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How in the endless Hells didn’t the censors catch this? It takes up an entire page, for fuck sake.
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I’m pretty sure this was written by our first ever Emperor, which is why it's so close to the front. But hey, we can fill it up with our rambling thoughts. Does anyone want to record their favorite way to grill a boar? You know, for prosperity.
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Posterity, not prosperity.
- Excerpt from The Beasts of the Dungeon.
Marcus sipped on his wine, watching an uncharacteristically nervous Gretched fidget in her seat, and worked to cool his temper. Killing the evil-Marcus had been right, both morally and lawfully, but it hadn’t been fun.
“I assume you need me for the ritual,” he prodded, putting his drink down on the table. “Or at least for me to bring you there. Fifty mages is a lot, but not enough to burn a city like Estin to the ground. I assume you want to start the ritual at its center, build up the heat to the point dampness becomes a non-issue, then let it grow outwards.”
Gretched cleared her throat, seeming somewhat surprised. “Exactly. The difficulty comes from managing the power, traveling to the location and then leaving before the ritual can kill us all. The second and last problem can be solved by you teleporting us there. The first I can manage.”
“Large scale rituals like that are dangerous, which is why I ordered a more traditional quarantine.”
“I can do it,” she repeated, straightening. “It would save time, and avoid the deaths a more protracted engagement will undoubtedly bring. I can marshal my apprentices easily enough, so all I need is more general-purpose mages, alongside a number of illusionists to conceal us while we work.”
“And mundane guards, preferably those practicing Life Enhancement, alongside myself. All to save a week’s worth of time.”
He wasn’t against it, really. He just wanted to see if Gretched had thought this through, and if so, how confident she was. Which, it turned out, was very, on both accounts.
Marcus raised his hand when she prepared to launch into a clearly rehearsed speech. “We’ll do it. Gather the mages and get them ready. In fact, you can arrange the whole thing. The party can’t be larger than seventy-five.”
That should let him move them with a fourth-tier teleport spell, not that Gretched seemed to care. The old woman shot up and started cackling, and he turned back to his drink while she left his tent. He wasn't worried.
Gretched might be old, cranky, mildly insane and definitely a witch—and probably a pyromaniac—but she was also one of his most powerful mages. Which meant she was qualified, since he didn’t tolerate those with power to possess stupidity.
In this particular case he trusted her to balance mages, guards and supplies rather than just taking mages.
It didn’t take her long, which meant she had probably already started before ever talking to him. That would have been very awkward for her had he denied the request, but things worked themselves out. The party shifted to attention when he arrived, Gretched and a gaggle of her apprentices at their center.
Marcus cleared his throat, and a silence fell over the crowd. A silence so absolute it was like he’d literally stolen the oxygen from the air, something he ignored with some effort. “For those unaware of what is happening, the plan is to travel to the center of Estin, create illusions to hide us, allow Gretched and her mages to build a ritual, and then evacuate while it burns the city down. The fighters will be creating a perimeter, but the point is not to stand and fight. If this goes badly, for whatever reason, I’m pulling everyone out.”
Gretched didn’t seem pleased with that, but her pride wasn’t worth the lives of his mages. Or anyone’s life, for that matter.
He looked them over, counting them himself, and spoke when he was done. “Don’t try to move from your spot after teleportation. There will be a fifteen-minute break when we arrive, so use that to breathe through any nausea. Until then, it's better to throw up on your own feet than to step out of formation.”
Not that he was actually going to leave anyone behind, but they didn’t need to know that. No one objected, so he grasped the group and got them moving. The strain was rather severe, though thankfully not seventy-five times as bad as just teleporting himself. Still, he wouldn't be doing much else today, not after this.
That was fine. As Elly had said after they’d fought the Horde Calamity, the army would be rather useless if he could do everything by himself.
They made it almost halfway before someone threw up, who surprisingly turned out to be a Life Enhanced soldier, and by the time they passed the city wall half the people had joined her. Yet no one moved, so he counted it as a win.
Teleporting this many people, especially over rough terrain, was hard enough without having to keep accounting for their position.
Finding the exact center of the city was harder than he’d assumed, on the other hand, and while Gretched had triangulated it, there wasn’t exactly space there. In fact, the public city center was almost two miles north.
And it needed to be on ground level, too, to avoid the heat simply rising into the air. The problem was solved by a trio of Gretched’s apprentices, who used earth magic to level a dozen houses, but that drew attention.
The cockroaches, which he had seen basically none of so far, didn’t like that at all. And the more they fought the more would come, so Marcus waved at the illusionists.
A veil sprung up moments later, enveloping both their party and the area they were working in, and it let the soldiers kill those few already inside. Those outside didn’t react to the noise, and while the veil didn’t stop any of them from entering, that wasn’t really a concern.
Marcus just kind of watched from there, slowly letting his reserves refill. Gretched started pretty soon after the rubble had been swallowed by the earth, leaving nothing but a clean slate behind, and he noted with some interest that she used a three-layered design.
Rituals were, inherently, meant to be powered by more than one mage. Their purposes varied wildly, but the main difficulty came from shaping the magic. Interweaving intent from many different minds, controlling the sheer raw power and not killing everyone in the process.
It was old magic. Magic from a time the distinction between disciplines had been far less rigid, and few mages could weave more than one matrix. The spread of knowledge and standardization had mostly overtaken it, but he had to admit rituals held some allure.
Not that he was involved. The three layers had her at its center, guiding and controlling the spell, with her apprentices around her. Around those were the regular mages, who did little more than provide the power.
Power that rose, and rose, before finally seeming to cap. It took nearly two hours, all in all, but he had to admit it was rather impressive. But the finer details were lost on him, and before too long Gretched called for everyone to leave.
So the party gathered around him, Gretched the last to join, and he teleported them away. The moment he did the witch’s hold over the ritual broke, and a flame of power rose up from behind him.
He didn’t stop until they were at the wall, and by that point the fire would take hours to reach them. But he could already feel the heat on his back, and when he turned, Estin was ablaze. The rain had stopped a little while ago, but even the absolutely soaked buildings should have been enough to deter any fire.
Not this one. Marcus hummed, inclining his head when Gretched looked at him. Sweat was pouring from her forehead, her hair was in disarray and her body was more stooped than usual, but she looked triumphant.
Marcus hummed, then turned back to the army. They could manage containment, and the heat would drive the cockroaches straight towards them, but he had other business.
He had a design, he had the time, so that meant he was finally going to make a stable, self-sustaining portal.
So help him by the Silent Gods, it was going to work this time.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Keep it stable, nothing more,” Marcus murmured. Barcus nodded tightly, face drawn into a mask of concentration. Donna was opposite them both, and she glanced at him briefly before turning her focus back on the portal. Marcus grunted. “Alright, here we go.”
Slowly, slowly, he withdrew his will. Portals started out as a sixth-tiered spell, he had found no way to scale that down, and it was hungry. But, once created, maintenance was surprisingly cheap. Magically speaking, that was, not concentration wise.
Marcus finished detaching himself, and the portal remained open. It only bridged a gap ten feet wide, but that didn’t matter. Ten feet, a thousand or half the planet away, the spell functioned exactly the same.
One second passed, then two. Five then ten, and by fifteen he stepped back to grab the prepared runic plates. They would give stability to the portal, and—
It winked out, both of his apprentices flinching back. Marcus turned to them, sighing. Donna was bleeding from her left eye, again, and Barcus had his eyes firmly closed. It was far from their first failure, and in truth they were making excellent progress, but he’d hoped his latest tweak would make the difference.
“Take ten, both of you,” Marcus ordered. Donna moved to object, as she had every single time before now, and he waved her off. “Go. Protocols exist for a reason.”
The pair bowed, turning to move back to the healer. One of their good healers, which had come with the nobles. Margaret’s apprentice through and through, and one of her best ones at that. The man inspected them both, and with that taken care of, Marcus turned around.
Oh good, those two were still ignoring each other. Lovely. “Elly, Otmon. It's always nice to see both of you in the same room.”
“I forgot he existed,” Elly replied, offering him a bright smile and refusing to look at the man. “I’m severely disappointed to learn he was still around, so now I’m doing him the biggest favor anyone has ever done him and not slitting his throat.”
The Vizier bowed his head smoothly, not seeming bothered in the slightest. He also ignored her wholesale. “It is an honor to speak to you again, Archmage.”
“Sure.” Marcus waved his hand vaguely. “You’re upsetting my wife, and I’m rather busy myself. Get on with it.”
“Of course, Archmage. Of course. I am merely here to inform you that the Empress has put House Forrest under investigation. No evidence has yet been found of their supposed plot to assassinate Queen Elenoir, and the currently active Dungeon Break is limiting her resources. She requests your patience in this matter.”
Marcus shrugged. “Yeah. Why not? I’m not one to piss in someone else's sandbox, so to speak, and they haven’t actually done anything yet. But I did make a promise, and I so hate to break my word. If they move against me or mine, I’m crucifying their patriarch and putting him on display in their garden. Depending on how that goes, I might wipe out the rest of them, too. I’m sure you understand. Oh, and tell her about the Horde Calamity. I doubt she doesn’t already know, but just to be sure.”
“I shall relay the message.” The Vizier bowed again. “By your leave, Archmage.”
The man vanished from sight in moments, which at least made Elly relax, but Marcus sighed. “I’m really hoping that’s the end of that.”
“Oh, don’t be so negative,” Elly murmured, stepping up next to him. “Worst comes to worst, we assemble a party and kill them all. Some people just need to learn firsthand, you know? I’m not too worried. The Royal Guard has been informed, Vess is keeping an eye on things, and from what I heard, Ponn is scaring the ever loving shit out of the Empire’s nobles.”
Marcus snorted in amusement, because that she was. Apparently powerful people just weren’t comfortable with someone able to assume any form, evade all but the most paranoid magical screening and then also not be allergic to silver.
Well, Ponn was technically still allergic, but Vess had long since taught her some spells to deal with that.
Elly offered him a cup of wine, which he found was already watered down, and he offered her a smile. She inclined her head, turning away. “I’ll go oversee the quarantine. Join me when you’re done here?”
“Sure.”
Marcus returned his focus to the project, really wishing he had a properly warded chamber to work with. But this random stretch of field would have to do, and after another few minutes, his apprentices returned.
Their break wasn’t technically over, but it was close enough. Barcus grunted in greeting. “We have discussed what went wrong.”
“Yeah.” Donna clapped her hands together, for some reason. “You’re being too nice!”
Marcus tilted his head. “I beg your pardon?”
Barcus rolled his eyes. “She meant that the speed at which you relinquish control of the portal isn’t fast enough. It allows us to double check our work, yes, but we burn too much concentration doing so.”
Donna nodded rapidly, and Marcus hummed. “An interesting theory. Let’s test it.”
They were wrong, as it turned out, but not entirely. They could handle more than he expected, and with it, he took shortcuts. Efficiency went out the window and the drain on willpower nearly doubled, but his apprentices held strong.
Marcus snatched the runic boards from the grass and all but threw them at the portal, forcefully linking them together in the process, and pressed his own will down on the result. Donna and Barcus pulled away into secondary positions, but their main part was over.
Two hours. That’s how long he spent painstakingly connecting each strand of the spell to their corresponding runes. He found dozens of mistakes in the process, from formations that didn’t quite fit to intent that had been layered askew, but that was fine. Manageable.
He finally pulled back and fell backwards, his reserves basically empty and his vision swimming. His brain felt like a wrung-out sponge, his limbs were too heavy and he swore the sun itself was looking down on him with interest.
Ignoring all of that took some effort, but he focused on the portal. A portal that none of them were maintaining, and a portal that didn’t feed on any of their reserves. Donna was dancing around like a child, and even the ever stoic Barcus had a small smile on his lips.
Proof of concept. Finally.
The whole thing broke not seconds later, runes catching fire and the portal sputtering out, but he didn’t care. Barcus was already offering him paper and a writing board, which Marcus snatched out of the man’s hand with a muttered thanks.
Runes could be improved, the spell tweaked, and a more permanent arch put in place. That let him add more runic formations, meaning the size of the portal could increase, and with a medium like stone, fire would be a non-issue.
Marcus forcefully pulled himself away after another ten minutes, handing the mess of notes off to Donna. She immediately started looking them over, muttering to herself and very nearly hissing when Barcus tried to have a look, but he ignored them.
His apprentices were chosen for skill, nothing else. Being a little on the weird side was fine with him. Hells, he was probably weird to a lot of people himself.
He was just weird and powerful, which meant he was actually just eccentric. Still, he was happy. Happy enough that he was still grinning when he joined up with Elly, who herself was staring at the burning city.
She glanced at him, seeming somewhat hesitant. Rude. “That’s really creepy. I’m sorry, but it is.”
“You scalp Calamities,” he shot back, stepping up next to her. “I’ll hear nothing from you about creepiness. And it worked. The portals work. I’m a God. Praise me.”
Elly rolled her eyes. “No. To praising you, I mean. The God thing is apparently still being debated. Unless you were thinking about another form of praise? That I might be convinced to try out.”
“Have some tact,” he scolded lightly, nodding to the city. “This is a somber moment.”
She narrowed her eyes, taking a breath and seeming to let that go. Hah. That made him the winner. Elly pointed to the right instead. “Your necromancers are preparing a demonstration, I have been told. It seems they hope to impress you and earn that pardon they’ve been promised. I don’t like the art, not now and not ever, but I grudgingly admit that it's useful.”
Marcus looked, not seeing anything. He forced his perspective up, stretching it as far as it would go, and just about made out a gaggle of mages. A few hundred Hounds were with them, and interestingly enough, those same mages seemed to be raising dead cockroaches.
He didn’t have to wait long for the promised show. A group of hundreds was rapidly approaching the army, fleeing from the burning city, and the undead rushed out to meet them. Hounds scrambled over the earthen wall with cockroaches on their backs, rotten maws and mangled legs pushing forward.
Necromancy was never a clean art, that much he knew. Yet the living cockroaches found themselves beset by their undead counterparts, and while they displayed coordination far beyond what the constructs managed, the dead cared little for exhaustion or pain.
The small horde died after a frantic, bloody moment of battle, and Marcus just about saw them drag the corpses back to the army. A self-sustaining, bloodless army. It was glorious, if messy, and exactly what they needed.
He shook his head when he returned to his body, suppressing a wince of pain. Altering his perception was getting less taxing, but the portal experiment had already drained him. Stupid. Still, it was worth seeing firsthand.
Elly nudged him, and he looked back at Estin to see the fire had reached its outer wall. Their earth mages had already confirmed no cockroaches hid below the city, what tunnels they had dug not nearly deep enough to escape, and that meant this was over.
Only assuming the Calamity hadn’t spread them elsewhere, but that was a problem for the Empress. He had done his job, and soon enough the army would be moving out again.
Marcus turned when a section of the wall crumbled, humming. “If they keep performing as they have, the necromancers will have earned their pardon. Sorry, but I’m going to integrate them into the Academy. It’s too useful a discipline to ignore.”
She nodded once, not replying. He sighed in agreement. It was necessary, but it wasn’t fun. And hadn’t that been a large part of his life, once upon a time?
Either way, there were things to do. The auxiliaries needed to be scouted for mages—which he was going to steal—and Elly needed to have her eye replaced. Spot checks had to be done, making sure the enchanted gear flooding into the army was properly maintained, and he supposed the necromancers had earned his attention.
Lucky them. Marcus grunted. “Estin is gone, the Calamity is dead. Let’s go.”
Afterword
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