Journey Through the Underdark - Eric EarthScorn Book 1 - Chapter 31 (Patreon)

At first, Eric didn’t notice anything odd about the town. It was a town, unlike his home, which was called ‘TinTown’ but was, in fact, just a small village. Then, TinTown had been slowly dying out for decades and would have quickly ceased existing if it wasn’t for the mine and that it straddled the main road.

The town had a small wall surrounding it. The barricade would protect against monsters or men, but it was no taller than ten feet tall. It would help break up a charge or from a beast that couldn’t fly or jump but might not stop a determined man sneaking in by himself. By the looks of its smooth, unbroken structure, it was mage made as well.

The small contingent of guards at the gates waved them through once they confirmed that they were with the UWC. For Eric, this is where things started to get surreal. His first thought was that the noble district was somehow at the edge of town. It didn’t make sense, but Eric knew that as cities grew, they could shape in odd ways. Who was to say the noble district couldn’t be near the edge of town? But his confusion only grew. The people he took to be nobles turned out to be commoners and craftsmen. The clothes they wore were colorful and well maintained, but not made from lavish fabrics like he had at first assumed. Everyone, from the smallest child to pass the wagon to the person collecting the horse droppings on a cart, all of them wore shoes. Some were fancier than others, some had shiny buckles and produced the sound of wood on stone, but young and old they all had them.

It was honestly bewildering to the young wizard.

Then there were the blatant magical devices everywhere he could see. Lightstones were so common that they were mounted on the outside of houses! Wooden poles at the three significant intersections they passed also had Lightstones strung between them. Everywhere he looked, his magical vision showed magical devices galore. They were in pockets, in houses, mounted in rings, necklaces, even hair combs, and pins. Magic was everywhere, but in that time he only noticed one wizard. He was very clearly a wizard of some kind; robed and bespeckled, the man strode through the street while carrying books under one arm.

While no one ran from the passing man, he was passed with a nod or a side step. His passing formed nervous smiles that shifted to looks of discomfort as he passed. Not that the man noticed, he was far more interested in wherever he was headed to do more than a nod to those he passed.

There were also non-humans! Exiting a smith was a sizeable furry humanoid, seven-foot at least, though some of that height came from the massive sharp horns on the top of his head. With backward bending legs and massive muscles on display through an open front leather jacket, the creature walked past, his large nose snorting as he walked. He wasn't the only non-human Eric noticed, but he was the most noticeable, his mass moving through the crowd like a boat through the water.

When they turned off the main thoroughfare and passed through a guarded wall internal to the city, Eric felt like he had slipped sideways to reality. The rough-packed dirt road changed into a cobbled street lined with wrought iron gates and walled mansions. The houses on this road Eric at first took to be academies or some other large institution. Still, as they passed home after home and the gates shone with names surrounded with lightstones, it quickly dawned on the boy that these were family estates.

Carefully tended gardens, fountains carved in marble, painted mansions that could comfortably house everyone in his village. The lavishness was overwhelming. As they walked further down the road, it was clear that these mansions were the closest to the merchant and crafter districts, and so were the still poorest.

After passing through the noble district, they stopped in front of a guarded gate marked with three ornately carved letters: AMA. The guards provided the hint that Eric needed to determine where they where. The two young men were wearing robes and held wands as their magic swirled within them. While one of them questioned the black-clad UWC Agent, the other sat on a stool and read a book shining with magic, only occasionally looking up to check on his partner. This was some kind of magical school. The young men and women he could see between the bars of the gate who were casting spells at targets was also a helpful hint.

After conferring with Mary, the guard held his hand up and constructed a spell, the glyphs shimmering together in an eye-blink instead of the drawn-out construction that Eric would require. Cinching together into a ball of magic, the spell shot off onto the grounds. Smiling, the wizard nodded to Eric’s stone-clad guardian then returned to leaning on the side of the gate.

“Let’s go you two, they’ll get someone to take care of the cart,” Mary said, her face briefly making an appearance before the stone returned to cover her head.

Jumping off the back of the cart, the boy and his feline friend followed the stone goliath. The reading man shot him an odd look over his book as Eric passed, which he found difficult to parse at first until he tried to see their passing from his point of view. An onyx stone humanoid, a lizard-cat, and…Eric. The other two were obviously weird, but he seemed to be ordinary in comparison. The question of what made him odd that they couldn’t see must have been running through their minds.

Eric’s insight proved to be accurate as everyone they passed gave the group a similar look, some even stepping off the pathway to make way for the group. While confirmation of the oddness of the three of them was useful, Eric was more interested in the magic being used on the training grounds. Small darts of flame would shoot out from the line of mages and impact stone golems on the far side of the field. Then these rock structures would slowly reform only for the action to repeat. Eric watched the magic run from a line down the field and into a device mounted underground below the golems. The wizards firing the spells were using their feet to contact a plate to send the magic down the line.

After they passed the line of wizards firing magical darts of fire, they passed a second range, this one with better backstops. On this range, the devices fired the spells at the mages, and they had to shield themselves. To Eric’s wide-eyed look, one of the boys had a shield formed of multiple overlapping shield runes that he was able to snap into form nearly instantly! As the small dart of magical force would impact the wizard’s shield, he would form another around it, or he would manipulate his shield spell to reform the part of the guard that broke. Eric could watch the shreds of the spell repairing as the young man inside the glowing shield hunched over and sweated, as his eyes were held tightly.

When he was done, he lifted his foot, and the firing mechanism ended its barrage. Opening his eyes, the young man flinched from the three of them watching his performance. Instinctively, his shield spell snapped into form instantly before he went red-faced and ended the spell.

Chuckling, Mary led them further onto the grounds and passed the training area.

“They smell of fear and caution, Kitten. They know we are hunters,” Sasha sent.

Eric couldn’t help but think they were more concerned about the UWC agent than the two of them, but he didn’t feel like correcting his friend’s opinion. She seemed so very pleased that she frightened humans. Sasha’s thin tail stood tall, and as they passed through inner gates and guards, she would send contemptuous gentle flicks of her tail in their direction as she passed. Sensing her companion’s entertainment, she gave Eric a side-eyed look. Sasha might not have heard Eric laugh or his thoughts, but she knew that he was laughing at her in his mind for some reason. Turning up her nose at him, she continued her walk.

“This is the Alskan Magical Academy, a rather mediocre academy in truth, but that’s mostly because it’s where a bunch of the fancy-pants magicians train their friends and kids. Some of the officers in training are nice enough,” Mary said, the last said with a grudging acceptance.

Gesturing to a manor they were approaching, she continued, “Judy is here. We will probably stay here for a few weeks while the UWC figures out what to do. The UWC might not be like most organizations, but it takes time to steer it just like any other. This is a manor for visiting professors, the Academy likes to host the UWC here. It’s further away from anything else on campus. It’s a bit backhanded, but then it also keeps everyone away from us, so it’s fine.”

Eric noticed that Mary was usually silent, but then in moments away from others, she would tend to ramble on. It was those times that her real feelings would shine through her professional demeanor. Which was fine to Eric, her professional behavior was lethal.

The moment that Sasha reached the mansion, she stepped into the shadows and disappeared within the house. Her instincts said that she needed to scout her new temporary home. Eric wanted to fault her rudeness, but in truth, he would have liked to explore the massive wood and marble building as well. Stepping through the front hall, Mary gestured Eric ahead of her and up the stairs. Eric glanced back in surprise when he failed to hear the UWC Agent’s feet on the marble steps, the onyx feet seeming to meld with the steps instead of tread on them.

“Right here,” Mary said while gesturing Eric into a library.

The walls were solid wood, and every inch housed a book. To Eric’s surprise, he found Judy sitting in a stuffed chair reading a book, her left leg crossed over her right, and her foot bouncing to some internal rhythm of her own. Behind him, looming in the doorway, Mary fake coughed, which drew Judy out of her book and back to the room. Putting the book to the side, Judy uncrossed her feet and placed her hands on her knees, her face a mask of concern and upset.

The room seemed to take a drawn in a breath, the moment sharp to Eric until Judy raised the tension higher.

Leaning forward while still sitting, Judy spoke.

“Well, I hope you actually have information Eric, because if you don’t, this will be unpleasant for all of us.”