Author: Tower Curator

 

 

Like last time, Arkk expected to find himself thrust into combat the moment he was through the ritual circle. Instead, he found the air oddly calm and lacking in the sounds of battle. Hurrying around the carpentry workshop, Arkk spotted a group gathered out near the bridge over the river.

A divide ran through the group. On one side, wary villagers took up arms with whatever weapons they had been able to grab. They didn’t look nearly as organized as they had been while preparing for the initial defense a week ago. Across from the villagers, a quintet of orcs stood, shuffling in obvious nervousness.

At first, Arkk thought they might have been an entirely different group of orcs, ignorant of the horde that had attacked just days prior. It wasn’t like orcs were a species constantly trying to pillage and raid. Just the opposite. In contrast to the few hostile, many orcs were like any other being trying to live their lives. Not an easy prospect in the Duke’s territory. As long as demihumans and beastmen avoided the main cities where the majority of the Duke’s army patrolled, it was perfectly possible.

Or so he heard from the various visitors to the village over the years.

Arkk’s suspicions reignited upon examining them a little closer. They wore armor, not clothes. Two wielded crossbows, gripped tight in gloved fingers, while the other three had a mix of axes and pikes. These were not simple travelers. They were mercenaries at best. Given recent history, they were almost certainly from the horde that had attacked the village.

But they weren’t fighting now.

Arkk hurried over, a dozen paces behind Ilya and Vezta, the latter still in the former’s shadow.

John moved to intercept him and Ilya, concern on his face even as he gripped one of his lumber axes tight in his hands. “Hale? Where is Hale?”

Ilya glanced back, meeting Arkk’s eyes.

“She’s safe. I told her to stay put for now. What’s going on?”

A flicker of relief crossed John’s countenance as he half-turned. “I think they want to speak with you. They won’t talk to anyone but the ‘Warrior of Lightning’.” He paused, pressing his lips together. “I saw Hale disappear. Just… gone.”

“She’s safe,” Arkk said again. “Though I didn’t know she could use magic.”

“Nor I,” John said, looking back to the orcs. “I knew she had talent, but… I suspect she’ll want to apprentice herself to you now.”

Ilya let out a hefty scoff, rolling her eyes. Arkk just shook his head. “I don’t know magic.”

Despite the tense atmosphere, John still managed to inject a little sarcasm into his tone. “Oh? I suppose you’re not the ‘Warrior of Lightning’ then.”

“Okay. I know one spell, a ritual or two, and a lot of ways of blowing things up.” Arkk shook his head again. “Later. We need to deal with this. Any idea what they want?”

“You. Maybe your head on a pike? Maybe just a chat. They didn’t say much.” John paused, then added, “Glad you kept her away. This could get messy. Hurtt and Jorgen are ready to hammer their heads in. The Baron is with the other villagers, but Abbess Keena went to fetch him as soon as the orcs started demanding to talk to you.”

“No sign of goblins?”

John waved a hand. “Don’t know anything else beyond what you see.”

“Great. At least nothing is burning yet.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, taking a deep breath. Talking with visitors to the village was normally the Baron’s duty. The Baron wasn’t a fighter, nor did he possess much physical strength to fight if necessary. He spent his spare time whittling toys for the village children. An activity that made him popular but wouldn’t help here if the situation turned chaotic.

Ilya met his eyes. She nodded her head ever so slightly, then stepped aside. “They want to talk with the one who beat them.”

“Right.”

Arkk stepped forward. John stayed a step behind to one side and Ilya, with Vezta, stayed on the other side. He stopped a few paces away from the orcs, not sure at all what to say to them. Up close, they were all at least a head taller than he was. Ilya was far more their vertical equal, yet their eyes were locked on him. The silence was going to grow even more uncomfortable if he didn’t say something, however, so he opened his mouth.

“You would dare return here?”

He felt like cringing the moment the words were out of his mouth. Was threatening the right move? Was that even threatening? It didn’t sound like it. Arkk had a hard time seeing himself as threatening, but… well, lightning was an incantation away. Vezta’s darkness was slowly spreading out underneath their feet as well, though it didn’t look like the orcs noticed in the dying sunlight. Her tendrils would probably crush all five of them in an instant.

Maybe he was intimidating.

One of the orcs snorted, baring his teeth. “The human doesn’t look like a monster of lightning and shadow and fury. Demonstrate.”

“Demonstrate lightning? By frying one of you?”

Another orc, the smallest of the group, grabbed the metal armguards of the first, tugging on him. “I saw his face. That’s the one that turned Jakk’en to ash.”

Arkk didn’t remember turning anyone, goblin or orc, to ash, but if he was being vouched for, he supposed he shouldn’t complain. Instead, he straightened his back, trying his best to look even a little more intimidating. The orc in the lead, a hulk of muscle with a flat face and thick black hair from his ears to his chin, just snorted again.

Arkk blamed the height difference. It was hard to intimidate someone so large.

The shorter orc, who still stood a head over Arkk, was a woman with grayer, more tan-colored skin and dark hair braided tight against her skull on the sides but hung loose on top. She stepped forward. “We have come to seek your aid,” she said. She opened her mouth to say more but caught the closed fist of the taller orc in the stomach instead. Aside from a brief step back and a snarl revealing sharp lower tusks, she didn’t react. None of the other orcs looked concerned in the slightest.

“Aid?” Hurtt called from somewhere behind Arkk. “Burning down more villages?”

“Kill ’em before they can try!” Jorgen shouted.

Arkk felt more than saw John turn at his side. He assumed John did something because a brief rallying cry from a few of the other assembled villagers cut off before it could really begin.

The lead orc didn’t move his eyes from Arkk. He crossed his arms, curling a lip to show his tusk. “You killed our chief’s brother,” he said, tone surprisingly neutral, though it still had an exaggerated snarl under the words. Most orcs spoke with a guttural growl, but he was laying it on thick.

Arkk had no idea how to respond to the accusation. It was probably true. He had killed several orcs. “Shouldn’t have attacked?” he tried.

One of the others, the older orc, snorted. Laughed, even? Arkk wasn’t the best at reading orcs. Especially angry orcs.

“Any other orc and we would have moved on. Found easier prey. But the chief wants revenge for her brother.”

“They’re coming back?” someone behind Arkk whispered.

Someone else, far louder, barked out a forced laugh. “Arkk and Vezta will thrash them again. These are the cowards, running away!”

That comment got the lead orc to unleash a full snarl, taking an aggressive step forward. Two of the others grabbed his arms, barely keeping him a step outside Vezta’s shadow. Arkk might have backed up from that if it weren’t for Vezta. She had tendrils at his back, snaked up his legs under his trousers, forcing him to maintain his stance.

“The chief captured travelers off the road,” another tan-skinned orc, bald with a wrinkled and battle-scarred face, barked out. As he spoke, Arkk noted that he didn’t seem to have tusks. His teeth were not that different from a human’s, though aged and missing one or two. “She’s going use them to summon a demon to fight your monster. Tonight.”

The jeers and laughs from the villagers cut off instantly. The shadows underneath Arkk’s feet twisted in a way that he could only describe as anger. A sharp gasp from the approaching Abbess took Arkk’s attention off the orcs for a moment. Long enough to see the Baron at her side topple backward, fainting. That got a raucous round of laughter from the orcs.

All except for the shortest one. She took another step forward. “The chief will destroy us all! Some fled already. She killed or captured those trying to flee. Most support her,” she said, teeth clenched together. Her fists clenched. “You don’t care about us, but the demon will come for you next. Help us.”

“Help you?” Jorgen shouted. “So you can go back to raiding other villages?”

“Or stab us in the back.”

“Kill ’em! And the summoner!”

The orc backed up in line with the others, all of whom now looked far warier. They weren’t quite brandishing their weapons, but they were a lot closer now that they were facing an angry mob. Angrier mob.

Arkk’s heart hammered in his chest. Demons. He didn’t know exactly what a demon was. A deal maker that could grant almost any wish in exchange for a price too steep for anyone to pay. His mouth felt dry. Could he and Vezta fight a demon? Vezta was strong, but as she said, she was not a fighter. Even against pathetic goblins, they had almost been overwhelmed. A demon would likely be far stronger than dozens of goblins.

They had to kill the summoner before the demon could appear. It was the only option. And without knowing where the summoner was…

“We can’t kill them,” Arkk said, turning his back to the orcs to face the villagers. “They know where—”

“She wants you!”

Arkk spun back around at the cry. “Electro Deus!” he shouted before he even saw the orc rushing him with a pike. Lightning sparked from his fingertips, catching the charging orc in his chest. An arrow appeared between his eyes, fired from over Arkk’s right shoulder. At the same time, oily tendrils sprouted from the shadows, looping around the orc’s arms and legs. Pulling him taut, the tendrils twisted in opposite directions.

A broken, skewered, smoking corpse hit the ground long before it could reach him.

Arkk’s extended hand slowly moved over the rest of the orcs. The older orc didn’t move, but the shorter orc flinched back. The leader set his jaw and glowered. The fourth, a bulbous orc even rounder than the Baron, shirked back, using the woman for cover as he cowered. “We didn’t… it wasn’t…”

“We agreed,” the old orc said, looking down at the broken body with a gaze of utter contempt.

After a brief moment of shocked silence from the mob behind him, Arkk heard Hurtt shout out a huzzah! Arkk could feel the pressure on his back. The villagers wanted blood even though it should have been obvious that the other four hadn’t been planning on attacking him like that. If they had been, they all would have attacked at the same time.

“Master.” Vezta used her tendrils to pull herself from the ground at Arkk’s side, an action that made everyone, villager and orc, take a sudden step back. Only Ilya resisted, more used to the servant than the others. “You clearly cannot let these creatures see your back. If I might offer a solution—”

“I know,” Arkk said. “Hire them. They can’t betray me if what you said is true.”

“They can, but you’ll know in advance.”

“Right.”

“In addition, it solves more problems,” she said, speaking softly. “Fortress Al-Mir can sustain any number of creatures, providing everything they need with the proper rooms constructed. There will be no need for them to pillage and raid. It keeps them from raiding your village, or any other. In addition, we gain minions. If we wish to progress with your other goals, minions—”

“Employees, Vezta.”

“Regardless of the word, they will be an asset.”

“You want to hire them?” Ilya hissed, close enough to hear Vezta. “You heard them, they were happy to go on raiding if not for this demon business.”

“I gave my reasons,” Vezta said, stepping aside.

“They’re not good people.”

Arkk held up a hand, locking his eyes on the green-skinned lead orc. “When is this summoning to take place?”

“When the sun is farthest from directly overhead,” he said, no longer willing to play games. “You humans call it the witching hour.”

Glancing to the horizon, Arkk frowned. The sun was starting to set. They had but a few hours.

“Regardless of your decision with the orcs, you must stop this summoning, Master,” Vezta said, voice far more intense than usual. “Demons are the enemy of all.”

“Agreed,” Ilya said, hand tightening around the leather grip of her bow.

“How many orcs and goblins are still present?” Arkk asked of the assembled orcs. “How many are likely to fight with your chief or fight against her if we show up and start attacking? How well-defended is she? Can we kill her from afar—”

The shortest orc started talking, only for the lead orc to snap his hand into a fist in front of her face. “No more answers until you guarantee our safety.”

Someone started to say something behind Arkk, but John snapped his fingers, cutting them off before they could cause a commotion.

Arkk pressed his lips together. He didn’t think he was cut out for this job, but he didn’t have a choice. Reaching his hand into his pocket, Arkk pulled four gold coins from Fortress Al-Mir’s [HEART] chamber in the same way he had moved Ilya’s bow earlier. Vezta had warned him that both that method of moving items, as well as her teleportation circles, would not function at great distances—which she estimated to be limited to about twice the distance from the fortress to the village, about a hundred kilometers, though she hadn’t known the measurement used in the duchy. Still, it worked for now.

“I will hire you,” Arkk said, holding the coins out, three in his palm and one pinched between his thumb and index finger. Paying gold, according to Vezta, was how her former master had most often hired his employees. “You work for me. No more raiding, pillaging, or looting. You do as I say.”

“Work for a human?” The lead orc curled his lips back into a snarl. “You dare—”

Idea popping into Arkk’s head, he held out his left hand. A crystal ball popped into being. The same one he had used to locate his village for Vezta when he first met the servant. He could transport anything that was his to anywhere that was his territory, which his body counted as.

The orcs flinched back at the ball’s appearance, but he simply held it over to his side, offering it to Vezta.

“Find the orc encampment,” he said, looking across the bridge. He spotted no horses. They could have left them behind to appear non-threatening, but more likely, they just didn’t have any. “Search that side of the river. Roughly six hours of walking distance. If you don’t find it, spread your search further. Riding distance in the same timeframe.”

“As you wish,” Vezta said, coiling a tendril around the crystal ball. Holding her hands above it, images started flashing inside the glass.

Leaving that to her, Arkk looked back to the orcs. “You have until she finds your chief,” he said.

“Or what?” the lead orc said, teeth clenched hard enough that Arkk was surprised they hadn’t started cracking.

“Or you will become far less useful,” he said, offering one of the golden coins.

The older orc caught his meaning immediately, followed quickly by the lead orc. He could see it in the way their eyes changed. The shorter orc didn’t take long either, her own eyes widening as she looked to the leader and then back to Arkk. He could see her fingers rubbing together, eyes darting down to the coin in Arkk’s hand.

Arkk wasn’t entirely sure that the rotund orc ever got exactly what Arkk was saying. He had been dripping sweat the entire time, especially after the fifth orc tried his attack. Arkk wondered just what he was doing with the other orcs, looking far more like those that passed through town than a raider. Perhaps he was forced to participate in their group?

When Vezta let out a soft, “Ah!” noise, it was the fat orc that lunged forward, grabbing hold of the coin.

The link formed immediately. Like with Ilya and unlike Vezta, it relayed off the [HEART]. He was now Arkk’s first intentional minion. Employee.

The other three looked at him with a mixture of expressions on their faces. The girl looked surprised while the leader looked like he was about to murder his comrade. The older orc simply sighed, resigned. He was the next to step forward. Then, after a brief hesitation, the girl.

The leader glared at both of them in turn, but the fires of his ire in his eyes died down with each. He was left looking at Arkk, a hefty scowl on his face. “We are not slaves,” he growled, unmoving.

“Do slaves get paid?” Arkk asked, the final coin still held out between his fingers.

Curling his lip, the lead orc swiped the coin from Arkk’s fingers. As the bond settled into place, a look of surprise came over the orc. He looked off into the distance, toward Fortress Al-Mir. For a moment, Arkk thought he noticed the bond forming, but if the orc did, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he looked down at the coin in his hand. He popped it into his mouth.

Arkk gaped for a moment, thinking he was eating it. He didn’t seem to be chewing or swallowing, however. In short order, the orc spat it back out. “Still cold? And no taste?” Genuine surprise laced his voice. “It’s real?”

His shock prompted all three of the other orcs to give the gold a taste test, though when the larger orc did, he actually bit down. With predictable results. With a slight ‘eep’ of pain, he spat it back out first and began rubbing at his teeth through his cheeks.

Shaking his head in bewilderment, Arkk turned to Vezta. “You found the encampment?”

Vezta’s faint smile turned into a wide grin. “Not yet. I merely decided to encourage their response. We are pressed for time, Master.”

“Right,” Arkk said, a bit of laughter escaping his lips. After a moment, he started laughing with gusto, nervous tension draining with each chuckle. Taking a breath, he nodded a head toward the orcs. “Find out everything you can from them.”

“As you desire.”

Turning fully, Arkk faced the villagers.

He expected to find anger at their vengeance being denied. Instead, he found himself faced with surprise. More eyes were over his shoulders than actually on him. It was only the Abbess and the Baron who weren’t staring. The former was kneeling next to the latter, gently patting his cheeks in an attempt to rouse him.

“Where’d a punk like you get gold from?” Jorgen blurted out.

Hurtt shot him a look. “Same place he got that monster from, idiot.”

“Not important!” Ilya snapped. “We’ve got an orc that just won’t accept no for an answer! Who is with us!” she shouted, raising her bow into the air.

The rallying cry was significantly less enthusiastic than when the cries to murder the orcs had gone out, but everyone looked determined to some degree.

Arkk didn’t know anything about demons and doubted any of them did either, but everyone knew a demon coming after their village would not end well. It might not even be the kind of thing they could run away from.

“The orcs here are not to be harmed,” Arkk said. “They won’t betray us without me knowing about it.” He looked over his shoulder, gaze sweeping over each of them. “And I won’t take kindly to that.”

“How do you know?”

Arkk looked back to the villagers but wasn’t sure who asked. He simply shrugged. “Magic.”

“Oh,” Jorgen said with a grimace. “You’re going to make them explode.”

“I’m not, I…” Arkk pressed his lips together, sighing. “Nothing I’ve done recently has exploded. Nothing since…”

Since binding with the [HEART].

Shaking his head, he looked to the Abbess. “Keena, anything you can provide that would harm a demon or protect us from it would be appreciated. And healing.”

The Abbess, white robes dusty from kneeling next to the Baron, met his eyes for the first time since he returned to the village with Vezta in tow. She only held his gaze for a moment before her eyes dropped down to the ground as she nodded. “Yes,” she said softly. “Of course.”

“Thank you.” He wasn’t sure what problem the Abbess had, but with how much Vezta seemed to dislike the symbols on her habit and on the church itself, he wasn’t all that surprised that the Abbess didn’t like Vezta in turn. If she knew what Vezta was, however, she wasn’t saying.

Still, she would have to help fight a demon. It would be insanity not to. Trusting that, Arkk turned back to the villagers.

“Anyone who wants to go, gather your weapons and horses. We need to move quickly. As soon as we know which direction to head. We’ll plan as we go!”

 

 

 

Arkk stood inside an empty chamber within Fortress Al-Mir. At one point in time, it had been a barracks, foundry, or training room. He wasn’t sure. Regardless, the lesser servants had eaten everything inside, leaving just smooth stone tiles, each bearing the compass rose and blue-violet gemstone.

A small pile of gold sat on the floor next to him. Gold was heavy, surprisingly so. Even the small fistful that Ilya had been carrying around weighed as much as a full-size lumber axe. It would have taken a few trips from the [HEART] chamber were it not for Vezta helpfully informing him that he could transport not just people, but things as well. Anything that belonged to him could be moved near instantly simply by thinking about it.

Now, he had to do a bit more thinking.

He knew what looms were, even if he had never seen a proper one. Just the one that the local village tailor used to make the clothes he wore now. Vezta had helped, sketching out detailed plans for the room. Holding the sketch tight in his mind, Arkk stretched out a hand toward the pile of gold and pushed out a touch of his magic.

The room changed before his eyes. Bolts of colorful cloth formed in the walls, set on great reels. Large spools of thread looped over wheels and dangled from the ceiling. Four large machines covered in wheels, thread, and cloth popped into existence around the center of the room. Tall wooden mannequins covered in pins and partially-finished clothing sprung up near the sides of the room. Scissors and needles hung from walls while machines for sewing appeared on tables.

The torches vanished so as to not cause fires. Thankfully. In their place, glowing stones provided bright and almost natural light to the room.

Arkk had no frame of reference beyond the village tailor, and yet, he had a feeling that this place would rival even that of the tailors of Cliff. If nothing else, he had just created bolts of cloth from nothing.

Well, not quite nothing.

Looking down at his feet, Arkk found a mere two and a half coins remaining from the small fortune he had started with. Still, he couldn’t exactly call himself disappointed with the outcome. Just running his hand over a spool of blue cloth felt like it should be against the realm’s laws. Someone like him touching something so smooth and soft?

Ilya and Vezta approached from the door to the room. The former stared with wide eyes, lightly touching her fingers to one of the bolts of cloth much as Arkk was doing. The latter simply looked around, nodding to herself. Vezta didn’t look impressed at all, but that was probably to be expected if her former master was capable of feats such as this.

“It would behoove you to hire skilled tailors to operate this room,” she said, completing her inspection. “The lesser servants may craft some minor goods here, but this room is wasted on them in the end.”

“I… guess I’ll keep it in mind?”

“Wait,” Ilya said, regaining her stony look. “Wait. Those things are going to be touching our clothes?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. Arkk, tell her it is.”

Arkk shrugged. “I mean, they cleaned up the corridors without leaving slime everywhere.”

“Arkk.”

“It isn’t like there are many options. I guess we can grab Higgens, but…” Arkk tugged on his shirt, which Higgens had made. “Do you think he’ll be able to make anything better?”

“No…” Ilya trailed off, looking to the door.

As if called by their conversation, one of the lesser servants squirmed into the room. Ilya glared, moving between the bolts of cloth and the servant. Vezta, however, calmly approached. A tendril snapped out, wrapping around the lesser servant and holding it in place. With her bare hands, she tore into the servant, ripping pieces off and shoving other pieces into its body. A tentacle flew across the room but didn’t make it to the floor before vanishing into motes of blue-violet light.

The servant squirmed and screamed, a hideous noise like a rabbit frightened by a fox. Even still, Vezta did not stop, clawing it to pieces.

Arkk turned away, a grimace on his face. He wasn’t quite sure what Vezta was doing, but he could feel the link to the lesser servant. It was in pain, but it wasn’t dying. She wasn’t trying to kill it.

The screeching stopped after a few moments. Arkk finally looked back, only to pop his brows up in surprise.

Vezta set a small creature on the ground. A creature that looked remarkably like she did. A small Vezta that barely came up to the knees of the larger version. With a nudge of her tentacle, Vezta sent the smaller version of herself scuttling toward the wooden mannequins.

“They require aristocratic attire,” she said before turning to Ilya. “Pleased?”

Ilya, who had been standing as still as Arkk had during that… process, shuddered. “I… think I’m going to be sick,” she said, rushing out of the room.

“Master, your minion is difficult to please.”

Arkk wasn’t exactly feeling the best either, but he still forced a smile. “Employee, Vezta. Are you going to do that to the others?”

“Perhaps in time, if you wish. For now, they are more useful as they are. May I recommend sending them to the lowest level of the fortress to clear the path to the mine? Unless my former master was exceedingly vigorous in his final moments, there should be a plentiful supply of gold beneath us. Perhaps not enough to sate a lord’s lust for wealth, but enough to fulfill your immediate goals of bribing nobles or hiring mercenaries.”

“How large is the gold mine under us?”

“Plentiful,” Vezta repeated. “If not, I know there is a way to use the [HEART] to conjure gold, though I am unsure of the specifics. You will have to research that.”

“Add it to my list,” Arkk mumbled.

Somehow, Vezta heard him. “Current goals: Return Fortress Al-Mir to full power. Become a master I idolize. Open the portal to the [UNDERWORLD]. Revert the Calamity. Recover Ilya’s mother. Research magic. Research gold conjuration.” Vezta paused, frowning. “Master, nearly all these goals were imposed upon you by myself. I exist to serve your goals, not Ilya’s or even my own.”

“Your goals are my goals,” Arkk said. “I wouldn’t have agreed with them if I didn’t want to. You aren’t pushing me around if that is what you’re thinking.”

“But—”

Arkk held up a hand. “There are a lot of things I want and a lot of things I’m sure I’ll want in the future. But I do have one immediate interest…” For a moment, Arkk focused on Ilya. As his employee, he could see her just about anywhere. He didn’t like looking in on her, but right now? He wanted to make sure Ilya wasn’t nearby.

She wasn’t. She was back in the library—the only other furnished room at the moment—sitting in one of the chairs. She looked a little green in the face, but she was otherwise fine.

And out of earshot.

“What you said this morning, about starting a war with the Duke? I didn’t want to say it in front of Ilya, but that is a whole lot closer to what I want than I might have let on.”

“As I said, Fortress Al-Mir is not yet—”

Arkk stopped her with a raised hand. “I don’t want an actual war. But deposing him? Replacing him with someone, anyone else?” Arkk’s hand clenched into a fist. “That man sends his tax collectors around every harvest season. We owe them a full half of what we harvest. I talk to everyone who passes through the village. All the mercenaries and beastmen, all the demihumans and adventurers. Mostly, I talk to the spellcasters, but I still talk to the others.

“I’ve heard that the food goes to waste. Just rots. Sometimes, they toss it on the roads outside Cliff City because their storehouses are too full. Every village in the province harvests all this food that just goes bad? It’s supposed to be feeding armies and soldiers. People who protect us? And yet orcs and goblins a few hundred strong roam the land unimpeded. They would have destroyed our village if not for you and me… if not for you.”

Arkk clenched his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. “And if we fail? If the harvest doesn’t meet the quotas? If a drought or pestilence claims our crops? The Duke doesn’t hand out that abundance of food he takes from the other villages to help us through tough times. No, he starts taking other things. Horses, tools… Ilya’s mother.”

Breathing, calming down, Arkk slowly opened his eyes. Vezta simply stood in front of him, staring without judging. She had her slight smile in place as her eyes burned.

“I came back to you… I made that contract with you… It wasn’t just to save the village. Ilya wanted to go to the Duke. I couldn’t let her. If… I fear that if the Duke catches sight of her and sees how beautiful Ilya is… he’ll snatch her up as well. Then she’ll be gone.” Arkk let his hands fall to his sides, limp. “Then I…”

Arkk didn’t finish his sentence. He just stared down at the ground, down where Vezta’s tendrils were unusually still, though they still dripped their dark oil. It somehow managed to avoid reaching the stone, absorbed back into her body.

“Sorry for springing that on you. Just forget it. It isn’t something I ever thought would be possible, but as Ilya said with that handful of gold, this changes things. But probably still too much to ask.”

“On the contrary, my master. I am in awe of your ambition. You have a single functional room and a single minion apart from myself. And we’re plotting a coup.” Vezta leaned closer. “I am excited.”

“You think we can do it?”

“Of course, though not soon. We might want to open the portal sooner rather than later, however. The Cloak of Shadows could provide useful minions or blessings for such a task.”

“Cloak of Shadows?”

“A member of the [PANTHEON]. Rules the night, secrets, stealth, and other such related matters.”

Arkk rubbed his chin. This opening the portal business, and undoing the Calamity, was something he wanted to talk to Ilya about before actually starting. He had made a promise to her and that felt like something he should mention, just in case.

Nodding slowly, he took a breath. “We’ll focus on trying to get back Ilya’s mother first. Whether we try to depose the Duke now or later, at least she’ll be out of the way. He won’t have her as a hostage.”

“Understood,” Vezta said with a bow. “In that case, I believe my inferior copy would like to take your measurements.”

Arkk turned to find the knee-high Vezta holding up a flexible strip of leather with several markings on it, denoting distance. It stood atop one of the stools in the room, though even with that added height, it wouldn’t be able to reach halfway up his chest. He glanced back to the real Vezta, raising an eyebrow.

“As I said,” she sighed, “best hire some proper tailors. I suppose I better help it out.”

Arkk sat over a desk in a newly recreated library. Gone were the musty shelves and broken furniture. The only books that remained were the few he had saved and the few he had copied. In place of the rest were empty, depressing shelves. It was a small consolation that the furnishings of the room had been replaced with comfortable seats. The reading lights made from glowstones weren’t too bright, yet weren’t dim enough to cause a strain on the eye.

He wasn’t copying books at the moment. While Ilya had her measurements taken, Arkk had decided to do a bit more planning.

At the moment, he hated their plan. If it could even be called that. Walking up to the Duke and throwing money at him had to be the worst decision, well-fitting clothes or not. They would seem desperate and the gold would come across as suspicious. They might not get a chance to hire mercenaries if the Duke found cause to throw them in prison. Arkk might be able to use the [HEART] or Vezta to get them out, but winding up in that position in the first place would be bad.

He had come up with a list of a few priorities.

First and foremost was not actually to rescue Alya. It was to prevent Ilya from falling into the Duke’s hands.

The easiest way to prevent that would be to have her simply not go anywhere near Cliff. But Arkk doubted Ilya would be willing to go along with that. She would want to be front and center in this.

So, the next best option would be to make her untouchable. Ilya couldn’t be a peasant from some village in the duchy. She had to be someone important, whose absence would be noted and investigated. To that end, wealthy-looking attire would be a great benefit. He wasn’t quite sure how to play it out, but it was something to discuss with Vezta and Ilya.

The second priority was, also, not to rescue Alya, but to keep the [HEART] secret and secure. Even with just the little he had seen thus far, the room construction and the gold creation, the servants, and Vezta herself, it seemed like the kind of thing a man like the Duke would covet above anything else. To say nothing of all the capabilities Vezta implied it could demonstrate. That might sound like the kind of thing that could be traded for Alya’s freedom, but Arkk would rather die than let a man like the Duke have the [HEART].

For the third priority, Arkk started to write down Alya’s rescue but crossed it off. He started to replace it with protecting himself and Vezta, needing to be safe and free to carry out the rest of the tasks on his list, but he didn’t quite make it before a flash of light sparked from one of the two magic circles in the room.

A young girl with black hair tied into two tight ponytails stumbled into the room.

Arkk lurched to his feet. “Hale? What are you… How did you get here—”

Hale’s dark eyes locked onto Arkk’s. Wide-eyed and obviously terrified, a small bit of relief crept into her expression as recognition took hold. She launched herself at him, trembling. “Orcs in the village!” she blurted out. “I saw them, orcs!”

Some of Hale’s panic rubbed off on Arkk. He felt the palms of his hands start to sweat. Almost on instinct, he ripped Ilya and Vezta into the room. The latter didn’t look surprised or alarmed in the slightest. Ilya, shirt half off over her head, stumbled. The only thing that saved her from a fall to the ground was the grace of her elfish reflexes. She rammed her shirt back down over herself and shot a ferocious glare at Arkk.

“What do you think you’re—” She spotted Hale and blinked. The scorn in her voice vanished, replaced with surprise and concern. “What do you think you’re doing here? Arkk, did you—”

“The orcs you saw, Hale, did others see them?”

She nodded her head into Arkk’s chest. “John saw them. He started shouting for others.”

Ilya’s face went paler than normal, though Vezta simply stood with her usual smile in place.

“Were they attacking?”

“I don’t know, I…” Hale pushed herself back, steadying herself. She took a breath. “I said I would get help,” she said, shooting Arkk a nervous smile. “I saw you use the circle thing many times, so I knew how to use it too.”

It took a touch of magic to get working. Arkk hadn’t known that Hale could use magic. He filed that away for later. Looking to the side, he met Ilya’s gaze and nodded. “You go first,” he said. “You can’t use the circles on your own. Vezta, with her. I’ll follow.”

Vezta bowed and a series of tendrils emerged from the ground around her, ripping and pulling at her in much the same way as she had done to the lesser servant earlier. Rather than transform herself into a small version, the tendrils pulled her down into the ground. A bright golden eye opened in the oily pool that had been Ilya’s shadow. Ilya glanced down at it with a wrinkle on her nose but didn’t argue. She hurried to the ritual circle but stopped just before entering it. Looking back to Arkk, she narrowed her eyes. “My bow?”

Since recovering her bow, Ilya had been carrying it everywhere. Except now. She must have taken it off while with the miniature Vezta. Mentally searching through the Fortress, he found it resting against the wall not far from the lesser servant in the tailor’s room. Much like pulling Ilya and Vezta to him, Arkk tugged on the bow.

It appeared in the air just above Ilya’s extended hand along with a quiver full of arrows. Taking a split second to examine it, she nodded to herself and stepped into the ritual circle.

In a flash, they disappeared to the village.

“You stay here, Hale. We’ll be back when it is safe.”

“I can help too!” she said, taking another breath. “I can use a bow. I helped last time after we saw your lightning bolt!”

“Last time I went through that circle when the goblins were attacking, they had it surrounded. If you go through, they might be on the other side. They’ll get you before you have a chance to draw your bow. I’m sorry,” he said, then had a thought.

The miniature Vezta popped into the library, standing atop the chair Arkk had been sitting on. He turned to it and pointed at Hale. “She is important. Your other duties are on hold until we get back. Keep her safe here, understand?”

The little thing nodded its head without hesitation. It couldn’t fight. Just because it looked like Vezta didn’t make it any stronger of a lesser servant. But it could keep Hale from stumbling around the place. Although the servants had cleaned up, there were still a few areas that could be dangerous. That pit in the [HEART] chamber, for one. Not that those heavy iron doors would open for anyone. It probably wouldn’t be able to stop Hale if she were determined to use the magic circle to get back to the village, but Hale didn’t know that.

Patting Hale on the head, Arkk hurried to the circle. It took a mere instant to check that Ilya and Vezta were clear.

He disappeared in a flash.

 

 

“This library is useless,” Ilya said, tossing a book into the trash pile. A pile that was growing much faster than the keep pile.

Fortress Al-Mir’s library might have been an impressive collection of tomes and knowledge at one point in time, but that time had long since passed. If only time had been eating away at this room, there might have been some worth salvaging. Unfortunately, much like many other rooms in the fortress, there was a fissure in the ceiling. This one wasn’t as large as the one Arkk had fallen into, but water could get in easily.

Very few books were in any kind of state to be touched, let alone read. Assuming mold hadn’t eaten the book, it still probably couldn’t be opened. Those that could be opened without destroying the entire thing were, more often than not, lacking any text on their pages. The words had been washed away or the ink had simply decayed over the ages.

Arkk had a small pile next to him. A dozen full books and a handful of scattered pages. Vezta, sitting at a desk next to him, was doing her best to clean them of their filth without further damaging them.

But even those were more or less useless.

“I just don’t understand how you can’t read them,” Arkk said, frowning as he copied legible symbols from one book that was too damaged to believe it would be around for much longer. The Baron had graciously provided a few rolls of vellum.

Even with the small stack of books here, nobody present could read the words. The particular page he was working on had a crude depiction of eight women bathing in a green pool. At least, that was what he thought it was. In truth, it could be anything. The book was filled with plants and animals that he had never seen before—or that he couldn’t recognize from the faded and, frankly, amateurish drawings.

“Aren’t these from the time of your former master?”

Vezta’s hands did not slow as she looked up to Arkk, continuing to copy the text as she spoke. “In truth, I only know the [CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE]. The [HEART] is what allows me to communicate with you and all who speak your language. It was the same with my former master. With his passing, I no longer have access to his knowledge of languages. The text present in these tomes is as unfamiliar to me as it is to you.”

“This is a waste of time,” Ilya grumbled, tossing aside yet another book. “We should be back out hunting. Especially now, with the damage the farms sustained.”

Arkk sighed. This wasn’t the first time they had gone through this argument in the last five days.

At first, Ilya was all for uncovering more about the history of Fortress Al-Mir. Unfortunately, aside from Vezta, who Ilya didn’t exactly trust, there were no real sources of information. Langleey Village didn’t have a library or any historians. The closest thing was the Baron’s sitting room, which had a handful of historical books. However, none were historical enough. None mentioned anything pre-Calamity. One of his books listed old rulers and kings, but there had been no mention of Razerk, Vezta’s former master.

They hadn’t only been reading old tomes. There was work to be done. Ilya and Arkk had gone out to recover her bow and the horses left from their hunting trip, using a teleportation ritual handily provided by Vezta to cut the time spent into a small fraction of what it otherwise would have taken.

Vezta had been quite pleased to put her skills to use in rebuilding the burned-out homes. She could lift an entire wall on her own, hammering fasteners into place at the same time with her plethora of tendrils. Of course, that had spooked the villagers a bit at first, but Arkk thought they got over it. Having proper homes back in mere days instead of weeks was worth it.

“Arkk,” Ilya said, voice stiff. “One of your things is back.”

Looking up from the manuscripts, Arkk scowled. One of the four lesser servants crawled through the door and started eating the pile of trash books, the emptied shelves, and even parts of the floor and walls. Its mouths had some kind of magic to them, allowing them to bite right through solid stone and earth. He had seen them eating the debris in caved-in corridors as if the stone was little more than bread.

“It isn’t going to touch anything we’re still using,” Arkk said with confidence. “Just ignore it.”

“Vezta is bad enough. If anyone else saw these things…”

“They’re the same species as you, right? Can’t they… look like you do?”

“They are nowhere near me,” Vezta said, slight offense in her tone. “They are, however, protoplasmic beings, able to assume any form their duties require of them.”

“So if their duties require them to look normal—”

“Normal is subjective, Master.” Vezta sighed. “But I understand your desires. I suppose I can teach them some tricks of aesthetics. Would you prefer that task to take priority over the books?”

“No,” Arkk said. “Better finish copying and cleaning the books before they deteriorate any further.”

“Where does everything they eat even go?” Ilya asked, staring at the monster with grotesque fascination as its gaping maw inhaled a rotted and worn desk three times its size. “I’ve seen these things eat entire rooms filled with broken beds, bodies, equipment, and tools. They aren’t that big.”

“Beings of the [HEART] return material for transmutation.”

“Transmutation?” Arkk asked.

“Are you unfamiliar with transmutation tablets, Master?”

“Arkk.”

“Have you not checked the [HEART] chamber in recent days, Arkk?”

“I’ve been busy,” Arkk said, dipping his pen back into the vial of ink. “Still busy,” he said.

Ilya stood, dusting off her leather pants. “I’ll check it. Anything to get away from this room for a bit. I think I’ve got mold growing in my hair…”

Arkk waved her off. They were pretty much done with the library anyway. There was only one shelf left to sort through and it was the most damaged shelf in the entire room, positioned directly under the fissure. He wasn’t expecting anything from it. Letting the servant eat it now would probably save a lot of time.

“Master,” Vezta said after a few minutes.

“Arkk, please.”

“I… It is the height of impropriety to bring up my former master unbidden,” Vezta said, setting down her pen for the first time since they started.

Recognizing that she had something important to ask, he finished copying the line he was on and lowered his pen as well. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“Razerk left me with one final mission. One I have been unable to accomplish. My failure has been weighing on me for centuries now… and I…”

“You want to finish it?” Arkk closed his eyes, thinking back to their conversation nearly a week ago now. “Undoing whatever the… gods did to weaken your former master?”

“It would be beneficial to you as well, Master,” Vezta said, speaking faster as if afraid he would reject her. “Breaking the seal on the world would allow the [HEART] to access the [PANTHEON]’s power. You would be able to gain their blessings. We would be able to reopen the portal to begin hiring employees beyond those humans with whom you are acquainted. And… I would be free to dedicate myself wholeheartedly toward your goals without the shadow of failure weighing on my shoulders.”

“What exactly would we be doing if we undo this? I don’t know much of anything about… gods. The Abbess prays to the Light and receives blessings of healing to distribute in return. Beyond that, the Light is supposed to be the source of all life, growing the plants, blessing births, protecting—”

“Lies,” Vezta hissed. “Protection? Life? The gods, the Heart of Gold, Holy Light, and Almighty Glory are beings of death and destruction. They…” Vezta paused, pressing her lips together. “I do not know the full history of the world,” she said eventually. “I am not exactly certain about what my former master wished of me. Initially, he sent me out to discover what had happened to the portal—perhaps you saw the room with the crystal archway?”

“I did, yes,” Arkk said, thinking back to his initial tour of the fortress. Thinking about it, he could see it just as he could see any other location within the fortress. A large room with a high ceiling, dominated by a pale crystal structure as large as a small home. Shaking his head, Arkk refocused on Vezta, barely noting the red light fading around them. “What of it?”

“That is a portal that leads to the [UNDERWORLD]. A realm once connected to this world, now severed. My former master recruited heavily from the magical inhabitants there to form his armies.”

“Magical inhabitants?”

“Most magical beings are not native to this world,” Vezta said, sounding an awful lot like Abbess Keena when lecturing. “The [UNDERWORLD] is one of many elsewheres such creatures originate from.”

“I… see…”

“Think of it as another continent except on a far grander scale with travelers hailing from afar.”

“Huh.

“In any case, I set out to uncover why the portal stopped functioning. I believe I have a solution, although I don’t know exactly what needs to be done as I planned on relying on my former master’s vast knowledge of ritual magic to finalize the plans. However, I have determined in the years since that the portal is merely a small symptom of a much greater illness in this world.

“From the context of what you and Ilya have spoken of, I believe my former master wished for me to undo what you refer to as the Calamity.”

Arkk blinked several times, eyes widening. “You want to undo the Calamity?”

The Calamity, to Arkk, was little more than a myth. It was something that had happened so long ago that it was entirely irrelevant to him. But he knew the stories. The sky darkened for years. Life withered. Magic weakened. Entire races perished. Monsters of old, creatures beyond mere beastmen or demihumans, had vanished. Only the dragons had survived, and everyone knew they were a dying race, unable to procreate. Every dragon that died was one dragon permanently removed from the world, never to be replaced.

“Is that even possible?”

“The effects of the Calamity have already rippled through the world. Those who died would not magically return to life. But we can restore the proper order of the world, how it was meant to be before your so-called Light interfered.”

“But is it possible? I don’t… I don’t want to disappoint you, Vezta, but I’m not some great magi of old or even a proper spellcaster. I’m a farmer. A hunter. I’m not even very good at the latter job.”

Vezta shook her head. “It would be a task far beyond any mortal.”

“Then—”

“But you are no mere mortal, Master. You have claimed the [HEART] of Fortress Al-Mir. It is not fully functional yet but it is still a magical artifact unrivaled by anything else in existence. If it can be restored, such a task may just be within our grasp. In addition, there are other [HEART]s out there. They were relatively common in my former master’s time. Lay claim to those and reversing the calamity would be a matter most trivial.

“The first step, I believe, should still be to restore functionality to the portal. I know roughly how to fix that. If you were to recruit a capable spellcaster or delve into such studies yourself, I believe we could accomplish that task in short order.”

Arkk stared at the woman before him, wondering if there wasn’t something to Ilya’s fear of this place. The way Vezta spoke, the fervor in her voice, that utter belief that the [HEART], and Arkk by extension, was capable of undoing the Calamity. The legends he knew spoke of the Calamity like it was a force of nature. Not something that anyone had been able to fight, whether they be human, dragon, or…

Apparently not gods, if Vezta’s claims that the Light had caused the Calamity were true.

“This Underworld place is your home?” Arkk said, mostly trying to fill the silent gap with some sound so that he wasn’t left dwelling on his thoughts. “Or where you came from?”

Vezta shook her head, then looked upward toward the recently repaired arching ceiling. “I am a being of the [STARS].”

“Ah.” Arkk’s eyes flicked to one of the golden sun-like eyes set into the cuff on her wrist. “Makes sense, I guess. Still, repairing the Calamity? That sounds so grandiose for someone like…” Trailing off, Arkk shook his head. He straightened his back and locked eyes with Vezta. “No. I made a promise to be someone you can look up to. If you say I can do it, then I’ll do my best.”

Vezta stood, kneeled, then bowed until her forehead touched the ground. “Thank you, Master. I feel as if this weight I have been carrying is lessened already. I will not fail you.”

“You… don’t need to do that. Please don’t do that. If Ilya saw you like that, she would think I am forcing you—”

A voice from behind Arkk made him shudder. “You mean you aren’t a depraved, love-deprived fool abusing your servant?”

Turning slowly in his seat, Arkk winced under Ilya’s silver eyes. “I’m not… She’s not… It’s not what you think!”

“Oh?” Ilya raised an eyebrow. “I think it is exactly what I think.” She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Your servant is a monster who can’t comprehend normal human mannerisms.”

“No, it’s…” Arkk trailed off, glancing back at Vezta. The servant was still kneeling but was no longer bowing. Her back was upright as she watched the goings on with a smile. “Yes. Probably that. Or else she does comprehend humans and is just trying to embarrass me.”

“I would never,” Vezta said, returning to her feet. Arkk could not decide if the tone in her voice was sincere or sarcastic.

“Never mind that,” Ilya said, tossing something toward Arkk. “Did you know about this?”

Arkk caught a coin. A heavy coin that gleamed a brilliant gold in the light from the library’s glowstones. One side had the same compass rose that was stamped on every corridor tile. Like the tiles, it had a little blue-violet gemstone set directly in the center of the coin. The other side was a labyrinthine maze, much like the [HEART].

Hearing clanking, Arkk glanced up to find Ilya holding out a whole fistful of identical coins.

“Where did you find these? Some treasure room?”

“They were sitting around the heart chamber. Arkk, just the amount in my hands makes you wealthier than the Baron, probably, and there were three piles up to my knees.”

“Transmutation,” Vezta said, leaning forward. She plucked the coin from Arkk’s hands, looking over it before handing it back. “The servants recycled the material from the old rooms. You should be able to use this to construct proper replacements, defenses, furnishings, and so forth.”

“Wait, wait,” Ilya said, holding up her free hand. “You’re saying those things eat whatever they want and vomit it up as gold?”

“Nothing so crude,” Vezta said, annoyed.

“You’re upset I’m calling that crude?” Ilya pointed a finger at the bubbling pustule of flesh, eyes, and maws.

It gurgled like the world’s emptiest stomach as it ripped off a rotted plank from the wall, shredding it with its teeth. One of its eyes popped as a fresh replacement bubbled up from under its oily flesh, though it somehow managed to not get gunk all over the place. Magic, probably.

“Right,” Ilya said. “I rest my case.”

Vezta pressed her lips together. “I’ll see about teaching them better,” she said, retaking her seat in front of one of the thick tomes. Several shadowy, dripping tendrils sprouted from her back. Each picked up a pen and she began scrawling out the copy of the book onto fresh vellum at an absurd speed. “As soon as I finish my priority task.”

Ilya stepped forward, grabbing hold of Arkk’s shoulder. “Do you know what this means?” she asked, waving the hand still full of gold. A few coins fell, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“I’m rich?” When Ilya narrowed her eyes, Arkk tried again, “We’re rich?”

“It means you better be real careful about who hears about this place. If word spreads about a handful of gold coins sitting in the middle of the Cursed Forest, people are going to come searching. This much coin and I’m sure everyone and their mother will be after it. Hell, half the people would probably be willing to stab their own mothers just for what I’ve got in my hand.”

“Assaults on Fortress Al-Mir are not an uncommon occurrence,” Vezta said, not looking up from her work. “In its current state, defending against an army would be perilous. I should be more than adequate to deal with any common thief.”

Ilya threw a glare in Vezta’s direction before shifting that glare to Arkk.

Arkk barely paid attention to her, however, rolling a gold coin between his fingers as he thought.

The fortress was a strange oddity. But it was just that. An oddity. Something he wanted to use, along with Vezta, to learn more magic from. More than that? Vezta kept calling it the ultimate defensive and offensive tool. He hadn’t thought much about what that meant. He didn’t see how a stationary building could be an offensive tool.

This, however, got his mind working. While he was sure it wasn’t what Vezta had meant, a way to create gold could certainly count as an offensive weapon. Gold could get him mercenaries, food and supplies, craftsmanship, materials, and just about anything else he could think of.

“How much gold can we get out of this place, Vezta?”

“I am unsure. My former master chose this location due to the presence of a large deposit of gold underneath the fortress. I do not believe he managed to mine even a small fraction of it.”

“We’re sitting on a gold mine?” Ilya said, looking faint. “This is going to draw the Duke’s attention.”

“Only if people find out. I’m not going to tell. You aren’t going to either. Vezta won’t.” Arkk tapped the gold coin on the desk, listening to the clink. “Maybe we can use this.”

“Arkk…”

“Hear me out. Your mother—”

“My mother,” she hissed. “The Duke took her as a tribute after a season of poor harvest. What has that got to do with this?”

“We couldn’t pay then, but now—”

Ilya’s face hardened. “Arkk… We’ve talked about this. You were barely old enough to remember and I was young too. The other villagers say he was after Mother for years, just looking for an excuse to take her. A fistful of gold isn’t going to make him—”

“You don’t know that. This changes things.” He held up the coin, looking at his shiny glint in the light of the library’s glowstones. “We have to try. She raised me. Taught me to read. Told me about my magic ability. It is the least I can do for her.”

“If it isn’t enough? If he isn’t interested?” Silver eyes flashed with a dangerous glint, defiant. Like she didn’t want to dare hope for the possibility of seeing Alya again.

“With this much gold, someone will be interested. I always thought we were trapped in Langleey. Trapped with our lot in life,” Arkk said with a sigh. Ilya stared at Arkk, then looked over his shoulder, staring at Vezta for a long moment. “This is an opportunity. I know you want your mother back.”

Arkk looked around the room, first at the books. Although he held out hope that they would be able to find a way to translate them, they were worthless at the moment. With as much gold as Ilya had in her hands, he could probably just go to the city and buy all the spell books he wanted and then some. Vezta… had something she wanted done as well. The first step of which was to find a capable spellcaster or for Arkk to learn magic himself. The latter would likely take too long but with gold, he could hire someone.

His parents had died when he was young. Before he could remember them. After that, Alya, Ilya’s mother, raised him. He remembered more of Alya than of his parents, but even that wasn’t much. Just a beautiful woman with a caring look in her eyes who was always there when Jorgen and Hurtt were being cruel. If not for Alya, he might not have learned to read and write.

“I want her back,” Ilya admitted, voice a slight whisper.

Vezta stood, turning to face Ilya and Arkk. Her tendrils continued scribing behind her back. “Master Arkk, forgive my impudence but I overheard your plans.”

Arkk raised an eyebrow. “We weren’t trying to hide. We weren’t even speaking quietly.”

“Most benevolent,” Vezta said with a slight bow. “However, in lieu of proper advisors, allow this servant to fulfill that role. Fortress Al-Mir is the ultimate offensive tool, but it is not yet in an operational state. We require additional funds to construct rooms and facilities. There are no employees to operate the rooms or serve as martial forces. In addition, you are inexperienced with the operation of the [HEART] and have a limited repertoire of spells, one of the [HEART]’s greatest offerings is vast magical power, growing ever larger as it acquires territory and employees. Opening the portal will solve several of these issues, but not all of them. Engaging in conflict with a Duke, who presumably has a standing army, is… not ideal at the present time.”

“Woah, woah, hold on.” Arkk glanced to Ilya. “We’re not starting a war with the Duke.”

Some, but not all, of Vezta’s eyes blinked. “Were you not proposing we hire additional forces using the gold?”

“I…” Arkk started, looking at Ilya. “Mercenaries, yes. Someone has to be willing to take a job to rescue an elf from the Duke, right? Probably demihumans and beastmen over humans… But not… war.”

“We just need to meet with him first,” Ilya said before either of them could get out of hand. “If he does accept a fistful of gold, then we should take it long before we start plotting anything more violent.”

“Rescue,” Arkk said.

“Whatever.” Ilya’s eyes shifted toward the ritual circles on the floor in the back of the library. There were two, side by side. One went to Langleey Village, the other went to the opposite side of the Cursed Forest which they had used to recover their hunting supplies. “Can you make another one of those to the city? Cliff?”

“That depends on the distance, but…” Vezta turned her head away from Ilya. “Master Arkk, forgive my impu—”

“You don’t need to say that every time. I’m not going to take offense at anything you say.”

“You are dressed like a [simpleton]/[peasant]/[village idiot].”

Arkk pressed his lips together, glancing down at his leather tunic and hemp undershirt. Ilya snorted, donning a smile at Vezta’s comment until she realized that she was dressed in nearly identical clothing.

“Okay. I might take some offense at the things you say.”

“If you are wishing to meet with a duke as equals—or at least lessen the gap in your status—a change of attire is [required],” Vezta said. “My master is greater than any duke, earl, or king. I cannot have you carrying on as you are if you are to meet with such individuals of objectively lower standing.”

“Then what do you suggest,” Arkk said, crossing his arms.

A tendril snapped out from under Vezta’s dress. She used it to pick up one of the fallen gold coins. Handing it off to her actual hand, she rolled it between her knuckles before pinching it between her thumb and fingers. “Allow me to show you how the [HEART] is meant to operate.”

 

 

 

“No amount of glaring is going to bring my mood down today!” Arkk said with a laugh, raising his flagon with the crowd.

Once it became clear that Vezta was not a danger to the people of the village, suspicion turned to relief and relief turned to joy. Langleey Village would not fall to the wolves—or goblins—and the people would not have to beg the Duke for mercy. After clearing out the goblins who missed the memo that it was time to leave, everyone returned to the plaza. It was a bit of a grisly job, clearing the place out, but Vezta was more than happy to handle that task.

Keeping things tidy was one of her primary duties. Not combat.

Who would have thought?

The Baron raised his flagon, a wide grin on his face. “And right you are for that. Smile, Ilya! I didn’t break out the kegs of good mead so you could sit about unhappy!”

Before today, Arkk hadn’t known there was good mead. Just the watered-down beer that Ken brewed. The next celebration the village had, he would be reminding the Baron about the honeyed mead.

Of course, this afternoon wasn’t all about celebrating. It was as much to calm down the villagers as it was a toast to the routing of the horde. Two homes had gone up in flames, leaving little more than charcoal behind. A few other buildings suffered at the hands of goblins and were now trashed beyond reasonable habitation. Not that anyone would want to go back to their homes tonight.

For the next week at the very least, the village would split between the Baron’s manor, the church, and the main storehouse. All right up here around the plaza. Watchmen would set posts around the clock and nobody was to go anywhere on their own. While nobody really believed that the goblins and orcs would return after running from a thrashing delivered by just two people—plus the villagers toward the end—they couldn’t say for sure. Especially if some goblins got loose and decided to come back on their own.

“—jumped right on my back! The biggest orc you ever saw. Instinct took over and I threw myself into the wall. That stunned it enough to get it off me. I turned and started pounding its face in,” Hurtt said, miming punch after punch. “Thought I had it down to rights until its buddy showed up. An even bigger orc!” The small crowd he was telling his tall tale to gasped.

Arkk was fairly certain that his lightning had frightened off all the orcs well before Hurtt showed up. Once they realized that he was picking them out with his bolts of lightning, they vanished. He had probably only killed ten. Maybe not even that many.

John, sitting nearby, met Arkk’s gaze. He simply rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Not everyone was in quite as high of spirits. Those whose homes were damaged or destroyed went about with bitter-sweet expressions on their faces. While the village would help them recover, it still stung to lose what they had. Aside from them, Abbess Keena, though at a table nearby, hadn’t spoken to Arkk since returning. She wouldn’t even look at him. He did catch her sneaking glances—often with a heavy scowl in place—at Vezta.

Most people seemed a bit nervous about Vezta’s presence. More so those who had arrived in time to see the fight. Only Ilya, Baron Gert and his wife, John, and Hale seemed willing to approach. And Jorgen and Hurtt, neither of whom would ever admit to being afraid of anything.

It probably didn’t help that Vezta wasn’t exactly joining in on the festivities. She stood still and silent just behind Arkk, hands clasped together with a faint smile never leaving her face.

“What do goblins taste like?”

Arkk raised his eyebrows, ears catching a strange question right behind him. Turning around, he found Hale more than willing to approach Vezta. The young carpenter’s apprentice stood right at Vezta’s side, staring up at her. Vezta didn’t look like she noticed or cared, at least not until Arkk turned around. Only then did she look down at Hale, tilting her head to the side in the process.

“I saw teeth in the ground around you and Arkk,” Hale said. “One of the goblins fell into the open mouth and it snapped shut.”

The surrounding conversations slowly died off, Hale having spoken loud and clear. Even Jorgen and Hurtt paused their exaggerated tales to subtly glance in the direction of the mysterious monster.

“Humans consume boars, correct?” Vezta asked slowly. “Fat, juicy pigs?”

Hale nodded her head, sending her dark twin tails bobbing.

“Goblins are like the opposite of that. Stringy, scrawny, and more crunch than flesh.”

A few disquieted murmurs rippled through the villagers. Not that Vezta’s answer perturbed Hale in the slightest. She nodded her head as if that was what she expected and looked back up. “What about orcs?”

“I cannot say I have ever eaten an orc. None strayed close enough today and I do not recall such a creature existing the last time I walked the surface.”

Hale frowned but asked another question, undaunted. “Have you ever eaten a huma—”

“Alright!” John said, standing and grabbing Hale’s shoulders in one swift move. He started dragging her off toward the garden around the Baron’s manor. “Let’s go have a talk.”

An uncomfortable silence followed in their wake. A whole lot more people were probably wondering about Hale’s question, Arkk included. Unlike Hale, few others would have her apparently innocent curiosity over the matter.

“Orcs didn’t exist?” Arkk asked, trying to get the morbid question out of people’s minds. “How long ago was that?”

“I cannot say I counted the nights. I apologize.”

“No, no. Don’t worry. I just hadn’t ever heard of orcs not existing.”

The Baron, emboldened by the question and answer session, or just by Vezta breaking her silence, leaned forward somewhat. “We’ve had the occasional beastman and demihuman pass through the village, but I’ve never seen something quite like you. What manner of creature are you, if you don’t mind my asking?” he added hurriedly.

“I am the [SERVANT] of the [HEART].”

Everyone within earshot flinched except for Arkk. He shot a glance backward. “None of that,” he said.

Vezta dipped her head in an apologetic bow. “There is no better concept for describing myself, but I shall refrain from using… that language unexpectedly in the future.”

“Servant, the regular word, will have to work.”

“Understood. If that is what you wish,” Vezta said.

Ilya slammed her hands into the table as she stood up. “Arkk. You avoided me all day. We need to talk. Now.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, glancing around. Between Hale’s questions, the [CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE], and now Ilya slamming her hands down, the good mood of the celebration had completely vanished. His mood included. With a small sigh, he set down his flagon of mead. Ilya turned and stalked off a short distance down the path leading to the rest of the village.

“I’ll be back,” he said, both to Vezta as well as the Baron. He stepped aside, only to pause and shoot a pained smile at Gert. “Unless she realizes I left her bow back at the western edge of the Cursed Forest.”

That got a foggy chuckle from the rotund man.

Vezta, Arkk noted, did not follow after him. He was a bit surprised. Although he was going to tell her to wait—Ilya clearly wanted to speak privately—he still expected her to trail along until he told her not to. Unless she had known that he was going to tell her to wait… Which was possible.

There was something there. Something between them. Arkk couldn’t quite put his finger on it. During the fight, there had been a few times where he had known what she was doing without him actually seeing her do it. The moment when she had swiped one of the crossbow bolts out of the air stuck out vividly. Then there was when she had hidden in his shadow before using the magic circle to arrive. He had simply known where she would be.

They were connected together. Somehow.

It was a bit eerie but after that fight? Arkk found it hard to care that much. She had protected him and saved the village. He knew beforehand that there was some kind of binding in that contract, he just hadn’t known exactly what form it would take.

Shoving the thoughts aside, Arkk had to pick up the pace to catch up with Ilya’s long strides. Elf that she was, Ilya was a full head taller than he was. Her irritation put an extra bout of haste in each step, making her even faster.

They were well beyond the hearing range of anyone up at the plaza. Ilya showed no sign of slowing. She continued marching with purpose all the way down the small hill and to the carpentry shop. “Is your monster going to attack anyone?” she said, spinning on her heel as soon as they were around the side of the building.

Taken aback, Arkk shook his head. “No? She said she wouldn’t.”

“And you believe it?”

“I mean… yes? Why save the village only to turn around and attack it moments later? If she wanted to hurt people, she could have simply refused to help.” Arkk frowned. “And you believe that too, or you wouldn’t have left her alone back there.”

Ilya crossed her arms. Outside the direct presence of Vezta, she didn’t look quite so upset. Still, she pressed her lips into a thin line as she stared at Arkk. Turning away, she pointed to the magic circle that was still burned into the ground. “Take me there,” she said.

“Take you?”

“Hale told me. You disappeared into this circle saying you were going to get help and not to worry because it wasn’t a demon.”

“It’s not—She’s not. I asked the Abbess. Also, I asked Vezta. She seemed offended that I would even think that.”

“I’m worried it is worse than a demon.” Crossing her arms again, Ilya tapped her finger on her elbow.

“Worse? What could possibly—”

“Can you take me there or not?”

Clamping his mouth shut, Arkk looked down at the circle burned into the dirt. It looked intact despite the battle. There were a few stains on the ground around it. Dark blotches marring the dirt and grass from where Vezta had killed a few goblins upon their arrival. Nothing looked to have touched the circle itself.

“Yeah,” Arkk said. “I think so.”

Ilya stepped forward until she reached the center of the circle. Turning around, she shot Arkk a look.

Arkk wasn’t exactly sure how to send other people. Although he had used the circle three times and nothing bad happened any of those times, he hoped it was safe for other people to use. Reaching down, standing on the outside of the circle, he pushed just a little magic into it. The pattern in the ground flashed and Ilya disappeared.

Immediately, he felt warning bells go off in his head. Not in the sense that he might feel something was amiss, but literal warning bells. As clear as the church bells he had rung to warn the villagers. Focusing on the sensation made Arkk gasp.

He could see Ilya. She stood in the fortress library, looking around with narrowed eyes. He was still in the village, not moving, not sure what might happen if he appeared in the same spot she currently occupied. Yet, he could see her. A strange case of double-vision settled over his mind. She didn’t move save to draw her daggers, clearly checking around herself for danger. She even checked upward, though if she noted Arkk watching from above, she didn’t show it.

Slowly, she moved forward, reaching out for a book on a nearby shelf. The spine crumbled under her lithe fingers. Not promising for Arkk’s hope of finding magic in that library. As soon as she stepped out of the circle, approaching the crystal ball, Arkk moved in. With a push of magic, Arkk was inside the library alongside Ilya.

She jumped, grip tightening around her dagger, but she didn’t strike at him.

“This place is old,” she said softly. “The Cursed Forest was the Cursed Forest when my mother was a young girl. If people ever lived here, it probably wasn’t the Cursed Forest back then.”

“I thought it was some pre-Calamity fortress. Mostly because of Vezta.”

“She told you so?”

“No, but just look at her. Never heard of a beastman, demihuman, or anything that resembles her, right? More like the monsters of old.”

Ilya drew in a resigned breath through her teeth. “So you knew that much and still decided to go along with what she wanted?”

“I don’t think that makes her worse than a demon. Does it? She’s just old. Like a dragon or… Where are you going?”

Ilya moved with purpose, exiting the library. Arkk did note that the door did not simply swing open for her until he approached from behind. If she was curious about it opening on its own, she didn’t say. Instead, she looked up and down the corridor before selecting the right path.

The direction that led toward the [HEART].

Ilya stopped partway, kneeling near one of the skeletal corpses. Prying a shield from where it had seemingly fused with the floor, she stared down at the remains of the heraldry on the corroded surface. It was a bit hard to make out, but it was some kind of great tree. Something surrounded the tree—people, perhaps?—but it was mostly a scarring of rust. It certainly wasn’t the emblems used in the Duchy of Mystakeen.

An unsettling noise echoed down the corridor. A slopping, squishing noise. Ilya was on her feet, daggers at the ready. Arkk started as well, though quickly calmed down. Much like simply knowing where Vezta was or seeing Ilya in the library, he knew and saw what was ahead of them.

“It’s a lesser servant,” Arkk said, grimacing as he watched its pulsating mass of boiling flesh squirm down the corridor.

It turned the corner of a room up ahead. The doors, Arkk noted, opened for it all on their own. It paid them little mind, choosing to stop at a corpse instead. A thick tentacle stretched out, mouth forming as it moved. Its mouth, a ring of razor-sharp needles, scooped up the skeleton, armor, and all, ripping it to shreds as it ate.

“Vile,” Ilya hissed.

Arkk… didn’t disagree. Perhaps because he had seen one before, he didn’t find it that shocking, but it wasn’t a pleasant creature to look at. Of greater interest was the fact that it was his. Not the same one he had summoned back during the fight—that one had been killed in seconds—but it was still connected to him. Just like Vezta was.

After consuming the corpse, it started doing something. A hideous dance of gyrating tendrils. There was magic in the air, twisting and following its movements. Slowly, the cracked and worn stone wall it stood near changed. Bricks that must have been down here for ages, wearing down under wind, water, and time, reformed. Cracks sealed together, bricks grew into the places left behind by missing bits, and the entire section of the wall smoothed over, looking as if the masons who built it had just finished.

“My mother warned me of this,” Ilya said.

“Of tentacle monsters with aspirations to be stone masons?” Arkk asked, watching as the lesser servant moved to the opposite wall to repeat its dance.

Ilya looked back, shooting him a look. “Of a great evil ready to rise once again. Monsters that once brought the world to its knees, nearly destroying everything.”

“I know it looks gross, but great evil? Those monsters just saved our village,” Arkk said, feeling defensive. Though he paused and thought. “Besides that thing is building, not destroying anything.”

The lesser servant finished with the wall and started on the floor. It cleared away bits of debris and a discarded sword, consuming them as it had the corpse earlier. Maybe that counted as destroying? But it was more just cleaning up, which became even more evident when the dark grey stone repaired itself just as the wall had, gaining a pattern like a compass rose with a deep blue-violet gemstone placed in the very center.

“I only know what my mother told me, which wasn’t much,” Ilya said, edging past the lesser servant. It didn’t seem to notice or care about their presence, carrying on cleaning the corridor. “I don’t know that she knows the full story. My mother is only a little older than six hundred. Much younger than this place if it truly is pre-Calamity.”

“And what story is that?” Arkk asked, only partially paying attention. He was more focused on the creature. His first thought was that Vezta had come back and created it because he was fairly certain that this place had been otherwise deserted, but she had been at his side ever since he activated that artifact.

Not to mention, it was connected to him. Not to Vezta.

“My mother, and her mother before her, lived here in this village specifically to keep watch on the Cursed Forest. The elvish village they came from believed a great evil resided here. An evil that would one day return.”

“Vezta helped save the village,” Arkk said again.

“I know. I do not know if that creature is the evil that my mother spoke of.” She paused, frowning. “It certainly didn’t feel like it back in the village. Though I can’t say it acted kind… the way it looked at Hale…”

“As far as I can tell, Vezta listens to me. I am not evil.”

Ilya looked back, flashing a grin. “No. Just stupid. Running through the Cursed Forest?”

“It worked, didn’t it? I got back before you and brought help. I wasn’t even poisoning the ground with every step. I checked.” Arkk stamped his feet on the ground as if demonstrating. “Walked right over some patches of grass and none of it withered and died.”

“Nevertheless,” Ilya started, smile fading. “The Cursed Forest is dead and has remained dead since my grandmother’s time. That doesn’t happen naturally. Something in this forest is causing problems.”

They stopped at the heavy iron doors that led into the room with the sphere and pit. Much like the hallway that the servant had been working on, something had refurbished this door. All evidence of wear, corrosion, and battle damage had gone. The surface practically gleamed. At Arkk’s approach, it swung open without a single creaking noise.

There were no bodies inside the chamber. Not even that odd cube with its strange limbs. The lesser servant must have cleaned the place out. The walls and floor had been repaired. Even that giant divot where the stone sphere had sat was now level with the rest of the floor.

Ilya didn’t follow him inside. She stood just outside, looking in. A wince crossed her features with every beat of the stone [HEART].

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t… It feels wrong. You are at least capable of sensing magic, right? Surely you feel that in the air?”

Arkk looked at the beating heart. It thumped in time with his own heart. There was, he noted, a taste of magic in the air. It didn’t feel unpleasant or wrong. The more he focused, the more it felt like his own magic, if on a much grander scale. “Vezta said something about my magic being tied up in the heart.” Each beat spread out a faint wave of magic over the room. If he were being honest, it felt comfortable. Like he belonged here. “That is probably what you’re feeling.”

Ilya closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead. “I’m no spellcaster. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I just don’t like it. Can’t we just walk away? Pretend you never found this place or that monster?”

“I made a promise,” Arkk said with a shake of his head. “Vezta helped save the village. I’ll help her out in turn. She seems…” He trailed off, thinking for a moment. “Lonely. Maybe. I would be the evil one if I just abandoned her.”

“Then promise me,” Ilya said, stepping into the room. She grabbed hold of his hands and held them up to her chest. “Promise me you won’t lose yourself.”

“Lose myself? Ilya, what do you think—”

“Promise me,” she said, far more insistent. “I’ll help. I’ll keep you centered. But I need you to promise that you will try too.”

Arkk swallowed, staring into her silver eyes. Ilya normally had the air of a tease about her, offering snide remarks and casually exclaiming false despair over his actions; the look on her face when magic he tried to do went wrong… But now, she was serious. Deadly serious.

Finding himself nodding, Arkk said. “Alright. I won’t lose myself. You can help me all you want, but it’s completely unnecessary.”

Ilya closed her eyes, letting out a long sigh of relief. Like he would have rejected her.

Just as Arkk was about to comment on the absurdity of that, he felt something. A slight change. A tether formed, stretching between Ilya and himself, relayed off the [HEART]. It was a lot like the bond he had noticed with that lesser servant or with Vezta, but not quite the same. They were directly connected to him. Ilya, with the [HEART] between them, was a step removed.

“Ilya?”

Silver eyes snapped open. “What?”

“Did you… feel that?”

Her brow furrowed. “Feel what?”

“I… don’t know. Something just happened between us.”

Ilya looked down between them, noticed her hands holding Arkk’s close to her chest, and promptly gave him a light shove. She shot him a heavy scowl and turned away. “I felt thanks for you. Nothing more happened between us, Arkk.”

“No, not—”

“I’ve told you, I’m much too young for you.”

“It’s not… You’re ten years older than me!”

“I’m only interested in other elves.”

“You’ve never seen any other elves besides your mother.”

Ilya started stalking away, shaking her head. “Come on, you love-struck fool. Now is hardly the time for this.”

Arkk caught her hand before she could walk more than three steps. “I’m serious, Ilya. Something magical happened between us and I do not mean that in a romantic sense. We’re… bound together, somehow.”

“Bound together?” Ilya raised an eyebrow. She locked eyes with him for a long moment, but slowly widened her eyes and looked over his shoulder. “Oh. I’m not sure what you are talking about…” Trailing off, she took a deep breath. “But the air here doesn’t feel quite so bad.”

“Is that good?”

“I assume so? But we should leave regardless. I don’t like leaving your monster alone with the villagers.”

“Yeah… I think I need to talk to Vezta and figure out exactly what is going on here.”

Thinking about Vezta, he found he could still see her. She stood in the middle of the village, hardly paying attention to anyone, though no one looked interested in interacting with her either. The little party seemed to be at a close anyway. Taking a moment, Arkk inspected the link between them, trying to figure it out a little more. He had assumed that it formed because he made that contract with Vezta, but now, with Ilya having a similar link, he wasn’t so sure. While inspecting it, he found he could tug on the link, for lack of a better word.

Ripped through time and space, Vezta appeared in front of Arkk. She was clearly off balance, but a part of her dress peeled away into a thick tendril, catching her. As soon as she got her balance back, the tendril merged seamlessly into her dress once again.

While Ilya drew her daggers in a flash, wary, Vezta simply turned with her faint smile firmly in place. She didn’t look the least bit irritated at suddenly finding herself somewhere new. Her golden eyes locked onto Arkk, dipped down to where his hand held Ilya’s hand, then moved up to Ilya’s face.

“Ah, your first minion. A wise choice. Her sharp elven eyes and keen accuracy with a bow offer great value in many situations.”

“My what?”

“Minion?” Ilya hissed, shifting a glare from Vezta to Arkk.

“I’m sorry,” Vezta said, canting her head. “Was there a mistranslation? [Initial]/[ready-set-go]|[minion]/[underling]/[employee].”

Arkk understood those concepts forced into his mind. He had hired Ilya. Their promise constituted an agreement for her to effectively work for him. It wasn’t binding. He could fire her or she could choose to leave. But for the moment, she was his minion. “Employee,” Arkk said, “is a better word. Use that.”

“As you wish.”

“Now, what is this link between us? And you and me. And me and…” Arkk trailed off, finding the lesser servant that was roaming the corridors of the fortress. With a yank on the link, he picked it up and dropped it down next to them. “Where did this even come from?”

Ilya jumped back with a sharp gasp, but Vezta just smiled down at the creature.

“A bond between a lord and his subjects runs much deeper via the [HEART]. We can call to you in times of crisis, drawing your attention. You are aware of where any of us are at any given time. The bond prevents direct harm caused by employees, though they can break the bond and then attack, you will at least be alerted. And, as you so expertly demonstrated, you can move us anywhere within your territory at will.”

Vezta knelt, smiling to herself as she patted the lesser servant on its… Arkk didn’t think they had heads or backs or anything resembling humanoid bodily structure. “As for this, now that the [HEART] is functioning once more, it will tend to the most basic of chores using these servants. A few will spawn on their own, but you can create more using the spell I taught you. You should be able to direct them if you wish. They are miserable fighters, but quite capable diggers and builders.”

“What is it?” Ilya said. “Not the… thing, but the HEART.” She tried to use the [CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE], but it just didn’t quite have the same effect as when Vezta did.

“[HEART]|[ultimate]|[defensive tool]/[offensive tool].”

Ilya didn’t look like the language bothered her all that much. She had flinched earlier, back when Vezta had identified herself to the villagers, but now, she barely blinked. “What is its purpose? Who built it and why?”

“Ah. It was a gift from the [PANTHEON] to my former master for the express purpose of using it as he desired. Through it, he acquired vast wealth, power, and followers. He would have been the ruler of this land were it not for the interference of the Heart of Gold, the Almighty Glory, and the Holy Light. They severed this world’s connection to the [UNDERWORLD], cutting off a majority of his employees and power. He sent me to uncover what they had done and how to reverse it. Alas, when I returned, my master was gone and the fortress was in ruins.”

Ilya and Arkk glanced at each other. He could see in her eyes that she understood about as much as he did. Which was to say not much at all. The three names Vezta mentioned were gods, she had said so before, but [PANTHEON] sounded like one or multiple gods as well. [UNDERWORLD] was a place. Maybe Vezta’s home? Somewhere not connected to the world.

“What was your former master’s name?” Ilya asked. “If he ruled the land, maybe we’ve heard of him.”

Arkk raised an eyebrow. He had no idea how Ilya would know that. Duke Levi Woldair was the only name he could think of off the top of his head, and only because he was their duke. He supposed he could name King Abe Lafoar for the same reason. Their predecessors? He didn’t have a clue. Kings and dukes just didn’t matter much in their little village.

“Keeper of the [HEART], Razerk.”

Just as Arkk expected, the name meant nothing to him. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ilya slowly shaking her head as well.

“I wish my mother were here,” she said softly.

“She didn’t leave books behind? A journal, maybe?”

“No. Just the vague stories about keeping a watch on the Cursed Forest. She didn’t even say what to do about it. Just to watch.”

That got Arkk wondering. “Vezta, is the [HEART] responsible for the… deadness in the land around it?”

“Yes.” Ignoring the way Ilya tensed, Vezta continued, “The [HEART] is partially alive, but it requires magic as sustenance. Broken and without a master, the [HEART] sought alternative sources of nourishment, draining the life from the forest above.”

“So… it’s fixed then? The forest will recover?”

“I wouldn’t count on immediate change,” Vezta said slowly. “But so long as your magic continues to flow, the [HEART] should have no need of such methods.”

“Well, that’s great then,” Arkk said with a widening smile.

Ilya didn’t mirror his grin, staring at Vezta with cold eyes. “Is this thing going to kill Arkk?”

Arkk sucked in a breath, snapping his gaze to Vezta.

“No. Even if something were to block his magic from recovering, it would return to the forest over killing its master.”

Letting out a small sigh, Arkk put his grin on once again. “Wonderful. See? We’ve fixed things, not broken them.”

Ilya allowed herself a small shadow of his smile but started rubbing her forehead. “I think I need to sleep on this. Organize my thoughts.”

“We can have the little one prepare quarters for the employees—”

“I need to sleep in my own bed,” Ilya said, interrupting Vezta. She turned to Arkk, then started walking down the corridor. “Take me back.”

“Right. Right,” Arkk said, following after her. “But I might stay here for a while. Quiz Vezta on what else this thing can do. How it functions as a defensive tool and stuff like that. It would be handy if the goblins come back.”

“Fine. Just… remember our promise.”

“I will.”

 

 

 

Arkk drew back his bowstring, not bothering to aim. The second he had enough power behind the arrow, he released it. He didn’t watch where it went, assuming it would hit something in the mass of monsters, and instead pulled out another arrow, drew it back, and let it go as fast as he could.

It seemed as if Ilya had gotten the rest of the village to flee. There were no other humans around. The goblins and orcs were not fighting anyone, free to pillage and plunder as much as they wanted. None of the homes were smoking ruins yet, thankfully. It was more like they were searching for people than properly looting the place. Arkk wondered if the orcs had deliberately warned the goblins against wanton destruction, wanting to go through undamaged homes for plunder before setting fire to everything.

“Electro Deus,” Arkk shouted after releasing another arrow. Blue-white lightning struck a goblin in the face.

Goblins were a diminutive species. Most barely came up to Arkk’s knees. Their skin tone ranged from light brown to a near-luminous green. With natural weapons in the form of razor claws and nasty, sharp teeth, having one anywhere nearby was liable to result in a loss of fingers, limbs, or worse. Of particular morbid interest at the moment, however, were their eyes. Disproportionately large for their heads, they were a sickly yellow color with dark black pupils.

The eyes of the goblin Arkk hit exploded into dark viscera as dark black smoke bellowed from its nostrils and ears. The goblin collapsed instantly, body wracked by seizures, never having had a chance to scream.

Feeling the tingle of magic still in his fingertips, Arkk pushed through more power, not needing the incantation again for repeated casts. A second bolt tore another goblin off the ground, flinging it into a crowd and knocking several over. A pair of goblins, touching each other, started smoking as a third bolt struck one of them. The next bolt Arkk fired off hit a sword. The goblin holding it panicked, thrashing around and striking its fellows as smoke wafted from the sword’s grip and the goblin’s hand. Arkk’s fifth bolt of lightning hit a goblin square in the chest but only made it yelp and stagger.

Arkk gasped for breath, feeling like he had just run through half the Cursed Forest again. Chest heaving, he forced himself to draw another arrow. The goblins were sprinting toward him now.

Tendrils erupted from his oversized shadow, grasping the front two goblins by the legs. Picking them up into the air, the dripping tendrils slammed the goblins back down onto more goblins, crushing bone and killing several. Arkk used the extra space to loose five arrows in rapid succession, each striking a goblin in the chest.

One goblin jumped into the air, forcing Arkk to leap to the side as it came down on him.

His shadow remained where it was. At the spot where Arkk had been standing, a gaping maw appeared in the ground. The goblin in the air saw and started to cry out, only for its cry to abruptly cut off as it vanished into a field of stars behind the teeth.

The maw snapped shut, leaving just an oily surface, interrupted only by those burning gold eyes.

Arkk turned and launched an arrow toward a screeching goblin, not having any time to ask what happened to that other one. Even if he did have the time to question Vezta, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Spotting an orc coming up the dirt path toward the plaza, Arkk threw out his hand. “Electro Deus,” he shouted.

Much like the first goblin, the orc didn’t stand a chance. The orc flew backward, leaving an arcing trail of viscera from his eyes and mouth. Aside from some seizures on the ground when he landed, the orc didn’t move again.

Two more lightning bolts felled goblins before Arkk stopped again, exhaustion creeping up. “Vezta,” he called, nocking an arrow. “I thought you said I had a lot of magical power. Shouldn’t I be able to cast more than a handful of spells at once?”

Although Arkk hadn’t seen him fight, the spellcaster that visited the village certainly sounded as if he could cast a great many more spells during his stories.

A mouth opened in the ground not far from Arkk. “The [HEART] is constantly consuming a portion of your power. It will return that power as you claim territory and gather minions, but you should still be able to cast more than you are now. Your problem might be that you have too much power. Or, at least, you seem more able to unleash a wide breadth of power at once. Imagine it as a lake emptied by a roaring river rather than a narrow brook.” Vezta ate another goblin without even pausing her sentence. “Try moderating yourself. Be the brook, not the river.”

“I have no idea how to do that,” Arkk said as his arrow sliced through the shoulder of a goblin before hitting another straight in its open mouth. “I have never cast a spell like this before twenty minutes ago.”

“Something to practice, I suppose,” Vezta said as a tendril erupted from the ground behind Arkk just in time to swipe aside the bolt of a crossbow.

Following the trajectory of the bolt back, he spotted yet another orc. There had been a small lull in the wave of monsters attacking him for a short time there, but it looked like more and more were taking notice.

Not enough, however. He could see a black cloud of smoke rising from one of the most distant dwellings. He and Vezta might be able to handle any that came near, but there were just too many. They would have the entire village burn down before he managed to rout them.

“Electro Deus,” he shouted, launching a bolt at the orc before it could crank its crossbow back for a second attempt.

Rather than fire another lightning bolt at a goblin, which Vezta had started consuming with disturbing efficiency, Arkk raised his hand over his head. He had to force magic through his fingertips. The spell did not like not having a target. Yet, at a certain point, the spell couldn’t stop itself. The magic overflowed, launching a bolt skyward. This one was powerful enough to create a deafening crack of thunder echoing over the village as a cloud overhead violently dispersed into thin wisps that spread out over the sky.

Again, Arkk felt like he had just run a minor marathon. Although he was gasping for breath, he was quite thankful that the ringing in his ears faded quickly enough. It let him catch the tail end of something Vezta had said.

“What was that?” Arkk asked between breaths.

“I said, ‘you missed,’ in an incredulous tone of voice. Quite an impressive miss, admittedly, but not in a good way, Master.”

Arkk straightened his back, reaching for more arrows. He was starting to run out. Even if every single arrow killed a monster, he would run out long before taking out even a quarter of this army. This was every arrow John had too.

“I was trying to draw attention,” Arkk said, taking a slight moment more to aim, wanting to make the most of every arrow he had left. “Get all the monsters here so they aren’t wrecking the rest of the village.”

Vezta’s golden eyes turned down the long path leading from the plaza toward the rest of the village. “Well, I dare say that you succeeded,” she said. “Are you sure that was wise? I am not omnipotent, Master.”

Following her eyes, Arkk faltered. He had thought there were a lot of monsters between him and the church. Now, however, there was a veritable tide of goblins rushing up the path. Orcs, lording over them at over three times their height, shouted orders or battle cries. Several brandished large axes, swords, and pikes. A few more wielded crossbows. He only counted a dozen orcs, meaning there were still almost two dozen left if Ilya’s count had been accurate. Still, he stumbled back at the sight.

This was what he wanted. Clenching his fists, Arkk steadied himself and nocked another arrow. “Arkk,” he said.

“Sorry?”

“My name.” Arkk loosed an arrow, aimed at an orc approaching from the path up the hill. It hit the orc in the chest, but that only seemed to make him mad. The orc let out a vicious roar, raising a spike-covered cudgel. “Arkk. I don’t think I introduced myself before.”

The humanoid form of Vezta stepped out of Arkk’s peripheral vision. Her appearance made him jump slightly, but she merely offered a deep bow. “Vezta,” she said. “I look forward to serving you properly.”

“If we survive this,” Arkk mumbled. “Electro Deus,” he shouted, trying to focus on not pushing quite as much magic as he fired off a series of bolts at the approaching horde. He managed to fell eight goblins and a pair of orcs before feeling that exhaustion creeping up on him again.

Vezta’s tendrils were sweeping through the approaching crowd without pause now, taking out twice as many as he was. She wasn’t killing them anymore, at least not outright. There were just too many. But sweeping the front line into the horde of goblins behind probably wound up with several skewered on their comrade’s weapons. Her physical body remained near him, almost uncomfortably close, though she did not get in the way of him drawing back the bowstring.

Still, this was going to be an unsuitable position in short order.

“The church,” Arkk said. “It has strong, stone walls. The doorways and windows will limit how many monsters can approach at once.”

“No!” Vezta’s shout made him jolt, filled with a fear that she had lacked even while calling him out for drawing the attention of all the monsters with that lightning bolt.

“No?”

“Entering consecrated ground bearing the regalia of the Almighty Glory, Heart of Gold, and Holy Light is a recipe for disaster.”

“What? Why?”

“They would not take kindly to our presence.”

“Who?”

“I just said.” Vezta grabbed hold of Arkk’s shoulders, leaning up against him as he targeted an orc with a bolt of lightning. “I promise. I won’t fail you. If I have upset you in any way, tell me and I will correct whatever I did. Please, we can fight these monsters off without going to them.”

Arkk tried to shove her aside to grab at another arrow from his sack. Vezta pulled him down, just in time for him to watch a crossbow bolt sail through the air where he had been. She set him back upright, using several tendrils to support his body until he was back on his feet, then stepped aside, allowing him access to his arrows once again.

He had no idea what she was talking about. Almighty Glory? Heart of Gold? Holy Light? Only the last made any sense, with this being a Church of the Light, but Arkk had never heard it phrased that way before. None of the sermons conducted by the Abbess mentioned any of the names Vezta was worried about. The Abbess prayed to the Light for healing and protection. It was a type of magic that not everyone could make use of. Arkk had tried, once upon a time. It hadn’t blown up, but it hadn’t done anything else either.

“We’ll talk about this, later.” Arkk narrowed his eyes, focusing on an orc. “I’ll focus on the orcs. Kill as many goblins as you can… as horrifically as you can. We don’t need to kill them all. We just need to rout them.”

How many had they killed so far? Thirty? Fifty? More? Was it even that much? He honestly wasn’t sure, but he was surprised that they hadn’t routed already.

It was because there were only two of them. Even with as many deaths as there had been, the monsters saw a single human—Vezta had only emerged physically recently. With as many of them as there were, a single human didn’t stand a chance in their eyes.

If there were more of Arkk and Vezta… If the villagers had stayed…

No, they might have been killed before he returned. Fleeing was the correct choice.

But if there were more of them…

“Electro Deus,” Arkk said, frying two orcs.

The orcs would be the ones to call for retreat. It was unlikely that the goblins would flee on their own. He couldn’t kill all of the orcs unless they were also going to kill all the goblins.

Vezta, despite her efforts, was already starting to slip. Goblins were getting closer to Arkk than they had been before now. Not quite to the point of reaching him, but with the horde pressing in on all sides…

“Slave Natum,” Arkk said, waving his hand. Vezta had only taught him three spells. Lightning Strike, Possession, and Create Lesser Servant.

The final of the three spells nearly made Arkk vomit. Not because of magic expenditure, although that spell had taken a lot out of him, but because of what formed on the ground in front of him.

Vezta had a certain grace to her, even with her absurd number of eyes, tentacles thrashing wildly, and maws swallowing up goblins left and right. She was elegant and poised, calm and collected. That carried through even in the movements of her unnatural extremities.

The terrible sight gave Arkk pause. A shapeless congeries of bubbling flesh, putrid slime, forming and popping eyeballs, and ugly, maw-tipped tendrils snapped into existence between him and the tide of goblins. It was small. Barely larger than a goblin.

While it used its maw-tipped tendrils to snap at a nearby goblin, it didn’t last long. The horde descended on it with vicious fervor, tearing it apart as quickly as it came. Arkk felt it die. The magic used in its construction came flowing back to him.

Bolstered by the brief abundance of excess magic, Arkk shouted, “Electro Deus,” and fired a full ten bolts of lightning.

“Sorry,” Vezta said. “Should have mentioned. Those things are useless for combat.”

“Can you make more of yourself?”

“There is only one [Self]/[Vezta].”

“Can you make it appear like there are more of you? Several bodies?”

Vezta slowly shook her head, looking casual despite tearing a goblin apart with her bare hands. “I can reform this body if it suffers damage, but it is my only body.”

“Damn,” Arkk hissed as he drew a dagger and slammed it through the forehead of a goblin that got too close. Reaching over his shoulder, he grasped three arrows. The last three. He sent them out one at a time as fast as he could, then tossed the bow aside. “Electro Deus!”

Not quite recovered from his recent casting, he managed four bolts before they fizzled out.

Slashing at the throat of another goblin, he bent and picked up its dropped sword. Not all the goblins had swords, most used nothing but their claws and teeth. It wasn’t a particularly good sword either, barely long enough to count as a dagger. Still, it was something.

Arkk swept the blades through any goblin that managed to get past Vezta. He fired off bolts of lightning whenever he felt able, but the orcs must have realized that he was targeting them. None were showing themselves. Perhaps they had decided to flee on their own, leaving the horde of goblins to cover their retreat. He wasn’t sure. He barely had time to think between strikes.

One goblin knocked into him, sending him to the ground. He stabbed it through its ear, killing it instantly, but a second goblin latched onto his arm and bit down. He cried out in pain. Vezta was already moving toward him, only to stop and crush the skull of a goblin closer to her. She turned away, attacking another goblin.

Before Arkk could even think of her actions as abandoning him, an arrow punched straight through the skull of the goblin clamped onto his arm. It continued out the other side, hitting another goblin in the chest before it could pounce on him.

Arrow after arrow rained down, striking the goblins closest to Arkk.

He craned his head to see where they were coming from.

Despite the pain in his arm, he couldn’t help but let out a joyous laugh. “Ilya!”

The elf stood atop the Baron’s manor’s roof, silver eyes gleaming in the distance. Her arm moved in a blur, launching arrows so fast it was like one steady stream of death for the goblins. She wasn’t the only one there. Five others were on the roof, including the carpenter’s young apprentice. They weren’t aiming anywhere near Arkk, however, likely not wanting to hit him on accident.

More of the villagers were down in the manor gardens, beating down any goblins that dared to approach the archers. They didn’t advance out into the tide, but Arkk couldn’t blame them for that.

Forcing himself to sit up, Arkk shouted, “Electro Deus!” He launched as many lightning bolts as he could, frying goblin after goblin and buying room for Vezta to continue her slaughter.

A horn sounded somewhere in the distance.

Not every goblin turned toward it. Some were too enraptured in their bloodlust. But the majority took that as the signal to fall back. They turned, scampering away from the village. Vezta made short work of the ones who failed to heed the call for retreat, leaving Arkk to flop back down onto the unusually soft ground. He laughed, panting heavily as he cradled his arm.

“We did it?”

Vezta approached, looming over him with a faint smile on her face. “It seems your goal has been accomplished.”

Arkk didn’t bother fighting the grin on his face, but it did slowly fade as he started thinking more. “For now. How many escaped? They may try again in the future.”

“Might I suggest returning to the [HEART] and—”

Vezta staggered back with the bolt of a crossbow sticking out from her chest. Black tar dripped from the end of the bolt, falling to the ground.

Arkk bolted upright. “Vezta?” he shouted, forgetting his wound as he grabbed her shoulders.

She didn’t seem all that concerned. “Rude,” she said, yanking the bolt from her chest. Her fingers, also dripping the slime that seemed to comprise her entire body, rubbed at the wound. When she pulled away, there was no sign that she had been hit at all.

Looking back to the manor, Arkk noted the villagers standing about, looking wary rather than celebratory. Only Ilya was approaching.

She did not look happy.

“I don’t suppose you can look a little more human-like?” Arkk whispered. “Just to put them a little more at ease.”

“The things I do for my Master,” Vezta said with a faux-exasperated sigh.

The shadows on the ground started drawing back toward her, leaving the ground untouched. Arkk would have expected more goblin bodies in the immediate area, but… had Vezta eaten them all? She didn’t look any larger. As the shadows vanished entirely, so too did the tendrils emerging from her dress. A pair of elegant yet heavy boots appeared in their place.

Her dark violet skin and hair didn’t change. Neither did the eyes on her person, though if they didn’t blink, perhaps they would look more like part of her dress than actual eyes. Vezta clasped her hands in front of her and took a step back, moving just behind and to the side of Arkk. Not hiding behind him, but taking up a subservient position.

Just in time for Ilya to stop in front of them.

“What—” the elf started, eyes flicking between them, then around the carnage littering the plaza. Angry as she was, she didn’t seem to know quite what to say. “Saw the lightning bolt. A few of us turned back. And now we find… what? Just what?”

Arkk imagined he would have said the same thing in her position. “It’s a long story,” he said, keeping his hand clamped on his arm.

Ilya’s sharp eyes didn’t miss that. Her face softened as she said, “You’re injured.”

“Goblin bite.”

Ilya grimaced. “That’s going to rot your arm off..”

Vezta took a half-step forward, still remaining behind Arkk. “If you would like, Master, I would be pleased to cleanse your wound.”

“Master,” Ilya repeated, face wrinkling in distaste. Her eyes shifted to Vezta, where they stayed for a long moment. “What have you done, Arkk? What have you done?”

Arkk raised his eyebrows. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a good answer for her.

Vezta took his silence as consent to tend to his injury. She reached out, black slime dripping from her fingers. It didn’t fix the gnarled flesh as it had with her arrow wound, but it was soothing in much the same way as the ointment the Abbess had applied earlier. The bleeding seemed to stop as well.

Offering her a small smile, he looked back to Ilya. Answering her question, he said, “I saved the village?”

Ilya stared for a long moment before letting out a clipped laugh. It didn’t sound like a particularly happy laugh, but Arkk would take it over her angry face any day. “If only that were all,” she mumbled, glancing back to the Baron’s manor. “We need to make sure there aren’t any stragglers,” she said, louder. “Keep your monster on a leash and don’t go anywhere. We need to talk.”

“It’s never good when a girl says that.”

“Like you have any experience.” She turned away, but paused and looked back, momentary smile gone. “I’m serious. You’ve…” Her eyes flicked to Vezta. “Don’t go anywhere.”

With that, she stalked off.

Arkk slumped. There wasn’t any pain in his arm, thanks to Vezta, but it didn’t look good. And he was so tired. Exhausted from fighting and casting spells. His sleep, lucky though he was to have had it at all, hadn’t been the best. And he had been running all last evening. He wanted nothing more than to just lean back and close his eyes.

“Are you alright? That bolt…” Arkk mumbled, closing his eyes while standing. “If you hadn’t been able to heal like that.”

“I was skewered by numerous goblin swords as well. I do not claim to be invulnerable but it will take more than that to down me.”

“Still…”

“Rest now. Know that I shall protect you to the best of my ability.”

“Don’t hurt the villagers.”

“I am a [SERVANT]. I exist to assist you in your desires. If you do not desire harm to the villagers, they have nothing to fear from me.”

“Thank you, Vezta,” Arkk said, leaning against her. “You saved my village.”

“Your desire saved it.”

“No, I’m serious. Thank you.” Arkk opened his eyes, meeting her black and gold eyes. “If there is anything I can do…”

Vezta pressed her lips together, then nodded slowly. “Become a master truly worthy of my services. That is all I ask.”

“I’ll do my best.”

 

 

Of course it was dark. This was an underground library with no natural lighting. He hadn’t brought his torch with him.

“Vezta?” he called out. Not receiving an answer, he carefully started moving, feeling his way to the door. If he remembered correctly, the maze-like room with the bottomless pit would be to his right. “Vezta?” he called again as he made his way as fast as he could in the total darkness. A few times, he stumbled over the bodies of the fallen soldiers or monsters, but he pushed on until he felt the heavy metal door.

Turning the corner into the pit room, he found Vezta seated on the steps of the dais. It looked like it had one knee crossed over the other, but the only things peeking out the bottom of its ‘dress’ were thick, black tendrils that dripped with slime. He wasn’t quite sure how he could see the monster—there were no visible torches in the room—but there it was.

Maybe it had something to do with the way he couldn’t see anything but darkness in the rest of the room. No starfields with bright yellow suns peeking out at him this time.

The creature smiled, flashing surprisingly human-like teeth. “[Defense]|[successful]/[victorious]?”

Arkk grimaced as the strange concepts formed in his mind, but this time, he refrained from clamping his hands over his ears. It hadn’t helped last time.

“No. It hasn’t started yet. I…” His eyes shifted to the side where he spotted one other thing despite the total darkness of the room. The large stone sphere, engraved with the same labyrinthine pattern that covered the rest of the chamber. “There are a lot more than expected, it seems.”

“[Misfortune]|[lament]/[mourn]. [Unknown human]|[presence]/[continued existence]|[query]?”

“Yeah. I’m back.” He looked to the sphere. “This thing. You said it is a defensive tool?”

“[Fortress Al-Mir]/[HEART]. [Ultimate]|[defensive tool]/[offensive tool]. [Confirmation]/[no fibbing].”

“There are two hundred creatures, a few dozen orcs with the rest being goblins, approaching my village.” Arkk paused, considering his words. “Can it stop them? Fight them off?”

Vezta cocked her head to one side, hand scratching behind its ear. It seemed to swap which legs were crossed, but again, nothing but a writhing mass of tentacles came out the bottom of its clothing. “[Fortress Al-Mir]/[HEART]|[require]|[construction]/[embedding]/[fortification]. [Require]|[temporal passage]/[tick-tock]. [Require]|[underlings]/[minions]/[employees].”

“Is that… is that a no?” Arkk clenched his teeth. “What about you? You look strong, can you—”

Vezta held up a finger. “[Self]/[Vezta]/[SERVANT]|[bound]/[tethered]|[Fortress Al-Mir]/[HEART].”

“You’re stuck here?”

“[Bound]/[tethered]|[HEART]. [Unknown human]|[contract]/[binding]|[HEART]; [Self]/[Vezta]/[SERVANT]|[bound]/[tethered]|[unknown human].”

“If I…” Arkk started, trying to parse its meaning. “If I do your contract thing with the heart, you’ll be bound to me? And then we can both leave this place?”

“[Confirmation].”

“Can you take out two hundred monsters?”

Vezta considered again before slowly nodding its head. “[Self]/[Vezta]/[SERVANT]|[serves]/[delivers tea]. [Conflict]/[barroom brawl][specialty]. [Possible]. [Out of practice]/[rust-covered blade].”

“Please just say yes or no.”

“Yes or no.” It paused, then frowned. “Yes.”

“Good enough for me,” Arkk said, marching over to the sphere. “How do I do this?”

Vezta was at his side before he even noticed it move. It took his hand in its own—warm and not slimy despite looking like it should be—and gently moved him closer to the massive stone sphere. “[Magic]|[push]/[saturate].”

Arkk blinked. For some reason—tales of old, he suspected—he thought there would be a literal contract to sign. Something requiring his signature. Instead, the monster guided his hand until his palm met the cool, rough stone of the sphere. “You aren’t a demon, right?” he asked, wanting just a little more confirmation than the Abbess had been able to give.

To his surprise, Vezta gnashed her teeth. Her hand squeezed his just a bit too tight, making him wince. “[Offended]/[insulted]. [Deceiver]/[scam artist]?” It scoffed a clear and uncannily human-like scoff. “[Self]/[Vezta]/[SERVANT]|[SERVANT]. [SERVANT].”

As Vezta slowly relaxed its grip on his hand, Arkk decided to never bring that subject up again for as long as he lived. “I… most times I try to use magic, I blow up whatever I’m trying to do,” Arkk admitted. “Just a warning.”

“[Unknown human]|[powerful]/[terrific]. [HEART]|[desires]|[power]/[magic]. [Positive quality]/[good job].”

“Alright, I guess. Just don’t blame me when it explodes.”

The monster said nothing more. Taking a deep breath, Arkk focused on the sphere. Gently touching it with his magic, he could feel its channels and pathways. The labyrinthine design carved into its surface tugged at his magic. Like one massive ritual circle, impossibly complex compared to anything he had seen, let alone used.

The tugging continued, pulling more. Arkk tried to rear back, only to find the tug grow stronger. It ripped at his magic, siphoning more and more. He tried to rip his hand off the sphere itself, but the monster kept him pinned to it.

His fingertips started to burn. The heat spread across his palm. Throwing his head back, Arkk couldn’t stop the scream welling in his throat.

The sphere ejected a great thump, moving despite its stone nature. The force of it sent Arkk flying backward, breaking his contact with the artifact as he sailed across the room. His back slammed into the wall and his vision swam.

Before the tunnel vision took over completely, he saw the monster turn to him with a too-wide smile stretching across its face. “Contract accepted,” it said as the torches mounted on the walls flared to life.

Arkk’s head slumped and everything went dark.

Arkk wasn’t quite sure when he awoke. All he knew was that it was the most comfortable waking he had ever experienced. Ilya always knew how to stuff her mattress to make it comfortable, but compared to this? Arkk imagined he had fallen asleep on a cloud.

That… couldn’t be right.

Slowly opening his eyes to flickering yet bright torchlight, he jolted.

A pair of bright gold eyes stared down at him, looking like two suns hanging in a pitch-black night sky.

“Welcome back.”

Arkk leaped to his feet and backed away slowly. The monster sat on the ground, shadows and tendrils spread out across the floor where he had been. As far as he could tell, his head had been resting on its… thighs? If it had such things. The way those tendrils disappeared back into its body made him doubt it.

It stood in an inhumanly smooth motion, hands clasped in front of its navel once again. But Arkk found his attention drawn away from the monster.

The room had changed during his unconsciousness. There were still skeletons strewn about, but the torches had come to life. The crater that had held the sphere was empty. Now, the sphere floated over the bottomless pit, slowly revolving. Every few seconds, a thump-thump resounded throughout the chamber, sounding like the beating of a heart.

Which answered the question of why the monster had called this a [HEART].

Magical light traced paths through the sphere’s maze. Magic that he could feel as it coursed over the heart. The feeling made him nervous. His heart beat faster. So too did the stone heart, increasing the rate of the heavy thumps.

That…

He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

“Fortress Al-Mir lives again.”

Arkk turned his head, though his eyes lingered on the beating stone heart until her words forced him to shift focus to the monster. “I understood you?”

“It would be more accurate to say that the [HEART] informed me of your language, which I am now speaking.” Keeping its hands clasped together, the monster dipped into a low bow. “I apologize for the pain the [CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE] caused you, but I had no other method of communication.”

“I…” Arkk didn’t quite know how to respond to a monster sincerely apologizing to him. Clenching his teeth, he shook his head. “How long was I out?”

“Approximately one hour.”

Arkk’s heart threatened to leap up his throat at hearing that. The thumps in the chamber picked up the pace, making him all the more aware of his own hammering heart.

“Something wrong?”

“We need to hurry. They might already be there by now. You…” Arkk looked at Vezta, pausing. “You can fight them, right?”

“I can try.” Vezta tilted its head back and forth like it was cracking the bones in its neck. If a creature that dripped with slime and walked on tentacles had anything resembling a humanoid bone structure, Arkk would be surprised. “Not my usual duties and I am rusty. Did you say two hundred? Should be doable as long as they do not all rush me at once.”

“It is scary that you sound so casual about facing down two hundred goblins.” Grabbing Vezta’s hand, this time he led her toward the library. He knew exactly which door it was, which was kind of an odd thing to know given how many times he had been there before, but he supposed it wasn’t too strange. More importantly, Vezta didn’t protest at all. She seemed quite pleased, having a chipper tone in her voice when she next spoke.

“Is it truly frightening? I imagine you would be capable of far more.”

“I don’t know what you think I am, but I’m just a regular human. Taking out a few monsters at a distance should be doable with a good bow. I could probably fight off a goblin or two in close quarters. Maybe an orc if I get lucky.”

“I feel your magic. Use that?”

“Things explode. And I don’t have time to set up ritual circles in the middle of battle.”

“Ritual circles are well and good for complicated magic, but incantations are far faster. Electro Deus causes explosions?”

“I have no idea what that even means.” He knew what incantations were, just not that specific one. When that spellcaster had visited the village, Arkk had questioned him at length. Incantations were advanced, however. According to that spellcaster, all sorcerers needed to start with the basic ritual magic before moving to compress extravagant rituals down into words.

“[Lightning Strike].”

Arkk flinched reflexively, but… it didn’t hurt when she said that. Now that he thought about it, the few other times she had used that language hadn’t caused pain since he woke up. And… he thought he understood. Lightning Strike.

Pausing in the hall, he looked at one of the corpses along the sides of the corridor. Holding out his hand, he said, “Electro Deus,” while funneling a little magic through the words.

A brilliant bolt of blue-white lightning ruptured the space between Arkk and the skeleton. It slammed into it with enough force to send the skull flying through the air, charred and blackened.

Even knowing he was in a rush, Arkk couldn’t help but stop and stare at his fingertips. They burned a little bit, but that was more of a tingle of magic waiting to be cast again than any burn from the power of the lightning.

“Do… you know any more things like that?”

“Unfortunately, no. I am not a sorcerer and cannot cast magic in such a manner. Such things are useless to me. The only other spells that come to mind are [Create Lesser Servant] and [Possession].”

Both spells blossomed in his mind. The first would create something like Vezta if he understood the concept correctly. There was a definite difference between [SERVANT] and servant, however. As far as he could tell, the spell created minor assistants and helpers, more akin to an apprentice in a workshop than… whatever Vezta was. Despite her calling herself a [SERVANT] using that language, the concept still didn’t quite click. Neither did [HEART], for that matter, or [CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE]. He wasn’t sure what was different about those words compared to a full spell forming in his mind, but there it was.

The other spell, however, made him a bit queasy. “I can… completely take over someone else’s body?”

“If they are subservient to you. Won’t be much use against an opponent in combat, but… Ah, I see. Do you find it distasteful? It is quite a useful spell. My former master used it to great effect, wielding other bodies as if they were suits of armor, discarding them once they were worn down and broken. I know that spell specifically because he possessed me on occasion.”

“Discarding people?” Arkk swallowed, feeling a bit ill. “Like broken armor?”

“It kept him safe. His minions reveled in becoming possessed. It was a great honor.” Vezta frowned, looking around. “You have no minions, unfortunately. I would suggest possessing me, but you are inexperienced. You would not be able to wield me as effectively as I can wield me.”

“We’ll just… shelve that one for now.”

“I shall protect you as best I am able,” Vezta said, leaning up against Arkk. “I cannot have my new master falling so soon.” She paused, then looked up to Arkk, meeting his eyes with her burning suns. “Were we not in a hurry?”

Arkk pulled himself away, deciding to put that topic aside for… forever, probably. “Yes. Yes, we were,” he said, approaching the door to the library. It was closed, but the door swung open before he could even touch it. Assuming that was Vezta, he stepped inside without pause and headed straight for the magical circle. Much like the rest of the fortress, the torches in the library had roared to life.

“I’ll go first,” Arkk said, stepping right into the circle. When he turned around, however, he found himself alone. He looked left, then right. As if suddenly aware of where she was, he glanced downward.

Arkk stood in the center of a small puddle of dark violet slime. It wasn’t actually touching his boots. Picking up one foot and setting it down elsewhere had the slime moving out of the way, letting him step down on the stone tiles of the fortress floor. If he hadn’t been paying too much attention, he might have thought he was looking down at a strangely shaped shadow. The only problem was the glowing yellow sun staring up from that oily shadow.

“Alright then… together, I guess?”

Looking down at the circle, he was a bit disappointed that he didn’t instantly understand it the way he understood the spells Vezta had mentioned. Vezta had drawn it out, so maybe she could do that language thing for this? Something to ask later. For now, he knelt and touched it with his magic.

The peaceful and silent library vanished, replaced with the inhuman cries of alarmed monsters.

Vezta’s tendrils whipped out from his shadow, snatching a quartet of goblins. The tendrils pulled them down to the ground but didn’t stop there. Sickening snaps, squeals of pain, and rent flesh filled the air as the goblins smashed into the earth.

It did make him a little nauseous, but more at the brutal and likely painful deaths than the deaths themselves. Killing the attackers was what he had come here to do.

And the attack had started.

 

 

Gert Freede, Baron of Langleey, made his home in the center of the village square, just across from the church. It wasn’t a particularly large manor. Arkk had been to other villages and burgs where their local lords of the land had miniature castles. Gert lived a simple life, not far elevated from the serfs employed to work the farms. The grounds were far more elaborate than the house, being one large garden tended to by Gert’s wife and a few others. The wide lanes of strawberries were a much-beloved treat during the times of the year when they grew in.

Rushing through that garden, Arkk reached the large wooden doors of the Baron’s home and started hammering the knocker.

It was the dead of night. Well before anyone would be awake. Arkk didn’t expect anyone to answer right away. It took a few minutes of hammering before the door creaked open.

A short, round man with rosy round cheeks and a round nose pulled open the door, standing with a small rushlight burning in his hands. The light from the miniature candle paled in comparison to the larger torch that Arkk still held. Gert raised a hand, blocking the light from the torch as he squinted into the darkness.

“What is the meaning of this? Have you any idea—”

“Sorry to wake you, sir. I thought you would want to know that orcs and goblins were spotted near the village.”

Gert sucked in a breath, free hand clutching at his pale yellow nightgown as the rushlight drifted to the ground. “Goblins? Here?”

“In the company of orcs,” Arkk said.

Goblins were by far the more alarming threat. Vicious little creatures, more akin to wild animals than proper beings. Orcs, on their own, were generally treated with suspicion but could be open for trade while passing through on whatever business orcs got up to. Orcs in the company of goblins, however, was bad news. Raiders and scavengers, the lot of them.

“How many? How far off?”

Arkk shook his head. “Not sure, exactly. Ilya and I spotted tracks. She counted at least four orcs. I’d guess maybe twice as many goblins. They always outnumber the orcs in these kinds of groups. As for how far off?” He didn’t have a proper answer for that. “I’d guess they could be here as early as dawn if they’re heading straight here.”

“You and Ilya?” Gert said, squinting his beady eyes. “Arkk?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You were hunting out west, beyond the Cursed Forest?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where is Ilya?” Arkk hesitated. The brief pause made Gert grimace. “Oh, no… is she—”

“No, no. She should be safe. We took different routes back. Wanted to make sure that one of us made it just in case the horde got the other. She took a route that kept her closer to the orcs and goblins. I imagine her arrival will mean we’ve run out of time.”

Relief crossed Gert’s face. The fingers clenching his nightgown relaxed some. “Good. Very good. I understand. Rush to the church and sound the bells. Wake the village. We’ll gather everyone who can fight and hide the rest in my manor.”

Time being of the essence, Arkk didn’t bother saying anything else. He turned and rushed across the small plaza to the church.

In contrast to the Baron’s rather simple home, barely more affluent than any villager’s home, the church had opulence to it. It and the smithy were the only fully stone structures in the village. Where the smithy had a rugged design, the church was smooth and tall. High windows brought in natural light to the main chapel area. Whitewashed walls gleamed in the moonlight while the golden symbols inscribed on its bell tower sparkled with whatever light they could catch.

The door wasn’t locked. Although it had heavy bolts, it was never locked. The bell tower hung over the entrance, just before the main chapel. A door to the side let him into the bell room where, after dropping his torch on the stone floor, he set to pulling on the thick ropes.

Despite the gravity of the situation, pulling down on the ropes reminded him of when he was a boy, fighting with Ilya over who got to ring the bells before the Suun sermon. He had heard the bells ring in emergencies like this before, but had never done it himself. Still, he couldn’t help but smile when he heard that heavy bong.

Arkk didn’t know for how long he should ring the bell, so he kept going. The entire village didn’t need to wake up from the bell ringing, just enough people. Those who were awake could then wake their neighbors.

A few bongs turned into a few dozen before Arkk felt a hand resting on his shoulder. The Abbess stood behind him, wearing a grim smile that wrinkled her face more than usual.

“Thank you, Arkk. You can stop now.”

Arkk immediately let go of the rope. “Right. Enough people up?”

“The Baron is organizing everyone in the plaza now, repeating what you said.” Abbess Keena fiddled with her habit, smoothing out the wrinkles. Arkk was honestly surprised she was wearing it at a time like this. Pure white with elegant golden thread marking symbols into it, it was probably the single most opulent article of clothing in the entire village. Not even the Baron wore such expensive threads when viscounts or earls were visiting. “Are there really goblins approaching?” she asked.

“There… is a chance they weren’t headed toward the village,” Arkk said slowly. “Ilya and I were on the other side of the Cursed Forest when we noticed them. They seemed to be following the forest’s edge. We couldn’t take the chance that they weren’t coming here.”

“Of course not,” the Abbess said, face turning grim. “I shall pray they pass us by, but will prepare my salves and prayers for healing.”

Before Keena could turn and leave, Arkk tugged up his tunic. “Could you take a look at this first?” he asked, wincing as he looked down at his wound for the first time. Long jagged lines of torn flesh ran from his hip to his ribs amid raw, red skin. It wasn’t bleeding, but thin streaks of blood showed that it had been when he received it. Seeing it made it start stinging all over again. “It looks worse than it is,” he said quickly, not sure if he was trying to reassure the frowning abbess or himself. “Took a bit of a tumble in my hurry to get back.”

“I can apply an ointment, but I need to keep my healing prayers ready for more grievous injuries.”

“Prayer would be more than I need,” he said, flashing a smile. “Just want to fight without distraction.”

The Abbess brought him through the chapel, sitting him down on one of the pews before disappearing through a door behind the altar. She returned in short order, carrying a small clay jar. Arkk wrinkled his nose at the fish-like smell when she pulled out the wax stopper but didn’t complain as she rolled up her sleeves and gently applied a thin layer of the freezing gel to his side.

“Abbess Keena?” Arkk said as she worked. “Might I ask a question of… religious nature?”

The older woman let out a soft laugh. “That is what I am here for.”

“I… What do demons look like?”

The Abbess jerked her hand, smacking into the clay pot. Arkk snapped his hand forward, catching it just before it rolled off the pew.

“Sorry… I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, that is what I’m here for,” she said again, far less humor in her voice this time. “Why do you ask?”

Arkk bit his lip. “I might have taken a shortcut through the Cursed Forest to warn the village faster,” he said, wincing at the way her eyebrows popped up and wrinkled her forehead. He continued, speaking faster and faster with every word to get his confession out of the way as quickly as possible. “There was something out there. A monster, I think. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I think it wanted me to agree to something—it didn’t exactly speak any proper language so it was a bit hard to tell. I said no,” he added, words spilling out of his mouth as fast as he could to deny agreeing to anything. “Then it just let me go. I wasn’t sure what to think of the encounter.”

To his surprise, Abbess Keena seemed to relax the more he talked. She even started moving again, hands rubbing the ointment into his side. “Doesn’t sound like a demon then,” she said slowly, thinking. “Demons typically look like people, at least when attempting to engage in such a conversation, to better deceive those with whom they would make deals. Something unlike anything you had ever seen would not be a demon.”

“Typically? But not always?”

Keena glanced up, brows scrunched together. “I don’t exactly have personal experience, Arkk.”

“No. No, of course not.”

“Apart from that,” she continued, “it is well-known that demons can speak any language with perfect fluency. Demons cannot lie while making deals. Garbling their deal with another language would violate that, I imagine. Therefore, it couldn’t have been a demon.” Pulling away from Arkk, Keena dried her fingers with a small cloth before recapping the jar of ointment. She stood, and paused. “What did it ask of you?”

“It wasn’t perfectly clear. I think it wanted three things,” Arkk said, straightening out his tunic. “First, it wanted help cleaning up some ruins I fell into.”

“Ruins? In the Cursed Forest?”

“Some old fortress. Looked really old. Maybe pre-Calamity. Frankly, I think the monster might have been pre-Calamity too. It looked like some kind of slimy, tentacle monstrosity with a few too many eyes.”

“A creature from before the Calamity?” the Abbess asked, actually sounding amused. “It has been over a millennium. Only dragons and elves live that long and this doesn’t sound like either.”

“I’m just saying,” Arkk mumbled, “it would fit the stories.”

“The other things it asked of you?”

“Well, there was some kind of large magical object in those ruins. A giant ball. I think it wanted me to take it.”

“Just give it to you?”

Arkk shrugged. “Finally, it kept calling itself a servant. And I think it wanted someone to serve.”

Keena pressed her lips together. “Peculiar.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar?”

“I am hardly a walking index of monsters, Arkk. I’m just a remote village’s religious guide. I dare say that the mercenaries who pass through on occasion would be of better assistance in identifying your mysterious creature. A magical artifact is more concerning. It could be what is causing the corruption in the Cursed Forest.” She hummed. “I should prepare a cleansing ritual for you later. Getting so close to this artifact… If it is what is causing the corruption, removing or destroying it might be a worthy endeavor. If we could reclaim the Cursed Forest, Langleey might enter into a new age of prosperity.”

“The creature called the artifact a defensive and offensive tool, though it wasn’t more clear than that.”

Keena furrowed her brow, squinting as she stared off into one of the large glass windows of the chapel. “That… sounds familiar.” She tapped the jar of ointment against her chin a few times before shaking her head. “I can’t recall. After our current crisis is over, I shall delve through the Holy Tome and see if I’m imagining familiarity or if I’ve heard of that before.”

“Current crisis,” Arkk mumbled, closing his eyes and wishing he could forget about that. His eyelids were heavy enough that he couldn’t quite open them right away. The Baron would take care of things right now. He didn’t have anything else to say about the goblins and orcs. There was still much he could do, but trying to put effort into his legs just didn’t quite work. Exhaustion kept him still.

A short rest would help him fight all the more.

He hoped Ilya was alright.

The warm light from the morning sun streamed through the tall windows of the church, stirring Arkk from his rest. The warmth felt nice, peaceful, and serene. Too peaceful, even. Like he was missing something.

Snapping his eyes open, Arkk jolted to his feet, remembering what daylight meant. He was still in the chapel. Abbess Keena must have left him to rest. While thankful for the brief respite, Arkk wished she wouldn’t have let him sleep quite this long. Rushing out to the square, Arkk set about learning what was going on.

The village had assembled. Of the seventy people in their village, twelve men and eight women had taken up arms. Six teens strong enough to carry bows had been recruited as well, positioned atop roofs to act as lookouts. Their eyes were on the west, toward the Cursed Forest. The large fields of corn would obstruct the sightlines, unfortunately, with it being so close to harvest. The church and manor up on the hill would hopefully provide enough elevation to spot unnatural rustling to give an early warning.

“Where is Ilya?” Arkk called out, running through the assembled defenders. She was supposed to arrive by dawn… unless she had taken to her fallback plan of distracting the orcs and goblins so that Arkk would have a chance to arrive first. Unnecessary now, but she didn’t know that. “Has anyone seen Ilya?”

A hand grasped hold of the back of his tunic as he slowed, jerking him to a stop.

“Quiet down, boy. You’ll cause a panic.”

The man holding onto Arkk gave him a dark look as he spun him around. An older man with thin clouds of white hair might not have intimidated a young man like Arkk, but this was John, the village carpenter. Wearing a worn gambeson with a heavy lumber axe strapped to his side and a powerful longbow slung over his shoulder, he was probably the most intimidating man in the village.

“Have you seen Ilya? Did she make it back?”

“No one has seen the lass. I’m sure you’d be the first to know.” John took a deep breath, softening his expression. “Now what’s all this about goblins?”

“Didn’t the Baron—”

“I want to hear it from you, boy.”

“Ilya and I found a handful of orcs and goblins, we were—”

“Hey! Arkk!”

Fighting the grimace off his face, Arkk turned toward the new voice. “Jorgen. Hurtt,” he said to the two approaching him. Both were burly men with arms thicker than tree trunks. Neither had a pleasant look on their face.

“Got any magic for us today?” Jorgen said.

“No, I—”

“Course he doesn’t,” Hurtt said with an ugly scoff. “The one time explosions might be useful and he doesn’t have anything.”

“Oi, shove off,” John said. “You got time to flap your lips, you got time to keep a lookout.”

The two laughed as they turned away. Arkk followed them with his eyes, watching the way they kept their smiles and seeming amusement only until they were a short distance away, at which point they dropped the act entirely, shooting each other glances.

“They’re just nervous,” Arkk said.

“We all are. Waking us up so early in the night?” John gave a tired shake of his head then let out a mighty yawn. “Could have slept in for another few hours.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Besides, you’ll show them up. Hit a few goblins between the eyes. Who needs unreliable magic and chanting when you’ve got…” John blinked, frowning as he looked over Arkk. “Where’s your gear, boy? You can’t fight like that.”

“It’s out in the Cursed Forest,” Arkk said with a groan, running a hand down his face. “They were too heavy and I needed to run.”

“You left your lady-friend’s bow in the Cursed Forest? I take it back. You’re going to be dead the moment she walks up.”

“I remember where it is!” I hope. “I can get it back after we fight off the attack.”

John looked off into the distance, then snapped his eyes back to Arkk. “Not going to be fighting off anything like that. Run down to my shop. There should be two bows hanging on the rack near the wheel. Neither will be as good as an elf’s bow, but at least you won’t be useless.”

“Sorry,” Arkk said, starting away. He paused and glanced back. “Thanks!”

John just threw his hand in a dismissive motion.

Hurrying down the hill, back to the side of the river, Arkk threw open the door to John’s workshop. A pair of wagon wheels leaned against one wall. The start of a bedframe sat atop the main workbench, surrounded by all manner of metal tools. The opposite wall from the door had what Arkk was looking for. Two bows hung next to the door out to the lumber saw and the waterwheel. One was missing its string. Not knowing where John kept bowstrings, Arkk picked up the other and tested its weight.

It was quite a bit heavier than Ilya’s bow, but it would work. Of course, a bow wouldn’t do much on its own. John had to have some arrows around somewhere. Arkk started pulling open workbench drawers and searching shelves.

Arkk felt a rush of wind and a thunk at his back. Whirling, he found an arrow, end vibrating, sticking out from a cabinet along the wall.

“That one,” a voice whispered.

“Hale?” Arkk said, looking to the door to find a young lady hanging upside-down from the roof. Her twin-tailed hair hung down, giving her the comical appearance of a giant beetle, but her piercing green eyes betrayed her seriousness. A much smaller bow hung from her arms. “What are you doing?”

“You were looking for arrows,” she said, unblinking. “Headed and fletched arrows are in that cupboard.”

The arrow sticking out of the cupboard bit into it right along the grain. Grabbing hold of it, he wrenched it from the door. In doing so, half the door fell to the floor with a clatter. She was right, there were completed arrows inside, but… “How are you going to explain this to John?”

Her eyes went wide. They darted left, then right, then back to Arkk. “Goblins did it.”

“They aren’t even here yet.”

“Goblins did it,” she said again, voice firm. Reaching up to whatever she was hanging from, she started to pull herself up, only to let out a small, “Ah!” before falling straight down onto her back.

She was on her feet before Arkk could get over to her, but he still grabbed her arms to help steady her. In contrast to her steady voice, her arms were trembling. “Why are you out here? Everyone else is up near the plaza.”

“Guarding the shop,” she answered, yanking her arms from Arkk’s hands.

“It’s dangerous on your own. Did John tell you to do this? I’ll—”

“No! I have to stay here. Master is too old. If the goblins burn this place down—”

“Then the whole village will help rebuild it. You think John cares more about a few planks of wood than his apprentice?” Arkk flicked her forehead between her brows. “Can you even draw that bow back?”

Rubbing between her eyes, Hale scowled. “I hit the cupboard door right where I was aiming, while upside down.”

Arkk glanced back, then to the arrow still in his hand. “So you did. Maybe you can help then, but with everyone else. Not out here on your own.”

After gathering up a number of the arrows into a sack that Hale found for him—they didn’t have a proper quiver handy and he had left everything with his other equipment—Arkk started dragging Hale out of the workshop.

“Wait!” Hale said, stopping abruptly. The little girl grabbed his hand and pulled. “I remembered. I wanted you to see something.”

“You wanted me to see something?”

“You know magic, right?” she asked, dragging him around the shop. Arkk didn’t have a good answer for her, affirmative or negative, so he kept his mouth shut. “What’s this?”

Arkk blinked, looking where she was pointing. There was a magic circle burned into the ground, the same one Vezta had drawn out in the library. The one that had brought him here. Intricate and complex, and yet, it was perfectly clear right there in the dirt. “Do… do you have a sheet of paper handy?” he asked. “And something to scrawl with?”

He didn’t know if it would survive the coming battle and he so desperately wanted to figure out how that worked. Magic that moved people great distances? It was too good to be true. If they could move from the village past the Cursed Forest without having to walk or ride the distance, they would be able to hunt and forage and chop lumber so much easier than they could now.

Hale returned, bringing with her a rough piece of pulpy paper and a thin stick of charcoal. Not ideal, but it would work. “Keep an eye out for goblins or orcs. And Ilya too.”

“Why Ilya? She’s right there?”

“Yes, keep an eye—” Registering what Hale said, Arkk snapped his head up.

A lithe elf ran along the bank of the river, eyes up on the church. She looked worn, covered in far more grime than when Arkk had last seen her. It was as if she had crawled through a pit of mud on her stomach.

“Ilya!” Arkk called, waving the paper.

He could see her eyes widening even from the distance. The silver in them gleamed in the morning light. Seeing him must have given her a new wind. Her pace picked up as she headed straight toward him.

“What are you doing here?” she shouted, voice rough and scratchy. Sweat dripped from her face and stained her clothes in all the places where the mud wasn’t caked on. “Did you… Did you go through the Cursed Forest? After I said…” She trailed off as she got closer, shooting a wary glare at the magic circle on the ground. “What is that?”

“It’s, uh…”

“Never mind,” she snapped, shaking her head and sending her knife-like ears bouncing. “We need to go.”

“Go where? I already warned the village. Including the youth, we have just under thirty people ready to fight.”

“Not enough,” Ilya said, shaking her head. “It isn’t just a handful. There is a whole army out there. Maybe an hour behind me at most. I could have been here sooner, but I wanted to see what we were dealing with. Good thing too. That group that attacked the stag was just a small scouting group. The larger force has thirty to fifty orcs, with a half-dozen goblins to each. No idea how many other scouting groups there might have been.”

Arkk staggered back. “What? That’s… about two hundred? Minimum. How are they wandering in such a large group without the Duke hunting them down?”

“I don’t know, but we can’t be here.”

“But… where?”

“I don’t know,” she said again, grinding her teeth together. “The monsters will see the village, or their scouts will. It won’t be long before they come down on it. Pillaging it will buy us time to move, but only if we start now.”

“It’s almost harvest,” Arkk said, leaning against the carpentry wall. “They’ll burn whatever crops they don’t want. Loot the storehouse. Slaughter the livestock they don’t take… How are we—”

Something hard smacked into the side of Arkk’s face. “Pull yourself together! Everything is already lost. If we don’t want to die with the village, we need to go.” She stepped past him, looking around the wall of the carpentry up toward the church. “We’ll flee to the Duke. He will have to take action against these monsters. Then… we just have to hope he takes pity on us and opens Cliff’s storehouses.”

“Flee to the Duke? You can’t go to the Duke. You can’t go to the Duke, Ilya. He’ll—”

“What other option do we have?” she snapped. “If it is for the village, I can make sacrifices. Just as my mother did.” Teeth clenched, she took off, running toward the church.

Arkk had never met the Duke before. As far as he knew, the Duke didn’t visit the various villages in his fiefdom. He did send collectors for tax and tribute. Every year, they wanted money, food, livestock… and rarely women. Ilya’s mother. Though ancient by human standards, she appeared beautiful and young. At least, that was what Arkk remembered. He had been a mere boy when she had volunteered herself as tribute during a year of poor harvest.

Volunteered herself to save Ilya from that fate.

She had never returned to Langleey. Arkk didn’t even know for sure if she was still alive.

With all the other tax the Duke collected, his storehouses should be plentiful, if not overflowing. Theoretically, he had more than enough to give to displaced refugees.

Arkk clenched his teeth.

“What are you doing?” a trembling, frightened voice asked.

Arkk stepped forward, standing in the center of the circle burned into the ground. With a smile, he reached out and ran a hand between Hale’s twin ponytails, messing up her hair. “I’m going to get help?”

“Help?”

“It’s okay,” Arkk said, drawing in a shaky breath. He spoke more to himself than to the young carpenter’s apprentice. “The Abbess said it wasn’t a demon. It’s not a demon.”

Hale jolted, alarm obvious on her young face.

“Stay with Ilya. Don’t try to protect the shop all on your own. If they leave, you leave with them.”

Giving her a light shove to make sure the young girl was clear of the circle, Arkk knelt and pushed just a touch of his magic into its channels and pathways.

The circle flashed and Arkk found himself plunged into total darkness.

 

 

What did one do when confronted with a pre-Calamity monster?

Die. There wasn’t much more to it than that, Arkk figured. He would try to fight back. It was only natural. Looking at the creature before him, he had no doubts that his little dagger wouldn’t scratch a room-encompassing monster with stars for eyes. Even had he a proper sword or Ilya’s bow, making it angry was all he would accomplish.

And yet, it was a bit difficult to fight back when it wasn’t attacking in the first place. The eyes in the shadows of the room watched him, blinking occasionally. The blue-hued woman standing in the light simply stood. With its hands clasped together at its navel, just in front of another of those glowing yellow eyes, it watched him. Its head tilted to one side, ever so slightly, as if trying to decide what to make of him.

Legends and myths originating thousands of years ago said that aberrant, inhuman creatures once roamed the land. Great wars raged between armies of monsters, devouring all in their path. Arkk wasn’t sure if devouring was literal or a metaphor. Either way, this one didn’t seem particularly hungry. If it had been living in this fortress since the Calamity, or even in the last few months, it had never once bothered the village just a short trek to the east.

Was it trapped here? Arkk shook his head. Even discounting the fissure he had fallen through, this place wasn’t sealed off from the surface. He had spotted several such cracks in the ceiling, a few of which he had been able to see through to the surface.

The thing took a step. Step was probably the wrong word. It didn’t exactly have feet. Roiling tendrils of dark oil snaked across the ground beneath its dress… or whatever dress-like body it had. Whatever it did, it moved with glacial purpose as it rounded the large pit in the dais. Arkk immediately moved in the opposite direction, keeping the distance between them the same.

Though he quickly realized his folly. The shadows encompassing the rest of the room weren’t moving. If they swapped positions around the dais, its shadows would be at his back while it was at his front. Already, it was well within reach of the door he had pried open to get into this room.

Gnawing at his lip, Arkk decided that fighting would be impossible. But it wasn’t attacking and it had a humanoid face. Was talking a possibility?

“Hello?” Arkk said, trying to keep his voice from trembling too much. “Sorry for intruding on your, uh… home?”

It paused, stilling while still watching. The humanoid head canted to the side again. Its mouth opened as if to speak. “[Greetings]/[welcome]. [Long time]|[existence]|[witness]/[visitor]. [Who]|[why]/[purpose]? [Unknown human]|[seeking]|[treasure]/[riches]?”

The torch rolled back away from Arkk and his dagger clattered to the floor. He was not ready for what came forth from its mouth. Clamping his hands over his ears, he fought back tears. The thing spoke, which was a surprise on its own, but it didn’t speak in words. Concepts forced their way into Arkk’s mind.

“[Unknown human]|[seeking]|[power]/[force]/[domination]?”

“No,” Arkk said through clenched teeth. “No. I am looking for the way out.”

The monster cocked its head to the other side, taking another step around the dais in the process. “[Unknown human]|[abandon]/[flee]|[Fortress Al-Mir]/[HEART]?”

It was all Arkk could do to remain standing, let alone move further away from the creature. Hands still pressed to his ears, he knew only one thing: It was open to conversation. To what end, he couldn’t say. But he had to try to plead his case.

“Please,” he said. “My village is under attack. I need to get out of here so I can warn them.”

“[Unknown human]|[seeking]|[protection]/[safety]?”

“Yes. Yes, that.”

“[Fortress Al-Mir]/[HEART]|[ultimate]|[defensive tool]/[offensive tool].” The monster stepped closer. It was far enough around the dais to be on the same side. The tendrils squirming out from under its dress would be able to reach Arkk if they wanted. “[Contract]/[binding]/[agreement]?”

Arkk managed to stumble back, but the woman didn’t continue toward him. Instead, it turned away and moved toward the large stone sphere that had the same maze-like pattern across its surface that the rest of the room possessed. The sphere was taller than either of them but looked stuck inside a crater in the floor. The monster pressed its hand against the sphere’s side, though it didn’t bother trying to shove it out of that crater.

“[Contract]/[binding]/[agreement]?”

Arkk licked his dry lips. It didn’t help. The inside of his mouth was just as dry as the outside. “I don’t know what you’re asking. I need to get back to my village and warn them of an attack.”

“[Agreement]. [Contract]/[binding]|[offer]|[ultimate]|[defensive tool]/[offensive tool]. [Home]/[Sanctuary]|[rescue].” The creature turned away from the sphere, looking back to Arkk. It didn’t need to. Its hair, tied up in a high ponytail, had one of those golden suns peeking out from the thickest part. “[Abandon]/[flee]|[Fortress Al-Mir]/[HEART]|[possible]/[unlikely]. [No exit]|[collapsed]. [Self]/[Vezta]/[SERVANT]|[offer]|[assistance]. [Contract]/[binding]|[required].”

Arkk closed his eyes, feeling more than hearing the monster’s intention as he tried to parse the concepts it was shoving into his mind. There was no way out, at least not anymore. This monster would help, but only if he agreed to some kind of contract. Stacking up furniture to reach the fissure might still be an option unless this thing decided he wasn’t going to do what it wanted. At that point, it might get in the way. If not kill him outright.

“What is this contract?”

“[Offer]|[Fortress Al-Mir]/[HEART]|[ultimate]|[defensive tool]/[offensive tool].”

“Yes. I got that much. What do you get?”

“[Fortress Al-Mir]/[HEART]|[receive]|[restoration]/[refurbishment]/[beat]. [Self]/[Vezta]/[SERVANT]|[receive]|[master]/[leader]/[warlord].”

“You want me to fix this place up?” That… didn’t sound so bad. This place was massive. It would be work, that was for sure. But sweeping out the dust and burying the bodies didn’t sound that horrible. Especially if the monster allowed him to browse the library. What the monster received sounded a bit dodgier, but still not horrible. It described itself as [SERVANT]. A concept filled with far more meaning than the simple word would imply. Despite the language forcing concepts into his mind, he couldn’t quite comprehend what it meant. The basics, if he understood it correctly: It wanted someone to serve.

A faint smile touched the monster’s lips. It held out its hand, palm up. “[Agreement]?”

Arkk bit his lip. Did he have a choice?

There was always a choice. He could choose to throw himself into that deep pit. He could pick up his dagger and stab it into his own throat. He could choose to ignore the monster and face whatever consequences that would bring. None of those saved his village.

He didn’t know enough. He didn’t understand enough. It was too sudden. Arkk generally tried to find the best way to use any situation to his advantage but at the moment, his head was pounding too much to think properly.

“No.”

The smile faded. “[Disappointment].”

“I’m sorry. I’m having a hard time thinking with my village in danger.”

“[Defensive tool]. [Addition]/[bonus reward]|[self]/[Vezta]/[SERVANT]|[strong]/[weight-lifting champion].”

“Yes, I understand that. But it is just a few orcs and goblins. We’ve handled worse. As long as I ready the villagers before the orcs arrive, as long as people aren’t caught out working in the fields, we’ll be fine without…” Arkk glanced at the large sphere. “Whatever that is.”

He didn’t know what it was. The monster could say whatever it wanted to say. Making a contract with some ancient artifact sounded like a good way to get his soul eaten by a demon. He had never heard of such a thing happening, but Arkk would be the first to admit that he was a country peasant with no formal instruction in anything beyond hunting and farming. Even that didn’t count as formal.

The Abbess of Langleey’s church warned of such things in her sermons. Not exactly like this. Demons were known to prey upon ignorant or deviant individuals, offering anything from wealth to skills to revenge in exchange for payments that sounded a lot more innocent than they truly were. Demons were monsters possessing ultimate antipathy for mortals. Making a contract with one was only done by the most foolish of beings. Or so went the teachings of the church. Arkk had never met one.

He didn’t particularly want to.

Tidying up this fortress didn’t sound like any demon deal the Abbess had mentioned, not that she had ever been particularly specific, but it did sound like just the sort of thing that would come with hidden strings attached.

“Please,” Arkk said. “Help me out of here. I’ll even come back if that is what you want. I’ll help clean this place up a bit. But not while I’m distracted with my village’s problems.”

“[Return]?”

“Yes. Return.”

“[Contract]/[binding]|[HEART]?”

“No.”

It was a fairly selfish promise. Assuming he worked up the guts to go through with it. The library interested him enough that, as long as this monster wasn’t going to eat him, he would almost certainly try to come back. He had only taken a brief glimpse into that library, but at least some of the books inside were surely magical. He was fairly certain he had seen the arcane symbol on the spine of one.

Learning magic, even with this thing hanging over his shoulders, was worth dragging a broom out here to sweep out the corridors.

“[Understanding]. [Extract]|[promise]/[word of honor].”

“Uh… sure? I promise to return here if you help me get back to my village.”

“[Acceptable]|[terms]. [Contract]/[binding]|[temporary]/[on hold]/[stay of execution].” The monster stepped away from the large sphere. “[Follow]/[good boy].” It turned and began gliding toward the door he had pried open. The way it moved on its pillar of tendrils was disturbing. Even worse was the way the entire room seemed to shift; the oily shadows filled with eyes and mouths swept around Arkk, flowing into the monster as it walked.

Keeping his eyes on the creature, Arkk bent and retrieved his dropped dagger and the still-burning torch.

The monster laid a hand on the metal door, throwing it open with no obvious effort despite how much he had strained in getting it open. They arrived at the library in short order. Arkk felt like it had been an hour from the library to the maze chamber the first time, but only a few minutes to get back. It did help a bit that he wasn’t opening every door on the way, but it still felt faster than before.

The monster had said that the exit was blocked. Maybe even down that collapsed passage he had started near. Still, he expected some other way out. Instead, he found himself led to a small table beyond the shelves of musty books where a dusty crystal ball sat atop a small platform. The monster swept her hand over it, clearing the dust, then motioned for him.

“[Display]/[imagination]|[home].”

Arkk stared at the glass ball. He had heard about such devices. The Abbey and sorcerers used them for communication. Even that spellcaster who visited the village several months back carried a small one. He knew of them. He had no idea how they worked.

Seeing his helpless state, the monster took his hands. They glistened in the torchlight but didn’t feel wet or cold at all. There was a gentle warmth to its fingers. It held his hands just over the top of the crystal ball, not touching, but close enough that he could almost feel the cool glass. “[Display]/[imagination]|[village]/[peasantry]. [Sanctuary]. [Leaser]/[property owner]/[landlord]. [Eating hall]/[restaurant]. [Livestock]/[field]/[grocery store].”

A white mist occluded the clear glass as the monster spoke. The concepts thrust into Arkk’s mind brought up thoughts and memories without him even trying to think too hard. When the farm came up, Arkk drew in a breath. With it came the scent of freshly cut wheat, the mint fields, and the less pleasant smell of livestock. The mist shimmered, changing to show the village’s fields, lit only by moonlight. Despite the darkness, he recognized the layout and the paths. Up the shallow hill were their local church, a large storehouse, and a nearby barn.

The servant took over, shooing his hands off to the sides. With one of its hands pointed toward the crystal ball, the image began flickering, snapping inside homes, out in the fields, and around the main church building. Eventually the view changed to display an image so high up that he could see the river and the Cursed Forest beyond. A few jarring snaps through the Cursed Forest before Arkk saw himself looking at his own head of brown hair, hunched over a crystal ball in a decrepit library.

He glanced upward, but there was nothing above that indicated a watcher’s presence.

“[Understanding].”

The words brought his gaze back down. The monster’s starfield-like eyes stared into his own, bright yellow suns dominating. “Understand?”

“[Location]/[coordinates]|[understanding]. [Please hold]/[stay of execution]. [Problem]/[concern].”

Arkk narrowed his eyes. The serene face of the monster didn’t flinch in the slightest. Why should it? It wasn’t human and it could probably crush him if it took a sudden dislike to him. And yet, he couldn’t help but glare. “You said you would help.”

“[Assistance]|[agreement],” it said, pointing a lithe finger toward the crystal ball. The image of the village church shimmered into position. “[Problem]/[concern]. [Symbol]/[regalia]/[scribble]|[Almighty Glory]|[Heart of Gold]|[Holy Light].”

Arkk blinked again, this time in confusion over the unfamiliar names. He was fairly sure those were names, anyway. “So… what?”

“[Understanding].” It seemed pleased, offering a smile. “[Disuse]/[abandoned]?”

“No, the Abbess leads sermons every Suun.”

“[Confusion]? [Foreign]/[not us].”

“I… I have no idea what you’re trying to say,” Arkk said. This was a monster. He wasn’t sure what the church had to do with anything. Despite the odd way the thing spoke, he thought they were communicating rather well until now.

The monster jerked its head in a confused twitch. “[Ignore this message]. [Promise]/[word of honor]|[reminder]/[nudge-nudge].” Tendrils swept out from under the creature’s long dress, shoving aside bones, armor, and weapons with no reverence or care. Books, however, were plucked from the pile and carefully set apart, much to Arkk’s relief.

Within the now-emptied space, the monster’s tentacles began working, leaving trails of black slime where there had been none before. Its normal walking and even that careless clearing didn’t leave slime behind, so this had to be intentional. As Arkk watched, he quickly realized that it was forming some kind of magical circle in the ground. A complex one, far more complex than any he had seen before. And this monster was doing it all without turning its head away from him.

Eerie.

“Your name is Vezta, isn’t it?” Arkk said, desperate to focus on something else. “I think that is what I got while you were talking about… contracts.”

“[Inaccurate]. [Self]/[Vezta]/[SERVANT]. [Inadequate]/[sorry state]|[language]. Vezta|[acceptable].”

“Oh. Good then,” Arkk said before an awkward silence fell over them. It was made all the more awkward by the way that Vezta simply did not blink. He had seen the eyes in the shadows blink before, but never the eyes on its face. Emboldened by her answering his question, Arkk asked another. “If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of monster are you? I’ve never seen something like you before.”

“[SERVANT].” The self-proclaimed servant stepped aside, bowing while holding one hand out toward the freshly drawn magic circle. “[Existence]|[relocate]/[walk away]/[walk inside]. [Mind the edges].”

“You want me inside the circle?”

The monster bowed deeply, upper body nearly parallel to the ground.

Arkk looked to the circle, wary. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what the circle was for. Just following the channels, veins, and magical pathways made him dizzy.

Sensing his hesitation, the monster took hold of his hand again and slowly brought him over. “[Safety]/[bodily integrity]|[assured]. [No]|[error]/[flub].”

“Ah, what, exactly does this—”

Arkk didn’t get to finish. The monster took a step back, out of the circle, leaving him in its center. The circle flashed and cold night air soaked into his tunic. He blinked a few times, confused at the library’s absence. Somehow, he was outside, standing on a dirt path. He was just around the back of the carpenter’s shop, between the building and the riverbank. The familiar sound of the water rushing past the locked waterwheel filled his ears.

This was it. His home. Langleey Village.

He was back. That quickly? Did all spellcasters know how to do something like that?

Arkk put the thought out of his mind. Even with the hours spent exploring that fortress, he was back long before he would have been if he had simply kept running. Those hours couldn’t go to waste. Drawing in a deep breath, he turned and sprinted toward the Baron of Langleey’s manor.

 

 

The Cursed Forest wasn’t so much a forest as it was a desolate wasteland. The surrounding proper forest went by the name of Langleey Forest, even though it was further away from Langleey than a few other burgs and villages. Like normal forests, it contained all the usual foresty things. Trees, grass, brush, rolling hills, rocks, and plenty of animals and insects and other fauna. But at a certain point in Arkk’s trek, with the sun at his back, the forest thinned out. Thick, healthy trees turned scrawny and leafless. Plants thinned and yellowed. Even the dirt itself went from a healthy brown to a dead gray color, filled with small cracks and larger fissures.

The people of Langleey Village did not venture inside. When visiting Langleey Forest for food or timber, people took a long and roundabout trail to get to the part of the forest where Ilya and Arkk had been hunting. Legends said that those who ventured in would emerge with a taint that poisoned the ground around them with every step.

That wasn’t true. Arkk had been inside before with Ilya when they were children. He didn’t know what caused the Cursed Forest to become the way it was, but he knew that it wasn’t contagious. That was likely a story meant to keep adventurous children from doing just what he and Ilya had done. That said, it wasn’t without its dangers. Loose soil and deep crevasses presented natural hazards. There were always rumors of monsters, even if he had never seen any evidence.

He had to be careful.

Leaping over a wide fissure in the wasteland, Arkk landed mid-stride. He slowed for nothing, not even the largest of the cracks in the ground. While the sun was still up, he wanted to get as far as he could. Once the sun set, he would only have moonlight to guide his way. There wasn’t a cloud in sight and the moon had been bright these last few nights, but he would still have to slow down then.

Arkk considered himself more athletic than most in his village. They were strong, and work had a way of hardening bodies, but the kindest word he could use to describe most of them would be stout. Growing up alongside Ilya gave him far more time running and moving than he wanted. Even still, his heart hammered in his chest and his lungs wanted ten times the air he could give them. Sweat rolled down his face, back, and arms. The constant leaps and hops over flat but unstable terrain were taking its toll on his legs. He had discarded his sword and Ilya’s bow and arrows to move faster, keeping a small dagger for defense. No bow was going to save him if he stumbled into a horde. If he made it to his village, he could reequip for the defense.

Though Ilya might kill him when she learned he left her bow behind. He was pretty sure he could find it again if they retraced their steps, however. At the moment, he didn’t care. He needed to get back.

In a way, he was glad he was in such a rush. Moving with purpose, even a worried purpose, felt good.

With the sun at his back, low in the sky, the shadows ahead of him stretched clear to the horizon. Dodging around a boulder, he walked along its shadow for two dozen paces. A rickety dead tree cast a shadow ten times as long. They were like spikes. Or teeth of some vast monster—though only the lower teeth. If he went slower, he would have had time to process the eerie atmosphere.

Instead, he planted his hands on a fallen tree, vaulting off into a long shadow.

A divot in the shadow snared his foot.

Arkk swung his arms forward, catching himself just before his face met the dirt. He still skidded along the ground for a short distance, slamming his hip and one shoulder into the coarse ground. Sucking in a sharp breath, pain spiking along his side and forearm, he sat in the dirt for a few moments just feeling his own body.

Was he injured? Nothing felt broken. Grateful for the leather gloves saving his hands from being ground to raw meat, he clenched his teeth and focused. His hip stung the most. Pulling up his tunic, he hissed at the long scrapes. From his stomach down to his thigh, blood seeped from thin lines of torn skin. Scrapes that would soon bruise. Nothing more. It would hurt, but he could still run.

There was no time to dress the wound. He had to get to the village. They needed warning. If Ilya failed and a group of orcs and goblins attacked…

He didn’t want to think about what might happen.

Clenching his teeth, Arkk mustered as much willpower as he could to push himself back to his feet. As much as he wanted to rest, if he took even a short break, he would likely find himself too worn to continue.

On his feet, he locked his eyes on the horizon with clenched teeth. One foot in front of the other. Faster and faster, until he was back to his previous speed. He kicked off with his boot, launching into a sprint once again.

He ran, planting one foot on the ground and then the other… until his foot found nothing underneath.

Eyes widening as his stomach flipped, Arkk fell into a fissure shadowed by a small boulder. His back hit the dirt wall after a short distance, grinding down a steep slope. His hands and boots found no purchase to slow him down. He slid a long way until the earthen wall vanished from beneath him. After falling a short distance through open air, Arkk landed with a grunt on something squishy.

Arkk sat still for a long moment. With his hip burning and now his back feeling like he had been raked over hot coals, he needed a bit longer than before. Foolish. After the first fall, he should have been more careful. He had wanted to get as far as he could in the last vestiges of the light, but now he wasn’t moving anywhere at all.

Groaning, Arkk tried to look around but saw nothing. The fissure overhead looked like a jagged crack in the night sky. No light was getting down, however. If the sun had been higher in the sky… He was in some kind of cavern, that much he could tell by the feeling of the air around him. Underneath him… it almost felt like a bed. A bed of somewhat slimy texture, moving like an oversized waterskin pouch.

Something moved beneath him. Whatever he landed on shuddered and began descending. The squishy bed pulled out from beneath him.

That got Arkk to jolt despite his pain.

Nothing lived in the Cursed Forest. Nothing except rumors. And yet something was moving?

Arkk rolled to the side, away from the direction of movement. He ended up on much firmer ground, though still soft. At least this felt more like woven mats than a water-filled sack. Unmoving woven mats. That, he felt, was the key part.

Feeling at his side, his fingers curled around the hilt of his dagger. Glad it hadn’t gotten knocked loose, he slammed it into the woven mat and traced out a small symbol to the best of his ability. It felt like hard stone beneath, but he was far less concerned about his blade’s edge than he was about being able to see.

Symbol complete, Arkk poured the tiniest amount of magic into it, not wanting to have it blow up in his face.

A brilliant yellow flame erupted from the ground instead. Arkk threw himself backward at the unexpected fire, only to realize that it wasn’t spreading. Small mercies. If he remembered the pattern right, a small orb of light should have popped up into the air. As it was, he supposed the column of flame was doing its job of providing light. Not much, but enough to see the rest of the area by.

He had been wrong. This was no cavern. A cavern was a natural structure. Brick walls and a vaulted ceiling didn’t form naturally. Nor did caves form… beds? It looked like the room was filled with rows and rows of beds—not whatever he landed on as these looked like something he might have in his home. None were occupied, thankfully. In fact, with the amount of dust and dirt coating every inch of them, he doubted anyone had touched them in decades upon decades.

There was, he noted, no sign of whatever he landed on. The area beneath the fissure was just empty ground, covered with some kind of woven mat or carpet. The lack of anything soft sent a chill down his spine. What had he landed on?

Shuddering, he looked up at the fissure. The slope didn’t look as steep as he thought it was. If not for his momentum, he might not have slid all the way down. As it was, he could probably climb back out. If he could reach the fissure.

It might be possible to stack up the beds and climb up them, but… that could take all night. And that assumed that there were enough beds to reach the top of the vaulted ceiling. It was quite high up.

Arkk’s eyes lowered to a doorway at the far end of the room. A door implied that there was more to this place. Beds indicated that people lived down here at one point in time. If people had to get in, they could get back out. That meant there should be an alternate way up.

He was losing time.

With a faint limp, he hurried over to the closest wall. There were torches mounted along the walls, many of which still looked oily at the end. Assuming it would work, he pulled one off the wall and swept it through the flames he had made. Sure enough, it roared to life, providing much greater illumination in the dark. Sweeping a foot through his magic circle snuffed the fire he had started.

Pushing open the door took a great deal more effort than he imagined it was supposed to take. It felt more like he was breaking the hinges on the door than operating them. Even still, he pushed open the door and stepped into a long, narrow corridor.

The corridor had collapsed at one end, leaving him only one direction to walk. There were a few more doors in the other direction, but what drew his eye were the bodies.

“I think I found the owners of those beds,” Arkk mumbled to himself.

On both sides of the corridor, periodically slumped against the walls, were at least a dozen corpses. Some might have been wearing armor. For others… it was hard to tell. Perhaps they had simply worn less robust armor, a material that had disintegrated over time. And it had been a great time since whatever happened here. None of the bodies were anything more than bones.

A rush of wind that sounded like whispers at his back caused the torch to flicker. He whirled, breathing heavily with his dagger gripped in his other hand.

The corridor was empty save for the collapsed tunnel and more bones.

“Is someone there?” Arkk called out. Drawing attention to himself might be a poor decision under most circumstances. He was already wandering around with a torch, kicking open doors. The advantage of getting help tipped the scales against alerting something that was going to notice him anyway.

Wondering if he had let in a draft by opening the door, he simply turned back and continued on the only path he could.

He pushed open each door as he passed them, checking what was inside. The first room, closest to the barracks, looked like a king’s armory. Weapons and equipment hung from the walls, though most spots were empty. The gear equipped on all the bodies littering the place went in those slots. Everything looked so old that if he picked them up, they would probably turn to dust. One room looked like it had chicken coops and pig pens along with a small field. That one, in particular, had him pausing. The field actually had plants growing. Considering how dead everything else was in the Cursed Forest, even a small bit of life surprised him.

Passing by training rooms and even a pool, perhaps for bathing or recreation—though Arkk wasn’t sure if that had been the original purpose of the room or if rainwater had simply accumulated in a basin meant for other purposes—he deduced that this place had been some kind of self-sufficient fortress. Despite living not far away, he had never heard even the faintest rumors of such a place. That, combined with the completely decomposed bodies, meant it was probably so ancient that nobody knew about it.

He wanted to explore the place more than merely glancing into each room. He wanted to drag Ilya here and explore it with her. But to do that, he had to get out of here and save the village.

The one thing he had yet to find were stairs.

Coming to a third intersection in the corridor, Arkk started feeling despair settling in. Just how large was this place? The rooms were massive. Half his village could fit within the sleeping quarters and he had found three such rooms so far. The other two intersections had been a full crossroads, allowing him to simply continue stumbling his way forward. This one, however, only had two choices. He could go left or right.

Picking at random, Arkk selected the right path.

The second he took a step, he felt it again. That rush of whispering wind at his back. He whirled around, eyes searching.

In the dark corners of the corridor where the light from his torch failed to reach, he did see something. It looked like the shadows themselves were twisting and writhing. The strangest thing was inside the umbra. Little golden orbs, like miniature suns that failed to provide light. If they had remained where they were, he might have thought they were some ancient magical lighting technique that had since failed. But they didn’t.

The little golden stars winked out of existence, one by one, as the shadows stilled and returned to normal.

It only took a moment. If he hadn’t turned around so quickly, he would have missed it entirely. Now, however, he couldn’t help but feel that something was watching him. Magic or monster, something had made this empty fortress its home. Was it upset at his presence? Or merely curious? It hadn’t attacked him so far, which he was taking as a good sign.

Was this thing in the shadows what he had landed upon? Unless there was something else moving down here…

Abandoning his chosen path, Arkk followed after those shadowy lights. It hadn’t attacked him and he couldn’t help but feel that those whispers were a beckoning, not a warning to stay away. Heading towards it might be foolish, but… above all, he didn’t want those lights at his back.

He kept opening doors along the way. Some of the rooms were so decayed that he couldn’t even guess what their use might have been. It did interest him that there was a library in this fortress, but he didn’t dare touch a book. If he opened one carelessly, it might fall apart. If it didn’t fall apart, he might wind up reading it. That would be even worse; he needed to get back to the village. This detour was already taking far too long. How long had he been wandering? An hour? Maybe even more.

One of the doors was stronger than the rest, made from metal rather than rotted wood. It took real effort to push this one open, not just because the hinges were one fused block of rust. A heavy door meant something worth protecting lay beyond. Hopefully a staircase up to the surface. After struggling for a few minutes, Arkk liberated an old sword from one of the nearby skeletons. Wedging that in the small opening he had made, he started prying the door open.

The sword snapped clean in two, throwing Arkk back as the counter to his weight vanished. He grimaced as his back hit the wall. Slumping down to the ground, Arkk took another short break, holding his hand to his injured hip. Jostling it with that little move hurt.

His efforts did not go to waste. Although the sword broke, it held strong long enough to leverage the door open. It wasn’t fully open but there was space to squeeze through.

There were no stairs inside, much to Arkk’s chagrin. Instead, it was almost the opposite. It was a large room. One of importance with large steps leading up to a dais in the dead center of the room. The dominating feature was a circular pit placed into the dais that seemed to go down forever. A large sphere, with deep grooves forming a maze-like pattern on its surface, looked like it had been knocked aside. Bodies littered the floor of this room more than any other, making it difficult to walk toward the center of the room. He had to take care, not wanting to trip and fall in.

Pulling another torch from a wall, lighting it, and dropping it down the deep pit, Arkk never saw it hit the bottom. The light just kept shrinking into the darkness until he couldn’t see it anymore.

Arkk backed up from the pit, sinking onto the steps leading up to the dais. It wasn’t a very comfortable place to sit. Deep grooves lined the floor and even the walls and ceiling of this room, creating a labyrinthine pattern that spread across every surface. He dropped his head into his hands. All the adrenaline and exhilaration that came from his mad sprint through the Cursed Forest had long since faded. Exhaustion crept into his bones. The injuries he sustained weren’t making it any easier.

This fortress was too large. There could be a stairwell beyond the door on the other side of this pit chamber or there could be yet another corridor. With as many doors as he had opened thus far, it almost felt like he had to stumble across a way up sooner or later. And yet, it felt like he was never going to escape. At what point would it be better to try stacking up furniture to reach that fissure versus continuing in the hopes of finding another way up?

It would have been nice if this fortress had a map somewhere. The tactical disadvantage of a map showing any intruders that saw it how to navigate this place meant that he doubted there would be one. Not to mention, it probably would have rotted away along with the bodies unless its creators carved it into the stone walls.

Arkk’s eyes drifted side to side. He had been avoiding looking too closely at the bodies throughout the ruins—it felt a bit morbid to stare at so many corpses—but now that his explorations had stalled, he couldn’t help but look at some of them.

He noticed now that they weren’t all humanoid. One was a partially crushed exoskeleton with a great many limbs, looking like a giant spider. Another had four arms and two legs. It was hard to tell what it might have looked like if it was more than just bones, but Arkk couldn’t think of a creature that had four arms. A skull a short distance from the rest of a humanoid body had horns. The oddest thing was a cube. A cube of folded layers of metal with long, sharp limbs jutting out at strange angles. Arkk had thought it was merely a sculpture until he realized that one of those sharp limbs was piercing the chest plate of a more humanoid-looking corpse. A battle-axe almost completely bisecting the cube must have been what killed it, but…

He had never seen anything like it.

Staring at it felt strange. Like it had too many angles for being a cube.

Tearing his eyes away, Arkk looked to a shadow in the room where a little golden light glinted in the darkness. For a moment, he thought it was a mere reflection of the torch off a suit of armor. It blinking dispersed that notion.

Arkk launched to his feet, noticing the room.

The entire half of the chamber changed while his back was turned. Dark shadows covered every surface despite his torch. Inside those shadows, stars burned bright, looking like dozens of eyes. Teeth gleamed in the darkness, forming dozens of mouths with lolling black tongues dangling from the shadows. The entire room stared at him.

Arkk’s dagger trembled in his fingers as he tried to steady himself. The room seeming to come alive into some kind of monster shook him. He just about ran. It would likely be useless given that he was trapped down here, but fight or flight instincts didn’t care about details like that.

Before he could, however, someone stepped out of the shadows. Something. It appeared as a woman, but obviously not human, elf, or even orc. No creature he had ever seen before had dark violet skin. Those same starry eyes that now possessed the rest of the room gleamed from its remarkably humanoid face. The majority of its clothes almost matched its skin, save for being a bit darker. A long white segment that ran down its entire front almost made it look like it was wearing an apron of sorts.

He quickly realized that its clothes weren’t clothes at all. They glistened and dripped. More of those golden eyes dotted the shoulders, stomach, wrists, and sides of its dress-like lower body.

This was a monster. Not like a simple orc or goblin, but a true monster. The kind spoken of in ancient tales from before the Calamity ravaged the lands.

And it was here. Staring at him from across the bottomless pit.

 

 

 

Arkk drew back his bowstring, taking careful aim. He didn’t blink, he barely breathed. Even when the draw of the bow weighed on his arm, he simply clenched his teeth and stared across the field. Arkk watched and waited for the most opportune moment, intending to use every aspect of the situation to his advantage.

The beast dipped its head, antlers disturbing leaves as it sniffed at a crop of berries. Animals were most skittish when eating, but they were also still.

As soon as he saw the stag bite at the bush, Arkk released the string, loosing the arrow.

Whether it was the twang of the bowstring, the rustle of the arrow as it flew through some loose brush, or some unconscious grunt Arkk made, the stag started. It didn’t look up and stare, it bolted without hesitation. The arrow still struck, but in its rear, not in the heart or skull. It wasn’t a fatal blow. The stag wouldn’t even bleed out in all likelihood.

“Damn.”

“Ah well, shame.”

Arkk’s gaze slid to the side where Ilya shoved off from a tree. The elf had remained so still for so long that he had almost forgotten about her presence. “Shame?” he said, not bothering with remaining quiet. That stag rushing off would have frightened away all the other game in the immediate area. “That stag was big enough to feed the village for a week. Bit more than a shame.”

“Don’t let it get you down. It was a good shot. You just had a spot of bad luck.”

“No such thing as luck,” Arkk said, slinging Ilya’s bow over his shoulder as he moved forward. His eyes roamed over the area as he tried to figure out a way to salvage the situation. “Just opportunities and what you do with them.”

“So,” Ilya said, putting on a grin, “you’re saying you missed because of your own incompetence?”

Arkk’s eyes shifted, glaring. “Maybe a little luck,” he admitted under his breath.

“Come on. We’re not going to get anything else in the area today. Let’s head back to camp.”

“That’s half a day’s hike in the wrong direction,” Arkk said, feeling bad for the poor stag. If they didn’t hunt it down, he’ll have just skewered its hindquarters for no good reason. “We can still track it down.”

“The camp—and our cart—is a half-day away already. You want to go after it and then try to lug it back? We’ll never make it.” Ilya shook her head, sending her gleaming silver hair shaking around her shoulders. “In case you missed it, that thing was huge. It was already going to take forever, but now? Even if we found it and killed it, we’ll return the triumphant hunters! Our spoils, spoiled meat.”

Arkk crossed his arms, shooting the elf another glare. “If you go get the cart now, that would help.”

“Through these trees? And back? I doubt it would be much faster.”

His eyes drifted off to the east. They were close enough to the Cursed Forest to see the way the plants didn’t quite grow as thick as they did elsewhere. They hadn’t gone through the forest to get here, of course. It was a three-day trip back to the village by going around the Cursed Forest but through it? It was a half day’s trek through the dead brush, dead trees, and relatively flat land to reach Langleey Village.

In looking back toward Ilya, Arkk caught a glint of something glistening on the berry bush. Smile spreading across his face, he gripped his bow and started forward.

“Where are you going?”

“You should get the cart,” Arkk said as he moved across a small clearing to the berry bush. Once there, he plucked the glistening leaf. “We’ll take the carcass back tonight.”

Blood glinted on the leaf, catching the sunlight. Quite a bit of blood, actually, once he looked around the area where the stag had bolted off. Beyond the initial bloodied ground, the trail petered off, becoming much harder to see as the stag picked up its speed. Still, Arkk doubted it was enough for the stag to bleed out. But it might be injured, tired, and resting to lick its wounds. Ineffectual though his arrow had been at killing the beast, with a bit of it in his hands, he should be able to find it.

Kneeling down, Arkk picked up a stick and started dragging symbols into the ground. A circle to contain the magic, a triangle for the source material, radiating lines to seek out more of the material, and several squiggly lines that resembled runes but probably didn’t matter. And—

“Oh no. You’re going to make it explode?”

“It’s a tracking spell. That mercenary group that passed through the village last year had a spellcaster with a beginner spell book. He let me look through it while they were staying over at the church.”

Ilya frowned, considering. “You’re trying to remember something you saw in a book one time over a year ago?”

“It was a very simple spell. I have part of the stag here, so I can use it to find the rest of the stag.”

“What does that symbol mean?” she asked, pointing with her brown leather boot.

Arkk hesitated, looking at the scrawled lines he had scraped into the dirt. The specific marking that Ilya was pointing out was… a marking for joining? Or… maybe it was just a smudge in the dirt that had already been there.

Ilya let out an exasperated sigh, his hesitation having gone on far too long. “You’re going to make that poor thing explode.”

Arkk didn’t dignify her comment with a response. Sure, one or two spells he had tried out in the past hadn’t turned out as he expected them to. This was a simple spell; it came from a beginner book. He might not be able to remember exactly what each line did, but that spellcaster had said that intent mattered most.

He intended to find that stag.

Standing so that the triangle with the leaf pointed at him, Arkk took a deep breath. He had to be careful. That spellcaster said that he had great magic potential. Too great, even. That was why everything failed, he poured too much magic into everything he tried. Had he been born in one of the cities, the Abbey of the Light would have sent him off to an academy to teach him proper sorcery. Instead, he had been born in Langleey. With no guidance, he often ended up causing problems with knowing he could do more but just not knowing how.

The moment he started to feel a tingle, Arkk snapped his eyes open, cutting off the magic he was pouring into the circle.

His eyes were first drawn to the berry bush. It glowed with a faint ethereal silhouette. Like a ghost in the shape of the plant had settled down just over the top of it. Except, he could see the entire ghost despite Ilya standing in the way. The effect hurt his head a bit, but he shook it off, turning his head toward the direction of the stag.

The trail of blood stood out to him in much the same way. Little pale white splotches that he could see through the surrounding trees and brush. Looking further into the distance, he could see a much larger mass in the shape of the stag. It looked like a ghost wandering through the forest.

“Oh. That looks good,” he said, following the movements of the distant stag.

“You did something that worked?”

“Well, I didn’t mean to see where the bush was.” Arkk glanced down at the leaf in the triangle. “I suppose that makes sense though.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“It’s easy to prove,” Arkk said, hurrying through the forest. “I don’t think it is too far. It looks like it stopped sprinting, anyway. Let’s hurry. I don’t know how long this will last.”

Ilya’s long legs made it easy for her to keep up despite his rush. “Try not to spook it again. I don’t want to be chasing this thing all week.”

“You’re not getting the cart?”

“I’m not going to track you through the trees while on a cart without knowing that you actually managed to get the stag. Hunt it and I’ll figure out the best path to take the cart on my way back to it.”

“That’s going to take a lot of time…”

“I can move quickly on my own. I’ve got long legs.”

“That you do, Ilya,” Arkk said, glancing aside to admire his hunting companion. “Say, maybe those long legs—”

“Are too long for you,” the elf said, tone annoyed but without any real heat behind her words. “You should focus on your target, you lovesick fool.”

Arkk let out a small chuckle but followed her advice.

The stag was still upwind of them. They would have to slow down and try to avoid making noise once they got closer, but for now, Arkk kept up a hasty rush through the brush. He hopped felled branches, skipped over a narrow brook, and found a worn deer trail that let him run in roughly the correct direction without having to worry about further debris.

Arkk skidded to a stop as they closed the distance on the stag. The ethereal glow started to fade and, in a moment of panic, Arkk poured more magic into the spell.

The glow came back, but…

“What’s wrong?”

“Uh,” Arkk said. “I, uh…”

Ilya’s brilliant silver eyes flashed in irritation, though her lips quirked into a mirthful smile. “You made it explode, didn’t you.”

“No! I didn’t even…” Arkk shot her a glare. “Maybe… a little bit.”

“Oh, just a little explosion,” Ilya said, nodding her head. “Of course. I’m sure it’s fine then.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Arkk grumbled, staring at the ethereal… mess. It was still shuddering on the ground, twitching and… looking like it was being ripped apart. Forcing his stomach to be calm, Arkk tried to look at the positives of the situation. If it was exploded, some of it should still be salvageable. They would have some meat to take back to the village. “Come on, we’ll find out soon enough. It isn’t far now.”

Though not far, it still took quite some time to reach the stag. A little under an hour, by his estimate. Throughout it all, Arkk had to watch as the stag continued to peel apart. Rather than a side effect of whatever he had done, it looked like some wild animals were ripping it apart.

Eventually, he spotted the stag on the ground, half hidden behind a large tree. It wasn’t moving. It wasn’t breathing, as far as he could see.

A spray of viscera coated most of the surrounding trees. A few bits of skin hung off branches and an antler was sticking out of a rock a short distance away. But there was something more as well. Something that made Arkk ready an arrow.

Circling slowly, bow at the ready, Arkk’s eyes widened as he watched the translucent silhouette spread out beyond the beast’s body. Further than the explosion looked to have gone. Looking at the beast itself, Arkk frowned. Claw and teeth marks covered the soft underside of the stag’s carcass. Large chunks had been ripped from it. Consumed? His eyes looked around, searching for more of the creature. Small ghostly flecks of blood trailed off a short distance around the forest, but no large chunks that might have been resting in something’s belly. Perhaps because it now counted as part of something else, rather than the stag?

Before he could consider more on the mysteries of the magic he was using, Ilya let out a loud hissing noise. “Goblins,” she said, drawing her short sword. Her silver eyes darted around the forest, looking for any sign of a threat.

Arkk’s wide eyes went back to the stag, looking over its wounds again. He had thought some wild animal got to the exploded stag, but investigating closer, he couldn’t deny the ripping and tearing looked too systematic to be a random animal. Stepping back from the corpse, he scanned the ground, quickly finding three-toed footprints stamped into the dirt around its body.

“They went that way,” he said, pointing toward the fading trail of ghostly blood left behind by the messy eaters. The footprints headed in the same direction, confirming what he saw through his magic.

Staring at the footprints made Arkk gasp. One of them was not like the rest. Rather than the three-toed bare footprints of the goblins, this one was much larger and covered, as if the maker had worn proper footwear. A bit larger than Arkk’s foot. It couldn’t be his footprint. Nor would it be Ilya’s. Neither had walked beyond the carcass.

“An orc?” he asked, waving Ilya over. “I can’t think of anything else that would willingly travel with goblins like that.”

“A pack of goblins is bad enough. Organized goblins?” Ilya said, walking around, staring at the ground. “More orc footprints over here. Different ones for sure. Three… four… five of them? Light, this is bad. Why are they here?”

“The goblins probably smelled the blood and the orcs lost control of them.”

“Why are they here in general?” Ilya asked. “Not this specific spot.”

“They… they couldn’t be after the village, right?”

Pressing her lips together, Ilya nodded her head. “Maybe. Maybe not. We have to warn them.”

“It’s a three-day trek back after going back to camp for the horses.”

“Not if we skirt the edge of the Cursed Forest.”

Arkk looked in the direction of the blood trail, wishing the goblins or orcs had left a part of themselves behind so he could try tracking them. “I think they are skirting the edge of the Cursed Forest. We can’t take on a whole horde on our own,” he said, then slowly looked eastward. “But if we cut through the forest–”

“No! No.” Ilya took a deep breath, gnawing on her lip as she looked around the bloodied carcass. “I can move swiftly on my own. And stealthily.” She looked to the sun, low in the western sky. “It is almost night. If they stop for camp and I slip past them, I can reach the village by morning.”

“What if they don’t camp? What if they find you?”

Ilya offered a wan smile. “That’s why you’re heading back to camp. Grab the horses, leave the cart. Ride as fast as you can.”

“That’s too long,” Arkk said, shaking his head. “It will take half the night traveling in the wrong direction just to get back to camp.”

“If I get caught, I’ll lead them around by their nose, buying you as much time as I can. If I don’t get caught, then I’ll make it before you.” Her sharp, blade-like ears twitched as she forced a smile. “You can do this. But we’re wasting time. Go!”

Without waiting for a response, she turned and rushed off through the brush and trees, hurrying in the direction the footprints had gone.

Grinding his teeth, Arkk turned away from the carcass. He started toward the sunset, only to pause. There was no chance he would ever make it to the village before Ilya or the monsters. At best, he would show up in time to help defend the village. At worst, he would find it ransacked.

Putting the sun to his back, he stared beyond the green trees and lively section of the forest. The Cursed Forest was by far the shortest path. With as much traveling as they had done chasing after that stag, he was even closer now. If he didn’t stop for the night, he could make it to the village well before sunrise.

The sooner he got to the village, the sooner they could prepare and rally for a defense.

Time was of the essence.

Sun at his back, he took off in a sprint.