AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

Chapter 111: The Green Mountains

In the end, the Council decided to ask the help of someone who knew the involved personally, if not intimately. Johann was brought by the assistants and the Council didnt mind hiding anything about the approaching group. When he heard the report, Johann was shocked for a moment until he started to laugh, making everyone confused. After calming himself, the restrained Mage explained:

This means my Mas Ex-Master was deposed or killed He wouldnt forfeit the wind throne willingly. This serves him right! He chose to treat his subordinates as disposable and now someone did the same to him

Johann's pleased reaction seemed genuine, he gloated a few more times until they asked him to focus on the message. After considering for a minute, he added:

This cant be incidental The messenger is definitely a sound Mage, probably one of Whisperts subordinates, and none of them would be disrespectful towards their Master

Because of their time constraint, they asked Johann to be as concise as possible.

Whispert comes from an old wind House, which became really powerful in the last century. Sound Mages usually dont have much involvement in the wind regions politics, they prefer to stay in Sound City and focus on other arts In fact, House Whisper is the only family of sound Mages in the Wind Capital. Although they werent initially invested in throne succession, they always occupied an essential position in the wind region. Since the Kindoms foundation, House Whisper has been operating the intelligence and spying network of the wind region, so its not exaggerated to say they control the information of the region. Thats probably how they know about your involvement with a Merchant.

Whatever you decide to do, Whispert is gonna act on his own interests. I doubt he would pursue you any further, but I cant say he wouldnt move against you Merchant contact

***

Toni proceeded slowly trying to ignore the irregularities in the slippery ground, his shield stood firm in front of him, ready to block any beasts that jumped from the darkness. Behind him, a spear user was ready to move forward and eliminate any enemies. The team also had another four defenders and attackers, but they could only advance one by one in this narrow part of the cave.

Since yesterday, when they started their expedition through the caves under the Green Mountains, Toni was leading a group of hunters to clear the path for the crafters. Once again, Karls bold plan surprised everyone, this time he proposed to the Council to pass under the giant mountains instead of going around them as other groups would do.

Two weeks ago, they arrived at the foot of the unnaturally green mountains and decided to camp a little longer. Besides being tired of the journey and needing time for the recovery of their hunters, they had previously agreed to wait for Dianas team here. The Green Mountains are a famous landscape of the Eastern Forest because they marked the limits of where Adventurers and Mercenaries would dare to go. Even the bigger groups wouldnt venture further into the Forest without a good reason.

Because of the estimated distance from the energy vein proposed by Karl, they already knew they would have to cross the mountains, but they were expecting to go around them. The detour would add almost 300 kilometers to their journey, which wasnt impossible to cover, after all, they were prepared to walk a thousand kilometers.

However, Karl argued that the detour would also make their plans of trading next winter more difficult, so they should try to fix the situation now instead of ignoring future problems. Then, he proposed to use the natural caves under the mountains to build a path. They knew Karl wouldnt suggest it without having a good plan, so they asked him to explain it better.

The plan was bolder than they expected, Karl proposed to build an enormous Array through the entire path. Actually, it wouldnt be only one Array, they would build connected Arrays to protect and illuminate sections of the path, which they would activate individually as they passed.

The idea seemed impossible until Karl translated in actual numbers. Somehow, Karl knew the mountains had less than ten kilometers, so he estimated the path using the caves would have at most 15 kilometers. He also explained that because of the energy that poured from the energy vein, thousands of caves would appear under the mountain, so they could dig through some walls to connect these caves and form the shorter path.

On the Alchemy side, they wouldnt need to draw Arrays through the entire path, just draw a line to connect the Arrays, which in his calculations could be done by 30 disciples working for 25 days. It would be the biggest Alchemy project they had done and there would be other challenges, like killing the beasts in the caves and making the walls flat and stable enough to hold the drawings. However, finding a permanent solution to cut 300 kilometers out of their path was worth it.

Karl also had other reasons to suggest this large-scale project. Some reasons were more complex and involved the potential of the vein under the mountain, while others were simple like occupying the disciples until he could teach them the Runes. Either way, in the end, the Council reluctantly agreed to Karls proposal. The project should take one month to be completed, which was practically the same they would spend doing the detour.

The team made another turn to the right and Toni halted their advance, by his mental notes, continuing would lead them back. The hunters all sighed in defeat, now they would have to wait for the magic operator to find another way. Surprisingly, their expedition through the dark caves ended up being boring, two days and they only met a couple of grey wolves. They were promised dangerous and scary caves, but this was safer than training.

Actually, the team had only advanced two kilometers inside the cave because they needed to stay close to the teams working on the cleared section. However, they shouldnt have to wait much longer. A stone-smashing noise followed by a scream came from their rear. Everybody turned but the hunter responsible for the scream was already silenced by a giant worm beast.

Toni didnt wait for the other hunters to process the situation, he pushed through them and practically threw himself against the beast, that tried to attack him before being blocked by the reinforced shield. Toni was pushed back a meter but soon found support and stopped the beast. The beast made screech but Toni wouldnt give it the chance to change its attack tactic, he masterfully shifted the position of the shield and pinned the worm against the cave wall.

The beast reacted and Toni started to be pushed back again, but another defender arrived and also pressed the worm. Then, came the spears stabbing through the gaps between the shields. The earthworm struggled and made sounds of pain until it finally died. Toni turned to the fallen member and felt guilty, could they go back to boring?