Necromancer and Co., Book 3: The Underearth

Chapter 12: Portal

[Alen]

The change in atmosphere was palpable, and Alen found himself settling into a different mindset. A persona—a piece of himself he only reserved for when things would see blood. As the roar rang out throughout the cave, Alen was already moving. His party had settled onto a similar state of action. The group of Kavarith splintered into different directions. Lynn jumped off her mount, and Alen sent the one mounted by his summon to the front. Sam was positioned in the back.

No less than a second after they positioned themselves did the wave of Gorebats exit their nest. A mass of wing, claw, and teeth exited the cave in the form of hundreds of bats. Each was the size of a dinner plate, but Alen knew that the deceptively small bats were a bigger threat than their size suggested. The bats at the front end of the mass crashed through a pillar. The stalagmite was sliced apart like butter.

They approached, and Alen’s eyes scanned their bodies. Large heads and a dozen eyes on each bat, the creatures stared down at them as they approached. Swarms were his specialty. Alen pushed a large amount of magic into a tooth in his hand and lobbed it at the swarm. It expanded rapidly, a massive blob of enamel. He channeled his magic.

Skeletal Detonation.

The mass exploded into a hail of tiny shards, blowing outward like a shotgun blast. Bats screeched in the masses as dozens fell victim, dying from several deep wounds. Alen’s mind was in overdrive, his Intelligence stat allowing him processing capabilities that were beyond human. The shards were still flying in the air when he selected ones that had flown into thick segments of the swarm. He used Skeletal Detonation’s predecessor.

Skeletal Rupture.

Each of the shards was a strand connected to him. His magic flowed through the connections and spurred on the growth. Like a massive urchin, the shards he selected frantically expanded, hundreds upon hundreds of needle-like extensions spearing into bats all around the shard. More fell, but the effect was noticeably weaker. Needlepoints shattered against fur and hide, unable to kill bats in succession. Alen cursed and backed up, his Kavarith mount leaping back. The bats’ wings blurred, and an almost invisible distortion passed through the air.

It slammed into the ground where Alen was before. Immediately, the ground produced a screeching noise as hundreds of tiny scratches formed with each blur that crashed into it. Like scar tissue, the ground was gouged and torn until a large, ugly mark was left where he was standing before.

“Lynn!” he yelled.

“On it!” she replied, and Alen was only able to take cover behind a large boulder before two of the crystals on her bow glowed a bright red and yellow. Not even a second later, a blur of molten rock and immense weight left the string of her bow and sailed into the swarm. Bats lit up in flames as it passed, and bones were crushed as it tore through one bat after another.

Seeing the momentary distraction, Lynn fired off more elemental arrows into the swarm, detonating them and wreaking havoc where the bright lights flashed. The bats swerved and began to surge down on her. Alen watched closely, preparing to intervene. Lynn’s form suddenly grew misty, and then, she took a step. She moved past the mass in a single leap, the monsters phasing through her as if she was a mirage. She emerged from the other side and followed up with a volley of ice arrows.

Each tore into multiple bats before losing its strength. She drew her bow and loosed another arrow of fire and earth, before detonating it. The resulting explosion caused a rift to appear on where the swarm had been struck, and the three of them were allowed a look at the matriarch that lurked within the mass.

It was massive, more eyes than any other bat, and giant, leathery wings that buzzed and vibrated with the same energy that tore the ground apart. It was nowhere near as massive as the Demonblood Bat from the Crawling Canyon, but its torso alone was easily the size of a car. It screeched, and the sound felt like a physical concussive force, throwing Alen back as he tried to rush in. Lynn was similarly hurled back, rolling across the dirt.

Alen sent his summons in. Necrotic Blessing: Deathfire.

The Kavarith tore into the swarm like a predator would into a fresh morsel. Their claws cut and shredded, and the black and white flames than enshrouded them grievously wounded any of the monsters that came in contact. The Xargith warrior was even stronger, each sweep of his large blade raking through the mass of beasts. Magic was rapidly released as Alen conjured bone spear after bone spear through his summons, striking surrounding bats like an endless barrage.

A sudden wave of cold air swept past. Sam. A large amount of the remaining swarm died, frozen solid. Before they could fall, they exploded, once again sending bullets of ice piercing out in all directions, indiscriminately killing anything it hit.

One of Alen’s Kavarith fell victim to it, the bones crumbling with each bullet until the summon died, the fragments of the soul within it finally dissipating. Sam pulled the shards of ice to him, the mass churning and swirling around him like a hurricane of glass. They smashed onto one another, forming a large, humanoid creature with short legs and long, blade-like arms that extended from its shoulders to the floor. An ice golem.

Alen nodded and prepared to destroy more of the swarm with a spell when the matriarch screeched one again. The concussive force came, but Alen was prepared. He braced himself against a rock, the force punching him against it. He grunted. Numb Senses. Alen looked up to see the swarm begin to swirl in a pattern, surrounding the giant bat. His eyes widened.

“Take cover!” he shouted, just as Lynn dashed into a nearby corner, and as Sam encased himself within his golem, forming a protective cocoon. Alen was too late.

Blurs and splotches of distorted air beamed out in all direction from the swarm, raking through stone and rock like butter. One struck Alen on the right arm. His gauntlet screeched, but remained undamaged. Another slammed into his side and another into his chest. The plates of armor shattered, and he felt a slight pain rocket through Numb Senses as his flesh was shredded by the strike. More were coming. He channeled his magic and cast one of his new spells.

Skeletal Vajra.

Over a tenth of his massive mana pool disappeared immediately. Bone shards and teeth slotted into his robes exploded into growth, covering him from head to toe in super enhanced bone and enamel. The spell took the form of a terrifying suit of armor, not unlike the one his summon wore. From the boots of the armor, spikes of bone covered in Blightwater speared into the ground, melting through it like acid. Hooked ends grew when they’d penetrated deep enough, rooting him to the earth.

He clenched his teeth inside of the armor. He couldn’t see, and he could barely move. The Mana Sense Sam had taught him gave him a vague awareness of the outside, and the seemingly endless attacks that struck his armor relentlessly. The Gorebats had draped around his armor, beating their wings against it and inflicting mounting damage with the magic thrumming across their bodies. The wounds on his torso were bleeding, the scrapes more focused on inflicting heavy bleeding than instant damage.

Alen activated Drain Vortex, and a large area around him fell under its influence. The bats closest to the armor started shrieking miserably, withering up as motes of life force flooded towards the vortex—Alen, at the center. The wounds began to knit up. Alen’s eyes shone like emeralds in the darkness of his armor.

“Deathchill Pulse,” he whispered.

The blurs striking the armor disappeared as an expanding globe of Deathchill surged out of his armor and cut into the mass enshrouding him. Flesh blackened and nerves disintegrated as the chill swept out, killing the bats closest to him. Then, as it reached the crest of its expansion, it began to surge back into Alen, the improvements he’d made to the spell amplifying the effects of Drain Vortex at the same time.

The bubble shrunk back into him, and with it, it brought forth a sea of vitality. Alen’s wounds closed completely, as if they hadn’t been there at all. He launched bone spears lathered in Deathfire from his fortress of armor in quick succession, killing off any stragglers in his range. Booms rang out from the outside. Sam and Lynn had launched their counter attack.

His armor crumbled away, and he was greeted by a sea of corpses in a large radius around the range of his magic.

Raise Greater Undead.

Souls reeled back into the corpses, and Alen suppressed the surge of animal instincts that suddenly attacked his mind. He smashed the resistance to pieces, the simple creatures too weak to overcome the mental fortitude his Wisdom stat provided him. The bats rose from the grave and charged into the fray, turning on what used to be their brethren. Lynn and Sam attacked with them, engaged in a fierce battle with the Matriarch Gorebat.

Alen took a large, sharp tooth fragment from inside his robes. The broken piece alone was the size of his entire palm. He threw it to the ground.

It bubbled, and then it grew. A long head, and rows of sharp teeth. A curving spine formed, and a lashing tail at the end. The bones connected with one another, supporting the entire structure further like the foundation supporting a building. It had four legs, each ending in wickedly sharp claws. Horns and spikes and spurs that looked like stalagmites extended from the bones, two especially long horns grew from its head, arcing to spear at the space in front of its face. It stood tall, dwarfing even the houses found in the City of Pillars’s lower district. Excitement burned in his chest.

The Stone Drake had formed.

Alen jumped up and mounted it, his gauntlets crackling with the terrifying light of his Deathfire. Magic was burned every second, but the enormous sea of magic he held within his body wasn’t the kind the average mage reached at his threshold. He strengthened the flames further.

Sam was gliding across the ground, ice forming in his wake. Taking Alen’s example, he propelled himself quickly with pillars of ice at his feet, avoiding the shredding force the Matriarch Gorebat had shot from its wing. His ice golem smashed its arms into it, sending it reeling as Lynn’s arrows tore through hide and inflicted compounding elemental effects. The intensity of the Deathfire in Alen’s gauntlet grew, the Necrotic-type magic stone socketed into it burning with a deathly light.

Lynn kicked the matriarch hard, and it stumbled back further. She peppered it with arrows, along with ones her Halt Arrow spell had kept in suspended animation in the air. A near-uncountable amount of arrows slammed into the monster. Alen moved.

His drake sprung, and within moments, he was in front of the matriarch. The Deathfire’s strength reached a brutal crescendo. His eyes flashed, and he jumped with a bone spear at the bottom of his boots. The drake crashed into the matriarch, roaring as it pinned the large bat to the ground. Alen plummeted down from the ceiling, and his fist clenched underneath the gauntlet, the flames crackling violently.

Like a meteor, he plummeted down and splayed his palm, channeling the spell with a powerful roar that the Matriarch Gorebat met with its own. The attacks clashed.

“Deathflare Blast!”

—o—

Adam watched the shining shortsword on his lap in satisfaction. He’d finally finished it, and it was with the perfect timing that he did. He looked up at the passage opening up just ahead. In a few more minutes, it would be fully open, and they would be able to pass.

Speaking of which…

He looked up. In the distance, he could make out the forms of Alen and the others through the darkness, the two orbs of light that orbited around Alen and Sam respectively giving him a clear view of their features. Lynn was beside them, a satisfied smile on her face as she drained the magic from a cloudy mana stone in her hands. It was from the monsters, no doubt. The mana in the Underearth was rich enough that even mana stones could form within the heads of powerful monsters, a fact that he had a hard time coming to terms with.

If it happened to monsters, then did he have a stone in his head too? He didn’t like that.

Adam stood up and stretched, straightening his clothes out with a patting down from his hands. He placed the new shortsword into its sheath, placing it just beside his dagger on the other side of his waist. He waved his hand at the carving knife, and it teleported into existence just short distance from his hands. He fumbled a little, trying to catch it, then put it into his pack.

Damn, he thought. Despite his efforts with practicing, his magic didn’t seem to be improving in the slightest. Adam sighed and quietly conceded to his fate. If his main affinity was broken and couldn’t be used, then so be it. Wind and wood were as good affinities as any.

If Sam could be that strong with something as simple as ice, he would find a way as well.

Adam walked up to the three and raised a hand in greeting. “Yo,” he said.

Alen grinned and Sam nodded. Lynn hopped off from her seat behind Alen and raised a hand in greeting back.

“Yo!” she grinned, bumping fists with him. It was a gesture he’d taught her, and she quite liked it apparently. Alen had called it a future death flag and refused to do it with them, so it had quickly become a handshake of sorts between the two of them.

He placed his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “So? You gained a level or something?”

“Yeah,” Sam nodded. “I’m at the twenty-sixth threshold now. Better hurry up dude, whoever reaches thirty first gets a free meal from the other guy.”

“I’m almost at thirty,” Alen pointed out, leaning against his Kavarith mount.

“Eh,” Adam shrugged. “You’re pretty much addicted to grinding levels, so you don’t count. Though when you do reach thirty, you should treat everyone to dinner to celebrate, yeah? Yeah. You will.”

“What is with you people and asking me for free meals?”

“Because,” Lynn said, “we want the good stuff and none of the money for it.”

“We want the good stuff,” Sam said. Adam nodded quickly.

“Whatever,” Alen said. “We have more than enough money to feed ourselves anyways. I’ll spare you stingy fuckers of paying for a meal you can earn dozens of times over for killing a single notable monster.”

“They’re annoying as hell to fight,” Adam said. “The only reason you have that Stone Drake as a summon is because that death-water thing you do countered it hard.”

“Darkwater Surge.”

“It’s so edgy.”

“I’ll take it from the guy with a mobility skill called Fluttering Steps.”

“Shut up,” Adam said. “It seemed cool when I named it.”

“Float like a butterfly—“ Sam started.

“—and hit like a motherfucking truck,” Adam finished, grinning. “When I get the build I’m making rolling, you guys are going to be left in the dust.”

Lynn laughed. “Spread your wings, little butterfly. We’ll follow the trail of glitter you leave behind.”

Adam glared at her and crossed his arms. A small commotion was starting behind them, signaling that the rest of the ten-man expedition group was packing their things to leave. Adam patted the pack on his side. It had a few spatial runes etched into it, giving it a degree of storage that was as large as a sizeable duffel bag. He felt pretty proud, being the only one in the party that didn’t have to worry about a place to store the things he brought with him in an expedition.

He caught Lynn staring at the bag with a wry smile.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she shook her head, then mounted the skeletal form of the Kavarith once again. She pointed at Vexxaron, who was already making his way into the passage. “Hey, Alen! Get over here so we can get moving already. I’m excited to see this cult everyone’s talking about.”

“I don’t think that’s something to be excited about,” Alen said, climbing up in front of her. She scooted back, her feet dangling off the side as she put an arm on his shoulder for support.

“Aw, come on. They’re trying to summon a god and we’re about to crash the party. It’s like one of those stories the bards and minstrels sing about.”

“Actually, if we do this well enough, do we get a song?”

“I dunno,” Lynn shrugged. “There are no bards with us, so we’ll have to retell the story to one and convince them that we’re great enough for a good ballad.”

“Easy,” Alen said, and Adam left them to it, letting their banter continue on. As he walked away, a Kavarith approached him and lowered its head full of cat-like, grinning teeth, offering him the saddle on his back. Adam glanced at the necromancer and saw the little smile Alen had on his face. Adam let the magic building inside of him dissipate as he clambered onto the mount.

It rose in the same way a camel stood up from a sitting position, and only then could Adam appreciate how tall it was. Being around and fighting giant monsters all the time, he only really realized just how large the skeleton of the creature was. It stood and began to walk without any orders, only following the ones the necromancer gave it. He glanced at Alen. He didn’t even look bothered by the effort, almost like controlling the undead was as natural as blinking. Altogether, he sat, and even as his feet dangled off of the side, they were easily two meters off the ground.

The damn thing was the size of a carriage.

Adam sighed and checked his status. Twenty-fifth threshold, he mentally noted. Just the tiniest gap of a distance away from the twenty-sixth. He could feel it, the magic, churning and building inside of his body. Like the waves of the ocean, it smashed and roiled within him, every wave stronger than the last—each crest higher than the first. Adam waved his hand at a pebble a distance away.

It appeared in his hands, more luck than effort, it seemed.

The waves in his body stilled, the pressure released. Adam closed his fist around the pebble. A light flashed. When he opened it, the pebble was gone. He looked around and found it a distance away from his intended location. He sighed.

Once again, he teleported it to him. It clattered to the ground, appearing just below his hand. He frowned.

Why did things always teleport near his waist? Adam channeled his magic again, and the pebble once again teleported away. Once more. Failure. Again. Disappointment. He groaned, vexed as his failed attempts mounted.

He practiced in frustration, unaware of the blades that hummed near his waist.

—o—

The portal was unassuming, inconspicuous. It rose above the ground, crude and crackling with weak, unstable energy. Instead of the polished rune-pillars surrounding the ones Alen usually traveled with, the portal or rather, the teleportation formation was etched into tall rocks with runes he failed to recognize. It glowed in reds and yellows, the energy so weak it seemed to struggle to even exist. Dust carpeted some of the markings, further increasing the atmosphere of incompetence that surrounded the portal.

Dieter walked past him, talking to Razzan as they observed the portal.

“It seems quite… crude,” said the older Hunter.

“They disguised the portal like this,” Dieter said. He pointed up, and Alen followed his finger to look up at the long, winding pit they’d had to descend in order to get to the portal. It was hidden, but not with so much effort that is was suspicious.

“It looks like an amateur’s work,” Lynn said, “like it was created by someone who was trying to learn rune-writing for portals and was too embarrassed to put it in an obvious place.”

“I see now,” Razzan nodded, brushing away some of the unnaturally thick dust. The runes underneath glowed brighter than the rest, the magic visibly looping within the words. “If someone took a glance at this portal, the first thought that would come to their heads would be that it was unstable.”

“And unstable portals have a reputation for teleporting people into walls,” Alen said, the realization dawning. Disguised like an amateur’s work, the portal was not only in an extremely remote area that only became accessible once or twice a month, it was also crude enough that it would dissuade any passersby from getting near it. After all, some portals didn’t need an activation sigil to function, and most people didn’t know enough about rune-writing to risk getting teleported into a dangerous place.

“Exactly,” said Dieter, making sure everything was in order. He nodded, satisfied. “The portal hasn’t been tampered with,” he said.

“So we’ll be entering when?” Sam asked, throwing a cube of ice into his mouth. He crunched on it, chewing lazily.

“We’ll go over the plan one more time,” said Dieter, “then we’ll enter.”

“Good,” said Adam, “because I wasn’t listening the first time.”

Dieter gave him an annoyed look as the group crowded around him. Alen stood beside Lynn and Vexxaron, arms crossed. He couldn’t afford to mess up the plan and screw up in the heart of enemy territory, so he had to listen intently, lest he end up endangering everyone with him. Dieter nodded, and Vexxaron stepped forward, his red-scaled figure as imposing as ever. He stood a whole head taller than Razzan, who was even taller than Alen.

The lizardman looked over everyone present and nodded. Vexxaron opened his mouth to launch into an explanation when a red glow lit up his back. Alen’s eyes flashed to the glowing runes of the formation. The portal had activated.

Everyone burst into action. Alen shot away with a bone spear, shooting into the darkness and enshrouding himself in a thick veil of Numbing Mist, further pressing his dark-clothed figure into the shadows. Lynn Ice-walked up the wall and hide behind an outcrop. Sam jumped and froze himself onto the ceiling. Adam used Fluttering Steps, planting his feet and hands on the ceiling, keeping himself up as he faced down. Alen noted Dieter, Razzan, and the two toher hunters, who similarly melded into the shadows.

Everyone had hidden themselves, and yet, even Alen was unable to keep up with Vexxaron, who seemed to have disappeared into thin air with a quick flash of fiery sparks. Embers fell to the ground where he stood, faintly glowing with traces of golden light.

Alen retracted his Mana Sense from the portal. Any skilled mage would have discovered it. Instead, he threw the shells of small insects onto the ground. They immediately animated, scuttling forward. The small swarm would sense for him. Finished, Alen retreated further and lathered himself in darkness so thick that even his eyes couldn’t see through it.

The light of the portal died down, and four figures emerged from the formation. Each of them wore dark red robes, faces hidden in the shadows cast by the light above.

Spellcasters, Alen immediately recognized. These were the same kind of people that were sent out to take out and abduct chosen. He’d caught glimpses of them multiple times after rushing to the scene of an attack, and Vexxaron had filled him in on the rest of the details. Hemomancy, Spirit Magic, and vicious curses. They’d been the division led by the Torturer, Grizelda, who Alen had killed more through luck than power. Pain, incapacitation, and soul-ripping were their specialty.

They stepped forward, a navigation device held in the hands of the one in the lead. They walked with duty, but suddenly paused. The lead cultist looked down to stare at the golden embers ahead.

Immediately, the group of fanatics tensed. They arranged themselves in a circle, hands raised to erect ghostly, transparent shields all around them. Faces flashed through the surface of the shields, angry and sorrowful. Wailing, but without a sound. They approached the embers warily. Alen heard them speak under their breaths, conversing in a language that wasn’t Common. Alen heard scraps of the Kivotl race’s dialect. Fish men? He frowned. The Kivotl had a good affinity for all kinds magic. This needed to be finished, and quick.

The group finally reached the space in front of the embers. The lead cultist pointed his palm at the smolders, a purple mosaic of light swirling in his hand. His shoulders tensed, ready to wipe out the possible threat. He prepared to strike.

Alen’s group struck first.

A red-scaled fist materialized in thin air, the fist forming first as it smashed into the shields. Souls surged out as the cultist stepped back, assaulting Vexxaron, but failing as the light surrounding his fist burned away at their very beings. He grabbed his blade, and with a quick slash, the shield shattered, and the hand of the cultist preparing the spell fell, severed. Vexxaron finished him with a stab to the heart.

The cultists turned on him, but before they could react, the rest surged in. Adam fell from the ceiling, a stone in his hands. The cultist at the back of the formation turned and fired a projectile at him. He threw the stone, and it tapped against his boot. Fluttering Steps. He shot towards the ground diagonally, avoiding the attack. A blade of blood rose from the cultist’s robes, but his feet froze as he turned to strike with it. Sam. The ice ran up his leg. Adam hit the ground and used his skill again. His shortsword was a flashed, followed by a trail of blood as the cultist’s head flew into the air.

Simultaneously, Alen charged from the darkness, breaking the shroud of mist that surrounded him. The keratin around his left arm ballooned explosively, coating around his arm much like the gauntlet wrapping over his right. It grew further, the size of the gauntlet reaching a size as large as his body by the time he’d reached the battle. He smashed it into the shield of a cultist, and the Kivotl man staggered back. Alen urged his magic to flood into the gauntlet.

Skeletal Detonation.

It exploded like a shotgun’s blast, raking holes through the shield. Vengeful specters flooded out and surged into his chest. He dominated them, sending the spirits back out to attack their previous master. The cultist reeled, the surprise underneath his hood evident.

Arrows of ice rushed over Alen’s shoulders like blue flashes of lightning in the dark. They pierced the fanatic’s robes, sending purple ichor spurting into the air. The blood arced, turning into a scythe-head that slashed down towards Alen’s chest. He blew a stream of Blightwater into it, breaking up the blood as the rot of his spell fought against it. Both spells cancelled the other out, and the cultist barely had another moment of life before an arrow penetrated his eye socket, ending his life.

The last cultist died in the same instant. Panicked and surprised, he was easily picked off by Dieter’s group, attacked on all four sides. He lost his life to a blade of white flame that Dieter swept to the side, channeled over the tip of his spear like a second blade—a curve of concentrated flame that traced over the spear’s edge. It cut into his neck, cauterizing wounds and destroying arteries as it passed.

Alen relaxed his tense shoulders and gathered the bugs that he had summoned. They crawled into his robes and into a couple of the dozens of pockets he kept within. He severed the connection, and they lost all animation, lifeless once again.

Adam approached him, flicking the blood off his blade. He had a frown on his face.

“I know we agreed to come at them with lethal force,” he said, “but even after seeing the kind of fucked up shit they do, it doesn’t feel good to know that this sword’s first kill is a person.”

“You alright?” asked Alen.

“Yeah,” his friend nodded. “It just feels like a bad omen, I guess. It doesn’t sit well with me.”

“I’d be surprised if it did,” said Alen, watching the shards of keratin on the floor disintegrate. He unconsciously rubbed his scarred palm with his gauntleted right hand. The metal was cold to the touch. He pulled his hand away, clenching his gauntleted fist tight. He nodded at Adam. On to the next battle, he thought, walking towards the rest of the party.

“…could use these,” he caught Razzan saying, the large-eyed Kaeri man stripping the robes from one of the corpses.

“We could,” Vexxaron agreed. “It won’t fool them for long, but it will give us an advantage. Who will be wearing them?”

“I will,” said Dieter. “Distribute the rest to the others.”

Vexxaron nodded and donned the cloak. Dieter got to work in stripping the next one. The blood was unnoticeable, soaked deep into the crimson fabric of the robes. Alen approached the now cloaked lizardman.

“I can make more of these,” Alen said, “but you’ll have to help me recreate the design in AutoBone. I think I can tint my keratin in this color with a bit of tweaking. Just need to get it right.”

“How many can you make?”

“Provided I can get the design down? I can clothe everyone in a cloak. Making it could take as long as thirty minutes.”

“Can you finish in fifteen?”

“I can try,” said Alen. “Mind if I pluck one of your scales?”

Vexxaron pulled one from the back of his hand. It came free easily, blood at the tip. The wound was already beginning to heal, a new scale rising in its place. Alen took the scale and cleaned it on the fabric of his robes. He muttered a thanks under his breath, then moved off, taking a cloak from Dieter. He sat down, then began replicating the design.

The creation process wasn’t as rough as he expected it to be, his expertise in creating things on AutoBone displayed fully as he corrected the length and volume of the robes. He thinned them, making them loose in places where the others could easily hide their weapons. He made the hoods more effective in hiding their faces, creating a specialized one for Alexandrius’s uncle, whose face was long and reptilian.

Finally, he finished, the design coming together relatively well. He took the scale in his hand, and with a surge of magic, the robes expanded out from the crimson keratin, droopy and voluminous in his grip. Alen tore off a sample and mended the tear, then created more robes, repeating the process.

The entire procedure took twelve minutes. Alen tossed a robe to each individual present, before tossing one over himself, layering it over the thick plates of super enhanced keratin that covered large parts of his robes. He pulled up the hood, adjusting it to make sure that it wouldn’t fall back or over his face. Finished, he nodded to himself and faced Lynn, who he only recognized due to the snow-colored hair that spilled over her shoulders and down the side of her face under the hood.

“How do I look?” he asked.

“Fanatical,” she praised, nodding. “Maybe a touch deranged, even.”

“Excellent,” he grinned and faced the portal. He turned to Dieter. “We’re going?”

“Yes,” Dieter said. “Vexxaron?”

“We continue with the original plan, but with a new tactic due to the robes. The slight difference in color should be unnoticeable in dim light. Stick to the shadows,” he said, his eyes moving over everyone present. “We are infiltrating the base of operations of the Cult of the Dark One. There is no room for mistakes. I assume everyone knows their roles?”

A round of nods filled the room. The lizardman nodded, satisfied as he turned into the portal.

He disappeared into a vortex of darkness, one that looked like it sucked in all the light of the surrounding area—as if it was the mouth of a beast swallowing the prey that walked straight into its maw. One of the hunters entered with him. Alen watched everyone else enter in pairs, then, with a nod to Lynn beside him, he grabbed her arm and entered, the scar in his palm burning hot despite the cold. In spite of everything, he felt the same dumb smile he always had creep into his face.

These fanatics were going to be so mad at him after this.