jmclarke
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Chapter 717: When Things Go Not so Smoothly
🕑 Added 2023-11-14 21:15:28 +0000 UTCAlex quickly slipped spell upon high-tiered spell into Claygon’s bag.
Cursed Land was described as a spell that inflicted wide swathes of terrain with a bloody curse. The earth would turn treacherous, the air stifling and shadows would grow deep. Where luck had once been neutral or good, it would abruptly turn ill, and all plant life would turn poisonous.
‘A classic witch’s spell from legend,’ Alex thought, recalling the tale of a bewitched princess who was cursed to wander through a never ending maze of poisonous thorns.
The next spell guide contained a much less sinister sounding spell; Army of Heroes.
‘This spell will empower armies with valour, fearlessness, and strength,’ Alex read. ‘Those under this spell will know greater strength, speed and agility, while fear dulls within their souls. Their bodies will be filled with vigour and stamina as their skin toughens harder than boiled leather. Their weapons will gain magic—but only temporarily—allowing them the ability to overcome any foe’s defences with greater certainty. By the Traveller, yes!’ He placed it in the satchel. ‘Here’s another one that sounds like it has something to do with armies…Phalanx of Wood and Stone, it’s called.’
He read the spell’s description. ‘This conjures a squadron of towering soldiers of living wood and stone, armed with diamond-tipped spears and stone shields. Their strength can almost match that of a stone golem, and they will serve the wizard faithfully for one hour before returning to the earth. Yes. Maybe this can work with Army of Heroes…’
Alex put the book into Claygon’s bag.
‘Now…what’s this? Mass Corpse? This blood magic places an army of corpses under a wizard’s power; the caster is then able to puppet them by blood magic. Note: control is crude. Now, that’s quite the power!’ Alex thought. ‘Sounds like it could be useful against the church and certain Ravener-spawn. Awesome…okay, so, what’s next?’
He and Claygon drifted along, checking bookshelves, looking for a few more ninth-tier spells.
‘Mass Shatter,’ the young wizard’s eyes fixed on a guide bound in shards of shattered glass, though magically treated edges were smooth to the touch. Dust coated reflective surfaces. ‘This spell will shatter any number of objects within an area of the caster’s choosing, the size of which is limited only by their mana and skill. The magic can be used to destroy weapons of an attacking horde, or the food supply of unruly peasants. Use wisely.’
Alex put the book in his bag, imagining its possibilities. ‘If I get ambushed by the hidden churches’ warriors, I could disarm them with a spell like this…and…oh my, what’s this now?’
He carefully took another book from off the shelf, one bound in what looked like sand, though not a single grain fell as he held it. ‘Mass disintegration?’ he thought to Claygon. ‘Can you believe this? What in every hell…? This almost sounds like you’re cheating!’
‘Father…does that mean…you can disintegrate…entire groups of enemies…or objects…?’ Claygon asked.
‘Yes! It almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?’ Alex thought, flipping through the book. ‘I mean, wouldn’t this spell just be better than mass shatter….oh. Oh, I see. It can only affect up to ten objects or opponents at a time. That’s limiting…but still devastating, turning ten enemies—or their weapons—to dust at once—”
A sudden sound, jarring and abrupt, shocked all on level nine.
There was a sneeze echoing through the room, halting Alex’s breath, freezing his blood.
‘Please let that have been one of those knights,’ he pleaded, glancing at a time keeper. ‘Please let that be one of the knights, please let that be one of the knights—’
Deep down, though, he knew better.
The sneeze hadn’t come from the guard station, but even more importantly…things had been going too smoothly. They’d managed to break into a highly secure library filled with magic without being seen, heard, discovered, or attacked.
Things never went that smoothly.
Never.
“Hello?” one of the knights called out in High Irtyshenan. “Who’s there? Did any of you hear that? Did you hear someone sneeze?”
“I thought so but ...there shouldn’t be anybody else up here but us,” another knight said.
There came the sound of scrambling feet and leather on metal.
A hatch closed, iron creaked.
The floor shook.
Alex floated higher, peering over a bookcase.
A golem-knight had donned his powered armour and was stalking along between rows of bookshelves. His helmet turned slowly, scanning the floor for signs of an intruder. Alex swore silently, flying back to Theresa with Claygon right behind.
He touched her shoulder, leaned in close, and whispered. ‘Are they back yet?’
‘No,’ she whispered back.
Alex’s heart pounded hard.
He checked a nearby timekeeper.
Two minutes.
Two minutes before they were supposed to come together.
‘Come on,’ he thought, anxiously ‘come on!’
More knights climbed into their armour, sealing themselves in.
Alex watched the timekeeper, feeling his sweat turning cold. Ninety seconds.
Out of the knights’ view, books were disappearing. Dust was rising in the air; Alex could almost feel the Guild members’ desperation.
‘Hurry up,’ he thought.
More knights were walking between the shelves now.
“Are you sure you heard something? You’ve been drinking,” one called, her armour a swarm of trident-shaped patterns.
“Drinking or not, I did hear something,” said the one who’d first geared up, his armour etched, displaying a sea of blades.
“I heard something too,” another said, the shape of a bear forged across his metal chest.
A fourth looked around, soaring eagle’s wings emblazoned upon her chest. “No intruder has ever made it up here…it’s been quiet all night…there’s no way anyone’s here, right? The glyphs haven’t sounded; if anyone came through the door, they’d have to be invisible, but if they tried to teleport, they would have been turned to ice. I don’t see any ice, so it can’t be, it—” She paused, looking at a bookshelf. “...when was the last time someone came in here and took out a book from this level?”
“I can’t remember a single time,” replied the bear-knight.
The eagle-knight swore. “Someone’s in here! There’s books missing! A lot of them! Sound the alarm!”
Alex swore.
A knight at the guard station—ram’s horns built into his pauldrons—turned, reaching for a glyph on a wall nearby.
Alex teleported behind him, grabbing his helmet, he vanished. Holding the guard—catapulting across the planes—he appeared in the wilderness a hundred miles away.
“What th—” the man began shouting.
Alex was already gone, teleporting back to the tower.
He reappeared on the ninth floor…and the screaming of a blaring horn slammed into his ears.
“Agh!” he tried shaking off the deafening noise.
Another knight had sounded the alarm; others were rushing through the library floor.
“Pietr disappeared!” the eagle-knight cried.
“Doesn’t matter!” the bear-knight called back. “If we don’t catch these thieves, our hides are cooked. They’ll flay us to death! Flash-dust the room! Now!”
Alex leapt on the bear-knight, taking him to another patch of wilderness dozens of miles outside the city, and still invisible, he teleported back.
‘If I don’t physically attack them,’ he thought. ‘I’ll stay invisible and—’
Suddenly, glyphs began glowing on the library walls; flooding the room with glittering dust. Golden particles drifted from all directions, bouncing off most objects…but clinging to Alex’s skin.
Throughout the room, the forms of his invisible comrades were now marked by the flash-dust clinging to any exposed skin.
‘Shit, it must stick to living flesh!’ he thought.
“Thieves!” the trident-knight shouted. “Surrender now, or be destroyed!”
“Hurry up!” Crow shouted. “We’ve gotta go!”
In the centre of the chamber, teleportation circles flared.
Alex felt something coming. A lot of somethings were on the way.
“We’re about to have a lot more company!” he cried, leaping onto another knight, instantly appearing in the forest.
When he reappeared, the crystal door leading from the eighth floor had opened and knights were charging through. Guards were making their way for the outlined thieves, iron clubs raised, poised to drop them on the intruders.
Alex reached into his bag, grabbing booby-trapped sleeping potions from the satchel; glass shattered, potion mist dissipated.
“Don’t go near the gas!” he shouted at his comrades. “You’ll fall aslee—Oh shit!”
Golem knights charged through the gas as if it wasn't there.
‘Shit, they must have their own air supply!’ he realised.
“I’ll…help…!” Claygon shouted from across the room.
“Don’t attack!” Alex cried. “You don’t want to break your invisibility!”
“I am not attacking…them,” Claygon said.
Suddenly, a bookcase began creaking like old wood, rising high in the air then toppling sideways; slamming into another one, falling atop the next in a cascade.
Golem knights scrambled, trying to catch the shelves.
“Stop the shelves from falling!” the sword-knight shouted. “We can’t let the books get damaged!”
Alex teleported to the centre of the room, tossing sleeping potions into the teleportation circles. Potion-mist filled the air as a hulking figure appeared in the circle. Mounted on the back of an iron-drak was a massive iron-watcher with hair the colour of ash.
In one hand she held a hammer crackling with lightning. In the other, a spear-staff.
Potion-mist swirled around her, kept at bay by orbs of air around hers and her mount’s heads. She glowered across the room, raising her hammer, taking aim at a thief, she hurled it.
It arced through the air like a lighting bolt.
Alex teleported, and grabbing the thief, he vanished. The hammer struck the wall, sounding like an avalanche as the floor shook.
The guard raised her staff, chanting a spell.
Alex teleported behind her.
“No,” he touched her and her mount.
The Traveller’s power surged as he threw his will against hers; she proved defiant, even more so than the ancient Kaz-Mowang.
But her resistance was brief.
Hannah’s power surged, and he teleported away, taking the guard and her mount a hundred miles away, leaving them in an icy field, then teleporting back to the library.
“Freeze the floor!” a knight shouted.
“We need to get out of here, now!” Theresa cried.
“Gather up! Gather!” Crow shouted. “Doesn’t matter if you have everything! It’s time to go!”
Alex teleported to the centre of the room as the marked thieves flew toward Theresa. Golem-knights charged from all directions.
“Grab hold!” Alex cried.
Claygon, Theresa, Brutus and the four Guild members reached for Alex from all sides.
The golem-knights barreled toward them.
More iron-watchers appeared through the potion-mist, the eyes of their mounts glowing.
Alex threw everything he had into Hannah’s power.
His mind locked on the image of the safehouse.
And Brightfire’s ninth floor was gone.
They hurtled through time and space, moving past planes—images of a thousand realms—surging past them. Then darkness met them, and the only sound briefly heard in the safehouse were the ragged breaths of the four Guild thieves.
“Are we out?” Crow asked. “By the gods, we’re out!”
Alex dispelled the invisibility magic on the party with his staff. “Do you have everything you went there for? Did you get it all?”
Mouse, Rat, Crow and Fox looked at each other, and began rifling through their bags, speaking in code.
Theresa touched Alex’s face. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m okay.”
“We have everything!” Rat said, his voice tight with excitement. “We got out!”
In the distance—from the direction of Brightfire—an alarm began rising, growing louder, cutting clear across the city.
“We should go,” Mouse said. “We have what we need, and now they’ll be looking for the ones that robbed them. We should get back to headquarters.”
Fox looked at Alex. “Thank you, we couldn’t have done it without you; I swear, if Warder doesn’t give you a coin, then he’s addled.”
“Either way, you’ll find out soon enough.” Rat opened the secret passage in the back wall. “You should come with us.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “You’re letting us come to your headquarters?” he asked.
“Yes, if we succeeded, Warder said to bring you with us, if we got a good feeling from you; you saved our lives tonight. Feelings don’t get much better than that. Come, I’ll pour you all some potato wine, and we can show you the way to the Founder’s sanctum. At least…the part that we know of, I hope you can find the rest of the way yourselves.”
“I hope so too,” Alex said, patting Claygon’s backpack. “Well, at least tonight’s been a good night. A very good night.”
###
Author's Note
Hello thirty-five cool fools, almighty chosen, wise sages, and mighty champions! Thank you for your support!
Welcome to a new week!
And so Alex had a bag FULL of spells. Plenty for him to chew through when he becomes the general. Lemme tell ya as the guy who usually plays fighters, I get SO MUCH choice paralysis when it comes to spell selection. Especially at higher levels. Even for these chapters, figuring out spells was tricky hahaha.
Cya tomorrow!
Comments
Raven
I don't think Alex, or his group, would really have agreed to this whole operation, which they didn't. Maybe stealing up to the fifth floor, maybe. Alex knows, and has agreed, that knowledge obtained incorrectly could be very bad. Either the wizard is killed by backfire, or something horrible is accidentally released upon the innocents of the world due to incompetence. He has just learned how powerful even a sixth tier spell can be, and now he's just trusting these people he doesn't even know with seventh and nineth tier magics? Steal them for himself? Sure, gleefully, it's not his home school. Allow significant amounts of exceptionally dangerous material into the hands of thieves he absolutely doesn't know or even remotely trust? Take people he doesn't trust into a dangerous area that could get them all killed and allow them full unwatched wandering? Doesn't even protest, negotiate, or push back due to the danger of what they're stealing? Not even the slightest hesitancy or moral conundrum from him or the group about just how ridiculously unethical releasing such high level magics into the hands of unknowns is or just what kind of damage it could cause? No. Does not track. Violates all safety and related conversations and promises he's had with Baelin and Jules. Also goes against his normal caution, at least regarding others. Finally, this is not what was agreed to in chapter 712. He was to get a single scroll from this library for the thieves' client, not take a group on a stealing extravaganza. Find client's scroll (probably alarmed on the highest floor to alert guards and he has to narrowly escape detection), gleefully pilfer tomes for his personal use along the way, leave library undetected, get red coin, get map, find lab. That was the sequence chapter 712 designed, not this way way out of character irresponsibility spree. I get you have to make things interesting and he's under stress, but this is before he knows he's being hunted in the Empire so he's not truly desperate yet. It's your story to write, but this sequence as is takes all the character development you've put into Alex and just flushes it down the toilet after burning it and pissing on the ashes.
George R
Awesome chapter and great spells
Philipp Battenberg
My favorite pet theory, regarding the Mark of the General is that something will go wrong. Not as wrong as with Kelda, but still in a way that Hannah needs to intervene with her divine power, changing the Mark. He would no longer be the Fool of Uldar but the General of the Traveler. His restrictions would be gone, but the Mark would only boost summoning magic, Hannah's power and the like. It would be totally be a setup for a "You and what army?" line directed towards Alex.
Philipp Battenberg
Didn't the Glitterdust in this chapter only cling to living flesh, which would mean Claygon is immune and therefore wasn't seen at all? There could still be suspicions as one thieve could not be seen with the dust, as a Golem Knight would, and someone had to somehow bypass security.
Daniel is ŁØNE
I do really hope the mark of the general is worth the hype because if it isn't big enough of a boost to warrant all of these chapters it'll make the majority of this arc feel like wasted time. The author has to deliver in a substantial way, regardless of whether he decides to subvert expectations because too much time and focus has gone into the whole Mark of the general thing that anything mediocre would be a disservice to the story and readers.
Alex
They are too greedy
Jordan Jones
I’m wondering if an Interdiction will work on Hannah’s power. She’s semi-divine, and it’s her power, her blessing. Seems iffy that a god can Interdict another divine being’s blessing. Also Uldar’s power has no consciousness behind it as far as I’m aware, but while Hannah might not be alive, she can still affect the living universe with her power and will.
Palakol
Not really feelin how that went down. Wouldn't it make more sense for everybody to meet up at an agreed spot ( the middle of the room) as soon as something goes wrong and teleport out?
Voror
That was actually one of my first thoughts when they managed to get away. That all the books have a trace of some kind on them or something.
Chris
Soo.. is nobody else worried that someone will be able to track the books stolen. Hopefully the "find item" spell doesn't exist in this world lol
Decide
I do hope that the Mark of the General isn't just a cosmetic change. Our fearless author would be the biggest troll of all time of it turned out that the General Mark did exactly the same thing as the Fool Mark. If the mark was changed to discredit the General, then it sorta makes sense if it was just cosmetic. But I'm hopeful that we'll get an OP Divine Wizard Warrior. I'm actually hoping that Alex will get some impressions from past Fools, sorta like the Champion.
SherbertSheep
I’m pretty sure everyone expected the heist to go really wrong, but I am glad it was the best outcome possible for it. He got all his spells, got a taste of their strength, all the thieves got their spells as well, and he gets to go to the headquarters. There’s pretty clearly going to be some follow up on the effects of being discovered, and i’m excited to see how it goes!
LEMON
Can't wait until he figures out the mark. It's hard to say if its going to be before the elf guy catches him or not. If it is those church dogs are going to get stomped
Bunny Waffles
I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop with the Secret Church people coming. Not sure WHEN they will arrive, but I almost wonder if they'll show up once they get to the previous Fool's sanctum, a place I am going to assume is trapped to all Hells against Uldar faithful type people.
Kedar
I bet this sparks at least a small civil war as they saw what looked like a large strong knight topple the shelves or assume it's a knight. Basically the guards just saw someone telporting freely wich implied someone tampered with the ani telporting measures and a large strong person with no skin exposed is also helping... without other evidence I would think the direct knight type orders are going to waste no time pointing fingers at rivals.
lenkite
Really hope Alex was wearing a mask - otherwise there will be a million gold bounty on his likeness and its only a matter of time before high-level assassins are sent after him
Voror
I'm genuinely curious if the Generals mark is everything he hopes how fast he can learn and master those ninth tier spells. My concern though is there could be tracing magic on the volumes. Otherwise that mostly went as well as you could hope and he accomplished what has to be a big job
Enif
Okay that chapter was way to short! I need to see more reactions from the library and at least learn more about where the sanctum is.
Dehlan Sage
"when" he becomes the general haha can't wait
Michael
Ayyyyy
