Chapter 49: DD2 Chapter 043 – With Feeling

Inquisitor Xanthia was powerful. Steel-ranked in all five of her chosen classes, she was easily one of the strongest humans alive within the Kingdom of Terythia and beyond. Even if they weren’t all strictly combat oriented, she had more physical might in her pinky finger than most warriors could ever dream of. She hadn’t felt fear in over a century, and so it was surprising to feel the once familiar sensation again. The cold drip of icy terror that ran down her spine had crept up on her amidst an unanticipated bout of nausea. Not for her own personal survival, but for the increasingly dire implications that threatened the kingdom she had given so much of her long life to.

She’d had a real shot of making it to silver once, but she had traded it away for the more immediate, albeit lesser power of filling her class slots. She hadn’t wanted to stagnate at high-steel, but Terythia had needed her to be stronger and couldn’t wait for her to reach her true limits. It had been a war that made her squander her potential, because it was always a war. Epheria, not quite content with being the greatest power on the continent, had tried reaching for more as it always did.

Which was fine in the grand scheme of things. Terythia had proven time and again that all they needed to do was to reach out to their neighbouring nations to form a temporary alliance to fend off the lumbering giant that was the old empire. But when you’re standing on the battle-scarred walls of Mantioclos, facing a foreign army that extends out to the horizon, the knowledge that your country will win eventually is cold comfort for you and the hundred and sixty thousand souls who are about to get trampled on long before Terythian messengers can even reach the courts of friendly kings.

Xan could still remember the smell of the battlefields, the rancid stench of shit, blood, and death that hung heavy in the air. Devastation the likes of which she hadn’t seen on Terythian soil ever since, at least until this quaint little catastrophe.

The runic circles that had fascinated the inquisition scholars she had brought to Rhelea on a whim, now ran red with their blood. Their crimson essense was kept fresh and liquid by all that mana running through the channels etched deep into the stone floor of the cavern. Unfortunately, it would seem that the dozen or so classers she had left alone in this underground chamber had not been enough to power the magical ritual. 

Not by a long shot.

More bodies than she cared to count were piled high against the far wall of the cavern. They had been messily exsanguinated with their blood used to liberally coat the walls, floor, and ceiling of the massive underground chamber. Anywhere there was an exposed rune, a treasonous Alchemic Knight had quenched it in classer blood. 

Blood magic was a messy and wasteful discipline, if you could even call it that, but for all the disdain that Xan heaped upon it, it had the bad habit of always getting the job done whenever skill and expertise was lacking. This made it the natural medium of choice for the uneducated dark mages of Terythia. No matter the specifics of her quarry’s nefarious path, over her long career as an inquisitor she had encountered bloodstained altars and dripping runes more often than not. 

Necromancers, Diabolists, Vampires—the self-styled and the real—Eldritch Sorcerers, and worse. Blood magic offered power in spades provided you had enough people to bleed and the stomach to go through with it.

The ambient glow produced from which the slains’ vital mana interacting with the runic array did a lot to illuminate the chamber in shades of red—not that Xan had any trouble seeing in the dark—but the atmospheric lighting was for once more than appropriate. She hated that the dragon was right again, although that wasn’t in any real doubt after the Alchemic Knights’ sudden betrayal on the executioner's stage. But upon seeing the carnage they had wrought, it did beg the question of how so many people had been dragged below without anyone noticing. 

Even more questions about the fall of Rhelea, and no obvious avenues to look for answers.

Despite the palpable thrum of magical energy that radiated off from the glowing runes, the chamber, like much of Rhelea, was utterly devoid of ambient mana. There was a harshness to that lack. Xan could feel how her own personal power was steadily being leached away from her lungs with every breath. Academically, she knew that she was losing mana so slowly that she would die of thirst long before she’d ever notice it impact her reserves, but the knowledge that she was in any way contributing to the flood of power being sent up through miles of rock to the Monster in the square ate at her. Until the bloody ritual circle was destroyed the beast was all but unkillable, with every death and spell cast within Rhelea’s warded walls helping the beast and its spawn. 

If it was playing by the same rules as everyone else, then the amount of mana flowing towards it through the runic circle should have killed it a thousand times over by now. Nothing mortal could survive the amount of manaburn the Monster should have accumulated, but if it wasn’t mortal then what was it? 

Xan sighed. She had far too many questions and despite Typh’s explanations, not nearly enough answers.

The Alchemic Knights were one of Terythia’s greatest assets. Their ranks were typically filled by unwanted bastards and the truly outstanding commoners with a prodigious talent for the sword. They were swiftly levelled to steel, in a series of decades-long challenges that amounted to little more than sending prospective hopefuls by the thousands down into some of the worst dungeons that Terythia had access to. For surviving the ‘trials’, each ‘volunteer’ was subjected to invasive surgeries and alchemical treatments that killed even more than the dungeons did. The result were soldiers that were still technically human, even if the accumulated traits on their status gave them more in common with an alchemist's dirty apron than their softer-fleshed kin.

It was horrific, barbaric, and worst of all necessary. The Alchemic Knights were her nation's only reliable source of loyal, steel-ranked soldiers that didn’t take over a century to create and longer to bring to heel. Their numbers were continuously swelling, as despite the wastefulness of the process, there were always more hopefuls desperate to join, unaware of what the process entailed. A finished knight could live for centuries longer than the decades it took to manufacture one, and outside of wars, they very rarely died. It also didn’t hurt that in a straight up contest they were far stronger, faster, and more durable than a similarly levelled human. Their only weakness—if you could call it that—was that their relative youthfulness in classer terms tended to create a dearth of combat experience that their more traditionally levelled contemporaries had.

Alchemic Knights had proven their worth and loyalty in every major conflict that Terythia had been involved in since their inception. Of course Xan had long since learned that there was always a price to pay for these sorts of miracles, and this was proving to be a sharp one indeed. Why this batch had turned on the country, and for the benefit of a monster, she didn’t know, but she was suffering for it with every swing of their heavy blades.

She imagined that with her five classes and centuries of experience that she was more than a match for any one of the traitorous knights. Unfortunately, there were three of them in the chamber, and that was enough to tip the balance. 

The goblins who had accompanied Xan on her mission into the darkness were dutifully holding back the horrors that streamed in from the tunnels up above. Others worked on destroying the runes carved into the chamber with iron hatchets, allowing her the joyful experience of fending off three steel-ranked beings, any one of whom was more than her physical match.

Xan sidestepped an axe swing which tore through the earth rather than getting stuck in it as she had hoped. The entire chamber shook with the force of the blow, which was less than ideal—they had spent far too much effort mapping out the subterranean tunnels beneath Rhelea for her to risk collapsing any now.

She swayed to the left, avoiding a quick death by a thrusting sword, and turned on her heel to slash her weapon in a downwards arc at the offending traitor. Moving faster than the knight could react, her blade struck true, but the armour it encountered was thick enough to deflect the blow. The battered rune plate the Alchemic Knights wore was a heavier variation of her own—layers of steel, adamantium and dragonscale forged together into near-impenetrable plates by the finest classed smiths in the kingdom. Except hers had been torn apart like tissue paper when she fought the monster above, and the patches made to bring it up to a serviceable standard were less than useless against foes as strong as these. Still, Xan’s sword scored a deep scratch in the knight’s armour and the impact of that sent them staggering back, only for the third traitor to fill in the space.

Blades whirred and the Inquisitor had to rely on one of her much maligned rogue skills to keep her skin—much less her armour—intact. She lashed out with overlapping blades of energy, force, and steel, hurting the knights facing her, but never doing much more than that. With the potent alchemies running through their veins, any injuries she bestowed that were less than lethal were only temporary.

“Gods, I hate fighting regenerators…” Xan complained. She eyed the three Alchemic Knights carefully while they fanned out in silence to surround her again. The repetitive sounds of goblins’ hatchets chipping through stone in the background did much to remind her that for as long as their attention was focused on her, she was winning.

“And we hate you,” the knights replied in unison.

“Enough to turn on the throne?” she asked, surprised that they had chosen this moment to finally talk.

“So long as Kings sit on them, there shall be no thrones…” they declared.

“Okay—”

“So long as classers breathe we will not rest...”

“Right, but—”

“We shall not stop, not until the System is brought to its knees!”

“Okay, but—” 

Xan darted out of the way when all three knights lunged for her as one. They moved like they were one being, not so much relying on teamwork, but moving according to the whims of a singular controlling entity. They charged her with a flurry of steel and skills, their missed strikes going on to shake and scar the cavern’s rocky walls. 

Which gave the Inquisitor ideas.

Xan had lived for a very long time, and had fought beasts that most men didn’t know existed. She was experienced enough to already know that strength and speed wouldn’t bring her victory here, but misdirection might.

With a little twist of will, searing fires danced along the edge of her blade and the Inquisitor went on the offensive. With flashes of her sword bathed in flames, she struck and swung in an unending sequence of ever faster blows. More often than not, her efforts resulted in little more than deep grooves being carved into the ground, as opposed to actually injuring the knights themselves. She left openings and accepted their strikes, losing what little armour she had before adding her own blood to the copious amounts which covered the chamber. If she had time to think, she would probably have been worried, but she didn’t, and it seemed like a worthwhile trade.

She had to be careful as she danced around the wide cavern. An errant swing would do no good, and goblins were everywhere, cutting into runes, or otherwise dying to the horrors that still threatened to flood the chamber. When she was done she watched with glee how the blood so wastefully applied to power the runic circle—now topped up with that of slain goblins—trickled down into the new channels she had painstakingly carved into the floor.

Blood magic was messy and wasteful, but for all the disdain she heaped upon it, it had the good habit of pulling her ass out of the fire whenever her skill and expertise was lacking.

Power rushed into the Inquisitor, quickly filling her far past her considerable capacity. The ritual designed to focus the mana of the sacrificed to the Monster in the square, was perverted to fill her instead. The efficiency was terrible, but with her blood dripping down her body and onto the floor beneath her feet, the solid connection and proximity trumped all of that.

Xan exhaled and felt the familiar pain of manaburn in her chest. Her five classes—some more than others—bared their fangs and extended their claws at the prospect of winning the fight. Giddy with overflowing magic, the Inquisitor allowed herself a full-throated laugh as she batted away the nearest knight with the flat of her blade.

“Now, let’s try this again shall we?” she asked.

Xan lunged forwards amidst a blur of motion, and this time when she struck, she left far more than just shallow scratches.

***

Barlow felt the music swell in his chest as the strings reached their zenith at a crisp high C. The note was held, filling the air for several long moments—easily rising above the chaotic sounds of clashing violence. The trembling strings drowned out every scream and wet-crunch, every beg for mercy or salvation that didn’t come. Whether the pleas came from human lips or the handful of others who were studded throughout the armed column didn’t matter, what did was that the music was loud, and that Barlow’s role in Eliza’s masterpiece was clear.

Horrors washed against them like waves besieging the shore and the bard who was a stranger to violence fought with a competent savagery that was not his own. He was beyond terrified, dreading every agonising second that he remained a prisoner in his own body, but far too fearful to fight against the magic that held him in place—that compelled him and so many others to hold the line when he would much rather flee. 

The flow of the music was masterfully composed and his every action was carried to him through the power of the song. Every step and parry, every swing of his axe, was all performed in time with the insistent beat that begged him to follow along. His life and death struggle had been turned into nothing more than an elaborate dance, where his partners were the people fighting beside him and the never ending exchange of tentacled abominations that rushed forwards only to die beneath his blade. 

His arms ached, and the ground beneath his feet was slick with blood and ichor. He was desperate to look around, to crane his neck, but to do so would risk shattering Eliza’s spell that was likely the only thing keeping him alive in a fight that was so far beyond his capabilities. There was just enough wiggle room in the melody for Barlow to move his eyes, to void his bowels—which in hindsight was a discovery he would rather not have made—or to scream if he really wanted to, but he was a bard so he did the next best thing, he harmonised.

It was a heroic piece that filled the air, and so like everyone else lost to the song Barlow became heroic. Eliza sang a tale of their triumph and so the column that had marched through the unending horde of lashing teeth and inky black flesh to the very heart of Rhelea, stood tall and held the line. They should never have made it this far. The conscripts and volunteers that made up the bulk of the human army lacked the skill and the will to hold their ground, let alone march deeper into Rhelea, but with Eliza’s song at their back, they were unstoppable.  

Horrors died in droves all around them, melting into puddles of bubbling ichor whenever they were struck true by a rune-etched blade given to them by the dragon’s forces. Those abominations fortunate enough to die by some other means, crawled along the ground for the two streets that separated them from the Monster in the market square where they would be reborn again. The tide of horrors that rushed against them was endless, and Barlow couldn’t tell if they were making a difference, but all thoughts of winning the fight had long ago been supplanted with just living for the next handful of seconds. 

Every inch of ground that had been claimed from the Rhelea’s gates to where he now stood had been paid for in blood and violence. The number of brave fools who had ventured back into the fallen city diminished with every passing second that they stood their ground and held against the horrors. 

For no song could be composed entirely of high notes. For the rising notes to rise there must be lows, and when Eliza’s voice inevitably dipped, and the instrumental sounds she had manifested followed, like marionettes on a string, good people died. The same power the bard channelled that gave Barlow’s axe its edge and his arm its strength, suddenly fought against him. The same effect that had ensnared the horrors, slowing them to the point that they appeared almost eager to meet sharp steel, instead caused them to surge forwards, suddenly vicious again as they reaped lives for the next few seconds it took for the melody to turn.

Over and over it went. 

The song empowered and then weakened them. On balance, it helped far more than it hindered, but it was a terrifying thing to know that your death would not be your own.

Fortunately, it was not Barlow’s turn to die this time, and so a prisoner in his own skull, he watched wide-eyed whilst people fell around him. Their resolve tended to crack the moment the monsters’ teeth pierced their flesh with any real seriousness. Their gruesome injuries caused them to crash out of the melody, a stoic soldier suddenly reverting into another baker or tailor, ill-suited and ill-prepared for the fight they found themselves in. 

Their deaths gave him pause. 

From the moment the song had erupted from Eliza amidst a myriad of scintillating rainbow colours, Barlow had willingly succumbed. He had wholeheartedly escaped the unpleasant reality of his situation by offering up his agency in exchange for the sense of safety that the music provided. But now, looking into the fearful eyes of those who fell while his body fought a battle without him, he wished that he had the courage to go out under his own control. He didn’t want to die having been just a passenger in his own body.

Up and down the increasingly ragged column, warriors and other combat classers largely fought under their own power. Brave souls—braver than his—held their resolve and refused the embrace of the song, choosing to fight out of step with the concerted efforts of those under Eliza’s sway.

How he wished he was like them, skilled enough to hold a blade and face down monsters without someone else’s magic controlling his actions. But as terrifying as it was to let the other bard take the reins, Barlow knew that it was far better than the alternative. 

The better part of ten thousand souls had initially joined Eliza in song, like him, they joined their voice to hers, but the numbers that remained in the column was far less. The fraying edges of the battlelines grew more ragged as their losses mounted with every second they spent so deep in the heart of Rhelea. 

The song had grown comparatively weaker as more people died and even more rebelled upon seeing their deaths approach. The low notes came and people panicked, unwilling to risk a confrontation without the music at their backs. As people fought it, the magic of the song stuttered. Barlow saw a fresh wave of tentacled horrors rush towards them, their speed barely affected by the music while his own limbs grew slow and clumsy. 

He closed his eyes and swung his axe, his body pivoting along the lines of his hip. A horror’s blood spurted in his face while its claws tore numerous rents in his breastplate and scored his flesh underneath. Barlow heard the sizzle of its flesh against the runes carved into his weapon. He pulled back his axe and the soldier behind him thrust forwards with a spear ending the horse-sized monster before it could do any more damage. Barlow wanted to scream, but there was another creature behind the one he had just killed, and several more behind that. 

Tentacles lashed at him while the music slowly rose, his resistance rising with it. Barlow accumulated increasingly large cuts and bruises under the creatures’ relentless assault, but he held firm, trusting in Eliza to see him through. He tried to check his status and for the hundredth time he failed. His skills were as unresponsive as they were since he’d first fallen under the throes of the song. Pain blossomed all over his body while he stood tall beneath the monsters’ relentless assault. The song didn’t let him flinch, his body acted without hesitation, repeatedly swinging his axe into the tide of horrors that rushed in front of him again and again.

How Eliza was doing this he did not know. It certainly wasn’t with a bard skill of that much he was certain of. Just trying to look at her hurt his eyes. The searing forks of jagged, swirling colour that emanated from the air around her made him feel nauseous and left blurry afterimages seared into his vision. 

The woman he’d known for years had become a terror—if not a God—for surely such a magical song could not be achieved without touching upon divinity.

Barlow’s arms continued to move with a skill he didn’t possess. He clutched his axe in a whiteknuckled grip as he stepped forwards yet again and swung. The music rose, a triumphant beat pounding in his ears, and internally he breathed a sigh of relief. With the music at his back he felt unstoppable. The pain of his wounds faded, his steps became surer, and the waves of monstrosities before him faltered, each one of them as much a victim of the song as he was. 

Barlow was close enough to Eliza that he could feel the divinity wafting off of her, empowering the column while she sang the ballad of Rhelea, orchestrating their victory even as she demanded that they bleed for it. It was a magnificent song, but it was unwieldy. There were too many moving parts for one woman to command no matter how talented she was and Eliza had been slipping for some time.

The piece which had started out so tight began to fray as their opposition continued to pour down the street and people died. Each time a wave of horrors lapped against their blades, the song’s effects were a little less pronounced. The magic layered into the music which had demanded they slow down, strike softer, and with less accuracy seemed to be losing its power. The triumphant notes which had once made labourers’ shirts invulnerable to the monsters’ fangs, started to falter. The deaths increased and people began to grow increasingly fearful, falling out of the music’s protective embrace at a record pace, weakening the song for those who remained. 

Like the snapping of a band, the battle trance which had usurped their will and ignored their paltry stats was suddenly gone, and in its absence people panicked. 

Angry, confused shouts ran up and down the column. Conflicting voices called for order, a retreat, and that they hold the line all at once. There was a commotion towards their rear and between a lull in the waves Barlow turned his head to look. Only to then panic himself upon realising that he could move freely. His eyes fell on Eliza slumped motionless on the ground, and he quickly swallowed his fear at the thought of facing the horrors by himself.

The bard’s axe suddenly felt heavy and unfamiliar in his hands while the lingering notes of the song faded into motes of mana that were quickly swept towards the centre of Rhelea.

Barlow was left with nothing to distract him from the harsh sounds of battle all around and the discordant howls of oncoming horrors that grew louder with every passing second. A wave of inky black flesh rushed towards him and not knowing what else to do the bard closed his eyes and prayed. Screams rang out behind him as several someones pushed past in a hurry, knocking him to his knees which wouldn’t stop shaking. 

Rather than trying to stand, Barlow waited for his death to come, and when it didn’t, he cautiously cracked an eyelid to see what was taking it so long. 

Mere feet in front of him, was a thoroughly unexpected sight. Undead abominations in ever growing numbers were attacking the horrors. They continued to stream around the edges of the column and several more dead figures pushed past him in their hurry to join the fight while the bard stared uncomprehendingly.

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When the calls for a charge sounded out, Barlow was too perplexed to disobey. He staggered to his feet, clutching his axe all the tighter and rushed forwards to join the shades in the fight for Rhelea.

***

Tuk-tuk, or Tucker as the adventurers insisted on calling her, was in awe. Every one of her steps through the dark tunnels felt like she was treading on air. She was so elated that it was her who had been chosen for this series of precious moments. Not even the lack of respect from her reluctant guards could dampen her glee. All her life she had made traps. Traps for fun, traps for game, and most importantly of all, traps for killing humans. Like many kobolds, Tuk-tuk lived and breathed the fine art of trapsmithing. 

Answering questions like how much twine to suspend a basilisk-femur counterweight, or how deep a pit needed to be to shatter a fourth-tier human's legs, were how she had made a name for herself as the greatest talent of a generation. 

Now that talent was probably going to get her killed—not that she cared, because she was certain she was going to die happy as the mother of the greatest trap Astresia had ever seen.

The five-man team of humans assigned to her protection added to her almost dizzying high of anticipation. Their obscene levels were just another validation that she was right. Her unnecessarily detailed calculations, her abrasive personality, every dance she had ever skipped in favour of scribbling out her notes, it had all been worth it for this one opportunity given to her when the Lord Sovereign came to her tent and asked for help.

“Pass the artefact,” she demanded of her escorts. 

The warrior casually tossed her the box and Tuk-tuk nearly died from fright when she caught it—her prayers were subsequently answered when no catastrophe followed.

“You okay, Tucker?” the burly man asked. While she may have been grateful for their protection, they refused to use her name, and so she refused to learn theirs. A spiteful bit of tit-for-tat which warmed the fine scales of her chest.

“I’m fine,” she said hastily. “Just don’t throw it—for all our sakes—treat it like it were your egg.”

“Egg?” the human asked. The pink-skinned warrior looked confused for a moment until a slightly darker shade of human—a ranger—spoke next. 

“Tucker means like a baby. A fragile baby that you probably shouldn’t throw underarm.”

The two humans looked down at Tuk-tuk who stood at only half their height while the rest of the adventurers watched both ends of the winding tunnel. The small kobold gently cradled the artifact for a few tender moments while she carefully inspected its wooden exterior for signs of damage. She had no practical experience with storage objects like this, and she could only pray that the contents were protected by the magical effect running through the box. She reassured herself with the knowledge that if they weren’t, then the warrior's lack of care would probably have already killed them by now. 

The [Traveller’s Chest] had been gifted to her personally by the Lord Sovereign, and it appeared undamaged by its recent rough treatment. She carefully set it down on the ground and fed it a drop of her mana, standing well back as the artefact ballooned out in size.

“How many this time?” the ranger asked.

“Just eight,” Tuk-tuk said after briefly consulting her notes, and cross-referencing the tunnel with the maps they had of the area. “And please… like an egg—a fragile baby.”

“So few?” the human enquired.

“It’s enough, it has to be,” Tuk-tuk answered.

Carefully, while the others kept watch for horrors, the burly warrior pulled eight heavy barrels covered in deeply-etched runes from the [Traveller’s Chest]. The mouth of the artifact seemed to almost stretch to accommodate the passage of the objects that couldn’t possibly fit inside it without powerful magic in play. As much as the kobold wanted to better understand how the chest worked, she was far more interested in the barrels and their contents. When the humans were done, she cast her eye over the arrangement and despaired over how the empowering runes carved into the side were already breaking down the mundane wood.

Time was short.

“We need to hurry,” she said, placing an arcane token amidst the centre of the barrels and attaching it firmly in place with a healthy splash of glue.

“How many more? I want to get to the fighting already. I didn’t stick around to lift barrels in the dark,” the pink-skinned warrior complained.

“We’re nearly done. It’s why we started early, yes?” Tuk-tuk answered.

The warrior grunted, and soon enough they were packed up again. The massive chest shrank down to the size of a human head and was tightly secured in the adventurer's packs. They moved on towards the next marked location with the ranger covering their tracks through the tunnels behind them while Tuk-tuk consulted her maps and measured the distances. They repeated the process several times. The adventurers slew a few horrors that got in their way, but for the most part they succeeded in avoiding the Monster’s attention as they traversed the complex network of tunnels that lay beneath the human city.

Tuk-tuk had done the maths, and she knew that if the mages delivered on even a fraction of what they had promised it would be enough. It galled her to say it, but the goblins for all their profound idiocy might have saved them all.

She had known it in her chest scales when serving under Halith’s forces during the goblin subjugation. She had watched how the greenskins had fought back with crudely forged iron weapons and even cruder alchemy. While their cast-iron weapons had resoundingly failed to defeat runic steel, or even penetrate a mage barrier, she had seen the potential in their alchemy and done the necessary calculations. 

Goblins. They were beautiful little horrors one and all. They had invented it, displaying yet another terrifying bout of savant-like genius, but it was Tuk-tuk whose name would go down in history as the one who killed the Monster.

For Tuk-tuk was special. She alone had recognised the possibilities of the strange powder the goblins wasted on their arrow-heads. While everyone else had laughed at the greenskins’ failure of an alchemical weapon, her throat had been silent. Instead, her pad and charcoal were busy while she jotted down the details of what was to be her greatest work.

Tuk-tuk had done the maths, double checked the calculations, and worked out exactly how many grains of blackpowder were required. She had adjusted the yields based on the alchemists’ skill levels, and the quality of the amplifying runes carved into the barrel's wood.

Beneath Rhelea, she was building a trap. And she knew in her scales that it would change the face—and the geography—of Astresia forever.

***

Enora had never been any good at runes. Two of the three that adorned her magestaff had, much to her embarrassment, been carved by a pair of very well-compensated professionals. She had always thought that her own skills were simply too inadequate to risk the valuable metals in her arcane focus. Looking at the third, most recent rune—a Monster slaying one carved by her hand—she knew that she had been right all along. Its edges were rough and jagged where they should have been clean and straight, straight where they should be curved. It was a badly etched rune, carved by a rank amateur, but as much as she hated it, it was the best she could do.

Standing in the mage circle that she formed a vital part of, she found herself regretting her decision not to push through her persistent inadequacy and master the runic language like any self-respecting mage should. At the time, her folly had seemed like an easy choice; go out hunting monsters and raise her levels, or stay inside studying musty old books with even mustier old men. It had taken decades for her to finally rediscover her love of literature that her tutors had soundly beaten out of her. The secrets hidden away in the tomes she had once scorned had finally succeeded in pulling her in. It was there that she began to learn the weaknesses of monsters, and with the aid of long dead scholars she devised stratagems that would have saved the lives of so many of her lost friends had she only decided to study earlier in life.

Yet runes still escaped her. The seemingly simple sigils defying all logic and reason, each one of which could be written in a multitude of different ways. An elongated line here, an accent there, and suddenly the efficiency of an arcane symbol would drop or be amplified by an order of magnitude seemingly at random. It made no sense to her, and she wasn’t alone in thinking this. Countless scholars had tried and failed to reduce runes down to a set of fundamental rules. The neat little symbols that were growing increasingly popular throughout Astresia were a direct result of this monumental effort. While flawed, it had allowed for increasingly greater feats of spellcraft to be performed. And yet, these great efforts were routinely surpassed by mages who possessed unconventional understandings of runecraft.

Enora tried to take in the runic array in front of her, and her mind baulked. The pulsating lines of power refused to register as the flowing script danced in front of her eyes—so much worse than when she tried to read mundane texts. 

She tried not to dwell on her failings.

She was Enora the Blazing Witch. The greatest iron-rank fire mage of her time. No small boast given the tough competition in Rhelea, and how long a classer's time was generally considered to be. She liked to think that her successes were why she continued to have such trouble with runes and the written word. The amount of effort required for her to read just the occasional book was challenging to muster, but she knew she could overcome her disadvantage if she wasn’t always so busy. There was always another quest, or another man to occupy her time with. As she got older and eventually found her way to the Shining Swords, the objects of her affections changed, but not much else did.

This moment made her regret all that. Reminding her singularly of that time she first read a line in a book and knew that if she had only read it earlier, someone she cared about would still be alive. She knew this was important. She could feel it in her bones and her stirring class.

The runic circle was massive. Easily the largest one she had ever seen—let alone been a part of. Hundreds of mages from more than five different species all linked, by mana and hand while they poured their reserves deep into the hungry sigils beneath them. 

It hurt. 

Not because the magic was wrong, but because she had already been sorely used by the dragon. She had drunk so much of the goblin’s foul alchemy that she had puked blood and had to be seen to by a healer. Their abhorrent brew had done its job and topped off her reserves, allowing her to be drained yet again and again by the Sovereign Dragon she had once called Typh. It irked her that she had been fooled, but not half as much as it did that the creature simply knew so much more than her.

Now that she’d had a few hours of sleep after that trying ordeal, and had recovered from those few cups of dubiously brewed potions, she was ready to be used again.

The amount of mana that was being poured into the ritual spell was obscene. Her massive reserves plummeted, and she knew from the slack grips of the mages linked to her, that they too were struggling to sustain the spell. It was unlike anything she had ever been a part of. The token in the centre of the circle absorbed the energy, channelling it away to its sympathetic mates. One of the most fundamental principles of magecraft: like calls to like. 

The distances involved were immense, as were the physical barriers between them, but they had more than enough mages to do the job, even if few of them were at their best. 

Hangovers were a bitch.

“Now.”

It took her a moment to realise the words had originated from her own mouth. Her arcane instincts told her that the formation was full, and that any more mana would bloat it beyond containment, risking a sizable explosion that she would be unlikely to survive.

There was no panic in this realisation, and linked with the other mages she could feel their shared sense of wonder as well as their confidence. Each one of them were secretly delighted in just being a part of a spell so large. That childish sense of amazement that never quite went away at the realisation that magic was not only real, but something you could reach out and touch. 

It made all the pain and sacrifices that followed worth it. Although it was surprising to her that this sentiment spanned the species so well.

She felt the collective will of the mages present, hundreds of voices joining her own while they spoke the words written in dragon blood before them—their absent benefactor leading them in their casting almost as if in prayer.

Power bloomed, draining out of the array in a flash, and the wooden token in the centre of the ritual erupted in incandescent flames so bright it hurt her skill-enhanced sight.

Was that it?

For a long series of moments nothing happened. Then the ground bucked beneath her, a wave of pressure passing through the ground while in the distance, Rhelea shook. There were pauses between the shockwaves, each one coming in succession with only a scant few breaths between them. Plumes of dust rose up into the sky and the system began listing off notifications on a scale like she had never seen before.

Her mind took precious few seconds to remember that the horrors for whatever reason didn’t register with the system, and then she started to read… and weep.

*Congratulations on defeating a level 39 Kobold Trapsmith. Experience is awarded.*

*Congratulations on defeating a level 124 Broadsword Master. Experience is awarded.*

*Congratulations on defeating a level 117 Lightblessed Healer. Experience is awarded.*

…

…

…

The list of the dead kept on coming, containing far too many souls for her to read. Goblins made up the bulk of the notifications, followed closely by humans. From their classes listed, civilians out weighed the number of adventurers by a lot, but she couldn’t get past the one lone kobold that sat near the top of the unreadably long list.

Minutes passed while she dismissed the prompts informing her about the people she had just killed.

Tears ran down Enora's face while the guilt ate at her, even while the euphoria of her level gain raced her upwards towards unattainable steel. 

The ground was still trembling when she took her first steps towards Rhelea.

It was time to end this.

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