Chapter 355: Convenience

Alex appeared first, dropping into a fighting-stance while surveying the area. Baelin’s spell had catapulted him across the land, and—wherever he was—it was markedly chillier than Greymoor. The sun was lower on the horizon than it had been earlier, casting the light of dawn in a deeper shade.

“West, then,” Alex said. “We must have travelled west.”

The wind rustled through a stand of pines, needles whispering as the evergreen branches rustled. The aroma of conifers hung in the air, mingling with bird calls and…something else.

His enhanced hearing detected something in the distance.

Something wet.

A heartbeat later, the air shimmered, signalling Claygon and Baelin’s arrival.

“Ah yes, there’s your peculiar quirk at work,” the chancellor said. “Hmmm.” He scanned the trees. “Well, it appears we are roughly on target.”

Banging his staff on the ground, the jewel shuddered, rippling like a pond, and a swarm of glowing, magical Eyes surfaced. One pair. A trio. A dozen. Two dozen.

More than a score of Wizard’s Eyes circled the ancient wizard like a mass of loyal bees. With a gesture, he sent them off and—as they flew away—they began to fade, gradually turning translucent, then vanishing.

“My Wizard’s Eyes will have the area scouted in no time,” Baelin said. “But in the meantime, we can prepare and proceed toward our target dungeon, it lies northeast of here. We’ll fly, of course, and I’ll cast a spell to disguise our voices so they blend with the sound of the wind, and another to mask our scent. Oh! And I should also cast the one spell that every wizard going on a hunt should never leave home without. Might I cast it over you and Claygon?”

“Of course,” Alex said, keeping his voice low.

With a quick incantation, the chancellor waved his hand and a massive pulse of power flowed, pouring mana over Alex, making his form shimmer like waves of heat on a scorching day in Generasi.

“Whoa,” the young wizard whispered as his hands faded before his eyes.

A few breaths later, Baelin and Claygon were also as invisible as the wind blowing around them. But, seconds later, Alex came back into view, but only to his own eyes; to all other sighted creatures, he was invisible.

Making a quick guess at the spell Baelin had conjured, he suspected Greater invisibility…or perhaps something more powerful: the strength of the mana had nearly brought him to his knees.

“Hold on now, I’m not quite done,” the chancellor’s voice said.

Another wave of mana washed through the air, Alex felt it concentrating around his eyes and then, Baelin and Claygon’s slightly translucent forms shimmered back into being.

“I trust you can see us now?” Baelin asked.

“Uh yeah. What spells were those?” Alex marvelled.

“The second one was ‘true seeing’.” The ancient wizard waved a gauntlet before Alex’s eyes. “A very handy sixth-tier spell. It cuts through most invisibility magic, illusions, and even shapeshifting to reveal the world as it actually is. It can be defeated by mundane disguises and more powerful magics, but nonetheless, it is a spell I would recommend that no wizard of sufficient power be without. Keep in mind, it isn’t infallible, but it will save your life time and time again.”

Baelin chuckled. “About a millenia ago, there was this trend for assassins who were inclined toward magic to learn just enough wizardry to pick up Greater Invisibility, then use it to wreak havoc upon any head of state who someone had a grievance against. They charged a king’s ransom for their services, eventually gaining enough wealth to establish their own dynasties.”

Alex frowned. “Wait... Was an assassin known as ‘The Crimson Mantis’ a member of one of these dynasties?”

The ancient wizard raised an eyebrow. “Indeed! I must say, I am surprised you know of him.”

“Well.” Alex shrugged. “Khalik mentioned him. He was making this pretty unsettling joke about him a while back. So…what happened?”

“Hm?”

“With the assassins?”

“Ah, well, let us just say that court wizards and high priests—anyone with magic powerful enough to pierce invisibility—became highly valued in realms that up until then, did not bother with them,” Baelin said. “I found myself working as a hunter of these assassins for a time. Of course, by the time monarchs had seen the wisdom in hiring wizards and priests to guard them against such magical threats, any assassin with foresight had concluded which way the wind was blowing and either retired, or moved on to different methods. Still, some of the younger, less experienced ones tried to keep the trend alive.”

Baelin burst out laughing. “I swear, Alex, you do not know comedy until you see a young man—dressed all in black leather in the summertime—confidently saunter across a crowded ballroom with a smug expression on his face and a knife in his hand, convinced that no one can see him. Ooooh the look on his face when my first disintegration spell hit him.”

Alex’s eyebrows rose. “So, one moment he’s walking across the ballroom, and the next he’s dust?”

“Hah! Well, at least a part of him was! You see, if you become very adept, you can gain a certain finessewith a disintegration spell: you can actually choose which parts of something you want to turn to dust, and which parts you want to remain intact. With enough practice, you can use it with the precision of a sculptor.”

Alex swallowed. He wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. “So…this young assassin…what did you do to him?”

“Hah, I disintegrated his skeleton and left the rest! You’ve never seen a human body lose all of its skeletal integrity just like that, have you? Ploop!” Baelin snapped his fingers for emphasis then made a motion with his hand like paste splattering on the ground. “It becomes no more than a mewling pile of meat! Let me tell you, the other three assassins hiding in the rafters got the message rather…quickly. Fled immediately, even left their associate to his own limited devices! And they led me riiiight to their base. Aaaaah what a delightful evening that was!”

Alex stared at Baelin in abject horror.

“Ah well, I suppose you had to be there.” The ancient wizard wiped tears from his eyes. “Or perhaps you’ll see the humour when you are older and more…experienced.”

Alex chuckled nervously. “Y-yeah maybe. So what was that other spell then? Greater Invisibility?”

“Ah that? Not quite. It’s something of a homebrew, so to speak…which I shall not reveal the details of. A wizard—even a teacher—cannot give away all their secrets, after all!” Baelin smiled, tapping a bronze beard-clasp with a gauntleted finger. “Now then, come, we have a hunt to engage in!”

He floated about a foot above ground. “You and Claygon follow me.”

The goatman glided northeast and—after a moment of Alex trying to right his whirling mind—he and Claygon rose a foot in the air and floated after him.

The trio melted into the trees.

Deeper and deeper into the forest they flew, with the wind rising and rustling the pines. The canopy grew thick and the light dim. Alex cursed internally. The wind muffled his hearing while the dim light turned the forest into a blend of shadows. His eyes scanned their surroundings; he was with Baelin and Claygon, which was comforting, but he’d rather that his senses weren’t muted while they were in these woods. Anything could be prowling through the shadows.

He imagined Silence-spiders and Hive-queens creeping through the canopy. Maybe another clawed creature poised to swoop down on them, or even a pack of them.

Monsters were fond of amb—

“Oh! Would you look at that!” Baelin stopped, bending down suddenly.

Alex held his breath.

What was it? Tracks? A burrow? Had they reached the dungeo—

“A four-leafed clover!” The chancellor straightened up, happily pinching a tiny clover—roots and all—between two gauntleted fingers. There was a rush of teleportation magic and the clover disappeared. “Hah, an auspicious sign for our hunt, wouldn’t you say?”

Alex sighed in relief. “You scared me,” he said. “I thought you’d found the dungeon or something.”

“I have.”

“Like we’d just stumbled across i—wait, what now?”

“I have, my boy!” Baelin chuckled. “I was given quite detailed directions by our Thameish friends, so the Wizard’s Eyes had no problem locating it. It is roughly two miles to the north and we should reach it right in time for the best morning light.”

“O-oh,” Alex said, relaxing.

“But please continue monitoring our surroundings as you were. I wouldn’t want your habits dulled just because we possess precise knowledge of where our destination is.”

“Right…” Alex said.

“Oh, and feel free to chat. Keep in mind that any sounds we make are being disguised. Our discussion is merely mixing in with the sounds of these trees groaning around us from the wind. Nothing to worry about.”

The more Baelin talked, the more dispensable Alex felt. “O-okay.”

Floating ahead, the chancellor glided silently in between evergreens while Alex and Claygon followed, the golem’s upper arms were crossed and his lower ones were folded behind his back. Baelin chatted away like he was a village elder out for a leisurely nature walk with his grandchildren.

Alex enjoyed the conversation, as the light grew. But, he also kept his ears and eyes sharp, knowing slacking off wasn’t an option. Baelin might have seemed relaxed, but Alex didn’t miss his head turning to either side, his goat-like eyes examining their surroundings with precision. The eye in his staff shifted and turned, watching the canopy above, while he took in the constant stream of information from his Wizard’s Eyes.

So, when he floated past monstrous sets of tracks pressed into the forest floor, Alex could only assume he’d ‘missed’ them on purpose. It must be the teacher in him testing his student

“Baelin.” Alex floated down, hovering over the footprints. “There’s some tracks down here.”

“Ah, excellent. I was hoping you were paying full attention. And what can you tell me about these tracks?”

The young man’s eyes narrowed.

Whatever left them was huge: the ground was wet and the footprints were at least a couple of inches deep. There had been a lot of weight behind them. The creatures that made them were broad: the tracks were nearly as wide as they were long. An imprint of four bulbous toes extended from the front of a foot.

Images of those tracks were in one of the Thameish bestiaries they’d all had to study. He remembered Isolde cringing at the drawing of the foot, and remarking on how it looked like it was in desperate need of a proper pedicure.

“They’re Skinless One tracks.” Alex examined the forest floor and the tree canopy, noticing branches and other debris scattered around. The creatures were tall enough to knock some pretty high branches off the trees. “Big, stupid, nasty and strong enough to crack stone with a good blow from one fist. They’re the siege engines of the Ravener.”

“Very good. Our Thameish sources informed me that it was indeed a dungeon occupied by these Skinless brutes. The signs of their destructive natures will increase the closer we get to the dungeon itself.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, a plan forming in his mind. “They’re a nasty a bunch. But at least they’re not exactly the sharpest or most cunning of the Ravener’s spawn: we should be able to ambush them pretty easily. Even without magic.”

“Indeed,” Baelin said. “Now let’s move on and survey our enemy and see how we might do that.”

With purpose, the chancellor led Alex and Claygon through the woods. Further ahead, a loud commotion drowned out the sound of the wind, announcing the dungeon and its monsters were near. The cracking of branches. The heavy thump of giant feet hitting the ground. The wet squelch of naked muscle.

The monster’s presence had taken a toll on the surrounding trees: branches were torn away, bark shredded, and pines uprooted; no tree had been spared. The wind quieted and signs of the monsters were more obvious.

Trees thinned—more roots were unearthed—until at last, they spotted Skinless Ones moving between the pine trees.

They towered over Claygon—each perhaps seventeen feet tall—and over ten feet at the shoulder. They were a gruesome sight and their name was undeniably fitting: humanoids bloated to an impossible size, with physiques utterly devoid of a single shred of skin. Copper-coloured muscle with fibres thicker than ropes corded their massive forms, writhing with their every movement. Wide, lipless mouths exposed thick, flat teeth meant for crushing. A broad forehead protruded from their faces like a step. A hole where a nose should have been, and enormous bloodshot eyes that constantly teared from the cold wind, completed their faces.

“Horrible things,” Alex shuddered, whispering to Baelin and Claygon as they floated between packs of the creatures, unseen and unnoticed.

“They are not the most pleasant looking creatures, are they?” Baelin agreed, emerging through the trees and floating above a cliff. “And they are as common as ants. Pfeh. Vile things.”

Alex and Claygon came through the treeline and looked down. A vast ravine dotted with a honeycomb of gaping cave mouths reaching deep into the earth, lay below. The Skinless monsters, as abundant as ground wasps guarding their nest, milled about.

“Jeez,” Alex murmured. “It looks like they’re pretty established down there: with that many, they could easily overrun a small city.”

“Indeed, which is why we will stop them here,” Baelin said. “Suggest a plan of attack.”

“Well…” Alex scratched his chin in thought. The beginnings of a beard was forming, and it was starting to itch. “My thought is, we have Claygon distract most of the creatures. He can stage an attack from outside: lots of fire and lots of explosions. That’ll draw most of the monsters’ attention to him while we slip into the dungeon. Your Wizard’s Eyes can scout out where the core is, and then we fly in and take it. I’m thinking that the dungeon might sense our mana through your spells—we don’t know everything these cores are capable of—but even if it can, you can fight off its defences while I grab the core.”

Alex pointed to the tunnels below. “Then we use your and Claygon’s power to bury the dungeon. What do you think?”

Baelin thought for a moment, nodding his head. “Hmmm, a fine plan that makes use of the resources at our disposal. Quick and efficient. Good job, you have taken your lessons to heart,” Baelin said with pride.

“Thanks,” Alex said. “So I guess we can fly above, you can remove the invisibility from Claygon, and—”

“Oh, now just because I approve, doesn’t mean we’re going to do all of that.” Baelin smiled, his eyes tracing the lines of the ravine.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know what one of the advantages of overwhelming power is, Alex?” The ancient wizard raised his staff.

“What?” Alex asked.

“Convenience,” Baelin said, his voice taking on a dark note.

Then a tidal wave of mana rose around them.