Chapter 34 (Patreon)

Stone dust sifted from the arch above Harold’s desk before the sound reached him.

The blast followed, a deep, concussive boom that shattered the glass on his table and sent a violent shudder through the desk into his hands. The vibration thrummed up Harold’s arms and rattled his teeth. For a moment, he tasted dust and iron on the back of his tongue, and the sharp, acrid scent of scorched parchment filled the air. Ink spattered. Map weights slid. The air itself seemed to flex, pressure pressing against his eardrums as grit stung his cheek.

He was on his feet before the echo died.

The chair toppled behind him as Harold bolted into the corridor, his boots hitting the stone with urgent, even strides. His guard, drawn by the sudden movement, fell into pace silently beside him. Harold vaulted down the stairs in long, hurried leaps, one hand trailing against the wall for balance, his nose wrinkling as a sharp odor reached him.

"Potion hall," he realized, dread mounting.

He sprinted through the lower door, crossed the yard at full speed, then raced around the keep's curve to peer down the hill toward the potion hall.

The building was gone.

For a heartbeat, Harold could only stand and stare. The world seemed to tilt around the emptiness left by what should have been there. He barely remembered to breathe, air scraping in dry and cold, as the silence pressed inward before action crashed back like a breaking wave.

Where the long stone structure had stood, a torn gap of smoke and broken beams remained. One wall had collapsed into the dirt. The roof lay in splintered sections, supports thrown across the ground like snapped spears. Glass caught the light in a field of sharp fragments.

Bodies lay between the wreckage.

A junior alchemist lay on his back near the wall, both legs gone below the knee, his trousers burned into black curls around the stumps. Someone struggled to force a healing potion on him. Another lay crumpled against stone blocks, one arm twisted back at an impossible angle, face ashen with shock. A third stumbled in circles, eyes blinded by blood running from a scalp wound.

“Elia!” Harold shouted, the name cutting through the noise.

No answer.

Harold wove deeper into the debris. Heat pressed up through his boots as he stepped over shattered beams, his eyes darting from face to face, searching urgently for the familiar dark braid and the leather apron Elia always wore.

Nothing.

Worktables lay in ruin. The stabilizer racks had vanished.

Someone grabbed his arm.

“My Lord—”

He turned. A senior student—her face blistered on one side, hair scorched to the scalp above her ear—gripped his arm. She straightened, then nearly collapsed.

“We were running the explosive batch. Flow got away from Elia, we…”

She coughed hard, black flecks scattering on the stones.

Harold’s jaw locked.

He forced himself to step back, seeing the yard as a whole instead of searching for one person.

“Sand buckets there,” he snapped, pointing to the creeping green flames chewing along a beam. “Sand on the fire, not water — it could trigger another reaction.”

Hale arrived at a run from the far passage, already taking in the layout, Margaret a step behind him with a cloth pressed over her mouth against the smoke.

“What do you need?” Hale asked.

“Accountability,” Harold answered without looking at him. “Every student and every assistant. I want a full list. Some were out gathering ingredients.”

Centurion Raul strode in from the training yard, his trainees at his back—armor half-buckled, weapons still sheathed. He surveyed the devastation and began forming a perimeter without instruction.

Behind him came a knot of adventurers at a sprint, Mark and Evan at their head, guild insignia still hanging loose where they had been working when the blast sounded.

Harold climbed onto a cracked stone block so all could see him.

“Listen,” he said, voice carrying over the yard.

Conversations cut off.

“Some of the potion students were out gathering supplies when this happened. I want search teams on the herb routes, the glassworks road, and the south storage pits. Check the creek path beyond the sawmill and bath — they use it to wash the containers.”

As Harold pointed to each area, he assigned locations to the different teams, ensuring every section was covered.

“Raul — your trainees with Hale. Sweep fields to the south for anyone who went that way on their ingredient searches.”

“Mark, Evan — take your guild and comb the town. Anyone injured in the blast gets a potion.”

Margaret was already writing, slate braced on her arm.

“I need someone at the Stele,” Harold continued. “Now. If any of the crafters respawn, I want to meet them the moment they come back. Send them straight to me.”

Evan nodded and immediately signaled to two teammates, who broke off to head toward the Stele without delay.

Harold dropped down from the beam and moved back toward the small crater, scanning the edges again.

“Elia,” he called once more, lower this time, as if she might answer from under the wreckage if he spoke at the right volume.

Only crackling flames and bucket-line shouts replied.

Frustrated, he turned to Margaret.

“Send a message to our watch towers, and I need a quest sent out to the adventurers now. If this was sabotage, the actor may be working to escape. They need to sweep the surroundings. Elia was good enough that this shouldn’t have happened to her. She has multiple perks that focus on stability; it’s the only reason I allow her to brew that potion.”

She nodded, already calculating as she motioned to one of her assistants who waited nearby.

Hale joined him, eyes scanning the damage, wounded, and teams fanning out.

“We should have an answer soon. It won’t take long for a crafter to respawn on their first respawn.” Hale said.

Harold did not answer. He was watching the Stele through the gap between buildings, its surface catching the light beyond the smoke. “For now, Elia isn’t my concern…there are at least 6 unidentified bodies in there. That is a capability that will take time to rebuild. If they weren’t actively in the process of brewing, they wouldn’t respawn.”

She nodded, already calculating.

Hale joined him, eyes on the damage, the wounded, and the spreading teams.

Harold stood with his weight slightly forward, one hand braced on a cracked length of stone as he watched the stele from the curve of the hill. The Stele’s surface caught the light in a hard, indifferent gleam.

Boots pounded across the yard.

Josh jogged in with Beth at his side, stone masons trailing behind. All were dusted white from work. Josh skidded to a stop, scanned the scene—the crater, the wounded, the shattered furnace.

“What the fu-?”

The words landed in the middle of the ordered movement like a dropped tool.

Harold turned.

Harold fixed Josh with a steely glare that cut through the commotion and his words. Josh instinctively straightened; the masons behind him snapped to attention as if a silent command had been given.

Harold walked toward him without hurry, stepping over a fallen beam, past a healer crouched over a stretcher, until he stood close enough that Josh had to tilt his head back to meet his eyes.

"You’ll have plans for a new potion hall on your desk by evening," Harold said. "Move it to the top of your list. Build it exactly as I specify."

Josh opened his mouth.

Harold cut him off before he got a word out.

“We need the output for the campaign. I will give you the same building format I learned in. They are not yet good enough to brew volatile compounds in a space that allows interruptions and distractions. I allowed you the freedom to build the first stone building in the Landing, as it would give you a better perk. Now I need a real potion hall.”

He held Josh’s gaze. “Get it done.”

Josh swallowed once, the reflexive pushback dying before it formed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I’ll—we’ll start the layout as soon as I get the plans. I’ll pull crews.”

Beth grabbed a mason and pointed to the far, dry wall.

Mark came in from the outer yard at a jog, Evan pacing him, both of them breathing hard from the sprint.

“I’m taking my team on the quest,” Mark said, rolling his shoulders with a habitual grimace. “Five more teams come with us. Gods know, we’ll sweep the routes and river paths. Two perception specialists per group, and they know how to flex them. If anyone’s out there, we’ll dig 'em up, no matter how deep they burrow.”

Harold gave a single nod.

“Report at every marker,” he said. “If you find survivors, signal first, move second. I want them alive.”

Mark nodded, then shouted assignments as he moved away.

A flare of light cut across the yard. Every head turned.

The Stele answered with a sharp, clean pulse, the glow collapsing inward and then spilling out again in a column that threw long shadows across the ground.

Two figures came out of it.

Elia stumbled forward first, one hand braced against the stone as if the world had not quite decided to hold her weight. Her hair hung loose and ash-streaked around her face, skin pale under the soot. Beside her, another dropped to one knee, coughing, his hands clawing at his own chest as breath returned to him in harsh pulls.

For a heartbeat, the entire yard stopped.

Then Harold was moving.

He crossed the distance quickly, catching Elia by the shoulders as she faltered.

“About time,” he said, the words coming out rougher than he intended.

Her eyes lifted to his, dazed, then focused.

“The stabilizer chain—” she started.

“I know,” he said. Then moved to check on the other man. He was being supported by Hale as he coughed out whatever was in his throat.”

Elia sagged once as Harold’s hands left her, then forced herself upright again, pushing away the support offered to her. Ash streaked her face where sweat had cut through it, and she would not quite meet Harold’s eyes at first, her gaze fixed somewhere at the level of his chest as if she were bracing for a blow.

Her fingers clenched in the front of her ruined apron.

“This was my fault,” she said, the words scraping out of a throat still raw from smoke. “I lost the reaction. I knew how much you needed the stock ready for the campaign. The single brews I was making wouldn't be enough, so I tried to run a double batch.”

She swallowed, finally looking up.

“I know you told me not to scale the volatile mixtures. I thought I could hold it. I thought if I staggered the feed and pushed more mana into the stabilizer, I could keep it contained.”

Her mouth tightened.

“I wanted the output for you. I thought I could control it.”

Around them, the yard had started moving again — stretchers lifted, buckets passed, Josh’s masons already arguing over how to clear the debris — but the space between the two of them held still.

Harold watched her for a long breath, taking in the way her shoulders were pulled in, the way she stood as if waiting for the verdict.

Behind him, the older man coughed again, a wet, tearing sound, and Hale shifted his grip to keep him upright while a healer forced a vial to his lips. 

Harold stepped closer to Elia, lowering his voice so it did not carry past the two of them.

“I told you the difficulty of that is not linear,” he said. “Your foolishness destroyed weeks of work and killed your fellow students.”

Her chin dipped once as he tried to expel the memories of months of teaching that crossed his mind.

“I know,” she sobbed.

He let the weight of that sit for a heartbeat longer, then reached past her and took her soot-streaked hands, turning them palm up. The skin was blistered in patches, the fine tremor in her fingers still there from the backlash of the broken reaction.

He studied the burns without speaking, his thumb hovering just above the worst of it, not touching.

Then he released her. Crafters did respawn that same way Adventurers did. The price of adventurers' respawns was a lost perk. For a crafters, they would carry a mark of their failure for the rest of their life. For Elia, it seemed like it would be a small burn mark on her palm. A constant reminder of her foolishness.

“Hale.”

The single word carried.

Hale stepped in at once, still bracing the older man, Derren, with one arm, eyes shifting from the wounded man to Harold’s face.

“Confine her,” Harold said, his voice level, stripped of the earlier edge of heat and urgency. “Quarters, not the cells. She is not to return to the worksite, the lab, or the stores until I decide the appropriate punishment.”

A hush rippled outward from where they stood. A pair of junior clerks exchanged a grave, silent glance. Judge Mendez was not known for being forgiving.

Elia’s head snapped up, the shock cutting through the misery.

“Haro-, My Lord—!”

He did not look at her.

“She disobeyed a direct limit,” Harold continued, the words shaped for Hale as much as for her. Six dead and critical production crippled. That cannot pass without consequence. This affects the entire town.”

Hale nodded once. There was no judgment in his face, only the acceptance of a clear order.

“I’ll see it done,” he said as a fist slammed into his chest.

He shifted the older man into the care of one of the guards and stepped toward Elia, not touching her yet, giving her the moment to move under her own power.

The yard had gone quieter around them, people hearing the tone if not the words.

Elia drew in a shaking breath, squared her shoulders, and wiped at her face with the back of her wrist, smearing ash across her cheek.

Only then did Harold look at her again.

“We will be talking later,” Harold murmured softly.

Hale rested a hand lightly on her back, guiding her away toward the keep.

Elia drew in a shaking breath, squared her shoulders, and wiped at her face with the back of her wrist, smearing ash across her cheek.

“Yes, my Lord,” she said, the words raw but steady.

Margaret came toward him through the smoke at a fast walk, one hand still holding her slate, the other pressing the edge of her sleeve against her mouth against the lingering chemical bite in the air. She did not slow when she reached him.

“More bad news, my Lord.”

He turned to face her fully.

“News from Haven,” she said. “One of the sentries we posted on the far side of the river was found by the relief shift at first light.”

She paused only long enough to make sure she had his full attention.

“An arrow was shot through his chest and powerful enough to pin him to a tree behind him.”

The noise of the yard seemed to drop away for a moment. Harold's fist drew tight until his knuckles blanched, pale as powdered limestone, the pressure carving lines along the back of his hand. No bad news comes alone. Harold’s gaze shifted toward the river again, toward the unseen line where their authority ended.

“What kind of fletching?” he asked.

“I assess from a centaur, it was a black feather and narrowly trimmed. They wanted him found,” Margaret said quietly. “Pinned in place like that.”

“What measures is Junior Centurion Ayen taking?” he said.

“For now, she is posting additional scouts on the other side of the river and creating additional quests in that direction to combat them. But she is requesting additional adventures and legionaries to reinforce her. For now, she is rushing to complete their fort there in case of an assault.”

His eyes went back to the ruined potion hall for a fraction of a second, then out again toward the river.

“They’re probing,” he said. “Probably looking for an opportunity to raid.”

Margaret’s stylus paused. “You don't think it was opportunistic?”

Harold looked at her as he leaned back against the stele. “No, I don’t, centaurs are some of the more dangerous monsters out there. They’ll have a plan.”

“The monsters in Gravesend come in a couple of different flavors, but they can be boiled down to intelligent and not intelligent.”

“These centaurs are intelligent. After we relieved our colonization group with another century, and they headed to the southern pass, they must have tracked them back along their path and found the village.”

“From Sarah’s report, we know they are uncommonly equipped and led. From the raid against Henri, we know they have intellect and can plan. This group is planning something again, but something must be forcing this, or they would still be moving against Henri.”

He looked down at Margaret, and she felt that small flurry of nervousness again. She cursed herself for her foolishness.

“Find out what they are up to, use the adventures, issue any quests you deem appropriate. I can’t spare the new scouts as they must travel with the cohort. I think it’s time we move up our timeline. We march in a week to unite the basin.”

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