Day 65, 2:00 PM

  Learning magic is one of the most, pardon my lack of a better term, magical experiences in my lives.

  Sensing the ethereal images veiled behind the wordless songs which somehow tell the world what I want it to do is exhilarating. Doubly so because most have not a speck of connection with what the spell really does.

  The intent behind the leaf and twig gathering spell Edna uses when making camp is a sudden whirlpool in a calm lake and a leviathan gulping in a mountain of water. And yet, while clearly related to water, the gatherer collects everything loose enough in an area and forms a pile.

  Strange.

  Lucy and Gila have also reached apprentice mage level seven, the perfect control of their hands and voice still beyond them. I wanted to argue the utility of the skill I got for my mastery, but they are set on matching my level, so I let them be.

  Edna spent days indoctrinating them into how much effort and how long people took to finish apprenticeship; about how taking two weeks is shorter than it took most people to reach level one. I’m personally of the opinion that classes should be trampled as quickly as possible and abandoned when the advancement took too much effort.

  Women disagree, and I let them. A more disturbing fact is that I have encountered a problem with restarting classes. There is a decent overlap between apprentice and journeyman mage skills.

  Since we’ve stopped with the obsessive lecturing, Edna told us the list of skills, and the sheer amount of same or similar choices makes my strategy of redoing classes more difficult. To do things properly, I will need to abolish all my classes and tear them down to level zero, and I’m not certain that’s possible.

  What I am certain of is that gaining Advanced Mana Sense naturally is beyond me, and choosing Advanced Focus over it is out of the question. As for my second level, I doubt that taking Initial Mnemonics was a superior choice over Advanced Draw Mana; my memory is good, but Edna scared me, and fearing my path towards mage would be severed, I chose the dumb skill.

  Unfortunately, there was no time for further advancements. As we neared Deephorn, the monstrous insects grew so frequent, we had to fend off attacks every quarter of a mile.

  “Does anyone have any idea why there are so many bugs around?” I ask.

  Surprisingly, the one to answer is Lucy. “There’s a dungeon several days away from Deephorn, but it’s in the corrupted lands. The road leading to it was threatened by the wormlords’ monsters, so Deephorners abandoned it, and the monsters started spewing out of it. Westgate, Floodrock, and Redder had similar issues. It was too late to save Westgate by the time people realized what would happen if dungeons were abandoned. Floodrock and Redder paid a great price, but they reestablished the connections with their dungeons. Deephorn failed. They suffered terrible losses, and the castle is bound to fall.

  Lucy’s lip stretches into an ironic smile.

  “All four are terrible places to visit, and they were on my stay away from list if I ever managed to leave Tallrock.”

  My lips mirror her own. Life is full of doing things you never wanted to do.

  After another hour, and killing two dozen mantises and phasmids we reach a castle built atop a massive rock jutting out of the ground. Four fifths of its walls were an extension of a cliff, while the final twenty percent sloped to the ground, with three smaller defensive rings filled with farms and killing grounds.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Giant insects prowled the area before us, but showed no particular interest in the human settlement looming ahead.

  Four humans walking the deforested plain, however, drew their interest very much. A horde of oversized lobsters, hunter spiders, centipedes, and all other sorts of creeps starts congregating towards us.

  Edna’s response is a song. The wordless melody promises violence and disintegration by a runaway train before spawning a wave of fire, which gushes forward from her outstretched arm. The wall blazes for fifty yards before winking out, leaving behind a land of ash and smoking lobster and centipede carapaces.

  Once more the monsters attack us, and once more Edna turns them to smoke before we reach Deephorn’s outermost gate. Centipede carapaces litter the ground, and nobody mans the sealed entrance.

  Fortunately for the townsfolk, monsters lack intelligence. The gate is undamaged, while the sheer surface helped block most of the insects. The townsfolk were fortunate. The cat-sized orb-weavers would have had an easy time entering their walls, but they would never leave the forest, so the only real threats are the centipedes and isolation.

  I look up and spot movement behind a machicolation. I wave, squinting in the drizzle.

  “Greetings, we have heard the townsfolk of Deephorn are in danger from the insects and we have come to help. May we come in?”

  “You and the witches leave!” the man above shouts, but at least he doesn’t drop a rock on us. I guess that’s amiability at work. “We don’t need your kind here!”

  “Dear Sir,” I say. “First of all, the ladies and myself aren’t witches, we are mages and mages in training. While it is true the Church of Holiness hunts us, we don’t hunt anyone, not even the church’s members. We have heard the church has abandoned you, left you for dead, and retreated from Deephorn. If that’s not true, we do not wish to impose, and we will move on.”

  “Stop being an ass, Tim,” a woman says above our heads, “and go open the door for them. Any help is welcome.”

  Not for the first time, I wonder whether my skills and attributes work better on women than they do on men.

  Tim takes his sweet time, but lets us in. He’s an ugly man, a scar on his cheek the clear sign of a centipede having taken a bite out of him. Beyond the gate is an expanse of farmland with several dozen people working the fields. I shift my focus back on Tim, his waxed armor and oily beard.

  Tim draws a spear at me, I snatch it and stab the head into the ground.

  “Greetings, Tim,” I beam a smile at his confused face. He used no lethal moves, just jabbed the spear in my general direction to show how dangerous he was. Lot of good that did to him.

  “Stop being an ass, Tim!” The woman shouts from the allure, and I agree with her. Tim really is needlessly being an ass.

  “Good day to you, my lady.” I bow towards her, my eyes never leaving Tim’s hands. “I am Griff, a weapon master and a journeyman mage escorting honorable magae Edna and her two students. We would like to help you fend off the menace plaguing you and offer you a bright future if you are interested.”

  “Go up and take my watch, Tim.” The woman descends a rope and hops onto the ground a handful of yards away. She’s much older than I had expected. Her body is still stalwart, like that of a thirty-five-year-old, but her eyes and wrinkles reveal a much more advanced age. She was pushing sixty, meaning her physique was quite high.

  “I’m Eliesandra, my friends call me Elie.” I smile at that, but she continues, a smile much more dangerous than my own touching her lips. “You may call me Eliesandra. As for your offer, we are desperate, the inquisitors and priests have left us over a year ago, but that doesn’t mean I can allow you inside the castle.”

  I struggle to follow her train of thought. She pointed out we’re not friends, but isn’t hostile. She’s desperate and freely admits it, but can’t accept our aid. A glance at Edna reveals no hint of confusion, so it might be a cultural thing I don’t get.

  “I will inform the castle’s council of your arrival and we will decide what to do about your offer.” She looks me square in the eye. “I can tell you that I wouldn’t refuse four able-bodied soldiers, but we’ll see what the rest say. As a token of appreciation and thanks for your gesture, I can guarantee my soldiers and I won’t attack you even if the council decides to banish you. Should that happen, I hope you behave reasonably and leave.”

  “Thank you.” I nod, considering everything I’ve just heard. The woman seems like a true leader, someone I would’ve employed back when I was a king, and hopefully, someone I will have the pleasure of working together with.

  My worry is Tim. Fortunately, I don’t seem to be alone in my worries.

  “Tim, they are going to sit in the guardhouse.” Eliesandra points at a stone shack big enough to house ten people. “Nobody is to disturb them, but you are free to attack them should they leave before I return. Is that understood?”

  Tim nods as do I.

  “That goes for the rest of you.”

  Three dozen soldiers mutter a “Yes Ma’am,” and Eliesandra gestures towards the guardhouse. We enter, and she trots towards the castle.