The Runic Alchemist

In an open grass field somewhere away from the Ashenvale coast, Damian landed the ship. He took out a huge three-meter square, solid steel box etched with his signature runic circles. Sam and Einar got it out of the ship and onto the grass field.

“This is the spell you mentioned?” Grace asked.

Damian nodded. Looking at Lucian, he added, “We will activate it together. I will provide all the mana required; you just have to think about your father and will it to take you to him—a powerful memory would be better. It will cost you 5000 mana points too, so be prepared.”

She nodded. Then, looking at everyone present, Damian said, “Once it opens, we won’t be the only ones who can see it. I will close it immediately once we are through. Last five minutes before we are there.”

The tension visibly increased, but everyone also nodded with determined faces. They knew why they had come.

“Thank you… All of you…” Lucian whispered, and they all just gave her a reassuring smile.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Damian said, and everyone gave the two space, stepping back.

Damian opened two five-liter containers and attached five mana threads to each. Each five-liter container could roughly amount to 100,000 mana points, though it was a rough calculation. The mana liquid was not the same as the refined mana from one’s core; the mana in the liquid was not distributed equally. Damian attributed it to the chemicals not being as pure as they needed to be and an unbalanced charge on raw liquid mana.

The big runic circle glowed bright black and gold as Damian filled it with the required 200,000 mana points worth of mana. Lucian didn’t miss the cue and used her mana thread to activate the spell. The pull of mana was so strong that they had to put force on their feet to stay in place and not move towards the cube, making a sound like a mystic hum.

Even after using so much refined steel, 200,000 mana points were too much. The dungeon relic that could do this repeatedly was beyond their understanding. It was too precious to experiment on or even have scholars and mages examine it.

His giant cube could only be used two times, if lucky then maybe three times before the steel was so damaged it broke like paper.

The runic circle was active in the air above them, which was a good sign. The cube lost all mana after activating it, giving everyone a chance to breathe, and a second later a giant bright cyan waygate came into existence with an electric “Zzzzzupp” sound.

“It worked!” Damian said, holding Lucian’s shoulder. “Your father is alive…”

Everyone behind him just stared at the giant portal with wide eyes and open mouths.

“Let’s go…” Damian said, and Lucian followed.

Finally, the others broke out of their stupor and hurriedly followed behind them. The runic circle of the waygate spell was attached to Damian with mana threads—he could only let go after crossing it. It was costing him chunks of mana continuously, maybe 400-500 mana points each second, he had plenty to spare though.

Damian and Lucian brought the big cube back on the ship, and he immediately took control and flew up. With one look behind him, where everyone gave him a nod, Damian rushed into the giant waygate, the nostalgic nauseating feeling returning, but he ignored it. He needed to focus on flying and came out on the other side.

They were about to crash into groups of people. Damian hastily released the weight plates’ mana and activated fast wind runes below the ship, trying his best to pull up. Once high enough, the situation was more clear to see.

The scene out of the windshield, however, was something that could fall into two levels behind the worst-case scenario. Enjoy new chapters from empire

Hundreds of people were pulling giant mechanical half-animal, half-machine-like things. The huge giant iron chains they were pulling were too big to even hold with two hands.

It wasn’t a small force as Damian had hoped. Everyone was even looking up, straight at their strange flying vessel.

“Fuck!” He heard someone curse. “Is this their main army camp?”

****

Near the south border of Dawnstar, before the attack. Baron Marcus Goldilock POV:

The lords near the border were having trouble holding the line against the empire’s increased aggressiveness. They already used the weirdest of runic tools and made life difficult for all three kingdoms sharing borders with them, but this time it felt different.

Marcus had a bad feeling about this. As a strategist, he knew what the empire wanted to do here—The Dragon Emperor wanted a clean and undisturbed path to Ashenvale. Even though there was no land connected to Ashenvale, the Empire for some reasonn still thought they could control that land and make it theirs.

Marcus had heard disturbing rumours of Ashenvale Transcendants joining the empire instead of their neighbours. Eldoris was understandable; it was their enemy now, but the Baron had hoped more Transcendants would join King Theron Godflame and make the invasion or acquisition of most of Ashenvale land into Dawnstar.

It was all going wrong, though.

First of all, Eldoris had such tricks that Dawnstar, with better and more people, couldn’t push them away from Ashenvale, and now the Empire was showing its teeth to them only. It was as if everyone had collectively decided to end Dawnstar with Ashenvale. King Theron had also written about disturbing rumours about Faerunia and their schemes. But the south border had gone so chaotic they had to ignore Faerunia, and Marcus was ordered to join the forces on the south border.

The situation being so chaotic, Marcus had gathered 10,000 men instead of the initial plan of 7,000. And still heading towards the border, he felt like something was lacking.

At first, it was okay. They met the border lords and joined forces. He had many people and was in charge. They fought the Empire’s weird tool-wielding men day and night for months.

They lost many, killed many, and received many new recruits from all over the kingdom that were sent to aid them. All in all, it was war—as it always was. Marcus lowered his guard a little; the attacking and defending were a dangerous yet repetitive struggle. Tiresome but boring.

Until one day. The night was cold here in the barren lands between Dawnstar and the Empire. At first, they assumed it was another stealthy night attack by the empire’s rats, but the raging fire blazing toward the small, walled town they were defending was far too intense for such a small force to cause.

It was too late when Marcus realised he was not facing a border force but the massive force of the empire with giant runic tools and hundreds and hundreds of people.

But, all that was just in the distance. He hastily ordered everyone to abandon the town and make a run for it. Before they had covered even a few kilometers, an earth-shattering roar stopped them dead in their tracks, freezing their hearts with fear.

The blackness of night was suddenly replaced by a blinding brilliance, brighter than daylight, as massive explosions erupted in every direction. One blast struck too close to Marcus and Silas, sending them tumbling violently from their horses.

Lying on his back with his face turned to the heavens, Marcus glimpsed a sight that would haunt him for the rest of his days—a monster. A colossal, purple fire-breathing dragon with scales the color of blood hovered above, wreathed in destruction.