Saul and his friends looked at each other. Saul knew they all shared the same thought.

The Body Sigil had been taken to the Workshop about twenty minutes previously, at exactly the same time that the captain and the others had woken up.

The Sigil must have somehow been connected to their strange affliction which had overtaken the captain.

Saul remembered the things he had heard about how the warlocks created thralls. Zorea had told him—a long time ago now—that the warlocks had captured entire villages of Xornians and kept them entrapped and without any will of their own through the means of some kind of dark magic.

What if this was the very magic that began that entrapment? The Body Sigil magic might well be used to make people become slaves of the holder of the Sigil and might even keep them alive for way longer even than the natural lifespan of a person.

He remembered with a shudder the monstrous soldiers that he had come to think of as the El-Alun zombies. They were creatures who still breathed but had lived long past the span of a natural human existence.

Were they the victims of some cruel corruption of Sigil magic? Saul thought it not unlikely.

“I’m glad to hear that Captain Jerryl and the others are awake and unharmed,” was all he said to Merrick, but the young sergeant was no fool.

He had caught the look exchanged between Saul and his companions, and no doubt understood there was more to it. He was a soldier, however, and knew when to keep his questions to himself.

Merrick smiled. “I’m glad to see you three back from wherever you were. I will confess, I’d been sent to look at the encampment of the warlocks, but I was also on the lookout for your bodies. Since you hadn’t been seen for a while, it seemed not unlikely to me that you’d been killed in the fighting. I’m grateful to the gods that you’re not.”

As he usually did when the gods were mentioned, Saul winced internally. It was not thanks to the gods that he and his friends were still here.

When he had been reborn, he had stepped outside of the influence of the gods. His System ran on the power of Sigils, not on the power of the Seven Elemental Deities, and his choices ran on his own power, not at the will of any other being.

Still, he just smiled.

“I’m glad to see you alive too, Sergeant Merrick,” he said. “Come on, take me to the leader of the reinforcements. The battle is over, but the work has only just begun.”

* * *

There was, indeed, a lot to do. The village had been badly damaged in the various assaults, and the flat area between the village and the forest cliff had been utterly ravaged.

The palisade wall had been breached at many points. Many of the smaller buildings in the village had been damaged by fire or falling projectiles or had been scavenged by the soldiers for materials to build hurried barricades.

That first night, everything was pretty chaotic, and the main priority was getting everyone housed and carrying the wounded Xornians off the battlefield.

As the days and weeks passed, however, Saul was able to piece together the course of events and learn what had happened since the villagers had left.

Led by the trusty and dependable blacksmith, Rork, the villagers had headed south. As they traveled through the lowlands, they’d told the people in the scattered villages of the situation up north.

Some of the inhabitants of those villages—Saul learned that they were mostly small traders and crafters in these villages, as well as some breeders of strange animals that were useful in the borderlands of Xorn—wanted to come north at once. Wiser heads prevailed, however. It was agreed that everyone should go to the queen’s court and demand that reinforcements be sent to defend the north.

Eventually, after many weeks of traveling, the footsore villagers and those they had collected along the way arrived at Blackrock, the great castle that had served as the seat of the Xornian royal family for generations beyond count.

Rork the Blacksmith was Saul’s main source of information about the story of what had happened. He had shaken his big head in disapproval as he told of the events at the castle.

“Politics,” the big man growled. “I have no time for it. The queen herself is a very gracious person, of course, and I wouldn’t hear a word against her, but around her skulk too many hangers-on and courtiers for my liking. They have their own agendas. The towns on the road to the castle are not in a good state, especially those that are nearer to the great bridge and further from the city around the castle, further from the seat of power.

“I think that the queen does not fully understand the plight of all of those who call her their monarch, and I think that she is kept from a fuller knowledge by the machinations of her so-called councilors and advisors.”

Saul could believe it. He had witnessed firsthand how corrupt and degenerate the courts around even the lowliest of rulers could become.

While he and Baraz Karak had been forging their empire in the fires of blood and steel in Keldor, Saul had encountered many unworthy people attempting to place themselves in positions of influence.

Karak had no patience with such people, thankfully, and neither did Saul. The imperial court had always been small, a tight circle of trusted advisors who were there for no reason other than that they believed in the cause.

This news of the state of the queen’s court was not encouraging, but neither was it surprising. He knew from history how the corruption of the Xornian court had fed into the mismanagement and dissatisfaction which brought about the Faction Wars.

On a more positive note, Saul and his friends were happy to discover that the queen herself had sent them a message. She requested Saul’s presents at her court as soon as he was able to come.

She had heard of his talents, she said, and she had heard how much he had helped her people in the north. She wished to see him, to meet him, and to thank him in person. She expressed her understanding that he might want to wait until the winter had passed before traveling, but also that she hoped he would come to be received by her at his earliest opportunity.

This fit well with Saul’s plans. Now that the village of Harkin’s Holdfast had been saved, he yearned to go to the Xornian Borderlands and assess the situation there.

He had a creeping suspicion that even with the destruction of Grimdir’s warlock army, the tides of fate would still pull the Borderlands into rebellion.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

This suspicion had been strengthened by the report that Rork had brought on the state of things at the queen’s court.

Saul resolved to wait out the winter at Harkin’s Holdfast, to help the villagers rebuild and re-establish themselves in their homes, and then to travel in the spring. Brand and Zorea were, of course, ready to follow him wherever he proposed to go.

Most of the villagers of Harkin’s Holdfast had returned with the reinforcements. Some had chosen to stay at Blackrock, but most had come back.

They were accompanied by a strong complement of soldiers; Xornian infantrymen and a battalion of raptor riders under the command of a white-whiskered old general named Jell Spearman. General Spearman was pleased to lend his soldiers to the cleanup and building effort.

Though Saul could have made good use of his Builder class spells in the cleanup process, he decided not to. The magic was new and would be very strange to the Xornian soldiers, and so he was happy to let the soldiers take on the brunt of the work.

As for Jerryl, he and the others who had been afflicted by the strange malady recovered quickly. Within twenty-four hours of their waking, they were all back to full strength.

The same could not be said for those soldiers who had suffered more traditional wounds in the battle. Many had died, and many more were grievously injured, with hurts that even Zorea’s application of her new Healing Fire could not fully mend.

Saul let Zorea get on with the healing. She took charge of the efforts to help the wounded, leading the team of Xornian healers and using her magic to good effect.

Saul encouraged Brand to take charge of large parts of the reconstruction effort, and the young man did so with enthusiasm. He worked with Rork the Blacksmith, and a friendship and great respect grew between these two as they managed the reconstruction effort.

General Spearman put sections of his troops under Brand’s and Rork’s command to direct the rebuilding effort, and as time passed, the village began slowly to look like itself again despite the winter conditions.

For his part, Saul worked with Captain Jerryl and General Spearman to organize groups of Raptor Riders who could go out into the forest and comb the area for any sign of warlock activity.

There was none.

The warlocks seemed to have thrown all they could muster into that final battle at Harkin’s Holdfast. None were left to threaten the village.

Despite the harsh winter weather, the heavy snows and the short days, the soldiers managed a comprehensive survey of the forest right up to the sheer mountain slopes. At Saul’s suggestion, they mapped and measured and drew diagrams. When they returned, he and Jerryl were able to piece together a more detailed map of the region.

As the days and weeks passed, the healing of the wounded progressed, and the reconstruction effort settled into a steady routine, Saul, Zorea, and Brand had the chance to explore a little more around their new abilities.

Brand had his Firebrand, which seemed to operate as an all-purpose piece of magic. He could start fires with it, which he was very pleased with, but he could also use it offensively.

If he concentrated, he could send a jet of fire from his hands to a distance of about four yards. A very useful power.

Zorea’s magic manifested slightly differently. Her Healing Fire had no offensive capability, and it was not, in fact, really fire in any traditional sense.

Though it manifested as a flame that swirled around her hands and wrists when she conjured it, there was no heat, the spell did no damage, and it could not set light to other things. But when it was held against a wound, or even when a sick person was exposed to it, their injuries would heal and sickness would clear.

She used it over and over again as she helped the wounded recover in the aftermath of the battle, and she used it also as the winter progressed and the inevitable colds and coughs that come with cold weather presented themselves in the village.

Though it made a big difference, it was not all that powerful. While it could provide some relief to most wounds and ailments, it couldn’t fully heal most of them.

Neither Brand nor Zorea’s spells had any kind of cooldown timer. Instead, they appeared to be based on some kind of magical energy resource that none of them could fully pin down.

In Saul’s old timeline, he had heard of magic working like this. People talked of Mana Pools and other such esoteric ideas, but as far as he could tell it amounted to much the same principle as the power of a muscle.

Send a man running once and, at some point, his strength will give out. Send him running every day, and his strength will build. Believing that it was the same with spellcasting capacity, Saul encouraged his young protegees to use their spells as much as they could.

He was right in his assessment. Slowly, very slowly, their capacity to cast for sustained periods of time improved.

As the three of them practiced as a Squad, Saul realized that something else was happening.

He visited the Workshop, finding that there was a great deal of Gold XP to spend. He seemed to have received a bonus amount for the battle, and he was able to gain Level 13 and Level 14 in one session.

But there was more than just level ups happening. He found that his Resource Table, where he found his collected Arcane Dust and Gold XP coins, had been extended to include a new kind of XP. This new XP also appeared as coins, but instead of being the deep, russet gold of his regular XP, or the fresh green of the Glade XP he gathered for potion creation, these were a gleaming blue.

When he held his hands over these new resource coins and examined them, he found that they were called Squad XP. This new Squad XP resource accumulated slowly, but Saul discovered that it could be spent to upgrade the capability of himself and his friends as a joined Squad.

This was satisfying and made up for the fact that there was no sign of having anywhere near enough Glade XP yet to unlock the final foundational School of Magic. There was still a long way to go, and Saul was expecting to wait a little before the School of Glade was in his control.

For crafting with the Squad XP, a new section had opened up on the Sigil Crafting Table. This new section, like the others, had a little stylized symbol carved into the wood. The other two—the Level Up Sigil crafting section and the Spell Unlock Sigil crafting section—were represented by symbols showing Arcane Dust vials and XP coins. The new section’s symbol was three little figures in a row, the central figure slightly larger than the other two. This was the Squad Sigil crafting section.

This area’s creations would evolve, though only a few simple Sigils could be made currently.

By using this new area for the crafting of Squad Sigils with this Squad XP, Saul could upgrade the inventories of his friends to hold more items. He could also use small amounts of Squad XP combined with a little of the green Glade XP to create a Potion Granting Sigil, a small green Sigil that could be applied to one of his potions in the Workshop. This was a prerequisite for him to be able to place the potions he created into the inventories of his friends.

The inventories themselves were a new innovation, and very useful and exciting despite the fact that they were fairly low level at this point and had limited capacity.

The inventories allowed items from the outside world to be brought into the Workshop.

While items carried on his person did not appear in the Workshop, items that were in the inventory did. They could be taken out and worked with in the Workshop itself. This was limited by the capacity of the inventory, which was still small, but even so it opened up a whole new area of work.

Even more impactful was the new ability for Saul and his Squad members being able to enter the Workshop together. When preparing to travel, Saul had now the option to transport Zorea and Brand with him. More often than not these days, the three of them traveled together.

They had confirmed through experimentation that their physical bodies did indeed vanish from the world now when they traveled to the Workshop.

Brand and Zorea could not travel there independently of Saul. He had to give the command to begin the transit, and had to be physically present in the Workshop.

But he could go there on his own, or with one of them only, and when he did this and the others watched, they reported his body vanishing in a shimmer of silver light. The danger to the physical body that had gone with accessing the Workshop was no more.

The question that immediately came into Saul’s mind was whether he could go to the Workshop during combat. If so, then perhaps this could be a useful retreat if required. He thought it was unlikely, but he wanted to test it out before he was sure.

One cold, crisp, still day a little after midwinter, Saul had an opportunity to test out this function.

* * *

He and Zorea had joined one of the Raptor Rider patrols, and had returned to the spot where he’d seen the two warlocks step through a portal, leaving the exhausted and spend Grimdir to die on the ground behind them.

He wanted to see if he could detect any sense of the magic, or find clues about how the portal worked. Given Zorea’s keen magic sense, Saul was particularly eager to give her the opportunity to feel into that as well. Would she discover anything interesting in that spot?

Against the gentle remonstrances of the leader of the raptor squad they had traveled with, Saul insisted that he and Zorea would be fine alone. The leader shook his head but accepted that Saul was allowed to do as he pleased.

He and his team rode off, leaving Saul and Zorea on their raptors, standing side by side in the silent, snowy forest.

“This way,” Saul said, wheeling his Raptor around in the snow and moving slowly off in the direction of the clearing which he remembered from before, heading for the portal clearing.