Ends of Magic

The Heirs had completed their patrol and were walking back to the Guild, chatting. They still had their guard up, but were feeling good after a successful patrol. It was certainly more satisfying than the patrol of a few days back, where they hadn’t found a thing.

Nathan looked back at Aarl and Khachi. “I expect you to have leveled just as much as I did today. Which is not much.”

Aarl rolled his eyes and raised three fingers.

Khachi nodded. “Yes. I received one level for each encounter. But it is to be expected - it is difficult to approach level 81 slaying foes such as Stalkers, and I believe I am still the highest level of us all.” Khachi turned with a clink of armor to survey Stella and Sarah. “How much did each of you level?”

Sarah responded with a crooked smile. “More than that. One for the Soul Eaters, six for the Stalkers.”

Stella was more enthusiastic. “Four for the Soul Eaters, four for the Stalkers! I think I’m catching up! My level-up prompt called out to me using electricity magic to slay foes weak to that magic. I think that’ll help with my Class Development!”

They all nodded. Davrar rewarded risks, and using diverse capabilities in combat situations. Nathan reflected on his own levels.

Yeah, that was an unusually eventful patrol. If we did just patrols like that, it would take eleven more for me to get to level 81 - and at every other week that would be about half a year. But I need to keep in mind that that’s eleven patrols where everything goes right and we fight enemies. Our patrol two days ago didn’t have anything. So a few years?

He opened his mouth to give voice to a thought he’d had earlier. “Doesn’t it seem unusual we’re being sent out on so many patrols? I thought the standard tempo was a lot less frequent?”

Sarah answered. “I think the Guildmistress is trying to push us up to level 81 as quickly as possible. But yes, it is common for teams to spend more time resting, training and recuperating than is necessary for us. But we have powerful magic,” she indicated Stella, “effective healing,” Khachi nodded back, “powerful ranged and melee combatants,” she gestured between Aarl and herself. “And a relic up our sleeve with you, Nathan. What kills people is unexpected threats and strange magic. And your perception skills and magic fuckery fill in our gaps.”

Nathan looked back over the Heirs, proud. “Well, let’s live up to their expectations of us. Onwards and upwards! I hope we can hit level 81 in short order, then really take on some more important tasks.”

High-tier Earnestness 2 achieved!

Neat. I've been lightly using that skill a lot recently.

The Heirs all agreed, and they returned to Gemore as night fell.

—

They were eating a late dinner in the dining room, trading stories with some other adventurers. Some of the other recent graduates were clustered around, asking for the story of the Soul Eaters.

It’s not just me that finds those things terrifying. People want to hear as much about them as they can, either out of morbid fascination or a desire to be as prepared as possible.

Nathan was telling the detailed version of the story to Nornan and the rest of the Dusteaters, focusing especially on what the filaments dangling from the door had looked like.

Nornan had cracked a few jokes at the start, but now he was deadly serious, asking questions and probing for every detail Nathan could give him. He was taking notes in a tiny hand in a slim notebook.

That must have been expensive. They only get proper paper from oceangoing traders beyond Litcliff. And I’m not particularly interested in trying to start a paper mill here.

“... and what did they smell like?”

Nathan frowned, thinking back. He hadn’t been paying attention to the scent until after Stella had barbequed the Soul Eaters, at which point the room had mostly smelled like hot stone and charred wood. But before that? Had there been a distinctive smell? There’d been the smell of rot and stagnant water… and a faintly acrid smell, like a rancid puddle of fat. He described it to Nornan, who was taking careful notes.

Nornan’s catfolk teammates - Ucric and Inaral - asked Nathan questions about the smell, trying to tease out details. Nathan searched his memory, trying to give more accurate answers and differentiate based on descriptions. They accepted his answers, and Inaral commented that Nathan had a good sense of smell - for a human.

I guess [Notice] applies to that too. I’m glad they asked, it really wouldn’t have percolated up to my conscious brain if they hadn’t walked me through it in such detail.

High-tier Enhanced Memory 2 achieved!

He nodded at the Dusteaters. “I hadn’t considered the smell to be such an important part of scouting, but I can see that it is something I’m going to need to practice. Thanks!”

Nornan returned Nathan’s nod, “And I thank you for the description, Nathan! We plan to spend most of our time down south around the villages of our birth, so we are unlikely to run into Soul Eaters. But it is always better to learn from those who have faced such foes in person. Maybe we will call upon you to join us if we find a threat worthy of the Heirs of Gemore!” Nornan held out his hand for Nathan to shake.

Somebody pushed between them, nocking Nornan’s hand aside. “I don’t know why you would bother. The Heirs are a disgrace to the Guild.”

It was Simla, and his tone was vicious.

Nornan’s face fell, and he looked peeved. “Simla, you lost this argument in the ring. Don’t smother our fire. That duel carried weight, and the story of the Solstice Duel shall be told in the same breath as the Heirs’ Oath, the Oath of Endings! Be happy with that fame, for your name will carry no more. And that is due to your actions.”

Nathan blinked. There was no way that Nornan would dare speak to Simla this way before the Solstice. He’d really lost his status around here.

Simla just sneered. “You mean the Oath of Idiots. The Heirs are going to die crushed by a weight too heavy to lift. And we will be better for it.” He turned to Nathan, posturing aggressively.

Nathan just didn’t want to bother with this. Simla hadn’t been kicked out of the Guild for attacking Nathan with an explosive magical item during an explicitly nonlethal duel, but that was mostly because it hadn’t even slowed Nathan down.

Simla is a capable Adventurer, who believes in the cause of Gemore. Even if he’s an asshole about it.

But the real reason Simla was still in the Guild was because he was the primary young representative of the Traditionalists, who had exerted their influence on the matter. And expended it - Nathan was pretty sure that several groups of Adventurers had switched sides over the whole affair, and that Sudraiel was implementing even more of her ‘innovations’ into the Guild’s structure than before. Like controlling the assignments of the newly graduated Adventurers.

She backed me the whole way. And I returned the favor by winning the duel. Now she’s letting us pick our own missions as a thank-you. If going out on so many missions and patrols is a reward, I don’t want to know what a punishment looks like.

After an awkward moment of Simla glaring at Nathan, Nornan stepped around the regal-looking young man and shook Nathan’s hand anyway. Nornan shot a judgemental look at Simla. “See you later Nathan. Good hunting!”

With that, both the old rival and the new friend departed. The Heirs talked to a clerk and claimed the job for the spellbook, then returned to their suite and prepared for a longer trip the next morning. It was time to go deal with an errant spellbook.

—

They left the city without trouble, with the Guards shooting Nathan a gimlet eye. They’d worked out an arrangement to check in on him frequently to be sure that he didn’t manage to sneak a Soul Eater into the city. He appreciated it - the Guards were grumpy as only a bureaucratic organization needing to make an exception could be, but they still accommodated his needs. It would have been funnier if they weren’t planning around the possibility of Nathan being turned into a flesh-puppet.

Nathan hadn’t been West of Gemore before, and was interested to see Firewatch Peak up close. It was a weirdly placed volcano, and that made Nathan’s D&D senses twitch. The peak was just visible from Gemore, but the smoking bulk of the dark mountain grew quickly as they progressed along the transit road.

There has to be a dungeon under that. Or a dragon sleeping in the lava pool or something. Or all of the above! Probably shouldn’t poke it. Yet. I don’t want to set off the volcano by accident! Maybe when Stella is high enough level to control a volcanic eruption.

They quickly passed through the ruins of Old Gemore and out into the short stretch of grasslands that separated the ruins from the start of the forest. The ash cone that sheltered Firewatch was just ahead. Another path led off to the right and towards the town of Riverbank.

However, the Heirs traveled straight. They were walking alongside the remnants of the transit road as it petered out and faded away now that they were beyond Old Gemore. They ignored the turn that led up to Firewatch, waving at the scout in the tower atop the cinder cone.

The Heirs' target for the day was the town of Tenby, which was sheltered in a craggy valley on the edge of the forest. It’d be a good stopping point, safe.

As was growing to be their habit on the road, the Heirs asked Nathan of Earth. He’d been telling them of the broad arc of western history - Greece and Alexander the Great, Rome and Carthage. It was fascinating to them to hear of history which had happened so long ago. On Davrar, history only lasted until an Ending. The only history they had was that of Gemore, and Giantsrest before it stretching back several hundred years.

And now that Nathan’s secret was out, they didn’t have to hide things from every passing ear! Nathan wasn’t in a hurry to describe Roman military tacticsor siege engines to anybody not the Heirs, but he didn’t need to hide that he was from elsewhere anymore. He’d won the right to wear that secret proudly, without explaining any more than he wanted to.

They reached Tenby in the late afternoon and decided not to push on towards Bridgeguard. They wouldn’t be able to make it there before nightfall. The forest was dangerous after dark, replete with threats ranging from Silver Darters to Striped Wolves and Siegeboars.

Tenby was a nice enough village, built into an old temple-like building carved out of the stone at the bottom of a deep ravine. The structure looked like a dungeon, but had been cleared and put to use to house the village. A stream wove around the ancient structure and then tumbled deep into the earth at the very bottom of the gaping crevasse. The area was humid and moist, with multiple layers of tough palisade covering the difficult path down into the village and then a single pair of sturdy stone doors blocking access to the subterranean village.

Tenby did a lot of logging, sending wood for building and burning back to Gemore, though they also foraged and hunted in the semi-tamed woods near the village. From what Nathan saw, the logging was a subtle process, with a team of Adventurers protecting and helping the woodcutters as they harvested a subset of the trees. They weren’t clear-cutting but instead thinning the woods, turning it from a dense primordial domain to an airy forest with longer sight lines and without the proliferating undergrowth.

The team of Adventurers was appropriately called the Woodcutters, and Nathan hadn’t heard of them before. Their leader was an enormous woman named Dilmu Tikorno. After greeting them, she invited the Heirs to dinner. Nathan learned that the Woodcutters were stationed here permanently. They’d married into the village and were only technically still part of the Adventurer’s Guild, considering themselves permanent Tenby residents at this point.

Dilmu led the Heirs into a comfortable home that occupied a set of rooms near to the entrance to the village. Dilmu’s family was clustered around a large table as the Heirs entered, and they squished together to make room as Dilmu’s spouse brought out more seating and set out extra utensils.

Nathan found himself seated across from a youth of about twelve, who looked at the Heirs with star-struck eyes. “You’re Adventurers! Do you go into Dungeons and fight things! Treasure and glory?” She looked at Nathan’s rough clothes, and complete lack of magic items. “You don’t look like an Adventurer, like they do.” She pointed at Stella’s enchanted robes and Khachi’s gleaming armor.

Dilmu interrupted with a very fake cough. “I would remind you that one of your mothers is an Adventurer.”

The kid rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but you’re mom. That doesn’t count. And you don’t do dungeons! Or go to Gemore!”

Dilmu raised her eyebrows. “I was at Gemore for the Solstice, wasn’t I?” She gestured to the Heirs “And I saw this team graduate. Hear me, but that was an event.” Dilmu pointed at Nathan. “He is the most adventurous of us all! Dueled Simla Bhola, old Kozar’s nephew, and threw him right out of the arena.”

She mimed the way Nathan had grabbed Simla’s ankle and hurled him, then laughed a deep belly laugh. “I do not know the details of what Simla spoke, but that was a duel deserved, and a proper outcome. The Heirs are a team to watch, and I think we can learn from their Fire! What an Oath!”

Dilmu’s wife interrupted with clapped hands. “Let us speak of quieter things, and maybe you can answer some questions about the training course? My daughters want their path to lead to Adventuring. And when I was so lucky as to pry Dilmu out of it.” She grumbled.

Aarl leaned forward with a smirk. “Well, let me tell you of how much studying you will need to do. There is this thing called math…”

The rest of the dinner passed with mirth and laughter. It was a nice time, and showed Nathan more of the character of the villages. They were rough places on the edge of civilization, but the people in them lived lives of growth and building.

–

The Heirs left the next morning, bidding goodbye to Dilmu and her team. They’d slept comfortably in the damp barracks building after Stella had used some magic to effectively heat the chilly stone room where they'd bunked down. Dilmu had wanted to chat about the job that had brought the Heirs out here - Tenby didn’t have a mage who could cast [Message] back to Gemore, and they depended on traders and Adventurers for news.

After hearing the Heir’s job, Dilmu had shaken her head. “Not even as a joke. Couldn’t bribe me to that job with a Dragon’s egg. The Drakefish river carries bad things down its course. The headwaters lie in a cursed place, and nobody knows the origin of such things.” She clapped Khachi on the shoulder. “But I wish you luck, for somebody needs to deal with the river’s detritus. My recommendation is to cast the book back to the river. And to not die.” She let loose another belly laugh.

And with that, they were gone, and traveling through the forest. It wasn’t too far to Bridgewatch, but the path did not run straight, detouring around several areas of dense trees and avoiding the base of Firewatch Peak. The forest around them was dark and deep, and Nathan felt as if they were on a patrol through a dangerous region of Old Gemore.

He kept his eyes peeled, watching the shadowed undergrowth carefully. At one point he could have sworn he saw several sets of eyes watching them from a deep patch of shadow. Nathan called it out, pointing to the spot. As soon as he did the eyes vanished and did not reappear. Nathan sniffed the air, remembering his intention to lean on that sense more. After a moment of concentration he picked up a musky undertone tinged with carrion over the dead-leaf smell of the forest.

They arrived in Bridgewatch at midday, and Nathan took a moment to survey the scene as they came around a thick patch of trees.

The first thing that caught his eye was the Bridge. It was a massive edifice of gray stone, arching high above the murky Drakefish river in a single, impossible span that covered nearly half a mile to touch down on the far bank. The construction was hundreds of feet across and paved with stones identical to the Transit roads of old Gemore. Nathan knew it didn’t have the space-compressing properties, but must still be a potent work of magic to be so pristine after so long.

Note to self. Try not to break the bridge.

The town of Bridgeguard was hunkered to the side of the bridge, surrounded by sturdy walls of dark basaltic stone that looked to be from the nearby volcano. The town butted up against the river and Nathan could see some small piers where sturdy-looking fishing boats would dock, though they were currently out fishing in the river. But the piers were not enclosed in the walls, and the wall facing the river seemed to be even sturdier than the rest of the curtain, with multiple towers and heavy fortifications.

A wall reached out from the town and spanned the foot of the bridge, looking small and flimsy next to the bulk of the stonework it blocked. As Nathan grew closer he realized it was still a twenty-foot tall wall with crenelations and sturdy supports. Not something to take lightly.

Unless you can fly.

There was a broad gate in the center of the bridge wall, and Nathan noticed that the gatehouse was surrounded by a scattering of crushed stones. They were the same stone that the bridge wall was made from, and ranged in size from gravel to enormous chunks of the fused stone that had been used to make the wall.

It looks like the gates have been destroyed and rebuilt a few times? Probably a lot easier with earth magic than it would be otherwise.

They’d also been expected - a human man was waving to them from a tower on the wall around Bridgeguard, near the main gate into the town. The Heirs headed there, and met the man as he came down from the tower.

He spoke quickly, overriding Khachi’s greeting. “Freedom and Brightness upon you. I’m Farist Dudisk, leader of the Forest Rangers. Our mage got a message you were heading this way, to deal with our artifact problem. I’d be happy to guide the way, but we’ve had a scare from a River Cutter and are trying to bait it into range before it goes for the boats.” Farist jerked his head back to the riverbank, and Nathan noticed a few people out on the docks, cautiously throwing things into the water.

Farist pointed upriver. “The book’s about a mile in that direction, right on the riverbank. Very obvious.” He grimaced. “It’s surrounded by magical crystals, and an unnatural fog. We’re not able to deal with it, and won’t be able to help much if you call. Good luck.”

With that, he turned and started trotting back towards the docks.

The Heirs looked at each other. Khachi shrugged, a bit nonplussed by the rapid-fire greeting. “it seems they do not desire our help? I suppose we shall go upriver. Better to deal with this in daylight, a few hours remain to us.”

Everybody else shrugged their acceptance, so the Heirs turned and walked past Bridgeguard and up the river, careful to keep a bit of distance from the potentially dangerous bank. Nathan started chewing on some jerky.

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Magic Absorption 6

Permanent Talent 2: High-tier Regeneration 8

Talent 3: High-tier Slow Fall 2

Class: Spellbreaker Juggernaut level 55

Stamina: 634/650

Juggernaut's Wrath

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Juggernaut's Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Utility skills:

High-tier Focused Mind 8

High-tier Earnestness 2

Mid-tier Sprinting 5

Mid-tier Spellsense 10

Mid-tier Notice 8

Mid-tier Identify 6

Mid-tier Dodging Footwork 4

High-tier Enhanced Memory 2

Mid-tier Lecturing 2

Low-tier Tumbling 10