Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6) by Dakota Krout (best romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

search for the intruder or not. Not wasting any time, Joe peeked his head around the corner and cast Dark Lightning Strike at the loudest voices, wincing as he saw that the room was full of Elves sitting around a table.

As the lightning struck, Joe tossed The Ritual Orb of Cone of Cold in as well, hitting an Elf in the head as his back arched in pain from the shock of dark energy. Cone of Cold washed over the room, and not a single one of the… six Elves managed to escape the icy clutches of the spell.

Experience gained: 1,105

Quest update: Go Away For a While! Level gained: 0/1. Elves killed: 6/100. Important information gained: 1/1.

Just the Dark lightning Strike alone had killed the Elf it had hit directly, the splash damage and Cone of Cold had finished off the others in the next instant. Joe looked around the room in surprise; that had been way too easy. “They… oh. They didn’t have any protections up. Why would they? They’re in a ‘safe’ area. Solid reminder to me; shield up at all times. Now… what were they doing?”

Something on the table was calling to Joe, an oversized briefcase that was practically singing to his senses. He reached out and picked it up, undid the latch… and someone banged on the door he had come in through. Joe slammed his hips forward and pulled the briefcase into his codpiece just as a voice screeched through the door. “Honorable Shapers! I am so sorry to intrude upon your discussion. There’s an intruder, and we’ve been sent to evacuate you until they have been found!”

Joe thought that this might be a good time to book it, so he frantically hurried through the small building. There were no extra doors, but there was a waxy leaf-window at the back. He grabbed at it, but the leaf demonstrated surprising toughness. He kicked it instead, and thankfully, his foot went through. Joe was able to tear a way out after that, but resolved to carry a knife or something the next time he left the protections of the Dwarven domain.

Now that he was behind the building, away from the streets, he found that he was also almost directly adjacent to the Illusion building. It was… really, the entire thing was a work of art. The building was almost the same size as the exterior of the Mage’s college back on Midgard, but this structure was shaped like a massive pine tree. Every ‘pine needle’ acted as a relay for the light that was generated in the ‘trunk’ of the tree, flashing colors of varying intensity that added to the rainbow that spread along the ceiling.

He had no idea if the building itself was generating the illusion, or if it was just the shell acting as protection for the magic being worked within it. Either way, Joe was fairly certain that destroying one should get the other as well. He walked to the edge of the building and peeked around… to find the streets swarming with Elves. He could hear them from here:

“Humph!”

“How dare a toad look at swan flesh?”

“This intruder is a thousand years too early!”

Joe felt sick to his stomach at the sheer cliché arrogance that was being tossed around. “I really need to get outta this place. So glad I chose the Dwarves.”

He jumped through the open space between buildings, front-flipping as he did his best to move as rapidly as possible. Joe got closer and closer to the strobing building, and was finally close enough to run a hand over the strange wood, no… crystal? It was a crystal grown to look like wood and pine needles, practically a christmas tree, but why?

Without a single sound, a ritual paper appeared in his hand, and he slapped it against the side of the building; a Ritual of Raze, ready to go. He hesitated, almost activating it right away, but that would give away his position immediately. Should he try to hide in the foliage? His hand brushed against a needle, and his shield took penetrating damage in an instant. Going up was not going to be viable, so that meant he needed to go inside if he wanted to activate his ritual in a semi-safe location. Since there were no windows that he could see in this building, the entrance was the only point of ingress.

Joe slunk around the wall, the bright colors flashing from the walls actually helping him as he went. He thought it would highlight him, but all it really did was keep Elves from looking directly at him and his reflective head. He had the door in sight when he heard someone call out, “Get two guards on the Prismatic Evergreen! I want no mistakes while the Lady is here!”

Giving up all pretenses of stealth, Joe dashed to the door, fearing that he would hear shouts of alarm. He reached for the handle, instead falling directly through the ‘door’. “Of course the door was an illusion. Abyssal Elves.”

The building he found himself in appeared to be a massive, open cone that twisted as high as a redwood on earth. The wall opposite him was so distant that it would have been hidden by shadow, had the light in the area been less intense. Either the space was an illusion, or the building was bigger on the inside. Spatial magic, again? He really shouldn’t have been surprised, as this was clearly a powerful and rare building.

Joe’s main concern at the moment was the cadre of Elves in the center of the room, a football field’s distance away from him. Again, their distance had to be attributed to either an illusion or space-bending. Music, soft and entrancing, was flowing through the room, expanding outward from the Elves that were dancing in the central area. The rapid, pulsing strobe light of various colors was completely out of time with the music, but somehow the two interfaced and seemed to be whispering secrets