Fwooosh!

Alex’s sleeping potion erupted in the beast-goblins’ burrow, catching the creatures off guard as they feasted on suspect chunks of meat.

Coughing and sputtering, the little monsters tried to scramble to their feet, but the gas filled their lungs with every intake of breath. Their growls faded, turning to quiet groans then muted snoring as they collapsed on the dirt floor.

“Well, I’d call that a successful field test,” Alex said, stepping around the corner of a tunnel. “Now, let’s…oh.”

A quick look around revealed gruesome trophies scattered everywhere. Piles of human weapons, armour, and heaps of gnawed bones littered the cavern.

All of them were humanoid.

“Right, well I’m thinking those are pretty strong grounds for exterminating these things,” he said loudly. None of the beast-goblins stirred, despite his voice booming through the cavern. “Looks like noise won’t wake you up, just like Gwyllain. But, maybe this will. Claygon?”

Whoooom.

His golem came around the corner of the tunnel and stopped beside him, with all three fire-gems blazing.

Whoooosh!

Fire-beams flashed out, raking the sleeping monsters with their full fury. Flame exploded, soon followed by beast-goblins as the predators were wiped from existence; Alex brushed ash from his cloak.

“I guess none of you’ll be waking up after all,” he said grimly, stepping behind Claygon. He sent out forceballs and Wizard’s Hands to scour the cave floor, ceiling, and walls ahead, searching for hidden dangers lurking in any nooks and crannies in the rock.

“Looks like it might be clear,” he said, satisfied. “Good job, buddy.” He patted Claygon on the side, then spoke to the swarm of fire elemental beetles clinging to the golem’s back. “Go check for survivors. If you find any little green humanoids with horns, I want all of you to make their lives really unpleasant with those nice sharp teeth of yours.”

The swarm flew from the golem’s back and shot into the cave, disappearing through the smoke.

After a few heartbeats, a frantic screech reached Alex from the distance. A beast-goblin screamed.

“It looks like we might’ve missed one,” he said, mentally sending the golem toward the sound.

Claygon surged into the smoke and a second later, a dull thud followed.

“I think we should be done now,” Alex said when the elemental beetles returned. “Let’s get out of here. I can’t smell anything through Orb of Air, but this place just feels like it stinks.”

Claygon looked at him for a moment before joining him. Alex, his beetles, once again clinging to Claygon—emerged from the cave back into Greymoor. The cave’s entrance was positioned on the side of a hill, and the hill had so many other cave mouths yawning open, that it resembled the honeycomb in a beehive.

The sounds of battle reverberated from other caves: the beast-goblins had split up, nesting within multiple caverns and most of his other teammates were going about the grim business of exterminating them. Only Grimloch and Meikara stood outside, the sharkman to stand guard and the healer to respond if anyone signalled her help was needed.

“Good hunting?” Grimloch rumbled to Alex.

“Done and dusted,” Alex said. “Nice and easy, too.”

“Good,” the young blood mage said, giving the caverns a puzzled look. “This has been one of my easiest assignments so far. Not wishing bad for any of you, but none of you’ve been hurt since we’ve been here.”

“Oh, we do get hurt all right,” Alex said. “We’ve just been lucky, cautious, and we’ve been around the right people when trouble comes at us. But, even then…”

He remembered how Theresa’d been so badly wounded at Patrizia DePaolo’s ball, and how panicked he’d been then. Even now, just thinking about it brought some of that old fear back.

“…let’s just say we’ve had our share of scrapes in the past. But with some luck, you won’t have to lift a finger while we’re here.”

As the last word left his mouth, his friends began emerging from caves in groups of two or three. Beast-goblin bits covered their weapons.

“It looks like we’ve made good time clearing these nests out,” Khalik said, glancing up at the sun which had begun setting in the distance. “Not a bad way to end our first sojourn to Thameland.”

“Yeah, if things keep being this easy, I’ll be thanking my ancestors everyday,” Thundar agreed. “In any case, let’s count this as another batch of nests cleaned out then get back to camp.”

“Welcome back,” Ripp said as Alex’s group climbed the hill back to camp. “Good hunting?”

He and another guard, each flanked by a stone golem that silently watched the landscape, stood beside the encampment’s only gate.

“Indeed,” Isolde said, her boots squelching along the muddy path leading up to the gate. “Our areas have been purged of all troublesome creatures which means any worries about attacks from nearby beasts can be eased, I should think: it will make for a much safer guard duty for you.”

Ripp snorted. “It’s when we think we’re safest that we get attacked. But, time will tell. Anyway, in you go. Most’ve the groups have already come back.”

He knocked on the gate twice and—with a loud creak—it was opened from within.

In the past couple of days, the camp on the hill overlooking Greymoor had swollen, though the speed of set up was a snail’s pace compared to how quickly the venues for The Games of Roal had come together. With Thameland’s lack of ambient mana which Generasi had in abundance, many of the magical tools the wizards normally used for construction simply did not work here. Instead, building structures came down to an individual’s spellcraft, ingenuity and good old-fashioned elbow grease. Still, that combination was enough to accomplish a good deal in a short space of time.

What had begun with a few tents on a hill, had swollen to a fully growing settlement. Spells to move earth were used to craft earthen walls fifteen feet high, and magic had then changed the soil’s consistency, hardening it to the point where the walls could withstand an assault from catapult stones. The soil under the hill had also been hardened, and its acidity raised so anyone attempting to tunnel deep beneath it to breach the camp, would be in for a stinging surprise.

The same technique had been used on the earth that lay beneath the wall separating Generasi from The Barrens of Kravernus: the wizards had no desire to ever see their fortifications tunnelled under again. Attackers looking to gain entry to the camp through its front entrance, would have a different set of problems.

The large gate had been transported from Generasi—oak alchemically hardened and reinforced with iron—to guard the camp’s only entrance. Flanking it inside the earthen walls were two tall towers rising high above the camp. Battle mages stood watch in each tower, ready to rain power and death down on any hostile parties.

Alex looked at the towers and almost felt sorry for anyone who decided to raid their camp...a raid that could only end in searing pain and death.

Within the camp was a fully organized tent city. Researchers, staff and builders scurried between tents, setting up unique stations.

The first tents to be erected had been sleeping tents, followed by an armoury tent, an administrative one, one for food and water storage, and the first of many for examining specimens. Alex could see that the tent that would be used as their smithy—made of alchemically treated flameproof cloth—was being raised as his team made their way to the camp’s centre.

Cauldrons were boiling over outdoor cook fires, and the scent of stew cooking made his mouth water. He found himself mindlessly wandering toward the fires until Khalik pulled him back.

“We have to report first,” the prince said.

“Won’t be any point in reporting if I starve to death before we fini-Yargh!”

Theresa grabbed his cloak and pulled him toward the administration tent. Inside—among a small army of clerks seated at desks—was a substantial table with a large map of Greymoor and the surrounding regions spread over it.

Professor Jules leaned over the map, making notations on it from the individual maps and reports she’d received from other teams. Slowly, but surely, an up-to-date precise map of their territory was being created. Among the notations were symbols for monster dens—those eliminated and those discovered—as well as possible deposits of ore, other natural resources, and areas appropriate for road building.

Jules looked up as they entered.

“Ah, good to see you,” she said. “I take it the beast-goblin threat to the west has been eliminated?”

“All done,” Alex said, handing her a report that he’d had his Wizard’s Hands write up on the way back. “The area looked like it could be a good place to mine stone from as well.”

“Excellent. And were there any appropriate locations for the research castle?”

“None better than what we already have here,” Khalik chimed in. “The spot where we found the beast-goblins might be appropriate for an outpost, though.”

“Very good,” she said. “You’ve done well. Go and have a rest, then prepare to teleport back to Generasi when the next shift of surveyors arrives within the hour.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “I thin-”

Suddenly, the tent flap behind them flew open.

“Professor!” a student called to her, sounding breathless. “A team brought back a Ravener-spawn!”

Everyone froze, looking at each other wide-eyed before rushing for the entrance. The camp was in an uproar as wizards scrambled toward the centre.

Tyris’ team stood in the middle of camp, and some of them had summoned monsters to carry what looked like a medical litter at first, but on closer inspection was really only a long sheet of cloth. Lying on the folds of fabric was what appeared to be a human body, but it soon became clear that the creature lying there was far from human.

“A Chitterer,” Alex, Isolde, Khalik and Thundar whispered in unison as they made their way to the growing crowd, noting how much the creature matched the illustrations in the Thameish bestiaries they’d been assigned.

Alex looked at Tyris, who was recounting her team’s encounter with it.

“-from behind a hill,” she was saying. “It looked like it was hiding there, watching us while we were travelling, but one of the monsters we’d summoned saw it. We tried to bring it back alive, but things happened. It came at us. There wasn’t any time for spellcasting, so we had to put a crossbow bolt through its chest.”

“Was it alone?” Professor Jules nodded, making her way over to the creature and strapping her mask on. “Did you see any more of them?”

“Not one,” Tyris said. “Either it was a straggler or a scout.”

A moment of quiet hung over the camp.

“Well, if it’s a scout, that could mean The Ravener’s going to know we’re here soon enough,” Professor Jules said. “I would like this specimen brought to the examination tent please: the Thameish bestiaries give us well detailed illustrations of Chitterer anatomy, but it’s always good to confirm things with our own eyes. Tyris, I want your team to make a full report of your encounter and indicate on the map where it took place. I’ll send a team out to see what can be found and if it can be tracked.”

She looked at the top of the wall. “If there’s a dungeon in Greymoor, I want to be the first to know.”

“We could go check right now,” Alex eagerly volunteered.

“Oh no,” she said. “You’ve been surveying for three days. Get back to Generasi, get back to class and your family. It’s not like the dungeon will get up and walk away while you’re gone, Mr. Roth.”

Alex was about to say something, but bit it back.

She was right.

One of the key reasons this expedition had been put together was so the University of Generasi’s full might and power would be behind this, not so that he could go off and do everything on his own.

He took a deep breath, and brought his excitement under control.

‘Besides, the more I learn,’ he thought. ‘The more powerful I become and the more resources I gather.’

The next morning Alex felt completely disoriented.

For the past three nights he’d slept in a large tent in his homeland with the cool dampness of Greymoor on his skin, and Thameland’s fall air in his lungs. This morning, he’d awakened in his comfortable bed back in the warmth of a late summer’s day in Generasi.

“Teleportation really messes with you,” he murmured as he groggily climbed out of bed. “One moment you’re in one part of the world and the next you're somewhere else where the climate’s completely different. Gonna have to get used to it, though. We’re gonna be doing that a lot.”

As he dressed for the day, he looked over at the textbooks piled on the side of his desk. His eyes fell on the one on top of the stack. It was a thick book, fittingly bound in a red cover.

His blood magic textbook.

Today would be his first official class in the subject, and he was anxious for it to begin. Anything he learned could only help speed up his progress with Mana to Life.