Chapter 345: Considering Dead Clues

The explosion rocked the forest with a concussion that stunned both flora and fauna. Nearby trees bent from the force, shedding leaves like rain. Any monster near the windmill was thrown backward, tumbling through the air with Alex’s air elementals. The summons flew end over end, pushed by the inferno’s power until they righted themselves and flew a safe distance away, sparking with blue bolts.

Dust, debris, monster parts and soaring flames erupted from the mill, shooting through the sky, scattering birds, reducing some to fleeing torchlights as their dead masters’ power ebbed away. Alex steadied himself and Gwyllain, hovering in the sky. The asrai was trembling.

“Oh…I…oh…” the fae watched the flames. His eyes were as wide as plates. “W-would you look at that.”

And Alex did look.

And he didn’t like what he saw.

Flames danced in the clearing, the mill blazed like a firestorm.

Life could be fickle. Sometimes it gave opportunities when one wasn’t ready for them. Other times, it handed out chances disguised as ill fortune. Then there were the times where it repeated itself.

Like today.

Once again, life had brought Alex Roth deep within his anger, watching a burning building.

Gwyllain was about to say something else, but one look at the wizard’s face stopped the words from leaving his mouth.

Before them, the windmill was a column of flame. Stone blackened, as everything within turned to flame and smoke like an oil soaked parchment. In heartbeats, the flame climbed, licking at the old wood of the windmill’s blades.

A heartbeat later, they blazed like the sun’s rays.

Whoosh!

Flame burst from the archway, crackling joined with the monsters’ cries.

“Agh, I can’t watch…” The asrai closed one eye, peeking with the other.

“I can,” the wizard said, leaving thoughts of a burning ale house aside. “They tried to kill us. They threw everything they had at us to kill us. So I did the same. I just did it better. It’s just…”

He looked down at the assassin’s broken corpse with disgust. “Anyway, it doesn’t make sense to just float here in mid-air. We’d better make sure we get rid of any stragglers. Come on, we’lI have to clean up the rest of them. After that—when things are safe, I’ll untie you, okay?”

“A-alright,” the asrai said. The flame reflected in his large eyes. “You’re right, it’s not safe if monsters are still running loose down there.”

Alex shouted down to Claygon. “Let’s go hunting, buddy.”

Downing another potion of sensory enhancement, he turned to the forest and cupped his hands over his mouth.

“Who’s left?” he called in otherworldly languages. “Thank you for helping me. Whoever wasn’t sent back to your homes by the enemy, come on out!”

Rustle.

There was movement among the trees.

Blub.

Bubbles rolled out of the brush, leading a couple of water elementals. They bubbled at Alex. A pair of aervespertillos emerged from the canopy along with a clot of taraneas. Two ice elementals and four viper-devils appeared from the undergrowth, crackling and hissing. Air elementals floated over to hover around his shoulders.

“You were all a big help,” He began.

As he spoke to the gathered summons, through the trees, a green-golden light drew closer.

Alex called out in the tongue of his earth elementals. “Wait where you are for now. I want half of you to stay there and guard the tree. Don’t come into the clearing yet! The rest of you? Come with me.”

His summons would soon be fading, so they’d have to move fast.

“We’re going to sweep the area around here,” he instructed. “We’ll stay in a group, except for you aervespetillos and air elementals. I want you to head deep into the woods, and look for any of these.” He pointed at monster corpses dotting the forest floor. “Keep searching, destroy any you find until you’re called back to your home planes.” He pointed at the broken clawed creature. If you see any that look like this one, don’t kill it. Come and get me and we’ll capture it. I’ll summon all of you later for a reward. Go for now.”

The aervespetillos and air elementals soared into the night, disappearing over the trees.

“You guys also have another job.” He switched to a tongue of elemental earth. “I want you to go underground and look for caves, burrows or any place where creatures like the ones we fought could be hiding. If you find anything, let me know.”

They rumbled like shifting rock and sank beneath the earth.

“Oh, and Claygon?” Alex floated up beside his golem and patted one of his large shoulders. “Listen…I don’t know if you’re conscious right now but…don’t feel too bad about that clawed monster hitting the ground. There wasn’t anything you could do. And if it weren’t for you, I’d be dead tonight. So, just so you know, good job, buddy. Good job. I’m going to get you so many puzzle books when we get back to Generasi. And we’re gonna go on a dancing binge!”

Gwyllain looked up at the wizard like he was completely mad. “I’m sorry…did you say dance with him?”

“What, you’ve never danced with a golem in the pale moonlight?” Alex asked.

“C-can’t say I have…” Gwyllain murmured. “...by the fae lords, what have I gotten myself into!” The asrai shook his head. “Tonight’s been…it’s been too much. I think I might sleep for a season to calm my nerves.”

“Yeah, I think calming the nerves is a good idea,” the wizard agreed. “But we can think about that later. First, let’s make sure all those bastards are good and dead.”

Calling forceballs to light their way, Alex slipped into the woods, his enhanced senses tuned to sounds, near and far. He was listening intently, hoping they’d find another clawed monster for Claygon and him to grab. He still had a lot of questions that needed answering and even if they didn’t find a clawed one, he’d settle for any monster that could talk.

Time seemed to drag while they searched. The windmill burned in the distance, filling the night with the light of dancing flame and the roar of an inferno.  Claygon, a very jittery Gwyllain, Alex, and his summoned monsters scoured the area, his disappointment growing as they ventured deeper into the woods.

Overall, there wasn’t much left of the monster horde. They came across sleeping monsters—out cold— still under the effects of Alex’s sleeping potions; Claygon smashed them without mercy. The young wizard’s mood grew increasingly darker with every useless silence-spider and venom walker they found. There were no clawed monsters anywhere. No blue annis hags or anything else he could capture; at least nothing that could talk.

The remaining Ravener-spawn lurking in the woods soon found themselves on the receiving end of unwanted contact with Claygon, and with Alex’s summoned monsters. The summons were—one by one—being pulled back to their home planes, leaving Alex facing the reality that…everything he could get information from, was actually dead… He watched Claygon pull a stunned silence spider from a tree and smash it between his fists. ‘There’s nothing to give me any new information, nothing beyond what that monster said…or whatever we can learn from its corpse. Shit! It looks like I’m back at square one…or maybe not. Think about every detail. What did you learn tonight that you didn’t know before?’

As the forest grew quieter, Alex sifted through the night’s events. ‘So. A clawed monster, like the ones that attacked me in Generasi, attacks me in Thameland. It lays a trap, uses the aeld tree and Gwyllain as bait, and lures me out here. It was working with local monsters, like the two at the patrizia’s ball did…no wait, that’s not quite right. Not completely.’

He thought about the blue annis hags: their cursing at him and their promise to eat Gwyllain.

‘That hag wearing amphibian skins…she was the one who caught the asrai and stuck him in a cage in her cave. So, I’m guessing she was probably after revenge and wanted her meal and territory back. Those two hags didn’t seem like they were being controlled by that clawed monster…I mean, they electrocuted it while trying to hit me and Gwyllain, yet they seemed pretty indifferent to it being dead. Which means the clawed monsters are capable of forming alliances. There. That’s something I didn’t know before. Alright, what else was different between tonight’s attack and the one at the patrizia’s ball?’

He looked at the forest around them, glancing down at a venom walker’s corpse.

‘Well, I can see two obvious differences. We’re in Thameland and this attack involved Ravener-spawn, not monsters from the Barrens. So that means the clawed monsters have been seen in three places that I know of: Thameland, Generasi and the Irtyshenan Empire. Three places: different locations, different climates, separated by bodies of water and hundreds of miles. Which means they’re either global, or they travelled from a single location. Now…think about what the creature said.’

“You are our enemy. You wronged my master, and now you must pay the price.”

And then outside the mill, right before it died: “Die! Die! Your hunt must end! No more can you be allowed to walk these lands! You and your kind must die!”

‘So, it was working for some kind of master,’ Alex thought. ‘It said I was its master’s enemy. And its enemy too. It also said that I’d wronged this master and that I was on a hunt, a hunt that needed to end. So, it obviously didn’t want me around here with that ‘no more can you walk these lands’ line. That…that could mean  it was after me in particular. But wait…it also said ‘my kind’. So not only am I on its shit list, but it thinks the same thing about whatever group it thinks I’m a part of. Okay, Alex…hypotheses time.’

The wizard thought about why it could have been after him. ‘Could it be because I’m the Fool? My kind could mean ‘the Heroes’, which would mean that its master is the Ravener…or maybe it's someone who has a problem with all Fools….but it never referred to me as the Fool. Also this, ‘your kind must die’ reference: all the other Fools are dead, so that makes no sense. Unless, there are other Fools around…no, that’s getting way too complicated. A simpler explanation would make more sense.’

It had said that he’d wronged its master in some way…so who had he wronged? Who were his enemies? Who would want him dead?

For a brief, mad instant he imagined the ghost of Minervus or a secretly sinister McHarris controlling an army of monsters from the shadows. He shook his head. ‘Focus! Okay, so possible enemies: the main ones would be the Ravener,  Ezaliel, and the rest of Burn-Saw’s kindred. They’re all powerful and I’ve done things that would piss off all of them. And this ‘hunt’ that thing was talking about: it could be my hunting dungeon cores, but I haven’t been hunting them by myself. Not yet anyway. So there's not much reason to target me specifically: others-–like the Heroes—have been hunting and smashing them for well over a year. There’s also Ezaliel’s Cult to consider: those demon worshippers are supposed to be hunting for cores too.’

Alex thought about possibilities and different variables he could eliminate…and any variables that made him unique. ‘For one thing there’s the fact that I’m one of the Heroes…but, that doesn’t really seem to be what’s going on here. I controlled a dungeon core for a bit; and saw something through it. Two dungeon cores came after me specifically: the one from the chittererer dungeon and the other one in the cold belcher dungeon. If I’m being hunted because I hijacked the core in the Cave of the Traveller, that puts things squarely on the Ravener’s shoulders. But wait, it doesn’t actually have shoulders, it’s a big round ball. Uh…pretty squarely on the Ravener’s…spherical surface…maybe? Anyway, there’s still some problems with that theory.’ For one, the barrier around Thameland keeps Ravener-spawn in Thameland, yet those monsters weren’t in any of the Thameish bestiaries.

‘The other thing,’ he thought. ‘Is just because the two dungeon cores seemed to focus on me…doesn’t mean they’re after me because I controlled one of them. And even if the dungeon cores are after me because I took over a core, that doesn’t mean this clawed creature was after me for the same reason. Its kin that attacked me at the ball last year were in Generasi. And the demon summoner was calling on Ezaliel’s demons in Generasi. Now, Ezaliel’s demon worshippers are here in Thameland, and one of those same clawed monsters attacked me here in Thameland. That could all be connected to the cult, which might mean the hunt it was talking about is my and Baelin’s hunt for Burn-Saw and information about this Hannar-cim.’

And if those creatures were connected to Ezaliel, that could explain what they were doing around Thameland. But…was that right? Were they actually connected to the cult?

The Traveller’s mana left something on me…something Burn-Saw recognised instantly. Maybe they could smell it too.

‘But those monsters attacked me before I ever knew Burn-Saw existed…then again, the demon summoner was already creating chaos in Generasi, and if something had smelled the Traveller’s presence on me, that could be a reason for targeting me. The Ravener and Ezaliel: both theories make sense, but Leopold’s too dead to question.’

Alex muttered. “My head’s starting to spin. I wish my clues would stop dying.”

“What was that?” Gwyllain gave him a startled look.

“Oh, nothing,” Alex said, coming out of his thoughts.

He glanced around the woods.

The trees were still.

He hadn’t heard his aervespertillos’ cries or air elementals’ crackles lately, and there’d been no monsters stalking them in the underbrush for a while. If monsters had survived, they were few…and they were long gone.

Things were calmer. The only sound reaching his ears was the roar from the windmill burning.

Before they headed back, he checked with his earth elementals’ to see how their search for hidden dungeons was going. They reported that the area was clear so far, and some of them were being called home to their otherworldly plane. He told them he’d check back with them when he reached the clearing.

It was time for him, Gwyllain, and Claygon to get back to the windmill so he could douse the fire before it spread and reduced the woods to cinders. He’d have a pretty hard time explaining that level of destruction to Professor Jules; he picked up speed. On their way back, he could find out how Gwyllain was doing, afterall, the fae had been pretty traumatised tonight. When the fire was out, he would get the aeld tree, collect any remains he and Claygon could carry, then return to camp.

But, first things first…the poor asrai would probably very much want to be untied the second they touched ground.