Since there had been a full 950 Gold XP available, and Saul had only needed 900 for his level up, a small stack remained on the Sigil Crafting Table when Saul was done with his Sigil creation. He picked these up and stepped across the Workshop and placed them back on the Resource Table.

There were five Arcane Dust vials, four full and one only half full. He grabbed the four full ones and stepped away but, as he did so, something caught his eye from the corner of his vision.

The Resource Table seemed extended somehow. On the right was a space of black velvet, the spot for Arcane Dust vials. On the left, there was the XP coin space, but to the left of this space was something new: an extension, a longer space as if for something else. A greenish glow lined the black velvet.

As ever, when Saul looked directly at this, it disappeared, but he could not help thinking that it meant something. Was there some new resource he could find himself using?

He wondered for a moment, then shook his head to clear it of speculation and continued his task.

Returning his attention to the Arcane Dust vials in his hand, he took them to the Sigil Crafting Table. The whole time he worked, he was keenly aware that his body lay on the ground in the forest, unaware of the world around it.

Zorea would be keeping guard.

He had found in the past that it was hard to tell exactly how much real-world time was passing while inside the Workshop, and so he wanted to work as swiftly as possible. However, the Sigil crafting process was one he felt he needed to treat with respect.

After all, though he might no longer be doing magic in the name of the Seven Elemental Gods, he was still dealing with powerful forces that were not entirely within his understanding. Such processes demand a certain amount of reverence. He could hurry, but he should never be careless and take the Workshop for granted.

Carefully, he placed his Arcane Dust vials on the table and selected the option to craft the Spell Sigil that would grant him the next School of Magic.

This time, as the Sigil came into being from its forest of golden lightning, Saul saw something unexpected. Behind the Sigil he had just created was another, in fact a whole host of them. They were all lined up, stretching away into the distance as if leading to a new path in his life that he would soon be going down.

One of the nearby Sigils was not only golden but also had a twist of green running around it, as if it were made from gold but had been decorated or enhanced with some kind of organic plant material: a vine or a woven rope of grasses.

These must be the future Sigils I will create, he thought. Does this strange color mean that there will be new kinds of Sigils to craft and explore? Will that mean new crafting materials as well? That would explain the green color on the Sigil, and it would also explain the new space on the Resource Table I caught a glimpse of.

There was a long way for him to go in his exploration of the System, but Saul resisted the urge to think about it just now.

Time was of the essence.

He picked his newly crafted Unlocking Sigil from its slot and proceeded to the Spell Tree. Taking a moment to breathe and acknowledge the magnitude of what he did, he leaned down and placed the golden Sigil against the clean white surface of the School of Air sphere.

Instantly, the Sigil flowed from his hand, wrapping itself around the curved surface of the sphere. The sphere itself rotated, first swiftly, then slowing down to a steady rate.

The whiteness of the sphere became clearer and brighter, and a clean light emanated steadily from it. On the surface, the Sigil that had unlocked it could be seen clearly, shining steadily out from the white surface with a golden, bright light.

Unlocked: School of Air

System: New Spells Available

Select: View Spell Details

Saul selected the option to view the spell details. Though time was pressing, it made sense to have at least an idea of what new weapons he was going into battle with.

School of Air:

Spells available: (Tier 1)

Silent Step (Stealth)

Hunter’s Sight (Perception)

Eagle Vision (Perception)

Spells available: (Tier 2)

Windspeed (Boost)

Steal Breath (Melee)

Whirlwind (Area of Effect)

From his previous experience, he knew that the three Tier 1 spells were not available during combat. However, he’d never actually tested how far that might go.

Did that mean he could not use them within a certain distance of an enemy? Or that he could use them anytime he was not actively engaged in a fight?

Perhaps I’ll have an opportunity to answer these questions soon enough, he thought.

He took another last glance around the Workshop. As before, he caught a glimpse of many hidden items in the strange room. Some of them seemed clearer than usual, especially one nearer the window. There, a long flat table seemed to be covered in a strange contraption of winding pipes and gleaming glass.

As always, however, when he stared straight at it, the thing vanished. Was it his imagination, or did it just vanish slightly slower than before?

He thought again of the extension of the Resource Table, and the green tint to the next Sigil. Was he seeing a clue to what he might be about to reveal at his next level up? After all, his next level would be Level 10, and that felt significant.

“Deactivate Workshop,” Saul said.

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His eyes snapped open, looking up at the branches of an oak silhouetted in black against the blue sky.

“Saul?” Zorea said quietly. “Are you back with me?”

He tilted his head. She was looking at him with a strange expression on her face, half-amazement and half-fear. He thought it was the same look she’d given him when he first awoke to find her staring at him from the side of his sick bed.

He went to speak, but his mouth was dry and parched as if he’d been asleep for a long time.

“Yeah,” he said on his second attempt. “How long…”

“Nearly half an hour by the sun.”

Saul sat up, feeling a strange lurch in his chest. By his own count of the time he’d spent in the Workshop, he had been out for half that time.

That was disturbing. Time passed differently when he was in the Workshop, and there was not a direct relationship between ‘real’ time and Workshop time.

Clearly, visiting the Workshop at moments of crisis was riskier than he had initially thought.

“I was going to try to wake you,” she said as Saul sat in the undergrowth and rubbed his eyes and his cheeks with his hands. “But you didn’t seem like you were asleep. Your eyes were wide open, and you lay as still as if you were dead.”

“I can’t explain right now,” he said, “but it’s a thing I have to do to get my magic working to its fullest capacity. I’m going to need it for the battle.”

“I think you will,” she said, and he saw how quickly she accepted his explanation. “I can hear the sounds of fighting and, as you said, we’re on the wrong side. We ought to be in there lending our aid to our friends but, instead, we’re out here. Come on.”

They had perhaps a quarter mile to go to the edge of the cliff. There was no sign of any enemies in the trees that they could see.

As they moved as silently as possible toward the village, Saul asked Zorea, “How did you come to be in the forest anyway?”

“I followed you,” she said, not at all sheepishly. “You know Brand and I want to know what’s going on, so we agreed that we’d always keep you in sight if possible. When we got your message that you weren’t going to be there for our training session, we agreed that I would go out and see if I could find where you’d gone, and Brand would stay behind in the village.”

Saul rolled his eyes. “What can a man do to get a bit of privacy?”

“Tell us the full story,” she replied immediately, her face completely serious. “Tell us who and what you are, where you came from, why you’re here, and how it is you can use magic without channelers to help you.”

Saul nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “You deserve that, I suppose. You’ve shown me you can both be trusted. Once this fight is over, I’ll tell you my story, on the condition you’ll let me have a bit of privacy if I want it.”

Now, she smiled. “Very well, Saul. If Brand agrees as well, we’ll do that.”

They came to the edge of the cliff. Carefully, they sneaked up to the edge and looked over.

The village was under attack.

Black figures of warlocks and their thralls clustered in the open space in front of the village. Even from up here, the cries of men and the clash of weapons could be heard.

“We have to get down there,” Zorea said hoarsely as she saw the scene below, but Saul reached out and grabbed her arm.

“Don’t go off without preparation,” he scolded her. “You won’t do any good charging in blind and angry. You need to assess the situation and make a plan. Jerryl will be fighting from inside the village. The enemy will engage him, and you and I will be the flanking force.”

She took his words on board, then took a few deep breaths and laid down again in the undergrowth.

Saul’s long training in warfare and tactics served him well as he studied the battlefield in front of them. As he identified the different battlefield features, he talked through what he saw to Zorea.

“The attacking forces are mainly made up of the thrall squads we saw in the forest,” he said. “See, they are small groups, squads of five to ten thralls, each with a warlock in charge, perhaps thirty or forty men in total—not a large force. The warlocks will each likely have control of the Sigils that keep the thralls in motion. See the other warlocks at the back of the force? They don’t seem to have thralls with them. There are four groups there, four squads of five warlocks each, spread out around the back of the attacking force. What are they doing? We don’t know yet, but it doesn’t make sense to discount them. I suspect they have some magical weapon they are waiting to unleash. The thralls are attacking the main gate. But why is the resistance so light? There seems to only be a handful of villagers and soldiers defending the palisade wall.”

She looked at him askance. “You can’t see it?”

“See what?” Saul asked, surprised.

He looked again. In the open space below, he could see the warlock forces arrayed to the attack, and a small force of defenders on the walls flinging rocks and firing a few arrows, but he could not see anything else, unless there was a faint impression of shadow across the middle of the village, centered on the barracks.

“The dome,” she said, pointing toward the shadow. “The dome of shadow in the middle of the village.”

Saul looked again, then shook his head.

“I see a faint darkening over the middle of the village, like smoke,” he said. “What do you see?”

“There’s a dome of darkness stretched over most of the village,” she replied. Her voice had gone deeper and slowed as if she was in a trance. “The darkness is centered on the barracks in the middle of the village. In the darkness, none can wake…”

Suddenly, she shook herself.

“A spell,” she said in a more normal voice. “There is a spell over the village that’s stopping our allies from defending themselves properly.”

Saul gazed again at the battlefield. At the gate, a press of thralls and warlocks were hammering on the wood. Others were trying to raise ladders against the twelve-foot-high wooden palisade. On the other side of the wall, along the narrow walkway on the inside at the top, was a crowd of people, but they were not Jerryl and the soldiers.

They were villagers.

Saul could not see exactly who was there…

“I’m going to try a spell,” he said, remembering the new magic he’d been given.

He activated Eagle Vision from his spell list. Immediately, he felt a strange lightness, a lifting sensation in his head, a light, airy feeling. For a moment, he was convinced he was flying, but that was only partly true.

His perception had been split in a disorientating way so, with part of his mind, he was aware of his body in place, lying on the grass at the top of the ridge. With the other part, he found himself looking down on the world as if he were a soaring bird.

Indeed, he could almost feel the wind under his wings, the light, free sensation of flight. With his body, he looked up, and with his Eagle Vision sight, he looked down.

With the strange doubling of perception the spell granted him, he was aware there was actually a physical manifestation of the spell above. It was impressive, a large bird like an eagle, soaring cleanly through the air.

Working hard to remain in control despite the dizzying effect of the magic, Saul concentrated on the Eagle Vision part of his perception. He soared over the village, peering behind the walls.

It was as he thought.

There was no sign of Jerryl or any but a few of the Xornian soldiers on the walls. Nobody could be seen within the pall of shadow that hung over the middle of the village, but Saul did not doubt Zorea’s assessment of the situation.

He focused his vision on the defenders and saw to his great satisfaction that none other than Brand had taken command of the defense. Brand was directing the volleys of arrows and rocks from the palisade onto the heads of the attackers as best he could. He was shouting orders at a group of villagers—led by Rork, the sturdy blacksmith—to secure the gate and prepare to hold it if the warlocks broke through.

Brand was doing well, but Saul could see the fear in the young man’s stance and sensed the despair that threatened to overtake him. How could Brand understand what was going on? His village was under attack, and the soldiers were not acting. Even Saul was nowhere to be found.

“The bow,” Saul said as he deactivated the spell and breathed a sigh of relief as his perception snapped back into its normal shape again.

“What?” Zorea said.

“The warlock bow, the one that we brought back to the village after Brand and I fought the trolls in the forest. It must have some kind of magic spell on it that has now been activated. The warlock left it there on purpose. We were meant to bring it back to the village for just this reason, and we walked right into the trick.”

“That makes sense,” Zorea said, nodding. “They are cunning! That was ages ago. They let us take the bow into the village, and they waited until the time was right before activating the spell.”

“They’re playing a long game,” Saul said darkly.

Down below echoed a sudden shattering crash.

Saul and Zorea both looked down to see flashes of light appearing all over the battlefield. The light was coming from the hands of the four warlocks who stood farther back in smaller groups, their hands raised in the air.

They were channeling magic. In the plain in front of them, magic glowed at many points on the ground, and beneath those points the ground shuddered suddenly and exploded outward in clouds of dust.

Horrible crawling forms emerged, like insects scrabbling their way up from nightmare cocoons. They were dry and rattling, pale shapes of yellowing rotten bones.

They were insectoid forms, like giant beetles, but made from hundreds of bones all held together with quivering magic. They had huge pincers, many lopsided legs, and they hurried forward with terrible speed toward the gates.

On their backs, each one had a shining black Sigil.