Mage And Wolf
Chapter 126

Chapter 126: Chapter 126

The acolytes in the trade and crafting area next door all celebrate our breakthroughs, the surrounding crowds of mostly lower level cultivators vowing to do their very best to catch up to us one day.

The double breakthrough is explained away as the effects of a single use magical item we found in a category 3 portal, a pronouncement that brings looks of anticipation to many faces and spreads whispers all through the camp.

Another group comes back early from the Category 3 hunting area, their mage carrying a fancy new staff I am sure I didn’t see this morning. They try to play it off as something minor they already had, but all talk of the camp is of multiple high end magical items being found in the local portals.

Tonight’s turn ins are a bit lower than the previous days. The distraction of the huge explosion, plus news of the deal with the Succubus clan distracted a lot of people. But the camp is pretty lively, finding out that the city residents are nominally our allies, not an unknown enemy that might attack at any time puts everyone’s minds at ease.

"Is everything working out well here?" I ask Phil, who has just finished the day’s paperwork.

"Yes Highness. We should be able to sustain this project indefinitely at current numbers, as long as we can maintain staffing"

"If there’s a shortage, feel free to bring in whoever you need. You have the books, you know what agreements are affordable." I tell him. Nothing better than when plans run themselves.

"Young Miss" someone calls from outside "You and Highness Karl are needed, with your truck"

I run out to see Karl starting the Toyota, leaving me to hop in the back and set up the big gun. It doesn’t take long and we’re ready to go, with the young man who was yelling for our attention getting into the passenger seat.

"What’s the mission this late at night?" I call through the speaker. Stupid armored cab is hard to hear through.

"There’s an unstable area that needs some portals closed. They’re dumping large numbers of weak monsters out faster than the teams can kill them."

A man after my own heart. Using the explosive rounds feels a lot like playing games at the arcade. You just squeeze the trigger and the things in front of you disappear.

Today is goblins. So many goblins that it brings back memories. That army was such a fearsome thing the first time I saw it, now I’m curious whether they could even get through my armor.

What was it we told Hui’Jin about this gun? Short bursts and pan while firing for maximum coverage, yeah that’s the trick. The grasslands are being mutilated, but the goblin infestation is being reduced at a rapid rate.

We park when we get to the young man’s allies, in desperate need of the breather we’ve provided.

"Oh thank the Goddess, you brought someone competent" Their priest cheers when he realizes who we are. Another Priest of the God Of Life that focused on healing and isn’t a great combatant. That’s fine though, the world needs healers.

Sitting on top of a bit of a hill, I can target out a thousand meters or more, rapidly thinning their ranks until I get low on ammunition.

That’s when Karl steps in with Arcane meteors, raining destruction down from the sky and putting the remaining forces into a panic. They’re mostly running for the portals they came from which gives us the perfect opportunity to start closing them up.

We start side by side with the original team and another that came to relieve them when they heard of the issue. With three mages closing portals things are going very well.

Goblins rarely have a Core, so nobody is even checking at this point, just doing their best to close this mass of portals to the goblin world.

Just as we finish them up, a strange new energy fills the air, it feels somewhat familiar to me, but I can’t quite place it. A large portal forms directly under the Toyota, dropping us nearly 5 meters into a thickly treed bog on the other side with the portal above us.

"Well isn’t that just fethed?" Karl snarls. "How did a portal open flat like that in mid air?"

"It’s a new one to me too. They’re always in the open, bottom third in the ground and perfectly vertical."

"Hey, are you guys alright down there?" One of the archers from the rescue team calls.

"Yeah, just stuck. Want to send down a few ropes and we’ll lift the truck back up through the portal?" Karl yells back.

The archer runs off to go get some heavy rope while we wait. His return is quick but brings a new complication. They can’t pass the rope through. In fact, when the archer tried being lowered down with it, he found he could walk on the surface of the portal.

"Bloody glitched out junk" Karl rages, throwing a soda can up at the portal. It bounces off the clear surface.

"Crap, nothing passes through anymore, from either side. Did we only get through because it formed underneath us?" I ponder out loud.

The other team tries digging under it, only to find it still solid and immovable.

"Tell the camp we’re going on an adventure. We can use an emergency tool to return if our life is in danger" I instruct the teams.

It’s still dark on both sides of the portal, so we camp out in the truck, waiting for first light. Nothing seems to be moving in this bog though. Usually they have all manner of creatures, big and small, but we’re faced with eerie silence, not even crickets.

"Sun is almost up, should we hide the truck in branches and peatmoss so it’s not tampered with while we’re gone?" I ask Karl.

"Yeah, and pack absolutely everything, in case we don’t come back this way."

By the time the truck is empty I feel like a walking military armory. The truck was geared for a five person team, it’s a lot of great

gear for just me and Karl.

Hiding the truck didn’t take long, and now we’re trying to decide which way to go. A stand of more healthy looking trees is our best looking option, so we start slogging their the muddy bog, Karl having significant issues while I hop from one twisted tree to another.

Not that he didn’t try that tactic, but he’s so large that they keep breaking and we didn’t want to attract attention with the noise.

Just before the good looking trees the ground gets solid, there are trails showing humanoid footprints, from bare feet both large and small, so something lives in the area. We just need to find it before it finds us.

A few minutes up the trail, one the sun is fully up, we start hearing voices.

"We’ve got to go. They’ll never miss us, but if they catch us not working it won’t be a good Death."

"A few more days of that and we will be dead either way, keep up or we leave you"

Me and Karl share a glance, what is going on up there? Shadow Melded, I move stealthily through the woods, it’s a group of four peasants in tattered clothes. One teenage boy sitting down, crying and refusing to move at his companions urging.

"I just want my mom back" he wails, the sound carrying. His friends bolt, leaving him on the ground as the sound of hooves grows closer.

"What do we have here? A peasant slacking in his work. Perhaps even running away from his debts?" A gilded and gaudily dressed man on an equally garishly decorated horse laughs to his friends.

"Perhaps he’s forgotten how much he owes for the privilege of living on a nobles land?" another suggests with a sneer.

The youth is trembling now, and more riders are approaching, the sound of screaming accompanying the hooves. They soon come into sight, three of the four with a man dragging behind them, tied by his ankles behind the horse. They’re a bit more battered than before, but I believe these are the young man’s companions.

"Caught them escaping boss. Running out into the bogs." one of the riders, dressed in the livery of a nobles guard announces.

I want to intervene, but I don’t really know what’s going on here yet. Are they debtors working off their mistakes? Is this a prison farm of some sort? Or is something as nefarious as it looks going on?