#wizard doc

Doc cocks an eyebrow, then waves his hand. “Hels and his band of bad guys attacked one of Ventus’s- the God of Judgement- temples. But the attempt was failed, and Helsknight himself was left behind as he bled out...from his neck…”

The entire group stares as the scar that Wels reveals, running from his collar to his clavicle. TFC doesn’t stare like the others. He’s known all of this the whole time. Tango shakes his head. “But you’re nothing like Helsknight. He murdered and killed for fun, to cause chaos and bring hell onto Lairyon. Wels, you’re…” 

“A changed man. Just like Apatia can be- if you give him the chance. Like the woman who healed me did, like X and TFC. Tango, if you don’t let Apatia give his chance to change and rectify what he can, then you can’t let me be any different. You can’t be a hypocrite and pick and choose.” From between Wels and Tango, Apatia groans. The blood has stopped, Ren’s work healing leaving a sloppy open wound behind. 

Apatia was pale, paler than he already was. Almost the same color as Grian, as the latter continues to recuperate from the torture he faced. But unlike Grian’s shallow, soft breaths, Apatia’s runs ragged and harsh. His jaws are clenched, fighting off the pain. With the remaining bandages and healing salve, Wels wraps up the stump of Apatia’s tail fin. 

Tango and Doc are still quiet, trying to comprehend the news that’s been delivered to them. It all makes sense, but their eads still struggle to put the two completely different personas together. As if they’re different people all together. 

Everyone knows who Helsknight is- was. He appeared as if from nowhere, like a demon spawned straight from hell. And immediately, he began reeking havoc. His band of villains attacked and raided. They were more than just some lowly bandits, or even a mafia. Helsknight was a villain, killing without mercy, without remorse, and without discretion. It wasn’t until their botched attack on that temple that ended the reign of terror that Hell’s chosen knight left on Lairyon. Just as quickly as Helsknight appeared, he faded into nightmares and horror story. Kids were told to watch out for the knight with one eye, because he’d pluck out their own to replace his. 

But Welsknight? He’s calm and collected, if a bit snarky. Even when battling even the husks, he always hesitates to strike a killing blow if there’s a potential to save the life instead. Wels is jovial, and a great baker, and tells great stories. Sure, he’s a great knight, but Tango once saw Wels cry over a dead fish he found at the beach. He’s a paladin, not a barbarian. 

Helsknight supposedly died years ago. Welsknight joined the hermits a few years back. Though there’s a span of time in between the day Lairyon celebrated the defeat of Hels and Wels following TFC back to Eremita, it begins to all make sense. There's a reason why Wels never talks about his past. Never visits home. Never explains how he got many of his scars.

Like puzzle pieces, it all falls together and paints a picture. Doc’s jaw clenches. As much as he hates to say it, or even think it, Wels is right. If a monster like Hels can become the man before Doc today, then maybe, just maybe , theres hope for Apatia. 

So long as he lives. The hermits are so focused on Apatia, their argument on whether he should live or die, no one notices Grian rouse from the darkness that still grips him. No one noticed the sky open up, both in Grian’s eyes and the sky beyond the windows. No one notices him weakly clamber out of bed, nearly falling flat on his face, and walking over to join them in the group. 

“What are we on about?” Even when he speaks up, the other hermits are so used to his voice that it hardly registers. 

“Welsknight was once helsknight, and whether we should save Apatia’s life or not.” Tango shrugs, his red eyes glaring down at Apatia with distaste. He still hates the man, but at the same time… they’re supposed to be the heroes. 

“As your resident healer, I think we should. But...I’m not sure why he’s here in the first place.” Ren looks up, realizing who is speaking, and scoops Grian into his arms. His tail wags loud and heavy, banging against the other hermits with every oscillation. 

“Welcome back to the land of the living, my dude!” Ren only sets Grian down when TFC reminds him that Grian is still working towards regaining his life, his color. He’s still slightly unsaturated, his skin missing the tint of pink, the red of his robest boarding the color of dried blood. Ren sets Grian back on the bed, trying to force the angel to rest. But now that Grian’s awake, he’s ready to cause trouble and start his day- even though he has no clue what time it is. 

“What’s going on? I...I don’t remember much. When did you guys save me? Why is Apatia here? How did you find me?” The questions fall like rain in a storm, impossible for the hermits to catch every last drop. 

It’s TFC that manages to slow the downpour. “Hold on, hold on Grian. Why don’t we start from the beginning? We’ll fill you in on everything, in time.”

----------------------------------------------------

All the hermits, once again under the safe canopy of the massive oak tree in their guild hall. Grian is wrapped in a warm, soft blanket- knitted by Stress- and a mug of warm apple cider rests in between his pale hands. “I can’t believe you guys came for me.” 

“Of course we were gonna save you, Grian.” Scar practically laughs at the mere idea of leaving him behind. But for Grian, who’s been kicked out of so many guilds for his troublemaking, it really shows how much they care. 

A rumble of agreements follow, and after a few more minutes of quiet comforting, it’s Grian himself that changes the subject. “Dolios is getting more powerful by the minute. I could feel all the energy flowing through those leylines, into him and that monster, Eurynomos. We can’t delay this any longer. Dolios has to go down.” 

“But we don’t even know how. We can destroy as many crystals as we want, but he’ll just keep making more. He has more power than a bunch of lowly mercenaries. He even beat Apatia, one of his own Councilmembers. One of the strongest guildmasters in all of Lairyon.” BDubs points out. Everyone goes silent as they remember the man in their infirmary. The stranger- he’s not a hermit, yet he’s among them. 

Grian looks up, pale face and hollowed eyes alarming for the hermits. He hardly looks to be among the living, but less like a dead man walking like he was before. “Xisuma, your brother mentioned something about the ancient ones. DO you think there could be a clue for us there? In the past?” 

X sighs, leaning back in his chair as he considers the question. “If the answer to ending Dolios’s dark reign truly lies in the past, then we’d have better luck finding the answer ourselves. Thousands of years, eroded by time, by kingdoms and cultures rising and falling, not to mention the disappearance of the ancient ones. There’s a reason ancient magic is dead- because none of the books teaching it survived.” 

“There’s one person we know who has studied the ancient ones for years.” Joe’s voice cuts through the crowd, looking around. Every other hermit is lost and confused, but Joe can see the mixed emotions raging in Xisuma’s eyes. “Besides Ex can take care of the island, of Apatia while we’re searching.” 

“Ex chose to leave Eremita. Why in gods’s names would he want to come back, to help us?” X growls. 

“Because he’s your brother. He helped us save Doc. He’s been helping us, helping all of Lairyon- in his own weird, Ex way. He’s not the villain here, he’s your brother.” 

X clenches his jaw. The scar over his eye burns at the memory of their fight. The words he said to his brother, and the worst responded in kind. Xisuma still received letters from Ex, but he only opened them when Cleo’s cider had clouded his better judgement. And he never responded. 

But he also remembers the moment, after years estranged, he laid eyes upon his twin brother, crammed into the bookstore he was running. The moment of relief, of happiness to see Ex alive and well. Their identical faces, like mirror images of one another. His hair pure white, like the bright sun in the sky. Even now Xisuma remembers how often he’d complain he could always find Ex hairs on his clothes. 

They look like they’re burning, blackened to the stem, grey embers frozen at the edges of the leaf. It looks so much like the husk magic, and yet at the same time completely different. BDubs reaches up, fingers shaking as he plucks the leaf off the tree. “I think we’re going in the right direction.” 

He shows the once green leaf to the others. It’s as if the ground was saturated with dark magic, poisoning the trees rather than draining them. It’s impossible to distinguish the leyline from the rest of the earth around them. They've made it to the center of the Forest. They’ve made it to what Dolios is hiding. 

The canopy is thick, impossible to see even the crown of the trees. Grian wonders if he flew above the Forest of Memories, would he be able to see this black spot from the sky? Or has Dolios even thought of that? 

“Whatever Dolios is hiding, it’s here somewhere.” Xisuma states, pulling out a torch and lighting it using Tango’s hair. Tango objects at first, but when a distant rustle causes him to leap into Impulse’s arms, he allows the torches to be lit. 

“But where? We don’t even know what we’re looking for.” Doc snarls. He wanders deeper into the darkness, holding his torch high before turning and looking at the other hermits. Both his mechanic and mortal eye narrow at the guild. “It could be as small as a pebble, or so mundane we’d never pick it out!” 

Etho notices a shift in the darkness behind Doc, the swirling mist of grey and black cresting over an angled oval, creased down the equator. And he realizes he’s not looking at mist, he’s looking at slime. “Uh,” He whispers, “Doc, maybe tone it down?” 

But Doc wasn’t listening. “We’ve gone on some wild goose chase, when we need to cut the head off the beast while we can!” 

“Maybe don’t talk about killing beasts, Doc.” Hypno squeaks, realizing what Etho is seeing as well, He sees a grey tentacle, wrapping through the ashen ground like a sticky tree root, more creases all over the body. 

“Why? It’s clear there’s nothing to find here! We’ve searched through the most dangerous place in all of Lairyon, for jack shit!” Doc raises his torch to prove what he means, eyes wild as he stares down the hermits. With the increased light, the entire guild can see the monster behind Doc. Mumbo nearly faints, Stress feels sick, and all the hermits can feel the pressure of dark magic weighing on their chest. It’s like Gildara, but worse. 

“Doc….” Scar whispers, shaking as he creeps closer to the hybrid, trying to pull Doc away from the slumbering monster. They both trip over a slimy black tentacle, head over heels and the torch left behind. “Doc we found it!” 

Slumbering in the trees, a monster beyond anything the hermit’s have ever seen looms. It’s larger than a dragon, made of ebbing and flowing grey and black slime- which takes a moment for the hermits to realize is pure dark energy, pouring over the creature like an overcoat. Citizens’ lifeforce, their magic drained to create this multi eyed, multi-mouthed eldritch horror. Tentacles, dug into the ground, sap the energy fed by the leylines. 

This monstrosity, this manifestation of darkness, is still growing. Slowly, but surely, as it feeds off the leylines. This is but an infant, not yet born. And already it has done so much damage. 

“Oh my word.” Zedaph wipes away a few tears with the heel of his hand . “This thing has no soul. It’s just...pure hatred, pure catastrophe. Why would Dolios bring such a dangerous thing to life?” 

“What does it matter?” Beef shrugs, rolling his neck and preparing to cast his magic. “With this gone, Dolios will crumble.” 

“Hold on.” xB grabs Beef by the horns, holding him back. “We have no clue what this thing will do if it wakes up. What could it do if we attack it right now.” 

“xB is right.” TFC hums. “We would be foolish to fight a monster we know nothing of. Just like going in blind to Gildara, we won’t win that battle without knowledge.”

“So what do we do?” False makes the war hammer she summoned disappear, a bit disappointed. 

Xisuma looks at the ashen ground, following it back to the edge of the monster’s meadow. He sees the four leylines, in four cardinal directions. “This thing is being fed by the leylines. The leylines are set by the obelisks, which are powered by crystals. If we starve the beast before it can awaken, we can take away whatever Dolios plans to do with this.” 

“So...what? We just leave this thing here? Go back to breaking crystals?” Iskall shrugs.

“We came here for more information, and that’s what we’ve gotten. Information is more valuable than action sometimes.” Cub of all people would know. He looks at the others, then continues to speak. “We have all the pieces put together, we can finally see the whole picture of Dolios and his insane plan. With all this, we can fight back better. We know what to do. We starve the beast, and turn all of Lairyon against Dolios.” 

-----------------------------------------

“Hmm.” A low silky voice dances in the dark office, gold trimmed sleeve blinding the wizard to his crystal ball. Curly brown hair rests on the other hand, elbow perched on a plush arm of his office chair. A chair fit for a king- no, a god. Soon enough. 

The single eye of the unborn beast closes. Eurynomos is far from ready, just a fetus at this point, but every day it grows stronger. The more stolen magic Dolios feeds the creature, the stronger it will be. The stronger they will be. Dolios is a patient man, he can bear to wait a little bit longer. 

What he can’t bear is the infuriating interference of these hermits. Dolios knew that Mumbo was powerful- how he drools for all that magic stored in one vessel. And the angel, he’s yet to add such divine magic to his ever growing collection. The rest? Fodder. Or so he thought. They’ve been persistent, and they’ve gained too much knowledge. Just when Dolios thinks he’s caught up in making new corrupted crystals, those damn hermits destroy another. Just when Dolios has destroyed a guild or village no one will miss, they swoop in and stop him. He should’ve killed them in the dungeons that day, so long ago. But now, they’re a problem. 

Everyone’s head snaps, following the bird’s path as it comes to rest on TFC’s arm. Searching for the guildmaster of the Order of Hermits. Scar slips closer, awed by the opalescent white wings of such a noble bird. “I thought alicantos were only found in central Lairyon.” 

“It’s from the capitol.” TFC states, pulling the parchment from the parcel on the bird’s back. The scroll is stamped with a symbol everyone knows, whether the hermit is from the distant poor swamps of east Lairyon or the rich crystal mountains of the southern Fartop Peaks in the Lionheart Mountains. 

The scrawling laurels and crystals of the magistrate’s office. The alicanto pecks at TFC’s metal gloves, searching for food in the form of silver or gold. But every member of the guild has completely forgotten their divine visitor. They’re terrified of the contents within the parchment carried upon it’s back. 

“Oh my word, this is it! We’ve been found!” Mumbo shrieks, feeling his head get dizzy and light. He’s hardly been here for more than a year, and he’s about to get arrested. Years of following the rules, and the one time he goes rogue he’s been caught. 

“The arcane guard must be on their way. This is their letter telling us to surrender.” Cub shakes his head, watching as TFC opens the wax seal. 

“If we surrender, will they be light on us?” Ren questions, biting his lip and adjusting his sunglasses as Xisuma brushes past. He can smell the ozone scent of void on the previous guildmaster, pacing back and forth across the grass of the training field. Muttering something about his brother. 

“I’m not surrendering. I’m not going back to jail!” Doc crosses his arms and turns his nose up and away from the letter in defiance.

The entire guild, twenty something strong, creeps closer to TFC as his eyes scan across the parchment. The entire island is holding their breath, waiting for their guildmaster to tell the guild what’s waiting for them. Etho turns, falling into the shadow of the group and reappearing from TFC’s. “What does it say?” 

“We...it’s a contract.” TFC rereads the words again, and again. Trying to make sure he has everything right. That he read everything correctly. “The magistrate wants us, all of us, to go to a town called…” TFC squints his eyes and tries to read the name, before giving up. “Whatever, somewhere in east Lairyon. There’s been a disturbance that requires our help.” 

“All of us?” Xisuma stops dead, pulling off his mask so he can be sure he’s hearing everything right. “What needs an entire guild to take care of a ‘disturbance’?” 

“Forget that, why would the magistrate request the help of an illegal guild?” Doc waves his metal arm out, catching the attention of the alicanto. It hops free of TFC’s shoulder and swoops onto the puppeteer mage’s arm. Immediately, it begins pecking and pulling on the delicate materials and magic that makes his prosthesis. “Isn’t his entire job to arrest groups like us?” 

“That is kind of suspicious.” Iskall pipes up, tapping a gloved finger on the brown beard of his chin. 

TFC clears his throat, taking a deep breath. He brushes the white braid along his face, collecting himself. He needs to be the man in charge, cool and calm. “The letter isn’t officially from the magistrate’s office. It’s stamped like one, but it’s on personal parchment paper. The magistrate needs us because he can’t send official guilds without raising alarm. He wants this done discreetly, and none of the other council members agree with his actions.” 

“But us?” Cleo can’t help but agree with Doc. They aren’t exactly law-abiding citizens. They’re a mercenary group, flying under the radar of the Council of Lairyon. Doing the work they refuse to do, helping towns too poor to pay the hefty fees legal guilds require. “What do we get out of this? How do we know this isn’t some trap to lure us out of the Ashioll sea?” 

“And how does he know about us?” Mumbo adds, wringing his hands. 

“I...I don’t know, but I guess our reputation precedes us.” TFC nods to the guild hall, rising above the training grounds of the island on a soft hill. Where they can all talk. No one wastes time filing in, hungry for answers and completely ignoring the leftover breakfast still set out on the tables. The alicanto notices the metal cups, and sticks it’s head in search of a treat. And getting it’s golden crested head stuck in the pewter mug. 

“Well? Tell us what it says!” Stress bounces in her seat, short brown hair bouncing along with her.

“This town, Gildara, has been having what the contract only calls a ‘disturbance’ for the past few weeks. The council refuses to send a scout group, but the magistrate here says he can’t sit idly by and let people continue to get hurt. If we take care of the problem plaguing Gildara, we can…” TFC takes a deep breath, the excitement starting to fill his own voice. Calm, he needs to be calm. He’s the guildmaster. “We’ll be given the title of official guild, as well as a hefty sum of gold. We’ll get our magic license.” 

The reaction of the guild is mostly positive. They had given up applying for their license ages ago- before Xisuma gave up his role as guildmaster. They were always rejected, and warned to disband every time. But the Order of Hermits only have each other. Leaving their island, leaving each other, was never an option. They’re a menagerie of people, of criminals and runaways, S-Class mages and academy flunkies. Some people are skeptical of such a proposal, others are ecstatic. All are curious.

“What an opportunity of the lifetime!” Grian whoops, his wings appearing with hardly even a thought. Magic overflowing through the sky angel wizard, held down by his robes by Iskall and Mumbo. “Did it really say for all of us?” 

TFC looks back down at the paper, before letting it fall so everyone else can see. The hermits butt heads trying to peak at the contract before them. Jevin shakes his head, slimy hair squishing and getting stuck against Ren’s wagging tail. “It’s really for us all. The whole damn guild.” 

“I never saw that many zeroes in my life.” Grian whispers, his voice quiet for once. “That could fix all the damage from our battle with those creepy creatures.” 

Mumbo looks back, seeing white bandages peeking out from the sleeveless red hem and blue cloak around his shoulders. They almost didn’t survive that- if it weren’t for Grian and his archangel aura they wouldn’t have made it. His train of thought is disturbed when False pushes herself in, hands planting with challenging eyes towards Tango and Impulse. “Maybe you two can finally fix that hole you blew into my forge.” 

“I quite like the cross breeze our...modification gave.” Tango rests a hand on his chest, a snickering smile appearing across his face. Mirroring emotions fall across Impulse and Zedaph at his side, peeking around his arms. 

“Then move out and make your own modifications!” False shouts, but a coy grin and sharp eyes appear across her features. This won’t be the first time False and team ZIT have gotten into a duel over their accidental explosion, and it likely won’t be the last. “Zedaph already has his own place.” 

“He lives in a barn!” Impulse moans. “I hate how pokey hay is.” 

“You say barn like it’s a bad thing. The sheep are great roommates, they don’t light their pillows on fire.” Zed stares up at Tango. Quips trade across everyone, ideas brought up and shot down as quickly as Scar’s terraforming magic, all what to do with the money offered before them. 

TFC snaps his fingers, the ruby in his other hand glimmering with the magic circle. Lighting up lanterns that hang from the copse of trees and nestle in rock outcroppings of the outdoor guild hall. The fire burns bright, blinding the order even in the midmorning sun. “We should decide whether or not we all want to do this. We’re a guild, we should vote.” TFC raises his right hand. “Anyone oppose this contract? Please answer honestly..” 

The hermits look at each other, but no one’s arm even twitches to put their hand up. The contract is too curious to deny. So much to offer, including an adventure. TFC nods, and lifts his left hand. “All in favor?”