nemorosus

Chapter 244: Forced Hand

Argrave had grown familiar with making use of whatever he had on hand to get through all his problems—oftentimes, all he had on hand was himself and his companions. At Mateth, versus the Veidimen, or versus the Lily Lurkers, or the battle at Sethia… he’d always felt like he was at a disadvantage.

Working with Elenore, things felt fully reversed.

Anneliese scouted out the approaching foes with her Brumesingers long in advance, despite the fact they travelled relatively obscur...

Chapter 243: Unexpected Truths

Argrave had always been an only child. Well, not ‘Argrave,’ but rather Vincenzo. From the beginning, he hadn’t been quite sure how to treat Elenore. He hadn’t dealt with either sisters or brothers before. On the other hand, he had at least eighty cousins, and their parents had insisted on numerous occasions wherein he was forced to interact with his ridiculously large extended family. Those occasions were probably the reasons he turned out the way he had.

Thus far, he had been t...

Chapter 242: Golden Conduit

Elenore stepped forward, and more of the gargantuan golden snake that was Vasquer entered her range of perception. Though the jewelry Argrave gifted to her had enhanced her life tremendously, she once again felt envy for those that could still see. She could only judge the size of the snake based on what she saw… and its head alone was large enough that she felt cowed.

“Just touch her snout,” Argrave instructed her.

She wished to tell him to shut up, but she kept those words...

Chapter 241: Vasquer

“It’s a wonder you three fit at all,” Durran noted as they rolled down the road in a tightly packed and humble carriage.

Moonlight made its way through the thin decrepit cloth that covered the top of the carriage, illuminating a group crammed left-to-right on one side: Galamon, Argrave, and Anneliese respectively. Argrave was awkwardly holding his shoulder up so it was not jammed against Galamon’s plate armor, while Anneliese contentedly peered out at the city, comfortably nestl...

Chapter 240: Imprisoned Snake

“Things were as you claimed,” Elenore told Argrave, her hands entwined as they laid across the table before her. In the past few days, she had integrated the bronze jewelry into her movements, and now already had a practiced grace even with the ungainly objects on her fingers and wrists.

“I see,” Argrave said nonchalantly, smiling at Anneliese as she filled his cup with tea.

“Rancor is heavily involved in human trafficking. Captured victims never left the city, though, s...

Chapter 239: Controlled

“Let’s put the glaive down, yeah?” Ruleo held his hand out slowly. “I’m not following you. I don’t know why you’re taking swings at me.”

“Uh huh, yeah,” Durran nodded. “You pull that innocent act with the old ladies, not with me. It’s no coincidence I see you lurking. I made circles around the damned streets to be sure—you were so caught up in admiring my strut you didn’t even realize we’d been looping the same place. I’m flattered I’ve got an admirer, ...

Chapter 238: Dog on the Heels

Argrave took a long drink of the mildly warmed tea, having let it cool for some time. Elenore watched him—well, perhaps ‘watched’ was the wrong word, Argrave supposed. Anneliese was present, too. She held the teapot she had been rather obviously fascinated by. Her fascination probably stemmed from the fact that it needed no external heating. It was a self-contained enchanted item that could heat whatever water poured in it, and probably cost an exorbitant sum.

“You’re quite in...

Chapter 237: New Inner Circle

“You controlled me,” Durran said, his brows furrowed and eyes staring at the ground. They sat in the saferoom, the other two busy with their own tasks. A ward concealed their conversation.

Argrave scratched the back of his neck. “Well, let’s not make it weird.”

Durran looked up. “Bit too late for that, Argrave. Are you… you didn’t take anything?” He scanned his eyes like he was looking for dilated pupils. “Keep going. How?”

“Well, with a…” Argrave...

Chapter 236: First Breath of a Titan

Elenore heard approaching footsteps. She had a clock on the table before her. The set of jewelry that Argrave had given her augmented the sensation she felt from the first ring—with each new piece, it was like a bubble of absolute perception expanding outwards. She had a dim cognizance of everything around her. It was more than sight—it was understanding. She could read a closed book, perceive the gears working in the small clock, or even delve into someone’s anatomy if she so wished it...

Chapter 235: Help Yourself

It was early morning. Durran stood near a large bush covered in black flowers. Though he noticed the blooms, his interest seemed to be focused on how they grew and how they were planted above anything else. He toyed with the leaves, almost testing them. He was so absorbed in the task that he could not hear someone moving towards him.

“Durran, yes?” Elenore asked, her chair coming to halt.

He jumped slightly, but then rose up to his feet. “Yeah, that’s me. Just enjoying the...

Chapter 234: City of Dragons

“We can get into the specifics of what I intend to prove, of course,” Argrave told Elenore. “On top of that, I have some information that leads me to believe there might be a traitor in your group. But I’d like both of us to be on-form for this. I’m sure you’re curious about the items I’ve just onloaded onto you. I’ve also not slept for what feels like days. The drainage gate passage—there’s a safehouse in it. Is it empty? Can we use it? I’d like to stay within Dirracha,...

Chapter 233: Princess, Locked Away

Elenore saw nothing at all, as she ever did.

Yet she could hear them. Multiple strangers, emerging from one of the secret passages she had installed to facilitate her agent’s activities. It felt like her sanctuary had been violated—not the greenhouse, but her existence as the Bat. Though she always felt disconcerted by Argrave’s unpredictable activities, she was confident it would be a long, long time before she ever spoke to him face-to-face, if at all.

Elenore did not know...

Chapter 232: Moving Past

Argrave once again felt the familiar sensation of being trapped within something that was in motion. It had been a long while since he last had the experience—the movement of the living fortress was so smooth, it could be likened to travelling on a train or a car.

Hegazar, Anneliese, Argrave, and Durran held their hands to the fleshy apparatus in the back of the room, siphoning their magic into the vast fortress. It had been given a command—go 3.2 furlongs directly north—and it wo...

Chapter 231: Partner

Argrave lowered down the wooden-framed glass display case containing the bronze set of jewelry he’d came to get. It settled delicately on the uneven stone of the heart chamber, the pieces within staying fixed atop a velvet pillows. Everyone else was similarly hauling things, setting them in uneven heaps. It was impossible to tell the value of much of what they saw—neither Vera nor Hegazar were experts at discerning inscriptions from the Order of the Rose.

“It seems the thing we re...

Chapter 230: Museum Tomb

A giant gray-green humanoid sat in a strange octagonal stone booth in the middle of a large room with eight paths branching out. It seemed to be wearing a bag made of skin over its head, but where the bag met its neck, eight arms shot out, all identical. Its hands toyed with abacuses on the booth. It wasn’t clear what it was using the instruments to count, but it used them adeptly. Stone bead after stone bead slid up and down rods, and the thing’s head swiveled from left to right to monit...

Chapter 229: Shooting Star

“We have to make this look real,” Argrave told Anneliese. This was many days earlier, back when they were still at the Tower of the Gray Owl. “Part of being deceitful, as these Magisters are, is expecting the same from just about everybody. Vera and Hegazar will both be looking for a ruse from the other. They’re enemies—the paranoia will already be up and running. The acting is pivotal. What’s more, you have to squeeze Vera hard, like you’re actually on the fringe and looking to...

Chapter 228: Caged and Unafraid

All of them convened back at where the paths branched earlier where Galamon was waiting. Once the three of them gave their magic signatures, a spiral staircase had opened up, leading deeper into the lower levels. There, the name of ‘living fortress’ truly made itself readily apparent, as the stairs were constantly intruded upon by overgrown flesh and conspicuous bones.

“This whole place should be burned,” Hegazar concluded as they moved deeper. “I see, now, why necromancy is b...

Chapter 227: Stony Flesh Echoing Whispers

Though Argrave came here in part to retrieve a treasure—or rather, a set of treasures—it was not something he’d consider his primary purpose. He might have skipped it altogether, but an enticing opportunity was the only thing that might get a Magister on his side. He only wanted two things from them—a safe escort away from the Tower, and after into Dirracha to meet with Princess Elenore, the behind-the-scenes figure hiding behind the identity of the Bat.

Argrave’s primary conc...

Chapter 226: Drink What They Bleed

Riding the strange construct conjured by Magister Vera was a wholly different experience than, say, riding aback a wyvern. There, one had a visual cue—something to step upon and hold onto as it soared across the sky, even if it was a flimsy saddle and a scaly reptile. There was no such comfort from Vera’s spell, [Horizon Hunter], an A-rank wind spell solely designed for swift transportation of many people. Argrave was suspended by thick, fierce winds as he hurtled across the vast plains. ...

Chapter 225: The Troupe Departs

Anneliese and Argrave raised up their new golden badges and clinked them together. It let out a pleasant metallic sound. Durran and Galamon watched on from another part of the room, both relatively idle.

“High Wizard Anneliese. Sounds nice. A shame it’s a temporary title,” Argrave’s gaze jumped between the golden owl badges in her hand and Anneliese’s amber eyes.

She tilted her head. “How do you mean?”

Argrave shrugged. “Well, soon enough, you’ll be a Magis...

Chapter 224: Third Figure

In an area far away from the Tower of the Gray Owl, enough knights gathered to form a forest of horseflesh and steel-armored knights. Countless banners hung in the sky, swaying against the light winds of winter. Though the heraldry on each was varied and many, the most common colors were white and gold, and many flags were derivatives of the golden lion of House Parbon. At the head of this host, Margrave Reinhardt sat aback his prized warhorse. Evidently the white stallion had been recovered ...

Chapter 223: Amour Fou

A lean man of above-average height wearing gray robes walked through the door. He was bald, though with sharp handsome features that seemed to have an indelible grin. Ordinarily, ‘walked through the door’ might mean he walked by the open door, or merely walked through the doorframe. But for Hegazar, Magister of the Order of the Gray Owl, he simply walked right through it… or so it seemed. A second after, the door actually opened. In Argrave’s perception, a dim gray silhouette of a man...

Chapter 222: A New Test

“You’re awfully casual about this whole thing,” said Elias as Argrave enjoyed a pleasant breakfast.

Argrave ate a great heap of eggs. He hadn’t liked them much before, but he found them quite delicious now, perhaps because he’d been eating frog legs and hippo jerky in a swamp not too long ago.

Argrave chewed and swallowed before saying, “Some people are blessed with great poise in stressful situations. Myself, though, I earned this temperament after dealing with the co...

Chapter 221: King's Bearing

Of late, Argrave had been perfecting the art of looking unapproachable. It was a valuable skill to have, being both noticeably taller than everyone and becoming quite the trending figure for his recent deeds. Both attracted people to him like nothing else, people he’d rather avoid when he was as busy as he was. The fact he was infamous for murder helped with looking unapproachable, fortunately, as did Garm’s black and gold eyes.

When Argrave saw a woman he did not recognize skulking...

Chapter 220: Talk of the Town

Casto returned after a longer time than Argrave was expecting. He was worried that his companions would grow worried about his long absence, but did not fear he himself was in genuine danger. The S-rank mage and Master of the Tower of the Gray Owl did eventually return, appearing a little more tired than before.

“What you’ve shared,” Castro mused as he stepped closer, his explosive anger from before gone. “It’s a ridiculous scenario.”

“Life is often ridiculous, I fin...

Chapter 219: Monitors

“What have you done?” was the question that greeted Argrave when he stepped out of the mystical elevator to the top floor of the Tower of the Gray Owl.

It had been a long, long way up to the top of the Tower, his feet fixed to a slab of stone as it maneuvered around other passengers taking similar rides, each going to the various floors in the tower. The ride was wondrous when one wasn’t expecting an interrogation at the end of it.

Argrave stepped out of the elevator and ont...

Chapter 218: Shadows

“What do we do about this?” Elias began. He sat at a table consisting of Nikoletta, Mina, and Stain. Their guards were absent, and they were in a relatively clean room within the Tower with little in the way of decoration or even windows—a private room, warded to block all sound. Spellcasters were well-educated and engaged in more intrigue than most, so such rooms had a good place within the Tower.

“I think Argrave’s right,” Mina interjected. “Losing Induen… it’s a ble...

Chapter 217: Golden Ticket

“What do you think?” Argrave questioned Anneliese. The two of them sat on rather comfortable chairs just before a table. Despite the safety of the tower, neither removed their enchanted armor—the Tower was safe, but it was still better to be overcautious. They were in a private room, warded to block sound—commonplace in the tower.

Anneliese crossed one leg over the other. “Of the tower?” she asked, and when Argrave nodded to confirm, she said, “It is a bit… ostentatious,...

Chapter 216: Declaration of Spring

Argrave stepped through the door, mindful to duck beneath the doorframes now that he’d returned to the Tower of the Gray Owl after all these months. Within, numerous recognizable people waited for him alongside a large retinue of knights. Mina and Nikoletta sat near each other, but there was an awkward air between them. Stain sat by the windowsill. Elias walked to a table in the center of the room, standing before it with his hands hovering just above the wood.

“Crowded place. Not e...

Chapter 215: Unexpected Guest

Argrave fled from Kin’s End as fast as the horses would carry them. The scouting they did was less detailed than usual in their haste—it would be more important to make it to the Tower of the Gray Owl than it would be to dodge potential ambushes, and much of the area ahead was simply a vast plain.

But the tower was not so far, fortunately. As they grew nearer, it loomed over their head more and more, like a great gray rod planted in the ground by the gods. Even from a great distance...