Cromwell-Ulfricks Academy of Magic

  Cromwell adjusted his ceremonial robe; it had a crease, and that was utterly unacceptable in an important meeting like this. He was seated in one of the high chairs in the circular tiered room. Not the highest, mind you, but close. He had a couple dozen more years and a few more tiers to climb before he could be Considered an archmage. Well, maybe one more tier.

  The Academy didn’t actually have any tier 3 archmagi at the moment, but someday! Crusty old Ezekiel wasn’t getting up there in just years; he only had thirty or so levels to go… and two trials…assuming his brains didn’t actually turn to mush first for him to reach the third tier.

  The raised seating was arranged so that everyone could see who was speaking at any given moment, with nearly a dozen seats at the bottom and only three at the top. The pulpit hovering slightly above the ground in the center of the room had Ezekiel himself trying to defeat gravity with a quick flight spell, as the stairs were just too much for his knees.

  He was just wrinkles peeking out of icy blue robes that thrummed with inner light. His staff floated alongside him, occasionally wandering off a bit when he lost concentration. With a snap of his fingers, the low lighting in the room exploded into sheer white brilliance, calling the meeting to order.

  Crowell leaned forward in excitement; this was going to be a historic day. The college hadn’t had to move against a foe in nearly a hundred years. But that rat bastard of a dungeon had all but pissed on their shoes. It had mercilessly targeted them within its halls for utterly no reason. And then sent its minions to frolic in the blood of students.

  Normally a small incursion like the cluster of monsters Greed had sent to terrorize the Academy still wouldn’t have warranted more than a squad of mages with a few artifacts to put it in its place. But somehow it had known how to hurt them. Not the lives lost of course there were always more students, no the building it attacked.

  Its minions had gone straight for the famed archives of the academy, filled with the teachings of hundreds of years. Ancient spells that would immolate any lesser mage who tried to wield chaotic, self-sustaining magics; ways to glimpse the beyond; even ways to raise a wizard's staff to mighty heights before a night on the town!

  All gone now, the savage creatures had dived into the crowds, slashing and chittering, half obscured by some infernal veil. Apparently just a distraction for the real task they had. The ringleader had entered the archives himself. Cromwell knew because he was in there when it happened.

  He was personally researching the great ritual of staff raising. There was this absolute mink of a tavern wench at his favorite bar who always gave him the most glimmering of smiles, and he was certain it wasn’t just because he tipped her well. So he had been preparing for the day she threw herself upon him. He had nearly mastered the ritual as well; only a few more days of study and it would have been his.

  Instead, he had looked over the slightly sticky tome towards the screams in the distance and watched as the golden devil itself fluttered through a window. The evil little bastard had stared him down for a moment before looking around and catching sight of an oil lantern perched perfectly on the edge of a desk. The little bastard had smiled, actually smiled, still looking into his eyes as it tipped the lantern over like a damned cat with a cup. The whole while making horrid hissing laughs.

  Cromwell and the others had, of course, tried to rush over and quench the flames, ice spells in hand. They had been diverted when the demonic bug summoned some spectral nightmare from gods know where and bid a hasty retreat from the rapidly growing flames instead of being bisected by a scythe and simultaneously burned alive. And that was why the college was now having a ‘fuck that dungeon in particular’ meeting.

  Ezikiel below had finally gotten through the inane introductory segment informing everyone of average grades and monthly income to expenditures. Now he was talking about what really mattered: “As you all know…we have been called here today to address a recent tragedy.” Hear-hears and generous guffaws of agreement ran throughout the room. The faculty overall was pissed about the archive and the student casualties, but mostly the archive.

  “We have been attacked; our honor desecrated! I for one know we cannot let this stand lest we become a laughingstock! We cannot let Greed get away with this!” A chorus of agreements rang out all across the room.

  Ezekiel put his hands up to slow the shouts. “Now! Obviously we are far too dignified to march all the faculty over there and give the dungeon a good switching! That is why, as dean, I have taken it upon myself to enact a plan of action; all I need is the assent of the majority of my faculty. Our beloved master of the Elements, Cromell, has personally volunteered to lead a force of…mercenaries accompanied by some of our more martially focused members to deal with Greed once and for all!” The room flared with twinkling lights as he flexed his mana for dramatic effect.

  “Now! My official proposal is thus! Cromwell leads a band of hired warriors to the dungeon and either slays or tames it. All in favor, please rise.” He waved his arms up and down, obviously trying to encourage people to stand up. He didn’t need to; every single member of faculty present stood except for one, a wrinkled crone of a woman wearing silks that trailed down from her seat. She made a dismissive gesture and just pulled freely from a flask hidden in her sleeve.

  Ezekiel smiled widely, showing off his few remaining teeth. “Then it is decided! Cromwell, marshal your forces.”

  Cromwell gave a cunning grin and bowed deeply before the assembly. He knew if he played this right, he could turn a political black eye from losing his apprentice into a masterstroke that elevated him to next in line to be the dean. Everyone loved a conquering hero.

  He had already hired a band of cutthroats who wouldn’t ask questions to act as his muscle. Now he just needed to select the perfect mages to bring with him. Nostradamus was a must and had already agreed the man was the ritual master of the college, and he was frothing at the mouth to get his grubby mitts on a dungeon core for a ritual.

  Cromwell walked from the room, raising his hands in recognition of the cheers that greeted him. Basking in the adoration of his peers. Nothing would stop him; his victory was assured already. It was time to gather his forces and sally forth.

  To scourge that unclean, annoying, weirdly smug dungeon from the face of the map. Soon it would no longer be known as greed; it would be Ulfric’s academy dungeon training grounds, and Cromell himself would be its manager.

  ***

  Egbert—Cathedral of Contempt

  Egbert was watching with wide “eyes” as his favorite party of knights apparently decided today was a good day to commit suicide. He was sorely tempted to buy a pet rock and plop it down just to ask them what in the seven hells they were doing.

  Randy, Joe, Carter, and Ben were currently scaling the side of the Contempt’s cathedral walls. Well, "scaling" was a generous term for it. Carter was scurrying up the side like a damned spider monkey. He would hook a hand into the slightest crack and hammer home a piton for those trailing behind him.

  Ben wasn’t far behind; he had a climbing pick he was using to damned good effect, hauling himself up one stab at a time. Then he would pause at each of the pitons that Carter had placed and feed rope through down towards the two struggling bruisers below.

  Guys…you weren’t built for climbing or really any form of bodyweight exercise. It’s okay… Just pay for the damned ladders; they will get you halfway!

  Joe was flailing like a fish on a line at the end of a hefty rope just a stride off the ground. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so sad. He spun in slow, helpless circles, repeatedly reaching out for the wall and only managing to spin himself faster.

  Randy wasn’t much better; he was ten strides up, clinging to a piton itself for dear life. His hands were shaking, and his face was beet red. He had also been moored to that spot for the last five minutes, apparently refusing to move.

  Carter scampered down the wall with unnatural grace and jammed his foot into a barely visible crack just above Randy. “Seriously, come on, man, you can’t just sit there all day. Up, the direction you want is up.” He jibed and gave Randy a light nudge.

  “Fuck your mother, Carter; don’t fucking touch me! I’m coming; I’m just…gathering my strength.” Randy said with wild eyes that flickered down in open fear.

  Did he just tell say fuck the queen? Yeah carter is crown prince, damn that has to be an offense of some kind. Funny though.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Joe called up from his sad spiral at the bottom. “He can do it; he’s just afraid of heights! I, however…” Joe scrabbled at the wall again ineffectively and let out a long, defeated sigh.

  “I am not afraid of heights!” Randy boomed out, then looked down quickly, followed by deep, quick breaths, and he clutched himself even tighter to the wall.

  Carter looked at him dubiously. “Uhu…alright, great fearless leader…while you…gather your strength and Mr. Agility Incarnate dangles down there, I and the other guy who apparently isn’t defeated by the might of a sixty-second climb will just go set up a pulley to haul you up like the burdens you are.”

  Ben shouted down, “You owe me a silver! I told you neither of them would make it.”

  Carter started clambering back up. “Yeah, yeah, I expected the big one to get stuck at the bottom since he has all the grace of a boulder. I really thought you were exaggerating about Randy, though.”

  “Nope, I saw him get stuck at the top of a ladder, seriously a fucking ladder, in the basic agility course in training. The only reason he even passed was Joe just pushed his ass off the top before Killgore could see.”

  If I had known all I had to do to defeat you was make taller things, I would have done it sooner. Good lord, no wonder you haven’t so much as ventured up Bubba’s castle; that must be hell itself for you Randy—not a safety rail in sight.

  They dangled there for an amusingly long time while Carter and Ben fussed with a mechanism at the top of the balcony. “No, the securing screw goes here!” Ben angrily gestured at a concerningly shallow hole he had drilled into the balcony floor.

  Carter squinted at it in disbelief. “Are you drunk? That won’t hold those fat bastards.”

  “I’m not fat, I’m buff!” faintly echoed from Joe below.

  Carter rolled his eyes and leaned over the edge. “Fine, the shallow anchoring hole he drilled won’t stop your impressive bulk from free falling thirty strides down from the death cultists’ church and splattering against the ground like a very buff grape!”

  “Better,” Joe mumbled back, giving another halfhearted attempt at pulling himself to the wall.

  “Hurry up!” Randy shouted in a shrill, slightly panicked tone.

  “Simmer down, oh great leader,” Ben mumbled, then gestured toward the hole he had drilled. “Kay, what’s your suggestion?”

  Carter shrugged. “Well, I mean, the ones who normally set this up are busy pretending to be wind chimes, but I know it needs to be deeper than that.” Ben groaned and rubbed his hands across his face in frustration.

  Ha, okay, as fun as this is to watch, I feel like these nincompoops are going to be here for a while. I'll check back in whenever they actually make it off the balcony. Egbert's attention was pulled towards his front porch as an utter shitload of people began clambering up his steps.

  Oh, what do we have here, a tour group? More adoring fans? Oh, maybe even a merchant caravan here to try their luck for random magical prizes! Best case, the dwarven artificers are back! Gods know I spent enough coin addling little mining nodes for them around here, and so far they have gone annoyingly unmined. Oh, if it’s Brom, maybe I can talk to him about commissioning some enchantments… For dungeon credits, of course, I'm not actually paying him a damn thing.

  Egbert leisurely zoomed through his dungeon, taking his time to look over all he had accomplished since that dick Nomisa had stuffed his soul into a marble and wished him luck.

  The battlefield was in a glorious period of peace. It was dotted with a handful of barrel-of-fun traps, and the “Boulder” peeked angrily from the cave he had claimed towards a group of three men running towards Twitch’s shanty town.

  That one hadn’t gone quite how Egbert had planned, but…it was good enough. Graffiti-covered towers peeked from behind labyrinthine walls. Red-eyed figures skittered along the walls and into shadows. And in the center of it all, an already tattered-looking apartment loomed out. It still had tattered purple cloth dangling roughly from the edges where Bobba's forces had torn it mostly free.

  And on the roof of the building, a haphazardly covered room, more like a demented gazebo mixed with a hookah den than anything functional, endlessly trailed slight shimmering blue dust over the edges of the roof. Egbert could see Twitch settled onto a pillow surrounded by a knee-high pile of Zip-Dust that he occasionally smashed his face into with relish.

  On the other side, Bubba's castle stood tall in contrast. Banner bugs walked along the ramparts, weapons held high. Heraldry was impeccably draped from the walls, and a tidy sense of martial competence presided.

  Within the walls, Banner bugs fought in small training circles, aspiring to one day match their fearless liege. Throughout the castle the clash of metal on metal rang out. The more elite a banner bug, the higher up the tower he trained, with the best of the best on the top floor being directed by Bubba himself.

  Egbert flew over the tavern, its porch bustling with activity and adventurers crowded around tables or, more importantly, his quest board. Inside, Ted and Max cheered a mug before diving into a spirited debate over whether greed was actually evil or not. Egbert snorted and flew past the barely used orphan shacks, flying up the tunnel and into the Mimic Village.

  Things were humming along per usual. Boo was peeking into one of the four houses, and soft sobs could be heard from inside. Whatever poor bastard was in there had cheaped out and not bought the Boo-Be-Gone pass, so that was on them as far as Egbert was concerned.

  Remorse was wrapped bizarrely around the entire front of a home disguised as a very fat tarp of all things. A tarp with long sharp claws reaching through the windows probing for occupants. His singular eye was shuffling from side to side to peer into different windows so he could better aim his grabs.

  Ender could be heard inside trying to calm Jhon. “No, it’ll be fine; it will get bored eventually! Besides, this was your idea.”

  “I think we should retire; we really aren’t very good at this,” Jhon grumbled from his hiding spot inside a closet.

  “Bah, that’s not a winning attitude,” Ender replied from inside the same closet.

  Egbert chuckled and was about to move on; instead, he paused briefly to give the yokels a long, hard stare. They were fishing in the river near the door for some damn reason. Hank's eldritch hog was munching down on any myconids that wandered too close.

  Hmmm suspicious…I’ve got my eyes on you. You have been far too good lately; it's unnatural. Not even a single horrible Eldritch outburst since the loot bug war. I know you're up to something… Actually I don’t, and it's entirely based on my own bias against you, but still the point stands!

  Egbert flew onward; unnoticed to him, Edith nodded subtly to the others, letting them know the attention of the dungeon had passed.

  Egbert flew over the loot pit, barely casting a glance at the ghosts. They were trying something new today; instead of trying to shank adventurers themselves, they were trying to get them juuuussttt close enough to the edge and facing the wrong way so the Man-Grabbers would yoink them in and soften folks up for them.

  Then they would set about the stabbing. Egbert missed Mr. Stealy; he was a lot funnier and honestly less malicious than these two little buggers. He wouldn’t be terribly upset if Lily were to come by and reset the ghost count in the dungeon again. He could always just get another couple and hope they were a bit less wretched. Of course, if Lily did that again, though, he was one hundred percent putting a coin slot on her oatmeal feeder. She had to fund the new ghosts after all.

  Egbert paused fondly in the loot bug playground. This was his first real room after all, and it had come a long way. From just a couple obstacles and a handful of bugs all the way to a themed obstacle course with a dispenser at the end of a jumping puzzle, a few mimics in the rafters, and a very grumpy property owner taking residence in the basement.

  He let out a contented sigh as he slowly flew the last few strides to the group on the porch.

  You know, maybe I need to relax and not be so doom and gloom all the time. Things can go well for me in this new life. I'm tax exempt; I have entertainment. I'm not even broke right now. It's okay to relax and just enjoy my successes.

  Egbert opened his gold total to just bask in it for a blissful second. The moment he got the chance to get an actual physical body, he fully intended to dump it into a private, out-of-the-way stash just so he could roll in it like a dragon. No one would know it would be his secret. Well, Nomisa would know, but Egbert felt like he at least would understand.

  [Copper 4] [Silver 8] [Gold 54] [Platinum 1]

  Yep, that total keeps on slowly trickling back to new heights even with my expenses. That’s a sign of a healthy business venture right there. Man, I love not having to pay my employees.

  Egbert finally passed through his last toll door onto his porch so he could see what new crowd of adoring fans or merchants stuffed to the brim with overflowing pockets he had the pleasure of entertaining today. He slowed to a stop, surveying the motley crowd that stretched all the way down his stairs.

  Brigands, dozens of brigands, all armed to the teeth and armored in an utter mishmash of stolen garb, crowded around each other, practically chomping at the bit to kick down his front door. Leading the assholes was a concerningly familiar figure, Cromwell.

  Ahh, fuck.

  The rat bastard mage was dressed to the nines in a flowing armored robe that alternated between crackling lightning dancing from the hem and freezing the air around himself into gently drifting snowflakes.

  He wasn’t even the only mage; another two wearing regal-looking robes and hefting deadly-looking metal staves capped in crackling crystals were wedged into the crowd. And hiding behind them was the creepiest bastard Egbert had ever seen in his life.

  He had a thick tome that looked like it was wrapped in flesh clutched in overtly long pale fingers. His whole frame was hunched, and his oily hair hung down in uneven clumps from a mostly bald head. His eyes were these squinty glowing slits that peered up straight at where Egbert’s viewpoint was.

  He spoke in this uncomfortably heavy lust croak of a voice. “Oh, oh, there you are, my pretty. Let’s find your core so we can become better acquainted.”

  Egbert slowly started backing his viewpoint away from the creepy mage.

  I will fill my halls with siblings for Boo before I let your grabby hands use me like a soul battery!

  Egbert paused as a familiar face The crowd gave him momentary hope. Thrognar towered over some of the bandits in the back, eagerly looking towards the front door. The orphans practically hid in his shadow, looking around nervously, hands on weapons.

  Ahh yes, kids! Thrognar! You beautiful, wonderful people. I am so happy I was so good to you all. Now attack them from behind!

  A bandit near Thrognar patted him on the shoulder and pointed towards the front door with an evil toothless grin. Thrognar didn’t respond by punching the man like Egbert expected; instead, he gave a big thumbs up and handed the bandit what looked like a strip of jerky.

  Egbert focused on the orphans; surely they would help him. Instead, he saw Orlock trading what looked like a bottle of wine for a damned whetstone with a man in heavily dented platemail.

  So, this is it. Enemies at my door. And in my time of need, my damned orphans have switched sides! I gave you oatmeal, you little bastards.

  Egbert rushed back inside; he wasn’t going to go down without one hell of a fight.