The mages were surprisingly good runners, so it was unfortunate that his spiders didn’t manage to capture even a single one. The wisp was kind enough to heal his spiders and even the humans. In the end, the battle was won but not the war.
In retrospect, he had too many captives. The men were tightly bound in ropes, their eyes were filled with fright. For some reason, it didn’t look like they appreciated his cute spiders.
“What should I do with all of them?” He voiced his inner thoughts out loud absentmindedly.
“Feed them to the squirrels. Teach them a lesson.” The wisp provided an awful solution.
“No, I might just let them go. This would show my good intentions.”
Either way, he, couldn’t keep them here for long. He didn’t even have enough food for spiders since most of it was burned down in the camp.
“Also, won’t they come back in a bigger force? Just to retaliate again.”
“That’s likely.” The wisp pulsed.
He was in a real pickle; standing against a whole human kingdom was just not fun.
“I’m sorry wisp. I’m not sure I can do it.”
“It’s Ancestral Tree.” The wisp corrected. “And, you can, King of Spiders. You did splendidly so have faith in the Forest Spirit.”
“To fake. Weakness. To lure. Them. To Trick. Them. Splendid plan. My King.” The spider leader chirped praises.
“But I came here to negotiate. Why everyone keeps forgetting that!”
“We shall. Negotiate.” The spider leader looked at the bound humans menacingly; they trembled.
Well, the spider was right, the humans will come back either to negotiate the release of the prisoners or they will just try to take them back by overwhelming force; the latter had no appeal at all so he was praying for the former.
“In the meantime, I think we should just hide and observe.”
“No. Lay a trap.” The spider leader proposed.
“Meaning?” He was curious.
It was a simple plan. They would separate the captives into smaller groups and scatter them through forests, making their rescue so much harder. And if they do come to rescue anyone, they could always ambush humans in the forest. Well, the spider leader just wanted to ambush anyone and everyone who stepped into the forest. It was endearing to know that his spiders were so fond of ambushes and of the Dark Shroud spells he could cast on them.
Speaking about the Dark Shroud, each casting took a portion of his mana and the fact was that he never ever had enough of it to cast on all five hundred of his warriors. It was where the wisp stepped in, it had an interesting ability to channel forest mana right towards him. It acted like some sort of mana battery, so with it by his side, he didn’t need to worry about mana consumption. In other words, the wisp had an almost unlimited store of the Forest mana at its disposal; it was hard not to be envious of such a cheat-like ability.
His musings were disrupted by the spider scout rushing right towards him to give a report.
“Humans. Humans!” It reported.
“That’s way too soon. How did they regroup so quickly?”
The little spider shook its head from side to side. “Small number. Only a few. Mages?”
“Mages?”
“Mages!” The spider nodded this time certain about the word.
“That would make sense…”
These were no good news at all. From what he saw mages were formidable opponents. Worst case scenario he might need to retreat again.
“I shall have a look myself, Shadow Walk.”
His body turned into a swirling cloud of shadows and for the lack of a better word he flowed through the air; just like vicious oil in water would, because the two never mixed. He was moving quickly towards the clearing while phasing through the obstacles. Indeed there were five silhouettes there, slowly walking, but it was hard to tell if they were mages or anything else. The shapes of the men looked like they were made out of flowing tar and were distorted, inside their centres there were lights. No, he knew now that those were either souls or sources of magic.
A rogue message appeared in his vision, [Farming +25000exp]. This was welcome because what it meant was that his kingdom is now enriched by 2500 new spiders. However, the timing was bad and it broke his concentration. The usual colours returned to his vision and he found himself standing right in front of five oddly dressed men.
His hunch was right, those were … “Mages!” He identified out loud, and only then did he realise that he is in a precarious situation.
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All five jumped in alarm seeing the unexpected presence.
“King of Spiders.” A man in yellow robes spoke after getting past the surprise.
He was midway through trying to dodge a fireball or whatever other spell, but it never came. Actually, All five were quite composed. The mages were old, and had a wizened aura about them, sensing a chance he used the Aura of Authority.
“Yes, it is I. Are you here to negotiate?”
All five attempted to speak at once and it came out in a jumble. One of the five, a man with a long white beard and black gold embroidered robes raised a hand commanding silence.
“Yes. We are. But it all depends.” The grand magus looked at the yellow-robed colleague who then handed him a piece of tattered blue cloth. “Does this belong to you?” He showed the cloth. “Of course it does. It was on one of your spiders. The question is how did you acquire it?”
He looked at the cloth, it was a torn piece from the Thorn Armour.
“I made it.”
“You made it?” The grand magus asked it but it came out almost as an accusation.
“It’s just a cloth my spiders weave. They grow the plant too.” He happily advertised the cloth.
The grand magus stroked his beard.
“And you command the spiders? How many of them?”
Oh, that one was a tough question.
“I had stopped counting a long time ago. But, I was informed there were another two thousand five hundred born just now.”
The mages looked with big eyes, he detected hints of terror in them.
“Oh, I assure you, they are all well-behaved. I never had any trouble. Oh, and animals seem to like them.”
“I see…” The grand magus spoke seemingly unconvinced. “And that magic of yours, it's quite unconventional. What was the spell you just used?”
“To travel here? Shadow Walk.”
The mages looked at each other but all he could see were the heads moving for a no and shrugs.
“And just to be sure, you have no connections to Demon Lord?”
“What!? I am human.” He took his helmet just to prove the point.
“That… No, It’s good if you know who’s your ally. We, humans, need to stick together.”
All five mages were grunting in approval while stroking their beards.
“Ally? So can we get a peace of some sort?”
“Depends.”
“On what exactly?”
“On what you want.”
“As I said I just don’t want anyone cutting this forest. You see I have an Alliance with the Ancestral Tree.”
“With the Elves?”
“Them too.”
“Is that all you desire, King of Spiders? To claim this forest as yours?”
He wasn’t too sure why the mage had to word it like that, but… “Well, It isn’t mine but it is under my protection. I just want peace and trade if that’s not too much to ask.”
The magus looked at him with suspicion.
“I think we can work a deal. With one condition.”
“Being?”
“We want that enchanted cloth of yours.”
The robes of course! Mages wanted those. He should have thought of that earlier.
“You’ll be making robes?”
“Precisely, the material is splendid. If you supply it to us and us only, we’ll make sure no king attacks you. So you can carry your dark experiments in peace.”
“I do no such things and I love peace.”
He offered a hand for a shake. The magus looked at it oddly but then grabbed it and shook it.
“It’s a deal then. I will send a Faux Phoenix with a message later, we will finalise the minute details in writing.”
“Faux Phoenix?”
“You don’t know? Where are you… never mind. It’s a familiar, you’ll know it once you see it. Please don’t shoot it down, it's harmless. And quite expensive to summon.” The magus added the last as an afterthought.
“Okay, I shall wait for the message in the forest.”
“Oh… Give us two days. We need to crown a new king.”
“Oh, a celebration. I understand.”
The mages turned their back on him, so he did the same and invoked Shadow Walk to return to the forest.
“This was so unexpected. And I thought there will be another battle. Man, humans are hard to predict.” He was just speaking to nobody but himself.
…
A red bird composed of fire circled above the treeline. The sighting in the late evening made it quite pretty, it was like a firework spewing red and orange sparks, but it never ran out of fuel. He began waving at hard not to notice bird and then it landed right by his feet. On the bird's leg, there was a parchment tied. He untied the decorated string and unrolled the equally decorated parchment. The writing was neat, and it almost looked like it was printed.
“I see.” He concluded. “I can’t read this. What a blunder.”
Being able to converse with the mages so well he had forgotten that the Language Comprehension perk didn’t work on written words. A trivial problem really, because the solution was right in front of him. He eyed the captives trying to judge their ability.
“Anyone knows how to read?”
There were no volunteers. He retrieved one of the few fruits left from his inventory.
“There is a small reward, I know you are hungry.” He bit into the fruit making the juices flow down his chin. “Delicious, it’s a shame no one can read here.”
“I can read.”, “Me!”, “I’ll read it.” A bunch of voices rang out.
“Good.”
He selected two men at random and then told his spiders to take them. He needed at least two so he can compare their readings in private and rule out any foul play.
“Read it for me.” He unfurled the decorated scroll in front of a captive.
======
King of Spiders, I hope the message finds you well and you didn’t need to shoot down my familiar. As your spies must have already informed you, we’ve successfully placed our new King on the throne. A nephew of the previous one, but also a fool, although, less stubborn, hence someone we can ‘influence’. There were some complications on our end but the forest is also yours to do as you please; for now no one should bother you, but please keep the spiders in the forest and away from the nearby towns and villages. I must mention that neither of the two was easy to achieve and it came at great expense for us. To keep this agreement going we must ask for at least a hundred standard rolls of the enchanted blue cloth. While we are aware this might look like extortion, I assure you it is not; think of it as an investment.
There is one more thing I must mention. While we understand the importance of live subjects, we must ask you that you return our knights and petty nobles unharmed. The peasants and other rabble you can keep, they won’t be missed. Actually, if you are willing to share your spells and research, we would be willing to provide you with more participants in your studies.
I hope the terms are acceptable and we can work together as fellow magi to pursue the depths of knowledge.
Please put your reply on the scroll provided and attach it to the familiar (that is if you didn’t shoot it, if you did just wait for another one).
Signed, Grand Magus Vumbeldor, member of the inner circle of the Black Hand.
=====
The two had read the same message in high fidelity, so he could be certain of the contents. However, evidenced by the complex facial expression of the second reader (the first one was just the same), there was a small problem.
“Sorry about that.” He handed the man his fruit.
The peasant soldier looked at the yellow treat as if it was the last meal in his life. Regardless, he ate the fruit with great gusto.
Anyways, he found the terms better than expected, a few rolls of cloth were a small price to pay for something that could blossom into a lasting peace. He ran to find the wisp and break the good news.