Sacrifice Mage

“There’s no such thing as trademark or copyright here, is there?” I asked, just to confirm.

“What in the world are trademarks and copyrights?” Hamsik asked back. He had pored through a lot of laws that Zairgon had set down after I had asked him for some help. Thefris had said he could be excellent legal reference, so I hadn’t wasted any time getting up to speed on what I needed.

“Thought so,” I said.

“What in the world are you planning?”

I grinned. “You’ll see. House Uralivanth really wouldn’t want to mess with themselves, now would they?”

That just nonplussed Hamsik even more, which I didn’t particularly mind. Now that I was sure of the legality, I left to get my plan going.

“Looking good?” Linak asked as he hung up the signboard we had purchased a little while ago.

We finally had new premises for our business. It wouldn’t do to have the business be permanently set at the Artificer’s Guild. So, we had finally acquired some space of our own.

The shop was small, still mostly unadorned. We had a few Starlamps that Linak had been able to create over the last week or so. I had brought some of the everyday things we were going to need, such as some food and drink for Linak, a register for keeping track of sales and other pertinent details, and so on.

“Yeah, looks good,” I said.

Linak got down the ladder. It was a little funny because, as a Plumefolk, he had his wings to rely on. But that wouldn’t really help when the task was to affix a board on the storefront, which needed a steadier footing than the constant little up-and-down motion his wings allowed.

“You don’t mind, do you?” I asked, indicating the name on the signboard.

Linak’s feathers puffed up a little like he was taking a deep breath. “No, your idea has merit. We cannot take this lying down. If this is the best way to handle this, then I’m fully on board.”

I nodded. He had been a little hung up once I had mentioned what Khagnio had said about the Roaring Claws messing with our business. This had been further compounded by Thefris’s discovery that Uralivanth was literally bankrolling the “furniture company” Revayne had noted at the wedding.

Said furniture company was also the one providing the channel to transfer funds to the Roaring Claws. They were even providing material support like the paper that the undercity rumour notices were written on.

Those bastards really didn’t care about being found out about this stuff. Revayne was right. The sheer arrogance was baffling.

Sure, most regular people in Zairgon wouldn’t have been able to unearth everything we had learned in as short a time as us—well, it was less us and more Thefris’s incredible Aspect. But the point was that Uralivanth believed they had zero reasons to fear anything. They were too old, too established, too powerful. No one would dare try to stop them.

Well, screw that.

“Good,” I said. “Because we do need to be united on this. We need to agree that we’re naming our business Uralivanth Starlamps.”

Linak squawked out laughter.

We weren’t hiding it either. There was the signboard, of course. Then there was the location we had chosen, which was pretty out in the open, not far from where Gutran had his smithy. We would be visible.

Everyone was going to know that a business associated with House Uralivanth was finding it very, very difficult to take off.

“Have you thought about the consequences?” Linak asked. “They are going to take action. I just don’t know what that action will be.”

“It won’t be anything pleasant. But the point is that it’s perfectly legal from our side of things. If they want to take action, they’ll have to do something illegal.” I lowered my voice, even though there wasn’t anyone present anywhere close enough to overhear us. “And thanks to Thefris’s Aspect, we’ll be ready to catch and implicate them when they do.”

“Right.” Linak shook his head, feathers ruffling slightly. “I won’t lie, though. All this plotting and subterfuge really isn’t my thing.”

“Yeah, I know, and I’m sorry you got dragged into this mess because of me.”

Linak thumped me on the shoulder. He was a lot stronger than I was expecting. “It’s not your fault they’re all deplorables of the highest order.”

I laughed. “Thanks, Linak.”

He promised he would keep an eye on things for me because I was leaving soon. The expedition would be underway, and I had decided to go along with it once more, in large part because I wanted to keep pushing myself. I needed the breakthroughs, the rank-ups, everything.

My direct participation would also give me some of the other things I wanted, like getting the non-adventurer Scarthralls a job within the Nether Vein itself.

The next day, I was a little too busy preparing for the next trip to the Nether Vein to really do any training. So instead, I tried just making sure things would be handled properly even while I was gone. Linak would handle the shop, the temple already had a lot of people, and Hamsik would be on the lookout too.

On the day of the Nether Vein expedition, I wasn’t the only one heading down from Ring Four. Several of the Scarthralls were accompanying me too. They would get started on their new job on the same day I’d be setting out. It was pretty neat that my little negotiation had paid off. In fact, it hadn’t even needed that much effort.

“They’ll really allow us in there, Cultist Ross?” one of them asked. He seemed to be the oldest one in the group, and so, the rest had elected him as their spokesperson-leader-hybrid.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting NovelFire for this novel and more.

“Yes,” I said simply. “I know it sounds odd that all I had to do was send a few letters to the Councillors to suggest that you guys might make excellent miners, but it worked.”

“Well,” said another man. “We did receive some training from one of the leaders, so it’s not like we’re completely uninformed.”

True. The other side of the matter was the fact that Zairgon didn’t have any mining operations whatsoever. Nothing formally established, at least. They were new to this too. That had definitely helped the Scarthralls get in, as they hadn’t had any experienced competition they were forced to oust or anything of the sort.

“See you all,” Lujean said. Vandre waved next to him. “And be careful, please.”

Those two looked a mite dejected, possibly envious that Scarthralls who had never trained to be adventurers were going into the Nether Vein before either of them. Of course, reality wasn’t that simple. These Scarthralls weren’t going adventuring. They’d be positioned in the safest sections of the Nether Vein, focusing only on mining out mana stones.

“We’ll be fine,” I said.

“I for one know you will, Cultist,” Vandre said.

Accepting the well wishes of the others, we made our way to the heavily guarded border of what used to be Eversight dungeon, before descending into its depths. Along the way, I spotted a very curious sight.

There were rail lines already being constructed. In fact, a lot of them had been laid out perfectly, running through the centre of several streets to connect different areas of Zairgon. It wasn’t surprising. Se-Vigilance had mentioned Claderov investing in the city via their rail lines and I had seen them bringing in materials.

But I hadn’t realized they’d be setting things up so quickly. The lines almost looked functional to me. They were rather thin compared to the rail I was familiar with from back on Earth, so I was curious to see what kind of trains Claderov brought in.

My curiosity was sated when we reached the bottom of the Nether Vein elevator shaft. A functional train line had already been set up there.

I could only blink. Had it been more than a couple of months since I had emerged from the first Nether Vein expedition yet? It was hard to be sure. But even if it had been at least that long, that still felt like an incredibly short time to set up a functioning rail line.

“Time is messed up within the Nether Vein, Ross,” Cerea reminded me as we met her. She and the rest of my teammates, Ugnash and Khagnio, were all going. Like me, they hadn’t been daunted by the strength of the opposition we had faced on the last expedition. “I think it’s been longer here than just two months.”

I grunted. That made sense, but it still felt unmooring. Unreal. Like I couldn’t trust everything that was happening here.

We rode the train to the actual site we were starting the expedition from. Said “train” was more or less a rather small, cramped self-driving carriage, just set on tracks in the ground. Ah. Now I was starting to see why a lot of people didn’t see the benefit of using trains in Zairgon. If this was the best state of the technology, then they weren’t seeing its full merits yet.

Although, I did learn that things weren’t actually as underdeveloped as they looked. There were better, bigger, more powerful trains already operational in Claderov.

Figures. Of course they’d only give a small taste of the real thing to a rival city-state.

The train had to stop at the Scarthralls’ destination. They got off, wished me good luck, and were then led away by the head of the mining operation. I made sure to exact a promise that things actually were safe. More than his words, I was reassured by the Klevacite lamp he carried.

We didn’t reach our destination on the train itself. The tracks hadn’t been laid out in full just yet. We had to walk the rest of the way to where the expeditioners had gathered.

“Woah,” Cerea said. “They really learned their lesson from last time, didn’t they?”

“Mhm,” Ugnash grunted.

I didn’t need long to see what they meant. In essence, the expedition was a lot more prepared to tackle the dangers of the Nether Vein this time than our previous attempt. The very first of those changes was how there were not one but two Councillors present and ready to lead from the frontlines.

“Greetings, Mage Moreland,” Councillor Lassikhio said. “Thy presence was foretold.”

“Foretold… by what?”

The draconic Scalekin only bared his fangs at me. His aura flared, heat pressing on me to an almost uncomfortable level. Instead of answering me, the Councillor accosted Khagnio, going on to interrogate him about the manifestation of his Racial Aspect, clearly trying to restrain himself from reaching out and grabbing Khagnio’s wings.

I left them to it. It was odd to see Lassikhio being so… affable. Normally, he was gruff, haughty, almost denigrating at times.

So I thought about greeting Se-Vigilance. She was a little too busy with planning, however, even at this late hour. I wasn’t privy to much of it. Apparently, there were more powerful people involved this time who were present to make sure we reached our goal.

Claderov.

“I like the new plan,” Ugnash said.

Khagnio hissed a snicker. “You haven’t even heard the new plan, you big lug. Just whispers and rumours.”

“So you think they aren’t going to be using the extra Klevacite they’ve mined to help continue the rail line all the way to Claderov?”

Khagnio bared his fangs. “I’m here to fight and kill whatever the Nether Vein throws at us. Isn’t that right, mageling?”

I nodded noncommittally. So the new plan was a thrust straight through the Nether Vein to reach the next gate that led into Claderov. Hopefully, Claderov had made some progress into the Nether Vein as well, even if they intended to leave the lion’s share of effort to Zairgon.

It was about another two hours later that we finally got moving. There was no formal address from the Councillors or anything like that. Instead, we were separated into teams if we weren’t already in any and then asked to coordinate as best as the overall squadron leader commanded. Sounded very militarized to me, but I didn’t have anything against complying.

My heart pounded a little as we went into the darkness being kept at bay by the Klevacite. Would we see another impossibly powerful monster like that Bonestrider from last time?

The squadrons were a little separate from each other. I spotted the one closest to me about two hundred feet away in the gloom. The other one was even farther off, the people reduced to tiny smudges.

“Is it a better idea to keep everyone more separate this time?” I asked our squadron leader.

The elderly Rakshasa in the military uniform glanced at me. I couldn’t decipher the expression on his face, so it automatically put me on guard. “Not necessarily. We’re trying a different approach this time, based on our observations and the results of the last expedition.”

“You’re trying to dilute the threat perceived by the Nether Vein while trying to stick close enough that if something went wrong, we could still make it to the others in time.”

“Basically, yes.”

I wasn’t sure we were at all far enough from each other for that to be effective. But then again, I hadn’t spent the last several weeks poring over everything to do with the Nether Vein and the expeditions through them. I would need to defer to the actual experts. At least, until things went awry and that level of expertise had to take a back seat to actual survival.

We travelled uncontested for what felt like almost an hour. The Netherthreads continued to swirl over our heads, threatening to spear into us if anything happened to the Klevacite torches.

Then the first monsters appeared.

“The puppets,” Cerea said.

“Prepare yourselves!” Tavarth, our Rakshasa leader, yelled. “It’s time for battle!”

I glanced at the other teams. The distance made it hard to tell, but I was pretty sure I was watching the darkness near them seethe, and not just with Netherthreads. We were all in a pretty similar boat.

“I think I can take care of these ones,” I said, stepping past everyone ahead of me.

Tavarth looked like he wanted to argue. Maybe it was his instinct to lash out at soldiers who “stood out”. But he restrained himself. I wondered if he knew me.

“Save some for the rest of us,” Khagnio hissed.

I looked back at him with a sneer he’d have been proud of if he wasn’t in the middle of being sneered at. “Oh, you’re going to have your work cut out for you. I’m not taking care of everything.”

Before he could ask for further clarification, I was channelling my Aspects. Everyone had given me room to act, so I focused on Illumination, Gravity, and Flare. And of course, I had Thauma’s Multicast running too. Time to finally see just how well my new tactic worked out on an actual battlefield.