Path of Stars, Ch 13: Umbral Ghasts (Patreon)

A faint impression of shadows on the wind came to Sam, making him glance up. It wasn’t much, but it hadn’t been there a moment before. His senses swept out across the region as he looked over at Sleset.

Two weeks had passed and they were halfway through the area, but so far no bandits had shown up, only a couple of beasts. Their pelts were now part of the stack that Sleset was carting around. Even at 23 feet tall, the naga was dwarfed by the bundle.

The pelts were tightly layered, but it was forty feet wide and almost as high. It was almost surprising it hadn’t fallen apart yet. That was due to the binding runes Sam had woven into the cords.

“There’s something coming,” he said as he continued to scan the region. His voice traveled quietly to Sleset and then faded away into the Void. “Get ready, but act like you don’t notice. When they’re here, release the bundle.”

Sleset bowed in acknowledgement, but chose not to speak since his voice was not as easily hidden. Instead, the silver patterns on his scales glowed as a wisp of mana flowed through them, bringing to life subtle, shifting sigils.

With a few quiet runes, concentrated spirals of crystal flame flared around Sam’s arms and took the shape of two bracers, which then changed their appearance until they looked like dark, nondescript metal. Nonetheless, bright pinpricks of astral energy appeared on the surface like shifting stars, rising and falling inside.

For the next hour, they continued to walk forward as if nothing were wrong, but all around them, Sam could sense shadowy presences moving into place. They were hiding, but they stood out in his sight like dark grey blotches against the stars. He wasn’t sure what they were, but he got a general sense of their strength as he watched them from the corner of his eye.

From their mana signatures, most of them were somewhere in the low Third Evolution, about the same as Sleset, but there were two who were a bit stronger, closer to the middle of the Third Evolution. Those two would be more difficult, but it wasn’t enough to make him change his plan.

A few more minutes passed as the shadows gathered and then one of the stronger ones blurred forward and took up a position about three hundred feet ahead, blocking the path as it faded into existence.

It was still trying to hide in grey shadows that gave it a blurry and indistinct outline, but they were no barrier to Sam’s eyesight. He studied it calmly as he came to a halt. Behind him, he sensed Sleset releasing the bundle.

“Hehe...” The figure said with an ugly laugh as he looked at Sam and then at Sleset. It had a threatening posture as it raised a halberd in its hands. “You’re as dumb as you look, aren’t you? You don’t even know what’s happening. Hand over that bundle and then kneel down, and maybe I’ll let you live.”

As the creature spoke, Sam analyzed him.

Galsen Hutes. Level 346. Bloodstalker-Shadow Spear.

Race: Umbral Ghast. Status: Exile, Traitor, Cannibal.

Affiliation: Leader of the Gold Ring Mercenaries.

A warrant for his death has been issued by the Ivory Sail Merchant Guild and fourteen other Borderland organizations. The bounty is 1,000 gold astral coins. Proof of his death must be provided at a regional guild office.

Sam raised an eyebrow at the description. From the wording, it didn’t look like anyone would miss the bandit. He’d gotten a decent idea of value from Sleset, and a thousand gold coins was enough for someone to live well in the Borderlands for at least a decade. Whatever the bandit had done, someone definitely wasn’t happy about it.

He wasn’t that interested in the bounty, since he had no real use for coins, but if he had the chance, he could always send Sleset to collect it.

“An Umbral Ghast!” Sleset hissed in surprise. “Evil creature, it is no surprise you were exiled here! Your kind is always involved in the darkest acts. Be careful, my lord, they are dangerous and vile. I heard rumors there was a band of them in the Borderlands, but I didn’t think we would encounter one.”

“There is more than one,” Sam said as he waved his hand to the side to where some of the ghasts were hiding. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so confident. But there’s no need to talk.”

He chuckled as he studied the leader.

“You’ve come to steal and kill. Why are you wasting time?”

“You’re not like the stories of Wild Giants.” A trace of doubt shadowed Galsen’s features as he hesitated. He’d probably never met someone before who told him to hurry up with the banditry.

“Who said I was a Wild Giant?” Sam asked with a slight smile. A rush of impending battle was burning through his veins, making him feel delighted after all of the time waiting.

“What?” Galsen looked confused, but then he snarled as he waved his hands at his troops. “Get him! I don’t care if he’s a giant or a rock elemental. Don’t let that naga go either. I want his pack. And I want to taste his fear! Make him suffer!”

At that command, half a dozen of the Umbral Ghasts faded into view on either side. Only the smaller group to the rear stayed hidden, but Sam could sense flickers of shadowy abilities forming around them.

“Be careful, Sleset,” Sam said with a grin as crystal flame spiraled around him. “I don’t want to have to find a new naga.”

“Your concern is most appreciated, my lord,” Sleset said with a grumble as he put his back to the pack he’d just dropped and turned to face the bandits on the right. Two dark arrows were already flying toward him. The silver lines on his scales flared outward and formed a shield that blocked them with a crack.

Sleset left the four curved blades in their sheaths as his hands rose in response. Silver and emerald sigils appeared in the air like ghosts, each of them looking like they were carved from scales. A dark sense of venom and ice radiated from the ability and then there was a flash of bright fangs as the sigils condensed and shot toward the bandits like a wave of arrows.

The ability was part of Sleset’s Ensigiled Sorcerer subclass, which Sam hadn’t seen much of and so he watched it with some curiosity. Sleset had only blocked two of the arrows heading in their direction, but the rest of them were stuck in the air a dozen feet away, frozen over in a layer of translucent white ice, and the surface of Sam’s cloak flickered with a tendril of icy mist.

“Sorcerer!” One of the bandits shouted in surprise as he raised his bow in front of him. The sigils condensed into silver-green spikes and they slammed into him with a hiss of smoking venom, leaving two dark holes on his chest.

The bandit spasmed as he tried to reach for the wounds, but before he could touch them, his body locked up, sending him into convulsions as he fell over. Sigils crawled across his chest, tearing free and then stabbing back in again like they were living things, and new wounds continued to appear.

Sam nodded as he formed a bright rune in the air and tossed it at Sleset. When it reached the naga, it covered him in a layer of scintillating sapphire light. Then the crystal flame around Sam flared as he disappeared.

Galsen had been trying to attack, but his halberd was blocked by a curl of sapphire flame that had bound it in place. Now that Sam was gone, he was able to yank it free.

“Teleportation!” Galsen shouted in alarm as he waved to his men. “Quick! Get the net around him when he shows up again!”

Sleset scoffed with a low and amused hiss, but he didn’t bother replying to the bandit. Instead, more sigils were rising from his scales. These were larger than before with a dense mana signature. As they took shape, they locked together to create a lifelike and massive coiling serpent that was fifty feet long and two feet wide.

With a flick of its tail, the serpent bared its fangs and charged after one of the bandits.

At that moment, Sam reappeared behind the group of six ghasts on the far side. His cloak billowed out behind him like a wave as he gathered the elemental wind in the area between his hands and began to shape it. Strands of green Wood and crimson Fire were prominent in the sphere as runes flickered and disappeared into the spell.

It didn’t take him long to finish and when he looked up at the bandits in front of him, they were only just beginning to react to his presence. He grinned at them with a flash of his fangs, and then the elemental sphere flew toward them as it expanded.

Eighteen bandits was a lot, which made this a little more difficult than he’d been planning, but it was within his range of expectations. It just meant he had time to test out a few things. His Spell Forging was closely related to his crafting abilities and his understanding of concepts and runes. Ever since he’d started to attune himself to the Void, ideas about it had been flickering in his mind.

The sphere turned translucent as a whipping wind made from elemental Fire and Wood appeared around the bandits. It curled around like it was alive, morphing between flickers of flame and leaves. The chaos winds that were blowing through the area became stronger as they were drawn to it. They concentrated around the group of bandits as a vortex formed.

“What’s this?!” One of the bandits shouted in alarm as he looked at the wall of elemental energy closing in.

“It’s a vortex,” Sam explained helpfully as he stood off to the side and watched with curiosity. “It will draw together the chaos winds here, concentrating them for a short time. I’m looking forward to the result.”

“The chaos winds?!” An Umbral Ghast raised a saber as he hacked at the vortex, but his blade only passed through it with a crackle of energy as it began to turn faster. By this point, it was a wall surrounding the six bandits. “They’re hard enough to resist normally! How could you intensify them?!”

Sam ignored him as he made sure the group was trapped, and then he looked over to check on Sleset. On the other side of the ambush, the second group was beginning to surround the naga, but the ensigiled serpent that Sleset had summoned was coiling through them and causing chaos.

Each time the serpent moved, it wrapped around a limb or waist, crushing bones and hurling them away. Its tail flicked like a whip with hammer blows as it slammed the ghasts from side to side. Then, with an enormous flex of its muscles, its fanged mouth opened enormously wide as it lunged forward and swallowed an Umbral Ghast.

It wasn’t entirely one-sided, however, as the ghasts were hacking at it with their weapons and carving off giant wisps of energy. Two of them stabbed long claws into it as they tore open a wound along its back that sizzled with cold venom and grey shadows. It looked like it wouldn’t last too much longer, but Sleset wasn’t standing still.

The naga had his four blades drawn now as he charged toward one of the bandits on the edge of the group. He was four times the height of the ghast and it looked like it was going to be a one-sided battle, even though the ghast’s claws were sharp and glinting.

When it saw Sleset coming, the ghast let out a fanged hiss and spat a bolt of grey saliva at him, which left a smoking trail in the air.

“Joboa, what are you waiting for?!” Galsen was standing off to the side, his expression dark as he shouted to the bandits still in the distance. “Get in here and help!”

A moment later, the remaining five bandits faded out of existence and then reappeared near Sam, where they instantly attacked. Their leader gave Sam a sense of faint threat when he analyzed him, making it clear that he was one of the two stronger bandits he’d sensed, but he didn’t pay it much attention.

Two of the bandits were holding onto a large grey net that shimmered with spatial energy as they hurled it toward him. Surprisingly, there was a sense of spatial compression from it that was much stronger than he’d expected. The net became larger as it flew until it covered almost a hundred feet.

Sam chuckled, but the net interested him, so instead of slashing through it, a field of sparkling, blue-white shards flew out from his hands. They were Ironclaw Wildling talons that he’d enchanted and infused with astral ice to make a set of artifacts.

He hadn’t spent all of that time crafting for no reason.

As the shards scattered across the area, strands of shimmering and translucent ice stretched between them, creating a net of his own that was far larger than the one the ghasts had pulled out. It swept over the grey net as runes flared in the spaces between the talons and the ice grew denser, swiftly covering the net in layers of blue-white ice.

A moment later, the net was frozen in place like a grey spider web strung across the Void. Scintillating white icicles had formed along the strands, making it look like a brilliant snowflake in the air.

As the ghasts saw what happened, their leader looked shocked. Instead of fighting, he waved his arms outward with a flare of grey shadows and then the team began to fade away, their forms blurring.

Sam shook his head at that, and before the ghasts could disappear, he raised his arms. The rune-worked bracers that he’d condensed from crystal flame instantly flared to life as they dissolved into a field of sparkling sapphire meteors and tore through the air.

The meteors closed the distance in less than a second as they exploded through the area where the ghasts were standing. Crystalline runes formed between the blasts, glittering like frozen diamonds as they fused into the structure of the Void. Then they fractured. Shockwaves rippled outward in a series of thunderous, earthshaking concussions that disrupted the spatial transfer and hurled the ghasts away.

Thin screams followed as the ghasts were torn to pieces, half of their bodies still present while the other half disintegrated under the spatial forces. Even their leader had no defense as the spatial forces tore him apart. Then the fiery blasts from the meteors washed over them, incinerating everything that remained.

Sam turned away, paying no more attention to the remains of the ghasts or to the spatial web he’d frozen. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about spatial abilities in the Void while healing, and he’d tested Crystal Passage to confirm some of his theories.

As a result, he’d finally figured out a few things related to his Astral Void ability.

The Void was like a vast ocean. Just like an oar could stir the waves, there were many things that could make it turn violent. Causing a disturbance was simple.

Meanwhile, the six ghasts he’d trapped in the sphere of chaos winds were attacking the wall of elements with all their force, but every time they came into contact with it, shards of material fell away from their weapons. Now and then, lashing winds crashed into them with a hurricane force, tearing through armor and flesh with equal ease.

They wouldn’t survive much longer.

Their armor and levels had barely enabled them to resist the chaos winds at their normal level. Now that those were heightened, they were doomed. Sam ignored them as he turned toward Sleset and waved his hand.

Five dozen crimson stars appeared from the depths of his cloak, shooting like arrows through the Void. They were smaller than the meteors he’d just used, but there were far more of them. They shot across the distance like fireflies, swooping through the air as they tracked the movements of the ghasts and then hurtled downward.

Dozens of crimson lances flared as the area was filled with a web of astral fire. Hisses and screams rose up from the bandits, but their attempts to flee were too slow. The lances struck through them like flaming needles, tearing through their shadows and armor in an instant.

On closer inspection, each of them was a tiny crimson gem. They’d once been the forehead gems of the Fireshadow Stalkers, but they had been carved into a set of much smaller gems and infused with astral fire. The enchantment on them preserved their ability to lock onto their foes.

A few moments later, the gems flew back toward Sam, their flames dim, and he collected them with a wave of his hand. The artifacts had expended most of the energy he’d stored in them, but they were still in good shape. He nodded as he tossed them back into his cloak.

With another flick of his hand, he retrieved the white shards and spatial net they’d trapped too. A shake of the web scattered the frost on it before he stored the items away in his cloak. He’d examine it later to see if it had any interesting runes.

With that, a flare of crystal flame surrounded him and he stepped through the Void, reappearing in front of the only remaining bandit, the leader called Galsen. Only a couple of minutes had passed since they’d first appeared and the speed of the battle had left the ghast staring around him in shock.

“How could you have so many rare artifacts?!” he shouted in disbelief as he saw Sam appear. “Wild Giants are supposed to be stupid! How do you even have the Intelligence to control them all?!”

Instead of attacking, he had a look of terror on his face as he turned and ran. Swirling grey shadows surrounded him as he faded into the distance.

Unknown to Galsen, as he crossed a certain area, a flickering rune of silver light sank onto his boot just before he disappeared. A similar light shone from deep within the bundle of furs.

Behind him, Sam stood in the remains of the battlefield, his eyes calm as he watched the ghast trigger the net. Except for the whistling of the chaos winds, the battlefield was silent. Even the bandits trapped inside the sphere had disintegrated.

A few moments later, Sleset finished gathering up items from the bandits and came to stand next to Sam, his eyes dark as he glowered after the leader.

“Should I pursue him, my lord?” Sleset asked with a frown. “Umbral Ghasts who have been exiled have usually done terrible things. Their race thrives on the pain of others. It would be best to eliminate him, especially before rumors can spread.”

“In time,” Sam agreed. “Let’s see where he goes first. Perhaps he’ll lead us to more bandits.”

“That was easier than expected,” Sleset said with a bit of fear as he looked at Sam. “My lord is truly powerful.”

“It was only a matter of preparing,” Sam said, shaking his head. “If they’d actually surprised us, it would have been more difficult.”

“If my lord says so,” Sleset replied doubtfully as he glanced toward where the bandits had disintegrated and the ice crystals that were still shimmering in the Void. His disagreement was obvious, but Sam didn’t pay any attention to it.

“I’m more impressed by your abilities,” Sam said with a slight smile. “You were dealing well with those six bandits. You’ll have to tell me about this Ensigiled Sorcerer class.”

He already knew that the Deep Hunter class the naga had was relatively common to the Deep Wilds. Many melee classes here were able to take it at their Third Evolution and a lot of them did, since it conferred some resistance to the elemental winds and tracking abilities, as well as a general upgrade to their strength and survivability.

Of the two, the naga’s subclass was far more interesting.

“It is only a minor subclass,” Sleset said humbly, but he was clearly pleased. “It focuses on bringing sigils to life, as well as some forms of curses and venom. It is useful for weakening enemies and slowing them down. It is my honor to be of assistance to my lord.”

Sam nodded as he looked around the area, making sure it was clear. Sleset had gathered up the bundle of furs and dragged it along with him, and it was pulsing with a bright silver light that pointed in the direction the ghast had gone.

“The tracking enchantment should be able to find him anywhere in this system,” Sam said thoughtfully as he glanced at it. “Let’s see where he runs.”

*****

A few hours passed as Sam and Sleset followed Galsen at a distance. The bandit was swift for a non-spatial class, but it was little more than an idle stroll for Sam to follow him. The main thing was to not startle him, since he wanted to give the bandit a sense of safety to see what he would do.

Eventually the bandit stopped running once he reached the outskirts of a small red moon. There were some run-down buildings in the area, but it looked like they had been abandoned long ago. The tracker pointed to a location just below one of the buildings that was set off to the side of the main cluster.

Here and there, debris and bones marked the area and filled some of the doorways, making it look very disreputable, more like a trash heap than a camp, and Sam shook his head in disgust. On the way here, Sleset had told him more about Umbral Ghasts, and none of it was good, but this was clearly a choice the bandits had made. They’d abandoned their dignity along with their morals.

At least it didn’t look like Galsen was going anywhere.

He spent a couple more hours watching the area from a distance, but when Galsen showed no further sign of movement, he decided it was long enough.

“Let’s go,” he said to Sleset as the two of them landed in front of the building where Galsen was hiding. “Do what you can to block the area off.”

Beside him, the naga nodded and a swarm of sigils rose out of his scales like wisps of smoke. They formed into a strange emerald script with pointed lines like fangs and then fused into the air. A moment later, a wall of swirling green light appeared around the building.

The naga concentrated and a glittering sphere of matching light appeared in his hands, apparently the focal point for the ward he’d just set.

Sam nodded and waved his hand as he pulled on a thread of Ice that was in a nearby wind. He drew it closer and intensified it with a flicker of runes before he sent it into a howling spiral outside Sleset’s barrier. It would only last for more than an hour or two, but that should be enough.

With that, he reached forward and tore the door off its hinges and hurled it to the side. The building was far too small for him or Sleset to enter with their current height. While he could have shrunk himself and left Sleset to guard the entrance, he chose a different route.

The foundation of the building trembled as he poured his essence into the stones that made it up and called to them. Brick by brick, the building shuddered as it began to come apart. Stones flew away into the air like gravity had reversed.

With a flick of his hand, Sam diverted the stones toward the ice barrier. They were instantly coated in ice and began to whistle around the area with a hurricane force as they were trapped in the wind.

It didn’t take him long to dismantle the first floor and dig his way down into the basement. The stones of the foundation followed, until there was only a deepening pit heading in the direction of the bandit. It looked like he’d buried himself well underground, or perhaps Umbral Ghasts liked caves.

Sam continued to shift the rock until the pit was nearly two hundred feet deep and it was there that he finally discovered the bandit, who was holding his halberd in clenched white fists as he stared upward. His eyes were streaks of grey shadow as a deep sanguine aura fluctuated around him and covered half of his body.

It looked like something related to his Bloodstalker class, while the halberd and the shadows probably went with his Shadow Spear subclass. Sam ignored the bandit’s alarm as he looked down into the hole.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to taste fear?” he asked calmly. He had no sympathy for bandits, especially not one that had wanted to kill and torture him. “This is what yours tastes like. All of those you preyed upon in the past have come back to haunt you.”

Galsen attacked immediately, swinging his halberd with a hideous snarl on his face. Bloody light flowed along his arms as shadows clung to him, both pouring into his attack.

“You killed my men!” he shouted ferociously as he leapt upward toward Sam. “I’ll have your head for that!”

If he’d been the same size as Sam, it might have seemed threatening, but he was only about seven feet tall and his halberd was only a foot longer than that.

Sam’s hand was half the size of the halberd and shimmered with sparkling ice as he effortlessly caught it with one hand. There wasn’t even a trace strain as he held it in place.

“With just you?” Sam asked calmly. “Or do you have something here to rely on?”

Spiraling bands of crystal flame and astral ice swept around the ghast and the halberd, sealing them into place as he lifted the creature up to his eye level and stared at him.

He could feel the strength of the Level 346 ghast as he struggled. If he had just been holding him with his hand, it might have been difficult to stop him, but with the spells wrapped around him, the ghast had no hope of escaping.

The bandit glanced around with a flicker of disbelief, as if he didn’t understand how Sam could be so strong. Some bandits would have given in to fear, but Galsen became angrier as he continued to struggle.

“This was all a trap wasn’t it?!” he shouted fiercely as he tried to break free. “Did the Ivory Sail hire you for this? The Azure Sky? They’ll never get their ore back!”

Galsen continued to snarl as his pointed fangs and grey claws tore at Sam’s hand, but the attacks slid off a layer of translucent ice. Seeing that he couldn’t get free, the Umbral Ghast managed to reach a hand into his shirt and pulled out a metallic red-black sphere that was about three inches across.

The sphere activated as Galsen held it, flaring with a sense of essence inside. It was some combination of a beast core and an essence stone with a clear divide between the two parts, which was maintained by a thin plate of bone carved with runes. The energy on either side felt antithetical to one another.

“Be careful, my lord!” Sleset shouted. He tried to lunge forward, but he was too far away to grab the sphere from Galsen. “That’s a core breaker!”

“If I can’t escape, then you’ll die with me!” the ghast shouted as he raised the artifact and squeezed it. A pulse of angry red light flared at the center of the item as the bone separator shattered and the essence stone and the beast core were crushed into one.

Tiny attraction runes carved onto the bone shards flared to life as they accelerated the essence, smashing the two types of energies together. A twisting field of Fire and Wind exploded outward from the core.

Sam only had time to toss Galsen’s body away as he held up his hand in front of him. Then a wave of essence-laden Fire washed over him. At the same time, his cloak flared outward, creating a barrier between him and Sleset.

The center of the pit turned into an inferno as the Fire and Wind energies twisted around one another, each feeding into the other. Crimson flames licked at the sides of the pit like it was an opening to the underworld, heating chunks of the stone until they ran in streaks toward the center.

The energy from the blast lasted about a minute before it began to weaken. As it faded, there was a shimmer of blue-white in the air that made a dividing line between the edge of the pit where Sam had been standing and the area behind him, where Sleset was.

The naga had his arms crossed over his head and was ducking, looking away from the flames, but there wasn’t a mark on him. In front of him, the ice wall rippled as it shrank back down to its normal size as Sam’s cloak.

It revealed Sam standing there with an irritated frown, but there wasn’t even a mark on his skin. The only sign of the core breaker’s effect was a drifting wisp of smoke in the air and the smell of charred stone. Galsen’s body was nowhere to be seen. Sleset’s eyes widened as he looked up, but he appeared to be too stunned to say anything.

“Interesting,” Sam announced as he looked down at his hand where Galsen had been. A few flames were still wrapped around his talons, flickering in the air, and one shard of bone was grasped between his fingers with a rune on it. He held the bone up as he studied the rune on it and then he tossed it away. “What was that thing?”

“Core breakers are dangerous tools made from local beast materials and essence stones,” Sleset said slowly. “They are risky even for the user. The market for them is questionable, but they are frequently seen in the shadier parts of the Chaos Wild. Some believe they are a good defense against beasts if nothing else works.”

“I see. It’s lucky that it was mostly Fire,” Sam said calmly. He’d been immune to Fire for a long time. “Shadow or blood energy from his classes would have been more difficult to deal with.”

As it was, the blast had been weaker than his forge flame

“He said something about rare ores that got my attention,” Sam added. “Help me look around to see what’s here.”

“Yes, my lord,” Sleset said as he bowed. His eyes were still wide.

*****

For a while, the two of them searched across the bandit hideout until they located a storeroom that was half full of roughly refined metal ingots and broken crates. They were arranged in stacks in front of a small and broken ship, which looked like it had been carrying them at one point. At first, his attention was on the ore, but once he noticed the strangeness of the ship, he began to study it instead.

It was similar in some ways to a sailing ship that might have been on the oceans, but its hull was carved with runes on the outside and its sail was made of some type of translucent beast hide that caught the light.

Even as it rested there, the sail billowed slightly as the chaos winds blew past and the hull of the ship trembled as if it were nearly as light as air. The effect was either a natural feature of the material or the result of being refined, and Sam studied it with a thoughtful frown.

“What’s this?” Sam asked as he rapped his knuckles on the surface of the ship.

“A guild transport ship,” Sleset said with a frown as he folded his arms across his chest and swayed on his tail. It was a thoughtful pose for him. “They’re rare, since the materials for them are difficult to find. They’re used for expensive shipments throughout the Borderland and sometimes into the Chaos Wild. The sails of these ships are made from beast hides that can catch the chaos winds and the wood is usually far more durable than it appears, protecting the cargo.

“They offer a form of shelter to those who can’t resist the winds themselves, so anyone traveling the Border who’s under the Third Evolution usually needs to ride on a ship similar to this, or to have a strong protective artifact to defend themselves from the wind. This one must have been transporting the ore when the bandits attacked it, but I’m surprised they managed to seize it. They’re usually heavily guarded.”

“It looks like there was a fight for the ship before the Umbral Ghasts found it,” Sam said after a few minutes of studying the hull. “There are traces of blood on the wood that have dried at different times, and there are broken defensive enchantments with beast blood on top. It looks like they fought something much stronger than the ghasts first, and then the bandits took advantage later.”

There was still a trace of essence in the beast blood, although he wasn’t sure of the type of beast, but he didn’t mention that to Sleset. He wasn’t sure how much the naga understood about essence or the balance between essence and experience, and it was too much a part of the Titans for him to casually explain it.

“They must have hauled it here,” Sleset agreed. “But the bandits were insane to attack it. The guilds would never let this type of matter go. Look here.” He pointed at a small mark on the hull of the ship that looked like a white sail. “This is the mark of the Ivory Sail merchant guild. Do you remember what that fellow was shouting? He thought the Ivory Sail had hired us to kill him. It’s probably related.”

“So, the bandits took advantage of this shipment that was valuable to the guild,” Sam said with a nod, but his frown was deeper as he glanced at the ore to the side. “There’s something else here though. The ore is strange. I wonder where they were coming from.”

“Ores are shipped throughout the Border,” Sleset agreed, “mostly back to the stable galaxy. Spatial artifacts that can resist the chaos winds are difficult to find here. Most of them explode in the wilds, and those that do endure are small, so ships like these are used to transport bulk, if it’s valuable enough. I know most of the common ores, but I’ve never seen this one before. It must be valuable.”

“Probably, but that’s not what’s interesting to me.” Sam studied the ore thoughtfully as he analyzed it. It had a dark green sheen with swirling highlights on top of a darker black like the Void.

Virescent Aurora Ore.

Attunement: Void, Wind, Light.

Partially refined ingot. Medium quality.

There wasn’t much other information on it, but the Path was able to identify it. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he examined it. It looked like it would be a good material for making Wind-aligned artifacts and it gave him an idea for repairing his bracers to withstand the chaos winds, but the medium quality of it bothered him.

He wanted to rebuild them into the best possible artifacts, and that meant using high quality materials. If he used medium-quality ore on them, he might regret it later.

Nonetheless, he didn’t hesitate to sweep his hand across the collection of ore and store it in his cloak, since it might come in useful later. There were several hundred rough ingots, and perhaps if he refined them some more the quality would improve.

Sleset just nodded, as if had expected that, and then he looked at the ship with a gleam in his eye.

“It’s a shame the ship can’t fly anymore,” he said. “The enchantment looks shattered, but it’s worth quite a bit, and the hull is almost entirely intact. At the very least, the guild would pay a handsome ransom for its return.”

Sam rubbed his chin as he studied the ship, letting his aura flow through the material as he studied the runes that had been there and imprinted them in his memory. When he was done, he walked around the hull, imagining what the completed enchantment would have looked like. All but a fraction of the original hull was still present. It was just broken, with splintered planks bent inward where claws or weapons had crushed it.

After a little while, he nodded.

He placed his hand on one of the hull’s runes and poured his essence into it. A flare of silver light washed over the ship as the enchantment on it came to life. Runes burned along the wood and the sail brightened, becoming a translucent gold sheet.

Some of the runes were badly broken, but more than half were still intact, and when he saw them flare to life, he intensified his efforts, focusing on his Aura Regeneration ability. Essence flowed out of his hand like water as he felt his energy diminishing, but he didn’t stop.

He could tell that the ship had once had a self-repair feature. If that had still been working, then with enough aura and mana to sustain it, it would have been able to fix itself. Fortunately, that didn’t mean much to him. He’d repaired a divine artifact with abilities that were far lower than what he had now.

He searched for the original aura lines of the enchantment as he continued to pour essence into them. He could have studied the enchantment and recarved it on his own like he had with the Moonlight Relic, but he was taking a shortcut instead.

Aura Regeneration was designed to fix far more complex things than a broken enchantment, and he was fairly confident it would work.

A moment later, he was proved right as the ship began to shudder. The shattered runes began to spark as they surged with aura and bridged the gaps. Connections all across the ship began to merge as the enchantment flared in a thousand brilliant points.

Rune linked to rune as the entire ship came to life.

A hum built up in the air as mana radiated off the hull in waves and then the ship trembled, rising upward as the holes in its seal began to seal over with a sparkling web of light. The runes burned brightly as they restored themselves, taking their original shapes on the hull.

It took a while, and over half of his essence pool, but the ship was floating again.

Before it was fully active, he searched through the enchantment and located the signal beacon that was there. When it had enough mana again, that feature would send a message back to its home base so the guild could find it. His hands flickered in the air as he carved a series of runes and sent them whistling toward that section.

The enchantment flared with silver light as his runes sliced away the old ones and replaced them, linking the ship to him instead.

To the side, Sleset’s eyes were wider than ever, but Sam didn’t pay him any attention. Repairing enchantments was practically his second nature.

“There’s no reason to let it rot,” he said with a chuckle as he studied the result. “It would have been difficult if the enchantment was weak, but someone put a lot of effort into it originally. The quality was still there. I may as well keep it.”

“But the Ivory Sail merchant guild,” Sleset said hesitantly. “Don’t you think they’ll want it back?”

“They’re not the only ones with these ships, right?” Sam asked as he pointed at the ivory sail marking on the hull. It was far more prominent now as it gleamed on the prow. “That mark was placed by a different enchanter. As far as the Ivory Sail is concerned, their ship was destroyed by bandits.”

His hand came down on top of the mark, and when he lifted it again, the sail was gone. Instead, it was a curl of sapphire flame around a nine-pointed silver star.

“There,” he said cheerfully. “It’s mine now. It might be useful once I upgrade the enchantments on it. They’re a little weak.”

With a tap of his finger on the hull, the ship was surrounded by a spatial distortion and then shrank until it could fit on the palm of his hand, and then he tossed it into his cloak with the ore.

“Now, the more important question is where this ore came from,” he continued. “Its quality isn’t very high, but I’ve been looking for something like this. If I can find the original vein, it might work for what I have in mind.”

He was hoping that the vein would have a higher quality section of ore, or even a related ore of a different type with a stronger affinity for the Void. That would allow him to reforge at least one of his bracers.

Maybe both.

As he looked around the storeroom, he glanced at the notifications hanging at the edge of his mind, and he decided to deal with them before he moved on. The bandits should have had a decent amount of experience, even if some of it went to Sleset.

He waved away the individual messages as he condensed the information into the final result.

Congratulations! You are now a Level 208 Astral Artificer.

You gain 15 Strength, 15 Constitution, 15 Wisdom, 30 Intelligence, 30 Aura, and have 36 free attribute points to distribute.

There was also some essence from the beasts he’d slain before running into the bandits.

You have acquired 23,450 essence.

You gain 33 Strength, 39 Constitution, 10 Agility, 58 Intelligence, and 58 Aura.

He added the free attributes to Charisma, which brought it up to 561, but it was still too low. With his Intelligence and Aura up to 2,968 now, it needed to be 742. He shook his head in irritation, even as he felt like there was something slightly different about the balance now.

Based on sheer percentage, he should be able to keep his head around 75% of the time, but it wasn’t that simple. It was minor, but it felt like his Charisma was a little more effective than it had been before.

It was especially easy for him to think about the Path and what he wanted to do next. When thoughts of home and visiting Border worlds entered his mind, he was much more easily distracted.

He glanced over at Sleset, who appeared to have gained a level from the encounter as well, and nodded. It was harder to level up at the Third Evolution, but he could tell that the amount was less than what he’d earned. It looked like the experience had been split, but he’d gained the majority of it.

He looked around the area one last time, and then he reached out and snagged Sleset in a bubble of astral energy before the naga could protest. With him in tow, he teleported away from the moon in a flash of crystal flame.

As for the bounty on Galsen, even if it was a thousand gold astral coins, he had no intention of collecting it. The money was of no value to him.

He paused in the Void above, orienting himself as he pulled out an ingot of the Virescent Aurora Ore and focused on it, letting himself sense the essence it held inside. After a little while, he got a feeling for it and he began to cast his awareness out into the Void, looking for a match.

Half a day later, a faint echo came back to him, pulsing with the same signature. It was a green star with a bright sense of life to it. Sam smiled as he marked the location of the ore in his mind.

The star was a good distance away to the north, but it was still close to the border. To get there, they’d have to cross a wide swathe of lands or walk the astral threads.

Fortunately, that fit with his plans.

“Let’s go,” he said with a wicked grin as he grabbed Sleset and stepped onto an astral thread that led back to where they’d stopped on their walk. He liked having a destination again. “Let’s see if there are any more bandits along the way.”