Zenith of Sorcery

Interlude 2
Giant Thunder Hall

Giant Thunder Hall Academy was dominated by a massive central building made out of some kind of white marble. The slabs used in its construction were absolutely massive, too big to be easily handled by human hands. They were also highly irregular in shape, as if someone had simply taken natural boulders and stacked them on top of one another to create the building. Nonetheless, these irregularly shaped stones interlocked so seamlessly that even a piece of paper would not fit between them, and no mortar was used in the construction.

The marble was clearly magical, and seemed to contain trapped clouds inside of it – if one stared at the stones for too long, one could see an illusion of them swirling inside the rock. It was hypnotic, and more than one outsider and apprentice had to be broken out of the spell when they first came to the academy. Many people assumed this was some kind of defensive measure by the Giant Thunder Hall, but no… it seemed to be a property of the stone itself, which was every bit as mysterious to the members of the academy as it was for visitors.

Of course, the sight of the main building was quite familiar to Horik, and there was no danger of him getting trapped in the stone's illusions. He walked into the place with purposeful steps, completely ignoring the guards stationed at the entrance, not even bothering to acknowledge their hurried greetings. Peons were not worth his time.

He made a beeline towards the office of the High Sage – the leader of Giant Thunder Hall. He'd been visiting the place regularly over the past few years, so this was almost routine for him by now. Giant Thunder Hall had lost most of its high-ranking members during the First Academy War, and Horik was one of the most powerful mages they had, so his influence was correspondingly great.

Horik absolutely loved it. Some of the elders raged at the injustice of the world and the casualties they took, alternating between cursing the southern academies and lamenting the previous leader's decision to ally with Veldoran, but Horik was grateful for how things turned out. If the First Academy War had never happened, he would still be just a minor elder, looked down on by the upper echelon of the academy.

Not that he'd ever say such thoughts out loud, of course.

He stopped in front of the office of the High Sage, allowing the four guards stationed there to check up on him with various spells. Unlike the guards at the entrance to the building, these ones were silent and grim, giving him a brief gesture of greeting before getting down to work. Horik responded with a casual gesture of his own, and did not impede their work. Although Horik had little patience with most guards, these four were some of the most trusted people in High Sage's employ, and all of them had the potential to advance to spirit ranks at some point. He didn't want to make an enemy out of them.

"Come in, Horik," a voice came from inside the room.

He strode inside a very spacious room dominated by a large table. Before the war, at a time when Giant Thunder Hall had many more elders, the table was used to hold large meetings and discussions, but these days it was mostly two or three people inside the room at any one time.

Horik sat down on one end of the table, opposite to a lazy-looking, slightly younger man. He wore a large silver necklace, and had a plain golden circlet on his head. One of his hands was propping up his chin as he studied a large map on the table in front of him. All manner of differently colored pins and figurines were carefully arranged on top of it.

High Sage Haakon looked bored, even sleepy, but Horik knew better than to underestimate him. There was a reason why Haakon was the leader and Horik wasn't.

Haakin glanced at the newcomer, before taking one of the bowls next to him and pushing it towards Horik. The bowl slid down the entire length of the table with perfect timing and force, stopping just in front of Horik without spilling any of its contents.

"Here," said Haakon. "I ordered these just for you."

Horik's eyes lit up when he was what was inside. It was fruit. Fresh fruit from the south, looking as if it was gathered this very morning.

For all the wealth Giant Thunder Hall had, things like this were really hard to acquire. Most fruit did not grow this far north, and especially not in the mountains. There were more expensive stuff, of course, but transporting something like this here while preserving its freshness was no easy task – you couldn't actually buy something like this on the open market, no matter how rich you were. You needed special connections.

"Ah, my friend, you really know my vices," Horik said, immediately gathering a bunch of smaller berries and stuffing them into his mouth.

Stolen novel; please report.

"We have discussed your earlier report, Halfdan, Tora, and I," Haakon said.

"And?" Horik prompted.

"Things could have gone better, but this is overall a good outcome," Haakon said. "You didn't get the Orb of Flight back, but this was always a long shot. The important thing was to confirm how strong Marcus was, and what his relationship with Great Sea Academy is."

"Yes, and it's not really encouraging, is it," Horik said, a sour expression on his face. "A microcosm mage, and one that utterly hates our guts. Just what we needed."

They also went out of their way to antagonize him. That wasn't great either. Though, if you asked Horik, Marcus was never going to be friendly towards them anyway, so this was less of a problem than it may appear.

"Yes, but it doesn't seem like he and Great Sea are really working together," Haakon said. "He may officially be a member, but I doubt they can just request his help any time they feel like it. Not to mention, we did manage to completely poison his relations to Crystal Mountain Academy. That's a success no matter how you look at it. I'm quite surprised Hishur allowed himself to be completely outplayed like this. He grew too quickly; his inexperience is showing."

"I was hoping the two hotheads would kill each other," Horik said, a nasty smile on his face as fantasies of total triumph briefly filled his mind. He took a bit out of some exotic fruit he didn't recognize, chewing it thoughtfully for a moment. It tasted good. "Shame what happened in the end," he said. "Old Marcus would not have spared Hishur like that. He has gone soft in his exile."

"If he had killed Hishur, we could have launched an invasion of Crystal Mountain right now and gotten rid of them before anyone could assemble a response," Haakon said, sounding almost wistful. "They're even more weakened than us. Losing Hishur would have been an irrecoverable blow, I'm sure of it. Well… no use in dwelling on hypotheticals."

Horik had actually attacked Hishur and his group after they retreated from Marcus's little tower. The temptation was too big to ignore. Hishur was wounded, his companions were demoralized, and they were a long way from any meaningful response by the rest of the Crystal Mountain's forces. Alas, while Hishur was wounded, he was not helpless. Marcus had defeated him too quickly, and too cleanly.

Still, he'd managed to inflict additional wounds on Hishur, and killed three of the adepts accompanying him. Everyone that accompanied Hishur on this little trip was a big asset to Crystal Mountain, and not some random nobody, so that should be quite painful for their ancient enemy.

Meanwhile, Horik hadn't lost any of his men in the assault, and had simply retreated when more Crystal Mountain adepts arrived to save their leader.

Haakon was no doubt planning to exploit this moment of weakness in some big way, and soon, but there would likely be no true war. Just more border skirmishes and assaults on each other's trade caravans and whatnot.

"We will require your services in the coming days, so don't go anywhere for a while and don't get distracted," Haakon told him.

"Got it," Horik said, agreeing easily. That was about what he expected. Due to his advanced movement magic, he was extremely good at conducting raids and evading patrols, which made him something of a crucial asset.

Haakon seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, looking at Horik for a few seconds silently. Horik frowned, finishing off the last of the fruit in his bowl. What was that about? Haakon was not usually one to hold back on his opinions…

"There is one other thing I want to discuss," Haakon said, leaning forward. "The final puzzle-key is back on Tasloa."

For a moment, Horik stared at him uncomprehendingly, unsure what he meant, before he finally realized the magnitude of what he was hearing.

"Really?" Horik said, his heart suddenly beating a little quicker. "That's… incredible. Doesn't that mean the Cloud Giant's Palace can finally be opened? Who has the fifth key?"

"We don't know," Haakon said. "We know it is back on Tasloa because the other four keys have awoken from dormancy, but we don't have any clues yet in regards to its whereabouts. Considering it was taken off the planet and is now back, it is unlikely to be in the hand of any native powers. It should be some outsider who has it."

"A lot of those these days," Horik commented.

"Yes," Haakon agreed. "In any case, this could be really good or really bad. On one hand, some of the outsider factions are overwhelmingly powerful and might monopolize everything and leave us without even a scrap of loot. On the other hand, one of the keys is held by the Lygos Empire, and you know how they are. This newcomer could potentially counterbalance them."

"Hm. Speaking about outsiders, are those strange blue freaks still hanging out near Lake Sher?" Horik asked.

"Yes," Haakon confirmed. "It shouldn't be them. There is no indication they received any reinforcements, and even if they have the final key, the door needs all keys to come together before it will open. I don't believe they can enter the palace without the key."

"Maybe we should tell Great Sea about them?" Horik suggested. "It's their territory, they wouldn't want some strange outsiders operating there."

"Yes, but that might prompt them to look for a reason why these mysterious outsiders are even there. If they discover what lies at the bottom of the lake, matters could become complicated."

Both of them were silent for a while, mulling things in their head.

"Well, there is no point in thinking too much about this now," Haakon said suddenly. "We'll talk more when we find out who actually has the last puzzle-key. I just wanted you to be informed. If an expedition into the palace is ever agreed upon, we would definitely include you as part of the exploration group. I assume you are interested?"

"It has been my dream to walk the halls of the Cloud Giant's Palace ever since I've heard of it," Horik told him, completely sincere. "If we could recover just one artifact of the almighty cloud giants, even a minor relic-"

"Don't," Haakon cut him off. "This is all still far from certain."

Despite this admonishment from his leader, Horik couldn't help but be excited.

This was exactly what he – no, the entire Giant Thunder Hall, needed.

They just needed to wait for the right moment and seize their destiny.