Forbidden Arcana: Morgana Read online

  Contents

  Let's Have Some Fun!

  Forbidden Arcana Series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Acknowledgements

  You may also like

  Copyright

  Let's Have Some Fun!

  That's our goal here. On it's surface it sounds good, right? Everybody likes fun! Well, it's important to clarify that when we say fun we're not talking about family board game night. We're talking over the top explicit content. Now, once again you're probably thinking that sounds good, right? Well, we really want to emphasize over the top really means over the top. This book is meant for adults. You've been warned.

  Forbidden Arcana Series

  Jinx (Book 1)

  Ariel (Book 2)

  Mirage (Book 3)

  Theia (Book 4)

  Sable (Book 5)

  Luna (Book 6)

  Talia (Book 7)

  Morgana (Book 8)

  Valaria (Coming Soon!)

  Chapter 1

  Suprise Attack

  “They’re trying to flank us,” Raven yelled while gesturing at the group of assassins attempting to circle the group. “Jericho! Go stop them!”

  “Don’t worry about them,” Jericho laughed as he rushed forward alongside the petite dark elf. “They’re about to hit a wall.”

  “What?” Raven turned just in time to see Jinx and her pack of spectral wolves ruthlessly descend on the assassins.

  Jinx smiled maniacally while she crushed the skulls of three assassins attempting to blink past her. She let out a primal roar and she released a blast of spirit energy stunning those around her before leaping to her next target like a tigress on a wounded gazelle.

  Kadra, the silver-haired lancer, impaled another two with her long orichalcum spear before pivoting to dodge incoming arrows. The skilled fighter laughed as she summoned up two dark steel spears and launched them at the archers.

  “Hey! The ranged ones are mine!” Rela yelled angrily as she fired a flurry of arrows at the enemy backline. The tall redhead was becoming quite the skilled archer thanks to the time she spent hunting and running dungeons with Terra.

  The remaining enemies quickly fell before the might of Avara and Sirun. The two women cleaved through the enemies like they weren’t even wearing armor. Sirun’s oversized axe and Avara’s claymore were undeterred by the heaviest of armors.

  Then there was Freya rushing forward like a mythological war goddess. Her long hair trailed behind her like a silver tail as she leaped over the frontlines and alternated bashing her enemies with her shield and decapitating them with her sword.

  Jinx and every one of the spectral wolves started to flicker in blue flames as they became increasingly excited by the thrill of battle.

  “Fuck. How did they get so powerful?” Raven asked under her breath.

  “Diet and exercise,” Jericho chuckled. The smirking mage raised the earth beneath their feet while simultaneously transforming over twenty opponents’ footing to marshland. “All yours.”

  “Thank you,” Raven pulled out a particularly intimidating dark steel scythe. The recent acquisition was shaped in the head of a raven with a serrated beak and possessed a crimson aura. The dark elf assassin turned battle dancer dropped into the center of the soldiers like a tornado touching down and in a chaotic whirlwind sliced them to shreds. “Come on!”

  “Assholes!” Terra panted as she caught up with Jericho and Raven. The busty elf was completely covered in blood. “I can’t believe you left me in the middle of that ambush!”

  “We knew you could handle it,” Jericho laughed at the blood-drenched elf. “And you weren’t by yourself. You had Mirage.”

  “Oh,” Mirage appeared without so much as a hair out of place. The green-eyed shapeshifter smiled impishly while adjusting her tightly fitted assassin’s halter. After Talia reduced her age with time magic, Mirage started taking every opportunity to show off her youthful figure. “I was supposed to help? You should have said something darling!”

  “Mirage. Stop goofing off. This is serious.” Jericho chuckled while glancing at the two beauties. He hated to say it because he loved Mirage whether she was in her thirties or twenties, but damn if she didn’t look absolutely amazing. She was giving Terra a run for her money.

  “Alright,” Mirage slapped Terra’s ass playfully. “As for you, don’t be such a baby. If you were ever in any real danger I would have helped.”

  “You hens done clucking?” Raven asked as fifty mercenaries rushed toward them. “Oh, they splurged for hero class mercenaries.”

  “Those ones are mine!” Kaos roared as he came crashing down in the center of the soldiers like an iron meteor. Jericho glanced back at the group that’d previously kept the orc warrior occupied. Whoever wasn’t dead was either armless or legless and being overrun by weaker members of Endgame. “Come to big daddy Kaos!”

  “He’s oddly ambitious,” Jericho smirked at the brutish orc.

  “If only he put that much effort into being a guild officer,” Raven said while shaking her head. “Anyway, let’s get moving. Kaos has things handled here.”

  “They seem to have really thought this attack through,” Jericho said as another wave of soldiers headed for Rend. “Plague went all out.”

  “It’s because of your city expansion,” Raven growled while decapitating two soldiers. “And somebody stop that damn group before they reach the wall!”

  Theia crashed down in front of the group like Athena herself dropping from the heavens. Her white silken robe shined like starlight as it fluttered in the wind. The angelic beauty wielded a massive gold tower shield and a shimmering gold halberd which she wielded with one hand.

  “Shit,” a soldier yelled as Theia scattered the enemies with a powerful bash from her shield. She followed up with a staggeringly fast swipe of her halberd cleaving anybody foolish enough to stay in her range. Before they could counter, she was in the sky above them and crashing down again like a hawk hunting rodents. “Run!”

  “Where do you intend to run?” Sable smiled like a drunkard as waves of dark magic erased the soldiers from existence. The red-eyed Nyxian covered her alabaster skin in sigils and wore red cloth that was more like lingerie than armor. “God, I hope more break through!”

  “She’s really into this,” Raven laughed as Theia and Sable massacred the wave of mercenaries attempting to reach the city walls. “I thought she was just a bookworm.”

  “Yeah,” Jericho mumbled pensively. Sable told him in confidence that dark magic had a certain hold over her which was why she rarely demonstrated it during their training. She could touch the edges of darkness without much issue but the deeper she dove into it, the harder it was to come back up. “Let’s try not to let anymore through though.”

  “Aww.” Raven laughed and punched Jericho’s arm. “You’re so cute when you worry about them.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mirage roughly groped his ass while running past him. “My darling is always cute.”

  “Really?” Terra shook her head as she fired off a volley of arrows. “You can all get a room later.”

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Luna appeared right next to them. The blue haired Ethereal was tasked with gathering information on the enemy forces and based on her expression she found out something bad. “This isn’t the main force! There are at least five other guilds and more arriving!”

  �
�It seems that sneaky bastard has been planning this for some time,” Raven grumbled as Jericho launched an enormous wave of flames to buy them some breathing room from the oncoming soldiers. “What were their emblems?”

  “Uh,” Luna started making a series of strange hand gestures. “I don’t really know how to describe them. They were kind of like this, and then there was one like that, one was a scale. I recognized that one. Then there were two different bird ones.”

  “Got it,” Raven shook her head. “Amber Hawks, Balance, Phoenix Reborn, and I’m guessing Bloodpact and Godslayers since they’re allied with Grim. The big question is whether Ambrosia joined back up with them.”

  Jericho and Raven both had to admit it was a well-orchestrated ambush on Endgame’s stronghold in Rend. Not only had Plague somehow manage to get the blessing of peace removed from the city eliminating its safe-haven status, but he also mobilized multiple guilds without warning any of Raven’s spies. As a bonus, he planned the attack during Diana’s scheduled raid to keep Tiamat away from the fight. She likely didn’t even realize it was happening.

  When Jericho and his familiars arrived, the battle had already begun and it was obvious that Endgame was losing. Half of Raven’s guild members joined Tiamat on raids leaving her city significantly weakened and despite the royal guards of Rend joining the fight, Plague’s forces were overwhelming.

  “I’m not even angry,” Raven lied as she vertically sliced an enemy in half. “I’m impressed. I wonder how long it took him to identify my spies and provide them with false information while orchestrating this. It’s so impressive I’ve decided to never stop attacking him until he’s buried.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Mirage blinked behind Raven and stroked the petite dark elf’s long black hair. “Anyway, I’ll be right back.”

  Mirage vanished and within moments enemy soldiers began falling as if struck by some invisible enemy. Mirage’s modus operandi combined the use of her shapeshifting ability and her blink to vanish and appear amongst her enemy as one of them allowing her to penetrate their defenses. The more crowded the battlefield, the more dangerous the shapeshifting assassin became.

  “What should I do?” Luna asked anxiously. Jericho knew she didn’t know how to fight but she was extremely effective at scouting and relaying information. But since they’d already relayed messages to everybody who needed them. All that was left was to fight.

  “Head home and relax,” Jericho answered confidently. “We have everything handled here.”

  “That’s right.” Terra nodded supportively while nocking several arrows at once. She took aim and loosed them striking three enemies simultaneously. “We’ve got this.”

  “Okay,” Luna said somberly and vanished.

  “I think we made her feel bad,” Terra said while firing another volley of arrows. “You should really teach her how to fight.”

  “I’d rather not,” Jericho said while summoning a towering inferno to the battlefield. He swirled his hand while guiding the air to the flames increasing the intensity. It wouldn’t kill the elite or hero units but it still decreased the durability of their armor.

  The stream of incoming mercenaries appeared endless and the enemy players were finally joining the battle. Unlike the mercenaries, the players would utilize a wide variety of strategies to disorient and disable them before engaging. Jericho would adopt a similar strategy.

  Jericho created dozens of illusionary duplicates and implanted each of them with unstable elemental magic before commanding them to rush into the battlefield. The goal wasn’t to trick players into thinking the illusions were real as much as it was to condition them.

  Each time an enemy would attack a clone of Jericho or his team they’d be met with a loud blast, a flash, and some mild discomfort as the explosion detonated. It wasn’t a particularly powerful magic trick but it was extremely energy efficient. Over time his enemies would start associating attacking Jericho or his allies with tiny explosions and soon after that, they’d be conditioned to hesitate.

  “Lookout!” Theia yelled.

  Jericho looked up just in time to create a dark barrier to envelop the burning meteor crashing down on them. He smiled as he saw a group of three mages at the tree line working together to cast large scale elemental magic. One of the mages would create the stone, another would create the fire, and the final one would feed the fire with wind before they launched it.

  “Wipe that shit eating grin from your face you cocky bastard.” Terra shoved Jericho playfully between volleys. “Just show them how it’s done.”

  “I’m not cocky,” Jericho said defensively while lifting his left hand. The earth split and a dozen obsidian boulders rose from the trembling ground. He snapped his fingers igniting all twelve and twirled his free hand rapidly feeding the flames with wind. After he was satisfied, he sent the flaming boulders flying toward the novice mages. “I’m competent.”

  “Jericho!” Jinx roared as she came crashing down next to him. Freya and the rest of her pack cut through a horde of enemies to join them. She looked up at him like he did something wrong, “There are too many for us to kill! Idiot. Moron.”

  “Too many for you?” Jericho said teasingly. “I never thought I’d hear those words coming from your mouth.”

  “Shut up!” Jinx said while lifting her fist threateningly. Jericho cringed at the thick layer of blood and human debris coating her arms. “I’m the strongest! But the rest of you aren’t! You’ll get tired! Weakling! Wuss!”

  “We need to recharge.” Freya looked at Terra for guidance. “We should retreat to the city and rotate. It’ll be easier to guard the city gates.”

  “They have mages,” Jericho said. “If they reach the city walls, they’ll be able to create stairways to get over them.”

  “We can’t allow them to reach the city.” Raven looked over the battlefield. The enemy forces swarmed like locusts and were overwhelming everybody. Even Theia and Sable’s sector was slowly becoming unmanageable. “Goddammit. They aren’t even pushing yet. What the hell are they waiting for?”

  “Let’s find out,” Jericho said as he shapeshifted a pair of wings and launched himself into the sky. From above the battlefield it looked like a boundless wave was closing in on the city. He teleported around the city to see if there was anything they were missing. Then he noticed something odd within the city itself, Endgame players. It didn’t make sense since Raven ordered all of her players to defend the city. He teleported down in front of them. “What are you doing?”

  “Uh,” a blonde elf male wearing cheap silver armor looked at his two comrades for an answer. “We were making sure everything is secure.”

  “Raven’s orders,” the green-haired human in assassin gear nodded. “She didn’t want anybody getting in.”

  “We have to get going,” the final soldier said as he tried to rush past. Jericho enveloped the soldier in dark magic instantly killing him.

  “Shit,” the elf smashed an explosive vial on the ground and the remaining two fled.

  Jericho separated his personal flow of time from that of the world and sped it up by a hundred. He walked after the almost stationary enemies as they attempted to escape around a corner. In hindsight, he probably should have just teleported but he needed to practice time magic anyway. The difficult part was returning to normal without killing himself because stopping his time flow even for a millisecond was no different than freezing yourself forever and dying. Fortunately, he figured out a trick for that.

  Talia warned him against flipping infinity. That’s what she called it when rather than completely rewinding his time flow, he momentarily split it into two. One half of his flow moved forward while the other moved backward creating two touching circles that turned in opposite directions. Then he’d eliminate the forward moving flow allowing him to return his time to normal without technically ever stopping.

  She described it as lazy, dangerous, and admittedly impressive. Lazy because it was a way for him to avoid actually lear
ning to properly reverse his flow without stopping. Dangerous because sending your time flow in two separate directions risked tearing it to shreds and killing you in a slow and horribly painful fashion. And impressive because he figured it out on his own.

  “Stop!” Jericho commanded as time returned to normal. He instantly encased the enemies in ice up to their necks before they had time to react. The elf’s smug grin lead Jericho to believe that there were likely more in the city. “Fine.”

  Jericho snapped his fingers and the ice tightened around their necks instantly killing them both. He didn’t have time to interrogate players who weren’t going to say anything. He sifted through their bodies and found piles of incendiary potions.

  Jericho appeared in the center of their group outside the city. Bodies were piling up on the battlefield and everybody was getting exhausted. Pretty soon the city would ignite taking away their fallback position and that’s when Plague planned on attacking.

  “Raven.” Jericho lifted his hand and created illusions of the three players he found running around the city. “Do you recognize these guys. They were planting incendiary potions throughout the city.” Raven clenched her teeth. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “It’s a coup,” Raven growled furiously at Jericho. “I should have known. This is all your fault!”

  “My fault?” Jericho asked.

  “Yes!” Raven snapped. “You’re fault!”

  Raven was looking at him like he was the one running the coup but he had no idea why. He pulled himself from time again and sped it up a thousand-fold as the world around him slowed to a crawl. He needed time to think.

  A little over a month ago he learned that with Ariel’s help he could expand the village of Dayrose and since then he’d been inactive politically. His focus was on clearing dungeons, crafting, and research in hopes of earning enough gold for the expansion. It took him nearly three weeks to gather the gold to start the first phase of expansion and each subsequent phase was going to cost even more.

  While the recent expansion could have triggered a retaliation by Grim there was no way Plague could have put the attack together in a week. Whatever the catalyst was for the attack it happened at least a month ago. It required knowledge of Raven’s spy network, the political savvy to form a coup, and intimate knowledge of their alliance’s operations down to Tiamat’s raid schedule.