Evolution: A Warlock’s Rise To Power

Gerald ran out from the tree line like he was running for his life. He turned backwards while holding up a sword and slowly backing away, he kept his attention on the edge of the clearing.

A large furry creature walked out of the tree line on four legs. The fel-bear eyes its target and let out a mighty roar that shook the surrounding forest before snarling and heading towards Gerald.

There was another roar, as a second fel-bear walked out of the tree line, opposite the first, with the man between the two bears.

Gerald looked panic as he shifted his gaze between the first and the second fel-bear. In his eyes, one could see helplessness and unwillingness.

"You damn bears! Even if you eat me, I will come back as a ghost and haunt you. I will not be silenced easily!" The man shouted before charging at the bear closest to him.

The bear responded by swinging its large claw, trying to swipe at Gerald. The man dodged and rolled under the swipe.

Before he could get back to his feet, the second bear pounced on him. Its jaws tightened around Gerald's leg. With a tug, Gerald was turned over. The bear shook him back and forth while the other Fel-bear reared back on two legs.

When it came down, it bit onto Gerald's neck. Blood sprayed out, painting to fur of the bear's and the nearby grass.

The bears started to take large bites out of him after he died.

"Cut!!" Yelled the director with a satisfied expression.

Lucan and the real Gerald stepped out of the tree line with he men who were remotely controlling the cameras.

"Not bad, not bad at all." Gerald said after watching the scene. "These illusions make things pretty easy."

Lucan nodded. "I have always like illusions."

"If only I could do the blood and guts for my shadow double. That would make it perfect. For now, we will have to rely on you." Gerald said to Lucan.

The warlock thought about it and considered it to be a good idea. He added it to his list of future considerations. He could see it becoming a phantom. The phantom would bleed, bruise, or lose limbs based on the damage done to it. If he did it well, it would be extremely useful to fool people.

"Good work." The director said, coming over to Lucan and Gerald. "We can move to the next location to continue filming. Lucan, if you would be interested in joining us, we will make sure you are compensated for the time you put in."

He thought about it. He had gotten rather bored since he had been spending all his time searching for a pocket dimension. And the scenes they were planning on shooting to day were all at locations that he hadn't been to before. He would be able to search while traveling from location to location. Besides there were other benefits as well, besides getting paid.

This group of people had already taken a liking towards his illusions for filming their movie. If things kept up he may be able to introduce illusion to even more people. If he was lucky, the whole entertainment industry may start buying his illusion abilities to complete all of there special effects.

He wasn't dumb, he knew that if he spread his illusions through the movie making groups it would earn him a lot of experience.

"Sure, I can spare some time. Where is the next location?" Lucan asked.

The director nodded happily. It was much easier to work with illusions compared to real animals. Pulling out a map, the director marked the next spot.

"It's not too far, only twenty to thirty minutes on horseback. We can spare another horse if you need transportation."

"That's alright." Lucan said. He realized that people really weren't here to play the game. They were only here for the chance to film. They didn't even think that a player over level 115 would have a mount and offered him a horse.

With a smile, the warlock summoned his flying carpet and leisurely got on.

"Wowww. Not that is traveling in style. Hey Lucan, can I ride with you? It looks like you have plenty of room on that thing?"

"Sure, no problem." Lucan said. It didn't bother him if he had company. Besides, he had like what he had seen of Gerald's personality so far. When Lucan messed up the scene earlier, Gerald didn't get angry, and was appreciative that Lucan was willing to help him out in the fake situation.

Lucan was about to take off and head to the next location when he noticed the director eyeing the flying carpet but not saying anything. Lucan didn't hesitate to through out an offer.

"Director, would you like to join us?" He asked.

"Sure." The director didn't miss a beat and was on the flying carpet in a flash.

"Pack up here and head to the next location, the second team is already setting up there and waiting for us." The director said to the others. He then gave Lucan a nod to signify that he was ready to depart.

Both Gerald and the director kneeled nervously in the center of the carpet as it started to rise in the air. Once they emerged above the tree tops Lucan slowly started to accelerate. When the two didn't bounce around, or feel like they were going to fall, they started to become more relaxed and comfortable.

"This thing is pretty nice." Gerald said.

"I wouldn't mind having one." The director added.

"Mmm, its good, but they are pretty rare right now. Money alone isn't enough to buy it. Ad far as I know, there is only one group with the recipe to make these and the materials are pretty rare."

"How did you end up with one?" Gerald asked.

"Through a trade. My vaults are well stocked and I hade to trade at a loss to get it. But I think it was worth it. I am taking it easy since you guys are riding it for the first time, but this thing can reach crazy speeds. It runs off of magic. The more you push into it the faster it goes."

"Ha, ha, I want to go fast!" Gerald yelled.

"Uhh, this pace is nice." Said the director.

Lucan's eyes turned green for a moment while he quickly looked around. Unfortunately, he didn't find what he was looking for.

The warlock maintained his current pace through the air. It only took ten minutes to arrive at the next scene.

Lucan spent the afternoon working with Gerald and the film crew. The director would gather the actors at each location and brief them on what he wanted. Lucan was grouped in with these people. Even though he wasn't appearing on screen, the director was making full use of the warlock's illusion in every scene, so he needed to know how things were going to happen.

They made good progress through out the whole day. Each scene needed at most five takes before the director was satisfied. By the end he would just describe what he envisioned happening in the scene and would let Lucan apply illusions as he deemed fit.

The director may have had an image of how things were supposed to look in his mind, but Lucan was the illusion master. During the last few scenes of the day, he gave the warlock free reign to use his abilities how he saw fit.

A few things pleasantly surprised the director. Having surprised the director and made him happy, Lucan had achieved the first part of his goal.

The director had all of his assistants and a few people who were working at the filming locations, purchase different illusion abilities. Since the level of all these film people weren't very high, he wasn't bringing in huge amount of experience points, but every little bit added up.

After Landing at the last filming location for the day, Lucan became incredibly excited. A quick scan with Omni-vision, reveled that their was a dungeon nearby. Sure it wasn't a pocket dimension, but the shape of the dungeon space was alright. With a bit of luck, Lucan would be able to use it to house his own dungeon.

Judging from the fact that it wasn't marked on his map, yet was in his territory, Lucan determined that this was likely to be an undiscovered dungeon.

There last scene for the day was filmed where a mountain met the edge of a forest. Currently the Dungeon was bellow ground. Without his Omni-vision, he would never have found it. Adrestia, helped him search for possible ways in.

The small shadow drake ended up find the correct path. A large tree had started to die and was seated onto top of a sink hole.

Climbing into the tree it was possible to drop down under the surface. Adrestia scouted out the path. She descended under ground and followed a path for a few minutes. The whole time, Lucan was watching through her eyes.

He was ecstatic when she came to the end of the path. Before her was a set of large doors that looked like they were complete untouched. These were dungeon doors. The first thing he did was message Silent to tell her he might have found a possible location to set up his dungeon.

If he really wanted to house his dungeon here, the first thing he needed to do was take over the current one.