Grasping the falling tree with my mind, I braced myself and heaved with all my mental might. I would’ve found the look on the carapace wolf’s face funny, except that it was so ugly. The splintered base of the tree slammed into its grotesque features and pinwheeled up into the air. The monster was driven face first into the ground from the impact, breaking bone and carapace like they were made of nothing more than green wood.
Moaning with pain, it tried to push itself to its feet, but by that time, blood loss was beginning to take its toll on the creature. God-damn, just how tough were these things? Still, at least my blades worked.
With that in mind, I jumped into action. Magenta blades of magical energy flew through the air and strafed the flank of the beast engaging Duncan in a duel of strength. Blood oozed from multiple wounds on its thick hide, but I was far from finished. Gesturing upwards, I guided flying swords through a graceful arc that ended with them lined up in a semi-circle around the base of its skull. Then, flipping my hand palm-up, I closed my fist. As one, the impossibly sharp blades struck. Nerves instantly severed, it suddenly collapsed and Duncan was thrown stumbling forward into the now paralyzed creature.
A loud crack caused me to flinch, and I jerked my head towards the noise. Grace stood to the side of one of the bears with her gun pointed at its head. Right where I guessed the temple would be there was a bullet hole. A proper bullet hole, not something that'd been created with magic. Illustrating the point, a thin trail of smoke reached up out of the barrel of the weapon.
She moved again, turning the gun on yet another of the monsters and fired. There was no doubt now, she was using normal bullets, although they appeared to be very large. Around the chamber of the gun, runes glowed red hot for a few moments. I think they were ejecting waste heat from some internal process.
While I loved watching my girlfriend kick ass, I had to do the same, so I pulled my blades back and got ready to fight once more.
Five minutes later and the wolf-bear things were dead. After throwing them as far as I could back into the forest so they didn’t stink up the path I was marking out, we moved onwards, although now with a novel new conversation topic!
“What the hell were those things?” I asked Eilian. “Why were they resistant to magic?”
“Most magical creatures are,” explained the obrec woman, placing her hooves carefully to avoid the entrance to a burrow of some kind. “As for what they were, well… I believe they were wolves once, from your homeworld. At some point or another, they must have wandered into one of the magical realms and gotten trapped. Generations later, those things came out. The realms tend to twist and corrupt any life that makes its way into their depths.”
“Wait…” I said slowly, glancing at the many people in our party who were both human and had been in my grove multiple times.
Eilian saw my concern and chuckled, “No, it wouldn’t happen to them, at least not in a relatively safe realm like the Garden. If you were to leave them out in the arboreal void beyond a grove for a few years, they might start to run into problems, but otherwise they would be fine.”
“So… what, we’d grow planty bits like you lot?” Adam asked, gesturing between myself, Eilian, and Grace.
“Yes, handsome,” the obrec replied wryly. “You would grow… planty bits.”
“Cool,” he grinned, already daydreaming about the prospect. “What other realms are there? Oh, is there like… a water realm? Oh! Or a holy realm! I could grow cool angel wings.”
“I do not believe there is a holy realm, par say… per see…” she replied, faltering as she stumbled over the niche words.
“Per se,” I supplied.
She shot me a look of thanks. “Thank you. Uh… yeah, I think there’s more than one realm centred around water. Angel wings, on the other hand… these are similar to the angels the Donians worship?”
“Yes,” I said, replying for Adam. I doubted he knew who the Donians were, but I did. They were the crazy religious theocracy to our north that was founded by medieval hardline christians.
“In that case, yes, there is a realm that’d give you pretty white wings. The Donians have a few warlocks from there that they mistakenly believe are saints or some-such lunacy,” Eilian explained.
“Cool,” the boy grinned. “Maybe there’s a type of magic out there for me too. Other than the angel stuff of course.”
“You’re already magic, sweetie,” Eilian winked, making a very obvious glance downwards. Oh. Right, They’d… done stuff. To my surprise, Adam blushed. Eilian giggled at the look on his face and said, “It’s a pity I’m bonded. You’d be fun.”
“Maybe,” Adam replied, sobering. “I think I’d be best with someone a little more…”
“Normal?” she asked wryly.
I have to admit, I was feeling a little awkward just standing here listening to a fairly intimate conversation.
“Something like that, yeah,” Adam agreed with a shrug. “I feel like I wouldn’t be entertaining enough for you queer folks.
“Dude, no,” Grace said, sounding surprisingly passionate. “You’re not boring or anything like that. I know many girls, straight or bi, who would love to take a crack at you. The alphabet mafia might like to talk shit about straights sometimes, but it’s just venting. Being able to openly voice our frustrations is part of the healing process, even if it’s… yeah.”
“If you say so,” he mumbled, but there was a smile on his face as he said it.
Two days later, we exited the mountains and began to make our approach towards the moderately sized mining town of Neub. It was the closest settlement to Avonside of any note, so that was Dr Ross’ first stop. Neub would end up being the last stop a trade caravan would make before heading into the mountains, so we didn’t really have a choice.
The last time the scouting team had been through here, they hadn’t spoken a word of the local language. Now, things were different, and they had two powerful mages with them, not to mention a wholly unique warlock in Grace.
I just hoped the fact that they were marginally under the jurisdiction of the Graigarian Empire wouldn’t complicate things.
The town itself was situated along an icy mountain river as it pushed down into the foothills. Farmland extended a ways out from the old, crumbling walls, but eventually it lost the fight to a patchwork of woodland and tough scrubland. Out beyond the town, you could just make out where the foothills came to an end and the massive grassland that was the northern Graigarian Empire rolled into the atmospheric haze.
When we got close enough to see the architecture, I was fascinated. There wasn't a single straight edge on any building. All of them were circular or composed of multiple circles, as though Mongolian tents had evolved into stone and wood equivalents. Internally, I was already referring to it as the polka dot town.
Once we were on a road, we could start subtly looking at the people who made this place home. There were two obvious groups. The main one, and by far the more numerous group, were the people who’d obviously built this town. If I had to guess, I’d say they were probably originally lifted from Mongolia or central Russia.
The second group were obviously the Graigarians. They were all over the place ethnically, but their style was distinctly post-alexander—or hellenistic—persian. Something told me that if it weren’t for the cold mountain air, they’d have significantly more skin exposed. They were also much more obviously wealthy. It was clear in which direction the wealth of the empire flowed.
Getting closer to the town, I noticed the walls weren’t as sturdy as they appeared from a distance. Still tall enough to stop a human from just walking through, many sections were crumbling, but others had gone lower and were now patched with log palisades. The walls were probably only there to make things difficult for monsters, with human attackers being a rare thing out here. The only vaguely military force that could threaten them out here were the tribes from further north, and so long as the gates were shut, the town would be safe from them.
“We’re about to change this place forever,” Dr Ross said quietly.
“Because it’s about to become aware of its alien neighbours?” Duncan asked, head on a swivel. This was the furthest he’d been on the ring, and he was making the most of the sights now. Back in the mountains, you could forget that you were on a ring if you didn’t look up. However, it was impossible to ignore the haze-horizon that’d replaced the line we were so used to back on Earth.
The older man hummed in agreement. “Yes, but additionally, Avonside will undoubtedly become an important town, and Neub here is the gateway to our home. The number of travellers coming through this place will increase by many orders of magnitude.”
“Here’s hoping they welcome the traffic,” Eilian mused, gaze tracking a local farmer as they realised some very unusual people were walking past. His eyes almost fell out of his head when he clocked first Eilian and then me as mages. Poor man looked like he was about to fall over from shock. Somehow, I didn’t think the impending attention would be to the benefit of folks like him. Unless we did something to safeguard them. It was what the order was founded to do, after all.
QuietValerie CHIRI HAS LANDED. I'm absolutely annihilated after the last few days before she arrived when I was too anxious to even sleep. Now she's here though and we're getting into a rhythm, I'm starting to feel human again. Gosh she's so cute too. Anyway, thank you everyone! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Grasping the falling tree with my mind, I braced myself and heaved with all my mental might. I would’ve found the look on the carapace wolf’s face funny, except that it was so ugly. The splintered base of the tree slammed into its grotesque features and pinwheeled up into the air. The monster was driven face first into the ground from the impact, breaking bone and carapace like they were made of nothing more than green wood.
Moaning with pain, it tried to push itself to its feet, but by that time, blood loss was beginning to take its toll on the creature. God-damn, just how tough were these things? Still, at least my blades worked.
With that in mind, I jumped into action. Magenta blades of magical energy flew through the air and strafed the flank of the beast engaging Duncan in a duel of strength. Blood oozed from multiple wounds on its thick hide, but I was far from finished. Gesturing upwards, I guided flying swords through a graceful arc that ended with them lined up in a semi-circle around the base of its skull. Then, flipping my hand palm-up, I closed my fist. As one, the impossibly sharp blades struck. Nerves instantly severed, it suddenly collapsed and Duncan was thrown stumbling forward into the now paralyzed creature.
A loud crack caused me to flinch, and I jerked my head towards the noise. Grace stood to the side of one of the bears with her gun pointed at its head. Right where I guessed the temple would be there was a bullet hole. A proper bullet hole, not something that'd been created with magic. Illustrating the point, a thin trail of smoke reached up out of the barrel of the weapon.
She moved again, turning the gun on yet another of the monsters and fired. There was no doubt now, she was using normal bullets, although they appeared to be very large. Around the chamber of the gun, runes glowed red hot for a few moments. I think they were ejecting waste heat from some internal process.
While I loved watching my girlfriend kick ass, I had to do the same, so I pulled my blades back and got ready to fight once more.
Five minutes later and the wolf-bear things were dead. After throwing them as far as I could back into the forest so they didn’t stink up the path I was marking out, we moved onwards, although now with a novel new conversation topic!
“What the hell were those things?” I asked Eilian. “Why were they resistant to magic?”
“Most magical creatures are,” explained the obrec woman, placing her hooves carefully to avoid the entrance to a burrow of some kind. “As for what they were, well… I believe they were wolves once, from your homeworld. At some point or another, they must have wandered into one of the magical realms and gotten trapped. Generations later, those things came out. The realms tend to twist and corrupt any life that makes its way into their depths.”
“Wait…” I said slowly, glancing at the many people in our party who were both human and had been in my grove multiple times.
Eilian saw my concern and chuckled, “No, it wouldn’t happen to them, at least not in a relatively safe realm like the Garden. If you were to leave them out in the arboreal void beyond a grove for a few years, they might start to run into problems, but otherwise they would be fine.”
“So… what, we’d grow planty bits like you lot?” Adam asked, gesturing between myself, Eilian, and Grace.
“Yes, handsome,” the obrec replied wryly. “You would grow… planty bits.”
“Cool,” he grinned, already daydreaming about the prospect. “What other realms are there? Oh, is there like… a water realm? Oh! Or a holy realm! I could grow cool angel wings.”
“I do not believe there is a holy realm, par say… per see…” she replied, faltering as she stumbled over the niche words.
“Per se,” I supplied.
She shot me a look of thanks. “Thank you. Uh… yeah, I think there’s more than one realm centred around water. Angel wings, on the other hand… these are similar to the angels the Donians worship?”
“Yes,” I said, replying for Adam. I doubted he knew who the Donians were, but I did. They were the crazy religious theocracy to our north that was founded by medieval hardline christians.
“In that case, yes, there is a realm that’d give you pretty white wings. The Donians have a few warlocks from there that they mistakenly believe are saints or some-such lunacy,” Eilian explained.
“Cool,” the boy grinned. “Maybe there’s a type of magic out there for me too. Other than the angel stuff of course.”
“You’re already magic, sweetie,” Eilian winked, making a very obvious glance downwards. Oh. Right, They’d… done stuff. To my surprise, Adam blushed. Eilian giggled at the look on his face and said, “It’s a pity I’m bonded. You’d be fun.”
“Maybe,” Adam replied, sobering. “I think I’d be best with someone a little more…”
“Normal?” she asked wryly.
I have to admit, I was feeling a little awkward just standing here listening to a fairly intimate conversation.
“Something like that, yeah,” Adam agreed with a shrug. “I feel like I wouldn’t be entertaining enough for you queer folks.
“Dude, no,” Grace said, sounding surprisingly passionate. “You’re not boring or anything like that. I know many girls, straight or bi, who would love to take a crack at you. The alphabet mafia might like to talk shit about straights sometimes, but it’s just venting. Being able to openly voice our frustrations is part of the healing process, even if it’s… yeah.”
“If you say so,” he mumbled, but there was a smile on his face as he said it.
Two days later, we exited the mountains and began to make our approach towards the moderately sized mining town of Neub. It was the closest settlement to Avonside of any note, so that was Dr Ross’ first stop. Neub would end up being the last stop a trade caravan would make before heading into the mountains, so we didn’t really have a choice.
The last time the scouting team had been through here, they hadn’t spoken a word of the local language. Now, things were different, and they had two powerful mages with them, not to mention a wholly unique warlock in Grace.
I just hoped the fact that they were marginally under the jurisdiction of the Graigarian Empire wouldn’t complicate things.
The town itself was situated along an icy mountain river as it pushed down into the foothills. Farmland extended a ways out from the old, crumbling walls, but eventually it lost the fight to a patchwork of woodland and tough scrubland. Out beyond the town, you could just make out where the foothills came to an end and the massive grassland that was the northern Graigarian Empire rolled into the atmospheric haze.
When we got close enough to see the architecture, I was fascinated. There wasn't a single straight edge on any building. All of them were circular or composed of multiple circles, as though Mongolian tents had evolved into stone and wood equivalents. Internally, I was already referring to it as the polka dot town.
Once we were on a road, we could start subtly looking at the people who made this place home. There were two obvious groups. The main one, and by far the more numerous group, were the people who’d obviously built this town. If I had to guess, I’d say they were probably originally lifted from Mongolia or central Russia.
The second group were obviously the Graigarians. They were all over the place ethnically, but their style was distinctly post-alexander—or hellenistic—persian. Something told me that if it weren’t for the cold mountain air, they’d have significantly more skin exposed. They were also much more obviously wealthy. It was clear in which direction the wealth of the empire flowed.
Getting closer to the town, I noticed the walls weren’t as sturdy as they appeared from a distance. Still tall enough to stop a human from just walking through, many sections were crumbling, but others had gone lower and were now patched with log palisades. The walls were probably only there to make things difficult for monsters, with human attackers being a rare thing out here. The only vaguely military force that could threaten them out here were the tribes from further north, and so long as the gates were shut, the town would be safe from them.
“We’re about to change this place forever,” Dr Ross said quietly.
“Because it’s about to become aware of its alien neighbours?” Duncan asked, head on a swivel. This was the furthest he’d been on the ring, and he was making the most of the sights now. Back in the mountains, you could forget that you were on a ring if you didn’t look up. However, it was impossible to ignore the haze-horizon that’d replaced the line we were so used to back on Earth.
The older man hummed in agreement. “Yes, but additionally, Avonside will undoubtedly become an important town, and Neub here is the gateway to our home. The number of travellers coming through this place will increase by many orders of magnitude.”
“Here’s hoping they welcome the traffic,” Eilian mused, gaze tracking a local farmer as they realised some very unusual people were walking past. His eyes almost fell out of his head when he clocked first Eilian and then me as mages. Poor man looked like he was about to fall over from shock. Somehow, I didn’t think the impending attention would be to the benefit of folks like him. Unless we did something to safeguard them. It was what the order was founded to do, after all.
QuietValerie CHIRI HAS LANDED. I'm absolutely annihilated after the last few days before she arrived when I was too anxious to even sleep. Now she's here though and we're getting into a rhythm, I'm starting to feel human again. Gosh she's so cute too. Anyway, thank you everyone! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
