jmclarke

Chapter 108: Secret Analysis

Alex carefully shifted the sack that held the dungeon core’s remains from his belt and slipped it into one of the leather pockets of his lab apron.

He glanced at Amir who’d taken a seat at the far end of the Cell and was pouring over notes laid out in front of him. The grad student kept looking up at Alex, dividing his attention between his notes and the younger student.

Alex nodded at him, but made a sour face behind his mask. When he’d seen how scattered Amir was, he’d h...

Chapter 107: Haste and Lateness

“Are you sure there’s no way I can help?” Theresa asked.

They’d already taken Selina to school and now were back at their apartment. She had a shift at the Beastarium soon—Brutus was already excitedly eyeing the door. “This is important, if I’ve got to say I’m sick for a shift to come and help you, I will. You know I will.”

“I thought about that,” Alex said, pacing back and forth. “But there’s nothing you could do. Or Selina or Khalik. In the end, I’ve ...

Chapter 106: The Stand-Off

Think. Adapt.

Think. Adapt.

Think Adapt.

Alex’s mind began to race. His eyes darted, quickly taking in his surroundings and analyzing the situation.

They’d been surrounded; their opponents had come out of the woods—some of them emerging directly from tree trunks—to flank their entire party at the same time. His sister had gone silent, and Theresa was hugging her tightly to her side. The huntress had her massive hunting knife drawn and...

Chapter 105: Dryads

“You know, if this is winter here, then I’m not sure I ever want to go back home,” Alex said as the extra-long sky-gondola pulled up over the fairy tale villa belonging to Isolde’s cousin.

The rain was streaming down in sheets over the wind and rain shield, making it a nasty day to go exploring the countryside, but Alex could see blue skies to the east as the clouds passed. Soon, the day would turn sunny.

It was like that a lot in Generasi, and so far—even as it was gett...

Chapter 104: Golem Sculpting and the Sky-Ship

“Why are you boiling dirt?” Selina asked, staring at her brother as he leaned over the side of a massive cauldron that rose as high as his waist.

They were in a ‘project room’,  so they were called—large chambers in the university that could be booked for personal magical projects. Any student or staff member could book one as long as what they would be working on didn’t involve magic that was too risky. The project had to be approved before the space could be booked. 2021-07-11 00:33:02 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 103: Opportunities and Exams

“Oh, come on, professor,” Alex pressed.

It had been a few days since the Festival of Ghosts and he’d been trying to convince his professor to let him take the special exam. Unfortunately, he’d gotten the same answer as always.

“Professor Val’Rok let me do it,” he said, trying not to sound sullen, but probably failing.

“And when Professor Val’Rok is your teacher for potions, maybe you can ask him to let you take the exam for credit. Potions and alch...

Chapter 102: The Festival of Ghosts

“Now this is a spread,” Thundar laughed, eyeing the mountain of steaming food that lay in front of the group.

Everything had been laid out on wide platters and set on tables Alex had borrowed from the university for the occasion. Despite their length—suitable for a banquet hall—they were filled to bursting with fine looking food.

At the centre of one of the tables was a massive copper cauldron where Alex’s stew steamed. The thickened, slowly simmered dish was filled with...

Chapter 101: Nostalgic Recipes and Warnings

One evening later, Alex was in front of a cauldron again, but this time he was making food instead of magical golem cores. He was slicing beef and venison into a mixing bowl, then pouring a mixture of wine, salt, pepper and dried thyme over them. These would marinate over the next few days, softening and sucking in all that flavour.

On the morning of the meal, he would sear the meat in an iron skillet to seal in both the juices and the marinade, then stew the whole thing for hours on a ...

Chapter 100: The Masks that are Worn

The mood in Generasi City was a strange one: excited, sombre and tense all at once.

The excitement came from the upcoming Festival of Ghosts. Now that it was only a few days away, the entire city seemed to have transformed in preparation for it. In addition to the wreaths, the buildings were now brimming with various decorations.

Ones that were kind of spooky, in Alex’s opinion.

Fake cobwebs—crafted from simple spells—draped between houses and shops like macabre clothe...

Chapter 99: Family Time

“You seriously don’t have the Festival of Ghosts up in your homeland?” Thundar asked as they made their way along one of the paths through the botanical gardens. They passed a series of beehives set away from the path that were being tended by wizards wrapped in visible force protection. “Seriously, you never heard of it?”

“Thundar, for the last time no, I haven’t heard of it!” Alex said. “We have Sigmus, the Harvest Festival, Uldar’s Rise, The Heroes’ Fes...

Chapter 98: The Cleansing Movements

The place where Thundar’s club met was in a part of campus that Alex had never been before, even though it was fairly close to the Beastarium.

Much of wizardry involved horticulture.

There were a number of reasons for this, the primary one being that people needed to grow plants for food, have plant material to weave clothing from, or for various medicines. In his magic lore class, they’d learned that from oral histories, early writings and the accounts of long-lived races, mo...

Chapter 97: Ram's Forceful Guidance

“Wh-what do you mean, professor?” Alex stammered in front of professor Ram.

It had been weeks since his conversation with Khalik, and while he’d remembered what the prince had said about maybe telling a professor so someone could understand if he was struggling, he hadn’t done so.  His own worry about force missile had remained, but it had retreated into the back of his mind.

For the first time in months, his life had fallen into a calm routine, and when things became...

Chapter 96: Taking a Chance

The others had departed a couple of hours ago, and Alex had spent time with Selina afterward, just talking and relaxing and playing with clay until her eyes started to close.

As she got sleepier, he helped her get ready for bed and tucked her in. He’d stayed for a little while longer, making sure she wasn’t having nightmares.

“I think she’ll be fine,” Theresa said from the doorway. She was running a brush through her deep, black hair—which had grown quite a bit longer ...

Chapter 95: The First Meeting of the Cabal

The story his mother had told him was about a shepherd boy who had snuck into the woods one evening to meet his friends past his parents’ curfew. Becoming lost, the boy came across a wolf in the middle of the forest—one who growled and bit him on the shoulder. A tribe that lived peacefully in the woods—a group of wolf beastmen—found the shepherd boy and guided him out of the trees, and he was able to sneak back to his home before his parents ever discovered what he had done.

The...

Chapter 94: The Weight of Secrets

“Have you heard anything more about the demon?” Khalik asked Alex. He asked the question slowly, almost like a child asking a parent about something they shouldn’t know.

“No, have you?” Alex grunted, adjusting the weight of Khalik’s table as they carried it down the hall of the insula.

“Not a word. Nothing beside rumours and fears,” Khalik frowned.

Other students pressed themselves against the hall’s walls, letting them pass. Alex had cast two Wizard’s Ha...

Chapter 93: The Chancellor's Power

The chancellor’s wrath was terrible; his retribution was swift.

He spoke a single word—not an incantation—but one syllable that held so much power, that Alex’s mana senses shuddered. A grey mist exploded from around Baelin—shooting through the air like a shoggoth’s tentacles—and separating into wisps of grey clouds that struck the hounds and imps, coating them like they’d been sprayed with stone-coloured flour.

Crrrrk.

The demons began to writhe and ...

Chapter 92: The Demons

Screams echoed from the west, and Alex could see a patch of ground near the campus gates swelling like an overfilled waterskin.

Crckle.

The grass singed as students scrambled away.

Crack.

The swelling ruptured suddenly, bleeding a glowing orange light.

Boom!

A mass of dirt and rock erupted, sending a column of flame roaring into the air—at least thirty feet high—with horrifying silhouettes dancing within. Shadowy skeletons. Ba...

Chapter 91: The Rally

“Ooooh this is a great bloody idea!” Alex said excitedly. “Thundar, you’re a genius.”

“Hey.” The minotaur tapped his thick skull. “This head isn’t only for ramming things.”

“I don’t understand,” Theresa said, frowning. “How is this different from coming together and just studying?”

“Well, it goes like this,” Alex said, recalling lessons of wizard history from his magic lore class and something Baelin had said. “S...

Chapter 90: Isolde's Pressure

“Yes!” Khalik grinned, tapping his name where it appeared on two lists: one for Magic Lore I and one for Earth Magic I. “Aaaaah, my brother would have never let me hear the end of it, were I not to gain top-five in at least two classes.” He raised an eyebrow as he tapped the top name for Magic Lore I. “Oho, I see that we have a familiar name at the top spot for Magic Lore. Well done, Alex.”

Alex grinned as he saw his name emblazoned at the top of the sheet.

Most of the...

Chapter 89: Honours

Alex Roth had long built up a tolerance for—as he called it—‘people’s bullshit’.

Back in Alric he never would’ve survived close to four years in McHarris’ bakery without building that sort of tolerance: he’d have mouthed off, quit, or done something worse back when he still needed the job. That tolerance had let him get through his entire time at the bakery, waiting until the opportunity for sweet, sweet revenge was right.

With others, that tolerance had just let h...

Chapter 88: The Interview

Alex had only ever seen a golem core once, and that was during the tour of Shale’s Workshop with Theresa. He couldn’t imagine how bad it would have looked if they handed him one and his immediate response was: ‘Duuuuh, what’s that?’

“Right, what else can you tell me about it?” Lagor asked, the orc crafter watching him closely.

“Well.” Alex said carefully. “I could tell you more if I had certain equipment.”

“Interesting,” the crafter said. �...

Chapter 87: A Fine Evening and Anxious Morning

“It’s too bad they can’t stay longer,” Selina said wistfully, waving at the ship as their little group stood on the quay.

“They’re off to do what they have to do…like hunting pirates.” Theresa’s eyes sparked as she said the words and waved at the ship with one hand, while patting one of Brutus’ heads with the other.

The massive cerberus panted contentedly: he had spent the afternoon basking on the ship’s deck and gorging himself on fish-treats some of the cre...

Chapter 86: Pirate Tales and Dances

The white robed forms were still far away, and were a fair distance from Fan-Dor’s ship, but still a little too close for comfort. Then an alarming thought hit him. Would Fan-Dor’s be one of the ships ferrying the priests away from Generasi?

Alex glanced around the dock.

He only noticed priests by the one ship.

Good. Unless some were hiding out on Fan-Dor’s ship, then it looked like they were all congregated in front of one vessel.

Theresa had followed Alex’s g...

Chapter 85: Chancellors, Ships and Priests

“Astounding,” Baelin said as he looked over Alex’s sheet. “Truly astounding. I am not as involved with the curricula for mana manipulation as Professor Val’Rok is, of course, but I know well it’s not an easy subject.”

He shifted the papers, looking next at Sinbrok’s notes for the practical exam. “My, my look at this. These are some fairly devilish challenges, especially for a wizard with a lack of experience.”

His eyes rose, focusing on Alex again. “What did ...

Chapter 84: Growing Bonds

Alex fought to keep his face straight as Baelin stared at him from across his desk. In that moment, Alex was reminded of just how intimidating the chancellor was: towering, ancient and with a gaze that just seemed to cut through flesh, magic, stone and deception.

Could he detect The Mark? Was it because he had touched The Traveller’s mana? Was it some residue of the dungeon core’s remains?

“No, not that I’m aware of…why?” Alex asked, fighting to keep his face still. He...

Chapter 83: A Mana Monster

First thing Alex did was carefully read over the entire written exam just in case there were any instructions hidden like in Jules’ lab-books. He sighed when he found that there weren’t any, and began.

The exam wasn’t going to be easy: if he’d tried taking it before studying as thoroughly as he had using The Mark, he might’ve been only able to answer one or maybe two questions with confidence.

Even having the textbook mostly memorized, he still found th...

Chapter 82: Challenge

“Uuuuuh,” Alex said unintelligently, as he continued to stare—slack-jawed—down at the paper, noting the details. It looked like the rally was being organized by Carey’s group, but there were other groups listed as contributors to the event: representative societies and organizations serving other deities. He hadn’t heard of many of them.

The date was set for three weeks from the current day. It was also set to take place at the school’s front gates.

“Is…is this s...

Chapter 81: Fire and Midterms

Baelin’s magic returned the class to the stadium and Alex spotted Shiani, Malcolm, and Rhea. He took a deep breath and was heading toward them when a hand touched his shoulder.

“You have an injury, I see,” Isolde said, her sharp blue eyes focused on him.

Alex glanced at the bright-spitter bite.

“‘Tis but a scratch.” He shrugged.

“Well, done, then.” She paused. “How do you do it, exactly, Alex? I…” an edge entered her voice. “…struggled today. ...

Chapter 80: Pack Tactics

The elemental’s footfalls thundered through the crevice and the serpents’ flapping wings filled the air behind them.

They were still outpacing the massive rock monster, but the bright-spitters were gaining.

They needed a diversion.

Alex called his forceball, spinning it along the ground, kicking up a dust cloud in their wake. He glanced back as the dust rose and obscured the passage. Good. Any cover was good cover.

The path wound around several corners and bends, e...

Chapter 79: An Elemental Battle

Boom. Scrrrrrp. Boom. Scrrrrp.

Stone ground across stone.

Hsssss.

Hissing emerged from serpentine mouths.

“Oooooh shit,” Alex swore.

The group was peering out from behind a boulder, looking at what Thundar and Angelar had wanted them to see.

Beside him crouched Angelar, and Thundar peered over their heads. Above and behind all three, Grimloch poked his shark-like snout from behind the corner of the crevice wall.

But even...