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352. Stone Tablet

At last, after Mag finally deflated and finished lecturing them on the superiority of birds, he settled down and faced the tablet. Clearing his throat, he began to read. There was a singsong qualit...

351. Flipping Puzzles

The whirlwind struck two fleeing stone people and struck them down. With them gone, only one tone remained. Ike drew in energy once more, but this time, prepared to cast the Prince’s spell with h...

78. Into the Lion's Den

Laurent was waiting for him by the chip stand, one hand resting on the table. He looked up as the two of them approached, and his whole face lit up. Rhys thought to Bast’s warnings, and almost ch...

350. The Prince's Gift

Mana poured out of Ike just as fast as the King could draw it in. The Prince’s skill required an absolutely lavish amount of mana to activate, far beyond what Ike would ever consider reasonable, ...

77. Double Date

Rhys returned to the stall grounds just after midday. He’d tried imbuing the potatoes with his path as they grew, but the potatoes were living things; just like with the bones, they resisted any ...

349. A Soft Hum

From the fog, where no one could see nor sense ahead of them, emanated a low hum. They followed it. In the sourceless, even fog, aside from watching the earth to see how it changed, whether the pat...

76. Problem Customers

The next day was a down day, relatively. Only a few small ships pulled into the docks, and not all the salesmen bothered to set up their stalls at all, let alone hawk their wares as aggressively as...

75. Sales are Skyrocketing

In one day, potato chips went from a total unknown to the talk of the town. Everyone wanted them, or knew someone who’d tried them, or had seen them somewhere, improbably peeking out from between...

348. The Perpetual Twilight of an Unwalked Path

The fog lightened around the three of them. It wasn’t merely the illusion of walking through fog, where the fog in the distance appeared thick, but the fog near the walker appeared thin, but an a...

347. Foggy Path

Into the fog. Ike extended his aether as he walked, searching ahead of him to sense what came next, but all he could sense was the steady gray energy of the fog. The fog itself was imbued with… n...

74. Boil It Down

Rhys knelt by the glue cauldron. He injected mana into the water and bones, even tried to push the intent to become glue onto the bones, but nothing took. His intent slid right off the bones. They ...

346. New Skills

The white stone figures rushed at them, and they rushed at the figures. They weren’t puppets. Ike was sure of that from the moment he first clashed, and his fist carved through stone instead of p...

73. Cooking

They shucked their disguises in the forest, storing them in their rings. The stream near the trash heap served as a good enough place to wash their faces, and the usual two gremlins returned to the...

345. Wall

There wasn’t much to do in the empty land between the stone rose and the next region. They ran, and ran, and ran on, until the mountains finally rose up before them again. There was no sword-stri...

72. Becoming Salesmen

The potatoes were growing. They had plenty of oil and salt. Tonight, at midnight, he was going to head back down to the trash pit and get started on packaging his chips, so that they wouldn’t run...

71. Great Tracts of Land

By the time Mouse returned, Bast was long gone, and Rhys’s potato farm was well under way. It wasn’t yet time to set up the stand, so he was mostly farming the potatoes in preparation. He spent...

344. Not Him

“Llewyn.”

“What about Llewyn?”

Ike pointed at himself.

Wisp furrowed her brows, only to raise them and widen her eyes in the next minute. “Ohhh. Yikes. No thanks, dude.�...

70. Growing Potatoes

With compost and potato scraps (from his making of the potato chips) both secured, Rhys could now turn to the next step of his formula: super-charging the chips to make them not just delicious, but...

343. Where Do I Begin?

Ike explained everything to Wisp and Mag, to the extent he himself understood it. Mag bounced along, bobbing his head thoughtlessly, simply absorbing the information without question. Wisp, on the ...

342. The Storm and I

The puppet didn’t plunge its blade into a human being; it plunged its blade into a storm. Lightning crackled up the blade, singing it black and tearing over the puppet’s wooden arm. Spidery bla...

69. Potato Chips

“Make… what?” Bast asked, lost.

Rhys handed him a knife. “Do as I do. You’ll figure it out.”

“Potatoes are going to make us rich?”

“I know, right? I was...

341. Blast In

The puppet rushed at Ike yet again, but this was unlike any previous clash. The puppet’s all was in this blow. It refused to let him escape to rest, no matter what. Wisp tried to slow its approac...

68. Poh Tay Toes

Rhys traveled from one end of the merchants’ district to the other, making a series of large purchases. He knew what would happen if he made these purchases; the prices would go up on everything ...

67. Make a Fix

Without a good place to put the bowl inside the furnace, he simply placed it into the ashes directly. The metal slowly melted down. With the help of Trash Intent, Rhys kept the furnace from crackin...

340. The Dust Settles

Ike and Wisp stepped toward the puppet. Dust still roiled all around it, bursting with blue aether here and there. The aether quieted. The dust settled. From the heart of Mag’s biggest spell step...

66. Everyone Will Become Trash

Rhys gripped the intents—all of them. The bricks, the clay, even the shape of the new furnace itself, he held all of them in his mind. His mind trembled, struggling to hold that much information ...

339. The Final Blow

Mag’s spell hurtled toward the beast. Glowing brightly, trailing streaks of mana behind it, the bolt rushed toward the lone figure. Suddenly abandoned by Ike and Wisp, the beast watched them go, ...

65. Smelting and Forging

Rhys returned before long with a scorched earthenware bowl. He held it up. “Here we are. Now we’ve got all the pieces assembled.”

“Except the fuel,” Bast pointed out.

Rhys tur...

338. Beast Battle

Ike struck the beast hard in the midsection with his Hungry Sword just as Wisp’s foot found its spine. The beast screamed. It reached out to fight them off, only to give the birds access to its e...

64. Under the Mask

The white-robed figure lowered the mask to reveal a face Rhys knew well. One that had matured since the year or so when they’d last seen one another, but a familiar face nonetheless. He caught hi...