Wrapping up my novella today. Hope it gives you some motivation to play the game when I have a full version ready!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Chapter 7
Algar awoke with a name on his dry, cracked lips.
A name he had never spoken before. A name he should not have even known.
He sat up slowly, the study stifling and close, the fire burned down to embers.
Had he fallen asleep here again?
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Parchments and books surrounded him in ragged piles.
His head ached, his throat parched and bitter from whatever the hell he had been drinking last night.
But the name was still there.
Burrowing into his mind.
A whisper, but forceful. A command woven into his thoughts.
The Remnant’s Path.
He knew what it meant.
Where it would lead him.
And he knew that he had no choice.
The Remnant’s Path had been gathering idols.
That was what his master wanted him to stop.
These weren’t mere relics. They were sacred objects, angelic idols—tools of the old gods.
Created not to be worshipped, but to act. To hold. To bind.
The Remnant’s Path believed they were restoring what was lost—a power greater than the gods themselves.
But his master whispered the truth.
The idols were seals. Chains.
They weren’t meant to bring back the divine.
They were meant to control it.
And The Remnant’s Path planned to control him.
A Demon King, enslaved and weaponized by an evil cult, would be a disaster for the world.
That could not be allowed.
The next night, Algar set out alone, dressed like a common man, his ship moored safely in the harbor.
He had been commanded to infiltrate their compound.
To find the idols they had gathered.
And to destroy them.
Chapter 8
The first time you come face to face with a goblin—an actual, living, breathing goblin—you realize, with no room for doubt, that the world is a bigger and more messed up place than you ever feared in your darkest imagination.
Algar had seen them before, of course.
When you work for a demon king, you get used to things most people will never see.
Orders came through in whispers and shadows, carried by things not quite human.
Werewolves, necromancers, vampires, even the undead. He’d seen them all.
But rarely up close and personal like this.
This goblin stood barely up to his chest, clad in patchwork robes, a rusted dagger at its belt. Its skin was a sickly green, its eyes too large for its skull, glinting like wet stones in the dim torchlight.
It stood watching him, unblinking.
The cult’s guards weren’t human.
Of course they weren’t.
Well, if they started out human, they wouldn’t stay that way for long under the corrupting influence of dark magic.
The Remnant’s Path didn’t just gather relics and forbidden knowledge.
They created monsters.
Algar adjusted his hood, keeping his expression neutral. He couldn’t afford to look as rattled as he felt.
Some things fed on fear.
"State purpose."
The goblin rasped the words through a gap-toothed grimace.
Algar reached into his coat, fingers closing around the forged token his master had provided.
A coin, engraved with a died-red emblem. One of two items he was equipped with at the start of his current mission.
"I bring offering," he lied.
The goblin squinted at him, nostrils twitching.
Could goblins smell fear?
For a moment, Algar thought he’d been found out.
Finally, the creature snatched the blood coin and stepped aside.
"In. No wander. Get this back outside."
Algar exhaled slowly, stepping through the gates.
He wasn’t sure the faux medallion would have passed muster, though he doubted goblins had much discernment when it came to artifacts.
Inside, the compound loomed before him—ancient stone, flickering torchlight, corridors carved with symbols that hummed with faint, unnatural power.
It was a subterranean labyrinth, a fortress and a temple, all at once.
A headquarters. A campus. A barracks. A storehouse. A prison camp.
And deeper inside, waiting for him…
The idols.
Chapter 9
Algar stood in the shadow of a crumbling pillar, heart hammering against his ribs.
The ring on his finger was heavier than it should be, the metal unnaturally cold against his skin.
He took a slow breath, forcing himself to focus.
His master had given him his task. He had no choice.
And now, he had been given a tool to complete it.
The ring’s magic was encoded with a precise instruction—it would take him close to each cluster of idols, but not directly to them.
The rest?
That was up to him.
Like most people he grew up around, he had never trusted magic.
Not truly. Not even the kind delegated to him by his ‘benefactor’.
But now, in the depths of The Remnant’s Path compound, with goblins lurking, cultists chanting, and things in the shadows that whispered to themselves in languages no man should speak?
He had no other option.
Algar exhaled, rolling his shoulders. A slight crack from his neck.
Then he pressed his palm against the ring and activated it.
Cold.
Dark.
A sudden, gut-wrenching pull, like being hooked and yanked through space.
The air around him folded in on itself, reality twisting in an instant.
For one terrible moment, he felt unmade—his body stretched too thin, his mind split in half.
Then, finally, the feeling of solid ground beneath his boots.
Stone walls around him.
The taste of blood on his tongue.
He stumbled, bracing himself against the nearest surface.
His vision sluggishly came back into focus.
And then, he heard it.
A hum.
Low. Faint. Reverberating through the stone.
Somewhere nearby, the first cluster of idols was waiting.
And something else was waiting with them.
The humming in the walls had just begun to fade when Algar heard the footsteps.
Measured. Confident.
Algar stiffened, forcing himself to step back into the shadows.
Then he saw him.
The man from the boat.
Only he wasn’t just a scared little man anymore.
The hunched, desperate figure Algar had dragged from the water was gone.
In his place stood someone self-assured, almost regal, his threadbare robes replaced with deep black and crimson, embroidered with status symbols of The Remnant’s Path. Rather than a rough leather sack, he reverently held a large book.
Not just any book.
A large, expensive-looking tome bound in dark leather and reinforced with gold filigree. The sight of it intrigued Algar more than he liked.
He was, after all, an involuntary, but enthusiastic student of the magical arts—and that book looked important.
But now was not the time.
Because the man was not alone.
Four skeletons marched at his side, their movements unnervingly smooth and synchronized, weapons clutched in bony hands.
Algar exhaled slowly.
Not just magic. Necromancy.
So this was what he had been pulled into.
The man from the boat offered a predatory grin when he saw him.
His voice was smooth, amused. "The ‘great’ Algar Algarson. Wonderful to meet you here."
The skeletons stood still, waiting, as the man took a measured step forward.
"I told you my master would be pleased."
Algar’s fingers twitched at his side, itching for his blade.
The man from the boat took another slow, deliberate step forward, still smiling.
The skeletons stood poised, waiting.
Algar didn’t move.
Not yet.
One last job.
Get inside. Destroy the idols. Stop The Remnant’s Path before they complete their work.
His master’s orders were clear. He knew all to well than to stray from his mission.
And yet—
The book in the man’s hands nagged at him.
And how the cultist looked at him—not with fear or curiosity, but amusement.
Something felt wrong.
Algar’s grip tightened.
The man smiled wider.
Then the skeletons moved, and the man was gone.
Epilogue
"So, that’s it? That’s the story of the ‘Great and Magical Last Sorcerer’?"
Mitch leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, clearly unconvinced.
"He wasn’t the Last Sorcerer," Meera corrected, shaking her head.
"But what happened next," Chay interjected, “You are here now so he must have defeated the cult?”
The room fell quiet. The weight of centuries-old history pressed down on them, its details blurred by time and legend.
Orin tapped his fingers against the desk, staring at nothing in particular. "Still. Whatever he did and whatever he found—whatever happened in that stronghold—it must be important."
Edric smiled. “Indeed it is.”
Very cool!