“Brand, Zorea,” Saul called. “Ready yourselves! We’re going to try something new!”

Specialise Squad:

Squads Available: 1 of 3

Specialisms Available: 1 of 5

Select Specialism: School of Fire

“Yeah!” Brand shouted, and Zorea gave a whoop of excitement as well.

They saw the options that Saul had picked and knew what was about to happen. For the first time, they would test their new Squad Specialism in combat.

Though fire was the only specialism available, it was the one they needed. This Jorogumo was vulnerable to fire, and so now was the perfect time to test their new ability.

The spell rushed into place, and all three of them felt the Squad connection between them deepening. They were used to having the Squad connection in place, so much so that it had become something they had almost forgotten. Now, the magical connection blazed with power.

Saul was the center of the Squad, and he could almost see lines of fire running between himself and his two friends. He felt the power of fire reaching around him and through him, and connecting him to his new sword as well.

The monster, frightened by the new development, blasted a jet of flame toward Saul. He held his blade up and the Lightning Ward spell became a Fire Ward.

Instead of flashing forks of lightning, the blade threw out blazing tongues of flame as a shield, meeting fire with fire and dispersing the Jorogomu’s spell.

The lava troll attacked from the left, Brand and Zorea attacked from the center, and Saul charged in from the right.

As they closed in, Brand flung out his now connection strengthened Firebrand. The single jet of flame split off into multiple streams of different-colored fire that twined around each other and caught at the Jorogomu’s legs like twisting ropes.

Zorea’s whole body was cloaked in flame. Flames ran from her hair and streamed from her mouth and eyes as she ran forward, and her Soulstone sword transformed into a blade made of a single flame.

Saul unleashed his Fireball at the monster, and his spell hit at the same time as Brand’s. Zorea dived in at full speed and slashed left and right with her sword.

The spells drove the Jorogomu back and it hissed in pain, but when they flickered out, it attacked Zorea with a flurry of stabs with its legs.

She dodged back. The Jorogomu was injured by the flames, but her resistance was enormous. Saul fired again, and Brand’s magic combined with his to create a terrifying blast of power.

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That worked, sending the Jorogumo stumbling back. The monster recovered quickly, then leaped up again and swung a huge clawed hand at Brand. He ducked, losing a few hairs.

He swung his flaming sword at the base of the claw, cutting through tendon and bone. The monster screamed and prepared to fire a blast of flame at Brand at point blank range.

Instinct took over. Saul reached into his new sword. He sent the sword’s shield spell along the Squad connection to Brand.

Brand took the spell and activated it before he knew what had happened. The flaming shield blasted out from Brand’s hand as the Jorogomu fired flames right into Brand’s face.

Time to finish this, Saul thought. That was too close.

It had revealed a new capability of the connection between the Squad members—spells could be transferred from Saul to the others—but there was no way Saul was up for the death of his friends in the name of learning more about the magic.

Even the combination of spells had not been enough to take the monster out, and Saul wanted to end the battle.

He glanced over his shoulder, considering bringing the raptors in, but decided against it. There was no telling what the Jorogomu could do to the raptors, and Saul was not able to justify risking them yet.

There was one more thing in his arsenal, and that was the potion he had noticed earlier: Flaming Doomsphere.

It was a recent innovation, a potion Saul had created from some unusual ingredients he’d stumbled across in the course of his travels from Harkin’s Holdfast to the Borderlands.

Sometimes this did happen. He would combine ingredients without knowing quite what the outcome would be and get a much higher-level potion than usual.

Flaming Doomsphere seemed like just the thing for the moment.

“Ready?” Saul called to Zorea and Brand.

He was reaching into his inventory, reaching for the potion, and they knew exactly what he meant.

“Ready!” they both called back to him.

“Now!” Saul shouted.

An instant later, they both flung themselves back and out of the way as Saul activated the potion. The Flaming Doomsphere manifested as a spell in Saul’s hands, just as if it had been something in his inventory. He had a chance to aim the spell, and he saw a flicker of an illusion around the center of where he would send the spell.

He drifted it slightly, setting it so that the center of the spell was right under the body of the Jorogumo.

Power flooded to him from Zorea and Brand.

It was totally unexpected, but this, too, was a new aspect of the Squad connection. Squad members could send strength and power to each other, strength that came from within themselves, not from outside.

The sudden injection of strength filled Saul, and he had to be careful not to lose his head in the heady rush of power.

He caught the flow of magic and channeled it into the spell. The preview of the spell’s area of effect grew larger. The effect would be devastating.

Saul released the spell and leaped backward to join his friends.

A huge thunderclap was accompanied by a sheet of white flame, and from the center of the flame rose a dark orange sphere of fire. Saul and his friends caught a last glimpse of the monstrous Jorogumo before the flames engulfed it.

For the space of three heartbeats, the doomsphere expanded, then it dispersed.

Saul blinked. There was nothing left of the monster except some long fragments of blackened bone and eight long, black, curved claws.

Or was there?

Saul looked again, and saw in the middle of the blackened spot a bright yellow gemstone. It was large, shaped cleanly as if by a professional gemcutter, and a pale light glowed steadily from the center of the stone.

“A spirit stone!” Zorea exclaimed.

Brand rolled his eyes and Saul smiled. Every day, it seemed, Zorea revealed some new facet of her knowledge about the ancient forms of magic. She moved forward and picked it up.

“It contains a spirit, usually the spirit of some very old being that can occupy a body but is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.”

Saul snapped his fingers. “I’ve heard of those! They come from…”

They looked at each other. “They come from El-Alun,” Saul finished.