46. Quest Complete

 “You guys got this?” Elvis asked his fellow clones. Shade’s Mantle no longer covered their bodies. They had shaped everything ahead of them, creating spiky obstacles for the incoming foes.

“Yes,” El-Two said through gritted teeth, the recently-made magic dagger gripped tight in his hands. The blade appeared paler as if drawing on the magic within had drained its color. “You’re not leaving us, are you?”

Elvis nodded down the tunnel. “Bass can’t take off until he clears this place. And I don’t think he can recover his full strength or heal his legs while Penelope is in her current state.” He held up the enchanted hammer. “You guys aren’t going to stop those things. At most, the pikes will slow them before you’re overrun or the strain forces dispellment. I’m going to try to cause a collapse.”

“Are you mad?” El-Three demanded. “You’ll get Bass and El-Prime too.”

“We have to try.” Elvis shrugged, pointing at a series of pillars further up the tunnel. It seemed the Elder Wyrmkin had shaped stone to stabilize the area. The tremors and battle had cracked most and left them crumbling. “I’ll start from the ones closest to us. Maybe it’ll help control the collapse. If we do nothing, the odds of them getting caught are much higher.”

“Do your thing.” El-Four sighed. “I’m just glad we got the Three-Stage Spear in the bag. El-Prime would’ve been gutted losing it.”

“He’ll be bummed about losing these.” El-Two nodded at the dagger in his hands. “But. Magic Elvis can make it all again.”

“And look sexy as fuck while doing it,” El-Thee added, jaws clenched. He had the fewest spikes, but they were the longest and looked the most like burnt steel. “Get out of here. We got this.”

Magic Elvis nodded, taking off after Bass. The giant lion was favoring his right hind leg. Blood with an azure shimmer soaked the left. He somehow still managed to move at just over half his base speed. It wasn’t enough. The tunnel’s exit was still a long way away, and it would be even longer before he was able to stretch out his wings all the way and take flight.

High mass wasn’t great for long runs. The additional strength gave him the power for bursts of acceleration, but it was difficult to maintain because of all the additional weight. Moving swiftly also drained him more than any other activity. Cover Weaknesses had helped overcome part of the weakness, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Magic Elvis was sure that whatever other upgrades Lukas had picked up from upgrading Alter Mass would only make things harder. 

As Magic Elvis advanced, he heard the cries and roars of monsters throwing themselves on the metal spikes. They were faster than he expected. He had estimated it would take at least another half minute before they reached the other clones. He pushed harder, breathing ragged and his lungs struggling. 

Undoing the clasps across his shoulders helped. The breastplate fell away, along with the shield strapped to his back. When compared to his total current weight, the difference wasn’t much, but it still helped. The vambraces went next, but he didn’t slow enough to deal with the lower body armor pieces.

The loot better be good. El-Prime is going to be bummed about losing all of these investments. Or maybe he’ll just be happy to be alive.

By the time Magic Elvis reached his destination, two out of his three fellow clones had fallen. The third had turned himself into a giant porcupine, but half of his spikes had lost turgidity. It wouldn’t surprise him if the magic shell collapsed within a handful of seconds. Trial and error had taught them that death and dispellment weren’t the only way for them to go. Pushing their arcane techniques and spells to the point of depleting personal magic stores made their spells destabilize and turn into fuel. 

He focused on the task at hand. The clones had done their job—sacrificing themselves to protect El-Prime and see the mission completed. Now, it was his turn to do the same. “It was fun making you,” Magic Elvis whispered, gripping the hammer with both hands. “I promise to make another you.” He adopted a balanced stance, ready to put everything he had into his next blow. “A better you.”

It seemed the Elder Wyrmkin hadn’t as much built supports for their tunnel as much as uncovered part of existing architecture. Magic Elvis couldn’t tell if it was all part of some ancient underground complex built to house the slumbering silver serpent or if some part of the old Iskander history had been forgotten. Sections of stone looked molten and warped, as if someone had melted ambient materials into slag and used it to patch damage and stabilize the structure. Magic Elvis targeted one such bit.

“Frar!” He swung with all of his might. The burst of speed from all of the stored power and combined spell added to the impact enchantment Kwame had inscribed. Magic Elvis didn’t just crack the pillar. He swung through it, shattering stones and sending shrapnel everywhere. It buckled, and he got out of the way just in time to avoid chunks of the crumbling pillar.

It had set off a chain reaction as he had hoped. Cracks also spread through the next pillar as ceiling stability faltered. Magic Elvis raced onward and struck it, too. The hammer’s energy was spent, and it would take far too long for the magic to recover, but that didn’t matter. He had already thrown the equilibrium off balance. Magic Elvis only needed to keep pushing to ensure all the dominos came down.

By the time he reached the third pillar, he could hear the individual snapping of jaws and claws on stone. The creatures were almost upon him. Only pillar segments had fallen. All he had done so far was create a handful of obstacles, which was nothing to monsters that excelled at climbing and leaping. 

The swarm reached the first pillar. Up close, they looked like mutated troglodytes but featured strong reptilian features. They looked flimsy and weak. But the numbers would inevitably overwhelm just about anyone.

Magic Elvis struck the fifth pillar. His muscles burned, and the Haste spell faltered out. He didn’t have much left in him. A second strike expanded the cracks. A third got chunks to rain from above. The beasts were at the third pillar when he landed the next blow. 

A monstrous chunk of ceiling fell just beyond the first pillar, crushing a chunk of the swarm. The creatures didn’t slow. They found paths over, under, and around the obstacle. Fortunately, it was enough to start the collapse. More pieces of the ceiling fell, burying all but the frontrunners of the swarm and cutting off the primary path to the silver serpent. It was likely the trembling and collapse would also bury the other path, or so Magic Elvis hoped.

Stone fell behind him, too, blocking off his escape path. A pair of the mutants reached Magic Elvis. He put two down with ease despite his tiredness, then, a third leaped onto him. It bit his shoulder, but thanks to the toughness of Alter Mass, the injury wasn’t too deep. He threw himself into a nearby wall. Crunches and cracks followed as bones broke between his hardened body and the stone surface.

Unfortunately, there was half a dozen more. Even if any escape route remained, it was unlikely Magic Elvis was going to make it out. Instead, he prioritized taking as many as possible with him. It was Magic Elvis and the persona of Elvis’s last stand. El-Prime had declared that they were no longer going to be twins. He wanted to be an only child for the time being. It made no sense for a second Zaun brother to exit the undercity.

________________________

Lukas felt the clones perish one at a time. He felt their determination, focus, and pain. There was also fear and concern, not for themselves but for him. He was amazed at how the three of them pushed their minds, bodies, and magic to the limits, creating Shadowsteel pikes and barriers. He doubted his ability to do the same without passing out. 

Then, there was Elvis. The clone kept going until the end, doing the persona justice. He wasn’t yet sure whether to kill him off altogether. Lukas enjoyed the little creations from the smithy. However, they had, at most, two to three weeks left in Iskander. It was best spent preparing for the job and their departure, not trying to learn new techniques. However, he hated how hard the owner and foreman pushed the staff and the treatment they suffered. It was tempting to rob them on the way out. 

I don’t need Elvis for that. We have the ins and outs. 

Silverspine had other quests in the area, but if they were urgent, the journal would tell him. There was also the risk of the journal detecting an interest, deeming the state of things urgent, and pushing him towards them. The sooner he moved on, the better.

The roar of collapsing stones faded into the distance as Bass left the tunnel behind. He raced through the low cavern, up several narrow passages, and it wasn’t long before they found the waterways. The giant lion hobbled the last of the way up the familiar tunnel where it had all started and spread his wings as soon as he was clear. Two monstrous flaps were all he needed to take off, and then they were speeding to safety. It seemed he didn’t want to bother with the narrow passages connecting to the elevator and intended to fly all the way to the top.

Lukas took the opportunity to check the journal’s remaining offerings. 

You have gained two charges for empowering the journal.

Please pick from the following:

Inspector’s Compendium II: Gained the power to inspect people, gaging awakened pillars, general ranks, and overall power level. You need contact for the inspection and be wary of anti-scrying and divination wards. They might warn the target of inspection attempts.
Cost: 2 Charges

Seeker’s Library: Copy any book, text, or scroll into the journal and call them forth as and when needed. The target must remain in contact with the journal for duplication. The longer and more complex the text, the longer the process will take.
Cost: 1 Charge

Hidden Compartment: The journal gains a one-foot by one-foot storage space. Nothing bigger than the journal may enter the hidden compartment, and everything within is hidden from divination and scrying. Anything stored within the space can be carried through portals without concern.
Cost: 1 Charge

Deceptive Facade: Ward yourself against all who wish to study, understand, or investigate you using spells or shard abilities. Note how you wish to be perceived in the journal. Their analysis will often prove faulty and provide inconsistent or pre-determined results.
Cost: 1 Charge.

Escape Portal: Gain the power to open a portal to a random city or settlement once every lunar cycle, escaping to somewhere without conflict. You may sacrifice an essence sphere to have the portal take you somewhere you’ve been before.
Cost: 2 Charges

No Wizard’s Spellbook? Is it because I picked the sorcerer’s path?

Spellweaver is incompatible with Wizard’s Spellbook. The possibility of disastrous consequences for you and myself has compelled me to remove it from the pool of choices.

That explains why Deceptive Facade is there.

Although the next rank of Inspector’s Compendium seemed useful, Lukas didn’t want to lose out on the possibilities the other gifts offered. Escape Portal was tempting, but he didn’t trust Silverspine not to manipulate destinations and drop him off in a location or situation where he would be compelled to serve her interests.

Of the remaining three, he knew he wanted Hidden Compartment straight away. Lukas had always wanted some sort of spatial storage, but spells related to them were beyond his capabilities in his old life. Hidden Compartment didn’t offer much space. However, it was enough to store shards, essences, money, and valuables. He especially liked that it would allow him to carry magical objects around without detection and through portals. He’d been too injured and tired to care about everything they lost during their journey to Iskander but he refused to let the same happen again.

That’s a steal for just one charge.

Even though Lukas liked the idea of Deceptive Facade, he decided against it. Half-truths and lies would suffice going forward. Initially, he had underestimated the rarity and potency of identification abilities. Now, he had better lies in store regarding his abilities, and he had no plans of opening an identification business.

Seeker’s Library was ambiguous about the time demands of copying things, but he still preferred it. There was far too much about Fracture, the pillars, shards, essences, and magic that he didn’t know and needed to understand. His knowledge and memorization abilities were also far from perfect. He liked the idea of calling forth any information he needed for a reminder. He would’ve loved an option that allowed the clones to summon the journal and use it without him nearby, but that wasn’t yet a possibility. However, that didn’t mean they couldn’t study the library’s contents while he slept. The knowledge would come to him once they were dispelled.

A new page appeared.

Journal Abilities:

• Inspector’s Compendium I

• Hidden Compartment I

• Seeker’s Library I

Lukas planned to visit magical stores and the research center and perhaps even break into one of the academies to copy their valuable secret texts and scrolls. If the library could copy and store spellforms, his life would be considerably easier going forward.

When he thought of Hidden Compartment, both open pages darkened, and his hand easily passed through the opening. He dropped the ritual leather roll and his essences through the hole. He held onto what little money he had left on his person. It wasn’t much and would come in useful soon. The sacks his clones had gathered from the Elder Wyrmkin settlement contained several valuables, but he left them alone for now. Penelope would want to go through them, and he hadn’t yet decided how much to share with her.

A neat list appeared afterward, detailing all of the contents. When he thought about it, there adjacent page also filled with all of the arcane words he knew and used.

Frar: Haste

Skina: Shine

Bryna: Sharpen

Laeknir: Heal

Skugga: Shadow

Well, that's useful.

Delvers and guards cleared out of the way when Bass reached the uppermost level. They watched him and his passengers with wide eyes, mostly studying the unconscious pair. Greedy eyes also eyed the giant lion’s bloody hind leg. Lukas wasn't sure why.

Is it the magic charged blood?

“Is that the Cold Fire Sorcerer?” Someone asked out loud.

“Can't be,” another said. “One doesn't simple take down a member of the—”

“Forget her! Is that a bloody Wyrmkin?”

“Why are there Wyrmkin in the bloody undercity?” A concerned murmur washed over the crowd.

“Did they foil a raid?”

“Wait until the union hears about this.”

No one got in the way when they exited the undercity. They skipped all inspections and questioning. The healer's post just outside offered to help but they backed off as soon as Bass growled at them.

“Keep your incompetent paws off Penny!”

“Look at those burns,” the woman protested. “We just need to ensure she's stable.”

“And not infectious or carrying anything dangerous. What if—”

“Watch your tongue, you filthy excuse for a mage,” Bass snapped. “Or I'll tear it out for the rats to gnaw.”

The woman flinched, going pale and backpedalling. When Bass took a step forward, she turned on her heel and ran, screaming at the top of her lungs. He followed for half a dozen feet but took to the air as soon as they were out in the open and had no obstacles overhead. The familiar. flew to Esther's not needing any direction or instructions.