Esh stood up with his right hand over his injury. His breathing was slow and heavy. Slumping, he walked over to the man. While moving he froze on the spot.

At the end of the room, someone was sitting on a throne. Watching him from the dark.

As his eyes adjusted to the light he saw the seat and person. It was a mummified corpse with a sword running through its torso.

Esh relaxed and shifted his attention to the man on the floor. His body was still with opened unmoving eyes.

Esh moved away to the left of the room where he left the main hall. He entered an empty room and blocked the entrance. There he sat down, leaned against the wall and fell asleep.

Night fell before he woke up. While shivering in the cold dark he molded a bright ball. It was tiny and gave of a weak glow.

Steadily, his pupils became wide. He stood up and, with a hand on the wall for support, stumbled into the entrance hall.

Noise came from the middle of the room. Is and White were gnawing on the corpse.

Esh stuck out his right hand.

“Punish.”

The ether rings glowed red and the two screeched in pain.

“Follow.”

They came to him and the glowing stopped. He squatted and stroked their heads.

“I'm sorry but I can't have you eat human flesh. Now, lets get warmed up.”

He closed the entrance hall.

There was a hearth in the middle of the room. He threw some wooden furniture on it and started a fire.

For a while he sat beside the flames. When his limbs warmed up he striped his torso and inspected the shoulder wound. The hole was closed with a small cut remaining. Around it there was some of the green ether left and the skin was discolored red to pink from the center. He raised his left arm, grimaced, and pulled it back.

He put his clothes back on, dragged the body to the fire, and examined it. The two looked at him but did not approach the body. He gave them some of the left over meat.

On the corpse he found bag of gold coins, a knife, a short sword, another longer barreled weapon, and a backpack.

There were also materials to construct a tent and a sleeping place bound to the bottom of the backpack.

He opened it. Inside were food, tools to prepare it, a map, spare clothes, bags of black powder, and a bag of the metal balls that pierced him. There were two pouched of them. A bigger one that had plain ones and a smaller one with ether inscribed ones.

Poison, force, heat. A bunch I can't identify.

Esh stood up and looked for the ball that hit him. He found and examined it. It had the same inscriptions.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Heat and force.

He loaded two weapons to test both bullets. He molded a thick block of ether for the target. The normal metal stopped immediately upon impact while the one with inscriptions got stuck in the middle. Then it glowed red.

It stopped. That means I messed up the shield.

He took the clothes found in the backpack and the mantle from the corpse and put them on. It was a bit loose and short for his arms however it captured warmth.

He took what he needed and put it inside the backpack and what did not fit he bound to it. The rest he threw in the fire along with the mans corpse. The smoke and stench spread around the room. He was coughing as he went to open the entrance. It was night so the rising smoke disappeared into the dark.

I have been too careless.

Esh sighed, took a deep breath.

He meditated by the fire. Ether flowed towards him and sunk into his body. He stood up and approached the corpse on the throne. The clothes on it were ruined, but they appeared to have been extravagant and expensive. His eyes drifted to the chest where the sword was stuck. One skeletal hand still clutched the blade.

The hilt had a crystal where it met the blade and was laced with golden threads. It looked new and untouched.

Be cautious. It would not have been left alone this long if you could just take it.

He closed his right eye and on his eyelid wrote a few runes inside a ring. When he reopened his eye and looked at his hand he could clearly see the flowing ether inside.

Looking back, the dead body and throne had less ether than the air around them, but the sword was filled with it.

It's molded but there is no ring or runes. Perhaps under the gold.

On the floor he drew a circle and another bigger one around it. With two lines he divided it horizontally and vertically. Into the outer rim of the first quarter he wrote five runes, then, counterclockwise, one in the second, four in the third, and one in the fourth. He put his hand over the first quarter, drove small amounts of ether into the circle, and moved his hand around it once.

The lines began to glow. Inside the inner circle the ground was covered by black mist. Out of the center poked out a small hand with long fingers and sharp nails. Another hand poked out. Both pressed against the ground and with that a shadow imp appeared. Is and White hid behind Esh.

It had long pointy ears, two small horns, black fur on dark red skin, a pair of wings, and a long nose. It looked around until it saw Esh then it pressed together its hands and fingertips, bowed slightly, and revealed a mischievous grin which spread from one edge of the face to the other. It was small. Just halfway to his knee.

“I need you to pull out that sword for me,” he said and pointed towards the throne.

When the imp saw the hilt his eyes opened wide and his grin grew larger, seemingly, beyond the edges of its face.

It scuttled forwards and climbed onto the corpses lap. Esh stepped backwards. Greedily it grabbed the hilt. At that moment, frost spread through its body until the imp stood still with an expression of glee frozen on its face.

Esh moved close.

“Return.”

The frozen statue dispersed into black mist.

Didn't break. A permanent curse? However it does not look very stable.

“I'll try one more then.”

Another summoning circle was drawn similar to the first one in all but two places. The second and fourth quarter had an extra rune each.

Again the black mist appeared on the ground. The creature that appeared had most of the same features as the previous, but it was fat and had a bright colored belly. It took a few steps and its entire body wobbled.

The imp glutton. What a majestic beast.

“I need you to suck the ether out of that thing for me,” he said pointing at the sword.

It made a lazy turn towards the location, sighed, and began to waddle. Before the throne it looked at the hilt and just like the last one its expression grew greedy. The imp jumped and grabbed the ledge of the chair. However, it was too fat and fell with a plop. There on the floor it wheezed.

He picked the imp up and put him below the hilt then he stepped back.

It immediately opened its mouth, revealing two rows of pointy teeth, and began to suck. A blue stream of ether flowed from the sword into the imps mouth. It grew fatter and fatter the more it consumed. When all was sucked out, it was more a blob than an imp, and its stomach shone blue light.

The imp fell backwards on the floor and rolled towards Esh, who stopped it with his foot. It had the face of someone who reached the pinnacle of happiness.

“I hate to disturb you, but you owe me some of that ether. Now spit it out.”

Bliss became panic and the imp tried to get away. It was too round for its limbs to reach the ground, so its hand and feet flailed in the air doing nothing.

Esh picked it up by its wings. “Come on now. You accepted the contract. You know the consequences if you break it.”

It squealed, considered, and spat out a crystal. The imps size shrunk.

“Good. Your contract is complete. I'll send you back now.”

The imp looked at the crystal and let out a long high pitched wail.

“Return.”

It vanished into black mist.

Esh squatted to pick up the crystal. It was covered in drool, so he wiped it clean with a piece of cloth and stored it away.

He took a look at the sword. The ether was gone. Cautiously, he grabbed the hilt and pulled. The corpse fell over on the floor. Its yellow teeth, hollow eyes, and dried skin faced him.

“You don't need it anyway.”

He packed up everything and walked out. The two followed him.

The stars were already gathering towards the same place. Esh looked for the highest building in the ruined town. On the edge of the plateau was a tall rock formation that was formed into a tower. When he reached the top the sun illuminated the land.

The first thing that stood out was a black cloud covering land in the north west hiding its surroundings.

The rest was mostly the white blue forest with an ocean shore in the west and a huge mountain range in the east.

There were some villages visible between the trees. One of them was close enough to reach within a day.

No point in searching further, the trees cover everything.

The raptors were running around the ruined buildings.

“Follow!”

They rushed to him.

After reaching the bottom he made sure which direction he had to go. There was an opening in the forest where the trees were a bit wider apart like a road into the forest and went into the direction they are headed. He took it.