BXBX NOVEL Chapter 106 Search
~ Human kingdom of Astrata, City of Redfall, The Royal Castle ~
Somewhere in the labyrinth of tunnels under the royal castle, a cry incessantly wailed out. Screams of pain echoed out that seemed to make the air colder.
“The prophet said the necromancer would come from inside our own kingdom.” a man in thick segmented dark-grey stone armour said to eight others wearing the same type of armour.
“Division one, you will search north, division two, north-east…” he continued until he sent division eight to the north-west of the kingdom.
One of the commanders stepped forward, he had something to say.
“You, what is it?” the burly man pointed at the one who stepped out of line, questioning him with the rough gravelly voice of a war-torn veteran.
“Colonel,” he saluted “The north-east is in a state of war. Any traces of a necromancer will be found by the army.” he then lowered his head and stepped back into line.
The large colonel squinted at the division two commander for a moment before he thought to himself..
“He just doesn’t want to deploy. I won’t let him get out of it that easily…”
The colonel thought for a moment and decided to change a few orders around.
“Division four, you will search the south-west of the kingdom with division five. Division two, you will instead search the south. The south-west is large, consisting of farmland, forests, rivers and mountains so two divisions is ideal.” he smiled, knowing that the commander of division two will now have the whole south area to search and monitor.
The division two commander nodded without a word. He had his orders, it was his duty to follow them.
“Look for any reports of peasants being killed, and search for anything odd. A necromancer is a powerful being, it won’t take long to see villages laid to waste. Hopefully we can kill it before it grows too strong.”
Eight divisions of the mage hunters were being dispatched from the capital, a huge move as this consisted of most of the mage hunters, leaving only two divisions to defend the capital.
Of course, the military would still be there – the mage hunters were more of an elite secret intelligence service by comparison.
After the prophecy, the prophet was tortured for any more information he may secretly be withholding out of spite, and now the search for the necromancer had started – of course, none of them realised yet that the necromancer in question is indeed a human; an S-class variant.
Each division of mage hunters were 400-strong, and every single soldier in their ranks were a force to be reckoned with; each one of them well-equipped to deal with mages of all sorts.
Their dark-grey armour had anti-magic properties which could be activated or deactivated, and each of them purpose-made to deal with the most troublesome of magic variants.
The armour featured support systems such as vital, psych, hex and mana monitors which would inject the wearer with a variety of cocktails to either simply heal them, or even to counter the psychoactive-mana effects of sickly love magic. There was even an elixir made to block dimension practitioners from forming portals around the mage hunter.
An internal emergency air supply was recently added after an elite dimerkin assassin named Kreege laid waste to an entire scouting party of the mage hunters without much effort whatsoever. Their magic was air-based however, not even one of the illegal types.
All of these armours came inbuilt with an auto-destruct mechanism which upon death of its user would trigger. After all, it would be a disaster if an enemy of the kingdom got hold of one of these armours and extracted its many secrets, learning of its mana-support system capabilities or its anti-magic properties.
Many times, these armours were employed in the ongoing war, and they regularly turned the tides of battle. The only way to deal with these was with proficient melee-class troops, and even then, most of their powerful abilities would simply not work against these dark-grey suits.
Due to the material they were made from they could not be repaired, and most of the armours had dents, chips and scratches that had built up over time, making each one of their wearers seem like rugged, dangerous veterans of unending wars.
“Any questions?” the burly man asked, but it seemed more like a statement that one should not answer.
None of the commanders said anything.
“You’re dismissed.” his figure instantly blurred and disappeared from the room, teleported away.
With their orders laid out for them, each of them went off to their divisions, finding their captains to make their respective battalions ready to move out.
Within each 400-strong batallion there were two companies, and in each company were four platoons. Within the platoons were five squads, consisting for 10 hunters each.
– – –
“This is a recruitment mission. The primary target is a necromancer who could have massive implications for our future. You’re coming for security and nothing else.” Lannister said as he put emphasis on the words ‘nothing else.’
“Can’t we just grab the targets and leave?” Lara asked in a bored tone.
“No. We have orders to convince, not coerce. We will need him as an ally. Besides, he’s going to be a student here, not a prisoner… Now if there’s no more questions then get ready, the portal is going to open soon.” Lannister said abruptly and to-the-point. He was not going to let Lara come along for a good time.
South of Losla, a glowing blue dot suddenly appeared in the quiet of the forest.
From a single point, it began to grow as it was filled with volatile energy and flashed; quickly turning into a vertical line while air began to swirl around it.
Dancing leaves rustled on the forest floor as they began to get caught up in the small whirlwind being created.
Faster and faster the line of energy swirled and crackled, until a bulge formed in the centre of it.
Blue zaps of energy radiated and flashed from it as the bulge got larger and pushed as it turned, slowly forming into a spindle shape of menacing energy before suddenly it burst into a circle shape with a flat mirror at the centre inside. The coursing blue energy was pushed to the outside, forming a threatening crackling circle around it.
Suddenly, the mirror rippled as a man’s head poked through.
He turned and looked around, scanning the environment for any threats or witnesses before retreating into the mirror again. The portal floated silently for a moment in the middle of the quiet forest.
After a moment, the mirror rippled again as a man stepped through completely, followed by a woman, Lara.
Both of them were wearing typical civilian clothes, though each had matching green capes with hoods.
“This is it. That must be the dungeon over there.” Lannister pointed to the stink-rat marsh.
“I’m not looking forward to travelling back through that.” Lara said, pursing her lips as she looked at the swamp water puddle.
“Don’t complain.” Lannister said coldly, “Losla should be north of here. Let’s do some scouting and make sure this isn’t a trap before we find Sullivan.”
Lara nodded, suddenly becoming professional as they both began to creep north through the quiet forest.
The portal collapsed behind them, turning back into a single dot and then disintegrating into a ripple in the air. Residual, visible blue particles of concentrated mana dispersed into nothingness, as if they were never there to begin with.