Mark of the Fool

Alex had not laid eyes on Alric in three years.

Three years, since he’d last seen his childhood home. Now, he was finally back, and it was under siege. Thameish soldiers stood on the town’s walls, desperately firing arrows and crossbow bolts.

Endless enemies swarmed around them.

From the west, came a sea of bone-chargers and behemoths.

From the east, an ocean of chitterers and gibbering legions.

They all wanted mortal blood.

Alex would not let them have it so easily.

“Get away from my home!” the young archwizard roared, the world slowing around him.

His streams of consciousness focused on different spells:

Army of Heroes.

And one more…

The world sped up.

Fighters of stone, earth and wood rose up in front of Alric’s walls. A wave of light spread from the archwizard, empowering every soldier, golem and earthen fighter.

He called a final spell.

Raising his hand, power gathered in his palm.

A terrible force came to life, a shimmering reddish-yellow symbol of destruction. Mana flowed from his pool—with the strength to power two dozen fireball spells—filling the symbol as it emanated light like a second sun.

It abruptly shattered.

Harsh growling noises were birthed in the air in front of Alex. Sounding like rabid beasts, they instantly erupted, shooting a blinding tower of flame high in the air. Fire roiled in the column—crackling with disintegration magic—forming a storm of destruction that hovered above Ravener-spawn on the ground.

A storm of flame flowed toward the bone-charger horde in a wave, promising certain death. The creatures paused their assault, looking up at what was coming, seeing no way to escape. Soldiers on the walls of Alric also paused, dropping low and shielding their eyes.

The inferno rained on the horde, pouring over them like a viscous liquid, clinging to soil, stone, flesh and bone. Everything it touched burned away, fiery disintegration-laced magic ate through even the toughest armour like moths on cloth.

Ravener-spawn melted, collapsing in the spell’s reach.

But the magic was not done yet.

Even as the “liquid” spread, it glowed brighter, hissing, greedily sucking in air, swelling with more power.

It crackled, like flint and tinder sparking.

Then, the liquid inferno exploded.

Night turned to day.

Ravener-spawn were gone in a flash of light. Boiling lava spurted through the air, landing among the horde. Even Alex had to shield his eyes from the destruction as the after-image seemed to engrave itself in his vision.

And—as quick as it had begun—the spell was done.

He slowly lowered his hand from his eyes.

Most of the horde was gone: reduced to ashes drifting down, landing atop boiling liquid. Those unlucky enough to survive, were maimed by the disintegrating flames, limbs were gone, leaving blackened exposed bone and flesh melting over their bodies. Their cries were shrill.

The sight was enough to make even Alex feel slightly ill.

Now he understood why such spells were so guarded in Brightfire. The magic had taken an immense amount of mana, by even his standards, but the devastation was unmatched, and worth it.

The land around Alric would bear the scar forever.

The soldiers—filled with power and courage from Army of Heroes—cheered Alex’s name, shouting their thanks to the Traveller. Only the young archwizard’s earthen fighters and Shale’s golems did not pause, they waded forward to dispatch any survivors, and shoot beams of concentrated death into the horde.

Setting his jaw, the General of Thameland turned with a wrathful glare toward the other horde.

The world slowed.

The world sped up.

Annihilation came for the chitterer horde.

In heartbeats, thousands of Ravener-spawn were ash or charred cadavers, and more were left broken on the steaming ground.

More cheers rose from Alric.

Alex allowed himself a smile as his phalanxes and Shale’s golems began the clean up.

His smile, though, was short-lived.

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In the distance, new Ravener-spawn poured from the forests and bush. More bone-chargers. More chitterers. First, they came by the dozens, increasing to the hundreds.

“Dungeons,” he whispered. “There’s dungeons around here.”

He teleported away, searching, quickly finding two tucked among the trees.

He considered what to do, and remembered something he’d learned from Baelin, long ago:

“Do you know what one of the advantages of overwhelming power is, Alex? Convenience.”

He didn’t have to waste time entering the dungeons to hunt for cores.

He could simply draw on his vast, magical strength, and rain fire.

Two castings of Annihilation destroyed both dungeons, reducing the structures to boiling rock and flaming earth.

He teleported back to Alric, watching in satisfaction as the tide of chitterers and bone–chargers had already slowed to a trickle.

‘I did it,’ he thought. ‘I rescued our home…’ He imagined Mr and Mrs. Lu, Theresa, Brutus and Selina. ‘I saved it. I—’

He froze, noticing movement from the forest to the west.

More bone-chargers were coming.

He turned in alarm.

More chitterers to the east.

“There must be more dungeons around here…” he whispered, his eyes frantically darting across the wilderness. “When will this end?”

His stomach clenched as a terrible decision lay before him.

Part of him desperately wanted to stay and hunt down each and every dungeon, and kill every Ravener-spawn that dared threaten his home. But he knew that would be a fool’s errand. He’d be here forever; the Ravener would make more and more dungeon cores, conjuring its most powerful monsters in an endless tide.

Even if he never ran out of mana, he wouldn’t save Alric by staying. He’d only delay the inevitable.

To truly save Alric, he had to leave it behind and destroy the source of its problem.

Taking a deep breath, he acknowledged his fears, desperation, and the guilt of leaving his home, then let them pass.

“There’s only so much I can do here,” he whispered.

Raising his hands, he conjured armies of summoned monsters, unleashing the creatures on the Ravener-spawn, drawing on more of his mana.

He looked over his hometown one final time.

There were more places he needed to help in Thameland. More monsters to slow, more preparations to make. Then, it would be time to end all of this.

He burned the image of Alric in his mind.

“I’ll save you,” he promised. “I just have to trust that you’ll be okay with what I’ve set up. I have to let others fight the battles here while I go fight to win the war elsewhere.”

“Like a proper General.”

He took a deep breath.

Then, he was gone.

###

Alex materialised in his lab, teleporting around the room, grabbing more supplies.

“Potions, Kelda’s coin, booby-trapped potions…” he listed them off aloud, shoving the items into his satchel. “Alright, that’s all I have time for.”

He paused, looking up at the ceiling.

Selina was asleep upstairs.

For a long moment, he considered teleporting to her room, telling her what was happening and saying goodbye, just in case…just in case he met his parents in the afterworld sooner than later.

But, he shook his head.

“There’s no time,” he whispered, his mind racing. “And if I see her, I won’t want to leave. And she’ll be terrified. Besides, I’m not going to die.”

His lips flattened to a thin line.

“I’m not going to let any of us die.”

His hand reached for the holy symbol of the Traveller around his neck, and he teleported away from his other home.

###

“We’re all going to die!” someone screamed.

“Look at the size of it!” another shouted.

“It’s the end!” came a third voice.

“Steady!” Watcher Hill snapped, glaring around the Research Castle. She floated above the parapet. “Steady yourselves! Panic is only going to fray your nerves and make you careless!” She looked across the moors. “If we want victory, we need everyone to have their wits about them!”

“Truer words were never spoken,” Vernia Jules whispered at Watcher Hill’s side. “Truer words…”

The alchemy professor’s eyes slowly travelled up, up, up…to the face of the mountainous Ravener-spawn coming toward them.

A humanoid titan of flesh, bone and steel.

Its footfalls ground rock to dust, making the earth tremble. The tallest trees would have only reached to its spiked kneecaps, and its bulging eyes seemed to hold every horror ever conceived.

Its mouth was a yawning cavern; and while it was almost a mile away, Professor Jules could smell its acidic stench from her distance.

“Filthy creature,” the professor swore under her breath. “We’ll fix you.” She looked at one of her graduate students on the battlements. “Are we ready?”

“Almost!” he shouted, carefully setting down a crate beside a massive, magical ballista. The siege weapon—one of many—was mounted on the wall, pointed directly at the giant Ravener-spawn’s face. “Just a matter of loading it now!”

He pried at the steel crate and beside him, Watcher Hill did the same, revealing contents that Professor Jules had been preparing for months.

She remembered Carey. She remembered the despair of the young woman’s parents. She remembered the loss of Watcher Shaw and so many others when Greymoor had been attacked.

“No more,” she whispered, glancing down at the courtyard.

More of her graduate students had drawn a summoning circle there: one so vast that a whale might have fit comfortably inside.

That strategy would need Baelin to be able to complete it.

But the old goat wouldn’t be necessary for what she’d prepared.

She glanced back at the ballista. “How long until we’re ready to fire?”

The Watcher—carefully picking up one of the objects inside the crate— looked up at her. “Not long. Then, ten seconds to load, and ten between each shot.”

“Plenty of time.” Her eyes fell on the object gingerly clutched in the Watcher’s hands.

A chaos bomb: one several times the size of the one Carey had detonated at Uldar’s Rise.

And the crate—as well as more crates beside the other ballistae—were full of them.

She glared up at the advancing Ravener-spawn. “Let’s show this ancient god’s puppet what progress looks like.” The professor raised her hand. “As soon as that thing’s in range, I want it turned to dust!”

###

The Skystrider strode over Greymoor’s hills, its enormous feet crushing everything in its path.

Every footfall left a deep print in the ground, churning soil and grinding rock to sand. As it marched forward—thousands of Ravener-spawn followed behind—it belched acid, the liquid falling from gaping jaws, collecting on the earth in hissing pools.

Its eyes focused on one thing: the mortals’ castle.

The Skystrider was the harbinger: the first of many of its kind to be reborn, ready to reap the land.

It had been commanded to start here, to annihilate the outsiders that had thrown the cycle out of balance. Left unchecked, they would continue to cause chaos. The final trial was here, these wizards would not be allowed to interfere.

Stopping, the Ravener-spawn gazed on the castle.

It inhaled, sounding like it had bellowed and spoke in a voice so thunderous, any mortal too near would have been deafened by the sound.

“Outsiders…” it pronounced, each syllable issuing a gale-force wind. “Leave this land. Never return. Do not interfere with the culling. Leave. Or die.”

Words offered.

Words to make the killing easier.

But these intruders showed no sign of withdrawing.

They continued loading their feeble weapons.

They gathered on their little walls.

Walls that would be destroyed by a simple twitch of one of the Skystrider’s feet.

There was no sign of them heeding its words.

“You will suffer much. You will die,” it declared.

The Ravener-spawn moved forward.

One colossal footfall.

Then another.

It began to gather speed, the wind rushed by its ears as it broke into a deadly charge.

There would be no escape for its foes.

Acid boiled in its innards, rising to its throat.

The outsiders would die.

Its chest swelled.

And it vomited out a river of death.