Chapter 129: Chapter 200 – Respect Never Fades

After their new enchanter friend calmed down a little bit, Miria fetched him the hat that had fallen to the ground and they moved to another chamber. While the previous one was obviously a magical workshop, the next room was a small lounge, with its purpose most likely to house guests and let the owner relax a little bit in the backroom.

Asterios started talking with Endymion more about himself and his use of Runic Chips while the girls got permission to explore the store a little. The aged wizard was even more shaken after learning that Asterios had been the one to carve the tokens he had seen earlier. To prove himself, Asterios brought out more examples and even showed some of his tools.

The carving and engraving technique was of a high enough level to earn Asterios some praise from the old magician. Having access to someone this skilled saved a lot of time and money on commissioning people specializing in that aspect while also assuring the quality of the final product, which was part of the three big variables in the entire process of enchanting.

Endymion had heard that Asterios used an artifact capable of discharging Runic Chips but it was his first time hearing that it was a Spellslinger. He studied the weapon meticulously while asking tens of questions. Asterios, naturally, didn’t mind filling their personal enchanter in on how it exactly worked. That kind of knowledge could potentially be useful in the creation of tokens.

As the two men were lost in their own little world, Miria led the expedition into the unknown with the other girls following closely behind her. They quickly learned that the store had one more floor, which was used as living quarters. Of course, they didn’t dare be disrespectful and didn’t snoop around uninvited, only looking around superficially to satiate their curiosity.

Everyone got back when Asterios and Endymion were discussing what they would need for the spells the former wanted to imbue in the tokens. The carving wasn’t a problem, and neither were the materials. Many of the high-tier ingredients, jewels, or monster cores still remained in their storage in Miria’s and Selene’s world.

Making a list of five powerful spells, both men decided to test their cooperation first before diving straight into serious work. Endymion left for a moment and came back with a thick book that contained descriptions of many spells, as he explained. The old wizard was more than happy to lend it to Asterios so he could familiarize himself with the ones they had picked, as result, making more accurate shapes and sigils when he would start carving chips.

Miria, Selene, and Bryn excused themselves to take a stroll through the town since it looked like they would be spending some time in Endymion’s workshop and their presence wasn’t exactly necessary. Tina and Silvia wanted to stay and chose to study the grimoire together with Asterios. The princess was particularly interested in Fire Magic while the blue-haired Summoner girl was eager to see what kind of Water Magic secrets did the magical tome hide amongst its pages.

Then, after reading enough, Asterios left the book to the girls and got to work. The aged enchanter was more than thrilled to watch him carve the sigils and sat silently on the side, trying his best not to disturb the young lord. Since Selene wasn’t there, Silvia lent them her magic and created a controlled flame that Asterios could use to get rid of the shaved-off bits of crystal. After she cast it, he could easily manipulate it almost like it was his own fire.

Time flew by in a flash and it soon was early evening. The girls wandering through the streets returned, letting everyone know that they had tried to see if John was back anywhere in the town or its close vicinity. Unfortunately, there were still no signs or traces of the suspicious individual.

They had asked a bunch of residents if it was normal for him to disappear like that and learned that it wasn’t exactly common and he could be seen around the town now and then. Since Venuzathor’s scouts hadn’t spotted any weird movement near the hidden cave, Asterios assumed that John might be afraid of being confronted by them after the last attack when they had seen him show up unusually early and therefore avoiding them. The girls agreed with that version, for now, until they got a hold of the weird man.

During the time they had been out, Asterios and Endymion finished three out of five spells. Since all they had to do to the last two lay in the old enchanter’s hands, they decided to leave and pick up the tokens the next morning. 

Bidding farewell, they returned to the castle, practiced a bit together, had some fun during late dinner, and went to bed. They almost forgot about Grea, who had lost herself in her research down in the underground, but Asterios jumped to her workshop and dragged the workaholic demon woman to the bedroom by force, which she seemed to enjoy a lot.

After breakfast, they paid Endymion a visit and collected the remaining Runic Chips. Everyone was extremely eager to test them out so they quickly left the building and headed out to find some safe, remote place far from the town. Miria was practically vibrating from excitement and the other girls showed some interest in seeing Ast’s power too. Especially Silvia since they had a seemingly incredible fire-based spell in one of the crystal badges.

But, before they could leave Glimmervale’s premises, Tina noticed three cloaked figures being escorted by two guards and pointed everyone’s attention toward them. They decided to see what it was about and caught up with the group.

“Is there some problem here?” Asterios asked after crossing their path.

The cloaked figures regarded him with an uninterested gaze before one of them spoke up.

“It’s none of your business, huma—”

“My Lord, we have just been heading to the castle to request an audience for these people.” One of the guards cut the mysterious person off and both men made a respectful bow. “They claim to have come from the Elf Kingdom to investigate something on the orders from the queen.”

“Oh. That’s fast. Barely a day passed since we got in touch with her,” Tina commented.

“It only shows that she’s taking the issue seriously. Father must have stressed its importance well enough,” Silvia added. 

Asterios nodded at the guards. “You can leave it to us now. Thank you for your service.”

The men saluted with satisfied smiles and turned around to get back to their posts. The cloaked trio glanced at them walking away and then back to the group in front of them.

“You are the lord?” the same person who had spoken earlier asked again.

“Asterios Hestizo and Tina Nobelle. We are in charge here, yes. I’m glad you’ve come but what’s the deal with the hoods and all that? It kind of makes you stand out more.”

One by one, they pulled the material back and revealed their faces. The person in the middle, who was also the owner of the voice, was a High Elf woman with long white hair and eyes of a similar shade. Surprisingly, she was half a head shorter than Asterios and it was her general features that had given her subrace away. The other two seemed to be Wood Elves, both men, with black and light brown hair respectively.

“I’m Fievedem, a scholar in pursuit of knowledge related to Summoning Magic,” the woman replied and gestured to her side. “These two are my escorts. We were ordered to reach our destination as soon as possible, and our means of travel requires us to cover ourselves more to avoid unnecessary scratches and injuries.”

Miria crossed her arms under her chest and pouted while squinting her eyes at them. “I’m sure I could cover that distance in half a day.”

Asterios placed a hand on her black hair and fluffed it gently. “This is not a contest but I’ll remember that. We’ll see if you really can do it if we ever have to travel that way.” He then turned back to the elves. “How much do you know about the situation?”

“Remnants of elves, damaged summoning circle, ciphered books, and that would be all. Our mission is to investigate all these matters and get rid of the threat to this human settlement. I’m going to ask you to lead us to the location of the array. The longer it remains active, the more dangerous it gets for your town,” Fievedem answered in a strict no-nonsense tone.

“That’s obvious.” Asterios smiled. “Would you like to see the books first? We aren’t that far from the Adventurer’s Guild and Guildmaster Suanori should be present right now. She’s most likely working on them as we speak.”

“Is the circle far?”

“Are you scared of darkness?”

“What?” The woman furrowed her brows.

“We can be there in less than fifteen seconds or in about an hour. It all depends on if you can bear with my method of transport, which tends to be quite mentally taxing,” Asterios explained, got enveloped by shadows, plunged into the ground, and resurfaced behind the elves. “My familiar can get us there in a blink.”

They jerked when his voice came from the other side and the elf woman’s eyes widened slightly.

“That must be a powerful familiar to transfer people through shadows so effortlessly,” Fievedem said while eyeing Umbra’s crow form perched on Ast’s shoulder.

“We all are!” Miria exclaimed with a big grin. “Master summons only the best familiars!”

“We?” The woman glanced at her.

“Everyone here except for me is Ast’s familiar.” Silvia raised her hand. “And Tina, I guess. Though that’s a bit more complex, I think.”

The person in question blushed slightly as the two met their gazes.

“But, that’s impossi—”

“Asterios! There you are! Got a minute?”

A voice arrived from behind the girls and they turned around to find Imadil heading their way while waving at them. Then, out of the blue, all three elves dropped to one knee and lowered their heads.

“We greet the Keeper of Jade Sight,” they chanted in unison.

Imadil froze in place while Asterios raised a brow at the High Elf man. He showed a wry smile under everyone’s curious gazes and covered the remaining distance with a slightly awkward step.

Stopping in front of the trio, he put his hands on his hips and sighed heavily. “Get up. Think a little before you say anything. You are not supposed to do crap like this outside of the kingdom,” he lectured the three elves, who hastily stood up.

“Part of the royal court, huh?” Asterios smirked at him. “Seems like that might have been a bigger part than you’ve been letting on.”

“No matter how far you run and how well you hide, the past will always catch up to you.” Imadil clicked his tongue. “In any case, I wanted to report that we are almost done with the maintenance and some simple enchantments for the troops. The other smiths are really cooperative. I’ll join Suanori to focus on the texts while Cynthia oversees the rest of the job.”

“That’s great to hear.” Tina smiled at him kindly. “Thank you so much for your hard work. Hopefully, with the help of our new friends here, it won’t be necessary to check its quality anytime soon.” She giggled sweetly.

“I’ll be happy to learn that all our efforts were completely in vain.” Imadil chuckled a little. “I’ll stop disturbing your plans then and wish you luck. Let me know if you need anything.”

With one more wave, the elf smith was on his way back. Fievedem and her entourage turned to Asterios with even wider eyes.

“You are friends with the Keeper?” she asked somewhat in disbelief.

“I have no idea what you are talking about but I do know that elf decently well.” Asterios shrugged. “Now, what would you like to do?”

“Let’s check the site first,” the woman replied, trying to compose herself a bit. “We are all strong mentally so your transfer shouldn’t be an issue.”

Asterios nodded and approached the two men, extending his hands to them. After glancing at the woman, who gestured with her head at them to go ahead, they took his palms and plunged into the darkness together. About fifteen seconds later, he resurfaced in the same spot and repeated the motion for Silvia and Fievedem.

They appeared inside the cave a moment later and the woman shuddered slightly after getting out of the shadows. But, what shook her even more, was the crimson gate that opened next to them a moment later, and all the girls she had seen earlier walking out of it to join them.

“So, we haven’t really touched much here besides the books,” Asterios began. “We checked the circle but since it’s clearly made of elven runes and script, with some of it kind of unrecognizable due to the cipher and present wear, we gathered only the basics about it.”

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Fievedem turned to look at the glowing formation and winced almost immediately. “This is really bad. It’s a miracle it’s still operating and hasn't imploded yet.”

One more red portal rose from the ground and Grea walked out of it with her hands on her hips. “Right? That’s what I told them. Keep away from that shit if you don’t want to go poof.”

“And you are?” The woman’s brows knit together in confusion.

“Lord Asterios’ personal fucktoy and stress relief sex doll, yours truly.” Grea made an exaggerated, low bow. “My second most advanced field of expertise is Summoning Magic, right after sucking dick.”

A few of the girls chuckled and giggled while Asterios rolled his eyes.

~Grea…~ he complained mentally.

~Sorry, not sorry. I hate those stiff, stuck-up girls with a stick up their ass.~ She chuckled too. ~I bet if you shoved your stick in there instead, she would sing completely different.~

He snickered and shook his head. “I apologize for her. This is Grea and she’s been at least halfway truthful. She’s our expert on Summoning Magic.”

“Boooooo. Don’t make me bring out the certificates. No one sucks dick better than me.” The mischievous demon woman pouted.

Asterios squinted his eyes at Grea and they flashed briefly, causing a heavy shiver to pass through her entire body. She bit on her bottom lip with a quiet whine as Ast’s strong intent forced her to be a good girl and keep silent.

Sending his frivolous crimson-skinned mate a small smirk, he turned to the elf woman and gestured with his hand. Selene enveloped Fievedem’s body with her spiritual energy and hovered the elf researcher over the array.

“Hmmm… Yes... I can recognize most of the elements used in the creation of this formation…” The woman talked to herself. “It’s nothing too advanced. It was meant to summon multiple beasts at once whenever supplied with mana. The main restriction was for them to wait for orders after getting summoned. This wasn’t the usual contracting summoning to gain a familiar. I’m not sure what the creators wanted to achieve with that.”

“Why are they running towards Glimmervale, then?” Silvia asked.

“It has clearly been tampered with. It’s a crude change. That segment was overwritten and replaced with an order to rush toward the specified location. This set of sigils here refers to direction and distance. I assume these are related to your town,” Fievedem explained.

“Are you able to say when that change was made?” Asterios joined in.

“Only that it wasn’t part of the original circle. It has integrated itself with the array well enough to be an integral part of it now. It would have been possible to specify more if such an operation was performed between one to two weeks ago. After that, it can be any older.”

“Can you disable it?” Tina glanced between the trio of elves.

“I’m afraid that it would be too dangerous to take action without properly identifying the encrypted segments. If not for those, I would have been able to shut it down completely, but right now, I can only disable it part by part and the smallest error could cause a chain reaction.”

“That’s what I said.” Grea snorted.

After the woman signaled at him, Asterios asked Selene to put her down and she looked at her companions.  “Anything?”

“No crests or other markings. They don’t seem to belong to any radical groups or organizations that we know of, madam,” one of the men answered while crouching next to a skeleton.

“The cipher doesn’t seem to match with anything either,” the other one added while examining a piece of parchment.

Fievedem sighed. “Our best bet is to try and decode it first, then. If none of the texts here talk about the ritual, we’ll have to try and forcefully end it, maybe even intentionally cause it to implode so it disappears for good. Collect all the evidence you can and we’ll be moving out.”

The three elves started picking up the bits and remains into their storage artifacts and Asterios waited with the girls for them to finish. No one had any qualms with it since they had no use for the elven belongings and the queen would surely appreciate more evidence and information on whoever it was that had been causing international trouble.

After the cavern was swept clean, they all returned to the town, showing up right in front of the guild. Asterios led the delegation to Guildmaster Suanori and left them in her hands. She had already deciphered part of the code alone and with Imadil’s help. Having three more people on the task would surely raise their speed and efficiency by a lot, especially since the queen’s experts seemed to have been picked according to their skill and knowledge in this particular area.

Leaving the elves to do their thing, Ast’s group returned to what they could do, which was to assist the Committee members with their matters and help the townsfolk in general. They visited Cynthia first and observed how she worked with a bunch of local smiths on the maintenance. The enchanting process was very mesmerizing and they spent about an hour observing it from the sidelines. With his Draconic Sight, Asterios could tell that the gear and weapons had now some weak magic woven into them, increasing sharpness or durability as Cynthia explained.

Helping out everyone around, they didn’t even notice when it had gotten dark. Sharing dinner together at the castle, they discussed many matters related to the town and its development, including safety, of course. Silvia was happy to hear what they had been doing and planning, expressing her gratitude as a princess for the care they were putting into Glimmervale.

Tired after the events of the day, they split in front of their bed chambers and called it a night.

Unfortunately, they weren’t fated to experience full rest.

~Someone entered through the hidden entrance.~ Venuzathor’s deep voice boomed in Ast’s head.

His eyes shot open as he woke up in an instant, throwing himself into a sitting position. Miria squealed from getting launched off his chest and rolled backward before landing low on all fours further on the bed, her eyes narrowed into thin slits and her body ready to pounce at any intruders.

“Shit, sorry,” Asterios apologized and ruffled through her hair as she jumped off the bed. “How long ago?”

~About three to five minutes. The scout rushed here as fast as it could,~ the Dracodon answered.

“Get ready as quickly as you can and let everyone important know just in case.” Asterios regarded his waking-up mates with a quick glance.

All the girls got up in a blink too, sending Asterios a quick nod to signal that they understood. If not for the quite serious situation, the sight of so many naked beauties hastily dressing up would certainly be something worth admiring. But, they had no time to waste so no one had any silly ideas, including Grea, and Asterios disappeared in a puff of black smoke after materializing his own clothes.

Less than twenty seconds later, he popped out inside the cavern with the rogue formation. A man standing right in front of it with an open book in his hands entered Ast’s sight. Without a moment of hesitation, Asterios ordered Umbra to restrict the person and thick shadows coiled around the man’s body, interrupting his awkward chant.

“What the fuck?!”

“Drop it, John,” Asterios said as he stepped into the violet light. “The jig is up. Cut your connection with the array and back off. You have no idea what you are toying with.”

John’s head snapped towards him and the man scowled. “You again. I knew you would be a thorn since the day on the bridge.”

~Should I just kill him?~ Umbra asked inside Ast’s mind.

~No. He is currently trying to operate the formation. His mana is linked to it. We can’t risk an abrupt cut-off. Besides, we need answers.~

“Withdraw your spiritual energy and we might still be able to talk,” Asterios demanded, still slowly approaching the suspicious guy. “It will be better for you to cooperate, trust me.”

“Or, I can just summon something bigger this time and kill you, getting rid of any witnesses and the current lord in one go!” John turned his attention to the book he was holding and opened his mouth.

“Silence him!” Asterios shouted and Umbra’s tendrils wrapped themselves around the man’s mouth, shutting him up.

Only muffled noises left John’s lips and Asterios was going to order Umbra to knock the man out and be ready for anything since they clearly wouldn’t be able to get through him, but he noticed weird movement. Before they could stop him, John clenched his free hand into a fist really hard, strong enough to draw blood.

“Fuck!”

Asterios cursed and launched himself forward, slamming into the man’s side. Umbra’s shadows enveloped them while they were still in the air and transported them out of the chamber before the scarlet drops fell to the ground.

They groaned after slamming into the grass under the night sky. Asterios immediately rolled on top of John and held him down until Umbra’s tendrils restrained the man again.

“Are you fucking suicidal?! That could have—”

A loud rumble interrupted him as the earth trembled heavily. Suddenly, the hill they were on started growing smaller, and soon, descended to the ground as if something sucked it in. They began rolling down a quickly widening, uneven funnel until everything went silent for a fraction of a second.

“Ah, shi—”

An enormous explosion blew up the entire sucked-in ground and launched Asterios and John high into the air alongside chunks of earth and stone. Plenty of trees were uprooted and shot into the sky too as the diameter of the eruption was twice as big as the non-existent now grassy hill.

Getting smacked around with flying debris, Asterios quickly manifested his wings and started weaving through the field of earthen obstacles, trying to locate the idiot who had caused all of this. He found the culprit fairly quickly, beginning to fall down limply, completely unconscious.

Diving towards the man, Asterios grabbed John and flew to the ground while avoiding the falling chunks, landing on the edge of the giant crater created by the magical outburst. He gazed down the deep chasm and sighed heavily after noticing a gigantic, purplish, swirling surface at the very bottom, starting to flash with numerous different silhouettes.

“Fucking great… A manmade stampede was just what we needed…”

 

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