Elsewhere

A myriad of hidden mages revealed themselves. As one, they cast a single spell that propagated and incinerated Baslin’s “trees” before anyone else could act. Soldiers charged towards the tower, quickly closing the distance to the open doors.

“That’s a problem.” Baslin’s statement was simple and uninflected, yet all three sets of eyes riveted on him before turning towards the charging soldiers.

Duke stepped into the doorway, ready to receive the disorganized charge of the soldiers. Elaine transformed next to him as Grat began calling upon his vines. Baslin didn’t react other than to scowl at the mages that had revealed themselves.

The soldiers charged right into the doorway and slammed into an invisible wall. They stacked up against each other as those behind couldn’t possibly stop in time. Baslin chuckled. “It’s not the soldiers that should concern us as they cannot penetrate the barrier. It is the Magi Argentus that seem to have joined this fight. They are the true threat on the field. We do not have much time. Duke, fill your INVENTORY with as many potions and items as you can fit from the lab. Leave behind raw materials if you must. Grat, Elaine, please raid the bedrooms and put as much as you can in these two storage rings. No, all of you, go!”

Baslin tore off towards the library as the rest of them scattered throughout the tower. “Meet me in the portal room when you are done!” Baslin shouted as they all ran. None quite understanding what the panic was about but knowing that if something was causing the Archmage to scramble, they had better move too.

Duke stormed through the lab, pulling all sorts of potions and equipment into his INVENTORY. It seemed like he had too much room in there compared to what he had in the dungeon, and he took a quick peek at his Abilities and discovered that his INVENTORY space had doubled. He didn’t have time to delve into it so he just accepted it and figured he would look later. In the meantime, he loaded up as much as he could, tossing aside a few corpses he had been saving to make even more room. Still, there was more to take, and Duke knew he was taking longer than he should.

Grat and Elaine raced through the bedrooms using the rings Baslin had given them. It took a moment for them to get the hang of it, but in a matter of minutes, they had pulled entire rooms of bedding and furniture. In five minutes, the bedrooms were empty. They ran to the stairs and down to the portal room.

Baslin condensed his entire library down to a single book. “Oh, I so love that spell!” He jogged down the hall and down the stairs to get the portal ready. He knew he would need extra time with it to ensure its stability. The tower rang with the sound of a tremendous spell impacting it. Baslin stumbled on the stairs, barely grabbing the handrail in time to stop himself from tumbling down the rest of the way. That impact had affected him as much as it did the barrier. He knew that was a working of the Magi Argentus and he hastened his steps.

Grat and Elaine joined him shortly thereafter. He was deep into making adjustments to the portal chamber, mainly to keep it stable while the tower continued to be rocked by magical blow after magical blow. He paused at their entrance and asked, “How many of the Magi Argentus did you count? Were there 29?”

Grat stared at Baslin in utter confusion. Elaine responded, “We got the beds, pillows, and linens. I did not stop to count the mages. Do you want me to go back up and count them? Is it important?”

Baslin shook her question off and turned back to his stabilization spells. “Duke, did you count the mages?”

Duke replied, “I’m still getting things out of the lab. Just how much stuff do you have here?”

“More than we have time to take. Go run back to the door and see if you can get me a count of the Magi Argentus. It matters.”

Duke acknowledged the request and TELEPORTED back to the entranceway. He could see that the soldiers had backed off completely and there was simply the group of mages firing spells at the tower. They were slowly arranging themselves in some sort of concentric circles. He grabbed a quick count and went to TELEPORT down to the portal chamber but stopped. Would TELEPORTING into the portal chamber mess something up? Better not risk it. Time to fly!

For the first time under his own power, Duke flew. He rose into the air and turned to head down the stairs. He knew speed was important and poured on all the speed he could muster. Moments later, he realized his mistake as he crashed into the angled ceiling above the stairs at more than one hundred knots. He knew it was that fast from his experience in fighters. He also knew that he was overwhelmingly thankful that the ceiling was angled, bouncing him downward rather than slamming him straight into a wall. Still, it hurt! He slowed his flight and managed to get better control as his REGENERATION took to repairing his damage. He flew down, landing gracefully next to Grat and Elaine.

“Well, that’s new.” Elaine remarked.

“Yes it is…and it’s freaking awesome!”

Grat added, “You might want to CLEANSE. You have blood all over your face. I am guessing the last crash accompanied by cursing was you flying into a wall?”

“Pretty much. Went too fast for my control. I’ve got it figured out now. How are things looking here?” Duke’s question was answered by yet another crash of magic against the tower’s barrier. This time, however, the tower shook hard enough to dislodge dust from the ceiling.

“Duke, how many Magi are out there?” Baslin asked as he cast a Massive Cleanse spell over the entire area.

“I counted close to 30. They were arraying themselves into concentric rings. Each one seemed to have more Magi in it than the last. Like, one, three, five, and so on.”

Baslin stopped, looking up at Duke in alarm. “How many circles?” He asked, insistently.

“Five from what I saw.” Duke replied.

“Five circles of primes. A five-fold prime of primes! 29 Magi! We have to go, and we have to go now! Everyone on the platform!” He rushed to lead the way. The others joined him quickly not understanding what was happening but feeding off the urgency suffusing Baslin’s words.

The tower rocked as Baslin collapsed to his knees in pain. “The barrier is breached. We go now!” With that, he activated the portal mechanism and a portal shakily formed in the air behind them. Duke tackled the whole group through the portal as the tower groaned with strain from blows ripping huge chunks of stone free. Duke could see white-hot flames consume the portal room, shattering the stone and melting the inlaid runes right before the portal winked out. The heat of it all singed his hair and left him feeling like he had spent the day standing unprotected on the white sands of Pensacola Beach. He was, for all intents and purposes, sunburned.

The four of them scrambled to their feet behind Duke, Baslin taking his time seemingly in some sort of distress. Duke helped him to his feet and activated RESTORE over the whole group. Instantly, it was as if the world was lifted from Baslin’s shoulders, and he stood up smiling. “Thank you for that. I really needed it. Now are we where I hope I sent us?”

“If you were aiming for the dungeon, we’re here for sure.” Duke replied.

“Perfect. We can hide out in the dungeon to keep the Magi Argentus from getting a lock on us, or me in particular. Get us inside as soon as you can.” Baslin instructed.

Duke placed his hand upon the standing stone and the four of them were inside the dungeon.

***Congratulations traveler! You have survived transit to the Lake Front Dungeon. You have taken no Residual Damage due to the Dungeon being successfully run very recently. The Residual Damage counter has been reset. The Entrance Timer has been reset.***

The four of them found themselves at the entrance to the first level of the dungeon. Baslin held up a hand to forestall the inevitable questions. He took a few moments to gather himself and began to speak.

“This has been a life-changing day for me. Duke, you know some of this, but you two do not. I was trapped in that tower by an oath I made to King Estros. I essentially vowed to raise a master mage for each of his children and I happily did so. The brats killed one of my apprentices before I could declare them both graduated. Well, they killed both of them but one had already graduated– that is just how sick and twisted their competition is with each other.”

“Utterly evil.” Elaine added.

“Just so.” Baslin continued. “I was trapped in the tower until I raised another master mage to take the place of the one that I didn’t graduate. Since neither kid could claim my power for themselves, they conspired to keep me trapped and out of the way.”

“How long-“ Grat started.

“Too long,” Baslin continued. “Once I declared Duke a Master Mage, the oath was fulfilled, and the brats lost their hold on me. That should have been the end of it. But obviously, it wasn’t.”

“There was an entire army standing outside your door. That’s not very subtle.” Duke responded.

“Ah, but that is where it gets interesting. An entire army is of no concern to me. They could have pounded on my barrier for years with their best siege weapons and they might have knocked some dust loose. Instead, they brought the Magi Argentus with them.”

“Yeah, who the heck are these Magpie Agents that spooked you so much? You’re a freaking Archmage.” Duke inquired.

“The Magi Argentus are a group that you hire when you have to take down a mad wizard. They are a specialized organization and that is what they do – they kill rogue mages. They are obscenely expensive to hire but that is because they are absolutely deadly at what they do. We were lucky. Well, I was lucky to get away from them. Especially with a full 29 of them – that is most of their entire membership. The concentric circles they were creating were part of a war array. Even at my best, I couldn’t take that array on directly without specific preparation and I’m just a bit rusty.”

“You’re rusty?” Elaine asked.

“Well, sure. Before Duke came along, it had been decades since I had taught anyone any magic, let alone cast anything significant. I couldn’t leave the vicinity of the tower and I depleted the area of reagents years ago. I am out of practice and need to get back into magical shape. I haven’t gained a single experience point in more than twenty years.”

“So, what do we do?” Grat asked.

“Run the dungeon, of course.” Baslin responded with a grin. “Everything else will get figured out.” With that, he turned to the dungeon level beaming, free to finally do something again.