The Guard Shows Off

I hear a knock at the door of my office. It’s one of the dwarves – he’s requesting orders.

“Clean this place up, will you? Don’t throw away the paperwork, just make it nice.”

He salutes with a grunt, and pitter-patters away. I can’t get anything done until it’s no longer a health hazard. The door swinging open kicked up some dust and… ACHOO… I need to get out of here.

As I step through the threshold into the hallway, I feel my ears, and then my head ring. It’s Hue.

“Chief, your wife has arrived at the front gate.”

My WIFE? I imagine a split-second glimpse of her bitter, rueful face. Is nothing off-limits to these slimes? Unbelievable. A blue magical screen appears in front of me, showing a carriage arriving outside. I hurry down the stairs to check it out.

It’s Leia. Very funny, Hue. She seems even happier than usual.

“Did you find it satisfactory?”, she asks, almost implying a sort of glee at my misfortune.

“Yes, but I have a list of things that need done before we’re able to operate here” I fire back, before she cuts me off…

“You and I are headed to the Royal College of Magic, the director of the Guard would like to meet with you.”

With that, we climbed up into the carriage and off we went.

I discovered rather quickly that the quality of living within the city improves vastly the closer one gets to the center of it all. Rough-shod cobblestone streets became a smooth, concrete-like roadway; the buildings newer and cleaner, with luxurious floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and the average dress of the folks on the sidewalk is clearly ornate, silken and comfortable. A good neighborhood.

I catch a glimpse of an old man floating down the sidewalk with an impressively long beard. No canes or walkers in these parts, even his beard is held aloft by magic. That’s one way to deal with arthritis. Eventually the outskirts of the Royal College come into view: Massive, expertly hewn red bricked walls and outlying buildings, and just about every person I see is carrying a staff imbued with a floating jewel of different colors. It reminds me of one of those ancient English colleges, very cool.

Our carriage stops in front of an exterior gatehouse, with a drawbridge leading to an open portcullis. On closer inspection, the portcullis isn’t actually open; there’s a wispy, ethereal mirage in the shape of an iron latticed gate blocking the way. Our carriage charges right towards it, across the bridge. Slightly doubting our driver, I press my feet into the floor of the carriage to brace for impact. We pass right through it, but I feel something vanish within my pocket. Crap! My Chief’s Special! I glare at Leia.

“No weapons allowed!”, she explains.

My duty sidearm is still in my holster. They must have to individually register the firearms, or perhaps mine is too different from those revolvers to have triggered the barrier. They’d better give it back! That was a nice piece.

Our carriage halts, and we’re unloaded in front of a hexagonal concrete platform, akin to where you’d see a fountain in a park. Massive, red-brick spired buildings dominate the view as far as the eye can see. I can faintly make out little dots flying around in the air – mages. The butler beckons us onto the center of this hexagonal, raised concrete platform, then steps off of it. Leia grabs my arm.

“Hold on!”

The multi-ton concrete platform groans underfoot, before lifting straight up into the air. No chairs, guys? Not even a railing? The platform screams along at what must be at least 60 miles per hour. Gritting my teeth, and trying not to yell, we sail through the air before slowing at the top of the central spire of a breathtakingly large central hall building. The platform perfectly docks with a seemingly purpose-built landing jutting out from the balcony, and we amble across this windy walkway, hundreds of feet in the air.

“Sorry about that”, Leia says, smiling. “We usually just teleport; the director wanted to show off today.”

Something about this statement, whether it’s how proud she is of that, or how dangerous it was, annoys me deeply on the inside. We could have just teleported? Give me a freaking break.

In front of us is another ethereal, wispy barrier the shape of a large castle door. We proceeded through it to see a central meeting room; a long table with numerous grizzly looking mages, with a massive chair at the very end. Seated within it is an extremely frail looking old man.

“WELCOME! Please, come in!”, he shouts, with that same strange mage enthusiasm I cannot get used to. His voice doesn’t match his appearance at all.

“Esteemed members of the Guard, please allow me to introduce John, my charge, and the new Chief of the Order of Police.”, Leia announces, bowing. I reflexively give a bow. They give a wimpy round of applause.

“John!”, says the director, “I have something to show you, please sit.”

A chair floats through the air from a corner, out of sight, and lands right next to the director’s throne. I anxiously step my way over to him, and being beckoned, take my place beside him.

“We are carrying out a very ambitious operation. In a few moments, three terrorists will be apprehended; please, watch with us.”

A large magical screen appears in front of us. It’s double-sided, so the other members of the council can see it, but we get the best view.

“The first stage should be occurring now. This terrorist blew up his home village and has wiped out two platoons of knights tasked with apprehending him. Watch, as our students make us proud.”

I see a young man, barely 20 years of age, covered in scars, with a shredded, muscular build. His blonde, spiky hair is literally burning with fire; he’s surrounded by what appears to be a self-casted barrier and is shooting repeated columns of roiling fire all at once. A purple beam of magic blasts him from the side, splintering off in all directions. In response, I see him plant both his feet, charging up some sort of attack. He’s screaming at the top of his lungs. The magic screen zooms out.

A tremendous explosion rocks the entirety of the camera’s view. I can scarcely believe what I’m witnessing… Once the smoke clears, I see the guy is standing on a skinny pillar of rock, a nearly 360 degree crater rended from the earth around him, as big as a football stadium. He begins firing again, but this time, at nothing. Hundreds of desperate shots, all missing their target, until a spear of light hits him directly through the side of his head, leaving a perfectly circular hole. He crumples to the ground.

“Illusion magic!” the old man says, with a wry smile. “He really thought he was winning that one. Now, the next one.”

We move on, with scarcely a modicum of concern for having just witnessed that guy’s head get perforated. Next, we’re underwater. Standing at the bottom of what looks like an ocean, is a mage, purple haired, with an apathetic, if not evil, countenance. He’s not breathing, just standing there. A very creepy sight.

The surrounding water begins bubbling violently. The screen switches to a sort of mana-infrared view. Off in the distance, I see a perfectly circular ball of mana that immediately reads as pure black on the screen. Knowing our IR cameras, it’s seriously hot and dense. Long, thin strands of mana begin filing out from the suspect, who continues merely standing there. The strands arc, slicing the water apart and attempting to attack the “ball of death”, with no effect. Sensing its ineffectiveness, the suspect engulfs himself in an outpour of mana – he’s trying to escape. Everything he expends gets bent away and sucked into the approaching sphere. He finally starts running, kicking up sand and desperately trying to flee. A stream of sand and water boils around him, being sucked into the sphere, lifting him off his feet and drawing him directly into it. At the last moment, I see his body contorted in what must be an extremely painful pretzel shape before vanishing.

“And now, the last one.” The old man looks directly at me. “Don’t be alarmed.”

He snaps his fingers. Directly behind me, I hear a thud. Instinctively, I swing around in my chair, hand on my firearm, to see a thin, hideous-looking lanky creature dressed in assassins’ robes, with a foreign, serrated knife in hand, crumpled on the ground mere feet from my chair.

“That one was a Ghoul. Well, rather, the race that becomes ghouls once they die, but they’re prized as fixers and assassins. That particular one was paid handsomely to deal with you, if he was brave enough to come here.”

I take a moment to come to my senses. Once the adrenaline wears off, and I glare at Leia, who is absolutely beaming with pride at the skillfulness of the Director, I realize he’s expecting some sort of praise for the carnival circus show I’d just witnessed.

“Thank you, sir. You saved my life. Your students clearly apply themselves well.”

He seems very happy with this.

“Of course! I just wanted to show you the progress our students have made in the meantime since the Order of Police has fallen. Please, let us know anytime if you need our help, we are happy to oblige.”

A gentle bell tone rings through the air. “Dinner time! Please, join us!”

We’re brought down to a rather cozy dining hall and treated to an expertly cooked spread, however, I struggled the entire time trying to process what I had just witnessed. Wide-eyed, my skin crawling, it was wholly unsettling to see all these presumably powerful mages sitting around laughing and carousing. I’d nearly been stabbed clean through the back of the neck by an invisible hitman, but they didn’t seem to think anything of it.

Once dinner was over with, we cleared out and were given temporary lodgings on the campus, where I stumbled and collapsed into my bed.