled once Ilya and the other villagers returned to offer support. This wasn’t even half as large. Maybe not even a third of the size. With the ghasts, raptors, and insects, he felt he would rather have faced off against four hundred goblins instead.

At the lead of the army, one ghast stood in front of the rest. One with bright red eyes, ominously glowing in the dark storm.

 

 

 

Arkk was no stranger to being out in the middle of a storm. Really bad storms didn’t happen around Langleey more than a few times a year. When they did occur, they tended to do so at unpredictable moments. If he was in the village, it was typically a time for staying indoors and doing little else. Sometimes, however, they happened while he and Ilya were out hunting, forcing them to seek shelter—and often forcing them to head home should the winds have ripped their camp down.

This storm was the first Arkk could recall in which he ventured out into it willingly.

The soakless solution on the cloaks helped a lot. The rain didn’t quite avoid them, but it was the next closest thing. If not for the humidity in the air, he wouldn’t have felt much different than on a chill day. Watching the water run down his front without drenching him brought a little spark of joy as he started thinking back to that treatise on alchemy, wondering if he would be able to make something like this in the future. If Arkk had known this was possible, he would have tried to find an alchemist a long time ago to treat his clothes.

Though, until recently, he wouldn’t have been able to afford it.

Checking over his shoulder, he was pleased to note that all three of his orcs were looking much happier, outfitted in their own cloaks. Morford walked a short distance away, moving with their group without being a complete part of it.

Turning his attention forward again, Arkk frowned. “Damn. She must have been beyond the walls before I started tracking her.”

The street they just stepped on was near the edge of Darkwood Burg. A thick stone wall stood tall at the end of the street, blocking progress forward. While Arkk could see the ethereal glow of Gretchen in the distance, he hadn’t been able to tell what was between them. This had simply been the most direct path from the alchemist’s shop to Gretchen.

“Is there a gate nearby?” Arkk asked, looking to Morford.

The alchemist looked around as if to double-check where they were, then nodded. “Follow me,” they whispered before walking along the street they had just come from.

The nearest gate took longer to reach than Arkk had been hoping for. He knew from the first time he had successfully performed the tracking ritual that it wouldn’t last forever. He didn’t know exactly how long that was, but if it started to fade before they reached Gretchen, he would do nothing to try to restart it. He couldn’t risk that.

Not with what happened to the stag.

The gate was locked tight, protected by miserable guards trying to take cover from the rain in the small alcoves on either side of the larger wooden structure. A few happier guards hung out near the guardhouse, safe under its awnings. As miserable as the others looked, the ones positioned on the ramparts had to be in a worse state of mind, not even having a wall to block some of the rain. The alchemist, in far more of a hurry than Arkk was even with the time limitations on his ritual, rushed up and began speaking with one of the guards. Their conversation concluded before Arkk could finish walking up.

“They will allow us out,” Morford whispered as the guard pulled the latches on the smaller door set within the larger gate.

“I know what I said back in the tavern about following your orders… We’re really going out in this?” Dakka grumbled, first glancing at the dark clouds overhead and then at Arkk.

He wasn’t particularly happy about it either. Perhaps he should have taken everything the alchemist owned instead of just the soakless solution.

Dakka’s shield was on her back, over her cloak. As she ducked through the relatively small door, she drew her axe, holding it firm in two hands. The other orcs followed suit, drawing their weapons. Orjja wielded a large mace with thick triangular protrusions coming off the bulbous end. Farr’an, apparently having taken up tutelage under Olatt’an, wielded a crossbow with a nasty blade on the end.

Arkk had his daggers but planned to use lightning almost exclusively if something started a fight.

The alchemist followed up in the rear, brandishing no obvious weapons but took a moment to adjust a number of vials on a bandolier. Some contained colored liquid, others clear liquid, and others still looked more like they contained miniature clouds. Arkk was curious, but not so much so that he hoped one of the Darkwood’s monsters would come charging out and force the alchemist to reveal just what was in those stoppered bottles.

Outside the burg, thankfully on the side of the town that faced away from the majority of the forest even if some of it did wrap around and follow alongside the road, Arkk could see the ethereal glow of Gretchen in the distance. It didn’t look like she was making good time, trudging away with heavy steps. From her posture, hazy though it was to his eyes, he guessed that she was wrapped up tight in her cloak.

It hadn’t occurred to Arkk to try to scry on her as scrying on someone invisible was fairly useless. Now, he wondered if that cloak was her invisibility cloak or a regular one that she had switched to for the travel.

Drawing his crystal ball from its pouch, he looked down and focused. Unable to tell how far away to look from the tracking spell alone, he focused on himself first then dragged the view in the crystal ball toward Gretchen’s position. After a few moments of seeing nothing, Arkk almost put the crystal ball away. Movement in its smooth surface made him pause. A few quick flashes of the view changing had him close enough to see what they might be dealing with.

“Wolves,” he said, drawing the attention of the others even as they hurried along the path away from Darkwood Burg.

A small pack. Six that he could see. All things considered, a pack of wolves wasn’t the worst thing to face. Even better, while in the rough direction of Gretchen, they didn’t seem to be actively hunting her. The heavy rain probably played havoc on their senses, drowning out footsteps and washing away smells in the air. Still, they were in her direction and that alone posed a mild danger. Most wolves wouldn’t just maul a person for no reason, but if they were hungry enough?

Arkk had everyone pick up the pace.

A few wolves weren’t a problem. So long as they were far enough away from him when he spotted them, he could likely take them out on his own. Having seen the results of the orcs on their first mercenary job, that of culling a few out-of-control wolves that had been harassing a village, he was willing to bet that Dakka alone could take them on, let alone all three orcs and him. That was assuming the wolves would fight at all rather than run off once faced with a threat they couldn’t handle. Arkk figured that just them showing up would see them back to the woods.

With them running and Gretchen stumbling through the mud, they made decent progress relative to her. It was quite a ways away, far enough that Darkwood Burg looked like a little brown box against the backdrop of the thick Darkwoods. Had Gretchen managed to get her hands on a horse, catching up would have been a much more difficult ordeal. As it was, it just took some good old-fashioned hustle.

In the distance, he thought he could see her. The actual Gretchen, not the ethereal tracking spell. The crystal ball must have been too small to see properly, but there was an odd haze in the air. A person-shaped bubble where the rainwater hit and ran off, leaving a space in the air. As impressive as the invisibility cloak was, it did not work perfectly in the rain.

He could see the wolves as well, lurking off in the woods a short distance away from the path. As Arkk expected, their hasty approach startled the small pack, sending them away.

“Gretchen!” the alchemist said, apparently having seen the same distortion in the air that Arkk had. Their voice was still a whisper, but a raised one filled with a harsh rasp.

The haze, and the ethereal glow coming from within, froze.

“She knows we can see her, right?” Dakka said, loud enough that it was meant for Gretchen to hear.

There was a long pause before Gretchen reached up and pulled her hood down. “I told you not to follow me,” she said, looking about ready to cry. Maybe she was crying. With the rain, it was hard to tell.

“I might have listened to your wishes had you left on any other day.” Morford stepped forward, only for Gretchen to step back. The alchemist stopped moving as soon as she did so. “Today? What were you thinking? You know the dangers—”

Six heads snapped to the south of the road as a baying cry started and silenced in the same short second. An instant later, four of the wolves from earlier bolted out from the tree line straight toward their group. The lightning spell on Arkk’s tongue died as he watched the four wolves, two of whom were splattered with blood, run straight past them, heading into one of the recently emptied fields.

A new noise followed in the wake of the wolves, drawing everyone’s attention back to the trees. Arkk had a hard time identifying just what that noise was supposed to be. A howl? A shout? Laughter? It sounded distinctly human and yet animalistic at the same time.

Whatever it was, it sent a chill up his spine.

“We cannot be out here,” the alchemist whispered, grasping hold of Gretchen’s invisible shoulders. “Back to the burg. Quickly.”

“And put our back to that sound?” Arkk asked, watching as Morford forced a protesting Gretchen along the road.

“Better to be near the wall than caught in the open.”

“Caught by what?” Dakka asked, glowering at the trees.

“Ghasts,” the alchemist said. “Quickly.”

None of them made it more than five steps before that chittering howl started again. It was louder now. Closer. Arkk narrowed his eyes, looking at the trees. With the heavy clouds overhead diminishing what little light made it through the trees and the rain making it even harder to see, he didn’t spot the source of the sound.

“What is a ghast?” Arkk asked, moving once again. Even Gretchen wasn’t protesting now.

“Beasts created for war,” Morford whispered without looking back. “We do not wish to encounter even a single one.”

“Created?”

This time, the alchemist’s beak-like mask turned. Not fully. They still kept their hands on Gretchen’s shoulders as they rushed along the path. “This forest has played home to a plethora of unpleasant guests over its lifetime. Necromancers, warlocks, vampires, and others besides. This dark forest contains numerous ancient evils.

“The ghasts are creations of a life alchemist attempting to design a being that could conquer the kingdom. I dare say he might have succeeded if he hadn’t been consumed by his creations before he could learn to control them. It is what initially drew my interest to this area.”

“You wanted to conquer the kingdom?”

“I wanted knowledge. What would I do with a kingdom?” The alchemist managed to inject incredulity into their whisper.

Shaking his head, Arkk looked to the forest again and decided to ask a slightly more immediately important question. “Are they immune to lightning?”

“I do not know. They were created for war and all that entails.”

Although Arkk talked to every single person who passed through Langleey Village, learning more about the world beyond the farms, he had little clue about what, exactly, war entailed. Obviously, people fighting each other. Soldiers, weapons, knights, and spellcasters. Zullie had taught him the academy-approved lightning spell and it was fairly long-winded, but if a row of spellcasters was protected by a frontline of soldiers, they would be able to cast it with relative freedom.

But did they? Would a man who wanted to conquer the kingdom have prepared his creations for lightning spells in specific?

Arkk gnawed at his lip as another cackling howl echoed from the trees.

This time, he saw something. A dark shape, shadowed by the heavy birch and pine trees. The silhouette shuddered with great, heaving breaths as it stood hunched over with long arms dangling down to its legs. Arkk opened his mouth, the incantation for lightning on his lips, but the creature disappeared behind another copse of trees before he could get a single syllable out.

“It is watching us,” he said instead.

“All the more reason to hurry,” Morford said, drawing a vial of dark red liquid and holding it tight in one hand.

“If we reach the walls and they don’t let us in because we’re being chased, doesn’t that just mean that we’ll be up against that wall with nowhere to run?”

“You would rather face it out here?”

“I would rather not face it at all if I’m being honest. How likely is it to attack us? Do they travel in packs?”

“There won’t be more. They are aggressively territorial toward their own kind,” Morford whispered, looking off into the trees. “Another failure by their creator. As for how likely it is to attack? I’m surprised it isn’t attacking already.”

Arkk started to ask another question, only to freeze as he caught sight of the creature once again. It chittered, wheezing behind one of the trees. He could see it better now. Closer to leaving the forest, it was in the light enough for Arkk to grimace in revulsion. Hairless with skin a ghastly gray, it looked like a human with distorted proportions. Its eyes were tiny relative to its head and it lacked both a nose and ears, having only thin slits in their places. It lacked lips as well, leaving gums and far too many teeth visible as the skin was drawn back around its maw. Red glistened off its teeth.

Blood from one of the wolves?

It elicited a feeling of revulsion similar to what he had experienced the first time he saw one of the lesser servants. It wasn’t quite the same but it was a feeling of wrongness. The creature near the trees just shouldn’t be.

“Electro Deus,” Arkk intoned.

Even as he built up magic at the tips of his fingers, he didn’t fire the spell.

The eyes of the monster changed. Formerly a beady white, the moment Arkk finished his incantation, they glowed a luminous red. A familiar red. Its entire posture shifted, moving from a hunched back to a straightened back. The laughing wheeze vanished.

Arkk’s eyes widened, then narrowed immediately. Not sure that he could do it on demand, he drew on as much irritation as he could manage; the rain, the waste of time this trip had been, the delay in returning to the fortress, and the other bounty hunters. All his feelings focused on a point.

An external view of himself using his connection to his employees showed his eyes flashing red. It didn’t last long. A few seconds at most.

It was enough.

The ghast, the possessed ghast, stilled for a long moment. Its large thighs and digitigrade legs made it look like it was better suited for leaping, yet it took a single step forward.

Farr’an readied his crossbow and the alchemist raised the vial in his hand, ready to throw.

“Wait!” Arkk said, holding up a hand. Aside from that single step, the ghast wasn’t moving. Just watching.

“Wait?” Morford hissed. “I’ve seen the red-eyed ones before. They’re smarter and far more vicious.”

“Orjja, Farr’an, escort Gretchen and Morford back to town. Dakka, with me.”

Everyone hesitated at Arkk’s orders. He could see Dakka’s glance at him over his shoulder.

“You sure about that, boss?”

“No. But…” Arkk took a breath, not blinking as he kept his eyes on the monster. It still wasn’t moving toward them, just watching and waiting. “But yes. Do it.”

Orjja and Farr’an still hesitated. Morford and Gretchen did not. Jerking his head got the orcs moving. Arkk waited a few moments for them to put some distance between them before he cautiously approached the line of trees. Arkk eyed the monster’s teeth and its long fingers. The fingers were like spider legs, sharp and to a point with thick joints. One of its hands was as red as its face.

But it still didn’t attack.

Arkk kept a distance between them. He might be curious and suspecting that this wasn’t some wild creature, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. Only mostly an idiot.

“Do you speak?” Arkk said, then paused and altered his question. “Maybe I should ask if this body speaks?”

The ghast narrowed its thin eyes even further. When it did speak, its voice gurgled with a wet slop in the back of its throat. “You are the one casting old magic in my domain.” Arkk got a distinct impression that these creatures were not designed to speak as humans did. Or, if they had been designed to speak, this one hadn’t done so in years. Its speech was further hampered by its lack of lips.

“If by old magic you mean a single lightning bolt yesterday, then yes. Otherwise, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

A repetitive clicking came from the back of the ghast’s throat. Arkk wasn’t sure what that meant.

He was curious and wary. The presence of this possessor made Arkk wonder about this forest. All the stories he had been told, from what Hawkwood said back in Cliff to the alchemist just a few moments ago, said that this forest harbored numerous dangerous creatures. It drew the attention of necromancers and life alchemists—whatever those were—and other powerful individuals who all sought refuge within to carry out their plots and research.

Now it was starting to make a little more sense. There was a [HEART] in the forest. One that sounded like it had been claimed many times over the decades.

Was there another of Vezta’s kind out in the forest? Did this claimant know more old magic than Arkk did? Was there a library out there filled with a treasure trove of old books that were more intact than those in Arkk’s library? Would this [HEART] work for Vezta’s ultimate goal or would they have to destroy it?

He was curious. Eager, even. Yet, something gnawed at the back of his mind. It had been gnawing since seeing this creature’s eyes turn red. Arkk wasn’t quite sure what that feeling was, only that it was screaming a single word at him.

Rival.

“Where did you learn?” the gurgling gaunt asked.

“Old magic?” Arkk licked his lips. “A mentor taught me everything she knew. You? You’re using Cranium Internum, correct? Possession.”

Its narrow eyes widened for a moment. “You do know. In my eighty years, I have never met another…”

Arkk did not miss how it didn’t answer his question. He didn’t bring it up. Most of that was an attempt at deflection. Admitting to being another owner of a [HEART] felt dangerous. He would consult with Vezta before saying anything on the subject. Instead, he shrugged. “I am a traveler from afar after a bounty. I wasn’t expecting to meet someone like you. I apologize if you feel I’ve intruded. We were going to leave today, but the storm has delayed us.”

“After feeling the old magic, I set my watchers along the roads. I was preparing to invade the burg, but I suppose that is no longer necessary.”

“Invade?” Arkk said, tension threatening to rip his stomach apart. “Just for me? For a single lightning spell?”

He had been about to ask if the ghast—or the person possessing it—would be willing to sell books on old magic in exchange for gold. Now?

“An old magic practitioner is too rare. I would have you give your knowledge to me.”

“I have a few books,” Arkk said. “Not with me, but—”

“No books,” the ghast said, stepping forward. “I would have you give your knowledge to me.”

Something about the way it spoke made Arkk think that it wasn’t inviting him to a nice sit-down around a cup of tea for a chat about their favorite spells. The way it was looking at him was more akin to something wanting to rip open his mind and consume the contents without any regard for him.

Was that possible to do with possession? Arkk hadn’t tried to do anything similar during his one experiment with the spell, but it did make a little sense. He had been sharing Zullie’s mind.

Something to think about later.

For now…

“Well,” he started, trying to keep as calm as possible. “I suppose I could share my favorite spell right now. Have you heard of… Electro Deus.”

The moment the incantation left his lips, Arkk opened the gateway of his magical power to its fullest. Every scrap of magic he had went into his fingers as he thrust his hand forward. A bolt of lightning burned into his eyes as a deafening thunderclap threatened to throw him to the ground. The air around him lost all moisture as it burned, feeling more like he was standing next to a bonfire rather than out in a rainstorm.

When his eyes finally cleared, the ghast was gone. In a panic, he started looking around, only to turn back to where the ghast had been.

There was a dark cloud there. Shadow given a misty form. As it slowly solidified, a pair of bright red lights appeared in the head of the shadow. The two eyes narrowed into thin slits, forming a glare that lacked any words but promised pain, agony, and ultimate death.

Before Arkk could start the incantation over for a fresh if less powerful bolt of lightning, the shadow whisked away through the trees.

Gone.

Possessing something else? Another ghast? Back to his [HEART]? Arkk didn’t know.

All he did know was that they needed to get out of here. Immediately. Back to the burg, maybe to mount a defense against whatever invasion that Keeper of a Heart had been planning on.

Turning, he noted Dakka’s face twisted in a snarl. She was blinking several times, trying to clear her own eyes from that bright lightning bolt. At the same time, she looked completely ready to chop her axe down through whatever approached.

“Are you okay?”

“Where did it go?” she growled. “Did you get it?”

“I think I got the ghast. Not whatever was possessing it.” Arkk, carefully, grabbed Dakka’s arm and helped lead her back to the road.

Shaking him off, she kept blinking for a few moments before shaking her head. “I’m fine. Just a blind spot straight through the center of my eyes.”

“Sorry. After the alchemist’s comments, I wasn’t sure that a normal lightning bolt would put it down.”

“I wish I could have seen its face,” she grumbled. “Didn’t know who it was messing with, did it?”

“We need to get back and try to convince the guard that a threat is coming,” Arkk said, avoiding her question. It wasn’t like he had given it a fair shot. The ghast probably would have torn him apart if he hadn’t taken it by surprise. If it came back with two ghasts, he doubted he would be able to kill both before they reached him. Not with that powerful of a bolt of lightning, anyway.

Shaking his head, he started running down the path toward the other orcs and humans. He could see they had stopped. Probably because of that thunder. “We need to hurry,” Arkk shouted. “We’ll pick up and carry Morford and Gretchen if we have to.”

Hopefully, the guards could be readied for an invasion.

 

 

 

“We’re not leaving in that are we?”

A flash of lightning illuminated three orcs and a human as they looked out the door of the Darkwood stayover. The low rumbles of the following thunder didn’t manage to overpower the heavy patter of pouring rain.

“I said we would leave at first daylight,” Arkk said with a heavy frown, leading to the orcs grumbling under their breath. Arkk shook his head. Unfortunately, he agreed with them. “It doesn’t look like we’re getting daylight today.”

The light drizzle from the day prior had turned into a full-blown storm overnight. There wasn’t much wind, but the rain and lightning made up for it in droves. Even if he was willing to brave the lightning on the open road, they wouldn’t have gotten far before their cart wheels wound up stuck in the mud.

Closing the door, Arkk looked back to the stayover’s tavern area. His group wasn’t the only one present. Two of the First Legion, one he had hit with a bolt of lightning and one of the ones who had been outside during that confrontation, were glaring in his direction. The Order of the Claymores had two seated with them, both glaring as well even though Arkk had done nothing to either.

Looking around, Arkk’s frown only deepened. With the storm, it looked like everyone who could get away with it was staying inside. There were two other tables with a mixture of bounty hunter organizations. Both tables were glaring in his direction as well, though not to quite the same intensity as the First Legion. It did make him wonder what kind of rumors had flown about the tavern since the day before.

“Try not to start anything, but I guess we’ve got the day off,” Arkk whispered before heading over to the counter. The stayover proprietor had a large pot of soup being kept warm over some embers. He overpaid for a bowl and then headed to the one occupied table that wasn’t glaring daggers at him.

“Mind if I sit here?” Arkk said.

This table only had two others seated. A middle-aged man with graying hair and a younger woman who might have been his daughter with vibrant brown, almost orange hair. Arkk, however, was more interested in their clothes at the moment. The man wore a fine green vest held together with polished wooden toggles. The woman had a black dress with fur trim and a deep blue sleeveless jacket worn open.

Not the sort of clothes peasants or even mercenaries wore around often.

As long as he was trapped here, he might as well try to learn something.

“Arkk,” Arkk said, introducing himself as the older man nodded his agreement to Arkk’s request. “Leader of Company Al-Mir.”

“A free company?”

Arkk nodded his head. “More or less.” Mostly less. Free companies were typically mercenaries hired for war and little else. There wasn’t currently a war going on anywhere around the Duchy of Mystakeen and Arkk had no intentions of getting involved in one should one start.

“Aron Wolf,” he said, extending a hand. “Wolf Trading Company. My daughter, Arianna Wolf.”

“Charmed,” Arkk said, only to be met with rolling eyes. Paying Arianna little mind, Arkk turned his attention back to Aron. “You’re merchants? Trading in the ebon wood, I presume.”

“Merchants?” Aron said with a chuckle. “That’s a bit small for what we do, but not inaccurate, I suppose. And yes. Ebony wood is in quite high demand across the great states and even beyond the kingdom’s borders. I just purchased the local lumber mill and plan on expanding it to double its output.”

Arkk nodded along, slowly eating his soup as he listened to the merchant discuss all his plans for the area. Aron had a lot to say on the subject. Enough so that Arkk imagined he took great enjoyment from both the financial and logistical side of his business but never got a chance to discuss such things with others. In truth, Arkk wasn’t at all interested in wood trade. Not even if it was rare and fancy wood. Still, he politely nodded along until he found an opportunity to ask a question of much higher interest.

“Have you ever been to Cliff?”

“Oh of course,” Aron said with an easy smile before lightly patting his daughter’s back. “We have a home there, though the servants seem to live there more than we do these days. We’re planning on building here this coming year as well, though in truth, we spend most of our time traveling between the larger cities.”

“You travel yourself? For the trade? I figured you hire people to do that for you.”

Aron hesitated but nodded his head. “That is true. I have some people working for me. But I always like to meet with my clients personally. If you want something done right, do it yourself! That’s what my father always said,” he added with a laugh.

Arkk wasn’t sure if it was the laugh or what he said, but Arianna shot her father a withering look before slowly shaking her head. “You won’t be able to keep that up, Father,” she said, tone clipped. “Especially with this latest expansion.”

“And that is why you’re here learning,” Aron said with a full smile. “I can’t think of anyone better suited to represent Wolf Trading Company than a Wolf.”

Watching her flat look, Arkk asked, “Not interested in the family business?”

“Not by half.”

“Nonsense!” Aron rubbed his daughter’s shoulder. “You’ve a sharp mind, my dear. When I turn the company over to you, I know you’ll take it to new heights!”

“Because I know how to delegate,” she said, arms crossed in a huff. “If we weren’t traveling constantly, we could get so much more done. And we would have time to relax and socialize among other elites, people who would bring in more money when they buy our wares.”

“Mister Arkk is the leader of a free company and he is traveling,” Aron said, turning fully toward his daughter. “He understands the importance of a personal touch.”

“A free company carries out vastly different tasks than a trading company,” Arianna said, voice firm. “Not to mention, Mister Arkk must certainly understand the importance of delegation. You do have more than three orcs under your command, do you not?”

“That is true,” Arkk said. “Al-Mir is undertaking several different tasks at the moment. Magical research, exploration, mercenary jobs, recruitment, and others.” Saying it like that made it sound far more grandiose than a few people running around without a clue what they were doing.

“You must be here because this is either a job of great import, it is something you don’t trust underlings to handle, or it is something that only you can accomplish. Correct?”

Arkk decided to nod his head in agreement, more to see where she was going with this than because she was entirely accurate. Finding Gretchen was something others could have done and he even trusted them to do so, it was just that everyone he did trust to do this was busy with other things. Vezta was working on the portal, Olatt’an and Ilya were heading toward her home, and Rekk’ar had to remain with the other orcs at the fortress. Technically, he could have sent Dakka on her own…

He probably would have wound up with Gretchen dragged back to the fortress against her will. As much as he didn’t want to do that himself, a traitorous corner of his mind thought it might have been the preferable outcome. He still doubted he would have turned her over to her father but access to that invisibility cloak might have been worth making an enemy of some viscount’s daughter.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get to see where Arianna was headed with her train of thought.

The door to the stayover flung open, letting chill, moist air into the warm tavern. Standing in the doorway, the alchemist’s beaked mask slowly turned from one side of the room to the other. As soon as the dark lenses of their mask stopped on Arkk, Morford began moving with haste.

Arkk had to admire the alchemist’s cloak. It wasn’t that thick, but the rainwater just rolled off it. As soon as they took their first step into the tavern, it was like they had never been in the rain at all. Their cloak was as dry as if it had been hung in front of a fire for hours.

“I would speak with you,” the alchemist whispered upon reaching the table.

“You’re late. I said daybreak.”

“That’s not…” The alchemist clenched their fist, holding out a small scrap of parchment.

Raising an eyebrow, Arkk took it and quickly skimmed the few short sentences. “She’s gone?”

“Didn’t want to cause me further disturbance,” the alchemist whispered, referencing a line in the scribbled note. “When I woke this morning, she was gone.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to do about this. I already said I wasn’t going to force her to do anything if she didn’t want to.”

“You must find her. I… I cannot match the viscount’s price, but I can pay.” Arkk tried to get a word in, but the alchemist held up a hand. Although their voice still came out in a whisper, the intensity behind it spoke of their fear. “She cannot be out today. The storm… Days like these are the most dangerous around Darkwood. The times of year when the walls are put to the test. If she has left the burg, she will be torn to pieces at best.”

“Even with the cloak?”

“The inability to see will not affect creatures that hunt by sound and smell.”

“It certainly affects my ability to find her,” Arkk said as his hand drifted toward the crystal ball hanging from his waist. “I know a tracking ritual. If she hasn’t gotten far, it might work—I’m not sure how it would interact with the invisibility cloak. I suppose it is worth a shot. I need a part of her. Hair, blood, maybe a few threads from the clothing she is wearing. Anything like that will work.”

The beaked mask dipped as the alchemist sagged in relief. “I will scour my home. There must be something left behind.”

“Hurry. I don’t know exactly how far the tracking ritual can reach, only that it has limits. If she is beyond those limits, finding her will be nearly impossible. We’ll meet you at your workshop.” It was about halfway between the stayover and the alchemist’s house.

“I will be there.”

“As for pay,” Arkk started before the alchemist could run. They stiffened, freezing as the dark lenses of their mask locked onto Arkk. “Treat some of our gear with that soakless solution and we’ll call it even.”

“That’s it? That is worth a few dozen silvers at best.”

“Are you really arguing?”

The alchemist stared for a moment more before turning without a word. They didn’t quite walk straight as they moved to the door, moving with a limp in their gait. Arkk watched until the door slammed behind them before he stood and looked back to the two who he had shared a table with.

“Did I understand that correctly?” Arianna said, staring with wide eyes. “Some foolish girl ran off into the storm? Around Darkwood? Even we have heard the rumors…”

“It seems work is calling,” was all Arkk said, offering a wan smile. “I’d love to chat more, but don’t know if we’ll run into each other again here. Will you be back in Cliff anytime soon?”

Arianna and Aron simply stared until the former clacked her jaw together.

“There are monsters—ghasts among other things—out in the forest.”

“Do you have a death wish?” Arianna added to her father’s statement.

“As you said, a free company has remarkably different duties compared to a trading company.”

“In exchange for soakless solution?”

“Company Al-Mir is excessively wealthy. Besides, who said I am doing this for nothing?” Arkk grinned. “What I hope to get out of this little job is worth far more than anything that alchemist could come up with. It isn’t always about coin.”

Aron shuddered, but stood up, extending a hand once again. “Well said, my boy. Well said indeed. Saving a poor lost girl is a noble cause.” He gave Arkk a far firmer grip on his handshake this time around. “If you do make it back to Cliff, the House of Wolf would be honored to see you as a guest. Our manor is in the trade district. Large wolf emblem on the gates. Can’t miss it. If we aren’t there, I’ll instruct the servants to admit you so you might leave a missive. I would be most interested in hearing how this turns out.”

“I’ll be happy to tell you. Good day,” Arkk said as he turned to the rest of the room.

Most of the room had eyes on him once again. They had probably been staring since the alchemist arrived. Arkk paid them little mind, looking to his employees. They had eyes on him as well.

“Time to go,” Arkk said.

“Into the storm?” Orjja grumbled. “Thought we had the day off.”

Dakka punched Orjja in the shoulder as she stood, shooting the other orc a glare. “Boss said it’s time to go. It is time to go,” she said, then leaned down to whisper something into Orjja’s ear.

Arkk didn’t catch what was said, but he did catch the way Orjja’s skin changed to a sickly shade of green. He hadn’t thought that was possible. Whatever Dakka said, it got Orjja practically sprinting to the door. Farr’an didn’t need any extra encouragement. He simply downed the rest of his bowl of soup before following Orjja out.

“Good luck,” Arianna said just as Arkk reached the door behind Dakka. He smiled even as she turned aside and added, “Idiot.”

“What’d you say to Orjja?” Arkk asked as he stepped out into the pouring rain.

He hated everything about accepting the job the moment he felt the water soak into his cloak. It took consoling himself with the promise of the alchemist’s soakless solution to continue walking.

Dakka didn’t seem to mind, though the rain was making the dark paint under her eyes start to run down her cheeks. “Just reminded her what happens to people who displease you.”

“What happens to people who displease me?” Arkk asked, genuinely curious as to the answer.

“They get hung outside burgs as a warning to others. Or experimented upon with new magic.”

Arkk shot her a dark look. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t threaten my employees with death. Unless they’re trying to summon demons or run off to raid villages, I’m not going to kill her. Or any of you.”

Dakka didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. “It got her moving.”

“I don’t want you all afraid of me.”

“I’m not. I doubt Rekk’ar or the Ripthroat are either. Those who you rescued from the prison room probably aren’t too afraid. The rest?”

Orjja had been one of two that Dakka had wanted to convince to change sides and the only one of those two who had survived that particular skirmish. Arkk wasn’t sure how early she had surrendered, but Dakka was probably counting her among ‘the rest’ for this.

“Just… Dakka, as my field commander, try not to traumatize them. That gives them more reason to desert or rebel.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to reject that order.”

“What? Wh—”

“We were in a crowded tavern. You do not want your employees disrespecting you or fighting against you in public. It undermines your authority, makes you look weak, and instills more thoughts of rebellion than a good threat would. Orcs don’t respect that. If someone is talking back, you should just punch them.” Dakka looked down, eyes roving over Arkk’s arms. “Or hit them with a lightning bolt.”

Arkk took in a breath and let it back out slowly. She… had a point there. Although… “Are we including you in that, Miss Reject-that-order?”

Dakka stiffened, lips pressed together as much as orc anatomy would allow, hiding most of her tusks. “Uh… no, Sir. Not me, Sir.”

“Relax. I’m not going to punish you for explaining yourself,” Arkk said maybe a little too quickly, but he didn’t want her to regress to the stiff Dakka that had been with him and Ilya on the first day of their journey to Cliff. “You know orcs better than I do. I’ll leave them to you to handle. Just try to keep the threats, direct or implied, to a minimum.”

“Very good, Sir.”

Arkk let out a small groan, one muffled by a roll of thunder. Deciding to let the matter drop for the moment, he kept silent until they reached the alchemist’s workshop. The door was locked but the roof hung a bit over the door, letting them keep mostly out of the rain.

It wasn’t long before the alchemist came limping back with a crystal phial in hand. Within, he had a single curly white hair.

Arkk and the orcs handed over their cloaks for treatment. While the alchemist shoved them into a large cauldron and began pouring liquids inside, Arkk took a stick of chalk and started sketching out the tracking ritual.

An unpleasant tightness formed in his stomach as he looked over the lines. He hadn’t used the ritual even once since using it to kill the orc’s former chieftain. Even now, he wasn’t sure he wanted to use it. If he pushed a bit too much magic into the ritual, Gretchen might not have a chance to be torn apart by the monsters of Darkwood.

Knowing she probably would be torn apart if he didn’t perform the ritual, Arkk took a breath and stepped into the circle.

He pushed minuscule amounts of magic into it, slowly and carefully building it up until he felt the ritual complete. The hair in the triangular section of the circle began glowing with that ethereal translucency that he knew could be seen through walls.

Slowly, Arkk turned in place until he spotted a much larger mass in the distance beyond the alchemy workshop.

“Got her,” Arkk said.

 

 

“To summarize,” Arkk said, rubbing the side of his forehead. “Your father wants to marry you off and you object, so you ran away.”

Gretchen, seated on an old wicker stool, nodded with a hefty scowl wrinkling her face. “It isn’t just marry me off. I might have been happy to do it if it was someone agreeable. Earl Pritchard is eighty-five, has had six wives, and three of those wives have died in what I might call suspicious circumstances.” She shook her head. “The age difference alone is enough to make me vomit. I might have been able to put up with it for a few years if it meant I was able to claim his estate—he has no heirs—but I don’t intend to die for it.”

Arkk just frowned. “I assume the Earl offered something to your father in exchange?”

“Maybe. Maybe he’s just doing an old friend a favor.”

“Would he be open to alternate offers?”

Gretchen, who had been listlessly stirring a bowl of stew, froze as she shot Arkk an appraising look.

“Not for marriage!” Arkk said the moment he realized what he said. “I wouldn’t marry you.”

Gretchen huffed. “Well.”

“Not…” Arkk held up both hands, index fingers slightly raised more than the rest. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sure you’re a lovely woman but I don’t know you at all.”

“That hardly seems to be a requirement,” Gretchen said, scowl deepening. “I’ve never even met Earl Pritchard.”

“It matters to me. I would pay your father a great deal of money to not marry you.”

Gretchen’s eyes flashed in irritation. Dakka just started chuckling behind Arkk.

Arkk, rubbing his neck, cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is that I want to take you back to your father. As someone who thinks he has a proper sense of morality—not to mention a growing dislike for almost everyone I’ve heard of with a noble title—I don’t want to force you back. Especially if it means you’ll get… murdered?”

“How considerate,” Gretchen said, tone utterly flat.

“The Viscount clearly intends to collect more than he is offering for Gretchen’s return,” the alchemist said in a whisper. “You can pay that and more?”

“I’m… independently wealthy.”

“Why?”

Arkk blinked at Gretchen’s question. “Why… am I wealthy?”

“Why spend all this wealth on me? Especially if you don’t intend to… marry me.”

“Oh.” Arkk shrugged. “I need the renown.”

“Renown?”

“Clout. Prestige. Glory. Fame. Notability. Whatever you call it, I need it. The Duke has these parties every so often and I want in. Returning victorious with a viscount’s kidnapped daughter sounded like a great way to get my foot in the door.”

Disgust crossed Gretchen’s features as she looked from Arkk to Dakka and back. “You want to go to one of those parties? I’ve been twice and neither time has been particularly pleasant.”

“My best friend’s mother was taken by the Duke. We want to get her back. That’s the best idea we’ve got right now.”

“I’m… so sorry.”

“We found her,” Arkk hurried to reassure her. “She’s safe. We just can’t get to her. Or get her out of there.” He was about to ask about the circumstances under which Gretchen might be willing to return to her father, only to pause as a thought occurred to him. “Could your father get us into one of those parties? Or would helping him even help us? I guess I should ask that. If the answer is no, there is no point in even talking about this any further.”

Gretchen didn’t answer right away, frowning to herself as she resumed stirring her stew. She hadn’t offered Arkk, Dakka, or even the alchemist any. While it smelled alright, he had eaten before setting out for the alchemist’s workshop and would have refused the offer anyway.

“You are doing a job for my father. He is not the kind of person to recognize achievements in service. You’ll get your pay and he’ll send you on your way.” Gretchen paused, ate a spoonful of stew, then continued. “I’m not just saying that to get you to leave me alone either. It’s the truth.”

Arkk sighed, leaning back against the wall of the small cottage. Had this all been a waste of time? Although for the wrong reasons, Rekk’ar might have been right in rejecting this job outright.

Taking the lull in conversation to think, he spent a moment checking in on his other employees and Fortress Al-Mir. Rekk’ar was in a training room, apparently instructing the few orcs who were still at the fortress. Five others were camping out in the highlands, accompanied by an elf and a human. They were the group headed to that ancient pyramid. Arkk didn’t necessarily expect anything to come of that expedition, but so long as no real incidents occurred, it was a good way to get the orcs some exercise.

Ilya and Olatt’an’s group of ten were on a small riverboat. It had been over two weeks since they set off for the Marrowlands Fen and they had only just arrived in the general area in the last day. Increasingly worried about them, Arkk had been checking in at regular intervals. He didn’t think there was much he could do to assist from a distance if they did wind up in trouble, but checking on them made him feel marginally better.

Vezta and Zullie were both in the fortress, together at that, inside the room with the large crystal archway. It was the portal, he knew, or at least it had been at one point in time. Arkk wasn’t quite sure how Zullie was going to help with that. Vezta seemed like the kind of person capable of accomplishing her task on her own, but then again, Vezta had already admitted a deficiency in magical knowledge.

How soon would he be able to open the portal? Vezta had mentioned potential assistance coming from the other side. Beings and boons granted by the Cloak of Shadows and other members of her [PANTHEON]. With this plan to rapidly boost their renown being a bust, he started considering what his next plan might look like.

According to Vezta, the [PANTHEON] would be able to grant remote extensions to his territory. Arkk wasn’t quite sure what form that would come in, but if he could plant an extension within range of Cliff, thus allowing for teleportation out of the city, hiring Alya would be all he needed to teleport her out of the Duke’s manor. Of course, that meant he still needed to reach her. Or someone he was associated with, so long as an agreement for service occurred on his behalf.

Arkk jolted out of his reflections on his other employees, startled by Dakka clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“Your eyes were red,” she whispered, nodding her head toward the other two in the room.

“Honestly didn’t realize my eyes were open,” Arkk whispered back as he took in the wary look of alarm on Gretchen’s face. The alchemist’s face was still covered by their full mask, but Arkk read their readiness for fight-or-flight in their posture. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. I was just thinking.”

“Does that happen often?” the alchemist whispered.

“Increasingly,” Dakka said.

Arkk just shrugged. He was about to say something when he felt a strong tug on the link between him and his employees. Jolting, fearing that Ilya had run into trouble, he followed the link only to find himself drawn to Orjja, standing just outside the small shack. With a wince, he realized that he should have invited the other two inside once it became clear that Gretchen wasn’t going to try running if only to keep his employees out of the rain.

When he noticed the reason for Orjja tugging on the link, he realized what a stroke of luck it was that he had left them out there.

People were approaching the shack.

Not just any people, but ones he recognized from the stayover. Other bounty hunters and mercenaries.

Arkk started wondering how they were here only to grimace as realization hit. While following the alchemist, he hadn’t bothered trying to hide, secure in knowing that the alchemist wouldn’t be able to notice them. Someone else would have been able to follow him without trouble. And of course people would. After having asked around at the stayover, people knew that he was after Gretchen just as much as any of them.

“It appears as if we have company,” Arkk said, guessing that his eyes had flashed red again based on the expressions around him. Ignoring them, Arkk pulled out the crystal ball. While his employee vision was useful, it wasn’t as versatile as a proper crystal ball. “Five armed men, all bearing an emblem of… is that a goose?”

Dakka, peering down into the crystal ball, shrugged. “Ferocious creatures.”

“I guess.”

“Time to go, I suppose?”

Arkk nodded his head, pushing off from the wall he had been leaning against. He froze as he spotted the horrified look on Gretchen’s face.

“You’re leaving? Just like that?” she asked, voice tense.

Arkk grimaced. There had been nothing here for him in the first place. Now knowing that, there was no reason to stick around any longer or get into a fight with a group of bounty hunters that, as a fellow mercenary, he should theoretically be at least on speaking terms with. Even if he fought them off, word would spread and others would show up eventually.

“I feel bad about leading them here, but… Can’t you just hide under your cloak like you had been planning when I showed up?” Arkk asked with a small sigh.

With what the Viscount was offering for her return, anyone looking for her wasn’t likely to leave this building or the alchemist in peace if they thought either were relevant. She wouldn’t have been able to stay hidden forever. With him having dragged bounty hunters to her doorstep, the time she had left shrank abruptly.

Gretchen knew that as well. He could see it in her eyes.

“Maybe I could claim you as my bounty, getting rid of them for now, then have you escape on the way to Cliff?”

Gretchen bit her lip, shooting a look at the alchemist. There was something in her eyes there as well, making Arkk wonder if some romance had blossomed since running away from her father. It would help explain this house she lived in. It was either the alchemist’s home or simply one they had been able to procure for Gretchen. Arkk wasn’t sure which.

“Can she trust you?” the alchemist whispered, stepping closer.

“If I still wanted to take her back to her father at this point, I wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

“Why not hire them?” Dakka asked absently, drawing her axe as she peered into the crystal ball. “Nobody would find them in the fortress.”

The idea had occurred to Arkk. The alchemist in particular had skills that he was sure he could make use of. Especially if he could make a top-of-the-line potion brewery using the fortress magic. Gretchen, however, didn’t have any skills he thought he would need. Not that skill was a requirement to be hired, but it was a factor. “I can’t just hire everyone I come across,” Arkk said, shaking his head. There was a much bigger reason why he couldn’t just hire everyone he spotted. “The alchemist has a shop here. They have lives here—”

“Had,” Dakka said. At his pointed look, she gave an unapologetic shrug. “They’re almost here. Better at least hide for now if you don’t want to get caught.”

With one last gnawing of her lips, Gretchen rushed to the rack and threw her invisibility cloak over herself.

“Dakka, stand in the corner, leaning against the wall. Gretchen, hide behind her. That will keep them from bumping into you.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Dakka said, moving to the wall. Her large hand felt around in the air until it bumped into something solid. Nodding, she angled herself such that there was a small corner behind her where Gretchen could stand.

“Alchemist,” Arkk said, pulling out the wrapped treatise that he had bought earlier.

“Morford.”

“Excuse me?”

“My name. Morford. If you’re helping, might as well have you call me by name.”

Arkk nodded slowly, waiting a moment. This seemed like the kind of situation where the alchemist would pull off their mask and reveal themselves. When they didn’t, Arkk continued. “Is this your home?”

“It is.”

Arkk frowned at that. In the time he had been observing the alchemist in search of Gretchen, the alchemist hadn’t left their shop. They slept there and took meals there, mostly delivered by Gretchen. Assuming that they had been steering clear of the place for her sake, Arkk shrugged. “You invited me here to tutor me. We’ll—”

Two heavy thumps against the door rattled the entire small home. Arkk quickly crossed the floor, taking up Gretchen’s stool. He opened the treatise to a random page as if he had been reading from it and, leaving it open on his lap, picked up the half-eaten bowl of stew. As he did so, the alchemist, Morford, crossed the room and opened the door just as they had done when Arkk had been the one knocking.

Unlike when Arkk had knocked, those on the other side of the door forced it open the moment the alchemist undid the latch.

Three men barged in. The other two, he knew, were outside in a tense standoff with Orjja and Farr’an. Neither side had come to blows yet, but it wouldn’t take much to set them off.

“Where is she?” one of the bounty hunters asked. They didn’t have anything like the White Company’s uniforms. Just the goose emblem somewhere on their outfits. If Arkk had passed them on the street, he doubted he would have looked twice at them. The only reason Arkk recognized them as bounty hunters was that he had seen them in the stayover. He had spoken to the bald one on the left, asking about Gretchen.

“She?” Morford whispered, masked face shifting to the side.

“They must be talking about Gretchen,” Arkk said with a frown. “The First Legion, was it?” A grandiose name considering they were just a small group. From what Arkk had gathered, there were only ten members in total.

“We know you were looking for her.”

Giving them a flat look, Arkk nodded his head. “Yes. I mentioned that.” Arkk paused, then frowned. “Were you following me in the hopes that I would do your job for you? If the girl had been here, she would have been my bounty. Not yours.”

The apparent leader of the group, a shorter man with a thick mustache, sneered while the other two started poking around the place. It wasn’t a large place. There were only two hiding spots. Under the bed and under the table, the latter of which wouldn’t have saved anyone from one who simply leaned over.

“I heard the alchemist here had contact with Gretchen, but upon finding nothing, I elected to receive some tutoring in the subject of alchemy. It has always interested me,” Arkk said with a half-shrug, keeping his tone cool and casual even as the bounty hunters tried scouring the tiny home.

The First Legion didn’t seem all that impressed or convinced. Hawkwood had warned him about this. A vast number of mercenaries weren’t exactly pleasant people. Thieves trying to claim legitimacy, former soldiers who only knew war, people who wanted an excuse to shove around those weaker than them… For every Hawkwood in the business, patient and willing to help out as he was, there were ten thugs ready to backstab everyone else for a quick coin.

One of the bounty hunters got a bit too close to Dakka. She bared her tusks and, when he didn’t back off, she slammed her fist into his face.

Of the remaining two, one drew a cudgel while the other drew a sword.

“Electro Deus.”

Two lightning bolts leaped from his fingertips, striking each before they could take a step toward Dakka. They weren’t full-power bolts capable of frying them. That didn’t stop their muscles from seizing up, forcing them into heaps with small bits of steam wafting off their rain-soaked clothing.

The alchemist jumped back. He heard a startled squeak from Gretchen behind Dakka. Although Arkk winced at the sound, none of the three were in any state to pay attention to their surroundings.

Interestingly enough, the only one of the three who didn’t get back on their feet in short order was the one Dakka had punched.

“You barge in here, harass us, and thought you might steal my job?” Arkk ignored that he had done practically the same things, minus the last offense. With a shake of his head, he wiggled a finger back and forth, letting the lightning still sparking on the tip do a lot of the talking. “I’ve turned goblins to ash before. That was the least I can do. Attack us again. I dare you.” Arkk paused just long enough for the sparks at his fingertips to die out, then he started again. “Electro De—”

“No! No…” With an angry snarl, muscles in his neck twitching, the leader of the First Legion grabbed the one Dakka had punched and hauled him to his feet. None of the three were entirely steady, but they made their way back to the door and quickly rushed out.

“Nice meeting you!” Arkk called out with forced cheer as the alchemist closed the door. His shoulders slumped the moment they were gone and he let out a long breath. “Making friends already,” he mumbled.

“Friends,” Dakka scoffed. “If you want, we can drag them back for a proper fight. They can’t have gotten far.”

Arkk just shook his head, barely avoiding rolling his eyes at her quip, before settling his gaze on the spot behind Dakka. The orc still hadn’t moved, but the smaller girl behind her had thrown off her hood creating the odd effect of a floating head peering around the side of Dakka’s spiked shield.

Aside from the noise she had made, which hopefully nobody would remember after they had a chance to get their bearings, she had been utterly undetectable. If Dakka hadn’t been standing in the corner, maybe nobody would have walked over there in the first place. She could have hidden there until they left.

Arkk had to wonder at its limitations. Were there spells that could pierce that invisibility? If so, were such spells commonly used? Perhaps not among mercenaries, but among guards of noblemen’s keeps? How hard was it to get an invisibility cloak like that?

Turning his head to the alchemist, who was now peering through a crack in the door, presumably watching the First Legion flee, Arkk considered his earlier question about a soakless solution. Something, presumably, to keep rain from soaking into cloth. “Morford. Is invisibility something that you can brew and apply to cloth like a soakless solution?”

The beaked mask turned first to Gretchen then over to Arkk. Morford didn’t respond right away, going a bit stiff. Arkk had to bite back at his frown, especially once he realized that Gretchen hadn’t come out from around Dakka yet and wasn’t making any move to do so. Rather, she was barely peeking out from around the large shield, looking at Arkk with narrowed eyes.

Was it the spell? Hopefully, they didn’t think he was going to hit them with lightning bolts. Maybe they knew enough to recognize that it was some forbidden magic that the inquisitors didn’t like.

“No,” the alchemist eventually whispered. “More accurately, I can’t. Distilling magic into a liquid form is advanced alchemy, but it is possible. However, I have never seen a cloak like Gretchen’s before. I do not know how it was made, whether its fabricators used pure magic or alchemy and, in the case of the former option, what rituals or incantations were used in its construction, whether the material matters, and so on and so forth, is unknown to me. It might be possible to discern some of that through deconstruction, but I wouldn’t want to damage such a useful artifact.”

Arkk pursed his lips in annoyance. There went another plan. Admittedly, it was a plan he had only thought of since meeting Gretchen and Morford. Simply being able to waltz into the Duke’s compound unseen by all would have been a perfect way to hire Alya and then teleport her to that nearby fortress expansion that didn’t exist yet.

“I don’t suppose you would be willing to sell the cloak?” Arkk asked, looking over to Gretchen.

Her eyes narrowed further. “It is the only thing keeping me safe from the likes of… them.”

Arkk just sighed, wrapping the treatise back in its protective leathers. “I hope you enjoy living under it for the rest of your life.”

“Better living under it than dead.”

Conceding the point with a slight nod of his head, Arkk headed toward the door. “Dakka, we’re leaving at first light. No heavy drinking tonight.”

“I can sleep in the—”

“Dakka.”

The orc crossed her arms with a snort. “You’re the boss.”

“Morford. Gretchen. I won’t tell anyone where you are, but…” Arkk shrugged as he stepped out the door. “Good luck.”

With that, he started walking down the road. A whistle from Dakka called Orjja and Farr’an.

“So,” Dakka started as they neared the stayover. “All that for nothing?”

“Maybe. I’m hoping the alchemist remembers your comment about taking them to the fortress and asks to either shelter Gretchen or both of them.”

“I thought you didn’t want to drag them away from their lives here.”

“I don’t. I’m not a kidnapper,” Arkk said, mildly offended. “But if they want to come willingly, that is a different story. Regardless of their decisions, I can’t justify spending more time here trying to convince them. There will be other ways to reach Alya.”

He just had to figure out what those ways were.

 

 

“Not the friendliest place, is it?” Dakka asked, eyes traveling over the muddy road and the few poor souls who had ventured out into the moderate rain.

Arkk didn’t say anything as he pulled his heavy cloak a little tighter, but he agreed in full.

Darkwood Burg wasn’t a particularly well-to-do settlement. Arkk would never compare a regular burg to an actual city like Cliff, but even compared to a backwater like Smilesville, Darkwood was lacking. The quality of the buildings wasn’t anywhere near that of other burgs, the people walked with their heads down and only glanced up to look at newcomers with suspicion, and its surrounding farmlands were smaller and far less healthy than others Arkk had seen—though with several of the fields being empty from the recent harvest, maybe Arkk shouldn’t judge too harshly.

The wall was the only truly impressive aspect of the burg. A thick stone wall wrapped around the entire settlement. Most burgs contained a larger keep where the local lord sat, which might have some amount of important structures enclosed within the wall but was otherwise fairly insular. Beyond the keep, the rest of most burgs were regular villages that spread out from the walls.

Darkwood Burg had a large keep in the center along with a hefty wall, but a second, larger wall surrounded every other building. On the way in, Arkk spotted less than five buildings outside the wall.

Part of that, Arkk figured, was its location. Darkwood was so named for the nearby Darkwoods, a particularly nasty bit of terrain filled with all manner of unpleasant creatures. Or so Arkk had gathered from asking about the area over the last few days that he and his group had been traveling. Among the many dangers, there were known goblin infestations, an insect colony that tended to leave people alone until they didn’t, occasional sightings of ghasts, and it was a known hunting ground for raptors. A necromancer had allegedly called the area home well over a hundred years ago and, while he had been slain, there were still rumors of undead wandering and attacking anything living they came across.

With all that, one might wonder why anyone bothered to live here. The lumber harvested from the forest, which was a rich, near-black hardwood, was a valuable and rare luxury for the wealthy. Too valuable, it seemed, for the locals to build their homes out of it.

Arkk and Dakka came to a stop outside a small, unassuming building. The signboard on the wall lacked text but did possess a rather intricate carving of an alchemical alembic and several stoppered vials.

“This it?”

“Yes,” Arkk said with a frown. “Check around the sides for other entrances. Watch them if there are any, otherwise return and wait here.”

“Sure thing. Orjja,” Dakka said, pointing, “left side. Farr’an, with her. I’ll take the right.”

As the three orcs spread out, Arkk pushed open the door, tossing his hood off as he stepped out of the rain.

The smell hit him first. An unpleasant sting of a dozen different concoctions. The potion fumes were thick enough in the air that Arkk felt a need to leave the door open lest he suffocate entirely. Wafting a hand in front of his face, a useless gesture, he pressed forward. There were living people in here and if they could survive the air, he could as well. He wasn’t about to be stopped by a foul smell.

Stepping past dusty shelves filled with aging bottles of colored liquids, Arkk approached a wide counter. A person stood behind it, cloaked in thick black clothes. The individual wore a full face-concealing mask. Dark lenses allowed sight while a long, beak-like protrusion jutted out from the mouth and nose area. The attire revealed no skin and no hair, but Arkk did note the gloves had a few too many fingers as the person poured sticky, black liquid from a wide metal pan with a notch on one side into a small glass jar.

Arkk waited, not wanting to disturb the alchemist and cause them to spill whatever that potion was. He simply looked around, noting a raven perched on a thin dowel behind the counter. Several pots and cauldrons were propped up on a stone firepit against the back wall, though there was no fire lit at the moment.

Eventually, the alchemist ceased pouring the black liquid and promptly stoppered the glass jar and covered the larger pot with a metal lid. Placing both containers to the side, the alchemist clasped their many fingers together, gently placing his gloved hands on the countertop.

“Apologies. Thank you for waiting,” they whispered, voice muffled behind the mask. “How can I serve you? Perhaps I can interest you in a soakless solution to keep the rain off your cloak?”

“Tempting,” Arkk said honestly. He almost coughed as he breathed in but, now that there was a lid on whatever potion the alchemist had been brewing, the air had started to clear. “But I’m here for information today.”

“Ah. Interested in learning the art of alchemy yourself?” They leaned forward, whispering voice speaking with a little more intensity. “It is a rewarding discipline, but mistakes can cost you dearly. You would not believe how annoying it is to get gloves made with eight fingers,” they said, holding up their hand and wiggling around the extra digits.

“That’s…” That wasn’t what he had come here for, but couldn’t help himself. “Are you offering personal tutoring or books?”

“I do not recognize you. You are a traveler. Unless you are planning on staying in Darkwood for a significant amount of time, I would not be able to offer an apprenticeship that would teach you anything effective.”

“You are correct. I hope to not be in the area for more than a few days.”

“In that case,” they said, turning away. They walked over behind some curtains hanging off to the side of the counter. Leaning forward, Arkk spotted a tall series of shelves filled with a number of books and small bits of equipment. They pulled off a worn and weathered book that was less a proper tome and more a collection of papers haphazardly bound together with thin pieces of twine. Returning to the counter, they placed it down. “This is what got me my start. It is a fairly simple treatise with a small collection of recipes that can all be brewed in a simple cooking pot, so no need for any exotic equipment. Perfect for beginners.”

Arkk raised an eyebrow. “How do you know I’m in the market for something for beginners?”

“You still have both your eyebrows,” they said with a wispy laugh.

After staring for a moment, Arkk shrugged. “Fair enough. That sounds perfect. What are you asking for it?”

“Let’s say…” they trailed off, humming in thought. Far too many fingers drummed against the counter before their beak-like mask dipped in a nod. “Thirty-four of the King’s stamped silvers.”

There wasn’t a hard exchange rate from gold to silvers. At least not his gold. On the way to Cliff, he had exchanged several pieces of gold for a few pouches of silver with a few of the wealthier merchants he had come across, simply to make it easier to pay for things elsewhere without having to haggle over the value of his gold. The best rate he got was one gold piece for thirty silvers. The worst had been one for thirteen.

Arkk fished a pair of gold coins from inside his cloak. Knowing he was going to pay for the actual information he had come here for, he didn’t want to hand over every single silver that he had.

The alchemist picked up one of the pieces of gold, holding it up to the dark lens in their mask before dropping it into a small glass bowl on the counter. The other coin went on one side of a set of scales. Ducking underneath the counter, the alchemist returned with a bottle of clear liquid and a thin glass straw. After dipping the straw into the clear liquid, the alchemist placed their finger over the other end. When they lifted the straw, a small amount of liquid remained suspended in the bottom until, holding the straw over the gold coin, they removed their finger. The liquid fell out, landing on top of the gold coin. A few sizzling bubbles appeared on the surface of the coin, but only for a brief moment. In short order, the liquid calmed and stilled until it looked no different from water.

“I do not recognize the stamp, but this is quite pure gold.” The alchemist leaned down to the scale, adding a few weights to the other side until the coin was evenly balanced. “Very well. This will suffice.” Reaching under the counter again, the alchemist pulled up a thin section of animal hide and began wrapping the treatise. “I would hate to see it damaged by the rain.”

“Thank you,” Arkk said. He placed another three gold coins on the countertop. “But I originally came here for a different type of information.”

“Oh?” the alchemist asked, tying a piece of twine around the hide-bound book before sliding it across the counter toward Arkk. They did not touch the new coins, however. “What might that be?”

“There was a woman here about nine days ago. Young with dark skin and curly white hair, wearing a green cloak,” Arkk said, repeating the information Vezta had given him before he left the fortress. “I would like to know about her.”

The alchemist slowly shook their head. “I receive a great many customers. My services are in high demand within Darkwood.”

“You brewed a violet-hued potion for her. It took an hour and she stood by in that corner over there, watching until it was finished,” Arkk said. He dropped ten more coins onto the pile. “She tried to pay you with a few silvers, but you refused.”

The pointed beak of the alchemist’s mask dipped down to the counter before they looked back toward Arkk. “It sounds as if you know a great deal already.”

“She returned every day for the next three days and then two days after that. She brought you lunch,” Arkk said. She had just sat and talked, spending almost the entire day here. “I believe she is the daughter of a viscount, kidnapped and currently missing. Her father is worried about her.”

The alchemist took in a deep breath. “Sir—”

Arkk pulled out a fistful of gold, nearly doubling the size of the pile.

The alchemist just shook their head. “You can pile gold onto the counter all day long. It won’t change what I know, which seems to be a fair deal less than you.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, staring into the mask’s dark lenses. Eventually, he dipped his head with a small sigh. While scraping the pile of coins back into his pouch, he left one on the counter. “Sorry,” he said, then slid the extra coin toward the alchemist. “An apology for harassing you. I’ve just been worried for her. Whoever kidnapped her… well, they seem to be the worst sort imaginable.”

When the alchemist said nothing, Arkk picked up the wrapped book and headed back toward the door. Pausing, he looked back.

“If you do recall anything, I am staying at the local stayover for another few days.”

Stepping outside, Arkk threw his hood on and then took a deep breath of fresh air.

Dakka, Orjja, and Farr’an were casually leaning against the adjacent building, talking with each other. None looked like they were watching the entrance in the slightest, yet all three subtly shifted the moment Arkk stepped out. Heading in the opposite direction, he turned a corner; they followed after a few moments.

“Nothing?”

“Just the one door,” Dakka said. “Rainy day like this and nobody’s walking around either. Street was deserted the whole time you were inside.”

Nodding, Arkk reached inside his cloak and pulled out a crystal ball.

He had taken the crystal ball on the trip to watch the shop on the way. Both he and Vezta had been unable to discover where the woman had been going before and after the potion shop. She had a cloak that rendered her invisible to scrying, and possibly regular vision as well, though Arkk hadn’t yet seen her in person to test that.

Quite the suspicious item—and activities—for someone supposedly kidnapped. There were only two reasons why a young woman would be kidnapped. Ransom or lust. The former could be ruled out as no ransom notice had been given to her father. The latter made Arkk irrationally angry just thinking about it, but he felt that could be ruled out as well. No matter the reason why someone had been kidnapped, they wouldn’t be allowed to roam around with a magical item.

Still, Arkk didn’t think she had escaped either. The notice of her kidnapping had been posted weeks ago and the sighting of her in Darkwood was old as well. Yet she was still here. Or had been several days ago. If she had gone to a city guard and mentioned the reward for her safe return, she would have been in Cliff by now.

Which meant she hadn’t been kidnapped at all.

Arkk motioned toward the crystal ball, lighting it up with a touch of magic. The alchemist appeared inside, standing over the counter. They hadn’t gone back to their work with the sticky black potion but were instead using a single one of their many fingers to roll the gold coin back and forth on its edge.

Arkk waited, watching the crystal ball. Hoping. For over an hour, the alchemist didn’t move. They just stood there, fiddling with the gold coin. Eventually, however, the alchemist picked up the coin, palming it in their fist. They stepped around the counter and carefully approached the door. Opening the door just a crack, they peered out into the rainy street, slowly opening the door wider to see further. With the door opened enough to step through, the alchemist looked around. Upon spotting nobody, they grabbed a cloak from near the door, pulled it up over their head and mask, and stepped outside.

“Alright,” Arkk said, alerting the orcs around him. “It’s time. Let’s see where you’re going…”

Using the crystal ball to remain entirely out of sight while keeping a watch on the alchemist made following them through the burg almost too easy. Arkk felt like he should at least be trying to sneak around, yet he and three lumbering orcs walked out in the open because they knew exactly where their target was even while remaining a street away.

The alchemist was at least trying to be careful. Arkk did have to give them credit for that. With how much they were looking around and ducking down side streets and alleys, anyone without a crystal ball either would have lost the alchemist or they would have been caught.

As it was, they managed to follow the alchemist to a rundown old single-room building on the opposite side of the city.

The alchemist started pacing out front, so Arkk quickly checked inside the home. “Found her,” he said, watching as the woman who he presumed to be the viscount’s daughter stirred a stew hanging over a small fire in the fireplace. The alchemist knocked and she jolted, tensing so quickly that the ladle went flying from her fingertips, spilling stew across the floor.

From his position around the side of a small house, Arkk couldn’t hear the conversation, but he could see the woman speaking through the door. She almost melted in relief when she realized who it was. Which Arkk took as a good sign. If this wasn’t Gretchen, the viscount’s daughter, after all this sneaking about, he would be beyond surprised.

As Gretchen opened the door, the alchemist glanced around one last time before stepping in.

He did a quick scan of the interior, but there wasn’t much space in there to check. A bed, a table, a few stools, and a bookshelf with many alchemical texts. The latter fact made him wonder if the home belonged to the alchemist, though he hadn’t seen the alchemist return here in all the time Arkk spent watching him.

“Check doors again,” Arkk said, rounding the corner and hurrying up to the small home. “She might be invisible. If a door opens and you don’t see anything, try to block the way as best you can.”

“Orjja, left. Farr’an, right. If there are more doors and windows than you two can guard on your own, let me know. I’ll ensure no one comes out the front.”

“Remember, we aren’t trying to harm her,” Arkk said, still watching the crystal ball. “And we need to hurry. The alchemist is probably telling her to go on the run again. With that cloak of hers, we might never find her.”

It had been, frankly, a stroke of luck that Vezta decided to search the burg as well as the neighboring forest. Repeating that wouldn’t be easy.

While the two orcs moved around the building, Arkk walked right up to the front door. For a moment, he considered walking in but decided against it. Startling them might cause a fight. A knock, on the other hand, would give them a moment to steady and prepare. Maybe prepare to fight, maybe prepare to flee. With the crystal ball in hand and the orcs watching two windows around the back, Arkk felt prepared for either eventuality.

Both jumped at the knock. The alchemist moved to put Gretchen behind his back, standing in front of her with their arm raised to shield her. Arkk almost missed it at the first glance, but the alchemist had a pair of glass vials held between the fingers of their outstretched hand, looking ready to throw them. Yet another confirmation that barging right in would have been a bad idea. Even as it was, Arkk wished that the fortress was nearby if only to have an easy escape via teleportation if things took a turn for the worse.

When no one did barge through, the alchemist said something to Gretchen, who quickly donned the invisibility cloak, revealing a small coat stand that had been concealed by its power. It was an interesting effect. Not as great as the [HEART] and its construction, teleportation, and employee utilities, but if the cloak was the first magical artifact Arkk had ever seen, his jaw would have been dragging along the floor. As soon as Gretchen was fully hidden, the alchemist stepped closer to the door.

“Good evening,” Arkk said when the door opened a crack.

The alchemist started. Their face was still hidden behind their mask, but the jolt that ran through their whole body gave it away. The lenses of their mask glinted as they looked up to the side where Dakka stood, arms crossed.

“We’ll draw less attention inside,” Arkk said with a smile. “Unless you would prefer attention. I know we are not the only ones looking for Miss Gretchen.”

That wasn’t even a lie. In the two days he and Dakka had been in town, they had asked around. With the amount of money the Viscount was offering, it was no surprise that every bounty hunter in the region had gravitated around Darkwood.

“Miss… who?” the alchemist whispered. “Sir, I think—”

Arkk lifted the crystal ball. It was in front of him already, between the door and his body, but he wouldn’t be surprised to find the large beak of the mask had blocked the view. Now, however, the crystal clear image of the interior of the single-room home was clear to see.

The alchemist’s shoulders dropped. “I see.” Opening the door wider, they stepped aside. “Come in quickly, I suppose.”

Dakka immediately moved, repositioning herself to completely block the now wide-open door. She stepped in first, ducking her head under the doorway, with Arkk following right behind. He closed the door, ensuring no invisible woman slipped past. As Arkk stepped further into the small living space, Dakka took up position behind him, still blocking the door. He quickly checked the crystal ball, noting Orjja and Farr’an outside the two shuttered windows, making sure to linger on both long enough for anyone paying attention to notice. Slipping the crystal ball into a leather pouch under his cloak, Arkk looked up with a smile.

“I think the stew might be burning,” he said, tone as calm and casual as possible. The potions in the alchemist’s hands weren’t visible at the moment, but he wanted to avoid doing anything that might get those thrown at him, unsure what they might do. “Please relax. Gretchen, I’m not here to drag you back to your father. Probably.”

A slight gasp from the corner of the room had both Arkk and Dakka shifting, though neither moved.

Eventually, just to the left of where Arkk was looking, Gretchen shuffled off her cloak, leaving it around her shoulders but letting it hang loose with her hood off. Arkk expected to see fear on her face but was surprised to see that she looked about ready to attack anyone that came near. Probably with the ladle she had picked up sometime between now and when she had dropped it.

“What do you mean, probably?”

“Were you ever kidnapped? Are you being held here against your will? Are you in danger here? Are you hiding here from someone and are unable to return to your father?”

With each question, Gretchen shook her head back and forth.

Sighing, Arkk asked one final question. “Do you want to go back to your father?”

“No,” she said, almost as a hiss. “That bastard can—” Cutting herself off, she threw an angry glance at the wall, refusing to look at anyone.

Arkk exchanged a glance with Dakka. “Could always drag her back anyway. Not like they can stop us,” the orc said.

“No, no,” Arkk said, noting both the alchemist and Gretchen tense. “We’re trying to rescue someone. I doubt Ilya would be happy knowing we boosted our fame at the expense of someone else. And that’s assuming she didn’t kill me first.”

Gretchen looked up at that. “Rescue someone?” she asked.

Arkk shrugged his shoulders. “We hoped to return you to your father would make us notable enough—perhaps with a little help from your father’s connections—to open a few doors that are currently closed to us. I honestly thought finding you would be the hard part. Now…” With a sigh, Arkk gestured toward the pot of stew. “Why not take that off the fire and then let us sit down and discuss a few things? Maybe we can turn this around and somehow not make it a big waste of time.”