Salt continued sitting and trying to learn to wield his tomes until first bell 1200 when he stood up and went to stand in the outer part of the Cafeteria next to an exit and lit a rune above his head. The rune depicted several basalt columns at the beach, with one broken off and lying on its side in the seawater. Standing with his bizarre staff in one hand and a thick tome in the other clad head to toe in brown beige, to the students he was shown as their proctor but very little seamed similar to the small boy but the colour. Learning and waiting for 30 minutes as his students milled about Salt shut his tome with a snap. “Ah 71 bright students have taken up their proctor's recommendations to go to the rainbow warrens this day.” Walking out of the Cafeteria Salt gestured with his staff “come, come, horror and elucidation await.” Walking the exhausting route to the rainbow warrens on foot from here would take time and effort, but the more effort Salt put into teaching the newbies to stay alive the Nersinian way. The more he would earn at the end, and Salt could always hope to learn something.

“Hello coterie.” Salt amplifying his voice said behind him. “We will now take the route assigned by Nersinia as its official history route, it is meandering and long, try to learn why this is the official way and not the fastest way.” Groaning, and shouting followed his revelation. “I will now shut up until we get to the warrens, but fear not you will all have a chance for a one on one with me along the way. But I require payment, the payment will be what you can remember of your family's or cities burial rites.” Smiling to himself Salt truly did enjoy the newbies shock and questions at such a simple request.

3 hours it took the coterie to stumble to the front chamber of the warrens, and by that time the 71 was whittled down to 59 and Salt had procured 22 burial rituals he already knew and could blow trough. There were 10 variants on some he had already learned, 2 entirely new from a quadron gold elemental, and a former soldier. Thirteen rituals where so damaged he could not piece it together into a cohesive whole, and 20 “fuck off I am not telling you nothing.” A great harvest Salt thought to himself grounding his staff in the floor and letting a “thom!” that cut through the din. “We have arrived good students, just past these gates lies the strange and the horrible.” Impatiently the students milled in place. “But this is not only the end of the road here, but also an end to our road together.” muffling the room with a cascading spell Salt continued “no, no do not cry dear students, with my guiding you here. All tasks as proctore are done, and I have fulfilled my duties as sat down in my Nersinian mission. Goodbye and do not go to mad in the warrens.” And with that Salt walked out of the warrens and turned towards a direction he had long seen had the greatest gathering of scouts hoping to snag him or info on him to sell on. Salt was glad he had learned so many burial rites, he would need all he could muster today.

Allelain cursed as he had done ever since he had taken this mission. The god damned beige asshole would not go outside of protected places, why where they here, why following along a god damned ancient pilgrim route. There was as good as nothing out here outside the flaming warrens, and he and his fucking slave corps had to traipse trough countless unused rooms with nothing to look at but useless Nerisian history. A straight line from the Cafeterias west exit and all it would take was 15 minutes, but no follow Soil or Salt or whatever; the beige asshole. There were 3 God dammed different slaver corps out here for ONE weak plant mage, were they supposed to split the bastard in thirds. 30 something men and ten of them mages, not to mention the war beasts, and how the hell had the beige asshole gotten protection anyway. “I am going to piss” he told the other guard on the side of the door, and walked of some paces cursing and bitching as was his wont.

Behind Allelain an small “thunk” was heard as the other guard was gripped and as he tried to struggle the two mana entities who chained him, held a glowing scroll to his chest as vitality fled his flesh and skin in a horrifying and quick transformation from man to skeleton. Taking the scroll back the arcane servant set a different scroll in its place and in as little time as it took the man to die the skeleton took to rise. Having pressed his luck long enough Salt forced blood lust and hatred of the living through his bond to his 13 newly risen undead. And having let lose the undead unnatural savagery and jealous towards life, feeding them parts of the vitality that was their own just seconds ago Salt let the undead bindings go, freeing them to their fell purpose. Screams and other gristly sounds echoed terrifyingly from 2 of the slaver camps. Gripping their weapons, the men of the third slaver corps settled into defensive stances and positions but not having an enemy materialise waited as the sound of battle happened at either side of them.

In a camp not far from the third having dispatched half of the walking dead, the four 3 circle wizards were just about to send out a slow time ritual to get the time to investigate what and who attacked them. One of the wizards feeling a sudden spike of heat mana to his left quickly erected a heat sink spell and was totally surprised as the ever-loyal war beast at his side promptly bit his head off. The sudden loss of a fourth of the spell working as well as the shock of a colleague's death so close, destabilised the wizards enough that the mana backlash cooked 2 of them from the inside. The fourth wizard being an Nerissian third year had immediately offloaded most of the work of holding the cooperative ritual spell leading to less damage as he sank into the sand. Salt sat some 3 kilometres away and watched and admired the efficiency of the spell scrolls arcane servants and the unorthodox ways you could use noncorporeal servants. He also admired his classmate, though that was not a good thing for his classmate, leaving someone of such discipline and talent alive on the battlefield left a sour taste in his mouth. He would have to check back and see whether an undead killed him later, his mana signature saturated the current area so now he needed to move.

Transmogrifying supressing salt and spreading it with dried old blood flecks, Salt knew he was only so effective as speed and surprise would allow. Centring himself he sent 8 different mana servants' trough four different possible routes, all but one came through without damage. So paradoxically that one damaged one's route was where he went towards, figuring if the traps of professionals could not help but damage the mana being. Then it was so booby-trapped as to be the perfect place for a counter ambush. Finding two broken of wall boards Salt quick painted a sigil of levitation on each. Stilt walking while pushing himself a good meter over the floor, Salt reached the secondary mana servant. Stopping near the doorway of the trapped hall Salt levitated himself up towards the roof cut a small escape cut up into the room right over. Using a rune this time to throw of detection magic Salt bound himself magickly to the ceiling. Recalling all but three of his mana servant's trough the tome of scrolls buried close to the camp of the first slaver Corp, Salt started a mind mnemonic chant “I am the wall the wall is me” again and again easing what mana burden he had lain on himself casting near 30 second circle spells although with the help of scrolls. As Salt chanted and recuperated his signature grew dimmer and dimmer with less and less chance of hunters picking it up.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Allelain was doing his favourite activity: cursing. But even that turned stale after the hundred repetitions, having turned around after pissing to see his friend a cackling skeleton driving finger bones through the eyes of his other friend. Allelain wished he had not taken this contract for the thousand time. It was clear to him that someone wanted the plant mage very, very much and had set out to clear the competition of the board. No fool him he immediately ran away, the screams only giving mild consolation that his choice was right. Seeing as the leftmost camp had 4 third circle wizards and the others only had 3 each, they were probably the ones to strike at his former Corps. Now their name was white wizards something, something, but what was the name of the other group.

Having not enough time to find the answer Allelain came upon them suddenly “easy, easy” he shouted, “I am a guard of the red slash Corps and want no trouble.” Seeing fast that the group was led by a woman wizard and that the white wizards was all men Allelain though to throw himself on some mercy. “The evil white wizards want that beige asshole for themselves, they have attacked our camp with fell necromancy I almost did not get away, mercy, mercy great wizardess.” Seeing the woman blanche at the news got his hope up, but the hope turned sour as the woman spoke to some wizard beside her. “Rimmy, have this man lead you and a small detachment to his camp, check his story and proceed as intended. The reinforcements are coming as soon as able, but some traps have been sprung and it might be That Teaching prodigy, our spy said he took off as soon as he arrived in the warrens. And if the white streamers of time want to fight, then we will fight.”

Having regained much of his mana and focus from the short scrimmage with the Slaver Corps, Salt sat and waited as he felt something he never thought he would feel in battle: Bored, so mind churningly bored. Yet Salt knew what this was his inexperience with the realities of battle rearing its ugly head. Having plans within plans and having none of his enemies go for them, the minefield exquisitely laid down at the rear of the red slash Corps, useless. The riled-up harpies in the loft some buildings over, they had a bit of a screaming fit then just went back to sitting there, useless. Now tweaking the perimeter and then laying down a trail of his own blood and mana signature all around but here, usele- was that movement?

Reaching out through the Arcane servants Salt kept ready he managed to manoeuvre the second servant on the floor below up towards the ceiling and the first to stand perfectly still. And 1,2,3 nothing. And 1,2 and 3 nothing again. For fucks sake 1,2,3 an arrow planted itself into the head of the first arcane servant, and Salt almost lost the plot. Your inexperienced, your inexperienced Salt told himself silently again and again as his arcane servant flickered and faded on the floor down and to his left. Hearing whispered noises from the ceiling where Salts third arcane servants were laid out on the floor under a table within a ritual circle. At the edge of his servants hearing, he could make out “seemed to be a puppet of mana, …............. perhaps to warn............. could be the pain in the ass.” Hearing more footsteps, a female voice, much of the same again. Please say you have a ward stone please say you have a... yes Salt thought to himself as the woman went. “.....We cannot stand around here and dally, I have a ward stone no need to dispel our best defences, we may need them. Guards to me quickly now group up, now through the wards.”

As inexperience tugged at Salts sleeve to go faster, he over corrected and almost waited too long. But he caught the crew as they went through the corridor his servant above activated a little used ritual called a spell shredder. This was a chaos aspected spell and quite vicious, it was supposed to free aspected mana from spells but used on one servant above and sent through the corridor below to the servant hovering near the roof. It freed many spells of their aspects on the way and some aspects do not like to be so near each other. The aspects immediately scattered to the greatest source of mana in the vicinity the warding spells fighting for dominance, thus destabilising them causing a cascading failure of mana moving very fast trough everything in its way. It tore through planks bodies and air overloading equipment and spells alike cascading down the corridor ending in the room where Salt was scrambling trough his bolt cut to the upper room.

Stupid, stupid went through Salts head as he fled down a pre picked route almost forgetting to summon 6 new arcane servants in his haste. Sending 2 to check enemies and four to check the way he was running Salt slowed to a walk then a levitation as his nerves finally calmed. Thinking trough, the haze of action ha saw where he went wrong with the timing. Had he acted when he thought to act, he would have caught the group in the centre maximising damage. But then again if the spell had worked as he had thought he would not be running away right now. Wait a minute, was that more people coming in from the warren side, well time to go to hide 3 and wait. Berating himself for his shortcomings and subsequently berating himself for doing an after action during the actual battle, shaking his head Salt promised himself to do better as he worked on the only skill that meant anything right now: Survival.

Hearing a great many booms Lavoisier der Copferlasange urged his men forward. He was maybe expecting some hunting the savant, killing some mages or even flirting with that nice little number his family had hired to hunt down the savant. But as he came to a corridor painted a ghastly red it took him some time to see the carcasses for all his brain tried to pick out shapes of bodies. Subsequently spewing his breakfast into the floor as some of his men followed his lead, Lavoisier thought of the rapport of what was it? A yes fell necromancy from some evil white wizards yes that was it. They would pay cough....for this.....gah......barbarism.