Evolution: A Warlock’s Rise To Power

As everyone was excitedly congratulating each other there was a sudden and loud bang that shook the walls of the fortress.

And old man, slightly hunched over stood in the center of the room. Several players immediately pulled out their weapons and aimed them at him. With a wave of his hand those players slumped to the ground unconscious.

"Well done my lad." Raze said while clapping Lucan on the shoulder.

"Damn it." Lucan cursed. "Do you always have to pop out when I blink and scare the crap out of me?"

"Ha, ha, ha, it's one of the perks of being the boss."

When Sturdy and Shifty saw the man wasn't a threat they went back to celebrating and checking on their unconscious friends.

"Since you managed to capture a fortress, I will keep my word and provide you with guards. They will be loyal to you and only follow your orders. Well unless I tell them not too."

A large portal opened behind him as shadow elves began to stream into the fortress and disperse.

"1,000 shadow elves to help you hold the fort, all level 150 with 200 of them being Elite's. That should be good enough."

"Hey old man, how much will it cost me for a multi-plane teleporter to be built here?"

At this, Sturdy perked up and started paying attention to the conversation.

"Hmm, 800,000 gold." Raze replied.

Lucan didn't bother responding and just scowled at him.

"Fine, fine, for you it can be done for 500,000 gold coins if you supply the mana crystals needed."

"Come on, let's skip the show."

"Pah, you stinky brat. Alright, give me a dozen mithril scales, 100,000 gold and you deal with mana crystals."

"Alright, deal. How many crystals do I need?" Lucan said shaking his patron's hand, some of the mithril dragon scales littered on the ground vanished. "Oh, by the way, I figured out a new spell, I am calling it ethereal step if you're interested."

"Psh, I figured most of it out from watching your shadow. I will only buy it from you for some pocket money. Oh, and for your crystal, a pumpkin shall do."

Lucan currently had plenty of mana crystals the size of a pumpkin so that wasn't an issue.

"There is no need to kid me. I will trade the spell to you if you can get me a rare or better rod that actually has some benefits for me."

"Such a greedy kid, but I like it. I can get you an epic rod if you throw in the two you got from the necromancer."

"Okay, and I also want you to send some people to fix the gate we busted."

"Sure, but it will cost you another 5,000 gold."

"Alright, that's fine." Lucan said while shaking his hand again and then passing over the two rods. "I had the Queen of shadows send my most recent payment to Quilldrake estate since I am not in Shadowsweep to collect it; you can pick up your money once you go home."

"He, he, you're not worried I will take all of it."

"Nope." Lucan said with a grin. "You already made a pact not to steal from me."

"Ah, I am just joking anyway." Raze said with a dejected tone. "Your castles coming along nicely. You should send a decorator my way or I will just send my own people to take care of it. Let me know what you want to do."

"Alright, I will give you an answer in a couple of days. And I will write out the spell formula and give it to you when I get the rod."

"Good, good. I will send workers in the morning and Ash will bring your rod, you can give him the formula. Well I am leaving now-."

"Don't run off so fat old timer. Aren't you forgetting something? You owe me a gift."

Raze scowled. "Gift my ass, I shouldn't be giving you anything. It took you long enough to reach level one hundred but fine. Since you seem to enjoy your flying broom so much I have the perfect gift in mind."

[You have learned the Summon Shadow Mount ability.}

"He, he, he I will be going now. I have more people to rip off, oh, I mean make deals with."

"AHHH! Get out of here you old fart!" Lucan shouted as Raze transformed into a shadow and disappeared.

This was the last room of the fortress to be thoroughly searched. Lucan circled around the back of the tall stone tables used to map out the area, where more and more people were gathered to find the dragon's horde. A bed of gems and precious metals made up the dragons resting place.

A few Elite shadow elves were starting to load them into chests while keeping and eye on the other players.

"Lord Quilldrake." The elves said with a bow before one approached him. "We will load up the valuables and store them in the vault for your use."

"Thank you." Lucan said while trying to contain his excitement.

Sturdy stepped forward and spoke to the elf. "Do you have anymore empty chests? We have several items we recovered that belong to Lord Quilldrake and should be stored in the vault as well."

The elf looked to Lucan who nodded. Then a dozen chests were removed from his inventory and placed for the players to use.

"Come on everybody, you know the drill. And don't forget the punishment for trying to keep things for yourself, it's not a price you are able to pay." He said as the players came up and dumped the loot they had gotten into the chests.

Sturdy was the first to dump several items in a chest then he moved to another and tossed in a good portion of gold coins before returning to Lucan.

"Here you go." He said handing a gilded book to Lucan. "As much as I would like to buy this, I don't think we can afford it. It's what I got from the boss fight."

[You have acquired tome of dragon magic.]

It wasn't a spell or ability book but a tome for unlocking dragon magic. Whoever read it would have the ability to learn dragon magic in the future. Lucan's eyes lit up. If he wanted to unlock dragon magic for Adrestia it would cost 5,000,000 experience points. And that was while she was still level one. Or he could even use it for himself or Silent. He quickly tucked it into his inventory.

"Thank you."

"It's only natural to fulfill the contract. We have one more issue to settle. Through our campaign for you we had 212 deaths. You can either pay us 1,060 gold or let us use that money to buy some things from your stash that you have acquired. We will pay 60 for the holy items you found the other day."

"Be my guest. Buy anything you want, just get me a list. And I reserve the right to decline particular items in case I need them."

"Sure." Super said before giving Shifty a nod to let him know it was okay to go through the items. "You still have us contracted for a little bit of time. Is there anything else you would like us to do?"

"Nope your good." Lucan said while entering his menus and verifying that the contract was completed.

Lucan noticed Silent was about to put her loot into one of the chests. "You don't have to do that." He said.

"I am going to swap out for some stuff I need or exchange it for money."

"Alright." He said, knowing he didn't need to watch over her.

"Okay, with that done there is something else I would like to talk to you about if you have time."

"What's up?" Lucan asked.

"Do you remember what we spoke about before this campaign? I have had some of our B team scouts check the surrounding areas over the past week and have found dungeons ranging from level 100 to level 200 all within a 2-day ride. Would you be interested in coming to an agreement to let the Windy Willow Organization base ourselves in this fort. I was on the fence before, but if you are building a multi-plane teleporter here, I think it will be perfect."

"I am interested. Are you able to talk details for your organization?"

"I am." Said Sturdy with a smile. "Shall we go somewhere private to hammer out the details?"

"Here is fine." Said Lucan.

The warlock's hands were empty as he started pulling and stretching the magic at his fingertips, casting multiple spells at the same time. A wooden table appeared in the middle of the room surrounded by several padded chairs. Lucan motioned for him to take a seat in one of the telekinetic objects that was imbued with illusions.

As he did, all sound outside of the tabled area became muffled by shadow magic, ensuring their conversation would be private.

Lucan conjured several glasses on the table before pulling a bottle of wine he acquired in the church from his bag.

"Would you like a drink?"

"Sure."

He poured three glasses as Silent came and sat beside him.

After taking a sip Sturdy began to speak. "Headquarters has two proposal ideas in mind, but we are also open to suggestions. The first is to pay you rent on a monthly basis for letting us stay here and operate from inside you fortress, we would need to meet clients here and our players would be able to spend their free time in the area, things like that. The second is to give you a future discount on services while including the perks I just mentioned. Of course, if you don't want us to bring outsiders here that can be arranged but it will lower your value. Then there is also the fact that a lot of our people like that they can buy spells and abilities from you. If it truly isn't an issue to drop and pick up the class, it is something we would like to keep and introduce into our other teams. Now we can't keep your class all the time, sometimes we have customers like you who need us to take a certain companion class for our contracts but I think it will be well received by most. These are the things we want, let's talk about what you want."