Mark of the Fool

The sun rose over a forest to the east, its rays piercing the sea breaking on a beach to the west.

A beach choked with corpses.

The stench of putrefying flesh hung heavy in the air, while the sound of metal cleaving bodies, and beasts roaring echoed over the wind. Ravener-spawn writhed on the vast fields between the trees and sand. Chitterers struck improvised weapons against stolen shields. Bone-chargers scraped brutal claws against the earth. Venom-walkers dripped poison from their needles. Spear-flies and blood-draks swarmed above, diving at the Thameish army standing against them.

The horde was out for blood, eager to avenge their fallen kin and obey their master.

But the Thameish would not give up their blood so easily.

Knights and soldiers raised shields, as captains called for them to stand firm. Archers loosed arrows into the mass of monstrous flesh, while priests called upon miracles to smite the enemy.

All around was death and chaos.

But in the midst of it all, one remained calm.

Thundar.

The minotaur-wizard loomed over the Thameish warriors behind him, bearing a heavy mace in one hand and a gleaming shield in the other. Both massive weapons were taken from Uldar’s sanctum. His body was girded in greater force armour, and beneath it, a suit of magical plate, crafted in Generasi.

But neither armour nor shield had been touched by a single blow.

He had not swung his mace even once.

In this battle, he used other weapons.

With a twitch of his hand, Thundar cast a fifth-tier spell.

Energy coalesced in a shimmering wave of power in front of him; the chitterers charging at the minotaur slowed, crying out in alarm.

“Too late, you monstrous bastards,” he growled.

The wave pulsed once.

Then twice.

And exploded.

Force magic burst out in a cone, grinding through soil. Chitin cracked and flesh pulped as Ravener-spawn turned to mounds of slurry.

At first, their kin recoiled, then surged ahead as spear-flies swarmed down, buzzing hungrily.

But Thundar had not finished casting: his lips uttered the incantation for a sixth-tier spell while his body moved to conjure another sixth-tier one.

Ephemeral Shards filled the air with force blades, while Everlasting Image concealed the magical razors. As Ravener-spawn closed in, Thundar grinned, casting Planar Doorway and Illusionary Duplicate with a few twitches, leaving an image of himself—in an area seemingly free of danger—to ‘face’ the oncoming monsters.

Like cheese meeting a grater, the spawn dove into the invisible blades, shredding their flesh. Yet even as they fell in bloody heaps, more kept coming: what the rest saw was their kin leaping upon the minotaur and him desperately trying to fight back. An illusion.

They did not live long after that.

Thundar smiled to himself, engaging Mana Regeneration—draping himself in flight magic and invisibility—then soaring into the air. Scouting from the sky, he took in the situation below.

“Good, those asses are gonna tear themselves apart until my spells wear off,” he said, watching as the Thameish soldiers advanced around the carnage. He’d made sure they could see what was actually happening. “What about the left side, how’s—Oh shit, thank you True Seeing! Petrifier on our left flank!”

Unaware that it had been spotted, a petrifier was creeping along—accompanied by a pack of Hunters—planning to flank the Thameish army.

“I can take it down—” Thundar started.

“Do not worry, allow me!” Isolde called.

The lightning mage swooped from the sky—where Watchers and Generasian battle mages fought blood-draks and spear-flies—her eyes fixed on the petrifier.

She extended her hand.

Thunder cracked.

A stream of lightning arced out, striking the petrifier and blasting the air around it with infinite lightning bolts. The giant Ravener-spawn and its Hunters shrieked in agony.

Those screams turned to gurgling when Isolde’s second seventh-tier spell struck. Bodies roiled, deformed, shredded, all liquid within them spurted free in a deluge. As the creatures crumbled, and Thundar began cheering, Isolde shouted.

“There, that should take care of its self-destruction organ…and the rest of its organs, as well,” she said. “Wait, I see another petrifier! It just entered the range of True Seeing!” she called. “I shall—”

There came a crack, sounding like it had come from a whip the size of an ancient willow tree.

The petrifier—now in the range of Thundar’s True Seeing spell—exploded. The hole in its central mass was the size of a catapult stone, annihilating its self-destruction organ.

It collapsed to the ground.

Thundar and Isolde nodded to each other, then looked to the other side of the battlefield.

A smoking line of death had been carved through the Ravener-spawn—leaving mounds of broken bodies—that led all the way back to the barrel of a strange ranged weapon. It was in the hand of Asmaldestre the Unmaker, she’d demolished the petrifier’s self-destruction organ, and more with a single shot.

From across the battlefield.

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Without looking, as though she sensed its presence.

She was a blur of death, her ranged weapons cutting deep holes through the monsters’ ranks with every shot, as Uldar’s divine arms pierced, and mangled any spawn she set her sights on.

Her tail lashed out, splitting foes where they stood.

She whipped her hair, and the blades woven throughout it flayed all they touched.

The war-spirit was focused on wading through a tide of monster blood and death, licking blood from her lips.

“Glad she’s on our side,” Thundar muttered,

“Indeed, but we should stop gawking and get back to the fight,” Isolde said.

“I dunno,” the minotaur countered. “Looks like things are winding down here. We’ll take the Fields of Cormac by breakfast at this rate.”

The minotaur watched the Heroes’ army push the enemy toward the sea, herding them for a deadly strike.

One, compliments of the Saint of Thameland.

“And so Uldar told those that went against him: ‘From the Earth you came, and so to the earth you shall return. Crumble! And be that which nurtures all of my land!’” Merzhin roared from the middle of the army, surrounded by howling wind and blazing light.

As he finished his prayer, he levelled his hand at the enemy.

Hundreds of Ravener-spawn stopped their push against the soldiers’ shield wall…

…and without warning, their bodies; flesh, bone, and blood turned to deep black soil, crumbling to the ground in heartbeats.

The monsters’ kin recoiled.

“Thank you for the set up, my friend!” Prince Khalik’s voice boomed across the battlefield. “Allow me to take advantage.”

Soaring into the sky, the Prince of Tekezash cast two sixth-tier spells: one using his lips and the other his body. The first was Earth to Tar, it turned the ground into a mass of steaming tar. The softer the ground, the more the spell would affect it; Merzhin had graciously provided plenty of soft soil.

Ravener-spawn jumped back as their kin turned to earth and that earth turned to boiling tar. They tried to scamper away…but fleeing would not save them from Khalik’s second spell.

Earthen Wave impacted the ground, transforming it into a tidal wave of earth, stone, soil and boiling tar.

The wave rose up before the frantic monsters, crested, then crashed down on the horde. Dozens died in an instant, many more were enveloped in the black substance, which soon began to harden on them

Even as they tried to tear it off, there came a battle cry as a new force joined in.

Hart Redfletcher charged from the woods on the spawns’ right side, leading a small army of guerilla warriors that included Bjorgrund, Birger and Ripp. The Champion of Thameland—clad in Uldar’s armour and wielding a colossal, divinely forged blade—turned into living death.

His movements seemed to shimmer as he cut down their enemies.

Uldar’s blade cleaved behemoths and gibbering legions like leaves. His elbows lashed out, breaking Ravener-spawn even as his feet trampled them. The Champion carved a deep channel of blood through the monsters, with Bjorgrund following behind, the rune-marked’s divine axe splitting any that stood before him.

Behind him, Birger sang as he fought, whirling his sling and cracking heads with stone after stone in rapid succession. “That’s it, you uglies! Come and die!”

Within moments, the remaining Ravener-spawn horde was a mass of dying and fleeing bodies. At last their nerve broke and they tried to run, but Tyris and Vesuvius emerged from the trees on their left flank, leading a group of Generasian battle mages.

They rained destruction down on the survivors.

With a smile, Khalik cast Planar Doorway and appeared beside his two cabal mates. “At last, it seems this battle is at an end. Shall we go and reinforce Cedric’s force?”

He looked to the south, where smoke was rising from the town of Welling.

“Probably…though I doubt he needs the help,” Isolde smiled. “It is amazing to see how much he has grown, even though his Mark has not transformed yet.”

###

The Chosen of Uldar danced through dead Ravener-spawn, driving enemies before him in the streets.

“C’mon! We’re jus’ about broken through!!” Cedric called, weaving past a blood-drak’s strike and chanting a prayer softly. Focusing his breathing, he stabbed his morphic weapon—in spear form—through the blood-drak’s body, filling it with divine power.

The creature swelled, light cracking through its skin and carapace, then he tossed the spawn into the ranks of its kin that were holding the town square ahead.

There came a whump as the creature exploded, enveloping its fellows in a divine blaze.

Without missing a beat, Cedric transformed his weapon into a warhammer then drew an enormous battleaxe that was once Uldar’s from his belt. With a roar, the Chosen danced into the midst of the remaining Ravener-spawn, chanting a powerful fifth-tier force spell to blast them in a cone of freezing energy.

Instantly, Ravener-spawn turned to ice, and he dove deeper into their ranks, shattering the frozen monsters, bringing down survivors with Uldar’s axe. Monsters came at him from the side, but Cedric’s mind was a calm eye in the middle of a storm of combat, and he reacted with the fluidity of water.

His axe and hammer cut spawn down as his lips chanted another devastating spell, sending a bolt of lightning arcing through the creatures. In desperation, a massive chitterer—clad in stolen plate armour—threw itself at the Chosen, he turned to meet it.

He needn’t have bothered.

A curved sword flew from a rooftop—spinning end over end—impaling the chitterer’s skull. The other chitterers froze as the huge spawn collapsed with the blade protruding through its skull, but cried out when Theresa Lu suddenly materialised, gripping the blade.

She ripped her weapon from the chitter’s head and in the same movement, struck out at the other spawn with the Twinblade. Floating swords of energy danced around her, cutting down monsters.

As they fell back, the huntress whistled.

Brutus raced around the side of a building—hulking even larger than the largest bone chargers—releasing sonic blasts from all three mouths. He reduced clots of Ravener-spawn to paste, then barreled into their ranks, his spiky body slicing everything it touched. Each time his jaws snapped shut, a powerful monster shattered.

“Good boy!” Cedric called as soldiers surged into the square just behind the cerberus. He joined the huntress. “Welcome, Theresa, y’take care o’things in tha’ south quarter?”

“Yup, all the Ravener-spawn are cleared out from over there.” she reported, splitting beasts with her six blades. “What about the west end?”

“We’re good here too!” Cedric called, eyeing the last bits of resistance around the town’s fountain. “Jus’ gotta deal wit’ th’ las’ bunch over here an’—”

“Why don't you let us take care of that?” a familiar voice called from overhead.

There was a surge of mana as a terrible wind blasted the square. Ravener-spawn were swept up like so much dust, carrying them high into the sky. There, Drestra—materialising from thin air—met them, unleashing her draconic breath on the hapless creature’s in mid-air. The dragon’s roar seemed to shake the earth itself.

Above her, swarms of blood-draks and spear-flies poured from the sky, seeking to reinforce their dying kin, but three rays of light, releasing a mass of heat greeted them. The sky blazed as Claygon’s fire-beams erupted, ending the swarm in clouds of flame and power.

Astral engeli followed, descending earthward, landing among the Ravener-spawn to slaughter all that remained.

In seconds, every monster with the word ‘Ravener’ or ‘spawn’ attached to it was dead. Lifeless beasts lay all around the fountain, filling the town square with corpses.

“Well, that’s that,” Alex materialised, leaning against the fountain, casually holding his sword-staff. “Another day, another battle won.”

“Aye, welcome Alex!” Cedric held up his hammer and axe. “T’victory! T’grand bloody victory! Wellin’s ours agin!”

The soldiers and knights cheered, raising banners and banging weapons against shields.

Theresa lifted her swords and Brutus howled.

“Nice to see what we can do now,” the General of Thameland smiled.

“Aye,” Cedric said, glancing down at the golden symbol over his heart. “I gots the calm breathin’ an’ dancin’ down perfect, I was feelin’ like I was born usin’ ‘em. Nonverbal spellcastin’s another thing tho’…I’s close, I kin bloody feel it.”

“Yeah, the last time we trained together, you almost had it,” Alex looked at Cedric closely. “You know, if you put a little more time into mastering spell arrays…”

“I know, I know!” Cedric threw up his hands. “Y’tell me all o’ that each time I sees yer damned face! I’s been studyin’ hard…jus’ don’ gots it quite yet.”

“But you're close,” Alex said. “Real close. Tell you what, after we finish up here, why don't you give me a demonstration and I'll give you some pointers? You've been at it for a while, and it's impressive how far you've come: you've had to learn what the other three Heroes had to learn and then some. So, let's see if we can get that Mark of yours transformed in the next day or two?”

The General grinned. “And since you can do so much already, I can’t wait to see how powerful you’re going to be!”

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