jmclarke

Chapter 459: Preparing the Proposal

“Nice job, Ripp!” Alex shouted. “Now, let’s get the hells away from here!”

“Way ahead of you, bosses!” The swiftling cried, racing from the hill and leaping into the air then soaring well above the treetops.

‘Claygon!’ Alex thought. ‘We’re finished, get out of there!”

‘Coming…father…’ came the reply, followed by a boom and a flash of light from the cave mouth.

Heartbeats later, Theresa and Claygon emerged into the daylight, clim...

Chapter 458: Rapid Dungeon Raiding

Alex was more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs as Theresa, Claygon, Brutus and Ripp swooped toward the snow-covered hill.

The huntress’ hands were already blurring, loosing arrow after arrow into  chitterers as the group of four attackers went for the Ravener-spawn. Her bowstring’s heavy twang announced a rapid stream of bolts that pierced their monstrous hide, catching the creatures by surprise.

Some collapsed, some stumbled back, hammered ...

Chapter 457: Dark Roads to Darkest Dungeons

The fae roads weren’t what Alex had imagined, not what he’d imagined at all.

On Baelin’s map of Thameland, they’d appeared as golden glowing lines, shedding sparkling light like sunbeams snaking above fields, forests and hills. It was a captivating image, and—when Alex’s little group had stepped into a fae gate minutes before—he had thought they’d emerge on a path of glowing gold that would lead them through summer forests teeming with pixies and asrai.

They did ge...

Chapter 456: A Favour and a Plan

“Hey, Khalik, I need your help,” Alex said suddenly, dragging his nose out of the immense tome of demonology lying before him.

The prince held up a finger as he jotted down a note, frowning at a certain passage. “Hmmm, I would have thought the air in the Domain of Cawarthin would have had a more acidic tinge to it…but it is the opposite: more slimy and basic, it seems. You will need to brew us some potions of resistance.”

“Yeah, got it,” Alex said, glancing at a Wiza...

Chapter 455: The Death of Winter Break

It was perfect.

Power bled from it in waves touched by a hint of the aeld’s natural warmth. A mound of snow nestled beneath the branch melted away from its touch, and its golden-green light sparkled in the melting rivulets.

“Oh, by the Traveller.” Alex reached toward the gift, feeling pure magic tingle across his fingers. Pure magic mixed with…something he couldn’t immediately name.

But, the instant his fingers wrapped around the branch, it came to him. Warm feelin...

Chapter 454: A Beautiful Gift

It was a beautiful day in Greymoor; a lovely winter’s morning where it felt like all the world was at peace, almost as if the rivers of blood spilled on the Research Castle grounds in recent days had never been. The wind was uncharacteristically warm, the sky uncharacteristically clear: perfect dancing weather, to Alex’s mind.

And he and Claygon took full advantage of it.

“Good!” Alex complimented the golem as both fell into the third stance of the Spear-and-Oar dance, act...

Chapter 453: Cornering the Vermin

“Sixty-five thousand would be a very fair price, I would say.” Govert’s eyes narrowed as Troy tottered back into the room, bearing two hot cups of cider.

He carefully placed them on the table away from the contract.

“Your drinks, sirs,” the assistant said stiffly before returning to his spot behind the counter. There he stayed. There he watched.

“If you look at the location and the fact that you’d already have regular clients eager to frequent the business on a...

Chapter 452: The Horrible Hoard

To say that the living quarters were in an even worse state than Alex had feared would be an understatement…Troy hadn’t been exaggerating. Dust clouds rose in mounds, provoking fits of coughing and sneezing as the baker led him through a doorway that was covered in suspicious looking stains in the alleyway, then up a flight of stairs that creaked so badly, Alex had Claygon wait for him in the dining area.

Cobwebs reached for him, clinging to his face with each step that he took —a...

Chapter 451: The Baker's Tale

“My name’s Troy,” the baker sighed, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. He was bent so low over a table, that he looked about ready to collapse. “Troy of Tauberurg, from the Rhinean Empire originally, and now the very last person employed at the Mermaid’s Cakes Bakery.”

“Alex Roth,” the young wizard said, inspecting the man’s welts. “Originally of Alric, in Thameland, and now a student at the university and a Junior Crafter with Shale’s Golemworks...

Chapter 450: A 'Haunted House'

Alex Roth, the very first Junior Crafter ever hired by Toraka Shale, emerged from the workshop with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. Tucked away in his satchel, he carried a writ of employment with a promissory wage clause included of fifty gold pieces per shift, with three shifts per week as a schedule.

Not included in the written contract was Toraka’s verbal promise to lend him her aid when it came time for him to buy his family’s first home in Generasi. Also not incl...

Chapter 449: Creating Demand

I am…coming…are you safe, father?

“I am safe,” Alex said out loud.

“Hm?” Shale frowned.

“Oh, sorry, I do that sometimes,” he chuckled. “I was talking to Claygon.”

“Oh?” Toraka Shale’s eyes shone with curiosity. “You can communicate with him from this distance?”

Alex beamed.

The two of them were sitting in her very large, well appointed office. He was sipping her expensive scotch while listening to the gurgle of running...

Chapter 448: The Lion's Den

“Before you say anything, I want to dispel all notions that this is a ‘hollow tower’.” Toraka Shale leaned forward on her desk, tenting her fingers. “I don’t tolerate such trash practices in my workshop, unlike some of our competition here in the city. Many of them are associated with enough hollow towers to build complete castles.”

The young, Thameish wizard was silent, caught off guard by the offer and having no idea what a ‘hollow tower’ was. His mind reeled as his ...

Chapter 447: Claygon's Good Impression

“Agh, you couldn’t have brought him a little later?” Lagor complained, glaring at the crowd as they slowly closed in on Claygon. Little by little the ring of curious onlookers surrounding the young Thameish wizard and his golem shrank, people pressing tighter and tighter against each other.

Crafters reached for Claygon, wanting to touch him, their hands yearning to feel his marble surface. Only the greatest restraint stopped them and—if there’d been less peopl...

Chapter 446: New Frontiers of Fortune

“So, I’ve been doing some thinking in the last day or two.” Alex leaned forward, elbows pressed to the table, glancing over his shoulder at the room his sister and his girlfriend shared. “You’re getting bigger, Selina. A lot bigger.”

He looked at Claygon. “You’ve changed a lot too, buddy, and I need to make you a speakerbox or something that’ll let you talk, and since that’s going to be a big project, I started thinking that I’d kinda like to have my own w...

Chapter 445: Upcoming Hellish Difficulties

Selina looked at Alex solemnly, earlier warm feelings draining away as she  thought about the story her brother had told. What he’d said was horrifying, a tale of monsters she could barely imagine, invisible dangers and enemies so powerful, they’d even given Baelin pause.

And she’d always looked at the chancellor as invincible.

Then Theresa had told her story: of darkness beneath the earth’s surface, of powers trying to crush her and their friends…but also of wonder...

Chapter 444: Selina and Claygon

Selina was tingling with excitement as she took the stairs two at a time. From somewhere behind and above her, she vaguely heard Shiani calling her name.

“Selina, be careful you don’t fall down the stairs!” She warned. “Your brother will kill me if you do!”

“I’m fine!” Selina shouted back undeterred, now stubbornly taking the stairs three at a time.

She hit the ground at a sprint, rushing into the courtyard and skidding to a halt, her shoes scraping ...

Chapter 443: A Dance of Heat and Flame

“—and so heat rises, travelling as high as it can go,” Shiani was saying, pointing to the flame. It was a tiny, controlled flicker caged within an oil lamp in the table’s centre. Glass walls surrounded the small fire, caging it in, giving it no opportunity to grow and spread to the books and papers sprawled around the lamp’s brass base.

The fire was harmless, Selina told herself, though she was still having a hard time keeping her eyes on it.

She could barely hear Shiani...

Chapter 442: Approaches of Bombardment and Guile

“Professor Jules is not going to like this,” Alex murmured. “I’m not sure I like it.”

Baelin, his eyes sparkling while he remained floating in mid-air as he schemed for the future, looked at Alex with incredulity. “Truly? Now you wish to turn coward? Bah, I say! When we spoke of slaying Ezaliel and obtaining information on the Traveller, you were as eager as a rabbit in spring time. Don’t tell me this little…disaster today has caused you to los...

Chapter 441: The Ancient Wizard and the Golem

“Ah, Alex, Claygon, welcome.” Baelin looked up as the young wizard and his golem stepped into his office.

The ancient wizard was bent so low over a map table, that his beard-braids threatened to scrape the painted surface of Thameland. Across a tabletop made of cork, a map was carved showing the realm, the sea around it, and the nearby coast of the Rhinean Empire. It was topographic, with cork rising up to represent mountains, and dipping down to illustrate valleys and other lowland...

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Chapter 440: Operation 'Nurturing Heroes'

“Ooooh I like the sound of that.” Hart snarled, his large eyes twinkling in anticipation. “You said you went from being a skinny baker’s boy a year ago to turning into…well, you?”

“Aye, is true, he’s bloody hard to recognise now,” Cedric said. “He went from lookin’ like a blade o’ grass to lookin’ more like a thick, bloody oak.”

“Blade of grass? Thanks. Thanks a lot,” Alex said dryly.

The Chosen ignored the snippiness in his tone. “...

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Chapter 439: Consolidating Resources

And so the Fool, Chosen, Champion and Sage planned their future.

It wasn’t the first time they’d talked like this, but this time—at last—they spoke with all their secrets out in the open.

Or, at least, most of them.

Midnight had come and gone, but no one’s eyelids had grown heavy. They weren’t yawning. They hadn’t nodded off. Excitement filled the air…capped with residual anger.

As they talked, Alex noticed heat returning to Cedric’s voice ev...

Chapter 438: The Heroes' Paths are Not the Same

“—and then I came here, and you punched me in the face,” the Fool finished his tale. “And that’s it. That’s the whole story, and I swear I’d rather box a behemoth than tell it again.”

‘Father…you cannot punch a behemoth. It would squash you, unless I protected you.’ His golem’s voice echoed in his mind.

‘Figure of speech, Claygon,’ Alex thought. ‘Figure of speech.’

“Aye, s’long story in truth.” Cedric hovered in midair with his ...

Chapter 437: 'Protect'

Alex had met Cedric in Coille Forest a long time ago.

The Chosen was as boisterous as he was friendly; the type of fellow who made even Alex—who’d desperately wanted to avoid all the Heroes at the time—want to sit down and have an ale with him.

He wasn’t anything like the Chosen that Alex had imagined: the fountain overlooking Alric’s town square that paid tribute to the Five Heroes had depicted their leader as a shining paragon. A haughty-looking, fine featured...

Chapter 436: Reading People

As days went in Alex Roth’s life, there were few as important as the day he received the Mark of the Fool. That day had altered his lifepath forever, and the only other that could compete was the night his parents’ alehouse burned.

But this day?

This was close; the dungeon core attack earlier, Claygon’s awakening, admitting that he was the fugitive Hero to Drestra…and now, steeling himself to tell Hart and Cedric that he was the missing Fool.

It wasn’t exactly the ...

Chapter 435: Comparing Notes

It took him longer to tell Drestra than it had to tell Baelin.

Though, he supposed the tale had grown longer since that day in the chancellor’s office. Perhaps he’d be well served to write it down and have it ready in some sort of pamphlet to hand out to the next person who asked.

In the end, though, he shared most of his story with her: escaping Thameland with his little sister, Theresa, and Brutus without being caught by priests. Being attacked by the hive-queen, briefly con...

Chapter 434: Tada

Alex Roth exploded.

Or at least, his mind did.

Thoughts and emotions clashed within, leaving him paralysed, yet filled with an overwhelming desire to burrow into the earth and disappear. Through all of the panic sweeping him up, one thought kept recurring, screaming through every cell in his being:

‘She knows. She knows, she knows, she knows, she knows!’ his mind shrieked. ‘She knows! She knows! She—calm down!’ He snapped at himself. ‘Pull yourself together you b...

Chapter 433: Protective Children

“Hello to you too.” Alex gave Drestra a surprised smile. “Can this wait for a while? We’re kinda in the middle of something.”

“I’d really rather it didn’t,” she said, her voice holding a gravity that wiped the smile from his face.

Behind him two heavy footsteps moved closer.

A menacing boom and the grind of stone on metal.

The Sage’s gaze shot to something above Alex’s shoulder, making the young wizard spin around.

In a blink, Claygon had tr...

Chapter 432: The First Letters

Alex burst into the entryway with a smile so wide that his jaws should have been aching, but even if they were, he wouldn't have noticed anyway.  As the doors burst open and the cold night wind billowed his cloak around him, every eye in the room turned to him.

Blood mages looked up from tending the wounded. Warriors stirred from half-doze, hands falling on weapons as they geared up for threats. Wizards and dwarven engineers turned from maps and schematics, still jumpy from the ass...