Now, Tennessee
Cal put the four Cabal members to sleep as soon as he finished questioning them.
He took a moment to run through what he had learned.
The Cabal had a main base in a fancy Miami hotel.
He filed that bit of information away as misleading.
These four were low level members. Any conspiracy worth their salt didn’t give away their important secrets to junior members. That meant the main base was probably for show. The Vitiator and the inner council likely kept their true main base at another location. Each high-ranked member probably had their own little secret base they tried to keep hidden from the others. The Cabal had been like vicious cats in a bag, while the Vitiator was the asshole that held the strings and occasionally kicked the bag to harvest all the hatred, pain and suffering that ensued.
More worrisome was the information that the Cabal didn’t control the enormous so-called kingdom that had arisen centered around the city.
They were merely one of the power players thriving underneath the rule of the Slaver King.
Was this the price of his inaction?
Yeah… it kind of was?
Could he partially blame Eron? His brother had spent all of his time away from the American continent over the last five, six years. Just enough time for a slaver kingdom to arise, apparently.
The kingdom was slowly expanding. The wealthy and powerful were given the chance to become part of the kingdom freely. The weak and any that opposed them weren’t as lucky. If someone with higher status wanted you for whatever purpose then you became a slave.
It went from bad to worse.
They made slave collars. Forcing people to get the slave class was bad enough. The collars sounded truly heinous.
“Do you know anything about these collars?”
“Not this specific version. However, I have studied my world’s ancient history,” Ms. Teacher said.
“How ancient?”
A nearly 4000-year-old being calling something ancient meant a span of time that a human would find difficult to comprehend.
“Roughly dating back to 500 millennia when the last slavers were vanquished and their secrets utterly scourged from existence. As such, I cannot speak on these collars without examining one. Preferably, in all of its existing states. Without that, I can only speculate.”
“Please?”
“It is a creation of artifice, magic and, likely, Skills to bridge that gaps that your people will have. Your kind is weak and low-leveled. This fact suggests that no single individual is responsible for these collars. There will be a need for one to forge the physical object. Another to invest the controlling magic. And another to merge the two. I suggest that this Slave King is involved throughout this process.”
“So… I just need to bring you one of these things,” he spat the word, “and you’ll be able to figure out a way to break it?”
“Do not mistake my current involvement as tacit agreement for your causes.”
“The slaver kingdom is expanding. What will you do when they reach this community? Will you defend them or will you move on to another place?”
“You are the defender of this world. Defend it.”
“That’s what I’m going to do. You can make that go… smoother. Besides, I’m going to do a lot that will benefit you. That is owed reciprocity.”
“I have heard many such pleas over the ages.”
“Not a plea. It’s simple truth. What do you gain by spending all this time and effort to put your kids on their paths if a slaver kingdom is just going to slap collars around their necks? You invited me here in the first place. You’re invested in seeing these problems taken care of. It doesn’t take much to see that. You’d just rather have someone else get their hands bloody.” He was pretty sure that she could single-handedly find the Vitiator and kill him. Judging by what he had seen of her magic and the way she spoke of the Vitiator as though he was a child.
“You are a child with a child’s understanding of reality,” she sighed. “As it seems all that I interact with are.”
“You’re thousands of years old. Might consider factoring that into your expectations. You don’t want to help out of duty? Then what about self-interest? What will it cost me for you to consult? For services or fees… you’ll study these collars and give me a way to remove them without harming the enslaved, a way to disable them, anything useful.”
“And what can you offer?”
“I’ve already provided a service,” Cal pointed at the sleeping people on the couch, “and I’m going to take care of the Vitiator and this slaver kingdom.”
“I argue that those are your aims.”
“Why not both of ours?”
“Very well. Bring me these collars and I will endeavor to glean their secrets and break them.”
“Thank—”
The dark-skinned beauty raised a glowing finger forcing Cal to look up into her too-large eyes and the stars held within.
“You will perform a task for me in exchange.”
“Right, I already said that I’m going after the Vitiator—”
“That is expected and that is not the exchange I seek. Do not interrupt me again. Youth. It will take over a century for you to outgrow your natural impatience,” she shook her head once, deliberately.
Cal was taken all the way back to grade school for a moment.
“You will perform a service for me tomorrow…”
She told him.
It was a little weird, but he was okay with it.
“Agreed, but you’re also going to deal with these guys,” he pointed at the sleeping Cabal members. He had read their minds and found nothing he thought redeemable. Bad people turned monstrous. It was surprising that they had managed to stay under the radar for so long in the small town. “You knew they were here the whole time. That makes them your responsibility.”
“Very well. I will instruct the human leaders to decide their fates.”
“Great!” he floated out the ruined wall. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll need my rest if I’m going to traumatize children.”
----------------------------------------
“Come children. Face your doom.”
The man’s voice sounded bored and he looked vaguely embarrassed.
Rupert thought that this was the weirdest test Ms. Teacher had set before them and that was saying a lot.
“Um… Ms. Teacher?” Cammi raised her hand.
“You will not be able to ask questions in a real fight, child, but I will indulge you,” Ms. Teacher said from the sidelines where she stood with the rest of the class.
Rupert exchanged worried looks with Jennylyn.
Rand had a wicked gleam in his eyes to go along with the feral grin on his face.
“Um… is it really okay to not hold back?” Cammi continued.
“That is correct, Cammi. That man is a foul miscreant that will not hesitate to inflict grave injuries upon you.”
The man in question gave Ms. Teacher a flat stare holding her gaze without wavering.
That was new.
No other adult had ever been able to look Ms. Teacher in the eyes for more than a second or two. They had always been nervous, awed, scared or a combination. Rupert remembered seeing it happen more times than he could remember. Even the strongest fighters were no match for their teacher.
Ms. Teacher cleared her throat.
“Yes, yes… I am the bane of all eight to ten year old's in existence,” the man sighed. “To face me is to court painful boo-boos that may require band-aids and ice packs. There will also be orange slices.”
A brief flash of something like irritation crossed Ms. Teacher’s face. “Enough… the battle is joined,” she clapped and a loud boom shook the silence of the park.
“Your dire foe readies himself to attack you with devious intent,” the man said as he stood a few dozen yards away.
“What’s the plan?” Cammi turned to him and Jennylyn.
“We should cast shields. We don’t know what he’s capable of,” Jennylyn said.
Rupert did sense any mana in the man. Though that might not have been an indication that he was a fighter type. Ms. Teacher could completely hide her mana. Did that mean that the man was also a powerful magic user?
“I’ll do one, get behind me.”
Cammi took a deep breath and focused.
Rupert felt her drawing on her mana.
He sort of saw her shaping the spell into existence in front of her hands.
A glowing wall of magical energy appeared in front of her.
“Now what?” Rupert said. The thought of firing dangerous spells at the man made his stomach do unpleasant flips.
“We attack!”
Rand stepped out from behind the shield and conjured a spell.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
A small ball of fire streaked across the field headed straight for the man.
It splashed against his face in an obscuring explosion.
When the smoke cleared the man greeted them with a smile.
His face wasn’t even singed. His short black hair was intact.
“Decent… but too slow. If that is your best then your doom is assured.”
The man bent down and picked up a small rock.
Without warning he hurled it.
Cammi screamed when the rock shattered her shield.
The man winced.
“Scatter!” Rand scampered off to the right.
Cammi and Jennylyn went left.
Rupert remembered something his older brother told him about not running in straight lines so he turned— and suddenly found himself flying backward! Toward the man!”
“Rupert!”
Cammi’s shout somehow made him feel happy despite the fact that an invisible hand was slowly pulling him toward the man.
Toward doom!
“Your comrade faces his sudden and inevitable fate,” the man said in that bored tone. “What will you sacrifice to save him?”
Cammi skidded to a halt from her flight.
One second.
Two.
Rupert had halved the distance to the man while being rotated so that he could see his fate draw nearer.
Three.
Cammi’s fireball was a brighter color verging on pale pink.
This time the man made to dodge.
Only to notice the ghostly shackles around his ankles.
“Curses you have hobbled me.”
The man tumbled to the ground.
Rupert frowned. That had looked really fake.
The fireball struck the man to no effect.
The man rose to one knee, somehow shattering the magic shackles with a simple touch. He pointed at Jennylyn. “Child of golden hair, though art fair. Yet, yon perfidy… damn it! I hate poetry,” he shrugged.
“Lame!”
Rupert glanced over at the source of the voice.
It was the other stranger. A small Asian woman carrying a baby stood on the sidelines along with the rest of the observers.
“I curse you,” the man continued, “to feel the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
Jennylyn cried out as she was suddenly pressed into the grass.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Rupert saw nothing, felt nothing.
What was the man doing?
“Now, child of quick wit,” he pointed at Cammi, “uh… you’re turn.”
No!
Rupert had to act!
But he couldn’t move his arms!
Unless—
Ms. Teacher’s lessons.
Of course!
A true master could cast spells with little more than an exertion of their will on reality. One didn’t need to say the words or make the gestures. All of that was just a crutch. The cage the spires tricked them into entering.
Rupert concentrated as hard as he had ever done.
First, he held the name of the spell in his thoughts.
Freeze Beam.
Then the shape of it.
He formed it through sheer force of will and imagination.
One second.
He covered another five feet toward the now-standing man.
Two seconds.
The man’s finger pointed toward Cammi, whose eyes were screwed shut. Her arms out in front of her. No doubt trying to conjure another magic shield.
Three seconds.
A scintillating blue-white beam of cold magic lanced out from in front of Rupert.
Triumph soared in his chest as the beam struck the man in the side.
The ice rapidly spread on the man’s body.
“Curses. I have been frozen.”
Rupert suddenly dropped to the grass.
The ice engulfed the man’s entire body in the span of a few seconds.
Rupert rushed over to Cammi’s side.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she nodded.
They both helped Jennylyn up since she was no longer burdened by the man’s curse.
“Uh… did we win?” Jennylyn said.
“Not yet!” Rand growled. “We need to shatter him!”
“Uh…” Rupert wasn’t so sure about that.
This was just a test, right?
“Let’s hit him with our strongest spell! Together!” Rand continued undaunted. “We’ll show Emma,” he muttered.
“Ms. Teacher won’t let anyone really get hurt?” Jennylyn ventured.
“Together?” Cammi said.
“I guess,” Rupert focused his attention on the ice-covered man.
“On three,” Rand said.
“Make that five, because you’re slower than us,” Jennylyn said.
“Shut up, stupid!”
“No, you shut up!”
“Guys!” Cammi was ever the voice of reason.
Rupert focused along with the others.
They gathered their mana and formed their spells.
A spray of needles.
A ball of fire.
A buzzsaw of energy.
A frozen spear.
They all struck the ice-covered man within split-seconds of each other shattering him.
When the dust and debris cleared they saw—
“Vicious lot, aren’t you?” the voice came from behind them.
They spun to see the man grinning at them. “Fair is foul and foul is fair!” He no longer sounded bored. “This will be a valuable lesson… if harsh.”
The ground underneath them suddenly tore.
Clods of dirt and grass pelted them within a whirling tornado of bruising pain.
Concentration was impossible.
Rupert lost track of his friends.
He tried to run free of the tornado but was driven to his knees by the debris striking him from all directions. He refused to give up as he continued to crawl toward what he hoped was daylight.
The torturous experience lasted an eternity.
It was as though he had been dropped into the hell that his grandmother was always warning him about.
He thought of Cammi and bemoaned that he had never told her how he truly felt.
“And… you’re all dead,” the man’s voice spoke just as suddenly as everything stopped.
Rupert found himself breathing hard on his back and staring up at the blue sky.
“What?” the man said.
Rupert turned his head and saw through bleary eyes.
The man was looking at Ms. Teacher. “Look, five seconds in that was four seconds too long for a bunch of kids.”
Rupert found himself floating over to the sidelines on what felt like a comfortable recliner, like his dad’s.
Cammi, Rand and Jennylyn joined him.
Ms. Teacher regarded them briefly. “Adequate performance. Your thoughts?”
Rupert realized that she had asked the man.
“Impressive for kids and I’m not being patronizing. You’re all in the late teens in terms of levels, right? That’s already something at your age and amount of time with your classes. Casting spells without gestures and words is also good, but not at your current speeds. So, if you find yourself in an actual fight. Use the words. At least until you can cast silently as fast as or faster. What else?” the man mused. “Practice team tactics. You don’t really want to spend time talking about what you’re going to do during a fight. Monsters and bad guys won’t stand there waiting for you to make the first move.”
“An adequate assessment,” Ms. Teacher said.
Rupert felt her eyes fall on him as a feeling of warmth spread through his body.
The painful bruises faded away before his very eyes.
“Which team will brave this blackguard’s challenge next?” Ms. Teacher said.
Eyes widened then quickly darted away to anything aside from Ms. Teacher.
The desperate hope of school children throughout history to avoid notice.
“You might as well get it over with,” the man said.
No one was foolish enough to listen to their sworn nemesis.
In the end Ms. Teacher picked the team.
And the unlucky few trudged out to the field.
“Thank you for healing us, Ms. Teacher,” Jennylyn said.
“Of course, child. It would not do for you to be less than physically perfect for the crucible.”
“What’s that?” Rand whispered.
The pit in Rupert’s stomach grew.
He had a pretty good idea what that was.
“Now, meditate, replenish your mana. Going first has given you an opportunity that you must not waste.”
“Isn’t this a little too much for them? And why use Cal? You could do it yourself,” the Asian woman eyed Ms. Teacher with displeasure.
Rupert didn’t hear whatever else was said.
In fact none of the children did despite the fact that Ms. Teacher and the woman stood just a few feet away.
----------------------------------------
A wooden fort in miniature had appeared out of nothing to cover one end of the large field.
It had most things one would expect.
A ten-foot-tall rampart surrounded a couple of small buildings.
There was even an iron gate barring the entrance.
No moat though.
So, Cal mentally docked a point for that.
Still it was a rather impressive display of magic for the Teacher to simple create it out of apparently nothing.
“How?”
“You have your secrets. I have mine.”
“Is it technically wood? Is magically-conjured wood different?” If you took a cutting from the wall and looked at it under a microscope could you tell the difference? Where did it come from? Did she have some kind of extra dimensional space where she stored it?
He stood with the Teacher while the nearly three dozen children familiarized themselves with the fort and argued over how best to defend it from the invading horde.
Naturally, his eyes drifted over to said horde.
They resembled goblins as commonly thought of in popular culture.
Short, green, pointy teeth.
Crude arms and armor.
They stood in a ragged clump on the opposite end of the field.
A hundred.
The fort was one thing.
This was another.
He scanned their minds and was relieved to find nothing more than something akin to an advanced chatbot from the old days. A fairly complex set of programmed actions all geared towards assaulting the fort and ‘killing’ the occupants.
There was no independent will.
No sapience.
If there had been then the Teacher would’ve had problems with him.
He noted that the goblins didn’t blink nor breathe.
Lifelike automatons.
“Do goblins exist? As in, the real ones look like those? Or did you create them using our world’s image of them?”
“Secrets.”
He had so many questions.
Did her creations require a constant influx of magical power to maintain? Or was it a one time expenditure?
In other words were they sorcery or instants versus enchantments, to use an old game’s mechanics.
He tried to scan the Teacher but learned nothing.
She had mana.
That was just about all he could tell without digging deeper.
“You know, I thought you were being a little dramatic calling this a Crucible… but, you’re serious about this.”
“Why would I not? I teach all my students the same way. I introduce the true nature of combat early. It will separate those that are meant for combat from those that are not. I have learned that it is only a waste of time, energy and lives to let them discover that on their own.”
“This is… wrong…” Nila scowled up at the woman a foot and a half taller than her. “You’re really going to hurt your own students?”
“Everything short of death,” she agreed.
“You’re forcing them!” Nila snapped.
“I gave them a choice. None refused,” she said with pride.
“Of course, they wouldn’t. They worship you.”
“No. They have trust in themselves and what they have learned.”
“Seriously?” Nila turned to Cal.
“Yeah, I’m not very cool with this. But from a rational, cold-blooded standpoint it’s a better way to learn. Pain is temporary. Death is permanent. This way they won’t become teenagers thinking they’re hot shit and they won’t go looking for fights. This is as controlled as an experience that’s as close to reality as one can probably get. The Threnosh have the training chambers, but this is a step above that. And if she,” he regarded the teacher, “keeps up her part. Then injuries will be gone in minutes.”
“It would be a foolish waste to permanently damage my students.”
“Physically, but not mentally,” Nila said.
“Think of it like sparring,” Cal said. “You’ve broken a few bones before.”
“Of adults! Not children!”
“Enough,” the Teacher proclaimed. “The crucible begins as soon as the sands disappear.”
A giant, ethereal hourglass appeared in the sky.
Cal sighed.
Nila gave him one last look of displeasure as he marched over to take his place as the horde lord or something like that.
He felt like such a dick.
“Uh… attack,” he ordered the fake goblins forward.
He shook his head.
They even had crude ladders.
Was this the height of Ms. Teacher’s powers? Was she capable of more? If so, was she truly content to teach children?
He pondered the possibilities with one part of his mind while idly observing the siege battle commence. He could give the fake goblins fairly detailed instructions but was content to let them assault the walls in one giant mass. It was thematic after all.
That bratty kid, Rand, silently cast a fireball that exploded on a fake goblin’s face.
The creature— was it a creature? Or were real goblins sapient? The bat people were sapient, why not goblins? He’d ask Ms. Teacher later.
The fake goblin hit the ground and went still after a few seconds thrashing.
The acrid stench of burned meat filled the park field.
A bit too accurate. They really were going to traumatize the kids.
Rand had gone for the kill. He hoped that Ms. Teacher intended to rein that in. Otherwise she was going to put a lot of magical power into vicious hands.
Some of the fake goblins fired back with slings.
Rocks peppered the magic shields that several of the children had cast over the ramparts.
They had left gaps that others fired spells down from.
More fake goblins fell dead from spells of every element and one swarm of insects conjured into existence.
The first ladder hit the wall and it quickly became apparent that the children had no idea how to properly defend a fort siege.
Cal tsked.
Spells were great and all but there was something to be said about a long, pointy stick.
The kids could’ve stabbed down at the vulnerable fake goblins as they climbed. It was clearly a mistake on their part to not bring any sort of weapon.
Ideally, they would’ve pushed the ladders off. Their magic shields gave them plenty of coverage that they could’ve done so with worrying too much about taking a rock to the head.
As it was the fake goblins were heavier and stronger than the kids.
They tried to fire spells down the ascending goblins but a few seconds was more than enough time for the first goblin to reach the top.
It took a spray of flames to the face but it managed to fall on the caster and clear space for its fellows to join it.
A fake goblin raised a crude, chopping blade as the kids screamed and tried to back away.
“Shit,” Cal muttered. “No cutting or stabbing! Use the flat! Use only the flats!” he called out.
He felt the displeasure radiate from Ms. Teacher on the sidelines.
The fake goblin bonked the kid on the head.
The girl’s glasses went flying.
“This is the worse thing I’ve ever been a part of.”
He remembered the girl’s name, Cammi or something like that. She went down like a puppet without strings.
“Nooo!” the boy that had a huge crush on her ran to her side while swiping his arm across. Rupert, that was his name, conjured a scintillating blue-white arc of energy that flash-froze five of the closest fake goblins.
The other kids jumped into action and shattered the fake goblins with spells.
“That was pretty cool.” Cal disgustedly admitted from a rational, asshole-ish standpoint, traumatizing the kids was a good way to push them past their current limits. Hence, calling it the Crucible. They’d either be forged stronger or shattered.
It still didn’t make him less of a dick.
The kids bought themselves some time on that portion of the rampart. Tragically for them, two other ladders hit the wall.
The fake goblins surged up and began to overwhelm them.
So many concussions and traumas, physical and mental were inflicted in the following seconds.
He telekinetically floated each unconscious kid back to the sidelines. “What? They’re ‘dead’,” he regarded Ms. Teacher. “Don’t use the spear points! Use the butt!” he called out.
“You should trust my word that none of them will die,” Ms. Teacher said.
“Nope. I don’t care if you can heal a rusty chopper to the head. They don’t need that kind of memory.”
“Retreat to the keep!” one of the kids called out. Her voice was scared, high-pitched but steady. Emma was her name. “Use light slides!”
Kids took precious seconds to cast the spell while others sacrificed themselves to buy time.
Bright, translucent slides came into being connection the top of the rampart to the ground.
“Gogogogogo!” Emma roared. “Rand!”
“I’m not running from these monsters!” Rand growled while he sent tiny marbles of magic energy to burn through fake goblin armor and flesh.
Emma reached out with a ghostly mage hand and pulled the insubordinate brat back before shoving him down the light slide.
“Drop the spells!” she called down to the light slides casters as the kids ran for the fort and their lives.
“But—” a girl, Jennylyn, cried out with anguish.
“Do it!”
The light slides winked out leaving Emma alone with two dozen menacing fake goblins.
She pointed and a small mote of darker than black energy zipped into the middle of the fake goblins.
The mote suddenly expanded and when it vanished the fake goblins where gone.
The few caught on the outer edge of the sphere fell with a sickening squelch as their innards spilled out. Half their bodies gone in an instant.
“Holy shit!” Cal looked over at Ms. Teacher. “What are you teaching them?”
The millennia old woman arched a brow and gave him the smuggest look he had ever received.
Emma tottered a moment before falling off the rampart.
Several kids pointed at her to slow the fall.
They picked her up together and ran for the fort.
“Okay… I guess that means it’s time for stage two. Time for the horde lord to personally join the attack.”
Cal ripped openings in the wooden wall for the rest of the fake goblins.
He was down to half their number for the final assault on the fort.
Let the final battle commence.