“Should we just wave to Lord Daron and tell him?” Hark said.

“Didn’t you see him when he left? The man is overwhelmed by stress! He has children, let’s not give him a heart attack.” Regar said.

“Huh?” Lakan mumbled “That seems a bit…”

“I carried him here with a low cushion speed.” Regar said, cutting off Lakan and making both him and Hark immediately cringe. Deploying the speed with a low cushion made it much faster than normal, but it would be just barely comfortable enough to keep its users alive.

“...Yikes.” Lakan said.

“Exactly.” Regar said. “Let him rest. We need to figure out what the hell has happened to the Nobles. They seem to have been brainwashed.”

“Or blackmailed.” Lakan suggested.

“Or lied to.” Hark offered. “Maybe they actually think Arcanite isn’t poisonous.”

“How stupid would they have to be to believe that?” Lakan asked. “Arcanite literally has no other uses besides killing things”

“Yeah but maybe Ganz found a new use?” Hark suggested. Lakan stared at him in disbelief for a few moments.

“You know I’ve actually seen ganz. He’s not that impressive.” Lakan said. "General Makon made him a punching bag the moment he ran out of his fancy field spell."

“Was that before or after he used his own body as a spell binder and survived being deepfried by his own body fat?” Hark asked. Lakan rolled his eyes.

“You know ever since this Ganz guy showed up, we’ve had to second guess everything we knew for sure.”Regar said “He’s gaslighting our entire culture. Our way of life!”

“I don’t support war, but I really can’t blame General Makon for smashing his face against Pirunese Architecture a few times.” Lakan said, throwing his hands up. They laughed.

“So how do we fix the nobles?” Regar asked.

“What if we just leave them to die?” Hark asked. “Do those fools really deserve one ounce of effort from us? We have a lot to handle. I mean Ganz is still at large!”

“Yeah actually that bothers me, I’m really not comfortable leaving Lord Daron and Lara’s comatose body out there without protection.” Lakan said.

“We wouldn’t make a difference if we were there.” Hark replied. “I can’t even remember how to bind any powerful spell from memory. I’d have to get a grimoire or spellbook”

Both Lakan and Regar sighed because they were in the exact same position.

“Besides, What Ganz has done to these guys is not normal, we need to get to the bottom of it, before he turns the Lord Mages of Aku’anda into loyal minions overnight. Hark concluded.

“Alright guys, This is exactly the kind of job we were trained for.” Regar began. “You know the drill, regular updates via wave link, circular connection, One waves to Two waves to Three waves to One. I’m one, You’re Two, Lakan is Three.”

“Alright.” Lakan said, standing up and heading towards the door. “Wave soon.”

In the absence of interkingdom wars, Aku’andan War Mages had since pivoted from creating the most powerful battle spells in the kingdom to becoming prosecutors, inquisitors, investigators and the like. So a job like this simply felt like home, and it was a much needed respite from all the turmoil that Ganz had wrought.

The men knew exactly what to do and soon vanished out of sight.

--

“So who do we wave to first?” Roska asked. “There’s a lot of people who would absolutely love to know this right now.”

“We don’t have to wave to anyone,” Mullam responded, “There’s a Lord mage meeting in a few minutes. Let's announce it to them there.”

“Okay.” Roska replied.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Half a minute later they were in the great Hall Bolak, Where the Lords were arriving and sitting. Some Ladies were also present. People were so eager to hear what had transpired in Pirun that some lady mages, rather than wait for the next day to hear it at the Lady Mage Meeting, had simply hopped on the earliest opportunity to hear it.

Lord Kardo walked up to the podium and, grinning widely, announced;

“Ganz is fallen.”

There was a loud applause combined with shouts of excitement and sighs of relief.

“Gentlemen!” Lord Kardo exclaimed, acting scandalized. “We are adults here, are we not? Besides, we have a reputation to uphold for our esteemed ladies, no?”

“Oh come off it, Kardo.” one of the ladies, an old woman around Kardo’s age replied in jest. “We’re all excited to know what has happened!”

“Well then, spill the tea!” Another Lord said, his voice laced with anticipation.

“Well,” Lord Kardo said, still grinning, “There’s a bit more nuance here you see, Ganz isn’t actually dead.”

Disappointed groans and boos erupted in the hall as Lord Kardo quickly continued.

“Well you see, he’s been defeated and run out of Pirun.” He said.

“What do you mean run out of Pirun?” A lord asked, throwing up questioning hands.

“He escaped as he was about to be executed by the Sungans.” Lord Kardo said.

“What-” a lord interrupted.

“My Lords, can I finish a single sentence on this podium?” Lord Kardo boomed. “Golly, How did Lord Defon do it? You are a rowdy lot!”

“Well he usually got to the point a lot faster!” A Lord shot back. Laughter erupted across the hall. Lord Kardo took the comment in jest and calmed the hall, then he narrated the entire event as Lord Daron had described it to him. The Lords were especially amazed at the tattoo spell, but also terrified that he was now at large.

“He could be anywhere!” A lady said, “How many of us even know what he looks like?”

“Do not be too worried.” Lord Kardo replied. “I saw him with my own eyes. My painting of him is almost finished. I hadn’t seen a reason to move quickly on it, Now I do.”

“So no word yet on how he got into Pirun then?” Another Lord asked. At that point, Mage Mullam who was in the crowd spoke up.

“My Lords,” He said loudly. Walking out of his seat towards the center of the room, Roska followed closely. The hall fell quiet in anticipation of what they had to say, “I am Mage Mullam, an Elite War Mage. This is Mage Roska, An Academic at the Aku’andan Magic Institute. We have the pleasure of announcing to you today that after weeks of hard work, we have, only a few minutes ago, discovered the solution.”

“Oh?” Lord Kardo said. “I suppose that’s why I wasn’t informed earlier.”

“Yes my Lord Kardo,” Mullam replied, beaming with pride. “We came here as soon as we could.”

“So how did he cast that spell under a spell dampener?” Lord Kardo asked, leaning against the podium.

“He did no such thing!” Mullam responded, Lord Kardo raised an eyebrow. “He did something even more incredible. He had a man climb the spell dampener itself, up to the very zenith of it, and from that height, compressed the membrane until the Divine level was just over it, at that second, he deployed the spell.”

The entire hall was quiet, Mullam smiled, assuming that their minds had been blown, but it quickly became apparent that they actually just didn’t understand him whatsoever. He then spent the following fifteen minutes explaining to them what he and Roska had discovered.

“Hearing this just makes the news that Ganz escaped more troubling.” One Lord said as Mullam and Roska walked back to their seats. “Imagine if we had figured this out before the Sungans attacked.”

“About that,” Lord Kardo interjected. “We Should punish the Sungans for that, My Lords and Ladies, what do you say?”

The answer was not a resounding yes, instead there was another thirty minutes of arguing before they all finally agreed to do something to Sungan, then they spent another forty-five minutes arguing about what exactly to do. Lord Kardo had suggested cutting off brilliant dyes, but it was hotly contested for half an hour before it was finally agreed upon, in the exact terms in which it was first proposed.

Mage Mullam was bored out of his mind by then, he looked at Roska and jerked his head towards the exit. She nodded and they both slipped out. It was very easy to get reminded why even though the council of Lord Mages was open to the public, the public rarely ever attended those meetings.

“We need to find a way to make Aku’anda’s spell dampener alert us if someone tries to squash it.” Mullam said to Roska as they walked towards the main road from Hall Bolak. “Ganz on the loose is somehow even more terrifying than Ganz holed up in the Divine level in Pirun.”

“That’s another hard problem, Mullam,” Roska said in a hoarse voice. “I’m actually tired for now, I just need a soft bath, a nice meal, and a long deep sleep.”

“Didn’t you literally spend this entire morning sleeping while I worked on the spell?” Mullam asked incredulously

“The spell which I figured out.” Roska replied, winking and walking away.

“I helped!” Mullam called out to her, but she just blew him a kiss and continued walking away.

“... wave to me later at least!” He called after her.

“I will!” she shouted back.