Dragon Magus 1: A Progression Fantasy Saga

by DB King

  Fenix furrowed his brow in thought. “Perhaps Raphael could focus on incapacitating and disorienting our foes while I tear them apart or draw their attention with my magic. That should provide plenty of openings for Eliza to strike any stragglers or survivors down.”

  “Yes, that sounds like something we could try,” Raphael agreed. “Perhaps we can do that tomorrow when we hunt treants.”

  “Hold on,” Sylvia interrupted them. “You and Fenix practiced your teamwork for at least one morning before bringing it to an actual battlefield. If you don’t do the same with Eliza, she could get badly hurt or even killed.”

  “That’s right. We should do some of that tomorrow before we head out,” Raphael said, recalling how badly Fenix had been mauled in their training session aboard the Sparrow’s Light. “Could you help us with that, Sylvia?”

  “I’m always happy to beat you up, Raphael,” the elf replied, a grin on her face. “Or cut, burn, and freeze you. I’ll even bite you. You only have to ask.”

  “Uh, thanks?” Raphael stammered as Sylvia leaned over him, running her tongue over her teeth in a very disturbing manner.

  “So now all we need to figure out is which ship we’ll take back to Lucia City,” Eliza said, placing a hand on the elf’s face and pushing her back into her seat. “The Blue Gull? Or the Sparrow’s Light? I’m personally partial to the former, but if we can be of further assistance to the townsfolk of Vitoria by hunting down more treants, I’d be happy to stay for another week too.”

  “I’d like to stay longer.” Fenix grinned. “I want to get as many Spell Cores as I can. It’d also be nice to catch up with the other battlemages from the Academy. Master Victis himself might make the trip, too. He’s always complaining how bored he is in his letters to me.”

  Raphael glanced at Eliza, noting the uncomfortable expression that had crept over her face. He remembered her mentioning how she hadn’t gotten along with the battlemages of the Academy. It wasn’t surprising that she had no real desire to meet any of them.

  “What about you, Raphael?” Sylvia asked.

  “I would rather go back to Lucia City earlier. I want to check on Koshi,” he replied. “Also, I think it’s a good idea to ask the Guild Master for help with Tiresias’s ring as soon as we can. What if there are others like Tiresias, people who’ve been driven mad by enchanted artifacts like this? If we can find them earlier, we can stop them. Or at least lessen the harm they can do.”

  “That’s a good point, Raphael,” Fenix said. “We should follow up with the Guild Master as soon as we can. Also, like I said, the battlemages can easily mop up the rest of the treants, so Vitoria should be fine without us.”

  “And we can still squeeze in a bit of hunting tomorrow, Fenix, for you to gather more Spell Cores,” Eliza pointed out. “So we’ve decided then? We’ll take the Blue Gull back to Lucia City?”

  Raphael and Fenix nodded in assent. Sylvia sighed with relief.

  “Oh, thank goodness. I don’t want to stay in this dump a moment longer than we have to,” she said. “If you’d all wanted to wait for the Sparrow’s Light, I’d have had to change your minds. By force.”

  “This dump? A clean, warm inn with tasteful baskets of hanging flowers?” Fenix shot back. “It’s an absolute paradise compared to your room before Eliza showed up. Maybe we should stay for the entire week, if only to make sure you spend less time rolling around in your own garbage and used chamber pots.”

  “Alright, I’m going to bed,” Raphael announced, pushing his chair back and standing up. “Sleep well, everyone.”

  “Sweet dreams, Raphael!” Sylvia said, tightening her chokehold around Fenix’s neck. “I’m looking forward to beating you up in the morning!”

  Chapter 23

  The mayor burst into the inn’s common room shortly after daybreak, waving a small strip of paper in his hand.

  “Sir Hell Drake! Mr. Raphael!” Mr. Bernardi exclaimed upon spotting Raphael, who was sitting at a table, having just finished a small bowl of boiled oats for his breakfast. “This message just arrived in our pigeon coop! It bears urgent news for your war party!”

  Eliza and Fenix emerged from the kitchen, each of them holding a steaming bowl of oats. They’d gotten up only shortly after Raphael.

  “What is it, Mr. Bernardi?” Raphael asked, accepting the strip of paper that the mayor thrust into his hand.

  “It’s better if you just read it, Mr. Raphael,” the mayor replied. “It’s a message from your Guild Master, addressed to your Captain. He mentions you by name, too.”

  “Let’s have a look, Raphael,” Fenix said, putting down his bowl of oats and coming to stand beside him. Eliza did the same, a quizzical look on her face.

  Raphael smoothed out the piece of paper in his hand and read through its message, written in the smooth elegant script he’d come to recognize as the Guild Master’s:

  Sylvia. Lucia City is under attack by monsters flooding out from the junkyard. I don’t know if you’ve completed your assignment yet, but if you haven’t, drop everything and Recall to the Guild House immediately. If you have, good. Stop tormenting the locals and Recall right away. And yes, I’ll waive the cost of the Recall charms for your entire war party.

  Bring Raphael to me when you arrive. A Sister Superior of the Crescent Moon came looking for him. Something has happened to his father.

  Seriously. Get back here. I’m not kidding.

  Yours,

  Yun Shen.

  Raphael’s head spun as he tried to make sense of what he’d just read. Monsters from the junkyard? Sister Amalia looking for him at the Guild House? Something happening to Koshi?

  “This letter is dated four days ago, which would be just about the right time it takes for a messenger pigeon to arrive here from Lucia City,” Fenix pointed out. “By now, the Guild Master will be aware that we have indeed completed our assignment in Vitoria, which means we must leave right away. I’ll go kick the elf awake.”

  The battlemage stormed upstairs before anyone could voice a reminder about what would happen to him if he did, indeed, kick Sylvia.

  “Let’s go pack our things, Raphael,” Eliza said, in a transparent attempt to keep him focused and stop him from spiraling into anxiety over Koshi.

  “Yes, let’s go,” he replied. “Thank you, Eliza.”

  She gave him a shy, puzzled smile. “Thank me? What for?”

  “For… just being you, I guess.”

  “You’re welcome, I guess?” A faint blush crept over Eliza’s cheeks. She patted him on the shoulder before heading upstairs to pack.

  Raphael reread the Guild Master’s message one more time, his heart sitting heavily in his chest, before following her.

  Sylvia leaped out of bed with joy upon hearing the news from Fenix. The war party gathered their belongings and were ready to leave within a few minutes. Returning to the Burnished Mug’s common room, they made their final farewells to the mayor and the innkeeper, and Sylvia told the war party to take out their Recall charms.

  “Alright! We’re out of here!” the elf whooped. “Just break your charm in half, down the thin red line across its middle, and its enchantment will warp you right back to the Guild House. No fuss, no ships, no fish, and no more sweaty trysts with handsome shanty-singing but ultimately dismally performing sailors!”

  “What trysts? You spent all your time on the Sparrow’s Light beating Raphael up or napping. Seriously, you slept more than fourteen hours every day. What kind of lazy sluggard does that?” Fenix said. “Also, as I’ve pointed out before, shanties aren’t really a thing on Lucarian ships. You’ve really got to stop perpetuating ignorant stereotypes and making unfounded generalizations.”

  “Shut up, Fenix!”

  Raphael took out his Recall charm. It was a product of Vector magic. Would it be wrong to use something that Koshi disapproved of? But if Koshi was hurt or needed his help in some way, Raphael needed to get to his side as soon as he could. He couldn’t afford to wait another day for the B
lue Gull to arrive and then embark on a weeklong journey by ship.

  “Let’s go, everyone,” he said, making his choice. Koshi would understand, he hoped.

  Eliza, Fenix, and Sylvia nodded. Together, they broke their Recall Charms.

  Raphael felt a sudden gust of wind against his face. He blinked, and then he was standing in the Guild House’s lobby, right in front of Mr. Esposito’s desk.

  Looking up from his work, the Guild’s clerk retrieved a ledger from one of the drawers of his desk, opened it, and scrawled something down with his quill.

  “Raphael, armsman, rank ten. Recall charm used on the third day of the month of Apras, in the 843rd year of the post-Chimeric era,” Mr. Esposito muttered as he wrote.

  “Wait!” Sylvia said, stepping forward and placing her hands on Mr. Esposito’s desk. “Bony’s waiving the cost of our charms. Check with him later.”

  Raphael glanced over his shoulder. Eliza and Fenix were by his side. The war party had successfully returned to the Guild House and to whatever challenges that awaited them here.

  “Be that as it may, Sylvia, I still have to document this,” Mr. Esposito said, sighing. “The Guild Master has left word that he wants to see you right away upon your arrival. He’s in his quarters at the moment, so have your war party step on daises three to six, and I’ll warp all of you there immediately.”

  “You were much more fun when you were younger, Ricardo.” Sylvia pouted. “And a lot more handsome.”

  To Raphael’s surprise, the clerk’s dour demeanor cracked and fell apart beneath the warm smile that spread across his face. Mr. Esposito nodded. “Yes. Yes, I was, wasn’t I? Those were the days, eh? I remember them fondly, Sylvia.”

  “As do I.” The elf stroked his cheek and returned his smile.

  “Be on your way, now,” Mr. Esposito said, after a wistful sigh. “Don’t keep the Guild Master waiting!”

  The war party made their way to the assigned daises, and after another gust of air hit their faces, they found themselves in a large, tall-ceilinged chamber. An easel with a half-finished oil painting of a waterfall stood in its northernmost corner, and simple but artful paintings of landscapes hung at regular intervals on its gleaming wooden walls. Ringed by pin-boards of charts and maps, a large, yet elegantly understated desk of polished oak sat in the middle of the room. Curtains of red velvet had been drawn back from massive crystal windows to allow the early morning sun in.

  What a clean, bright, and comfortable place, Raphael thought. I’m sure it’s nothing like Sylvia’s room before Eliza made her clean it up.

  “Bony!” the elf called out to a robed figure standing before the window. “We’re here! Spill it, whatever you’ve got! And I hope you’ve hidden away all the naughty paintings of nubile young goblin and dwarf maidens everyone knows you like so much, because if you haven’t, I’m showing them to the kids!”

  The Guild Master turned to face the war party. As before, his fleshless countenance sent chills running down Raphael’s spine, but when he spoke, his voice was kind and patient, if a little exasperated because of the elf’s greeting.

  “Good morning to you too, Sylvia, and hello, everyone else. Come, all of you,” the Guild Master said, waving them over. “Look out the window. Focus your mind on any location, and the enchantment worked into its glass surfaces will magnify it for your eyes.”

  Yun Shen’s room was evidently located on the top floor of one of the Guild House’s many towers. It provided a clear vantage point overlooking the southern end of the Lucia City. Through the windows, Raphael could see past the market place and the southern city gates and look toward the junkyard.

  Casting his gaze southward, he managed to spot where his house was or rather, where it used to be, because the home where he’d grown up was gone, reduced to a trampled, smoking heap of refuse. The sight chilled his heart.

  As Raphael looked around, he realized that it wasn’t only his house that had been destroyed. Many of the residences near the southern city gates had either been demolished or reduced to smoking husks. The gates themselves had been battered open, leaving a gaping hole in the city’s walls. Just behind that was the marketplace. It was deserted, its painted tiles littered with debris, flattened tents, and demolished shop-fronts.

  The hospice is near the southern gates! Raphael peered frantically to where the Crescent Moon hospice was supposed to be, and he gasped as the enchanted window brought it into close view. The long stone building still stood, but its walls were cracked and its doors had been torn off their hinges.

  “It was attacked by monsters, but the King’s guardsmen and constables managed to hold off the monsters until one of our war parties arrived,” the Guild Master said, somehow sensing Raphael’s rising panic at the sight of the ravaged building. “The hospice residents have been evacuated to the Abbey of the Crescent Moon for now. None of them were badly hurt, though the guardsmen and constables suffered heavy casualties.”

  “In your letter, you mentioned that something happened to Koshi.” Raphael turned to face Yun Shen. “Where is he? Is he alright?”

  “Several days after your departure for Vitoria, a Sister Superior of the Crescent Moon showed up in our lobby, demanding to meet you,” the Guild Master explained. “Her name was Sister Amalia, I believe. Mr. Esposito informed her of your whereabouts and explained that you were on assignment, so she left a message with him, saying that your father, Koshi, had departed the hospice late at night and returned to his house. The guardsmen posted at the southern city gates told her that they’d last seen Koshi walking into the junkyard the coming morning. Apparently, this was a fairly frequent occurrence, so they made no attempt to question or stop him. One day later, monsters emerged from the junkyard and began attacking the city.”

  “He went to the junkyard alone? In his condition?” Raphael gasped. He turned to leave. “No. I’ve got to go find him now!”

  “Wait.” Fenix caught him by the shoulder. “Didn’t you hear what the Guild Master just said? Monsters are coming out of the city. You can’t just go charging in without thinking.”

  “I can handle any number of night-fiends or howlers,” Raphael said. “I’ll be alright.”

  “Think, Raphael!” Fenix swept his hand across the window. “Look at the state of the city! Could night-fiends or howlers do something like this?”

  No, they couldn’t, Raphael admitted silently. Night-fiends and howlers would never attack human settlements, and even if they tried, unless they numbered in their many tens of thousands, he couldn’t imagine them posing any serious threat to the regiment of guardsmen posted at the southern city gates.

  “What’re we looking at, Bony?” Sylvia asked.

  “Skeleton warriors and bale-wights,” Yun Shen replied. “Attacking in endless waves close to ten thousand strong. When they are destroyed, their remains disappear. Then more monsters emerge after approximately six hours. As of this morning, I have confirmed the presence of powerful Time Magic at work, alongside the obvious taint of Necromancy, which means that our war parties might have been, and still are, fighting the same enemies repeatedly. In fact, I am fairly certain that someone or something is using Spatial Magic of the Highest Order to retrieve the vanquished monsters before employing equally powerful Time Magic to restore them to their original state and send them forth again.”

  “That sounds bad. Who do we have on the frontlines?” The elf folded her arms, her face devoid of levity and her voice cold and curt. It was a side of Sylvia that Raphael had rarely seen. He had never heard of skeleton warriors or bale-wights before, but they had to be formidable foes indeed if the mere mention of them was enough to put the elf in such a serious mood.

  “Bjorn holds overall command. He and several other captains intervened with their war parties shortly after the first attack began and prevented the city from being overrun. The King has deployed every knight, guardsman, and constable he could to support us, but as you’re aware, Lucario’s military has been in shambles for decades.
” The Guild Master turned his fleshless gaze to the beleaguered city once more. “According to the latest report, we have three thousand armsmen and two hundred mages still in fighting condition. The King has a thousand guardsmen, a dozen knights, and two hundred constables remaining, but as you know…”

  “We can’t depend on them,” Sylvia finished Yun Shen’s sentence. “The Hell Drakes are the first and only line of defense for the people of Lucia City. Bjorn’s tough, but he can’t hold forever, even if he has backup.”

  “Exactly.” The Guild Master nodded. “I have reached out to the other High Captains, but they’re much farther away than you were in Vitoria, and messenger pigeons take time to arrive at their destination. Still, we can expect reinforcements over the next few days, as they use their Recall charms to return to the Guild House. Once that happens, we can work out some way to rotate our forces and preserve their freshness.”

  “Just pushing the monsters back over and over again isn’t the answer,” Raphael said, running the numbers through his head and trying to wrap his mind around the entire situation. “Even if we can hold them back now, we can’t be sure that something might change and allow the enemy to overrun us. We need to enter the junkyard, find out where they’re coming from or who is sending them, and put an end to all of this.”

  “Go on, young man,” the Guild Master prompted. “Let us hear your thoughts.”

  “If the Hell Drakes have been holding back the monsters for days, that means they have already vanquished them several times already and can do so again several times more, unless a huge change of some sort happens. Once they defeat the latest wave, they need to send a war party into the junkyard to do what I just said.” Raphael filled his mind with the light of the Dragon Meridian, using it to slow down his racing heart and calm the roiling sensation of anxiety in his stomach. “Only they haven’t done that yet because they’re unable to. They can’t navigate the junkyard.”