Chương 18: Chapter 19: The Unfortunate Reality of the Situation

"How did they make these tunnels?" Katniss asked, unerringly dragging the sack of books behind her and walking behind Jim, who was illuminating the path with a small flame. Jim was seriously considering just ignoring her, but eventually decided that if nobody was going to educate the Mitelosian girl, she'd never stop asking stupid questions.

"They probably dug it." A sigh resounded from behind him.

"No, I mean, they couldn't have used magic, or else the city authorities would have picked up on it. There are crypts and sewage lines scattered underneath the entirety of Sredina, so they had to avoid that as well, which meant that they had a full layout. Then, without magic, manually digging up such large tunnels in which full-grown adults can walk without ducking. There's not even any support beams, but the structure is clearly resilient!"

As the girl asked her incessant questions, seemingly nervous about something, the two of them approached a point at which another tunnel merged into theirs. There was a light coming from the intersection, so presumably there was another person or group there with the same purpose as them.

"You seem fairly studious, going by the number of books you're borrowing," Jim retorted acidly.

"Shouldn't you know these things?" Katniss snorted.

"Don't pretend you have any idea!" she retorted heatedly. Jim could only roll his eyes.

"Of course I know how they did it," he grumbled. It was obvious. They'd just paid someone, what else?

"Now shut up," he added harshly.

"There are others ahead." Out of sheer paranoia, Jim prepped his mage shield just in case. He wondered for a moment if he should take a step back so he was behind Katniss, but rejected the notion. While the girl would certainly be grateful for the opportunity to be useful, she'd simply block his view of the situation.

"How much longer, Dad?!" a loud voice suddenly whined from the intersection as the academy duo reached it.

"Just a bit more honey," a strained female voice answered.

"We're almost there." Jim paused in the intersection at the same time as the small family coming from the other tunnel did. It was a group of five. A husband and a wife, both dressed quite richly but obviously of Zhanzhengian origin, going by their livery and choice of colour, blood red. The mother was carrying a sleeping toddler while an annoyed-looking teenage daughter was trailing behind. In front of the group was a dour-looking older man with a scar running down the left side of his face.

There was a sword sheathed at his hip, and he was wearing a sturdy-looking set of black armour. A servant was trailing behind the group, carrying a large, bulging bag.

"Let's continue, time is short," the zhanzengian man stated succinctly when he saw Jim and Katniss.

"Enchanted," Jim replied dully before promptly turning away from the family and continuing down the tunnel. Katniss hurried to catch up so they wouldn't be separated. The further they went down the tunnels, the more intersections they passed and the more people joined them. Merchants, minor nobles, or mages. Notably, none of them were characters of major influence.

It seemed that Alice had primarily recruited those without enough power to be important, but not those with their own information network or escape route. A potential emerging power bloc if everyone escaped successfully, but not one that would shake the nation.

"Everyone's fleeing the calamity," Katniss muttered quietly behind him.

"There's no calamity, just a conspiracy I want no part of," Jim said confidently. He'd seen the future in his visions, and there hadn't been any calamity, just one large dragon-like monster. The calamity was a mythical event consisting of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of beasts. Rotto as a kingdom was clearly scarred by its past, but Jim doubted history could repeat itself that many times considering how burnt out the Hrust mountains were.

The calamity now served as nothing more than a piece of propaganda, a way for schemers and the headmaster to conspire against the people of the kingdom. Jim would observe the situation from their evacuation point in southern Riche before deciding what to do. The Savants, of course, would remain a powerful faction no matter the actual events transpiring, so he would probably go to link up with them soon after.

In fact, Jim wouldn't even be leaving the city if the academy, controlled by the royal family as it was, didn't seem so intent on conscripting him and sending him to his death. Considering that in this timeline he'd never received the conscription notice, he couldn't even be charged with draft-dodging. He'd just gone on an extended vacation, not knowing that anything of note was about to happen.

A few more minutes of walking and the tunnels finally started opening up, revealing a large chamber into which dozens of people were streaming from a spider web of tunnels scattered in the circular space. The cave was as large as the Colosseum in which the academy held their CM1 classes, and from Jim's estimate, there were about 50 people already present, more arriving by the minute.

Alice, in her iconic red robe, obviously picked for visibility, not for any fashion statement, was standing in the middle of a barren circle where 12 wooden pillars had been erected into the ground. Glass balls in the form of animal heads were attached to the tip of the pillars, and it all looked quite picturesque. There was already a hooded figure standing next to one of the pillars, the one with the tiger. He had his two hands extended and resting just above the glass ball.

Blue light spilled from his palms and filled the artefact.

"Mages to the pillars!" Alice shouted, her black-clad helpers going through the incoming people to separate those with magical abilities. Jim, knowing his part, promptly stepped in front of the pillar with a dragon's head attached, not needing to be ushered to do his duty like Katniss. This was the concept of Noblesse Oblige. Also, he didn't trust whatever other mages were present to do it correctly. He raised a hand above the dragon's head and promptly started channeling his mana into it.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The faster they were out of here, the better. A glance up showed Alice approaching him with a worried look.

"It happened just as you said it would," she told him gratefully, her beautiful green eyes sparkling in the torchlight of the chamber, her clear, melodic voice cutting through the chatter created by the non-contributing masses present.

"Of course," Jim said with a satisfied look on his face.

"A few more minutes and we'll be gone, safe," Alice continued.

"Did you have any additional visions?" she asked. Jim shook his head. He hadn't had a vision ever since that day his ship had docked in Sredina. He also hadn't been involved in any of the mortal dangers that the visions had predicted.

"Good, good," Alice muttered.

"I need to coordinate the others. When the animal heads are fully charged, then we will have twelve minutes to activate the gate spell. We'll likely do so immediately when it's ready, so we can start leaving the city. The gate will remain open for exactly twelve minutes too. After it closes, whoever hasn't managed to arrive here yet will simply have to take refuge in the tunnels," she explained. Jim nodded seriously as his mana continued being channelled into the pillar in front of him.

It was starting to glow a dark shade of blue.

"Coordinate the others," he told Alice.

"They're too dumb to figure it out on their own." With a nod and one last penetrating look towards him, Alice turned around and went to talk with the other mages who had stepped up to fuel the gate spell. There were now five of them, but the one who'd initially already been charging when Jim had arrived had stepped back, seemingly exhausted. The glass head in front of him was full to the brim and the pillar underneath was shining brightly.

The process was repeated across the entirety of the circle as more people and mages arrived. Soon there were seven pillars shining, then ten and soon after twelve. Jim had already stepped back from his long-ago, letting someone else step forward to finish the task he had mostly completed. A look around the chamber confirmed about 300 people being present, which was a not-so-insignificant number considering Sredina only housed about 250, 000.

"Exit the circle, I will open the gate!" Alice shouted, causing all the mages to step back, the chamber starting to become a bit cramped. Alice too exited the circle composed of the twelve glowing pillars before raising her hands in the air, a crackle of red lightning.

"I've never seen a gate spell before," an exhausted Katniss commented from next to Jim. Alice's red lightning unearthed an intricate set of symbols underneath each pillar, all of them leading to the middle of the circle where they converged into a mess of incomprehensible scribbles.

"Me neither," Jim quietly admitted. The gate spell was the dream spell for any mercantile endeavour, but the prohibitive cost and complexity involved made it not worth the effort for anything but the most valuable materials. The only way to profit from it was to gather a group of competent mages behind a common cause to which they were willing to input their energy without financial gain.

"I want to learn teleport one day," Katniss muttered with some jealousy as a red crack appeared in the air above the ritual circle. The deep blue mana of the pillars was seeping out towards the crack through the ground and through the air. Jim sincerely doubted Katniss would ever reach the circle necessary for teleportation, but he decided not to burst her bubble. They had more important things going on right now. An ominous hum suddenly resounded from the crack in the air.

Then, the red line suddenly opened violently all at once, covering a diameter as big as a small port. There was a moment in which nothing could be seen through the gate, just the darkness of whatever lay on the other side. Then the torchlight of the chamber penetrated through and revealed a hideous truth. Alice had miscalculated the coordinates. Beyond the gate was a large cave, much, much larger than the one they were in. Probably as large as the entirety of Sredina.

It stretched out for miles upon miles, the height of the ceiling out of sight. And the entirety of it was filled with hideous brown monstrosities looking at the gate with shining yellow eyes and gaping maws. As the second stretched into an eternity, Jim could barely see the ground underneath the monsters, bubbling, more forms rising from underneath. Not in control of his own body, Jim stepped forward, indignant. A hand went up to Alice's shoulder, violently turning her around.

"What is the meaning of this?" he shouted in her calm face. As for her answer, she simply smiled at him. Then, her angelic face split straight down the middle, her head unhinging itself to reveal a mouth as large as his head. Purple gums, large yellow fangs. Roars and screams emerged from all around Jim, but he was frozen. As the monsters stampeded out of the gate, drawing a conscious circle around him and Alice, the latter's maw snapped forward and enveloped Jim's head.

Jim could just about feel a crunch and a snap as his skull shattered from the applied force. Then darkness took him. -/- Jim startled awake with a gasp, a hand instinctively going up to grasp his thankfully still beating heart. He sprang up from his position and, not having realised he was laying down, smashed his head straight into the top of the wooden overhang of the bed he was on. A knock sounded on the door before he got any time to gather himself.

"Everything all right in there?" a female voice shouted. The voice grounded him just as much as the quickly developing bruise at the top of his head. It was a voice he recognised, a professor from a class that he'd taken. Memories entered his head. Alice, jaws. The gate. The gate was. A trap. The cave beyond the gate couldn't have been anything but the depths of the Hrust mountains set to spew their monstrous filth directly into the streets of Rotto's capital. The calamity… was real. -/- End of Book 1