So after the barbarian debacle, Wraith and I set out toward the mountains in the west to find Tolly. I instructed Arduwan to stay in her village and heal for the time being since we didn’t have any potions and didn’t want to push her to her limits unnecessarily.
When we arrived at Tolly’s cabin, he came outside immediately and said, “So! Ye finally came back fer more trainin have ya?”
Hesitantly, I replied, “Well, no, actually. You see. I found this book. Or rather, Wraith had this book and the Oracle of Vale told me that it could help me defeat The Devil King.”
“Defeat the Devil King! Have ya gone mad? I taught ya magic to make a difference in the world. Not lead yourself to an early grave!”
“Yes…but you see. I have good reason to believe I can do it. You see, Shagrath found out I had killed one of his generals and caused another to lay down his arms. So he placed a curse on me. He sees me as a threat. I’ve since unraveled the curse and I don’t believe he’s aware I’m planning something now since the conditions of the curse were undone. The Oracle seems to think I have a good shot at stopping him too. At least, when he tried to peer into my destiny he saw that this book would help. Could you take a look at it?”
“Aye,” said the red headed mage warrior, as he took the tome from me. He flipped through its pages for a moment and his curiosity seemed piqued. Finally, he handed it back and said, “If you’re asking for me to help you with these items, I can oblige. But I’ll warn ya, many of them require a divine blessing to complete or they won’t work. I already told ya, I don’t deal in divine magic. That be fer clerics.”
“Right. I thought as much. But it requires a conventional mage to start the process right?”
“That’s correct. It’s a two fold process to make an enchanted weapon. First through traditional alchemy and then with divine blessings.”
“That’s fine. I’ll take all the help I can get. My plan is to make a divine weapon and gather all the allies I can get to mount an offensive against the Devil King so great that I can get close enough to him to strike him down.”
“That’s awful noble of ya Mr. Noble. I’ll do what I can. Have ye decided which item ya want?”
I opened the Tome of Wisdom up and flipped through to the divine weapons section and told him, “I’ve been looking over the book a lot the past few days and I’m kinda torn. On one hand, I could enchant a sword and take the Devil King on directly. Arduwan even suggested doing it, but I couldn’t ask her to do that. The problem is, I’m only a mildly proficient swordsman myself. There's other items, like the Jar of Entrapment. But that requires me to get really close to the king in order to capture him. So the more practical option is this… ”
I pointed to a picture of a golden arrow called The Divine Arrow. As long as the target is within sight of the archer, meaning, within normal range with a bow, then the arrow delivers a fatal blow, guaranteed. I had gotten a lot better with a bow since I first started training with Higgins. Back then, I couldn’t hit anywhere close to something over one hundred yards. But now I could easily bullseye something within a hundred and fifty yards.
“Hmm, I see,” said Tolly, stroking his beard, “frankincense, myrrh, gold, honey, lemon juice. I have all of these components right here in the house. You’ll just have to obtain your own holy water to christen the arrow with divinity.”
“Of course! I’d really appreciate it.”
And with that, Tolly got to work. He took a normal arrow of mine that was made of wood with a stone arrowhead. We watched him imbue the ingredients with magic power and encase them in a thin layer of gold plating that gave the arrow a dull yellow color. Towards the end of the process he said, “This arrow has been imbued with my magic power but you need to imbue it with a little of your own so it will sync to you when you use it.”
I nodded and held my hands over the nearly complete arrow and pushed forward some MP into it. Afterwards, I thanked him and told him we’d be on our to seek more allies. But he stopped us from leaving.
“Wait, Eric. I’ll be comin with ya.”
“Really?! But it’s not your fight, Master Tolly.”
“True be that may,” he said, “but eventually the forces of evil will once again rampage over this land and I’ll do what I must to help stop it. Besides, I think it’s high time I showed you a little more advanced magic.” He grinned.
Outside of the cabin, he took a small pail of water and said an incantation over it. When he was finished, he sloshed the water all over the ground and said, “This is a form of transportation magic. Teleportation is difficult and takes a lot of magic power. And it’s nearly impossible to take more than one or two people with you. However, this magic creates a direct line of travel from one point to another. When you lay down one point of entry, it takes you to a previous set point of entry. So you can only create two points at a time. Go ahead. Step on the puddle and see where it leads.”
The three of us each step onto the puddle Tolly threw down. We were immediately transported to a forest on flat land from the mountain area where Tolly’s cabin was.
“Hey, I recognize this,” said Wraith, “we’re right outside of Vale!”
“That’s correct, Mr. Wraith. I’ve kept an entrypoint here for many years in case I ever needed to make my way back quickly.”
“But what are we doing in Vale?” I inquired.
Tolly smiled at the two of us and said, “We’re going to speak to the King of Vale.”
* * *
“With all due respect, Mr. McClatchy, the Kingdom of Vale does not wish to invite conflict with the Devil King,” said Herald, the King of Vale. He was an aging little fat man who had long enjoyed the fruits of Vale’s economic power. It was to people like Tolly who had ensured Vale’s place in the world, otherwise, we would not even be afforded this audience with him.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Tolly replied, “But the time will come where a conflict with Shagrath will be inevitable. It is best we take proper precautions now, while his forces are engaged in other lands.”
I decided to butt in by saying, “He’s right, your excellency. You didn’t realize but one of the Devil King’s generals was amassing an army of orcs just a few months ago across the sea.
Without the Tower of Mardur’s beacon in place, you had no way of knowing they were coming. Thankfully, we were able to thwart them before they launched an invasion.”
“And who might you be, young man?” the king asked, mockingly.
“This is Eric, a student of mine. He has great potential and has already defeated two of the Devil King’s generals. With your help, I’m certain he can defeat two more,” Tolly praised.
“Sir Tolly,” the king continued, “I have great admiration for you and do not take your words lightly, but the fact remains. Vale does not wish to engage in conflict with the Devil King nor any other nation. Besides, if we were to offer assistance and you were to fail, then Vale would become a target and we’d need every soldier we have to defend our borders.”
This didn’t seem like it was going to get us anywhere. I was about to give up when
Wraith chimed in, “Cowards. You hope that the other nations of the world can whittle down the Devil King’s forces so that there’s not enough remaining to be much of a bother to your kingdom.”
The king perked up and asked, “And you are?”
“I am the one who is known as the Moonlight Knight of the Desert. The phantom savior, walker of worlds, lord of the shadows, and lover of lasses. I am Sir Wraith, your highness,” he said, with bravado as he bowed.
I was embarrassed as everyone looked on and an awkward silence filled the air. Finally, the king replied, “Well now…I suppose we could afford a small task force to investigate the Devil King’s dealings.”
* * *
“Okay, so Herald is giving us twenty five knights to battle the Devil King. It’s not much, but it’s something,” I stated, “We have the three of us plus Arduwan and the barbarians, which number at least in the hundreds. If we can find a way to rustle up a couple hundred more, we might be able to pull this thing off.”
We were walking through the streets of Vale and weighing our options. We didn’t get what we had hoped, but we had twenty five more men than we thought we’d have before talking to Tolly. Twenty six if you included him. Admittedly, I was relieved when he offered to help.
“Let’s go to a tavern and find someone from the Thieves Guild,” Wraith said, “I’ll put out a request for mercenaries through them. Also, I’m gonna have a letter sent to the dwarves and ask them to help. You said that the Devil King was making moves to the far west in the other timeline, that would put them in danger first in this land.”
“Right,” I concurred, “and that was over a year ago. Granted it was several weeks of travel by horseback but they could very well have advanced much closer by now. There’s no telling what the Devil King is up to. He’s probably slowed his roll a little bit with the loss of Apollo though.”
“Gentleman,” said Tolly, as he stopped in the middle of the street, “this is where we part ways for the time being.”
“Why?”
“Because you clearly need to continue gathering allies and making plans on yer own before making a serious move. Plus ya still need to enchant that arrow somehow. I’m going to do some reconnaissance myself and will meet ya when the time is right. Eric, this is your campaign. When should we prepare to commence the operation?”
“Let’s see. The wedding is in three weeks. I promised I’d stay around the house with the girls until then. Wraith, I want you to be there too. So why don’t we agree to meet one month from today?”
“As you wish,” Tolly agreed, “I shall meet ya in the desert just north of the spring in thirty days. Good luck to ya both.”
“Thanks for everything, Tolly” I said, as I shook his hand, “good luck to you as well.”
* * *
Wraith and I went into a popular tavern in Vale to try and contact the Thieves Guild. I was just about to start Canting when I saw a familiar face I hadn’t seen since I first visited
Callist.
“Frederick! Is that you?” I said to the man who saved me from being burned at the stake my first day in this world over a year ago.
“Well I’ll be damned,” he replied, “if it isn’t world walker, son of Noble himself. How are you?”
“Could be better but all considered, pretty good. I’m really glad to see you. Because we could use your help.”
“I’m sure you could,” he joked, “I’ve heard tales of someone who’s gotten the attention of Shagrath the Devil King and a whole slew of other escapades throughout the land. What can I do for you?”
“Funny you mentioned Shagrath. You see, I plan on killing him. But I’m trying to keep it
quiet.”
“You know the thieves code, Eric. My lips are sealed. But I’m not sure what I can do to help?”
Wraith jumped in and said, “we’re wanting to put a message out through the network requesting mercenaries willing to do some highly risky work for top dollar. Think you can spread the word and have them register at my trading post?”
“Why of course, Sir Wraith. I’ll spread the word from here to Braytown and down to the south seas.”
“Awesome. Also, I want to extend the invite to the dwarves. Can you send them a letter requesting assistance? Let them know we have reason to believe they may be in imminent danger.”
“I’ll deliver it by hand,” said Frederick, “I’m going to the dwarf mines this week…well, to be honest, I was planning on going to steal some gemstones, but I suppose I could play diplomat.”
“Great!” I added, “Tell them they aren’t alone and will have powerful allies.” “Will do!”
* * *
The two of us shared a quick drink with Frederick and went on our way. It was time to go retrieve Arduwan and head back to the mansion. But first, Wraith requested we stop by his trading post. He said he had an idea about how we might be able to enchant the arrow with divine magic.
As we made our way past the merchant guards who both bowed in reverence to Wraith, we approached the sales clerk.
“Hey Wraith, hey Eric!” a familiar voice said.
Stunned, I responded, “Apollo! What’re you doing here?!”
Wraith decided to answer for him, “Well, you see…after we dropped him off in Braytown, I got to thinking. Maybe he would be better suited in my line of work. So after I dropped you off for your birthday party, I doubled back to go find him. He was still sitting, right where we left him at the tavern. The world was his oyster.”
“Huh? You thought an ex-evil cleric would make a great sales clerk?” I questioned.
“Oh yes! He’s quite good. I’ve been needing someone to run things while I’m off on crazy adventures with you and the others. Besides, he keeps my harem company.”
“That’s my favorite part!” Apollo noted in excitement.
“Eh, whatever. Who am I to judge? Have you seen my house and my line of work?, “I dismissed, ”So what’s your plan for the arrow?”
“Well, I just thought, since Apollo used to be a powerful cleric, he might be able to help us figure something out.”
“Let me stop you right there,” Apollo said, “if you’re asking whether I can help enchant an item, I can’t. Part of my dedication to Delilah was the removal of all my clerical abilities since I had only used them for evil right up until helping Arduwan and Stephanie.”
“Then perhaps maybe you could help refer us to another Arch Cleric?” I suggested.
“Ehh, you see. That ones no good either. Part of the reason powerful clerics are so hard to find these days is because the Devil King had them killed. I was an exception because he recruited me. But you don’t go around calling yourself the Devil King and not be worried about high level priests vanquishing you in this world.”
“That’s a good point,” I conceded, “well, I guess we’ll just have to go back to my house and ask Delilah what she thinks.”
Apollo looked at the two of us with confusion and asked, “Delilah?”