“I am sorry ma’am but the fire destroyed any evidence that we might have found regarding the perpetrator. The only thing we managed to uncover is that some of our men assigned to died from a strong blow to the head that killed them almost instantly, and the only reason we were able to uncover that is because we managed to arrive so quickly after the fire started spilling out from the few gaps in the walls.” Bohare turned and slowly began walking away as she began to rub her temples to relieve the stress of the situation.
“So the only thing we know about the saboteur is that they used a blunt weapon. Is there nothing else that was uncovered? Even a footprint would help us narrow down the list at least somewhat!” Bohare said as she contemplated killing someone to take her mind off the situation even if only for a moment before quickly taking a deep breath and calming down. ‘Killing someone randomly will not change what has been done, the only way to remedy this is to find the saboteur.’
“Double the number of guards at each of our locations and give some of them ranged weapons, we must assume that this saboteur is going to continue until everything we have built is burned to the ground!” Bohare shouted to her second in command who quickly nodded and began shouting out orders to the other gang members under his command.
Bohare instead looked at the smouldering ashes with a fire of her own burning in her eyes. She was angry not just at the individual responsible for this destruction but also at herself for not reinforcing the defences on the important locations enough even after one attack. She knew this was more than just one of their former allies trying to take the swamp weed market for themselves and she expected that her brother would also see things the same way once she explained it to him in detail.
********
It is the Eighth of Limestone and almost two full weeks after Arthur burned the second warehouse to the ground. Arthur was also currently standing in the middle of the office space Henry had in his church as he kept the twelve spheres of condensed air orbiting around himself in a way that reminded Henry of “How the planetary bodies move around the sun.”
Regardless Henry was pushing Arthur much harder than before and had been for a few days at this point by having Arthur perform the regular exercise while also dodging some small orbs of air that Henry would launch towards his student at random intervals. This forced Arthur to keep his mind on both the magic exercise but also his surroundings as well draining his mental and magical energies, though this was not without benefit.
/- - - - - -\
+ Mana Manipulation Level 23
+ Aeromancy Level 15
\- - - - - -/
This extensive training and pushing of Arthurs limits allowed Arthur to grow his skill in a faster way than normal, but by the end of the day at eight o’clock and after two hours of lessons which he started to make a consistent schedule of to free up his time during day for potion brewing and buying ingredients from some of the stores located in the eastern district.
With the arrival of autumn eight o’clock was no longer as bright outside, in fact it was quite dark leaving the long walk home to only be illuminated by the light of the streetlights when they were around and by fire conjured by Arthur. Like the other seven times he had done this Arthur began his walk home in the cold night despite what Henry was offering him from the door. “You can stay the night here if you wish, I have a spare bedroom and I have no issue with letting you use it if you so wish.”
“It’s alright sir, I know my way around the city and I haven’t had any difficulties with directions so far. I’ll see you tomorrow at the same time if you are still available.” Arthur smiled as he slowly walked away.
“Yes, that still works for me. Just be safe Arthur, you never know what might show up at night despite the efforts of the city guard.”
“I will be alright sir, I know my limits and I am confident in my ability to escape from any threat that might show itself in this city.” Arthur gave a small wave to his teacher as he quickly started walking back to his home down the empty and brightly lit streets of the northern district. The light was created by these large ten foot tall poles that had a small cage like thing that was no larger than half a foot in all dimensions, within this cage was an orange flame that casted light and heat keeping the streets of the wealthiest section of the city (excluding the middle) so well lit. But as Arthur left the northern district and entered the western district the light poles began to become less frequent and less bright with only bright red flames casting light. Entering the southern district where Arthur and many of the poor residents of the city lived the amount of light poles was around half of what was in the western district and they were even dimmer with dark red flames casting deep shadows with the little light and warmth they gave.
But as Arthur was about halfway to his home he suddenly felt his spine and each of the bones that made it up start to shake like an earthquake. It was a sign of impending danger unlike anything he had felt before, but as Arthur frantically looked around the open area he couldn’t see anything. Ducking behind a nearby house Arthur started to formulate a plan to escape whatever threat he might be feeling when, taking a peek around the side of the wall he saw a small dog, most likely a puppy running while whining moments before a large humanoid boar thing leaped at it like a wolf and started tearing into its flesh with its razor shape teeth.
Arthur ducked back behind the wall keeping his hand over his own moth to keep from making too much noise and drawing that creature's attention. The boar creature was easily eight feet tall and looked as if it was forcibly shaped into its current form like some sort of demon. ‘This is bad, this is bad. I don’t even know what that thing is let alone how to fight it, but I probably don’t need to. If I can just escape it and find the southern district barracks I can inform the city guard of whatever this thing is and they can come up with a plan.’
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Arthur peaked around the corner once again to try and see what the boar creature was doing and hopefully find an opportunity to slip away without issues, but as he did so he saw the creature looking right towards him with its dead and hollow eyes. Its eyes were nothing but cold and white splotches like a deceased animal, and when it saw Arthur it cried out like a demon straight out of the abyss with blood dripping from his mouth.
Arthur kicked off and started running down the open spaces between the houses with the boar creature slowly shortening that small distance. The small spaces helped Arthur keep it from picking up speed, but once he and it were out on the open road there wouldn’t be much else to slow it down. To try and gain some distance Arthur conjured up a few walls of earth to block the boar creature’s path, but it took but a moment for it to smash through with its raw strength.
Like he predicted, the boar creature started to close the distance quickly and would eventually reach him and likely kill and eat him like the puppy before. ‘Running away from it isn’t working, the only way I can get away from it is if I start going up and away from it.’ Arthur thought to himself as he was breathing heavily while running for his dear life. Raising his right hand Arthur quickly started using the earth that made up the dirt road and started creating steps to run up and away from the creature with each step taking him about half a foot higher off the ground. By the time the boar creature reached where the first step was Arthur was already at the sixteenth and was steadily climbing up, but the creature could still attack the actual support of the steps and bring them crashing down, or if Arthur was low enough it could just jump up and swing at him. ‘I need to get higher, sixteen feet above the ground should be high enough to keep out of reach. But I will need the support beams to be a good distance away to prevent the creature from attacking them and bringing me down that way, but for that I will need to make them thicker so they won't collapse under their own weight.’
Arthur focused more of his mental and magical energies towards creating such a platform to wait out the creature around twenty or so feet in front of him while he allowed the steps behind him to collapse. By the time he reached the twenty foot mark the platform was finished and Arthur was standing on top of it with the rest of the steps collapsed into the ground. The boar creature slowly circled around like a wolf looking for a way up, it even jumped up and swung its arms towards Arthur without any success. Clearly the snarling noises the boar creature was making were loud enough that someone eventually snuck away and informed the city guard about it as Arthur saw a few members of the city guard walking towards his location each wearing chainmail armor with a proper plate helmet and a spear. Arthur counted four in total walking in a single file line towards his location, they were far enough away to not hear the snarling of the boar creature but they should be close enough to hear him shout without being seen by the creature.
“HEY! FIND THE CAPTAIN AND SEND MORE! THIS THING COULD KILL US ALL!” Arthur shouted at the top of his lungs towards the four guards. They stopped and looked to be talking amongst themselves before they looked back towards Arthur who they could see standing on top of the earth he manipulated, not that they knew what he was standing on. Soon the four turned and began jogging in the opposite direction back towards the southern district's barracks.
Arthur let out a sigh of relief at that sight knowing he did not need to worry about their lives as well, but the people living in the nearby houses could still be at risk. Thankfully they were quiet and avoided any windows leaving himself as the only target for the creature to follow for the time being. The creature was still hyper focused on Arthur while it occasionally jumped and swiped towards him with its hooved arms like it was wielding a mace in each hand.
Every so often Arthur would cast a spell to leave small wounds on the creature's body to keep it angry at himself and below him, though these spells did little more than small cuts or bruises to its thick hide even when he used tier two spells, though he did not use them as his mana reserves started to deplete. ‘Whatever this thing is, it was made to be a living weapon. I can only imagine how devastating something like this would be on a battlefield or in a war. It would tear light infantry apart like paper and at the bare minimum leave heavy infantry occupied.’
Arthur waited up there for quite some time, so long in fact he lost track to time. With no way to tell the time nearby and the declining temperatures Arthur was forced to conjure up a small flame to keep himself warm at the expense of his already declining mana reserves. But luckily off in the distance Arthur saw something that gave him hope, several members of the city guard in full plate armor marching down the street in lines of three. From such a distance Arthur couldn't tell exactly what they wore or wielded but their numbers were more than enough to put Arthur’s worries to rest.
********
Captain Tasius led his men towards this supposed dangerous creature that was reported to him by his subordinates. When they arrived within the neighborhood they saw someone standing on something above where this terrible creature was. This person also saw them and waved when they did so, so Captain Tasius led his men to the street they were about so he could see the situation and come up with a plan to deal with it.
When they did step onto that road they continued their march towards it, they could of course see a large animal of some sort walking around below where this person who was most likely a mage was staying. Based on the size the captain assumed it was most likely a bear. ‘Is that a bear? For their sake I hope I am incorrect, but for the cities sake I hope I am right. Regardless, I need to take these men and deal with this animal, I can punish them later for not even investigating the threat first.’
Captain Tasius did his best not to show the emotions he was feeling as he led his men towards the ‘bear’. But as they started getting closer and seeing the animal clearer doubts began to grow within his mind as the animal looked to be larger than a normal bear. Then suddenly the animal turned to look at them and began running towards them even as the mage threw a spell at its exposed back. This was no mere animal, any normal animal would avoid large amounts of humans or dwarves, at most they would fight small amounts but with numbers like theirs it would turn and run.
When the ‘animal’ started getting closer the captain knew that his assessment was wrong, this was a creature and it was both semi humanoid and at least eight feet tall. It looked like a boar forcibly shaped into a humanoid form and its eyes were cold and empty of any emotion. Captain Tasuis knew what this was, he had faced one before several years ago. “Werebeast! Ready your weapons!”