Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone. The first book in the Adventures of the Stylish Simon, The House of Virgil, ended on Christmas day. I figured that it would be fitting to give a sneak peek of the sequel, The Rise of the Adept, on Christmas as a winter gift for everyone. I hope you all enjoy. I do apologize for any formatting issues, this is by far the largest piece of writing I have posted online.
Another day of searching up grave robbings, another day of dead ends for his search.
In his defense, Simon didn’t know what Virgil was planning. That was a complicated aspect. There was very little that Simon knew of his foe. Regarding his past, Virgil the Damned was a lich. How did he become a lich? Why did he become a lich? What was his goal? Simon didn’t know. All he knew is that there came a battle at Santiago’s Shield that ended with Santiago Salvador killing Virgil, an event that none of the public libraries or online archives had information on. Simon even visited the graveyard where Virgil’s body was laid to rest, the Santiago Mausoleum, and came up empty with his search.
Of course, it has been centuries since that battle, and Virgil’s goal would likely change to reflect the modern times. What Simon did know regarding that was that his goals did not reflect his descendant’s ideals. Darius wanted his ancestor to return to show the power of necromancy so that students at the various magician’s academies could learn about it once more. Rather than following through, Virgil left Darius behind for his downfall.
Regardless, Simon needed to figure out the answers to his questions before it was too late. As of now, the lich’s phylactery was destroyed, but he currently was possessing Morgan. Given how Virgil treated both her and Darius, it was likely that in his mind, Morgan was expendable. At any point, Virgil could find a much better host and possess that, and then, dispose of his old host. Or perhaps, for some reason that Simon couldn’t think of, he may settle for Morgan as his new host, and begin whatever process to turn her into an undead lich. Of course, it had been months already, so perhaps he was too late already, but he wouldn’t think he was until proven otherwise.
Simon sat at a dining table in his apartment, typing on his laptop to find some story of a graveyard disturbance, or any kind of lead. It was the middle of an afternoon already; Simon had just finished a performance on the streets, although he stuck with his simple tricks rather than using his actual illusions. His hat, resting on the table next to the laptop, had a lot of spare pocket change and some dollar bills, a good haul for a small performance, but that wasn’t his priority now. By now he knew exactly what he needed to do to pay rent, which would be a problem coming up in a few months.
Unfortunately, nothing that pointed toward magic came up in his online search. Simon sighed and stood up from his chair. Graveyards were too simple of an answer, really. Virgil was already foiled the last time he raised an army of undead at the graveyard. He would have a new plan.
I am the spirit of an ancient evil wizard currently back in the world of the living, Simon thought to himself. I am on the run. What do I want to do? Become a lich. I need to build a phylactery, or house, and…
Simon paused in his thinking. How did someone become a lich? He had no clue. If he did, then he would have somewhere to go, but it was too late to find out now.
Let’s assume that it will take a while to prepare whatever it is I need to do to become a lich. I need to stay hidden until I am a lich, or else I could die for good. I need to survive while I am stuck in a human body. Humans need food, water, the basic necessities to survive. Do I know enough about wilderness survival to do that on my own? I don’t think so. Then I’ll need money. Working is beneath me, and even if it wasn’t, I am unlikely to get a job because since I was imprisoned for centuries, I’m not going to know how to fill out a job application or a resume or…
Simon snapped his fingers in a eureka moment, and grinned. Virgil the Damned had the mindset of someone who took what they wanted because they were powerful and could do so. He might be weaker now in his new body, but at the end of the day, he knew magic when a lot of people in the world didn’t know magic, and that was his advantage.
With this in mind, Simon returned to his seat and searched up grocery store food disappearances. By now, he had learned that typing anything related to magic wouldn’t help and only turned him towards conspiracy websites or advertisements of magicians for entertainment (Simon definitely wanted to invest in advertisements one day to get his name out there). He needed to be more rational with his search criteria, and apply the magic to filling in the missing details.
Unfortunately, there was nothing on grocery stores. Instead, Simon searched up about mysterious bank robberies instead. It was a bit more of a stretch but still possible. Much to his surprise, a result did pop up right in Santiago’s Shield of all places. Simon skimmed through the article, which gave details regarding the bank robbery of the Verdant National Bank. Somehow, someone destroyed the back walls with an explosion at night a week and a half ago, with none of the cameras seeing who or how it was done. The cameras were not able to even see all of the money. It just vanished.
Magic was definitely at play.
I need money, so I rob a bank, Simon thought to himself, returning to his mental exercise. I hide myself with illusions so the cameras don’t see me. I destroy the bank wall and any obstacles with combative magic. I escape with the money using… displacement magic to teleport the money and myself away? Can displacement teleport objects like that? Can I teleport objects like that? Ooh, that would be incredible if I could. Just imagine all of the tricks-
Simon snapped his fingers, reminding himself that he needed to focus. The idea made sense in his mind, but at the same time, it didn’t make sense. Simon was willing to assume that Virgil or Morgan knew how to make illusions, despite having seen neither done so before. But this bank robbery would draw too much attention to the lich. Even if Virgil assumed that Archmage was dead, other magicians would be able to figure out that a magician was responsible for the bank robbery, just as Simon did, and take action against it. But, if it wasn’t Virgil, who was responsible? It couldn’t be any normal bank robber, it had to have been a magician.
With no way to solve this mystery himself, Simon pulled out his phone and scrolled down to the bottom of the contact list. He pressed on his last contact, Zack Attack, and held the phone to his ear. Zack may have been his bully not too long ago, but when one deals with necromancers and liches using magic, a boy who relied on his fists just didn’t seem like a big deal. It wasn’t just because Zack was no longer a threat that Simon had accepted his apology months ago; Zack was also good friends with his younger brother and looked out for him at school until he graduated, and did come through at the battle of the Santiago Mausoleum with his gang to back up Simon against the undead army. Simon and Zack now worked together, and with the kind of people Zack knew, he could help figure out what Simon was missing.
“Simon,” Zack said immediately asw he answered. “I don’t have a lot of time. I have an important meeting coming up.”
“I won’t take too much of your time,” Simon assured Zack. “I need you to look into the recent Verdant National Bank robbery. I think it may have been Virgil.”
“I’ll put it on my to-do list, but I need to take care of something first, and if things go wrong, I’ll have even more to take care of.”
“What’s going on?” Simon asked. “I can lend a hand if it’s that important.”
“I don’t want to drag you into this, but there’s a new gang in the city,” Zack admitted. “They’re being problematic.”
“Are we talking about a gang like yours or one of the big ones with guns? Because if they’re criminals, then not only should you not drag me into this, but you should do everything you can not to start something.”
“Relax, they’re just teenagers like us. You know the abandoned warehouse on the corner of Railway Alley that we hang out at?”
“That’s one we have a teleportation circle at, right?”
“That’s the one. They’ve been trying to take that from us. At first, their leader tried to buy it from us. There was a lot of money, so we were tempted, but there was no way she could have gotten that in a legit manner.”
“She?”
“Yeah. Her name’s Vanessa. She’s a teenage girl, no way she should have gotten that much money from anywhere.”
Simon paused to think. “Does she have blonde hair? Green eyes? Around average height?”
“Uh, I don’t know about the eyes, but you’re right about the hair.”
“Have you stopped to consider that maybe Vanessa looks familiar to the one magician you saw back at the graveyard back in December?”
“Not really. I didn’t get a good look at her.”
“Look, I know that whoever robbed the Verdant National Bank had to have used magic. You’re right that she didn’t obtain that money legally. If Vanessa is responsible, she didn’t obtain that money legally.”
“But she didn’t have any undead,” Zack pointed out. “All human, and I know how to tell a human from a zombie.”
“Enchantment magic, Zack,” Simon took a deep breath in. “Morgan studied enchantment magic.”
“I’m not sure if it is her, but you have me thinking that it could be,” Zack sighed over on his end. “You know more about magic than me. What’s the plan?”
“I’ll get my gear and come over,” Simon started, wiping his sleeve over his forehead. “I’ll use my illusions to hide myself and to confirm if Vanessa really is Morgan.”
“And then what?”
Simon paused again and slowly shook his head. “Honestly, I’m making this up as I go. We’ll wing it once we get there. I’m on my way.”
“See you soon,” Zack said before hanging up.
Simon pocketed his phone and grabbed his hat. He dumped the money out on the table and put his hat on. Afterwards, he walked to his bedroom and grabbed the cane Archmage gave him from the closet. Even if Vanessa had nothing to do with Virgil or the magical bank robbery, she was a threat to Zack, and odds are, there was going to be a fight. He was going to be prepared for when it came to that. Finally, he walked over to his dresser, opening the top right drawer to pull out a small, pocket-sized notebook, and started to flip through the pages.
With help from Zack, Scott, and the rest of the gang, Simon had placed teleportation circles throughout Santiago’s Shield. With the circle system in place, Simon could teleport to different parts of the city safely. Of course, it was a pain to memorize each circle in detail, so he drew sketches of the circles in the small notebook with the address of where they were written underneath the circle. It took some practice before Simon could replicate a circle in drawing, but in the end, it was well worth the time he put in.
Simon found the address for the warehouse Zack was at and quickly focused on the circle. After memorizing it, he set the notebook on his dresser and teleported to it. He was in the middle of the chalk-drawn circle on the ground in a dark room. He turned to the door, carefully stepped out of the circle so as to not smudge the chalk, and opened it to step out onto a walkway that looked over the rest of the warehouse.
The warehouse was nothing special. It had two floors with the second floor overlooking the vast ground floor, which was littered with empty crates and containers. There were several office space rooms on both floors, some broken windows on the ground floor, and two doors as well as a garage door that needed to be manually opened. As far as Simon knew, no one actually owned the warehouse, although he wasn’t sure what happened to its previous owners. Zack and his gang took it as one of their few hangouts, which was growing in popularity now that school was out. They wouldn’t want to give up the spot without a fight.
Simon spotted around a dozen and a half teenagers below on the ground floor, loitering. While Zack preferred to remain in sight, Simon was surprised at how long it took to spot him until he saw him guarding a door on the ground level. Even though he was trying to not stand out since he was tall and bulkier compared to the other teenagers. He had short brown hair and wore a black t-shirt with ripped jeans. Zack was looking around the room and spotted Simon, and then knocked on the door twice.
“Is something wrong?” Simon asked after teleporting in front of Zack, who nearly jumped up against the door.
“Nothing!” Zack exclaimed, his voice a little high pitched.
“But you told me that there was something wrong on the phone.”
“Sorry, I thought you were asking a different question.”
“Like what’s behind that door you’re blocking my way to?” Simon asked with a smirk.
Zack froze up trying to think of an excuse when the door opened, and out stepped Scott Crowley. Thanks to time spent on baseball practice, Scott had a more athletic build than his brother but was still shorter. While the Crowleys all had black hair, Scott bleached his hair blond. He wore a white t-shirt with the emblem of the cities’ professional baseball team, the Santiago City Sparrows, on it, with jeans and tennis shoes. He closed the door quickly and scooted around Zack and didn’t seem all that surprised to see Simon, who he greeted with a quick wave before putting both of his hands in his pocket.
“Hey,” Scott said, quieter than usual.
“So, whatever it is you two are hiding, it’s behind the door,” Simon said, thinking how unfortunate it was Zack blocked most of Simon’s sight of the room so that he could teleport in.
“Don’t worry about it,” Zack commanded, his earlier shock and meekness disappearing as the assertive leader started to emerge. “You came here to help out and that’s what you’re going to do.”
“I’m not forgetting about this but I can agree to leave it be for now. How much longer do we have?”
“Half an hour,” Zack answered. “I was thinking that if Vanessa wasn’t who you’re after, we could use your illusions to scare them off.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me. They have more people than us, don’t they?”
Zack nodded and Scott spoke up, keeping his back up against the door. “What do you mean by that?”
“Scottie, there’s a good chance that Vanessa may be Morgan, or at the very least, is a magician. I’m here to provide magical back-up.”
“And if illusions don’t work?” Scott’s voice cracked a little as he continued. “What if she is a magician and is one of the more dangerous ones.”
“Is everything alright?” Simon asked. “We’ve fought Morgan before.”
“Phoenix handled the fighting while we took care of her undead creations,” Scott reminded his brother. “We don’t have a magician like him that knows how to fight and protect. I figured we were getting into a fight but against a-”
“Do you want to go home? I can teleport you there and back.”
An abrupt noise was heard from behind the door and Scott shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I, uh, I just need to grab my baseball bat. That’s all.”
“In that room?” Simon raised an eyebrow.
Scott nodded. Before Simon could ask further questions, the garage door started to rise up by itself. Some of the teenagers stepped back and Zack muttered a curse under his breath.
“That’s them,” Zack stepped forward.
“I thought you said we had half an hour,” Simon said quickly, noting several figures’ legs as the door was raised. He couldn’t see if any of them had a grip on the garage door.
“That’s what I thought! Scott, Simon, you both know what to do. I’ll handle the talking.”
Scott quickly opened the door and ducked behind it, not giving Simon a chance to look inside. Simon made no attempt to follow after, deciding to respect his brother’s privacy, and to focus on the matter at hand. With his illusions, he made himself invisible, and teleported to the walkway above for an overlook of the possible battlefield. Zack’s friends fell in line with him as he stepped forward to take command. Zack had his flaws before, and some still remained, but there was no denying that he knew how to gain the respect of his friends and to fight with them when needed.
The garage door opened enough for around two dozen teenagers stepping in, with a young adult or two thrown into the mix as well. Simon sighed in relief as one, the presumed leader, stepped forward. Whoever Vanessa was, she wasn’t Morgan. Her hair was longer and styled with pink highlights, and she wore expensive and trendy clothes: a bright red jacket and white pants with studded decorative gems. As Vanessa walked up to Zack, she was joined by one of her followers that stood out. He was a teenager as well and taller than Zack, although he was more on the scrawny side. He had long black hair that fell down past his shoulders and wore a red hoodie and jeans. He kept his hands in his hoodie’s pockets but remained focused on Zack.
Vanessa spoke and Simon was thankful that the building was large enough that her voice echoed. “Last chance to get out.”
“We’re not leaving,” Zack crossed his arms and his gang nodded in agreement. “You have money, buy someone else off. This is our place, some of us like to think of it as a home away from home.”
“Your home away from home is mine.” Vanessa’s followers started to step forward.
“You might take it today, but we’ll be back. We’re not giving up. Is this warehouse worth the time and effort for you to keep it away from us?”
Vanessa fell silent, thinking over her answer, before nodding. “You have a point. I have more important things to do than to leave people here to guard this from your goons.”
“They’re my friends,” Zack cracked his knuckles. “But since we both know that you can’t keep this place secured, we’re done here. Get out. We won’t cause you any problems if you don’t-”
Zack was interrupted when Vanessa bursted out into laughter. “Oh no. I’m not going to let you think you can strongarm me. If I can’t have this warehouse, then you sure can’t.”
“Oh, like you can do anything about it. I’m not exactly seeing a construction crew in your gang.”
“Caz, dear,” the tall man behind Vanessa perked his head up. “You know what to do.”
With a nod, Caz pointed his hand towards a stack of crates, and launched a large ball of fire at them.
Chance The Podcaster 