Mark of the Fool

Chapter 886: Poison

“Why is this happening?” the Ravener’s scream shook its inner world. “How… …but you are—is this an illusion? How are you here and outside at the same time? I sense you elsewhere as well, what are you do—”

“What did…it just say?” Claygon froze in surprise.

As did his companions within the Ravener’s cavern.

Too much had happened too quickly.

Claygon’s father had appeared out of nowhere, stabbed the Ravener then teleported it to a Wall of Roiling Magic.

It had all happened so fast that even the Ravener-spawn had frozen, caught completely off guard.

“Everyone!” the General of Thameland’s voice echoed through the cavern. His cloak billowed behind him as he pointed at the Ravener. A disintegration beam lanced into the construct, destroying a chunk of its surface. “I’m back, everyone! Keep focused on the Ravener! Keep crushing its armies!”

“What’re ya sayin’, Alex?” Cedric cried. “What about Merzhin—”

“I’m taking care of that!” Alex flew down, launching a fireball into the Ravener as he did, slashing through dozens of Ravener-spawn near him. “I can’t explain things right now, but I’ve got this! Just stay focused! We’ve nearly got this thing dead! We’re nearly through with it! And listen…Hannah’s back and so is Carey! We’re nearly there!”

“Both of them?” Bjorgrund cried. “Yeeees!” His axe split a massive spawn down the middle.

“What are you on about?” the Ravener demanded. “Tell me how you are here and yet…is this an illusion? A trick? Which of you is real?”

“You ain’t got time for chatting right now,” Hart growled.

He and Asmaldestre pounced on the construct from two sides.

“Welcome back, Alex!” Prince Khalik shouted. “I do not understand what is going on, but I am glad to see you with us and happy to hear Carey has returned! Let us give it our all, my friends!”

The Tekish wizard cast earth magic over Ravener-spawn nearby, burying them in spikes and shards of stone. The other wizards attacked with their own spells, blasting apart, smashing, and electrocuting spawn.

Ravener-spawn kept springing from the construct’s surface, tasked with stopping the Heroes, but Alex cast mass disintegration on the monsters, keeping them in check.

“We’ve got your back, Alex!” Theresa shouted. “Just do what you have to!”

“Yes…father…we will fight off these…enemies!” Claygon called.

As he spoke, he felt his father touch his mind. ‘Claygon, I’m about to bring you into the Ravener. Not right away, but soon, so just be ready.’

The golem considered the words.

There was something…off about the way his father sounded, speaking in his mind. Their connection felt different; instead of a single stream of magic connecting them, it seemed frayed, splitting into different streams.

It was like his father’s voice was coming from more than one connection at the same time.

Claygon thought about what the Ravener had just said.

‘Father…are you…it feels like you are…in different places…’ the golem thought.

‘We don’t have time for a full explanation,’ Alex answered, casting a Wall of Roiling Magicin front of himself. Ravener-spawn charging at him collapsed in great heaps, stopped dead. ‘But when I got access to more of Hannah’s power, I figured out a way to be in multiple places at once.’

‘So…you are also inside the Ravener now?’ the golem thought.

‘I sure am,’ Alex said. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m about to install the first device into one of its nodes. It should start interfering with its mana.’

‘Father…you didn’t bring me in with you…’ the golem pointed out.

‘I wanted to install the device first,’ Alex thought. ‘Not going to lie, it was hectic in here for a bit. I wanted to disrupt some of this things’s abilities to defend itself before I brought you in. So just give me a second. It’s a jungle in here.’

The central core of the tower was a wondrous place: a crystal cave revealing a sea of stalactites, stalagmites and crystal cords in every colour of the rainbow, each glowing from the inner power rushing through it.

A low pitched hum emanated from the walls of the massive, vertical chamber, and bolts of power crackled between the tips of the glowing crystals.

Alex actually stopped for a second, taking it all in, his jaw hanging open.

Over his time at Shale’s, he’d seen hundreds of golem cores…but none could even begin to approach the complexity of this place. The power generated in here electrified his mana senses, and tingled across his skin.

He whistled.

It was actually more powerful than he and the others had estimated from Uldar’s schematics.

‘There’s always differences between a schematic and the final product,’ he thought. ‘But…wow, I hope our devices are enough to drain this thing dry. I suppose there’s only one way to find out, so while the Ravener’s still distracted, let’s find the right point.’

Alex floated up through the forest of crystalline spikes, avoiding the power sparking between them.

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He examined his surroundings closely, the Mark of the General feeding him images of himself examining the schematics. He analysed the crystalline structure, searching carefully, noting the flow of power through the node…

…and finally discovering what he was looking for.

A crystal, slightly larger than the others—with multiple energies of different shades coursing through it—served as a central point of mana production in the complex.

‘This is it. And when I stab this device into the Ravener, I’m going to have to work fast; it’ll only be a matter of time before it figures out what we’re trying to do to it. And the last thing we need is for it to destroy itself before we can shut down its ability to reconstitute.’

He steadied himself, activating the device.

It hummed ominously, sounding like an immense angry hornet, preparing to sting to death anything that invaded its hive. For an instant, he remembered how he, Theresa, Claygon and Brutus had gone out to the Generasi countryside for her birthday, to hunt the wasp-like vespara. That memory sparked another: where the Ravener’s Hunters had rampaged through the Patrizia de Paolo’s—Isolde’s cousin’s—masquerade ball, destroying and killing anything standing in the way of him and them.

That memory turned to thoughts of the amount of destruction he’d witnessed all over Thameland, because of the Ravener and its monsters.

Even now, he was flying through the skies of his kingdom, ridding the land of hordes of monsters wherever he found them.

So much destruction.

‘And it has to end,’ Alex thought.

He raised the device…

…stabbing it deep into the Ravener’s crystalline substance.

A hiss escaped into the air as the device injected the venom he, Professor Jules and Isolde had concocted. A mix of toxins deadly to mana-infused creatures, shards of bane, and Elder Blodeuwedd’s mana-draining potion ran into the Ravener through the machine’s bane-needle.

It spread through the crystal—turning rainbow colours to a mad, chaotic array of lights and broken colour. The crystal vibrated as bane shards swept through the Ravener’s mana-producing centre, shredding everything they touched.

And the Ravener screamed.

The sound drilled into Alex, shaking the entire terrain.

‘What…what have you done?’ the construct shouted. ‘What are you doing?’

As it sought an answer, the device began humming louder, pumping away the Ravener’s mana as the toxic brew swept through its inner pathways, flowing to the other crystal shards within the vast node.

More crystals began shaking, rainbow colours fell into chaos, their vibrancy fading, colour dulling to sickly greys, browns, pus-yellows and greens.

The poison continued spreading, and Alex felt the mana in the air begin to…lessen.

His device kept pumping out the Ravener’s mana while the venom kept spreading.

“What is this?” the construct cried. “What have you done?”

The venom was spreading faster.

Much of the mana node’s vibrant colours were fading. Crystal was cracking, its sheen dulling as bits of its surface crumbled to lifeless grey dust.

The air shimmered.

Monsters began appearing around the young wizard.

“No,” was all he said.

With a twitch or two, he cast Wall of Roiling Magic around thedevice several times, enclosing it, shielding it in a barrier of lethal magic.

His attention next turned to spawn-knights dropping toward him.

He blasted them with Cone of ice.

The creatures froze mid-leap, dropping onto the dying crystal spikes and cords.

The hum grew fainter, the node’s essence shredding, mana draining.

The Ravener shuddered, trying to warp the node’s crystals, seeking to attack Alex or eject the device.

But, its control over its form in this area was failing

The poison had already spread too deeply, withering its essence, destroying its ability to control its own form in this node.

Outside, Alex and his companions continued hitting the Ravener and its minions with their most powerful strikes and spells, cutting deep gashes into the construct’s surface.

Alex watched it closely, observing it as its damaged sections healed.

He focused the Mark of the General on the task of comparing how fast it healed now, to how fast it healed before.

He smiled at what he found.

‘It’s healing slower,’ he thought. ‘By only a bit, but it is healing slower. We’re doing damage, slowly but surely…and things are about to get worse for Uldar’s pet.’

An explosion tore through the countryside in Thameland.

Ravener-spawn exploded as a colossal meteor dropped down on them, wiping out an entire horde of monsters in heartbeats. Below the Ravener-spawn army, a dungeon vanished as the meteor crushed it.

Focusing his mana senses, Alex’s eyes scanned the wreckage of the collapsing dungeon below him.

His gaze stopped.

“There you are.”

His arm reached out, making a grasping gesture with his fingers.

Hannah’s power surged within him.

And—suddenly—the dungeon core was in his hand.

Alex smiled, remembering when long ago, Baelin had destroyed a dungeon with a single cataclysmic spell, then brought the core to his hand from the wreckage.

At the time, the chancellor had said that one benefit of overwhelming power was—

“Convenience.” Alex said, gripping the dungeon core.

He poured his mana into it, overwhelming the core’s defences with his full might. He focused on its inner mana pathways, feeling out its inner controls, taking command of them.

“I’d bet normally, the Ravener would be trying to stop me right about now,” the young wizard said. “But it has bigger problems than this right now…aaaaand here we go. There you are.”

Alex found what he was looking for inside the dungeon core, and took control of it, forcing the core to begin making Ravener-spawn.

Ravener-spawn under his command.

The core quaked in his hand.

And the exact monster he was looking for emerged.

Tiny, flea-sized Ravener-spawn—each one ablaze—flew from the dungeon core in a stream; filling the air with flame, scalding heat, and blinding light.

A new fire cloud had been born: one that would follow the General’s commands, attack any foe he directed it to, and give aid to anyone he commanded it to.

He addressed the Ravener-spawn, “You’re fast. What I want you to do is to fly across Thameland and burn every Ravener-spawn you come across, unless they’re also under my command. If you confront Ravener-spawn and don’t hear these words, ‘I am following the commands of Alexander, Son of Alric, you are to eliminate them immediately. If you encounter Ravener-spawn attacking mortals? Kill them. Do you understand?”

“We understand,” the creatures responded.

“Good, now go, kill all offending Ravener-spawn…and make sure you defend any mortal you encounter. Is that clear?”

“As you command.”

The fire clouds flew away, ready to rampage through hordes of their former allies.

Alex smiled, placed the dungeon core in a pair of Wizard’s hands, and with it, began teleporting across the countryside. He would seek out other dungeons, relieve them of their cores and make them spawn their most powerful monsters to use against the Ravener’s own spawn.

That would help Thameland; the number of hostile monsters would be reduced, and the number of dungeon cores that the Ravener could control would decrease.

While he was rounding up cores and spawn across Thameland, he’d be continuing to cast Army of Heroes on anyone he found.

The Ravener would starve.

With its source of fear being turned off, and its internal mana production being crippled…things would start to look bleak…for Uldar’s creation.

Alex teleported out of the poisoned node, watching as cracks ran along the entire tower complex, as pieces chipped away.

With a screech, the Ravener reacted.

The cords connecting to the tower fell away, splitting apart and collapsing to the ground as useless shards of crystal.

In moments, the tower was cut off from the rest.

‘It’s like amputating a gangrenous limb,’ Alex thought. ‘Well you’re going to have a lot of amputating to do.’

Alex turned, looking for the next tower.

Only to find the world warping around him.

The realm inside the Ravener was turning chaotic.

Towers were shifting away from him; the flat crystal plane below rising and boiling like waves in a storm-wracked sea. Darkness above him broke, flashes of light peppering it. Web-like, crystalline cores writhed like tentacles.

Then came the monsters.

Scores appeared from thin air, filling the space around the towers with armies of flesh-hungry Ravener-spawn.

All eyes were on Alex.

“Alright,” he said, raising a hand. Things are too off balance. You’re up buddy.”

And with that, he cast Summon Construct.

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