The Mass Postage will be postponed as will all posting for the moment. Due to an accident involving me and another driver I will be having to kiss any semblance of proper scheduling goodbye as I get things sorted out.

This is not a notice of Cancelation or Abandonment (I have a series of other chapters already written...but do not wish to post those as I don't know when I will be posting properly again)

For the moment I will be limiting the posting to once every Sunday. For those of you who were anticipating the promised chapters...I am truly sorry.

Chapter Thirty Three - Into the Dark

*** Bastion Cazador ***

How do you become the father of your own boy who’s never needed you before?

Gerald Butler, the head butler, informed me that the cellar was constantly being raided and many of the good bottles had gone missing. Twice I caught a whiff of alcohol on my boy, at first I thought maybe he was experimenting with it, my wife was constantly telling me of all the things my boy could do and experimenting with alcohol to perform some new task did not seem all that far fetched to me. However, he was constantly missing, Sophia had moved in with us since he was brought here and he made no move to take her back to their secluded residence in the deeper pocket town.

Ever since he woke up from his long coma he had been shuffling around like the dead barely registering anything, he had mostly been staying out in the gardens usually attended by Sophia until he started to disappear.

It has been three days since his latest disappearance and Gianna was getting extremely worried

on her frantic urging I went out to find him. What I found was extremely shocking to say the least.

My boy was barely ten years old, not even a man, yet here I found him in his office in the residence he’d set up far from our own sitting behind his desk and completely...drunk. There was one wine bottle on the ground, its contents gone, another sat on the desk half empty.

“Fatherrrr....” my boy spoke registering my presence, his words slurred.

I didn’t say anything at first, my mind was still trying to cope with what I was seeing, it just seemed so...wrong...so...out of place. In four years, five years...finding him drinking then would not have been so shocking, but finding him drinking himself into oblivion? At the age of ten? He was growing far too fast for his body, his mind was already old.

“Son,” was all I managed as I sat down on the chair before him.

His powerful presence and pressure was all gone, I felt none of that...overwhelming force I had felt when we had sparred. The life it had brought out in him had been amazing, yet here and now he was empty, it was like looking at an empty shell. It was hard to believe that it really was him and not some imposter.

There was only silence.

His eyes were glazed over, he was not here, he was somewhere far away escaping reality as he ventured the vast expanse of his memories. I wondered what he was remembering, what was superficially making him happy, maybe he was remembering when he was but a toddler.

His hand suddenly went for the bottle, his aim was completely gone, I doubted he could even focus on the bottle he was trying to grasp. His fingers suddenly brushed against the glass of the bottle, from there he guided the rest of his hand to grab hold of the neck of the bottle and brought it to his lips. Some of the blood red wine dribbled down his chin as he gulped a few mouthfuls. The bottle was down to less than a quarter full.

“You have to stop this son,” I said taking the bottle away finishing the rest.

“Whyyy…?” He asked leaning back in the chair, his eyes suddenly focused on mine, it was as if he had completely sobered up.

“You are destroying your body,” I replied. “You are far too young to handle so much liquor.”

“Am I too young?” He asked, it was as if he was trying to say something else, the question had not felt like one. It was more of a comment to himself.

There was silence again.

“Father?” he spoke first breaking the renewed silence.

“Yes son?” I asked.

“Am I a terrible person?” he asked looking clearly at me.

“No son,” I replied. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because I did this to myself,” he replied.

“...”

Huh?...what?

“What do you mean son?” I asked.

“In the world of light and darkness,” he explained. “I became three parts of a whole...each part of me represented something...light, darkness...and the vessel...me. The light and dark part of me tore me apart and tossed me away. The good part of me wanted nothing to do with me, the dark part of me too wanted nothing of me. Two thirds of myself hated me… they took my power! ...and left me with nothing. They said nothing, but they were me, father. They were me,”

“...”

“We had the same thoughts,” he explained further. “We were one and the same. What I can’t understand...is why? Why would I do this to myself?”

I could say nothing to that.

“Leave,” he said after a while. “Please leave.”

I could not help him, I could force him to stop doing all of this, to act correctly, but I felt that would do more harm than good. He was mentally far too mature, to treat him like a child might only crush him further, I disliked it, but for now I had to respect his wishes.

I got up to leave.

“I’ll be fine,” I heard my boy say as I turned to leave.

*** Leo Cazador ***

After father left I opened a drawer on my desk and looked down towards the pistol there, it was loaded.

I closed it again.

Tears began to flow down my face.

“Graah!” I screamed clenching my fists. In a rush of anger I grabbed the desk and attempted to throw it across the room but remembered that I would only have to pick up the mess later. Instead I slammed my fist on it with all my might. The desk remained unfazed.

I bent down and grabbed the last of my bottles, I would soon have to steal some more.

*** Headmaster Franco ***

After Teacher Mage Gysh and Norma came to me informing me of the consequences of the professor’s discovery I called for a meeting of all the teachers who specialized or were talented in combat magic. The Academy has tens of thousands of students meaning there were thousands of teachers, which in turn meant that the meeting place I chose was now full of hundreds of able teachers.

This was not that meeting, the first meeting had been short and simple. Switch curriculums to teaching combat magic at all academic levels and sort out the combatants from the noncombatant mages. Already reports filled my desk of clashes with monsters, list of the dead, lists of varying creatures. It was a nightmare.

This meeting was about something new, three seals in the lower levels of the underground temple had popped up in close proximity and a large number of monsters infested those lower levels, controlling those seals was a must.

I had already explained to the teachers what was discovered and what was planned.

“Is not what you are planning going to cost many lives?” one teacher spoke up.

“We have no choice,” I replied. “Soon the numbers will become too large for the lower levels to contain them and they will then begin bleeding upwards. We have to conquer those seals before it becomes an even more costly conflict.”

“You haven’t explained how you plan on sealing the gateways,” another teacher spoke up. “Can they be shut down?”

“I do not know,” I replied. “Shutting them down isn’t an option right now, instead we are going to block the way with earth and stone.”

“That’s just a temporary solution,” another spoke up. “Won’t they just break through?”

“The main gate is blocked by dirt and stone,” I replied. “It still remains blocked.”

“Drawing the seal for any sizable earth spell will take too long,” another spoke, this one was an earth elemental. “I don’t think even I can manage to block one, much less three by myself.”

“He’s right,” another spoke up. “I can lift a boulder or two myself but I have seen the size of the seals, they are at least twenty feet wide.”

“How was the main gate sealed?” A woman asked.

“With the aid of an earth elemental,” I replied.

“Bring him along then,” the first earth elemental that had spoken up said. “The more the merrier.”

“Unfortunately he won’t reply to any message or messenger,” I explained.

“Then what are we going to do?” he asked.

“We are going to gather all the earth elemental users,” I responded. “They will move as a single cohesive unit and move at the center of our formation, while everyone else battles in the lower levels they will be responsible for quickly sealing the trifecta.”

“Indeed that might work but won’t that still cost too many lives?” another woman asked. “Royalty and nobles attend this academy. What are we going to tell the world leaders if their children die?”

“Royalty will be placed within the formation and not at its edges to maximize their survival chances,” I replied. “I won’t force them to participate, but I will also not reject them.”

“I heard that there are more seals popping up beyond here,” another teacher spoke up. “What are we going to do about those?”

“One problem at a time,” I replied. “For now we take care of the more pressing issues, then work our way from there.”

After a moment of no one speaking I continued.

“I have already drawn out the formation and written out the list of elemental earth users,” I said motioning to a stack of papers. “Be ready, in two days we move out.”