Mages path 3, p.33
Mage's Path 3, page 33
“Come on, you three,” Lachlan called. Jack looked back. Lachlan was waving to them and smiling.
So, they turned their backs on the remains of the tower, and left it behind forever.
* * *
Wardlake was a large and comfortable estate on the eastern border of the Noonlands. It lay by a wide, deep body of water called the Wardlake. Beyond this lake was the edge of the Wildlands. The Wildlands was an untamed bit of mountainous and rocky territory that was inhabited by some bandit tribes and the odd goblin clan, but few other folk.
The border here was nearly impassable for many miles, made so by the jagged mountain range that stretched most of the length of the northern portion of the border. The only viable passage into the Noonlands from the Wildlands was blocked by the Wardlake, and such was the source of its name.
The house of Mauve, from which Melinda was descended, had at one time been a wealthy and important dynasty. For generations they had fought the roving goblin clans of the Wildlands, and had won great honor in the many victories they had achieved. But for several generations now they had fallen into insignificance; the attacks from the Wildlands had all but stopped, leaving the dynasty of warriors jobless.
Near the lake there was a big, rambling manor house set in extensive grounds, the ancestral home of Melinda’s family. The fertile land along the edge of the lake was farmed, but the rest of the enormous estate had fallen almost entirely into disrepair.
There was work to be done to restore the fortunes of the family—Jack, riding in on Spark with his friends on the insectoid leatherwings beside him, saw that at a glance.
At the approach of the strange party, a small group of people came running out of the manor house and stood, pointing up in fear and amazement. When Jack and his friends landed on the oversized and overgrown lawn in front of the house, and elderly man in the faded livery of the Mauve family came running up, his hands outstretched in greeting as he saw Melinda. He looked to Jack like the senior servant of the household.
“Oh, Mistress Melinda!” he cried in a wavering voice. “How glad I am to see you! You have come just in time!”
“Reginald!” Melinda said, rushing forward and taking the old man’s liver-spotted hands in hers. “Whatever is the matter? Just in time for what?”
“To save us!” the old man wailed. “To save us, and to save the honor of your house!”
“What is this tale?” Melinda said, taking control of the situation as a group of other servants came rushing up to greet her. “Tell me swiftly what has happened.”
“Your father has died, mistress,” the old servant Reginald said, “only a fortnight ago. His estate passes to you as his only child, and yet it was thought you were dead. Only this morning the king’s bailiffs came to claim the estate for the crown, as is the law in cases when an estate owner dies without leaving an heir.” Reginald pointed an accusing finger at a black-clad, official-looking man who had hung back, glaring at the new arrivals. “This man here is Commissioner Proctor, the king’s official messenger.”
“Aye,” Proctor said. “And I have very clear orders. Do you say that you are truly the heir to this estate?”
“I am,” Melinda said. “Melinda Mauve is my name, and I was sent away by my father a year ago to learn magic and make my fortune. Both of these I have now done, and I return now to take up my rightful inheritance.”
The officious bailiff was—perhaps understandably—less than happy about this situation. He had traveled far to carry out his commission, and had fully expected to be able to claim a fat fee as part of his work in breaking up the Wardlake estate. As it was, he found himself deprived of both his fee and the chance of success in his mission.
He made a fuss, demanding to see many proofs of Melinda’s heritage and identity. He seemed to care more about winning the estate than about the fact that Melinda had arrived on the back of a half-insect, half-dragon monster, and in the company of an actual dragon, too!
Eventually, however, the man had to accept that he was not going to be able to carry out his commission. Melinda paid him a good sum of gold coins as some recompense for his trouble, and he mellowed quickly after that. Eventually the man put his signature to the official document, witnessing that Melinda was indeed the rightful owner for life of Wardlake.
“And now,” Commissioner Proctor said, “I must see to some other commissions that I have. My lord the king has asked me to go on a bit of a reconnaissance mission now that I’m in the north, for he’s heard news of some very strange goings-on in this land, and he wants to know more about it. Dungeons, and newly formed adventurer guilds and whatnot? Why, it sounds like a lot of nonsense to me, but I must do my duty and see if I can get to the root of it.”
It was not nonsense, of course. Jack’s ability to awaken new dungeons had left him when the dungeon had left him, back in the maelstrom of energy when he had fulfilled his destiny of destroying the source of all evil magic. But that did not mean that the dungeons he had awakened had ceased to operate.
Quite the opposite was true.
The dungeons he and Melinda had awakened became stronger and more powerful as time passed, attracting adventurers from all corners of the kingdom to try their luck and get a taste of the wealth that was on offer from this wonderful new phenomenon. The guilds grew and spread from town to town, and the villages and towns that were within a day’s walk of a dungeon prospered from the steady flow of travelers who now appeared on their doorsteps.
Since the awakened dungeons were concentrated along the northern road that led from Trader’s Crossing to Yillin, this part of the Noonlands benefited the most. For generations these northern regions had been somewhat neglected, ignored by a distant king who was more interested in his southern sea trading routes than in his rusticated northern territories.
As the seasons passed, with new wealth and a new influx of people, the towns and cities began to grow. Roads were improved, and shipping lanes from Yillin to the southern ports got busier than they had been in years. New villages sprang up at likely places on the roads, and established villages grew into towns as they sprouted new buildings—inns, guild houses, weapon makers, and potion dealers were especially common.
One of the most welcome and unexpected developments was that other dungeons—ones which had lain derelict for longer than anyone’s living memory—began to awaken of their own accord. It was by no means common, but it did begin to happen here and there. Even the dungeon on the Wardlake estate, by the edge of the water, awoke one day. The existence of a dungeon on the estate was just the economic boost that was needed, and Lord and Lady Mauve of Wardlake—as Jack and Melinda had become by then—took full advantage of it.
They lived quietly, after all their adventures. There was a lot of work to be done. It was the simple, honest labor of a husband and wife in improving their estates and setting up their legacy, and it suited them both just fine. Sometimes they went visiting—they would go to see Carson at Sheepfold on occasion, but mostly they spent their time at home.
There were some odd things about their estate, and they could not help developing a reputation for eccentricity. No one could fail to notice the menagerie of strange creatures that the Lord and Lady kept on their extensive estate, nor the fact that when old Reginald retired, the person put in charge of the household affairs was none other than a goblin!
It was rumored, too, that the owners of the estate were competent mages. With all this, it was not surprising that after a few years of prosperity, they opened a school for those who wished to learn magic. They let it be known that the guilds of the Noonlands were stale and had lost their way. Those who came to the Wardlake school would be taught the magic that suited their skills, and not forced into any dogmatic understanding of what magic was or could be. Mostly, people understood this approach. The Lord and Lady had children of their own, and it was only right that they should want to teach magic in their own way, and to make it more accessible to the community at large.
Jack, Melinda, and their friends kept the Grand portals to Nightvale secret for a long time, largely at the request of Elena and the others who had taken charge of developments in the other world. But eventually, when things in Nightvale had been set right and an elected council of elders was well-established in control of the government there, they agreed to create a publicly accessible Grand portal for the purposes of trade.
It was a great success, and both realms prospered.
Jack’s stepfather, Robin the blacksmith, came to live at Wardlake after a while, and Azhoth and Maia lived with them too, helping with the restoration of the house and the estate grounds. Lachlan traveled back and forth between Nightvale and Wardlake, helping out with the work at both places when he had the chance. As time passed, however, he spent more and more time at Nightvale with Elena, and nobody begrudged him that happiness.
Ivan stayed at Wardlake, however. He had no desire to go to Nightvale again, and being in charge of the extensive household at the Mauve manor was the best outcome he could have hoped for.
As for Spark, he remained a dragon and did not change again, but he spent most of his time about the size of a large dog, and could usually be found asleep with Max the stone beetle, in front of the hall fire in the colder weather, or sprawled in the sun outside when the weather was hot. His brood creatures, the leatherwings, left the estate eventually, taking up residence in the Wildlands and occasionally visiting the estate with news of the far countries they had visited.
Neither Melinda nor Jack ever found much cause to regret the loss of their extreme magical abilities. Melinda’s warlock abilities were more than compensated for by the fact that she could now use elemental magic competently. For Jack, losing his dungeon powers was a small price to pay for knowing that he had saved the world from the council of the Black Hand, freed the demons, and fulfilled the destiny of the Aetherborn. He was a good mage still, and developed his elemental abilities to a high degree as the years passed.
He enjoyed seeing the changes the reintroduction of dungeons had brought to the world. When he and Melinda set up their school, he felt that he had truly found his calling.
Above all, he was repaid for the loss of his dungeon powers by gift of seeing Melinda grow into her own on their estate. She—and their children—were all any man could have ever wanted.
From the day he had left his home village with his dream of learning to cast spells, he had walked the mage’s path. In the end, that path had led him to the best possible place he could ever have imagined.
End of Book 3
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DB King’s stories feature competent main characters, magic and skill progression, and nothing too dark. While he doesn’t shy away from violence, he mostly avoids cursing and doesn’t have any adult scenes. Most of his stories aren't strictly Gamelit/LitRPG, but a lot of his magic and progression systems often feel like something you might find in a video game.
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