Zenith of Sorcery

Chapter 001

Homecoming

When he had still been a child, Marcus had decided to commit sacrilege by climbing to the top of the Sacred Oak.

He had failed. Worse, one of his fellow orphans had snitched on him to the people running the orphanage and he’d been severely punished for it. Despite this, he later made another two attempts and finally succeeded on the third try. The majestic view at the top of the tree and the elation he had felt soaking in the sights around him were still etched deeply into his mind. It was, to this day, one of Marcus’s most cherished memories.

Many, many years have passed since then, and Marcus was once again standing atop a big tree. It was admittedly not sacred in any way, but it was even taller than the Sacred Oak had been. The view was very impressive, too. He slowly turned around to take in the view around him, taking care not to fall off the branch he was standing on. He was surrounded by trees, but the one he was standing on was considerably taller than the rest, giving him a clear view into the distance at all sides. Towards the east, where he had come from, the trees seemed to stretch forever, forming a thick leafy canopy that made it impossible to see the ground. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and the leaves swayed and rustled in a gentle wind, making for an impressive sight. The same carpet of leaves could be seen to the north and south. Towards the west, however, the trees quickly started to thin out and eventually gave way to fields and grasslands, with a dirt road winding its way through them. If he strained his eyes, Marcus could even make out a couple of buildings in the distance.

The tree was tall, the view was majestic, and he had endured great trials to get here. Yet, he felt nothing at the achievement. He had expected to recapture some of that sense of awe and accomplishment out of crossing the Sea of Leaves on foot, but instead only felt a faintly pleased feeling and a snide little voice in the back of his head telling him he should have just taken a boat and gone along the coast.

Marcus turned westward, staring at the distant buildings with a mixture of nostalgia and uncertainty. After six years of wandering the world, he was returning to the lands of the Silver League. He wasn’t entirely sure why. He had sworn he would never come back. Just like he simply had to climb that forbidden tree as a child, he knew he simply had to be here now. Something was calling him home.

He remained motionless on that tree for a few more minutes, listening to the rustling of the trees around him with his eyes closed. Eventually he shook off the melancholy and took a deep breath. After making sure his backpack was firmly closed, he gripped the staff in his hand… and then jumped down.

He plummeted towards the ground like a rock, but remained calm and unconcerned. The height of the fall would be dangerous, or even lethal, to a normal man… but Marcus was hardly normal. He just had to make sure he didn’t hit any stray branches on the way down. That would be painful.

Just as he was about to hit the ground, his body suddenly and unnaturally slowed to a halt, and he gently floated down to the ground.

He briefly looked around to make sure nothing dangerous had been attracted by his little stunt. He doubted anything truly dangerous would be allowed to live this close to civilization, but it was always good to check these things. His surroundings were dark and gloomy – the thick leaves blocked most of the sunlight from reaching the ground – but Marcus had eyes that could pierce through the darkness and he found no real danger around him. A viper was watching him from a nearby tree root, silent and motionless, but it was just a normal animal and was doing its best to remain unnoticed.

He set off westward, towards civilization. The ground he walked on was rough and uneven, but mostly free of bushes and grasses. There wasn’t enough sunlight for them to grow. Instead, a thick carpet of moist leaves covered everything. The air was unpleasantly cold, and strange bird calls and insect drones followed him everywhere.

Despite his misgivings about coming back, Marcus couldn’t wait to be out of this place. Most people only ever ventured into the periphery of the giant forest that covered the center of the continent, and he now truly understood why. Even for him, traversing the Sea of Leaves on foot took several weeks. Although the dangers he encountered were nothing to a mage of his caliber, he had greatly underestimated the mental pressure of spending several weeks alone in a dense wild forest where the light only barely reached the forest floor. He had always thought of himself as a loner and a man not easily spooked, but this journey had truly tested his limits. He was never doing this again if he could help it.

Thankfully, as he had seen from the top of the tree, the edge of the forest wasn’t far off from his current position. He soon found himself stepping into the summer sun. Warmth, sweet warmth. He basked in the sunlight for a moment, and then kept walking further westward until he reached a poorly-maintained dirt road.

And then he stopped, leaning on his staff as he slowly took in the sights around him. Very few people were using the road, and they gave him strange looks as they passed him by, mystified at what he was doing. However, the quality of his clothes and the staff he was holding must have made them wary of him, since they hurriedly passed him by without saying anything.

Eventually, Marcus took a deep breath and clacked his tongue in annoyance. He was basically lost. He could tell he was on the eastern border of the Silver League, but he didn't see any obvious landmarks that would let him narrow things down. He only had a vague feeling about where he was. It wasn’t a big deal, but he hated that he had gotten lost on what should be his home ground.

He reached for his backpack and reflexively checked it to make sure the straps were secure. A nervous tic developed over the years. He had wandered the world for six years now, and his backpack was always with him. Its weight on his back was reassuring.

Rather than press on westward, he decided to follow the dirt road northward, hoping to reach some kind of roadside inn or village. He wanted to talk to someone, but as he noted earlier, there was very little traffic. It was a clear summer day, and the sun was near its zenith. The heat was oppressive, the sun burning... Marcus didn't mind, as it was a nice change of pace from the shadowy forest he had just left, and his clothes were enchanted to give him a measure of comfort at all times, but the locals probably found it hard to stay out in the open under the conditions. More frustratingly, what few villagers did use the road took pains to avoid Marcus, giving him a wide berth and ignoring his greetings. It was very annoying; how was he supposed to ask them where he was if they wouldn't speak with him?

What was that about anyway? He rubbed his chin experimentally... yup, still clean-shaven. A quick sniff told him he didn't stink either. He couldn't look that bad, could he? Then again, he had spent several weeks in the wild… convenience magic can only go so far.

He stopped walking and focused inward for a moment, reaching deep into the well of power inside of him, and grasped at one of the spells he was attuned to. With a casual wave of his hand, a thin rectangular mirror materialized in the air in front of him.

The reflection that stared back at him was familiar. Marcus looked the same as he always did – a tall, physically fit man with short brown hair, dressed in fine silk clothes and carrying a metal-capped staff. Perhaps he was a little biased, but he thought he looked pretty good. Very handsome. Very obviously a mage, too. Was that the problem?

He dismissed the spell, letting the mirror shatter into hundreds of triangular pieces that soon faded away, and then tapped his fingers rhythmically against his staff. Strange. While mundane people had a healthy level of fear towards mages and other adepts, it was usually not to this extent. Had something happened in the six years he had been away?

He eventually shook his head and continued walking. There was no point in guessing. He would get his answers when he eventually reached a town or an inn by the road. There was always someone willing to talk if there were plenty of people and alcohol present, and what he wanted to know was common knowledge.

After a while, he spotted a pond in the distance. It was the first notable feature he encountered in a while, so he felt drawn towards it. He didn't even have to go far off the path to reach it – the pond was close to the main road, and there was a small dirt path forking from it to enable easier access to it. It was probably used by the locals to water their animals when they passed by. A few trees grew on its banks, including a particularly tall and impressive oak.

Marcus approached the pond. It seemed like a nice place, peaceful and somewhat secluded. He dropped his backpack at the foot of the big oak, stretched his shoulders a few times, and glanced at the water. Most of the pond's surface was covered in duckweed and water lilies. It looked pretty, but stagnant water like this wasn’t suitable for drinking without boiling it first, and he didn’t feel like doing that right now. Instead, he turned towards the large oak growing on the edge of the pond and hummed appreciatively.

It was an impressive tree, strong and vibrant. The leafy canopy blunted a lot of the summer sun, but still let a fair amount of light and warmth reach the grass beneath it. Marcus was really tempted to sit down and rest here for a while. It had been a long journey, and this was as good a place as any to take a nap. There was something about sleeping at the base of the tree that appealed to his base nature.

He liked trees. His magic was based on them, after all.

He placed his hand on the trunk of the oak, feeling the coolness of the bark on his palm.

Before Marcus could cry out or even blink, the oak tree rushed at him and swallowed him whole.

* * * *

His mind was vast like an ocean and churning with tempestuous thoughts. It hurtled through an even vaster void, stars spiraling all around him, a dizzying array of sights vying for his attention. A disc of multicolored gas was orbiting a blue sun. Two spheres, one green and one red, were circling around each other at high speeds, inching ever closer to a collision. A titanic chunk of ice floated soundlessly in the void, its surface dotted with black towers of clearly artificial construction. A swarm of glowing jellyfish navigated through a field of grey rocks arranged into a diffuse sphere. Each sight entered his range of perception only for a fraction of a second before disappearing behind him as he rushed towards an unknown destination.

He didn’t currently perceive his surroundings with his own familiar senses, he realized. His consciousness spread out like a cloud around him, like a million eyes pointed in all directions, letting him see everything around him simultaneously and feeding him a multitude of sensations he did not understand. Though the places he was speeding past were distant and visible only for a moment, his new perception captured impressions from them in an instant and kept doing so over and over without fail.

It was wondrous and exhilarating, but his mind wasn't built to handle this. It quaked under the strain, his thoughts growing more muddy and fractured with every passing moment. He felt that if this continued, his mind would soon irreparably shatter, its pieces scattering across the frightening void he was traversing.

As suddenly as it began, his journey ended. He came to a screeching halt in the orbit of a planet. It was green, blue, and white – a world full of life and civilization. If he still had a body, the sight would have taken his breath away. It was one thing to know in a scholarly sense that he lived on a sphere of rock and water orbiting a sun, and an entirely different matter to see it. For a moment, he simply soaked up the majesty of the world around him, the strain of his godlike perception forgotten, but very quickly everything began to change.

The world below him shifted in some strange way. His new senses went berserk, sending him wave after wave of sensations that he was at complete loss to interpret. His mind, already straining under the weight of his new perception, started to unravel under the pressure. Instinctively, he tried to recoil from the scene, his spirit yearning to return to his true body, but some alien force wrenched him back, forced him to look. No words were exchanged, but he knew this was non-negotiable. He had to stay. He had to see.

Even if he ended up losing his mind in the process.

As he struggled to keep himself awake and whole, the planet in front of him became dimmer and smaller. Lesser in some way. Visually it was fine, but he could tell somehow that the world in front of him had lost some crucial part of itself, and was now collapsing and fading away. A hollow shell of its former glory.

Soon, the planet began to visibly deteriorate as well. Red dots appeared all over its surface, spewing endless plumes of smoke into the atmosphere. The clouds became thicker and darker, and the continents covered in a growing network of black lines. Vast stretches of land began to break off from the planet, ignoring the force of gravity and floating away into the void. They looked tiny from his vantage point, but they must have been truly massive in reality, the size of entire countries.

The world was falling apart.

He thought it would have been a slow, agonizing death as the planet gradually scattered into the void, but the final end was as sudden and unexpected as everything else in this strange scene he was experiencing. Some critical limit seemed to have been reached, and the whole thing just… imploded upon itself. The geometry of it was mind-bending and incomprehensible, but everything in the vicinity just folded in unto itself and disappeared, leaving nothing but a pitch black wound in the fabric of the universe, devoid of any stars and matter.

Accompanying this collapse, another wave of incomprehensible information hit his tortured mind, sending him into mental convulsions. Mercifully, whatever alien force was keeping him here seemed to have shown him what he needed to see, because he felt it loosen its grip on his mind.

He immediately blacked out.

* * * *

When Marcus woke up, he had a raging headache and he was no longer next to that pond and its oak tree. The floor beneath him was smooth and hard, nothing like the grass and soil next to the tree. He tried to open his eyes, but found it exceedingly painful and instead settled for rubbing his face with his hand as he tried to figure out where he was. He eventually realized he was lying on his back on some wooden planks and that everything seemed to be vibrating slightly… or were the vibrations just his headache playing tricks on him?

No, wait… this sound was familiar. He was in the back of a horse-drawn wagon, wasn’t he?

“You’re awake,” an unfamiliar voice stated. “I was starting to get worried.”

Forcing himself to open his eyes despite the pain, Marcus found his backpack and staff lying beside him – something that immediately set him more at ease. He sat up, fighting the urge to vomit at the sudden movement. He was indeed riding on a wagon, just like he suspected, though it was drawn by oxen and not horses. Aside from him and his belongings, the wagon was mostly empty. A pair of small wooden crates and some cloth bundles was the only cargo carried by the wagon.

There were two people sitting at the front of the vehicle – a clean-shaven, middle-aged man and a teenage boy. Both were looking at him, watching for his reaction.

“I’m awake, yes,” Marcus said, taking a deep breath. “I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused you. How did I end up here, if I may ask?”

The middle-aged man laughed in a friendly manner.

“I am Pellast from Sycaruse, and this is my son Elid. We found you passed out by the pond when we stopped to water our oxen,” he gestured towards the two animals pulling the wagon. “I couldn’t just leave you at the mercy of the elements and wild beasts like that, so we carried you to our wagon. I am not a physician or a healer, and I couldn’t really help you recover, but I figured you were safer with us than you were by that pond. I hope we have not offended you through our actions.”

“No, no, I am humbled by your kindness,” Marcus said politely. Nothing would have happened to him, but they couldn’t have known that. Their reasoning was sound. “I am Marcus King, a mage of the Great Sea Academy. Thank you for helping me in my time of need.”

The teenager, Elid, visibly became more interested in him, his eyes lighting up at his introduction.

“Great Sea Academy?” Pellast said slowly. “That is quite far from here. What brings you this far east?”

“I just returned from the Eastern Lands, all the way on the other side of the world,” Marcus casually explained. “I’m really just passing through. While we’re on the topic, where are we exactly? I can’t tell how long it’s been since I passed out, and the roads here are unfamiliar to me.”

Yes, Marcus – play dumb and pretend you weren’t lost to begin with, blackout or no blackout. Thankfully, his benefactor didn’t see anything wrong with that admission.

“You haven’t been out for long. A few hours at most,” Pellast assured him. “We are not close to any major town, but we should reach Maiden’s Rest in a few hours.”

“Maiden’s Rest… that doesn’t sound familiar to me,” Marcus admitted.

“It’s a small settlement, barely even a village, but we should be able to find food and shelter there,” Pellast explained. “It’s close to the Blue Springs Monastery, if you know where that is.”

“Ah! Yes, I do know where that is,” Marcus confirmed, very pleased with himself. He finally knew where he was, and he didn’t even have to admit to the man he was lost.

“Once we get there, you can decide whether to part ways or continue accompanying us,” Pellast casually added.

…continue accompanying us? Marcus gave Pellast a scrutinizing look. Now wasn’t that interesting. He could pass over them picking him up after finding him unconscious as simple kindness, but this was something else. Pellast clearly wanted him to continue travelling with them for some reason.

“There… there is safety in numbers, sir,” Pellast said, coughing into his fist uncomfortably. He had clearly noticed Marcus’s scrutinizing gaze on him. “Especially in turbulent times like these.”

“Turbulent times?” Marcus asked.

“You don’t know?” Pellast asked, surprised. “Oh, you did say you’ve just returned from the Eastern Lands. Of course you don’t know, such journeys take years to complete. Do you know about the First Academy War?”

“First Academy War?” Marcus asked, frowning. “I know about the Academy War. I departed the lands of the Silver League not long after it ended.”

In fact, he had played a crucial role in ending that conflict. It was one of his proudest achievements. Hard to forget something like that.

“That was the First Academy War,” Pellast said, nodding. “There was a second one, which ended just recently. Mere months before our meeting, in fact.”

“But Veldoran is dead,” Marcus protested. “Why would there be a second war? Did he get resurrected through dark magic?”

“No, Veldoran remains dead and buried to my knowledge,” Pellast said thoughtfully. “Though you can never be sure of anything when magic gets involved. And it’s not like mages explain much of anything to us common folk. At the end of the day, I’m really just a small-time merchant from Sycaruse.”

Marcus shook his head, dropping the issue. Pellast was right – only a mage or another adept could tell him what this ‘Second Academy War’ was about, and even then not all of them were qualified to know the details.

“So what does this have to do with safety in numbers?” Marcus asked. “The war is over. Shouldn’t have things calmed down by now?”

“Somewhat,” Pellast said. “Unfortunately, having two major conflicts in the span of six years seems to have drained the Great Powers of their manpower, and they’ve withdrawn their presence from many border areas. Such as this one.”

“Ah,” Marcus said.

“Bandits and other villains are now everywhere these days. I am told that rogue mages have been wandering the lands, claiming to represent various organizations, demanding ‘contributions’ and generally bullying people. Terrible times, really.”

Terrible times, yes. However, Marcus was in no real danger from these kinds of vultures menacing travelers and outlying settlements. What’s more, Pellast and his son couldn’t provide him any support if they did end up encountering any such dangers. If Marcus ended up travelling with Pellast and his son, that would obviously be good for them, as they would suddenly get a powerful mage accompanying them on their journey… but what would Marcus get out of that?

Absolutely nothing, that’s what.

That said, his head still ached and he didn’t want to rush back to the Great Sea Academy until he found out what this ‘Second Academy War’ thing was all about. Perhaps taking some time to recover and gather his bearings would be a wise thing to do.

“Where are you travelling to, anyway?” Marcus asked Pellast. “I want to travel west. Towards the Great Sea Academy.”

“We’re also travelling west,” Pellast quickly said. “Towards Crystal Mountain Academy. We can travel part of the way together and go our separate ways when the time comes.”

“Crystal Mountain Academy? You’re taking your son to apply as a student there?” Marcus guessed, glancing at Elid, who was entirely quiet up until now. Marcus assumed he was uncomfortable talking in front of the scary stranger, unlike the older and more gregarious Pellast.

“Yes, exactly,” Pellast nodded. “There is some time before the examinations begin, but it’s a long journey and I figured it would be best to set off early to ward off any accidents. Besides, the early bird gets the worm. Ha ha, I closed many a deal in the past by making a move before my competitors even arrived on the scene…”

Pellast seemed to be a really talkative and friendly man. He launched into a series of tales about his previous trade adventures, treating Marcus like they were old friends rather than recent acquaintances. For the life of him, Marcus couldn’t decide if this was just a cynical ploy to make him friendlier, and thus more willing to act as their bodyguard on this journey, or if the man was really just that kind of person.

In any case, he decided to accompany the father and son duo for a little while longer.

* * * *

Their stay at Maiden’s Rest was brief. Like Pellast said, the place was barely even a village. It was a roadside inn with 4 other houses beside it. The three of them ordered a quick meal at the inn and decided to be on their way the moment they were done eating.

The good news was that Marcus was gradually recovering from… whatever that vision was. He was still not fully fine, but his headache was subsiding and his thoughts were less muddled and erratic now. Now that his mind had cleared and he had time to think, he could reach some conclusions about what had happened to him. He didn’t like any of them.

The oak tree was irrelevant, he decided. He was tempted to rush back to the pond and examine the oak tree in more detail, but he knew he would find nothing there. It was just an oak tree. The vision he had witnessed had clearly been divine in nature. No one could convince him that no god was involved in the incident. If the oak tree was in any way related to the divines, he wanted nothing to do with it. He didn’t want to be anywhere near it! An examination of a divine conduit was certain to reveal nothing, and may very well provoke whatever force sent him that vision.

As for the idea the vision was just a random hallucination, he dismissed that notion immediately. His memories of the vision were confusing but vivid. They were burned into his memory with irresistible, unnatural force. But what did this all mean? Was the dying world in his vision a portent of things to come? Surely not. Besides, what could Marcus do about an event of such magnitude? What could any mortal do?

Was the message meant for him specifically? Then, how did they know Marcus would chance upon that specific oak tree when he did? How far back was this whole thing set up? Or was the vision set to trigger for anyone who happened to touch the oak tree in question?

Maybe he should have put up a warning next to the pond. ‘Beware of apocalyptic visions.’

In times like this, he appreciated Pellast’s incessant babbling. The merchant’s tales distracted him from his heavy thoughts and occasionally even made him laugh. Act or not, the man had a way of setting people at ease.

“Are you really a mage of the Great Sea Academy?” Elid asked him.

The boy was gradually becoming more talkative as time went by. This was the third time he had asked him something, and all of it connected to mages in some way. It made sense, since Elid was looking to become a mage himself, soon enough.

“Of course,” he answered. What kind of question was that? Even if he was lying about his identity, why would he admit that in response to a simple question?

“What rank are you?” Elid asked. It was a bit rude to ask that so bluntly, but fine.

“Fifth rank,” Marcus lied.

“Fifth!? You lie!” Elid accused.

“Elid!” Pellast scolded him loudly, before turning towards Marcus. “Forgive my son, sir, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He didn’t mean to question your honor.”

“But fifth rank, that’s like being a living legend!” Elid protested. “There must be less than 50 people like that in the whole Silver League. There’s no way that he is one of…”

Seeing his father’s worsening expression, Elid suddenly seemed to think of something and immediately lost his cool.

“Yeah, u-umm… I don’t know what I’m talking about,” the boy stammered hurriedly. “I was just shocked, that’s all. It’s not every day you meet a rank five powerhouse, ha ha ha…”

It was a smart reaction, in all honesty. Even if he was, say, a second rank mage, that was still more than an unarmed merchant and his teenage son could handle on their own. It was unwise for them to question his honor and power, even if they suspected him of being a bit of a braggart.

“Just be careful with your words in the future,” Marcus said casually, taking a metal bottle out of his backpack and taking a sip from it. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you something. Why are you applying to the Crystal Mountain Academy? The Sun-Moon Temple, Heartfire Academy, and Four Elements Academy are all closer to Sycaruse. Is there some specific reason Crystal Mountain appeals to you? They suffered a great deal of damage in the Academy War. I doubt the second one helped them recover any faster. They’re probably not anyone’s first choice for academy applications right now.”

He didn’t mention Poisonwater or Raven Temple, as they had a poor reputation among many people, and it wouldn’t be strange at all if Pellast automatically discounted them from consideration.

In any case, a strange silence answered his question. Elid shifted uncomfortably in his seat. What? What did he say? Were they still bothered by his claim of being a fifth rank mage?

“Oh, I get it… it’s because Crystal Mountain is in such bad shape that you want to go there,” Marcus mused out loud. “I guess you already paid someone to do tests on Elid already. Bad results, huh?”

“I… I didn’t do badly at all!” Elid protested. “It’s just… I didn’t have anything special going for me. I have no special affinity to any of the elements, no dormant bloodline, no wildtalent, no nothing. Those jerks from Heartfire only care about special people! I could resonate with several foundation techniques, but it didn’t matter. ‘Only average’ they said. Hmph!”

Elid sounded really aggrieved at the situation, but Marcus understood why the Heartfire representatives acted as they did. Heartfire Academy was arguably the most powerful and prestigious academy in the entire Silver League. Only the Great Sea Academy could claim to be their rival. Even if Elid had what it took to become a mage, what did that mean to Heartfire? They had an endless stream of talents knocking on their door, begging to be admitted into such a prestigious organization. The competition for every available slot was intense, and a child of low birth and average potential, with nothing notable going for them, couldn’t possibly be admitted without causing a stir among the families of other hopefuls.

In fact, this was true for pretty much all Great Academies, not just the Heartfire Academy. Without something to make him stand out from the crowd of other hopefuls, Elid would be immediately turned away from all of them.

“Pher and Davell are my personal friends, and they conducted your examination as a personal favor to me,” Pellast told Elid. “They did not even charge anything for it. They don’t deserve you badmouthing them like this.”

Elid did not say anything to that, folding his hands over his chest in obvious discontent. He was clearly still bitter about the outcome.

Pellast sighed. “In any case, you hit the nail right on the head, sir. We are going to the Crystal Mountain Academy because they’re in a bad state right now and might be willing to give Elid a chance. Is this your payback for Elid doubting your rank? Truly, the might of a fifth rank mage shouldn’t be underestimated, even in a battle of words…”

Elid’s eyes widened in shock. He gave Marcus a disbelieving look, as if he couldn’t believe he fell for Marcus’s provocation.

Actually, Marcus didn’t plan any of that. However, he was going to pretend Pellast was right and that this was all his cunning revenge for Elid’s careless words. As such, he silently stared back at Elid until the boy looked away in fear.

Another victory for Marcus.

Before the conversation could continue, they were interrupted by an unholy racket coming from a black cloud up ahead. A huge flock of birds of all sorts was making their way towards them, cawing, chirping, screaming, and otherwise making as much noise as possible.

“What is that about?” Pellast wondered out loud. He didn’t sound too concerned. Birds could be pretty weird sometimes.

“No idea,” Marcus admitted. Although he spent a lot of time camping in the wilderness, he would never describe himself as an animal expert.

The flock soon flew over them, heading in the opposite direction to where they were going. The three of them thought nothing of it, regarding it as a mere curiosity, until they saw a herd of deer running in the same direction… followed by a pack of wolves running next to them, completely disinterested in the deer.

Even the oxen pulling the cart were getting unruly all of the sudden, as if wanting to turn around and run in the opposite direction.

Something was wrong.

“Stop the wagon,” Marcus ordered.

“I was just about to turn around,” Pellast said. “The animals know something and I don’t want to face what they’re all running away from.”

Once the wagon was stationary, Marcus drew upon his mana reserves and poured some into his eyes. His eyesight instantly became sharper, allowing him to see over vast distances. His headache, which had mostly subsided by now, suddenly surged back into existence and demanded he stop what he was doing, but he ignored it. He placed his hand on the Orb of Flight hanging from his belt and activated its ability as well. He immediately shot up into the air, giving him a nice, clear vantage point to observe his surroundings.

He looked at the horizon in front of them and immediately swore a curse at the sight. The anomaly was still faint at this distance, but with his enhanced eyesight he could clearly see the streams of multicolored light dancing across the sky, moving towards them. Like a multitude of rainbow rivers meandering across the heavenly firmament, merging and splitting.

He immediately descended back to the wagon, deactivated both the Orb of Flight and his eye enhancement, and turned towards Pellast.

“It’s a chaos storm,” he told them. “We have to take shelter immediately.”

“What? No… no, it can’t be,” Pellast protested, his expression paling. “It’s not the season!”

“Chaos storms are unpredictable,” Marcus told him seriously. “This isn’t the first time one came ahead of schedule. We have to act fast; I trust I don’t have to explain to you what will happen to us if it catches us out in the open like this.”

“But we’re in the middle of nowhere,” Elid protested weakly. “There is flat ground all around us, barely even any trees. Where are we going to go?”

“We, we have to turn around,” Pellast said shakily. “If we abandon the cart and the oxen and run, maybe we can reach–”

“There is no need,” Marcus said, looking around them once more. Just like Elid said, they were in a really bad spot at the moment, far from any convenient cover. “I will make us a shelter.”

He hopped off the wagon and picked a spot by the road nearby. Tapping into his mana reserves once more, he cast the Shape Earth spell, and the ground began to move around him and solidify. It took a little while, but gradually a great dome of hardened earth began to take shape.

By the time he was finished, the streams of rainbow energy had already started to approach their position and the oxen were panicking.

“Done. Bring the oxen and anything corruptible into the dome, quickly,” Marcus ordered.

Pellast and Elid did not argue with him. Actually, they seemed to have already unloaded everything from the wagon while he was shaping the earth, and were ready to bolt in with their belongings the moment he gave them permission to do so. In but a few moments, everything living or edible was brought inside.

Marcus had just about sealed away the entrance when a fox suddenly bolted inside, making a dash straight past Marcus to make it into the safety of the artificial cave. It ignored Elid’s shout of surprise and promptly hid itself in the back of the dome, behind the two frightened oxen shivering on the floor.

Marcus decided to ignore it. It would be pointless cruelty to throw it back into the chaos storm outside, and he somewhat admired its boldness.

A tense silence descended on the scene. Although it was named ‘chaos storm’, the phenomena wasn’t overtly violent. There were no rain or heavy winds, usually – just a curtain of vivid colors flowing across the landscape, accompanied by weird tinkling sounds, like a thousand unearthly chimes swaying in invisible wind.

Plants fared a lot better than animals, which was fortunate. Marcus had no doubt that all life on the planet would have perished by now if the chaos storms affected the plants the same way they did people and animals. Most plants couldn’t move, after all, let alone take shelter when they sensed a storm approaching.

“You… you really are a mage…” Elid eventually said, breaking the heavy atmosphere.

Marcus laughed at the inane observation.

Pellast simply sighed at the scene, not even bothering to scold his son like he probably wanted to. This sudden disaster had clearly left him emotionally drained for the moment.

Marcus glanced at the oxen at the back of the dome. He’d been worried that they might go berserk from the storm, but they seemed pretty docile at the moment, content to huddle together and wait. The fox peeked out from its hiding spot to assess the situation, but immediately hid behind the oxen when it saw Marcus looking back at it.

“It’s pretty dark here,” Elid complained.

“Hmm, you’re right,” said Marcus. “It kind of is.”

He pointed his finger above his head, and a fist-sized sphere of white light materialized above it. Following his mental command, the sphere flew to the top of the dome, from where it illuminated the entire space.

“Better?” he asked.

“Much better,” Elid confirmed.

After that, everyone settled down into a tense but comfortable wait, listening to the sound of unearthly chimes faintly audible through the earthen walls of the dome. When the sound stopped, it would be safe to come out.

Until then, they could only sit back and wait.

* * * *

By the time the chimes fell silent and the chaos storm passed, night had already fallen. Marcus unsealed the entrance of the dome and walked outside, where he took stock of the situation.

There was no sign of devastation… not that he expected there to be any. Chaos storms did not leave a trail of destruction behind them unless they were combined with more mundane disasters.

He looked at the night sky, and found it gloriously empty. Not only were there no colorful rivers making their way across it, there weren’t even any clouds obstructing the stars. They shone particularly bright tonight.

Also clearly visible was the moon. The moon was full tonight – a perfect circle of pale white light illuminating the night. It made the network of black cracks covering the entire surface of the moon particularly stark and obvious. The cracks resembled a spider’s web, radiating outwards from the seeming center of the moon, and were said to have been created by the Spider Goddess in the ancient past, to seal away the moon’s madness and protect the people below. In the center of the Moon’s Web, the stories said, there was a magnificent Moonlight Palace where the goddess dwells to this very day, keeping everyone safe.

The moon and its web of cracks were not a new thing by any means, and Marcus had witnessed this sight many times in the past. Even children would regard the sight as fairly mundane. Nonetheless, Marcus found himself drawn to the sight now, lost in thought. The divine vision he had received recently also featured a series of cracks spreading across a celestial body – and it resulted in the total destruction of that world.

Those two things couldn’t possibly be related, though, could they? The moon’s face had been marred by cracks for an unfathomable amount of time now. Even the elves and the selenites said the spider web on the moon had existed for as long as their people had been recording history. The cracks on the moon had always been there, and never caused issue for anyone.

Still, the vision he experienced was burned into his mind. He couldn’t forget it, no matter how much he tried. It demanded to be taken seriously, bubbling to the forefront of his consciousness from time to time. So he kept staring at the moon, trying to glimpse some kind of clue on its scarred surface.

“I shudder to think what would become of us if you hadn’t been there with us,” said Pellast, approaching him from behind. “We would have had to abandon our wagon and all our belongings, and who knows whether we would have reached shelter in time or not. Our meeting was clearly ordained by fate. The Pale Lady is watching over us. I will build her a shrine when I return home and pray to her every day for a whole year for this mercy.”

He gazed at the moon reverently for a moment before bowing his head, closing his eyes, and clasping his hands in front of him in silent prayer.

Marcus frowned slightly. Although he found his reaction a little overdramatic, it was kind of true that their meeting was a result of divine intervention. If he hadn’t been stricken with that vision, he would have never lost consciousness, and thus wouldn’t have ended up being taken by Pellast’s wagon to recover.

However, was Telaneith really the one responsible for this? She was the goddess of the moon and fate, and patron to magic workers, so it made sense for Pellast to attribute his luck to her. However, Marcus had received his vision through an oak tree, and they were associated with Perun. Perun was also the god Marcus prayed to most often. However, sending visions was something Telaneith was more likely to do than Perun…

After a few more moments of indecision, Marcus decided to give a brief prayer to both of them. They were both a part of the Illuminated Pantheon, so there should be no harm in honoring both of them, and this way he didn’t risk offending either.

His prayers done, he turned to his left. There, he found the fox from earlier staring at him.

“What is it?” he asked it. Pellast gave him a strange look.

“Thank you for letting me stay in your cave while the storm lasted,” the fox said, speaking in a very natural human-like voice. “I don’t have anything to give you, but if fate wills it, and you need my help in the future, I will remember this kindness.”

“You’re welcome,” Marcus said, unsurprised that it was intelligent and could talk. He had suspected as much from the beginning. “Next time, be polite and properly introduce yourself, instead of skulking around like a thief.”

The fox’s snout twisted into what was unmistakably a grin. Then, without another word, it bolted away and disappeared into the night.

“Did that fox really talk just now?” Pellast asked in disbelief.

“Yes. It’s just an awakened animal,” Marcus told him. “It’s not a big deal. They’re rare, but not too rare.”

“First time I ever saw one,” Pellast countered.

“Maybe. Or maybe you’ve seen more of them in the past, but mistook them for mundane animals because they didn’t deign to talk to you,” Marcus said.

“Hrm. Maybe,” Pellast conceded. “What a strange day. I think I will just retire for the night now.”

“I guess I should do the same,” Marcus said, suddenly aware that he was not exactly in great shape. His headache had never fully subsided, and he even felt physically tired. He didn’t know why a forced vision would induce physical exhaustion in someone, but there was no denying reality.

“I don’t like sleeping out in the open like this, though,” Pellast said, clacking his tongue. “What if something or someone attacks us in our sleep? The two of us should alternate between sleeping and keeping watch.”

“What about me?” said Elid, approaching them. “I can watch over the campsite while you sleep. I don’t feel tired at all!”

“Son, you are my pride and joy, but I don’t trust you with this at all,” Pellast said. “How many times have you said this to me in the past, only for me to wake up in the morning and find you snoring beside me? Given how strange this day has been, I dare not take chances.”

“It was just once or twice…” Elid mumbled, embarrassed.

“Honestly, there is no need for any of us to stay awake in my opinion,” Marcus said. “If anyone tries to hurt us, Chompy will defend us.”

“Chompy?” Elid asked curiously. “Who is that?”

“Another talking animal?” Pellast guessed.

“No, it’s my summoned earth elemental,” Marcus told them. “He has been trailing us below ground all this time, ready to defend me if I encountered any danger.”

Sadly, ‘hostile visions’ wasn’t something Chompy recognized as a danger. Though if Pellast and his son had been vicious enough to try and kill Marcus while he was unconscious, the elemental would have crushed them to death before they could even scream. The same would happen to any wild animal that tried their luck with him.

He tapped his staff on the ground in a specific pattern, causing earth to tremble beside him for a moment. A second later, a large worm made out of soil and rocks broke out of the earth, causing virtually no disruption in the surrounding earth as it did so. It coiled around Marcus like a snake, swinging its head in all directions to check its surroundings. Its head was eyeless and ringed with triangular, pearly white teeth – when it pointed it towards Pellast and his son, they immediately backed away a couple of steps.

Thankfully, they were made of slightly sterner stuff than most common people, and didn’t run away in panic. Marcus was gratified that his faith in them wasn’t misplaced. It probably helped that Chompy didn’t make any obviously aggressive moves towards them.

He patted the worm’s head lovingly, and Chompy squealed in a high pitched manner that didn’t appear to belong on this kind of horrifying creature.

“This thing has been beside you all this time?” Pellast asked fearfully.

“Yes,” Marcus confirmed. “Earth elementals can glide effortlessly through the earth, so it was no trouble for him to follow me around as we moved. Admittedly he’s not that strong, but he can ward off wild animals and other simple threats. Even if we get attacked by something he can’t handle on his own, he’ll raise a lot of noise and wake us up. Best of all, he doesn’t need to sleep. He can watch over us during the night easily.”

“That’s not… I mean, what would have happened–“ Pellast tried. “No, no matter. I’m tired. This has been a long day. I’m going to sleep.”

“Umm…” Elid hesitated, before deciding not to say anything. He just kept throwing Chompy fearful glances until the earth elemental sank back into the earth and disappeared from sight.

Uncaring about their mental anguish, Marcus retrieved a blanket from his backpack and quickly set himself a makeshift bed with practiced ease. He had been sleeping in the wild for several weeks now, so this was perfectly ordinary for him.

He fell into deep sleep almost immediately after lying down.