Chapter 8

While Daelyn was exploring the house, the conversation between Grey, Lyvia and Orthrus ensued. Orthrus started the conversation with an amused look.

“How do you feel, now that you know that he has both dark and blood mana?”

In contrast to Orthrus, Grey and Lyvia still had to process this. Something like this was extremely rare, and would also make for a lot of problems. Lyvia spoke up first with a soft but reasoning voice.

“Well, I have some mixed feelings. Mainly, I’m worried for his future, how will he get any friends with that kind of affinity! I know he is a good boy, but others may see him only for his affinity! They would shun him, only because of his nature!”

Grey upon hearing that, sat there with a pale face. His son had such an affinity! His wife had put most of his worries to word, but there was one more thing nagging at him.

“Orthrus, I’m assuming you did not bring us over only to tell us this news, did you?”

Orthrus, sitting across from Grey and Lyvia, could not help but laugh.

“Hahaha, you got me. I did not bring you here solely to tell you this, I brought you here to talk about his future. As a dark mana mage myself, I’m willing to teach him.”

Lyvia was perplexed at the thought. Why would Daelyn need to learn something from such a creepy old man? Lyvia could not contain her thoughts as she blurted them out with a perplexed voice.

“Why would he need to learn from you? There must be plenty of other dark mages out there.”

Orthrus’ expression changed after hearing those words, and answered her question with a cold and reasoning tone.

“There are indeed many other out there, however you know what dark mana is, right? It is the embodiment of dark and malicious emotions. It is rare for a dark mage to take on a disciple, because what they call a disciple is normally an experiment. They experiment on their disciple..”

Hearing this, Lyvia could not help but blurt out.

“And why would we trust that you don’t do that do Daelyn?”

Orthrus sighed, and with a defeated tone said: “At the moment, you can’t know. I can only tell you that I have made mistakes in my life, mistakes that I regret dearly. I do not wish those mistakes on anyone else, especially such a promising little guy as Daelyn. The reason I want to teach your son is to give him power, to teach him how to use that power, and, most of all, teach him the responsibility that comes with that power. Most dark mages fall to the prospect of power, and lose their morals. Those are the dark mages that turn into murders, or creatures of the deadlands”

Both Grey and Lyvia could tell that he had a hard time hiding the emotions in those words from them. They realised that they had done to him what they did not want to happen to Daelyn, they saw him as one of many, and not for who he was. Sitting in silence for several moments, Orthrus regained himself and continued the conversation.

“Okay, the future of little Daelyn is at stake here. We need to be clear here, I don’t expect you two trust me without a reason, but at least let me teach Daelyn. You are welcome to join the learning session to make sure that nothing happens, but we both know that if he does not pursue power, he will be killed or enslaved.”

Hearing those last words, Lyvia let out a yelp. She did not want to have her son enslaved, he was hers, he was not some nobles property. He was her son, she would do everything to make sure that did not happen. Orthrus noticed this and continued.

“While there is a small chance of that happening now, the community won’t be heart touched by his cuteness if they found out what kind of power he wields. I want to teach him how to strengthen his soul, and I want to teach him the theory about dark mana until his fifth birthday. Then we will start practising, and when he has reached a sufficient level, I think it would be wise to get some combat experience. He can hunt the surrounding forest critters, or he could fight with my…”

Before he could finish his sentence, they were interrupted by a roar. A roar that seemed so feral, it spiked their instinct to run and hide from it. They were severely startled by the roar, the first one to regain her senses was Lyvia.

“Where is Daelyn? Where is he!” She shouted as her head was filled with countless scenes of her son’s death.

As she was looking at both Grey and Orthrus, she saw the face of Orthrus pale. Making his original already white skin seem to be whiter than cloth. He immediately stood up and made his way hurriedly through the house, knocking several piles of books over and bumping against some of the bookcases as he made his way towards the iron door.

Grey and Lyvia followed in his wake, their expression filled with worry and anxiety. They knew that such a roar did not belong to a normal beast, this beast must be very strong. They could remember hearing such feral roars from the monster they fought in their adventuring days, but even those seemed to be slightly inferior to this one.

Suddenly, a wolf howling could be heard, followed by a second one, and finally a third one. Hearing this, Orthrus’ face paled even more, while Grey and Lyvia were perplexed at the howls.

They had never heard such a trio of howls, most howls normally sound alike due to their comparable biology as a species. However, these three howls were vastly different, one sounded low and dark, like it was a horn, bellowing from the depths of the darkest pit in this world, the second one seemed to be high and cold, it seemed to be the start of a chorus that would announce a new ice age, and finally the third one. The third one did not seem to be particularly high or low, but it was mostly loud, not overruling the other howls with its volume, but it was clear that it took its rightful place there. This howl seemed to be scorching hot, a flame so strong that it would reduce anything that came close to ashes.

Hearing these howls, the expressions of the three grew worse as they drew near to the origin of the howls.

They arrived at the iron door, only to find it slammed shut with a goblin standing next to it. Gob had seen them approaching, but was too scared to speak in fear of his master’s wrath.

“Gob, what happened to Daelyn? Where is he?” asked Orthrus with a hurried and demanding tone.

Gob could only shiver as he stared at the ground and replied: “I don’t know exactly master. I was telling him a story, and suddenly he disappeared. I looked and looked and looked, but could not find him. I used my nose, I shouted, I could not find him, until I came across the door. I can vaguely smell him, but I don’t know if he is in there.”

Hearing this answer, Orthrus’ face was filled with worry, irritation, but most of all, anger. Oh great, the first day he is here, and he gets eaten alive! Great! Just fucking great!

He continued his mental curse fest as he approached the door and put his hand on the handle. Upon contact, several powerful runes seemed to flare into existence, they hummed with magical power, and seemed to be masterfully constructed.

Seeing this, Orthrus became less worried. Good, the runes are still in place, that means that they can’t get out. He was glad for but a moment as he realized something, his face turned ashen. If the runes are activated, that means…

Grey and Lyvia were standing close to Orthrus as they saw the runes flare into existence, and they stood close as his mind sunk into the depth of his thoughts. They saw his expression turn to one of worry, an expression that betrayed his mind being greatly strained to find a solution, and finally an expression of helplessness and sadness.

As Lyvia and Grey observed the rapid changing or Orthrus’ expressions, they did not know what he was thinking, but with his last look they did know that is was nothing good. Lyvia was very worried about Daelyn and asked with a nervous voice: “Orthrus, why don’t we break these runes and go in there? We can save Daelyn like that!”

Hearing her voice, Orthrus started to become aware of surroundings through his thoughts, and tried to regain his composure.

He sighed, before answering Lyvia with a calm and defeated voice: “We can’t, because that will get him killed. Those runes serve two purposes, to lock down the entrance and exit to that room, and to supress the minds of the creatures within the room. This only happens when one or multiple go out of control.”

Hearing this, Lyvia was still not convinced and said: “Then why don’t we break those runes, and rescue Daelyn.”

Orthrus could no longer withhold his anger and despair and shouted: “Because that would kill him! If they go wild, they will kill him before we can get to him!”

Grey and Lyvia stood silent for a moment, the weight of the situation heaving in on them, they descended to the floor and sat down. It was hard to process the fact that they could only wait and hope their son would come out alive.

He was a little relieved as he remembered his deal with Elrieden.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Elrieden taught him some basic curse magic, he should be fine.” Orthrus said with a reassuring and calming voice.

Hearing this, Grey and Lyvia had a questioning gaze towards Orthrus. Lyvia was the most inquisitive of the two, and could not help but ask: “Curse magic? What do you mean?”

Orthrus turned to them with an expression filled with naivety, like a child that does not know what it did wrong. He opened his mouth, and with a weak voice he said: “The-the curse magic, Elrieden was supposed to teach it.” As he realised something, he burst out in anger and yelled: “He should have been thought by Elrieden! That damned shaman! He lied to me! If Daelyn dies, his descendants won’t only have a heritage of their village elder! I will curse them with an endless horde of abominations!”

Grey and Lyvia were perplexed at his first remark, Elrieden was supposed to teach Daelyn curse magic, but why? Lyvia wondered even more so why she hadn’t heard anything from Elrieden about this. She shouted at Orthrus to be audible to him despite his angered voice.

“Why would Daelyn need to learn curse magic? He is already smart and with his affinities, he should be strong enough to go without curse magic. It would only be a waste of time.”

Orthrus returned from his rage filled stupor, looked at both Grey and Lyvia with a stern expression and addressed the subject Lyvia had brought up.

“Yes, he may not need it, but it would increase his power by a good margin. But that is not the point of it, the point is that curse magic is accepted and can be wielded by both dark mages and pure mana mages. That makes it very valuable for dark mages who wish to be accepted into society. Now he will most likely be hard pressed to do that, he may be smart but laying the basis for a curse mage start from the second birthday and continues until the day their mana core is formed. Without a proper craft, except from his dark mage craft, he will most likely be shunned and relegated for his nature. He could try and learn curse magic either way, but it would be quite difficult. He will also need to focus on his mage craft to increase his power and survive this world, leaving no time for curse magic.”

Grey and Lyvia had an understanding but worried expression on their face, until Orthrus finished. Grey’s face suddenly flared up with pride and joy, he looked Orthrus in the eyes and posed a question.

“Orthrus, as a dark mage, you must have heard of the tales of Greg the alchemist, but do you know what the secret to his concoctions were?”

Orthrus stared at Grey, marvelled by the opportunity to learn one of the secrets of a great and notorious alchemist, he shook his head as he did not know the answer, he resembled a small child that was about to get a puppy. Grey replied with a proud face and a soft voice, like he was telling an age-old secret.

“We don’t know exactly what he used, but we do know that it was a liquid loaded with mana. The ingredients were normally quite common, but the liquid he used contained so much mana that it amplified the effects.”

Orthrus’ eyes tingled with joy from such a secret. That would mean that they could create some of the more powerful arcane concoctions with plain alchemist ingredients! This would open a new path of alchemy dominated by a certain type of mages! While Orthrus was entranced by the possibility, he returned to reality sooner than he had done before, and asked Grey a question.

“How is that going to help the situation, the subject we were talking about, or Daelyn? It doesn’t really add up.”

Grey sat down with his back leaned against the walls, and asked Orthrus with irritation and a bit of sarcasm in his voice: “Did the great dark sage forget what my occupation was?”

Orthrus looked irritated at the sarcasm that echoed in Grey’s voice, but that was quickly replaced by shame for his stupidity, and finally a tint of admiration and a lot of joy showed on his face. He could help but stammer as he asked his questions.

“Do-does that mean..”

“Yeeeess.” Replied Grey with a sigh.

“So that means he can..” Stammered Orthrus as he was unable to form proper sentences due to the intervals of Grey’s replies and his mind spinning from the opportunities.

As he finally calmed down after asking several dozens of questions concerning alchemy and the potential this secret method of alchemy had, he could only say one thing as he stared with wide eyes at the ceiling while he laid on his back.

“That kid is going to have one hell of a future, isn’t he?”

Lyvia chuckled as she answered: “We can only find out in the future, can’t we?”

Both Lyvia and Grey chuckled as they remembered where her quote came from, while Orthrus snickered as he remembered his own predicament with that sentence. Their minds sunk deeps in the crevasses of their memories, until they became aware of something in their surroundings, or the lack of something.

The growls, hisses, and other sounds that originated from the creatures behind the enchanted iron door, were gone. The room was completely silent except for the sound of their breathing, it took a few seconds for them to realise what this meant.

Orthrus’ face cleared up first, and he rushed towards the door, followed quickly by Grey and Lyvia, he deactivated the enchantment and the door swung open. They raced down the corridors of the dungeon Orthrus had set up for his captive monsters, trying to find Daelyn.

Lyvia was racing down the hallway, until she came across a broken door. She cautiously approached the door by being as quiet as possible, once she finally reached the door, she could only let out a yelp of surprise. This yelp caused the creature inside the cage to move his head and take a large breath of air through its nose, before falling back to sleep.

Lyvia’s yelp had, despite its softness, alerted both Orthrus and Grey. They quickly made their way toward Lyvia, both as surprised as Lyvia as they stared into the cage with the two beings in it.