B4 Chapter 24 - Archmage

How does he know our names? was Vivi’s first panicked thought. She was ready to open her void core if it came to a fight, but the archmage hadn’t taken a step closer, and his aura was still calm.

“I don’t know, I don’t knowIdontknow!” Lucius said in a panic. “Should we run?”

Vivi didn’t respond. Lucius wouldn’t be of much help. Shilman Fried knew a lot. He knew not only all of their names, including Lucius’s presence and Lortel’s real name, but he also knew of Banishment Portal. Do mind-reading spells exist? Vivi asked.

“No, I don’t know, no,” Lucius said. “No, definitely not. Those don’t exist.”

Vivi wanted to bite her lip. If he hadn’t read their minds, maybe he was the dark-cloaked figure that cast the banishment? That would explain how he knew, though Vivi doubted it. Most likely, he was involved in one way or another, and the one who cast the banishment had informed Shilman that Vivi was a target.

That theory was a stretch as well, but Vivi couldn’t come up with anything else.

“I—” Cael was about to say.

“Irrelevant,” Shilman interrupted. “You are a trickster. I have not asked for your opinion. The only one of you with any substance is Vivian Runeblessed.”

He pointed his staff at Cael. The tip was pitch black like the void, until ether twirled within, glowing white.

In a split-second decision, Vivi summoned her sword from spatial storage and activated Shield Of Nature in between Cael and Shilman. She activated her void core.

The clarity of the void realm cleared her of distractions, and she realized a better move would have probably been to dash straight for the mage in hopes to kill him. Defending was her weakness, but perhaps she could force void ether into Shield Of Nature to block whatever Shilman was about to do.

What if he fires at Alda instead?

Before Vivi could come up with an answer, the spell activated. Not as a projectile; but as an instant zap, as if a bolt of lightning had struck. It zapped over Vivi’s defences, descending on Cael’s head before Vivi could react.

Cael collapsed on the ground, unconscious.

Shilman then moved the staff to Alda, and the same trick hit her as well. A lightning-like zap came from Shilman’s staff, hitting Alda instantly. The spell’s effects hit Alda’s core and squeezed it. Alda and her spirit fought harder, being a third elevation hunter, and her coating of ether protected her core. A second later, Vivi felt the exact moment the protective layer cracked, and the zap found Alda’s core, taking her consciousness with it. She fell on the ground.

Dear mother of ether, Vivi thought, and she half expected the skill, whatever that was, to hit her as well. Her coating of ether was definitely stronger. Maybe she could fight.

Shilman didn’t attack. Instead, he calmly wrote in the air with his index finger, leaving wisps on the path his finger took. He wrote in Ythar Standard, “They’re alive. Call off void ether.”

She remained calm in the void realm. Was this a trap? Did he want her to shut off her void core to have an easier time making her fall unconscious as well?

“Comply,” Lucius said in fear. “We’ll probably die otherwise.”

Queen Adalene was frozen in apprehension in the corner of her seat, as far from Shilman as she could. She and Shilman didn’t seem to be very trusted allies. The soldiers at the edges of the room, too, were uneasy.

I just need to beat him, and we can make an escape.

She made the decision, and in that instant, as if sensing her resolve, Shilman Fried pushed his aura outward.

He used an exalted ascension skill. The ten thousand wisps of perfectly controlled power coated him with sheer strength. Barely any wisps escaped from his hold. He channeled each bit of ether, as if the dangers of ascension skills Vivi had learned about meant nothing to him. In turn, the ten thousand ether he wielded was exponentially more powerful than what Vivi used.

She could feel that. The absolute control, and the threatening glare behind it. If Vivi chose to fight, all of those wisps would be directed at his staff with perfect control to blast her down.

Shilman wrote more with his finger. “I am not here to fight. Let us talk.”

Vivi gritted her teeth. Her void core was already more than open, with hundreds of void wisps flooding into her body, while threatening to fully burst open the seal in her core. This could get difficult. She placed Dawnpour back into spatial storage as a sign that she didn’t want to fight.

Then she burned ether. A thousand at first, directing everything into her void core. It didn’t shut, and she was forced to burn more, pushing all of the wisps to shut her void core, more and more, until it finally shut at over seven thousand wisps burned.

Her eyesight and senses returned, and she became aware of her racing heart and the adrenaline filling her body. Her clear thoughts from the void realm were replaced with panic. Should she run or fight?

“For a seventeen year old girl,” Shilman said calmly, calling off his ascension skill, “you certainly carry a lot of power. As expected, you barely know how to control any of it.”

“What do you want?” Vivi asked, voice less firm than she would have liked.

Shilman smiled. He stepped forward, toward the banquet table. He lifted his staff, and with the same spell, he zapped Queen Adalene. She fell asleep on her throne.

Her guardsmen at the edges of the room flinched, though nobody moved to action. Nobody here was strong enough to oppose the archmage.

“Clear the room,” Shilman ordered. “Nobody will be hurt. Your Queen will not be harmed.”

The guards remained frozen, until Shilman pointed his staff at the door, opening it with some sort of levitation spell. “Out,” he commanded.

Finally, every guardsman scurried out of the room, leaving their queen unconscious. Shilman barely reacted. He closed the door with the same trick.

Calmly, he stepped down and took a seat on the opposite end of the rectangular table. He spoke to Vivi. “Please sit.”

Hesitantly, she did so, though she did not pick anything to eat. She sat on guard, frowning at Shilman.

He smiled back. “I consider myself a pragmatic mage. I am not cruel for no reason if it does not benefit me. Would you like to know why you were banished, Vivian?”

“I would like to discuss things calmly, yes,” Vivi said.

“You were an obstacle to our goals,” Shilman said. “You are an unpredictable young woman, with far more power than knowledge. Manipulating you would have been risky. It was easier to avoid complications by banishing you, despite the benefits your runesmithing could have offered.”

The adrenaline wasn’t calming down. What was happening? Renewal and Norfolm had nine levels of the underground between them.

“It is an interesting coincidence that Banishment Portal brought you here,” Shilman continued. “Now that you’re here, you’ll be too late to stop our advancement regardless. Your allies in Shivenar will not advance to the surface.”

“Do you intend to explain what is happening?” Vivi asked. “Or are you merely hoping to scare me into submission?”

“I’ll entertain you,” Shilman said, looking strangely amused. With his ethereal clothes, he reminded Vivi of the Twilight Shaman she’d summoned on the fourth level. “I might have a use for you as well, now that you are no longer a risk to our operations. This inside-carving technology is mountains above any runesmithing method. You slingshot launchers will be a great help as well.”

A scowl found its way to her face. “How do you know about those?”

“Your friend Patryn is helping us greatly,” Shilman said.

She paused, staring at the other end of the table.

These monsters. They’d kidnapped Patryn?

“He is alive and well,” Shilman said. “He is merely helping us deal with an issue at hand. The slingshot launchers will help, though they aren’t a necessity.”

Vivi had way too many questions. Mainly, who did Shilman refer to with us, and what the hell were they trying to achieve?

He clearly knew those were the questions Vivi wanted answers to. “I believe I don’t have any reason to kill you,” he said. “If anything, there’s a good chance we share a mutual goal. Perhaps we can work together. You could assist us with inside-carving.”

“I doubt I share goals with you,” Vivi said. And I will never work with someone who banished me to the tenth level on purpose, while kidnapping my friend.

“The fifth elevation hunters from Freimar, the strongest powers in all of the world, have come to an agreement,” Shilman said. “We are going to kill Ythar.”