Loremaster of the Amaranthine lands

Several tense seconds slipped by before the sun elf archer couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“Is he?”

“I’m still breathing!” The dark elf answered Sophie’s question with a low and raspy voice as he grabbed the arrow with his left hand, readying his right to cover the wound.

A pained grunt later the arrow got yanked out, its barbed edge tearing flesh and scraping ribs. Both he and Osmond cast lesser healing on the wound that was spewing blood at an alarming rate, the dark elf bordering between pain and silent rage.

“Where the fuck did that archer come from?” Cruz smashed the side of an undead’s head when it got too close to the retreating group.

“I couldn’t see it clearly,” Sophie shook her head. “It moved too fast.”

“It was him,” Regis said after spitting out thick drool to clear his throat. “It was that mercenary archer from the inner town.”

“Hold on,” Quentin stopped in his tracks. “Are you certain? You know that an accusation like…”

“It was him,” the dark elf growled as the blacksmith pulled him back to his feet. “I saw him just before he used some kind of a movement skill or spell. The fucker slipped away like a shadow.”

“Shit,” Fabien cursed, looking at the barbed arrow that looked an awful lot like the one Quentin blocked from reaching him. “He’s taunting us. He’s even using the same type of arrow, making sure that we know who did it.”

“That motherfucker,” Khan gripped the hilt of his swords with enough force to make them squeak. “The moment we get back, I’m going to…”

“You’re not going to do anything.” Quentin stopped his friend right after finishing off the last fallen that came after them into the alley.

“But…”

“But what? We’re outsiders, remember? Even if we bring clear evidence of the bastard’s guilt, who do you think the crowd will stand beside? They’ve been keeping the locals alive for a long time now, while the outlanders caused nothing but trouble.”

“Quentin is right,” Regis sighed as he shakily headed back toward the direction of the spell weavers’ guild. “They don’t want us here, but they can suck it! We’re here for us, not for them. Come on, we have a guild to scavenge.”

There was a deep, cold hatred in the dark elf’s tone as he reached up toward his chest, his finger running across the scar he willingly left behind from his arrow wound. He kept the arrow in his knapsack after wiping it somewhat clean. The group slowly edged a bit closer to the barricade, stopping to rest and regain their spent energy once they were sure that no enemy could be seen in front or behind them.

“I hate this,” Cruz spat on the wall ahead of her while laying her back at another building. “We’re sitting ducks here.”

“Keep your eyes on the roofs,” Valerie reminded her. “We don’t know if that archer is still around or not.”

“He’s gone,” Osmond declared. “Assassins always escape the moment their attempt fails.”

“Agreed,” Quentin nodded wearily. “On the other hand, we now know which of the mercenaries in that Zareef’s gang is the other tier two.”

“Yeah,” Fabien agreed before taking a sip from his waterskin. “There’s no way he could have slipped away with a tier one fighter or outdoorsman pathway.”

“He’s most likely either a shadow ranger or some kind of ranged assassin class.” Valerie added after taking the waterskin offered by her brother.

“We won’t get anywhere with guesses,” the dark elf repaired his breastplate with lesser mending. “We should focus on getting into that guild building first.”

“Any idea on how we’ll do that?” Amanda asked as Sophie rested her head on the giant’s side.

“If it’s a ward, it can be dispelled,” Regis noted. “It it’s an enchantment, I can break it.”

“Break it,” Fabien grumbled. “We’re talking about a friggin mage guild’s protection spell. How are you going to ‘break’ it?”

“By trying and failing to disenchant it,” The short answer came. “Novice enchanters get this nice little skill that allows them to try and learn runes from other people’s works. Fail to do so enough times and the rune breaks. And if an important rune breaks in a complicated barrier enchantment…”

“The whole thing collapses.” Osmond finished the thought, earning a nod.

“It can’t be as easy as that,” Valerie shook her head. “Won’t there be the backlash or something?”

“Yeah,” the dark elf sighed. “That’s going to be a bitch to deal with, but I have you lot to keep me alive, right?”

“That’s not funny Regis!” Sophie called out the spell weaver for his crude joke.

“I know, I know. Sorry. Anyway; we’ve been sitting on our asses long enough. Let’s do some breaking and entering, shall we?”

Everyone agreed with a silent nod, getting back up on their feet. Arcana shields were cast on instinct before they slowly marched towards the barricade. A large pile of corpses were hewn atop of each other in front of the circular stone wall. Some of them even hang halfway over the wall.

“We sure did a number on these guys.” Cruz prodded one of the corpses with her staff.

“We’ll clean up the place after we got a look at the spell weavers’ guild.” Quentin stated as he carefully climbed over the barricades, using a rampart.

Everyone was visibly nervous, their eyes moving from the different street entrances to the roofs, searching for any possible enemies.

“It’s clear on this end.”

“Same here”

“And here too.” They spoke one after another while walking closer to the guild building. It loomed over them in the slowly rising sun’s light, a shimmering barrier coating the heavily reinforced door.

“Yep,” Regis whistled as he looked at the glowing door frame. “It’s an enchantment alright. And a well-made one at that.”

“Can someone explain to me how the hell does a small river town at the arse end of the kingdom gets to have a 3rd rank barrier enchantment protecting their doors?” Cruz scoffed as she kept staring at the roof of the nearby buildings.

“It doesn’t matter how far guilds are from the centre of the kingdom,” Osmond answered. “They have teleportation gateways, remember? Even if they don’t have a high-ranked enchanter here, they could just ask someone from three towns over.”

“Can you break it?” Valerie asked the dark elf with a worried tone.

“Only one way to find out.” He answered, his fingers running across the surface of the door frame, feeling the prickly sensation of raw arcana coursing through the barrier.

He looked at the repeating sequence of runes, trying to find any familiar ones. There were fragments and a few complete ones he knew from his barrier ward, but most of the complete runes were unfamiliar. He picked out one and focused his will on it. Regis closed his eyes and began to slip into a meditative state. In his mind, the glowing image of a bright green rune floated, as if owning the place. Following the instructions left behind by the memory of the skill he gained, the dark elf began to seep his arcana into the rune, slowly tugging at its corners. It began to shake and stretch outwards as a small part of its left bottom corner broke off before unfurling into a partial rune. He barely managed to get a look at it, trying to carve the shape into his mind before the image collapsed in his mind space and he fell out of his meditation. A searing pain ran through his fingers as raw energy lashed out at him from the barrier, singeing his fingertips quite a bit.

“Shit!” He cursed, pulling his hand back while staring at the somewhat charred flesh.

“Are you alright?” Sophie asked as she looked at the injury. “Let me heal that for you.”

“Thanks.” Regis accepted the offer, allowing the sun elf to heal the burn marks that reminded him of the injuries of an electric shock.

What surprised him most was that Sophie’s spell healed him completely without leaving even a single scar behind.

“Flawless lesser healing,” He asked, earning a slight nod from the young woman. “I see you’ve been busy.”

“Did you manage to get anything out of that thing?” Fabian questioned him with obvious impatience.

“I think I managed to break down a part of it to learn, but then it fell apart. The dark elf answered as he used a piece of charcoal to draw the partial rune piece on the stone beside his feet.

After a bit of rest, he tried again, this time managing to pull the same piece out of the hole all along with a half-formed second fragment before a similar backlash struck him. He hissed with pain, blisters covering his fingertips.

“Hurry up there will you?” Khan called out to him after beheading a fallen commoner that somehow wandered into the square from Ronald streets.

“I’m trying.” Regis said before returning to the task at hand.

The third try earned him the second rune fragment along with the third one forming for a split second before an even larger reaction was earned from the barrier, pushing him back several feet with his entire palm scalded.

“You’re going to end up cooking your hands that way you know.” Osmond sighed with a hint of empathy in his tone, taking it up on himself to heal his comrade’s hand this time around. “It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be,” the young spell weaver admitted. “Every time I manage to pull a fragment free, it becomes more and more unstable. I can’t hold it still and discern the parts at the same time.”

“Then just don’t.” Cruz joined in the conversation. ‘You’re supposed to break it, remember?”

“If I get zapped over and over again, then the least I can get out of it it is an actual rune. Anyway, I have four down already. The maximum should be six parts combined into one.”

“How many tries do you have left?” Sophie asked as she looked at the rune that was dimmer than at the beginning.

“My guess is one or two. I’ll either get to learn it or break it. Let’s see which one comes first.”

The dark elf reached out to touch the right side of the door frame once more, focusing his will on disenchanting the rune. In the darkness of his mind space, the dim glow of the rune made him aware of its fading power. This time he felt less resistance from it as he slowly tried to unravel the threads that held it together. The 1st fragment came loose easily, soon followed by the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ones before the 5th one began to emerge as well. As soon as it moved far enough from the large and blurry rune, the symbol began to move like a green glowing liquid that soon receded, revealing a small 6th fragment in front of the dark elf’s eyes before the entirety of the fragments collapsed and exploded into nothingness. Regis stepped back, staring at the barrier that dulled visibly but still held on. The green rune he’s been working on faded from the side of the door frame, yet nothing happened.

“I… I don’t understand,” Sophie exclaimed. “The rune’s gone, but the barrier is still there.”

“Of course it is,” Regis noted down the two missing fragments beside the other four. “Do you see how the four sides of the door frame each have the same pattern on them? They make up a whole. Break one and it only weakens the barrier.”

“Break three out of four and it collapses.” Valerie finished the dark elf’s thought. “This is going to take hours if you have to break the others as well.”

“No,” he shook his head. “It won’t.”

Saying that he sat down beside the door and entered into his meditative state, redrawing the 6 fragments he earned through his work, forming circles around them that were connected to each other. As he pushed his will and a sliver of arcana into it, the diagram fell apart. 'Wrong sequence.' He deduced before assigning a number to each fragment in his mind, beginning again. After a couple of tries, reshuffling the fragments in a different order, he finally managed to find a sequence that allowed him to draw the pieces together.

In the end they melt that together into the same rune he saw on the door frame, only this time it was dull grey in colour. A small tide of information rushed into his mind, each of the fragments becoming known to him along with the complete whole. ‘Connection.’ The thought resurfaced in his mind, making it known that this particular rune was meant to create a connection between the repeating sequences of the enchantment. It was an integral part of any enchantment that was either tied to a copy of itself or linked to another enchantment.

“Damn! It’s not the lock.” He grumbled to himself if he awoke from his meditation.

“You okay?” Osmond helped him up from the ground.

“It was a rune of connection,” he spoke. “It’s not the lock, but the chain that ties the parts of the enchantment together.”

“I guess that’s half a success, right?” The pale youth turned towards the door.

“Break the chain...”

“And the lock falls off.” Sophie continued the train of thought.

Regis reached out to the left side of the door frame, touching the same rune he destroyed on the right. He quickly entered into the meditative state again, forcefully pulling at the rune with a singular thought in his head. He pulled at the fragment that was at the end of the sequence, tearing it out from the rune. As he did, the rune of connection faded at breakneck speed before vanishing.

“Two down, one more to go.” He said to his companions before reaching upwards to begin unraveling the third part of the barrier enchantment.

It took him a bit over three minutes to repeat what he did to the left side of the door, making the uppermost rune disappear from the sequence as well. The barrier faded as the third connection rune disappeared as well, leaving a gap between the still glowing runes on the door frame. Regis let out a deep breath he didn’t know he was holding in before he grabbed the door handle, pushing it down somewhat. Much to their surprise, there was no lock on it. The door opened with a slight creak, the scent of old parchment and ink assaulting him with a wave of nostalgia as he entered.

“Took you long enough.” Fabian patted him on the back as he and the others followed inside.

Once everyone was inside, the dark elf returned to the door, touching the left door frame where the gap was between the runes. He entered into the familiar darkness of his mind space, recreating the rune to replace the one he destroyed. Although it was grey in colour, it still did the job. As he repeated it on the other two missing parts as well, the barrier sprung back into existence on the door in a greatly weakened state.