Regis’ friends gathered their share of Amaranth as well and a few seconds later all of the corpses were gone from the market square.

“Durnan,” the dark elf turned to the dwarven arbelist. “Take a walk around and make sure that everyone returned home safely. We’ll meet here in the morning.”

“Yes, your lordship.” The dwarf nodded, hoisting the crossbow on his shoulder.

The group returned to the inn with Zola, letting her take a seat at the long table before everyone else sat down as well.

“So,” Regis stared into her pale blue eyes. “Why don’t you start from the beginning.”

“Days ago when the soldiers Lord Vidal sent to track you down did not return, he became furious and wanted to send an entire platoon after you, but he couldn’t. Then one of the soldiers showed up at the gates, rambling on about people settling down in a valley and that the others were killed. Lord Vidal got him dragged into the manor where he questioned the poor soul.”

“I guess we weren’t as thorough as we thought,” Cruz scoffed. “One of the rats scurried away.”

“Must have been an archer,” Quentin noted before turning toward Zola. “Please continue.”

“After the soldier described the path and the valley, lord Vidal seemed to have recognised it and dragged him into the study. An hour later he called for me. He had a map of the valley and a secret path, but he could not send too many people, or he would have caused the spies of the other nobles to catch wind of it.”

“Hold on”, Fabien muttered. “Spies from other nobles?”

“You should be more worried about the map. How the hell did he get his hands on that?”

“I... he told me it was passed down generations ago and that the valley was supposed to belong to a fallen noble family, but the place got cursed and poisoned, making it uninhabitable.”

“Sounds about the same we were told by Elder Derris.” Valerie remarked.

“The tunnel.” Regis dragged back everyone into the present as he stared Zola in the eye. “Where is it and why did you even need it if you can put people to sleep.”

“The ritual can only be used once a day,” Zola explained. “And I would need to get close enough to them for it to work. Using the secret tunnel was easier.”

“Where is it?” Quentin repeated the question, his domain glowing with warm light, but it proved to be unnecessary as the young woman answered without feeling the weight of the compulsion.

“It’s near the entrance where the gate is, but on the other side of the river. It let us circle around your guards.”

“Shit,” Cruz cursed. “We have to collapse that tunnel tomorrow.”

“I agree,” Osmond said. “We can’t leave something like that out there. Otherwise, that Vidal guy will just send more people.”

“Or anyone else who finds out about the tunnel.”

“I’ll fill up the tunnel and turn it back into granite,” Regis promised. “That should fix things.”

“Will it?” Valerie asked with an obvious worry in her tone. “If we plug that hole, he’ll just send people through our front door.”

“So what are we supposed to do? Triple our guards and mount cannons on the mountain pass entrance?” Cruz practically growled in frustration.

“I think it’s high time we paid a visit to Lord Vidal.” The dark elf stated with most of the group either nodding in agreement or staring at him surprised.

“You want to meet him after he sent people to kill us?” Amanda asked baffled.

“It’s obvious that he wants us gone and he won’t stop until he succeeds. If all we do is sit here and wait, then next time somebody will get hurt.” Regis said with a slight grunt as his sudden movement sent a wave of pain through his chest.

“Are you alright?” Letty asked as the spell weaver cast ‘minor healing’ on himself.

“I’m fine, just a few cracked ribs and whatnot.”

“I agree with Regis,” Cruz stated as she stood up from her chair. “We should take the fight to this Vidal guy on our terms. I bet he wouldn’t expect that.”

“He would,” Osmond disagreed with her. “But we could surprise him by showing up sooner than expected if we used the gateway.”

“We can get to Escroft using the gateway and then rush over to Vidal’s home territory,” Valerie followed her companion’s train of thought. “He’d be waiting for the news instead of us.”

“Zola,” the paladin turned to the young woman. “How did you travel here?”

“On foot,” she answered. “We were sent to Escroft by Lord Vidal’s spell caster through the gateway and then we used horses to ride to the fishing outpost. From there, we crossed the river and travelled on foot on its other side.”

“Why not just use horses all the way?”

“I… he said that he didn’t want to make it known to his enemies that he sent out some of his best on a vermin hunt.”

“Vermin hunt,” Cruz growled, thinking of the newly revealed information. “That son of a bitch.”

“Even if we manage to make our way to Vidal’s town, you can’t expect them to just let us through the front gate,” Amanda brought up the issue. “What would we even say? Hi there! We came to talk to your lord and probably kill him if things go wrong?”

“Why don’t... we could wear the armour of the people sent here.” Mary spoke up from the far side of the table.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“It always seemed to have worked in the books and movies.” The young woman tried to defend her idea.

“It might get us through the outer gates,” Quentin hummed as he looked at Zola. “Especially if we have someone familiar with us. Will you help us, Zola?”

“I... Do you really want to go there? Lord Vidal has dozens of soldiers.”

“That doesn’t sound like a no,” Regis noted. “But you’re right. We need to know more about the layout of his home and the number of his soldiers. Preferably their strength too.”

“I can tell you about Mistfield, but I don’t know much about the soldiers. I just know that there are about thirty of them patrolling atop the walls and around the same amount patrolling the streets or training in the barracks.”

“What about his personal guards?” Fabien asked while bringing some warm tea for the young woman.

“He has a personal mage advisor called Egil,” she said with an obvious spite in her tone. “He’s the one who brought us to Escroft. He’s a tier two spell caster.”

“And not a nice man, judging by your tone.” Valerie remarked.

“He is a... he tends to be cruel to the servants of the manor.”

“Did he...”

“No,” Zola shook her head. “But he hurt a lot of my friends.”

“I see,” Regis sighed, seeing her pained expression. “Who else should we look out for?”

“Hillar,” she said with just as much venom as before. “He’s a tier two knight who swore fealty to Lord Vidal. Other than them, he has half a dozen guards on the second floor of the manor and another ten on the main floor.”

“That’s a lot of guards,” Letty said worried. “Are you sure you have to go there?”

“Not all of us,” Quentin stated. “There were seven attackers beside Zola, but two got burnt to a crisp, so their armour should be irreparable. That leaves us with five spots. I can take on the role of the guy with the two-hander.”

“No offence,” Amanda shook her head. “But the guy was a lot taller than you. He was similar in height to me, so I should be the one to take his spot.”

“I’ll take on the spearman’s role, Regis said. We could bandage up my face to make it look like I got injured during the fight. I’ll bring along my staff as proof of victory.”

“They had an archer and two more fighters,” Fabien recounted, that leaves me, Quentin, and... Sophie?”

“What about the rest of us?” Cruz asked the important question. “We can’t just let the five of you waltz in there knowing that they have so many guards.”

“We have to move fast and make it seem like we managed to kill some before having to have fled from here.”

“Which means no prisoners.”

“I’m not gonna lie, this all sounds like a very sketchy plan.” Osmond sighed.

“A lot of things could go wrong,” Regis agreed with his friend while turning to Zola. “Not to mention that we would endanger you as well.”

“Yeah,” Sophie hummed. “Are you really okay with all this? I mean, he is your… dad after all.”

Hearing those words turned Zola’s somewhat frightened expression a lot colder.

“Lord Vidal is not my father,” she said with a cold voice. “He forced himself on my mother after he got drunk at a banquet and then treated me like I was his property. He’s a cruel man who knows no kindness or care.”

“That’s one way to say you’re in,” Osmond let out a slight chuckle. “Anyway, I think it’s time for us to sleep. On our own terms.

“Meet here back at sunrise?” Amanda asked, earning a firm nod from the rest of the group.

“We’ll have to unearth those corpses to take their armour and fix them.”

“What about their shardwaker marks?” Zola asked Regis. “Don’t you want to claim those for yourself as well?”

“The marks,” the dark elf mumbled. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“Oh,” she looked at him surprised. “I could teach you tomorrow. I’m sure you have people who could make good use of a mark.”

“I’d appreciate that,” the spell weaver nodded. “Mary, could you...”

“I’ll show her to one of the spare rooms we have. After that, I’ll check up on our druid guest as well.” The young woman nodded as she led Zola away.

“That dude slept through the whole ordeal like a baby,” Fabien raised his voice. “Still, it’s time to get some shut-eye.”

“Agreed. See you tomorrow.” Everyone said something along those lines while Regis stepped over to Quentin.

“Could you tell Grego about the tunnel?”

“You want guards there for the night?” The paladin asked as he looked at his tired and bruised friend.

“Yeah. Better safe than sorry.”

“Alright, I’ll go and talk to Grego. You should go and get some sleep. You look like shit.”

“Feel like it too.” The dark elf remarked as he turned around to head upstairs.

After reaching his room and closing his door, Regis let out a deep sigh. He felt tired, weary even, but he had something important to do. He used the cleansing spell on himself after taking off his armour and then he used lesser mending on his gear to fix up any damage and to clean it. A ‘minor healing’ later he sat down atop his bed and began to meditate to enter his inner world. The brief sensation of falling later he opened his eyes again, finding himself sitting in front of the altar with his own statue. Regis stood up and touched the tome in front of the statue, making it open up on its own, pages flipping to his character sheet.

{Name: Regis Thorne}

{Title: Novice loremaster}

{Race: Dark elf/Sun elf/ Human}

{Age: 19}

{Amaranth: 5690}

{Caste: landed lesser noble}

{Path}

Novice Loremaster

Trainee fighter

{Craft}

Novice enchanter

Novice alchemist

{Attributes}

•Allure: 16

•Deftness: 20

•Erudition: 23

•Faith: 8

•Luck: 12

•Might: 21

•Mind: 27

•Physique: 25

•Spirit: 27

•Willpower: 28

Health/Arcana/Stamina

{72/72}{140/140}{67/67}

{Status effects}

Health regeneration 0,4/1 min

‘Looks like everything is in order,’ Regis sighed inwardly as he looked at his attributes and stats. ‘Fighting with those bandits back at Rust-well Keep and the intruders here left me with enough Amaranth to do what must be done.’ After finishing his inner monologue and making up his mind, the dark elf walked over to the shelf that held his constellation charts.

He rummaged through the small pile and picked out the one that depicted the ‘runic spellblade’ star chart. ‘That bastard tonight shrugged off my spells like they were nothing and he even sent me flying. I have to become stronger as a melee fighter as well, or one of these days someone like him will kill me.’ Regis thought with a shudder running down his spine as he recalled his close brush with death. He began to channel his Amaranth into the twenty nodes on the scroll, not stopping until they turned into a golden drawing.

{Runic Spellblade Constellation}

{Rank: Gold}

{Nodes: 20/20}

Deftness: 1

Might: 1

Mind: 1

Physique: 1

Spirit: 1

Willpower: 1

Runic Spellblade constellation pathway is now available.

‘Six attributes?’ The spell weaver stared at the parchment baffled. His soul-space shook as the golden constellation appeared above him, shedding golden motes of light which fell towards the edge of the platform he stood on. ‘I remember my ‘Loremaster’ constellation only affecting three of my attributes, but it boosted them with two points. It looks like tier two classes can only work with six points at best and hybrid classes split it between the attributes of both branches.’

Regis tried to rationalise what he was seeing. Either way, he spent thirty-five hundred Amaranth on the class and he planned on making the most of it. Since he still had roughly two thousand Amaranth left, it was best to see what it could buy him while he still had the time. He walked over to the newly opened pathway, taking only a few steps on the hollow crystal stepping stones before finding himself staring at three floating crystals.