Throughout the grueling duration of the mission, the sentries had remained tethered to the young magis's every command, none more so than the hardened Farvin men who had been granted a most intimate, terrifying vantage point.
These border-fortress sentries had encountered many a magis in their long years of service—men of high birth and even higher arrogance—yet there was something singularly peculiar about this young man that set him apart from the rest. Their conviction was not born of scrolls or reputation, but forged in the searing heat of that hellish, obsidian-piercing pillar of flame they had beheld with their own eyes.
Initially, when they'd heard the villagers' tall tales regarding the young magis from the Sanctum, they had met them with a heavy, healthy dose of scepticism, dismissing them as the exaggerations of simple folk. But having witnessed that demonic spire of fire firsthand, no amount of denial from Seraph could ever unmake the truth of the celestial violence they had seen.
The young magis had waged his private war against the goblin horde throughout the entire span of the night. The struggle had been so intense it seemed to churn the very heavens, bleeding the obsidian clouds into a visceral, bruised crimson.
At long last, the sun ascended to herald the dawn, its light a welcome reprieve. The thick, scarlet mists had since dissipated into the ether, and golden shafts of light began to pierce through the towering, ancient canopy. The forest air mellowed with a newfound, honeyed warmth as the lesser creatures of the wild—those who had hidden in terror through the night—ventured forth to greet the new day.
After the night's long and bloody tribulations, the sentries beheld the lone magis emerging from the cave's yawning maw.
The young man strode forth, the gilded sunlight catching his frame until he seemed to radiate an ethereal, almost divine glow. His silver tresses billowed in the morning breeze about a countenance etched with a fierce, unyielding conviction, while his heterochromatic eyes shimmered with the cold brilliance of distant, dying stars. It became the indelible, haunting image by which the Arkflame sentries would forever remember a certain magis—the one who had walked into the dark and brought back the light.
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Seraph hauled the heavy goblin carcass from the lightless depths of the cavern, the sound of flesh dragging against stone echoing in the quiet morning. Though the creature was not immense in stature, it possessed the cumbersome, dense weight of a wild warthog. Had he not bolstered his physical might with a subtle surge of mageia, he doubted he could've even hoisted a single, gnarled limb of the beast.
The young magis cast the mangled remains before Maldrin's feet with a heavy, wet thud.
The commander and his men had stood utterly agape, their breaths hitching since the moment they'd witnessed the young man dragging the beast single-handedly from the absolute dark. It was a display of raw, casual power that made their own weapons feel like toys.
"What's its condition?" Seraph demanded, his voice a low rasp, his gaze locked onto Maldrin's startled face.
The sentry commander snapped to attention instantly, his military discipline momentarily overridden by a merchant's greed. His eyes seemed to transform into glinting gold coins, his mind becoming a high-functioning engine of frantic calculation. The other sentries swarmed the goblin remains with a predatory, scavenging interest, grasping immediately the mountain of wealth Seraph intended to convey.
"This... this'll certainly fetch a price, My Lord!" Maldrin assessed the prize with the keen, watery eye of a merchant. "Though the carcass is marred by the fire, it should command six to eight parts of its full value, depending on how hard we squeeze the guild-masters!"
"I'll grant you the right to auction every last goblin carcass," Seraph's tone was cold, leaving no room for a counter-offer. "There are approximately a hundred remains within that valley. The asking price is yours to dictate, but it must not—under any circumstance—fall beneath sixty silver coins apiece. I require half of the total proceeds for myself. The remainder you'll distribute amongst your men. Do we have an accord?"
"An accord it is! By the Goddess, yes!" Maldrin exclaimed, his delight nearly uncontainable.
The Commander looked as though he might leap with joy, while his subordinates looked on with unconcealed, burning envy. Though they'd receive their fair dues, Maldrin, by virtue of his rank and his role as negotiator, would inevitably pocket the lion's share of the gold.
A sentry's typical wage hovered at a mere forty silver coins a month—a pittance for risking one's life. A pristine Mirkcap carcass fetched roughly two gold coins, whilst a goblin's remains usually garnered ninety silver coins on a good day.
Even with the specimens marred and scorched, the sale of a hundred goblins stood to yield a staggering fifty-four to seventy-two gold coins. From this, Maldrin might secure ten to twenty-five gold coins for himself—a sum that could easily triple if he peddled the more exotic parts through the illicit channels of the black market.
It was a fortune that even some lesser nobles might never see in their coffers; a wealth that common soldiers could not hope to amass in ten lifetimes of service. Yet, Seraph had effectively handed this mountain of gold to Maldrin without so much as a second thought. It was little wonder the men burned with a quiet jealousy.
"And what of the Vespass remains, My Lord?" Maldrin inquired, his voice dropping to a cautious, reverent whisper.
Though he harboured a secret, gnawing hunger to seize the Vespass share entirely, he knew better than to succumb to such blatant greed in the presence of a man who could summon pillars of fire. It was a treacherous line he dared not cross.
"I require no share of those proceeds," Seraph stated with absolute, biting clarity. "I'm well aware the Vespass remains retain some value, yet given they're scorched and mangled beyond recognition, they demand extensive restoration—flaying the charred hide, shearing the burnt fur, and discarding the ruined offal. You possess the manpower, and you can conscript the townsfolk for additional labour. Managing such a bloody mess should be no hardship for a man of your ambition, but I wish for no part in it. My interest lies solely in the spoils within the valley."
"Understood, My Lord! Perfectly understood!" Maldrin replied, his countenance radiant with a shameless avarice.
"There are roughly a hundred carcasses within the hollow. The life has been utterly, violently extinguished. You may begin the recovery at once."
"However... we must surely wait for the tunnel to cool a degree or two," Maldrin noted with a trace of hesitation, wiping sweat from his brow just from standing near the entrance.
A king's ransom lay scattered within that dark throat, and Maldrin burned with the desire to seize it. Yet, lacking the protective mageia that Seraph commanded, his men could not yet brave the sweltering, oxygen-deprived swelter of the cavern.
"Litter the floor with sand, gravel, or timber debris," Seraph advised, his voice flat. "It'll insulate the heat and prevent your boots from liquefying. That way, you can tread through the swelter and reach the valley floor without a second's delay."
"Brilliant! Lads! Execute the Magister's orders immediately! Move it!" Maldrin bellowed.
At his word, the Farvin sentries scrambled to obey with a frantic energy they usually reserved for fleeing demons. Once a thick layer of gravel carpeted the tunnel, the heat remained biting and fierce against their soles, yet it proved no obstacle for men of their rugged, iron constitution.
Throughout the arduous, stomach-turning transport of the remains, Seraph remained tethered to the unit. He stood as a silent, watchful sentinel, guarding their flank and priming himself should the Kogoblin—or something worse—return from the dark to exact a bloody vengeance.
The young magis frequently exerted his mageia to scour the surrounding woodland and golden meadows, his senses extended like invisible webs, yet he found not so much as a shadow of another demon lurking in the brush. The massacre had been absolute.
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Seraph departed for Sanctus immediately, choosing not to linger for the tedious proceeds of the goblin trade. The auctioning of a hundred demon carcasses was an insufferably dull affair, filled with the stench of death and the droning voices of greedy middle-men.
To secure a superior price, the remains required meticulous, painstaking cleansing; charred, black flesh had to be shorn away, and the gnarled goblin cloaks—along with other salvageable components like teeth and claws—needed to be separated to maximise their market value. The labyrinthine process of preparing the wares, negotiating with oily merchants, and finalizing the transactions was a burdensome drain on his already limited time.
Thus, the young magis chose to return to the citadel, delegating the entire, grimy operation to Maldrin, with the strict, final instruction that half of the total revenue be delivered to the Sanctus Sanctum the moment the last coin was counted.
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