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A heavy mist flowed through the darkened mountain valley, collecting on Ezekiel’s magenta armor and the leaves of nearby trees. Far above, the sun shone brightly, but down here, in the mist, water dripped from the edge of his visor and seeped into his clothes, leaving him colder than he would have liked. He moved forward, along with the rest of his people, his feet easily finding purchase on the rocky, mossy path. He held a staff to help secure his footing, but it was mostly a weapon, for the enemy was all around. They would attack at any moment.

A gust of wind forged a wayward path down into the valley, setting off a cascade of rain from the trees above, dousing the party and filling the sky with a rushing sound. The afternoon sun, lazy as could be, briefly appeared, revealing some of the valley.

Ezekiel, and then everyone else, paused, to gaze out across the way.

Trees, like reaching arms, stretched out from the broken land, into the sky, the collected moisture upon them sparkling in the little light of the sun. Birds and beasts called out for mates. Bugs buzzed around the barest scraps of a recent gory meal, which was only a single finger bone. Everything got eaten up, it seemed; that bone wouldn’t last long. Moss covered half of everything, while lichens and ferns and smaller plants covered everything else. Here and there mushrooms sprouted, like small adventuring parties clustered together for safety in the obscuring mist, just like Ezekiel, Julia, Tiffany, and Paul, there on that mountain path.

As for what they needed safety from? It was obvious.

Claw marks in trees delineated territory. Broken trunks, without moss growing on the breaks, were evidence of recent battle. All across the green space, Ezekiel counted the target monsters by their reflective blue eyes, as the monsters gazed upward, wondering where the mist had gone.

Some of them locked eyes with Ezekiel. They began to move.

Half of the target monsters were curled around claw-carved trees; the other half were out in the open, moving from one spot to the next. They might have best been described as lizard-buffaloes. Or maybe tiny dragons, though everyone was of the opinion that dragons would take offense at that, so if the wrong person overheard, to call Mist Stone Gluttons ‘tiny dragons’ would be an error one might not make a second time.

Mist Stone Gluttons of the Tribulation Mountains were the preferred hunting target for many, for there were always more of them. It would be incorrect to say that they multiplied like rabbits, but only because they had abandoned biology. They were now, most firmly, a variety of half-stone elemental. The other half was mist. The entire monster was, altogether, little more than a rabid desire to kill anything that walked on the ground. They usually won those battles, for a few reasons—

Mist flooded the valley. The gluttons were already moving, as silent as the mists.

Paul sent, ‘Here they come.’

They were in a dangerous location, on a mountain path with the mountain on their left and the valley far below, on the right. It was the perfect ambush spot for the gluttons. It had to be. If you didn’t give them openings, then they would run away. But with Julia in front, Tiffany in the rear, and Ezekiel and Paul in the center, all lined up on the path? This was how you got the gluttons to engage.

Otherwise, they—

The ground on Ezekiel’s left slipped. Moss parted. Mist flowed forward, becoming stone claws and stone jaws. He shoved his thorny shield in the monster’s face while his staff went to the right, blocking a claw. The glutton bit down, chipping itself, the same second that Julia reached backward with her three-meter long sword and pierced the creature where its brain should have been.

Ezekiel was already running several spells, including [Hunter’s Instincts].

It seemed that with all his new Stats, that his ability to consider the flow of battle under the influence of [Hunter’s Instincts] was multiplied, several-fold. This had almost proven to be a problem when facing the Hunters earlier in the day. It was almost a problem right now.

He had a great many extraneous thoughts about the weight of mist stone, a few concerns about claws trying to tear through his staff and his leg, his footing on the mossy, rocky path, and, of course, one must never forget about inertia. Inertia was the most important factor here, though.

Ezekiel ducked, moving his body in a way he had while sparring, but not used in actual combat much. The mostly-dead creature tried to scrabble upon his magenta armor, but death came as Julia’s sword severed its head off, and Ezekiel dipped all the way to the ground and let the creature sail right over him. The Mist Stone Glutton became merely dead mist stone, as the corpse shot into the open air.

It was only the first glutton. It was the smallest, too, at two meters long. It was a probing strike, meant to take out the smallest member of the party and send the rest into disarray. Ezekiel had thoughts to spare about being offended, but he let those go.

The second and third glutton came from the empty mist on the right, both aimed at Tiffany; one at her head, the other at her leg.

Ezekiel tossed a [Slowing Bolt] at the leg-aimer.

Tiffany ignored the suddenly-stopped seven-meter long glutton with its jaws open around her leg. The other one flowed at her, its four legs positioned forward, its decimeter-long claws splayed like some velociraptor. Tiffany responded with a twist of her whole body and a gauntleted fist rocketing forward in a straight punch. She never touched the beast. The beast never clawed her. It turned to mist, flowing over her, recombining on the other side, its jaws already open and almost latching on to Tiffany’s right shoulder.

Another two gluttons came for Julia. One fast, and almost there, the second hanging back a fraction.

Ezekiel shot off another 500 mana [Slowing Bolt], aimed to assist his daughter. He clipped the glutton that held back, the second one, so it could not assist its friend. Blue mist froze over with pink frost.

Julia smashed upward with shadow spears, impacting the first glutton through several parts of its body. Her attack was ineffective; this larger one knew how to move its body better than the smaller, first one that she had easily killed. Mist separated around those shadowed spears. The monster recombined right beside where it had been, only to stop moving for the briefest of moments.

Paul’s telepathic intent had done that; Ezekiel noticed his invisible lines of intent upon the monster.

Julia used that moment to attack the creature with a guillotine of shadows done in triplicate, crashing through the glutton’s neck, back, and tail. All three attacks bounced off hardened stone; the other ability that Mist Stone Gluttons were known for; the incredible durability of the older ones.

Three seconds had passed since the fight began.

Ezekiel shot off another [Slowing Bolt], Stopping the sixth glutton that appeared in the open air, directly above Paul. Jaws froze open right above the bluescale’s head. Paul nimbly blipped out of the way as several tons of toothy lizard dropped down where he had been. The beast crashed next to Ezekiel, then tumbled down the mountain, breaking every piece of itself as it fell. It seemed that shadow strikes were less effective than pure gravity. A notification came.

Ha.

Ezekiel shot off two more pink glows at the remaining two gluttons; the one on Julia, and the one on Tiffany. Julia’s monster froze pre-pounce. Tiffany’s beast was halfway sunk into the mossy mountain when it suddenly moved no more. The large woman had managed to keep her monster occupied with a few feints and a few taps of her massive fists, until Ezekiel could lock it down for good.

The battle was over, and yet it was not over at all. Six gluttons had appeared. Maybe more would come. But they shouldn’t. There hadn’t been any notifications, though—

A blue box appeared.

It had taken five seconds for the first glutton, the smallest one, to fall off of the mountain and to break itself in the tumbling impact.

Julia hammered her Stopped target with her sword, once, then again, then again. Sparks flew, but no notification. The creature was still Stopped.

Tiffany laughed as she brought her joined fists down on the second target, jutting from the mountain. She broke the glutton’s head away from its body like snapping an icicle. “Come’on Julia! Hit it harder! Like this!” Tiffany lifted her foot and brought it down upon the still-Stopped head of the glutton at her feet. Another snap filled the misty valley with a resounding echo. Another notification came right after. “Easy!”

Julia cursed, then discarded her thin sword. She pulled a massive hammer from the air and brought it down upon her targets. Her first [Strike] deflected like she had struck a mountain. She tried again; angrier this time. The glutton’s head snapped from the body, killing it. She killed the second one in the same way, though that one took four hits; four [Strike]s.

Ezekiel got up from the ground. He said, “There’s five in the mists around us, still. They’re not approaching.” He fired off another [Slowing Bolt] at the nearest one, twenty meters away and floating in the air of the valley. Pink light struck the mist—

And the beast froze out of the air, like a suddenly-condensed ice cube. It fell down, crashing through trees and breaking in the passage. The other gluttons raced away. Julia eyed the mist as Paul brushed moss off from his hands as he stepped next to Ezekiel. Tiffany sighed out, giving a great big smile to the world.

Dismantling the killed beasts went fast with [Stoneshape]. Mist Stone was valuable if you killed the glutton correctly and if you had a nice variant, like a red or black or metal-flecked, but these particular gluttons were blue-grey pure stone, the most common kind. Not technically worthless, but using [Stoneshape] to sift the ‘cores’ out of the corpses ruined the natural striations that made the stone valuable in the first place. And they were broken, anyway, so that ruined the price right away.

The bodies at the bottom of the valley were already being dissected by other stone gluttons and made into more stone gluttons, so they didn’t bother grabbing those. Four 10-mana cores were enough. Under Spur’s exchange rates, that was 20 gold, which was almost like 6000 dollars, which should get them room and board for three days.

… But that was under Spur’s exchange rates.

Tiffany asked, “We’re not done yet, right?”

“We are not.” Ezekiel said, “20 gold is not going to cover much of anything.”

Julia kicked a glutton’s head down the mountainside, saying, “I’ve met Stone Wyverns less tough than these guys.”

“It’s [Defend],” Ezekiel said. “Along with the perks of being elemental.”

Tiffany smiled, crashing her fists together, as she said, “Let’s get some more.”

Ezekiel was less generous with the [Slowing Bolt]s the second time. It wouldn’t do to get over reliant on that sort of spell.

- - - -

Moss-covered stone shifted underfoot as Tadashi ran, heedless of the dangers in the mist, for the dangers behind him were much worse than the gluttons hiding just beyond sight.

Laughter echoed behind.

A whistling sound carried forward. He dodged left, hugging the mountainside. A red bolt flew to the right, to vanish into the mists. Tadashi’s bare shoulder slammed into the rock face. He forced himself up and ran, leaving a bloody spot on the canyon wall where he had been. He raced down a stone fall, cutting his bare feet. Injury did not matter. Pain did not matter. Blood flowed, leaving prints wherever he stepped.

If only he could get past the wards, then someone might see him, then he might be free.

Tadashi ran. Another whistle came from behind. He could not dodge; he slipped, blood fouling his step. He grabbed for anything he could find to save himself from going over the edge. He saved himself from a deadly drop.

But then a sparking red bolt struck the rock overhead, breaking granite into more gravel. Shards struck Tadashi’s skin, causing even more injury than the needle-collar around his neck. Pain flared, for the thousandth time. Being at zero health was already a death sentence in any other situation, but Tadashi had no choice. He had to run, even if the canyons were full of gluttons. He had to get away. Otherwise—

A hand clamped over the back of his neck, driving the needles further into this skin as one of his captors pressed his face into the stone. He cried out, in pain, in anguish, in hatred.

His captor, The Sadist, laughed, saying, “We let you walk around, and this is how you repay us.” Mirth vanished. Rage appeared. The man leaned into Tadashi’s neck, his hand almost becoming a fist, threatening to break bones all over again. He had done it before. A man could survive a broken neck for a little while. Tadashi’s neck did not break today, though. The man had other ideas. He said, “The price of your transgression is the normal price. Your femurs will become like glass shards.”

Tadashi’s heart beat hard. His captor’s second hand went around Tadashi’s left leg, halfway encircling the emaciated limb, made weak from repeated healing. Tadashi whimpered, pleading for mercy, yet knowing that he would gain none. The captor’s hand clenched. Tadashi tensed, waiting for the pain.

The captor whispered, “You can end this at any time. Just give us what we want.”

The hateful man did not wait for an answer. This hateful man was not the master, who wished for secrets that Tadashi could never give away. He was just a sadist who liked to inflict pain upon others, as he had done to Tadashi many times before.

Bones broke, like rotten wood.

Tadashi thought he had no more screams. He was wrong.

“Quit whining, Tadashi! It’s just pain!” His captor laughed. “But please continue to defy us! This is so much fun!”

And then his second pursuer spoke, “Boss says we’re done with collars. We’re gonna force him to make it.”

“Ha!” The Sadist said to Tadashi’s ear, “Hear that, ya shit? We’re gonna Elixir you up.”

“No!” Tadashi cried, “No! Please—”

“Ah! Shut up,” the Sadist said, shaking Tadashi by the neck. “I guess this means I can’t break you anymore. Not with Elixir in you. Ha!”

Tadashi was well past panicking by the time they dragged him back behind the full wards of their camp. When their boss held up a vial of grey metallic liquid, Tadashi began to beg. They healed him, first, ensuring that his bones were in the right places, while he begged louder and louder.

The Sadist said, “We only want one thing from you, Tadashi.”

They forced him to drink the Antirhine Elixir.

All magic fled.

They laughed as they removed his collar. He still bled a bit, but that blood eventually stopped on its own. He would carry the scars of it for the rest of his life, though.

Maybe his life wouldn’t be too long, now? He couldn’t give them what they wanted! Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t...

He found himself not caring about anything, anyway.

Nothing mattered.

All magic was gone.

Tadashi was an alchemist, though. One very versed in the Antirhine Elixir. This was why, even though he had no thoughts for the rest of his life and everything was ruined, he found himself thinking about all the various ways in which he was well and truly fucked.

You could take off antirhine manacles. You could remove the needles of certain Enforcers who liked to use those types of needles. But you couldn’t remove the Elixir. Not once it was inside of you. Imbibing the Elixir was a permanent change, given only to those too valuable to exile or kill. It was routinely forced upon Elders who were found guilty of a terrible dereliction of duty, like Tadashi’s great grandfather.

Tadashi glanced at his Status, and started to laugh. For the first time in a week his Health and Mana had started to rise. But what was the point? You couldn’t use any of that Health or Mana when you had the Elixir in you. Maybe you wouldn’t die to the smallest of cuts, and with Health to boost your immune systems and recovery systems you could heal from most unintentional small damage, but forming mana into magic? Forming Health into [Strike]s? All of that was now impossible.

He could accidentally eat an amoeba and he’d die to the shits. He couldn’t work in the alchemy labs anymore, for he would truly die without daily [Cleanse]s.

Ahh…

… Shit.

He would have to bathe himself, daily. Like his great grandfather had needed to do. It had been so degrading.

For a long while Tadashi laid there on the stone, in the center of the bandits’ camp.

And then the Sadist poked his calf with a knife. Tadashi yelped and moved to staunch the blood flow with his hands. The analytical part of himself eyed the wound, and knew it would close over fast enough; even faster now that he had some Health coming back to him. But it would scar over. Healing magic was now useless. He could make an ointment to gradually reduce the scar, but…

What was the point?

The Sadist was having none of Tadashi’s angst.

The Sadist mocked, “Little boy got a wound, huh? Why don’t I just heal it—” He reached forward with a glowing red hand. The light winked out as he touched Tadashi’s shoulder. “Ohhh. Such a shame. No magic for you, it seems. Best get to those herbs we got you. Work up a non-magical solution.”

A sudden, hard anger came over Tadashi. He spat, “I can’t cast the spells necessary to even attempt to make the potion now, you idi—”

A light punch sent Tadashi to the ground. A punch like that would have done less than nothing to Tadashi before his capture… before the Antirhine Elixir. But now… He couldn’t fight. He was useless.

The Sadist loomed over him, saying, “We provide for your every need. We have your payment of ten thousand gold when you complete the potion. All we ask is that you do one little thing that we know you know how to do. Your obstinance is becoming tiring.” He twirled a finger at the ground around Tadashi, saying, “And this act is especially tiring. One would think you didn’t even know how to make what we know you can.”

“I can’t, though. I managed an experiment that worked once and I don’t even know which part of the experiment caused success! I told you all this already! And the potion wasn’t even biologically compatible! It would kill a person if they drank that!” Tadashi said, “I told you this already!”

The Sadist held his knife. “I can poke more holes in you if you wish. Do you want that? Or.” He pointed at the alchemy shed that they had tried to get Tadashi to use for the last week. “You could try to make a second successful experiment; try to work your magic again.”

Tadashi lost all tension in his face, as melancholy came on him like a drowning tide.

The Sadist mocked, “Oh. Was ‘work your magic’ a bad choice of words?” He began to laugh.

Tadashi had already tried to kill the man several times, but he failed in each attempt. In that moment, he wanted to go for attempt number 9, even if it would kill himself in the process.

He walked toward the alchemy shed.

The Sadist laughed, following along.

- - - -

Three gluttons came from directly below. Ezekiel hopped into the air. Paul matched him, exactly, wordlessly picking up the ideas Ezekiel was putting down. Seven pink flashes flickered below the two of them as Ezekiel layered [Quick Wall]s one atop another, each one defending for 500 points of damage. It was enough. The three gluttons slammed against the Force like birds hitting a window.

Thump-thump-thump.

— Right as a large, orange maw appeared in the mists above Julia. She turned to light and the orange glutton, half-stone and half-mist, flowed through her, snapping and slashing at the ephemeral. Tiffany was suddenly there, at Julia’s side, her fists raised and empowered.

She struck the misty, orange monster, the fire power of her [Strike] becoming literal flames that burned away the orange mist.

The orange glutton roared in pain. It solidified, slamming into the side of the mountain, looking to escape, or— No. It attacked with its other weapon. A long, orange tail flickered across Julia. She deflected the flowing stone. The monster adjusted, aiming for the closer target, only by circumstance of her own height. Tiffany punched the monster as it tried to maw her from above—

Julia called out, “Freeze him! That’s money!”

Ezekiel did so, throwing a thousand-mana [Slowing Bolt] at the orange beast.

The orange glutton was half-sunk into the mountainside, looming over the path, its maw open, hissing as it came in for another strike against Tiffany. Pink mist flowed over the monster and it became more Gothic-architecture than threat.

While that beast chilled out, the four warriors of Clan Phoenix accepted the regroup-attack of the three smaller monsters, who had been underground, but now were not. The ground was still covered in pink Force. The gluttons attacked from the open, misty air.

Julia threw a [Fireball] at the mist. Heat bloomed in the wet valley. Mist burned. Mist Stone monsters shifted fully to stone and dropped to the valley wall, below the path. They burned, but they scrambled into the mountain, leaving behind that fire.

Tiffany got into position. She waited. Ezekiel checked on the Stopped orange beast; it would be Stopped for a while. More than long enough to finish this fight.

Paul held himself ready to do… whatever it was he did.

Paul glowered at Ezekiel. “I helped us to jump at the right time, if you must know exactly, but it seemed like you already did.”

“Right. That.” Ezekiel said, “Thank you very much, Paul.”

“Do you want to try a fight without me assisting?” Paul asked, going from rather annoyed to simply asking. But Ezekiel could tell he was still actually mad.

“Well of course I am! Every time—” Paul shut up. He almost said something else, but then kept his mouth shut.

Tiffany looked away from the man, toward the mist, and said, “Hmm.”

Julia eyed the mountain. “… Are they done?”

“I think so,” Ezekiel said. Then he turned to Paul. “Sorry about that.”

“I never throw out any spells except when necessary. I know what it looks like.” Paul said, “It looks like I do nothing at all.”

“Are the monsters done?” Julia asked, stress in her voice.

Tiffany relaxed. “They’re hanging out a hundred meters away, down the mountain. Four are above us, doing the same.”

“… So the fight is over?” Julia asked. “I’m not letting anyone talk about tactics till we’re sure we’re safe.”

“We’re safe,” Ezekiel said. “As safe as we could be in the Tribulation Mountains, anyway.”

“Then let’s have this discussion: The only way to get better is to actually get better,” Julia said. “Maybe you wouldn’t need to ask what Paul does if you can see what it’s like when he’s not active.” She looked to Paul, saying, “These fights are honestly way easier than they should be. These are level 45 monsters, and every single one is using [Defend] in battle. That automatically makes them an entire star rank or two higher than usual. I’d put them at a 5. 6 for a pack, and they are clearly pack hunters. They are killers. This has been too easy.” She looked to Ezekiel, saying, “And you can’t even appreciate how much easier this is with Paul here. You fight way too many things from absolute range. It has made you tactically weak for the kind of thing we are trying to do here in the Highlands.”

Ezekiel had what was either a brain-fart, or a revelation. He turned to Paul, asking, “Do you not like adventuring because people don’t see what you’re actually doing? And they always dislike having you around for that reason?”

Paul’s eyes went wide, and then narrowed. “Okay. That’s part of— Just. You know— Just. You can forget about that little revelation you’ve just had, if you please. I am not that needy.”

Tiffany’s eyes went wide. “Oh my gods. Paul!” She teased, “Is that true? Do you not feel wanted?”

“Of course he doesn’t feel wanted,” Julia said, “His power is soft in a world of hardness.”

Paul ignored everyone, and said, “We should try a few fights without me! These might be large-threat monsters, but they won’t be able to kill you in one hit, Ezekiel. Not with all that magic on you.”

“I’m so sorry, Paul.” Ezekiel said, “I have seen you work before. I know what you can do. I just… I forget, I guess? I have no excuse. Sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Tiffany said, smiling.

Paul frowned deeply at her. “No.”

Tiffany opened her arms and tried to approach Paul for some physical affection. But Paul stepped around Ezekiel and did not let the woman get closer.

“Again, I am sorry, Paul,” Ezekiel said as the man took refuge behind him. “We don’t have to talk about your perfectly valid responses to other people’s ignorance, mine included, if you don’t want to.”

Paul stopped and leveled a glare at Ezekiel.

Ezekiel stepped away, clearing a path for Tiffany, who then instantly caught the man and pulled him up and off the ground, into a hug. Paul protested, as was his wont. Ezekiel reached up and patted the man on the back, saying, “Sorry, sorry.”

Tiffany dropped the man, adding her own small apology.

Paul protested louder, saying, “You already know what I do, Tiffany! Why are you pretending at this nonsense?”

“Because even I can see you need a hug,” Tiffany confessed.

“No. What I need is a drink.” Paul said, “I have decided I am a drinker.”

Ezekiel smiled, then looked to the orange glutton, still stuck like an overhanging gargoyle above the mountain path. He pointed. “So?” He said, “This guy is still alive. Variant gluttons are worth money if we can kill it and keep the body intact.”

Paul rolled his eyes. “We’re gonna need that money for the drinking, later.”

“I agree.” Tiffany nodded, as she reached forward and patted Paul on the head.

He slapped her hand away, scowling.

Tiffany said, “I am sorry that not everyone sees your worth. You’re worth a lot to me.”

Paul groaned, “Oh my gods.”

Ezekiel added, “You’re worth a lot to me, too!”

Julia said, “I already knew your worth.”

“And Tiffany does, too, but she’s having too much fun.” Paul straightened himself, adding, “And none of you are being false friends, and that almost makes it worse.”

“Makes it better, you mean!” Tiffany smiled.

Julia had had enough of the moment, though. She exclaimed, “Back to the STILL LIVING MONSTER hanging above our heads.” She pointed at the monster, offering, “Cut it from the mountain. Put it in a sealed box. Make the box on fire to burn away the moisture, turning it fully to rock. [Cleanse] the rock. Fire shouldn’t damage the stone too much?”

Tiffany offered, “Low and slow cook? Fire will damage rock with moisture in it. Make it break apart.”

Ezekiel said, “I heard a ton of ways back in Eralis. A water-purge spell is the preferred method.” He eyed everyone, casually saying, “Sooo… I got this new spell! Called [Purge Water]. It’s that new particulate magic, or whatever it’s called. I’m going to try it.”

Tiffany blanked. And then she laughed.

Paul blanked, and then he sighed, saying, “We’re going to have to wipe the manasphere in this area, now.”

Tiffany laughed louder.

Ezekiel heatlessly spat, “It’s just a bit of that new magic! No big deal. Doesn’t make me anyone special! Let’s try it out!” He pointed at the orange glutton. “[Purge Water]!”

The frosty glutton began to spout like an actual gargoyle; mostly from the mouth, but also from every part of its body. The effect lasted less than a second. The creature’s orange coloring became more like orange-white coloring, as it dried. It didn’t die or break, and though it might have been his imagination, the monster seemed fractionally smaller.

Ezekiel cast again. And a third time. And a fourth time. On the fifth cast, no more water came from the beast. The orange glutton still clung to the mountainside like the downspout to a cathedral. Though the light in its eyes was gone, it was not dead; no notification came.

“Huh.” Ezekiel said, “No notification.”

“It’s a stone, air, and water elemental.” Julia frowned. “So getting rid of one part of it isn’t good enough to kill? Usually that’s enough… But it's not, is it? I’m going to try something.”

“Don’t damage the body!” Tiffany said. “I want some good food tonight.”

Ezekiel smiled. “Only the best food for my retainers.”

Paul rolled his eyes.

Julia flicked a rapier out of the air, then took a step right underneath the glutton’s open jaws. She aimed. She pierced inward, through the mouth, into the monster’s chest. A tiny crack sounded through the monster.

The whole thing turned into several tons of sand, promptly burying Julia.

As she dug herself out of the pile, it was to the sounds of laughter filling the valley.

She spat out dirt, saying, “Don’t pierce the core. Right.”

Tiffany’s laugh turned into a groan. “And now we’re down a core!”

“We can get more.” Paul said, “But erase the space before you forget, then we can continue hunting.”

Ezekiel cast and then canceled a few [Sealed Privacy Ward]s around the small battlefield.

Julia kicked some orange sand down the mountain, asking, “How are you supposed to keep the body intact if breaking the core kills the beast? You can’t [Stoneshape] a living elemental.”

Ezekiel said, “Killing them normally didn’t turn them to sand. I suspect we have to make them harden themselves, and then we break them apart to kill them, then we put them back together, afterward. Or something. I’m not sure. They’re rather odd creatures, though. There’s a trick to this, I’m sure.” He added, “Ah! But— Getting rid of the water would leave air and stone, which.” He gestured at the result. “Sand.”

“[Air Purge], Scion Phoenix,” Tiffany helpfully suggested.

“Yeah… I should make that one.”

Julia said, “Odd creatures, for sure. Or… Odd elementals. They’re not really elementals though, are they? It looked like it had an actual digestive tract when I looked in the mouth.”

“I noticed that, too,” Tiffany said.

“They still got something of a mind, as well,” Paul said.

Ezekiel said, “Vestigial organs everywhere.” He pointed up the mountainside, at a lump on a tree that had not moved in minutes. “That lump is actually a lizard, and I bet they’re the progenitors of the gluttons.”

As if knowing it had been spotted, the lump lifted from the tree, flashing open a sail on its back to expose a bright redness. It dashed around the tree, out of sight.

“Probably true. Lotta monsters come from humble origins.” Tiffany eyed the pile of orange sand occupying the mountain path. “Where would we have taken that monster, anyway?”

“I know not where, exactly, but that hardly matters.” Ezekiel said, “That pose? Hanging from above and in the middle of a downward pounce? I would have carved out this cliff and tried to move the whole thing. I would have braved the monsters in the sky for such a prize! If they buy mist stone, someone would have bought that, for sure. Such poise! Such fierceness! Or maybe it would have been a good gift for a Songstress.”

Julia lightly glared, not happy with being teased in a battlefield. “Okay.”

Ezekiel smiled.

And then he said to Paul, “Really sorry about that—”

“You can stop teasing me, too, if you please,” Paul said, trying to fight a smirk.

- - - -

In the purple twilight of the fading day, Ezekiel smashed his staff into the head of the charging lizard, deflecting the monster into the ground, only to spin and batter away a tail that threatened his neck. The tail scraped along the staff, and if it had been metal, there would have been sparks.

And suddenly Tiffany was there, her left arm a bloody wreck and her grey armor broken. She grabbed the tail as it came around again, yanking the monster off of its feet and into the air. The five-meter long glutton turned to mist halfway through the action, slipping out of her grip as it came back around, jaws and fangs turning to stone, its size more than a match for Tiffany.

Five meters away, Julia turned to light.

A hundred carving lines of illumination blasted around the sunset battlefield. Mist became steam, which billowed away from everything and everyone, as radiant force carved into each suddenly screaming, roasting rock monster. Julia’s [Radiance Beam]s lasted several seconds.

Of five gluttons, only three stuck around long enough to die. Her attack ended before she could carve far into the losers’ bodies. When it was over, Julia rushed to Tiffany and cast a burst of healing into the bloody orcol. Flesh knit.

The battle was over.

Odin whined in guitars on Ezekiel’s shoulder, complaining that he hadn’t gotten to participate because he hadn’t been allowed. Maybe it had been a mistake, to disallow his participation. But this whole battle had been an experiment. This whole battle had almost backfired, disastrously.

Ezekiel stared at the battlefield, and breathed. He looked to Paul. Paul was okay; he hadn’t been injured. He had even managed to deflect away the single glutton that came from him. Tiffany was already healing up and her scars were vanishing, but that had been a lot of blood—

“Got ya’, ya fucker!” Tiffany exclaimed as she thumped the stone corpse of the glutton that almost got her, breaking what was already on its way to breaking. The monster’s core glittered in the resulting sand. “Those jaws hurt! Ha!” She said to Julia, “Thanks for the healing.”

“Thanks for the sudden save, too, Julia,” Ezekiel said.

Julia tapped her father with healing magics. “I think we’ve learned enough for one day.” Then she tapped Paul with healing, just to be sure.

Tiffany laughed, saying, “We could spend the night out here!”

So… Uh.

She was having a great time…

Both Paul and Ezekiel looked away from her, and at each other.

“That went downhill fast,” Paul said.

“Yes. We got in each other’s way rather quickly.” Ezekiel said to Tiffany, “Sorry about that.”

Tiffany happily exclaimed, “Oh! Don’t worry about that! It was just a little fire spell.” She cast a grey magic onto her burned clothes. Fabric [Mend]ed back onto her body.

It had taken less than an instant for the battle to go wrong in the beginning, at the most important part of the confrontation, and it was when Ezekiel had cast a [Firelight Beam] at the glutton attacking Tiffany, but Tiffany had stepped into the beam’s path. He had cut the spell right away, but the damage, and disruption to the battle, had already happened.

“Still. Sorry about the firebeam.”

Tiffany said, “I’m fine. We’re all good.”

“I think the experiment into fighting without me was a bad idea. Let us not do that again.” Paul said. “I was barely able to keep myself alive.”

Julia said, “You are valid and we appreciate you.”

Paul scowled. “Don’t you start, too!”

Tiffany said, “I’d like to not get firebeams up my backside anymore, so know that you are appreciated, Paul!”

Paul lost most of his scowl.

Ezekiel said to Paul, “You are appreciated. No more of these experiments.”

Paul came back with, “Now that’s going too far. We should continue with these experiments because normal teams won’t make any of the mistakes made in that last fight.”

Tiffany said, “I agree.” She added, “Paul can do… Some of his own [Fire Beam]s, or something. Or whatever it is he does aside from making us all be better.”

Paul regained his scowl, and Tiffany smiled wide.

Julia said, “I had to bust out the emergency button, and I should not have needed to do that.”

“Okay… Well…” Ezekiel said, “Fair. But anyway. With these gluttons here, we now have eleven cores. Should be worth 55 gold if the conversion rates are the same. We’re done for the day.”

“The sun’s likely already set on Eralis.” Tiffany said, “Want to try for a coastal town’s inn?”

Ezekiel saw right through Tiffany’s suggestion. “We can room outside the city, if that makes you more comfortable. We can go to Eralis in the morning.”

Tiffany smiled, saying, “Good.”

- - - -

The coastal city of Darzallia was a sprawling city of expensive courtyards, massive play houses and other public attractions such as mall-like areas, with lots of light and a vibrant nightlife. When Ezekiel, Julia, Tiffany, and Paul, blipped into the local Teleport Square, they were exposed to that nightlife, briefly, mostly in the form of rich and powerful people blipping into the space all around them. And then the guards on the square spotted them, thinking them poor, and shouted at them to move. Ezekiel recognized their classism for exactly what it was, for the guards did not shout at the very well-dressed people blipping in right beside them.

Ezekiel’s team had arrived in peasant clothing, after all; their colorful armors dismissed before they blipped in. They didn’t make a fuss about being shouted out of the way. They just left, exiting to the north, to a Mage Guild exchange that Ezekiel had scouted before they arrived.

The Adventurer’s Guild might not be present in Nelboor, but the Mage’s Guild sure was.

- - - -

“Damn all the gods for scheduling conflicts.” Sikali exclaimed as she grabbed onto Xue’s arm, pressing her ample bosom against him. “It’s been too long since we’ve gone out.”

The fabric of her dress was sheer to the point of scandal, while half of her was on full display. She drew eyes from everyone else in the Teleport Square, and Xue loved it. A cold wind blew, and his wife, Sikali, pressed against him even tighter. She bit her lip as she stared into his eyes, and Xue wanted little more in that moment than to treat her to everything she deserved and wanted, which he usually did, and which usually involved lots of drink, song, food, sex, and the thorough enactment of violence against those deemed worthy.

When they weren’t working, of course.

Work almost called to Xue, in that moment, as he looked across the courtyard, and saw an anomaly.

Sikali leaned away from him, recognizing that he wasn’t fully present in the moment. Then she followed his eyes and saw what he saw.

A team of commoners walked out of the other side of the Teleport Square, headed north. One of them had [Familiar]s on his shoulders, and a magical effect strapped to his wrist. Another was an orcol, which was pause enough, for their kind weren’t very populous around here and they were very, very large people. All of them were dressed like the worst of peasants, but none of them walked like peasants.

They walked like they had power.

Which could only mean—

Sikali stepped in front of Xue, between him and the commoners, saying, “No. Xue. No.”

Xue’s eyebrows danced in incredulity. “Who is this in front of me? Some impostor, perhaps? Surely this is not my beloved Sikali, for she would want to investigate the oddity, too!”

“I don’t care. We’re not enforcers for Star Song tonight. No.” Sikali said, “We are here in party-town Darzallia, and I have been wanting to see this show for a year. This is their last week of performances, Xue.”

Xue smirked. He began, “Let’s—”

“Don’t you dare.” Sikali frowned. “I don’t trust either of us to ignore them if we simply ‘go see what they’re about’, so I will enact my self-control right now, and so will you.”

Xue smiled, devilishly, saying, “Let’s go see what they’re about.”

Sikali tried a different tactic. She whined, “Noooo. Please, Xue. I want to see the show.”

“The show is already ruined. All you’ll be able to think about is this missed connection.”

She looked away. “… That’s… Not… True.”

“And if you really wanted to see this show, you would have seen it months ago.”

And that was the wrong thing to say, apparently.

Sikali hardened, staring straight at him. “Now that is untrue! We’ve always got work! We never have time for each other anymore. I’ve been hunting in the mountains for our lost alchemist for the past week and you’ve been hunting down new Particle Magics for this entire past year and—”

“Okay! Peace!” Xue held up a hand, then put that hand in Sikali’s, entwining their arms together. “We will see the play. I can track those anomalies down later, for both of us.”

She pressed against him as they walked off of the Teleport Square toward the carriages. She kissed his cheek, saying, “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

They got into the carriage and headed toward the theater. He put a hand on her leg and she moved his hand upward, much to both their joys. With one hand occupied down below, he moved his other to cup her breast. He kissed her deeply, and she responded in kind.

And then Sikali pulled away, just a bit, and suddenly said, “I have to go back to the mountains tomorrow.”

Xue frowned, and yet his hands did not stop what they were doing. “Do you?”

She gasped a bit as his hands worked their magic, trying to distract her. She lamented, “I do.”

“Are you sure?”

“I— Ah! I...”

Xue smiled.

- - - -

The Mage Guild was also called the Clan Exchange. Both titles were displayed above the gateway to the Exchange, though the second was much more prominent. Ezekiel affixed the new designation into his mind as best he could and strode through the inviting gateway, to the courtyard beyond.

Under pink blossom trees, robed students of the arcane arts discussed theory and execution while steaming tea was served by brown-tunic people who were barely seen, and never heard. The pagodas beyond were where the actual exchange took place, but the front courtyard was where the public mingled.

Ezekiel spotted no spells among any of the guests. He did spot a guard, next to the entrance, who eyed him, and expressed his displeasure at Ezekiel’s shield with a frown. Ezekiel got the message. He dismissed his shield. The guard lost his frown, and lifted his head a fraction. Ezekiel knew he probably shouldn’t walk around with that thing active, but he was not feeling the most publicly comfortable he had ever felt, especially since a lot of people eyed Odin, like he was a prize. Even here, in the Mage’s Guild, people still eyed Odin.

Tiffany drew even more attention than Odin, though, and she probably didn’t like that.

Ezekiel strode forward. He headed directly toward the exchange like he had done this a thousand times before, wanting to make this quick. No one accosted him, or his people.

Five minutes later, it was done. The four of them walked out of the Clan Exchange in a perfectly normal way. Ezekiel was as surprised as anyone else.

As they walked toward the hotels, Ezekiel had time to think. He thought mostly of money, and what had just happened. The exchange rates here were the same as in Spur, and the ordeal of transferring them at this Mage’s Guild was as easy as showing up and handing over the rad— the cores. The cores. They were cores, Ezekiel.

A 10 mana core was worth 5 gold. A 5 mana core was worth 3. A single gold was worth the equivalent of about a hundred dollars, in 1980 money, which was considerably more than what a gold would have been worth in modern-day dollars, which was about 300. Apparently, Spur had been in a bit of an inflationary period…

Which may or may not have been because of ‘Ezekiel’. Huh. He did bring the rains and all that prosperity, but most money flowed into the city in great big lumps due to adventurers and their various hauls, which was normal for Spur, but the adventurers had only been there because of Erick. So that inflation back home was probably his fault.

Coming to The Songli Highlands, which had absolutely no adventuring-based economy, might be rather easy, in a monetary sense. Ezekiel’s expectations of money had been thus:

He would be spending all of his 55 gold tonight, and likely come up short tomorrow.

But in reality… He saw the prices of tea in a chalkboard menu hanging in the Mage’s Gui— The Clan Exchange, and knew that copper was a good price for tea, and that silver would be expensive. As they left the Clan Exchange behind to find a hotel in Darzallia, they passed by food stalls selling sticks of meat or fried breads, all for coppers. They bought some, as an early dinner. Everyone was hungry.

They ate from a lot of food carts, actually. Maybe this would be dinner? Anyway; the prices were all in copper. One stall couldn’t even break a gold. Which was fine; they just got a large amount of that stall’s food, which were delicious breaded-meat skewers.

They passed a bordello with prices listed in silver on the door.

A really nice restaurant of three stories, with a band and bards singing in the center and everyone dressed mostly-nicely, had a ‘full course special’ for 2 gold. Ezekiel reminded himself that the monster meat he ate in Spur was especially expensive because it was monster meat. He had gotten used to spending hundreds of gold for a meal, and that was simply not necessary in a place like this. Monster meat would be an extreme delicacy here, for sure.

Now that Ezekiel thought of it, even Treehome’s prices were inflated, but that land was still cheaper than Spur. Maybe that was because orcols had a culture of going out and killing monsters? All those ‘cores’ would naturally make them rather rich.

As thoughts of money filled his head, the four of them discussed the hotels that Ezekiel had scouted.

As he walked through the city of Darzallia without his shield, Ezekiel found fewer eyes upon him, and usually only because of Odin. The bright purple [Familiar] was listening to the wind with just as much ability as Ezekiel, and he heard the same singing that filled Ezekiel’s ears. Music and life poured out into the twilight night, from playhouses, bars, restaurants, bordellos. It was a good sound.

They got to the first hotel option without incident. Tiffany dismissed that hotel before they even entered the lobby, and it took Ezekiel a second of stressing his mana sense to the limit to understand why. The hotel was full. Every room was occupied. Ah. Maybe it would be difficult to find a hotel? Was this a busy night? Was it the weekend?

A quick listen to the air confirmed nothing about the day of the week.

… The second hotel option suffered the same fate as the first; no vacancy.

The third hotel had vacancy, a full bar, and most importantly, an ‘oversized’ option with a large bed and larger amenities for orcols. It was one of the only hotels that offered such. It was also, unsurprisingly, the most expensive.

It was two whole gold for the night, for all four of them!

Wow! So expensive!

… So unless they found another nice place when they walked around Eralis tomorrow, then this was it. ‘The Sour House’. Odd name, but a nice place to spend the night, according to everything Ezekiel could see.

Though they might not stay that long, Ezekiel paid for three nights and the four of them got their room. It was a minor suite with two rooms of two beds each, two master bathrooms, and a nice veranda that looked south, ostensibly toward the ocean, but the view was of the city and all of its many lights, tiled roofs, and walled compounds. This room was nothing compared to Hotel O’kabil, but the four beds were big and the two baths were nice. This would be a nice stay. But, in the course of preparing the room for temporary residence, he had a choice.

Tiffany shoved open the paper divider between her and her room, exposing the sight of a massive bed, which, now that Ezekiel looked, was likely barely big enough for her. She still smiled, though, saying, “I was afraid I’d have to conjure my own bed! I’m glad I don’t have to do that. Real beds let you roll over without breaking it. This is nice.”

“It is nice, but we can move if we find some place better if we must.” Ezekiel asked, “So how do we want to do the defenses?”

Paul walked away, into his room, saying, “However you think it should go.”

He didn’t seem to care, which was fine.

Ezekiel considered...

‘Ezekiel’ was a Scion of Balance. Therefore he would have around 6000 mana, without any Stat buffs. His rings were buffs, but they ‘were not artifacts, and should not be used for normal buffing’. Normal Stat rings broke when used for more than a few mana pools worth of casting. Therefore, Ezekiel should have 7000 mana, maybe. He was a Warder, and they got reductions to [Ward], which would put his [Ward] cost at around 10% of the actual cost of the Ward. Which meant that spending 7000 mana on a defensive [Ward] would grant him 70,000 defense.

But using his actual modifiers and casting a full, 9000 mana [Ward] into the suite, would put up a Health shield worth almost a quarter million defense. It would be even more if he used Blood Mana to spend his 2400 Health like it was more Mana. But he wouldn’t be doing that. He’d make-do with a 3000 mana [Ward], then. That would be worth about 75,000 points of defense.

He could put one of Odin’s [Prismatic Ward] down across the beds in the rooms… But someone would likely check on the rooms. It wouldn’t surprise him if one of the people who eyed them in town were tracking them down right now.

So, no [Prismatic Ward] right now. Odin could pop one at the first sign of actual trouble, though. Yes. That would be good.

The [Alarm Ward]s would go up as normal; nothing special there, except for maybe a few different layers of them with a few different triggers.

It took Ezekiel all but five seconds to come up with the plan. A defensive [Ward] blossomed like magenta light to then settle into the very edges of room, but no further. Then came the layering of alarms, most triggered to be silent and upon the encroachment of unapproved people.

Paul came out of his room, saying, “Let’s get to that bar.”

Julia piped up, “How about that restaurant we passed back there. The one that was also a bar?”

“I could certainly eat more!” Tiffany said, coming out of her room. “Those snacks were not enough.”

Ezekiel smiled, happy to be around his people, and said, “Let’s go do all of that, then.”

And so they did.

- - - -

Sikali and Xue got halfway through the play before they abandoned the play, but not in the way Xue had predicted.

Sikali grabbed Xue’s hand as soon as intermission allowed them to leave their private box. Instead of going to a nice dark corner of the playhouse to use those dark corners for their intended purpose, and to continue what they had begun in the carriage ride, she brought him into the hallway, and then toward the rear exit.

“I didn’t think it was that bad,” Xue teased.

Sikali spat, “It was derivative tripe. No wonder it’s their last week. Whatever. They can’t all be Playway Hits.” She shook her head. “But that’s not why we’re leaving.”

The guard by the rear exit opened the door and let them leave. Husband and wife strode out into the cold night, full of stars and bright city lights. A few more steps brought them to another exit that dumped them onto the street beside the playhouse. They grabbed a carriage to Teleport Square.

Xue asked, “Are we going after those adventurers?”

Sikali frowned, her lower lip bouncing as the carriage hit a bump; a truly sad, and yet beautiful expression. “I want to, but…” She sighed, then laid it out there, “I have received a personal missive from Elder Mirizo Song. They’re putting out a Quest for our young alchemist and I am required to report, in person, and either fund the Quest myself, or demand a fund from an initiate who we will then elevate to the Capture Squad.” She frowned. “Though I doubt that is their goal.”

“No? What? Really?” Xue frowned, surprised. “Highly unusual. And right to the Squad, eh? Usually there’s a step in between.”

“It’s so ridiculous, I know!” Sikali said, “But the worst part is not about me having some damned initiate on my Squad. In the first place, Tadashi is from Diligent Scribe! A branch family! Why are we Enforcing for a branch family!”

“Because you’re the best, Sikali, and I love you.” Xue said, “And this whole thing is odd. Why put a Quest out for the guy you are trying to find. You know… Until we decided to go see a play tonight.”

“It was a bad decision, I know!” Sikali said, “And I love you too, but this has reeked of politics from the very beginning, and it vexes me. All I was supposed to do was work on recapture while they worked on negotiations for Tadashi’s return. And now we’re all the way to a Quest? Insulting, is what it is.”

“Could you have been better at finding the man?”

Sikali scowled. Xue regretted his words, immensely.

But Sikali was as much a professional as him. She said, “They must have caught wind that I went to see a play. Someone told them. But even I am allowed breaks! I was out there for a solid week!”

“Even you are allowed breaks,” Xue agreed.

“I am! It’s just…” Sikali frowned. “Alchemist Tadashi’s recapture is a higher priority than I was led to believe, and instead of properly informing me of the necessity of my task and allowing me to do my job… The shit is rolling downhill, as they say.”

“Should we just… Go? From here? No need to stop at the Teleport Square.”

“No.” Sikali said, “I am angry at them for lying to me. I will respond promptly, but in my own time. I am sure this is some sort of politics. Perhaps they have an initiate in mind? Someone’s pet? I cannot think of anyone. This is just Elder Mirizo Song’s way of getting another claw into my Capture Squad, I am sure of it.”

Xue supplied, “Elder Mirizo Song’s grand-niece is currently an initiate.”

Sikali suddenly went utterly silent; thinking.

They got out of the carriage and reached the Teleport Square. The white tile land was awash in flood lights, while the stars glittered above. A few people flashed with magic, arriving or leaving as they were wont. Xue left, taking his wife with him.

The world flashed.

Red pillars rose from a white courtyard, revealing the inner sanctum of Clan Star Song. Ten hidden elites watched them, but they made no moves to impede the two people who had just appeared inside Clan High Command.

Sikali flicked her hands and sleek, black leathers layered atop her sheer dress; her usual attire while working in her official capacity as the captain of Capture Squad Four. Xue worked his magics with a bit more finesse, discarding his clothes into a bundle at his back, while simultaneously conjuring the sweeping red robes that were his official Loremaster Squad Two attire. There were no captains in the Loremasters and everyone of specific squads were all of the same rank, except for the assistants.

With his rank, this meant that Xue could invite himself to Sikali’s… ordeal.

Which he did.

Elder Mirizo Song, the culprit of the current problem, and Elder Doniro Scribe from Diligent Scribe, the current person trying to buy favor from Clan Song, or whatever it was he was doing, received the pair of them in the solarium. At least that’s what it looked like, at first. But then the truth of Alchemist Tadashi came out.

Doniro was sweating. Mirizo was angry, but good at pretending to be calm. In easy, reasoned voices, Elder Mirizo spoke of what was to happen. Sikali was to fund a Quest to retrieve the Alchemist, and it would be done by the dawn of the next morning. However she wanted to do it was up to her. She could elevate an initiate. She could fund it herself. She could call in favors and have it done that way. But it would be done, and there would be no stopping that decision.

“This is opening the retrieval of Alchemist Tadashi to all the Clans of Eralis,” Sikali said, ensuring that everyone in the room understood the meaning of the action they were asking of her.

“This is correct, Captain Sikali,” Mirizo Song said. “Anyone else who has a Quest Board in the region will be able to see what you post. We need that alchemist back, and as the Captain charged with bringing him back, the enacting of this decision falls to you. Do your job or I will grant your position to your second. Enforcer Peroit will do what needs to be done, if you will not.”

Ah? So that was their play? A full dismissal of Sikali for her ‘failure’ at finding Tadashi?

Hmm. Devious, but easy enough to fight. Still. It made Xue’s blood boil.

Sikali just went colder.

With a dark voice, Sikali said, “I demand an initiate to fund the Quest. Pick an initiate you wish to elevate.”

She tried to bait out the real meaning of the shift in priority of her assignment, but—

Mirizo laughed.

Mirizo had laughed at his Sikali!

Xue almost blasted the Elder’s head off, but he refrained. He wasn’t even sure if such an attack would actually work. There was always the chance of catching a man off guard with a sudden killing spell, but—

Mirizo spared a glance toward Xue.

Yeah. That man wasn’t off-guard at all.

Sikali was in a tough spot, and Xue wasn’t sure how to best help her. How had she pissed off Mirizo? Or had her second, Enforcer Peroit, done something to gain great favor? Either were possible. Sikali was, however, beyond most easy reasoning.

She was entitled to this much, considering what they were trying to do to her.

Sikali said, “My wording for the Quest will be that Elder Mirizo has lost his butt boy, and that he—”

“INSOLENCE!”

The word blasted from Mirizo, focused on Sikali entirely, yet only slamming her back a single meter. She would have gone flying, but she had clawed her feet into the marble floor before she spoke back to the Elder. A few cracks formed in the glass of the solarium, but nothing a single [Mend] couldn’t fix.

Xue looked to his wife, to see how she wanted to proceed. He was ready to fight, and she was already seeing red, but then—

“Please,” Elder Doniro said, into the sudden roaring silence. “Please. There is no need for this violence, but there will be a grand lot of violence if we don’t get him back, and he must be brought back.”

Mirizo frowned, as he turned his glare to the other Elder.

Sikali lost some of her anger. She stared at the branch family Elder.

Elder Doniro said, “I will inform you of the reason we must recapture Alchemist Tadashi. I will even provide you with the five points to create the Quest, as we have already done this much preparation. Tadashi will just have to repay the points himself, therefore, he must be captured, and not eliminated.”

Sikali relaxed a fraction, but it was just for show. Xue knew she was prepared for this to go sideways, and so was he. The middle part of Doniro’s proclamation had rocked her just as much as it had rocked him.

Five points? For an alchemist? Ridiculous! Utterly insane! Was this ‘Tadashi’ the bastard son of some Elder… Some Elder like Elder Mirizo? Clan Star Song and Clan Diligent Scribe had been allies for hundreds of years, and there was no small amount of marriage between the two clans, but...

But… Elder Mirizo’s reaction to Doniro’s words was one of quiet displeasure at the smaller Elder. The room calmed. By that action, Xue knew that something big was happening, but that it had nothing to do with anyone here, aside from the normal scratching and backstabbing that happened everywhere. Elder Mirizo was angry at Doniro for spilling a secret which likely should not have been spilled.

If anyone of Sikali or Xue’s level had gone over Mirizo’s head like this and spilled secrets to the underlings of some other Elder… That would have been bad.

But Elder Doniro was an elder for a branch family.

And yet...

A five-point Quest. For an alchemist. A branch family alchemist!

The logistics involved in such an organization of resources could only mean three things. Either Doniro had supplied the points himself, or he had forced another to supply them, or he had truly organized the spread of those points from five different people in order to pay for the Quest.

Secrets would out soon enough.

Either way, one only put up a Quest when it was absolutely imperative that a task be done right then and there. Xue looked to his wife. By her face and stance, he guessed that her thoughts mirrored his. She had more of a right to speak on her thoughts, though, so he stood back and watched as she did so.

Sikali said, “Five whole points? A ridiculous sum, made all the more ridiculous by the manner in which you comport yourselves. Elder Mirizo. Elder Doniro. You had made me believe that this lost alchemist was a simple ransom, and you were using me to discover the quick way to end this confrontation while you were negotiating with the bandits through missives and such, as per usual.” She said, “These were all lies, or at the worst, a design upon me. Before I accept this assignment, you will tell me why Tadashi is necessary. You will tell me why you failed to impart his true importance when you gave me this assignment.”

“We will not, Enforcer Sikali.” Elder Mirizo said, “You are an Enforcer. You are not an Elder.”

Sikali stared at her Elder, saying, “I will not put my foot into a [Force Trap].”

“You will put your foot where I tell—”

Elder Doniro broke in, “He’s my son.”

Elder Mirizo scowled, but he did not interrupt.

Xue had to speak up, so he did, “That’s a lie.”

Doniro thought about refuting Xue’s declaration; Xue could tell. But he did not instantly refute Xue’s rebuttal, for he had lied, and he was not prepared to have his lie so easily caught and called out. Xue almost smiled in satisfaction, but he kept his face a mask, as was appropriate for the situation.

Mirizo sighed, then said, “Tell them the truth.” He warned Sikali and Xue, “This truth will not go in the Quest, nor will it leave this room.”

Sikali lifted her head a fraction; acknowledging.

Xue waited.

Doniro fiddled with several thoughts, for sure, because he did not instantly speak.

“I’m waiting,” Sikali said, glaring at Doniro.

Elder Doniro spat out, “We told you Alchemist Tadashi was captured when he went out searching for reagents for potions. This much is true. But… Alchemist Tadashi has invented a new potion. That potion is worth more than your life. We had hoped for negotiations to go well, but… Other people are working from opposite angles, and they have screwed all of us. All I can say is that it is imperative that you get him back, tonight.” He lamented, “They forced him to drink the Antirhine Elixir, and thus have forced all of our hands.”

Xue gasped. Sikali’s eyes went wide.

Mirizo breathed out his dissatisfaction, while Doniro wrung his hands.

To force the Antirhine Elixir upon a man was to poison them for all eternity and for them to die to scratches or bedsores or some other such mediocre horror. And the bathing! Constant need for bathing! An ignoble death, reserved for those who were too powerful to exile, too knowledgeable to kill, and too tricky to use more temporary means, like collars and tattoos. There was, at least, some dignity about the Elixir compared to the collar and the tattoos. Less blood and no true markings upon the body…

And you could walk around like a normal person. Mostly.

There were even some people, some fallen scions or fallen elders, who lived reasonable lives in the Noble District. Those people were no longer threats to the Highlands, after all, and their presence reminded everyone what happened to those who defied the will of the Songstresses.

But the Elixir was still a monumental sentence.

What sort of potion had Tadashi made?

An immortality po—

Sikali guessed before Xue could, “An Immortality Potion?”

Doniro angered. He spat, “Every child thinks [Immortality] is the goal of all alchemists! I tell you it is not! There are—”

“Stop.” Elder Mirizo declared, “You have received your true answer, and the heightened reasons for the actions we undertake today. You will receive no more. Do your job.”

“One more question.” Sikali asked, “Are we sure Alchemist Tadashi has not defected?”

With darkened eyes and in the cold air of the room, Elder Mirizo declared, “If Alchemist Tadashi has given his new potion to anyone else, or if he has defected, you will execute the true will of Clan Star Song, and the true will of the Highlands.”

Doniro frowned, then he quickly nodded.

Sikali stood straight. She had been appeased. Xue saw it in her stature and in her soul. Sikali gladly said, “By your will.” She turned to Elder Doniro. “Do you have the points now? I can post the Quest immediately. Is there a specific wording you would want?”

Mirizo produced a sheet of paper. “This wording, right here.”

Within minutes the Quest was posted. It was funded through points paid by Elder Doniro, and backed by an unusually easy prayer to Rozeta. Sometimes Sikali had to pray harder than she usually did. Once, she had even needed to explain herself, and Rozeta had refused to sponsor that Quest. But this time? This posting happened without incident or interruption, like it was meant to be.

Anyone with a Quest Board in the greater area would see the posting. This meant that the same group of about a hundred people would all see the Quest, as soon as they checked. Though the individuals in that group might change, there were always about a hundred of them. Xue’s wonderful wife had been a member of that exclusive group for the last ten years. Most of them were Scions, but some were just high-level Enforcers, like Sikali. Most of them checked the postings every day, but some would check it sooner, for sure, and then the tide would depart; every single one of them searching for Alchemist Tadashi.

Tadashi might be back in custody by the end of tomorrow. Or sooner.

Five points was a major quest. And a simple search? Well… Likely not so simple. Sikali hadn’t been able to find a single hint of Tadashi’s existence in a full week of searching, though by her own admission she had not tried that hard. Xue felt that this was both her fault, and the fault of the Elders, for they had not informed her of the necessity of rapidly completing her assignment.

But with this new development… Was the man still there? To be found?

After the meeting, Xue walked with his wife toward the Enforcer Manor, asking, “Is he still in the mountains?”

Sikali said, “[Teleport]ing is the only safe way through the Tribulation Mountains, and even that is dangerous if you have not scouted the area before you arrive. If the bandits tried to fly him out, then they are already dead. If they were to tunnel him out, then they are even deader. But the Quest went through. He’s alive.”

“And all this for a simple branch family alchemist.”

“I shall require your assistance, Loremaster Xue,” Sikali said.

Xue heard and understood. “In what official capacity can this Loremaster assist?”

Sikali returned to her casual way, saying, “I’m going to have to figure out a way to transport him out of those mountains. He cannot [Teleport].” She exclaimed, “They inflicted him with an Antirhine Elixir! Can you believe it?”

“I will undertake this task.” Xue said, “There are few standard formations that would be up to the job, but I am sure we have something better in the archives. I will have to check, but I should have a sky boat ready for your specific needs in five or six hours.”

Sikali nodded. “Enforcer Sikali appreciates your work.”

Xue nodded, as was appropriate.

All of this for a new potion. Must be some damn interesting potion.

… And then he considered.

He sent Sikali, ‘A New Stat Potion?’

Sikali’s back straightened. ‘Perhaps?’ She scowled. ‘No. They wouldn’t do this for a potion of Dark Boons. They would have ordered me to kill him like they ordered me to kill every single minor clansman who gained one of the New Stats.’

‘You were forced to ignore some of those from our High Clans.’

Sikali wanted to scowl, Xue could tell, but they were close to the Enforcer Manor, and her face was a mask. Enforcer Peroit might be nearby. The next time Sikali saw that man, Xue knew that Enforcer Peroit was going to get a talking-to, or perhaps a severe beating.

Sikali sent, ‘If Tadashi has made potions of New Stats, then he might suffer some untoward fate on the perilous journey to retrieve him. Grand Elder’s orders supersede whatever this mess is all about.’

‘It would be for the best.’

The two of them entered the Enforcer Manor. The entire building was already active and excited about the new Quest; they were all prepared to head out, right away. Good news travels fast, it seemed.

Enforcer Peroit was standing there, also excited about the new Quest. Sikali acted completely normal around him, for now.

Xue left his wife, saying, “I will organize a flying boat for you. It will take two days.”

Sikali said, “Thank you, Love.”

“Anything for you.”

Xue wanted to stay and watch what his wife did to Enforcer Peroit, but he was on a timer. He went directly to Loremaster Manor, to see what sort of treasures he would need to create that would suit the retrieval of an Antirhine Elixir’d individual.

He rushed to his books on sky boats, and to his personal scrolls.

All of the obvious formations were immediately discarded. They all relied on full field effects. Such a boat might fall out of the sky if the Alchemist wasn’t positioned in them properly, and flying through the Tribulation Mountains would surely cause the Alchemist to get tossed around a fair bit.

As Xue organized his thoughts and plans, he found his mind wandering.

How was Tadashi going to make his new potion if he was Elixir’d? His very touch would destroy the magics in many herbs and all the normal tools of the alchemist would be lost to him. Ah. Not a problem for this particular moment. Tadashi would just have to explain his process to the Loremasters of Clan Star Song, and they would work with him to recreate any specific spells he had, and any specific techniques he utilized. There was no way that whatever potions Tadashi had invented would go back into the hands of the branch family Diligent Scribe. Not at this point.

But those were thoughts for later, for after Sikali rescued Tadashi and claimed the five points that Elder Doniro put into that Quest.

Xue smiled. How strong was his wife right now? This Quest would put her at 249 extra, if he recalled correctly.

Maybe he should ditch one of his Class Abilities… Perhaps Heighten Blood? Then he could retake the Quest Board. The extra damage provided by Heighten Blood was hardly necessary with his current level of spellwork, and he was only at 210 extra points. If his wife got too far ahead she might start teasing him again, and while a little teasing was okay, Xue did not like being teased over power levels.

Not going to happen.

Anything else was fine, though.

Xue shook his head, smiling, and lost himself in his work, pulling out books and scrolls and even accessing the Grand Archive for more esoteric sky boat designs. He quickly discovered that he had been right; there were few formations up to the triple task of speed, safety, and accounting for an Elixir’d person.

There were many formations on record that allowed a sky boat to traverse the Tribulation Mountains at great speed, and under great defense. There were even formations that were meant to ferry the Elixir-afflicted without harming them, or the formations of the boat. But combining the two was a different sort of problem, never really solved. Alchemist Tadashi would likely need immediate medical attention, too, so Xue would need to account for that…

Trees grew at his command. Wood became planks at his touch. Planks curled and bent together, becoming more than what they were before. Soon, the skeleton was done. Ten meters long and half that wide, this was the smallest he could make the boat. He would have liked to have gone smaller and therefore faster, but the formations needed a certain amount of space to be able to ignore the effect the alchemist would have upon them.

Xue adjusted the boat’s skeleton a few times.

When he was satisfied, he opened his forearm with a casual swipe of his finger. Crimson blood poured into the air, like a floating river, and then began to glitter darkly as Xue condensed his mana directly into core-powder within that blood. Glowing red and full of possibility, Xue wielded his blood like a knife and set to work, inscribing the first set of runes into the skeleton of the sky boat.

He smiled. This was almost as good as knocking down upstart adventurers.

… Ah. That man with the shield, and the [Familiar]s. Xue had forgotten. Oh well.

That man would be a problem for someone else.

The first set of runes was easy enough to lay down, for Xue had laid these runes a hundred times before now. The ordeal of minor variations was no real ordeal at all. After a once-over, seeking flaws among his work and finding none, Xue went to his door and told his assistant to make him some food; whatever they had ready and hot in the kitchens would do, and some wakeful tea. The young initiate ran off at his command.

When the assistant came back, he came with a full roast chicken, some of those delightful new ‘potatoes’ from Glaquin, a good tea, and with Elder Arilitilo. The older woman had been woken up by the news, or someone had woken her. Whatever the case, Xue’s mentor appeared as regal as ever, in her bright red robes. Xue’s own conjured robes were a match for hers, of course.

“Loremaster Xue.” Arilitilo said, “I understand that a large Quest has gone out and that you were there when it happened.”

Xue owed this woman everything, and so Xue said, “Yes, Elder.”

“I wish to hear your thoughts, and to hear what was left out of the Quest.”

He told her what he had heard, but he did dance around certain facts that were left out of the Quest, like the fact that they wanted the alchemist back because of his knowledge of potions. Arilitilo understood the necessity of this particular dance, and so did not press, but instead danced along with him, as she had taught him long ago. At the end of the talk, Elder Arilitilo knew she needed to speak to certain people in the potion houses of Diligent Scribe.

She left, satisfied, and yet angry. Something was happening in the potion houses of Diligent Scribe, and she would discover what. Xue would not want to be counted among those forced to fully deny that old Blood Mage, but someone would try to block her path. Pity those fools, for they know not who they are dealing with.

… Just what had that young Alchemist invented?

- - - -

The bar was hopping, everyone was drunk, Paul was a euphoric-drunk, and this was fun.

The light hit his sapphire eyes like a blue fire, as he said, “I just wanna say, that I—! That I appreciate you.” He flipped a hand, speaking in a universally true way, “And I know you do the same to me. We don’t have to ever talk about that so-called ‘revelation’ you had out there. It’s like. I don’t know. This is great.” He concentrated, saying, “We’re being all ‘new-land’ and shit, and that’s great, too. And! Hey! You haven’t nuked anything yet, and that’s just swell.”

Ezekiel laughed, as he teased, “What the fuck is a ‘nuke’, Paul?”

No one cared about whether their words were too loud, for the band was louder than everything else and the night was jumping. Tiffany and Julia were dancing and drunk and surrounded by too many men, but whatever. As for Paul and Ezekiel? Though they were ‘speaking’ in the audible way, they were both horribly slurring their words, and thus only able to actually communicate telepathically. Which is how they were actually talking. The line between mental and aural communication methods was rapidly becoming open to interpretation.

Paul laughed. “A nuke is a cloud made of mushrooms!”

“You’re going to have to explain the logistics on that.” Ezekiel asked, “How does a fungaloid get as large as a cloud? It’s some monster, no doubt.”

“Your diversions to the conversation help no one. For anyone else, I would have told them that they have to go and get laid and I would likely be their wingman—” Paul stopped. He suddenly lamented, “I’m always the wingman.”

“Ha!” Ezekiel said, “I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. You didn’t. I’m not a great communicator.” Paul said, “And I’m truly going to regret this conversation in the morning, but I need to talk about my sister, now.”

“Please.” Ezekiel said, “I am listening.”

After he said those words the mood between them became something a lot calmer than the rave happening in the other parts of the bar. One might even say that the air turned ‘funeralish’.

“She was great! She helped me gain control of my abilities. And then she died.” Paul scowled, then downed the other half of his liquor. He amended, “She was murdered. She didn’t do something as simple as ‘die’. She was murdered.”

Ezekiel launched out of his seat and grabbed Paul, wrapping him in his arms, saying, “I’m so sorry.”

Paul just started bawling as he hugged Ezekiel just as tight as Ezekiel hugged him. In a building of hundreds of people, no one heard. No one saw. No one cared, except for Ezekiel and Paul.

Paul broke away, drying his face with the edge of his claw, saying, “Gods. I haven’t broken down like that in twenty years.”

“I’m sorry about your sister.” Ezekiel said, “I had a sister. Younger sister. I barely remember her; she died when I was eight. Complications from… I’m not sure. My parents never really said. I think it was some sort of heart disease. Genetic.”

Paul smiled softly, saying, “My sister… Rizala. That was her name. She was murdered by—” He suddenly stopped. He said, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Paul.” Ezekiel sent, and said, “I’ll protect you from everyone in the world, if I have to.”

Paul laughed loud, though not loud enough to break past the music. “I know. I know. Thank you. I thought I was ready to speak of this, but I’m not.”

Ezekiel smirked. “That’s okay, too.”

Paul said, “It’s just that everyone is healing, it seems. Eh. Actually. Your young greenscale friend is fucked up, but Tiffany is doing a lot better. Have you noticed? Yes, you have noticed. Bah. Julia is doing great, too! That gridwork helped her a lot!”

“It did, didn’t it!”

Ezekiel laughed, downed his drink, then signaled to the incani waitress walking around in a thong and floss and the sheerest, smallest robe possible. She was showing more purple skin than any other three people in the bar, combined, and it was great. Paul thought so, too. Two more firewater shots! Bring the bottle! He watched her violet ass bounce as she walked away. It was a good sight. He turned back to Paul, who seemed to be stuck watching the waitress’s ass.

Paul laughed, catching Ezekiel’s thoughts. He turned, and said, “You’re so much more observant than you used to be. You know?”

“I do know.” Ezekiel could not seem to stop smiling. “I know a lot about a lot, but very little about the important stuff. I really should have noticed that about you and your reasoning for not wanting to adventure. Constantly shoved out of the light because your skills aren’t flashy at all.”

Paul affected a glare, without heat. “I’m fine.”

“You say that; sure.”

“The only thing that fucked me up in the last few days was those Hunters,” Paul said, taking a shot from the newly arrived bottle. “Not because of my sister, though. You can nix that thought right away.”

Ezekiel paid the waitress a full gold coin. She set the coin into a small pouch just above her thong, smiling while Ezekiel stared at the obvious goods on display.

Paul poured a shot for Ezekiel, bringing him back to the moment, saying and sending, “The temptation is always there. To make the world a better place, through force.”

Ezekiel zeroed in on Paul, listening intently.

Paul seemed to flinch under the sudden, focused attention. He drank another shot. Ezekiel took another shot, too. Odin was busy singing along with the band, amplifying the sounds of everyone up to new heights and better harmonies, and the band seemed to love it, and genuinely, too; not in that way that the cowed sometimes pretended to love the actions of the rich and powerful. Odin even managed to stay fully bird-shaped! Amazing!

Even Yggdrasil’s orb was bouncing in time to the music around Ezekiel. Everyone was jumping, everyone was dancing.

But Paul and Ezekiel were alone in the crowd, at their table in the middle of the restaurant bar.

Paul said and sent, “The problem is that you can do it, and it works, but then what? We’ve tried this before. Quintlan is not only uninhabited because of monsters.”

Ezekiel exclaimed, “Well you obviously did it wrong in Quintlan!”

“Ha! What? No we didn’t.”

“All’s I’m saying is that you didn’t do anything. Your people did. And a thousand years ago or whatever. What do you know about what happened back then? What do you really know? You were surprised about the Highlands.” Ezekiel asked, “How reliable is the information that your people collect? Are the stories you tell yourself real stories, or imagined ideals? Or imagined horror stories, meant to frighten and box you in?”

Paul affected a scowl, saying, “This surprise over the Highlands was just a matter of me not reading enough. I do not read horror stories. I am not Tiffany. Bah!” He returned to the issue, saying, “The problem is that all central authorities eventually succumb to corruption. The ideas themselves are not a problem. That Empathy Option is not a true conundrum. The fallibility of people is the problem, and while we respect the gods, no one is willing to enact a theocracy, and the gods wouldn’t want to take control of society, anyway. They like being benevolent assistants, like you.” He flipped a hand, saying, “But then we got the other immortals. The mortal immortals. But leaving power in the hands of immortals is similarly asking for an eventual violent revolution. It’s the problem of immortal mediocrity; they usually fall into ruts and short-lived mortals are not in ruts and just look at Frontier and Kal’Duresh—” He froze. He continued, “Where your daughter is from, you know? Kal’Duresh. That place. And Spur! Run by an immortal, but fallen to ruin until recently… What was I saying? Oh yeah. The Empathy Option. Putting power like that into the hands of any system is asking for that system to become corrupted.” He clicked a talon, saying, “Oh yeah! And don’t give power to immortals, because they can’t do as good a job as mortals. They’re too relaxed. Honestly, this is likely the real issue with the Headmaster and what they teach at Arcanaeum. Nothing too evil happening there, just good old relaxing into a rut. And—”

Paul was obviously in the ‘I will talk all night’ part of his drunken process.

Ezekiel interrupted, “All power eventually wanes and waxes.” He said, “This is not a reason to not enact good while we can, using the methods at our disposal.”

“That’s an argument, too!” Paul said, “But stripping free will is not an answer.”

“So we just ask the people. Give them a choice aside from banishment or execution.”

Paul smiled, then said, “There are other options. There’s one they use in this very land, too. It’s called the Antirhine Elixir.”

Ezekiel leaned backward. He frowned, scowled, then cringed. Then he asked, “Does that do what I think it does?”

“Yup! Locks someone out of magic, entirely. Life-long potion, too. No magic. No healing, either.” Paul hummed, as though reconsidering his enthusiasm for the option. “They usually die of an infection. They still regain Health and Mana though, so if they’re high level, they go and get some different Class Abilities. Mana Shield is one of them; automatically use your Mana like extra Health.” He paused. He added, “A few others, I’m sure, but I cannot think of any.”

Ezekiel said, “Yeah. No. Don’t like this Elixir at all.”

“It’s just death by another name, isn’t it?”

“A slow, painful death.” Ezekiel said, “Magic is absolutely wonderful. I don’t think so many people should have as much as they do, but I certainly don’t think that anyone should be locked out of magic— should be locked out of even receiving magic, too! No healing! No [Cleanse]— OH MY GODS. No [Cleanse]! That’s just awful.”

Paul hummed. “Yeah. That is pretty bad, isn’t it. Anyway!” He pointed at a very hot dude by the bar, saying, “Do you want a wingman? I see you looking.”

Ezekiel laughed loud. He pointed at the woman at the table next to theirs, the one who was currently playing around with a berry stem as she eyed Paul. “Do you want a wingman?”

Paul’s eyes went wide, as he looked. The women at the table next to theirs started laughing.

One of them asked if Paul and Ezekiel were going to fuck, and if they could watch.

Well no, there would be none of that, but hey, pretty ladies, you want some drinks?

They did.

The rest of the night went well.

Ezekiel ended up spending 35 gold, which was way more than he expected, and even more so considering what 35 gold actually represented in the Highlands’ stable economy. 10,000 dollars in one night was a lot! But… Maybe it wasn’t.

The four of them had certainly eaten and drunk more than enough, and they had made some temporary drinking friends, but they had spent too much. They’d need to go back to the mountains tomorrow. They’d be more careful about their spending going forward.

In the hotel room, Tiffany and Julia took the room across the hallways. Paul and Ezekiel roomed together. A very drunk [Witness] from the two people capable of such revealed no intruders into the hotel space or anything else untoward, aside from the proprietor of the establishment combing through the rooms, looking for gold or bags or whatnot.

Joke was on him! Ezekiel and his people had nothing! Ha!

As the lights of the moons stretched across the room in pink, white, and silver, Paul laid in his bed, and Ezekiel laid in his own. Odin twittered on the headrest. Ezekiel reapplied his eye drops, and closed his eyes.

Paul rolled over, unable to sleep. He sent, ‘I’m actually demi. Technically.’

Ezekiel opened his eyes and looked over to his roommate.

Paul’s eyes were already open. He sent, ‘Mother was incani. Father looked incani. He bolted when my twin sister and I were born and his truth was discovered.’ Paul stared out the window, at the moons, and at Hell, in particular. He was still drunk and his words reflected that sort of disjointedness, as he continued, ‘A lot of people lie and say they appreciate me, but they never do. A lot of people lie, almost all the time. But you never have.’ He snorted. ‘Overmuch, anyway. It’s… really nice. Not many people are exactly who they appear to be. Most people are a lot worse. Most people truly hate when they find out that I can hear what they think, but you like that I can hear what you think. That’s been really nice.’

Ezekiel listened.

Paul smiled as he looked away, and sent, ‘I still think this experiment in subterfuge is an exercise in futility.’

Ezekiel’s face broke into a wide grin. ‘It’s not that bad, is it?’

‘Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but it’s getting there. We attracted the eyes of hundreds of people, but only several that mattered. A few young masters. A few scions. A lot of people dismissed us when we paid with gold. A lot of people started to look the other way.’ Paul sent, ‘There was one pair of people in particular— A pair of Enforcers for Clan Star Song, but they were more enamored with themselves than with us.’

‘About as expected.’ Ezekiel asked, ‘What would happen if I revealed myself as myself?’

Paul thought for a long while.

Ezekiel noticed that his usual telepathic lines of intent were down from a dozen, to just two, and one of those two was to Ezekiel. He had noticed the lack of the usual lines of intent before, as soon as they got away from Spur and Treehome, but he had not truly noticed the change enough to reflect upon this new, temporary normal, until now. Paul was disconnected from his usual people. Usually, he was talking to everyone, right? But they were far from those people, now, and he was probably feeling lonely.

‘Phhhbt! I’m not lonely! Not really.’ Paul sent, ‘And I’m not sure what would happen if you revealed yourself. It’d be annoying for you. Likely a lot of posturing in front of people you would rather not talk to. They’d demand shit. You would counter. Big things would happen. Do you want big things to happen?’

‘Not particularly.’ Ezekiel asked, ‘Are you still deflecting people from me? Even here, outside of Spur?’

‘… I did, once. It was a young master who didn’t like how you looked, back in the third bar we went to. I shouldn’t have done that. I was operating on auto-pilot.’ Paul sent, ‘Archmage Erick Flatt gets a lot less messages these days, though, since we are half a world away from where you’re supposed to be. I am still deflecting the few that get this far, though.’

‘Can you teach me how to deflect people away from me?’

Paul smiled. ‘I cannot express to you how happy it makes me that you are not asking that question out of a desire to get rid of me—’

‘Of course I wouldn’t want to get rid of you!’

‘— But I can’t. You’re not a Mind Mage, and this is… It’s an intrinsic technique. You once postulated that mind mages have something different about them that makes them naturals? This much is true. And you just… Can’t ever learn this technique.’ Paul added, ‘You could fake it, though. Maybe? Some form of [Sealed Privacy Ward] turned into an aura, perhaps? You’d be actually invisible in that case, so it wouldn’t be the same at all… Ahhh. Sorry. I can’t help you, there.’

Well that was slightly disappointing. Not the end of the world. Still disappointing.

Ezekiel postulated, ‘Are you sure it’s not just a [Don’t Notice Me] spell, turned into an aura? Is it even an aura? I don’t even notice you running auras but… I have never noticed you running an aura.’

‘Sure you have! Those ‘lines of intent’ that circle around my head. That’s an aura. That’s always been an aura, and always active. Almost all the time.’

‘Oh!’

‘Eh. Well. It’s not a real aura, though. It’s just aura control.’ Paul sent, ‘And that’s another thing. You can’t learn this technique because you have no aura control outside of Aurify. There is a [Don’t Notice Me] spell, and you could turn that into an aura, but then you have to run that aura all the time, and that’s not even the first problem you would have to overcome. I’m only able to do what I do because I can hear the surface thoughts of those around me, and then apply the [Don’t Notice Me] spell in a directed manner. An undirected [Don’t Notice Me] is very noticeable.’ He added, ‘Everything I do stems from my natural ability, which… you do not have.’

‘Yeah. I can see the complications… Eh. It’s fine. A bit of a let-down, but that’s okay.’

Paul seemed to weigh something.

And then he sent, ‘You could fake my natural ability through a [Telepathy] aura. Open ended, receive only. It would be difficult and you’d need to learn a lot more about Mental Magic, but that would be the first step.’

‘Maybe some other day.’ Ezekiel smiled in the darkness of the room, and sent, ‘You know, we gotta get back to the mountains tomorrow. I spent most of our gold today.’

‘Ugh! Yeah. I know. Prices are so much better around here, aren’t they? And yet we still managed to spend all that gold. Maybe we shouldn’t have hit up the fourth bar. You know—’

Ezekiel chuckled, then interrupted him, sending, ‘Good night, Paul.’

‘It’s so weird not sleeping under a [Prismatic Ward]. Remember when those Shadow Spiders almost got us?’

Ezekiel was suddenly wide awake. ‘I am certainly remembering it now!’

Paul just rolled over in his bed, sending, ‘Don’t mind me. I’m just drunk. We’re perfectly fine. No monsters under these beds; I checked. Good night.’

Ezekiel stared at the ceiling, his mind working overtime on too many thoughts at once.

Soon enough, Paul filled the air with gentle snoring.

Ezekiel threw a pillow at him.

- - - -

The morning dawned, and Ezekiel woke to greet it. Jet lag? What was that? [Gate]-lag didn’t exist for him, either, and neither did ‘hangovers’. The necessity of having a ‘recovery time’ certainly existed for everyone else, though.

Julia frowned as she stuck a spoon into the rice-gloop that was the common breakfast food of the area. It did not look appetizing. She added a lot of sugar to compensate, as she grumbled, “What’s for today?”

Tiffany held her head, saying, “Hit me with a healing, Julia. This hangover isn’t going away.”

Julia slapped Tiffany on the arm with a blue spell.

Tiffany grumbled. “Shit. I drank way too much.” She pointed at the general vicinity of her head, saying, “This shouldn’t be happening. Were we poisoned?”

Paul chuckled. “No. You just drank thirty gold of the highest proof alcohol in the world.”

“Thirty gold is nothing!” Tiffany said, “I—” She relaxed. She breathed and blinked. “Okay. There it goes. Thank the gods for healing. First time wasn’t enough.”

“Wish I could say the fifth time was good enough for me,” Julia complained.

With a cheerful tone, Ezekiel said, “You should have healed up last night and drunk more water~!”

“Hush, you,” Julia said, as she added berry jam to her rice glop.

Paul took the jam from Julia and added some to his own glop, saying, “Your powers of recovery are more than those of us mere mortals, Scion Phoenix.”

Ezekiel barked a laugh. Then he tried his own glop… Hmm. “What is this called, anyway?”

“Disintegrated Rice,” Julia said. “Called a dozen different names, but more commonly known as congee. So what’s for today?”

Ezekiel said, “Well. We gotta get some more money, and I’m apt to do that before we go hunting for Songstresses. Maybe spend the morning doing that. In the afternoon we can go visit the Void Temple. Maybe look for a hotel in Eralis proper.”

Tiffany nodded along, then said, “Then I need a veil.”

“You were dancing so nicely in the middle of that crowd, though,” Ezekiel said.

“But before that, I was drinking like a void fish,” she rebutted. “Because of the eyes.”

“Ah. Well.” Ezekiel nodded.

Julia said, “Did we really spend that much last night?”

“Oh yeah. 45 out of 55 gold, gone. I don’t want to control our money, either.” Ezekiel said, “This time I think we should kill enough monsters to get that much for each of us. Of course, we could just hunt for a grand-core monster. That’d give us a nice base for all future interactions in the city.”

Julia said, “I know we avoided it last time, but we could consider flying around. Attract a lot of big monsters that way. Then you freeze them and they fall out of the air and we’re rich.”

Tiffany hummed, then said, “There’s making money, and then there’s tempting fate to turn you to paste. You seem to be after the second option.”

Julia said, “The gluttons only appearing when they’re already able to bite you is more scary.”

“You need a mana sense,” Tiffany teased.

Julia groused, “Don’t I know it.”

“The Mist Stone Gluttons were dangerous enough,” Ezekiel said, “But even those intangible monsters stayed away from the sky because Thunder Birds roost up there, and they blast apart anything that flies from kilometers away.”

“And…” Julia said, “That’s another thing. I was thinking that I want a Thunder Bird.”

Tiffany laughed. “I should have seen that coming.”

“We can certainly hunt for one.” Ezekiel said, “Anyone else got any [Polymorph] forms they want? Or anything else they think they might want to do?”

“Hunting a bird would be much more dangerous than gluttons.” Paul suggested, “Maybe we stick to gluttons for a little while.”

“Fair enough.”

“Are there any high-level monsters around here?” Tiffany asked, “We could hunt some of those, too.”

“Oh! There’s another way to get points, though.” Julia perked up. “What’s your Quest Board saying, dad? Anything good in the area?”

Tiffany frowned a little, but said nothing.

Julia glanced her way, her eyebrows smushing together in a questioning sort of way.

“Quests, eh?” Ezekiel said, “Let me check.”

“Point of order.” Paul said, “Any Quests posted here would be events that we would wish to avoid.”

Ezekiel waved him off, saying, “Oh! We’ll be fine. Now let’s see...” He brought up the Quest Board.

Not twenty seconds of reading later, Ezekiel began to frown.

Paul ate his congee, knowingly.

Julia looked between the two of them. She frowned. “What?”

“All of these…! What’s up with this?” Ezekiel handed over three to the group, saying, “Now you tell me: Is this what it looks like?”

--

Quest!

Deliver a vase of water to Elder Mirizo Star Song.

Reward: 1 point.

Poster: Rozeta, Dragon Goddess of the Script

Lesser Poster: Elder Mirizo Star Song, of Clan Star Song

--

Quest!

Deliver a vase of water to Elder Bazado Pure Lotus.

Reward: 1 point.

Poster: Rozeta, Dragon Goddess of the Script

Lesser Poster: Elder Bazado Pure Lotus, of Clan Pure Lotus

--

Quest!

Deliver a vase of water to Grand Elder Charkira Star Song.

Reward: 1 point.

Poster: Rozeta, Dragon Goddess of the Script

Lesser Poster: Grand Elder Charkira Wild Song, of Clan Wild Song

--

Julia hummed, reading.

“Ah. Yeah. That. That’s what I was remembering.” Tiffany nodded, as if she had been proven correct. “Yup! This is how Quests go bad. Yet another reason why we don’t do them at S— Home.” She caught herself from speaking of Spur, there at the end.

Julia asked, “And you can do this with Quests? They still have to pay out of their own points, don’t they?”

“Nope.” Paul said, “All you need is someone with a Quest Board to post the Quest and someone with a point to give up, and there you go— Ah. Rozeta does have to approve of it. She doesn’t approve of everything.”

Tiffany said, “If you were to make a Quest that read something like: ‘Go and kill a guy and you will take their points.’ That kinda thing does not work. I think you get smited for that.”

“There’s never been a recorded case of actual smiting, Tiffany,” Paul said.

Tiffany shrugged, “Like I believe the records. Phshh.”

Paul continued, “More normally, Rozeta won’t allow points to be transferred if the people doing the transfer honestly don’t want to do the transfer. You can’t control someone to put their points up for a Quest as Rozeta checks each time someone accesses the Script in any meaningful way, and Quests certainly count.”

“But you could build a culture around Quests and giving points to the people in charge,” Julia said.

“Oh yeah, you can; people do.” Tiffany said, “There’s tons of ways people try to abuse the Script, and themselves, and their children. I heard that some places— Maybe even here? I heard that they have soul mages to fiddle with their noble children to give them 20 in each Stat, across the board, the day after they matriculate!”

Ezekiel’s eyes went wide. “You can do that?”

Julia was equally stunned.

Tiffany nodded, as though she had drawn people into her campfire story. She continued, “Whenever you hear about a noble’s son or daughter going bad a few days after matriculation, that’s when you know that their parents fucked with their souls.”

Ezekiel gave a nervous laughter—

But Julia just barked a full laugh, saying, “You’re fucking with me!”

“I’m not!” Tiffany said, “It’s true!”

“It is true. It does happen,” Paul said.

Ezekiel’s face scrunched as strange half-thoughts filled his mind with disappointment and worse emotions.

Julia stopped laughing. She narrowed her eyes. “How easy is this soul magic? Could I have saved dozens of levels of points? Does it go higher than 20? I heard that’s the natural cutoff for slow growth, but… I don’t really know, now do I?”

Tiffany said, “You don’t want to do this soul surgery. The only people who’ve done it right have each performed hundreds of experiments that went wrong, damning the souls of children into becoming monsters in order to learn their dark arts.”

Ezekiel suddenly stopped believing Tiffany’s horror story; she had taken it too far. “Eh! You can fix the soul before it hurts the person too much, can’t you? I don’t know if such surgery would require a practitioner to drop bodies before they got any good at it. And besides that? Can’t you just do the surgery on animals?”

Tiffany rolled her eyes, then said, “Sure. I can see what you’re saying. But—” She gestured around at the walls of the room, saying, “Look at all the people here. There’s so many, and there’s no homeless because they’re all yanked off of the streets and thrown into the war machine of the Highlands. I am sure that someone heard the same stories I heard, but didn’t have your morals, and practicing on people would always give better results than practicing on animals. If you think someone around here didn’t get deep into that dark magic and then make a successful career out of it, then I got some Immortality Potion to sell you.”

“Okay. Despite that horror.” Ezekiel straightened his face, and with the most serious expression, asked, “How much for the potion?”

Tiffany laughed. Even Paul chuckled.

Julia asked, “And can you make more Immortality Potion? We can gain great favor if you can!”

Tiffany laughed louder, and the rest soon followed.

When the laughter died down, they got back to Quests.

“So what do these people get?” Ezekiel asked, “These people who put up the points for the Quest?”

Paul said, “Broadly speaking, those people who give up their points are elevated from initiate to clan member. I’m sure I have not heard the whole story there, but I have little reason to believe that anyone undertakes this action without knowing exactly what they are doing. So… You tell me? Does that sound like a bad deal?”

Ezekiel said, “It means they can go out and hunt monsters and level properly. Probably with assistance? I know how our Clan works, but not every Clan is the same. And these ones are a lot different than I thought they would be.”

Tiffany frowned. “I still don’t like it. It’s too easy to abuse, and the people who give up to get into the system permanently hurt themselves so those at the top can become even more powerful. Look at these Quests. ‘Give a vase of water to an Elder’. These are repeatable Quests, for sure. Means the powerful around here are running around on an extra 200 Stats, at least.”

Paul shrugged. “It’s how they do it, here.”

Julia said, “Even a guy with 200 Strength is still going to die to a pillar thrown through his head. The Script does ensure this much.”

Tiffany said, “With 200 Strength, I bet that same guy could punch a pillar with his head and be fine.”

“I meant an unaware target, obviously. Such a target would not be fine.”

Tiffany shrugged. “I would be fine.”

“And you’re an orcol.”

Tiffany nodded. “Not everyone is perfect; this is true.”

With a smile, Ezekiel said, “Let’s math it out a bit. With 200 Strength, Scion of Strength, and a Class Ability for Double Health, you’re looking at 48,000 Health.”

Paul said, “But most people around here are Scions of Balance.”

Ezekiel nodded, saying, “And I’m sure they’re more balanced in their Stat distribution, too. 150 to Strength and Willpower, means 18,000 Health, and 18,000 Mana.”

These new numbers meant he could revise his previous calculations, where he dumbed down his own ‘incognito Stats’ to a bare 6000 mana. He could pretend to have 18,000 mana… But his current idea of going at 6000 mana would jive well with him being a ‘Foreign Scion’ that didn’t participate in these sort of Stat games like the Highlands evidently did… Which meant that maybe he shouldn’t revise any numbers at all.

He certainly didn’t have to be quite so calculating about mana costs, though, in case someone was watching. And with [Witness], you could be sure that someone was always watching. At least, back home, his [Prismatic Ward] blocked most of that. Tiffany had only gotten as good as she had because she was able to pierce through that dense air.

“18,000 Health and Mana. Ahh.” Julia said, “A large amount, that. But all it really means is that they have the resources to back up their actions, and to make up for a failed attack.”

“That’s…” Tiffany scowled a bit, then relaxed, saying, “That’s not incorrect. Fights between Scions might last more than a trio of exchanges, if they have the raw Stats to back up a good, actual defense, and if they focus on reflective magics.”

“Anyway!” Julia said, “I want some more Stats. Got any Quests that aren’t based on the systemic abuse of underlings, and that the posters might actually let us complete?”

“I can agree to that,” Tiffany happily said.

“Yeah. I saw a good one.” Ezekiel said, “Here.”

--

Special Quest!

FIND the lost alchemist, Tadashi Diligent Scribe, of the Branch Family Clan Diligent Scribe, beholden to Clan Star Song, of Eralis, and then RETURN Tadashi ALIVE and INTACT to Clan Star Song or to any of the lesser posters of this Quest.

Tadashi was last seen roughly 1900 kilometers northwest of Eralis, deep in spiritual herb territory in the Central Tribulation Mountains. He was captured by bandits.

The return of Tadashi is more important than the murder of bandits.

COMPLICATIONS: He has been afflicted by an Antirhine Elixir. If you have no way of returning him intact and unharmed, then do not pursue this Quest. Do not make yourself an enemy of Eralis.

This Quest has been active for <7 hours>.

Reward: 5 points.

Poster: Rozeta, Dragon Goddess of the Script

Lesser Poster: Elder Mirizo Star Song, Enforcer Sikali Song of Clan Star Song. Elder Doniro Diligent Scribe of Clan Diligent Scribe.

--

“I wanted a good in with the Clans.” Ezekiel said, “This is perfect.”

Julia laughed as she read, “We’re just going to drop all attempts at subterfuge, then?”

“Yes. If it means saving someone’s life.”

Julia eyed her father. “I didn’t expect so much enthusiasm, but I suppose I should have.”

Ezekiel said, “We’ll try to be circumspect, but if we get backed into an unwinnable corner, then yeah. No more subterfuge. I’ve never seen a Quest with a timer on it, so this guy is obviously important to someone.” He added, “And it’s his life, which is more than enough reason to do this.” He frowned. “I’m not sure how best to transport a guy with an antirhine problem, though. Can’t be [Teleport]ed. Eh. Wrap him in a comfortable box and drag it behind on a chain, or something? Attach a flying spell to the other end of the chain, of course. But… Hmm… We did see a lot of monsters in the air over the mountains.”

Julia suggested, “Just go up high enough?” She looked to Odin, saying, “He did fine, didn’t he? Ah. But. Yeah. Thunder Birds. They hunt by sound, and Odin was light, so that just avoided the problem, but you can’t avoid this problem with an antirhine person dragging behind you. If they’re not themselves detected, then the box they’re loaded into, or whatever, would be detected.”

“Yup.” Ezekiel said, “Got it, exactly.”

Julia shrugged. “Just kill all of the Thunder Birds. Or Stop them; make them fall out of the sky. That was my original idea for bird hunting, anyway.”

Ezekiel nodded, then asked, “But how to find Tadashi?”

Julia laughed. “You know how.”

“Yes. But…” Ezekiel considered. “They’d see it almost instantly… Though I could put it up well away from the mountains? Now there’s an idea.”

Paul said, “We should not take that chance. Someone would see it. Especially if people are searching for strange magical effects, which they will be. 5 points is a lot.”

“There’s always the manual way.” Tiffany said, “You have 10 Odin and [Witness], after all.”

Odin chirped in violin twangs.

Julia looked to Tiffany, saying, “Yeah, but surely they’ve tried those methods before?”

Tiffany shrugged. “Possibly. If it was us, we would have exhausted all the normal methods already. Including esoteric ones like [Shadowalk] hunting, and [Familiar]s geared toward searching. Honestly, there are so many ways to hide, and there are just as many ways to find. If someone doesn’t want to be found in the Tribulation Mountains they could just dig a deep hole and you’d literally never find them.” She frowned, then added, “Or maybe not. There are probably horrible things living underground, too.”

“Yes, there are.” Ezekiel said, “But you have given me a [Familiar] idea, though.”

Julia countered, “I’m pretty sure that 10 Odin is very conspicuous.”

“Of course he is. Which is why I don’t want to do that.” Ezekiel decided, “Not a [Familiar], though. Something I can cast a hundred times. But… Hmm.”

“Point of order, again.” Paul said, “We should probably avoid rushing to find this guy. We are not prepared for such a thing, and —after asking around, just now— I am one hundred percent certain that Tadashi is already being searched for by every power in the area. 5 points is a lot, and this is their culture; they go for these Quests pretty hard.”

Ezekiel went silent, in thought. Tiffany and Julia finished off their bowls of congee, silently thinking. Paul did the same.

With her bowl empty, Julia said, “I still want points, but not if it’ll get us killed. This seems like something that they would kill over, especially if what that driver said is true; that Clans are able to legally murder whoever they want. If everyone is going after him, then we’ll be in their sights, too.”

Tiffany nodded. “Yeah. Hunting for that guy is a bad idea.”

Ezekiel decided that Paul was right. He wasn’t prepared for such a rescue, and Nelboor was full of war.

And looking over the spells he would have used to make a ‘[Searching Buddy]’, [Cascade Imaging] cost 500 mana. Combining that with [Conjure Force Elemental] to create a searching magic was only the barest idea of such a spell. This idea was already 510-plus mana. Such a working was economically nonviable. He needed a 50 to 150 mana spell, at the most. Something to flood a super large area with searchers.

And that base idea wasn’t even touching upon the other magics that he would want to put into such a [Searching Buddy]. Would he want a map to pop up where he was? Or would he want the conjured beings to report back to him, somehow? Or maybe they could just send a flare into the sky once they found the target?

Yeah. Paul was right.

He wasn’t prepared to find Tadashi, and even if he could be after an hour of brainstorming, the alchemist was already being searched for by all the major powers of the area.

- - - -

Ezekiel, Julia, Tiffany, and Paul, stood on the windswept plains northwest of Eralis where no one roamed but the wind, and those looking for trouble. The mountains were still a few lightsteps away, full of monsters and money, and at least one tortured alchemist.

The Quest had said that the man had vanished about a thousand kilometers in that direction, in the center of the South Central Tribulation Mountains.

So Ezekiel looked… to the left. Their monster hunting destination laid a good 900 kilometers south of Tadashi’s vanishing, two valleys over from where they had been yesterday. They shouldn’t run into any trouble with any bandits, or accidentally run into any scions or young masters searching for their 5-point prize.

Accidentally running into Tadashi was perfectly fine, but Ezekiel wasn’t about to encourage such reckless action.

… Maybe if no one found the alchemist by the end of the day, he would risk a [Cascade Imaging] to search for people, and then he’d check in on all of those resulting blue dots. But not before then.

Odin scouted ahead to the target valley. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the deep mist of that particular valley. No blooming fires. No wars happening right in front of Odin. No missing alchemists out in the open. There were monsters down there, of course, but that was expected.

With a light step, the four exiled members of Clan Phoenix were once again surrounded by mist.

The Mist Stone Gluttons attacked four minutes later.

In a particular ‘oh shit!’ moment, one of them managed to bite into Ezekiel’s thigh and claw up and down his side at the same time, before Ezekiel hit his emergency button and turned to light, letting the monster flow through him without so much as another point of damage. His thorny shield had stuck itself in the monster's jaw and thus prevented a lot of damage, but the monster was three times Ezekiel’s size, and thus more than able to claw around the tiny deflector.

Ezekiel had taken a claw to the face, directly on an eye, for a critical, and yet...

Killing that beast and the rest was a simple matter of a few more moments of effort. When Ezekiel came back to his body, he checked himself. His [Animadversion] had prevented most of the attack, while his [Personal Ward] had taken all the actual damage and his magenta armor mitigated most of that, anyway. The claw to his eye had scraped at nothing, inflicting no harm. Sure, he had taken damage, but that damage was all to resources that could regenerate. Ezekiel himself looked no worse for wear. His [Personal Ward] would need an hour to regenerate, but by his estimates, he could take another two or three full, direct attacks like that, and not be too worried. He would probably survive even if the monster got a better critical than it had.

And so! He had defenses. They worked. And if the monsters got through his defenses, he had Constitution to fall back on. Ezekiel was stronger than most threats, but threats were still threats.