The Hounds hunt, the Champions scheme, but it is the Calamities that kill. An estimated thirty percent of deaths during a Dungeon Break can be directly linked to their actions, and at times it is much, much higher. Calamities are walking, moving horrors of our world, and Archmages are needed—if not technically required—to kill them.
There have been many. In recent times our Empress, Izzolma Mediciios Calluma, has personally slain seven. Her most famous kill was when she slew Meagar, the Ant King, who very nearly overwhelmed the legions stationed around the Dungeon. Others have come in the forms of worms, bulls and even those who pretend to be human, but one fact remains constant.
They will kill. If you see a Calamity, and you will know when you do, do not fight. Run. Run home and scream so loud the Gods awaken from their slumber, and hope an Archmage arrives in time to kill it.
If an Archmage is reading this, I welcome you to our ranks. A piece of advice from one who is likely long dead; do not hesitate. Do not let lies deceive you, should they prove able to talk. Do not let mercy stay your hand, should they limp and mewl like newborn kittens. Kill, or they will repay your mercy with the deaths of a million innocents.
Excerpt from The Beasts of the Dungeon.
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The Royal Mirranian Army. Twenty thousand strong again, hardened by the invasion. Soldiers dying, soldiers growing, new soldiers recruited and trained. Mages integrated much more closely than before, its supply train decentralized through spatial storage.
Sixty percent veterans, forty percent raw recruits, with some five hundred mages providing everything from support to firepower. Nearly every single soul blooded over the last eight months, dozens of companies ranging all over the Kingdom to stamp out banditry.
Marcus looked at it all, at the swarm of men so vast he could scarcely count them, and wondered if he would ever get used to that many people.
A company of infantry marched past, feet all but smashing into the ground, and further up ahead a crossbowman squad honed their aim. A pair of mages were tending to a woman whose leg had bent far too sharply in the wrong direction, and Marcus knew that some distance behind him was a half dozen mobile smithies forging more bolts.
The things one could take with them when storage was no longer an issue.
…And thank the silent Gods he'd ensured the Academy trained enough mages to maintain the spatial boxes. He must have made thousands of the damn things by now. All stacked up neatly in wagons, who themselves were magically enhanced, or carried on the back of pack-animals.
No more single targets of opportunity, no more wiping out a fourth of their supplies in one targeted strike.
"The army is assembled," Elly reported grandly, gesturing to the sprawling—yet somehow neat—camp. "We march to do the bidding of the King."
Marcus rolled his eyes. "While I technically did give the order, Vistus is the one who advised us to marshal our forces. This whole 'praise be to the King, my Lord and Master' routine is growing stale."
"I vehemently disagree," she replied, a half grin on her face. "It still makes you uncomfortable."
"Of course it makes me uncomfortable. Your rapid mood swings would be dangerous without the ability to bend steel, and I never quite know when this is going to go from 'if you touch him you die' to 'I'm bored and going to stage a military coup'."
Elly snorted. "A girl likes to stay unpredictable. It probably won't be a coup, though. Too many Mirranian officers now, who go all hushed and awed when their Archmage King is mentioned. Magic is useful, and I've grown to appreciate its power since coming here, but the sheer importance you people place on it still surprises me at times."
"Blame the Empire," Marcus replied, shrugging. "It's what I do when I want a convenient, distant entity to cast fault on. It helps that it's true in this case. They need Archmages, so over the centuries they shaped their society to make them into living demigods. Helps with morale and such."
She hummed. "I do like blaming the Empire. Speaking of, what did you end up getting out of that lightning elemental? You went all quiet and researchy for like five days, and then Vistus came with his 'this isn't an order but it kind of is' mobilization message."
"That, right." Marcus shifted his stance, taking the weight off his right leg. Elly had nearly broken it while sparring not five hours ago, and it was still tender even after healing. He did maintain his stance that teleporting her eight hundred feet into the air had been funny. "Balthazar wanted to create a species of thinking copper with limbs of steel."
"He wanted to do what?"
Well, at least she seemed as confused as he was. "Yeah. The elemental was there to power the things, apparently, but didn't know how close the man got. Balthazar was convinced he could create a runic complex so thorough it would start evolving on its own, at which point you have what's essentially a new lifeform. And here I thought I was being all clever with my own powers."
"Is that… possible?"
Marcus shrugged. "No idea. The School of Life can certainly make convincing copies of people, but it's just that. Copies. But then he was a runic Archmage, so who knows? Vistus can turn things into literal nothing, the Empress can make illusions so real reality gets confused, and Wisdrog predicted both my birth and awakening two centuries ago. I'm not going to be making any sweeping claims either way."
"My life was so much simpler before I came to this continent."
"No it wasn't."
Elly turned. "Well, no, but at least the undead were stupid. Now come on, we have that Academy sendoff thing to be a part of. The nobles have been appropriately threatened?"
"I mediated a three way negotiation to take up crown duties during the war, ensuring all sides lose if one oversteps their bounds."
"So yes, then."
"Pretty much. You said something about gifts?"
She hummed, leading him away as the camp continued to prepare. Getting ready for mobilization wasn't one big surge of packing and marching, of course. It took time. Was done in stages. Fortunately, he had Elly. Who had commanders, who in turn had officers.
No need for them to shout and bellow like some tribal chief.
The Academy. There was only a delegation here, some twenty souls, but it was organized. Orderly. Everyone dressed in the same uniform, a hierarchy clearly established, skill levels starting to equalize as more and more classes finished their education.
Some joined the growing initiative to work in the city, integrating magic more closely towards the common man. Others joined the army, or traveled the Kingdom looking for more recruits. But many stayed with the Academy. Worked in one of two dozen fields, from herbalism to enchanting.
He'd seen the economic formulas. While the Academy wasn't profitable yet, technically speaking, the curve was growing exponentially. Ever so slowly crawling forwards, until simple mathematics displayed an income ten times that of what he'd invested.
It turned out being able to bend the laws of nature to one's will was profitable. Who knew?
The delegation stiffened to attention when Marcus slowed, a low table having been set out. He inspected it as the customary bowing and niceties were observed, though their spokesperson seemed to understand Marcus wanted to get on with it.
…Hellon, that was it. Marcus had seen his name starting to appear more and more before he'd stopped trying to keep up with the ridiculous number of reports the Academy generated. One of the best new-generation enchanters, and an avid supporter of the Crown.
If Marcus had been taken from the street, had a debilitating but curable disease fixed, and then given three warm meals a day, he'd probably be an avid supporter too.
"Your Grace," the man greeted, smiling effortlessly. A good smile. The smile of someone who loved their craft, and was proud of what he had made. "We have prepared a gift. A small token of what the Academy can produce, and a demonstration of what your trust in us can yield."
Marcus mentally translated that as 'please don't stop funding me', but fair enough. He looked it over again, the set of armor displayed on the table with almost unnecessary care.
Armor covered with dull green scales, each the size of his fist. Overlapping over and over and over until no part of it was uncovered, seamlessly laid onto a leather base. A helmet, too, almost entirely covering his face until only a slit for his eyes remained.
Gauntlets, boots, greaves, the whole set. No weapon, but he had one of those. More than just defensive—and for half the weight of steel—it hummed with magic. With enchantments.
Bones and scales of sea monstrosities took well to the art, which was the whole reason they started using it. But there were no runic formations augmenting their durability, no symbols to increase protection. Instead a weave of magic was imprinted, a matrix infused into the set.
A shield. Basic, as shields went, but there. Quietly humming in place, needing none of his attention. Should anything get past his active defenses, it would need to get past that, and if it got past that, it would need to get past the physical scales.
The shield was well-made, he found. Expertly crafted, which meant it would soak up a lot of damage. A second skin, always there to protect and ward.
Marcus linked four telekinetic matrices together, four dozen small arms reaching out to lift the suit. It flew in front of him, buckles coming undone before fastening again, and while he wasn't so far gone as to change right then and there, he did test it out rather thoroughly.
"Good work," he finally answered, nodding to the enchanter. Hellon, right. Stupid habit of forgetting names, needed to curtail it. "Thank you."
The man smiled again, bowing his head. "It was a privilege to work on. Imprinting matrices into armor is time consuming and rather difficult, but we should be able to start large-scale production in approximately four months. We already have four dozen orders."
"How much are we charging?"
"Four thousand gold pieces," Hellon answered, shrugging. "That's for the whole suit. The scales are treated, so they will last a long, long time, but the leather will age. Yours is soaked into additional alchemical baths to ensure their longevity."
Marcus smiled at it, turning it with a small flex of will to see if it would catch the light. It didn't. "I think I'm going to put it to very good use."
Hellon did nothing but smile.
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"You have to admit, he's been pretty useful," Marcus said, turning to a grumbling Elly. "This is the fourth time he's made the local Important People back down with a piece of paper."
Elly huffed. "The Great Empire. The Empire that Spans a Continent. All I see is farmland worked by people who look exactly like Mirranians, who in turn look exactly like Caldirians."
Well, he had to give her that. For four days they'd been marching in Imperial lands, making their way south then west, and everything looked pretty much identical to their home. The people spoke the same language, traded in essentially the same coin, did the same work and got paid the same wages.
Even the Lords were the same. Minor nobility with overinflated egos, faces bleaching white when they saw an army marching behind their party. Otman, though, had been useful. Flashing signed paperwork, saying the right words, knowing the right things. Even slapped a grown man once, a man who had spit into Marcus' general direction.
The man had thanked the Vizier for his leniency after finding out Marcus was the new Archmage. Some people, honestly.
Elly handed him an apple, which he took a bite out of before feeding the rest to Xathar. Who didn't even really like apples, but he'd bribed the demon by promising to feed him an Imperial noble. He was sure one would be dying during the Dungeon break, anyway.
The cleansing matrix burned through his body like the sting of a dozen hornets, but Marcus suppressed the flinch of pain. He missed the way Elly glanced at him with a worried expression, her face neutral by the time he'd fully turned.
Otman was done with the latest noble, thankfully. The woman wanted to know how heavy their wagons were, since her bridge was old and she didn't want to deal with an army stuck on her lands after they'd collapsed it. Which was fair enough, but the delays were visibly getting to the Vizier.
Still, another day of travel before they had to go west. Then further west, until they met up with Vistus. The man had been charged with introducing him to the Dungeon, apparently, and to give last minute adjustments to their orders. Thankfully, he and the army weren't actually going that far from Mirrania.
They just had to avoid the mountains that separated his home from the continent, which added weeks of travel to their journey. Joy.
And no easy teleporting, either. He was working on some fifth tier spells, but honestly, most of what he wanted needed a sixth spell. Without it stability became a problem, efficiency went down if stability was increased, without efficiency there was no way he could actually move a significant number of troops.
Still, the potential was there. The ideas and rough matrices. Yet he wasn't ready, and it was more irritating than anticipated to realize progress was slowed by his own skill.
Not to sound too arrogant, but that usually wasn't the main issue.
Otman joined them as the Lady hurried off, mounting his own horse as Xathar loudly complained about the lack of his promised noble-meat. "The bridge will hold. Another half-day south before we go west, and I've been informed of some potential sites the army can settle on for the night."
Marcus nodded, already turning away. The Vizier seemed to have figured out Marcus cared nothing for endless honorifics and bowed heads, which was an improvement. The man was here, nothing to be done about that now, but at least he was willing to adapt.
Marching alongside an army, as the invasion had taught him, was rather boring. Not like he and Xathar could race ahead, not even with simplified logistics speeding up the rank and file, and one could only look at so much greenery before getting bored of it.
Wake up, break camp, ride, eat lunch, eat dinner, make camp an hour before sundown, wake up and do it all over again. At least he got time to read while riding. One of the more necessary skills he'd developed, and telekinesis made keeping a book steady fairly easy.
It took almost a week before they met up with Vistus. A week of nothing. Of riding and reading and listening to Elly trying to convince herself that this was great for the army. Great for discipline and experience, making and breaking camp until it became muscle memory.
Marcus had mostly just made polite noises, but now that time was over. Now was the time of adventure, of speaking to the mighty and wizened Archmage Vistus, and Marcus' party rode up to the man with an air of restrained excitement.
At least until Otman peeled off, and the wizened and mighty Archmage Vistus shot the retreating man a venomous look. "That one is looking for Aisha, I just know it. Comparing their little notes and habits, debating how thorough their reports to the Empress should be. I should just kill them both and be done with this."
"I'm sorry, who?" Marcus asked, blinking. "And please don't kill my Vizier. I'd be compelled to defend him."
Vistus grunted, spitting on the ground. "Aisha, my own Vizier, and those creatures aren't worth a single drop of your blood."
Right, Vistus hated Viziers. There was probably a story there, but then Marcus had very little doubt the man had a hundred stories. A thousand.
So instead Marcus hummed in as neutral a tone as he could manage. "I see."
"You see," the Archmage repeated, deflating slightly. "Of course. Well, in time your hatred will grow. Then we can overthrow the Empress together and wipe that overgrown, inbred, loathsome order from the face of this planet."
Marcus sighed. "Can we at least keep the treasonous statements to a minimum? I've been part of the Empire for a whole five minutes now, so revolting seems somewhat premature."
"Never a better time for it," Vistus replied, a mild grin on his old face. "But you're right, I suppose. Goodness, someone might even tell the Empress. Then we'll really get in trouble. Well, me more than you. You'd be surprised to discover how much stuff you can't make when your specialty is making stuff."
"Knowledge, I suppose. And infrastructure. Quantity would be an issue too, I guess, an-"
The Archmage snorted. "No need to list it out. Come, come. Let's get away from all these loyal souls making sure we don't get stabbed in the back and speak in private, hmmn?"
Marcus glanced at Elly and received an almost imperceptible nod in reply, Xathar moving to follow the Archmage after Marcus verbally agreed. Elly would be staying close, because while he actually somewhat liked the old man, he hadn't forgotten the invasion.
Still, he did like the man. Informal, blunt, honest and hadn't sugar coated his attack. Marcus could easily see them become friends, though he supposed it would be rare to fight side by side.
Archmages were already supposed to be the very last option to turn to. Two would be overkill in all scenarios but the end of the world.
Vistus didn't go far, his own mount slowing atop a small cliff. It overlooked the river below, a copse of trees spreading in the distance. Calm, unsettled and vast, that described most of the Empire.
Marcus hummed as they got close, Vistus glancing briefly at the uncharacteristically silent Xathar before raising an eyebrow. "Yes?"
"You have a normal mount."
"Well observed," the man replied mildly. "I had another demon warhorse after Xathar, and I still have a number of contracts for them, but I travel with people that don't. After a while you get tired of them talking. No offence, Xathar."
"I will eat your first born child."
Vistus snorted. "Good on you for sticking with the classics. Anyway, at one point I got everyone unnatural mounts, but that proved to have issues of its own—mostly territorial in nature—and honestly this is just easier. Not like I'm in a hurry right now. Trust me, you learn to savor the quiet moments before a Dungeon Break."
"I suppose I'll find out," Marcus replied, patting Xathar to sooth his wounded pride. "And speaking of the Dungeon Break, it's early. A year early."
The Archmage sighed. "And you're not the only one annoyed by that, believe me. Sure made those opposed to the whole 'forcefully awaken the Last Archmage by invading his home' quiet down, though. You won't believe the number of people that would like the status quo to remain the same, even when we're facing extinction. Some just won't internalize the danger until the Hounds are breaking down their doors."
"And here I was under the impression the Empire was a serious, unified whole determined to oppose the Dungeon."
"That's what we spent a lot of time and money projecting, sure." Vistus shrugged. "And we are that, at times. But sometimes it feels more like herding cats away from a rapidly incoming tsunami, listening to them argue over whether the danger really warranted additional taxation. This one time I hanged the patriarch of this now-dead Great House after he refused to assist the greater good. Boy were they mad."
"Long dead?"
"Hmmn? Oh, yeah. They fell in line just long enough to plot an attempt on my life, one which came rather closer than was comfortable. I slaughtered them to the last."
Marcus was not going to ask if that included children, because he was going to work with the man either way and he'd rather not know. "I understand the feeling."
"I spared the children, of course," Vistus continued, his eyes unfocusing. "Ensured the older ones wouldn't descend into a spiral of revenge, made sure the young kids had good homes to live in. I mellowed with age, but even then I disliked killing the future. But yes, I suppose you do get it. I did warn you about the cult."
Half turning, and ignoring the increasingly familiar shift as his new armor adjusted, Marcus pulled the Beasts of the Dungeon out of his spatially enlarged saddlebag. "You did warn me. It's taken care of for now, and my people won't be making that same mistake again. I have a question about the book you sent."
"The fence is built only after the cow drowns. You'll learn to get a feeling for this sort of thing in time. How can I help?"
"The book feels personal. Different authors, but no passages are ever named. Some state dry facts, others tell stories, some even talk to me—the reader, whatever—directly, and other paragraphs still seem to be written by two authors interchangeably. What's going on with that?"
Vistus snorted. "Its no great secret, but before I tell you, I feel wine sitting in that nifty bag of yours. Would you mind terribly if I were to ask for a drink?"
Marcus shrugged, pulling out the bottle and two cups, and dismounted as Xathar moved away to hunt for critters.
Might as well have a drink as they talked.