Chapter 342

Armor clinked, apprentices argued, and someone’s pack burst open, spilling chalks, potion vials, and a very ugly pair of pink socks across the cobblestones.Nick adjusted the straps on his own pack and tried very hard not to think about the three hundred soldiers camped outside the southern wall.

“Stop scowling,” Raphael said under his breath. “You’ll wrinkle.”

Nick gave him a flat look. “We’re about to walk away from a possibly hostile army less than a stone’s throw from the town, leaving only a bunch of overtaxed militia to keep them at bay.”

Raphael snorted. “Tholm alone is enough to wipe them out, and he knows what he’s doing; you worry too much.”

That was part of the problem. Tholm always knew what he was doing, while the rest of them had to catch up later.

Across the courtyard, the man himself stood on the steps leading into the keep, hands clasped behind his back. His robe today was a sober grey, more like a magistrate than a tower mage, but the air around him hummed with restrained power.

Nick suspected Sir Harvald’s army would soon find reasons to move elsewhere or at least to divide its strength. Tholm would never leave such a dagger aimed at the heart of his new seat, at least if he didn’t believe it would make his enemies think they had the advantage.

“Everyone here?” Willow called, ticking names off a list. “Raphael, Nicholas, Joran, Lina, Mikel… me, obviously… Monte, Terence, Malik, Yvonne, and…” She glanced up as the last two adventurers jogged into the courtyard, buckling on their gear. “…and company. Good.”

Osmod sat on a bench near the doorway, with a blanket over his legs despite the morning warmth. He’d argued loudly about being left behind, but whatever had been done to prevent him from dying had left him weaker than he was willing to admit. Epistula hovered beside him, a hand on his shoulder.

The Archmage stepped down from the stairs, and the conversation tapered off. “You all know the plan,” he said without any preamble. “Raphael will lead you, and Willow will handle the logistics. Your first stops are the hamlets along the Low Savannah’s edge, where you will confirm the reports, clear what monsters you can, and learn about the current state of the dungeon.”

His gaze swept over them, lingering on each face in turn.

“You are not to push too deeply into the dungeon proper,” he added. “I’d prefer not to have to bail you out because you bit off more than you could chew.”

Willow made a small, distressed noise. Nick wasn’t sure if it was the idea of finding powerful monsters or the thought of disappointing Tholm.

“As for our guests outside,” Tholm went on, and now there was a faint curl to his mouth, “they will find Long Reach less accommodating than they’d hoped. I will see to that.”

Nick met Tholm’s eyes, and for a moment, the old man’s gaze softened.

“Don’t worry about what you can’t deal with,” Tholm said quietly. “Fight, and grow, that is your duty. Now go.”

The southern gate loomed above them when they reached it, its heavy doors slightly parted to allow a single column through. The guards on duty exchanged nervous glances as they passed; some gave quick nods to Terence or Malik, while others cast wary looks past them at the hazy outline of tents on the horizon.

Nick forced himself to look away as they stepped out.

They moved south on foot, as horses were useless in dungeons and would probably only attract hungry monsters. Plus, Long Reach didn’t have enough high-quality steeds to spare for everyone anyway.

The terrain gradually shifted from riverbank soil to the Low Savannah itself, as the earth darkened and became richer in clay. Trees grew less densely but were tougher, with their tops flattened by persistent winds. Tall, golden grasses swayed like waves around them, hiding small animals that darted away when startled.

The sky felt vast, with nothing blocking its view.

Nick fell in with Lina, Joran, and Mikel as they walked, letting Raphael and Willow argue about timing up front, and Malik’s crew bring up the rear.

“We never really got to talk much,” he said, sliding into place beside them. “Between everything that happened in Alluria and the missions here, I mean.”

Lina laughed, a quick, bright sound. She was short and wiry, with ink stains on her fingers and a permanent smudge across one cheek. “You mean aside from all the explosions we all heard across the hall in the Tower?”

Nick pouted, but he didn’t have anything to rebut.

“It’s fine,” Joran defended him. He was taller, dark-haired, and perpetually squinting. “Everyone is enthusiastic at first.”

Mikel, freckled and quiet, just gave Nick a small, sympathetic smile.

“So,” Nick moved on. “I hear you three have been busy playing with some new toys.”

Lina’s eyes lit up. “Oh yes, I have a lot of stuff I want to try out.”

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“All three of us focus on enchantment, so we’re used to this kind of thing,” Joran said. “But it’s not often we get the chance to field test without worry about consequences.”

“It seemed wise to prepare,” Mikel added. His voice was soft, but steady. “Even if this had been a mere field trip as it seemed at first, Archmage Tholm is not one to do things halfway.”

Nick snorted. “No, he’s not.”

Lina cheerfully patted the heavy satchel at her hip, eyes bright. “I’ve been working on earth-binding matrices keyed to clay content.” She gestured toward the ground. “Lots of clay. Lots of fun.”

“Clay magic,” Nick hummed, considering her angle. “That sounds niche, but very useful in this situation.”

“That’s the idea. All of us produced artifacts specifically tailored to this environment,” Mikel said. He held up his right arm. A bracer encased his forearm, etched with tight, precise runes. “I’m working on pressure modulation,” he explained. “It causes localized implosions, which are very useful to break down obstacles the likes of which dungeons like to grow.”

“And other things, like monster skulls, I imagine?” Nick asked.

“One hopes,” Mikel said.

“And you?” Nick glanced at Joran.

Joran smirked and flicked a small, glassy bead into the air. It spun between his fingers, flashing green.

“Selective combustion,” he said. “This isn’t your grandma’s fire magic that you can douse with a water ball. It keys to specific signatures, and doesn’t let go.”

Nick whistled low. “Nasty stuff, I love it.”

They bantered their way over the next ridge as the sun climbed higher. The town faded behind them, a smudge of red on the horizon, while ahead, the Low Savannah stretched on, sprinkled with patches of scrub trees here and there.

Nick kept his senses alert enough to notice any major disruptions. The usual scattering of animals, the occasional burrowing monster avoiding their group, the slow, steady hum of dungeon mana from the southeast…

And then something larger moved into his range. He paused mid-step.

“Hold on,” he said.

The word carried down the line, and they came to a stop.

“What is it?” Willow asked, stepping to Nick’s side. He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing.

Something was moving through the grass toward them. Several somethings. Large, sapient—though that word was generous—and feeling a surge of hunger and irritation. Their footsteps shook the ground subtly, as they moved in long, loping strides.

They were trolls, but not like the broad, brutish ones back in the grasslands near Floria. These were taller, leaner, and faster.

“We’ve got company,” Nick said. “Trolls. A group of them is closing in.”

A ripple of unease went through their little column.

“Trolls don’t usually move all that quickly,” Malik muttered from the back.

“How many, Nick?” Raphael asked, wisely deciding to focus on the more important details.

“Five,” Nick said after a moment. “With two more coming from a different side. They’re not subtle, but it’s more tactics I've ever encountered from them.”

Joran swore under his breath. Mikel’s hand flexed against his bracer.

“Where?” Raphael asked.

Nick tilted his head, orienting himself. “The big group is coming from the southwest, and the smaller one from the east. They’ve definitely scented us for a while. We could detour, but they’d probably just follow and catch up.”

“Good,” Raphael said.

Nick stared at him. “Good?”

“We’re not inside the dungeon boundary yet,” Raphael pointed out. “There’s no chance of a full monster tide. We are on flat terrain, with good visibility, and a known threat. This is the perfect chance to test what we’ve actually built. Nicholas, you’ve already played with the werewolves. Sit this one out.”

Nick opened his mouth but then shut it again. On one hand, the argument made sense. Trolls were nasty but manageable. Allowing the other apprentices to test their artifacts in a relatively controlled environment was a smart move.

On the other hand, his reflexive “I’ll handle it” complex did not like being benched.

Curiosity, however, won the day.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll play lookout. But if things go sideways, I’m not waiting to be asked.”

Raphael smirked. “I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that.”

He turned to the others. “Form a line here. Yvonne, Malik, Monte, and Terence hold back until we’ve tested the toys. No sense wasting your strength if we don’t need to. Willow, you’re on support and shielding. Guys…” His eyes gleamed. “Time to show Nicholas what the old guard can do.”

Willow rolled her eyes but was already moving, sketching a ward circle in the air that settled around their group with a hiss.

Nick stepped slightly aside, allowing his senses to extend once more. The trolls were close enough now that he could notice more details, such as long limbs and joints that bent just a little too far. Their mana pulsed with that unpleasant trollish resilience, and he knew that their regeneration was formidable.

When they crested the low rise ahead, they looked just as he had expected.

They were taller than the trolls back home by at least a head, standing eight to nine feet, with muscular builds, if not the hulking ones he remembered. Their skin was a mottled ash-gray, stretched tight over corded muscles, and their faces were as unpleasant as ever, with jutting jaws, long noses, slitted nostrils, and small piggy eyes.

They wore bone ornaments strung on sinew that rattled as they moved. Each carried a primitive weapon, ranging from a stone-headed club to a spear with a sharpened shard of black rock to a jagged length of twisted metal that might have once been part of a plow.

They spotted the group and let out a chorus of hoarse bellows, loping down the slope, and covering distance with terrifying speed.

“Lina,” Raphael ordered.

She was already moving, slapping her hand to the ground and infusing mana into the matrices woven into her gloves, and the clay-rich soil reacted as if it were alive.

The earth in front of the charging trolls bulged, then exploded upward into a wall of thick, sticky clay, spearing out to form grasping pseudopods. Arms of mud and stone wrapped around two of the trolls’ legs, pulling at them.

The leading pair stumbled, roared, and crashed down hard, hitting face-first on the ground.

The third vaulted over their falling bodies in a disturbingly agile leap, only to meet a bead of green fire that Joran flicked from his fingers.

The bead struck the troll’s chest and sank in like a drop of dye. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then green fire exploded outward, hugging the troll’s body like a second skin. It burned noiselessly, eating into flesh and hide, climbing up its neck toward its face. The troll screamed, a raw, tearing sound, and clawed at the flames, but his hands passed through them without effect.

“Nice,” Nick murmured.

The fourth troll charged past its burning companion, roaring, and raised its stone club high.

“That’s mine,” Mikel said.

He thrust his bracer-clad arm forward, and the runes flared, with lines of light racing along his skin.

The air around the troll’s torso twisted.

There was a sound like someone crushing a boulder in a fist. The space in front of the troll collapsed inward, dragging flesh and bone with it, and for an instant, the creature’s chest compressed grotesquely as ribs snapped inward, and organs pulped.

The troll dropped its club and crumpled, a wet, misshapen heap.

The fifth, perhaps smart enough to realize this was not going according to whatever its version of a plan was, skidded to a halt, snarling.

Green fire consumed the third troll entirely now, reducing it to a blackened, twitching form before the flames flickered and died, revealing a charred mess.

Lina’s clay hands squeezed, grinding the trapped trolls’ legs against each other and cracking their joints. One of them swung a spear wildly, but the haft snapped as the clay hardened around it.

Raphael, who had so far only watched with narrowed eyes, nodded once. “Not too bad,” he said.

Nick didn’t smile, as he could still feel the trolls’ mana, and it was far too active for his taste.

The heap that had been crushed by Mikel’s implosion twitched. Bones grated wetly. With a horrible series of pops, its chest cavity began to expand again, ribs knitting themselves back into place. Flesh bubbled, flowed, and reformed. The skull, which had partially caved in, bulged outward as bone regrew.

The charred skeleton in the green-fire patch spasmed. Cracks in the blackened bone oozed something like liquefied meat, bubbling up and spreading as new tissue crawled over the skeletal frame like mold.

“Don’t celebrate yet,” Nick said sharply.

Lina’s head snapped around. “What?”

The two trolls in the clay prison heaved, muscles swelling as their bodies adjusted to the constriction. Clay cracked, and one leg twisted at an impossible angle, then straightened again as ligaments rewove.

Joran’s eyes widened as the troll he’d cooked began to stand, green-black flesh sloughing off in chunks, only for raw, red muscle to crawl up underneath.

Of course, that was when the second group of trolls struck.