‘Asshole.’ Sora hissed through his teeth as the four looked over the hill to where the Mage had been.

  ‘Yes, but what was that specific asshole doing out here?’ Vulk hummed.

  ‘Has to be over level twenty for a spell like that.’ Dreven added

  Sora nodded. ‘Either he is just killing the bees to keep others from levelling up, which is very much a thing someone from Leeto would do. Or.’

  ‘He was guarding something. Lan?’ Drevin said as he looked over, finding Lan with his eyes closed.

  ‘Hmm, sorry. Lan opened his eyes. ‘It looks like he teleported away before Tyr could reach him.

  ‘Well, no point starting an international incident over a hunch.’ Drevin shrugged

  ‘Yeah, anyway.’ Vulk said before starting his way to the hill the Mage had been on. ‘The salamander is this way.’ He grinned, and the others followed.

  As they walked, Lan learned more about the others between the increasing number of earthquakes. For a start, Drevin was married to a woman that Vulk described as a kitten with a cannon, much to Drevin’s disapproval, even though it looked like he didn’t entirely disagree. And from what Lan picked up on, it seemed like his marriage had something to do with why he had left his knighthood behind.

  On the topic of wives, Lan almost tripped when he learned Vulk was betrothed to twelve women. And more than that was how nonchalant he was to have four times as many future wives as noble dwarves were allowed.

  ‘Ah, it’s not as good as it sounds. My family is the one arranging all of them. I only learned about the last five through letters. I am sure most will fall through before I return home.’ He shrugged. This revelation was immediately followed up by more teasing about Olivia.

  ‘That power of yours, mind telling us more about it.’ Drevin said, coming to Lan’s rescue after a few jokes about him blushing like a damsel around the party’s Mage. ‘The way you move is like nothing I have seen before.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lan said, happy for the way out. ‘When I wisp walk, I become charged with the same power that allows me to travel through space. When the Silver Wind empowers me, how I move is dictated only by my imagination, which can be a lot harder than it sounds. It took me days to be able to move.’

  ‘Lan forgot to mention that it allows him to sit on ceilings.’ Sora grinned before Lan Wisp Walked, flipped upside down and continued to walk.

  ‘I can do more than that.’ He grinned at their stunned expression before walking upside down and looking at the others moving became too much, and he twisted and landed with a shake of the head. ‘It also makes me stronger for as long as the Silver Wind lasts.’

  ‘So you can just move anywhere?’ Drevin asked.

  ‘Well, anywhere Tyr can reach. And now, if I want to use it more than a handful of times, I need this.’ Lan said, holding up the Tuning bell. ‘but it also leaves me weaker and with a much shorter range and time.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s why you took that bell off.’ Sora nodded before telling the others about the little event in the hallway as they were going back to the main hall.

  To no one’s surprise, Vulk found that hilarious while Drevin sighed.

  ‘That ability you used was crazy, too.’ Lan told Drevin to change the subject and considered this the best time to bring it up. ‘You reached me in a second, and then there was that attack. My ears were ringing for a minute after.’ Lan smiled.

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that. I should have warned you about that before you started fighting. That was called Guardian Leap. It is useful when many party members have high mobility like ours. However, I must be careful as it turns my shield and, by extension, myself into a living ballistic missile, so I have to have a clear shot so I don’t run through anyone.

  ‘Or that wall that one time.’ Sora grinned.

  ‘As I said, I must be careful what is in the way.’ Drevin sighed.

  [Lan] the voice said, making Lan blink.

  ‘Yeah?’ he thought with his smile shifting a little.

  [I think there is something that you are going to want to see.] With that, the voice sent what Tyr saw to Lan, making him stop.

  ‘Lan?’ Sora asked, but Lan was lost in Tyr’s sight. About a mile away, there looked to be some building half swallowed up by the earth, but more than that, it looked like someone had freshly dug it up.

  ‘Guys. I think Tyr found something we should check out. Does anyone know about a buried building?’ looking around, it was clear they hadn’t and were just as interested as he was.

  Ten minutes later, Lan and the others looked over the hill to what looked like an old-style Crownguardien mansion, the rest of which was still buried.

  ‘This one of yours, Vulk?’ Sora asked, but it was Drevin who answered.

  ‘No.’ he sighed. ‘Lan, can your Tyr get closer? We are looking for a crest if you can.’

  With a nod, Lan sent an impression to Tyr, who darted towards the building.

  After a few minutes, Tyr and Lan found just what they were looking for. On the back of the building, which had been excavated more, was a surprisingly spotless crest on the tower.

  ‘Yeah, we see a crest.’ Lan said, looking up to Drevin, who suddenly looked tired. ‘A pretty clean one, too.’

  ‘We have to head back and report this. Sorry, Lan, we’re going to have to cut your levelling short.’

  ‘What is it?’ Both Lan and Sora asked at the same time.

  ‘Hmm.’ Vulk hummed, lost in his own world. ‘Does this ground sound a little funny to the rest of you?’ just then, the ground shook again, then gave way under them…

  Maybe it was the surprise or an attempt to show solidarity with his falling friends, but it took Lan a few seconds and Both Tyr and the voice shouting at him as the four plunged into a dark below, before he remembered he could fly.

  ‘Lan!’

  ‘Oh right!’ he thought before he Wisp walked below the others. As he appeared, Lan grabbed Sora by the shirt and Drevin by the arm, who, picking up on what Lan was going to do, caught Vulk’s leg as the dwarf cannoned past them with a curse that quickly evolved into a scream.

  With all three secured, Lan dug his heels into the air, the Silver Wind gathering around his feet as they slowed down. Lan strained every muscle in his body, the effort of which made the Silver Wind spark like steel on steel, slowing them down enough that the rocks they had been standing on crashed to the ground before the four slammed down.

  ‘…Ouch...’ They said from the pile they had landed in.

  ‘Nice work Lan.’ Drevin breathed.

  ‘Thanks.’ Lan groaned back with a face full of someone’s elbow.

  ‘Yes, Lan. Good stuff, good stuff,’ Vulk said, although his voice was muffled. ‘Now, can you giant bastards get off me!’

  Once they managed to untangle themselves, Lan looked around. ‘Did we fall into a dungeon?’ he asked.

  The place they had crash-landed into looked like a great hall, complete with a high domed ceiling and a hole in it that only seemed like enough to make the dark loom ever more over them. Towering pillars, a hundred meters apart, whose tops vanished into the pitch that hung above them, and long burned-up braziers that suddenly wicked to life around them while still failing to drive back the darkness.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  All they needed was a Dark Lord on a throne , and it would be the third act of a tail to save the world that Lan had played out in his mind countless times as a boy.

  ‘No. This is much worse than a dungeon.’ Drevin said in a voice that was at once serious, resigned and reassuring. ‘Look alive, boys. You have just found the home of an ancient heretic Mage.’

  ‘Heretic Mage?’ Sora asked, beating Lan and Vulk to it.

  ‘That’s right. A part of Crownguard’s past and one we try not to talk about until we are forced to.’ Drevin said as he scanned around, expecting to see something charging at them. ‘Back before Crownguard was founded, the continent was ruled by smaller kingdoms that came and went with the changing seasons. And where the city now stands once stood a Magocracy.’

  ‘A what?’ Sora said

  ‘A land ruled by mages.’ Drevin explained. ‘Only this one believed that Mages were the only people who deserved to rule and that no mage should have power over another. As you might have guessed, this led to each noble house acting as their own Kingdom, each of which strived to push the understanding of magic to its limit.’ The Guardian said as he picked up his shield.

  ‘As you can expect from a group of people who thought themselves a law onto themselves and beholden to no one less powerful than they were. The Heretic Mages performed acts of cruelty beyond imagining to gain a fraction more of the power they craved, and others pushed the capabilities of magic without care for safety or stability. When Thorin Crownguard founded the Kingdom, the Magocracy would not bend the knee, nor could they stand against him. So they dragged their little kingdom homes into the ground. Some fled, and others… others stayed in their domains, twisting magic until time took them. That is if it ever did.’

  Just then, a rock dropped and crashed behind them with a snap, and Lan felt every shred of battle instinct in him come to life as his skeleton tried to Wisp Walk without the rest of his body. Looking around at the weapons in Vulk and Sora’s hands, he hadn’t been the only one.

  ‘Over the centuries, many of the heretic Mage domains have been found, and despite their origin, the information found in them is incredibly useful to our mages. Not only allowing them to make useful inventions out of unstable devices that would endanger people but also learning the results of experiments that no one would willingly do themselves, which is why we need to report this. I know Olivia will be kicking herself when she finds out she missed out on this.’ Drevin added, which Lan only half heard as he looked down at the end of the brick and stone pile they stood on.

  ‘Guys… I think I found that Mage.’ Lan said as the others turned to look at the cracked mask peeking from the rubble.

  For what felt like hours, the four looked at the mask, feelings of having inadvertently crushed a man aside, with what Drevin had said still fresh in their minds and the fact that the Mage had been trying to keep them away, leading to the pieces falling into place in a most unsettling way.

  Looking closer, Lan realised it wasn’t the same mask the Mage had been wearing, and they found two others who had also been crushed.

  The implication was clear to all of them without any of them having to say it. Somehow, the Leeto mage and others had found this place, which may hold untold dangers. Just then, a roar thundered down the hall as the ground and walls shook.

  Looking at the others, Lan knew they all had the same thought.

  ‘Fine, I will say it, then.’ Vulk barked. ‘Those damn dogs found a Heretic Mage’s domain, and somehow a damn Salamander is involved. So what’s the plan, boss?’ he said to Drevin as he stretched his hammer arm.

  ‘Well, it looks like some of our guests have gotten lost, and we would be bad hosts if we didn’t try to guide them out.’ Drevin said as he started down the rock pile, the others falling in beside him a second before Lan did.

  ‘Sora, take point. Make sure our guests don’t see us before we see them,’ Drevin said, and Sora nodded. ‘Lan, can you have Tyr look for a way out we can take once we are done here?’

  Lan nodded, and with a thought, Tyr shot into the dark, her light pushing it back as she entered and vanished down a hallway. Halls flashed in Lan’s mind’s eye before he focused on what was in front of him.

  [I’ll keep an eye on her.] The voice laughed. [Just focus on keeping us alive.]

  ‘And remember, each Heretic Mage focused on a different magic school. Some of their domains are living traps, while others have creatures that could still be around. So guards up, all of you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will make sure you don’t step in anything.’ Sora said with a confidence born of experience. Lan nodded.

  ‘I’ll point out anything with a trace of mana in it.’ Lan nodded before noticing the others looking at him. With a smile, Lan sent a trace of mana to his eyes and watched the others flinch at the sudden change, even as the world’s colour shifted.

  ‘Warn us if you are going to do that with your eyes still glowing, Okay?’ Sora asked.’

  Before they entered the hallway, Sora rushed to take point, his eyes and head moving in opposite directions as if listening and watching the whole hallway simultaneously. After every third step, Sora patted his foot, the sound carrying a short way, and after every ten, he tapped the wall with his knuckles. On the tenth foot tap, Sora’s ear perked.

  ‘Floor trap.’ He pointed out, and Lan and the others walked around it. ‘two more coming up,’ he added before stopping and frowning.

  ‘What’s wrong, Sora.’ Drevin asked.

  ‘One sec, there is a trap by that statue, but I will need to find the trigger.’

  Having pointed it out, Lan looked closer at the statue before spotting a trace of mana from the eyes.

  ‘The eyes.’ Lan pointed.

  ‘That’s original.’ Sora rolled his eyes before giving Lan a thumbs up. ‘Nice spot.’ He said Before moving under the statue’s line of sight and disarming it. After that, Sora and Lan worked to guide the group through the hallway without disturbing a single trap as if they had never been there. This became all the more impressive when they suddenly turned down a hall and were hit with the stench of death.

  All the way down the corridor, it looked like every trap had been set off as the floor and walls had been blasted to the point of cracking the stone.

  ‘What the Hells is this…’ Sora hissed as they looked down the hallway. Three bodies lay in differing levels of damage and dismemberment.

  ‘It’s… like they just ran through the traps to clear them.’ Vulk added the grin that seemed fixed on his face, vanishing.

  ‘I have seen these men before.’ Lan said as the memory returned to him, the odd orange trousers and shaved heads that had been so far from important with a giant black armoured knight ready to split him in two, taking front and centre in his mind. ‘The men carrying the Leeto prince’s barge looked like that.’

  ‘You mean the Slaves.’ Sora hissed.

  Lan couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the men had been dead for more than a few days. Even still, the closest had burns around the collar on his neck.

  ‘Basterds.’ Lan heard but wasn’t sure who had said it or if it had even come from him.

  ‘Let’s keep moving.’ Drevin said before the three could be entirely lost in their rage. ‘we still have work to do.’ Even as his voice brought focus to Lan and the others, there was still an edge, which only served to soothe their grave moods.

  Lan and the others moved as quickly and quietly as they could without worrying about traps.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Sora said, almost as if needing to get his mind off the bodies in the hall. ‘How did those Leetoans make it into the Great Hall we fell in without setting off any of the traps?

  That was a good question, one that Lan solved by opening his tome and finding all the places that Tyr had already mapped out,

  ‘Because this place is built like a maze and a massive one too,’ even that was an understatement. From the looks of things, Tyr had flown straight out before trying to work her way through the hallways back to them.

  Just then, Sora raised his hand a moment before Lan and the others heard a voice carrying down the hall.

  ‘Sora,’ Drevin said, getting a nod without needing more information before the younger man’s image seemed to blur, and he took off down the hall.’

  ‘Wow.’ Lan breathed.

  ‘Yeah. that ability never fails to amaze.’ Drevin nodded.

  A few minutes later, Sora returned with a grim expression. ‘I found the Heretic Mage’s workshop.’

  Lan realised why the moment they entered the workshop, although the word didn’t fit. A sloppy butcher’s back room that someone had tried to cover up with an apothecary’s workshop was closer, and Lan could see why Sora hadn’t called it a lab.

  Around the large room were counters filled with small and large glass jars with malformed monstrosities suspended in a green viscous fluid.

  Despite everything he had been through, Lan couldn’t look too closely at the jars and yet the images burned themselves into his mind, the pup of some beast with fully grown back legs with bones that looked like they had exploded with outward force in a blast frozen in time by the gel.

  Trying not to look at it, Lan looked down and regretted doing so when his eyes landed on the plaque under the jar.

  ‘Subject: thirteen hundred and sixty-four. Another failure. This formula reacted too quickly, affecting only the lower half too enthusiastically. Will need to refine the timing.’

  ‘What the hell is this.’ Sora said before starting to read something he had found. ‘That damned would-be king has disrupted the progress of my work to control the rate of growth in living things. They just don’t see my genius, armies grown overnight from younger generations, all implanted with the drive to fight and win. I’ll show them, I’ll show them all.’

  As Sora spoke, Lan scanned the jars.

  ‘Subject: thirteen hundred and sixty-five. The subject’s skeleton splintered as they grew.’

  ‘Subject: thirteen hundred and sixty-sex. Muscle tension deformed skeleton.’

  ‘Subject: thirteen hundred and sixty-seven. The subject’s skeleton did not grow, while the rest of it did.’

  Lan looked up from the plaque and knew what he was looking at now. He felt bile rise up in his throat.

  ‘Subject: thirteen hundred and seventy. Return to human subjects since nine hundred and fifty. The change of species had the predicted effects of unstable growth. Lan looked up at the tube, not sure what he was looking at for a long moment until he noticed an elbow and then fingers crushed against the bottom of the jar. An arm so malformed it wrapped around the jar like a coiled snake.

  Drevin’s arm fell on Lan’s shoulder before pulling him away from the counters.

  ‘Sorry…’ Lan breathed as he tried to shake the image from his mind. ‘I’m good. Just…’

  ‘Yeah.’ Drevin said with a calm voice and eyes full of steel.

  Knowing he wasn’t the only one feeling this way. Lan was ready to finish all of this until something caught his eye, making him stop. Sitting in the middle of the last counter was a large jar with a fully grown man in the fetal position, with overgrown muscles pressed against his thin red skin and black bulging veins.

  ‘Subject: thirteen hundred and ninety-nine. Success.’

  As the words sunk in, things worsened as Vulk spoke up.

  ‘Does it look like something has been taken from here?’ Lan looked and found three squares untouched by the dust covering every inch of the room.