World Sphere - 207 -

I believe the last chapter was sufficient to conclude book 4, so this could be chapter 1 of book 5. However, I might need an epilogue to properly finish book 4.

Chapter 207:

It was hard to focus on the lecture. Instructor Abraham Kursai was reviewing the more obscure runes that a dungeon might have on its entrance. He was a brilliant mage but extremely long-winded. Headmaster Sana had introduced all the instructors at orientation and said that Abraham was over two thousand years old, but twelve hundred of those years had been spent stuck in the Ageless Dungeon. Abrahm replied to his introduction, saying he could neither deny nor confirm this fact.

Erin elbowed me and whispered in my ear, “Are you coming to the party tonight?”

“No, I have to work in the city,” I replied, while trying to focus on the lecture.

“Demon’s curses, Tarrant. You never come to any of the parties, and this is the only class I see you in besides conditioning,” she rasped too loudly for the instructor, who paused to focus on my table. He waited till we looked sufficiently abashed before continuing.

Erin was studying to become a dungeon porter and somehow ended up sitting next to me every day. This was the only class I felt worthwhile taking at the Dungeon Academy. The lecture itself was extremely boring, but the subsequent discussions were brilliant. I learned something new in every class that wasn't in the textbooks. It just took a little prodding to get Abraham on an interesting tangent.

I was comfortable having the mage instructors visit me at the Shiny Platinum or the Black Spire for one-on-one sessions. I might have been a High Mage of Skyholme, but my methods lacked finesse. I had so much aether for my spellcraft that I tended to brute everything from casting to evolving my spells.

When the class ended, Erin tried again to persuade me to attend the student party, but I graciously declined—not only did I not have the time, but Aelyn would kill me if she found out. I hurried out of the classroom and across the Academy’s central building to one of the private training rooms. Instructor Odus Hooke and Isaac White were waiting for me. They looked particularly happy today, so I knew it would be a tough training session. Isaac was also my instructor from my conditioning class. I liked him because he used a great deal of positive reinforcement to encourage us, rather than have a drill instructor mentality.

I quickly changed my clothes, and when Bleiz appeared leaning against the wall, I groaned. “Are we doing three on one again?”

Odus was a muscular elf with a bowl cut and dark brown hair laughed, “Well, last time you did say you wanted to practice with your lightning reflexes spell.”

“How is Freya?” I asked Bleiz as I prepared for a rough session.

“She is sleeping,” he replied casually. “She was with Lorae all morning training the phantom kittens.”

I smiled at that. Those kittens were hellions—nothing like Adrial and Kiara were at that age. They ignored just about every normal training progression in the books. Lorae was still having a blast even though her arms were scratched up and bleeding every day and she required healing. Since Lorae was Freya’s friend, they spent a ton of time together when she stayed at the Duskhunters Guild Hall near the Black Spire.

The echo stone in the wall chimed, and we paused our preparations to listen. “Period three begins in two minutes. I have two announcements,” Sana’s voice resonated through the training room. The first is specifically for Bart Olonas. Breakfast offers more than just bacon, so please be considerate and don’t eat ten pounds every morning. Leave some for the other students,” she said exasperatedly.

“The second announcement is about the Academy Annuals. We have three guaranteed slots to represent our Academy. Sign up with your melee instructor if you wish to compete for one. The High Mage will reward 100 gold in credit at the school store to each of you who wins a sport to represent Shiny Platinum Dungeon Academy. That is all.” I did, did I? Sana was definitely very loose with the Academy funds, but the results spoke for themselves. The incentive she had just offered would greatly encourage those participating.

The echo stone turned off. Sana enthusiastically embraced the echo stones. She possessed one master stone connected to stones in every building at the Academy. Additionally, she had a broadcasting room for the other master stone that transmitted to all the echo stones across Skyholme. This created quite a sticky situation with Loriel. While Loriel thought the network was a brilliant idea, she wanted the master stone secured in Skyhold, completely under her supervision.

Instead, I had opted for an unbiased news network administered by Sana. She had hired fifty reporters and researchers in all the island's major cities to contribute. She put Meradith and Feradith in charge of scheduling and announcing, not because of their competency but because they both had excellent voices for making announcements. They were confident and pleasant to listen to. Since both worked for me out of the Shiny Platinum, it was a short walk to the Academy to manage the stones. They usually announced the news every day for thirty minutes, followed by thirty minutes of music. This repeated until the evening, when storytellers took over the broadcast before the echo stones went silent for eight hours, and then the cycle began again.

The communication stones had become a great success in Skyholme. Sana was right that every noble needed one as a status symbol. Although they cost me less than 100 gold to produce, the Academy sold them for just over 200 gold, depending on the available inventory. Of course, I hated spending an hour every night creating thirty stones, but it was paying for the Academy expansion. According to Remy, we were still years away from saturating the market, and one in four stones was given away to small towns for free to connect the common people.

My training had begun, and I felt a bit miffed that everyone was wearing the speed enhancement belts. Although they provided only a modest 25% increase in speed, these were all blade masters. The belts had been my attempt to replicate my lightning reflexes spell into an artifact, but it failed miserably. My lightning reflexes spell was too complex, and its evolutions were unique to me. I discovered that if I pushed the belts beyond a 25% boost, it caused too much damage to the body of the wearer. Bleiz had suffered a near-fatal concussion from the 100% speed boost prototype when he made numerous quick cuts in a training fight.

My lightning reflexes spell was level 31, and I got a 129% boost to my speed. When I added overdrive, I was 258% faster. My body did suffer from going that fast, but the spell moderated a lot of the damage. I would have to use my next spell evolution to moderate the damage further.

The instructors and Bleiz circled around me, and we began. Two hours later, all four of us showed signs of exhaustion. I had healed everyone as injuries arose, but these training sessions were brutal for a reason. Real combat is unforgiving.

When we finished, and I handed everyone a cold frost mead from my dimensional closet. “Who is going to represent the Academy at the Annuals?” I asked sipping mine.

“You could, Tarrant,” Abraham said with a grin.

“Bah,” I said, removing the illusionary ring I wore for my disguise. It was Bleiz’s idea for me to attend the Academy incognito. I enjoyed not being worshipped by everyone I met, especially those my age. That was probably why I continued to maintain the charade, as it provided me with valuable insight into how the students developed at the Academy. I also had to admit that the resources of the Dungeon Academy were incredible and expanding weekly as Sana worked tirelessly to complete her vision with my gold.

“There are a few third and fourth-year students who would represent us well. It’s important to look good in front of the spectators for the Academy’s reputation. Are you sure you don’t want to represent your Academy? Winning would be great publicity,” Odus advised. The elf was as much a philosopher as a sword master. I know he liked to travel to Skyhold and practice with Callem at least once a week.

“My answer remains no. I believe the Academy's reputation is perfectly fine without me. Gareth is entering the post-Academy Annuals. If he wins, it will bring the Academy some prestige,” I replied, finishing my bottle.

Gareth attended the Academy for two years before establishing his delve team. He was a freelance instructor for us, leading training sessions into the Frost Vault Dungeon. It gave him extra delves to make his quotas for his patron. He was doing a much better job with his womanizing. Not perfect, but better.

“It has been fun. I will see you in two days?” I asked, getting ready to leave.

“No, Elias and Savill will be here next.” I winced at that. Elias was a monster hunter who preferred an axe, while Savill was a blade dancer. She also wielded illusion magic, which made her a nightmare to track in combat. In fact, she thoroughly enjoyed stabbing me in the ass with a throwing dagger.

“Maybe I’ll go explore a dungeon in the lowlands that day,” I grumbled, which made the instructors laugh. I put the disguise ring back on and cast a cleanliness spell on myself. I made my way to the top of the Academy. Sana was in her office, and Merideth waved to me from the glass room, where a quartet of string musicians played for the master echo stone.

Sana’s office was a mess of books and notes. I had no idea how she managed everything. She let out a long sigh as I approached and pointed to two stacks of books and papers, “Take those. The translation is as good as it’s going to get, but nothing groundbreaking. I don’t have time to discuss them with you today since I have three interviews with potential new instructors, and Loriel wants me to approve a message to the islands.”

“Oh?” I asked about the latter as I took the two stacks of books and notes. “What does she want now?”

“Another recruitment drive for sailors on both Navy and merchant ships,” Sana stated.

“If she just relaxed immigration, her problems would be solved.” I retorted. I still hated dealing with the ruler of Skyholme. She generally played with her cards close to her chest, but hadn’t manipulated me openly in months.

“Too much resistance from the old families and nobles. We are already adding nearly five hundred a day,” Sana explained.

“Five hundred who can pay Loriel’s exorbitant fee. Skyholme needs working men and women, not just wealthy nobles from the lowlands looking for a vacation home or someplace to hide,” I growled angrily. At the heart of my anger was that the people had a resistance to non-humans becoming citizens from our history. Not everyone in the islands, but enough that it was making things a little tense as the non-human population started to grow.

“Change comes slowly, Storme,” Sana said gravely. “It is not affecting us.” My Dungeon Academy received special treatment for its instructors and future students, but this was not the case for the rest of Skyholme.

“I may go delving in the lowlands tomorrow,” I said as I turned to leave.

Sana immediately frowned. “We talked about this, Storme. I thought we agreed you would stay put for a year.”

“I need to stretch the Maelstrom’s wings a bit,” I replied with a grin. Sana frowned, knowing the harder she pushed, the more stubborn I would be. I left her office, to head to the roof.

Six weeks had passed since the powerful mage warned me against interfering with his plans involving Myththorne and the World Walkers. Sana, Callem, Bleiz, and I decided to heed the warning and remain in Skyholme for a while. The World Walker appearances had ceased, but the damage was done: dozens of massive dungeon cities were leveled, and powerful dungeons were forced to close. More devastatingly, the ancient teleportation rings in the cities were destroyed, making it difficult to travel easily in this region of the Sphere.

Skyholme’s capital was already populated with wealthy refugees from those destroyed cities. It was welcome wealth, but they mainly spent on themselves. We were an obscure enough floating kingdom that there was not a deluge of wealthy refugees coming to us, but word was spreading. We were attractive because it was obvious the World Walkers could not reach the islands.

On the roof, the Maelstrom was waiting for me, with Kiara and Adrial guarding the ramp. I scratched their heads on the way up the ramp to the bridge. The first thing I did was activate the invisibility before taking off. I was breaking numerous flight protocols, but I was always careful. I didn’t want to advertise my presence.

I turned the Maelstrom and zipped over the city, steering out toward the capital island and the Black Spire. As I cleared the edge, I disabled the invisibility. Several towers on the capital island could detect invisible ships, so there was no reason to risk getting fired upon. I approached the Black Spire on the correct path, steering clear of the city, and landed on the grass.

The Night Wraith was docked here, and my Wolfsguard immediately moved to guard the Maelstrom’s ramp as I descended. This was another facet of jealousy I was receiving from Loriel. I had been given several estates on the capital island that had been abandoned. Loriel had been hoping for easy tax revenue for Skyholme’s wealthiest citizen.

Remy thought it was a brilliant idea to turn over their management to the Wolfsguard, who wanted to farm and perhaps engage in light industry. It worked, and the majority of the Wolfsguard from Stonefell Island relocated to my lands. I split the profits evenly with them, and they quickly became profitable real estate.

I don’t think Loriel believed I could turn things around so quickly—or maybe she was angry for not thinking of utilizing the Wolfsguard before me. I was even in the process of purchasing more parcels of land when she imposed a limit on how much land one citizen could hold. I put an estate in Freya’s name before she quashed my back door solution.

As I walked, one of the Wolfsguard provided me with a brief report as I climbed the stairs to the Spire. I headed straight into the Archimage’s work room. The space had been cleaned up since Toblin broke the wards and the Shifter looted it. Now, the main top floor was divided into my artificing side and my research side. The planetarium level above was left unutilized for now.

“Hungry.” Kiara reminded me that it was past their feeding time. After finishing with the cats, I unloaded all the books and research that Sana had given me and began to sift through them.

Some of it had to do with the codexes, but most related to the Breaking. I did my daily artificing of echo stones before I began to delve into the papers Sana and her trusted team had watered down for me. The Breaking was what caused the Skyholme islands to be pushed apart. We were continuing the research of the Archmage who had caused the Breaking, looking into ways to bring the islands back together into one single island. It was a ridiculously complex task, and many had failed before. As High Mage of Skyholme, I saw it as my duty to reunite the islands if it was possible.

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