Guild Master Hobbs hummed to himself as he watched the sunset from atop the singular tower of the Adventurer’s Guild. Shadows slowly stretched across the sprawling port city of Verren while the sun slowly descended into the horizon and he watched on happily. It had been a good day for once. He looked down at the doves crowding the high railing that surrounded his modest balcony and scattered a bit more of the sunflower seeds he'd brought as a celebratory snack.

The birds hopped about chasing the food as he chuckled and dusted off his hands. Hobbs watched the sun descend into the sea for a while longer. The view had always been his favorite part of the quarters high above the usual bustle and activity of the Guild itself. He’d been the Guild Master for almost forty years now, rising from a simple artillery magus to something his father would have been proud of. He watched a small tendril of lighting play between his fingers fondly as he reminisced briefly about a time when he could only manage one good bolt before getting the shakes.

He dismissed the spell without firing it and turned, glancing at the stars as they began to emerge. He simply couldn't get the smile off of his face this evening. Not only a promising new recruit, but the first since himself to ever possess so much Talent. All without a single drop of mana! He was absolutely tickled at the prospect as he entered his study and closed the balcony doors behind him gently. Hobbs approached the titanic sprawling desk that he'd inherited with his position and retrieved Shaleve’s report before he skimmed it for probably the hundredth time in the last few hours.

Tiva Kal, a woman from ‘nowhere worth mentioning’, with extreme physical potential. Quick as a snake, hit like a ballistae bolt, and minor illusion affinity. Shaleve had yammered his ear off for an entire hour about it, even going so far as to make his apprentice help him reenact the fight in slow motion. Hobbs was extremely impressed with her use of her Illusion affinity. It wasn't particularly strong but her use of it! Hiding behind the illusion of yourself, only slightly to the left, in order to create an opening as the block went wide? Genius.

“Gods know we could use some genius around here. Where did all the fire go? Eh, Monkey?"

The enormously fat cat sleeping on his desk flicked an ear at his voice but otherwise didn't move.

“Monkey, you fat old shit, I should put you in some armor to lead around these children. I bet you'd do better than half the cowards we have, eh? Eh?", Hobbs dropped the paperwork and snatched up the calico blob from his desk.

The cat named Monkey growled ferociously as he scratched her ears, the spoiled animal leaning into it. Hobbs laughed uproariously as his pet growled and hissed while she got the attention she so rightly deserved. He always joked she’d never learned to purr, clinging to the shoulder of his robes as a young man on adventure after adventure. He'd spared no expense extending the pets lifespan with rare alchemical compounds and even a small artifact that hung from the beasts collar.

“I think she might be it Monkey. With a little work and Gods willing she sticks around I might finally be able to retire! She's got the spark, pretty kitty.”, the cat growled back at him half-heartedly as he paced his study, “Fifty seven years is long enough to retire, eh?”

The cat wiggled free and dropped to the floor with a decidedly ungraceful sound not unlike a bag of potatoes hitting the ground. She flicked her tail a few times and yawned before she sauntered over to the Firegem set into the wall and flopped down in front of it for a hard earned nap. Hobbs chuckled and did a little jig of happiness, it has been almost two years since the last ‘elite’ recruit.

“You know, Monkey, I never approved of the ranking distinctions. The old way seems more just. Deeds, not bloodlines, eh? Still, this woman's abilities are beyond exceptional…”

Hobbs shook his head a bit and scratched the stubble on his cheeks while he swept his gaze around his study. It was, of course, a circular room. Mostly dominated by the sheer size of the desk that the very first Guild Master had passed down there had been some space left over for other things. Slim bookshelves obscured every inch of wall they could fit across, further shrinking the already modestly sized study with their presence. However, the Guild Master’s gray eyes drifted slowly to the only shelf built directly into the tower wall.

The stone alcove was filled with mana lamps designed with only one function in mind: measuring magical power. He'd personally brought one down to Tiva for a bit of impromptu testing only to be delighted that she didn't seem to have a spoonful of mana in her entire body. Illusions that didn't utilize mana? Now that was a clever technique.

“Monkey, there remains a possibility that she has some mana and is simply using it unconsciously. The Lamps are designed to be fiendishly difficult to light.”, Hobbs stood with his arms behind his back as he remembered the nausea and sweating the first time he attempted it himself, "Still…oh, confound it. I hope she's got what it takes, Monkey! I'm getting too old and all my subordinates are poisoned with years of politicking.”

Monkey made a non-committal chirping sound from their spot on the floor and rolled onto their back to stare at him over their fuzzy bulk.

“The nerve. I am well aware I'm being a hypocrite. Indeed there may be dozens of people without Magical aptitude or Talent that could replace me, but we both know the Guild Master is meant to be the last line of defense. There’s a whole process, eh?"

Monkey remained unimpressed, yellow eyes narrowed while her tail flipped around grumpily. She sensed the dishonesty in the old man's voice even if she didn't fully understand what he was saying.

“It's tradition that's why!", Hobbs barked at the judgemental animal with chagrin in his expression.

He stopped suddenly when a wave of mana washed over Verren like a storm surge, prickling the hair on the back of his neck as he almost triggered his defensive spells. Monkey shot to her feet with liquid grace, eyes huge and fear apparent in her body language. The cat bolted under his desk and vanished just as Hobbs cast out his senses before recoiling in confusion.

The mana was dense, malevolent, and swelled thicker with every passing second. Within a few heartbeats it surpassed anything that a single person should have been capable of but unmistakably originated from a single source. It was pure, unrestrained, and thrummed with the certainty of violence. Sweat beaded on the Guild Master's forehead as he heard a faint noise to his right and whirled, brilliant lighting wreathing his hand before compressing into a blinding dot. The spell no larger than a pinprick, he held it ready to strike before hesitating.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

One by one the mana lamps sprung to life, slowly at first, before rapidly cascading to the far wall as a tongue of emerald fire emerged from each. Hobbs’ watched as the candles upon his desk, sconces on the walls, and even the light of the Firegem flickered and shifted to the same sinister green hue. All the while the aura of power in the air continued to deepen until Hobbs was sure that even ungifted people could feel it pressing down on them like the shadow of death.

The Guild Master reached for an amulet at his neck with the intent to sound a full scale alarm when the air outside his tower was shaken by a thunderous roar. Uncaring and unwilling to waste time, Hobbs simply blew the ancient gilded doors to his left off their hinges, the thick wood exploding into matchsticks. The Archmagus flickered out of sight, appearing on the balcony for a single blink before reappearing atop the roof of his tower in a roll of thunder.

“Mysta, Goddess of the Sea, shelter us from this storm.”, Hobbs prayed as he looked out over the capital city of Verren. Without a second thought he shattered the amulet he wore about his neck and alarms began to roar within the Guild and several other places half a world away.

The city was ringed in fire, twelve towers alight with an inferno of green flames that hovered above their peak. Hobbs spun, confirming the number and location of every one of the thin towers that now bore a ball of emerald flame while he waited for his champions to arrive. Within seconds the top of his tower was a crowded place, men and women either simply appearing, blurring into place as their speed shattered the roof tiles, or landing with a thump as they simply leapt up from the ground.

“What the hell is going on?"

“Do you fucking feel that? Wha-"

“-but none of you listened when I said we were gonna piss something off looting all that…”

“Anyone else think the towers look like candles?"

“What's the plan?"

“Silence, all of you.", Hobbs' voice crackled with power as the score of men and women crowding the roof complied instantly, “Look."

Twenty pairs of eyes turned to follow his gaze as thin streams of fire broke off of each of the twelve towers and converged over the city. Over several seconds the fire condensed and then split apart, rolling over and into itself like water before suddenly opening as two flaming eyes.

Hobbs sucked in a breath of surprise as the eyes swept around, slowly spinning to face every corner of Verren. Carried by the wind, shouts and screams of fear began to drift up from the city as panic began to spread. The emerald eyes burned as they slowly finished their turn to fix themselves up on the Adventurers Guild before narrowing wickedly.

“I greet the thieves who have stolen my possessions and imprisoned my servant."

“...I fucking told yo-", a voice began in the back of the rooftop gathering before several smacks rang out and silence returned.

“Know that I hold you in contempt, cowards. I offer you one chance to return that which was stolen in ignorance. Return my Blade, and you shall be spared.”, the voice thundered across the city and drowned out the panicked sounds from below, "At the first light of dawn you will bring my blade to the gates. Resist and Verren shall burn, and you with it.”

Before anyone could respond the eyes vanished in a roar of flame, leaving only the sounds of the rapidly forming riots in the city below. Streams of people fled towards both the gates of the city and the docks as Hobbs and then others watched in silence from the highest tower. A thin stream of people began to sprint directly for the Guild itself, either for shelter or answers, making several of the Adventurer's on the roof nervous.

A lithe man gripping an ornate longbow loosely in his grip spit over the edge of the tower before speaking, “What are the chances whoever that was can make good on such a threat?"

"I’m sorry, Marl, can you not feel that fucking aura? I know you're not a magus bu-”, a gnome piped up from the back, her voice shrill with anxiety.

"Honestly? No. My perception is very limited for mana, you know that. What does it feel like?”

The gnome was silent for a moment before speaking, "...like mountains in the sky that want to fall on you.”

"Shit."

The Guild Master ignored them all as his thoughts raced at inhuman speed while he surveyed the steadily deteriorating situation before his eyes. The mundane fires below still burned green, as did the infernos above each of the twelve towers that encircled the city. His brow wrinkled in thought as he observed the towers and fought down a growing unease. Whoever this magus was, they were unbelievably powerful and very angry.

“I think we should count ourselves lucky that an ascendant of this caliber did not simply annihilate the guild from ambush and sift the ashes for his belongings.”, Hobbs spoke calmly as he reached a decision, “Marl, Chis, Daru. You're the fastest, four towers each. Don't get too close, just observe and then report back to me. Of all of this I mislike those the most.”

The man with the bow and two others simply blurred away with a hiss of parted air and a crackle shattered ceramic. Hobbs turned to face the remaining members and they stood straighter under his attention, their expressions resolute.

“Jairek, take that apprentice of yours with the bibliomancy to the archives. No restrictions this time. Bring me everything you can find about emerald flame and anyone that ever wielded it, I've not seen that before and I'm a very old man. It's possible it's a bloodline Talent of some kind, that might narrow it down. Go."

Two more figures vanished from the roof with the sound of an enormous book closing shut

"Tiare, find the quartermaster. Go to the Bottom Vault. Drag him by his hair if he won't cooperate. Don't come back without this…Blade that they spoke of. It may not be a physical blade, be thorough.”

An extremely portly woman with scarred knuckles and a crooked nose just nodded and lept from the roof with surprisingly agility and vanished below their line of sight.

“Everyone else, call up your forces and coordinate with the Portal Master. We need to get control of this before there's literal fires to put out. Our first priority is to protect the citizens of Verren. If we can return the item this ascendant seeks, that may be the end of it.”

Guild Master Hobbs finally turned to face the others on the roof as they prepared to move. His eyes scanned the remaining crowd quickly before he spotted the silhouette he was looking for, standing above the group atop the decorative weathervane. Her owlike eyes caught the light with that sinister red eyeshine found in all elves as she stared unerring back at him.

“Saerith. Find them. If you deem it safe to approach and negotiate, do so. You speak with my voice on this. Do not engage, do not offer offense. I fear one of my predecessors has offered enough already.”, Hobbs didn't even bother watching her leave as he knew she was likely never there to begin with.

The Shadowmaster of Verren was an army unto herself, but an army that would follow orders as swiftly as a falcon and as silently as an owl. If the enemy was anywhere nearby, her shadows would find him. If he could be found, they might just have a chance.

Thunder rolled as Hobbs’ vanished from the roof as the Adventurers moved like a well oiled machine and rushed to carry out his orders.

He only hoped it would be enough.