Once, and only once, did I fight with five other Archmages at my side. I was the youngest at only seventeen years of age, and our eldest was pushing ninety six. I hadn't awakened even six months ago, but all the same my power made a difference.
We killed the two Calamities that came to challenge us, and led an expedition into the Dungeon. All fifteen Legions the Empire could muster were with us, and two hundred thousand civilians were behind them. The work we did established a hundred mining towns, and the fortifications we raised should easily weather the next Dungeon Break.
It is the year three hundred and four, new Imperial calendar, and this was four years ago. There are five of us now, but we just endured a break without a single Hound, Champion or Burrower touching the surface.
An unprecedented fifteen thousand Hounds formed into a horde, but we stood strong. Soon we will build a proper dome to contain the Dungeon, and then the true work can begin. Humanity first, always.
Excerpt from The Beasts of the Dungeon.
REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK p^o^q REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK
Marcus stretched and felt his back pop, pausing. A third-tier healing matrix ensured he didn't just shatter his own spine, somehow, and he nodded at the approaching form of Vistus.
The Archmage looked no worse of wear despite having spent the last four hours massacring Hounds, and Vistus nodded calmly when he finally arrived. "Marcus."
"Vistus," Marcus replied, cracking his neck. Silent Gods he was sore. "Thanks for the rescue, and I really am thankful, but what in all the Hells are you doing here?"
The man sighed. "Might I request that we fetch my retinue while we talk? Your kidnapping stranded them into hostile territory."
"Ah, right." Marcus cleared his throat. "Sorry about that. Yeah, I have some power to spare. You'll have to point them out to me, but it shouldn't take too long."
Vistus raised his hand, the gesture looking almost panicked. "They can look after themselves, no need to teleport us into the air again. I'm fine with this taking a few extra minutes if we can stay close to the ground."
Marcus shrugged, not really seeing the issue. Then again, the Archmage couldn't exactly fly. Or had a movement technique as good as teleportation. No, actually, he could see exactly why the man had an issue.
Talking during the retrieval turned out to be somewhat difficult, though it was also gratifying to see Vistus be surprised. The man was the oldest Archmage on the continent, had killed dozens of Calamities and could probably claim to be the deadliest man on the planet.
And yet teleportation made him sigh wistfully, and made finding his retinue a matter of minutes. Which, when they arrived, was looking rather different than it had last time he'd seen them.
Back then Elly had reported eight demons, a fire elemental, three Life Enhancement fighters and several other mages. Also a woman who she suspected to be a shapeshifter and a short man who reeked of Life but wasn't using it to augment his body.
Which was a direct quote, at that. Funny how the mind worked.
Either way, Marcus was only really familiar with two of them. Clarissa the fire elemental, and one old enough to take human form. A woman made of liquid fire, and the one who, during the invasion, had boiled his eyes away.
The only other one was Pina, Vistus' apprentice transmutation mage. Also the person who'd helped Clarissa boil his eyes away. The woman didn't seem overly happy to see him again, though the elemental clearly didn't care.
It was a formidable party last time, made more so by Vistus' presence. Now it was three times the size. It was mostly more mages and Life Enhanced soldiers, in truth, but he could spot three who were more interesting than most.
A divination, necromantic and spatial mage, Vistus introduced. All fifth-tier mages, all highly skilled. Marcus was pretty sure the man was showing off.
It still dwarfed what he himself could put together, though Elly could probably equal all his Life soldiers combined. Or more, but they hadn't sparred yet. He wasn't hugely looking forward to it, to be honest.
He might have a sixth matrix now, but that didn't mean he was twice as dangerous. Elly, on the other hand… well. Who knew what his wife could really do now?
Taking the party back to the Mirranian army took almost all his power, but at this point he'd been balancing on a razor's edge all week. The headache that came with scraping the last few percent of his reserves was an old companion, and a pain relief potion dulled it to acceptable levels.
It just left him and Vistus, and because he was feeling dramatic, Marcus teleported them to one of the mountain peaks. Which was horrifically cold, but his guest was kind enough to conjure up a roaring bonfire.
Marcus could teleport, fold space so thinly it sliced through just about everything, and talked with alternate versions of himself in a dimension seemingly reserved just for them. And yet seeing Vistus turn snow into wood was one of the more surreal things he'd seen.
Two seats joined them soon enough, and a low wall kept the wind off them. Marcus sighed and sank into the comfortable chair, accepting the cup of tea being handed to him. Vistus smiled in amusement, which Marcus allowed.
Silent Gods, he'd need to invest in transmutation mages.
"I'm glad you're comfortable," Vistus said, taking his own seat. "Traveling became hard on my body two decades ago, so I invested more time than I'm willing to admit into memorizing how to make these. Every second was worth it. But we don't have the luxury of a nap, I'm afraid."
Marcus groaned, pulling himself upright from where he'd sunk into his seat. "No, I guess we don't. Thanks for the rescue, by the way."
"You already thanked me."
"Well, I just thanked you again. Deal with it."
Vistus snorted, sobering a moment later. "There's three Legions behind me, and on the orders of the Empress, they're supposed to join forces with you. Their generals have been instructed to obey your authority, but none of them are happy about it."
"Three?" Marcus asked, frowning. "And what do you mean 'supposed to'? What's going on, Vistus?"
The man sagged deeper into his chair, draining his tea. "We're dying. The Empress can't afford to give you three Legions, and I can't afford to be here, but your portal network is one of the best chances we have. Fourteen Calamities have already walked the earth, nine of which are dead now, and that's not even counting the two sighted in this region."
"The Elf and chicken?" The man nodded. Marcus shrugged. "They're both dead. Elly and I killed one each while we were evacuating the Eastfort."
Vistus raised an eyebrow. "Elly killed one? Alone? Hells, that's going to piss some people off. But good, good. Part of my job is to make sure you're not dead or dying, and to either heal you in the latter case or bring you back from the dead in the former."
"I beg your finest pardon?"
"Its not important." Vistus waved his hand. "Some high-level necromancy can bring back intelligent undead, so it's a last ditch effort to have you instruct Imperial spatial mages on portals. Trust me, everyone is happy it didn't come to that. Even a success usually has consequences."
"So the Empire has hundreds of undead experts running around?"
"It really doesn't. There are some, but you're not likely to meet them. Instability is the least of the dangers, and the Empress isn't going to risk you anywhere near them. No, your job is portals. Speaking off, how is that going?"
"I haven't had time to experiment yet," Marcus admitted. "But I did manage to break through to my sixth matrix. I even made a portal, though it was draining and unsustainable. Stable, large-scale portals are a different matter."
The man hummed. "Some good news at last. Practice. My experience is at your disposal, and whatever materials you need, we'll provide."
"What's going on, Vistus?" Marcus asked again, eyes narrowing. "You still haven't answered why there are 'supposed to' be three Legions, or why the Empress can't spare them but apparently can."
Vistus sighed. "She can't. And I said supposed to, because I want to take them south to prevent the city of Estin from being devoured. Three hundred thousand people live there, and with the evacuation of most minor farming communities in the area, that number has swelled to well over half a million. Even if they can weather the hordes, they don't have enough food to last more than a month."
"Shit," Marcus replied. "Estin. That's in the Varrin Highlands province, right? It should be, what? Two weeks travel from here?"
The man made a noise of agreement. "And that's assuming we don't run into any trouble, which we will. Then there's the somewhat influential branch from the Cliffmarks—one of the Great Houses, it really doesn't matter for now—that live there, and their patriarch is applying political pressure to have them evacuated to the capital. Which is something I would ignore, usually, but their mages are currently providing critical refugee support."
"Fucking Hells. Well, I'm linking up with more forces from Mirrania soon, so we don't really need the reinforcements. With Elly having broken through her limits—long story—and the combined armies, I'll be fine."
"I was really hoping you would say that," Vistus replied, smiling broadly. "There's almost a million militia and volunteer militiamen in the Empire, but it's not nearly enough. For every ten Hounds we kill four make it through, and some Burrowers ignore literally everything and just make really long tunnels. We're already dying, and you've more than proven that you can take care of yourself."
Marcus shrugged, not sure how to feel about Vistus being… proud of him. "Its only logical. You had to come because the Empress ordered it, but babysitting me isn't a good use of your time. And portals won't be too useful if there's no people to use them."
"Exactly right." Vistus transmuted himself another cup of steaming tea, taking a sip. "I don't envy her, you know? The Empress, I mean. Izzolma is pulled into so many directions it's a wonder she can still function. Archmage, Empress, mother, politician. I don't envy her at all. It's one of the reasons I supported her when— Well. It doesn't matter now."
Snorting, and watching the raging bonfire slowly burn through its fuel, Marcus shook his head. "Let's not do that, please. Next thing you know you'll be dead, the information that was so irrelevant is suddenly relevant, and I spent the next year hunting down some minor lead just to realize I knew the answer all along. I'm kind of way too busy for that."
"Bah," the man protested. "I'm not so old as all that. And it really doesn't matter, but fine. When the Empress awakened as an Archmage, there were some… rumblings. People who thought that her being Empress and Archmage would grant her too much power. Some came to me, bringing with them a 'hypothetical' safeguard against corruption. They wanted me to kill her, in short."
"And you didn't, obviously."
"And I didn't," Vistus agreed. "Not out of some great love for her, mind you. I barely knew her at the time. But I didn't want the job, and killing another Archmage is never so simple as that. Not even a freshly awakened one. You'd know, I guess."
Marcus rolled his eyes. "You were holding back."
"Not so much as you may think. A fight between Archmages is always messy, and ironically, that's because we're still human. We can bleed, grow tired and require food. Take us, for example. What would happen if we were to fight, right here and now?"
"You'd remove the building blocks of my mind. Liquefy my brain."
Vistus snapped his fingers. "Exactly. But you know that, so you'd teleport far away. Now I'm chasing someone who can move far faster than I can, and who will never give me a straight fight. And sooner or later I'll have to sleep, and then maybe Elly will sneak into my camp and put a dagger through my skull. Or maybe you figure out my range, which surely can't be infinite, and pelt me with spatial arcs."
"A stalemate until someone gets lucky."
"Quite so." Vistus reclined, warming to the theme. "Now take me and the Empress. I could kill her as easily as I could kill you, but she's an illusionist. So am I killing her, or just a really good copy? Perhaps I'm killing my friends, my senses so twisted I couldn't ever be sure. But then maybe, should we come to blows, I can see through her illusions. Feel their internal makeup and figure out what is real. Izzolma can't be sure, just as I can't be sure."
Marcus sighed. "So the answer is 'it's complicated'."
"Everything's complicated. But fights between Archmages more than usual, yes. Better for everyone if we play nice with one another, hmmn? I make the Empress whatever rare or hard to get material she requires, I get funding and political power without having to waste time creating either, we're both better off. And that's ignoring the whole 'end of the world' thing, of course."
"Of course," Marcus allowed, tone indulgent. "The second that's done, back to wiping out the human race we go."
Vistus snorted. "You joke, but external pressure is one of the greatest unifying forces there is. The Empire wouldn't exist without the Dungeon, and it probably won't survive without it either. Sooner or later Archmages would disagree, the Great Houses would take sides, and new kingdoms would be born. But that's assuming the Dungeon can be solved, and six centuries have already passed. Not to be one of the Forsaken, but an easy solution would have been found by now."
"Forsaken?"
"Ah." Vistus shifted in his seat, clearing his throat. "Perhaps now isn't a good time to mention those, but you seem mentally stable. The Forsaken are an informal name for those who, for a lack of a better term, have given up. It's not a faction as such, but neither are they isolated. Some commit suicide, some bury their heads in the sand, yet more party until even healing magic can't keep them alive anymore. I wouldn't worry about them too much."
"It's the Empress's problem, then?"
"If you'd like to be crude about it, yes. Now, I do think we've spent enough time spitting into the face of the elements, and I need to return to my Legions. No sense in letting them march all this way just to turn them right around again."
Marcus grunted, reluctantly rising from his chair. "I'll ferry you. It's the least I can do. Your retinue will have to make their own way home, though."
Vistus nodded amiably, which was good. Marcus didn't hold the invasion against them, but Clarissa and Pina had boiled his eyes away. He wasn't one for grudges, but he wasn't a fan of them either.
Their little camp disintegrated with nothing but a wave from Vistus, and the break had done wonders for Marcus' reserves. Well, not wonders, but moving the man to his Legions shouldn't be too hard.
It did require them to be efficient, which Vistus bore with a grimace. Really, someone would think Marcus had dropped the man, or something. They barely fell for a second—maybe two or three if he was slow in picking a landing spot—and then they were on solid ground again. The sky was still clear, so they travelled thousands of feet with each teleport.
It didn't take long to reach the man's Legions from there, and Vistus kept muttering about recruiting a spatial mage. Marcus had the feeling that if that was an option, they would already be in the Archmages service. Vistus was as likely to find a teleporter like Marcus as he was to find a transmutation mage capable of magic chairs.
Comfortable, grand, exquisite chairs. Not even with spatial magic to increase their storage capacity was it strategically acceptable to carry a few of those around, unfortunately.
Marcus teleported them up yet again, aiming to clear a stretch of woodlands in one go, and failed to teleport them down. Vistus yelled something through the wind, but Marcus was too busy staring.
Three Legions were marching over surprisingly Hound-free land, just as expected. What was not expected was the flying ship leading the way, gently hovering a thousand feet in the air. Even as he watched a small flock of flying Hounds attacked it, impacting an opaque dome and being killed soon after.
Someone had taken a regular ship, had removed the mast, and somehow made it fly.
"-you stupid childish idiot get us back to-"
Marcus sighed, teleporting them to the ground. Vistus glared at him, straightening his armor and bringing his hair into a semblance of order. "That was extraordinarily rude."
"You could have mentioned your Legions came with a flying ship. It was, let us say, a surprise."
Vistus huffed. "And I guess I know better than to surprise you, is that it? I made you a chair, and you let me fall to my death."
"Don't be dramatic," Marcus replied, rolling his eyes. "We were only falling for ten seconds at most."
The man glowered at him. "Another two and I would have been able to count blades of grass. We accelerate when we fall, don't you know?"
"Stop pretending you haven't figured out some way to survive falling from that height and tell me about the ship. The flying ship, I should stress."
"It's one of Horzo's inventions," Vistus replied after a moment, seemingly abandoning his indignation. "The Archmage's speciality is stranger than usual, but I can't argue with the results. We have about two dozen of those, with another ten nearing completion, and they're proven very effective in wiping out hordes. In another decade we'll have a thousand."
Marcus frowned. "Well, I suppose you did tell me I was only one of the Empress' last hopes. His speciality is enchanting?"
"Not quite. It's texomancy." Vistus shrugged at Marcus' raised eyebrow. "I thought it was a dead discipline too. Cloth magic hadn't been used since before the creation of the Empire, at least. But the man figured out how to thread ships with it, and it seems flight isn't as impossible for him as it is for almost everyone else."
"I want to see it up close."
Vistus grinned. "I said the exact same thing when I first saw one. I'll give you the tour."
Marcus nodded absentmindedly, still watching the ship. It sailed through nothing, even now plumes of fire and stone rained down on what few Hounds remained, and all the while its shields proved inexhaustible.
He wanted one. He really, really wanted one.
Afterword
Book two has been fully finished on the patreon. Just an fyi. I surely don't have any ulterior motives for telling you that.