Goatie Tales - [The Bored Wizard] Chapter 8 - The First Fall

Hey everyone, I'm Goatie from Server 73.

This is Goatie Tales, a collection of short stories set in the world we all know, with a bit of humour and chaos mixed in.

This story is The Bored Wizard, following Merlin, an immortal who started this for fun and is now dealing with a hall full of legendary immortals, a cracked wall, a very suspicious floor, and a Philosopher’s Stone that everyone probably should have asked more questions about earlier.

Last chapter, Merlin recruited Gilgamesh, Attila, and Tomoe Gozen after the hall came under direct attack. Gilgamesh finally connected the pattern: the enemy was not hunting the immortals. It was after the Philosopher’s Stone beneath the hall.

Twelve immortals now stand together. The puppet master is close. The stone has been found. And something below is ready to make its first real move.

Chapter Eight: The First Pull

For one second, nobody moved. Not because they were afraid, but because the hall had changed. The runes along the floor no longer glowed in clean circles. They bent inward, each line of light pulling toward the centre like water circling a drain. The marble beneath them groaned, not cracking yet, but resisting.

Merlin looked down. “Oh,” he said.

Theodora stepped closer. “Oh?”

“I dislike when I am right in an unpleasant direction.”

Gilgamesh knelt and pressed his palm to the floor. His expression hardened. “It is not below us anymore,” he said. “It is beneath the stone.”

Leonidas turned sharply. “The Philosopher’s Stone?”

“No,” Gilgamesh said. “The foundation holding it.”

The room understood at once. Whatever was under the hall was not trying to climb up. It was trying to pull the hall down. The floor shifted, not violently, not yet, but enough for every immortal to feel the weight beneath their feet change.

Alexander smiled. “Finally,” he said. “Something with ambition.”

Joan lowered her spear toward the centre rune. “Can we strike it?”

“Not directly,” Merlin said. “That would be like stabbing a shadow and blaming the knife.”

Attila looked disappointed. Tomoe did not. She was already watching the walls.

“There,” she said.

A thin black thread slid out from one of the cracks in the east wall. Then another. Then six more. They were not ropes. They were too smooth, too quiet, too deliberate. They moved like living ink, crawling along the stone toward the glowing circles on the floor.

Cleopatra raised her staff. “Strings.”

Merlin’s face lost all humour. “Do not let them touch the runes.”

That was all Leonidas needed. He stepped forward and slammed his shield down. The first string struck it and snapped backward with a sharp hiss, recoiling into the crack like something burned. Richard drew his sword and moved to the next one.

“So they can be stopped,” Richard said.

“For now,” Baldwin replied.

The masked king moved before the next string reached the floor. His blade cut through it cleanly, but the severed end writhed in the air for a moment before dissolving into black smoke. Saladin watched the smoke rise, his eyes narrowing.

“It is testing different paths,” he said.

Gilgamesh stood. “No. It is learning which of us responds to which threat.”

A second tremor hit. This one was shorter, sharper, and smarter. It struck only one section of the floor, the circle beneath Theodora. The rune under her feet flashed white and cracked.

Alexander moved first. He crossed the room in a blur, grabbed Theodora by the wrist, and pulled her back just as a black string punched through the broken line where she had been standing.

Theodora looked at him. Alexander grinned. “You are welcome.”

“I did not thank you.”

“You were about to.”

She was not, but she did not argue.

Genghis Khan stepped over the broken rune and brought his sword down with both hands. The blade struck the black string hard enough to split the marble beneath it. The string burst apart, but three more emerged behind him.

Attila laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. It was the sound of someone who had been waiting for permission. He charged, caught the first string as it wrapped around his arm, and pulled it tight. Then he planted his feet and dragged it out of the wall by force. Stone cracked. Dust exploded. The thread stretched, resisted, and finally snapped with a scream that was not quite sound.

Attila looked at the broken end in his hand. “Good,” he said. “It screams.”

Merlin lifted his staff. Blue light spread across the floor, reinforcing the damaged rune beneath Theodora’s circle. For a moment, the hall steadied. Then the portal behind them flickered. Everyone turned.

The portal did not open outward. It bent inward.

Something on the other side was pulling it too.

Merlin’s eyes narrowed. “Clever.”

Gilgamesh looked at him. “Can you close it?”

“Yes.”

“Should you?”

Merlin did not answer immediately, which told everyone enough. Cleopatra stepped beside him.

“If you close it, we are sealed inside,” she said.

“If I leave it open,” Merlin replied, “it may become a doorway for the wrong thing.”

Baldwin looked toward the east wall, then toward the portal. “Then make it a weapon.”

Merlin blinked.

Baldwin continued calmly. “It is pulling through the hall. The portal also pulls. Make the forces disagree.”

For the first time since the tremor began, Merlin smiled properly. “That,” he said, “is extremely rude.”

Baldwin tilted his head. “Will it work?”

“It might offend several laws of magic.”

“Good.”

Merlin raised both hands. The blue portal flared. The golden runes on the floor brightened. The black strings froze. For one breath, the entire hall became a contest of direction. The thing below pulled down. The portal pulled forward. The runes held the centre. The immortals stood between all three forces, weapons drawn, feet planted, refusing to move.

Then Merlin twisted his staff.

The portal roared.

Every black string in the hall snapped taut at once. Saladin saw what was about to happen a heartbeat before it did.

“Brace.”

The strings ripped backward, not into the wall, not into the floor, but into the portal. One by one, they tore free from the cracks and flew through the blue light, shrieking as they vanished. The east wall shook. The floor buckled. The ceiling rained dust.

Then silence.

The portal dimmed. The runes settled. No one spoke.

Alexander looked at Baldwin. “I like him.”

Richard frowned. “You like anyone who suggests violence.”

“Not true,” Alexander said. “I like anyone who suggests effective violence.”

Gilgamesh ignored them both. He walked to the centre of the hall and stared at the main rune, now glowing brighter than before.

“It reacted,” he said.

Merlin stepped beside him. “The thing below?”

“No.” Gilgamesh looked down. “The stone.”

The floor beneath the central rune pulsed once. Gold. Pure, steady, unmistakable gold.

The Philosopher’s Stone was awake.

And deep below, something answered. Not with a tremor. Not with force. With a voice.

One word moved through the hall, low enough to be felt in the bones before it was heard in the ears.

Mine.

Theodora’s light flared. Leonidas raised his shield. Joan set her spear. Tomoe drew her blade. And Merlin, for once, did not smile.

“Well,” he said quietly. “That is new.”

Below them, the thing pulled again.

This time, the stone pulled back.

That is Chapter Eight of The Bored Wizard.

The puppet master finally made contact, but the hall did not break. Instead, the Philosopher’s Stone woke up and answered. Merlin’s team now knows the real target, the attack pattern, and the fact that whatever is below them can think, learn, and speak.

The question now is whether the Stone is a weapon, a prisoner, or something even worse.

What do you think happens next? Does Merlin try to control the Philosopher’s Stone, protect it, or destroy the connection before the puppet master reaches it?

And did Baldwin just become the team’s best strategist?

Drop your thoughts below.

This is Goatie Tales, and the floor just started talking back.