They moved their camp and stayed quiet, resolving themselves to actually look into this. Tahir only knew the basics, but the topic brought up a level of concern from Metilia that he had yet to see from her. They continued north at a slow pace for a couple more days, enjoying the shade of tall oak and maple trees, and still stopping so that Theo could gather herbs where they could find them. They also kept their eyes open for more signs of void corruption, which became more frequent the further north they traveled.
“So you’ve been working with the mage’s collective, Metilia. Outside of the desk work, what are they like?” Tahir asked, on a rare moment of reprieve that came about from Theo finding a particularly large patch of herbs and mushrooms that she wanted to harvest. While she did, the other two sat nearby on a large but smooth boulder and conversed.
“Snakes and liars, the lot of them.” Metilia said simply, and continued when Tahir only blinked back in response. “In principle, the collective’s goal is to expand the boundaries of magic while keeping Esharia’s interests in mind. In practice, everyone’s out for themselves. Apprentices work with superiors for whatever advantage they can gain and in hopes to eventually surpass them, and superiors pick proteges based on who they can make the best use of. I’ve been able to get by, mostly ignored since I’ve proved to be in neither category. On top of that, I’m convinced the royal family limits just how much they actually achieve.” She shrugged.
Tahir took a moment to take all of that in. He always heard the collective touted as pioneers in magical knowledge, but he always had the tacit understanding that they commanded a lot of their prestige because of the backing from Esharia’s royalty. “Then why do you stay with them, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“They pay well, and the discount on materials is lovely for working on my craft. I just suggest that you keep any of your interactions with them at arm's length.” She stood from the rock and brushed herself off. "They’re all more than willing to use non-collective folks to get ahead, too. The older ones are just better at hiding it. Take your spirit magic, for example. It is a very lightly studied field of magic. Spirits stronger than the ones you currently use run the risk of possession to the weak willed, and the affinities from the ones you have become less useful the more powerful spells you are able to cast. The passive effects are useful, but are more suited to those who use aura.”
She paused, spotting Theo approaching after she’d finished harvesting. Tahir explained what he knew about the magic to her after their fight with the void-corrupted tree, only to find she had done a bit of reading on it herself in the collective’s archives. “All of that to say - no mage past a certain level would care to do an extensive study of spirit magic unless new knowledge from it came about that guaranteed their safety. The risks for them are too great. If you’d been louder when you asked about the leyline crossing, however, you might have caught the attention of any number of mages that wanted to use you as a proxy for the study, and make sure to dispose of you and claim any research for themselves.”
Tahir shuddered at the thought. He felt very validated for only telling Theo about his spirit magic in the past. Even if she did go on to tell Callipho, he trusted him a fair bit. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience?”
“I’ve seen it happen, they have a lot of resources at their disposal - including leyline access at no cost to you, and materials for any number of rituals to summon spirits. They would have been glad to store the records of your findings and then publish them under their name if you happened to die on a mission from the Redclouds or become possessed by one of the spirits you tried to bind with. If it didn’t happen by the time you collected suitable research, they would make sure it did.” Briefly, her eyes darted to Theo, who had a pensive look on her face as she listened to the conversation. Did something happen between her and the collective?
“Right then, never work with the collective unless absolutely necessary.” Tahir made a mental note to keep himself as tight-lipped as possible when interacting with Esharia’s mage collective. He still found them useful for buying materials, and even Metilia herself admitted the same, but after hearing all of that, he couldn’t think of any better course of action than to distance himself as much as he could.
###
After three days of their slow, measured travel pace, the trio stumbled on the largest amount of void-corruption yet. Patches of the dark blue, moss-like substance grew on nearly every tree and plant in the area that Tahir could see. “Do not touch it.” Metilia warned, making sure to push aside branches and bushes with her staff. “It drains mana and aura from you by just being near it. It may not be noticeable, but too much exposure will prove fatal, especially if we get into a fight.”
Tahir and Theo used branches from further back, ones that didn’t show signs of void corruption, to creep through the brush and follow after the leading Metilia. “What’s causing this, then? Is there some kind of breach?” Tahir asked quietly.
“A rift to the void itself would cause much more disastrous effects, that could probably be felt for miles around. More likely that some kind of magic spell or ritual backfired to a grand effect. Still, mages with any sense of self preservation would probably alert the proper authorities, even if they claimed they had only ‘discovered it’ instead of admitting that they were the cause.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Hey guys, was there always a building out here?” Theo spoke, and pointed with Tahir and Metilia glanced her way with equally confused looks. Peering through the tree line, they could both make out a solid shape in the distance. It could easily have been mistaken for another large rock formation, except on closer inspection, the tan stone didn’t match with the mostly gray rocks in the area.
“Let's get a closer look.” Tahir offered, and Metilia led them forward as fast as they dared to go. Tahir had the air and earth spirits bound. He found that this combination allowed him to still the breeze around him almost completely, and did wonders for his stamina. This came at the unfortunate cost of the weight reduction and increase from the two spirits canceling each other out.
They moved along, coming closer to the structure. The void corruption in the foliage became denser and denser, to the point where they had to don gloves and rely on their traveling clothes to cover exposed skin. As they reached the edges of a clearing only a couple dozen feet away from the structure, Metilia held up her hand for the other two to stop and get low to the ground. It only took them a cursory glance into the clearing to see why.
Several large trees, almost completely black from void-corruption filled the clearing, dominated by a massive tree with a trunk wider around than two of their torsos side-by-side. Their roots jutted out from the ground, covering the entirety of the clearing, and the corruption of the void animated them in a similar manner to the one the group had fought - though with no current goal they all stood still. Tahir also caught a disturbing lack of smell and relative silence around the clearing.
The structure just past the clearing caught Tahir’s attention. He recognized glyphs, paint, and architecture reminiscent of an ancient civilization, long fallen in Itera’s history. “Vudranian ruins.” He whispered.
Theo crept forward and whispered back. “Haven’t like, all of those been found already. What would undiscovered ones be doing so close to Balrech?”
Metilia’s eyes followed a trail between the ruin, the clearing of corrupted trees, and the place where they stood. “All of the ones that were visible. But if this one was in a demi-plane, at least partially, and the magic that created that plane failed or expired somehow, it would explain the void-corruption sprouting up without warning.”
Tahir only had a hazy memory of theory concerning demi-planes, but he remembered they existed in the ethereal. The same in-between space where he contacted his spirits. It existed in a couple of different forms: The deep ethereal where demi-planes actually resided, and the border ethereal that mixed with the material plane. Passing through solid objects in the border ethereal and then passing into the material proved messy for everything involved. “I think this clearing might have been where the ruin originally stood, but now it's full of trees. So the void-corruption came from displacement and landing in the closest spot it could.”
“Something to that effect.” Metilia confirmed. “Whatever the case, I believe we have the source of the disturbances here.”
“Should we get a closer look?” Theo offered. The promise of an easy handful of gold echoed in Tahir’s mind, but the temptation of an untouched ruin from Vudrana rang louder. They had a mastery over magical enchantments and items that the enchanters of today haven’t been able to match. Not to mention entire lost schools of spells that mages searched for to this day.
Metillia didn’t speak, but seemed to be of the same mind. She waved them to follow, counterclockwise around the clearing to make their way around to the ruin. Tahir couldn’t tell whose - it might have even been him, but one of the thin, black roots beneath their feet snapped. A quiet sound normally in the silence surrounding the clearing seemed to echo, drawing half a dozen void corrupted trees, including the larger old one, to their location immediately.
“Run!” Tahir turned to bolt and pulled out his wand. He went to focus his magic, only to find he had less than half of his mana pool available. The void corruption in the area drew out nearly a third while they were standing there. He cursed, and cycled his aura pool to find it drained as well, though to a much lesser extent.
The trees did not move fast, and blessedly the largest one didn’t move at all, but they moved unimpeded, while the group had to carefully pick their way through the brush so they didn’t trip or touch larger patches of void-corrupted foliage. With that in mind, the trees caught up quickly, knocking non-animated trees out of the way to reach them. Tahir defended best he could, deflecting heavy claws away with aura and jumping back to avoid them where he could. Without the extra weight from the earth spirit, each deflection ate away at his aura reserved, more so than he suspected they should.
As they reached a less dense section of the forest, where they could start a proper run, a mistimed parry with his shortsword caused the blade to shatter on impact. Tahir jumped back, with Metilia tagging in to conjure a wide panel of magic that quickly started to crack as a cascade of blows and void corruption ate away at the magic.
“Got any more of that oil!?” Tahir called back to Theo. He used the temporary lapse to swap the earth spirit with fire. If he only had one or two good shots with his firebolt, he needed to make them as strong as possible.
“I got it! Spread it out if you can! Meti, get clear!” Theo shouted. Tahir saw Metilia all but dive out of the way as two open bottles flew through the air. Using all of his available mana, and the granted knowledge of wind and fire magic, Tahir cast a new spell. The fire magic came out in a bolt, but wind magic spread it over a wider area to cover all of the trees. Another cannonball crack of powerful flame fired off from behind him, striking the flying bottles of oil and creating a truly intense conflagration over the group of trees. While still spraying the magic, Tahir risked a glance back, and his eyes widened as he saw Theo conjure two more motes of flame and toss them into the inferno.
Metilia had backed up to Theo’s side, so when Tahir’s mana ran dry, he ran while glancing back at the trees. Three out of the six lay in cinders, and the other tree hesitated to cross their still burning allies, giving Tahir, Matilia, and Theo time to get well out of sight.