Wizard Trials: Chapter 139 (Patreon)

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          “Okay,” Peter said, “we’re outside the city, now are you going to tell me what this was all about?”

          “No,” Draevin said. He started patting Peter down. Both of them were feeling a lot better today. Istven had reattached Draevin’s arm and restored Peter to perfect physical health.

          “Hey! What’s the big ide—”

          “Ah ha! I knew it!” Draevin said triumphantly. He dug his hands into one of Peter’s pockets and pulled out a glass bottle. It was filled with a glowing white liquid. “What did I tell you before we left?”

          “Not to bring any sources of mana,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. His face had a sour expression on it. “You do know how suspicious that sounds, don’t you? You want to get me alone, vulnerable?”

          “It’s important,” Draevin told him. He placed the mana potion in question on the ground next to his own already-discarded mystic staff, then draped a handkerchief over it. “That better be the only one,” he warned.

          “It is,” Peter said. “It was just in case you tried something.”

          “I’m about to try something!” Draevin ignored Peter’s words and kept patting him down. If he had lied once, there was nothing stopping him from lying a second time. Only when he was satisfied that there was nothing else hiding in Peter’s pockets did he continue. “Okay, now we have to walk away from this mana potion before we can talk. And I’m going to hold your hand Mr. Illusionist, so don’t even think of trying anything.”

          “Are you going to explain what this is about already?” Peter demanded.

          “In a minute,” Draevin said. “You only have yourself to blame. I told you no mana!” He turned and walked in a straight line away from the towering walls of Truntstown, dragging Peter after him. They were in the scorch zone at the moment, the killing grounds where the Truntstown laser turret had killed so many threats over the last three years. There wasn’t much in the way of landmarks.

          “Okay,” Draevin finally said after a minute. “I think it’s finally safe to talk.”

          “Great,” Peter said dryly. “This better be important. There’re a lot of things I could be doing right now.”

          “This is as important as things get,” Draevin told him. “Fate-of-the-world important.”

          “I hardly think it was necessary to get rid of all our mana to discuss Istven’s new abilities,” Peter said, crossing his arms. “It’s the middle of the day; he’s not going to sneak up on us.”

          “I wasn’t worried about Istven,” Draevin said. “I was worried about the Tuan’diath. They can use mana to peer into our world and spy on us. If they hear what I’m about to tell you, there’s a chance they might do something drastic. I don’t know if they can kill you in your sleep or not, but I’d rather not find out.”

          Peter blinked. “Oh,” was all he said. “They can spy on us through mana?”

          Draevin nodded. “See what happens when you make assumptions? I had to be sure none of them were spying on us before—” Peter leaned down, reached inside his shoe, grabbed something shiny, then tossed it overhand in the direction of the mana potion. “What was that?” Draevin demanded.

          “Uh, nothing,” Peter said, sounding slightly guilty. “Go on.”

          “You little liar! You were hiding mana on your person. I should have known better than to think that mana potion was it!”

          “It’s not my fault you don’t know how to do a proper search,” Peter grumbled. He shrugged. “I’m clean now. Promise. Not a speck of mana.”

          “And you wonder why I didn’t trust you?” Draevin asked rhetorically. “Okay, I guess now we can talk safely. I really hope they didn’t hear that first bit.”

          “Wait, is this why you didn’t bring Sylnya? Because she’s got mana running through her veins?”

          “Oh,” Draevin said. He blinked as he considered Peter’s idea. “I didn’t actually think of that. She just said she was too busy. Do you actually think she’s a liability?”

          “Why would I know?” Peter asked. “You’re the one saying mana sources are a problem. What’s this about anyway? You haven’t told me yet what you learned from Tenna.”

          “That’s what this is about,” Draevin told him. “When I talked to Tenna last night, she warned me the other Tuan’diath were listening in on me. She gave me a warning about Istven’s divine seed and something called the Blackroot.”

          “Wait! Did you say seed?” Peter interjected.

          “Yeah. Why?”

          “Well it’s just that’s the first time I’ve heard that word. We were calling it his ‘godly essence’ before. Did Tenna use that term?”

          Draevin shrugged. “Probably? Does it matter what it’s called?”

          Peter bobbed his head back and forth uncertainly. “Maybe, maybe not. A seed has certain implications. Like, if the god that created our world is a giant tree, then a seed sounds like something that would grow a new tree. Right?”

          “Sounds like a decent theory,” Draevin agreed, “but I’m really not the one to—”

          “Which means,” Peter continued, “that the real power one of these seeds gives someone is the power to create a world of their very own.”

          “I guess that makes sense. The way Tenna was talking about Istven made it sound like he could just rewrite reality in a short range around himself. Kind of like how Anise’s ability used to work, except I guess his changes are permanent.”

          “Yes,” Peter said. “That checks out with what I’ve observed. It’s like he’s a god of a tiny world that follows him around. My guess is if he eats more souls his range will just get bigger.”

          It was impressive how much information Peter was able to extract out of a single word. That had been what Draevin had been counting on when he decided to talk to him. It certainly hadn’t been for his trustworthiness. “So Tenna told me that Istven isn’t yet too powerful to stop,” Draevin said. “If we manage to stick him with the Soul Separator when he isn’t looking, it should still work. What really left me confused, though, was that right after Tenna told me that she had me put up some kind of defense against being eavesdropped by the other Tuan’diath and as soon as it was up she told me in no uncertain terms not to use it on him.”

          “Hmm,” Peter hummed. “Sounds like mixed messages.”

          “I know!” Draevin said. “And then right after the barrier I’d erected came down she went right back to pretending she’d never said any of that.”

          “Well, the most obvious interpretation is that the thing she told you in private is what she actually wants you to do, and the other thing was just what she was told to tell you to do,” Peter said. He held up a finger to stop Draevin from saying more. “But! It’s also possible she was only pretending to tell you something in confidence so you’d be more likely to trust that version of her request.”

          “Well how do I know which it is?” Draevin asked.

          Peter shrugged. “You’ll just have to make a judgment call. Did she tell you anything else while you were supposedly alone?”

          “Yeah,” Draevin confirmed. “She mentioned something about a Rite of Severing that was being considered because of an invasion of our world by whatever this Blackroot is. She warned me ‘not make things easier on them.’ I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do right now. I was hoping you might be able to help. It sounded like this Rite of Severing is supposed to clip our branch off the World Tree. It sounded ominous.”

          “Cutting off a branch…” Peter mumbled under his breath. “Perhaps… this Blackroot is like a disease that can infect worlds? If there is some giant tree god holding all the many worlds together, then it could be a disease that can infect that god? I’m just guessing here, but we’ve done that sort of thing for diseases before. Removing corrupted flesh to prevent illness from spreading.” He threw up his hands. “I’m just reading into the context, so don’t hold me to it, but I do think I know what she meant when she said not to make it easier on them.”

          “By all means, enlighten me.”

          “Remember when Tenna complained that the Soul Separator was being used to suck out demons souls and we found out Grrbraa had used it on his pack to make them all friendly? I was pretty sure at the time that the reason she knew about it was because everything separated out with that thing ends up in some space the Tuan’diath have access to. Using the Soul Separator was never about stopping some imaginary reign of terror by Istven, it was always about the Tuan’diath getting their hands on that divine seed. They’re just another player. They want power same as everyone else. The only difference is, instead of keeping it for themselves they’ll probably use that power to do this Rite of Severing thing.”

          “Oh. That makes sense,” Draevin nodded along. “When she said not to make things easier on them, she meant we shouldn’t give them Istven’s seed to do their Rite thing. So if we don’t give it to them, they’ll have to go somewhere else to get one.”

          “Exactly,” Peter agreed. His hand moved up towards his face to adjust the goggles that weren’t there. Draevin had forced him to leave them behind when they walked out here. “Now, about this Blackroot. Did she tell you what it was? Anything about it?”

          “Not much,” Draevin said. “Though she mentioned something about the rift-nets Dwyra was using to prop open those Hell portals her army was coming in through. I think they might be related. Tenna seemed to already know there were little black chunks of root inside them before I told her.”

          “Hmm,” Peter hummed again. “So our conflict was just a vehicle to spread the infection. I don’t suppose you know where one of these rift-nets might be, do you? If I could study one, I might be able to learn more about it.”

          “Istven is in charge of what remains of Dwyra’s army. They should still have one in their possession. I broke one during the invasion and stole another, but I didn’t keep it. I just threw it away.”

          Peter’s eyes perked up excitedly. “Threw it away where?”

          Draevin shrugged. “I just… I don’t know. Over the walls somewhere. I was just trying to get it out of Dwyra’s hands. I didn’t see where it landed.”

          “Well we should find it,” Peter said. “If we can’t, we can just ask Istven for his, but it would probably be safer if he didn’t start asking why we want to look at it. Since yesterday it’s like he’s got a lie detector or something, he keeps giving me that flat look of his if I even omit minor details to his questions.”

          “Well he is a god now,” Draevin said. “It’s probably not smart to try lying to a god.”

          “Omitting!” Peter objected. “It’s not the same thing!”

          “Riiiiiiight. Tooootally different.” Draevin looked back at Truntstown, trying to gauge vaguely where he might have tossed that rift-net. “Shoot,” he said. “I really can’t remember at all where I threw that thing. And it was pretty small, too. If we even want a chance of finding it I could just try flying around. Maybe it’ll glint off the sun or something.”

          “Okay,” Peter said. “You try to find it, and bring it to me when you do. We can get rid of any mana sources before I start trying to poke around on it. But try not to touch it. You never know.”

          “And what about Istven?” Draevin asked. “Obviously we can’t hit him with the Soul Separator if it might result in the end of the world, but what are we going to do about him?”

          “Nothing for now,” Peter said. “We still need him to kill Chaska’nal for us, and it might be worth seeing if he can get rid of the Everstorm while we’re at it. I don’t see how anyone’s going to be able to live on this planet with that thing flying around out there.”

          “Wait,” Draevin said. “Won’t he get like… extremely powerful if he eats both of those things?”

          “Undoubtedly,” Peter confirmed. “But right now he’s the lesser evil. I’d rather have God-King Istven than God-Queen Chaksa’nal, wouldn’t you?”

          “Obviously,” Draevin said. He held out his new arm and flexed the hand. He couldn’t even tell it’d been ripped off. “Istven fixed me up. I even think my arm is better than it used to be. I used to have this little twinge in my wrist that’s gone now! All Chaska’nal has done is send her vamps to try to kill us. Caelnaste said she maintains human farms in Hell. I’d really rather not be farmed.”

          “Then it’s agreed,” Peter said. “We stay on Istven’s good side for now. Find that rift-net device and bring it to me.”

          “What about the Soul Separator?” Draevin asked. “I don’t even know where it is right now.”

          “I have it,” Peter said. “I, uh, borrowed it a while back when you weren’t looking.”

          Draevin fixed Peter with an unamused glare. “I don’t recall you asking to borrow it.”

          Peter gave a sheepish grin. “You were busy,” he said evasively.

          “That’s called stealing, Peter. Do I need to explain to you why stealing from your friends is bad?”

          “Relax,” Peter said, “I was just studying it. You should be thanking me. If I hadn’t hid it away Istven would have found it by now. He went through your things looking for it while you were sleeping. He asked me where it was and I told him I couldn’t be sure—which was true! Someone could have come along and stolen it from where I hid it… theoretically. I didn’t get the sense he completely believed me, but he didn’t press the issue yet.”

          “You know he’s probably not even using his god powers to know you’re lying. All he has to do is check whether your mouth is moving. Just… don’t let him take it. There’s a good chance we might still need it if he goes maniacal.”

          “This is Istven we’re talking about,” Peter pointed out. “He’s already maniacal. I’d just be worried if he starts eating people to grow stronger.”

          “That does seem like a decent warning sign,” Draevin agreed. He actually had to laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole situation.

          “But on a more serious note,” Peter said. “I think it might be possible to modify the Soul Separator. All I would need to do is make sure the removed divine seed doesn’t get shunted off to the Tuan’diath. I doubt it would even be hard, I’d just have to break it in the right way.”

          Draevin frowned. “Just… be careful. The worst thing we could possibly do is stab Istven with a Soul Separator that doesn’t actually work. I’m not sure what he’d do to us, but it wouldn’t be good. Did I tell you what he did to Dwyra?”

          “You said he beat her,” Peter replied. He arched an eyebrow curiously. “Was there more to it?”

          “Technically she beat him,” Draevin said. “Then he melted her body from the inside and made a new body for himself from the remains.”

          “Interesting,” Peter said. “Bit off more than she could chew.”

          “You could say that again. I’d honestly rather try to chew iron. Istven mentioned during our surrender negotiations that Dwyra tried to read his mind and failed. I don’t think he was exaggerating. Can you imagine what his thoughts are like? He probably just told her to get out of his head and she couldn’t resist him.” Draevin tried his best to imitate Istven’s stone-serious facial expression and they both had a laugh.

          “Okay,” Peter finally said, “we should probably head back before anyone notes our absence.” Draevin agreed. They walked back over to the mana potion and mystic staff Draevin had left on the ground. Peter collected his potion, then leaned over to grab the other thing he’d tossed near it. It turned out to be a piece of metal in the shape of a brick. “Mana bar,” he said simply.

          “I thought enchanted items didn’t work anymore,” Draevin said.

          “They don’t, but this was part of the supplies from inside the time bubble.”

          “And I suppose you ‘borrowed’ that too?” Draevin asked, letting his disapproval seep into his voice.

          “What? Aaron died, remember? He doesn’t need it anymore.”

          “Wait, he’s really dead? I thought Istven was going to be able to fix everyone. Sylnya’s vines were all over his body.”

          “They were,” Peter said soberly, “but apparently he was already dead by the time they reached him. Istven tried to resurrect him, but he was just a mindless shell. Danidel had us lay his body down in a bed. I told him Aaron wouldn’t want to be kept alive like that, but he wanted to tell all the children that he’s just resting. He’s telling them all that Aaron is just really sick right now and might not wake up. He wants to wait at least another week to tell them he’s never going to wake up.”

          “That seems dishonest,” Draevin said.

          Peter gave an awkward frown. “Not all lies are bad,” he said. “He told the children what they needed to hear. This way they can get used to him not being around. They can come say goodbye. Get a little closure. Telling them the truth would only upset them.”

          “Of course you’d have that opinion,” Draevin scoffed. “What about trust? How are those kids going to be able to ever trust an adult again when they find out he knew the whole time Aaron was already dead?”

          “Who’s going to tell them the truth? You? You better not! It’s for their own good. They’re just children! When they’re older, they’ll understand.”

          Draevin closed his eyes. He didn’t like it, but he could see Peter was too passionate about his opinion to be swayed. “Sure. Whatever,” he said. “I won’t tell them, but if one of them asks me directly if I think Aaron’s going to wake up I’m going to tell them the truth.” He turned his back on Peter. “I’m going to go look for that rift-net,” he said. He jumped up and lifted himself off with a jet of steam. The magic came to him through his mystic staff the moment he needed it. Since his fight with Dwyra he seemed to be getting to the point where he could use mana sourced from the World Tree and the Elder Tree interchangeably. PME? Mystic staff? It didn’t seem to matter anymore. Steam or ice would come right to his fingertips without even a conscious thought. He liked to think that made him unique, but so far nobody seemed impressed when he mentioned it. As Draevin flew off Peter shouted out some kind of complaint about walking back by himself. Draevin ignored him. If he wanted a free ride, he should have kept his mouth shut about lying to children.

          Once he was in the air Draevin realized he didn’t really care that much about finding the rift-net. It wasn’t like they didn’t have another. It just felt nice to get up in the air and fly around without anyone trying to kill him. It was peaceful. Draevin flew way up high above the city walls. He wasn’t in the mood to fly low to the ground, inspecting every odd-shaped rock he came across. If he didn’t find the thing, he didn’t find the thing. His mind wandered while he traced a lazy circuit around the city’s perimeter, glancing down every once in a while. Could Istven be trusted with the power of a god? Was there anything any of them could do about it anyways? Having a god on their side seemed incredibly useful. The conflict with Chaska’nal’s demon army could be resolved in minutes. They might actually be able to keep the Everstorm at bay; maybe even kill it for good. The crumbling arena could be repaired. Things might actually be able to get back to mostly normal. So what if Istven ended up in charge of everything? He’d basically been bossing Draevin around for the last three months and so far he hadn’t really taken advantage of the authority. He was tough but fair. Okay, brutal and ruthless but fair. He’d make a decent—

          Draevin stopped. Down on the ground below him was something he couldn’t possibly fail to notice. There was a stark circle of red on the ground. A perfect circle. It looked like it was painted on the ground just to the North of Truntstown’s walls. The rest of the ground around the circle was the charcoal black of dirt that had been blasted by Truntstown’s laser turret. He flew over to it to see what it was. It almost looked like a pool of blood from so high up but as Draevin got closer he was relieved to find it had normal soil texture. It was just the color of fresh blood.

          Settling his feet on this strange soil, Draevin found it to be rocky and dead. It felt strangely familiar, though it wasn’t coming to him just yet why that was. He walked to its center. There was something laying there: a circle of black iron. There was no question—this was the rift-net Draevin had discarded. He got close and leaned down to inspect it. That evil-feeling root was still suspended in the center. It made his stomach queasy just to look at it.

          “Don’t worry, Peter,” he said to himself. “You couldn’t pay me to touch this thing.”

          Draevin pointed his staff at the rift-net and encased it in a thick layer of ice. He turned back to the city, intending to take off into the air to find Peter. He stopped. Something tickled his mind. Draevin realized where he’d seen soil like this before. He realized where he’d seen soil exactly like this before. Hell.

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