Spellheart 9: Chapter 41 (Patreon)

Our return to the Hearthwood was uneventful, though we were all keeping an eye over our shoulder the entire time it took to tear a hole in the pocket world back into ordinary space.

"Whoo! Time to go home and throw a party!" Eltiana dove through the crack in space I'd just opened up and then promptly landed face-first in a pile of monster poop. "Yuck!"

I shook my head. "There you have it, ladies. One more reason not to dive face-first through spatial rifts to unknown destinations."

"If only we could teach the same lessons to all spatial cultivators of my family," Tivana laughed.

Sava started wriggling on my shoulders shortly thereafter, and I set her down when I realized she was waking up.

"W-what happened?" Sava asked, rubbing her eyes and blinking.

"You were kidnapped," I explained.

Sava's eyes went wide. "Did the Satyr King get me? How am I--"

I shook my head. "Not the Satyrs. You were kidnapped by my evil robot twin." I ran my hand through her hair. "You should be proud, Sava! You're in demand. Too bad for everybody else that I found you first, and I don't share."

Sava wrapped her arms tight around my waist. "Thank you for saving me."

"Group hug!" Assyrus said, joining in for a warm embrace. Tivana, Yorik, Nela, Melise, and Illiel soon joined her.

"Great idea, Assyrus!" Eltiana bounced back to her feet, flicked some monster poop off her brow, and went in for a hug. Everyone scattered in all directions. She ran straight for me.

Fortunately I was fast with my spells and I waved my hand to separate the poop from the rambunctious purple-haired elven ninja beneath it all. When she collided with me, she was squeaky clean.

"It's safe, ladies," I chuckled as I waved everyone back.

"Aww..." Eltiana pouted. "Hey, Sava, do you feel weaker than before?"

Sava froze. I did too, glancing down at her and feeling her energy. She'd been a Sorcerer before, but now...

"Ugh! It's true!" Sava pouted. "I'm back to the Wizard realm... what happened back there? It feels like a chunk of my soul got ripped out."

My mind flashed back to the green figure that had been standing over Sava before our fight. I grimaced. I had a few suspicions, but I kept them to myself for now. My matriarchs deserved to celebrate a victory and the fact that Sava was returned to us safe and unharmed.

Without Spell Eater, I had to take flight the hard way to get good vantage over the area. I lightened the force of gravity on myself as much as I could and launched myself into the air. Truthfully, it was more like a lengthy jump than any semblance of flight, which was probably the only reason it was halfway graceful.

By the time I drifted back down to the forest floor, I knew where we were in the Hearthwood. I made a careful note of our location. This empty and barren region of the Hearthwood exactly corresponded to the castle my doppelganger had been using as a base. If that was ever going to be important information to have, I wanted to have it.

"Seems like we're on the northern edge of the forest. If you ladies are in a hurry to get home, I could throw you?" I offered. If I tossed them all in the direction of the Hearthwood, I could dive through a ley line and make my way back in the blink of an eye.

"Pocket world, please," Nela rolled her eyes.

I chuckled. "You ladies are no fun."

I opened up a Pocket World passage, and soon we were back in the Hearthwood.

***

Mac's frantic message upon my return immediately squashed any notions we had of a victory celebration.

[Thank Berthollet, French chemist and inventor of household bleach! You're back! It's all over now, but I have some bad news for you.]

My heart sank. "What's the news?"

[Your Sacred Grove is now a pile of distinctly unsacred rubble,] Mac replied. [While you were gone, your evil twin attacked us again. This time in person.]

"What's the damage?" I asked, already jogging for the door out of The Wanderer and to the rest of the Hearthwood.

[Surprisingly little. The Sacred Grove is far enough from any population centers that there was no damage to the city or its infrastructure. But the workers of the Sacred Groves, on the other hand...]

"How bad was it? I held my breath.

[Every single elf who came with the Sacred Grove is either dead or missing. Strangely, the new hires brought in from the Hearthwood are fine. A few of them suffered scratches or burns as your evil twin rampaged around the area and slaughtered the others, but none of them died. It was only the ones who came with the Sacred Grove. We're already in the process of rounding up the wisps, but the chaos was enough that it will be difficult to restore them fully, even with the help of Bloodline Origin Awakening potions. Odds are that at least some portion of their memories will be mixed up. But they should retain all the knowledge needed to operate a Sacred Grove between them.]

I ran my hand through my hair, thinking. He'd killed only the elves who came with the Sacred Grove?

Why do that?

There was only one explanation. He was watching me, and he didn't like how I was handling traitors.

While I had devised an elaborate plan to root them out and slowly replace them, my evil twin had opted for a far more direct approach.

I'd have to lie to say I'd never considered the idea myself. Slaughtering my enemies was so much easier than figuring out friend from foe. So what if a few innocents got caught up in the process?

If I was desperate, I might have considered the same solution. But I wasn't desperate, and there were more options available to me.

My doppelganger didn't see that, though. He was stuck with his mind on a desperate and violent struggle for victory.

I took a deep breath and sighed.

"Looks like all that work I did with Aelina is going to go to waste..." I sighed. "It would have been nice to get a few of the elves to admit what kind of hold the Satyr King has over them. You never know when information like that could come in handy. It was a good thing I had so many of them write down everything they knew in those instruction guides. At least I still had the Librarian of Sacred Groves to fill any missing holes in our knowledge. We should be able to pick right back up where we left off."

What was done was done. The Satyr King was plotting who knew what, and thanks to my evil twin I had lost my best lead. I shook my head in disgust.

[About that... the Librarian of Sacred Groves went missing from her cottage outside of Castle Mac. It seems she was taken by a second agent. It seems your evil twin has gotten himself a subordinate.]

"Describe her." My fingers drummed against my thigh as I took a look at the Hearthwood. As Mac promised, the Hearthwood was intact, with the sole exception of the Cottage we'd given to Ethan and the Librarian of Sacred Groves.

[I've already taken the liberty of quizzing local witnesses. Everyone agrees that the attacker was a green golem, likely made of some sort of jade. She had a female form and was apparently very beautiful.]

I let out a long sigh. Of course. No wonder the green golem had disappeared. Based on the timing, she'd struck as soon as our fight with my doppelganger began. That was when she vanished from the room.

My doppelganger, meanwhile, had arrived a little later. Right when I thought my Petrification spell had allowed me to claim victory.

"Damn it!" I cursed the sky, shaking my fist. "We played right into his hands. I don't know whether to be furious or impressed."

[Fighting an energy clone of yourself does seem confusing.]

"I'm going to help with the wisp rescue effort. My mood's too bad for anything else."

***

The Sacred Grove I'd been so excited for was utterly trashed. The ruins scattered throughout the Hearthwood from the previous golden ages were in better shape. Granted, I hadn't spent more than afternoon assembling the buildings in the area, but it was still frustrating to see the product of my hard work turned to rubble.

"Did the seeds survive?" I asked Mac.

[I'm afraid your evil twin had a particularly keen vendetta against them. Each and every seed was sterilized by fire. The ground you stand on has only now cooled. There was molten lava flowing over it just minutes ago.]

The ground I stood on was indeed hot, and parts of it were fairly-glass like. My doppelganger must have created a funnel up from the planet's core to pour molten magma out all over my creation. I was surprised the Hearthwood elves got away in time.

"Well shit..." I groaned. "It looks like we'll be starting over from the ground up. And we won't be able to use the materials that came with the kit."

[Perhaps that was the idea. I am building a model of your evil twin based on his behavior in your reports and recorded actions. If I fill in the gaps with the model I have on you when in stressful situations, my best prediction is that he is distrustful of the Satyr King's intentions to the point where he refuses to allow you to use the Sacred Grove provided by him.]

"In other words, he wrecked my garden to force me to plant it anew from the ground up." I let out a long sigh.

[We do have the knowledge to build such a Sacred Grove at this point. Getting it past Mage Acolyte will require a few trips across the continent to acquire rare seeds though. Beyond that, you may need to visit other worlds or find a trader who does so.]

"That's going to set me back quite a bit. The whole idea behind getting a kit is that these details are already sorted out."

[Your evil twin was quite efficient at disabling your Sacred Grove. A few spells placed in key locations was all it took. With this experience, think we could improve on the methodology even further.]

"Well I suppose that's a small consolation prize. Sacred Groves do seem awfully vulnerable for a source of power. Especially to Earth cultivators." I smiled at the thought. "Given the right opportunity and a chance to search the World of Woods and Wilds undetected, I could hunt down the Satyr King's Sacred Grove and break it just like this one! Then he'd be helpless as a newborn babe. If only..."

I drummed my fingers against my leg again. If only the Librarian of Sacred Groves was still in the Hearthwood. We would have had a much easier time sourcing new seeds. Maybe the Cult of the Unblinking Eye had another elf like her. Or maybe they'd come to help rescue the one they'd already sent. I could certainly use a hand dealing with my doppelganger.

Somehow, I had my doubts. I was less than thrilled with Ethan's participation in our last fight. His performance wasn't something I would have been proud of, at least.

"Hey, where is Ethan, anyway?" I asked Mac. "Did he come crawling back here under an unnoticability spell?"

[I have no records of Envoy Ethan appearing anywhere in the Hearthwood. Presumably he is still in the Devilbeast Wilds,] Mac replied.

"Well shit. We can't exactly lose an envoy. The Cult of the Unblinking Eye was just starting to no longer be a pain in my ass. This is going to mean trouble. I guess we're going to have to go on a rescue mission. Any sign of Dean yet?"

But I needn't have bothered asking. Far across the horizon, something was streaking toward us. Back on Earth, I would have assumed it was an airplane, but here I knew better. After all, I could hear all the way from the ground that the streak in the sky was shouting a battle cry.

"Dean! Dean! Down here!" I yelled and waved my hands and jumped up over the tree line to get a little altitude.

He spotted me and brought himself to a sudden stop atop the ruins of my destroyed Sacred Grove.

"Damn. Look at this mess. Did you beat him without me?" Dean asked.

I shook my head. "Afraid not. It was an awesome fight though."

Dean pouted. "Figures. I always miss the fun part."

"It's not over yet, my friend. Turns out Ethan didn't make it back. We have to head back in your little pocket hell-scape and look for him."

The smile returned to Dean's face.


<Note>

Alright, things are clearing up a bit on my end now that the Amazon Apocalypse post-launch stuff is behind us, and I have more time to focus on writing new stuff.

4 chapters per week soon? We'll see!