by Edward Brody
I brought up their rear, and when I reached the summit, a sense of dread fell over me.
In the surrounding distance, goblins were scattering everywhere across the Freelands. A toppled wagon was turned over on a nearby road, and orcs were rummaging through its contents. Another orc was dragging a screaming lady behind him.
“King Rutherford couldn’t hold them off at the Wastelands?” the Queen asked.
“Apparently not,” the King supposed. “They’re spilling all into the Freelands.”
“Not just the Freelands,” Adeelee said. She pointed towards small legion of orcs running directly for Highcastle.
The alarm bell in Highcastle rang again, and I heard another scream.
“Oh my god. Ergoth must have completely broken their ranks,” the King said. He turned to the Queen. “Mount up now! We can’t let them cross the Crystal River! We must protect the Vale!”
The King and Queen started running down the hill towards their great beast, and the Princess hurriedly threw her arms around my neck. She kissed me unexpectedly, right in front of everyone. At first, I tensed, knowing that Keysia may have been watching from somewhere nearby—Donovan too—but then my shoulders and knees grew weak.
It wasn’t a kiss like the one in the gnoll’s den. It was softer, endearing, and I could feel her heart pouring into it.
When she pulled back, she looked me in the eyes, and said. “Thank you again, Gunnar.”
I smiled shyly and nodded.
Adeelee took a few steps away, kneeled and slammed her hand into the ground. “Tsarra!” She immediately started looking around, wondering from which direction she would come.
When she didn’t see Tsarra right away, she looked down and immediately sensed that something was wrong. When she looked up at me, I swallowed hard.
“I… I’m sorry.”
Adeelee’s jaw went slack, and her chin started trembling. She stared at the ground beside her, and immediately fell to her knees. “No… no…”
“I’m sorry, Adeelee,” I said again. I had no idea how to comfort her.
“This can’t be happening,” I heard Jax say anxiously from somewhere behind me. When I turned, I saw that he had climbed the hill as well and was looking out to the scene unfolding below. “We’ve got to go now, Gunnar. Look there!”
I turned to where he pointed and saw a few orcs running in the direction of Edgewood. It wasn’t many, but we had left our village completely unguarded. Only Aaron and Trynzen remained.
“Adeelee!” the Queen shouted from below. “Come now! We must leave.”
Adeelee was sobbing into her hands, but she found the will to stand on her weakened knees and ran down the hill towards her mother.
The rest of Unity had started to climb the hill to see what was going on, but I just started running towards them, waving my hands. “Fall back to Edgewood! Fall back! Everyone back to Edgewood, now!”
Author’s Notes
I’m always trying to create some sort of balance when writing books in this series—a bit of high fantasy, a bit of MMORPG, a bit of real world, and a bit of “Would this actually work and be fun if it were real?”
For example, I didn’t want the Mage’s Guild to come across like a typical magic academy. I wanted to make sure there were clear ulterior reasons for all the students and the teachers to be there. Since being a mage is expensive, wealth is a very good motive for anyone to want to join the faction, and a great reason to want to stay after reaching master status. The faction gives students slightly easier access to gold and magic items that they need to progress. Masters might stick around just because they want to get rich. Members of the Fighter’s Guild and other factions, on the other hand, have slightly different incentives and rewards. I look forward to touching on those in later books.
It wouldn’t be much fun if we were playing a game and had to drop adventuring to solely focus on repetitive training via a faction, so I also wanted to make sure factions were structured in a way that players have faction obligations but can also freely come and go as they train. Accordingly, teachers also have lives (and shops in Eanos’ case), so they can come and go as well.
I considered letting Gunnar have a breather and just train and focus on village building for a while, but I’m always thinking of where the off-screen characters are, and I knew that the Dark Hand was in the background making moves. There was no way someone who is so integral to the story wouldn’t have acted or sought payback by now. And while he may not be Dryden Bloodletter, I think he’s finally made it clear that he’s not a pushover either.
Dryden has a dragon, and the Dark Hand has Tymrial’s blade. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
Oh, and the Scourge. That should be fun. Orcs!
There were a lot of hard times in The Ascent. A lot of people died. Great Beasts died. Some of the deaths were permanent.
I felt it was time to highlight the severe consequences in the world. While having Great Beasts might seem like awesome, overpowered weapons always at your disposal, you have to choose carefully how and when to use them, otherwise you could lose one of your closest friends. You must think carefully before entering high level zones with or without your healer—as you risk all your items, the horror of death, and the potential permadeath of your NPC guild mates. While Gunnar has failed several times during his journey and died just as often, I think seeing Sora getting killed and the loss of Satorin, Maleena and Tsarra finally rattled his core.
Some of these consequences might make it clearer why someone might choose the humble life of a craftsman, cook, or merchant in the world.
Gunnar spent a lot of time outside Edgewood in this chapter, but there will be more emphasis on city expansion and defense in the coming books—I Promise! That is, if Gunnar can get his money situation under control. Gold might scale in Eden’s Gate, but trying to pay for spells, reagents, buying crafting supplies, and building buildings all at once isn’t so easy.
Thanks again for reading the series, and if you enjoyed The Ascent, please leave me a review on Amazon. Nothing helps me more than a simple review. And while I previously said that Eden’s Gate will be a minimum of ten books, I’ll keep writing and expanding on the world so long as you all want more.
As always, free to drop me a message or comment on Facebook. Or just email me. If you have a favorite character or want to see more of a particular side of Eden’s Gate, I would love to know. I can’t promise anything, but I have an open ear, and I love hearing from my readers!
‘Til next time, my friends.
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