Aster Brooks Books

Ch. 45: Chaos

It did not take long for Cass to find her way back to the rampaging dragon. He was a rolling ball of heat and wind to Atmospheric Sense. The flames of his breath were hot enough to melt the floor and walls and the thrashing of his body enough to send grown men flying.

The paladins the captain had left to contain the dragon had entirely broken. Cass chose not to count the number of melted corpses or ripped open stomachs or shattered shields in his wake. Those that remained ran, scattering before the dragon’s might, every man for himself.

Are you sure this is a good idea? Salos asked.

The dragon writhed toward her, clawing his way down the too-small corridors of the Temple, his maw gnashing.

It’s worked up to now, Cass said.

I hate that, Salos grumbled.

And I’m still not hearing a better plan.

Salos let out a long, growling sigh as purple flames licked up Cass’s body.

She grinned. Thank you.

He grumbled in reply.

The dragon’s eyes snapped on her. For a moment, the wild madness settled into something like clarity.

Only for it to surge toward her with new and renewed madness a moment later. Its jaws snapped at her as she leapt back. “AH!”

RUN! Salos screamed. Cass didn’t need the instruction. She was already Stormstriding away.

The dragon was fast, though. Much faster than a creature of his size should be able to move through hallways barely bigger than him. He roared and snarled behind her, hissing and growling as he tried and failed to reach her.

Until he wasn’t.

Cass glanced over her shoulder. An enemy suddenly going quiet couldn’t be good news.

Mana accumulated around the dragon as he inhaled.

It glowed red hot. Cass didn’t need the Liminal part of Mana Sense to guess what he was charging. Or to know she needed to be out of its path when he exhaled.

She darted around a corner as the flames burst down the hall. They spilled into the side passages, chasing her and growing as he grew closer. The heat was blistering. Her skin dried and cracked.

She kept running.

He turned the corner after her, his flames still rolling hot and heavy. They surged after her.

But the cathedral was just ahead.

She could see the open doors now. Fortitude’s statue stared through them, fully armored yet glaring her down all the same.

There was screaming.

Some of it was paladins and priests failing to get out of the path of the flames in time. But some of it came from ahead.

An increasing amount came from ahead.

Flames licked at her heels. The gusts from Stormstride picked them up, catching and carrying embers of lethal heat into her orbit. They flew past her face, around her hair.

A group of priests ran from the cathedral. One skidded to a stop at the sight of Cass, his wide eyes flicking between her and the dragon and whatever had sent him running toward her. The other two ran in opposite directions, terror the only thing remaining in their heads.

Cass let them all go. They weren’t the target.

She had one and only one goal. Salos, as soon as the dragon is in the cathedral, swap Fairy Fire from me to the captain. Let’s see how long he can handle the dragon’s undivided attention.

Happily, Salos said.

Best case, the captain broke quickly, ending the skill sealing the space to flee from the incarnation of wrath which was the fire-breathing beast behind her. Failing that, the dragon killed the man, and the skill ended with his life. Either way, the captain wouldn’t have time to sacrifice children to gods while fighting the dragon.

There was a chance the captain would kill the dragon. The possibility tugged at her conscience. This wasn’t the same as throwing the assassin at the boar in Uvana. It mattered greatly to Cass which combatant lived and which died. But death was what the dragon had asked her for.

She shook her head. She was going to do everything to stack the deck in the dragon’s favor. And how could any mortal survive a straight fight with the fire storm behind her? There was a reason this city all but worshiped the dragons.

Cass stormed into the cathedral, fire and gust, dragon on her heels. Only for the smell of blood to hit her like a wall.

Blood and an overwhelming feeling of dread.

Alacrity spun her mind to max speed, and Perception pulled up every scrap of detail as Cass tried to make sense of the scene before her.

The captain’s sword was pressed against a glimmering green force field. A lightning blade was stabbed through the captain’s side. Below him, a monster twisted the lightning blade in one gnarled hand while the other projected the force field.

It was a humanoid thing, with flesh that seemed to roll over its underlying skeletal structure, like its very body was unsure what form it should take. Patches of maroon pulsed over its dark skin, shifting like an octopus flaring bright colors in warning. Its purple hair was streaked with silver.

Demon of Blood and Lightning

Lvl ???

[A beast born of pride and desire. Devour it and gain its power for your own.]

A demon?

A real demon?

Salos’s panic flashed hot across their bond as he Identified the creature before them. Perhaps he didn’t need to. Perhaps he had needed to only look at the beast and know what it was.

This was everything Alyx had warned her about.

Everything Salos had warned her he should be.

Hungry. Desperate. Mad.

Was that her future? Salos’s future?

Its hands were long, clawed things, vaguely human the way dragons could be said to be lizards. In one of those hands, the demon held a sword made of lightning. Over the other, a glowing green shield floated.

Concept Blade

[A blade manifested from one of the user’s Concepts. This one burns with Lightning.]

Fortitude’s Protection

[A spell created by the faithful of Fortitude to protect their cause.]

That shield was an Order of the Copper Crescent’s spell. How was a demon using that?

The high priestess lay on the floor by the altar behind the captain. Her chest was ripped open, like a beast had torn into her. Her entrails lay in bloody piles around her, oozing across the floor.

Demons were amalgamations of souls. Broken souls desperately shoving over broken pieces into the gaps in futile attempts to make themselves whole.

Would it not make sense for those pieces to come with snippets of their victims’ skills?

Cass looked around the room. Paladin and priest corpses lay scattered across the cathedral. All with lightning burns. Many with the marks of a beast’s claws.

How many had this creature already devoured?

More paladins and priests rushed through the room. Many out of it, running past her, with little regard for the dragon fire still at her heels, wild panic overriding any other reasonable fears. Others ran toward their captain and the demon, shields and swords ready, some charging Aura Bashes, others preparing Fortitude’s Protection, others still just swinging their blade wildly at the monster.

In their shadow, Ahryn stumbled away from the altar, clutching his chest in pain and covered in blood. What was he doing here?

The dragonlings stood in a containment field on one side of the room, their bodies pressed desperately against their confinement. One pressed against the invisible barrier, screeching in distress. The other shook beside her, frozen in fear or shock or both. She needed to get them out of here. Or were they safer there for now?

The captain ignored the blade in his side with barely a grimace. Did he even feel it with his Fortitude? Or was the pain of flesh something so distantly behind a being like him?

He pressed against the demon’s force field, all of his Strength and the blade’s massive weight pushing against the demon’s magic. Fractures splintered along the field.

A third, crimson hand stretched from the demon’s chest.

It was a phantom thing, glowing and pulsing in her sight. More than mana. Less than flesh.

It reached for the captain. Reached for the core in the captain’s chest.

Had she seen that there a moment before?

The core was no more physical than the hand. More so than mana, less than flesh. More real than both.

They were not visible in the conventional sense. Not the way light was visible. Not the way the air whispered its secrets to her. Not the way mana and magic glowed.

It was a different sense altogether.

And yet, exactly the way light was visible. Exactly the way the air spoke. Exactly like how mana—how potential—glowed.

Naturally. Inherently. Obviously.

The hand squeezed around the captain’s core. Cass’s stomach clenched, empathetic pain rolling through her. Cracks appeared along the core’s otherwise smooth surface.

And then the impervious paladin captain—with all his Fortitude and blessings of the same goddess—screamed.

Pieces of the captain’s core—of his soul—fractured off, flying into the air. The phantom hand snatched slivers from the air and drew them to its mouth.

They slid down its throat, combining in its chest with the demon’s core, a misshapen pulsing thing, glowing purple and red with swirling green marbling its surface. It swelled with power.

Her stomach growled at the sight.

<<Devour.>>

NO! Cass toggled Soul Guard on, her mind snapping back to focus, her heart pounding in her chest.

Salos, you still with me? Cass asked.

A dazed feeling pinged along their bond. Yes, I think so. I was consumed by hunger for a moment, but… Did you do something? 

Soul Guard, Cass explained. Was it protecting him, too? Why? Because they were connected? Had it done that before?

The captain crumpled to his knees, his sword falling from his hand, his screaming continuing.

That needs to die, Salos hissed in her ears. If the demon gets out of this sealed space—a shiver ran down his spine and across their bond. It will rip through the souls of this city and leave nothing but destruction in its wake. 

Easier said than done. If it had so effortlessly killed this many, if it so easily fought the level 40 Paladin Captain to his knees, what could Cass do about it?

The dragon behind her roared as he charged into the cathedral.

Well, that was an answer, wasn’t it?

Ch. 44: Kohen?: Madness

The darkness fell away.

There was no new light in the room, but it didn’t matter. He could see the Order wretches around him. Their souls glistening red and vibrant.

Delicious.

The priestess in the center flinched, her hand slipping. Blood spilled. He could smell it in the air, rich with potential. Not a lot. Just a little. Just enough to excite him, to whisper of the rich soul that had filled it.

His hand pressed against the wall that held him. It wavered.

A rational core at the back of his mind said something about it being a barrier. About how, given time and materials and the right spell, he could break it.

He ignored that voice. That was too slow. He needed it gone now.

Force rippled through him. These paladins looked down on him, he whispered to it. These paladins thought him weak.

Force roared, no meeker, no weaker than that of the dragon still rampaging in the halls. The wall shattered.

He stepped out. Lightning danced between his fingers.

There was a snap. The lights were on. The huge tauran rushed him.

He’s too strong, the rational core said. He’d break before such an opponent.

A blade of lightning formed in his hand. He brought it level with the rushing paladin and thrust. Lightning shot from the tip, hitting the tauran full in the chest. The man staggard. He shouted something.

Rude. Disrespectful. Did he not understand?

The priestess was chanting something.

Dangerous, the rational voice warned.

For the mortal he’d been, perhaps. But better not to tempt fate. He burst across the room to her, his lightning blade finding its way into her chest. Her body spasmed, but the crimson core at her center only pulsed.

He wanted it. It called to him. It would fill him.

He reached for it, his free hand clawing through flesh after the core, but they found only blood and viscera. How did he grab it? How did he get the delicious potential inside it?

Sunder (Lvl ?) (???)

[Crack her open like an egg. Devour her potential.]

Ah. That was how. He reached out, this time activating the skill, watching with fascination as the ruby core fractured. So many pieces. All so tasty looking.

She fell limp. The other priests around her broke, running in every direction. The other paladin charged him.

He ignored them all. This was more important.

He’d broken it open. Now what? The shards fell through his fingers, the same as the whole core had.

Devour (Lvl ?) (???)

[Take what is yours.]

Of course. How silly of him. The skill sprang to life, and the pieces flew into him. They were warm. Each whispered of a life he’d never lived. A devotion to a goddess. A lover waiting in a far-away city. A garden growing in humble earth. Fractured moments with no context. Whispers and voices and desires. Raw edges, all waiting to be found.

And power. Oh, so much more power.

The young man on the altar said something. Called a name. There was pleading in his eyes. Blood dripped down his neck, as ruby red as the core glistening within. A long fracture ran over its otherwise perfect surface. Damaged fruit. How unpleasant. Who had done this to him?

Who would dare hurt Ahryn while he was here?

No. Wait. The boy was a sacrifice to the goddess. A meddler. The blemish on his soul proof his only purpose was as an offering.

An offering to who?

To him.

Sunder the soul, who cared about scars when it would fall to perfect bite-sized pieces at but a thought.

No. This was Ahryn. He needed to be protected. Weak, fragile Ahryn. Sickly Ahryn. Better sheltered at home with a book than on the training field.

Better on a sacrificial altar to the goddess than on the training field.

Better broken to be eaten than given to another.

The young man was yelling. The words meant nothing to him. Disgusting Jothi, unless he was mistaken. A language of hypocrites and liars. And yet, their souls looked so tasty.

A sword swung at him.

At Ahryn.

He snarled, turning on the interloper. He caught the offending sword on his lightning blade and redirected it wide. His lightning blade swung around, removing the head from shoulders of this fool that dared interrupt him.

But no, that wasn’t enough. This wretch had threatened Ahryn. Death was too easy. The soul within the man’s chest still flickered, fainter with every passing moment.

He reached out and crushed the soul. Mashing it into a fine powder. A waste, whispered Devour. But deserved.

The other wretches faltered. Good.

Ahryn yelled something in that awful language of the peninsula. A plea. Fearful.

Blood dripped down the boy’s neck.

His hand reached out to it. The potential within was quickly evaporating into the aether, yet what remained sang to his broken soul.

What would Ahryn taste like? It was a waste to give him to the goddess, wasn’t it? He needed to be protected. Where would be safer than within his own soul?

He reached for Sunder but faltered. It was bad enough that poor Ahryn’s soul had been scarred. How could he consider adding to that damage?

Wait. No. This was an opportunity. He, too, had been weak but a moment ago. But he had devoured a soul and become strong.

Ahryn could do the same.

He just needed an appropriate offering…

There! He bolted across the room, snatching one of the sniveling robed men as he ran for the door. The core within quivered, but it was packed to bursting with potential. Yes, this would do.

A pair of paladins surrounded him, shouting, swords and shields raised.

They were in the way. His sword flashed out, slamming against the one in front’s shield. Metal scorched where lightning burned against its surface.

Meanwhile, the other paladin swung at his back.

He twisted, dropping his prize for a moment to trace out a pattern of lightning and force with his gloved off hand. Balls of lightning materialized in the surrounding air. With a flick of his wrist, they shot down like comets around him, striking cultists indiscriminately, burning through metal and cloth and flesh with the sizzle of electricity.

The man before him crumpled under the onslaught, the one behind retreating in hopes of safety.

He returned to the altar, sacrifice wriggling in hand.

There were words for the rite of offering souls. Words in disgusting Jothi.

No. That was unnecessary. Completely unnecessary when he could do this. His hand reached out to the quivering core and squeezed, Sundering it to pieces.

He plucked a larger shard from the mess and held it up to the boy’s lips. Nothing happened. Why? Why was his offering rejected?

Was this not the right way?

Oh. But of course. There was not space in his core for this. It needed to be widened.

He reached out again, carefully, delicately pulling at the scar across the boy’s core. If he just widened this, there would be plenty of space.

The boy screamed, clutching at his chest. Screaming for mercy. For it to stop.

There was no need for that. This would make him strong. He just needed to accept it. Inch by inch, the wound across the boy’s core widened. Widened until it was all but folded open.

The boy’s screams ricocheted around the room, terrible and delicious. Potential rolled before him. Perhaps a taste was in order before…

There was movement out of the corner of his eye. The big tauran was on his feet again. More yelling. More revolting Jothi. The man charged again, his sword swinging wildly.

How dare he swing that in front of Ahryn? This was a sacred place. Not a place for barbarics. Paladins, honestly. They thought they were in charge because they were the martial branch? What did they know of the rite?

He raced forward to meet the tauran. His lightning blade met the hulking man’s long sword. His body buckled under the tauran’s Strength. Only level 40, yet he was struggling so much? That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.

How was he to—

—protect Ahryn?

—defend his goddess?

—kill the Jothi woman that had done this to him?

—devour them all?

Their swords clashed again and again. Force rippled through him. Lightning leaked into the air. All the while, the tauran’s core pulsed beautiful and delicious. Just out of reach.

Every hand reaching with Sunder was slapped aside by the tauran’s blade.

It didn’t matter. He’d get it, eventually. The dance of swords was enough for now. His father would be impressed he was keeping up with a level 40 swordsman. This would show those martials they weren’t that special. Anyone could do this. The tauran’s blood would be a treat before the main event.

He lunged with his blade of lightning. The tauran turned him aside with that giant shield and returned the favor with a powerful downward swipe of his long sword.

He couldn’t dodge. Filthy martial, using his greater Strength and Dexterity to bully non-martials. He’d show the stupid Lord Talus who was really in charge. He whispered the chant of Fortitude’s Protection. He wasn’t the head priestess for no reason. His chant was the fastest. His shield, the strongest.

The green shield appeared between them. Lord Talus’s sword landed squarely on it, yet moved no closer. The tauran’s eyes widened in surprise. Idiot. Did he really look down on him so much?

His lightning blade darted around, snaking through the tauran’s guard and into his side. The tauran didn’t so much as grimace. Not until the Sunder cracked at his core.

Ch. 43: Kohen: Desperate

Kohen wasn’t usually an idiot. He felt like one right now, though.

When Ahryn had started yelling about following a carriage and the dragonlings being kidnapped, he should have run to get their father. Their grandmother. Someone.

But it had sounded like his chance. A way to stand out. To distinguish himself above and beyond Alyx or Fioreya. Who cared if you had major blessings or were the Champion of a god when he single-handedly saved the dragonlings?

So, like an idiot, he’d followed Ahryn, the two of them sprinting after a carriage all the way to the Temple. Like an idiot, he’d broken in.

Like an idiot, he’d been caught.

It wasn’t until they were inside the building that they’d gotten a look at the forces that had taken the dragonlings. In retrospect, he should have known. Who else would be so brazen as to kidnap dragons in Vaisom?

Only the vile Order of Copper Crescent would try it.

He didn’t blame himself for that one entirely. Many people had underestimated the Order for it to get to this point. If anyone had thought they were still a threat, the dragonlings wouldn’t have been kidnapped in the first place.

But he still should have known they’d be proper combatants. They were all over level 30. Several over 35. Not new warriors at all.

A bitter voice in the corner of his soul whispered that Fioreya would have been able to handle them. She could have handled them even without the goddess’s blessing.

But he couldn’t. He wasn’t that good. He and Ahryn had put up a decent fight. As good a fight as they were able. But what could he really expect? It was just the two of them, and one of them was Ahryn. Did he need to say more?

They’d been captured. A minor miracle, he supposed. By all rights, they should be dead. Instead, they were sacrifices to Fortitude, according to the paladin behind them.

He and Ahryn were being marched through the halls of the Order’s hideout. He couldn’t believe they had a base in the Temple. When his grandmother found out, there would be blood.

His blood might already be emptied at Fortitude’s altar before she found out, though.

Ahryn swayed on his feet. He’d spent everything trying to get to the dragonlings. The boy looked like he’d fall over any moment.

Kohen moved closer to his brother, his elbow sticking out a hair further.

He wouldn’t offer the arm for support—that would hurt both their prides—but if Ahryn took it, he wasn’t about the shake a sick person off him.

Ahryn stumbled, bumping against Kohen. His arm laced into the open crook in Kohen’s as he caught himself, his weight leaning into Kohen’s shoulder.

Kohen pretended not to notice. Instead, he watched their surroundings, memorizing the turns of the halls. They were surrounded, Copper Crescent Paladins guarded them. Walking ahead of him were the two dragonlings, cowed into obedience by the threat of violence.

Three more paladins met them at the border of Fortitude’s halls, where Alacrity’s blue glass transitioned to Fortitude’s green. They smelled of smoke and their tabards had scorch marks along their edges.

In the distance, there was a clamor. Indistinct shouting. Bursts of mana and aura. The roar of a beast.

What was happening down here?

Without ceremony, they were marched into the order’s private cathedral. A statue of Fortitude stood tall at the far end of the room. The dragonlings were corralled into a magic circle on one side while he and Ahryn were marched into another on the other side. An open altar lay in the center, the grooves on its surface equipped with spouts with basins beneath them.

A pressure descended on them as the paladin powered up the circle. Kohen pressed against it, but it might as have been a stone wall. They were trapped.

“Stay there,” the paladin ordered. A useless order. Not one he would follow if he had any choice in the matter, but one he had no agency to refuse. “The ceremony will begin soon.”

“Say, what’s that roaring?” Kohen asked. The halls had been filled with roars since they’d entered the lower levels of the temple.

The paladin ignored him. Prick.

“They’re over there,” Ahryn whispered, his voice weak.

“Just sit down,” Kohen said. There was nothing they could do at this point. Yet he was still looking around the room for some way out. They’d taken their weapons. If they’d damaged his rapier…

No, he needed to survive to do something about that. And if he survived, it was almost certainly because these paladin wretches were dead.

“Ahryn,” one of the dragonlings cried from the far side.

“Emenie!” Ahryn yelled back, pressing himself against the barrier. “Are you okay?”

The dragonling shook their head. “I’m scared.”

“We’ll be okay,” Ahryn said. His voice was strong again. Far stronger than it had any right to be. Who knew he could be such a confident liar? “Help is coming.”

It wasn’t. But Kohen wasn’t so callous as to say that to children.

If they were going to get out, it depended on him. If he could find a way.

What did he have?

They’d taken his obvious weapons, but they hadn’t searched them closely. He was a little insulted by how little care they had put into his capture. That was how much they disregarded him.

Fine, he’d make them pay for that, too.

No rapier. No dagger sidearm. Yes dueling glove. A lot of Focus could be channeled through the glove. Anything else?

No. Not really. Just—

His hand found the marble in his pocket. A ripple of desire ran down his spine. It promised power. Wordlessly. Implicitly.

The Academy appraiser hadn’t known what to do with it. But he did. If he dared.

The huge tauran man stormed into the chapel. He wore an unmistakably frustrated expression.

“Sir, these are the intruders,” the paladin guarding them reported.

The tauran grunted. “Veldor brats. Fractured by the look of them. Fine. We’ll take it. We begin the rite now.”

The paladin flinched. “Have we captured the other two?”

The roar of a dragon was all the answer the paladin got.

“Go get the rest of the priests,” the tauran ordered instead.

“Yes, sir!”

“Useless, I swear,” the tauran muttered.

“What’s all the fuss?” Kohen asked, leaning casually against the invisible wall of his cell.

The tauran glared at him. Kohen met his gaze. This man was level 40, Identify told him. This man could snap him like a twig, his every instinct screamed.

Kohen wasn’t an idiot. But he was proud.

He met that man’s glare. To look away now was to admit defeat. His spirit quaked under the tauran’s pressure. But he held his body still.

Lightning buzzed within. His Concept demanded he strike. Demanded he not bow. Demanded he win.

The tauran snorted. “Brat. What’s it to you? You’ll be dead in a minute.”

“Then there’s no harm in telling me,” Kohen said, coloring his words with Noble Suggestion while still meeting the man’s eyes.

The tauran shook his head and walked away. “Dragon rampaging through our sacred halls and a fool of a demon girl slipping through my useless men’s hands. That settle your curiosity?”

Dragons and demons? What was happening down here?

Before he could find an answer, a gaggle of green-robed priests entered the room.

“Lord Talus, I was told you wished to start the rite?” the female priest at the front of the group said. “I notice that the guest of honor has not been collected.”

The tauran snorted. “You want to drag the dragon in here? Be my guest. My men are working on it. We have some appetizers for the Goddess. I figured we could just get them out of the way before something else happens tonight.” He shot her a disapproving look and added, “It’s not like your priests got very far with that third containment circle, anyway. Or did you want me to hold the dragon by its neck for you while you carved it up?”

She stuck her nose up. “If you had just caught the demoness promptly, or better yet, guarded her containment properly so she did not escape, perhaps my priests needn’t have spent so much time investigating how she got out and would have finished the circle.”

“Maybe if your priests hadn’t set up a faulty circle to hold her, none of this would have been necessary,” the tauran shot back.

“Nothing was wrong with the circle. And if you had just accepted that assessment hours ago, we would have the additional containment in place now.”

The tauran glowered down at her. For her part, she held his stare with a glare of her own.

“Start the rite,” he growled.

“As you say, Lord,” the woman said. She bowed her head, but there was no respect in her voice.

She snapped and the room was dropped into darkness. Not even the lights of the magic circles still glowed.

Kohen pressed against the barrier, hoping that it had disappeared with the lights. It had not. Hardly a surprise, but no more welcome for it.

There was another snap and the light went back on over the altar. The woman and two of her fellows stood around it, their heads bowed. Her voice filled the room, though she did not appear to move even her lips. “Tonight, the Copper Crescent rises over our great Isle. We, your true faithful, dedicate this night to your solidity.”

Another priest appeared at her side. He held a basket. It was turned out onto the altar. A tortoise tumbled out.

The priestess had a knife. It was long, with a deep belly and a green inlay along the spine. The blade sliced easily along the animal’s neck, its blood pouring onto the altar and running through the grooves into the waiting basins.

The woman continued her speech, claiming the night and the moon and more in the name of virtues of Fortitude.

In the distance, the dragon’s roar continued.

“Please,” Ahryn muttered to no one and nothing. “Please hurry.”

No one was coming.

No one would protect them. It was up to Kohen. That was his job. As heir. As older brother.

His hand turned the marble in his pocket.

Another snap. The lights went out. Ahryn shouted. Kohen’s stomach flipped. Lightning coursed through his veins.

The lights went on. Priests held Ahryn down on the bloody altar. His white clothes were already splashed with the blood of the previous sacrifices.

The woman was speaking, but the words washed over Kohen without meaning. His eyes didn’t leave the dagger in her hand. It shone, its edge red and wet.

No.

She held it against Ahryn’s neck as she spoke.

No.

His hand clenched around the marble.

No.

There would be consequences. He knew that even as he drew the marble from his pocket. He could feel it as certain as he could feel that there would be power.

The only consequence that mattered right now was Ahryn. Everything else was secondary.

The dragons. Their father. The city.

All that could burn as long as Ahryn was safe. Everything else could come later.

The marble slipped past his lips. He swallowed.

Blood beaded along the blade.

The marble exploded inside him. Power coursed up and down his body. There was light. Lightning arched off him in every direction. Force pounded against the walls of his confinement. His flesh twisted and bulged. Uncontrolled potential rolled through him, devouring him in turn.

And then everything cracked.

Ch. 42: Wind

Cass ran down the halls, the captain and a trail of ice behind her. Her feet pounded over the glass floor, faster and faster with every step. Around her, the wind whipped, telling her every movement of every being in the sealed space.

Atmospheric Sense has increased to level 21.

Atmospheric Sense has increased to level 22.

Wind Step has increased to level 15.

Stormstride Sprint has increased to level 19.

Stormstride Sprint has increased to level 20.

Stormstride Sprint has increased to level 21.

Her skills sung within. Turned out, being chased by a man nearly double her level was great for skill leveling.

They couldn’t catch her.

The Concept of Wind wouldn’t stand for it.

The captain reached out to grab her.

She darted left, around a corner. Out of his reach, his fingertips barely brushing against her clothes.

The Wind was Ephemeral. How could he hope to hold it?

A paladin followed her around the corner, his shield raised, already glowing with gathered aura. Another waited down the hall ahead, the aura of his shield just a fraction dimmer in its growing accumulation of power.

The one behind released, flying down the corridor.

Stormstride Sprint flared in turn. Her Wind-enhanced Dex gusted forward, the air splitting around her. She darted around the paladin ahead, sliding past him as his Aura Bash burst to pincer her between.

The Wind was Speed. How could they hope to beat her?

She ran, not stopping to watch as Aura Bashes collided in an explosion of wild energy. Not stopping to consider left or right at the crossroads.

She could see ahead, Atmospheric Sense showing her everything around her. Their huffing breaths as they ran. Their muttered curses as she dodged around their reaching hands.

Enemies to the right. Enemies to the left. But more straight. There, the paths wrapped around, twisting in a loop. Ahead, the captain ran in an ill-fated attempt to cut her off.

The Wind was All. How could they hope to trap her?

A roar shook her.

She stumbled as the dragon’s voice rocked the entire building. Perhaps it had shaken the entire Spire.

She grinned. Salos had done his part. It was time to let the cultists reap what they had sown.

She slowed just a step to let her pursuers catch up. Not enough to catch her, but enough that perhaps they thought she was tiring.

She turned another corner, drawing their chase toward the released dragon. It was a storm of rushing air to her Atmospheric Sense, as unstoppable as a raging tempest.

Pain spiked across her bond with Salos.

You okay? Cass asked. She slipped away from the screams of the paladins and the roar of the dragon, leaving them to each other. For better or worse, she’d thrown them at each other.

A long minute passed with only pain and silence from Salos. What had happened to him? Did someone catch him?

I’ll live, Salos grunted finally. But I will relish this group’s destruction. 

It was macabre, but Cass couldn’t help but agree. These people needed to answer for their crimes.

How are you doing? he asked, a request not to pry into his condition further filling the bond’s subtext.

I’m flying! Cass said, Sprinting around another corner.

Stamina: 63/141

Focus: 237/522

Health: 71/134

Her resources were flagging, yet she still felt great. Every fiber of her being wanted to run. It was freeing. That an enemy chased her barely even registered at this point. They were nothing but a faceless obstacle, no more interesting than falling rain or road hazards.

That is your Concept empowering you, Salos said. Hold on to that feeling. This is the difference between having a Concept and embodying a Concept. This is why you cannot simply take what Concept Gems give you. You need to make them your own.

If this was why he protested Alyx and Pellen’s understanding of Concepts, she could see why. The feeling was intoxicating. It was more than power. It was a promise. Wind would not let them catch her. She would be free as long as she ran, as long as she let it blow.

The screams brought her focus back to her current task. They echoed down the halls—paladins and priests shouting in terror and pain.

She rounded another corner, and there he was, wreathed in fire and writhing down the comparatively narrow hallway.

Feral Dragon (Lvl 38)

 Three paladins stood shoulder to shoulder across the hallway, their shields forming a wall against the dragon, their backs to her. Priests ran past her, paying her no mind.

The dragon slammed into their wall. The middle paladin stumbled back. The remaining two tried to close the gap, but the dragon was faster. Its jaws snapped shut around the right side paladin, crushing him before throwing him against the wall.

The left paladin swung across the dragon’s neck, his sword grating across the dragon’s scales with the sound of metal on metal.

The dragon’s head swung back like a hammer. It struck the man in the chest, knocking him to the ground as well.

Its maw opened and a blast of flames spewed over the three paladins and rolled down the hall.

“Stand firm!” the captain roared and slammed his shield’s lower edge against the floor. Fortitude’s Aegis appeared between Cass and the dragon’s breath, but did nothing for the three already shrouded in flames.

Cass could feel the heat through the wall. It scorched her face even indirectly. The glass bricks of the walls dripped on the far side of his shield.

She did not want to get caught in its flame breath.

“Get the demoness,” the captain ordered. “Form a line to contain the dragon!”

His men surged forward, bolstered by his command.

Aegis fell and the dragon snaked toward her, roaring in return.

Paladins behind, dragon ahead, it looked like a rock and a hard place. But Cass was the Wind.

She Stormstride Sprinted at the dragon, a gust of wind rising around her.

She Stepped.

“No!” the captain shouted, raising his foot to stomp. To disable her skill.

She dissolved into the wind, flying toward the dragon. Over his shoulder. Along his flank. Across his wings.

The captain’s foot went down. A shockwave burst down the hall.

It knocked her from the wind, her skill fizzling out.

She fell, crashing into the dragon’s tail.

It whipped across the hall, throwing her off and into the wall.

“You, you, and you!” the captain shouted on the far side of the dragon. “Go around. Kill her! You, you, and you. Form a line! You two, with me!”

She staggered to her feet with a smirk. The dragon didn’t have enough space in the hallway to turn around. It could only attack the paladins in front of it.

With any luck, it would rout them, and they’d be forced to flee their looping halls, releasing her as well. The dragon could more than handle the rank and file with his fire breath. It was only the captain who worried her.

They had a two-level gap, but monsters had more stats, didn’t they? Were dragons monsters?

Her stomach rolled. She hoped she hadn’t miscalculated this match up.

The wind gusted around her. Atmospheric Sense shouted there was fresh air. The loops dissolved into straight halls with slow but moving air.

Cass Sprinted for the exit. She wasn’t close. If she understood Atmospheric Sense correctly, it was near the cathedral doors, and she was near one of the far ends.

Had the cultists broken already? She’d expected the captain to put up a longer fight before the dragon. But maybe the dragon was too dangerous for their priests to weather the storm?

Distantly, she could feel the dragon ravaging the paladins she’d left behind. Men were mauled under its claws and crushed in its jaws. The heat was so intense from its breath that the ever rising updrafts muddled further details from Atmospheric Sense.

But, no. This wasn’t the rout she was waiting for.

No one was leaving.

Instead, several bodies entered. Two large, four-legged creatures, pony-sized and scaled. Two slight humanoids. A smattering of heavily armored humanoids in a tight formation surrounded the first four.

More prisoners.

The first two were the dragonlings, obviously. But what about the other pair? Not priests of the cult. The clothing was too close-fitting for priest robes, and besides, who kept their squishy support personnel so close to inherently armed dragons?

More prisoners made sense, but who else would they have kidnapped? More demons? Were there really that many demons wandering Velillia?

These were questions for later. Now was for escaping. This was her chance.

Cass pressed harder into Stormstride Sprint, summoning every bit of Wind-enhanced Dexterity to send her flying down the corridors. Wind Step would have been faster, but it was still disabled.

A group led by a large, armored man met them at the entrance, the air he displaced significant. He was at least as big as the captain.

The paladins marched their prisoners down the hall. The cathedral doors swung open for the prisoners.

Already, the air was stagnating.

She ran.

The cathedral was ahead. For once, she wasn’t approaching from the center path but rather one of the right side corridors. No, in this reversal, the center hall was her goal.

The loops re-coalesce around her, slow but steady.

Her window was closing, the hallways overlapping.

Atmospheric Sense warned that three waited down the hall. But she couldn’t let them stop her.

She ran.

A sharp left through the intersection where the five halls met. The open cathedral doors at her back.

Three paladins in front of her.

Order of the Copper Crescent Captain (Lvl 40)

Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (Lvl 33)

Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (Lvl 34)

Hell, the leader of the receiving group wasn’t ‘at least as big as the captain,’ that was just the captain!

What was he doing here?

She shoved the thought aside. He was here. She could figure out the how later. Her window of escape was closing.

Already, the space behind him oscillated, one moment connecting to the world outside, the next linking with another section of hall, then the outside again. Back and forth.

“Stop her,” the captain ordered, squaring up behind his shield. His men’s shields butted up against his, forming an impenetrable wall of steel.

She jumped, launching herself over them.

Space shifted. The exit was in front of her, green walls giving way to blue. Now, another hall. The exit again. Green, then blue.

Each time, the connecting halls were different. First, near the dragon. Then, near the training hall. Then, near the storage room she and Salos had hidden in. With each cycle, the shifting shortened. Faster and faster.

The captain dropped his sword. He reached up. His hand grabbed at the ends of her aura cloak. It tugged.

She willed it incorporeal. His hand phased through it.

She landed behind him, her feet sliding over green glass floors.

The threshold was just ahead. The blue walls and floors of the main temple. The exit.

Cass reached for it. Her hand brushed against the threshold.

Just as the space beyond became the hall outside the dragon’s prison again.

Space twisted. The ground shifted. She stumbled, falling through.

The captain spun after her, reaching out to grab her again.

But the space was no more stable for him. One moment, the hallway outside the central cathedral was behind her, the next, she was alone in an empty hall.

One moment, the air flowed chaotically around her, the next, it had returned to the lethargic loops.

The captain’s skill had re-engaged. She was still trapped.

She dropped to her knees, the wind pulled from her sails.

She’d been so close.

If the captain hadn’t been there. If Wind Step had been available. If he hadn’t grabbed the end of her cloak.

Why was he there? Why wasn’t he with his paladins, fighting the dragon?

She understood why the paladins crumpled before the dragon now. He must have left to open the passage to let the dragonlings in. Had he expected her to make a break for it when he did? Was that why he’d waited there?

“Cass?” Salos walked out of the room ahead of her, the one the dragon had been kept in. “How did you get here?”

Cass shook her head. That wasn’t important now. “The dragonlings are here.”

“It was a matter of time,” Salos said.

“They took the dragonlings directly to the cathedral.” How much longer did they have until they were sacrificed? Even if she could escape this second, could she return with help before the dragonlings were murdered?

Cass shook her head. They were out of time. “We need to stop their ritual.”

“How?” Salos asked. “The captain is no more vulnerable. We are no less outnumbered. No less trapped.”

He wasn’t wrong. Killing the captain was the most straightforward method of stopping the sacrifices, but it was infeasible.

But killing him was hardly the only way, was it?

In fact, what was wrong with her existing plan?

A smile slipped across her lips as she pushed herself back up to her feet.

“You have a new plan?” Salos asked.

“Not a new one,” Cass said.

Salos sighed. “Oh.”

“Come on, we need to make sure all the guests make it to the Order’s party.”

Salos jumped onto her shoulder. “I would be more on board with this plan if it didn’t sound like you intend to use yourself as bait again. Please tell me you have a different method in mind?”

“I do not.”

Ch. 41: Alyx: Sneaking in

Alyx and company walked through the lower halls of the temple, the twisting hallways spreading in every direction, level after level of subbasements still waiting to be explored.

“I expected more pushback,” Marco muttered as they walked with purpose past another group of priests.

“Walk with confidence,” Telis ordered, demonstrating with her head held high and her steps fast but not rushed. “With purpose. We have business here. Others will feel that and not question it.”

“But you are also using a skill, right, Miss Telis?” Pellen asked.

“Naturally,” Telis said.

Telis’s skill wrapped around them like a bubble. A bubble of purpose and urgency. It didn’t make them invisible, but it discouraged those who saw them from questioning what they were doing. They were busy. It was important.

Down here, with so many different groups of priests, all busy with important work for disparate rites for the different gods, they were just another group of many people too busy to explain what their business was.

“Any sign of Cass yet?” Alyx asked.

“Still looking,” Telis said. “This basement might as well be an entire town unto itself. It will take me a while to search the whole thing, even with my talents. The fact there are sealed sections does not make it easier.”

“Sealed sections?” Alyx asked.

“It’s a common enough practice,” Telis answered. “Some priests possess the power to separate their god’s temple from the rest of the world. It is a god-granted ability. It is common to use it when holding a private rite, though some of the more secret sects use it all the time.”

“Miss Cass might be in one of those!” Pellen said. “That kind of spatial distortion would hide those inside from location spells like the one I used.”

“That is unfortunate.” Telis shook her head. “Piercing them is outside my considerable skill set.”

Pellen’s face fell. Alyx’s heart did as well. Was this a wild chase, then? Could Cass be here but still entirely out of reach?

A roar tore through the building from below, shaking it to its foundation.

“Was that—?” Marco grunted, bracing himself against the wall. Pellen slammed into him. Telis didn’t even flinch.

“A dragon,” Alyx said. That was a dragon’s roar. It spoke of pain and rage. Alyx would recognize the sound anywhere.

“What is a dragon doing in the Temple?” Pellen asked.

Dragon Knights and their charges were more than welcome in the city’s temple, but most preferred to use the temple in the Palace or private altars in their mansions. It was less of a fuss to get the civilians out of the way.

“The better question is, what’s a dragon’s war cry doing in the temple?” Marco asked.

That was odd. And something someone should investigate.

But it wasn’t Cass, and so there wasn’t time. “We focus on Cass.”

“Oh,” Telis muttered. “How odd.”

“What now?”

“Your brothers are here, with company.”

“What? Why?” Alyx asked. Had they followed her? But why?

Kohen, she could imagine sending someone to follow her. He would love to catch her breaking in here. He’d report her in an instant if he thought it would disqualify her from the dragonlings or the position of heir.

But he would have stopped at the temple’s threshold. He wouldn’t have broken in after her. That would land him in the same trouble as her.

And why would he bring Ahryn with him?

Telis frowned. “No. That cannot be right.”

“Telis?”

“That company.” Telis shook her head, her lips twitching into a scowl. A venom slipped into her voice as she spoke. “Your brothers appear to be chasing a group of Stealthed enemies through the halls nearby. Enemies that should have long been banished from our city walls. Their Stealth and Cloaking skills have greatly improved since nine years ago, but they are almost certainly the Order of the Copper Crescent.”

Marco’s hands clenched around his sword hilt, his teeth grinding at the mention of the name.

“Who?” Pellen squeaked meekly.

“The rats of Fortitude who hunt dragons for fun.” Alyx’s aura flared through her sword and crown. “Who killed my mother.”

Pellen’s mouth made an ‘oh,’ but her entire body shifted further out of the way.

Everything inside her burned to hunt them down. They had no right to be here. They’d killed her mother. They’d killed Kelstor.

They were banished. The grand duchess had nearly gone to war with the Temple to see them removed.

They shouldn’t be here!

Had the Temple allowed them back after all this time? Or had they never left, quietly lurking unnoticed in a sealed section of the basement?

They were the reason she was the unwanted ward of Delim instead of the heir of Aretios. They were the reason she’d had to fight for every scrap of experience and power and approval when it should have been as much her right as it had been Fioreya or Kohen’s.

They were the reason she’d lost everything.

“Keep an eye on them.” Alyx’s hand clenched around her sword’s pommel. Whether they had snuck back in or had never left, dealing with them would wait until after she’d seen Cass safe. “But we stay focused on Cass. Try to narrow down which seal section Cass is in, Telis.”

“Of course.” The bite had not left Telis’s voice.

“As you say, my lady,” Marco acknowledged, his hand loosening ever so slightly from his sword.

“Pellen, what are our options for breaching a sealed area?” Alyx asked. This was a magic thing. Best to ask the magic expert.

Pellen’s eyes widened. “Ah, um! The easiest way would be for someone inside to let us in. But um—” She pulled a tome from one of her pockets, flipping through it frantically. “If you have a greater enzaro core, we could use Breach #82 fairly quickly.” She held up the page of her book as if it meant anything to Alyx before flipping through it again. She stopped and flashed the pages again. “Or, if we have a couple of hours and a liter of pelmorn blood, Breach #29 might be possible.” She rattled off several more spells with wildly varying components and time requirements.

Alyx cut her off. “We need this now, Pellen. The Dragon Binding Ceremony is in two hours. I need to be at the Palace then. We need Cass safe before that.”

Pellen nodded emphatically. “Yes, of course, my lady, um, one problem. I don’t have a method of opening it that fast with what we have on hand.”

“It didn’t sound like you could open it at all with what we’ve got on hand,” Marco grunted.

“Well, no. Spatial breaching is hard. And dangerous. Most mages can’t do it at all!”

“Yet you have an entire tome on methods?” Alyx asked.

“I specialize in spatial magic,” Pellen said, her chest puffed out in a strange pride. It deflated as quickly as it had ballooned. “Or, I did.”

Alyx didn’t have the time to decode that.

Pellen frowned. “Actually. I, I might have an idea.”

“You just said—” Alyx’s protest was cut off by the mage.

“Most Breach spells are designed to work regardless of the method of Sealing by unraveling a section of that sealing.” The mage had a distant look in her eyes; her words, spoken aloud to everyone, had a cadence that suggested she was thinking through the problem rather than explaining a complete solution. “That’s why they’re so expensive. One is working against another active working. It’s the same reason a practical counter spell has yet to be developed for field use despite it theoretically being possible for most common spell forms.

“But there are lots of underlying methods of spatial sealing. Spatial warp, enclosed realms, bubbled space,” Pellen listed off another dozen methods.

“Incidentally,” Telis interrupted while Pellen was mumbling to herself. “Your brothers have been captured by the Order of Copper Crescent members they were chasing.”

Alyx’s hands clenched. What were those idiots doing? What were they even doing here?

“For example, the fact that sound is able to get through a barrier implies that the barrier between regular space and sealed space can’t be that thick or impermeable.” Pellen was still talking, her rambling returning to a more confident tone and volume. “Warped space, then? Or maybe a Curtain wall?” All her eyes suddenly focused on Telis. “Do you sense a sharp barrier between the sealed space the roar came from, or is it fuzzy?”

“Fuzzy,” Telis answered.

“Warped Space,” Pellen said with a nod, returning to her middle-distance stare. “But still technically a stable space.”

“What is your point?” Alyx asked.

“Oh,” Pellen snapped back to attention. “I have a very experimental spell I’ve been developing. I think it might get a person into that kind of sealed space. Um, one person. At least, one person at a time. And they’d need to figure out how to get out again from inside on their own.”

“How experimental?” Alyx asked.

Pellen bit her lip and shrugged. “Very?”

Alyx didn’t like it. “One of us?”

“At a time.”

Alyx sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “How sure are we that Cass is inside that kind of barrier?”

“As of this moment,” Telis answered, “Completely.”

Alyx raised an eyebrow. “What changed?”

“Your brothers, and my spy, were just taken across that barrier by the Order of the Crescent. Miss Cass is currently on the other side. The amount of chaos on the other side is considerable.”

“Of course it is,” Alyx muttered. “Fine. Pellen, let’s try this thing.”

“I don’t recommend that,” Telis said. “I would not enter that sealed space. There is a paladin at level 40 chasing Miss Cass. She will be caught. You cannot change that. Once on the other side, you will not have a way out. You will be separated from our support. You will die.”

It was hard to argue with that. It was usually hard to argue with Telis.

“I can’t just abandon her,” Alyx said. No. “I can’t abandon any of them.”

“Your brothers would not rescue you,” Telis pointed out.

“No,” Alyx agreed. There was no world in which Kohen stuck his neck out for her. It was difficult imagining one in which he even cried over her grave. “But Cass would.”

“I fail to see how that makes a difference.”

It didn’t.

Or it shouldn’t.

And yet, Alyx couldn’t help but imagine a different life. One where her mother had never died. Where she’d never gone to live with her father. One where she and Kohen had never been forced into antagonism by expectation and birthright.

A life where she would have done anything to see them safe.

Before she could attempt to explain that feeling to Telis, a notification flickered at the edge of her mind.

Light Message from Ahryn. Would you like to accept?

Alyx stared at the notification. What was a Light Message? Since when did Ahryn have such a skill? But under these circumstances, she wasn’t in a position to ignore it. She accepted it and another message appeared before her face.

[Alyx, hi. Ahryn here. Kohen and I have been captured by the Order of the Copper Crescent. They have the dragonlings. I think they are going to kill them again. Please get help. I can’t reach anyone else. We are in a sealed space in the Temple. Please save Emenie.]

“They what!” Alyx shouted.

Pellen jumped.

“What now?” Marco asked.

Alyx shot Telis a look. “Did you know Ahryn had a messaging skill?”

Telis shrugged. “That seemed likely, but it never seemed relevant enough to you to spend the resources to confirm it.”

Alyx explained the message she’d received. “I’m going in there. Telis, go tell my grandmother where we are and what’s going on. This is well above our heads now. She needs to know.”

“I agree the duchess should know about this, but I don’t see what you expect to accomplish by jumping into this mess.”

“Whatever I can,” Alyx said.

Telis scowled.

“This isn’t the time for arguing. You’re the only one who can get the message to my grandmother fast enough,” Alyx said. “I won’t be in there on my own very long with the grand duchess barreling down on them, right?”

“Fine, be safe.” Telis looked away, the stony mask of professionalism she preferred to wear cracking. “I don’t care about those boys or the dragons or even your friend. Just come back to me safe, understand?”

“Always,” Alyx said.

Telis nodded. She took a step down the corridor, away from Alyx.

She paused.

“Telis?” Was there something else they needed to settle before Telis left?

Telis darted back. Her arms wrapped around Alyx.

Alyx stiffened. What? Oh! Oh. She softened into the hug, absorbing the shaking of Telis’s shoulders against her body.

“Come back to me safe,” Telis repeated into Alyx’s shoulder.

“I will,” Alyx said.

“That’s what she said, too,” Telis whispered.

Alyx’s breath caught in her throat. ‘She.’ Her mother.

Telis detached herself before Alyx could collect herself. The butler walked away without looking back, her voice again stony. “I will inform the Grand Duchess of what we have found down here. Survive until she arrives.”

She disappeared before anyone could wish her farewell.

The clock had started. Now, they just needed to see if they could outlast it.

“Let’s get going, too,” Alyx said to Pellen. “What do we need to do for your spell?”

Ch. 40: Salos: Releasing the Dragon

Salos did not like the plan. But as usual, he did not have a better one.

His heart hammered in his chest as he leapt from Cass’s shoulder into her shadow and Shadow Stepped out around a corner and out of sight.

His Stealth pushed out to the maximum as he waited for Cass and her pursuers to pass. It was an eternity of tense worry she would be caught. It was a matter of seconds as they raced by, none the wiser that the true demon lurked just out of sight.

Now, to stay that way. He scampered down the halls, from one shadow to the next, unseen as much because no one was looking for a black cat as because his experience kept him out of their gaze.

Distantly, he could feel Cass running. Her heart beat to a frantic rhythm; her good sense terrified, but her Concept singing.

Those sensations overflowed their bond, drowning his own collected calm. Yes, Cass’s emotions were the only reason for his pounding heart.

Cass would be fine until he got back.

He had done solo missions like this all the time back in the day. Operating independently was his M.O.

His target was just ahead. The door was shut, but that wasn’t an issue for his Shadow Step. He was behind it with a thought.

Before him was the dragon.

It was a sad sight. Dragons were proud people. Vain. Greedy to a fault.

But noble. Kind. Honorable.

Annoyingly so.

The thing snarling before him was none of these things.

The dragon’s scales were smeared in grime, the luster gone entirely. The horns coiled back, chipped and flaking.

In truth, the dragon’s state was none of his business. Bleeding heart Cass could cry about it. He had a job to do.

He circled the runes on the floor. He could feel his Runic Knowledge skill straining. He knew more about runes than this. All of it was hazy. So much of that knowledge had been supported by the skill. A skill that was now a fraction of its old level. There were a lot of symbols that he recognized only for the meaning to slip through his mind like a broken sieve.

He recognized enough of it, though. There was one of the repeating sections describing how the field should hold its contents. There a section outlining power sources. Over there, a clumsy repair where a sword or claw scratched through the pattern at one point.

This was more than a simple containment field—a ritual to hold a monster within a bound field. This structure also sapped the strength of the creature within and suppressed Focus recovery. Impressive, but probably the bare minimum needed to hold a dragon against its will.

People thought that a single misplaced rune would collapse the entire structure. And that was technically true, if the working was poorly designed. A well-made structure included several layers of redundancy. Especially for something as critical as a containment field.

That being said, there was always a weak point in any design. Redundancy cost more to run. More materials. A bigger circle. Everything was a balance and a tradeoff. This was no exception. There would be a section only repeated once. There would be a rune the inscriber struggled with that he could exploit. There would be sections he could short or overload. He just needed to find them.

The dragon was still growling at him. Salos ignored him.

There. The holding pattern on this side was missing a Verinth rune. What about over there? He continued his slow pace around.

Cass’s heart pounded in his ears, her emotions overflowing. How close had the paladins come to catching her?

Yes, the inscriber surely had trouble drawing Gollsorn, too. That was the third sloppy carving of the character.

A mental image of the circle built in his mind’s eye. With the aid of his skill, he simulated changes. Would weakening this section bring the whole thing down? How about that one? If he supercharged this side, would that unbalance the entire working?

He made his changes, his claws scratching into the floor with the aid of his Transcribe skill. It wasn’t efficient, and he cursed whoever had chosen Morden Glass for the floors, but rune by rune, he altered the pattern.

And then the door opened.

Salos jerked around as the paladin walked in.

The dragon roared as she entered, straining against its chains. The lights of the runes flickered. The dragon’s Strength surged, but the chain held.

“Give it up, Kelstor,” the paladin said. “It’s finally ending. You can rest soon.” Her voice was soft for a woman who had held the dragon captive for who knew how many years. “This is the last time. Just hold still.” She approached slowly, unaware Salos lurked on the far side of the dragon or that the runes protecting her from the dragon’s immense strength had failed.

She held a stone disk in one hand. It pulsed in a way Salos couldn’t describe. It wasn’t a light. And it wasn’t physically changing. Not a sound. Not the way her voice was a sound. And yet, it pulled at his attention. Promised things he didn’t understand but wanted.

He shook his head. What she was doing didn’t matter. He raked his claws through the last rune he wanted altered and felt the pressure from the field drop entirely.

The dragon lunged at the paladin. She jumped back. “Woah! Stop that!”

The dragon gnashed its teeth in response. Its chains strained to hold it back.

Salos slipped over the now inert circle and up to the post to which the dragon was chained. More runes ran up and down its length. More Focus draining runes. Runes for suppressing Will. Runes for strengthening the post. Runes for reinforcing the chains.

Say what you would about this Order of the Copper Crescent, they understood redundancy.

“Fine, we’ll do this the hard way,” the paladin said, holding her empty hand out. It glowed the sickly green of Fortitude. “Hold.”

Her word rolled over Salos like a tsunami. He froze in place. Invisible chains held him in place.

His mind split. He wanted to continue toward the post and finish releasing the dragon. And yet, he had to stand still. It wasn’t a want. It wasn’t a decision.

It was a fact. He had to hold.

A Command.

Only Cass should have that power over him.

The dragon froze too, its muscles strained against the Command.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said as she approached. She placed the disk flat against the dragon’s forehead and began a chant.

How did this woman have Commands? She wasn’t his master. She wasn’t the master of the dragon, either. A skill? It couldn’t be. If it were that easy to corral demons, the Custodia wouldn’t have been half as necessary. Demons would have been a joke, not an epidemic.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t a powerful Command. Already, it loosened around him. The truth that he had to hold still fading until it was just a ghost over his skin. He bolted forward, his claws tearing into the runes of the post.

The enchantments they carried buckled. He hadn’t been careful about it—a dangerous thing to do. Recklessly destroying empowered runes could blow up. The space within could warp. The energy contained could do any number of wild and unpredictable things.

That was fine for this purpose. He wanted the post the runes were written on to break.

Break it did.

The energy bolted up the rod, arching through the chains, shocking the dragon.

The paladin yelped in surprise, her hand pulling back, her disk pulling away from the dragon’s skin.

The dragon roared. Pain and anger and bestial madness echoed off the walls. He tore against his bindings. Chain snapped, his returned Strength finally greater than the metal’s integrity.

Jaws snapped at the paladin.

Her shield was up in seconds, though the panic was obvious on her face. The dragon’s maw clamped down around it, crushing closer to her body with every second.

“Release!” she shouted, her voice again a Command.

The dragon flinched, its jaws loosening for a fraction of a second. Long enough for her to pull her shield from its mouth and turn for the door.

Not long enough for her to make it far.

It lunged. The jaws snapped shut. She screamed as they closed around her torso, biting through the metal of her armor and the Fortitude of her body.

The dragon roared as her corpse collapsed in pieces to the floor and then slammed its way through the doorway. It wasn’t an elegant process. He was far too big for the door. His head fit through, as did its neck. But its shoulders caught on the frame. It pounded against them, glass shattering with every impact. It roared down the halls with every attempt until, finally, it was through.

Flames sprung up around its body, licking its scales and melting indents in the floor.

Voices down the hall shouted warnings. They would have been better served keeping quiet and hiding.

The dragon tore down the hall and out of sight. A moment later, the shouting was gone, but the roaring continued.

Feral indeed.

Salos picked his way out of the remains of the containment field. He needed to return to Cass, but he had questions.

What exactly had they been doing to this dragon? How had the paladin Commanded him?

She was far too dead to answer the question directly. Identify had little of interest to share about her corpse.

Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (Deceased)

Lvl 33

[The body of a vile demon hunter. Rejoice, for you have triumphed over a most hated enemy. Her soul is unguarded. Steal it before her goddess claims it to her halls.]

He grimaced at the description. Every death looked like that to him now. A demon thing, he assumed. One he had no intention of humoring.

He ignored it. It would be gone in a moment, the temptation removed for him.

He focused on his investigation.

None of her equipment suggested it offered the ability to Command. None, save the disk she’d pressed to the dragon’s body.

Soul Scalpel

[Class: Tool

A device designed to slice pieces of a soul off of an already damaged soul, creating soul cores from the harvested piece.

- Grants minor Command over entities who have undergone this treatment to holder]

Salos blanched. That answered his questions. Answered them and more.

What an awful devise. Was this a common tool in this era? He’d never seen—

Pain laced through him as a memory flickered at the edges of his tattered mind.

He was tied to a table. Containment runes ran over every inch of its surface. They coated the bindings holding him down. They ran over his skin. Painted? Tattooed? Branded?

She stood over him. A disk in hand. A Soul Scalpel.

She pressed it to his skin.

Screaming.

Ch. 39: The Captain

Cass and Salos stalked the fleeing paladin through the halls, their combined stealth skills hiding them in plain sight as the man ran through the complex. Even if they hadn’t, all eyes were on the paladin as he shouted about his urgent news for the captain. Who would have stopped to look at the shadow creeping after him? 

In minutes, they were in the Copper Crescent’s center of operations. It was a busier section of hallway, the doors to either side open and filled with men and women at work. 

Paladins went in and out continuously. Out patrolling for her. Coming back with reports that they had seen nothing from her. Performing other duties which had nothing to do with Cass, presumably.

All of them were leveled like the two she’d fought earlier. 

Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (Lvl 31) x 8

Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (Lvl 32) x 14

Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (Lvl 33) x 9

These were just the ones around their command center. How many were there if she included the ones patrolling or performing other tasks? Forty? Fifty? More? 

Never mind, the captain, she couldn’t handle this many. Not on her own, not with Salos, not even if she had the help of Alyx or Marco. 

Cass set that thought aside. Alyx wasn’t here. Alyx might not help her even if she was. Cass shook that thought aside. That kind of speculation did nothing for her. 

Instead, Cass focused on Stealthing through the increasingly busy hall. 

Stealth was not invisibility. But in some ways, it was even better. Anyone not actively looking for her—assuming their perception wasn’t too high—would simply disregard her presence, finding her as unremarkable as the tiling of the floor or the bricks of the wall. 

The issue was the ‘actively looking’ part. And the ‘perception wasn’t too high’ part. 

They were looking for her, but not in the center of their base. So far, Stealth encouraged her to walk tall and with purpose. Like she was supposed to be right where she was. It was ridiculous that this would work. 

Especially since, as Fortitude specialists, they should have complimentary Perception. Not necessarily the highest Perception, but it should be in their top three or four stats, according to Salos. 

That being said, if 29 and 32 were any indication, Perception was not a priority in their growth. Then again, they might have just been the worst among their ranks. 

29 had bought her lie completely after all.

He ran into one of many rooms along the main hall. 

“Sir! You may be in danger, sir!” he yelled. 

“What!” the captain snapped. His voice was deep and rolling like a beast’s. 

There was a murmured answer that didn’t quite carry down the hall. Cass slipped up to the door in question to peer within.

The captain stood in the center of a well-furnished room. A map hung from the wall behind him, marked up in red, purple, and green ink. Before him, 29 quivered before his boss alongside a line of other paladins and a priest.

The captain was a huge man. Easily a head taller than any of the others, and broad enough at the shoulders to fill the doorway on his own. And he was horned, like a bull. They started from his bony forehead and curved up in spiral ridged horns.

He wore a long sword on his back and a shorter one at his hip, but even the shorter one looked too long to be easily swung in the halls. A long rectangular shield leaned against the desk behind him. It was so big, Cass wasn’t sure she’d be able to lift it even with her System granted Strength. 

Order of the Copper Crescent Captain (Lvl 40)

He was no less intimidating looking now than he had been when she’d been captured. 

I don’t see how we can kill him, Cass said. 

I don’t like our odds, no. Salos said. 

How bad is it? Cass asked, though even without a breakdown, level 40 seemed far outside her ability to handle at her level 24. 

Well, he isn’t human, he’s a Tauran. If I remember right, they get 2 points of Fortitude for every level. I think they get a few other free points or something too, but I don’t remember now. By itself, that means he has 80 points of Fortitude. 

Cass blanched. What do you think the two we dealt with earlier had?

100? 150? Hard to say. Been a long time since I fought Fortitude specialists with my current amount of Strength. 

Then 80 isn’t that bad? Cass said, though even as she said it she could feel Salos wasn’t done.

If it was just the base level up stats we needed to worry about, then yes. But, not only may he have placed Free Points into Fortitude, we need to consider where he put his Extension—that is, which stat he chose to increase every level at the First Step. Were I in his shoes, I would have placed mine in Perception to balance the 2 Fortitude a level. However, a devout of Fortitude? I think it would not be unreasonable to assume he sprang for Fortitude again. That is another 31 points of Fortitude, bringing us up to 111. 

Next, assume he has, oh, I don’t know, 20 skills? At level 40, I would be embarrassed if less than two-thirds of them weren’t past the Gate. Call that 13 Gate leveled skills? I don’t know the exact breakdown on the bonus for Tauran skills thresholds, but I think it would be underestimating to assume they get 2 to a skill’s primary stat at the First Step and another 3 at the Gate. 

Again, estimating half his skills are Fortitude based, that brings us to about… a little over 30? Maybe 35? Again, this is an underestimate, I think. And it doesn’t account for other skills which might consider Fortitude a secondary or tertiary stat. This brings us up to 146 Fortitude. 

Cass nodded. Which is in line with your guess about the other two.

Sure, except those were humans, 10 levels under this one. 

Cass sighed. Implying there are some other buffs or bonuses? Probably bonuses from their Goddess of Fortitude?

Salos nodded. Exactly. I think it would be safe for us to assume their Fortitude stats are being doubled at least. 

Putting him at nearly 300? Cass groaned. 

With a healthy, if not exceptional, Strength and Perception, unless I miss my guess, Salos added. 

That was obscene. Her highest stat was her Will at 86. All her stats added together were only 449. 

Can I even scratch him? Cass asked, thinking of how little her Tempest Blade had done against the previous group of Paladins. 

“You mean to tell me you got in a fight with the demon and you lost?” the captain growled, his conversation continuing, unaware of the murderous sidebar Cass and Salos were having.

“She killed Genson, sir,” the paladin said. “She’s a demon. Her level is highly misleading. Even you might be in danger, sir.”

“Preposterous,” the captain snarled. “All of it.”

“She, um, claimed to have stopped the extraction team too, sir.” 

The captain threw his hands in the air. “How would she have done that? She’s trapped here!” 

“She claimed she could come and go as she pleased.”

The captain sneered. “Just because we don’t understand how she got out of her containment field doesn’t mean she’s a ghost. No one can leave or enter our Lady’s Sacred Ground.” He snapped at the priests standing at the edge of the line. “Have we figured out how she got out yet?”

The priest shook his head. “We’re still investigating, lord.”

“They’ve been investigating for hours!” he roared. 

All of his subordinates flinched away from him. 

I think even I will have difficulties piercing his defenses even with precision strikes, Salos admitted.

Cass shook her head. This isn’t going to work. We can’t kill something we can’t cut.

“Nothing appears to be wrong with the array, sir,” the priest explained. “The evidence suggests the demon either broke it and then reengaged it after or somehow slipped through without destroying it. Neither of which—“

“That is ridiculous!” the captain snapped. “A demon ‘slipped through’ a containment field? Those things have fractions of souls. The edges decaying. A healthy person can’t get through that field. You think a demon could?”

“No, sir,” the woman responded. “That is why the priests are still investigating. They are certain they will find signs of tampering if they look.”

We need to find a way out of here, Salos reminded her. Through him is the only way.

“Tell them to hurry up,” the captain yelled, pacing across the room and back. “The demonlings are on their way. If something is wrong with the field, I want it fixed before they get here.”

“Of course, sir,” the woman said. 

We just need him to drop his skill, Cass said. Granted, convincing him she wasn’t a demon and that he should let her and any dragons he had kicking around go seemed no easier a feat. 

Could she slip out as they brought the dragonlings in? It would mean leaving them here longer while she went for help, but that was a more reasonable plan than trying to sneak them out with her. 

And either way, she would need to return for the feral dragon.

“Find the girl. The sealed space isn’t that big. She’s not even at the Gate. Have there been any other casualties?” the captain barked. 

The second man shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Yet, he says,” the captain muttered. “Fine. New orders: kill the demon girl on sight. The dragonlings are too important to risk with a rogue element in our halls.”

Cass’s stomach sank. She had no illusions about how alive she would be if those had been the orders from the beginning.

“Sir!” the paladins saluted.

“Get a move on!” the captain yelled, sending his subordinates scattering. “And tell whoever’s lurking outside to just come in and give me their report!” 

Cass’s eyes shot wide.

RUN! Salos yelled. Unnecessary, because Cass was already Sprinting away, pulling Wind out of her way and pressing herself forward with it. 

Behind her, she could hear excited shouts and a single enraged word: “WHAT!”

There was a bang. A huge body burst from the command room and barreled down the hallway. 

She was fast. There was no arguing about that. She had all the speed of a 61 Dex runner, aided by a Concept that screamed speed and freedom and a skill with the single desire to run faster. Cass was fast. And with her 47 End, she could be fast for a long time. 

The captain was an entirely different beast. 

Every footfall on the glass floor propelled him yards with his considerable Strength. He gobbled up the distance between them, bursting forward like a bullet from a rifle barrel. His whole body radiated mana, strong enough she could feel it with Mana Sense without looking at it directly. 

Worse, he wasn’t alone.

“Stop her!” The captain’s order rang through the air. Every body in the hall stopped what they were doing. 

With barely a pause, the nearest paladin—papers falling from his hands as they flew to his sword—stepped in front of her. 

Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (Lvl 34)

She didn’t have the strength to bowl him over, even with all her speed and the added gust from Stormstride. 

I’ve got him, Salos said as he leapt from her shoulder and onto the man’s face. Cass ducked right while Salos’s claws raked into the man’s eyes. 

It wasn’t enough to stop him, but it startled him enough that Cass could slip around him before his sword could find her guts. She flew past him, darting around the many other paladins in the hall before her. 

Paladins filled the surrounding corridors. Men looking for her when the captain had thrown up the alarm. Men running to surround her on his orders.  

Behind her, their captain pounded down the hall, his huge body blowing through any of his subordinates that were not fast enough to chase after her or get out of his way. 

Even with those road hazards, he would catch her in a straight sprint. She couldn’t let it stay that kind of contest. 

She darted right, turning down another corridor, barely slowing. But slowing.

He skidded past the turn. One of his hands grabbed the corner, yanking him back. His eyes burned into the back of her head as he chased. 

He’s catching up again! Salos yelled, his voice emanating from her necklace. He must have demanifested as soon as she was past his victim. 

Suggestions? Cass demanded, her thoughts flying in every direction to find an escape. 

Another turn.

She channeled Elemental Manipulation through her feet, willing a sheet of ice to materialize behind her over the intersection. 

She darted left as the ice took hold. The captain’s hands snapped behind her, barely out of reach. 

She didn’t stop to watch him fall. 

Focus: 286/549

Running will not be enough, Salos said.

We just finished talking about how his Fortitude is too high for us to do anything about! Cass yelled. 

That was before he started chasing you! Now we need to find an answer, anyway.

The captain wasn’t on the ground long. Cass had barely turned the next corner and he was up again. Would the trick with the ice work again or would he be prepared for it this time? How long could she keep this up? 

Stamina: 97/141

Her heart pounded in her chest. 

Would he kill her when he caught her like he’d ordered his men?

Not if. When. 

Would he kill her on the spot, or would he drag her back to the ritual table in the cathedral and cut her heart out for his dark goddess? Would he lock her up in a small room and slice her soul to ribbons? 

She could outrun them for now, but how long could she keep it up? 

As long as she needed to, whispered the Wind. 

But that wasn’t a long-term plan. 

True escape meant breaking the captain’s skill. And that seemed just as impossible as hurting him. 

Maybe she could freeze him to death with astraum against his heart. But that required her to pierce his armor and Fortitude with her dagger, all the while standing in range of his sword. And would he stand still and take it like his lower-level subordinate had? 

No. She was trapped down here with him. 

Trapped as long as he was alive. 

Trapped as long as he wished to hold her. 

He charged behind her, his body and shield exploding with mana as he burst down the hall. The air screamed to get out of his way. 

Cass Stepped onto it, letting his mad rush gust her forward and around a corner. 

He careened on into the far wall at the end of the hall, his shield crashing into the glass and leaving an impact crater before him. 

He turned and growled, his eyes flashing with frustration. 

Perhaps he was trapped with her as much as the reverse. 

Cass cocked her head at the thought. What if being trapped in here became a problem for him?  

I have an idea, Cass said. 

How concerned should I be? Salos asked. 

It’s a plan you’re already familiar with, Cass said. 

Very concerned, got it.

Oh, shush, Cass said, explaining the outline she had in mind.

Ch. 38: Ahryn: Light Message

Ahryn was used to being ignored. It was usually better than being noticed, if he was honest.

He was used to their low expectations. He was used to missing them, anyway. It mostly didn’t bother him any more. 

But he’d hoped today would be different. 

He stared up at the darkening sky as he walked through the city. Kohen walked a few steps ahead, an easy grin on his face. He wanted an early celebration for his performance in the arena.  

With Alyx abandoning the competition today, he probably thought he’d guaranteed himself a dragonling at the ceremony tonight. The hand in his pocket anxiously fiddling with something was the only tell that he still harbored doubts. 

Kohen would be a fool not to. Alyx was the Major Blessing holder. It was still entirely possible for the dragonlings to pick her, even without performing today. And, with Fioreya named Champion, it was hard to imagine anyone else being chosen. 

Ahryn had still hoped. 

Images of his opponent in the arena flashed across his vision. The claws. The fangs. The bristling fur. 

He’d selected a modest opponent. A level 24 Bogbenz, a medium-sized feline monster from the swamps to the South. He had a level on it. It should have been disadvantaged in the open space of the arena without deep pools of swamp water to ambush him from.  

He pressed a hand to his bandaged side. The pain was familiar, but unwelcome.

They’d told him to pick something weaker. That with his condition, he needed to be careful. That he shouldn’t push himself for this. 

But Fioreya had slain a beast five levels greater than her own.

Kohen had picked and beaten a stone bear two levels stronger than he was. 

Alyx—had she gone—would have easily killed a wolf three above her.

And he’d barely survived his fight. 

If he could have hidden his face as he limped off the field, he would have. 

Should he be glad even his grandmother had left before he’d finished?

The first stars began to poke through the day’s dying light, though the moons were not yet up and the sun hadn’t quite set. 

Their cold light embraced him, soft and gentle. 

With a thought, he grabbed a small bundle of that burgeoning starlight and wrapped it in his favorite skill: 

Light Message (Starlight)

[Communication is the most important part of any relationship, but sometimes the spoken word is insufficient. Wish it to be so and you will be heard. 

Send messages to a target for a small Focus cost. Increased cost dependent on message length and travel distance.

Association with the Concept of Starlight decreases message cost and allows the target to respond at the cost of the skill owner’s Focus so long as the skill owner is under the light of the stars.]

How did it look today? he asked the open air. The starlight carried the thought away to his closest friend. 

Perhaps he shouldn’t have. They’d promised to create some distance before the ceremony. 

They hadn’t been doing a good job of it. 

It wasn’t only his fault alone, but it was perhaps unevenly enabled by his Light Message. By him sending them. 

Then again, she’d never once not responded. 

He could feel the response settling on the edge of his mind now. Every time, he braced for it to be a request that he stop. That they end this before she swore herself to her knight. 

He knew he’d never be strong enough to be that for her. They’d made their peace with that a long time ago. 

Or, he thought he had. Until insanity took him and he’d run headlong into the Catacombs because of a stranger’s encouragement. 

He’d survived. He’d done well. He had a blessing like Alyx and Kohen. He’d gotten it on his own merits instead of on Kohen’s coattails. 

But he still wasn’t their equal.  

She needed to pick someone strong for her knight. 

He needed to support his brother. He couldn’t steal Kohen’s dragon. 

Not that she had any intention of picking Kohen. She’d whispered as much to him days ago. He’d tried to convince her otherwise. He probably could have tried harder. 

He wasn’t very good at supporting Kohen. 

Braced, he opened the message. 

Ahryn! Help me!

He froze, her scream ringing in his ears. 

What’s happening? he sent back. He must be misunderstanding. The dragonlings were the most well-protected beings in all the city. In all the duchy. 

Strange knights have us. I don’t know where they’re taking us. Ahryn, please, help me. I’m scared.

The world fell out from under him. There was no other explanation for why he was on his knees. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening again. 

Not again. 

Not again. 

“Hey, what’s wrong with you?” Kohen loomed over him. Looking down on him. 

“Emenie.” Her name slipped from his lips. 

“That’s one of the dragonlings, right?” Kohen said. “What about them?”

“She’s in trouble.”

Kohen stood a little straighter at that. “What?” 

“She’s in trouble,” Ahryn repeated. He couldn’t sit here. He couldn’t let that happen again. “I have to save her.”

He didn’t even know where she was. 

Where are you now? Ahryn sent. 

I don’t know. They shoved us in a carriage. I tried to bite him, but he was too strong. It’s dark, Ahryn. 

A carriage. Then they were still on the move. Could he use that? He checked his Focus.

Focus: 112/126

I’m coming for you, he sent, watching his Focus drop with the effort.

Focus: 105/126

It dropped 7 points. He knew 3 was the minimum when standing beside his target under a clear night sky. It cost between 20 and 30 to send across the city on such a night. She was close.

Hurry, I’m so scared, she replied. His Focus dropped again.

Focus: 99/126

Only 6 points that time. The message lengths were about the same too. She was getting closer. Assuming she started at the Palatial Hill, that suggested she was moving toward the river and the lower city. 

Tell me about the man you tried to bite, he said. 

Focus: 93/126

He was a knight. I don’t know. 

Focus: 87/126

That’s okay, just tell me what you remember. He was a knight. So he had armor?

Focus: 82/126

That was 5 points. Still getting closer.

“Hey!” Kohen was yelling. “What’s going on? Why are you spacing out?”

Ahryn wasn’t listening to him, his entire attention on Emenie. 

Yes. Big armor. Heavy armor, she sent. 

Focus: 77/126

Heavily armored enemies? Kidnapping dragonlings? 

Is Velkora with you? he asked.

Focus: 73/126

4 points. They had picked up speed. Or were moving toward him more directly.

I think so. It’s so dark. 

Focus: 69/126

His mind ran through the maps of the city he’d long ago memorized. The lower city changed weekly, new buildings coming up, old buildings collapsing. But the upper city rarely changed. He knew the shapes of the broadways and the splits in the avenues like the back of his hand. 

And there were only so many roads that a carriage could travel down at that speed in this direction. 

A carriage crested the hill and rumbled down the road.

How many knights were there? he asked. 

Focus: 66/126

It flew past them, barely missing them. 

Kohen was yelling at the driver—something about recklessness and paying for crossing him. 

Ahryn was too busy staring at the driver to listen. He wore a heavy cloak, covering his clothing, but the bulk of his shoulders almost looked like heavy armor. 

I don’t know. They got past Auntie, Emenie said. 

Focus: 62/126

The cost increased again. 

“That carriage,” Ahryn said aloud. 

“I’ll tell mother about it. Don’t you worry, she’ll make sure they’re fined for driving at those speeds,” Kohen ranted. 

“The dragonlings are in it.”

“What?” Kohen shouted. 

Ahryn was already running. He wasn’t good for much, but he still had to try.

Ch. 37: Questions

Cass’s Focus had only come back up to 306 when the paladin she’d knocked out with the cold woke up. 

He grunted awake, his head snapping to and fro as he tried to figure out what had happened and where he was. Cass didn’t wait for him to get his bearings. 

“Welcome back,” she said, pulling the rickety chair she’d found amid the crates up in front of him. She’d been kind enough to sit him up, but not kind enough to find a second chair. He had to look up at her from the floor. 

“Demon!” He lunged forward, his arms flexing against his bindings. For now, they held, and he sagged back as it became evident he could not reach her.

Cass sighed. “Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t?” 

“Lies!” 

“Can you take this a little more seriously?” she asked. “Maybe yell something that isn’t horribly cliche?” 

To his credit, he only glared at her in response to that. 

“I have a couple questions,” Cass continued. “If you answer them, I’ll leave you tied up here with the door open and one of your friends will find you in no time.”

“I will tell you nothing, demon!” 

Cass pinched the bridge of her nose. There was the carrot. She’d hoped it would be enough. Salos had said it wouldn’t. 

Salos hopped up on the back of the chair, his gold eyes burning down at the man. “Refuse to answer us and we will kill you and hide your body. None will find you until the summer warmth sinks through the glass and turns your flesh to rot.”

Jeeze, tone that down a little, Cass said. 

His angry tail flick was the only indication he’d heard her. 

“Let’s start with an easy one,” Cass said. “Who are you people?”

He grinned at her. Or maybe ‘grin’ wasn’t the right word. Grins weren’t that malicious. “We are the Order of the Copper Crescent. The most devout of the Goddess of Fortitude. She of Unyielding Might and True Endings.” 

Identify had told her half of that and simple observation skills had told her the rest. But that was fine. Step one was to get him talking. 

“And why did you lot kidnap me?” This was another question they knew the answer to, or they thought they did, at least. 

“Why would our glorious order capture a demon except to slay you in the name of our goddess?” The fanaticism went through to the eyes. They were crazed. 

“It didn’t look like you all were planning to kill me,” Cass prompted. “Your captain had me in the palm of his hand, yet I was tossed in a cell instead. An odd way to slay demons, if you ask me.”

“We will slay you in good time. Don’t you worry. As soon as the Copper Crescent rises, we’ll send that twisted soul of yours to our Goddess.” 

Did that mean anything to you? Cass asked Salos. 

Copper Crescent is one of the moons. I wasn’t aware it was associated with Fortitude. In my day, it was a symbol of the Lady of Will. And of the Custodia. 

And this sacrifice business? Cass asked. Was that common back in your day?

No. Not particularly.

“You and that dragon are finally going to meet Fortitude tonight,” the paladin cackled. 

“Oh, slaying the dragon too,” Cass cooed. “Finally working up the courage to fight it, then? How long have you been cowering in front of it?”

“No one but you demons are cowering,” he hissed. “We’ll set you free to the Goddess when you deserve it and not a moment sooner.” 

“Oh, and why does it deserve it now? After all this time? Good behavior?”

“It’s replacement is on its way,” he grinned. 

“You expect me to believe you found so many demons all at once?” Cass laughed.

The man smirked. “Why would we keep such a big dragon if there are so many little ones we can snatch today?”

Looks like we were right, Salos said. Not that we can do anything about it. Do I need to remind you we don’t even know our way out?

I’m working on it, Cass assured him. So far, she’d stuck to topics she was confident he wanted to talk about. The virtue and strength of his organization, the awful things they planned to do to her, things that made him feel strong. People loved talking about that kind of thing—especially this kind of person. 

This was where it got tricky. He wasn’t going to want to tell her about how to leave or which of his allies controlled the skill separating this part of the building from the rest. 

This was where Cass would have floundered in the past. Earth Cass would have panicked at this point. Whirling thoughts and mounting desperation would have had her blurt the first thing she thought. 

But now, Cass had so much Alacrity time slowed to a crawl. Slyphid Cass had as much time as she needed to craft the right script for what she needed next. 

“Oh, is that all?” Cass asked, affecting a bored tone. “You probably shouldn’t kill the dragon you have then.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” the paladin demanded. Off balance. Confused. Good. 

Now, what was that supposed to mean? 

“Well, you might end up with no dragons if you do,” Cass said with a shrug. 

He glared at her, the gears in his head turning. Did he understand her implication? 

No, he was thinking too much. She needed to spell it out. “I’ve already stopped them.” 

He laughed in her face. “No, you haven’t. Margino and Caelis left ages ago. You couldn’t have caught them!” 

“When was the last time you talked to them?” Cass asked. 

He blinked. “What?”

 “When did you last see them?” Cass repeated, a taunt echoing in her voice. 

She could see the gears turning behind his eyes again. She cut that off with another question. “Did you see me kill your friend? The one on patrol with you?”

“You killed Genson?”

Genson was the dead man’s name. 

Genson, the name of the man she’d killed. 

Genson.

She shoved aside the guilt and remorse, throwing it in the corner with every other horror she’d ignored. She’d have time to unpack that later. When she was safe.

“Easily,” Cass said, forcing her voice sharp and confident. Forcing a grin to her face, her lips peeling back in a cruel smile. “So tell me, why couldn’t I have killed Margino and Caelis?”

“But they left after you were captured.”

Good. This line of questioning would never get where she wanted if they hadn’t. 

Cass snorted as if his statement should matter. “And?”

“And no one can leave the captain’s perimeter! No one!” he yelled. 

Cass smirked, though inside the panic was rising. It’s the captain’s skill? 

Abyss, I was afraid of that, Salos muttered.

I can’t beat the captain. He was level 40. So much higher than her level 24. 

But the cultist didn’t need to know that. So, projecting a confidence of someone else, Cass continued goading her victim, “And what makes you so sure?”

“No one can get through it without his permission.”

“Is that what he told you?” She leaned back, raising an eyebrow. 

“You can’t trick me, demon. You didn’t kill the extraction team. You haven’t left the Sacred Grounds. You wouldn’t still be here if you could.” 

“Oh no,” Cass said flatly, “You got me. I’m lying about something easily confirmable once you escape my clutches. Why ever would I do that?”

The cultist’s eyes narrowed. Again, the gears were spinning. What did he believe? She didn’t need him to believe her, not with all his heart. Just a crack of doubt was enough. 

“I’m surprised,” Cass continued before he could organize his thoughts. Before he could come to any hard decisions about whether or not he believed her. It was time to fish for what she actually wanted to know. This was a gamble. He’d probably see through her if she was wrong, but if she was right, escape without fighting the Captain might be possible. “It looks like I know more about how your Captain’s skill works than you do. It’s a shame following a simple pattern of turns is enough to slip through it. It might be an obstacle if it wasn’t.”

The cultist snorted. “What?”

Damn. There wasn’t a way out like that then? 

She stuck to her story, anyway. Her eyes widened in fake surprise. “You didn’t know?” 

“The captain’s skill doesn’t have a weakness like that!”

“Is that what he told you?” Cass asked, the patronizing tone heavy and cloying. “Did he tell you anything about how it works? Have you pressed it at all? Or did you blindly accept it would keep you safe from the rest of the temple? Did you blindly accept he could hold you here all he wanted?”

“I’m not trapped!” he snarled. “I’m not a demon like you. I am an honorable Paladin of the Copper Crescent! I have his permission to come and go. That’s the only way in or out, demon. Your lies can’t trick me. I don’t know what you think holding me here will accomplish, but you’ll get nothing from me. The Captain’s skill is infallible. Our Goddess granted it to him for his dedication to her cause.” 

Well, that’s about what we expected, Salos said as the man continued ranting.

Cass kept her displeasure from her face, but it ran rampant across her bond with Salos. If there is another way through the skill, I doubt he knows about it. 

I doubt there is, Salos said. It is sounding increasingly like this is a god’s boon skill. So long as his patron favors him, it will be as if his level, or at least that skill’s level, is many times its listed strength. 

Anything we can do about that? 

Kill him, get him to renounce his goddess, get the goddess to renounce him, or convince him to let you go; I think those are your options.

Cass hid her scowl. Neither of the new options sounded more achievable than the original two. 

We done with this? Salos asked.

I guess so. She didn’t have any other questions for him. 

Salos hesitated beside her, his claws flexing over the glass floor. 

Cass raised an eyebrow at him. What?

You won’t like what I’m going to suggest.

Cass frowned. What?

He represents a sizable amount of experience. Salos looked up at her, his gold eyes pointed. 

You’re right. I don’t like where this is going.

You should kill him.

I don’t—How did she voice this? It was irrational, wasn’t it? She’d already killed a man. What was a second? She couldn’t even claim it had been self defense. Not really. She’d ambushed them. She’d attacked them.

She could have continued avoiding them. A way out would present itself, eventually. Killing them hadn’t made her any safer. Hadn’t brought her any closer to escape. 

But it had given her another level.

And that did make her safer. That was another thimble of power against the next person who attacked her—or who she chose to attack.

No. None of this was relevant. These were cultists. They did human sacrifice. They kidnapped her. They were kidnapping baby dragons. They had tortured another dragon for years. 

They were evil. Capital E Evil. Maybe even all-caps EVIL. 

If this wasn’t an acceptable target, was anyone?

Was anyone?

I don’t want to kill, Cass whispered. 

I know, Salos whispered back. He looked away, his claws sinking into the wood of the chair back. Regret rolled across their bond, cold and sticky against her soul. But leaving him alive is dangerous. When he takes a minute to stop and think, he’ll realize you were looking for a way out.  

And then what? Cass asked. They already know I’m trying to escape. If they had other measures to lock this place down, they would have already activated them. How would this one change that?

Cass stopped, repeating the question to herself. How could this man change their situation? How could she still use him?

There are too many unknowns already, Salos insisted. Killing him removes one. He paused, his claws scraped across the wood. I would do it for you if it would give you the experience.

Cass shook her head. The sketch of a plan was forming. We don’t know where the captain is.

Frustration bubbled over from Salos. It won’t take us long to find him.

Will it? Cass asked. We’ve been wandering their halls for ages and haven’t run into him yet. What if he has additional spatial distortions around him? 

Salos scowled at her. 

“Sure, sure,” Cass said as the cultist’s rant ran out of steam. “This has been fun, but I think it’s time to go give your boss another ‘hello’.” Cass twirled her dagger as she turned away from him. 

“Get back here!” the paladin shouted, struggling against his bonds. 

What are you doing? Salos hissed. 

Finding a direct path to our target, Cass said. 

She waved to the paladin and stepped out of the room, leaving the door open a crack. As soon as she was out of sight, she threw up Stealth to its maximum. Abyssal Aura, please. 

Sure, fine, explain what you are doing. Now.

Cass grinned down at Salos. Would you please slip back in there and discretely release our prisoner? 

What? 

Ideally, in a way he’d believe he slipped out of his bonds himself? 

Why? Salos repeated. You could just kill him. Why would you release him?

Because dead men can’t convince our enemies that I can leave when I want or show us where their captain is. Dead men can’t confirm whether the dragonlings have already been kidnapped. Dead men are useless to us.

Salos grumbled. Dead men can’t stab you in the back, either. Dead men are worth more than their share of experience.

Which do we need right now, Salos? A level or a way out? 

Salos’s grumbles grew louder, but he slipped from her sight without another argument. 

Cass stepped away from the door. A moment later, the paladin burst through it. His head whipped back and forth before he ran down the halls. 

I hope you know what you’re doing, Salos muttered as he hopped onto her shoulder. 

Cass Stealthed after the man, her presence no more notable than a stray gust. 

She hoped so, too.

Ch. 36: A Breath

Cass stared down at the paladin’s body. He was dead. 

She was alive. 

But he was dead. 

She—

She had killed him. 

Salos hopped up next to her. “Good job.”

Cass nodded mutely. 

“Did an exit open?” Salos asked, already focused on the next task. Already looking to evaluate if killing this man had served them.  

Cass reached out with Atmospheric Sense. The air hadn’t changed. It continued in its strange looping pattern. As trapped as ever. 

Killing this man had done nothing. 

She forced herself to take a deep breath. This man was a torturer. He didn’t deserve her pity. Her sorrow. 

She forced herself to her feet. “The other one?” 

“Passed out,” Salos said. “You expended most of his stamina. Good job. I gave him a good whack to finish the job.”

She nodded. It was cold. 

“Let’s drag him out of the hall. Maybe this one will know how to get out of here,” Salos continued. 

She nodded and melted the ice off of the man with Elemental Manipulation. It came so easily. 

She hadn’t checked her notifications yet, but she'd be surprised if she hadn’t gotten a level in it. 

“Switch with me,” Salos said when she’d removed the last of the ice.

She blinked down at him. “Why?” 

“Do you have the Strength to lift him?” Salos asked. 

Cass looked down at the unconscious man. He was no smaller than any of the other paladins they’d run into, more easily compared in size to refrigerators than people. She shook her head.

“Come on, time’s wasting,” Salos said. 

She activated the skill, closing her eyes as a human and opening them at her feet as a cat. 

Salos didn’t immediately lift their captive. Instead, he moved up the hallway, trying the various doors until he found one which opened. Only then did he return and lift the corpse. 

Cass cocked her head to one side, watching him.

“Melt as much of the ice as you can,” Salos said as he carried the remains of 32 away and into the open room. 

Ah. They were hiding the evidence. 

How long would it take for someone to find him? She should hope they never did. She should hope that she was long gone, the activities of these monsters reported to the authorities, and that the authorities removed them from the premises before his body was found. 

She focused on the ice instead. It was easier to encourage it to return to room temperature than it had been to drop it down to freezing. 

Focus: 9/549

There was still a puddle when she was done. Nothing for that. She didn’t have the Focus to evaporate it. 

Salos was back by the time she was done. He hefted 29 up on a shoulder. How her body didn’t crumple under the man’s weight, Cass could only attribute to the magic of stats. Salos must have a lot more Strength than she did. 

Though, even he struggled to move the unconscious man to the open room. Cass followed him inside. 

The room was another storage room, this one full of big crates. A nook had been created in the boxes, just out of sight of the door. 

The glass under her feet whispered through Stone Memory about where he’d put the body. She ignored it. She didn’t need to know. She didn’t want to look. 

Salos dropped their prisoner in the corner of the clear space and riffled through her Bag, frowning the entire time. “You have forgotten about most of this stuff in here, haven’t you?” 

Her eyes flickered closed. Her Focus flickered on the edge of consciousness herself. 

He shook his head, pulling a cord from the Bag and tying the paladin’s legs and arms together. 

“I doubt that will be enough to hold someone with his Strength indefinitely, but it should buy a little time to make him cooperate.” Salos glanced over at her, his frown deepening. “Should you start a fire?”

Oh. That would help, wouldn’t it? She nodded dumbly. 

“Can you switch us back?” he asked.

Right. Yes. She did that like this?

She swayed on her feet as she had only the two of them again. Her body was heavy. 

But she didn’t need to stay standing. She dropped to the floor. 

“Cass!” Salos leapt up to her as she landed on her butt. 

That hurt a little. She was fine. Where was her fire stuff? 

Salos pressed against her leg. He was warm. That was nice. 

She found a log and kindling and her fire striker. It would have been easier to summon fire, but she didn’t have remotely enough Focus for that. She’d have to do it the old-fashioned way. She fumbled the wood and such into a pile. 

Her fingers were numb. She dropped the fire striker. 

She got it the second time. The flames sprang up with warmth and comfort.

Cass was out before she could put away the striker. 

***

Cass jerked awake later. Salos was in her lap. The fire had burned low. 

Salos shifted in her lap. “You’re up.”

She nodded. They were still in the storage room, the boxes around them untouched. Their prisoner still lay unconscious across the fire from her. The corpse lay among the boxes behind her. 

“They haven’t found us yet?” she asked.

He shook his head. “We’ve been lucky.” 

How much longer would that luck hold? As long as she could hold on to it, she promised herself. 

She leaned back against a crate and opened her notifications. 

Level Up!

+ 1 Dex

+ 1 End

+ 1 Wll

+ 1 Ala 

+ 4 Free Points

Atmospheric Sense has increased to level 20.

Wind Step has increased to level 14.

Stealth has increased to level 13.

Elemental Manipulation has increased to level 24.

Tempest Blade has increased to level 17.

A level and five skill levels. This brought her up to level 24. She was close to the Gate now. 

“What exactly did you end up doing to that other paladin?” Salos asked. “It didn’t look like Skill Injection.” 

Cass nodded. “Tried that first. Cost too much.”

He nodded. “That makes sense. The further apart the level between practitioner and target, the greater the cost. What did you do instead?”

“Summoned reverse fire,” Cass said. 

“Reverse fire?” Salos repeated.

Cass nodded. She held a hand out and demonstrated. 

Elemental Manipulation resisted again, but it was easier this time. Was that an effect of the increased level or the certainty that it was possible? 

With a burst of Focus, a flame-like substance appeared in her palm. It was cold, but not unpleasantly so. It wasn’t very bright, though it produced some blue-tinted, almost silver, light. It danced like fire in her hand. Though, it almost seemed to curl into itself to Cass’s eyes. 

“Astraum?” Salos said. 

“What?” Cass asked. 

He gestured at her little fire. “The flame of the stars, Astraum.” 

Cass snorted. “Is that how stars work here? They’re made of this stuff?”

“You didn’t know?” he asked. “How did you even summon such a thing if you didn’t know?”

“Rationalized its existence based on fire,” Cass said with a shrug. She hadn’t really expected it to work. Or for it to produce light. She’d intended to create a simple endothermic reaction. She’d assumed it would be lightless, sucking up the heat and producing… She wasn’t sure how that would work. She supposed she should be happy it had worked out.

She closed her hand, snuffing out the flame. It was as easy as snuffing out the life. 

“That seemed powerful,” Salos said.

She nodded. “Funny how quickly a human body shuts down when its core temperature drops that low that quickly.” Funny in a terrifying kind of way. “I imagine if he hadn’t let me keep the dagger in his chest, gloating about his invincibility and everything, he might have lived quite a bit longer. I wonder if he could even feel the cold through his Fortitude.” 

“It’s easy to ignore your body’s warnings if your Fortitude is too high,” Salos agreed. “If one wants to go down that route, Perception is critical. Ideally, one registers their body’s sensations via Perception while blocking the body-stopping pain via Fortitude. Not that it matters for either of us, of course.” 

Cass snorted. She poked at her newest set of wounds, a long gash across her thigh and the cut on her forehead. “I’m not loving these gashes on my body you’ve left me.”

Salos shrugged. “Learn to use the dagger yourself and we won’t have to do that again.” 

Cass sighed. She couldn’t argue with that. 

Her whole body hurt. She was supposed to be resting still. She probably would have slept all day if she hadn’t been arguing with Alyx. Maybe her Health would be fully recovered by now. Instead:

Stamina: 124/141

Focus: 247/549

Health: 71/134

That could be worse, but she was still only at half Health. Given all her bonuses, this was probably shockingly good recovery time. 

Somehow, that failed to make her feel better.

She’d spent way too much Focus in that last fight. Summoning water and then freezing it was not efficient. Would it be cheaper to summon ice directly? Could she even do that? 

She held her hand out, imagining a ball of ice forming in her open palm. The image of the frozen corpse overtook her vision. Her heart leapt to her mouth and the skill dropped. 

“You alright?” Salos asked, his gold eyes trying to meet hers.

She nodded. She could feel his concern at the edges of her soul. He could see that her little nod was a lie. He probably didn’t need to feel her soul to see it, either. 

But he didn’t press her on it. Just sat against her, warm against her leg.  

There would be time for grief when she was safe. When the dragon was safe. Now she needed to recover what she could. 

For the moment, she needed to do something with the Free Points. More Health and Focus? Or just more power? 

The paladin’s armor was strong. Would she be able to cut through it if she had more Will behind her magic? It couldn’t hurt. 

Wll 82 -> 86

Ch. 35: Copper and Flames

Cass took a deep breath as her opponent’s struggling slowed to ineffective wriggling beneath thickening ice.

Across the room, Salos’s attack had not stopped. 32 was covered in cuts. There wasn’t a joint in his armor that wasn’t bleeding, and a good number of his plates had new, bleeding holes. 

And yet he still hadn’t fallen. 

Salos dashed behind him, his dagger again diving for the man’s neck. 

Again, that shimmering shield appeared in the way. Something tugged at Cass’s attention as it did. 

Salos, do that again.

Salos leapt back as the paladin’s sword swung through. He rolled her shoulders. Sure, it’s not like body shots are any more effective.

Cass pulled up Mana Sense to max as Salos slipped around the man again and slashed his neck from yet another angle. 

Mana burst around the man’s neck as the shield manifested, glowing vibrant green in her Mana Sight yet fading out of existence entirely when the blade fell away. 

Now the heart again, Cass directed. 

Why?

Just try it, please.

Salos didn’t argue further. He slipped through the paladin’s guard again, the blade puncturing a new hole in the man’s chest. There wasn’t the whisper of mana reacting there.

Still hard as rock, Salos reported as he pulled back. You going to tell me what the point of that exercise was?

His rock heart isn’t magic. Cass explained what she’d seen.

Interesting, but I’m unsure what we can do about it. Salos danced through another flurry of the paladin’s sword strikes.  

If it’s really stone, Cass said slowly, a twisted idea spinning into her mind, maybe I can Manipulate it.

Hardly, Salos shot her down. You can’t just directly affect other bodies like that. Every body has its own domain that outside skills cannot directly alter. Otherwise, mages could just manifest rocks in their opponent’s brains and be done with it. 

There was a kind of sense to what he was saying, but I’m pretty sure I’ve done it before. 

You have not.

In the Deep, fighting the Lord. I summoned a Wind Blade inside its body.

It had been hard. Harder than forming Wind Blade typically was. And she’d needed a bonus range modification to do it. 

Is that what Skill Injection is? she asked.

Salos actually stumbled at the question. 32 drew a cut across her forehead. 

Salos recovered quickly, wiping the blood away with the back of a hand and leaping back. How do you know that term?

Bonus range offered it to me back then, in the Deep, Cass said.

Unease rolled across their bond, but he sent the sentiment of agreement over it. If you can do that with Elemental Manipulation, and you have the Focus for it, then sure, your plan might just work. 

Focus: 78/549

Stab him in the heart again and then switch with me, Cass said. She had to have enough. 

Alright. Again, Salos drove his blade into the puncture wound he’d driven in the paladin’s chest plate, driving the blade into the paladin’s heart. As the blade pierced his flesh, Cass activated Shifting Mind. 

The world spun. The dagger was clumsy in her hand, but she didn’t fight the existing momentum. It drove down, hitting something hard. 

“How many times will you try this before you understand?” the paladin cackled, no idea his opponent had changed.

She reached through her dagger for the object with Elemental Manipulation, only to find no stone. 

It was metal. Steel. 

Never mind Skill Injection, she couldn’t Manipulate that.

But she couldn’t just pull back either. Her mind whirled to maximum speed, her Alacrity accelerating her thoughts until time crawled. 

She couldn’t Manipulate the metal. There was no getting around that. But hadn’t she found a perfectly good method of bursting metal pipes earlier? What was a heart, but a liquid filled tube, twisted into an odd shape? What was blood, but iron filled water? 

She turned her Elemental Manipulation on the blood. Yet it slipped from her grip. A pressure pushed her back. The skill emphatically said this was a bridge it would not cross. 

Blood was not water. Blood was not an Element. 

Why? How was blood special? 

The skill refused to negotiate. No. Not her skill. The System itself. 

There wasn’t time to fight the entire System. She could unravel this mystery later. Time to pivot. What else could she do? 

There had to be more. 

If not Elemental Manipulation, could she do something with Tempest Blade? Maybe a Tempest Blade through his heart?

It would be simple enough to summon a lightning blade along the surface of her dagger. There was plenty of space in the gouge Salos had dug in the paladin’s chest. But could lightning burn through enough metal to breach his heart? 

What if she summoned the blade super-imposed over the heart? The same way she’d killed the Lord of the Deep? 

She reached for it. Lightning formed along the dagger’s edge. It pressed against the steel heart. 

Cass willed it to extend through that space. To replace the metal, if that was what it took to breach its defenses. 

Error: You are attempting to manipulate the Body of another Being. Injections are outside the standard range of your skill’s function and require significantly more Focus to perform. Cost is too great against chosen target. 

Without further warning, the Tempest Blade broke under her. The lightning fizzled out. 

There had to be something else. Another skill. Another application. 

She kept coming back to Elemental Manipulation. But she couldn’t manipulate either the steel flesh or the blood within. What can you do, she asked it. 

As usual, the skill was silent. 

She’d been able to summon a Tempest Blade in his chest along the blade’s length. Some summoning was possible as long as she wasn’t trying to replace his flesh with her summoned material. 

Air couldn’t cut the steel. She’d never managed a cutting edge with water. She couldn’t see creating the pressure water would need to cut through steel here, either. 

Fire could burn. Burn steel though? Could she get it hot enough? Steel melted in the thousands of degrees, several magnitudes more of temperature change than freezing ice had required. How much Focus would that cost? 

Too much. Almost certainly too much. 

If only she could freeze the blood. But she couldn’t.

Could she? 

What was fire? What was fire, really? Not an object. Not really. Not the way water was an object. She didn’t start her campfires by replacing wood with flames. They started from the ignition of nearby heat released from her summoned fire. 

It was nothing more than a chemical process—the release of heat and light. 

Could she summon the reverse? A chemical process that consumed heat instead? What would that look like? What would that be? 

A blue flame sprang to mind. 

Cold to the touch. 

Dim. Devouring.

She could feel it. It was ephemeral, hovering at the edge of what she knew was possible. 

She reached for the substance, nameless but real. Elemental Manipulation pulled away from her, resisting, rejecting her command. 

But Cass didn’t let it escape. She flooded the skill with Focus. 

Focus: 58/549

With more.

Focus: 32/549

Until the skill submitted.

Focus: 18/549

And a ball of cold flames formed at the tip of her blade. 

The cold radiated up the handle, pulling the heat from her hand. 

Pulling the heat from the body before her. 

Pulling the heat from the blood within. 

“I am unkilla—AH!” His exclamation was cut off with a grunt of pain. His shield fell from his hand as he clutched at his chest. 

“What—” he tried to choke out, but his lungs failed him before he could finish that sentence, suddenly too frozen to continue pumping. 

He crumpled to his knees, Cass followed him down, holding the dagger—holding her summoned blue flame—against his metal heart. 

This was worse than she’d imagined. Heat was pulled from across his body. Frost crept across his paling skin. His heart pounded under her as it tried—as it failed—to spread heat from his center of mass through his bloodstream. As it only spread the cold instead. 

And then came the snap of metal. The snap Cass has been waiting for. 

It came with a rush of energy. Experience. His life, becoming her power. 

Cass released her skill. The cold flames died immediately. Cass dropped the dagger, all the strength leaving her body. 

The paladin was very dead.

Ch. 34: Copper and Cold

This isn’t working. Cass and 29 stared at one another across her ice field. He was unarmed and panting from exertion. His sword lay on the ice behind her. His shield lay under a layer of ice in the opposite direction. 

Cass had limited methods of injuring him and an ever-decreasing budget of Focus with which to work.

Stamina: 120/138

Focus: 248/549

Meanwhile, Salos continued stabbing Lvl-32. His dagger plunged into an already bleeding gap in the armpit, twisting to widen the wound further.

32 retaliated with a swipe of his own, his sword scraping across Cass’s chest plate. Salos returned with a torrent of slashes. Nothing remained of the paladin’s tabard. 

Yet the man refused to fall. 

No, it’s not, Salos agreed. But I don’t have any other ideas.

Cass didn’t either. But she needed to do more than watch. 

29 acted first, running at her. Or his sword behind her? No. She couldn’t let him have that. 

She darted back, summoning water and freezing it over the sword.

Focus: 228/549

He skidded to a stop, ice scraping up into a pile along the sides of his feet, and darted the other direction. Toward his ally and Salos. 

Why? He was still unarmed. What could he do against Salos? 

She Sprinted after him, even as she strained to understand his plan. Even as she struggled to think of a way to stop it. 

Salos’s dagger skidded across 32’s breastplate, the tip scratching an ever deeper line across the metal, before darting out of the way of the next sword strike. 

29 stopped hard on the ice beside his shield. Under his Strength, the ice cracked. 

He was freeing his shield? Why?

An image of the previous paladins blasting aura from their shield filled Cass’s vision. 

Right. In their hands, a shield was an even more dangerous weapon than a sword. 

He snapped the shield up, ice still encrusting either side. His aura glowed through the shield. 

Aura Bash

[A Skill concentrating one’s aura into an object to empower a weapon or tool. 

Estimated time to execution: 2 sec]

He aimed it at Salos and Lvl-32. He was willing to risk friendly fire? Or was he counting on 32’s Frt being high enough to take the hit?  

Salos, look out! Cass warned.

He glanced her way out of the corner of an eye as he darted around to the far side of 32, his dagger digging into the back of a knee. 

Would that be enough? Cass had lost 50 Stamina with Liminal Dodge turning a glancing blow of that attack into a miss. Salos didn’t have the same skills and his Frt was almost certainly lower than hers. 

[Estimated time to execution: 1 sec]

Cass leapt onto 29’s shoulder. Her claws scraped against the metal of his pauldron. 

It was not enough to stop him. Not enough to even distract him. 

She could channel fire through her paws or freezing ice, but fire had yet to phase them and the pauldron wasn’t enclosed enough to crush with the expanding ice. 

His aura burst from his shield. The recoil threw her back from his shoulder and blew the ice away. 

Cass, with her Alacrity sped mind, watched in painfully slow motion as the blast of aura flew. As 32 disappeared in a burst of silver mana to reappear on the far side of Salos.

[Unknown Spatial Warp Skill]

Salos’s eyes widened as the blast approached, his cover suddenly behind him.

No. 

Shifting Mind!

The world shifted. There was a dagger in her hand. She could feel 32 behind her. A wall of green aura filled her vision.

CASS! Salos screamed.

Color inverted. Her body shifted to the left. 

Stamina: 45/138

The blast continued through her shoulder. Cass flew into the wall behind her. The air left her lungs. 

Cass wheezed. The floor shifted underneath her.

That had cost 75 Stamina? And it hadn’t even completely negated the attack? Hell. What would those do to her if she took that straight on? 

Was she falling? 

Her head hit glass. Everything was sideways. 

Salos was yelling. 

The paladin stepped toward her. 

Cass, switch back! 

Oh. That was a good idea.

Shifting Mind. 

The world twisted around her. Her vision swam. The ringing in her ears continued. But she was standing on her feet, all four of them. 

Cass blinked. 

She watched her body—Salos—shoot back to his feet. He lunged forward, his dagger planting deep in 32’s chest in the wound he’d made earlier. He twisted the blade, widening the gouge. He sneered with her face.

“What?” 32 grunted.

Are you alright? Salos asked her as he pulled his dagger free again.

I think so, Cass said. 

29 stared at Salos, perhaps surprised by her body’s apparent recovery speed. Had they expected her to be stunned for longer? 

What possessed you to swap in for that? Salos asked, ducking around another sword strike. His concern blazed across their bond. 

Could you dodge it? Cass asked, purposefully ignoring his emotions. 

Well. No. His concern pressed harder against her mind. 

Liminal Dodge mitigated the damage. She’d made the right call. That would have killed you.

Instead, it nearly knocked you out. 

Cass shook her head. Don’t say that like that’s worse. 

I don’t know if I can swap us back if you pass out and I’d rather not find out today. I doubt you would have lived much longer if you had. 

29 shook himself. His eyes shifted from Salos and 32 to the floor. Scanning for his sword? Why not just spam Aura Bash from range? Was there a cooldown? Or maybe a cost? 

He staggered across the broken ice field, his gait unsteady and his body sluggish. 

Definitely a cost. 

Do aura attacks cost Stamina or Focus? Cass asked Salos. 

Usually Stamina. Why? 

How else does Stamina drain? 

Salos’s gold eyes on her human face flicked over his opponent to 29, his eyebrow raising. Look at you. Anything that tires out the body. Physical exertion is the primary way. Some poisons. Extreme temperatures. 

Cass grinned. She could work with that.

She darted under 29’s legs, summoning more water and freezing it into ice with every bound. The ice crept up his legs. 

He kicked the ice away. 

Cass climbed up his body, leaving a trail of ice over his armor. None of it would hurt him. None of it would touch his Health.

Focus: 188/549

He swatted at her. She dodged around his hand, slipping around to the left shoulder. She encased the joint in frost. 

Focus: 168/549

He flexed his arm, and the ice broke, but Cass had already re-coated his legs.

Focus: 148/549

He was slowing. Every new layer of ice sapped at his Stamina. 

But her Focus was fading fast too. Who would outlast the other?  

He was teetering, his body sagging. But he still had the energy to kick apart the next layer of ice. 

Focus: 128/549

There had to be more she could do. 

Something else she could Manipulate? She was already doing everything she could think of with water. Fire would run counter to her current strategy. Wind didn’t cut them and she wasn’t sure she could create a cutting blade with Elemental Manipulation. There was no stone to manipulate, and even if there was, she wasn’t sure what she’d do with it that she wasn’t already doing with ice. 

She added another wave of ice to his sword arm.

Focus: 108/549

He swung his arm against the wall behind him, breaking the ice away. 

His breathing was ragged. He stooped in his armor. His eyes burned as he glared at her. 

But he didn’t fall.

What else did she have? 

She couldn’t do anything more with Elemental Manipulation. She had no weapon to summon Tempest Blades on. 

Did she? 

Salos had been very careful when he’d picked this cat form. It had been a priority he could use his Blade Mastery Skill in it. Were her claws considered blades? 

Tempest Blade sprang to life along her extended claws, lightning dancing along the tips of her paws. 

She cackled, flexing her claws and shooting the lightning into the paladin’s body. 

His muscles spasmed beneath her. His knees gave out. His body fell to the ground.  

He groaned, still awake, though the exhaustion and the pain were finally kicking in. He tried to push himself back up, but Cass lay down another layer of ice, again freezing him to the floor. 

Focus: 78/549

Ch. 33: Copper and Ice

Cass and Salos skulked down the halls. Cass clenched the dagger in her hands. They had the ghost of a plan and were just looking for an appropriate target. 

A pair of paladins stormed down the hall, crossing hers. 

Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (Lvl 32)

Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (Lvl 29)

Let’s go, Salos whispered from her shoulder.

She shook her head. One first. 

We haven’t seen a single one on their own, he pointed out. 

I don’t think we can handle two at once. Her earlier attack on the pair guarding the door had not ended well, though that could be argued that was more to do with their reinforcements than the fact there had been two of them initially.

It’s as good as we’re going to get.

She hated he was probably right. They’d been here too long already. They’d been skulking around the halls long enough to reliably navigate between the dragon’s room, the central cathedral, and her original prison at will. Her Focus had had time to recover considerably.

Stamina: 138/138

Focus: 498/549

Health: 68/133

They had already spent too long looking for a lone paladin to try this on. 

Go, Salos urged her. 

Atmospheric Sense assured her the next nearest patrol was a ways off. These two were as isolated as they’d get. 

She raised her dagger, calling a Tempest Blade to its edge. The lightning crackled.

Now or never, Cass. 

She threw it, throwing all her Will behind the blade’s flight. She angled it between the plates of lvl 29’s arm armor.

“What!” 29 grunted as the lightning jolted down his body.

“We’re under attack!” lvl 32 shouted. 

Cass threw another pair of Tempest Blades down the hall as she retreated from the men, keeping her distance. 32 stepped in the way, his shield taking both blades, leaving burnt metal across its face. 

“The demon!” he yelled and charged down the hallway. 

29 joined him as the lightning stun wore off, speeding up to run shoulder to shoulder with 32.

Ready, Salos? Cass asked. 

Ready, he said, leaping from her shoulder.

She didn’t know if she was, but she did it anyway. She threw another set of Tempest Blades. One hit each of the paladin’s shields, doing nothing but burning the paint. 

But the third blade she made of wind. She Stepped on it, riding it over their shoulders and twisting around them. As she landed, she pulled at Salos: Shifting Mind!

The world twisted around them. She was again standing in front of the charging soldiers. They loomed in front of her tiny cat body. 

But Salos, now wearing her form and holding his dagger, was behind them. 

In his hands, the dagger slid between armor plates of 32, cutting unseen for even more damage, his Hidden Edge skill multiplying the damage his blade did going in and coming out again. 

32 grunted in pain as the blade came out again. He spun around, his sword leading. Salos stepped back, the blade tip passing within a breath of his skin, before diving back in, his blade punching through plate metal to find purchase in 32’s side.

It took 29 another second to register that his quarry was no longer in front of him or to realize that the grunting of his partner meant they were behind him. 

Cass could see understanding bloom in his eyes. But she wouldn’t let him join his ally against Salos. 

She darted forward in the cat form, pulling hard on Elemental Manipulation, flames springing from her feet. She slashed at 29’s ankles, her flames heating his greaves, but her claws failing to break the metal plates. 

He stomped and stabbed down around her. 

She Dodged out of the way of foot and blade, too fast and too small to be hit. 

But she couldn’t hurt him, either. Maybe if she could summon lightning with Elemental Manipulation, she could stun him, but for now, only Tempest Blade could create lightning from nothing, and she still needed a weapon to channel that skill through. 

Salos was having no such difficulties. 

He ducked under 32’s sword, driving his dagger into a gap in the man’s armor, between thigh and knee, and pulling it free again with a spurt of crimson blood. 

32 swung his shield in between them, belatedly. But Salos had already moved, twisting around his left shoulder, and driving the blade under 32’s pauldron.

29 swung at her again. She leapt up onto the arm. With her Dexterity and current size, it was little different from when she had run up the arms of the golems in the Catacombs. She left flaming footprints across his armor with Elemental Manipulation. 

He didn’t even bother to swat them out, that was how little the fire bothered him. 

He dropped his shield to reach for her. 

She slipped around his hand, her claws reaching for his neck. Surely, flames to his direct skin would do something. His gorget covered most of it, but there was a crack between the metal collar and his chin. 

Her claws swept across it. 

She drew blood. There was the scalding smell of flesh.  

29 grunted. 

His hand grabbed her by the scruff. “Gotcha!” 

She howled, twisting and scratching. But his hand and arms were armored. 

He grinned at her. The blood on his chin could have been mistaken for a shaving accident. 

He raised his sword and leveled it with her chest. 

She snarled. She struggled. But his hand was a vice and her body was so small, her Strength so low. 

Alacrity burned, speeding her thoughts as she looked for another answer. 

Stamina: 124/138

Focus: 395/549

Health: 68/133

She couldn’t claw her way out. Fire had done nothing. She couldn’t use Tempest Blades without a weapon. His stupid metal hand held her tight. 

If only she could manipulate metal. 

Could she? 

Not directly. Metal still ignored her attempts at direct manipulation. But, there were many ways to manipulate things indirectly…

She summoned a ball of water above her and slammed it into his hand. Some of the water ran off the metal, dripping to the floor. But plenty filled the space between his hand and the glove. 

She dropped the temperature on the water. The cold crept through the metal and into her fur. She ignored it, pulling the temperature down. 

There was a creaking. 

A crack.

Focus: 335/549 

A scream.

After all, what was the difference between a metal glove and a metal hinge? 

He dropped her and his sword. He clenched the frost encased hand with his now empty free hand. The metal of his glove was ruptured from the sudden increase in internal pressure, his hand pinched from the sudden loss in space. 

Cass dashed away. 

That had worked even better than she’d expected. Physics was great. 

Could she do that again? Maybe to another body part? 

No, she was probably limited to enclosed parts, like the fingers of his gloves. The ice had too much room to expand out the sides of his less enclosed plates around his arms and legs, and she didn’t think she could summon or freeze enough water simultaneously to burst his chest plate. 

But hands and feet in gloves and boots? That seemed doable. 

She darted between his legs, summoning more water and forcing it down his boots. It splashed around his feet and over the glass-slick floor. 

Before 29 could take a step away, Cass had already shifted Element Manipulation from summoning water to freezing it. The ice formed inside his metal shoes, the metal buckling and snapping. He grit his teeth, suppressing further screams. 

The water on his legs froze around him, arresting his movements as the ice spread further. A sheet of glass-smooth ice bloomed around his feet, its mirror finish reflecting his struggle as he pushed against the binding. 

Focus: 272/549

The ice didn’t restrict him long. It cracked under his far greater Strength. But Cass had expected that. 

In throwing his weight against the ice at his feet, he was off balance. His next step—so sure it would be on solid ground—was unprepared for the slick ice. His foot slid out from under him. He crashed to the floor. 

Cass leaped onto his chest and summoned another round of water over his body. She didn’t expect to burst the metal of his chest armor, but the ice could freeze him in place. 

He struggled against it, pulling one arm out of the ice, only to push against the frost-covered floor with the other. 

 Cass froze the lowered arm. Again and again. It wouldn’t hold him forever. Her Focus wouldn’t keep up. 

But it just needed to be long enough for Salos to do his work on 32. 

Focus: 248/549

And boy was he. 

He snaked around the paladin, far faster than the man had any way to respond. Salos’s blade found gap after gap. Shoulder, thigh, back. Not every strike triggered Hidden Edge, but many did. 

Blood dripped from countless wounds. The paladin’s tabard was stained with blood, the green turning a grisly brown. 

And not for a second did Salos let up. 

The paladin swung after Salos, his sword glowing with some skill. It didn’t matter. It had to connect with Salos to do something to him, and it didn’t so much as brush Cass’s cloak hem. 

His dagger slipped under the man’s armor. A strap was cut, a plate fell and bounced across the floor. 

This, Salos whispered across their bond, dodging around another sword strike, is why Dexterity is the best stat. 

Watching him dismantle the paladin, it was a compelling argument.

The paladin’s sword slashed after Salos, but he effortlessly ducked it, diving into the man’s guard and burying the dagger in his chest, puncturing plate mail like it wasn’t even there.

The paladin staggered, but he grit his teeth in a bloody grimace. “You think you can kill one of Fortitude’s Righteous?”

Salos pulled back, dodging out of the way of yet another sword strike. He scowled at the paladin with her face. “That should have punctured your heart. What are you made of?”

It was strange to hear him speaking with her voice. Strange to hear her voice with that much disdain. 

32 grinned, though he must be hurting, even with his supernatural amounts of Fortitude. He pounded his chest, seemingly unconcerned about the amount of blood pouring from his latest wounds. “I fight to rid this world of your vile kind. You think the goddess would let her faithful fall before you?”

Salos looked entirely unimpressed, yet concern simmered under the surface, bubbling over their bond.

What’s wrong? she asked.

Their skin and armor are reinforced with some skill. The body within is largely standard, if backed by frankly unnecessary levels of Fortitude, Salos explained. Not surprising, just annoying. Slightly more problematic, I think they have another skill—or with our luck, goddess-granted trait—protecting their hearts. That last stab should have killed him. Instead, it felt like I hit stone. 

How problematic is ‘slightly more’? Cass asked as she added another layer of frost to the paladin below her.

Depends how reinforced their necks are, Salos muttered. Fortitude specialists are the worst. You can cut their limbs off, but as long as they are alive, they’ll just keep coming. They just don’t feel the pain like they should. There is no stopping power in any of the wounds you inflict. I hate them. The only thing worse is Vitality specialists. 

32 rushed at Salos again, entirely unconcerned about the trail of blood he was leaving. Salos slipped around him, his dagger angling for the man’s throat. 

A breath before it connected, a shimmering panel of light appeared between Salos’s blade and his target, turning the blade aside. 

“My goddess protects me, demon!” 32 taunted, his sword swinging around for another strike. 

“Abyss,” Salos cursed.

He stepped out of the way. Or tried to. The blade got a piece of him, leaving a long gash on Salos’s—her body’s—thigh. 

Salos cursed again, shaking his head. This is going to be very annoying.

You okay? Cass asked.

Focus on your opponent, Salos grunted.

29 jerked up, the ice between them cracking into shards with the sudden movement and sending Cass sprawling.

Cass scrambled away from him, spreading another layer of ice over the floor around them as she fled.

It looks like we’ll have to bleed them out, Salos continued, more to himself than Cass. I hate having to cut down Health reserves. 

29 staggered to stand, his feet slipping over the ice. 

I sliced this one’s neck earlier, Cass pointed out. 

Suggesting it isn’t an automatic skill, like his heart? Small comforts, I guess. 

Down the hall, Salos launched another attack on 32, his dagger dancing into opening after opening. Blood spurted from gaps in 32’s armor. 

32 swung his sword at Salos’s hip. 

Salos melted around the sword. There one moment and nothing but a shadow as he appeared behind his opponent the next. His dagger stabbed at 32’s neck from what should have been a blind spot. 

A shimmering green shield materialized between blade tip and Fortitude-reinforced skin. 

Fortitude’s Protection

[A spell created by the faithful of Fortitude to protect their cause.]

The skill was very similar to the one the captain had used to protect his subordinates and the priestess, although this was much smaller than the version he’d used.

Cass shared the notification with Salos.  

He clicked his tongue. I hate Fortitude specialists.

But he didn’t slow.

His dagger found its way between ribs, through joints, into muscle and bone, twisting and pulling free with more blood. Yet the man refused to fall.

Ch. 32: Alyx: Breaking in

“And we found the staff there.” Pellen pointed at a rubbish pile behind the Temple. It was mostly food scraps decomposing into fertilizer for the gardens. 

Alyx’s hand clenched around her sword hilt. 

She, Pellen, Telis, and Marco stood in the temple’s shadow by one of the back service doors. 

Cass was still missing. 

They’d asked inside. The priests all shook their heads, claiming no one had seen Cass. It had been hours already since Pellen had seen Cass this morning. The priests she had spoken to then had probably already ended their shift in the main hall, returning to more intimate duties to their specific gods or goddesses in their private halls. 

Pellen had led them outside, to where she’d found Cass’s staff. 

Alyx stared at the pile. Why was Cass’s staff here? How did it break? 

Was it broken before or after it was thrown away? What did either option say about Cass’s fate? 

“Sir Daidyn very graciously searched the rest of the pile for me,” the little mage continued. “He didn’t—” She faltered. She took a deep breath. “He didn’t find a body. And my spell can’t find her anymore.” 

Pellen squeezed the edge of her tome, the vast majority of her gaze dropping to the gravel-covered ground.

“But you’re sure she was inside the temple?” Alyx asked.

Pellen nodded. 

Alyx’s stomach dropped. That had been the answer she’d expected. But she had wanted Pellen to say anything else. 

“What exactly is the plan?” Telis asked. 

Alyx rubbed her face. Wasn’t that the question? 

“You don’t have any authority to search the Temple.” Telis crossed her arms over her chest. “And they will not take kindly to you breaking in to do so.” 

That was an understatement if Alyx had ever heard one. 

On either side of the river, within the city of Velillia and quite a ways beyond, the word of the Grand Duchess was absolute and, by extension, even the word of a disgraced bastard carried weight. 

But here, over the river’s waters, on the Temple Spire, even the Grand Duchess bowed her head to the gods and their speakers. Not much, but even the respectful nod was a lot coming from a woman like her. 

If Alyx provoked the Temple, her grandmother would not rescue her from their ire. Poke her nose in the wrong place and they would have her executed for sacrilege. Even simple trespassing could be met with serious consequences. 

And, if Cass were held against her will, they would have to do much more than trespassing to get Cass out. 

“Why would the temple imprison Cass, anyway?” Marco asked. He scratched his chin. “Not to doubt your magics, miss mage.” 

Pellen shook her head. “No, I agree. It doesn’t make sense.” 

“Why indeed?” Telis asked, her eyes meeting Alyx’s with a single raised eyebrow. 

Alyx’s skin crawled. Abyss. Telis knew. 

Telis definitely knew. 

There was only one answer to the question of why. It had to be Salos. Someone must have discovered his nature. 

Which meant rescuing Cass would mean rescuing a demon-conspirator. 

And Telis knew. 

“You should forget all this,” Telis said. “Return to the coliseum. It would be irregular, but you are the Major Blessing holder. I am sure we could convince the duchess to give you another chance to present yourself to the dragonlings. Even with this delay, as long as you go back now, you could still win one of them.” Unspoken, her eyes added, ‘You need not throw everything away for a demon.’

That was the correct course of action. Alyx knew it. 

For so many reasons, that was correct. 

It put herself first. Her future first. 

Becoming a dragon knight would make her a figure of import in Vaisom. On the Content. It would absolve her mother’s failings in the eyes of society. It would honor her family’s name. 

And Cass had made her decisions. She had chosen to harbor a demon. Alyx had tried to talk her out of it. Gods, she had tried. 

She turned the words of their last fight over and over in her mind. Other things she could have argued. Other ways she could have convinced Cass about Salos’s danger. 

And none of it made a difference. 

Was Alyx really going to throw away her future for a criminal?

“Lady Alyx?” Pellen looked up at her, her eyes huge in her face. 

Alyx closed her eyes. Why did it have to be the temple? This would have been easy if Cass had gotten herself scooped up by bandits or had fallen into a monster lair. 

“You ignored her for days,” Telis pressed. “She ran off on you.”

“Her efforts got us the Major Blessing,” Marco said.

“And that’s worth antagonizing the temple?” Telis snapped at him. 

He shrugged. Telis rang her hands at him.

Pellen was still staring. 

Alyx shook her head. “Tell me she’s somewhere else, Telis.” 

Telis looked away. “What will you do if she truly is held by the temple?” 

“Is she?” 

Telis scowled. “I’m not omniscient.”

“But you could find her if she was somewhere else in this city?” 

“In an hour. Maybe, two.” The admission came out grudgingly. Unwillingly. 

Because they both knew that wasn’t fast enough this time. 

Alyx needed to know now. Every minute she waited was another in which Cass might be in mortal danger or torturous pain. 

She turned away from Telis. She stepped toward the temple’s back door. 

“Please don’t do this,” Telis whispered. 

Alyx hesitated. But, “She saved my life. She granted me the Lord of the Deep’s kill and the Major Blessing. I will repay that.” 

But those were just words. The debt was just an excuse.

“I’m breaking in,” Alyx declared. 

Telis’s shoulders slumped. Marco nodded in approval. Pellen bounced on her toes. 

“I’m finding Cass, no matter what trouble she’s gotten herself into.” Whether Cass wanted to see her or not. “But you all do not need to come with me. This will not go over well with the temple. There will be consequences. I owe her, but the rest of you cannot say the same.” 

“I’m coming!” Pellen jumped to Alyx’s side. “I owe her too. I don’t know what trouble she’s in, but I won’t let you two face it alone. I can do this much.” 

“Thank you,” Alyx said. Would the little mage’s determination change if she knew about Salos or would that faith crumble? Could she support Cass just as emphatically? 

“I’m not lettin’ yah out of my sight,” Marco said. “You think I’m gonna’ let you face these consequences alone?”

Alyx smiled softly. She should turn him away. His loyalty to her was because of her mother. It was one thing when she was striving to reclaim her mother’s glory, but he shouldn’t risk himself when she was actively discarding her chance to recover that legacy. 

But she couldn’t make the words of dismissal come. She nodded in thanks instead. 

“Let’s go,” Alyx said.

The back door was a simple service entrance. It wasn’t locked. People came and went through it too often for that. It swung open without difficulty. Inside, the halls were more of the blue glass. 

“Wait!” Telis called. 

Alyx looked over her shoulder. 

The butler strode forward, her head high, her back stiff. “How are you going to find Cass on your own?” 

Alyx glanced at Pellen. 

The little mage flushed. She flipped open her book, thumbing through the pages quickly. 

Marco just shrugged. “It can’t be that hard?”

Telis shook her head, a hand resting on her forehead in exasperation. “And you planned on just walking in? Like this? Fully armed?”

“Cass is in trouble. Trouble means weapons.” Marco slapped his buckler strapped arm against his chest.

“You will be caught in minutes,” Telis said. “Honestly. Group up around me. Quickly now.” 

Marco snorted and stepped beside the butler. His form shifted, like a mirage in the distance, as he drew close. Alyx’s eyes slipped off the pair of them. 

“All of you now,” Telis snapped. “If you are going to do this, we are doing it right.” 

Alyx took her place on the opposite side of Telis, Pellen falling in behind them. 

“Thank you,” Alyx whispered.

Telis’s nose lifted, but she otherwise acted like she hadn’t heard her. 

That was fine. This was already more than Alyx deserved. 

She stared down the hall. She was coming, Cass. Just wait a little longer.

Ch. 31: Shifting Mind

Cass’s eyes flared open. She was leaning against the dragon’s flank. Its scales were hot, like her stove top when the oven was on underneath. She pulled away as the dragon shifted, its neck craning against its chains to reach her, but falling short.

Salos, you there? Cass asked.

“Here,” he said as he materialized on her shoulder. 

Cass breathed a sigh of relief. She knew it hadn’t been a dream, but she had still worried. 

He inspected the dragon beside them, his eyes ignoring her still smoldering campfire behind them. “What a sad sight.” 

“Yeah,” Cass agreed. She kept her hands to herself this time, not wanting to trigger the bonding process again. “We need to go, though.” 

“Agreed, you’ve done what little you can for him,” Salos said. 

With a heavy heart, Cass stepped over the magic circle. Again, there was a pressure on her body as she pushed across. It was heavier this time. Less curtain, more like water. She pushed across it anyway. 

But something knocked Salos from her shoulder. He landed on his feet inside the circle. 

“Come on, Salos,” Cass said. 

“I’m trying,” he said, his cat face pressed against the circle’s boundary. “I can’t get through.”

“What? Why? There is barely any pressure.”

“Barely any pressure, she says,” Salos huffed. “This looks unpleasantly like a soul confinement array.”

“What does that mean?” Cass asked as she bent over and picked him up. She tried to carry him across, but it was like pushing a rock into thick clay.

“OW ow ow ow, stop!” Salos howled. Cass dropped him.

“I could have gotten you across,” Cass said.

“And I would have had my face flattened in the attempt,” Salos muttered. “My soul is too weak to push across the boundary. Not all of us are freaks like you, with three times the ordinary soul.”

“Is that why those barriers suck?” Cass asked. 

Salos rolled his eyes. “Come back to this side. I’m going to try dematerializing. Let’s see if you can carry me across in the necklace. If nothing else, I can try slipping into your soul well and that should definitely work.”

Cass did as he asked. He settled into the necklace. It was nice to feel it warm again after so long with it cold on her chest. She stepped over the boundary easily. As easily as the first time. 

Salos materialized again once she was over the line. 

“Now we just need to break out of this room,” Cass said.

“They locked you in with the dragon?” he asked. 

“Well, not intentionally.”

He hummed to himself. 

Cass tried the door just in case they had somehow forgotten to lock it. They hadn’t. She was about to freeze the first of the door’s hinges when she felt bodies moving down the corridor outside. Cass scurried backward, flaring Stealth.

What’s happening? Salos demanded.

Someone’s coming! Cass explained. There still wasn’t anywhere to hide in this room. Stealth suggested she stand in the corner behind the door and make herself as small as possible. She hurried over there as the door swung open. Salos’s shadow skill draped over her as she got into position, the darkness deepening in the corner.

A pair of paladins entered. Their eyes swept the room, glazing over her corner without incident.

“I can’t believe the high priestess is making us prepare this one for tonight,” the first grumbled.

“This is a priest’s job,” agreed the second. 

The pair of them knelt over the runes of the circle. 

“This is what I get for learning runes.” 

“Would you rather be searching for that escaped demon?” the second asked.

“Maybe I would. When was the last time we got any action down here?”

The second snorted. “I hear it’s got a nasty zap. Tollmen felt it through his Fortitude.” 

“Tollmen’s a big baby. He raises his Fortitude every chance he gets because he can’t stand pain, not because of his dedication to our Lady.” 

A mean-spirited chuckle escaped the second paladin’s throat. He paused and sniffed the air. “Is that smoke?”

The first looked up from the runes. “Smoke?” 

They looked around again, straining around the dragon. 

Paladin number 2 saw her fire first. “What the!”

He hurried around the room to the fire. 

This is our chance to leave, Salos pointed out.

What are they preparing him for? Cass asked in return. 

None of our business. 

Cass didn’t like it. Sacrifice?

Probably, Salos agreed. 

Why now? Cass asked.

Probably a good night for it. All the gods have different conditions for an ideal sacrifice. 

But they’ve held him a long time to harvest parts of his soul. Why would that change now? Cass asked.

They might think you are a better option for that now, Salos suggested.

But they are looking for me, Cass pointed out. Would they prepare to kill him when they can’t even keep me contained for a day?

Salos hummed next to her, only audible because he was right next to her ear. They may have other demons more manageable than both of you.

That wasn’t impossible, she supposed. The priests had mentioned three containment circles, which implied three things they wanted contained, which in turn implied multiple demons. Even if the dragon was one of them, that still left at least one more. 

Except, as far as Cass could tell, no one else had seen a demon in this age. Well, no one had seen a non-dragon demon. Was this cult just that good at finding them? 

Or did they have more dragons? 

A thought struck Cass. A terrible, terrible thought. Like a dragonling?

Salos’s humming stopped. Yes, perhaps exactly like that.

Cass ran out of the room, the door still open, Stealth silencing her steps and decreasing her presence to little more than a whisper. 

Why do I get the sense you want to do something about this? Salos asked.

I don’t approve of torture, Cass said, her hands clenching at her sides. I definitely don’t approve of torturing children.

Abyss. A long, low sigh hissed from Salos. His emotions twisted beside her, spilling over into her like water in a too full glass bumped across the table. It was cold and regretful. When you put it like that.

Do they already have them? Cass asked, pushing out with Atmospheric Sense in every direction, forcing her awareness behind every door. No. The city would have been a war zone if one of the dragonlings was missing, right?

Not if the grand duchess thought the issue could be resolved quietly, Salos said. 

The halls were quiet. She could feel bodies in distant corridors. She could feel the angry growl of the dragon they had left behind. But there was no sign of dragonlings. 

Or if one or more of the dragonlings had a habit of disappearing on their minders? Cass added, suddenly remembering Ahryn and the dragon in the library and Kohen’s loud complaints in the mansion. 

Yes, that would do it, Salos agreed. 

How would they have gotten a whole dragon down here? Cass asked. Even the dragonlings weren’t that small. Pony sized, at least. People would notice if you brought them through the front and didn’t bring them out again.

Presence reduction—Salos began.

—How much would you need to hide the biggest celebrities from half the city? Cass interrupted.

I don’t know I’d go that far with their fame, but yes, I see the issue. It would require quite a lot of skills or specialization to achieve, especially if the dragonlings did not wish to be hidden.

Cass stopped on a dime as she felt a paladin approaching. She cursed under her breath. Another was coming from the other direction, too. She Stormstrode away, Stepping on the summoned gust and ripping down the corridor as soon as enough air had formed. 

The paladin’s head whipped back and forth, clearly searching, probably for her. 

This isn’t working, Cass muttered. I don’t know where I am and I don’t know where they’d hold the dragonlings if that is what they are doing.

Salos hopped off her shoulder, his feet landing silently on the glass floor. He frowned at it. Glass is not ideal, it holds memory poorly. But let’s see if I can find us some answers.

He closed his eyes, listening to something only he could hear. Or perhaps seeing something only he could see? 

Meanwhile, Cass kept an ear on Atmospheric Sense, looking for the next patrol.

Atmospheric Sense has increased to level 19.

The increased level pushed out her range again. The air was strange down here. It didn’t flow the way it should. Instead, it circled in unnatural ways. Around and around. 

Abyss, Salos muttered. The glass suggests there is no exit, as ridiculous as that is.

The air agrees, Cass offered. 

He frowned. 

Are there skills to warp space? Cass asked him, describing her experience trying to escape the paladins earlier.

Salos cursed again. It’s a closed space.

What do we do about it? Cass asked.

Kill the skill owner or find the key to breaking it, Salos said. Either way, the skill owner will know when we do. 

I don’t think I can beat any of them. The lowest was at level 29. The captain was level 40. 

Almost double your level, Salos winced. You have managed that in the past, though.

Sure, one enemy like that at a time. Because the other option was dying. Not this many of them. Not all at once. 

Well, don’t fight them all at once then.

Cass groaned. It was simple when he said it like that. 

One more problem, Cass said. I’ve lost my staff.

So? Salos said. You have my dagger, right?

Well, yeah, but I don’t have a dagger skill. I have a staff skill. 

Whose fault is that? Everyone should have a dagger skill.

Salos, Cass groaned. Do we have to do this now? 

Sorry, sorry. You don’t have a weapon skill for the weapon you have available. You are right. This is serious. It would be one thing if we had space for you to maneuver or a solid front line to keep them off you. Then you could use just your magic skills. In these corridors, however, you will struggle without your staff. 

Maybe she could take a few of them out under the cover of Confounding Mists? It was expensive, but she had a lot of Focus these days. She checked her resources:

Stamina: 91/138

Focus: 201/549

Health: 68/133

She could probably squeeze two uses of that skill? Probably. 

There were a lot of paladins. 

The math didn’t look good. 

Truthfully, you would struggle even with your staff, Salos continued. The corridors are too tight to get good swings going. Though, I suppose thrusts would be fine. You don’t thrust much, though. 

The dagger would be better in this environment. If she knew how to use it. 

How does one usually get weapon mastery skills? Cass asked. Maybe she could stab a wall or something until it unlocked. She didn’t want it, but it would be useful right now. 

One generally trains with a master for a couple of years. Children pick it up faster. You’re special, you might get it even still faster. Even for you, I would expect it to take a few days—short of the System rewarding you with it for completing a trial or quest.

So you’re saying I definitely can’t get it in the next five minutes? Cass confirmed.

He snorted. Something like that, yeah. 

An idea flickered at the edges of her mind. But you have a dagger skill.

Blade Mastery, not just daggers, but yes.

I want to try something, Cass said. The question was, how did she activate it? Was it the same as any skill? 

She felt around for it, unsure if it would be with her skills in that ineffable place not in her chest but also not-not in her chest.

She reached and found it.

Shifting Mind.

The world twisted around her, disorienting, dizzy. One moment she had been standing tall, listening to the air around her. The next the world was huge. Colors shifted, the shadows becoming shallow, promising things. Her paws could feel the thrum of ghost feet over the glass, indistinct and hazy. Her tail flicked back and forth, releasing a fraction of her pent up anxiety. 

She stared up at herself. 

No, not herself. Not really, not anymore. Not right now. 

“Oof,” her body—Salos—grunted, staggering. He stumbled back, leaning against the wall. “What did you—” he cut himself off, switching back to telepathic communication as he gathered himself. Warn me next time. 

I said I was going to try something, Cass said. 

He glared down at her. To Cass’s surprise, his eyes in her body were still his usual gold, rather than her blue.

Be more specific next time, he said. 

Her stealth skill had stopped when they’d switched. She reengaged it. But the telltale signs of wind she’d come to expect barely flitted around her. 

He stared down at her, alarm on his face. What’s with all the wind?

What? Cass asked. 

It’s like a cyclone around you.

Cass looked around, shaking her head. There is usually way more than this when I activate Stealth. 

Your Stealth? Wait. At this size, I should activate mine too. A pool of shadows appeared around him, unnatural to Cass’s eyes. He grunted. Why are they laying so thick?

Are the shadows around you when you activate your Stealth skill always so defined? Cass asked. She’d never paid much mind to Salos’s version of the skill. 

He shook his head. They are usually—He stopped mid-sentence. Cass, check your skills list.

Understanding immediately dawned on Cass. Most of her skills were the same as always. Only a few were missing—no, they had been replaced.

Unavailable Skills:

Atmospheric Sense

Confounding Mists

Wind Step

Temporary Skills:

Stone Memory

Dark Vision

Shadow Step

Abyssal Aura

Their racial skills had been swapped. Or, perhaps more accurately, been left behind in their swap. 

But that explained just about everything. Her Stealth winds were still there, she just couldn’t feel them as well without Atmospheric Sense pointing them out to her. Similarly, with Salos’s Dark Vision, she could easily see through the shadows. Meanwhile, Salos struggled with the opposite, feeling more of the air and seeing through less of the dark. 

I don’t like it, he said. 

Cass nodded. She felt blind without Atmospheric Sense. 

I think I am going to get a headache from your Atmospheric Sense skill. I do not have the Alacrity to process this much information. Not with how much my Perception is pulling in. 

Let’s get out of the hall, Cass said. This is more disorienting than I expected. 

Swap us back, I don’t trust myself to find us an empty room with Atmospheric Sense yet.

Cass engaged the ability again and again, the world twisted around her. This direction was easier, or maybe just more familiar. She returned to her body without stumbling. Stealth hadn’t even slipped, the surrounding shadows seamlessly traded for her winds again. 

Ugh. That’s unpleasant, Salos muttered. 

Come on, let’s find a spot to practice.

Ch. 30: Return

A wave of emotion crashed over Cass. She collapsed back into her chair, looking at her options. 

Salos was finally done absorbing the soul. 

He was back. The tension slipped from her shoulders. 

With him at her side, who could stop her?

Well, there was a new worry that he wouldn’t be on board to rescue the dragon, but she was pretty used to bulldozing that kind of complaint these days. She’d figure something out. 

She just needed to pick one of these upgrades.

Evolution Complete.

Choose new functionality:

[1. Shifting Mind - allows you to swap bodies with your demon, allowing you to use his Separate Form and he to use your main body. General skills, Concepts, and levels remain your own. Racial skills remain tied to the body.

2. Fused Mind - allows you to subsume your demon’s mental facilities, fusing your knowledge and skills into a single identity. Reduces independent functionality of Separate Form greatly. 

3. Subordinate Mind - allows you access to your demon’s mental facilities at will, allowing double the mental tracks. Limited facilities reserved for control of Separate From as necessary.]

She grimaced at the options. Most of them were unpleasant. Very unpleasant. 

She discarded Fused Mind immediately. That sounded far too much like she and Salos would get squished into one person. Not Cass and not Salos, but something new and different. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe she’d get all of Salos’s knowledge and walk out of it still Cass, but she doubted it.  

Subordinate Mind didn’t sound much better. Best case, that was absolute mind reading—not terribly interesting to Cass. Worst case—and if Cass’s reading of this was accurate, more likely—this would let her hijack his brain to think her own thoughts. What exactly happened to Salos’s consciousness when she did that? She didn’t know and didn’t like what she was imagining. 

Which left just one option: Shifting Mind. It was aggressively fine, but she struggled to think of a use case for it. Was there a reason she would want to be a cat, or she’d want Salos to be her? 

But, even if it was only mediocre, it was leagues better than the other two options that creeped her out just thinking about them. 

She picked Shifting Mind.

There was a new pressure on her head and a warmth on her chest. Around her, the wind whirled and pulled. Everything shook. The trees behind her fell. 

Cass leapt to her feet, scrambling away, even as the wind pulled her toward the destruction. 

To her horror, the ground on that side of the camp collapsed, the edge racing toward her as the darkness ate up dirt and plants. It stopped a few feet from her campfire. 

Hesitantly, Cass took a step toward the edge. She hadn’t felt any fear standing hundreds of feet in the air on that suspension bridge a few days ago, but here in her soul well, her old fear of heights reared its head. 

Still, she made it to the edge. The soft dirt along the edge had become solid, black stone. From beneath it, a torrent of water poured down the cliffside.  

Rather than cliffs, it was closer to a chasm cutting through her soul well. Water poured down each side, pooling at the bottom before flowing off somewhere else, the water never rising or falling. 

It was familiar, yet she was still surprised to see it here. She was certain that her campground had not featured such a chasm. 

Before she could question it, a familiar voice floated up the chasm.

“Abyss and blood, what was that?” There, at the bottom of the chasm, standing up to his knees in the water, was a slender man, maybe an inch or two taller than Cass, but easily a quarter lighter. His body was all lean muscle under dusty purple skin. He looked up, and familiar gold eyes met hers. 

“Salos?” Cass asked. 

“Cass?” he replied. “What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t this my space?” Cass asked. 

“Oh. Huh.” He looked around, confusion on his face. “One second.” 

He stepped into the waterfall below her, reappearing a few minutes later at the top, hauling himself over the stone lip. 

“Ah, that makes more sense,” he muttered.

“What?” Cass asked. 

“Yes, this does appear to be your soul well,” he said. A smirk slid over his lips. “But I didn’t think you knew how to come and go as you pleased.”

“Well, I don’t,” Cass admitted and then explained her recent predicament. For now, she left out the part with Alyx. 

“How do you get yourself in so much trouble in so little time?” Salos asked. 

They moved over to the fire pit. Cass sat back in her big camp chair while Salos perched on Robin’s stool. 

Cass shrugged. “Anyway, that’s enough about me. How are you feeling? You look more solid than the last time I saw you here and a lot less cat-ish than last I saw you at all.” 

Salos looked down at his hands. “Yes. It seems two portions of one’s soul does wonders for one’s self-image. And did you really expect me to picture myself as a cat?”

 Cass shrugged. “I don’t know how any of this stuff works.” 

“Well, it works off image. I don’t think of myself as a cat, so I am not.” He shook his head. “I think we’re getting sidetracked. I assume you were given a choice in upgrades for my necklace?”

Cass nodded and shared the options and her pick. 

He grimaced at the options. “Oh. It looks like I can once again only thank you for your choice. Those sound…”

“Absolutely awful,” Cass finished for him.

He nodded. “I don’t think I would have woken up at all if you had chosen Fused Mind.”

Cass nodded. “That’s what I thought too.” 

He shook his head. “What a terrifying artifact. I can’t help but wonder why it was designed this way. What was she trying to accomplish? Why did it end up in storage instead?” 

Huh. Cass hadn’t even considered that. Her relationship with Salos wasn’t how most demons worked from what she’d gathered—though how much she could trust those accounts was open for debate. It stood to reason it was the necklace that was different. But that just begged the question, why? “The System didn’t make it?”

Salos shook his head. “I do not think so. At least, probably not. It is too man-made. The System likes gems. Natural treasures. Skills. Traits. 

“It isn’t impossible,” he allowed. “But objects like this are usually made by people and redistributed by the System. Especially given where you found it, the System said it came from somewhere specific, did it not?”

“Some sort of Restricted Reward Pool, I think?” Cass said. 

Salos nodded. “That means it was probably in one of the locked stores we had in the Deep.” 

“Which means?” Cass asked.

Salos sighed. “It means she did not intend for it to get out into the world.” 

Why had she made it? For what purpose would the goddess have intentionally hurt Salos like this? Alacrity had mentioned that she’d sliced Salos’s soul apart multiple times. Was this necklace just the prototype for something else? Or had her experiments with his soul taken her in a different direction after this first attempt? 

Cass changed the subject instead of poking any of that. “So, what’s up with the chasm?”

Salos glanced over at it. “I think it is what remains of my soul well.”

“Is that normal?” Cass asked. “For soul wells to fuse?”

His lips pursed, still staring at it. “No. Not to my knowledge. Perhaps in this era of dragons and knights, this is common. But when I am from, it was one soul per soul well. There was certainly no fusing of them.” 

“Should we be worried about it?” Cass asked. 

He was still staring at the chasm. “It is probably fine. It just means that I have a little more influence in this space than I would have expected.”

“That sounds like something I should worry about.”

“You are welcome to try to stop it,” he said. It wasn’t a challenge. Rather, it was a resigned sigh. “Come on, you said you were in a magic circle with a feral dragon? You should wake up and make sure it isn’t biting your arm off.”

“Wait, is time passing?” Cass asked. She’d just assumed things had paused in her soul well. That was what happened when she talked to Alacrity in her temple.

“Yes, very much so.” Salos stood up and offered Cass a hand. “Come along now.” 

Cass grabbed it. “How do I get out of here again?”

“I would have thought you’d know that, you’ve done it before.” 

She had, hadn’t she? The wind gusted around her, eager. Cass stepped onto it and rode it up.

Ch.29: Bond

“So, the easiest solution sounds like you should make me your Dragon Knight,” Cass said. That should fix the rabid feral dragon thing, if nothing else.

She’d made herself comfy in front of the fire, leaning back in her extra wide camp chair, one leg hanging over one arm of the chair as she preferred to sit.

“No,” the dragon said. He lay on the opposite side of the fire, still predominately on his empty side of the soul well, but his head and front legs hung over the divide to be closer to the fire. His wounds were closing up as they spoke. Something about how he sat exuded a comfort he hadn’t had when they’d started.

Cass sighed. “Why?”

“I will not bind myself to another demon.”

“Come on,” Cass said. “Is now really the time for pride?”

“This isn’t about pride,” he said. “This is very practical. I can’t be sure your bond with the demon is as stable as you claim, and even if it is, I don’t know that your soul can support both of us. Even if it can now, there is no way to know if our combined future growth won’t break you, dooming all three of us.” 

Cass frowned, but that made a kind of sense, she supposed. “Is that why it’s one knight to a dragon?”

He nodded. 

Cass ran a hand through her hair. “Fine. Fair enough, I suppose.” She was a little disappointed she wouldn’t be binding with a dragon, but she already had enough trouble with her demon. “Not even temporarily?”

“One does not temporarily bond with a dragon. These things are for life. Until one partner dies.” He got quiet at that, his eyes closing. 

Every bit of good sense told Cass she should leave that alone, but curiosity got the better of her, and the question slipped out, anyway. “Were you bonded previously?”

He nodded.

Good sense encouraged her to stop there. “May I ask what happened to your knight?” 

He stared into the dark. The fire crackled. The shadows shifted. 

Perhaps he wouldn’t answer. Perhaps she shouldn’t have pressed.

“They killed her,” he said. His voice crackled with the fire, burning with a pain Cass couldn’t touch. “They killed her in front of me. They killed her and I could not stop it.” He closed his eyes. 

What did he see behind his eyelids? Was it her last moment? Did it haunt him? Was his feral mind trapped in that terrible moment? 

Cass coughed. Good sense had been correct. She should not have pressed him on it. She brought them back on topic. “Okay, no binding.” 

“No binding,” he repeated.

“So how do I get a giant dragon out of the temple and to someone you can bind with?”

“You don’t,” he said. “Which is why you should kill me and save yourself.”

Cass rolled her eyes. “Walk me through all the ways that saving you doesn’t work if you want me to kill you.”

He grumbled. 

“I can’t bind with you because I have a demonic bond and it would not be safe. Why can’t you bond with someone else?” Cass asked.

“They would need a fresh Blessing from Alacrity, for one,” he said. “Her blessing opens the soul. Without it, a whole soul cannot connect with mine. And if it has been too long since they received the bond, the opening will close again.” 

“Well, good thing it’s the Festival then, and there are plenty of people with fresh blessings from the Catacombs, huh?” Cass said. 

“And they would need to be willing to bond with me.” He said it like he was pronouncing a death sentence, disgust and doom in his voice.

“My understanding is being bonded with a dragon is a huge power boost and very socially advantageous here,” Cass said. 

His lips curled into a grimace. “Bonding with a dragonling is a boost. A dragonling is a blank slate. A dragonling and a young martial will grow together into an unmatched power. The dragonling can take on their Knight’s Concepts without interference.

“Bonding with a grown dragon, like myself, provides no such advantages. I have Concepts from my last bond. They define me. Replacing them would cripple my combat capabilities. Same for my new knight. They would have their own Concepts, they couldn’t just take mine. That would cripple them instead.”

“They couldn’t just mix?” Cass asked. That was something one could do with Concepts, wasn’t it? Salos had mentioned combining fragments of Concepts before. Would combining whole Concepts be different? 

“Why would you ruin perfectly good Concepts?” he asked.

It was like that then. 

“But someone might be willing,” Cass pressed anyway. 

He shook his head. “Only a crazy person, more desperate than sensible.” 

“But they could exist.”

He shook his head. “Technically. Sure. Such a person who also has a fresh blessing might exist. You might even find them. 

“Okay, then I do that,” Cass said. Problem postponed until after she had escaped. 

“But they still need to bond with me,” the dragon said. 

Cass narrowed her eyes. He’d said that like it was a gotcha. But, “Yes? That is the goal?”

“But I am feral.” 

“Yes?” Cass nodded. That was the problem.

“I won’t stand still to let someone do that safely.” He shook his head. “I would if I could. But there is only madness acting on my physical body. I will try to kill anyone who gets too close.”

Cass frowned. “Then we just need to constrain you. I mean, I’m touching you now, and I don’t think you’re chewing my arm off. Are you?” 

“You would know if I was.” 

“So, no problem. The cults done the hard work for us.” 

“That assumes you can remove the cult,” he said.

“I’m not removing the cult.” Cass emphatically shook her head. “You have any idea how many of them there are? Too many. That how many.” 

“Then?” 

“I am sneaking out of here, telling an appropriately leveled authority figure they have an illegal cult in their basement, and letting them handle it. I’ll come back with someone with a Blessing after.” 

“How can you be so sure you can sneak out?” he asked. 

Cass shrugged, putting on a brave face. She wasn’t sure. But that wasn’t what he needed to hear right now. “I’ve sneaked this far. Perception doesn’t seem to be their strong suit.”

“But if you are spotted, you will be killed,” he said. 

“They didn’t kill me the first time.” Cass puffed up the bravado. Anything to keep him from asking her to kill him. Anything to keep from needing to do it. 

That said, why hadn’t they killed her the first time? “Why did they capture me? Do they need multiple demon souls to harvest off of?”

He shook his head. “They probably are waiting until Fortitude’s moon is high to dedicate your death to her in full.”

Cass stared at him. That sounded like—

But that—

“They were going to sacrifice me to their god?” 

It was something she had considered. She had discarded the theory almost immediately because it was barbaric, but she had considered it. 

“What else would they do with a sacrifice?” he asked like that was the part she was objecting to.

“Do you people just do that here? Sacrifice people to gods?” Cass groaned. 

The dragon shrugged. “Depends on the sect and the god. But, yes, it is an ‘easy’ method of dedicating a lot of potential to your god all at once, which is the most foolproof method of gaining boons in return.”

Cass rubbed her face. Great. Human sacrifice was something she needed to worry about, too. Sure. Why not. Was that actually worse than wanton murder? She didn’t know. 

Right this second, it was useful to her, though. It meant they would likely try to recapture her rather than kill her if they found her. 

“Sure, whatever. Fine—Agh!” Cass’s frustration transformed into pain as the world quaked around her. There was a pressure all around. Like an overstuffed balloon about to pop. 

“It looks like our time has ended,” the dragon said. He stood up, returning to his side of the soul well. “Save yourself. Do not risk yourself for me. If you can, end this suffering of mine.”

“Wait! I still don’t have a plan!” Cass yelled after him. She could feel her connection with him shaking. His body faded, his side of the world filled again with trees and forest. 

And as suddenly as it began, it was over, the pressure gone. Cass stood in her campground. A System window appeared before her. 

Evolution Complete.

Choose new functionality

Ch.28: Binding

Cass found herself in her campground. The wind whipped wildly through the trees, and the fire pit glowed with welcome at her side. Behind her stood her tent, open but empty. Around her towered redwoods, their tall branches piercing a star-filled sky. 

Somewhere far behind her, she could hear the rush of waterfalls. Had there always been waterfalls at this campsite? She didn’t think so, but there was something right about it. 

Unlike the sharp divide before her. 

Three steps forward, and her campground ended. Soft, pine-needled soil gave way to black glass. The stars did not grace the black expanse above it. There was nothing out that way. Nothing but a dragon standing defiant, even amid his injuries. 

“Who are you?” the dragon growled. It was the same dragon. Dusty brown scales and matted mane. But he seemed even more injured here. His body was covered in open wounds, many dripping with blue Focus, like blood. Chunks of flesh had been torn off. Scales peeled. His wings broken. “How dare you taunt me with a partnership when you already hold one.”

“Partnership?” Cass repeated. This was her soul well. The place she’d built when she’d fought Salos that time. Why was the dragon here? 

Why was she here? Context clues suggested this was how Dragon Knights formed their contracts with their dragons. But shouldn’t it be more complicated than simply touching the dragon? 

Wait! “You’re talking!”

The dragon glared at her from over the boundary. “Naturally.”

“I was told feral dragons can’t do that,” Cass said. 

His glare deepened. “They can’t.” 

Except he clearly was. How did she break the news to him? Or was there some other complexity here? Cass Identified him again.

Dragon Soul

Lvl 38

[A dragon’s soul is a fragile thing. Incomplete. Broken by a curse long ago.]

“Are you here to taunt me?” he asked. “Is this a new form of torture those wretched Crescent cultists have devised?” He shook his head. “No. They would never sacrifice the sanctity of one of their member by fracturing their soul enough to do this.”

He was muttering to himself more than Cass. 

“Wait!” Cass interrupted. It almost sounded like he knew what was going on. “I’m not with them. They kidnapped me.” 

“That I do find more believable,” he muttered. 

“Do you know what they want with us?” Cass asked. It seemed like a long shot, but she’d take anyone else’s speculation over endlessly looping through her thoughts on the subject.

“Us?” He shook his head. “I don’t know your story, but they are a group of fanatics. A sect of Fortitude’s followers. Of all the gods, Fortitude hates demons most. So, the Order has made it their mission to eradicate them in her name.” 

“Demons,” Cass repeated. “What does that have to do with you?”

The dragon squinted at her. “You don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?” Cass crossed her arms over her chest. 

A dry chuckle resonated from his throat. “That dragons are born demons?”

Cass frowned. That didn’t square with what she knew about demons. Or dragons. “I was told demons are hungry things that do everything in their power to eat other souls?”

Alyx and Salos had pretty much agreed on that point. The dragon nodded as well. 

“And I’ve never heard anyone say anything of the sort about dragons,” Cass continued. Rather, they were revered. The Grand Duchess and her dragon ruled the city with awe and might. The dragons were the duchy’s strength.

“No?” he snorted. “Surely you know the fate of feral dragons?”

Cass nodded. “Without a knight, you go crazy?” Was that it?

“Dragons only have half a soul,” he said. 

Cass frowned again. His soul was battered and beaten, with chunks missing and cuts oozing, but it was still a far cry from missing half. Then again, the stuff in soul wells were more about visualization and feeling than anything else. Perhaps he visualized his half a soul as an entire dragon? 

“You don’t look convinced,” he said. “I promise it’s not a difficult concept.” 

It wasn’t. But also, “How does one measure a soul?” 

“What?” 

“You said you are born with only half a soul,” Cass said. “That’s all dragons? Always?”

“Since the first was cursed during the last age, yes.”

“But how can you tell that you only have half a soul? I’ve only got half the limbs of a spider or an octopus, but that doesn’t mean I’ve only got half a body.”

“What?”

Cass shrugged. “How do you know that your soul isn’t exactly how it’s supposed to be?” 

“Because it isn’t,” he snarled. 

Cass stepped back. She’d clearly crossed some limit of his patience on the subject. “Sorry.”

That hadn’t answered her question, but moving on was probably more fruitful. “Let’s get back to the whole, Order of the Copper Crescent, demon hunters thing for a minute?”

He grumbled. “There isn’t much more to say about it. They are a vile group that makes our cursed lives all the harder, trying to kill as many of us as they can wherever and whenever they can. Us and our knights.” 

“And any other demons they can find?” Cass asked, thinking of herself and Salos. 

The dragon snorted. “There are no other demons.” 

Cass wasn’t so sure of that. Obviously, there was Salos. But there were also the demonic constructs made with his soul. Maybe they wouldn’t be counted the same? Where did such things fall on the Crescent’s priority list? Another thing she left alone for now. 

“So, to be clear, dragons are demons. This Order hunts demons. You’re a dragon and, therefore, a demon?”

He looked unimpressed with her. 

Cass continued to the main point, “Then why haven’t they killed you yet?” 

Or, more importantly, her?

He chuckled. “A demonic soul chomps at the bit to chase demonic souls.” 

Not a straight answer, but his meaning was clear enough. “They use you to find other demons?”

“They tear away pieces of me to fuel their spells for finding demons, yes.” 

She knew what damage to the soul felt like. An ache that you couldn’t heal. Pain entirely sourceless yet all-consuming. Daggers of ice into flesh you did not possess. Lightning down nerves you didn’t know you had. 

To do this intentionally to any creature. To do it repeatedly. 

The wind whipped around her, gusting into a gale. Cold. Restless. Furious. 

To know that she didn’t have the strength to stop it. 

The campfire burst to life, doubling in size. Indignant. 

“Who are you anyway?” the dragon asked. “Not a member of the Order, obviously.” 

Cass shook her head. “Just another victim like you.” 

He snorted. “You don’t look like a dragon. What could they possibly want with you?”

Wasn’t that the question. A question that had only one answer, as unpleasant as it was to admit. “I might be a demon, too.”

He laughed. “You? A demon? You don’t look broken.”

“Well, how would you know?” Cass shot back. It should be reassuring to hear him disagree, but it just felt dismissive instead. As if all her fears were wasted energy and she was dumb for worrying. “You don’t look like half a soul.”

“You just don’t know how to see.” He snorted. “If anything, you look… Hm. Well. I’ll admit I don’t know what to make of that.”

“What?” Cass crossed her arms over her chest, a scowl on her lips. 

“You understand a halfling, despite their name, is not actually half a human?” the dragon said.

“Sure,” Cass said. If anything, that might have been a better example than her earlier comment about spiders and limbs. 

“And a giant is not double a human?”

“Sure?”

“Your soul is a bit like a giant. Far larger than it has any right to be, even for a spirit.”

“What does that mean?” Cass asked. 

“It means, at a glance, your soul looks like a demon’s. All the damage you’ve done to it doesn’t help. But it looks to me like all the damage has been healed over. Mostly on your own.”

“Mostly?” Cass repeated.

“You let your bond fix some of it by my eyes,” the dragon said. 

“What, exactly, does that mean?” Cass asked.

“What are the teaching Dragon Knights these days?” he muttered. 

“I’m not a Knight.”

He raised an eyebrow. “But you hold a bond?”

“Not to a dragon.”

“But it’s the same kind of bond,” he repeated. 

Cass shrugged. 

He squinted into the distance, past Cass. Toward the sound of the waterfall behind her. “Another spirit? No. That. That is a demon, isn’t it?”

Cass shrugged again. 

The dragon backed up a step. “Shadows take me. You are bound to a demon?”

“Hey! You were just saying you were a demon. What makes a non-dragon demon worse?” Cass crossed her arms again, glaring at the giant lizard.

“A dragon cannot help their situation. We are tragic victims of a war we did not ask for. We have been cursed and blessed in turn. Blessed with the Knight bond which stabilizes the half soul. Blessed so that our demonic System skills are sealed. We hunger for souls but cannot claim them. 

“That, on the other hand,” he glared past Cass again, “Was torn in two. Intentionally. Nothing stops it from clawing into a soul and devouring them live. Nothing stops it from Sundering healthy souls, cracking open their soul wells like eggs, and slurping up the being within. Nothing can stabilize them. They are slaves to the madness and the hunger.”

“Okay, but how do you know any of that?” Cass asked. This was nothing she hadn’t already heard before. The specifics about dragons were new, but the fear around the ‘madness’ of demons was well-tread ground. Even Salos had warned her about it. 

Well, she hadn’t seen it yet. Not in the senseless madness that everyone was warning her it would be. So far, she and Salos had only ever been a danger to the things possessing Salos’s soul cores and themselves. There were no wild rampages through the innocent or uninvolved. 

 Worse, besides Salos, everyone telling her this seemed to believe in demons the same way a medieval peasant might have believed in unicorns. Somebody, at some point, had seen something similar. They existed, in so far as rhinoceroses existed. But every other detail was hopelessly wrong and no one talking about them was truly convinced they were real.

This dragon wasn’t any different.

“Well?” Cass prodded.

The dragon grunted. “Why would I doubt the words of my goddess?”

“A goddess told you directly this was how this all worked?” Cass asked. She supposed that was possible. Maybe Alacrity (she assumed it was Alacrity they were talking about anyway) made time to tell all the dragons about their condition. There seemed to be comparatively few of them. It was possible in a world with direct divine intervention. 

“No. Not to me. Not directly,” the dragon said. “But Alacrity’s priests are well informed on our situation. There is much passed down among our family as well.”

Cass nodded slowly. That made more sense. And also meant that they were working off of worse than third-hand information. 

Was it possible it was right? Yeah. Maybe. 

Maybe she—or perhaps just Salos—would explode in hunger for souls and they would level the city alone. 

But then again, “My demon and I have the same kind of bond as a dragon and their knight. You just said so. Now I even have Alacrity’s blessing, just the same. Shouldn’t that be all the safeguards we need?”

“If forming this kind of bond with just any demon was possible, do you think we would fear them as we do?”

“But I do seem to have one,” Cass prodded. 

The dragon continued to glower. 

“So, in summary, I’m not a demon. My demon is probably well contained by the same safeguards dragon demons have. The Copper Crescent is holding you to harvest ingredients for their creepy magic. They’ve kidnapped me because I’m bound to a demon, and they probably don’t care about the difference. That about sum everything up?”

The dragon sighed. “Why are you here again? Why did you try to bond with me?”

Cass shrugged. “Didn’t mean to. I just patted you because you seemed sad and hurt, then ended up here. The company has got to be nice, though, right?”

“Sure.” He slumped to the floor, settling in a sad lump, the energy leaking from him.

“So, while I’ve got you, we should talk about next steps,” Cass continued. 

“Next steps?” the dragon repeated.

“Well, I’m in the process of breaking out. I had no interest in what those Crescent guys were up to, and now that I know their plans for me are either murder or ingredient harvesting, I find my interest dropping further still. 

“Obviously, you’re coming with me now that I know what your deal is.”

The dragon blinked at her. “What?” 

Cass just stared back. “You don’t want to stay here getting your soul sliced up for parts, do you?”

“No, but I am not in control of my body. I barely feel it or the passage of time.”

That was probably for the best, all things considered, but it was decidedly inconvenient now. 

“If anything, I should ask you to kill me and set me free that way,” the dragon continued. “Without a Knight, I am far too dangerous to everyone.”

“Nope,” Cass said. “I’m not here for that.”

“Even if it would end my suffering?”

Cass shrugged. “If we really, really can’t find a way to get you out of this, then maybe I’ll think about it. A mercy killing is probably better for you than an eternity of torture. I won’t pretend otherwise. But I refuse to believe those are our only options. So let’s set that aside for much later, ‘kay?”

He blinked again. “But how do you expect to escape, much less with me?”

“Well, that’s what we need to talk about, silly.”

Ch. 27: Prisoners

Cass wasn’t prepared for what she saw inside. 

A dragon. 

It was huge. The dragonlings had been about the size of ponies, plenty big but tiny compared to the beast before her. This dragon filled the room, as wide at the shoulders as a car, long enough that even curled around himself, he made SUVs look small. 

He was mostly a dusty brown, the luster entirely absent from his scales. A rash of molting peeling scales crisscrossed his body in burnt amber and ash grey. His mane was matted and overgrown, hanging in twisting dreadlocks around his neck. 

Heavy chains held it to a single post in the center of a magic circle etched in the floor. Both were covered and glowing with magic runes. Sores wore through its scales where the manacles chaffed. Countless gashes ran across the creature’s body, some scarred into puckered ridges and others still oozing from blistered patches. 

The dragon lifted its head to stare at her as she entered. Its head was gaunt, its skull prominently poking against its slack skin. One of its horns was broken, the last quarter of the twisting bone simply missing, leaving a jagged stump in its place. Both were covered in chips and scratches. 

It growled at her. 

“H-hi?” Cass stuttered.

Feral Dragon

Lvl 38

[There was a time when dragons were the most noble of all peoples, flying high and proud above the Fractured Skies. That time is no more. Now, dragons are a cursed people. When bound to a guardian knight and blessed by their god, they retain the reasoning of a person, but lacking such a bond, they fall to the instincts of a beast. This is one such beast.]

What was a dragon doing in the basement of the Temple? A feral dragon at that. 

This city all but revered dragons. She couldn’t imagine that anyone would take kindly to finding one treated like this. And yet, there was evidence it had been here a long time. Sores had been worn into the dragon’s scales where the chains chaffed. Though still huge, its body hung gaunt, its ribs visible through its scales, its limbs atrophied. 

Its growling intensified. It was a deep, rolling sound. A warning Cass wanted nothing more than to heed. 

She stepped back, pressing against the heavy metal door behind her. What now? Would the paladins outside stop to check the unlatched door? Would they hear the dragon’s growling and come to investigate? 

She should leave as soon as she could. 

This dragon would not get her out of here. It could not answer any of her questions. It was feral and wild and looked like it wanted nothing more than to devour her whole. 

And yet, it was also clearly an abused animal. 

“Who did this to you?” Cass whispered. She stepped toward the creature slowly. 

The dragon snarled, his wings flaring out. They were tattered things, rends and holes running up and down the membrane. Blood oozed from some of the tears. 

Cass stopped, her hands out and open. She didn’t mean it any harm. 

Did it have breath attacks? Dragons in the stories had breath attacks. Fire or lightning or frost or something. 

But if it did, wouldn’t its captors have done something about it? She couldn’t imagine that it would have been left able to defend itself like that. Not give the rest of its state. 

Cass inspected the circle around it. 

Magic Circle

[Purpose: Containment]

That made her pause. They’d tossed her in a similar one and it hadn’t stopped her. Maybe this wasn’t safe. 

But there were the chains as well. 

Runic Concoction

[Purpose: Containment.

The effects added to this object include: Reinforcement.]

Yes, Cass recognized the pattern running along the chains and post. They were similar to the ones Alyx had helped her add to her staff. But this clearly did more than reinforce the metal. There were a lot more symbols drawn in the material and it glowed all colors of the rainbow to Cass’s Mana Sense. 

Would they do this to her if they caught her again? 

She glanced over her shoulder. The door was still closed. The air just outside it was still. 

Had she gotten lucky? Had the paladins passed her by without noticing? They must have. They would have been here by now if they’d noticed. 

The dragon lunged forward. 

Cass jumped back, again pressing against the door. 

The dragon’s chains strained. It pressed against the edge of the magic circle. Its jaws snapped open and shut, trying, failing to grab her. 

Cass relaxed. It couldn’t reach her. The cultists weren’t utterly inept at holding prisoners. Perhaps they had just underestimated her.

She took another step forward. 

What was she going to do? She didn’t have any way to heal the creature. All she had was Beacon of Hearth and Home, but that was a passive healing. Would it do anything for the long abuse this dragon had suffered? 

And she needed to keep moving. There was nowhere to hide here, nowhere but behind the dragon’s big body. But, well…

It snapped at her again as if to illustrate what a bad idea it was to hide within reach of that creature’s jaws. 

But she couldn’t just leave it here either. She probably had a little time. She could leave it a parting gift.

She scooted around the edge of the room, leaving the dragon and the circle it was trapped in wide berth. It tried to turn with her, its lips snarling the whole time, but the chains held it in place. There wasn’t room for it to stand or turn around. 

She would leave it a campfire and the benefits of Beacon of Hearth and Home. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something. Maybe, if it went undiscovered long enough, it would be enough for its wings to heal and its sores to close. She could hope. 

The longer the campfire went without being spotted by the cultists, the better. 

She wished she could hide the fire somewhere in the room, but again, the best she could do was hide it behind the dragon. 

They’d probably immediately smell the smoke, but if nothing else, placing it on the far side of the room would buy the fire another couple of seconds as the cultists had to walk around the dragon to put it out. 

It wasn’t a good plan, but it was all she could do for the creature.

She rummaged in her Bag for the last of her Flintshooms and some of her logs, setting them up in a simple platform structure as close to the dragon as she dared. If she reached out, she could probably touch it over the magic circle’s barrier. Hopefully, the warmth of the fire would be a comfort.  

She lit it with a small spark of Element Manipulation summoned flame. The Flintshrooms didn’t smoke too much, maybe it would last a while before the cultists noticed.  

Already, she felt better, the warmth of Beacon mixing with the comfort of Hearth in her chest. Maybe she could hide here for a little while. Just until her resources were recovered?

The dragon’s growling subsided as the warmth expanded. Perhaps even in its feral state, it could feel the calm of her skill. 

She sighed. Demons and dragons? What was this cult doing? Even as an outsider, Cass could see there would be blood if the Grand Duchess found out about their activities. 

She shook her head. When she got out of this, she’d tell Alyx before leaving. 

Her heart twisted at the thought. Was she leaving? 

Of course, she was leaving. She couldn’t count on Alyx to let her into the family Vault anymore. When Salos returned, they’d look for other leads toward the Custodia. She’d look into the gods that didn’t yet have champions. It would point her to her sibling. 

Even if Alyx had been willing to travel with a demon, they’d be parting ways here, wouldn’t they? Alyx would be heir to her family’s title. She had a future here. She had no reason to go traipsing across this violent world for Cass’s sake. 

Family had to come first. Cass understood that.

The door swung open with a gust of air, interrupting Cass’s train of thought. 

She jumped to her feet and snuffed out the fire with Elemental Manipulation and her boot.

Had she stayed too long? Had they noticed the latch? Did they know she was here? 

A group stepped into the room. 

She needed to hide, but no furniture had manifested in the room since the last time she looked. 

Cursing under her breath and pushing Stealth to the max, she stepped into the magic circle. It felt like pushing through a curtain again as she stepped over the boundary. She could only hope that, after they didn’t find her, going the other direction would be just as easy. 

 The dragon’s tail thrashed as she approached. It snarled as the intruders grew closer. 

Cass Dodged the tail and slipped into its shadow by its back leg. The way it was lying on it, it shouldn’t be able to claw her without significant shifting. 

She hoped. 

“Yeah, it’s in here still,” a man’s voice called over his shoulder back into the hall. 

“Damn, Johnten. He probably forgot to latch the door again,” another voice cursed. 

“What’s it matter?” a third voice asked. “It’s not like old Kelstor can cross the containment circle. It’d need a proper soul for that.” His words were met with cruel chuckles. 

“Because it’s procedure,” the second voice grunted. “Redundancy is the best defense.” 

“Well, clearly, it’s fine. Kelstor is here and the demon isn’t,” the third voice grumbled. “How would it even get all the way over here? We’re on the opposite side of the complex.” 

“You don’t know what it’s capable of,” the second voice said. “It shouldn’t have been able to get out at all.” 

“Come on, we need to find it,” the first voice said.

The door shut again, and the latch closed with a shunk. 

She breathed a sigh of relief. 

They hadn’t expected to find her here. That was the only reason they hadn’t looked harder. 

Easily leaning across the circle’s boundary, she relit the fire. 

Her fire crackled and the warmth of Hearth washed over her, soothing her nerves, and hopefully the dragon’s too. 

She patted its flank softly.

A window popped up in front of her face. 

Blessing of Alacrity detected. 

Beginning Binding Process.

“What?” was all Cass could say before the world went black around her.

Ch. 26: Stealth

Cass heard their voices next. 

“Can you believe we need to add a third containment circle,” one of them complained to the other. A man’s voice. A touch nasally. “We weren’t even done with the first two.”

“Third?” another scoffed. A woman’s voice, sharp like high heels on tile. “I think you mean fourth.”

The pair walked toward her.

Atmospheric Sense said their hands were full. One carried a stacked set of box-like objects in their arms. The other had a bag in either hand. Their clothing flapped around them as they moved. 

Priests then. Or workmen. 

The man snorted. “You didn’t help with the storage room renovation. What are you whining about?” 

“I can complain about what I want to,” the woman snapped. “Either way, it’s too many of these. I’m exhausted from the ones I did work on. I doubt anyone else is in much better condition.” 

They stepped into the intersection.

Priest of Fortitude (lvl 19)

Priest of Fortitude (lvl 23)

Cass held her breath. 

They weren’t looking for her. They were weaker than her. 

They weren’t combatants. 

They could still raise the alarm if they spotted her. 

How quickly would their paladins get here if they shouted? How far would Cass get? 

 “It can’t be helped. Tonight’s the big night.” The man sighed, readjusting the stack of books in his arms. The books glowed silver in Cass’s Mana Sense.  

“I suppose,” the woman agreed. The bags in either hand were filled with brushes and chisels intermixed with sealed jars of shimmering silver powder. “Do you think we’ll get boons?” 

Neither so much as glanced in Cass’s direction as they turned right down the hallway, away from Cass. 

“With that many demons?” the man said, “I would hope so! Maybe I’ll finally get Iron Heart.”

“Oh, looking to become a paladin?” the woman teased, but Cass’s thoughts drifted away from their chatter, her mind spinning on the pair of words: ‘many demons.’ 

How could they have more than one? Were there other demons here? That was bad, wasn’t it? 

Cass was still convinced Alyx was wrong about the risk Salos posed, but there had to be some kernel of truth to Alyx’s fears. How dangerous would a rogue demon be to the city?

Could these people hold such a dangerous creature? She’d slipped out of their grasp with comparable ease. What would happen when their other demons escaped? 

Cass shook her head. She had to have misunderstood. 

And even if she wasn’t, what could she do about it? Monsters like Alyx had described weren’t something she could stop. The best thing she could do was escape this place and warn the authorities. 

Yes. This changed nothing. 

Focus on escape.  

The pair of priests had disappeared down the corridor. 

She was alone again. 

It was too quiet. There was too much empty space. Too many empty rooms lining the hallway. 

What was it all for? 

She crept forward. She needed to put as much space between herself and her prison before they noticed she was gone. Ideally, she wanted to figure out how to get out of here before they found her. 

It didn’t take long for her to stumble into familiar surroundings. 

A meeting point of five hallways, two on either side of the one she currently stood in. A pair of big doors directly across from her. A banner with a copper crescent hanging from the ceiling. A pair of guards were at the door. 

She’d reached the center of the loop.

And caught up to the pair of priests who’d passed her. One guard opened the big door for the priests, and the two entered. 

In the brief window the door was open, Atmospheric Sense poked inside to find a collection of priests hunched over the floor in circles. The doors shut again before Cass could gather any further details. 

What were they doing in there? She’d seen the beginnings of magic circles in there earlier. Perhaps they were finishing them and adding another one? 

Why? What exactly was happening tonight? 

Cass shook her head. She did not want to stick around to find out. Her focus needed to be on escape. 

Speaking of. What now? 

She lurked a little down the hall, Stealth spinning furiously around her to hide her presence. Did she dare get closer to the paladins? 

Not yet. 

She turned around, retracing her steps. She’d run away from the center via most of the other four corridors, but she hadn’t tried turning around down this one. There had always been too many enemies too close on her heels to try it. 

What would she do if she ended up back where she started? 

The halls looked all alike to Cass—green glass walls and floors. 

Maybe she should find a place to hide until night. They had to sleep at some point, didn’t they? 

Except, the priests had said something about tonight being special. Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they would be even more active after dark. 

There would be a way out. She would find it. 

She repeated that to herself as she stalked down the halls. 

And yet, less than ten minutes later, she again faced the center of the loop. 

Cass glared at the doors. She was doing something wrong. 

There had to be a way to navigate this place. The cultists were doing it. 

Case in point, a pair of paladins walked into the crossroads from the hall to Cass’s left. 

“Shift change already?” one of the two standing guards asked.

“Yup,” one newcomer said. 

“About time,” muttered the second guard, stretching as he stepped away from the door. 

“Later,” the first guard said with a wave. 

The newcomers took the guard’s places while the relieved guards walked in opposite directions. 

Where were they going? Was one of them leaving the complex? She could follow one of them if she were careful. If the two standing guard didn’t notice her slip through. 

Did she go left or right?

It was a coin flip. She didn’t have enough information for it to be anything else. 

The two stepped into their respective halls. The guards settled into their relaxed but ready stances. 

It was now or never. 

Cass Stormstride Sprinted down the hall, Stepping onto the gust before they saw her. She hooked her wind to the left, landing behind the paladin with Stealth flaring to the max. 

Focus: 173/549

Would they see her? Was she too close? 

All she could hear was her pounding heart. Surely they could hear it, too. 

Yet the guards behind her stared blankly down the middle hall. The man in front of her continued plodding forward without turning. 

She crept behind him, taking half a step for each of his. Slowly, the distance between them increased to something far more comfortable. 

Cass followed him through the halls. He turned left at the first junction. Straight through the second. Left again. Then right. 

There wasn’t any pattern Cass could see. But he didn’t hesitate at any point. Wherever he was going, he was confident in the path. 

Could he be leading her out? 

Ahead was a large, open area swarming with people. There were two dozen paladins, at least—maybe more. Most of them were sparring, wood swords snapping at heavy shields. Some rested along the edges of the room as their Stamina recovered, some chatting with one another, some with focused expressions. 

All of them in the green and copper of the Copper Crescent. 

Cass hung back. This was not the exit.

What now? What had she learned? 

There were other points of interest in these halls than the central cathedral. It was possible to navigate from one to another. That meant the twisting couldn’t be random. Or, if it was, the cultists had some method of stabilizing the randomness. 

Before Cass could decide what to do with that information, a paladin ran into the room from a hallway on the far side of the room. “Everyone at the ready! The demon escaped. Orders are to spread out and find it!”  

Like a disturbed ant’s nest, the orderly paladins jumped into a frenzy, men and women trading sparring equipment for live steel. 

Cass’s blood ran cold. They’d discovered she was free.

She couldn’t stay here. 

She turned and ran down the hallway, hoping Stealth would hide her a little longer. 

They poured from the room behind her, heavily armored paladins stomping down the hallway. There were so many. Running would just put her back where she started, spiraling around the central cathedral until they caught her. 

She needed to hide. 

She whipped around the corner of a crossroads. Where could she hide? 

There were countless doors along the hallway. She yanked on the nearest handle. Locked. It didn’t budge. 

The paladins stormed closer.

The next door. Locked.

The next. Locked.

Locked. 

Locked.

She turned the next corner and pushed at the next door. Locked.

The hallway came to a dead end in front of her. 

How? Why now? She was in an endlessly looping complex. How did she stumble down the one hallway that ended? 

Behind her, she could feel the paladin’s approach. They didn’t know she was so close. They would search around her prison first, wouldn’t they? Maybe around the central cathedral? There was no reason for them to come this way. 

And yet, they continued toward her. 

If she backtracked to the crossroads, would they see her? Did she risk it? 

There were two more doors here. She’d try them first. 

She crossed the hall, yanking on the next door’s handle. It didn’t move. 

One left. All the way at the end of the hall. Unlike the others, it was locked on the outside. She could see the latch. 

The latch would be a giveaway that she was hiding here. Could she use it as a faint? Open it and then run somewhere else? 

They were close. There wasn’t time for another plan. Was there even time for this plan? Was hiding here the best she could do?

They stepped into the crossroad behind her.

She unlatched it. The door swung open. Cass darted in and shut the door as quietly and quickly as possible. 

Stealth has increased to level 12.

Ch.25: The Door

Cass put a hand on the door. It was cold under her open palm. Solid. Immobile. 

Elemental Manipulation hadn’t worked on the crystals in the Catacombs or the glass floor in the hallway. Would it work on metal? Surely, it would be more fruitful than her attempts at applying Strength to the problem had been so far. 

She pressed with Elemental Manipulation, pushing her Focus into the material. 

The metal of the door was indifferent. This wasn’t impossible, but the metal had no interest in listening to her commands. She lacked something to make it work. 

Power? Knowledge? Technique? 

She didn’t know. She didn’t get a notification from her Bonus Range trait, offering her an angle on it. The skill was utterly silent about what it would take. 

She could keep forcing it, but there were more things to try. She shifted to the right, her hand sliding over the smooth glass brick of the wall. 

Maybe the glass making up the rooms was different from the glass in the hall. She pushed Elemental Manipulation into the wall. Just as before, the glass slipped out of her grip. Someone else’s mana definitely was affecting the glass, protecting it from arcane manipulation. 

She wasn’t going to force her way through with magic. 

Cass glared at the door and wall, turning the problem over in her mind. No fortress was impenetrable. There was always a weakest link, just by definition of ‘weakest.’ Was it the walls, the ceiling, the floor, or the door? 

The door, Cass decided. The glass making up most of the room was empowered, but the door wasn’t. The door was several parts. There had to be some part of it she could exploit. 

The door itself was sturdy. She could not break its panels. But what about the latch? She grabbed the door’s handle again and pressed Focus into it. Her Focus flowed easily into it, the metal happily accepting Focus. It was a minor effort to contain it to the section of the door with the latch. 

She’d tried this trick once before, on a tile in a very different temple. She had about half her total Focus and even less skill in applying it then. She also needed far less detail now.

Focus: 403/549

She could feel the latch's general shape on the door's far side. That was all it was. A bolt slid into place to hold the door closed. No fancy lock. Just a bolt. 

A heavy bolt.

A bolt she couldn’t move with Elemental Manipulation. 

Could she blow it out of place with air? Could she even move air on the other side of the door with Elemental Manipulation? 

It was worth a try, even if she didn’t expect it to work. 

She reached across the glass wall and the metal door to the open space on the far side. Her Focus flickered with the effort. It was difficult to picture it working, which only made this harder. 

She grabbed a handful of air and yanked it into the bolt. But the air broke on the iron bolt, flowing around the latch instead of pushing it. 

Focus: 362/549

Cass sank to the ground from the effort. 

That wasn’t going to work either. Maybe if she could materialize stone with Elemental Manipulation, she could use that to push the bolt out of place, but she had never managed to up to now. 

She held her hand out, palm up, and tried it again anyway. Willing stone to exist where it hadn’t before. Air was easy. Fire sprang to her fingers. Water reluctantly came when called. But stone? Stone refused. 

There was a trick to it. Cass was sure. It was a refusal, not an impossibility. The same way moving metal was a refusal. Maybe with a higher skill level. Maybe with more practice. Maybe with some insight. 

It didn’t feel like it was happening now. 

What did it leave her? She could materialize water. Could she do what she wanted with that? 

Cass pushed herself back to her feet to try it. She summoned the water on the far side of the door. She could feel it wrap around the bolt. But it wouldn’t push. The metal was too heavy; it slid right through the water instead. 

She let the skill fall. 

What else did she have? 

What else could she do with this skill? 

She could move matter (air, water, stone) and energy (lightning, fire). She could materialize some matter (air, water). 

She could change its temperature (fire). 

She paused. She had asked for very, very hot fire that one time to disinfect her drinking cups. And she’d gotten it. As she’d rationalized then, temperature was just another aspect of it. No different to manipulate than position or velocity. 

Could she change the temperature of other things she summoned? 

An idea budded in her mind. 

She moved from the latch to the hinge side of the door.  

This room was a storeroom, not a prison. It had been designed as such. The biggest thing to note about not-prisons was the hinges of the doors could be on either side. In a long hallway with lots of storerooms, it was convenient if the door opened inward so they did not obstruct the hall when open. 

That put the hinges on the inside. Where Cass could easily see and manipulate them. 

They were wrought metal things, much bigger and heavier looking than the kind she was used to seeing on doors on Earth. But they were still within the range she thought she could handle. 

She summoned water over the lower of the two hinges, forcing the water into the hinge. 

Focus: 342/549

Then she pulled its temperature down. 

Down. 

Down. 

Her Focus dropped precipitously with every drop in degree. But she could feel the ice forming. Could feel the ice pressing against the bounds of the metal hinges. Could hear the crack as ice strained and metal bent. 

And then the snap as one of the hinge’s pins flew off, and the door sagged under its weight. 

Focus: 283/549

Cass grinned at the broken hinge. Even this fantasy universe was subject to the laws of physics. 

Elemental Manipulation has increased to level 23.

That was the same level as she was overall. The skill swelled in that nebulous space skills lived in, both ephemeral and present in her chest. It was snug, almost cozy, and yet tight like it was warning there was no further space to grow. The image of roots outgrowing their pot, growing in tighter and tighter circles, sprang to mind.

Was this a hint from the system that her skills would not grow beyond her current level? Or, perhaps not from the system, given there was no pop-up window. Maybe it was her body doing the warning.

She added the questions to the pile to ask Salos when she had some free time. For now, it was time to finish breaking this door.

She stood and focused on the upper hinge. Water slipped into the mechanism with ease and froze with her focused effort.   

Focus: 225/549

The hinge burst, metal yielding to the expanding ice, and the door fell to the floor with a clang of metal on glass. A single level, and that was already easier. 

Cass poked her head out the now doorless doorway. If there were guards, they heard that. No way around it. 

Except the hall was empty. No one was around.

Cass pressed out with Atmospheric Sense. Surely, her eyes were wrong. 

And yet, the air promised that no one was around.  

Really?  

They left her entirely unguarded? 

Cass shook her head. Part of her was sure this was a trap. There was no other explanation for why escape would be this easy. Except, she also couldn’t think of a single reason a complicated ploy like this would be worth their time. 

Maybe that circle was supposed to have done something. Maybe they expected the door to keep her inside. Maybe they assumed she’d be passed out longer. 

Either way, she was free of her prison. It was time to see if their space-looping trick was still in effect. 

Which way had she come from? She didn’t remember. More pressing things had been on her mind when they’d marched her down the corridors. 

Well, if the looping were still in effect, it wouldn’t matter much which way she went, would it? 

She turned right, flicking on Stealth as she walked. It grumbled that there was no cover here and the area was too well-lit. She ignored its complaints, finding comfort in the quiet whoosh of air around her body, subtly diluting her presence. 

There were more doors on either side. Storage rooms like her prison or inhabited by priests or paladins? Places to hide and recover Focus, or more enemies to run from? 

There was a crossroad ahead where two corridors intersected. Atmospheric Sense warned someone was approaching from the right side. Cass’s heart thumped in her ears. 

She couldn’t be caught again. Would they bother capturing her alive a second time? 

She sidled up to the wall, inching her way backward. But there was nowhere to hide. 

Stealth whirled around her, the winds pulling apart her presence.

She wasn’t here, they whispered. She wasn’t here. This was nothing but an empty hallway. 

Nothing here but the wind.

Ch. 24: The Storeroom

Cass had a poor sense of the passage of time, but it was probably several hours later when her resources recovered to acceptable levels. 

Stamina: 138/138

Focus: 439/549

Health: 68/133

So far, no one had come back to check on her. No one had noticed the smell of smoke or her medical herbs. If Cass didn’t know better, she might have assumed they’d abandoned her, forgetting about her very existence. But people generally didn’t entrap others they didn’t have specific plans for. 

Well, people generally didn’t entrap others, full stop. But they were well past that, weren’t they? 

Her injuries were largely unchanged in the hours they’d been wrapped, though the oozing blood had finally stopped. Her Health stabilized with the intervention of Beacon of Hearth and Home and Herbal Concocting.

She would have liked to hang around longer and recover the rest of her Focus, but there was no telling when a paladin would decide to check on her again. She had a hard time imagining they’d let her keep her Bag or anything she’d stashed in it if they caught her using any of it. 

No, this was an acceptable amount. It was time to find a way out. And, maybe once free, she’d find another hole to hide and recover the rest in. 

She stood in the center of a runic circle, drawn in silver metal set into the floor and glowing with mana. The symbols making up its circumference were neither English nor the limited Jothi she could read.  

Liminal Mana Sense gave her only:

Magic Circle

[Purpose: Containment]

Which… Yes. Thank you, System. She never would have figured that out on her own. 

The paladins had said something about a ‘Containment Field.’ Was this it? She didn’t feel contained. Perhaps she wouldn’t until she attempted to cross the boundary? 

Slowly, she stepped toward it. Air passed easily over it. 

She stuck a foot out, one inch at a time, bracing for pain or backlash to stop her.

A force pressed against her foot as it edged over the boundary like it was pushing through a heavy curtain. But that was it. 

Nothing happened as her body passed the circle’s perimeter. 

Cass frowned. That wasn’t what she’d expected. The pressure wasn’t enough to stop her. It didn’t feel like much of a barrier.

She planted her foot firmly outside the circle. Still nothing. 

Odd, odd, odd. 

She stepped out, still feeling that curtain push aside as she moved. Still, nothing happened. The circle continued glowing. 

Cass took a step away from the circle. Nothing continued to be the reaction of the hour. 

Maybe it was an alarm? Cass stared at the circle. A silent alarm? 

She saw nothing that suggested it was alarmed based on its flow of mana. The circle glowed brightly to Mana Sense, but it didn’t flash or flow away from the circle in any way that suggested it was connected to anything else. 

But what did she know? Nothing about magic circles, that was what. 

The circle had to do something. Right? 

Cass set it aside for now. If it were an alarm, someone would be along soon to check why she’d left her circle and probably shove her to the floor again. She’d deal with that when it happened. Hell, them checking on her might even give her an opportunity to escape. 

In the meantime, she’d look for a way out.

Step one: calmly try the door. 

It was a heavy metal thing, imposing and uncompromising. There was no way it was unlocked. And even if it was unlocked, there was no way it was unguarded. 

And yet. Her eyes lingered on the apparently useless circle filling the majority of the room. 

Perhaps the door would just open. 

It didn’t. That would have been too easy, Cass supposed. She jiggled the handle again, anyway. It didn’t budge. 

She pressed her weight against the door. It didn’t move. 

She pulled against the frame. Nothing happened. 

Definitely stuck. Probably locked. 

That was what she expected. That was fine.

What now? What was step two? 

She already knew there was no other exit. Atmospheric Sense searched for others, anyway. 

The room appeared to be an old storage room. Boxes lined the wall. Most largely empty. One had a collection of candles. Another had linens. Nothing obviously useful to her cause. 

Another exit had not manifested in the hours since she’d last looked. The draft under the door remained the only significant flow of air. 

It was enough to feel the state of the hall outside. It was still empty, with no guard as far as Atmospheric Sense could tell. 

An odd choice. They might have been standing far enough away from the door that she couldn’t feel them. Maybe standing at the end of the hall? 

Then again, her eyes drifted back to the magic circle. Maybe there really was no guard? 

She’d assume there was a guard for now, just outside her senses. Easier to plan for there to be one and discover there wasn’t than assume there wasn’t and be forced to improvise later.  

What would she do if she encountered a guard? 

She was unarmed. Her staff was gone. 

Her heart twinged at the thought. The image of shattered wood exploding before her filled her mind. 

She grit her teeth. It was just a stick. There would be other sticks in the future. Nicer sticks. 

But she had to get out of here for that. 

In the meantime, she had a couple of daggers in her Bag. Salos’s

Erizen’s Blade

[Class: Dagger (Bladed)

The dagger made for Erizen, for his acceptance into the Arcanum Custodia. May he stand at his mistress’s side, ever bolder.

Reduced perception of blade. 

Minor reduced perception of wielder.]

and the Uvana assassin’s 

Skill Sealing Dagger

Class: Dagger (Bladed Weapon)

[A blade forged with Felsworn Iron which cuts off access to all System skills and severely cuts the effect of Physical Row stats.]

She drew Erizen’s Blade from the Bag for now. Debuffing the paladins with the Skill Sealing Dagger would be nice, but she’d have to stab through their Fortitude first to make that happen, and so far, she’d had minimal luck cutting through their armor, even with a weapon she was comfortable with. With a weapon she didn’t have a skill in, she would be swinging wildly at best. 

The bonuses to her Stealth Erizen’s Blade provided would be more effective at this stage. Better to avoid the fight entirely if she could help it. 

Armed with her dagger of choice, she returned to the gap under the door. 

Question: How much wind was needed for Wind Step? Even without activating the skill, she could feel that the little bit drifting under the door wasn’t enough. 

She wouldn’t have been able to explain how she knew. It was kind of like how she knew the color of her robe was blue. She couldn’t explain its blueness any more than she could explain the air’s un-stepableness. 

That being said, she could create quite a bit more wind with Elemental Manipulation or Tempest Blade, more than enough to ride. So, perhaps the better question was how small of a space could she follow wind through?

No time like the present to test it, she supposed. 

Stormstride Sprint was the cheapest method of summoning a gust, so she backed up and Sprinted at the door, angling the resulting wind down with just a touch of Elemental Manipulation. 

Focus: 433/549

She focused on Wind Step’s reaction to the conjured wind as she ran. It responded positively until the front hit the space between the glass brick floors and the metal-plated door. Then, it promptly informed her she would not fit.

She skidded to a stop before she slammed into the door, scowling. She had expected that, but she was still unhappy to hear it. 

So no slipping out under the door with Wind Step. She was reasonably confident she could slip through a small space with the skill, just not one that small. 

What next? See if she could brute force her way through? That seemed like a solid step 3. 

 Now, the question was how? She pressed her hand against the door. It was cold metal. Maybe there was a wood core in the middle. Maybe there wasn’t. Cass didn’t know that much about door construction. What she did know was she wasn’t going to punch her way through it with her Strength. She considered trying anyway but didn’t relish the idea of breaking her fist in the attempt. 

But maybe she could kick it down? Wasn’t that what they did in the movies? It was worth a try. 

She kicked at the handle with her heel. As far as she could tell, it didn’t do much of anything. 

Maybe she could ram it down with her full body weight? How much did she weigh now? Was it the same as Earth Cass? That would be a fair bit. Then again, she wasn’t exactly physical-bodied. What did that mean for her weight? Was it less since she was a spirit? More for unknowable magic reasons? 

Cass shook the thought aside and backed up to the opposite end of the room. She regarded the door. This would probably hurt if it didn’t work. It might hurt if it did work. 

Nothing for it but to try. She put her head down, and Stormstride Sprinted across the room, angling her good shoulder into the door and willing the Wind to part and push her even faster. 

She slammed into the door and bounced off, landing hard on her butt. She winced, rubbing her shoulder and butt in turn. Yeah. That had gone about as well as she’d expected. 

She wasn’t going to brute force the door open that way. What about the walls? 

The brick to either side was glass. In theory, that should be much more breakable. In practice, she doubted the brick was ordinary glass. It would be a poor construction material if it were. 

She drew her dagger and drove it at the brick. A shard flaked off, but it was a shallow scratch. The rest of the brick did not appear to have any intention of fracturing. 

With more carving, she might get somewhere, but it would take just short of a million years. 

There had to be a better way. 

A magic way?

Ch. 23: Alyx: Proving

Alyx’s heart hammered in her chest as she stood in the waiting room outside the arena. Above her was a stadium of eager viewers, all waiting to see who would be their new Dragon Knights. 

She flicked up her Blessing description again.

Major Blessing

She had already won. This was just set dressing. Just a show for the people. 

A dragon was hers. It was just a matter of which one. 

Around her waited the other finalists. Fioreya stretched by the door, calm and collected as always. Kohen paced the room length, his hand twitching toward his pocket, then away again with every other step. His final ace, she was sure. Ahryn hung in the corner, looking lost. 

There were a few others, too. Another cousin from the Sellen branch. Outside, on the arena field, a promising outsider fought his chosen monster.

Kohen watched the others with hungry eyes and fidgeting hands. He could see the goal, but it wasn’t quite within reach. It would not stop him from reaching, anyway. 

Which left Ahryn and the other girl in last place. Lost. In the wilderness. Unsure how they got here or why. It would take a miracle for either of them to be selected. One Alyx had no intention of providing. 

She flicked up her Blessing. 

Yes. She was a front-runner. She forced herself to stand taller. She was confident. She was strong. 

She would win. This would be definitive proof she was worthy of her name. That her mother wasn’t the failure the city labeled her. 

She read her Blessing again. 

It was still there. It hadn’t changed.

The festival was almost over. Tonight, the Knights were chosen. Tomorrow would be celebration. 

Now was her last chance to show off for the dragons. One at a time, the remaining contestants would step onto the field and display their martial talents against a worthy opponent. Almost all of them had gone already. It had started with the weakest contestant, Ahryn, and worked up. Fioreya was next. 

And then it would be her turn.

She and Telis had arranged for her to fight a level 32 Grildan Mountain Wolf. 

It was big. It was fast. It threw auras of darkness like blades. It would look impressive as her amber aura cut through the darkness. With her Blessing, she should be able to take out a monster three levels above her own. 

She flipped up the Blessing and read it again. 

There was a roar of excitement from above as the outsider slew the beast he fought, and the crowds went wild. The doors swung open, and with it came the cheering. 

Fioreya wasted no time. She refastened her helmet and marched into the arena, ignoring the injured outsider as she passed him. The cheering redoubled, becoming almost a physical force reverberating through her bones. 

Fioreya walked with ease under their gaze. She wore the mantle of Champion lightly, her head held high.

Alacrity’s Champion (Lvl 32)

She did not quake before the eyes of their grandmother’s dragon, watching from on high. She did not search the stands for the twin dragonlings. Instead, she fixed her eyes on the opposing gates. Gates that opened to allow a towering beast to be let into the ring with her. 

Elder Noctgolm

Lvl 37

[An ancient beast from the forests of Alden, captured and prepared for today’s events. Possessing powerful physical stats as well as lightning-fast magics, this is a formidable opponent.]

The noctgolm lumbered forward. It walked on all fours, its front legs longer than its back, its back arched to hold its ugly head high. The head was like a frog’s, all mouth and maw, if that mouth was full of large flat teeth, like grindstones. Its skin was grey, covered in coarse fur from head to toe, a black, bristled mane running along its back and between the twisting antlers crowning its head. Its hands were broad grasping things, each more than big enough to scoop a person from their feet and crush them, armor and all. 

But Fioreya was unperturbed. She’d selected this beast. 

Alyx again looked to the stands. Her grandmother sat in her box high above the rest. The dragonlings should be with her or with their mother, the matriarch. She didn’t see them in either place, but they had to be here somewhere. This show was for them before all else unless they had already picked their knights and needed to see no more. 

Alyx found herself scanning the rest of the crowds. There was Marco squeezed in among other martials on the second level. Telis was also likely near him, but her presence was too low for Alyx to spot from this range. 

There was comfort in knowing they were watching. A comfort tinged with regret. In disappointment. 

She squashed that disappointment. 

Cass hadn’t come. Of course, she hadn’t. 

Cass had picked Salos. Cass had chosen a dangerous monster over her. Cass—

No. Now wasn’t the moment to think about Cass. Or Salos. Or the soul core. 

Now was for dragons. For her dragon. 

She went back to looking for the dragonlings. They had to be here somewhere. Even if they had picked their knight, there was no way her grandmother would let them skip an event in their honor. They were here to show off for the people as much as Alyx and the other contestants were here to show off for them. 

Their keeper—Alyx’s aunt and the city Steward—was also missing. She should not have let them out of her sight. They were too important. 

No, they must be here somewhere, just out of sight. Her aunt was probably with them, wherever that was.

In the arena, Fioreya was already in the thick of it. Her sword was buried hilt deep in the noctgolm’s forearm. A twist brought it free with an arch of black blood and a howling scream.

The crowd ate it up, shouting in excitement. 

Amid the cheering of the crowd, there was another noise. Not from the arena but from the door behind her. Murmured arguing from outside the waiting room. 

“Please,” a woman’s voice drifted in. Most of what she said was lost amid the other rumbles of the arena, but Alyx caught two other phrases from her, “Lady Alyx… very important.” 

“Damn, they’re loud,” the outsider muttered, shooting a glare over his shoulder at the door.

Alyx sighed. She should focus on the arena, on her skills, on preparing herself. 

But she recognized the voice, and a gnawing curiosity grasped at her guts. A worried one. 

Out in the arena, Fioreya leapt into the air, her sword shining in the late afternoon sun as she fell like a bolt of lightning onto the noctgolm, her weight effortlessly removing its arm from its shoulder. The beast was on the back foot but was still raging. Still, it would only be a matter of time until Fioreya’s blade found its neck instead.

Alyx stepped back toward the back door and the brewing argument. 

Two men’s voices had joined the woman. 

“Come on, just pass the Lady Mage’s message on,” the larger man—one of Kohen’s grunts unless she was mistaken—yelled down at the comparatively small guardsman. 

“I cannot allow anyone to disturb the contestants,” the guard retorted. 

Between them stood Pellen, absolutely dwarfed by the two larger men, a bundle of something wrapped in her arms. 

“Please, sir,” the little mage said, clearly not for the first time. “If you could just—” Pellen stopped, her many eyes twisting on Alyx.

Alyx raised an eyebrow. “What’s this about?”

“Blessing holder, there is no need. Please focus on your preparation.” The guard put his body between Pellen and Alyx.

“Miss Cass is in trouble!” Pellen yelled behind him. 

“What?” Alyx recoiled like she’d been struck. She shot a look over her shoulder. 

Kohen had drifted closer, unsubtly eavesdropping. Mild confusion played across his face. Feigned or true? 

Was this a trap he set? It would be easy enough. Pellen and the big swordsman were technically Kohen’s people. He could have hired them to disrupt her showing in the arena. If he knew about her falling out with Cass, he wouldn’t even need to kidnap Cass to deploy this trick. 

Ahryn was beside him, very obviously listening. 

Pellen had launched into a story about waiting for Cass outside the Temple and Cass disappearing into the Temple’s basement. Her voice was heavy with concern. Either the mage was a better actor than Alyx had expected, or her distress was genuine. 

Behind her, Fioreya was showing off. Lightning arched between sword and hand, sparking in every direction, destroying the summoned minions of the noctgolm. The shadowy figures exploded in shadow and lightning, one after another. 

It would be her turn any minute now. As soon as Fioreya was done showing off. As soon as the monster collapsed. “Cass is very good at getting herself out of trouble, if she’s even in trouble in the first place.” She wished it wasn’t so believable that unnamed trouble had found Cass. “I’m sure she’s fine.” 

The words rang hollow in her mouth, but she needed to believe them. This wasn’t the moment to run off on a wild chase. Not when she was so close. 

She couldn’t go traipsing off now. Not on something as weak as this. Not when it was almost her turn. 

Cass had made her choices. She’d chosen Salos. 

Cass could take care of herself. 

The noctgolm staggered as Fioreya’s sword sunk into its chest. The blade exploded with lightning, sparks arching over the entire field and swirling into a dragon, rising into the sky in a thunderous roar. Alacrity’s Champion pulled her sword free, pushing the herculean body back. It fell, void of life. She held her sword up, and the crowds exploded in cheers. It was deafening. 

It was Alyx’s turn. She turned away toward the arena, toward her future. 

She had to go. Cass would be—

“I found her staff!” Pellen shouted over the crowds. 

Alyx froze. That couldn’t be true. Cass went everywhere with her staff. There were better weapons, but Cass had barely looked at them. 

It was like another hand turned her body. She hadn’t consciously turned to face Pellen again. But there she was, the little mage still standing in the waiting room doorway. 

Pellen held out the bundle in her arms, pulling back the fabric wrapping to reveal smooth white wood curling into a gnarled end.

Alyx’s hands reached out, plucking the wood from the mage’s arms. 

It was in two pieces, shattered down the middle. Splinters hung from the broken ends. Rough etching ran the length of the wood’s surface. Reinforcement runes, sloppily drawn by an inexpert hand.

How had it broken? Alyx had seen the abuse Cass had put that staff through. Monster hides and stone facades. It had channeled an ungodly amount of Focus, transforming raw Will into unspooled potential. 

And now it was two pieces. 

Fioreya walked back to the waiting room. The crowds were quieting in anticipation. The far doors holding back Alyx’s chosen monster creaked open.

“Your turn, Aretios,” Fioreya called from the arena door as she stepped inside. There was hardly a drop of blood on her. She barely looked winded. 

A cold corner of Alyx’s mind whispered that Cass was either captured alive and would be held a while longer, or she’d been killed on the spot. In either case, there was no hurry. There would be time. Time to fight her opponent and prove her worth with the blade to all that would see.  

It was madness to walk away from the arena now. She was so close to earning a dragon. So close to absolving her mother. 

But the living needed to come before the dead. 

Cass needed to remain one of the living. 

Alyx grit her teeth, her hands clasping around the staff fragment. “Where did you find this?”

Ch. 22: Injured and Alone

Cass blinked awake. The floor under her was cold. The ceiling above her was green.

Everything hurt. 

She tried to sit up. A mistake, as she could feel her brains sloshing in her skull and every muscle screaming in protest.

Stamina: 44/138

Focus: 66/549

Health: 70/133

She groaned and let herself fall back to the floor.

“Salos, are you awake yet?” she asked the empty air. She knew he wasn’t. She could feel him cold and heavy against her chest. 

She was alone again. 

Still. 

She squeezed her eyes shut and forced a deep breath. The hearth in her chest thrummed to life. Warm. Ready. 

Okay. She could do this. 

First, was she in immediate danger?

Atmospheric Sense quested out around her. She was in a room about the size of her old college dorm room, with even less furniture. It was just her and a pile of boxes on the far side of the room. 

No one else was here. 

A slight draft ran underneath the door, giving her an idea of the state of the hall outside—empty. There was no other airflow in or out of the room, suggesting that there were no other entrances or secret hatches. 

For the moment, she was safe. As safe as she could expect to be. 

No imminent danger. What about her body? Everything hurt. It hurt too much to be from just the state of her resources. She wasn’t missing that much Stamina or Health. 

The worst pain was in her left arm, from shoulder to wrist. She reached around to poke the shoulder. The pauldron was warped, finger holes drilled through the heat-softened metal by the paladin captain’s immense Strength. The flesh beneath was little better. Her left shoulder, already injured from her adventures in the Catacombs, had been further burned by its contact with the captain’s molten armor, super-heated by her skill.

This was a reminder that just because her flames couldn’t hurt her directly, the fires they started or the things they heated could still burn her. She wasn’t fireproof, not by a long shot. 

The points his fingers had dug into her shoulder still held the heat, radiating lacing pain through the shoulder, entwining with the stabbing pain of her remaining puncture wound. 

And the pain continued as she worked down the arm to her hastily bandaged forearm. She’d shoved what bandages she’d had into the cut in her vambrace, wrapping the whole thing in more to hold them in place. But she could see the blood oozing through the wrappings, and every time she moved, the raw edges of the broken metal cut into the skin around the injury, adding fresh pain to the cocktail of suffering.

Her right wrist burned, too. Not nearly to the same degree as her shoulder, but there were impressions of the captain’s hand around her right vambrace and lingering heat from the lesser burns he’d left beneath. 

She needed to do something about this or her Health would keep dropping. 

Cass shoved herself up into a seated position, ignoring the continued sloshing of her brains. Did slyphids have brains? Or did it depend on whether she thought she had them? 

She rubbed the spot between her eyebrows where a new headache was forming around the uselessly distressing thought. 

She needed a campfire and tea. Better wound dressing, too, if she had them. Luckily, they hadn’t stopped to search her before they tossed her in here. Her Bag was still slung across her body. 

She searched through it and built herself a small fire from her wood stores and a quick application of Elemental Manipulation. The pain in her body fell as Beacon of Hearth and Home enveloped her. Hearth hummed in approval. 

She set up tea to brew beside the fire with herbs from her Bag and another ball of summoned water.

While that brewed, Cass attended to her wounds, removing her hasty bandages, carefully extracting broken armor pieces from injured flesh, cleaning the cuts and the burns with summoned water, and treating them with herb mixtures under the guidance of Herbal Concocting. 

As she worked, she checked her notifications. 

Atmospheric Sense has increased to level 18.

Stormstride Sprint has increased to level 17.

Stormstride Sprint has increased to level 18.

Tempest Blade has increased to level 16.

Trap Detection has increased to level 5.

Not bad. Clearly, she was going to need these if she was going to get out of here. She’d need every scrap of speed she could get her hands on, and any bonuses to her combat capabilities were welcome.

She tightened the last bandage over her shoulder, sealing the herbal poultice against the burns. 

Herbal Concocting has increased to level 5.

Oh, another one. That made sense. It had been a while since she’d gotten a level in the crafting skill. 

Her tea was well steeped. 

Cass’s Medicinal Tea

[Although brewed by an amateur with no experience mixing their own tisanes, this combination of herbs is a potent brew with a delightfully earthy flavor. 

Minor increased resistance to illness

Increased resistance to symptoms of diseases

Increased Health, Stamina, and Focus regeneration]

She sipped it and closed her eyes with a sigh, letting the earthy flavors take her away, doing her best to ignore the burnt, bitter undercurrent of the brew. 

This was good for her. It would help her recover faster. There would be time to heal. 

Maybe if she said that to herself enough times, she’d believe it.

Things looked bad right now. Really bad.

She was on her own. Salos was still out. Alyx was—Alyx wouldn’t be coming for her.

She would have to save herself. 

How? What did she know? 

She was in the basement of the city temple. The hallways looped. There was no escape. No one was coming for her.

She forced another deep breath. 

What else did she know? 

There were quite a few paladins and a handful of priests who were enemies. At least eight paladins and their captain? Maybe more. Probably more. And at least three priests and their high priestess. Again, probably more. 

That was thirteen enemies who wanted her dead? 

She grimaced. Thirteen vs one. Thirteen enemies all past the Gate vs Cass’s singular level 23. 

Another deep breath. 

Was that true? 

They were definitely her enemies. And there were definitely at least 13. And she was definitely lower leveled than all of them. 

But did they want her dead? 

They thought she was a demon. They had used plenty of force in her capture.

But did they want her dead? 

She was at their mercy. Yet she was alive. 

Conclusion? They didn’t want her dead. 

But then, what was their goal? Holding her? For what purpose? Her mind immediately went to ritual sacrifice. Images of her laid out over stone altars to eldritch gods and priests in black robes holding bone knives filled her head. 

No. Well. Probably not. 

Not eldritch gods, for one. The system had Identified them as the ‘Order of the Copper Crescent Paladins.’ Which was a cult, according to Alyx. But a cult dedicated to the goddess Fortitude, not some eldritch beast from beyond the stars. 

And for two, if they were going to sacrifice her, why would they have taken her away from their altar? She’d been in what could only have been their center of worship. Why drag her away from it? 

What did they want with her then? According to Alyx, they’d been kicked out of the city years ago. So, why did they still have a wing of the city temple? 

And how did that assassin in the city before the Catacombs fit into all this?

Cass groaned. 

Was her kidnapping Alyx’s fault for reasons entirely unrelated to their falling out?

Had they kidnapped Cass to harm Alyx?

But they’d called her a demon. Only Alyx should know about that. 

Unless the cult had their own methods of detecting demon-ness. 

But then, had they attacked her that first time for the same reason? Was none of it because of Alyx? 

She sighed loudly. She didn’t know. All of this was speculation. She needed to organize her thoughts. She started with the open questions:

1. Who had kidnapped her? The Order of the Copper Crescent, apparently, but who were they? A religious order? A cult? If they were a cult, why did they have rooms in the proper Temple?

2. Why had she been kidnapped? Was it because they hunted demons? Because Alyx had reported her to the authorities? Because they wanted to hurt Alyx? 

If it was because Alyx reported her to the authorities, why had they attacked her before Alyx knew about Salos? If it was because they hunted demons, how had they known she was one? If it was to hurt Alyx, how had they known about the demon thing? 

She didn’t like it, but the simplest explanation to that tangle of questions was they had a method of detecting demons. On the other hand, it had the side benefit of suggesting Alyx hadn’t reported her to the authorities, which Cass found unreasonable comfort in. 

3. How screwed was she? 

As she’d observed a moment ago, there were thirteen or more cultists out to get her, each with some to considerably more levels than she had. She did not know how many other allies they might have. 

The captain had knocked her out of and disabled Wind Step.

Wind Step! 

Was it still disabled? She pushed at the skill. It accepted the Focus but fizzled out, returning her Focus as there was no wind to step onto. That was more than it had done earlier. That must mean it was back, right? 

She’d take that reassurance for now.

But that meant the captain had an anti-magic or skill-canceling ability. Was it any skill, or just movement ones like Wind Step? 

No, it couldn’t be any skill, or he would have used it to disable Elemental Manipulation, too. He also wouldn’t have needed the high priestess to dispel Confounding Mists. What else could she dispel? 

Cass sighed. She’d observed a lot, yet it just left her with more questions. 

Like the looping. How did the looping work? Was it a skill? Who’s skill? The captain’s? The high priestess’s? The goddess’s? How did she take it down? Could she escape without disabling it?  

Cass took another deep breath. This wasn’t helping. There were only two options. Either escape was possible, or it wasn’t. 

She gained nothing from assuming it was impossible. Better to act like she had some chance. 

What would make that chance for her? 

Recovering as much of her resources as she could was a good first step.

Ch. 21: Pellen: Divination

There was nothing on the bench. Pellen slumped to the seat, burying her face in her hands. 

“Lady Mage!” a boisterous voice called all too loudly through the temple.

Pellen looked up. The swordsman from Lord Kohen’s party waved at her as he walked up. 

“Sir Daidyn?” she asked. Was everyone here today to pray for their lords? She once again wondered if she should do the same, though, again, she wondered who that lord would be.

“I thought that was you!” he said, still too loudly for the temple. A few people shot him dirty looks, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You here with Miss Cass?”

Pellen shook her head. “She asked me to wait for her, but it seems something came up, and she left without me.” 

He shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think she’s come out yet.”

Pellen blinked. “No. The priest said Miss Cass left before she talked to anyone.”

He shook his head again. “No, a Fortitude Priest was chatting with her right here, and then they went downstairs. She hasn’t come back yet.”

Pellen frowned. Was the priest she spoke to mistaken then? Perhaps another priest came and spoke with Cass before the one he sent her had a chance? 

Or maybe something else is going on, a dark thought whispered at the back of her mind. 

But why? What? 

She didn’t have any good explanations. 

Pellen stood and walked back across the temple to the priest’s door. She knocked. A moment later, a different priest opened the door.

“May I help you?” he asked. 

“Did a slyphid woman come through here?” Pellen asked. “About this tall,” she stood on her toes and held her hand up, “Dark hair, fair skin, very blue eyes, blue robes? Carrying a staff?”

The priest, an acolyte of Strength, frowned. “I did not see. May I ask why you search for her?” 

“Can we go back and look for her?” Daidyn asked.

The priest recoiled. “No. Only those with business may enter this way.” 

“You mind looking around for her, then? I saw her go this way. There’s only so many private rooms for talkin’ with patrons, right?” Daidyn said. 

The priest reluctantly nodded. “I can do this. A tall slyphid, was it?” 

Pellen nodded.

The priest nodded and retreated into the back. 

Cass would be back there. This worry was unfounded. This was a temple. A sacred place. Was there a safer place in all the city?

He returned a few minutes later, shaking his head. “I saw no such woman that met your description. Perhaps you missed her?”

Daidyn shrugged. “Maybe we did.”

“Thank you for checking for us,” Pellen said with a shallow bow. 

“May you walk your patron’s path with pride.” The priest closed the door. 

Pellen picked at her skin. Was that all it was? 

Sir Daidyn said he saw Miss Cass enter. She might have left while Pellen spoke with the appraiser in one of those private rooms, and he may have missed her leaving. 

But the timing on that seemed wrong. Pellen’s business had taken little time, and, by all accounts, Miss Cass had gone in second. Could Miss Cass have handled what she needed and left again in less time than it had taken Pellen to get her compatibility checked? 

It seemed unlikely. 

Something didn’t sit right with her. A gut feeling she couldn’t shake. 

“Whatcha thinkin’?” Daidyn asked. 

“Are you sure it was Miss Cass you saw?” Pellen asked.

He nodded. “Not many with her looks around these parts.”

That was true. Pale skin like Miss Cass’s was uncommon in this part of the Continent. Combined with her shocking blue eyes, it was difficult to mistake her for anyone else. If Sir Daidyn said he saw Miss Cass, it was all but certainly her.

“Do you have a tracking skill?” Pellen asked the big wolf man. 

He shook his head. “That’s outside my wheelhouse. I’m more about hitting the stuff in front of me than findin’ new stuff to hit.” 

Pellen pursed her lips. She was probably worried over nothing. And yet. 

She hurried out of the Temple, stepping off the path into the bushes outside. 

Daidyn followed her off the path. “Hey, what are you doing?”

Pellen kept walking until she found a clear spot, then pulled Ehribak’s Elementals 7th Edition from its pocket in her robes. What page was the ritual she was looking for again? Chapter 8: Scrying? Or was it 6: Divination? 

No. It was chapter 9. Ehribak classified it as dowsing, not divination, in all editions after the 4th. Silly really. Obviously, it was divination. The addition of the dowsing chapter was entirely unnecessary. 

There it was. She found a stick and drew a circle of runes in the soft dirt. She scribbled an approximation of the city within, a wide line running just off the center representing the river and a circle on it representing the temple. She added a few other marks for other prominent landmarks: the Palace, the Academy, the lower city Plaza. It wasn’t a good map, but it would be good enough for now. 

Pellen skimmed through the reference one more time:

Dowsing Ritual #26: Find Friend

There is no shortage of spells for locating lost objects or people. The fundamental difference between most forms is cost and prerequisite. This is a comparatively weak rendition of this concept, focusing on quick and minimal. Unlike many Divination versions of this spell, no focus from the target is required; instead, only a map of the expected area and a personal connection to the target. The closer the connection, the more effective this ritual will become. 

Colloquially, one might say that the better friends one is with the target, the better this spell will work, hence the title. 

Instructions: 

1. Draw the illustrated rune circle upon a flat, solid surface. 

2. Place (or draw) a map of the area you wish to search for your target within the ritual.

3. Chant the activation sequence below, keeping the image and essence of your target at the fore of your mind. 

If the target is within the constraints of the map, their location will glow. If they are outside, the circle will instead light up. If the spell should fail (the practitioner’s connection to the target being insufficient, the target dead, or the target rendered imperceptible through other means being the most common failure reasons), the circle will flash twice before falling dark. 

Remarks:

- The more detailed the map used in this dowsing will result in higher fidelity in locating the target but also require a greater Focus cost by the practitioner and a deeper connection with the target. Greater fidelity can be achieved while mitigating these penalties by using low-detail maps and repeating the ritual to narrow down the target’s location until they can be found via mundane means.

Everything looked right. She held a hand out over the circle and read the chant from the textbook. She focused on Miss Cass. Her careless laugh. Her simple outlook. Her light spirit. Where was she? 

The last word of the chant left her lips, and Pellen looked down at the circle. It would glow, she whispered to herself. The lower city. The upper city. Something. It would glow. 

Mana coalesced around the circle, the dark blue of her mana shifting into the pale green characterizing this flavor of divination magic. Quietly, the spell asked the world where Cass was. And quietly, the world answered. 

The circle she’d drawn to represent the temple glowed. 

Miss Cass was still here. 

That should be a relief. Miss Cass hadn’t left without her. If Pellen was patient, Miss Cass would surely be out in no time. 

Except, where was Miss Cass then? She wasn’t in the main room or with the priests. 

“What is all this?” Daidyn asked. 

Pellen jumped, having forgotten about him entirely. “Oh. I was just divining Miss Cass’s position.”  

“Where’d she go?” Daidyn asked. 

“Well, you can see,” Pellen paused. The light had gone out, the spell ended. “She appeared to be in the temple.” 

“So she hasn’t left yet?” he said.

Pellen nodded. “Seems that way.” 

“That’s neat you can do that with magic. Kinda thought it was just for blowing stuff up.” He laughed. “Can you tell where in the temple she is?”

Pellen frowned. Wasn’t that the question? She didn’t have a map of the temple, but technically, she just needed a representational map, not a specific one. “Maybe. One moment.” 

She scrubbed out her city map with her foot, then sketched a rough representation of the temple, this time drawn from the side rather than the top. It looked like a house (representing the temple proper) on top of a triangle (representing the spire and the basements within). Outside the house, she sketched a tree representing the gardens they currently stood in. For good measure, she added a bridge on either side of the triangle and some squiggles beneath for the river.

She repeated the activation chant and watched as the triangle lit up. 

She pursed her lips, her fingers picking at the skin around her nails. “Miss Cass appears to be in the basement.” 

That was not what she had expected. Of the options she’d drawn, that made the least sense. She had expected the gardens or one of the bridges to light up. Maybe the main room. It was easy enough to believe Miss Cass had snuck out with a stealth skill, avoiding Pellen’s Perception skills. 

But, for Miss Cass to have gone deeper into the temple… Pellen couldn’t think of a single reason Miss Cass would have chosen to do so. 

However, the triangle representing the private spaces of the temple was clearly lit. Cass had to be down there. 

She must have some reason, even if Pellen couldn’t think of one. Miss Cass—

The light of her spell went out. 

Then, the circle flashed.

Once. 

Twice.

It fell dark.

A bolt of panic ran down Pellen’s spine. 

“What did that mean?” Daidyn asked. 

Pellen was already repeating the spell. It had to have failed because her concentration had lapsed. Never mind, it hadn’t done that the first time. Or maybe Miss Cass’s stealth skill was interacting poorly with the ritual. Or…

The spell activated again. The ring lit up, then fell dark. Then lit up again and fell dark. 

“Lady Mage?” the swordsman asked. 

 Pellen shook her head. Miss Cass couldn’t be dead. 

“Come on,” Pellen said, climbing out of the flowerbed and back onto the temple path. “I need proof.” 

“Proof of what?” Daidyn asked, following her, his legs stretching further to keep up with her rapid steps. 

“That Miss Cass is in trouble.”

Ch. 20: Pellen: Concepts

Pellen picked at the skin around her fingernails in a poor attempt to sit still before the priest of Will, the man who would appraise her compatibility with Arcane. 

“No need to be nervous, miss,” he said. “Just put your hand on the plate here.” He gestured to the plate of blue-black metal on the table. An Arcane shard—a sliver of glowing gold crystal—already sat in the divot to one side of the plate. 

Pellen reached out and touched the metal.

“Now push a small sample of your Focus into the plate,” the priest said. 

Pellen squeezed all her eyes shut as she did as she was told, begging her Focus to be compatible with the Concept of Arcane. As if begging could change anything. 

“That is plenty,” the priest said with a chuckle. “Go ahead and stop.”

Pellen pulled her hand back, her fingers immediately returning to their anxious picking. She needed to stop. The air was cold and dry. They’d bleed if she kept this up. Her Vitality wasn’t good enough to heal it quickly.

There was nothing she could do now. Either she was compatible with Arcane and was just incredibly unlucky, or she wasn’t and had just wasted five years of her life attempting to be something she never could be. 

The priest of Will placed his hand on the reading plate, his eyes closing to evaluate her results. The minutes stretched endlessly. Was she unlucky? Was she a failure? How strange was it to hope she was simply unlucky? 

His eyes opened a moment later—a sad glint in his two eyes. 

Pellen could feel the tears welling. She knew what he’d say even before he spoke. 

“I am sorry, miss.” 

Pellen stood sharply, her eyes squeezing shut. She was incompatible. Tears beaded across her face. She’d promised she wouldn’t cry. Not in front of the priest. 

She was a proper adult. A proud student of the Academy of Arcane Arts. Not for much longer. But for now. 

She forced the words from her clenching throat. “Thank you.” 

“I am certain you will find another path,” the priest said softly. His words flowed over her like a warm blanket. 

He was right, of course. She would find something else. But it would never be as a Professor of the Academy as she had dreamed. 

She rubbed her face, trying—failing—to wipe away all the tears. “Thank you.”

She hurried out of the room before the man could try to comfort her further. She didn’t want comfort. 

Didn’t deserve comfort. 

She needed to make a decision. They would report her results to the academy sooner than later. At which point, she’d be removed from her Professor track position. She could still become an Assistant. A second class Assistant. She wouldn’t be allowed to lead a lab, but with the right Professor, she could continue her research. 

Probably. 

If it wasn’t reassigned to an Assistant on the Professor track. What did an Assistant need research credits for, after all, if not to progress toward Professorship themselves? 

She bit her lip, walking faster down the halls and back into the main temple. 

The other option was to switch to a combat track. She still wouldn’t get a Professorship from it, but she’d be more likely to be hired as a mage if she could show she had certification in combat magic of some form.

She’d done alright in the Catacombs—as pointless as that turned out to be. Perhaps Lady Alyx or Lord Kohen would even hire her again? Perhaps which ever one did not end up being Dragon Knight? She imagined the Dragon Knight would use the military’s mages if they needed them. 

Was it wrong to hope Lady Alyx would not get a dragon so she might choose to hire her again in the future? Yes. Probably. She shook the thought from her mind. 

There were worse fates than combat mage. One could get a good position as a combat mage without a Professor title. 

But it would mean setting aside her research. Combat mages rarely invented their own spells. Not from scratch. Not the way Pellen wanted to. 

The third option was to admit she’d been wrong, go home with her head bowed, and beg her mother to take her back. Admit she wasn’t suited for magic and accept her place on the Dusk Light. 

Pellen’s feet stepped slow and heavy as she stepped out of the temple. Miss Cass had asked she wait for her, though she hadn’t specified where outside exactly. Pellen took in her surroundings, Unobstructed Sight searching the grounds outside for her. Her eyes darted to and fro, time crawling to a near freeze as she evaluated the space around her. 

No, Miss Cass was not here.

Perhaps she was still speaking with the priests? She seemed to have some business with them, too. Pellen wondered what. 

Miss Cass was an odd duck. 

Pellen hadn’t thought spirits still walked the Fractured Skies anymore. Supposedly, spirits like the slyphid hadn’t been seen since the last age. They should be from other realms unreachable across the realm barrier and the inter-realm space. 

Slyphids in particular should be from the Aether realm, a legendary realm of twisting storms, blinding light, and choking aether. But Miss Cass had said she wasn’t from there. And that there hadn’t been other slyphids where she was from. 

Was there a realm of disparate spirits? What kind of environment would allow different kinds of spirits to coalesce together? Maybe some sort of fused realm, where fragments of other realms collided? It was theoretically possible from what she knew of realm models. 

Or had Miss Cass been the only spirit in a realm of physical bodied peoples? Miss Cass seemed quite comfortable with non-spirits, so perhaps that was the case.  

Where was she, anyway? Pellen looked around again, firing off another round of Unobstructed Sight. Again, time slowed as she took in the world around her on all its wavelengths. Light, heat, energy, she absorbed it all. Potential, Focus, Stamina, she evaluated it for all. Miss Cass was still not here. 

She wondered what Miss Cass wanted. It couldn’t be to hire her again, could it? Or did Lady Alyx still wish to attempt to reward her for her part in the Catacombs? Pellen wasn’t sure how she would tell the lady she could not take the promised reward. She could not in good conscience keep accepting Concept Gems until she received Arcane when no number would ever provide it. 

Would she still consider hiring her if she knew she did not and never would possess Arcane? 

She shook thoughts of Arcane away. She didn’t want to cry. She wasn’t ready to come to terms with the death of her dreams yet. 

She should just keep looking for Miss Cass. 

Time passed slowly. Every minute, thoughts of the strange slyphid were increasingly replaced with thoughts of home. Of the endless empty expanses between the isles of the archipelago. 

Nope. This wasn’t working. She could not keep standing here. Miss Cass had asked her to wait, so she could not possibly have wandered off without her. 

Probably. 

Unless the business Miss Cass had was about hiring her, and she had somehow overheard the priest’s appraisal and decided she didn’t need a failure of a mage. 

Pellen shook her head. No. She would look for Miss Cass. If she were inside still, she would find her. And if she weren’t, Pellen would go home and pack her bags. 

She nodded to herself and stepped back inside. 

The inside was no less busy than it had been before. Most of the worshipers were centered around the large statue of She of Stunning Brilliance and Striking Inspiration. A few accumulated around her shadow, projected on the wall behind her, representing He of Consuming Shadows and Slicing Betrayal. 

Not many. The God of Dexterity was not well-loved in Vaisom. 

She activated Unobstructed Sight again. In a moment, she could see the entirety of the Temple, every single person, whether she had a direct line of sight on them or not. 

Miss Cass was not here. 

She picked at her fingernails. Had Miss Cass actually left already? Had she…

Pellen shook her fears aside. No jumping to conclusions. Maybe she was still talking to a priest? 

Should she just keep waiting? 

No. She could do a little better than that. There was the priest who had seen her a little bit ago. He had also said he’d send someone to talk to Miss Cass. Perhaps he would know if she was still talking? 

Pellen steeled herself and hurried up to him again. “E-excuse me?”

The priest smiled down at her. “Ah, Lady Mage Ioptes. Did you forget something?”

Pellen shook her head, her heart pinging at the title Lady Mage. How much longer would she be able to claim that title? “There was another woman with me when you saw me. She asked to talk to a priest as well. Do you know if she is still talking or if she has already left?”

The priest frowned. “The woman did not wait, it seemed. By the time the priest I sent to talk to her made it to her, she was already gone.” 

Pellen’s chest fell. Miss Cass had left? Just like that? 

Why? Had something come up? Maybe sudden business for Lady Alyx?

“Did you need anything else, Lady Mage?” 

Pellen shook her head. “Thank you.”

“May you walk your patron’s path with pride,” he said with a wave. 

Pellen meandered toward the bench she’d last seen Miss Cass sitting at. Maybe she had left a note or… Pellen didn’t even know why it mattered to her so much. 

Perhaps she just wanted to be needed. Especially now. When she would never be needed again.

Ch. 19: Unstoppable Force

The captain stood before the priestess and her priests, his shield raised, a green force field separating Cass from them. 

Fortitude’s Aegis

[A skill bestowed by the goddess Fortitude to protect her faithful followers. Only a truly unstoppable force could break this.]

No. How could he have reacted in time? There had been a fraction of a second between the blade of lightning exiting Confounding Mists and the captain stopping it. If he had outstanding Dex or Per, she might understand. But everything she saw suggested he was focused on Str and Frt. Was that a ploy to mislead, or was that just the difference in nearly twenty levels’ worth of stats? 

Salos would know. 

[Estimated time to completion: 3 seconds]

Time was wasting. 

Liminal Mana Sense suggested she wouldn’t be able to break his skill. But she had to try, didn’t she? What else could she do? 

She threw another barrage of Tempest Blades. The first struck his force field and exploded like the one before. The second she angled high. The third low. His shield rose and fell to meet them, his reaction speed more than enough to protect his charges. 

[Estimated time to completion: 2 seconds]

Stamina: 27/138

Focus: 91/549

Health: 72/133

She was running out of time. This wasn’t working. Was there anything else she could try? 

Tempest Blade was blocked. 

She had no other Elements to Manipulate.

Even if she wanted to fight them at melee, her staff was broken. Also, she really didn’t want to. 

Those were her attacks. 

That left running. But even running was running out of options. 

How far would she get before the loops pulled her back? 

Wind Step still failed to activate. 

Though she recovered a little from this break, her stamina wouldn’t last long if she Stormstride Sprinted. 

Atmospheric Sense still couldn’t find a way out. 

Was there a secret third option she wasn’t seeing? If there was, she couldn’t find it. 

She had to run.

Atmospheric Sense found people down all five of the halls. The one with the captain and high priestess was the worst, but the other four seemed the same.

Was she rolling the dice, then? Hoping the one she picked would turn out okay? 

Her hand clenched around the remains of her staff. This was insanity: repeating the same action and expecting a different result. 

But what else could she do? 

What about the big double doors? 

She’d ignored them until now because she’d been trying to get out and knew she hadn’t gone through them coming in. But getting out seemed out of reach, so her goals needed to shift. 

Not dying and not getting caught were priorities one and two now. 

Running down any of the halls would get her caught—it was only a matter of time. Her fate on the other side of those doors was entirely unknown. 

[Estimated time to completion: 1 second]

Hell with it.

She turned and Sprinted for the double doors behind her. 

What if they were locked? 

What if it was a dead end behind them?

What if there were more enemies? 

She slammed into them. They didn’t budge. 

She yanked on the handles. The doors were heavy. It took all her Strength to pull them open, inch by inch. 

Stamina: 21/138

“Spell-cutting Wind!” the priestess’s voice intoned, resonating with power. 

Gusts of wind sliced into Confounding Mists, like blades cutting away at the aether. 

Cass could feel her skill melting before the priestess’s spell. She pulled at the door. She needed to get through before her mists were entirely removed. 

Inch by inch, the door opened, her Stamina dropping with every won inch.

Yard by yard, Confounding Mists evaporated. 

Cass redoubled the skill, forcing more aether mists into the air as she pulled open the door. 

Cass’s Focus drained even as the Spell-cutting Winds cut away more and more of her cover.

Stamina: 14/138

Focus: 67/549

But the door was open enough. Cass slipped through, yanking the door shut behind her.

Was she safe? Was this enough? 

She was in a cathedral. High vaulted ceilings soared above her, adorned in stained glass scenes of armored figures, bulls, and mountains. A stone altar stood in the room’s center, empty for now but with an air that promised it would not be for long. Across the room stood a tall statue of an armored woman, a heavy shield in one hand, a mace in the other. It was the goddess Fortitude if Cass was to guess. 

Large circles were drawn in a silver powder to either side of the room. Mana Sight didn’t see any power in them, but they looked arcane to Cass. The beginnings of magic circles, maybe?

But for all that, she didn’t see another way out. Atmospheric Sense confirmed the only door was the one behind her. 

This was a dead end. She was still trapped. 

The doors flew open. 

Cass jumped. 

The captain was behind her.

His hand clamped down on her shoulder. Her bad shoulder. 

Cass screamed. 

She pulled away, but he held her like a vice, the metal gloved fingers digging into her mostly healed wound from the Catacombs.

She jabbed the remains of her staff at the paladin’s face, Tempest Blade on its tip blazing with crackling lightning.

He jerked out of the way, her blade of lightning glancing along the metal plate of his helmet instead. Lightning burned against the metal, the electricity sinking into the plates and running down his body. 

It should have stunned him. 

He grunted instead, his free hand grabbing her wrist and twisting. 

She screamed.

The pain forced her staff piece from her grip. Tempest Blade sputtered out as the wood bounced over the floor. 

“Let me go!” She pulled against his grip. But his Strength was immense, utterly eclipsing hers. 

It was too early for tears, but they were already flowing. She had to get away. She had to escape. 

Her staff. She needed her staff. 

She reached down for it. For what remained of it. For what she could salvage of it.

The hand on her shoulder jerked her away. Jerked her out of the cathedral and back into the halls. The other paladins fell in around them, a circle of iron-fisted men. 

The captain held her close, marching her down the rightmost hall. She couldn’t pull away. She couldn’t run.

Her heart pounded in her chest. 

She still had Focus. There had to be more she could do. But lightning hadn’t phased him. 

What more could she do? 

They were going to kill her. This was how this ended. 

She’d failed. 

Failed to get back to Kaye and Robin. Failed to find whichever of them had been dragged into this awful world. 

Failed Salos. What would happen to him if she died? Would he die, too, or simply become trapped in his necklace again? Would the next person to find him treat him like a person or a tool? 

No. 

No. 

No. 

She would not lose now. Not here. Not after everything. 

Her Concepts roared in agreement, Hearth screaming with her resolve, Wind howling against her containment. 

She blasted Elemental Manipulation. A sea of fire erupted from her skin. The wind swirled around them, whipping her flames into a firestorm, growing and growing until there was only heat and light. 

She would be free. 

They could not hold her. 

The air itself burned. 

Stamina: 11/138

Focus: 27/549

And it still wasn’t enough. 

The captain’s hand clenched tighter into her shoulder. His armor was hot against her back, but he didn’t make a single noise of discomfort.

Her knees buckled. Her body sagged. It wasn’t enough.

He dragged her down the hallway. 

Was there any way to hurt this man?  

“Behave,” he rumbled in her ear.

Behave? Like a dutiful child before a parent? Like a lamb to the slaughter? 

The flames burned brighter. 

Stamina: 10/138

Focus: 19/549

She funneled more Focus into the flames. If she was going to die, she was going to take this man out with her. 

It was hot. So hot. 

Hearth crowed in her chest. Wind fed it, gust after gust of oxygen-rich air into the furnace. 

Hotter. 

Hotter. 

His hands clenched tighter around her. They dug into her shoulder. Clamped around her wrist. They scalded her skin, the metal of his gloves superheated by her flames. 

She screamed. 

Her vision blurred. 

A door opened in front of her. The captain shoved her through. 

She tumbled forward, Elemental Manipulation and her flames flickering out as her Focus ran dangerously low. 

Stamina: 9/138

Focus: 8/549

Darkness crowded the edges of her sight. 

She crashed into glass. The floor. Her face pressed against it.

She needed to get up. 

The priestess chanted. There was a surge of mana around her. 

Cass forced herself up. Her legs shook beneath her. 

She took a step forward. 

Her vision had dropped to a narrow pinpoint. All she could see was the priestess. 

All she could feel was her muscles screaming for rest. 

The priestess shouted the last word of her chant. The magic surged. 

Cass’s legs gave out under her.

She was falling. 

Her vision deserted her entirely.

Ch. 18: Priestess of Fortitude

Wood splinters flew through the air and sparks of lightning exploded around her. Tempest Blade broke with no weapon to support it. 

The paladin’s blade sliced toward her through the maelstrom of shattered staff, nothing remaining to block its path.

She needed to move. 

A piece of broken wood remained in her clenched fist. It was, maybe, two feet long? Across the hall lay the upper third, lightning burn marks scorched into the gnarled top. 

The entire middle section was just gone. Reduced to splinters around her. 

She should run. 

It was just a stick. 

She should run.

Pain cut through her thoughts as the paladin’s blade sliced into her arms, still up and raised from blocking with her staff. 

She screamed as the blade exited her arm, leaving a long laceration through her left forearm and the thin metal plates that had protected it. Blood poured from the wound.  

So much blood.

When had she last—

One of their shields slammed into her back. She staggered forward, off balance. 

Another sword struck her back. Pain radiated up her spine as the force pushed her down. 

She was falling.

Her staff was broken. Her arm was bleeding. She had next to no Stamina and only a quarter of her Focus left. 

She was losing. She was surrounded.

What did she have left? 

Tempest Blade? It blazed to life along the staff fragment, the lightning forming a sword’s blade in her hands. That was better than nothing, but only just. She could feel Staff Mastery trying and failing to connect with the weapon. She could swing it at her enemies—if she could stand up again—but there would be no skill in the movements. 

Elemental Manipulation? What was left to manipulate? To what end?

Wind Step? Still deactivated by the captain’s skill. Was it permanent? It couldn’t be. Could it? 

Confounding Mists? Expensive. But maybe it would buy the seconds she needed to catch her breath?

She’d barely decided to use the skill when the Mists burst from her body, exploding around the surrounding men.

She hit the floor as the mist filled the room. 

You are safe, the aether whispered. It was a calming voice against her frantic nerves.

They can’t get you. 

People were shouting around her—surprise and confusion and fear. 

Stamina: 8/138

Focus: 76/549

Health: 83/133

Her blood pooled around her. Her body begged to lie where it was, to pass out into quiet oblivion. 

But the paladins were still all around her. Three were close enough that they would step on her if they stepped forward. The other five weren’t much further away. 

Mist or no mist, she couldn’t lie here. 

She needed to sit up. Stand up. Fight. 

Her body staunchly rejected that idea. 

Stamina: 7/138

Her head swam. Every muscle felt like it was liquefying. She couldn’t move like this.

She fed her Hearth some of her Health, 30 for 15 Stamina and 45 Focus. She could have used more Stamina this time, but it wasn’t a ratio she had any control over. 

Stamina: 23/138

Focus: 121/549

Health: 74/133

She gasped as the Stamina shot through her body. Everything still hurt. A prevailing soreness laced every action, but she could move again. She just needed to ignore the hollow exhaustion that came with Health falling below 50%. 

What next? 

The blood. Her arm was bleeding. Bleeding fast enough that her Health was actively draining.

Health: 73/133

And quickly at that. 

No wonder, either. The paladin’s blade had cut right through the metal of her arm armor and continued well into her flesh. Atmospheric Sense could feel the bone exposed. She might have seen it too if not for the thick mists and the welling, pouring, pooling blood. 

Had the metal even done anything, or would his blade have gone through her bone, too, if it hadn’t been there? 

Better question: could she stop the bleeding? 

She fished around her Bag for bandages as she dimly acknowledged Atmospheric Sense reporting on the actions of the surrounding paladins. 

Some had run, making it out of the mists and into the connected corridors. Some still hung far too close to her, their swords stabbing into the aetheric oblivion around them, questing for her. Some watched the emptiness, eyes wide and ears straining for the sensory input Confounding Mists had robbed from them. 

She twisted the perception of space within the mists as she wrapped the bandage around her bleeding arm, Willing them to walk around her instead of through with an expenditure of Focus. 

Stamina: 24/138

Focus: 110/549

Health: 72/133

Arm wrapped, the question again became, what next? 

The paladins had not been idle while she’d patched herself up. Another had escaped the mists, leaving just five. 

Their captain stood at the edge of her skill, angrily squinting into it. Could he see inside? Did he have a skill for that? Or was it just a stubborn determination to try, anyway? 

He tapped his foot. Impatient for something? What? 

Her skill to expire? Her to bleed out? Something else entirely? Nothing good for Cass, she was sure. 

She had no new ideas on how to get out of the paladin’s looping area. Best case, it was like a video game puzzle, with a set solution she could eventually uncover. Middling case, it was like Confounding Mists, a space (or perception of space) the skill-user could reshape at will. Worst case, the loop was absolute as long as the user had it active. 

A pattern she could eventually break. A skill manipulated by another she might trick or outmaneuver. But in the last case, she could only hope it would eventually turn off. 

She would assume it was one of the first two options for now. How did she—

The commotion outside her mists caught her attention. A woman surrounded by two priests had joined the captain. 

Priest of Fortitude (lvl 29)

Priest of Fortitude (lvl 25)

High Priestess of Fortitude

Lvl 35

[As spiritual leader of a temple cult, this woman has dedicated her life to the service of her chosen goddess and to the care and wellbeing of all who claim to share that devotion. She is blessed by her goddess with powers to better serve this role.]

“Honestly, Talus,” the priestess said to the captain. “I thought you martials would have handled a single ‘apprentice’ leveled girl by now. Even if it’s a demon.” 

“We’re handling it,” the captain snapped back.

The priestess raised an eyebrow at the wall of mist before them. “Is that what you call this?” 

“If the priest had done his job properly and hadn’t tipped it off, it wouldn’t have come to this.”

“Or perhaps you should have let mine handle this all the way through. It’s more likely it noticed your paladins, which gave the plot away.” 

Arguments? Amongst her enemies? Cass listened closer. Maybe one of them would let slip the details of how the looping space worked. Or their discord could be something she could leverage against the other to let her out.

“As if it would have just walked into the confinement circle you prepared,” the captain sneered. “Don’t you have more circles to prep?”

“Did you want me to remove this or not?” The priestess gestured at the mist again. 

A low, unwilling grumble of agreement ground out of the captain’s throat. “Dispellment is your area of expertise.” 

Cass’s eyes widened at the word ‘dispellment’. Could this woman remove her Confounding Mists? 

“And wanton violence is yours,” the priestess muttered as she drew a wand from her robes. She flicked it through the air, a circle of mana forming in its wake. The priests at her sides joined her. Together, they wove a spell. 

Unknown Major Dispellment

[A wizard spell from a practice of magic not known to you. From the mana taken to weave it, few mana constructs or similar skills will survive.

Estimated time to completion: 5 seconds]

Would that include Confounding Mists? The priestess must think so, at least, if she was trying this. 

Best to assume it would. 

What did she do about it? She had no method to stop the spell itself. None except interrupting the casting? 

Cass clenched what remained of her staff, her heart twisting at the sight of it. 

It was just a stick, she repeated to herself. A stick she could still use to bludgeon someone with, she added, for the system’s benefit.

She moved out from between the paladins, still searching for her amid the fog and up to the edge of her skill. 

Tempest Blade flared to life along her ‘bludgeon.’

[Estimated time to completion: 4 seconds]

She swung it, throwing the lightning from the mists. 

They had no warning. The priestess was unarmored. 

It should have hit her. 

It could have killed her. Cass’s imagination could see the lightning burning cuts through the woman’s clothes and skin and organs. And with her death, Cass would have been safe for another minute. She would have bought another chance to find a way out. To find another way to escape. 

“Fortitude’s Aegis,” the captain’s voice rang through the room instead. 

Green flashed. 

Lightning struck a barrier, exploding harmlessly into a fountain of blue sparks.  

The priestess and her underlings were unharmed.

Ch.17: Twisty Little Hallways

If the paladins had all been big, this man was gargantuan. He was easily two heads taller than Cass and twice as wide at the shoulders. A pair of bull horns protruded from either side of his forehead. His skull bulged under his skin, and his nose was flat like a cow’s. 

His equipment was much like his men’s: heavy armor, green tabard, shield, and sword. However, the details were taken to the next level with each element. 

It wasn’t enough to have heavy plates of metal like his men. The pieces of his armor interlocked with each other, creating a gapless defense, and were covered in tiny runes glowing with defensive energy. 

It wasn’t enough for his shield to cover from shoulder to knee. No, his shield stretched from his ankles to his chin like a mobile fortress. 

It wasn’t enough to have a short sword, not by a long shot. His sword was huge too, at least as tall as his shield and a blade width greater than her open hand. On Earth, it could only have been a two-handed sword. Here, with his stats, he twirled it effortlessly with one hand as he stepped toward her. 

She didn’t stand a chance. She turned and ran.

She was uncomfortably familiar with impossible odds: the Centipede, the Keeper, the Lightning-phased Lion, the Lord of the Pass, Fioreya. Each had been well above her level. Each one she’d beaten, escaped, or outlasted. 

So she knew this wasn’t a fight she would win via conventional methods. If she were going to ‘win,’ it would be through one of the latter options. 

“Stop her,” the captain grunted, his voice deep and low. 

His men charged after her, spreading through the room. 

She Stormstride Sprinted for the furthest hallway from the captain, Stepping onto the gust before any of them could get close enough to strike her. 

Focus: 191/549

She dematerialized, slipping into the wind. 

Behind her, the Captain slammed his shield against the ground, and a shockwave of energy burst from him, racing out in every direction. It rolled through Cass. 

Her guts twisted. She fell out of the wind, corporeal again. 

What? 

She hit the ground, stumbling, too shocked to make use of her Alacrity. 

What did he do? 

He’d knocked her from the wind? How? What skill was that? How often could he use it? How many times? 

The paladins were catching up. She had to run. 

She Sprinted, her eyes fixed on her escape, the hallway opposite the paladins. 

The gust built around her. She just needed to Step—

The skill fizzled in her mind. Like a candle drowning in melted wax. Everything was right for it to ignite, but it sputtered out anyway. 

She spammed the skill. Willing, wishing, it would activate. 

It didn’t. 

What had he done to her? Was it permanent? 

Cass pushed that possibility aside. There wasn’t time. They were still chasing. She was still faster. But she had to run. 

Behind her, a mass of energy grew. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She stepped over the threshold of the room and into the hallway. Whatever they were doing, she would leave them far behind. 

The energy burst, and with it came a gust of air. All of it shooting toward her at incredible speeds. 

She glanced over her shoulder. 

It was the captain. He charged forward, his shield raised and glowing. 

Shield Rush

[Charge forward at double your top speed with your shield raised. Crush any in your path.]

No, no, no, no! There wasn’t room in the hallways to dodge that attack. She had to outrun it. 

Stamina: 19/138

But there wasn’t much left in the tank. Her legs felt like jelly. Her lungs burned.

And even running Stormstride Sprint at full tilt, he was catching up. 

Ahead, she saw her answer—a crossroads, three yards ahead. 

The captain was six yards behind her, and gaining.

There was no way he could make a ninety-degree turn at his speed. Not with his size. Not with the way his skill was propelling him forward. 

Or so she hoped. She’d made similar assumptions with the Epherwing, and that had gone poorly for her. 

But, no. With his equipment, his speed must come from an incredible Strength, not Dexterity. He couldn’t make this turn. 

She just needed to make it to it. 

Two yards away. The captain four, and gaining. 

One yard. The captain one. 

She whipped around the corner, barely avoiding ramming into the wall with her momentum. 

A whoosh of air passed behind her as he careened past her turn without stopping. 

She didn’t wait to watch, Sprinting away as fast as her legs could carry her.  

Atmospheric Sense told her he continued for half a dozen yards before grinding to a stop over the slick floors. It showed him pounding down the halls after her, now running ‘normally’ with no skill propelling him faster.

It showed her a familiar room ahead. A room filled with paladins she’d left behind only moments ago. 

Four of them were waiting for her at the hall’s mouth, their shields pressed together to create a wall before her. 

And why wouldn’t they be? Where else would she appear but in the center hallway in front of those double doors? 

She wanted to kick herself. She should have seen this coming. She should have found another answer already. 

But what else could she do? The captain chased her. His grunts waited for her ahead. 

She pressed at Wind Step, begging for it to work. It didn’t. 

Fine. What else could she do? She couldn’t run through the mess of them ahead. There were no more turns between her and them. There was no way to let the captain behind her run past without him grabbing her. 

They were bigger, heavier, and likely stronger than her; she couldn’t just bowl them down. 

But she had lightning now. Could she do something with that? Their shields protected them. She couldn’t just stun them and run through. 

No, through was impossible. But what about over? 

The ceilings here were high. Maybe half again as tall as that in a standard building? And while the paladins were tall, all of them were crouched behind their shields, minimizing the exposed area of their bodies. 

She put her head down, putting everything she had into Stormstride Sprint. Tempest Blade whirled to life on her staff, sparking with electricity. 

 Ahead, the paladins hunkered down, bracing for the attack they imagined she was preparing. 

There was only a step between her and them. Their captain was only a handful behind her. Cass jumped. 

With her Strength and Dexterity, she practically flew. This was little different from how she’d jumped onto the arms of obsidian golems in the catacombs, her body light as air. Except, this time, instead of landing on the shifting body of her opponent, she twisted mid-air, throwing her Tempest Blade down at them. 

It struck the middle paladins, their bodies convulsing as lightning ravaged their muscles and nerves. 

The rest turned to close in on her. 

Two remained ready behind her, their captain quickly closing behind them. Two spasmed but would recover all too quickly to join them if past experience was to predict the future. One more stood at each of the other pathways, a total of four, all moving to surround her. 

And here she was in the middle of it all, not any closer to escape. 

Alacrity burned as she looked for another answer. 

How did she get out? Atmospheric Sense scanned the halls, finding only looping, stagnant air and more bodies converging on this location. 

This last attempt had been the shortest loop. Was this a Lost Woods puzzle? A maze of twisty little hallways, all alike? 

If it was, how big was the pattern to get out? How long would it take her to map it and escape? How many times would she have to try before she could conclude it wasn’t?

And could she do it while chased by these people? Already, they’d worn her resources down. 

Stamina: 13/138

Focus: 182/549

Health: 86/133

Her legs begged for relief, and the rest of her body sagged with exhaustion. How much longer could she keep outrunning the paladins? Even if Wind Step returned, she only had enough for three more Steps. 

She had Health to burn, but that was a last resort. Something she only wanted to do if she had a plan or there were no other options. 

She refused to give up, but she was running out of time. 

The nearest paladin—lvl-33—was already close enough to swing at her. She Dodged around his sword, stepping past him and away from the others. 

She needed more time. There had to be an answer here somewhere. Some way out. 

The next paladin, lvl-29, was close. Two steps and he could swing at her too?

33 turned, his sword chasing her. 

Did she dare run again? Run and find herself caught between the paladins waiting for her here and the ones that gave chase? 

Would that be better or worse than being surrounded here like she already was? 

The paladin furthest from her, one of the two lvl-31s, raised his shield. It glowed with aura as he charged another Aura Bash. 

One of the two lvl-32s charged her. The other circled behind her. A lvl-30 was charging an Aura Bash. Another ran at her.

Lvl-33 swung again. The others were too close. There was no space to Dodge. 

She raised her staff to block, the edge of Tempest Blade igniting in a crescent of lighting along its end.

The metal blade slammed into the wood of her staff. There was the smell of burning metal as the lighting bit into the blade. 

And then came the crack. 

A sharp noise Cass recognized as the splitting and splintering of wood. 

A noise that didn’t make sense here. 

A noise that perfectly accompanied the visual of her staff snapping under the weight of the paladin’s sword strike.

Ch. 16: Forced Scuffle

So she couldn’t run. Fine. How else did she get out of this? 

Fight her way out? 

How many opponents were there? Two in front, at least. Atmospheric Sense found four more in close proximity, all approaching quickly, and more, too indistinct to count, beyond them. How many were truly more opponents, and how many were double-counted from the looping air? 

But, even if it was just six or so, that was still too many. She was only level 23. These enemies were all 30 and up. That was a difference of at least seven, all over the Gate. 

And she’d already spent a large chunk of her resources running. 

Stamina: 113/138

Focus: 299/549

And what would beating them even do? For all she knew, space would keep looping, whether they were conscious or not. 

Whether they were alive or not.

But what else could she do? 

Ask nicely? 

Cass raised her staff and squared her shoulders. Her aura cloak flared to life around her. 

“Let me go, and I won’t hurt you,” she said. Somehow, that had come out as a confident command rather than a shaking plea. 

Was it too much to hope he’d just back down at the threat of violence? 

“Cute,” lvl-31 said, raising his shield and sword in return. Lvl-30 raised his as well. 

 Her stomach rolled, but she pushed forward anyway, calling Tempest Blade to the end of her staff. Wind sprang to life in twisting blades, begging to be released on her foe, eager even if she was not. 

Lvl-31 stepped toward her while lvl-30 circled.

They were both big men, the kind Cass expected did football or wrestling, with wide shoulders and square heads, made to look more angular by their helmets. They wore heavy armor under green tabards emblazoned with a copper crescent. 

The design was repeated on their shields, honking rectangular things as wide as their bodies and tall enough to cover from shoulder to knees. 

Two on one.

Two on one, while she was under-leveled and more reinforcements were coming? 

She did not want to fight them. But investigating the loops would be difficult while there were guards at the loop’s nexus. Her options were to take them out before reinforcements arrived or puzzle her way out while also dodging every guard looking for her here.

They weren’t enviable options. 

Cass threw a Tempest Blade at lvl-31. The blade of wind slammed into his raised shield, not even scuffing the metal plate. 

He stepped toward her. 

She threw another, wrapping it around his shield and aiming for his unarmored face. 

She braced herself. There would be blood. Maybe bone. 

The blade of wind roared across the distance, invisible and slicing. It struck his cheek, only to break against his skin. 

What? 

Cass threw another and another in quick succession. They broke one after another. 

They shouldn’t break like that. Her Will of 81 held the blade all the way into her target. Her attacks hadn’t glanced off unarmored skin since Uvana and Tempest Blade was even more vicious than the Wind Blade that preceded it. 

He charged her, shouting, “That all you got, demon?” 

Her heart pounded in her ears.

Lvl-30 continued to creep around the edge of the room, looking for her back? 

She backpedaled, throwing another blade in his face as he charged her. It didn’t even slow him.

He swung. She Dodged right, his sword passing inches from her body, and darted across the room, away from both paladins. 

Lvl-31 chased after her, but he was slow. Far slower than she expected. His stats must be in something other than Str or Dex. 

That was good. He couldn’t hit her if he couldn’t catch her. 

Except she couldn’t hurt him either. Did they intend to make this a battle of attrition? Perhaps they expected their Stamina reserves to last longer than hers. 

That seemed a reasonable bet. She looked like—no, she was—a mage. They’d assume her stats were focused on the Mental row. They couldn’t know she got free points in End with every level. 

The only question was if their slow and deliberate movements and higher levels meant their Stamina would outlast her necessarily faster ones. Or if their allies would arrive to relieve them before they tired themselves out completely. 

And those allies were coming. She could feel their lumbering approach drawing nearer down the corridors. 

She’d deal with them next, somehow. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Lvl-30 raised his shield. It glowed a dark, forest green to her Mana Sense. What was he—

Liminal Mana Sense answered her question, her understanding of mana and similar energies expanding to match her mastery of her highest-leveled skill:

Aura Bash

[A Skill concentrating one’s aura into an object to empower a weapon or tool. 

Estimated time to execution: 2 sec]

Oh. 

But what could he do with that all the way over there? 

Cass sidestepped another of Lvl-31’s sword strikes. 

[Estimated time to execution: 1 sec]

That really only made sense if he could throw his aura like Alyx. 

Oh. 

The glow brightened to a physical light, visible even without Mana Sense. As it reached its zenith, he swung his shield arm forward as if shield bashing the air. Only a wall of green aura burst from it instead, flying far faster than Alyx’s aura swords ever did. 

Cass darted out of the way. 

But lvl-31 was suddenly in front of her, in the way. His shield glowed a slate grey to Mana Sense. 

[Unknown Spatial Warp Skill]

That didn’t tell her much, just enough to be sure it wasn’t her senses playing tricks on her. He hadn’t been in the way when she’d started moving. He was now. 

She tried changing directions, ducking backward. 

She almost Dodged it anyway. 

Almost.  

Another inch, and she would have been clear. Instead, the wall of aura clipped her shoulder. 

Color inverted as Liminal Dodge fixed her mistake at the cost of her Stamina. Her body sagged under the sudden expenditure. 

Stamina: 61/138

Cass gasped as the color returned. 

50 Stamina consumed for such a glancing hit? Liminal Dodge’s cost was directly proportional to the damage it avoided. How strong were his aura attacks? How much trouble would she have been in if Liminal Dodge hadn’t negated it? 

There wasn’t time for this worry. Lvl-31 was still advancing.

She couldn’t let this continue. Her chances of outlasting them had just gone up in smoke. She had to turn this around. 

Her ranged attacks hadn’t worked so far, and she doubted throwing more would change that. Would it be different at melee? Wind Blade had been stronger at that range, and Tempest Blade was functionally similar. 

She had to try. 

Tempest Blade surged along her staff, the winds turning like saws. She lunged, stabbing her glaive around lvl-31’s shield. 

His shield swung out, batting her spear wide as he stepped in, his sword following his momentum. 

Cass Dodged out of its arc, the blade sweeping through empty air with a rush of wind past her ears, and pulled her staff up and around, swinging it back down. 

His shield caught it, forcing it along a glancing path away from his body.

She darted back, only to find lvl-30 behind her. His sword stabbed for her middle back. 

Dodge twisted it into a glancing blow, her body contorting out of the way as the metal of his blade cut through the aura of her cloak and passed through her Ephemeral Robes to grate against the plate beneath as it slid off. 

Lvl-31 didn’t wait for her to recover, his sword swinging across for her neck while she was still distracted by lvl-30. 

She pulled her staff up to block. 

His sword chopped into the staff’s hardwood, the reverberations running up and down her arms. He tried to pull away, but his edge caught, pulling her with him. 

His Strength effortlessly yanked Cass forward, but she didn’t let go. She would not be disarmed. That never went well. 

But this left her open to lvl-30 behind her. She couldn’t let herself remain on the hook like this. 

What else could she do? Time slowed as Alacrity sped her thoughts and she looked for an answer.

She couldn’t pull her staff free. She refused to give it up. Could she pull stone spears from the ground? 

She pressed Elemental Manipulation out through her feet and into the surrounding glass. It slipped from her grip like water through a sieve. And something else sparked through it, warning that trying anyway would have consequences. 

No glass spears, then. What else? 

Fire, maybe? 

She let go of her staff with her left hand, reaching forward to lvl-31’s sword hand. She summoned fire to her open palm and snatched his wrist. 

It was armored. Of course, it was armored. But metal conducted heat, didn’t it? 

The metal glowed, the heat increasing as she held it. 

Lvl-31 just stared at her. Not screaming, not fussed in the slightest. 

Lvl-30 swung at her. 

She was out of time. 

But she refused to drop her staff. There had to be something—anything else—she could do. 

All 76 points of her Alacrity ground time to a crawl as she frantically looked for another option. 

She could Liminal Dodge. That would cost a lot of Stamina, but she had plenty left for now. It might give her the extra seconds to wriggle her staff free of 31’s sword. 

Or she might be in exactly the same position, minus another chunk of Stamina. 

A decent backup plan, then. What else could she do? 

They were so much stronger than her. She wasn’t meant to face off against opponents like this yet. 

How was she supposed to compete? How was she supposed to survive? 

She needed more power. A lot more power. 

Like lightning? 

The thought startled her. But why not? 

Elemental Manipulation could redirect it. She’d never summoned it herself, but really, how was it different from fire, which she summoned easily? 

The thought burned in her mind. 

Lightning.

Like the crocodiles of the Catacombs. 

Like the shockwave of the Lord of the Pass. 

Like the raging storm over Uvana. 

Her staff buzzed in her hands. She was again standing on the boat leaving Uvana. Lightning rained from the heavens. The atmosphere buzzed. The air tasted of ozone. 

A blade of blue lightning sprang to life along her staff as Tempest Blade jumped at the image. It pulled at her Will, barely controlled, demanding to be released. 

And who was she to stand in its way? 

31’s blade intersected her new lightning-infused Tempest Blade. His metal sword blade. Held by his metal-plated armor. 

A grin slipped over her face as she pulled the lightning from Tempest Blade down his sword with Elemental Manipulation. The lightning happily ran down its length, gleefully jumping at her command from blade to metal gloves. 

He flinched, his entire body seizing as the lightning ran rampant through him. 

But did nothing to stop lvl-30’s sword behind her. 

The colors inverted as Liminal Dodge transmuted the direct hit into a near miss, placing her an inch to the right of his blade. 

Stamina: 28/138

Focus: 250/549

And taking a chunk of Stamina and the wind from her lungs with it.

But it gave her the second she needed. She twisted, pulling her staff free of his sword, a chunk of wood coming away with the blade. 

She darted away, already drawing another lightning-infused Tempest Blade to her staff. It pulled against her control, the lightning demanding to be unleashed, like a rabid dog pulling against the chains of her Will to bury itself in the paladin’s body. 

She released it on lvl-30. 

The blade crackled in the air, its leading edge sharp even as sparks fell from the trailing one. It was solid in a way lightning had no business being. 

And it was fast. It crossed the room before she’d even thought to arch the attack around her opponent’s shield. 

It slammed into that shield, burning black scorch marks into the green and copper design, the sparks hungrily looking for more places to run and finding nothing but the insulation padding along the back.

Shield shots would do nothing, not at this range, at least. Maybe if she was closer, she could pull the electricity across to his body with Elemental Manipulation, like with lvl-31 and his sword. But if she wanted to keep her distance, her lightning blades would need to hit the man himself, not his shield. 

Speaking of lvl-31, he was already pushing himself back to attention, shaking off the effects of the electricity she had pumped through him. What were these people made of? 

She didn’t have time to speculate; she drew another Tempest Blade to her staff and let it fly. 

She was ready for its speed this time, holding it tightly the whole way. Lvl-30 raised his shield to block again, but she pulled the attack wide, arching it around him to hit his chest. 

The lightning burned through his fabric tabard and sparked as it hit the plate metal beneath. He spasmed as it made contact, tendrils of lightning escaping their blade form to run rampant through his flesh. 

But Cass’s Will held most of the lightning in the shape of a blade, stabbing into his plate. Will-backed lightning burned at Fortitude-reinforced steel until steel gave way. 

The chain mail beneath the plate split before her blade. The fabric and flesh below burned. 

It was going to kill him.

Like a spell released, the lightning blade exploded, lighting bursting in every direction, leaving scalding black spots over his tabard and exposed armor. 

Cass released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Had her Tempest Blade broken because her Will wavered, or was that just the extent of a single blade? 

Only more experiments could answer that. 

The next Tempest Blade was already mounted upon her staff. She swung to throw it. 

“Fortitude’s Aegis!” A voice rang out over the halls, deep and heavy and filled with power. 

A green force field appeared between her and the paladin. Her Tempest Blade shot into the barrier and exploded into a sea of blue sparks. 

Behind her, another paladin—the owner of what Cass could only assume was the skill Fortitude’s Aegis—had arrived. With him, half a dozen other paladins stepped out of their respective hallways, their shields raised and ready. 

Order of the Copper Crescent Paladin (lvl 29-33) x8

Order of the Copper Crescent Captain 

Lvl 40

[The leader of a devout order of paladins. This tauran stands stronger and more beloved by his goddess than any other in his order. Defy his goddess at your peril, for he shall be the one to see you regret it.]