About Tower Curator
Stories
6
Chapters
1,021
Words
3.6 M
Comments
5,253
Reading
12 d, 13 h
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Arkk stood alone in a side hallway of the Duke’s manor. He wasn’t sure that he was supposed to be off on his own. In all the commotion of moving the guests around, no one had stopped him and right now, he just didn’t care. Something about seeing Alya standing there behind the Duke ticked him off. He hadn’t meant to lash out. From Ilya’s account of their first visit to Cliff and the various people who had given him information on the Duke’s advisor, he knew that she wasn’t being held…-
772.5 K • Completed
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For all the negativity he had heard with regard to these monthly parties and his own biases against the Duke, Arkk couldn’t say that the party was bad. Strange and alien, yes. Social rituals were being conducted all around him, ones he didn’t quite understand nor could he participate in. Arkk, led through the ballroom first by Hawkwood and then by Aron Wolf, bounced from group to group. He barely had time to talk to any of them before being whisked off to be introduced to the next little clique.…
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772.5 K • Completed
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Arkk looked around the commandeered room of the Cliff’s Edge, eyes meeting with those of the assembled recruits. There were just under forty in total—not including a few he had hired outright earlier in the day before realizing just how many people had shown up. About half were beastmen and a quarter were demihumans with the remainder being humans. Not many. Especially not compared to how many people he had seen throughout the day. It was more than he expected upon arriving at Cliff, however, that…
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772.5 K • Completed
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“Still no sign of the inquisitors?” Vezta shot Arkk a glare. An actual, genuine glare. That was, perhaps, the first time he had ever seen her in any way upset with him. He simply raised an eyebrow. “No, Master. Rest assured that I will inform you the moment I detect any suspicious activity. You do not need to ask me every five steps.” “Just making sure,” Arkk said. Twenty-four hours inside Cliff and still no trap sprung. He was fairly confident that the letter from Hawkwood had…
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772.5 K • Completed
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Returning to the City of Cliff did not fill Arkk with the same sense of wonder and awe that had struck him during his first approach to the city. Cliff hadn’t changed. It was still the largest settlement he had ever seen, far larger than any regular burg, with grandiose buildings and a harbor full of ships that looked too big to float. The temple atop the island mountain in the middle of the bay gleamed in the sun of the early evening, just barely out of reach of the shadow of the mountain that gave…
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772.5 K • Completed
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“It is a trap,” Rekk’ar said, lowering the invitation to the Hawkwood’s dinner down to the meeting table. “Obviously.” “I concur,” Olatt’an said. “The fact that your missives were delivered by a Swiftwing harpy should have been evidence enough of that,” Zullie said, adjusting her rectangular glasses. “They’re reserved for use by the Duke only, for correspondence with important people. The King or the Ecclesiarch. Not random mercenary leaders.” “Forgive me, Master. I…
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772.5 K • Completed
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“You received some letters. Came in by Swiftwing Harpies.” Arkk barely stepped out of the newly fashioned teleportation circle inside the Moonshine camp before being practically assaulted by Ilya waving a set of neatly folded letters in front of his face. One letter had an obvious seal stamped into wax while the other only had a glob keeping it closed. Taking them, he frowned down at both for just a moment before tucking them into his inner jacket pocket. “That’s good. It means people know…
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772.5 K • Completed
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Arkk hunkered down, peering through the twilight-draped brush. A small, lonely hill stood amid the dusty plains. Several buildings sat on top. Large wooden warehouse-style homes, built in a ring around a central plaza. Though he only knew that from scrying. His position at the moment didn’t let him see much more than the spiked tops of wooden fences encircling the top of the hill. All down the hill’s sides, narrow wooden rods jutted out of the mound. Their tips had been shaved to points as well.…
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772.5 K • Completed
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The baron of Moonshine Burg was a scrawny man with deep bags underneath his eyes. Insisting on the mononym of Doble, he invited Arkk to his manor office behind the high walls of the burg’s keep. Pouring a hospitable helping of amber liquid into a crystal glass, he took a seat in front of his paper-covered desk. “Company Al-Mir, you say?” “Heard of us?” Arkk said, taking up the glass and drinking a polite sip. Fine alcohol wasn’t much to his liking. “No.” “Ah. Well, we are a…
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772.5 K • Completed
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“And the inquisitors?” “They look like they just finished their investigation,” Zullie said, peering over the crystal ball. “They didn’t find anything.” “Not even the teleportation circles?” “I think those were destroyed when you collapsed the connecting tunnel.” Frowning, Arkk drummed his fingers on the table. When he collapsed the tunnel, the entirety of the false fortress had lost the magic keeping it going, reverting the claimed territory to loose dirt and rock. A few…
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772.5 K • Completed
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