Suburban Warlock: A Slice of Life Fantasy, page 1
Suburban Warlock
A Slice of Life Fantasy
Noah Layton
Copyright 2024 Noah Layton
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. All characters in this book are aged 21 or over.
Contents
Chapter 1 – The Legacy of the Dungeon Clearer
Chapter 2 – Welcome to Emberfall
Chapter 3 – New Treasure
Chapter 4 – Willow Lane
Chapter 5 – The New House
Chapter 6 – A Hot Shower
Chapter 7 – The Mage Across the Street
Chapter 8 – With Friends Like These
Chapter 9 – Handyman Magic
Chapter 10 – Mysterious Neighbors
Chapter 11 – Home Deliveries
Chapter 12 – Hands On
Chapter 13 – Showers and Sandwiches
Chapter 14 – Backyard Wilderness
Chapter 15 – The Wood-Nymph’s Secret
Chapter 16 – Afternoon Swim
Chapter 17 – Nights in Suburbia
Chapter 18 – Like Few Others
Chapter 19 – Pax Valgardia
Chapter 20 – Home Security
Chapter 21 – Yard Work
Chapter 22 – Air Trespassing
Chapter 23 – Emberfall Museum
Chapter 24 – A Long Night
Chapter 25 – Victoria’s Place
Chapter 26 – Dungeon House
Chapter 27 – A Warm Goodnight
Chapter 28 – Neighborhood Treasure
Chapter 29 – There’s A Perfectly Reasonable Explanation
Chapter 30 – Drone Surveillance Take-Two
Chapter 31 – Improvised Excavation
Chapter 32 – Peaceful Evening
Chapter 33 – Victoria, Victoria
Chapter 34 – Sports Bar Scheming
Chapter 35 – Casual Rampage
Chapter 36 – At Home with Sophie and Victoria
Chapter 37 – Things Work Fast
Chapter 38 – Afternoon Jog
Chapter 39 – Views of Emberfall
Chapter 40 – A New Map
Chapter 41 – Elderax Artifacts
Chapter 42 – Museum Revitalized
Chapter 43 – Perfect Company
Chapter 1
The Legacy of the Dungeon Clearer
Everything that I owned in this world was stuffed into a trio of heavy wooden chests that I lugged down the road, piled onto an old warehouse trolley with wheels turning well past their millionth rotations.
Getting the chests over 1000 miles eastwards across the country to the town of Emberfall had been an interesting experience to say the least. I had pushed them, pulled them, stored them, defended them and stashed them in the holds of several long-haul buses between states.
At one point I had even stacked them on the front of an airboat as I sailed through swamp-dweller-infested waters, keeping one eye on the bayou pathway ahead and the other on the lapping splashes against the sides, ready to fire down any beasts that wanted to try their luck at ending me.
For a guy like me, it was all in a day’s work.
There were easier ways to travel, sure, but considering what I had, I wanted to move as anonymously as possible.
The first chest held everything related to my work: spell books, journals, potion vials and magical tools and implements that I only ever seemed to need when I couldn’t find them.
The second chest held everything that a man needed to look half respectable when he spent so much time traveling: changes of clothes, shampoo, bottled water, several dozen toothbrushes and a few herbs to spice up the duller meals that I encountered on the road, just to name the lightest things in there.
The third chest I had only picked up a few weeks ago. It was a lot older, and a lot more battered and bruised on the surface than the others – yet despite its age, of the three it was undoubtedly the most difficult to get into.
That was fine by me for two reasons: one, I had the key to its lock hanging from a chain around my neck, and two, there was $6 million in gold, cash and gemstones stuffed inside.
BAH-CAW!!!
I glanced up from the road at the two-headed zul-macaw flying overhead, darting from the trees on my left to those on my right.
‘Signs of life,’ I smiled to myself, pushing the chests onwards, ‘That’s a good start.’
My attention commanded, I looked up the road to see the first buildings of the large town in the distance.
Emberfall.
It’s kind of a long story why I chose to come to the magical town of Emberfall, and an even longer one regarding how I came to end up transporting enough gold to retire several times over across a decent stretch of the country.
I was barely twenty-eight, and while my body was chiseled and carved with muscle the way any man’s became after years of clearing more dungeon floors than I could count, my mind felt a hell of a lot older.
Partly it was my fault. If I hadn’t been Mr. Nice Guy – if I hadn’t convinced myself that picking a profession like dungeon clearing was a noble cause, and that I was doing a public good by heading around helping towns and cities keep their dungeon tourism businesses running - maybe I would have been living a whole different life a whole lot faster.
The locations of dungeons were no great secret; a map showcasing them all was available for $9.99 from every corner magazine stand in the country.
The Masarak Run. The Herandal Trifecta. They were all hotspots for families of goblins and high-elves with sunhats and cameras.
Almost all of the beginner level dungeons had been cleared out during the late 19th century, back when organized efforts by those with first-mover advantage had begun working their way through them. Those folks were long gone with their hauls; cozying around with your feet up in a quiet spot with your stash was a realistic goal for most of the runners back then, and a pipe-dream for many now.
These days the only ones remaining were the level 18s and up, and even those were rarely attempted in earnest beyond the first few floors.
But all of that didn’t matter a whole lot to me, because I wasn’t a runner – I was a clearer.
And that’s about as glamorous as it sounds.
Runners went deep into the floors with their eyes on the prize, willing to risk their lives for a shot at real riches. I only ventured into dungeons for the purpose of clearing out their less-challenging initial floors, putting on a show for families and letting them see a world that they otherwise wouldn’t.
Every dungeon in the world adhered to only four rules:
Those who enter can backtrack and exit a dungeon once their current floor is completed.
Continuation through a dungeon is decided by the first member of a group to cross a threshold; once any member goes onwards or backwards between floors, it is treated as the decision of the whole group.
Loot is extinguished from a floor forever upon first completion.
Groups are limited to a maximum of five members, with the exception of non-group members who may enter a floor once it is cleared at a clearer’s discretion.
Around the most dangerous spots also came the most interest, like many things in this world.
And that was where a clearer like me came in.
The coin was half-decent, especially for an Arcane/Destruction warlock like myself who really knew how to end things in a controlled fashion. Nothing special, but it was honest work.
But for the over-confident mage or warlock and his team willing to dive a little further into the darkness, to descend the floors and take on the challenges as they became more and more dangerous, serious rewards awaited.
From my time working for regional high councils I had come to know plenty of teams willing to push the envelope.
I had also seen plenty of them never come back.
The ones that did come back with satchels full of gold never stuck around long, but there was one thing most had in common: they were always raring for the next dungeon, consequences and danger be damned.
For me, it was different. I was there to stay alive – until that fateful day just a few weeks back when everything changed, when I was the only survivor of Ice Delve, one of the most dangerous dungeons in the country.
Chapter 2
Welcome to Emberfall
Emberfall was an enormous town situated in the linked community of Starholde. Magical communities were spread all across the country and had begun to crop up when the first settlers had come over in the 18th century.
The five large towns of Starholde were dotted between farmland and fields, and they all centered around a small city called Windshay, one of seven magical cities scattered across the country.
With the amount of gold sitting in my possession, I could have picked any town in the country to settle down in. Scratch that – anywhere I wanted, be it city or ranch or village with a population of 54 i
But Emberfall had something special. Two weeks ago, at a bus depot café while I was waiting in line for some lunch shortly after emerging from Ice Delve, the town’s name caught my eye on the cover of a magazine sitting atop a trash can.
After years of trusting precisely nobody, I only ever had one question when somebody was talking positively about a place or a thing: what is this person trying to sell me?
But that wasn’t Emberfall. The article was all about the town and its rich heritage: about the original settler mages known as the Elderax who had helped fortify the town’s magical roots and farm its mana wells to build a community back in the late 1700s, of the prestigious mage college that had opened a few years ago, and of some company called Terali Inc who were apparently doing wonders for the economy by developing old tracts of farmland in the surrounding area.
After a decade in dark dungeons, I wanted somewhere sunny and with plenty of heart that knew its roots, while also providing all of the modern amenities and luxuries that magic had to offer.
Emberfall certainly looked like that place from the photos, and as I arrived in town with my trio of chests, I found that the photos hadn’t lied.
Busy sidewalks, bustling storefronts, modern buildings of treated oak and red stone, and all of it so clean and well-kept that it may as well have just sprung to life yesterday. Restaurants and diners adorned the streets between storefronts and well-dressed folks going about their late-morning business.
After so long travelling I could have looked a mighty state, but along the way I had tried my best to change into fresh clothes, shower at rest stop sinks and shave when I could. All of that had lent itself well to my current situation, allowing me to blend in.
But the trio of chests sitting atop the trolley I pushed along the sidewalk gained me more than a few glances.
I spotted a diner that wasn’t too busy and ducked inside, leaving the trolley parked outside. I left two chests by the door, tucked out of sight beneath a coatrack, but carried the third with me and pushed it heavily beneath the counter between my ankles while I took a seat between a standing centaur in slacks reading the local paper over easy eggs and a pair of sun-elf soccer moms enjoying salmon and cream cheese bagels.
‘Top you up, sweetheart?’
The pretty goblin waitress smiled at me warmly from behind the counter and raised the coffee pot. She was a charmer, early-twenties with the kind of warm smile that most men would find themselves easily caught up in.
‘I’d appreciate that,’ I nodded. ‘What can I get to eat here?’
‘What’s your favorite?’
‘Steak and eggs.’
‘How do you want the steak?’
‘Rarer than hen’s teeth.’
‘Coming up.’
I nursed my coffee at the counter and fished out my caster’s journal from my jacket pocket. A quick glance around told me that the centaur and the soccer mom sun-elves were more than content to mind their own business instead of looking over my shoulders.
I tipped open the leather book to the first page and examined my stats.
Name: Trent Morelian
Class (dual-spec): Arcane/Destruction
Level: 50
HP: 12,672
Mana: 14,995
Strength: 91
Stamina: 97
50 was the level cap for any type of magic user in any class, and I had hit it years ago by total accident. My HP and mana had maxed out with it, but considering the average person’s sat at around 500-600, mine were a slight exception.
Most of my stats didn’t matter a whole lot in the real world, of course; my Strength and Stamina scores only went live inside of dungeons, and having such ridiculously high HP didn’t make me indestructible on the surface. I was as squishy as the next guy out here.
But one stat did carry over: my mana.
Sitting just shy of 15k, these levels were enough to take down a battalion of orcs before anybody got anywhere close enough to hit me.
What’s more, all of my spells worked on the outside, too, all the way up to the cap.
But there were laws around that kind of thing. In civilized areas like Emberfall, the wider land of Starholde and the city of Windshay, most of the spells in my arsenal weren’t permitted for use.
Mostly.
It was exactly how things should have been. I had seen enough idiots misuse powerful magic over the years to know that it was for the best.
I flipped my journal shut, the words vanishing from the page before either side met each other. I stashed it in my pocket, tapped my bootheel against the chest to reassure myself that it was still there, and took another sip of my coffee. The pretty goblin waitress with the admirable chest sauntered around the corner with my plate of steak and eggs in hand and set it down on the counter.
‘If this tastes as good as it smells, I’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘I’ll let the chef know.’ The waitress glanced at me a few times as her smile widened. ‘You’re not from round here, huh?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘So where are you from? I can’t get a trace on your accent. You move around a lot?’
‘I do,’ I smiled. ‘Colorado originally, but it looks like I lost the accent after all. It was so long ago that I barely consider it my home – or anywhere, for that matter. Life on the road will do that to you.’
‘Life on the road?’ She repeated with an intrigued smiled, ‘Now I’m getting mysterious vibes. What do you do?’
‘I’m a warlock.’
‘Really? What kind?’
‘The kind that sees a lot of places. I go where I’m needed.’
‘Sounds exciting.’
‘That’s one word for it,’ I laughed, flexing my hand against the ache from where I had caught my wrist between the flat side of a clade-splicer’s pincer and a 190-year-old stone wall during the seventh floor of the Ice Delve run.
‘What can you tell me about Emberfall?’ I asked, changing the subject.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Anything and everything. You a local?’
‘Born and raised,’ the goblin waitress smiled, ‘This town is the kind of place where a man can settle down with a woman and raise a family – or, in the case of a man like you, settle down with several women.’
‘You earned your tip enough with the service,’ I laughed, taking another sip of the delicious coffee. ‘You don’t have to flatter me.’
‘Not flattery,’ she smiled again, ‘Just being honest. But other than that, Emberfall is a great spot to set up shop. Plenty of merchants, plenty of suburbs, plenty to do, and plenty of places to get lost, too. By the way…’ The waitress nodded over the counter at the ground. ‘What’s in the chest?’
I took a beat.
‘About…’ I trailed off, nodding my head from side to side, ‘$5 million dollars in gold and greenback, and another million in gemstones. Mainly rubies and opals, but I think there’s a couple emeralds and diamonds towards the bottom.’
She stared back at me for a few long seconds before bursting out laughing.
‘You pick up that sense of humor from all the traveling you did?’
‘Something like that,’ I replied, my go-to line when I wanted to edge away from a question. The waitress shot me a wink and took off, glancing over her shoulder at me before tending to another customer.
Yeah, I could get used to things around here.
I got started on the steak, finding my optimism quickly restored by just how good it was.
‘Here’s your change, sir.’
‘Don’t you think you’re missing something?’
‘… Sir?’
‘I gave you a fifty.’
‘You gave me a twenty, sir.’
‘You calling me a liar?’
The commotion to my left drew my attention. I glanced up to see the waitress dealing with a sizeable orc at the other end of the counter.
Hair greased back, champagne suit. It was becoming a much more common look these days.
‘With respect, I know the bill that you gave me,’ the waitress replied. ‘I remember the first three digits from every bill that I take.’
‘The fuck?’ He scoffed. ‘Why?’
‘For situations like these.’
‘Well I don’t look, so what does it matter? You could have just taken it from somebody else.’
