Jim the Groundskeeper [Original Fantasy]

[Metel_Pen]

Jim peered through the towering doors of the academy. Nothing moved. No bodies. No sounds. Just the yawning, echoing silence of a place recently vacated or perhaps never touched at all. Dust motes swirled lazily in the air, glinting in the pale light that slanted through high windows. The emptiness pressed down on him like a weight, settling heavy on the shoulders of his coat, seeping into the cracks of his bones.
No Umbar. No Night Dancers. No traps that he could see.
He stepped inside.
Jess and Emile followed close behind, their boots whispering against polished stone that seemed too clean, too immaculate for a school that had just hosted carnage. The faint echo of their steps bounced down the vast corridors, making them sound like intruders trespassing in a tomb. Emile's eyes darted constantly, shoulders tight. The lad didn't have the faintest idea where they were headed or what they were looking for. Was there even a plan? Or was this just panic dressed up as purpose, movement for the sake of not standing still?
He was about to ask when the silence shattered.
A scream ripped through the halls — not a cry, but something deeper. A soul-deep howl of agony that clawed its way up through the stone, higher and higher, before cutting off sharp, like a throat torn clean through.
They froze.
"The nursery," they all said at once, the words overlapping — and then they were running.
Boots hammered the floor, breaths ragged as they charged through twisting halls. Doors blurred past. Jim slammed through the final one shoulder-first.
The greenhouse air struck them instantly — hot, wet, earthy. It clung to the skin, thick with the stink of rot, blood, and fungus.
Bodies were everywhere. Torn limbs, shredded torsos, viscera half-wrapped in writhing vines. Judging by the tatters of robes and scorched sigils, the victims were Umbar. But that wasn't the worst of it.
All around the corpses, things moved. Mushroom-like creatures, no taller than a man's head, stalked the floor on squat limbs. Their glassy black eyes glimmered, and jagged claws flexed with unsettling eagerness. They moved with a dog-like energy — stabbing, rending, tearing. Wet, gleeful sounds filled the room, half feast, half laughter.
Jess froze mid-step. Emile gagged, one hand clapped over his mouth.
The moment the door slammed open, every one of the creatures stopped. Heads turned in eerie unison. Dozens of tiny eyes blinked, fixing on the intruders with hungry malice.
Then they charged.
Claws clicked. Wet feet slapped across tiles. Their shrill screeches bounced off the glass walls, sharp enough to make teeth ache—
"Not them, my babies. Not them!"
The voice cut across the chaos like a whip.
A plume of thick, blue smoke drifted from the far end of the greenhouse. From it stepped a familiar figure — hair wild and frizzed with static, long coat streaked in soot, and a huge carved pipe clamped lazily between her lips.
Professor Aidra.
She wobbled with each step, pupils blown wide, red veins spiderwebbing her eyes. She looked one slip away from collapse — and yet her voice was sharp as ever.
"Oh, hello, my darlings," she drawled, waving one hand vaguely. The mushroom creatures skidded to a halt inches from Emile's boots. Their claws tapped the tiles impatiently, but they obeyed.
"You all look terribly stressed."
She puffed, exhaled a rolling cloud of smoke that smelled of roasted cinnamon bark and pine sap, then beamed at them with glassy warmth.
"Here — have a toke. Clears the soul."
She held the pipe out, exaggeratedly careful.
Emile, dazed, almost reached for it.
Jess slapped his hand. "No."
"Aye, not tonight, Aidra," Jim added, though a ghost of a grin twitched at his lips. "We kinda need all our faculties intact."
Jess's side-eye burned Emile, who stared at the floor.
Aidra shrugged, crouched beside one of the squat creatures, and patted its spongy cap like a beloved pet. It chirped, rubbed against her leg, and purred.
Jim glanced from the carnage to her "babies." Despite the madness, despite the horror, Aidra had survived. And, somehow, her brood had picked the right side.
Jim stepped forward, brow furrowed. "What happened here?"
Aidra blinked, then looked around as though surprised someone was speaking to her. For a moment she seemed to be debating whether Jim was real or a puff of smoke come to life. "Oh! You're talking to me?" she said airily, smoke leaking from her nostrils like an old chimney pipe. Her pupils were blown wide, bloodshot veins spiderwebbing her glassy eyes.
"Er—yes," Jim replied, already regretting it, his eyebrow climbing like it was trying to escape his forehead.
"Oh, well," Aidra began, waving a hand lazily as though swatting away a memory she couldn't quite catch. "They were after Plandorph. Said they needed him for… something." She paused, lips parting as though the thought might form, then forgot she was thinking at all and took another deep drag. "I told them I didn't know where he was. They said I was lying. I said I wasn't. Then they said they were going to cut off my ears to 'aid in my speaking,' which frankly doesn't make any anatomical sense."
She shrugged, utterly unbothered, and the smoke curled around her head like a crown of fog. "Then my babies came for them. Tore them up like wet tissue. Sweet little darlings." She exhaled a long stream of blue-grey haze and lovingly scratched the mushroom creature under its gilled chin. The thing purred like a teakettle left too long on the hob, eyes glowing faintly in pleasure. Dozens more shifted restlessly across the blood-slick floor, claws clicking against broken tiles, the smell of copper and damp spores heavy in the air.
Jess stepped in, arms crossed, voice sharp. "They're looking for Plandorph?"
Aidra gave her a dreamy nod, eyes half-lidded. "Mmm, yes. Quite urgently, it seemed. Not sure why. Probably something sinister and overwrought. You know how it is with dark conspiracies." Her words began to trail off like smoke losing shape. "Maybe they want his robes. Or his moustache. Or perhaps the secret to his soup. He does make a lovely soup—"
Jim stepped back, blinking rapidly, the acrid haze beginning to sting his eyes and settle on his tongue. "Right. We're done here. I'm not getting a full story out of her, and I think I'm getting high just standing in the same room."
"Contact high confirmed," Jess muttered, covering her nose and turning toward the door.
As Jim turned to go, one of the little mushroom men chittered at him with what might have been a wink — or a death threat. Hard to tell with mushrooms. Another shuffled over the body of an Umbar corpse and began tearing strips of meat free like it was eating fruit. Jim looked away.
Once they were out of the nursery and back in the corridor, he finally had room to breathe. The air still carried soot and blood, but at least it wasn't thick with Aidra's drugged haze. The weight of her ramblings — scattered and smoke-laced as they were — began to settle into something sharper.
They were after Plandorph.
Jess broke the silence first, her voice taut with purpose. "We need to find him. First."
There was no hesitation, no room for debate. Just resolution.
"Aye, we do, lass," Jim replied, jaw tight. His mind was already churning, pieces falling into place — most of them unsettling.
He glanced at Emile, who was trailing slightly behind, blinking hard and rubbing at his face like he was trying to rub reality back in. The lad looked like he'd been hit by a warm fog and was trying to act like he wasn't.
"You good, lad?" Jim asked, slowing just enough to walk beside him.
Emile gave a vague nod, his voice a bit loose around the edges. "Erm... yeah, just... just a little woozy. Whatever Aidra's puffin', it's not academy standard."
Jim gave a low chuckle and clapped him on the back. "Aye, that'd be the Aidra Special. Take deep breaths, lad. In through the nose, out through the mouth. It'll clear... eventually."
Jess looked between them, then back down the corridor, her eyes sharp. "So where would he go? If they're hunting him, he'll be hiding. And if he's hiding, he's not going to make it easy."
Jim's eyes narrowed as he rubbed a hand over his stubble, the rasp of calloused fingers loud in the quiet. "His rooms," he said slowly. "That's where I'd go if I were a snivelling little rat — back to where the walls feel familiar. Rats always run to where they think they're safe."
Jess gave a curt nod, already adjusting course. "Then let's corner this rat before the Night Dancers do."
Jim followed her lead, knife still red and gleaming in his hand. The blade caught what little light flickered from the ruined sconces, a dark promise in steel. "Let's just hope he's more use alive than dead."
And with that, they moved. Swift. Quiet. Purposeful. The storm wasn't done yet — but they were getting close to its eye.
She headed for the stairs, her boots echoing softly against the stone floor as the trio pressed forward. Jim and Jess took point, eyes flicking from shadow to shadow, every doorway and corner scanned with the trained reflexes of people who'd seen too much to ever trust the quiet. The building groaned faintly, beams shifting as if the academy itself knew it was under siege.
Emile held the rear, and Jim clocked that every few steps, the lad would pivot fully, doing a quick sweep of their six. Good lad, Jim thought. Didn't even have to teach him that. Some people had the sense baked into their bones.
They reached the base of the staircase, and that's when Jim spotted it — dark spatters across the floor, not pooled but flung, the kind of trail left by someone bleeding and moving fast. It gleamed wet in the torchlight, already beginning to crust at the edges. As they ascended, the trail continued, but the smears stretched thinner, longer, pulling upward like a brush dragged across canvas. Whoever it was had been wounded and was legging it, hard.
Jess noticed too. "Plandorph?" she asked, turning to Jim, brows drawn.
"Maybe," Jim said, his tone low and steady. "Only one way to find out."
He adjusted his grip on the knife and took the lead, boots landing with measured precision on each step as they climbed into the unknown.
With every floor, the air thickened further — metallic tang of blood coating the back of the throat, acrid sting of scorched stone biting the nose. The corridor bore the scars of recent violence — jagged blast marks scorched across the walls, chunks of marble blown out, black soot smeared like smudged charcoal fingerprints. Broken glass crunched underfoot. The higher they went, the worse it looked, as though the building itself had been in a fistfight with the night.
Then came the bodies.
Two Night Dancers lay sprawled at unnatural angles, their ebony armour cracked, scorched, and still hissing with residual magical heat. The smell of burnt metal and flesh clung to the stairwell, sharp enough to sting the back of the throat. Their limbs twitched faintly — post-mortem nerves, or perhaps some foul magic still leaking through their veins. Jim didn't care to guess.
But it was the boy beside them that made him pause.
He was barely more than sixteen — red-haired, rail-thin, and no taller than Emile. His uniform was torn, scorched black along the sleeves, the fabric melted into his skin. Two ember blades jutted from his chest, their hilts still glowing faintly, sending thin trails of smoke spiralling into the air. The heat warped the stone beneath him, sizzling faintly, filling the air with the acrid tang of charred marrow. His mouth was frozen in a half-snarl, half-smile, teeth bloodied, lips cracked and curled like he'd been mid-curse when he fell. His eyes remained wide open, burning with the ghost of furious defiance.
Jim crouched beside him, slow and deliberate, boots crunching against shards of broken stone. He reached down and gripped the blades. They gave a sharp hiss as he wrenched them free, the heat searing against his calloused palms even through the hilts. The tips dragged free of ruined flesh with a wet, sticky sound that clung to the silence. Jim glanced once more at the boy's face before gently closing the lad's eyes with two rough fingers. The lids fell shut, but the fury lingered in the air like smoke.
"Didn't go easy," Jim muttered, voice rough. "Died like a bastard."
Emile stepped quietly up beside him, his own eyes fixed on the scene, lips pressed into a thin line. His knuckles were white where they clenched at his side.
"You know him?" Jim asked, barely glancing at him.
Emile shook his head. "No… I wish I did."
That earned a small, bitter smile from Jim — pride and sorrow tangled in his chest like old rope. His shoulders rose and fell once, a breath that carried more weight than air.
"Get used to that feeling, lad," Jim said, voice low. "Good ones always go quiet."
They stood a moment longer in the silence, the faint crackle of dying ember-blades the only sound in the stairwell. The heat bled slowly from the stone, leaving behind the chill of loss. Then Jim rose, spinning one of the blades in his hand before jamming it into his belt. The glow still pulsed faintly, like a coal refusing to die.
"Come on," he said, his voice carrying no softness now. "Let's make sure his wasn't for nothing."
Jim gave the lad one last glance. For a long, quiet moment, he stood still, the stairwell hushed save for the distant creak of the academy's bones and the faint buzz of unstable magic still clinging to the walls. He let the image of the boy burn itself into his mind — the scorched uniform, the ember-blades still hissing in the stone, and that defiant snarl frozen on his bloodied face.
No name. No glory. Just a final stand made by a boy who had no business being brave and every reason to run.
Jim didn't know him. But he'd remember him.
With a low exhale through his nose, Jim turned. No words passed his lips. None needed to. He simply started up the stairs, one heavy bootstep at a time, the ember blade now strapped to his belt like a vow carved in steel.
Jess followed next, her eyes scanning the shadows, face tight with grief held at bay, her jaw hard enough to crack stone. Emile brought up the rear, his hand brushing the wall for balance — not because he was tired, but because the silence weighed more than his legs could carry.
None of them spoke. There was nothing left to say.
Just a body behind them… and hell waiting above.

 

[Simonbob]

...... Given that Jim sabotaged the athletic games, the ones that kill, and now there's a Umbar invasion....

Which one's going to kill more people?



(Yes, I am a bit hung up on a athletic game with an expected body count, why do you ask?)

 

[Metel_Pen]

...... Given that Jim sabotaged the athletic games, the ones that kill, and now there's a Umbar invasion....

Which one's going to kill more people?



(Yes, I am a bit hung up on a athletic game with an expected body count, why do you ask?)

Click to shrink...

Lol yeah, at least the Umbar are honest about trying to kill them. Riordan calls it character building.

 

[Metel_Pen]

Jim delicately peered over the top of the final step, his back low, shoulders hunched like a predator ready to pounce. The staircase leading up to the faculty quarters was quiet—too quiet. His eyes scanned left and right, expecting to find Umbar waiting in ambush, or at the very least the aftermath of a fight. But the corridor was untouched. No scorch marks. No blood. No bodies. Nothing.
Jim frowned. That wasn't right.
He turned and gestured silently to Jess and Emile, then crept the rest of the way up, his boots making no more sound than a breath of wind. The others followed, their weapons drawn, nerves taut, every step pulled tighter by the hush of the place. Even the air felt wrong here, heavy, as if it knew what they were walking toward and wanted to press them back down the stairs.
They reached Plandorph's ornate wooden door—only it wasn't intact anymore.
Jim stopped dead. The door had been kicked in. Splinters clung to the hinges, the frame cracked like dry bone, and the faint smell of burnt resin hung in the air. The corridor beyond seemed to breathe faintly, the draft curling through the jagged break in the door like the exhale of some sleeping beast.
Jess noticed too. Her hands began to glow, faint purple tendrils of smoke curling upward from her fingertips as magic coiled instinctively around her fists. Her face had gone cold, set in the kind of still mask she wore when she was balancing on the edge of restraint. Emile, eyes wide, tightened his grip on his sword, knuckles pale beneath the strain, his other hand flexing uselessly at his side.
Jim edged forward, lowering his centre of gravity, and crept to the doorframe. He pressed himself to the side and peered through the jagged opening—knife raised and body braced. He waited. Listened. Sniffed. The corridor carried only the faint tang of smoke and the sour stench of fear-sweat.
Then, with a growl, he slammed his boot into the broken door and barged through, blade at the ready.
Jess was right behind him, Emile bringing up the rear like a loyal shadow. All three braced for violence.
But there was no ambush. No bloodbath. Just whimpering.
There, sprawled on the polished marble floor like a child left out in the storm, was Plandorph. His robes were rumpled and stained, one arm clutched tight to his chest, his face a wreck of tears, snot, and desperation. The grandeur of his chamber—silken drapes, shelves of books knocked askew, an ornate desk half-smashed in the struggle—only made his pitiful state look smaller, like a rat dragged into a king's hall.
Jim stepped over the debris and yanked him up by the collar. Plandorph cried out as his injured arm was jostled—there was a gash down his forearm and one finger twisted at an unnatural angle. His breath came in rapid, wheezing gulps, each one thick with panic.
"Ah! Th-thank all that is holy," Plandorph blubbered, spitting the words between sobs. "You're here—finally—you have to get me out! We—we must flee this place!"
Jim narrowed his eyes, searching the man's face. There was fear there, yes, but also something else. Panic like a man who knew exactly what was coming. Panic born of guilt, not just terror.
"Why?" Jim asked, his voice low, a blade all its own.
"They're going for it," Plandorph whispered hoarsely. His eyes darted to the corners of the room, as though expecting shadows to peel away into assassins. "They're going to try… to awaken it. They're going for the Chrysalis."
Jess's eyes widened as the weight of Plandorph's words settled in the air like ash after a fire. The glow around her fists pulsed once, sharp, then steadied into a cold light.
Emile froze in place, a look of confusion creeping across his face. "Wait... what do you mean it's here?" he asked, though a part of him already feared the answer.
Jim, however, didn't look shocked—just tired. A bitter chuckle slipped from his throat, dry as gravel.
"Of course it's the worst fuckin' one," Jim muttered to himself, shaking his head slowly. "Why wouldn't it be? Wouldn't be a proper shitshow otherwise."
Jess stepped forward, her tone sharp, each syllable like a dagger. "So… it's true. It's here? The Chrysalis?"
Plandorph gave a small, pathetic nod — like a guilty dog caught pissing on the carpet. "Yes. Beneath the eastern wing… sealed. Hidden. Forgotten, mostly." His lips quivered, his eyes glassy with tears he didn't have the strength to blink away.
Jim gave a long, slow exhale through his nose and turned toward the others, voice dripping with disdain. "I'm sure I've said this before, but why in all the gods-damned world did anyone think storing a bloody weapon of mass destruction under a school full of hormonal teenagers and half-arsed faculty was a good idea? Eh? Was the prison full that day? No old volcano lairs available?"
Jess didn't even smirk. Her eyes had gone cold, hard, fixed on Plandorph like a hawk about to strike. "And you just… gave them the location?" she asked, each word sharp and slow, as if trying to confirm the stupidity of it all.
Plandorph nodded again, more desperate this time. "They had ways — spells, enchantments — I didn't want to, but—"
"Spare me," Jim growled, cutting him off.
Jess's hands began to glow brighter, faint tendrils of violet smoke curling like snakes around her fingers. She was breathing slow, deliberate — the kind of breathing someone did right before doing something violent and permanent.
Jim noticed the tension in her stance and shifted slightly, placing one booted foot subtly between her and Plandorph. His knife stayed down, but his whole body said otherwise: one wrong move, and someone was going to bleed.
"Oi," he said quietly, not looking at her.
"You just gave it up," Jim said, shaking his head slowly, as though the words themselves tasted foul in his mouth.
He stared at Plandorph, but his mind wasn't in the room anymore — it was downstairs, back on that staircase. The boy. That red-haired lad who didn't even have a name Jim could recall. A lad who died with both ember-blades buried in his chest, defiance frozen on his face. He'd died buying them time… trying to stop what this snivelling excuse for a man had just handed over without so much as a struggle.
Jim breathed hard through his nose, chest rising with the weight of the moment. His jaw flexed as he fought back the growing urge to snap the bastard's neck. One swift motion. That's all it would take. He could almost hear the pop of bone, the wet crunch, the stillness that would follow.
But Jess's hands were already glowing, her eyes locked on Plandorph like a hawk that had just spotted a wounded rabbit. Her magic flared with barely contained wrath, purple smoke curling around her fingertips like eager serpents, hungry for blood.
"Save it," Jim said gruffly, stepping between them. His voice didn't rise, but the steel in it was unmistakable. "He'll get his."
Jess hesitated. Her breath came sharp through her nose, and for a moment, her hands pulsed brighter. But then she exhaled, slow and hard, letting the glow dim. She turned away, muttering something under her breath that sounded a lot like, "cowardly fucking weasel."
Jim turned back to Plandorph, who was still crumpled on the floor like a sack of spoiled meat. His robes were torn, his lip was bleeding, and his eyes darted like a cornered rat. He looked up at Jim with tear-streaked cheeks and a mouth that trembled with excuses that hadn't yet formed.
"You told them," Jim growled. "Now tell us how to get to it."
There was no rage in his voice now — just the cold, hard edge of duty. The sort of tone that promised consequences far worse than death if Plandorph even thought about lying again.
"Yes, yes!" Plandorph stammered, words tripping over each other in his panic. "You can get into the vault room through the Eastern Library — the mural on the wall! The door is the burning purple sun in the centre. If they've closed it, the password is... it's Istamel!"
He blurted it all out in a rush, each word practically thrown at them, driven by fear more than any sense of loyalty.
Jim gave a small nod. "That'll do."
Plandorph let out a sigh of relief, shoulders sagging, the fight draining from him like air from a punctured lung.
Then Jim stopped.
He turned back.
Without a word, he stepped forward and drove his fist straight into Plandorph's jaw. The crack of impact echoed in the silence, sharp and final. The old magister crumpled like a sack of wet grain, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Jess blinked once, then gave a sharp nod. "Fair."
Emile adjusted the grip on his sword. "He did have it coming," he said, deadpan.
Jim didn't say a word. He just stepped over the unconscious body and strode out of the room, boots thudding with purpose. His shadow stretched long across the marble, dark as the mood he carried with him.
Jess and Emile followed behind, one a storm cloaked in focus, the other a young fire still finding its shape.
The hunt was back on.
They worked their way through the school as swiftly and quietly as they could, boots padding over polished stone and worn rugs, weapons held tight and eyes scanning every shadow. The torches along the walls burned low, throwing jittering shapes that looked too much like waiting enemies.
The further they moved, the more the sounds of chaos surrounded them — distant screams, clashing steel, and magical detonations echoing through the ancient hallways like thunder rolling across a battlefield. Every boom rattled the windowpanes, every scream cut too close to the bone.
Every time they passed an open window, fresh fragments of the wider war played out before them: Emile caught flashes of wild fire arcing across the sky, brilliant and unnatural; the roar of dragons — deep, guttural, and primal — echoed off the far hills.
Jim paused beside one of the windows and looked out, squinting into the distance.
"The drakes have joined the fight," he murmured.
Jess peered past him. "That's Elmsley, then?"
"Aye," Jim said with a grim nod. "He must've set 'em loose."
They moved on, the floor rumbling ever so slightly beneath their boots as something massive bellowed outside — something with wings, claws, and a grudge.
Every step forward tightened the air around them. The school — once a place of learning and debate — now groaned under the weight of fire, blood, and war. Every hallway was a tomb waiting to close in, every stairwell a throat daring them to step inside.
It took another twenty minutes of careful movement through the war-torn corridors before they finally reached the entrance to the eastern library. The once-grand oak doors were little more than splinters now — jagged shards and charred fragments littered the marble floor like broken bones.
Jess knelt down, brushing her fingers over one of the fragments.
"Magic," she muttered, holding up a piece. Faint scorch marks ran along its edge, blackened and cracked. "Precision work. Focused blast."
"Looks recent," Emile said, drawing closer. His expression was tense, jaw set. He raised a finger to his lips, then pointed toward the shadowed gap where the door had once stood.
Jim nodded. He and Jess stilled, tuning their ears to the silence. At first, it seemed like nothing — just the faint hiss of distant wind and the occasional muffled thump of battle in some far-off part of the academy.
Then they heard it.
Soft. Rhythmic. Speech — just below a whisper — slipping through the air like a snake through grass.
Jim crept forward, slow and low, until he was beside the jagged edge of the doorframe. He pressed his shoulder against the wall and leaned in, tilting his head to listen harder.
The voices became clearer.
It was Umara — the native tongue of the Umbar — slow and slurred in that strange, song-like cadence the Night Dancers often used when they thought they had time to kill.
Jim closed his eyes for a second, focusing. He caught fragments — mentions of "the chrysalis," of "the threshold nearly open" — and the unmistakable tone of mocking confidence.
Two of them, he thought. Maybe more. Holding position. Guarding something they believe matters.
He shifted slightly, easing one eye around the splintered frame.
There. Ten yards inside the library, partially obscured by toppled shelves and fractured pillars, stood two Night Dancers. They were relaxed — not slouching, never that — but poised like cats curled just before a pounce. One had his back to the doorway, gesturing idly with an outstretched hand. The other sat atop a broken lectern, legs lazily dangling as he toyed with a blade that shimmered like oil under moonlight.
The library around them looked like a ruin — parchment shredded and scattered like dead leaves, the air thick with the smell of old vellum singed by fire. Shadows stretched long across the cracked marble floor, and every overturned chair or broken tome seemed to hold its breath.
Vault guards. No doubt about it.
Jim eased back, knife already drawn in his fist, and looked to Jess and Emile.
He didn't speak. He just nodded once, slow and deliberate.
Showtime.
Jim launched himself forward, boots hammering against the stone as he wheeled left. At the same instant, Emile darted right — the boy's movements sharp with desperation but just controlled enough to open a clean lane. The doorway stood clear, and Jess stepped into it with the poise of a blade unsheathed.
Her hands burned with violet light, arcs of raw power crawling up her forearms like living veins. With a sharp, cutting gesture, she loosed a bolt of sizzling energy. The air cracked, the smell of ozone biting at Jim's nose.
The streak of light tore across the chamber and struck the nearer of the two Night Dancers. One had the sense — or luck — to roll aside, shadows blurring around his frame. The other was too slow. The bolt hit square, punching a hole the size of a man's head through his chest. The dancer's body jerked once, a spray of scorched flesh filling the air, and then he dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.
The survivor came up low, directly in Jim's path.
Perfect.
Jim didn't hesitate. He snapped his little knife free, the battered steel glinting dull under Jess's fading glow. With a guttural growl he closed the distance, his left hand seizing the Night Dancer by the jaw, wrenching the head back. Their eyes flashed wide for an instant before Jim rammed the blade home.
Once. Twice. Thrice.
Each strike was fast, savage, and without ceremony — just meat and steel colliding in a rhythm Jim had carved into countless enemies before. The knife sank into the soft neck, hot blood spurting across his knuckles. The dancer clawed weakly at Jim's wrist, nails scraping but without strength.
On the third plunge, the body gave a shudder and let out a thin, pitiful whine — like a wounded dog begging for mercy that wasn't coming. Jim bared his teeth and drove the blade in a final inch deeper, until the resistance broke.
Then he shoved the corpse away, letting it thud unceremoniously onto the cold floor.
"Next step," Jim muttered, wiping his knife on the dead man's cloak. The blood smeared dark across the threadbare fabric, already drying to rust. His chest rose and fell like a forge bellows, the smell of copper and burnt cloth clinging to his skin.
Emile sucked in a breath, chest still heaving from the fight. He pointed at the open passage yawning in the centre of the chamber. "Down that tunnel, I guess. Just like Plandorph said."
Jim sniffed, then lifted a hand to hold them back. He rummaged through the folds of his wax coat and fished out a battered hip flask, the brass dented and blackened from too many years and too many wars. He unscrewed the lid, the smell of cheap Highland whiskey bleeding into the damp air, and took a slow swig. The burn chased the taste of blood from his tongue, cutting through the copper tang still heavy in his mouth.
"There's no tellin' how many of those genocidal bastards are down there," he said, voice flat as a shovel blade. He passed the flask to Emile.
The lad raised it with shaky hands, tried a swig, and instantly regretted it. His face contorted, throat working like he'd swallowed hot coals, and he bent over with a half-wretch before managing to choke it down. Eyes streaming, he croaked, "Smooth."
Jim snorted, one corner of his mouth twitching despite the blood drying on his cheek. "Aye. First sip always is."
Jim almost smiled. Almost. The faint twitch at the corner of his mouth vanished as quickly as it had come, buried under the weight of smoke, blood, and stone pressing down on them from every side.
Emile shoved the flask at Jess. She took it without a word, tilted her head back, and drained a mouthful like she'd been doing it all her life. Her throat worked once, twice, then she lowered it with a sharp hiss through her teeth. For a heartbeat, the violet glow of her magic flickered faintly across her knuckles, like even the whiskey was fuel. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I know," she said, voice flat but steady. "But we can't wait. We need to go in. We need to try."
Jim raised the flask again, took another gulp that bit like an old enemy, and screwed the cap shut with a slow, deliberate twist. "Aye, lass. We do. That's all we can do." His eyes lingered on the passage ahead — a mouth of stone yawning wide, dark as a grave.
Emile shrugged when they both looked at him. His shoulders lifted like he was trying to act casual, but the grip on his sword gave him away. "I think we've done pretty good just by trying." His voice wobbled, but there was a kind of stubborn pride under it.
For a beat, the silence held. Only the whisper of air through the broken masonry moved, cool and damp against their faces. Then Jim snorted, shaking his head. "Aye, lad. We did. So shall we see how far we can push our luck, eh?"
Jess gave the barest nod. Emile followed with a nervous bob of the head, the movement too fast, too eager, like a boy trying to convince himself he wasn't afraid.
Jim smirked. "Fuck it."
He turned and stepped into the passageway. His boots echoed against the stone, each step heavy as a drumbeat, the sound rolling forward into the dark. The tunnel seemed to swallow them one by one, torchlight fading, the air colder with every pace until the school above felt like a memory already slipping away.

 

[Simonbob]

I think Emile's going to be more interesting after this one than most will see.

Unless he gets recruted by Jess, of course.

 

[Metel_Pen]

They worked their way down the moist, musky stairs, boots scuffing against slick stone that glistened faintly in the half-light. Water dripped from somewhere unseen above, each drop echoing down the shaft in a hollow tick, tick, tick that chewed at the silence. The air pressed close, thick and stale, and tasted faintly of mould and old iron. Every breath seemed to carry grit with it, lodging on the tongue.
Jim led the way, slow and deliberate. Every step was measured, his weight spread evenly, hand brushing the wall as if feeling for the pulse of the place itself. He breathed slow and steady, the way he'd trained himself long ago — keep the lungs even, keep the heart from racing, keep the mind from chewing itself to bits. His boots rolled heel to toe without a sound. He kept his shoulders loose, back low, head tilted just enough to hear past the drip of water and the soft scrape of their boots.
The unknown was the real enemy. He'd learnt that two decades ago, and it hadn't stopped being true. Didn't matter what you were facing — golems with fists like anvils, hordes of mud-crawlers boiling up from the ground, or a pack of basilisks snapping the air into stone. If you knew what you were walking into, you could plan. You could prepare. You could steady yourself, sharpen your edge, and get the job done, no matter how ugly it was.
But when no one knew? That was the real horror. Not the fight, not the blood — the waiting. The uncertainty. The way the mind filled in the blanks with teeth and shadows. That's what broke soldiers. That's what chewed you hollow from the inside until you were already half-dead before the first blade was drawn.
So Jim didn't let himself dwell on it. Didn't let the unknown gnaw. He kept his breathing level, his eyes on the stair, his ears tuned to the steady footfalls behind him. He focused on Emile, lanky and nervous but holding the line, knuckles pale around his sword hilt but never loosening. On Jess, silent and sharp, her hands twitching faint sparks in the dark like she was rehearsing every possible spell she might need, every countermove for the enemies she pictured waiting below. And on Aualine, who wasn't here, but was. Always was.
Gods, I hope she's alright, Jim thought, jaw tightening. That dragon had a better head on her shoulders than half the faculty combined. If anyone could keep them tethered when the world went sideways, it was her.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, tasting the damp and letting it settle on his tongue. "One step at a time," he muttered under his breath, to himself more than anyone. And then he kept going.
It was only fifty steps, give or take, but it might as well have been five thousand. Each one dragged like lead, and the stairwell itself felt endless — a tunnel into the earth that narrowed with every breath. By the time Jim's boots hit level ground again, his knees ached and his breath came out in a long, steady hiss through his nose. His shoulders rolled, loosening the tension before it could take hold.
That's when he caught it — faint, but there. A dull thud from above. Not a crash, not stone falling, but a steady, deliberate rhythm. One beat every minute or so. Like a heart. Like something waiting.
He froze for half a breath, head cocked, counting the space between one thud and the next. His jaw clenched as he mapped the rhythm in his head, listening for a pattern. Then he shoved it down. Note it. Park it. Deal with what's in front of you. He muttered under his breath, "Focus now, old man. You've got a job to do."
Emile and Jess stepped off the stair behind him, boots crunching softly on grit. Their shadows stretched long against the cavern floor, twisting into strange shapes that looked bigger than they were.
Jim let his eyes adjust. The place was massive — a cavern hollowed out like the belly of some buried beast. The ceiling stretched up into shadow, where the occasional pinprick of moonlight slipped through cracks and scattered across slick stone. The air was cool and carried the faint tang of moss and old water, sharp and metallic on the nose. Their breath plumed faintly, barely visible in the shifting dark.
Straight ahead, maybe two hundred yards off, torchlight shimmered. Not just torchlight — the pale shimmer of arcane wards too, bands of faint colour bending the dark like heat above coals. Dozens of dark-shrouded figures moved in and out of the glow, their shapes restless, like a colony of ants around spilled sugar. Their movements were wrong, stretched by the ward-light, limbs bending at angles that looked more shadow than flesh.
Jim's jaw set. He kept his breath even and shifted his gaze left. A scatter of rocky outcrops jutted from the cavern wall — cover. Good enough to get closer without being seen, if they kept low and quiet.
Jess's voice was low, sharp as a whispering blade. "You see what I see?"
"Aye, lass," Jim said, eyes narrowing. He nodded toward the rocks. "Let's get a better look."
He crouched, every movement deliberate, and slipped toward the outcrop with Jess and Emile close behind, the weight of the cavern pressing down on all three of them.
Jim eased himself up against one of the jagged rocks, chest rising slow as he steadied his breath. He peered out over the cavern, eyes narrowing against the torch and ward-light that shimmered across the stone.
There she was. Alexa.
She stood on a raised slab of rock like it was her pulpit, arms stretched high over something that glowed faintly in front of her — a lump of amber the size of a man's head. The light inside it pulsed, dull and steady, like a heart that hadn't quite decided if it wanted to beat.
Her eyes were wild, shining with zeal, sweat streaking down her forehead to drip off her chin. Each syllable she chanted cracked against the cavern walls, punched out with manic fervour. The air thrummed with her voice, the words sharp enough that Jim's teeth ached with each one.
Boom.
A crunching thud rolled through the cavern roof, a deep, deliberate echo that made dust sift down from the stone above. Jim's gaze flicked up in spite of himself — and he noticed he wasn't the only one. A handful of the night dancers glanced skyward too, their shadowed faces uncertain.
Huh, Jim thought. Even they don't know what's causing it.
He grit his teeth and pulled his attention back to where it mattered. Stow it, Jim. Focus.
Jess crouched at his shoulder, eyes narrowed. "What's going on?" she whispered.
"They've got some kind of amber thing," Jim muttered back, his voice low and rasped like gravel dragged across steel, "and they're chanting over it like gods know what." His eyes stayed locked on the pulsing light in the centre, jaw clenching as though the sight alone had teeth.
Jess rubbed her temples, jaw tight enough that the muscle jumped. "Fuck," she whispered, breath hot in the cold air. "They've already got it."
"Fuck," Emile echoed, barely louder than breath, as if saying it louder might make it truer. His knuckles whitened on the hilt of his blade.
Another thundering boom rolled through the cavern, shaking grit loose in soft showers. The sound grew heavier this time, more insistent, like the cavern itself was being tapped by something immense and patient. Dust cascaded from cracks overhead, fine as flour, ghosting down onto their shoulders.
"So what do we do now?" Emile asked, voice cracking on the last word despite his effort to hold it steady. He looked from Jess to Jim, searching for an answer in faces that had already seen too much.
Jim scanned the cavern again, eyes sweeping from torchlight to shadow. They were tucked into the farthest edge of the rocky outcropping, hidden for the moment. But if they wanted a closer look, they'd have to cross a wide patch of open stone — and that, Jim knew, would be suicide if the dancers were paying attention.
His jaw clenched. Options were running short.
He dropped back against the rock, sitting with a grunt that rattled up his ribs. From inside his coat he pulled the battered flask again, unscrewing the cap with hands steadier than they had any right to be. He took a deep swallow, the whiskey biting down his throat like liquid fire, then let out a low breath through his nose, slow and even.
Boom.
This time, the cavern roof itself answered. A chunk of stone the size of a wagon wheel split free and crashed down into the dark, shattering into a spray of dust and echoes. Night dancers hissed and shifted uneasily, their cloaks twitching like disturbed wings, but Alexa's chanting didn't falter for a heartbeat.
Jim wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes still fixed on that pulsing amber. His voice dropped to a growl. "I don't know, lad."
Boom.
Another thud rolled down from the cavern roof — but this time it wasn't just stone splitting and crashing to the floor. There was something else in the echo, a deeper resonance buried under the noise. A sound that didn't belong, something that prickled skin and crawled cold down the spine.
Emile froze mid-breath. His whole body went rigid, head tilting slightly as though he could catch the thread of it better if he stayed perfectly still. His eyes widened, and then, slowly, a smile broke across his face — an odd, fevered thing.
"We… we need to stall them," he stammered, words spilling out uneven and urgent. "We need to buy time."
Jess and Jim both turned to stare at him, squinting like he'd just grown another head. Jess's brows knotted into a scowl; Jim's eyes narrowed, weighing the lad in silence.
Emile's gaze darted between them, urgency sharpening his tone. "Trust me. We need to do it now." His hands twitched as though gripping a bowstring no one else could see.
For a long moment, only the hiss of Alexa's chanting and the faint drip of water filled the air.
Then Jim exhaled through his nose, unscrewed the battered flask again, and drained the last burning mouthful. The whiskey hit like a hammer, and he welcomed the fire in his chest, the warmth that steadied the shake in his hands. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and lowered the flask.
"Aye, lad," he said, voice flat but steady. "I do trust you."
He pushed himself upright, joints clicking like old hinges, and turned to Jess. "Cover me, lass."
Before she could answer, Jim stepped out from behind the rocky outcrop. His boots crunched against the stone, echoing louder than they should have in the cavern's vast silence. He didn't creep, didn't crouch. He walked — no, he swaggered — straight toward the circle of night dancers, shoulders squared and chin set like he owned the ground. His wax coat swung with each stride, heavy and defiant.
Jess and Emile could only watch, half in horror and half in awe, as the old groundskeeper strode alone into the heart of the enemy.
Another boom rattled the cavern — closer now, the rhythm tightening. Dust sifted down in pale streams and chunks of stone clattered off the cavern floor. Jim didn't so much as flinch. He just swaggered past the falling rocks, coat brushing against jagged stone, boots crunching with each deliberate step, eyes fixed on Alexa as though she were the only thing in the world.
"Oi!" Jim barked, voice carrying like a whip-crack across the stone. None of the night dancers moved. Their hoods swayed, but no one turned.
"OI!" he roared again, a parade-ground bellow sharpened by twenty years of soldiering. The cavern carried it, bouncing it back off the stone like thunder.
That did it. Alexa's chanting faltered, the manic cadence breaking apart mid-syllable. Slowly, her head turned, and with her the rest of the hooded cabal shifted, dozens of shadowed faces swivelling toward him.
"What are you mental pricks doing?" Jim said, still swaggering forward like he was on his way to the mess hall. His knife glinted faintly in one hand, lazy but ready.
The first answer came in the form of several darts of searing energy, shrieking out of the circle and smashing into the ground around him. Stone spat up in glowing shards, the air hot and acrid with the stink of burnt minerals.
Jim stopped, dead still. He spat to his side, a thick, wet sound that echoed louder than it should have in the hush. Then he looked up, eyes narrowing into a cold burn.
"Oi," he said again, calmer this time, but heavier, like a weight dropped onto the cavern floor. "I said—what the fuck are you doing?"
Alexa stared at him, her face pale in the torchlight, surprise etched across it. But slowly, inevitably, the surprise curled into amusement. A sly smile tugged at her lips as she tilted her head, her voice unbroken but low.
"Oh," she drawled, her words dragging with that warped Umbar cadence, stretched thin like oil across water. Her voice seemed to vibrate through the cavern, low and mocking, every syllable heavy with venom. "It's the dear groundskeeper. Jim, was it? How in all the forgotten worlds did you find yourself here?" Her eyes shone pale in the torchlight, sharp as knives, amused as if this were all some grand joke only she understood.
Jim smirked, tilting his chin up just a fraction. The look wasn't big, wasn't showy — just a twitch of the mouth, the kind of smile that came before trouble. "Truth told, lass, it wasn't that hard. You left a trail even a half-sober woodsman could follow." His voice carried like gravel rolling across tin. He let the words hang for a beat, heavy as an axe poised to drop, before adding, almost casually, "And those guards you left outside? I brained 'em with my shovel."
The smirk sharpened into something feral, and he gave a little shrug, as if killing trained killers was no more remarkable than digging a ditch. "Guess you'll have to hire better help."
Jess's eyes flicked to Emile's, her whisper sharp and panicked, breath steaming in the cold air. "What the fuck is he doing?"
Emile didn't blink. His lips moved like he'd only just found the words. "He's buying time," he said simply — though there was awe in his voice, as if he couldn't quite believe the old man had walked out there just to spit in the devil's eye. His fingers tightened unconsciously on his sword hilt, knuckles whitening.
Alexa's smirk widened as she spat back across the cavern. Her hands drifted over the pulsing amber like a priestess over an altar. "And what do you think you're doing, Jim? Reliving your lost glory days by acting the fool? Trying to hold back the inevitable with your little knife and your drunken swagger?" She spread her arms wide, the amber pulsing at her feet in rhythm with her words. "This land rots under pompous pretence and hollow glamour. It needs a change of management… someone who can bring out its full potential."
Jim raised one bushy eyebrow. His voice stayed calm, steady, almost bored, though his eyes burned under the weight of memory. "Huh. I've seen what your lot calls 'management.' It doesn't bring out potential. It mechanises slaughter. Turns fields into charnel pits. Turns children into fodder. That's not potential. That's just Umbar."
Alexa's lips parted to retort, but Jim's hand came up, cutting her off sharp as a blade. His shoulders didn't shift, his boots stayed planted, but his voice gained a growl that sank deep into the stone. "Tell me something. Did you kill the lad out by the paddock?"
She hesitated — just a heartbeat — then gave the barest nod, a cruel tilt of the chin that landed heavier than any boast.
Boom.
Another smash rolled through the cavern roof, shaking dust and splinters of stone loose. Fine grit rained down, settling in Jim's hair and beard like ash.
"Why?" Jim asked, voice like gravel dragged across iron.
Alexa tilted her head, eyes bright with sick amusement, her grin widening as though the memory tasted sweet. "He noticed the way I cooked bread rolls. The Umbar way. A smidge of spice. He was sharper than he looked."
Boom.
"You could've lied," Jim said flatly. His hand twitched near the hilt of the ember blades at his belt. "He was just a boy. You could've lied."
He let the silence sit like a knife edge before he spoke again, words dropping like stones into water. "And the cook?"
Alexa's smile didn't waver. "I needed someone to draw the eyes away from me." Her voice was cold, empty of remorse, not even pretending to justify it.
Boom.
Jim's jaw worked, the muscle twitching like a hammer under the skin. His thumb brushed the worn grip of the ember blades tucked in his belt. His eyes narrowed to a slit. "And the lad above us?" he asked quietly, almost gently, though the air around the words was sharp enough to cut.
Alexa's grin sharpened, eyes glinting with cruel humour. "That?" She gave a small shrug. "I did that for fun. Never did like gingers."
BOOM.
This time the cavern roof didn't just tremble — it cracked. A jagged fissure split through the stone overhead, groaning like ancient bones about to snap. Dust and shards rained down, stinging against Jim's coat, pattering against his boots.
And buried in the noise of the breaking stone, Jim heard it — a roar. Not just any roar. A sound he knew down to his marrow. Aualine.
A slow smile tugged across his weathered face, grim and fierce. "Your pies were shit," he said, almost conversational, as his arm snapped forward.
The knife spun end over end, glinting once in the torchlight before it buried itself in Alexa's shoulder. She reeled back with a shriek, the amber pulsing wildly at her feet, her blood dark against the stone.
Then the roof gave way.
Stone exploded downward as Aualine smashed her way through, wings snapping wide, her roar filling the cavern like thunder wrapped in fire. Night dancers stumbled, cloaks whipping in the gale of her descent. The amber's glow faltered under the sheer force of her presence, shadows trembling against the walls.
Jess rose from the outcrop in one smooth motion, hands blazing with violet fire. She unleashed bolt after bolt, each strike tearing through the dark, slamming into the cabal. Shadows shrieked as figures toppled under the storm of energy, their death cries swallowed by dragonfire.
And Emile — wide-eyed, heart hammering — didn't hesitate. He charged headlong down the slope, sword flashing in the broken light. His boots skidded on loose grit, his breath raw in his throat, but he bellowed wordlessly as he crashed into the night dancers, steel meeting flesh, his strike carrying all the fury of fear turned to courage.
Jim just kept walking forward, calm as a man on his way to market, the chaos of dragonfire, sorcery, and steel exploding around him like a storm he'd already weathered a hundred times before. His eyes never left Alexa.

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

Oh. Oh she real dead. No mercy for such a woman, to hate the gingers so.

 

[Simonbob]

Ok.

Now, that, is Aura Farming.


There's Gods out there, writhing in envy of his sheer, impossible Balls.


Even Alexa's looking for hate-sex right now.