Menacing Misfits: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Darkthorn Academy Book 1)

by Robyn Wideman

  “Took you long enough,” Stann growled.

  Jack was confused. They’d only been gone a few minutes.

  “Time works a little different with the magic I used. By my calculations they’ve been waiting here about two hours,” Mage Nowak said.

  “At least,” Stann said.

  “Hardly a bother,” Lana said, kicking Stann in the shin. “We just finished up a few minutes ago.”

  “Excellent,” Mage Nowak said. “Now for so many of you, I’ll have to use a portal circle.” He waved his hand and a circle of fire surrounded them. He waved his hand and suddenly they were standing in a large portal circle in a bustling market.

  Mage Nowak flicked his hand and the dargow skin and the blackheart carcasses disappeared. “This way,” he said, leading them through the market.

  Jack noticed right away this market was unlike any he’d ever been in before. Most of the people were either dwarven, elven or halfling. There were a few orcs and a few who looked like they might be dark elves. “A very diverse crowd.”

  “The Kingdom of Vernon is north of the Ancient Lands. Chajon is a market city that borders on the three kingdoms of the orcs, dwarves and the elven city of Miako. It is the premier magical trading city in all the world,” Talia said.

  Jack was flabbergasted. They’d used portal magic to cross the entire Ancient Lands? How powerful was Mage Nowak? “How is that possible? The distance is so far.”

  “The portal circle we entered is incredibly powerful. The crazy thing is we’ll be able to use it now. We can come here whenever we want; well, once you or I have enough mana for travel of this distance, but this is awesome,” Talia said excitedly.

  Jack nodded.

  Mage Nowak stopped at an open-air stall. A thick-waisted dwarf with an impressive deep red beard stood at the stall pacing back and forth. He saw Mage Nowak and raised his hands in the air. “Nowak, you old goat. Was that you dropping dead sky chickens on me?”

  Mage Nowak grinned. “Hello, Nasgrin. Well, I certainly didn’t want to carry them through the market. I can’t let such prized carcasses be taken from my hands by a lesser trader.”

  “You almost gave me a heart attack. Nasty buggers they are, but a good size. And that dargow skin, that is prime. Since when do you waste your time on such things?”

  “I’m making an exception today. The dargow caught me by surprise, also had me in a real pickle. These fine young explorers came to my rescue.”

  “Rescue, my eye, you were probably having the time of your life fighting off the dargow and the sky chickens.”

  “Perhaps, but their intentions were pure. What do you have that would be a fair trade for the skin and the blackheart buzzards?”

  Nasgrin rubbed his hand through his thick beard. “Friends of yours? I suppose I have a thing or two worthy of trade.”

  “One of their companions is a young orc, sorely lacking in the armor department, and the other an excellent elven archer,” Mage Nowak said.

  “Give me a minute, I’ll be right back,” Nasgrin said.

  As the dwarf walked into his large tent, Mage Nowak turned to them. “I’m afraid you two wouldn’t really benefit from anything Nasgrin has to offer. The value he offers is suitable more to warriors than mages.”

  Nasgrin popped his head out of the tent. “This orc of yours, does he use any orc magic?”

  “He uses a Borgyn amulet,” Talia said. “But I think he prefers Grungsha.” She then blushed, for a moment she’d forgotten that Stann and Talia had joined them in the market. She turned to Stann. “Am I wrong?

  Stann shook his head. “Grungsha is the most powerful of the orc gods.”

  “Ha, figures. All orc warriors think the god of war will help them,” Nasgrin said before disappearing back into the tent.

  A couple minutes later he came back out. “Here.” He put a black with silver trim belt on the table.

  Jack touched the belt and his magic identified it as being a talisman of Borgyn. It amplified the stone-body spell along with adding 7 health and 5 mana. He handed it to Stann who grinned and nodded in appreciation.

  “And for your archer,” the dwarf merchant said as he put a black double-curved bow on the table. “Don’t be throwing out her old bow, this one doesn’t do any physical damage. But it gives a heck of an elemental kick and has no recharge time between uses.”

  “Elemental arrows?” Lana asked.

  “Elemental energy blasts. Like ethereal arrows. Saves having to lug around arrows.”

  Jack put his hand on the bow and read its stats. The user had a choice of ice or lightning damage. “Very nice.” He handed it to Lana.

  “Excellent,” Lana said. “This gives me a higher damage per shot, and I’ll be able to start upgrading my mana skills. And I can always keep my old bow and arrows for when we need physical damage.”

  “That will do it, trade done, right?” Nasgrin said. He then looked up at Nowak. “What? I see your mangy mage eyes staring at me.”

  “The items aren’t bad, just seems a little light—that skin is in perfect condition.”

  “Light? Why, you greasy mana user, I ought to ring your bell.” He then turned and walked back into his tent, grumbling as he went. “Friends of the mighty mage, need a good deal. What about poor Nasgrin? Can’t he make a profit?”

  Moments later the dwarf came back out with a black dagger with a black and silver handle. He put it on the table. “There. Something any of your team can use. But that’s it. You want anything else from Nasgrin, you bring in more goods.”

  Jack picked up the dagger to check its properties. The dagger wasn’t a godly item, associated with any of the various gods, but instead it was a rune weapon, imbued with power that way. It was a poison dagger, giving the user a poison addition to his or her attacks, and a resistance to poison. The most interesting thing about the dagger was that it gave its attributes, including an increase to mana, even when not in use. All of the benefits of the blade were passive and the wearer just had to have the blade on them to gain the new magic and mana points. All four of them could use it, but Jack had a different plan for this blade. He handed it to Stann. “Put it in your satchel for now.”

  “Are you satisfied that you’ve received fair value for your trade?” Mage Nowak said.

  Jack bowed towards Nasgrin. “Most satisfied. We’ll be honored to trade with you again in the future.”

  Nasgrin grinned for a second before scowling. “Rob me blind and then compliment me, don’t think I don’t see through you, southerner.”

  “Shall we return to where we met or would you like to see more of the market?”

  “Is there anything we should know about the market for later?” Jack asked.

  Mage Nowak rubbed his chin. “That is a good question. The market is full of different vendors, and not all are of the same ilk and honesty. I’d establish trade with two or three different vendors and keep it simple. Nasgrin here is good for trading valuable skins and low- to high-grade weapons. Cherise, the elven lady, you see her three stalls down? She is the best value for potions and such. For unique or especially powerful items, or things of a more questionable nature, go see Miss Caroline Von Ruben. She’s two streets south in the building that looks like a cathedral with all the majestic-colored glass windows. Other than those three, I recommend treading carefully.”

  “That is all we need to know for now, then,” Jack said. “Let’s go back.”

  As they started to walk towards the city portal circle, they could hear Nasgrin yell at them. “Next time, bring swords. Nasgrin always needs more swords.”

  “Interesting fellow,” Jack said to Mage Nowak as they entered the circle.

  “He’s a grump, and a shrewd negotiator, but once he likes you, he’ll always treat you fair. You made a good impression on him today. He’ll do right by you in all future trades,” Mage Nowak said.

  Jack was tempted to stay and see more of the market, but Mage Nowak had already given them three new portal circles, and he th
ought each of them would be valuable to the team. Jack was eager to get back and start working. He was also eager to see Colin and get an idea of how much new territory they’d be able to cover thanks to Mage Nowak’s assistance.

  They walked through the portal and were back where they’d fought the dargow and the blackheart buzzards.

  “See that dune with the hickhorn berry bush?” Mage Nowak said.

  Jack nodded.

  “Walk straight to the bush and you’ll find the entrance to the fortress. You won’t get rich from what’s inside, but I’m confident you’ll find an item or two that give suitable upgrades over your current gear, along with plenty of saleable items to help you with your academy fees.”

  “Thank you for all that you’ve done, Mage Nowak. We can’t thank you enough,” Jack said.

  “Nonsense. It was my pleasure. The way you lot threw yourselves into battle to assist me was admirable, and I just wanted to show my appreciation. It is good to know that Darkthorn still has students with morals and high character. That isn’t always the case.”

  “Will we see you again?” Lana asked.

  “Perhaps. I travel around a lot, but you can always ask for me in Chajon, Caroline knows how to get ahold of me. And maybe one day I’ll come visit you at the Academy. Lord knows it has been a while since I’ve been there. Tell me, does that rogue Chadwick Deeter still quest for the Academy?”

  “He’s there; he’s our questing advisor,” Jack said.

  “Oh, that is rich,” Mage Nowak said with a hearty laugh. “Give him my regards and compliments. Obviously he hasn’t led you too far astray from the path of righteousness. Farewell, my new friends.” And with that, Mage Nowak disappeared into the air.

  “What an interesting man,” Lana said.

  “I’m glad we helped him,” Stann said. “And not just for the gear and portal circles. I genuinely liked him.”

  Jack agreed. “Yes, I think he’s a good mage.”

  “It won’t always be like that,” Talia warned. “Mages with enough power to traverse the entire breadth of the Ancient Lands by themselves aren’t going to be so friendly towards fresh meat like us too often.”

  Talia was right. The odds that all mages they encountered would be so magnanimous wasn’t very high. “We made the right choice this time.”

  “Tell me we can explore the fortress now,” Stann said.

  Jack nodded. “Yes. We’ll explore this one and then head back to the Academy. Next trip we can explore some of the other areas that Mage Nowak led us to.”

  “Yes!” Stann said.

  Jack smiled at Stann’s enthusiasm. His interest in exploring the ruins of his ancestors was contagious. “Lead the way.”

  Stann looked at the hickhorn berry bush and frowned. “I hope he wasn’t messing with us about this being the opening.” He walked forward and when he was just about at the bush the air around Stann started to change and the big orc disappeared. But they could hear him laughing.

  Jack followed Stann and as soon as he stepped near the bush the air changed and he could see an opening in the dune with a tunnel. Jack used one of his Chante sun magic spells to light the way. They walked down the tunnel until they came to a door. Stann opened the door and led them down another corridor that winded around like a maze. They came across a couple skeletons on the floor. Stann stopped and grinned back at Jack. “They were orc warriors.” He picked up their armor and weapons and put the items into his satchel. They moved on and found several rooms that looked like they had been prison cells at one time. After that they discovered an area that was certainly the barracks. Again, they found more skeletons wearing orc armor. They also found a few wearing robes.

  Jack was pleasantly surprised that all the corpses they were finding were staying dead. Perhaps there was some magic that Mage Nowak had used while he was in the fortress? Or had their souls all left their bodies for some other reason? He didn’t understand why some corpses stayed animated while others completely died, perhaps some of the magics that had destroyed the Ancient Lands had blocked the souls of some from leaving their bodies. All Jack knew was that he was happy not to fight every skeleton for once.

  They came to a large room that had rows of orc armor and weapons.

  “Mother of Grungsha!” Stann said. “This is incredible.”

  Jack agreed. There were at least a dozen pieces of armor in the room, although it was worth noting what constituted orc armor varied greatly. Some were full body armor like Stann was currently wearing, others were simply combinations of shoulder armor, gauntlets and some sort of groin and leg protection.

  Stann walked through the room, touching each piece of armor.

  As Stann touched the armor, Jack could see Stann’s potential stats changing. When Stann touched one of the pairs of light partial armor his stats jumped significantly.

  Stann grinned at Jack. “Can you see this?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Borgyn armor. Each piece increases the value of my stone-body magic,” Stann said as he started undressing.

  “Ummm, Stann, what are you doing?” Lana said.

  Stann stopped. He had had his breastplate and shirt off and his muscular upper body was on full display.

  “Shhh, don’t interrupt him,” Talia said.

  Stann laughed. “I’m putting my new armor on. What does it look like?”

  “It looks like you’re getting naked, and I’m not down with that. No offense. You certainly have nothing to be ashamed about, at least from what I’ve seen so far, but I don’t want to see any more.”

  “I have a solution,” Stann said as he started removing his leggings.

  “What’s that?” Lana asked nervously.

  “Look away.”

  “Oh. Oh, ya,” Lana said sheepishly. Slowly, she started to turn her head away.

  Jack laughed and looked away as well. He was pretty sure Talia had no such intentions, but that was between her and Stann as far as Jack was concerned. Despite looking away, Jack was able to see Stann’s stats change as he removed his old armor and put on the new mountain goddess-enhanced armor.

  “What do you think?” Stann said as twirled around. The armor didn’t cover much of Stann at all, leaving plenty of exposed skin.

  “Damn, you look good, my big honey bunny, but as much as I like the eye candy, don’t you think your armor should, you know, cover you?” Talia said.

  Stann grinned. “Watch this.” He cast stone-body and his body looked like his entire body was rock.

  “You look like a pile of rocks, one big, sexy pile of rocks,” Talia said.

  Jack shook his head. Talia was sending the conversation in the wrong direction. “It looks good, Stann. Your health and armor ratings are significantly higher with that armor and stone-body enabled. Definitely worth using.”

  “You won’t have to use as much magic to keep me at full health now,” Stann said as he started to inspect the weapons rack. “Jack, you should try an orc weapon. They’ll be better than that little sword of yours.”

  “Perhaps, but not for casting magic,” Jack said.

  “Who needs to cast when you can chop heads off,” Stann said as he inspected a double-edged axe. He frowned. “I can’t use the magic in this weapon.”

  Jack examined the axe. It had powerful magical properties, but while it was an orc-made blade, it was also a Chaunte fire weapon. “You don’t have enough base mana yet.” Jack could see that unlike most of the gear they’d found that required total mana, this one only counted the user’s base mana. Jack wasn’t sure why the axe had such a requirement, but even without the fire, the axe had a significant amount of physical damage. Once the fire magic is enabled it would be an awesome weapon. “You should keep it, though. You just need to practice using your mana more. And now that you are going to be using stone-body all the time, your mana will increase.”

  Stann nodded. “Sweet.” He then started loading all of the other orc weapons and armor into his satchel. Some of the pieces were too wide
to fit into the bag and would have to be carried by hand.

  “Leave the big stuff here,” Jack said. “We’ll come back for it later on our way out.”

  Stann finished filling his satchel, and they continued exploring the fortress. They found several orc skeletons and removed their gear, but they mostly found the fortress empty.

  As they walked through all the rooms, they discovered a library, or rather a couple of book shelves in a room that looked like it was a study or magical laboratory.

  “I’ll bet this was the main mage’s room,” Talia said. “What was his name again?”

  “Verhax Buntner,” Stann said.

  “Right, I’ll bet this was Verhax’s study,” Talia said.

  “Take all the books,” Jack said. “Colin will be excited to see these.”

  “He won’t be the only one,” Lana said. “Librarian Carr loves it when new books come in. She’ll be giddy for weeks if any of these books are new to her.”

  “And ancient books are not cheap. We’re going to make some serious coin on this. Thank you, Mage Nowak,” Talia said.

  Jack nodded. From what he could see, all of the levels of the fortress they’d discovered, thanks to Mage Nowak, wasn’t accessible from anywhere but the secret hidden entrance. If it weren’t for him, they never would found any of the armor, weapons or books. “Let’s take one more look around and then head home.”

  Talia laughed. “Colin’s head is going to explode when he finds out where we’ve been.”

  35

  “Tell me again,” Colin said.

  Jack laughed. Colin was having a hard time believing everything that had happened during the last trip. “I told you. We helped a powerful mage—”

  “We killed a dargow and a bunch of sky chickens,” Stann interrupted.

  “Sky chickens?” Colin said, looking even more confused.

  “Blackheart buzzards,” Jack said. “Sky chickens is what the dwarven trader, Nasgrin, called them.”

  “Right, when you travelled all the way to Chajon,” Colin said. “Are you sure you all aren’t messing with me?”