Below Shinia, the Cooperative States of Vollis are primarily large, open plains of golden grass. Large, dry forests and red, sandy deserts break up the monotonous rolling fields of gold, along with tall, mostly bare mountains. Much of the east coast of Vollis, where the power opens onto the Torn Strait, is tall cliffs riddled with caves and only the massive Vollian Bay has any long stretch of beach. Their southern coast, however, is much tamer and is mainly flat beach with the occasional cliff and rock promontory.

Excerpt from the introduction to ‘Power Geography – Salor Takana’

As soon as the first rays of light pierced into his room, Ashe was awake. Practically jumping out of bed, Ashe quickly stripped the sheets and folded them before grabbing the bag he’d left out the night before. Slinging it over his shoulder, Ashe could only barely restrain himself from running down the hallway and the stairs to the kitchen on the ground floor. As he rushed around the manor, he only just avoided the few servants that he ran across but he didn’t really care; he was, to say the least, excited about the journey to come. After a grabbing quick breakfast of pastries and fruit and stacking them on a plate, Ashe ran into Erin as he was leaving the kitchen. Erin barely seemed to notice Ashe even as he practically barrelled past her on his way to the dining room.

Ashe paused, looking at the distracted woman, but decided not to say anything as it seemed she only noticed the presence of another person, not that it was Ashe. Deciding to just drop the issue, Ashe grabbed a chair at the dining room table and sat down with his plate, digging into the food with gusto. Erin came out of the kitchen a few minutes later with her own plate of food and sat down at the table, staring at nothing as she mechanically put food into her mouth and began chewing. Once he was done with his food, Ashe dropped his plate down in the kitchen and sidled over to Erin, “What’s gotten into you?”

Erin didn’t even seem to register the question and Cab’s voice sounded in Ashe’s head, ‘I don’t think she’s in the mood to talk, boy.’ Over the past six months, Cab and Ashe had sorted out the issues they’d been facing which, with Ashe’s realisation that Cab did care about him in his own, demonic way, was quite easy. The idea that Cab hadn’t formed even the slightest bit of attachment to Ashe had, without Ashe even realising, been significantly impacting Ashe’s treatment of the demon so, with that out of the way, Ashe was feeling quite free with the demon.

Given Cab’s nature, though, he’d set a number of rules on his interactions with Ashe which, if Ashe was being honest, he didn’t really mind. The demon said that he’d never intervene in anything that Ashe was facing unless the boy was about to die, Cab said that he would not be changing how he spoke to Ashe and any stupid decisions that he made would be harshly criticised, and Cab also said that he would continue to offer help to Ashe when it came to advancing in Stage. After all, while he wasn’t going to actively interfere with things that happened to Ashe, he also didn’t want his… surrogate son – at least that was what Ashe thought Cab viewed him as – to die. It also helped that Ashe was Cab’s source of food. So, rather than actively interfering, Cab was giving Ashe instructions on advancing that were helping significantly; in the demon’s thousands of years of life, he had become very knowledgeable about different forms of advancement and what each magical power needed to grow stronger.

With Cab’s guidance and the resources provided by the Dawnblaze family, Ashe had become significantly more powerful during the time that Erin had been away and was now almost through the Baron Stage, at least in terms of core stability. Sammath himself, despite being on the Viscount Stage for longer than Ashe had been at the Baron Stage, hadn’t made as much progress as the Shinian boy, though Ashe knew that wasn’t a fair comparison as Volkarians tended to advance in Stage all at once and because Sammath had been resisting the teachers’ efforts with him for nearly the entire time that they’d been at the manor. That’s not to say that Sammath hadn’t made progress; he had, it was just mainly focussed on regaining control of his powers and using them without tapping into the time aspect of them, but despite the cause of the disparity between Ashe’s and Sammath’s advancement progress, Ashe was proud of what he’d managed to accomplish during his time at Dawnblaze manor.

Ashe ignored Cab’s words and sat down next to Erin but she still didn’t seem to register that he was there. It was only when Ashe waved his hand in between Erin and her food, deciding it would probably be prudent to that rather than poke her, that Erin seemed to register anything. Startled, Erin looked up at Ashe. “Sorry, what did you say? I’m a bit preoccupied.”

“I asked what’s going on with you. I passed you when you were entering the kitchen and you didn’t even seem to register that I was there.”

“That was you?” Erin frowned, “I don’t know how I didn’t notice that was you.”

“That’s my point. Look, I get that something might be on your mind but we – Sammath and I – need you to snap out of it. If you’re distracted like this on the battlefield, someone’s going to get killed and it’s probably going to be you.”

Erin nodded, “I know. I’ll get this sorted before then. I just need to find somewhere to test something out. Kaiden and I had a discussion last night and he… opened my eyes to a few things.”

Ashe hesitated there slightly; Sammath had told him all about Kaiden’s crush on Erin but he wasn’t exactly sure that’s what Erin was talking about. It didn’t sound like Erin was talking about anything romantic, at least. “Opened your eyes to what, exactly?”

Erin hesitated there, which was something of a new development for Ashe; she wasn’t really someone who hesitated, at least from what he knew of her. “It’s… complicated.”

Ashe frowned internally. This was beginning to sound like it was the prince’s feelings for Erin that he’d talked about last night which would be an annoying development, to say the least. “I think I’m smart enough to figure it out if you try me.”

Erin sighed, “Look. I can’t talk about all of it because some of it is sensitive information that I’ve been forbidden to reveal, but… the prince told me last night that he thinks there’s more to my powers than what I’ve been using; that I’ve mentally trapped myself with the idea that I have two Bloodlines when, in fact, I have one that is a combination of both my parents’ Bloodlines.”

Ashe leant back in his chair, “But that would mean…”

Erin nodded solemnly. “It would mean that I can use my powers interchangeably. I could create… let’s call it sunsteel… armour and weapons and use the moonlight to make some sort of moonfire. Not only that but I can probably combine the energies to make some sort of eclipse power. I could create weapons and tools out of sunsteel and moonsteel and probably could also use a combination of sunfire and moonfire. I already could use my sunfire and moonsteel together to create a flaming weapon, but this is potentially something much more powerful. More powerful and… dangerous.”

Ashe tried to imagine the possibilities of that power expansion and the more he thought about it, the more he began to see possibilities with Erin’s power. “That’s… a lot to take in. If he’s right… you’re going to have to get used to a lot of potential power combinations without access to any resources or a truly safe place to practice.”

Erin’s mouth tightened and she looked Ashe in the eyes, “I know. Better than anyone.”

Suddenly, the doors to the dining room opened wide with a bang and Sammath strode in before stopping with his hands on his hips, “Never fear, Misfortunates. Your brave and humble leader has arrived.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Cab snorted in Ashe’s mind, ‘I personally don’t think he’s much of either. Nor is he the leader of the group, really. If that’s anyone, it’s Erin.’

Ashe glared at Sammath and the Volkarian dropped his arms from his side as he read the room, “Who pissed in your cup of water this morning?”

“Not the time Sammath.” Erin cut in before Ashe could. “We’ll catch you up while we’re on the road but you need to grab breakfast so we can set out.” Sammath’s exuberance dropped slightly but he went to do as Erin had suggested, making for the kitchen to grab some food from the staff.

Erin looked to Ashe, “Go make sure you’ve packed everything you can. If there’s something you want me to grab that you can’t take, let me know before we leave. I’ll fit it into a spatial storage.” Ashe left the room, slinging his bag over his shoulder, and heading for the door to wait for Erin. There was nothing that he wanted and, well, he was certainly not going to take the fancy clothes that Erin had bought him. Those were practically the only things Ashe had left behind and he was going to conveniently forget them.

So, instead of going up to his room, Ashe sat down by the front door, on a cushioned bench, and sat back to wait for the other two. About half an hour later, both of the others turned up. Sammath, like Ashe, had a bag slung over his shoulder while Erin seemed to just be relying on her spatial storages. Erin looked to the boys, “Are both of you ready?”

Both of them nodded so, with their confirmation, Erin set out the door.

The journey to the capital, with the three members of Misfortune walking, took a couple of hours and the sun had nearly reached its apex by the time they’d navigated through the city streets and made their way to the teleportation gates. Erin had been given a pass through the portal by her parents to anywhere in the kingdom; their gift to her as she went away; so she didn’t have to pay for the passage of the trio, which would have been absurdly expensive.

On the way to the capital, they’d talked about where exactly they wanted to go but there weren’t a huge number of options. Arikar connected directly to three other powers; the School of the Desert Moon, the Order of the Solar Storm, and Shinia. Volkar was also relatively close to Arikar, being just off its northern coast, but it was quite a safe and relatively boring island that Sammath didn’t want to return to so soon. That was also not including the fact that powerful sea Cored were currently swimming around, off the northern coast of Arikar. Ashe, similarly to Sammath, didn’t want to return to Shinia but mainly because of the fact that he’d probably be hunted anywhere they went and he didn’t want to go back to being on the run.

With those two places eliminated, the group was left with either going west, to the School of the Desert Moon, or east – just not north-east to Shinia – towards the Order of the Solar Storm. If they went to the School, they would be extremely limited in what they could do. Not only was the school the leftmost power on the continent but it only connected to Arikar by land and the nearest place by sea was, once again, Volkar. So, with those considerations in mind, the trio decided to go to the Order of the Solar Storm.

After asking the teleporter to take them to Sunfringe City – the city closest to the border of the sects which, while it wasn’t the capital of a Barony, County, or March, was important enough for trade to have a teleportation hub – the three of them managed to leave the city gates as the sun reached its apex for the day. Heading out of the city, the three of them followed the constant trickle of people heading out of the city and towards the border between Arikar and the Order. After a few hours of travel, the three travellers reached the border between the two powers and, frankly, Ashe was quite underwhelmed.

Having never actually seen the border between Arikar and Shinia because of the fact that he was unconscious during his somewhat unwilling journey between the two powers, Ashe had worked up grand visions of a mighty wall surrounding Arikar, squads of powerful soldiers patrolling its great heights with gritty vigilance and brandishing powerful, heavily enchanted weaponry. Ashe had imagined massive gates, like those of the cities he’d passed through but even larger to truly communicate their strategic importance and impress their might upon would-be attackers and make them reevaluate their assault.

So, when Ashe found himself stopping in a long line of about thirty people, not including carts and animals, Ashe was supremely disappointed. Leaning to the side in an attempt to try and spot the crossing point, all Ashe found himself looking at was a small, stone hut manned by a small number of guards. On this side of the border, two guards were pulling people aside to inspect their wares and travel documentation before letting them through. Each inspection took about five minutes, which was repeated over and over with a sort of vigilant, expectant boredom. The guards were clearly hoping to catch someone trying to do something illegal simply so that it would alleviate the monotony of their post.

‘What? Disappointed? Did you really think that Arikar would spend thousands upon thousands of hours of labour and invest incomprehensibly vast sums of money just to keep a few people out of their country?’

‘I was hoping for at least a little more.’ Ashe admitted to the demon.

‘First off, the city walls protect the majority of their citizens from any sort of invasive force. Anyone doing anything illegal will eventually get caught, even if they’re doing everything in the wilderness, because they’ll be interacting with at least one city in either of the powers and Arikar almost certainly has agents in the sects. Finally, why would Arikar care about any refugees or people fleeing to try and find a better life? As long as they’re willing to work, it gives more hands to help Arikar’s economy and there is plenty of space for people to live.’

Ashe looked out to either side of him, looking at the vast swathes of empty plains, and he knew that no one doing anything illegal would be caught trying to take it through official channels like these gates. There was almost no way to catch or monitor someone doing anything against the law if they were even the slightest bit determined to avoid getting caught, at least in regards to smuggling illegal items across the border. Cab’s right. That must be why they broke the smuggling ring down at its source. Arikar won’t be able to stop anyone determined to get through but criminals will have to interact with other people eventually and, when they do, they leave a trail.

Cab was clearly listening to Ashe’s internal monologue, despite the fact that Ashe hadn’t chosen to direct the thought at the demon, as he responded, ‘Of course I’m right. I wouldn’t need to be right, though, if you chose to use your brain and think.’

‘And there’s your mandatory derisive comment.’ Ashe projected the sardonic thought at the demon and then tuned out Cab’s, no doubt acerbic and probably self-righteous, reply. Taking in a deep breath, Ashe began to perform an exercise that he’d learnt during the last few months, tracing out Runes with his mind. Supposedly, this was an exercise that had more practical use than just letting Ashe memorise the Runes but he hadn’t yet been taught what purpose that was. Slowly, Ashe ran through all of the Runes that he knew and had been practicing during his time at Dawnblaze manor, which amounted to hundreds of Runes. All of the elements; light, fire, darkness, earth, water, air, and more. Specific elemental effects; wind, waves, burning, and others. There were non-elemental effects like the Shake, Fall, and Stop Runes. Finally, there were the more abstract concepts like emotion Runes.

After running through over one hundred Runes, Ashe found that the three of them were standing at the front of the line and a guard was checking their papers. After a bored inspection of their bags, the guard waved them through, and they stepped forward. Ashe had, similarly to his expectations of the wall between powers, built up an idea about what it would feel like to step from one power to another. For some reason, one that didn’t quite align logically with what he knew about the world, Ashe expected that the step from Arikar to the Order would be a massive change. Ashe had just felt like there would be a stark line drawn between the militaristic, monarchical Arikar and the arrogant, nepotistic, meritocracy of the sects. For such a momentous occasion – breaking free from the support network that Ashe had quickly grown to appreciate – Ashe felt that there should be some sort of fanfare or drastic change but, as his foot touched down on the dirty ground, it was very much the same dirty path that he’d been walking on for hours of the day already.

Despite logically knowing that there wouldn’t be some marked change between the two countries; environments don’t just magically change, separated from each other by a jagged line across the ground; Ashe still felt a little bit let down by the complete and utter lack of fanfare. Ashe spotted no legendary cultivators flying across the sky on Enchanted swords, no arrogant young masters battling for supremacy and for the lion’s share of their sect resources, no ancient tombs hiding buried treasures that would bring him fame, fortune, and a meteoric rise to power, and that just made him feel slightly stupid after all of the stories he’d read that had been based in the sects’ lands.

Cab’s laughter echoed through Ashe’s mind and, with anger that might have been driven just a little by his disappointment, Ashe slammed a cage around the demon’s consciousness to keep the loud, mocking mirth from reaching him.