Tim cast a mix of Battleground, Protection and Warding into the Enclave Tree connecting Teo’s Gate and Cabir’s Gate to only allow access to his allies. This meant Hist nor anyone else with CWAD could take the shortcut to the Farmstead. Even if he sent ricken the long way up to the Farmstead, they’d have to go through leth huri so thick it wouldn’t be worth it. He assumed. For now, that was the best he could do.
This solution only lasted if his Healing Bridge spell could outmatch the damage the leth huri cut into his Enclave Tree spanning between the gates. As soon as he could, he’d get back to top off the spell and cleanse the Farmstead of their presence.
“Rayv, can you get Chris and have them meet us at Open Arms if possible. If not stay here and fortify the city from the Cartel and anyone else stupid enough to piss me off. Wilqo, you can stay and help your fivel regroup.”
Tim realized Commander Oke wasn’t with them. “Where’s Oke?”
Wilqo sighed. “He’s with some of our healers. We’ll look after him.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure they’ll do great. He’s one of the finest warriors I’ve met. Did you lose anyone?”
His face drew down and he nodded.
Tim cupped his hands at his belt while the fivel mourned. “Their sacrifice will be honored as long as my kingdom stands, and longer.”
“May our species uphold the other,” Wilqo said and set a paw on Tim’s arm. “I must go.”
Tim saluted him and watched him lower to all fours in a gallop out of the garden. He hopped over a bush and dove into a narrow gap in the thorn branches, smooth as a drill done to perfection.
Murphy nudged his head against Tim’s hand, and Tim took the opportunity to mount his ride. A thought to the rings and his way back tied to Papa P and his wraiths. He blew his whistle in the hope it wasn’t too late to call them. He wanted to brief them before he left; if he couldn’t, he wouldn’t wait until dusk, so he only planned a short wait. He clicked his tongue to get Murphy to walk for the gateway out of the garden toward the city and the rings.
“Did anyone hear about Jil, Thron?” Tim asked. He’d meant to ask Hixel Mur, but he’d been killed. Tim reached into his inventory and the aura he looted along with the body and equipment.
None of his friends offered an answer, so he charged a Spirit Memory spell and cast it into the dead man’s aura.
Jil. Face clenched in anger at the owner of this vision. Seated on a bench across the carriage. Its black leather upholstery was finely stitched to the backboard behind her. Her hands were tucked behind her, tied by a latent magic Hixel used to subdue her.
The bonds weren’t enough. A black band wrapped around her mouth, squeezing down the gaggle of threats obvious in her glare.
Green fibers grew from the band and plunged into her skin. Her face clenched and veins bulged in her throat. Mottled ebon dots expanded across her flesh into purple patches.
Muffled grunts sounded beside her. Thron. Beaten black and blue with a swollen jaw so ugly he looked like a mutated potato. The poor Packer could barely see through his puffy eyes and cheeks stuffed like a bag of marshmallows. He slouched against the window with an upward gaze swaying to encompass the room. He must be under a powerful sedative. Open gashes bled through meager dressings and bruises rose like an orchard across his body.
Opposite him sat Chane, the cartel leader, with a notebook and quill, halfway through a page of drawing and captions.
Tim charged a low dose of Magic Hunt and cast it with a subtle flick of Hixel’s finger.
Ba Ma Lahn Monolith
The name of an ancient statue in Wachamia’s northwest quadrant bled into Tim’s understanding as a Rift Altar they had been searching for. Chane’s notebook contained translations from script written along its base. Unlike other Rift Altars, the Ba Ma Lahn Monolith contained coded instructions for finding the other Rift Altars.
Or it held misinformation meant to trap those who’d try to uncover them.
Some felt it best to leave other worlds out of the equation. Not Chane or Hixel Mur. They saw glistening treasure so bright it blinded them to any other way. Despite Hist’s incredible power, he had a weakness. Chane’s stolen parchments from the Tanners’ Seer revealed the object of Hist’s lust for Earth revolved around a sea creature native to a secret ocean inside Earth; one not known to the occupants of said world, including Tim.
Chane had spent years simply deciphering single characters in the untranslated script and years collecting tokens from completed translations. As some described this “Myth of Ba Ma Lahn,” the first family to colonize Vignyia built the statue to honor the flatfaced, round nosed profile eroded into a mountain top, where this first father of Vignyia worshipped the one who brought them, fed them, and gave them shelter. He built the Rift Altars as a way to expand when their civilization was ready. Before he passed, he gave them a new class of protectors, the Gatekeepers, who would be responsible for maintaining the secrecy of the altars and tokens so that only one of their kin, who accepted their covenant to expand only for the good of their people, would gain the Gatebreaker spell.
Legend foretold the base of this statue opening to a storehouse of wealth in jewels, ore, books, spells, and all the treasure accumulated in that patriarchal family’s time to establish a new nation wherever the Gatebreaker spell took them.
History, as Chane understood, lost the names of this family when cousins from the outer lands slaughtered the natives and erased all their landmarks, save for this monolith. The inscription appeared as artistic symbols with no linguistic reference to translate.
The Jewel Era began the spring following the genocide, and the Myth of Ba Ma Lahn faded from focus, held under by persecution and then simple ignorance as generations past.
Tim struggled to grasp more than that from Chane’s memory, as though his thoughts hit a wall and now the pressure on his skull warned of the room falling in.
Chane’s notebook page blurred over the symbols and his notes, preventing Tim from reading his translation in progress.
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Tim, get out, Dryfu said. There’s a poison pill. His aura’s gone toxic.
Tim charged Cleanse while reaching for a little more in Magic Hunt’s last stretch. A vicious cramp split his side in protest.
The vision pixelated outside his reach.
Where is it?
A plaque engraving on the bench between Jil and Thron read Toroszaldo and a three beside it in golden letters on finely polished silver.
That’s the third regiment.
Nausea swept him in a bitter stew bubbling in his gut, forcing him from the memory.
Fire scorched his glove. He tossed Hixel’s capsuled aura like a hot potato into a bush that wilted before the shifting form could slice through its stalks.
His glove had a black ring around the burnt hole surrounding his palm. Magic buzzed into his fingers and zapped like a cold shower into his veins down his wrist.
Spirit Memory gained a level! Now Lv. 14
Magic Hunt gained a level! Now Lv. 18
Nice.
Yeah, but that might be the last level you get out of those.
Na fam. I’ll craft em back together.
“We have a lot of time on our hands all of a sudden?” Dryfu flew up to Tim’s eye level and hovered close enough to make him cross eyed.
“I hate when you do this.”
“Someone needs to listen. Save the rest of your strength to cast Aura Form and get in those rings back to Open Arms.”
“What did you mean by Third Regiment?”
“It’s northeast of here, in Dutchy territory. About two thousand strong, and half is cavalry.”
“The dutchy have Jil and Thron?” Tim checked his map.
Dryfu flew up to block his view. “Like I said, save the rest of your strength. We’re not going after them now. You know they want you out of the region before Census arrives. I guarantee there’s a trap.”
“Wait. That was Hixel’s vision. How… When?”
“I don’t know either. He cast you out with a reactive spell. I don’t know if that vision was real—”
“I’ve never seen a false vision in my Spirit Memories.”
They arrived at the rings and Tim set his hand on the grip. He closed his eyes to try and remember. “It felt like he pushed me out, as though what I learned about the Ba Ma Lahn Monolith and Chanes translation notes were a secret they’d kill to keep.”
Dryfu flew into his pocket and rested in a sleeping position. We can research more from Open Arms tomorrow, Dryfu thought wearily. Like Sylve said. Yes, they would kill to keep those secret, but don’t get all worked up. You need to rest and appreciate the job well done.
Tim felt little consolation in that with friends beatin’ to a pulp. He didn’t dare imagine what they’d do to Jil.
Further search into Hixel’s Spirit Memory revealed a falsehood, but not what Dryfu feared. Tim searched for the remnant of aura in his system still filtering Hixel—that was it. The body contained the decoy. It wasn’t Hixel’s corpse, but his aura contaminated the body in the looting process.
Which meant Hixel was still alive, and that memory was the present, or close to it. Hixel had hedged his bets on Poia’s Tomb, and probably for the wiser. He’d somehow cast a spell to trick them with a doppelg?nger. The walls closed in a bit at the wonder of such power and potential to sneak in on Tim and his people. His Danger Sense hadn’t read through the disguise, which meant he’d need to spend time leveling that skill further.
Children’s cries echoed off the brick buildings along the street nearby. A couple silhouettes shaded by the crimson sunrise to their backs ran into sight around a corner house. At the sight of Tim, Oria and her brother, Paiz built into another gear, smiles crossing their sweat and mud sprayed cheeks.
“Don’t leave yet!” Paiz cried, happy as a kid with a ticket for Opening Day.
Concerns of a lack of adults and why they’d left E’tic’s Grove conflicted with the beam of joy radiating from them. “What’s the hurry?”
They stampeded to an out of breath finish line with Oria beating Paiz to the pair of breathtaking hugs around Tim’s waist.
Paiz looked up with a smile stretched wide. The innocence in his youthful eyes reminded Tim of how kids sometimes struck him, where he saw a glimmer of what it might be like to have seen his daughter survive long enough to look him in the eye that way.
“We want to go with,” Paiz said.
Tim patted his head to remind him he was loved. “Your family lives here. Where are Chris and everyone from E’Tic’s Grove? Are they okay?”
“Yeah,” Oria said. “Dad stayed there to help. Rayv escorted us but had to go because of the daylight. He said he’d go back tomorrow with some supplies for your brother’s gardening. When they heard about your victory, they doubled down on shoring up the grove and resource gathering, as your brother put it.”
“Okay, that sounds good, thank you for the update. I’m afraid it’s not safe yet. The cartel just kidnapped some of my friends and we fear traps if we send anyone out without protection.”
“What about you?” Paiz asked. “You could ruin a few Crimoan’s day and scare the rest to their mommies.”
“There’ll be time for that. I have one more spell in me, and that’s to get to bed. My body’s shutting down.”
“Okay,” Oria said, “But as soon as you can, we want to live and work at Open Arms with you.” She lifted the handle on an enchanted horse's saddle out of her backpack. “I could train horses—”
Her brother brushed her aside, and she twisted and wrestled free. He equipped an amber gemstone two fingers wide and sharpened at the end. “My dad got me this Harmony Stick. It works wonders on repairs and handling high-tier enchantments.”
Tim squeezed Paiz’s shoulder and stroked the girl’s cheek, clearing a wisp of brown hair across her slick skin and removing a bit of tree stuck with a paste of mud. “Your parents’ permitting…” Their faces lit up. “The first group we can safely get through with Ja-Seong and hopefully my brother will bring the two of you.”
They hugged him again, and a cramp seized his side. Right where Hixel’s spell had bit him. Convulsing pain took the strength from his legs to his knees.
Dryfu flew out of his pocket and rammed him in the chest to help him keep upright. The kids helped him until his spasm subsided and he could walk, however gingerly.
Dryfu hovered away and wiped some imaginary sweat from his brow. “This guy is down for the count. Hope to see you kids tomorrow. King Levellefer needs jammers and beddy-bye time.”
Tim snorted. “Zzzzt. Would you let me have some dignity?”
Murphy nudged his head into Tim’s arm and belched a waft of aura breath so rank it might have burned off some cavities.
And yet, the boost shuffled him off like an ol’ pair of slippers, c-mana sparking into his recesses for the final spell of the night. Aura Form slid up on him like his favorite coat. He waved his goodbyes to the friends of Padstoligan and entered the rings.
The transport glided as easily as a walk upstairs with all the lights off behind and only bed on the mind.
Into this peace Tim followed the stench of Murphy’s breath. Its leading offered grace beyond what Tim could ask for. Onto his cloud buffet of a bed. In its gentle passage toward sleep, Tim recalled the golden claw pendant Oria had on her saddle. It was one of the symbols Chane couldn’t translate.
At least he had something else to look forward to tomorrow. Not before he and the donkey in the corner sawed some logs.
Memories of a section of a book from the Farmstead’s library drifted into Tim’s dream state.
Corki’s Night Watch had recovered loot from raiding a Crimoan outpost near Lihn Lake. After the mayor took his cut, the saddle, and Peanut, were part of Corki’s payment. The item he hadn’t given Oria would draw the Dutchess herself. Tim’s first thought was that he’d uncovered a Rift Token.
The night Tim killed Surion, the artisan had come to Padstoligan to steal that token back. Now their propaganda about a tax revolt being the reason behind the slaughter of innocents and his “assassinating” their president explained why they’d lie. He wasn’t the only one after Corki’s treasure.
Tim tossed and turned, telling himself he’d go tomorrow morning and ask Corki himself at E’Tic’s grove. He couldn’t risk a messenger. Nor could he risk even the message for Corki to come to him. Despite the risk of the Census, he felt no other choice than a well-planned trip.
Unfortunately his sleep offered only threats of Crimoan and Bounty Hunters setting him on fire, burning his home and the new citizens with it.
Tim couldn’t wait to wake up from this nightmare.
