Mages path 3, p.5
Mage's Path 3, page 5
“I can see how the dungeons must be a blessing to folks like that, to be sure!” Jack said. “And there must be more fighters getting ready to run dungeons now too, I guess?”
“Oh, yeah,” the man said. “Too many. Now word has spread and the guild is becoming active, everyone wants in on the action.”
“How’s the guild coming along?” Jack asked, a sudden thought occurring to him. “I heard it was proposed—what’s the progress?”
“It’s well established now,” the man replied. “It started in the upper room of an inn off the high street in Trader’s Crossing, but now they’ve gotten a whole floor in the Trader’s Crossing guild house, and there’s talk of making a whole building for them. The number of adventurers is growing fast.”
“And are you in the guild?”
The old fighter chuckled. “Why, I’m a founder member! I’m not on the decision-making council, but I know how these things work. Chances are, dungeon running is going to be limited to guild members within the month, and there will be limited places available as a member. Fighting’s my life. When I heard the guild was starting, I made sure to get involved as quickly as I could.”
“Sounds sensible,” Jack said. “I’m Jack, and this is Melinda. And what’s your name?”
“Ah, I’m Brand. Brand the Blade, they call me.” Brand stood and stepped up to Jack, extending his calloused sword hand. Jack shook with him, and then Brand gave Melinda a surprisingly courtly bow. “Pleased to meet you both,” he said. “And now if you’ll excuse me, it’s the end of my watch and time for me to wake one of my sluggard companions to take over!”
“Just one thing before you go,” Jack said to Brand.
“Yes?” the man said, turning back to look curiously at Jack.
“There’s some news that you should know, and that you should share with the guild. Some news that will be of interest to all adventurers.”
“What’s that then?” Brand asked, paying keen attention now.
“Just this. Soon, the guild will have less need to limit its members. This will not be the only dungeon available before long. I believe that by the time this winter is finished and the spring buds are on the trees, there will be active dungeons all across the north of the Noonlands, and there will need to be adventurers and guildsfolk to match!”
Brand raised an eyebrow skeptically. “That sounds a little too good to be true,” he said. “And I confess, I’m not sure how a lad like you would have such news. Where does this come from?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you now,” Jack said, giving Brand a wink. “But I guarantee it. By the time the spring comes, dungeons will have returned to the Noonlands in force. Gather your fighter friends and build your guilds! The world is changing, and you will be the first to know about it!”
Chapter 4
They left Brand the fighter looking bemused next to his glowing campfire. As soon as they got out of earshot, Jack stopped and bent double, laughing silently and holding his sides.
“Silly,” Melinda chuckled. “Come on, they’ll hear you.”
“Whoo!” Jack gasped, his mirth receding a little. “Sorry. But did you see the look on his face?”
Melinda laughed. “Yes. And I think that was a brilliant idea, to be honest.”
“Good,” Jack said, growing serious again. “I think it’s going to be an integral part of success in this venture. The guildsmen, the fighters, the trade routes and new trade goods that the dungeons bring to the world—we’ll be bringing radical changes everywhere we go.”
“Probably in ways we can’t even predict,” Melinda said.
Jack nodded. “Exactly. And if that’s going to be the case, then establishing good relations with the guilds and keeping up to date with their development is going to be important.”
“And how are you planning to go about that?”
“I’m not certain yet,” Jack said with a frown. “The temptation to reveal myself to the guilds is certainly strong, but I think that may not be such a good plan, at least not yet. We still don’t know what the story is with Nightvale, and until things are clearer with what’s going on there I think it makes the most sense to keep a low profile. I could present myself as a traveling adventurer and tell the guilds about the new dungeons that way, but the deception would be clumsy.”
“Now that you’ve met Brand and given him that teaser, in all likelihood he’ll investigate any message coming from you. Once we activate the next dungeon, send him a message at the Trader’s Crossing guild house. He’ll not ignore it, I’d be willing to bet money on that. Once they investigate and find out it’s true, they won’t care how you know!”
“That’s probably the simplest way of doing it. Good thinking!”
“Always happy to help,” Melinda said, giving him a demure smile and fluttering her eyelashes at him.
They laughed. Jack expected another of those awkward moments, but it didn’t come. They were just friends, having a laugh and planning their next step.
“Come on,” Jack said, looking up at the night sky. “Let’s make a move.”
He drew on the now—familiar ice wraith pathway within his mana pool, letting the mana stored in his pool flow through the spell and out to the tips of his fingers. Then, with a slight effort, he pushed the mana out and forward. Pure magic flowed from his fingertips and hit the ground a few feet away, and immediately a patch of ice appeared on the muddy ground. It gleamed white in the dimness under the trees, and after a moment there was a crackling noise like ice on a frozen pool cracking underfoot.
Something began to rise out of the ice, and Jack pushed a little more mana into the spell to speed the process along. It had been a while since he’d done any summoning. It was immensely satisfying. His magic responded to him like the strings of an instrument under the fingers of a master player, singing out in strong, familiar patterns and diverting into unexpected byways.
Melinda gasped when the wraith slowly rose from the ice, as if dragged up by a string.
Jack reveled in the deep satisfaction he got from using his powers. He had all the powers of a dungeon spirit, but the powers were contained in the body and mind of a man, rather than in a crystal fixed in place in a dungeon. Jack could summon and direct monsters, and even set traps in his environment, and he could absorb new items and monsters and recreate them again using only pure magic. This marvelous power was unheard of until the advent of the Aetherborn.
‘Aetherborn’ was what that dungeon core called him, right before it granted Jack this power. He absorbed that dungeon core, and his life had changed forever.
Magic crackled in the air when the ice wraith was fully materialized. It hovered before Jack, ready for his command. It was big, nearly seven feet tall, but its body was ill-defined and wraithlike, as if it were made of mist that had drawn together and solidified, but always seemed to be on the verge of dissipating. Through its translucent body Jack could see the outline of the trees behind it.
The creature had no legs or feet—its floating body ended in a ragged wisp of fading mist a few inches off the ground. It did have a face of sorts—a dark, shaded space atop the misty body, with only two white, icy gleams where the eyes should be and no other clear facial features. When Jack had first encountered and absorbed the ice wraith, its face had been ugly, skull-like, and demonic. It had slowly changed after being stored in his library of summoning spells, however. The evil face had gone, to be replaced by this eerie shadowed head. It was still creepy—the ice wraith looked like… well, like a wraith. But the sense of pure, unadulterated evil had left it, and it now had the appearance of a benign ghost.
Its two long arms hung gently down by its sides. They were skeletal—very thin and very black, more like bare tree branches in winter than like arms. There was no sign of hands, but Jack knew that if the wraith was in battle mode it would sprout long, deadly, razor-sharp talons.
But the most impressive—and arguably the most useful—feature of the wraiths was that they could fly, and so they could be used as mounts. And they were fast, much faster than a horse on the ground would have been. Jack had used them more than once to get quickly from place to place.
Lachlan warned him once that as a summoner, he should be wary of using his summoned monsters as beasts of burden or for other mundane purposes, but he had not been explicit about what exactly would go wrong. So far, there had been no negative consequences, and riding on the wraiths was so useful and saved so much time that it was hard to turn it down as an option.
He repeated the spell to create another wraith, for Melinda to ride. Soon enough, a second, slightly smaller wraith appeared beside the first.
There was an invisible link between Jack and the wraiths. He used this link to command them, communicate with them, and guide them. They still had a will of their own, and could defend themselves and take independent action if needed, but they would also do what Jack asked without question or hesitation. When one was destroyed, the mana that it was created from was reabsorbed into Jack’s pool, and a new one could be immediately produced.
With a glance and a nod, Melinda and Jack stepped forward together. Jack became aware of a magical connection that was appearing between Melinda and the smaller of the two wraiths. That was interesting. This way the wraith would know what she needed, which was obviously most useful, as she was going to be its rider. He smiled as the wraiths floated down into a more horizontal position, presenting their backs like trained horses getting ready to be ridden on a mission.
As he mounted his wraith, Jack heard a sudden gasp and a cry from back up the path. The two wraiths immediately rose into the air, and Jack looked to see the source of the cry.
“It’s Brand!” Melinda said from the back of her wraith. “He’s followed us!”
“By death’s eyes!” Brand muttered as the band of adventurers closed in. “This is the lad I was telling you about. Look at that, he’s riding a ghost!”
“Ghostrider!” The others called. “Jack the Ghostrider!”
Jack urged his wraith toward them, then pulled up.
“Adventurers!” he cried. “The world is changing. Prepare yourselves for the arrival of new dungeons! Keep watch at the guild for a message from me, and pay attention when it comes!”
With that, he turned his wraith upwards and rose with sudden speed towards and past the treetops. Melinda let out a whoop of sheer delight as her wraith followed, taking its cue from Jack’s. The sky above glittered with a million stars and the new moon hung low in the sky far off to the east. They were heading west, away from the moon and toward the sea.
It was freezing cold in the air above the trees. They hunkered down on the backs of the ice wraiths as the wind whistled by their ears, making it impossible to talk. The wind drew tears from their eyes and made their cheeks sting and their fingers go numb even through their woolen gloves—but it was incredibly exhilarating too.
Within minutes, they’d passed Trader’s Crossing on their right and were heading northwest, following the dark ribbon of the road as it spun out between the patchwork of farm fields and woodlands below them. The dungeon Jack was looking for was a ways off still, he knew, off to the left of the road, near the source of a stream.
He decided to use his magic senses, so they could find the most direct route.
His magical awareness gently settled over his regular senses. He became more aware of the presence and power that drove the wraith, of the connection between himself and the wraith, and even of the lifeforce of Melinda beside him.
And there was something else.
It was Melinda’s magic. What was she doing?
He looked at her, seeing her with his eyes at the same time as he sensed the contours of her life force and the working of her magic spell. What on earth…?
Despite the cold, Melinda was sitting up on her wraith. Her hood was pushed back, and her gleaming hair was being blown back in the wind. She looked totally at ease.
With an effort, Jack brought his magical awareness into sharper focus, and then it hit him. She was doing fire magic! He could see it, a flowing, gyrating loop of power that moved through her body, from her head to her hands, through her feet and the tips of her fingers.
Brilliant! he though, and immediately summoned fire from his own mana pool.
It was tricky—Jack was more used to sending magic out from himself. He was much more of an external mage than an internal mage, and activating a spell but keeping it within the confines of his own body was something he hadn’t practiced all that much.
Now, he moved the spell slowly, carefully, steadily as he increased the power that flowed through it and the rate at which it moved through his body. It was like setting a wheel spinning, Jack thought. The spell was like a mill wheel, the magic like the water that turned it, Jack himself like the rain feeding the stream. He smiled, and let some more magic flow through.
The effects were immediate. It felt amazing. Warmth flowed through him and he suddenly felt as comfortable as if he had just slipped into a warm bath. He straightened his back, loosened his grip on the wraith, and pushed his hood back. He’d not realized how tense he’d been, straining against the cold.
Now he opened himself up to the night. Here he was, flying through the air under the mighty stars, a staunch friend at his side and immense power at his fingertips. What could be better? Sure, there would be challenges to overcome, difficulties and dangers to face. Perhaps they would even fail at their task. But none of that could change the fact that this moment right here was perfect.
He grinned across the gap at Melinda—and she was turning to look at him just in that same moment. The howling of the wind in their ears made it impossible to speak, but they did not need to. He could see in her eyes that she felt the same as he did.
Laughing with the sheer joy and wonder of it all, they sped on into the night.
* * *
Dawn was breaking over the land when Jack saw what he was looking for—a bend in the road that he recognized from the map. He slowed down and edged closer to Melinda. She slowed her speed as well, scanning the ground below as the light broke like a golden wave across the endless landscape before them.
“Down there!” he called through the still-rushing wind. “Just where the road bends north! That’s where we’re going!”
Melinda nodded and adjusted her course. Jack quickly looked up and down the road and saw nothing. Then he let his magical senses take over and did it again. He could see the lifeforce of small animals in the undergrowth and scrubby woodland on either side of the road, but there was no sign of any people.
“All clear,” he called and then sent his wraith into a dive. Moments later, he landed beside Melinda on the hard packed dirt of the road.
“Winter is well and truly here,” Melinda said, looking around. The road was frozen beneath their feet, and pockets of frost still glittered in shadows that the sun had not yet reached. In the distance, a range of hills were topped with a white dusting of snow.
“I liked that trick of yours with the Internal Fire magic,” Jack said.
“I came up with it ages ago, back when we were on the frozen plain at Skalgaard, but I forgot all about it until we took off on those wraiths,” Melinda said.
“Speaking of wraiths…” Jack said, and extended a hand toward the two tall, pale figures who waited patiently nearby. As he focused his will on them, they disintegrated into formless clouds of cold mist. The mist moved slowly toward Jack’s hand, then faster and faster, like debris being pulled toward a waterfall on an inexorable current. Then, the mist flowed into the palm of Jack’s hand, and he felt the rush of mana refilling in his pool, followed by a deep satisfaction at the slight increase in his powers.
Every time he used his powers, they got slightly stronger. When he had first begun to summon monsters he had only been able to create one at a time. With practice, he got up to three, and more recently he found he was able to maintain five at a time.
Careful management of his mana pool was very important, however. It wasn’t a good idea to summon five creatures every time. Jack had other spells that he could use—blasts of fire, water, ice, or stone, or trap setting. All these things required mana. It was important to maintain some in reserve.
He knew what could happen when a mage drained their entire mana pool. He had seen it happen, and it wasn’t pretty. Melinda’s pool had been drained nearly empty back at the start of her training, and Lachlan’s had been almost empty after he’d been accidentally pulled through a portal and attacked by an aether monster. Both times, the recovery had taken days and days, leaving the mage in a deeply weakened state. Mana regenerated quickly in a mage’s pool, and the fuller the pool was, the quicker the mana regenerated, but when it was nearly empty it took longer. If it emptied completely, the shock could kill the mage outright.
It wasn’t good to be too liberal with that resource, not until the situation was truly desperate.
“Ah, it feels wonderful to do some summoning again,” Jack said. “It’s been a while.”
“I guess you’ve been concentrating on other skills,” Melinda replied. “Where’s this dungeon? Let’s get a look at that map.”
Jack pulled the map out from a fold in his cloak and unrolled it. He could not see the dungeon with his magical awareness because it was not active. He could have used Guiding Light to find it, but the map worked just as well. They both leaned over to look at it, and Jack moved his position so the sun fell on it. They could see the bend in the road where they stood. South of their position was a black cross with a circle—the symbol the map used to represent the dungeons.
There were several of these black symbols, and a few golden ones. The latter represented dungeons that were currently active, the former the dormant ones. The color of the symbols on the map changed automatically when the status of the dungeon changed. Through some magic neither Jack nor Melinda understood, the map was connected to the dungeons. It was an impressive item, and very useful.
