The boy swallowed, but he had no option other than following instructions. The group dashed by, and Tailyn took his shot just a tad late.
Ka-Li.
One charge didn’t do much, so he had to keep up a steady barrage. It was only after the tenth hit that the guard stopped, turned toward its new target, and took an icicle to the face. That didn’t cheer it up. Roaring, it came rushing toward the puny creatures that had dared pull it away from the main target, though it looked happy enough to pick up a quick snack and get back into the action.
“Guards aren’t as dangerous on open ground,” Forian said, once again finding his stride as a mentor. “They’re just as fast, strong, and impervious to magic as ever, but they’re as dumb as sheep. Taking on a well-prepared mage one on one, they don’t have a shot. Okay, let’s do this!”
Tailyn flinched in anticipation of a hit from the guard, but it wasn’t forthcoming. Forian had activated his regular freeze card to stop the creature just a few meters away from the boy. And while one of its tentacles had actually reached his defenses, it hadn’t managed to do a single point of damage.
“And just when the beast is about to destroy you, it loses — doesn’t have enough brains, too focused on the job at hand. It forgets what’s around it, and that’s it’s biggest mistake. Remember this lesson, Student. It’ll come in handy time and again. Not only with guards, too — with everyone who thinks they’re strong. You just have to have the right card, something like telekinesis.”
An enormous boulder that looked bigger than the guard itself came crashing down on the creature, pancaking it entirely. The whole thing ended so quickly and mundanely that Tailyn even felt kind of bad for the terrifying beast.
The dean’s mission destroyed General Isr Kale’s tomb’s 5th guard.
***
You destroyed a creature 149 levels higher than you.
All your attributes and skills were boosted by 1.
***
Experience received by your companion: +150 (to next level: 250).
“Finally!” Forian looked over to see the cage the lixes were carrying out of the hole. “I thought you two were taking a nap down there. Take that thing over to the tree — we’re not done with our hunt.”
Forian was exultant. Every guard they killed got him five random attributes and skills, some of which were fairly valuable. For example, the god was clearly on Forian’s side — he’d seen his card saturation jump both times. It crossed the mage’s mind that bringing the boy out with him to hunt high-level monsters when they got back might be a good idea, and an awfully profitable one at that.
But the mage’s glance in that moment was arrested by strange movement on the road leading to the excavation site. Someone was hurrying up.
“You said the lixes wouldn’t be here or another two hours!”
“Those aren’t lixes,” the boy muttered, paling when he recognized the group running over. “They’re crystal fences who sell humans. Berad and what’s left of his group.”
“Mage hunters!” Valanil yelled. “Careful — I’d bet my life they’re from Crobar. They’re too good at grabbing mages. They’re the ones who killed Keran, too.”
“Got it,” Forian said as he watched the future corpses with hatred in his eyes. The mongrels were about to taste the wrath of a true battle mage.
Valanil wiped away sweat and sighed as she and the girl finished hauling the damn magistrate up the hill. But her weariness wasn’t enough to hide the delight creeping across her face as she realized she’d just taken care of her biggest problem. Once Tailyn got to the academy, the investigators there were going to be able to dig all they wanted into who he knew from Crobar and how he knew them. She wasn’t going to have to mutilate his body with a brand of silence. No, the boy was going to be hers alone, and she wasn’t going to give him to the academy or Crobar.
Chapter 19
BERAD STOPPED his horse next to the dig, his annoyed gaze fixed on the lone figure of the academy mage. Halas hadn’t said anything about a level thirty-two Forian Tarn. In fact, the lix had just mentioned a kid and a couple runaway slaves — there hadn’t been a word about a battle mage in a snow-white garb. Berad knew all too well what people dressed like that were capable of. And while he wouldn’t have hesitated with Sloan at his side, his trusty lieutenant was no more, not to mention quite a few others. The crystal fence’s group was down to five, himself included, and he knew very well what the quintet could do. A good mage would be able to take them out.
But the fence wasn’t about to throw in the towel. His job wasn’t to kill anyone; Halas had given him specific orders to keep the targets where they were until the main force arrived. And the passageway was very nearly fixed, though the bandit wasn’t positive why they couldn’t just head through the damaged section with their hermetic seals turned on. Every lix in Halas’ guard had level three or even four armor suits.
“Commander, look — there they are!”
Berad himself had already seen the three enormous hulks dashing after the golden dragon. Never having come up against a guard, he couldn’t help a nervous flutter in his chest despite the warning he’d gotten from Halas. Level 150 was nothing to laugh at, and just one look at the long tentacles was enough to make his stomach tighten.
The strange procession dashed by, and Berad jumped into action. A small device Halas had given him to control the guards appeared in his hands. One of the elephants dug its short legs into the ground and skidded to a stop, shielding the crystal fences from the mage’s attacks. And after Berad flipped a lever to set a new target, it gave a victorious cry and dashed toward the mage.
Forian scowled — it was exactly what he’d been afraid of. Someone had shown up to control the defensive machines. And the worst part was that Valanil had been right. The fences stayed out of range of his cards, and then they’d even stuck the guard between him and them, telling him how trained they were in fighting mages. Yes, they were definitely from Crobar. As those thoughts ran through Forian’s head, he waited until the monster had just about gotten to him before activating his ice. It wasn’t going to hold the thing for long, but it would be enough for him to take out the character controlling it.
“Teacher, behind you! There’s another guard!”
Before he even saw the new opponent, Forian used his freeze again. It was just in time. The second guard controlled by Berad was stopped not ten meters to his right, and worse than that was the fact that the third monster chose that moment to hit the brakes. The plan was obvious — Berad wanted to send all three of them at the mage to make sure he was taken out. Or at least, keep him too busy to fire back at Berad. But what infuriated Forian more than anything was that there weren’t any boulders nearby that were big enough to crush his assailants.
“Get to the tree now!” Forian yelled as soon as he realized he was going to lose the battle. He needed a new position. After sending a new round of ice, he quickly dashed up the staircase the lixes had dug, checked to make sure his student was also climbing up a different way, and took his shot. The entire hill around the tree was covered in a thick layer of ice. As the guards rushed over, their stubby legs struggled to gain traction and pull their enormous bodies up the incline.
Forian even smirked — the idiot creatures couldn’t get up. He had enough charges in his card to keep the ice in place for several hours, and that would be enough time for him to think of something. But right then, it occurred to him that Tailyn wasn’t up with the rest of the group.
Just like the guards, he was sliding down the ice.
“Master!” Ka-Do-Gir yelled, grabbing the second green lix and dashing down toward the boy. But that was when Berad noticed the boy, too. The fence crystal grinned — the little bastard had given his little group so many problems that he didn’t mind ignoring Halas’ orders for a little while. While the black lix leader wanted to kill Tailyn himself, it didn’t look like he was going to make it in time. The guards stopped trying to get up the frozen hill and refocus
ed on the boy sliding down. Even the gold dragon constantly flashing by wasn’t enough to grab their attention.
“Crouch down and jump on my command!” Tailyn heard right next to him. Putting an end to his futile attempt to get up the hill, he leaned against the icy incline and watched, heart pounding, as the guards reached toward him with their tentacles.
“Right now!” The lixes picked Tailyn up and pressed him down into a crouch, after which they grabbed his waist on either side. “Jump!”
The boy leaped like he’d never leaped before. The earth receded beneath him, the tree trunk rushing at him. With a disgruntled roar, the monsters realized their prey had gotten away — the lixes had thrown Tailyn with such force that he actually hit the tree’s lower branches. Dropping to the ground and waving Valia away, the girl jumping over to hug him, he ran back over to the edge of the hill.
“Here!” It took just a moment to materialize his rope. Grabbing one end, Tailyn tossed the entire coil down, looking for Ka-Do-Gir to grab hold so he could pull the lix up. But it was too late. The guards were everywhere down below.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Valanil hissed as she yanked Tailyn back and pulled the rope out of his grasp. Right then, one of the guards had the good sense to grip the rope and give their end a strong pull. The smaller green lix had already been caught, his journey ending in a guard’s mouth a second later, but Ka-Do-Gir sprinted away from the tree in an attempt to lure the monsters away. They weren’t having it. Berad had decided that the life of some lix wasn’t worth it, preferring to focus on the four mages.
“Ka-Do-Gir is down there!” Tailyn yelled as he tried to break free of the herbalist’s grasp.
“He’ll be fine!” Valanil had to shake some sense back into the boy. Just then, the lix slipped through the shield, and the icon showing his audio status went gray. The film blocked the connection.
“I’m disappointed in you, Student. You were too slow, you didn’t follow a direct order, and you put a member of the group in mortal danger,” Forian said harshly without even turning toward the boy. “If your servant dies, it will be your responsibility. We can’t wait for him.”
“He’ll be back,” Tailyn said.
“And he’ll make it past three guards? Your servant struck me as much smarter than that,” the mage said derisively as he laid down another layer of ice. The guards slid down with a frustrated whine, unable to get to their target with their tentacles.
“What’s next? Where’s the entrance? Or did you decide to just wait for the lixes to get here?” Valanil asked, looking around nervously. They were right in the middle of the dig, too far away to make it to the outer wall the way Ka-Do-Gir had.
“The entrance is somewhere around here — we have to find it.”
“Maybe, it’s like in the City of the Dead,” Valia said. “Under the terminal.”
“I wouldn’t recommend touching that thing if you want to go on living,” Forian replied. “We don’t have access to it.”
“Tailyn? Try it again?”
“They got my rope, and the store doesn’t work during combat,” the boy said, glancing angrily down at the guards as the slipped and slid. The machines didn’t get tired, which meant they would get to their targets sooner or later. Either they’d climb up, or Halas would show up. And the timer said there was just an hour and a half left before the latter happened.
“Look! The entrance has to be around here. If you have to, break the crystal! Come on!” For just a moment, Forian gave in to his emotions. The few seconds he’d spent next to the tree had been enough for him to realize that the dean’s instructions had been far from complete. The entrance to the second level was concealed above the hall of fame. Well, they were there, but it was nowhere to be found. And the damn guards… None of them paid any more attention to the dragon, only turning toward it when it got too close. And in those cases, a flick of a tentacle was enough to keep the nimble creature far enough away that its primordial fire couldn’t reach them. The boy’s weapon was useless. Tailyn was still staring in the direction of the forest, expecting his servant to show back up. How naïve. If the mage had been in the lix’s shoes, he wouldn’t have stopped running until he reached his tribe, where his mage could help him get rid of his oath and eternal servitude. And Forian assumed that was exactly what he’d done — why else would they have lost communication? Was anything there enough to block it?
“Easy enough to tell us to break the crystal,” Valia muttered in frustration. The girl had smacked the blue object a few times with her staff, but nothing was happening.
“It’s advanced,” Valanil replied. “Without five points for your crystal miner, you won’t have a shot. It’s pointless. And we don’t have any professional miners here, so we’ll keep looking.”
“Wait a second,” Tailyn said, finally shaking himself out of his stupor. “Let me try.”
“Where did you get the skill?” Forian just about missed the guards’ next attack, and they got halfway up the hill before he laid down another wave of ice. Whining yet again, the hulks slid back where they’d come from.
“I happened to get it, and then it happened to level-up,” Tailyn replied, not particularly interested in delving into the subject. He was well aware of what his mentor thought of people trafficking in crystals.
“You happened to get it?!” Forian roared. “What does that even mean? How do you possibly ‘happen to get it’?!”
“Take a deep breath.” The herbalist’s even tone hit the mage like a bucket of cold water. “You don’t get how Tailyn picks things up. It’s always by chance and unexpected — just take his enhancement and card saturation, for example. Have you even realized that your student has regeneration? Going to write him off as a Crobar acolyte now? There’s nothing surprising in the least about him just happening to get it. Go ahead, my boy — break the crystal. Something about this whole thing feels off. I don’t trust the timer.”
Tailyn avoided his mentor’s gaze, realizing full well that they had a serious and highly unpleasant conversation coming. Pulling Matilda out and taking a swing, he brought the end down on the crystal. There was a deafening crash, almost as if a glass bottle had exploded on the stone, and some messages popped up in front of the boy:
Crystal Miner skill detected.
You meet the minimum requirements to mine Rich Crystal Veins.
Would you like to destroy this crystal deposit?
Another wave of ice swept past him — the guards continued to battle their way up toward the people. Selecting yes, the boy was able to stop squinting as the bright blue light died away and left five regular crystals lying there. Five from a single deposit. He could certainly have used something like that in the City of the Dead. In that moment, however, he had to be careful, making sure Forian didn’t suspect anything. He turned toward the mage and held out the crystals.
“Mentor, could you hold onto these and give them to the authorities?”
Valia had already taken in air to ask why the boy was behaving so strangely, but Valanil placed a hand on her shoulder and pushed her down onto the ground. The herbalist could have kissed Tailyn. He was acting far wiser than his years, and the idiot duchess had come that close to ruining everything.
“Hey, get your hands off me!” the girl yelled, forgetting everything else in her indignation.
Forian accepted the crystals and felt the tension inside him subside. His active card switched back from dark strike to cold ring. Without a second’s hesitation, he would have attacked Tailyn if the boy had dropped the crystals into his inventory or, the god forbid, used them on himself. The blue stones belonged to the emperor, and anyone who did anything else was a lawbreaker. It wasn’t up to Tailyn.
“There’s something here!” After making sure Valia wasn’t about to give the boy away, Valanil had gone over to inspect the vacated hollow in the tree. She’d noticed something strange right away, too. The empty space was covered in buttons, and the walls were evenly marked.
<
br /> “It’s a lift,” Forian said. “And who is that?”
A thick stream of creatures came pouring down the road leading to the dig. And while they were still far off, Tailyn could tell who they were. The lix timer had disappeared.
“Halas and his Nemean lion,” he said in a low voice. “The ice won’t stop them.”
“Valanil and Valia, get into the lift,” Forian barked. “Hurry! Tailyn, cast a wave of fire — we have to stop the lixes. It’s okay if the lion gets through. Thirty charges. Now!”
Ka-Li.
The area all the way up to the road itself was covered in fire. Sadly, Berad and his fighters had already headed farther back, so they didn’t get caught, and the guards didn’t care about the fire, either. They continued slipping away on the icy surface just as they had been, their frustrated noises filling the air. But that was fine, as the point of the fire was to keep the group somewhat hidden from their new attackers.
“Why are you still here? Get down below!” Forian didn’t like how the women weren’t getting a move on things.
Forest of Desire (The Alchemist Book #2): LitRPG Series Page 27
