Standing near the edge of the overlook on the third level, King Mavros Mithrilstrike looked out over his new mountain city. Although his expression didn’t show it, he was happy. Here, he would rebuild his kingdom and revive his clan.

  The empty mining town below him had been built by and for humans. There weren’t too many large buildings, and they’d wasted a great deal of time and energy carting in wood from the surface. Most of these buildings would have to be torn down. Especially those poor excuses for ore processing plants they had set up.

  Human smithing relied on essence crystal forges and smelters, requiring large amounts of energy to even run. Dwarves didn’t have to put up with any of that nonsense and instead used runic magic to power their industry. It was the power of the world that forged their creations.

  Humans were wasteful and shortsighted. Based on what he was seeing, it was easy to figure out how the town had progressed.

  Whoever had first inhabited this place had simply chosen the first larger cavern they could find and began setting up camp. From there, they spread out across the cavern floor. Looking over to the walls of the cavern, he guessed the multiple rings of floors overlooking the surface came much later, and only because they had run out of room.

  Before now, he hadn’t thought much of human stonework, but he had to admit they did a good job creating the basic structure of a central cavern. The floor was well-processed and strong, and the tiers and ramps were carved directly into the walls. Overall it was a large and reasonably well done little town they had built for themselves.

  The only thing that stood out as odd was the large number of wooden barracks and housing towers that they had built. There were twenty of them arranged in rows, bucking up against all three floors to the cavern’s ceiling. Primarily made out of wood, they were obviously meant to house warriors for some reason… thousands of them.

  Even more confusing were the nearby caverns that had been cleared out to provide training areas and more housing. Altogether, those structures had changed what had initially been conceived as a mining town into a warrior city.

  He’d been briefed that the town was wiped out due to the clan’s treason or something, but he refused to believe that there wasn’t an altogether more logical explanation for all these warriors than just preparation for some future battle.

  Although, It did however explain why the town’s original inhabitants spent so much effort creating the multiple hidden tunnels to the surface… they must have needed a great deal of food from the surface to keep the warriors fed and well hidden.

  Grumbling under his breath, he whispered, “Stupid humans and their poor city planning.”

  He’d have to tear everything down to the stone. Farming tiers would have to be set up in the side caverns, and the walls completely recarved. The central exit would have to be expanded and a new gate built for the entryway.

  There was a great deal of work to be done.

  “Sire, the rune priests are ready to fire up the tunnel,” a voice shouted at him from behind him.

  Turning around, he addressed the warrior who was peeking out from the tunnel, “Good. It’s about time.”

  The warrior waited patiently for Mavros to stomp over, his expression doing nothing to hide his eagerness to see their people again.

  As Mavros walked past him into the tunnel, he asked, “Did they say why it took so long to path the connection to Umershaed?”

  The warrior walking quickly alongside him explained, “From what I overheard, the initial teams we sent to scout the area wouldn’t let them get started until they cleared the area. They were worried about how dangerous the caverns were based on how many warriors looked to be living there. Also, the destruction and damage to the roads was substantial, not to mention the number of bodies they had to take care of. Whatever happened here was a slaughter. Women, children, and elderly weren’t even spared.”

  Mavros couldn’t argue with the investigative team’s logic, so instead he merely grunted in acknowledgment of the point.

  Changing the subject, he asked, “Have the runic mages finished setting up the tunnel beacons?”

  The warrior replied, “Yes, sire. They report that the area is clear of any sentients, but they haven’t had time to ward any of the caverns. Defensive teams are on the lookout for now, but we need more warriors to cover the entire area.”

  Once again grunting his understanding, Mavros walked through the tunnel at a brisk pace, eager to get this done.

  Soon enough, his clan would be coming through and his people would begin working on reshaping his mountain to his needs. For now, the kobalds could wait. Defenses were what were important for now.

  —--

  After the fires he’d started died down, Nero was able to get a better look at what his spell-shells had accomplished. Kobalds had died by the dozens, and the walls were painted with their remains. It was a gruesome enough spectacle that he didn’t envy whoever’s job it would eventually be to clean it all up.

  He sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to do it.

  While he was looking over the battle’s aftermath, Nick was explaining human mage craft to Crusher and a few dwarves who’d come by to listen in on his impromptu lecture.

  “It comes down to spell forms for us. We shape our center into functional shapes that interact with the ambient essence to create effects much like your runic magic. The difference is that we aren’t able to affect the essence flows as much as you are with our intent. Although, as you can see, that doesn’t make our magic any weaker, just more specialized,” he said while gesturing to the kobalds painted on the walls.

  Nero had to admit, what he’d done ‘looked’ impressive. He’d wiped out an entire warband with only a few spells.

  What Nick didn’t mention was that Nero hadn’t really relied on his own power so much as channeled the leftover soul stuff from the cut-down kobalds the rest of their party had already handled. The only reason it had worked out as well as it had was that the kobalds were all extremely weak.

  Rubbing his chin in thought, Nero walked away to get a better look at where his shells had hit, leaving the conversing dwarves and Nick behind him.

  Ignoring the squishy kobald parts and the smell, he gingerly stepped over the corpses and focused on the ground of the hallway. He couldn’t understand why there weren’t holes blown into the stone, or at least some evidence of what he’d done. Not that he hadn’t been careful of how much center he’d been pouring into the spells, but he expected to see at least some damage after what he’d done.

  Looking around the hallway, he could see that if all the kobald corpses and blood were removed, the hallway would look perfectly fine… aside from a few broken essence lights and some scuff marks.

  Examining the stone through the ether, he could tell that the stone was much ‘firmer’ than the kobalds had been. It was almost as if it had been enchanted to ‘be’ stone. He could tell that it would take a great deal of concentrated effort to affect it.

  It was no wonder his temporary pillars of stone had been so easy to cast, the stone under his feet was so ‘stoney’ that his spells had no problem mimicking it.

  Nodding to himself, he realized that was the crux of the matter. The kobalds weren’t strong enough to stop the spell’s effects, while the stone had been made to endure.

  Spell casting in this world… at least how the humans did it… was based on three factors, only two of which were in control of the caster. First, there was the spell form which was created by the caster from his own center’s power. It defined how the various essence flows in the ether would be collected and then used. Second, was the amount of power the caster chose to infuse into the essence after it had been collected. That would determine how ‘real’ the spell was to those who’d end up getting hit with it. Typically, that was determined by how much center the caster dedicated to the spell. The third bit, however, has nothing to do with the caster, and everything to do with the spell’s target.

  Depending on how strong a target’s essence field was, they might be able to completely ignore a spell effect… just like the stone did.

  “That was a masterful display of control, my lord,” Natalie said from Nero’s right.

  Startled by her sneaking up on him, Nero glanced over at her and said, “Huh? Oh, right. Thanks. Good job on the other side of the fighting. Everyone’s alright, right?”

  Nodding, Natalie replied, “Yes, there were no casualties. These kobald squads weren’t all that powerful. They didn’t have any mage support or shamans among them.”

  Nero, not really listening to her, was still thinking about the difference in spell effects between what had happened to the kobalds and the stone hallway.

  He realized it could basically be likened to an application of willpower. Center was like personal willpower made manifest. Stronger people had more and could use it to empower their spells to be more ‘real’ the more they pumped into them. The more center a person uses, the more they weaken their willpower.

  It was a three-way battle between the world, the caster, and the spell’s target. The spell itself was just an illusion that the caster was trying to get the other two to believe was real.

  That also explained how weird center levels were. Center wasn’t exactly a finite source of power, as it was determined by the caster’s strength. The more center a caster used, the harder it was for him to hold on to it.

  Rubbing his temples at the headache he was getting from trying to wrap his head around all this, he looked over at Natalie and asked, “Hey, how did the kobalds end up sneaking up behind us? Weren’t we clearing everything on the way over here?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Natalie nodded, her face becoming serious. “Yes, these hallways should have already been cleared. As I’m sure you noticed, all of the furniture and remnants have been removed, and the hallway scoured clean. There shouldn’t have been anything behind us.”

  “So, where do you think they came from?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure, my lord. But we’re going to find out,” she replied, turning to look over at the two scouts who were walking over to her.

  Offering her a nod, they both sprinted off toward where the extra kobald warband had come from. Nero assumed Natalie must have given them private orders over the battlehub.

  The rest of the group had been busy stacking up kobald corpses and getting them ready for pickup. Meanwhile, Nick was still busy conversing with the dwarves who seemed more than interested in listening to him talk… as long as the subject of what he was talking about included how humans could cast spells like what they’d seen Nero do.

  Chuckling to himself, he couldn’t help but feel annoyed that he’d robbed himself of the opportunity to see what the dwarves could do. After all, they were all carrying pretty intimidating weapons, and he doubted they were only using them as a fashion statement.

  Images of dwarves in Gucci suits and well-groomed beards danced through his head as he amused himself with his imagination.

  Natalie recaught his attention by saying, “I’ve reported our encounter with local command, and alerted them to the fact that there might be hidden kobald tunnels we’d missed.”

  Shrugging his shoulders, Nero replied, “I’m sure there were. Just let me know if you want me to do anything. This is your show, and I’m just another wacko along for the ride.”

  Offering him a firm nod, Natalie turned around and walked off, obviously using her link to communicate with the troops currently still working on cleanup.

  Walking over to the group of dwarves and Nick, Nero listened in on what Nick was saying.

  “... you see, where runic magic borrows power from the world, spell casting requires the mage’s understanding of what they are doing. There is no divine or worldly element to it at all,” he stated emphatically.

  Crusher turned to the dwarf next to him and said, “Ullie, what would it take for a ye to get a spell effect like that?”

  Standing there like a boss in full armor, Ullie rubbed his beard with one hand while he tapped a finger on the hilt of his axe which was casually laid across his shoulder. “I’d need a good 5 minutes to prepare the runes… then maybe another 10 to charge them. Doubt I’d be able to avoid damaging the stonework though.”

  Nick, eager to help, said, “It’s a delicate balance to fill a spell with enough center to damage opponents while keeping the surrounding integrity of the material intact. Nero… I mean Lord Walker was lucky that this entire city was built back when Dorchester’s ambient essence levels were much higher. The stonework here was set in a time when the area was much, much stronger.”

  Nodding along, several dwarves understood what Nick was saying. Even Nero had a general idea of what he was talking about.

  Over the command channel, Nero heard Natalie call out, “Everyone on me. Victor and Sam found the kobald tunnel.”

  Nero was picking up everyone’s names as circumstances allowed him, and he assumed that Victor and Sam were the scouts he’d seen Natalie send off.

  When everyone was back together and heading out, Nero looked over his shoulder and chuckled at the sight of the battle they were leaving behind. The more intact kobald bodies had been stacked up along the wall… while the ones that weren’t so ‘together’ were just shoveled there. The center of the hallway was clear enough, but no one in their right mind would call the place cleaned up.

  He listened closely as Natalie assigned everyone their positions, discovering that the two mages alongside Nick were named Peter and Merrick… although he didn’t know which one was which. He was surprised to find how many of the warriors were women, not because they were women… it was just that with so many of them in armor he hadn’t noticed.

  Something about a woman named Claire being covered in blood and gore while wielding a sword and shield just didn’t sit right with him. It was weird, and he wouldn’t say otherwise.

  After a short ten-minute walk, where Nero was in the middle of the pack along with Nick and the mages, they finally arrived at a door that had one of the scouts, either Sam or Victor, leaning alongside it.

  Gesturing with his head, he led them into the room after he went in.

  The other scout was standing near a blank wall, the stone looking the same as every other wall around them.

  “It’s here,” the scout said quietly before pushing his hand through the stone like it wasn’t even there.

  Nero, surprised, focused his senses on what he was looking at. Where before the wall seemed completely solid, now that he knew it wasn’t, he could ‘feel’ that something was off with it.

  His perception field was telling him that the wall was both there and that he shouldn’t bother looking any closer. It was almost a suggestion floating along the essence flows, teasing him with the hint that the other walls were more interesting.

  Shaking off the suggestion, he pushed his senses deeper, finding the initiation point of the wall’s projection. It was a spell… a spell that had no ‘heft’ to it.

  On instinct, or maybe just because it didn’t ‘look’ right to him, he pressed his mind onto the spell and tried to ‘fix’ it. It was eerily similar to one of his earthen wall spells that he’d learned, but also not.

  Almost immediately, the spell unraveled, freeing the essence that had been in the shape of the wall. With his eyes, he could see the wall disappearing, leaving a rough cave tunnel heading off into the dark. It was probably 10 feet around, and roughly circular. The kobalds had just forced their way through the wall and then hidden what they’d done.

  Nick, turned to Nero and nearly shouted, “How did you do that? You didn’t dispel it… you… broke it? No… you unmade it!”

  Nero, not understanding what Nick was so excited about, replied, “I just futzed with the spell form holding it together. I didn’t mean for it to break, I just wanted to see how they did it. It was like a spell, but not. I don’t even think it was an illusion. I have seen those before, you know.”

  Natalie, not letting the group be distracted, shouted, “Quiet! I have to call this in.”

  While everyone was reforming back into formation, he could tell that Natalie’s attention was currently elsewhere. Interested in what she was saying with command, he looked through his link to see if he had the option to connect with the command channel she was using.

  When he found it, he connected himself immediately. Smirking to himself, he realized he was getting much better at keeping multiple connections going. He also took the opportunity to remake his mage armor to get some more practice at having more than one thing pulling at his mind.

  “... was the one who dispelled the illusion. Unfortunately, from what I gathered from Lord Verena, the method isn’t repeatable,” Natalie said in a clipped tone.

  “Is there any way to determine where these hidden tunnels are?” a voice Nero didn’t recognize asked.

  Natalie replied, “Not that we can see. The only reason we found the one we did was because we tracked the group that assaulted us back to it. Even looking right at it, we couldn’t tell it was anything other than a standard wall.”

  Nero flinched when he sensed Cathleen’s presence asserting itself. “That’s unacceptable. We need to get our mages working on a way to determine where these hidden walls are, otherwise, we won’t be able to establish a working perimeter.”

  The conversation was happening quickly, but Nick didn’t seem willing to let Nero listen.

  Tapping Nero’s shoulder, Nick said in a somewhat demanding tone, “Nero, I’m sure whatever you're listening to is interesting, but I really need to talk to you.”

  Mentally closing his connection to the command channel, Nero looked over at Nick and asked in confusion, “What?”

  “I need to know how you did that with the illusion. Also, why are you powering an essence shield, do you sense something?” he asked while looking nervously at the dark tunnel leading off into the mountain.

  Nero, allowing his mage armor to dismiss itself, replied, “No, I was just practicing. Don’t worry about it. What did you mean about the illusion? I just told you. That wasn’t an illusion.”

  Nick, now reassured that they weren’t going to be attacked, replied firmly, “Yes, Nero, it was. It was a fabricated reality that influenced the minds of anyone in contact with it. That, by its very definition, is an illusion.”

  Rolling his eyes, Nero said, “OK. Maybe technically or whatever. All I know is that the last time I was in an illusion, it was like an overlay on top of reality… like altering what the world looked like. This, what the kobalds were doing, wasn’t that at all.”

  Nick, now extremely interested, replied, “Alright, then what was it.”

  “It was a spell,” Nero replied smugly.

  Immediately annoyed by Nero’s tone, Nick replied, “I KNOW it was a spell. It was an illusion spell. That doesn’t answer my question!”

  Nero, now confused, replied, “What was the question?”

  Well aware that Nero wasn’t used to the terminology of magic, and often frequently substituted his own, took a calming breath. Keeping his tone devoid of any anger he might be feeling, he said, “Nero, what I’m asking is how you disrupted the spell form’s cohesion. I’m assuming you did something similar with the portal that you closed, as you have an ability to see the ether in a way that I and, as far as I know, no one else can. Spell forms for illusionary spells are typically not able to be seen by anyone other than the caster after they are activated, since they seat themselves into the caster’s mind. Or, in the case of a static emplacement, like a ward scheme or a wall like this, they are distributed throughout the entire illusion. Breaking them typically requires the brute force of a counterspell form or a ritual. So, to be clear, I’m asking about your exact process. What was it you did to disrupt the cohesion of the illusion? You didn’t break it, you unmade it. I need to understand how you did that.”

  Nero, finding a fundamental fault with Nick’s assumptions, ignored the question. “I don’t know how many different ways I can say that it wasn’t an illusion. I don’t know why you never listen to me.”

  Seeing the vein on Nick’s forehead indicating that he was about to blow his top, Nero quickly said, “Remember when we faced those assassins in the forest?” Realizing something, Nero added, “No, of course you don’t. You were dead at the time.”

  Waving his hand as if that wasn’t his point, so Nick should disregard it, Nero went on to say, “One of those guys made an illusion of the campsite we were at, just without any of the assassins present. It was identical to the reality underneath it, and almost indistinguishable. I learned how to see past illusions then, and I’m telling you for a fact, that this here wall… it wasn’t an illusion… it was more like a ‘mud wall’ spell… or I guess a ‘stone wall’ spell.”

  Now looking more intrigued than annoyed Nick asked, “How do you mean?”

  Running a hand through his hair as he thought out loud, Nero said, “It was like a basic spell that I could recognize, but not sufficiently powered with enough center to be real. It was like a spell that wasn’t doing anything, but also not. I don’t understand exactly how the kobalds did it, but they created a spell for a wall that didn’t make a wall… it just made what looked like a wall. Then, there was another part that I didn’t recognize. It somehow made the wall look uninteresting, or more like not worth investigating. That part, I didn’t get at all. It was like that hiding technique some of you do but in a spell form. I also have no idea how it was powered. It almost looked like it was feeding off the essence flows that were being directed by it.”

  Nick, listening closely to every word Nero said, suddenly widened his eyes. Opening his mouth a few times as if he were unable to voice what he was thinking, he finally managed to get out, “Good! Good! You did well… stay here and don’t move. I have more questions!”

  Before Nero could respond, Nick took off at a run directly for Natalie, shouting, “I need a direct line to the closest Center Research Survey team available. Also, get someone from central command on the connection… and Cathleen… yes, and maybe someone from the mage tower. We need to reconfigure the localized scrying array!”

  Nero, not having any idea what Nick had figured out, decided to ignore him.

  While the formation of soldiers had placed themselves halfway into the tunnel in order to watch for anything coming through, the dwarves instead were examining where the wall had been broken through. They were running their hands over the cracked stone, occasionally using rune magic and waving their stubby hands around.

  Nero, not having anything better to do, looked around the room and wondered, where did the kobalds dump the stone, dirt, and crap that they excavated from the wall? Suddenly he found himself chuckling at the image of a group of kobalds sweeping the floor and using dustpans.

  ‘Even evil murder lizards have to clean up after themselves,’ he thought to himself happily.