Fortress Al-Mir

“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.