The first time Alexei had walked through the slave tent led by this strange bearskin creature he had felt distinctly unsettled. Now that he was being led through the gloom by the creature once again, only this time with the crackling sound of flames in the distance and the smell of burnt flesh in the air that unsettled feeling was magnified a thousand times over. "Are you taking me to see him?" Alexei asked, before elaborating, "Your master, I mean.""Yessss," the snake beastkin hissed without even turning to look at him.The last time Alecei had walked through the slavers tent he had been amazed and disgusted by how many beastkin were locked up in all the cages. Now not even the cages were left. The place had been completely cleared out, almost as if the slave master had known he was coming. It was strange, far too strange for Alexei's liking. "Where are all the slaves?" Alexei asked, "The last time I was here the place was stinking with them. You couldn't move without them scr
"Now, as I said, you have been transported approximately two thousand years into the future," the slave trader said, "and as you were able to see by looking out of the window the world is much different from the one you left behind."Alexei thought that was putting things a little bit lightly. It had still clearly been Alandria outside the window, the riverways still existed and the market was still there, but it was also vastly different. So different that Alexei didn't even have the ability to put into words how different it was.He decided to put all of that to one side. Understanding the state of a world he was never supposed to experience was a pointless endeavour. "Why have you brought me here?" He asked instead, desperately trying to take the reins of the conversation once more. "Truths needed to be shared, and you needed to be assured that the path you are on is the correct one," the trader said, "as you have seen, the world outside the window is very much real. By combatt
Alexei staggered to his feet once more. In that moment he decided that he really didnt like cross temporal teleportation, or whatever strange method of time travel had conveyed him between past and future. He also decided that he wasnt going to be telling anyone about what he'd been through. No one needed to know that he'd gone to the future and no one needed to know that he apparently became the Demon Lord there. It wasnt going to be his future either. He was sure of that. He would change the path that was laid out before him and never become a Demon Lord. As he gained his bearings Alexei realised that whatever had been holding the flames back had finally failed, and they were beginning to eat through the tent. He'd have to tell Lyla that the Slave Trader had escaped in the inferno, though what he'd say about the slaves that had disappeared he had no idea. What he needed to do now was find the traders safe and then get out of the tent. The slave trader seemed fond of him in t
While Alexei had struggled with the safe through the streets of Alandria, Lyla simply picked the thing up and tucked it under one arm as if it weighed nothing at all. Together they went through into the back of the tavern, only this time instead of going right and up to the rooms Lyla led him left. They went past an office, where Garrick was snoozing away in a chair, and through another door that led to a small back yard area.It backed directly onto one of the waterways and really was nothing more than a small jetty that would allow garbage barges to come past and pick up trash. But that wasn't a luxury every house had. The biggest deal was that it was enclosed and impossible to see into from either side, which was perfect for their purposes. "Rare to have a back yard like this in Alandria," Alexei said, impreseed."Well, we were one of the first businesses. Or Garrick was, I suppose, back then," Lyla said as she put the safe down with a thunk. "Wait, you're telling me Garrick o
When dawn broke on a new day Alexei felt as if he were a new man. Gone were the troubles of the past and finally he was going to set out beyond the bounds of Alandria.It made him happy enough that he wanted to dance a jig.He imagined that when he told Neave the news she would probably follow suit. His original plan had been to leave Neave behind, but after thinking about it further he had realised that was unfair of him. The world was a dangerous place, and he wouldn't be able to keep Neave safe from it forever. If anything he'd already failed at that numerous times over. In any case, if the girl wanted to come with him he'd let her. He was also planning on asking Risa if she wanted to join him on his journey. He thought that she was likely to say no, after all she'd been pretty adamant at not getting involved in things that surrounded the Assassins of Delsi so far. But you never got if you never asked, and he did want her to join him on the journey. Alexei stretched and cra
Neave led Alexei by the hand through the Mage Temple halls. Unlike when they had gone down to the magery testing area that had told them Neave was indeed eligible to learn magery, the outfitters were in the temple's upper areas. This made sense to Alexei. He wasn’t sure what exactly the outfitters' remit was, but if they were doing things that would allow you to expand the interior of a bag or other container dimensionally then he imagined that things could be pretty explosive if they went wrong. You wouldn’t want a massive explosion to occur in the foundations of your building, you’d want it to happen somewhere near the top so the lower levels would be relatively undamaged. Eventually, the pair made it to what in Alexei’s mind seemed like just another door. Neave knocked a few knocks, waited for a few moments, and then pushed her way through the door. What Alexei saw inside the room was enough to make his eyes widen in shock. The room, like many in the mage temple, was bigger
Alexei didn’t have to wait very long for Risa to show up at the main doors of the Mage Temple, and if the smile on her face was anything to go by she was coming with good news. “You look happy,” Alexei remarked from his seat on one of the benches.“Well, the Grand Mages have decided to okay my inclusion in your adventure as a diplomatic mission to help strengthen our relationship with the Assassins Guild,” Risa said, “They thought it would be a good move to help counter the likely upcoming instability in the region if you do manage to depose of the Grand Administrator and reveal his plot to the world.” “Yeah, there will definitely be a little bit of that,” Alexei agreed, “If people believe me, anyway. I’m not really sure how to get them to do that.” “Does it really matter if they believe you?” Risa asked. “What do you mean? If they don’t believe me they’ll just think I’m a murderer, that won’t exactly look good for my or Neave’s future prospects,” Alexei replied.“Well, if it’s th
Alexei and Neave had equal looks of wonder on their face as the dragonhorse that they had purchased pulled their caravan along the path that cut through the wood at the south of the great city of Alandria. He had heard that there were woods to the south of the city where he had spent most of his life, and he had experienced some of them when he was a child growing up and training to get his skills high enough to join the Academy. But it had been a very very long time since he had seen any, and none as beautiful as the ones that were before him. Each of the trees had a trunk thicker than the wheel of their caravan, and they stretched high up into the sky, creating a canopy of leaves that the sunlight from above was only just capable of breaking through. All around him birds sang to one another, chirping out from the branches, while other creatures explored the undergrowth. “It’s beautiful out here,” Alexei said from his seat next to Risa at the front of the caravan. “Wouldn’t you