Common knowledge held that a person’s path only ended when they allowed it to. That’s what was taught to every child in every city in all of Oglivarch. It was a cultural belief that was reinforced by parents, teachers, preachers, and wayfinders. Everyone believed that hard work and tenacity trumped talent and determination.

  “Success isn’t a matter of will or luck, it’s a result of effort,” his father had told him.

  Merrick had long ago come to the conclusion that his father and everyone else who’d peddled that drivel had been heart-wrenchingly wrong. While it was true that hard work could overcome a lot of obstacles in one’s path, talent and fate played a much larger role than anyone would admit. He’d seen it.

  When he’d attended the academy in Catherton, and when he’d spent his days toiling away in the mage’s guild, he’d seen genius’ master spells forms in days where it took him weeks. Too many times he’d heard his superiors congratulating them on their ‘hard work’ while ignoring that they had barely needed to put in any effort at all to earn their accomplishments.

  Looking down to his left at Lord Walker, who was currently jogging along beside him with a somewhat confused frown on his face, Merrick was forced to reevaluate some of the conclusions that he’d come to.

  He’d joined House Walker because he wanted to be near the naturally gifted young lord. He was a unique. His abilities were not something that could be learned, copied, or even slightly emulated. No one knew where unique’s abilities came from… that’s what made them unique. Perhaps wrongfully, he’d assumed the young man’s rise had been solely due to his ridiculous talents.

  Serving someone who was blazing through their path would help him along his own. Inspiration was a personal quality that everyone needed in their life if they wanted to push themselves forward. Following those who progressed faster than normal was a simple but effective way to help one progress faster themselves. That’s why people like him followed people like Lord Walker. Merrick knew he didn’t have the young man’s natural advantages, but he could still learn from watching him.

  But looking at Lord Walker now, with fresh eyes, he wasn’t sure if what he’d assumed about him was all that accurate.

  The young lord had streaks of blood that had dried in lines down his face from his eyes along with more painting the side of his face red coming from his ears. He hadn’t cleaned his armor or addressed his appearance at all. Did he want people to see how hard he’d pushed himself? Was it some sort of statement? Or had it just not occurred to him to cast a simple cleaning spell, one Merrick knew for a fact that he knew?

  He’d expected to see some impressive things when he’d joined up, and he’d had. Lord Walker was a natural with spell casting. And his views on path progression were as inspiring as they were revolutionary. Merrick knew that just being around the young man was already helping him push past the obstacles on his path that had been holding him back for years.

  But now, after seeing him casting spells in a way Merrick couldn’t hope to understand, and after nearly killing himself resuscitating people who had already suffered soul death, Merrick wondered if Lord Walker’s natural talents were actually secondary to his true gift. One he’d earned. His determination.

  Merrick had long ago lost faith in the idea that a person could ‘will’ themselves further than their natural abilities allowed. But seeing Lord Walker’s casual disregard for his own limits was like witnessing proof that all that he’d been told as a child was in reality actually true. It was like finding out that a fable he’d long ago lost faith in was real.

  Lord Walker must have noticed Merrick’s attention as he turned to look up at him with a curious expression on his face, one which looked somewhere between annoyed and insulted.

  “What? I already told Harry… I mean Knight Angleton that I was sorry about pissing off the kobalds. If they end up deciding to follow us, I’ll take care of it. Stop glaring at me or you’ll end up tripping. Then who’ll be the one looking like an idiot?” he griped before turning away from him.

  Merrick wasn’t sure how to respond, so he just looked away and returned to his thoughts. He honestly didn’t know what to feel about the young lord he’d given his life oath to serve.

  —--

  While Nero felt a little bad about forcing the entire assault force to head out early due to his admittedly poorly thought-out actions, he wasn’t sure he deserved all the attention he was getting. He could feel everyone staring at him, their essence fields focused on him from wherever they were in the formation.

  It was annoying.

  The worst thing about making a mistake wasn’t dealing with the actual consequences, it was dealing with the people ‘watching’ him deal with the consequences. Their judgmental looks were a pain in the ass to put up with.

  Normally he’d just be able to ignore them, but with his newfound talent at ‘feeling’ their essence fields, he now couldn’t. It was like he could feel them all thinking about him. Their confusion, awe, fear, and numerous other emotions all hovered around him like a cloud of fog. The only consolidation he had was that he wasn’t able to actually read their minds. If he were able to ‘hear’ that many people questioning their decision to follow him while wondering if he’d end up getting them killed, he’d probably end up blowing his brains out.

  ‘Huh? How do people commit suicide here without guns? They probably go old school and slit their wrists or something,’ he thought to himself before shaking off that disturbingly dark line of thoughts and focusing on something else.

  Self-slapping his cheeks with his palms as he jogged along the tunnel, he shook himself out of his funk and put the matter behind him. There was no point in worrying about what they thought of him. Both they and he were here now, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.

  While his perception field was still somewhat stymied by the thick stone walls around him, he had no trouble looking around the tunnel, so he decided to pass the time while focusing on that.

  He could tell that the kobalds’ presence had drastically altered the ambiance the original occupants had been going for when they’d built the place. There was tons of crap lining the walls, some of it literal, some of it just stuff that had been left lying around. The fact that most of the essence lights were still working was a surprise, and he wondered if they had been on all this time or were only working now due to the fact that the engineers had gotten the generators back up and running.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell a lot about the humans that used to live in here, as every room they passed had been utterly ruined by the kobalds using them for whatever they wanted instead of their original purpose. As he and the rest of the assault force raced down the hallways, he saw more and more evidence of the fact that they’d infested the place for years. He could only imagine what the place must have looked like back when it had been built. It had probably been awesome.

  But not anymore, now the place was a shithole.

  Perking up at the change, Nero felt it the moment the link to the Battle Hub cut off. He’d been warned it would happen, so he wasn’t surprised. More annoyed than anything.

  All its absence meant was that he couldn’t pass the time browsing the Thought Hub which he hadn’t been doing anyway. He cursed himself for forgetting about that being an option.

  At the edges of his perception field, he could see the front of the formation occasionally meeting up with scouts and smaller teams whom they met at a run. He even noticed Cathleen and a few other people he recognized dropping by and wondered what they had been up to.

  The only guess he could come up with was that they had been busy clearing the tunnels in front of them and probably scouting their path forward.

  Conveniently, Nero did still have access to the map of the upper city that they’d sent out to everyone on their links. He’d at least been smart enough to save a copy to his link when he’d had the chance.

  As he thought about it, he connected to his link to see if he could figure out how much further they had to go.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  The moment he opened the map of the upper city, it immediately showed where he was on it. He didn’t think they had GPS or anything, so he could only wonder how it knew where he was.

  ‘Not the time for questions Nick isn’t around to answer for me,’ he reminded himself.

  On and on they went through the tunnels, the entire time Nero watched his position changing on the little map hovering behind his eyes through the link. While their progress through the upper city looked random, sometimes using kobald tunnels that had been dug out, other times using small or large sections of the original tunnel system, the entire time they worked their way upward.

  Luckily, Nero had gotten used to jogging, so he didn’t feel like he was pushing himself too hard. It was a weird feeling to realize that his stamina had somehow become practically superhuman. Considering everyone else around him was equally fine with jogging for hours without a break, it made the accomplishment somewhat less impressive. In fact, as time passed, he wondered why they weren’t running faster. They were on the clock after all.

  Eventually, as they got further into what the map called the ‘noble district’, their progress slowed even further. Nero ended up stopping along with everyone else as sections of the formation which snaked through multiple halls were forced to deal with kobalds who were trying to slow them down. He could only assume that the scout groups had run into too many kobalds and couldn’t deal with them all on their own.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing Nero could do to help as he was stuck in the middle with the rest of the casters. All he could do was watch as kobalds threw themselves at the edges of the formation from the surrounding tunnels and were then unceremoniously cut down. Although it was somewhat interesting to get to see how different people’s abilities worked.

  He particularly found himself interested in figuring out how a woman whose sword blade seemed to copy itself and fight on its own did what she did. He couldn’t possibly understand how her ability worked. It wasn’t magic, he could tell. Even looking at what she did through the ether, he could tell that the copied blades were ‘real’ and not constructs, which made watching them vanish after they stabbed through a kobald utterly confusing.

  ‘Abilities are freaking weird,’ he noted to himself while also wishing he’d gotten one from his pillar.

  But on and on they went, further up the mountain. More and more impressive and imposing chambers opened up before them as they entered into what used to be the area for the rich and powerful humans who’d built the place. Confusingly, fewer and fewer essence lights seemed to be working the further they got into the noble district. Nero wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with the kobalds destroying them, or if it was the distance from the generators at the base of the mountain. Either way, more and more kobald torches and bonfires were springing up as they got higher.

  From the map he’d been constantly watching change, he could see that there were multiple tunnels that the kobalds had dug to the surface of the mountain, which he could see might explain where they’d gotten all the wood. Of course, seeing them begged the question as to why the army hadn’t tried to use them to bypass running through the entire damn mountain to confront them.

  In a way, it did make sense though, as the mountain was huge, and traveling up the side of it was probably more difficult than just going through the tunnels since they were already here. They only had hours to deal with this and not days after all.

  It was almost surprising when they’d arrived at their destination, and if hadn’t been for Harry’s voice echoing down the tunnel Nero wouldn’t have realized it as he’d been too lost in his thoughts to notice what was going on around him.

  “Wackos of House Walker and soldiers of Dorchester! Brace yourselves for combat! Once we go in, we’re not leaving until every kobald inside is dead. Watch each other's backs and stay with the formation. Don’t slow down, and don’t allow yourselves to be brought down. We need to reach the throne room. Mages, the moment you see an opportunity, you know what to do! Now, Forward!” he shouted.

  Nero physically winced at the sound of Harry’s voice echoing through the tunnel. The man’s shout had been loud enough to shake the walls. Dust was even falling from the ceiling to make it even more dramatic.

  Considering that most of the formation was still in a tunnel and couldn’t see anything, Nero thought the entire speech was a little over the top, but was kind enough not to say anything.

  It had been effective though. Nero could feel the ether trembling with the combined might of the essence fields around him coming together. Almost as if they were merging into one massive entity, Nero felt the assault force’s identity take shape. From an observational perspective, it was interesting.

  However, being ‘inside’ it, Nero found the experience less than enjoyable. He could feel his ability to affect essence being actively hindered by their combined metaphysical weight.

  ‘This world really does naturally limit magical combat during large-scale battles,’ he thought to himself.

  It was still weird for him to see what amounted to ‘physics’ here providing logical reasons for all the stupid cliches he’d always bitched about when he’d read fantasy novels. It wasn’t just line of sight or the possibility of friendly fire that limited mages firepower, it was the way the various magical forces all worked together. Nero couldn’t help but find it both somewhat cool and annoying at the same time.

  But his scientifically accurate assessment of metaphysics and its applications to combat needed to be put on hold for a moment as his perception field soon allowed him his first look at what they’d be facing.

  The front of their assault force had burst out of the 30-foot-wide tunnel into a massive hallway running horizontally to their exit. Comparing where they were physically to where they were on the map, Nero could see that they’d arrived at the central corridor which led to the throne room and what used to be the administrative center of the entire city. Although Nero’s perception field didn’t allow him to see everything, he could tell that the kobalds had prepared themselves well to hold off any attempt at stopping them from finishing their ritual.

  The corridor itself was hundreds of feet wide, with the curved ceiling held up by large pillars running alongside it while the tops arched in a way that reminded Nero of cathedrals. At one point, the sight must have been impressive, but now it just looked sad. He could see shadows from the multiple fire pits shifting dangerously across the ceiling, covering the entire area in a sense of impending doom. Even from back where he was still in the tunnel, he could hear the screams and hisses of the kobalds shouting at one another as they prepared to defend themselves.

  As the assault force around him sped up to a run, Nero’s attention remained focused on the edges of his perception field, watching as more and more kobalds were revealed to him. They had built disturbingly tall walls of stone with kobald archers and casters lining the top of them. He could see actual freaking towers interspersed across the wall effectively cutting the corridor in half. Nero was stunned to see such a level of construction from what he’d come to know as the dumbest and most barbaric species of clone lizards that had ever lived.

  He could already see the front of the assault force struggling to push forward under the weight of incoming fire. Harry’s ability to project shields was impressive, and it was soon supported by more and more mages adding their own layer of protection to the troops as they emerged from the tunnel. However, Nero could see that it was somewhat ridiculous to imagine that their paltry number of troops had any chance of getting through the kobald’s impressive defenses.

  It took less than a few minutes before Nero himself was finally out of the tunnel and was able to finally get his first look with his eyes at what the kobalds had built. He was still in the middle of the formation, and he could see that it was quickly becoming a large circular arrangement of troops with the mages in the center providing the overhead shield while everyone else cowered underneath in a massive clump.

  Gritting his teeth, Nero felt at a loss as to how he could help. Their forward progress had basically halted for the first time in hours, and going from a steady jog to a slow walk forward made it feel as though they’d been stopped cold by the kobalds. The more he saw with his perception field, the more he felt like his stomach was churning.

  There were too many kobalds to count, and too many of them weren’t clones. He could tell. There was real intelligence behind their beedy little eyes as they stared out over their walls with their hate-filled gazes.

  As the shields over his head flashed with multicolored hues due to spell fire and arrows raining down from above, Nero heard shouts of orders being called out with panic. He could tell that the mages were struggling, and the essence around him was trembling with his companion’s growing terror.

  Nero knew that something had to change and that the kobald’s wall needed to be brought down in order for them to get anywhere, and he knew just how to do it.

  Using his trusty spell form to raise himself up a little on an earthen pillar, he raised his head above the formation for a better look at what he’d be facing. He could see the towers spread out across the wall and the numerous kobalds lining the top firing down at them. They were difficult to make out, as the shield over his head was opaque when it was actively defending them. All he saw were flashes and brief glimpses of what they were headed toward as they slowly pushed forward.

  He was careful to remove the pillars under his feet as he raised them up and then lowered them down when he stepped off them so he wouldn’t stumble the people behind him.

  While he couldn’t target the center of the wall due to the shield, he thought he might be able to bring it down by destroying its base and letting gravity do the rest. He just needed to get closer.

  Reaching out with his essence field, he collapsed as much essence as he could to prepare his spell’s fuel source. He didn’t bother with a mage shield just yet, as this wasn’t a time to be practicing. Instead, he focused on creating as powerful a spell shell chucker as he could. He’d personally developed the spell form over several battles, and he figured it was the pinnacle of what he’d become capable of. Based on what he’d seen it do, it should be more than enough to bring down the kobald’s puny little wall.

  Reaching out, Nero felt for the soul stuff he needed to charge it… and found barely anything. He could feel that there was a ritual being fueled by sacrificed kobalds going on in the distance, but it was so powerful that it was sucking up all the juice he needed to empower his spell. Without that soul stuff, he didn’t have enough potential to fuel the kind of destruction he’d need to bring down that wall.

  He was fucked. They were fucked.

  ‘Well, this isn’t good,’ he thought to himself with a frown.