Evolution: A Warlock’s Rise To Power

Lucan meet Silent in the fortress; he had just finished speaking to the tailor and making arrangements for what he would wear to his in-game wedding. The tailor, who went by the name Quick Stitch, ensured Lucan he also made wonderful dresses but was turned down by Silent. Her sister had already gotten the best tailor from the Cloud Saint Guild to work on her wedding dress.

"If you don't have anything to do, we can go look for a place to hold our wedding." Lucan suggested. "I already sent Super to go investigate the new city I received."

"Actually, Heaven told me that Tigereye has been trying to get a hold of you ever since you displayed your portals in the fight with the Plague Baron."

Lucan frowned. "Why didn't he contact me and instead went through you?"

"People who don't have a free companion class slot can't contact you, and she said that he sent you a friend request several times. Did he not?"

"Umm…" Lucan embarrassedly scratched his head. "You are the only person on my friends list. Ever since I have been taking in player acolytes, I have been getting a lot of requests. I have just been ignoring them. I honestly haven't even opened the tab in months. The number got stuck at 99+ for a while now."

Silent laughed. "You can't get mad at him when you don't open your mail."

Lucan blushed and searched for the name Tigereye and accepted the friend request.

Almost instantly, Tigereye sent a message.

[Tigereye: Is it true that you can open a portal for others to go to any realm?]

[Lucan Quilldrake: For the right price.]

[Tigereye: And you really mean any realm? Like the beast lands for instance.]

[Lucan Quilldrake: That is no problem.]

[Tigereye: Is there a way for us to come and go? An alternative to paying you every time and then using return scrolls.]

[Lucan Quilldrake: I can provide a semi-permanent transportation system for an additional fee.]

[Tigereye: Semi-permanent?]

[Lucan Quilldrake: If you piss me off, I will destroy it.]

[Tigereye: I don't plan to piss you off, but it will be hard to get the corporate executives to approve a payment when the continued use relies on a player with the moniker the Baron of Insanity. Is there any way to make the access permanent?]

[Lucan Quilldrake: Sure, get someone to become my acolyte and buy the Shadow Tunnel spell. It links two gates with a tunnel, even if they are in different realms.]

[Tigereye; When can you meet in person? If we can agree to terms I would want to travel as soon as you are able to open a portal.]

[Lucan Quilldrake: Send me some coordinates and I will head that way.]

"Looks like we got some money to make." Lucan said, then filling Silent in on the conversation.

"Oh, exciting. You have your first customer for the Quilldrake travel agency." She said with a chuckle.

"What kind of price should we ask for. Money, gold, treasure, influence? Any ideas?"

"We can take whatever you like." She said.

Lucan was surprised when he saw the coordinates. It was in the material realm, but not to far from his current location.

"Let's take the ship so we can make a good entrance."

"Do you think I should bring a bunch of guards to make us look good?" Lucan asked.

"Let's not, Tigereye controls the fourth largest guild. Their NPCs may make ours look bad, I think it would be better to come ourselves. Oh, oh, oh, I know, we can hang out on the ship after we park it above them and just send down illusions. I recently enhanced my connection with Queenie. I can use my daily ability through her."

"Ah, nice, that is a good idea. We can take them back on the ship into the ethereal realm to show off and then portal them to the beast lands. When they get on the ship, we can dissolve the illusions once they see us lounging around and act like, "This is so bothersome.". Wouldn't that be fun?"

"It's perfect." Silent said happily. "Let me just grab some supplies form the market to make it even better.

When she returned, Lucan opened a portal to the ethereal realm. His ship was parked on the yellow river where their fortress would be if it was the shadow realm. Lucan and Silent boarded before taking off.

Tigereye wasn't far at all. After sailing for half an hour, they approached a location close to the Tigereye's guild.

***

"Tigereye, can we really trust this warlock to take the guild where it needs to go?" An executive asked.

"From what I have learned about Lucan, I would consider him trustworthy. To be safe, we will only send a party of five before we get the shadow tunnel set up."

"Alright, I guess that is the best we can do. But you need to take every precaution possible. This is a legendary quest we are talking about. This news absolutely can't leak out. If you all can complete it, we have a chance to reach the number one guild position."

"Yes, I am aware of what success can bring. But everyone needs to be careful. From what I know, if you treat his leveling partner, Silent Night, badly in anyway, we will become lifelong enemies with the warlock."

"Okay." The Guild manager said. "I will inform the others to not cause any problems."

*Crack* *Shatter*

"He is here." Said Tigereye, hearing the familiar noise.

He walked outside with the others to see a yellow river flowing through the air, outside of the city. A ship sailed out of the crack in space and dropped anchor near the city walls.

***

Lucan and Silent were surprised by the size of the city. This was a true metropolis that spanned miles. It made Cloud Saint City look like a little village.

Lucan, Silent, Queeny, and Adrestia were led into a meeting room in the guild headquarters.

"Lucan Quilldrake, it is nice to see you again. You must be-."

Lucan cut off Tigereye. "My fiancé, let's get down to business. Where do you want to go?"

"My guild wants to go to the beast lands. We are interested in taming pets and might get into the pet sales business."

"That's fine, but you don't have to tell me your reason, lying to me is worse than saying nothing." Lucan said.

The Guild Manger's face flushed, but Tigereye didn't react.

"How much would it cost to open a portal here?"

Lucan looked around the room using his passive ethereal vision to gaze into the beast lands. "I would advise against it." Lucan said then pointing to the far wall. "400 feet that way is a swamp drake, a pretty big one. You probably don't want to appear here."

"Okay, let me rephrase then. How much would it cost for you to open a portal where it is safe on the other side?"

"Hmm, let me think." Lucan said with a grin that was similar to Raze's when he eyed a big bag of money.

'Hey Lucan, we need more mithril for Aniketos, if we rely on him to produce mithril to repair his wing it will take at least a month.'

Lucan nodded and they got down to negotiations.

In the end, he sold his services for half a ton of mithril and 500,000 dollars. From the price they were wiling to pay, Lucan could tell that they had an important reason to go to the beast lands, but he didn't care enough to fish for answers.

"Deal." Said Tigereye as he shook Lucan's telekinetic hand.

"When you are ready, meet us at my ship, I need to depart within the hour."

"That is no problem." Tigereye said. "Everyone is ready to go and we have already cast the first half of the shadow tunnel spell."

"Then let's go."

Lucan and Silent headed out of the city with Tigereye and his party of five.

When they drew near the ship floating in the air, a rowboat began to descend to the ground. As it got closer, Tigereye and the others could see that the boat was floating on the backs of several ghosts.

"Okay, everybody on." Lucan said as he and Silent boarded.

When the rowboat was full it began to float back towards the ship. It floated to the side of the railing to reveal Lucan and Silent laying out in lounge chairs on the deck. A ghost was peeling an orange for Silent while several others where using fans to keep them cool.

"Hmm, you are finally here." Lucan said while sitting up.

He waved his hand and the two illusions in the rowboat collapse into shadow.

"Come on, we don't have all day." Lucan said as he hurried them onto the boat.

Lucan went to the wheelhouse while the others stood on the deck, admiring the floating ship and the ghostly sailors.

"Raise the anchor, set the sails." Silent called out.

The ghost's followed her orders and the ship began to sail towards the crack in space. Tigereye and his companion braced for a bumpy transition as the ship began to poke through the portal.

With a brief sucking sensation, the scenery changed to that of the ethereal realm.

With perfect luck, a group of flying abominations passed by.

Upon seeing the flock of featherless birds with beaks filled with sharp teeth, Tigereye and the others drew their weapons.

Silent let out a chuckle. "Don't worry, no abomination is brave enough to venture within 100 feet of the yellow river."

A ghost took over steering the ship while Lucan returned to the others. He only needed to use his ethereal power to get the ship moving. The others could handle it from there.