Climbing the tall staircase of the tower within Gauntlet that the organisation, Orichalcum, resided within, Logan again returned to the large meeting hall with the long table. This impromptu gathering saw only the Spellthief, Alvus, the progenitor of the vampires, and Xican, the mage assigned to Logan.

  “Sorry for calling on you this quickly”, Logan started.

  Alvus raised a hand. “No apologies needed. We are here to aid any Oracle to the best of our capabilities.”

  “What brings you here today, Logan?” Xican asked with concern.

  Logan explained the situation, leaving out a few details here and there, but gave enough to try and warrant an edge against his oncoming foes.

  Alvus slowly shook his head. “You know our rules. We do not meddle in the Oracle-on-Oracle affairs. If anything, we hide you from one another due to your warring dispositions.”

  “The one cloaked in shadows aims to kill me and wreak havoc across the land. You’re willing to let that continue?”

  Alvus shook his head again. “Without the man saying as such, all you have currently are theories. As you admitted, shadows aren’t a unique ability.”

  Logan sighed. “Fine. At least you know the situation.”

  Xican then spoke up, “I can look into this Alaska issue for you, however. To my knowledge, they are not a known Oracle.”

  “Thanks, Xican.”

  Leaving the tower, Logan returned to the city streets, the sun dipping in the horizon and painting the capital a calming orange. The air buzzed with mercantile and cheerful energy, the citizens going about their normal tasks. While magic wasn’t continually used within the walls, especially with many spells being against the law at this point with the activation of the Demonturtle Shell Barrier, people still engaged in magical shows to boost their sales.

  The stalls held many components and trinkets that caught Logan’s eye every so often, the prices no longer feeling so dear when his metaphorical purse overflowed with coins. A new prevailing force replaced the frugal beginnings, one of preparing for the future and planning for the guild.

  With heightened senses, both mundane and magical, Logan was distracted by a sensation setting off his sixth sense. A group of robed individuals making for the backstreets faces hidden and steps quiet. It wasn’t an uncommon sight; what was though, were the commwatches that Logan spied. Their direction was also of concern.

  Taking a different path, Logan turned invisible and took to the rooftops. Silent steps allowed by his footpad’s whisper shoes and lengthened duration thanks to Sustained meta-alteration. Logan tracked and followed his targets with little worry about detection.

  This group had a different vibe from the rest, quiet words exchanged and clicking of their trinkets every so often, combined with the destination of the side of the Gerro Guardhouse painted their intentions as darker than usual.

  Leaping to another rooftop, Logan paid close attention to the group as they came to a halt in a square-like alley. Gathering around a marble fountain, its water translucent and deep blue. Their murmurs were laced with an evil energy. One of them approached the fountain and held a hand out as if to feel its power.

  “Do you think it will work?” she whispered, her voice trembling with excitement and worry.

  “None of us have seen it yet… But if it works, this means even the DSB isn’t infallible against His might”, another responded with just as much excitement in his voice.

  Parting and encircling the fountain, the five presumed magi allowed Logan to peer closer into what they were doing. The man who had spoken had pulled out a small pearl, green in hue with purple lines across it.

  “Identify”, Logan commanded in his mind.

  “Name Unassigned. Temporary title: Emergence Vessel, Level 30*5. This pearl can animate an object into life or enhance the spellforce of constructs. Either used to change the terrain or make golems, this item can produce varying effects based on its level. If attached to an area of high spellforce concentrations, or fed after the fact, it can create something akin to a spellforced dungeon. Creator: (Hidden). Components: (Open list)”, a window explained to Logan.

  “Do they plan to make a dungeon in the city?!” Logan shouted in his head.

  The man placed the pearl on the fountain’s water, it eventually began to follow the liquid upstream to the top of the construction, its spout. Floating there, the five began to chant.

  Teleporting whilst invisible, Logan grabbed the pearl and teleported again with no sound whatsoever. Landing on the opposite rooftop, Logan continued to look down at the gathering who had closed their eyes in concentration.

  A few minutes passed before they ended their ritual with the chant, “Form our salvation, free our kin! Dungeon Eruption!”

  With hands raised high, the casters looked expectantly at the place where the pearl should have been floating.

  Seconds passed before the first woman asked, “Did it work? Are we meant to be waiting?”

  “Don’t lower your arms yet!” another woman ordered as she saw the first waning.

  “The pearl is gone, obviously, it is inside the fountain now”, the man replied with a shaky voice, hoping what he said was true.

  “Dungeon Eruption? Is that poor naming, or were they actually trying to make an erupted dungeon? If the item’s description is anything to go off of, it would possibly make a spellforced dungeon. But you need a dungeon as a basis to make an erupted one…” Logan thought to himself.

  “Nothing is happening”, the first woman insisted.

  “We were ordered to do this, have faith in Alaska”, the second woman reprimanded, though her voice also showed concern.

  “Perhaps the ritual failed? Chant again”, the man instructed.

  Another man interrupted, “But, I can’t lock onto the item for the cast. You said it was inside?”

  The first man stared at the fountain. “No… it has gone!” he shouted as everyone dropped their hands.

  Many of the cultists began to murmur amongst themselves, perplexed at what had just occurred. Their hoods darted side to side as if they were searching for the thief in question, but the square back alley had no visitors besides them; it wasn’t a well-visited area.

  “Open the fountain up!” the first man ordered.

  The magi then began to chant again, pulling apart the stone of the fountain like the peel of a banana. Water started to rush from the basin all across the floor, revealing no such pearl to the magical miners.

  “Below curse it all!” the first woman shouted.

  “We—we need to contact Alaska immediately!” the second woman commanded.

  The five individuals then picked at their robes’ pockets, picking out the commwatches that Logan had spied before. In order, Logan used a Hasted set of Dimensional Jaunts to get next to each target, steal the trinkets and place them within his inventory.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Appearing with a shroud of darkness a few steps away from the magi, Logan stared dangerous daggered eyes at them all.

  “The haunted one!” the man shouted as he pointed at Logan.

  Logan drew up hands and let fly volleys of sand and dandelions, hitting the cultists in the face with puffs of sleepiness. “I need them to contact Alaska for me!” Logan reconciled in his head.

  Before the last man could fall to the floor, however, he had cast a silent spell with a flick of his wrist. Sparks of dark lightning appeared around his hand before they dissipated with his body hitting the floor, but it was enough.

  Logan’s hair stood on edge as the Demonturtle Shell Barrier shifted from the transparent hue to its usual large green hexagon style of when it first appeared.

  A wave of darkness eeked out of the man’s robe as if it had held a cavern’s worth, rolling out like a bursting dam. The shadows wrapped around the bodies of the cultists quickly, Logan only reaching two in time to grab onto the shadows and mentally command, “Spell Absorb.”

  The liquid-moving shadows vortexed into Logan’s palms, leaving two cultists in his grasp, while the three others were stolen away from him.

  “Spell Absorption successful. 1 Shadow Shift charges stored.”

  Checking a quick window reference, the spell was sixth-level. Logan was thankful for having crafted his spellswindlers gloves not too long ago, the added 50% made absorbing this spell 95%. Sadly, he failed the 10% of learning it.

  While Logan had stopped the spell affecting two targets, as it seemed to be a multi-target spell he had only got it at the tail end. As three targets were removed, a new one took their place. The shadows were riled up as if angry they could not complete their task as quickly as it was due to the recentness of Logan’s apprehension of the cultists a few days before.

  Spinning in a vortex, the shadows formed a circling skeleton that landed with faint clackers and clicking of metal. Standing tall at 7’2”, the skeleton looked down at Logan, who was still crouched down. Its metallic armour shimmered and waved like the shadows that had formed it, a long, thick greatsword in one hand and a metallic, diamond-shaped buckler strapped to the other.

  “Identify”, Logan mentally commanded as he opened his vaskt eyes.

  “Skeleton Lord - Undead. Level 35: 540/540 HP, 35/35 MP.

  Standing high in the hierarchy of intelligent undead, the skeleton lord literally lords over many of its kind. With the somewhat limited ability, to undead, to create and control other undead, the skeleton lord is often seen with a cemetery of combatants to aid it.

  Necromancers dream of being able to create these beings, while many dungeons are marked as "No Entry" by many guilds due to housing a naturally formed monster of this variety.

  Skills: Open List ↓. Warning: <= Second-level spell immunity.

  Spells: Open List ↓.

  Reduction: All 10.

  Resistance: Damage 50%, Earth 50%, Fire 25%, Holy 0%, Ice 25%, Lightning 25%, Shadow 115%, Water 95%, Wind 95%.”

  Before Logan could even ponder as to why or how this monster was able to enter Gauntlet, he raised his hands to form a Barrier spell as it lunged at him.

  In tune with the barrier of Gauntlet flashing red in alert, so did Logan’s blue Barrier shimmered red with the devastating strike of the undead adversary. Logan’s mastery of the spell allowed it to absorb the maximum amount of damage allowed by the spell level, 300.

  Greatsword coated in a red mist, the skeleton slashed again at Logan’s defences, cracking them greatly, leading to a sidekick into Logan’s stomach, sending the Spellthief flying.

  A quiet evening meal was being enjoyed by a family of three, a small fire in the fireplace, and a steaming pot on the table. As they took their seats, Logan came crashing through one wall and out the other, disrupting their meal.

  Crashing and rolling across the ground to the main street, Logan pulled out two daggers to block another slash from the skeleton that jumped high and spun down onto his foe.

  The pavement shuddered and splintered all around, doors rattled, and window wood panels came flying off their hinges at the display of power in the streets.

  People took on worried faces, turning to excitement at a duel, but then recognised the undead in the fray, turning into even greater worry.

  “Monsters!”

  “Undead!”

  “Run!”

  Logan darted his vaskt eyes left and right as he made sure people weren’t too close, his real eyes concentrated on the fiend on him. The skeleton’s back started to whirl, the shadows shooting upward into two talons that ended in two clawed pointers. Four zigzagging lines of black shot from the appendages towards the citizenry at high speed.

  “Shit!” Logan cursed as he Dimensional Jaunted after the beams. Slashing at each one, Logan lost a dagger to save a villager for each beam.

  Landing in a slide, Logan drew up two other daggers to parry the skeleton that followed after him. Limited due to the onlookers, Logan had to make concise use of his skills, lest he be outed as an Oracle. It was fine that he had chosen the caster’s life; his use of spells was not limited here.

  “Fire Blast 2nd”, Logan chanted as he dropped both daggers. Flames burst forth from his palms, blasting into the skeleton’s form.

  Fires and smoke caressed his foe and filled some of the streets, sending a good enough signal to the guard and other adventurers where he was. Just in time, Logan retracted his hands and jumped back, avoiding a retaliating slash from the skeleton.

  “Who the hell spawned this thing? Is Alaska that powerful? Or is it the other guy?” Logan thought to himself as he continued to dodge.

  The sound of stampeding guards alerted Logan to allies, however, none of the normal guards could really help him at this point.

  “This way!”

  “Clear the streets!”

  “Make a barricade!”

  The guards all ordered the citizens to safety, others taking up crossbows and making empty attempts at damaging the skeleton lord.

  Deflecting another strike, Logan let out another shotgun of flames into the monster, though its movements weren’t halted a single bit. It was like batting a house fire with a dry blanket.

  Another punch came Logan’s way, planting into the side of his face and smashing his body into the stony path of the capital. Rock went flying, as did blood, as the skeleton drew back his fist to make a twirling overhead slash with the other arm.

  Logan’s body warped away to avoid the follow-up strike, bottles hitting the floor as he downed restoratives.

  Fires and floods swarmed in the sky as adventures came to help in the attack. Two Fighters with accented gear of their entries. Fiery swords and watery hammers came slamming into the skeleton’s armour, sending shockwaves of energy all around.

  The skeleton’s eyeholes glowed red as its body erupted in sinewy black lines. “Severance”, it chanted.

  Logan jaunted again in the air between the two newcomers and in the face of the skeleton. With one palm and one foot, Logan sent out Air Blasts to separate his allies from the skeleton, while a final hand shot Logan to safety.

  The skeleton spun with its sword, cutting at the air, a sharp noise emanated into the battlefield and cut even the sound apart, making it silent for a second. After the delay, the ground and several houses in a vertical circle around the skeleton were segmented cleanly into two pieces.

  As the brick and wood crumbled to the floor, so did the Fighters as they clambered back to standing positions. Further stampeding could be heard as more allies started to add to the two that had first appeared.

  Arrows, bolts, and magical streams came soaring at the skeleton lord, hardly fazing the strong adversary that none of the adventurers thought they’d see in their lifetimes.

  The lord began to raise its hand, shadows forming from it and in the breaks of stone on the ground. Skeletal hands began to appear from the power as Logan understood it was creating allies. Before he interrupted it, though, something else did. The skeleton’s head jutted as if realising something; it then turned to the direction in which Logan had attacked the cultists. Looking back at Logan, the creature dropped its hand and sheathed its sword onto its back.

  “Blest 2nd!” voices called out, volleys of light beams hurling towards the lord.

  Merely stepping side-to-side and turning, the skeleton dodged the attacks, easily spying the attacks at a distance. Shadows began to climb up its feet and up to its shoulders, similar to the spell that had brought it here. In an instant clawed motion, the skeleton lord was gone.

  A hundred adventurers flooded the scene with weapons and spells in hand, ranging from the lower tens to a few up to the thirties in rank. Shortly followed thereafter by higher-ranked guards and captains, some teleporting to the scene while others rode on horses.

  A short conflict that would have seen a swift end, if not for the opponent’s ability to teleport within the confines of the barrier. But how?

  Logan let out a harsh breath, thankful the enemy had fled but also annoyed he couldn’t get further answers. He had already realised the ones he stopped getting taken away, had been so, the leads he had were fading.

  A familiar man in black chainmail hugging a set of dark-brown leather armour approached Logan, taking off his helmet. “Logan, Marcus has told me much about you.”

  “Captain Gaius.”

  --- *** ---