Sebastian recoiled a bit in shock when he saw Owdel, the man was awake, but he was pale as a ghost and if that wasn’t bad enough, Sebastian also couldn’t see much mana in him at all. “Don’t give me that look boy, I knew bloody well what was going to happen to me when I cast that spell. It toys with powers we don’t understand, burning the very life from a mage to empower their magic.” He coughed again before continuing. “When you stole control of it from me it left me with enough mana to forcibly heal myself to the point I could speak to you before I finish dying.” He struggled to move his arm for a moment. “Left breast pocket has a small book, open it and see if it has anything written in it.”

Sebastian nodded, a bit numb from having gotten Owdel back only to hear that the old bastard was dying, and quickly found the book. “It is blank except for the first page, which says… what? Why would it say ‘Clearlake under siege, lake only way to approach safely?’”

“It is a communication device an enchanter came up with before he was executed for distributing magic to the public, now tell me what has been happening since I went down.”

Sebastian was bursting with questions about the book now, but another bout of coughing made him all too aware of the old man’s condition and he dutifully reported the events, Kyle and Sarah chiming in with points he missed that might be relevant. Owdel swore with a surprising amount of vigor for a dying man, “Alright, use the stylus in the binding of the book. Write ‘Forced underground by horde, used the Aether to break contact, cut off from Clearlake, discovered hidden dwarven kingdom, will attempt to gain their aid in breaking siege.’ then shut the book. I want you to forge an alliance with the dwarves if you can. Get them to help you reach Clearlake and assist them with the siege. There must be more twisted coming out of the mountains than we imagined if they haven’t managed to break a siege yet.

“And stop giving me those bloody sad looks! I knew what I was doing to myself when I used the Aether to power that final spell! Shut your mouth boy!” Sebastian bit back the questions on what the Aether was and let Owdel continue without interruption, “The Aether is the stuff of souls, few mages can use it, and none have survived long afterwards. It is powerful, and using it damages your very soul. So if you find yourself able to feel and manipulate the Aether. Don’t. Play. With. It.” There was a lengthy pause, during which Owdel scowled at Sebastian to emphasize his command.

Eventually he sighed, “I fought in the last Magewar you know. I always expected it was my fate to die in a war. It’s nice that it isn’t another war against Ornia. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to rest for a bit. Take care of my apprentice young man. Make powerful friends and change this world for the better, the Guild has held our people back for too long, force them to change. If you can’t, crush them and build something new in their ashes.” He turned his head to face Sarah, “Wipe your eyes girl, no tears should be shed over my passing. I have done terrible things in the name of the Guild, never questioning their orders until they sent me into retirement up in Northwood. There is a good chance I won’t wake again, and if that is the case, I only want one thing from you. Never stop questioning things. Learn and grow with the boy, spread knowledge and rouse our nation from its slumber so that it can grow into a power that nobody can challenge.” He ended his speech with another coughing fit.

It wasn’t long before the old mage slipped back into unconsciousness, and Sebastian suspected that he wouldn’t wake again. He was at a loss for what to do, and decided to cope with it in the only way he knew how. He submerged himself in work, while the guards went about setting up a makeshift camp, and Sarah sat off to one seemingly lost in her own thoughts. He made his way through the guards, enchanting various things for them, Their shields started to get reinforced with more efficient versions of his bracer shield. They wouldn’t hold against as much as his would due to not being actively powered by a mage, but they would absorb a hit or three from one of those accursed reaper beetles before running out of charge. He tapped himself dry with the last shield he did though, and barely managed to get out his bedroll before passing out.

******

When he woke Owdel was gone. It hit him a lot harder than he really expected it to, but he forced the emotions away and went to find Jake. He found him a short ways down the corridor from the room he had slept in. a bit belatedly he pulled out the book he had gotten from Owdel and checked it for a message. “‘Confirmed, reinforcements from south delayed by Ornia attack, Twisted numbers still rising, Clearlake can hold three weeks at most.’ Well it looks like we definitely need that help, Jake how far is it to your home? Do you think we have enough time to make it there and get help for Clearlake before they are overwhelmed?”

Jake waggled a hand in the air. “Well that depends, our supply train was supposed to have been here two days ago. If we have to walk I would say about a weeks travel, If they get here then only a day.” It looked like he was going to continue but he was interrupted by an ear piercing shriek. When it ended he grinned at them briefly, “Looks like it will only take a day. Get everyone up and ready to go, the whistle is sounded through piping and carries farther than you would expect, they will be about an hour’s walk from here and they won’t wait more than four. If nobody comes they leave and send a division of troops to check things out, which would probably take at least a week.”

They had already put the fallen men and dwarves to rest in the dwarven way, laying them out in one of the rooms and sealing it off, with Jake carving the names of the fallen into the door. It was all they could do at the moment, but Jake assured them that when the dwarves got around to reclaiming this outpost they would give a proper burial rite for the fallen in any room sealed in such a way. All that was left for them to do now was to set out to meet whatever it was that made that awful noise and travel to the dwarven city to beg for help.

Sebastian had known subconsciously that the dwarves had been caught off guard by the reapers but he hadn’t realized just how big of a disadvantage they had been at until he saw Jake’s actual gear. Magda hung from an interesting bracket at the back of his shoulder that kept it out of his way, yet easy to draw quickly. He was also wearing a bizarre looking suit of armor that he called half-plate, which gave him solid protection while allowing him a surprising amount of flexibility and range of motion. The thing that caught Sebastian’s attention the most though was the crossbow. Merchants had attempted to sell crossbows to them on occasion, but their town trained in the use of a longbow from an early age and laughed at the short range and slow reload time. Jake’s was different though, it had a strange gear system in it that fired bolts fed into it from a spring loaded clip that attached at the bottom. He turned a crank and the thing would wind itself, fire, rewind itself, fire again, and so on until it ran out.

It was an incredibly ingenious weapon for fighting in tunnels where the range of a longbow was useless, and the bolts were heavy enough to punch through most armors at close range. Sebastian really wanted to take it apart and see how it worked. Of course, he rather doubted Jake would let him do that even if they had the time to spare. Instead they set off through a different tunnel than the one that had brought them here.

Everyone was a bit distracted for various reasons, the guards had all lost a large number of friends in the last few days, Sarah had lost her master and found out that the city her parents were in was under siege, Jake lost his entire unit, and Sebastian was struggling to actually pin down how he felt about everything. It felt bad to lose all these people. It felt worse losing Owdel, who, while not Sebastian’s favorite person ever, had helped guide him in the use of magic and taught him life lessons. Often harsh life lessons emphasizing the dangers of playing around with magic, but life lessons nonetheless. The promise of a safe route to a safe place helped to lull them into a false sense of security.

It was shattered as they passed through a natural cave when one of the guards carrying a stretcher tripped over a nearly invisible cord and fell against a stalagmite, pitching the stretcher and its occupant off to the side of the path. The guard carrying the other end of the stretcher very nearly followed them, catching his balance at the last second. The noise had everyone spinning around to look. One glimpse at the struggling guard, who seemed to be stuck to the stalagmite, and Jake started to swear vigorously before shouting, “Widowers! Widowers! ‘Ware the ceiling!”

Sebastian was just going to assume that widowers were a very bad thing and that he wasn’t going to enjoy this little encounter as he nervously turned his gaze to the ceiling. Since his hand had been feeling a lot better ever since he enchanted Jake’s hammer, he had claimed one of the maces for himself, figuring it would easiest to use a weapon that didn’t have a specific edge to hit things with. He had taken the time to enchant it with a devious little effect, when he hit something random blades of force would project from the head of the mace, adding extreme lacerations to the crushing force of the mace. None of that mattered though, when a shout from one of the guards drew his gaze to the side, and he spotted a spider that was just a bit smaller than the average wolf.

The thing spat a glob of something nasty at the guard, who just barely managed to dodge it. The goo sizzled and spat on the ground, promising terrible things for anyone it actually hit. He heard a wet crunch, and saw that Jake had just splattered a different spider across a stalagmite, and he witnessed the backswing striking a third spider, which flew away and burst apart with a sizzling pop, clearly having been caught on the heat side of the hammer. It quickly devolved into pure chaos, Sarah was blasting spiders with bursts of flame, the guards were slashing them apart and using the shields Sebastian had enchanted to slap away globs of acid spit.

Sebastian was forced to focus on his own problems when a spider charged at him, hissing and spitting. He flicked on his barrier bracer in a panic, and was momentarily relieved when the glob of acid hit it with a wet slap and slid off. He swung at the spider as it skittered up to him, wincing when it jumped to the side a bit and he only scored a glancing hit on one of its legs. The enchantment saved him though, a spike lancing through the monster’s carapace and goring its internal organs while the heavy mace tore the leg free of its body. He recoiled in disgust as the thing began to spasm and curl, he recognized the signs of a dying spider, but on this scale it was extremely disturbing.

When he looked around to see how everyone else was doing, he noticed that the fight seemed to be over. Jake ordered everyone back to back though, “Circle round! These were just the hatchlings! The broodmother is still here somewhere! Watch out for the poison puddles, the stuff is deadly and it will burn right through your flesh.”

They started to slowly work their way through the cavern, carefully watching in as many directions as they could. Sebastian saw a narrow entrance that Jake was leading them towards, and he started to think that they might just get lucky enough to make it out without fighting an even bigger spider than the already far to large ones they had just finished. They were nearly there when he glanced up and his eyes widened in terror. Nestled in a crevice that couldn’t be seen until your were practically right under it was a spider nearly three times the size of the other ones they had dispatched, and if he survived, it would probably also have the starring role in any nightmares he had for the rest of his life. His shouted warning was closer to a yelp as it started to drop, and his brain disconnected itself, pure instinct had him launch his body sideways, tackling Sarah and wrapping his left arm around her before activating his bracer.

A colossal glob of acidic venom splattered across it as the spider focused its attention on him for some reason. He swung his arm out to try and fling the acid to the side and away from him and Sarah, He looked back at the spider in time to see it get peppered by Jakes crossbow, shrieking in rage and pain. Kyle and Legs managed to flank it while it was distracted, and tore into it with a vengeance. When it was finished Sebastian looked over at Sarah to make sure she hadn’t been caught by the acid spit. He was confused by the look of terror in her eyes for a moment, but then he felt something trickle down his arm right before searing hot agony ripped through his consciousness.