NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 83: Abrupt Chaos
With great care and an equalization of pressure, it is possible to pierce the membrane of a bubble to gain access to its contents. Likewise, pocket realms—and the Material Realm itself—can be accessed from beings beyond our Realms. The membrane of the Material Realm is strong, the great dragons of old only just able to break out in their flight. As such, the Material Realm is largely protected from outside invasion. The voidling incursions of the Last Dragon War being an exception, as they were aided by the fel dragons within in service to Faust. Now without this aid, most incursions into the Material Realm are made first through Pocket Realms with their weaker membranes.
-Pocket Realms, From Theory to Fact
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Zale showed mercy on Kole and his companions by allowing them to skip her Friday morning practice after their late-night excursion. Kole didn’t study at all upon returning to his room, only packing his bag for the next day’s dungeon excursion before collapsing to sleep. Theral had been present and asleep, but the other young wizard was gone when he woke. His new clothes had been delivered throughout the week, but he elected to pack his old ones for this extended dungeon run, dressing in a martial training uniform and only bringing his own as a backup.
The mood in the PREVENT room was somber as the students stood in dread of another weeks long mission.
“How was everyone’s night?” A chipper Zale asked the team.
“How are you not exhausted?” Kole asked.
“I didn’t stay up for hours studying when I got home.”
“Well, neither did I… this time at least,” Kole defended.
“Then it must just be the rest of the week of late nights catching up to you.”
“Did you talk to yer mom about last night?” Rakin asked.
Zale shook her head.
“She was gone last night. She left a note. Uncle Tallen had asked her to go get something to help with his project.”
“She left with all that’s going on in the school?” Kole asked surprised.
Zale shrugged.
“She said she’d be back in a couple days, and if Uncle Tallen can figure out his problem and stick around, he’d be better at resolving these issues than her.”
“Did you ask him about our theory?” Kole asked.
“He… wasn’t around,” Zale said reluctantly, but then quickly added. “But I’m sure we’ll see him tomorrow.”
While Kole’s team, the Forsaken, was tied for first with the Ice Picks, that other team was the reigning leader, so they had the dubious pleasure of entering the dungeon first. Five minutes later, the whole class watched in dread as they exited, exhausted, dust-covered, and looking like they hadn’t eaten in days.
“Forsaken!” Underbrook called. “You’re up.”
They stepped out of the door in the ready room, out onto a dry grass plain with a small city in view in the distance. They were among a group of carts, and a man was walking up to the driver of each and providing instructions. He immediately noticed the new group and walked over in a huff.
“Finally! You damned adventurers are always late! Come on now! Get your gear in the wagon and find your horse.”
He then walked on, ignoring them. After stowing their gear in a nearby wagon, they found four unattended horses and mounted up, the caravan departing shortly after.
It was early morning when they left the unfamiliar town, and the road led them out through plains equally unfamiliar to them all. Kole stared out at the endless expanse of rolling grasses, amazed that there could be so much space in the world after a life in a bubble.
While Rakin and Kole stayed close to Doug, allowing their horses to follow his and freeing their focus for remaining mounted, Zale moved up and down the column gathering information.
“We are going to some town named ‘Bith’,” Zale explained.
None of them had heard of the place before, and they suspected it might not actually exist outside the Dahn, as the terrain around them was wholly unfamiliar to them. While grass plains existed in the Basin, the mountains that held back the oceans would be visible from them, and the horizon was as flat as the land around them in all directions except for a singular rise off in the distance.
“The journey is four weeks, and the caravan has its own guards. We were brought on due to rumors of a hostile tribe of gnolls in the area.”
Zale had already established watch shifts with the caravan guards, and they had decided the adventurers would supplement their watch.
So, with all that settled, Kole got to work on completing his progress on Thunderwave.
Or at least, he tried. He quickly found that entering his mental vault, was a lot harder to do while maintaining your balance on horseback.
“Flood,” he cursed, and Rakin who’d been paying attention chuckled at his expense.
An hour and a gold coin—a fake dungeon-generated one—later, Kole was lying semi comfortably on a stack of rice sacks, mind questing out into the Arcane Realm. He spent the whole day working at it, neglecting meals as he pushed his spell ever onward towards the Font of Sound.
He left his trance when he felt the cart stop for the night, and was surprised to find that Zale was now driving his cart.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I figured I’d piggyback on your training and try to sense the location of the Font of Sound.”
“How’d you get the driver to let you sit there?”
“I just asked…” Zale said, bemused.
Kole let out an exasperated sigh and joined the caravan for dinner before beginning his shift on watch.
The first week of the journey was much the same as the first day. Kole spent the days working on Thunderwave. The night watches were split in half, and they rotated through four-hour shifts in pairs, walking the length of the camp each night, everyone save for Kole using their enhanced vision to keep the perimeter safe beyond the sight of the fires. While Kole had suspected they hadn’t been on Kaltis by the lack of mountains, the presence of a second massive moon in the sky confirmed that suspicion that first night.
On the eleventh day, as Kole built and sent his spell construct for Thunderwave through his gate for seemingly the millionth time, he had a brief awareness that something different had happened before chaos ensued.
Distantly, he heard Zale shout in alarm as she dove off the wagon, and then he felt his Will drain from him in the instant before the power flowed through him.
An ear-splitting crack filled the air, followed by the roll of thunder, and the canvas covering of the wagon Kole lay in flew into the sky just as the wood supporting it shattered.
The horse pulling the cart bolted, and Kole didn’t have time to revel in his triumph as he searched for a handhold amongst the sacks of rice. Kole heard the caravan around him descend into chaos as horses bolted and drivers fought to get their animals under control. His wagon did not slow though, and he finally got leverage to pull himself up and see the disaster of a caravan his own horse was fleeing. The wagon bounced like mad as it traveled over the plains, off the road, and Kole was contemplating leaping out when he noticed an antlered rider coming out toward him.
Kole dove back into the wagon, and held on for his life, and it only took a few moments for Doug to catch up and calm the animal Kole’s spell had terrified.
A sheepish Kole returned to the caravan to the glares of a hundred peeved guards and merchants.
“I learned a new spell!” Kole said proudly.
No one said a word, only staring in a mix of anger and disgust until Rakin stepped forward.
“We noticed.”