Jace and Lessa sprinted down the slope to the base of the windmill. The entire structure was about as wide as a house and thrice as tall. The bottom level was a round cone of cobblestones, and the upper mill house was wood with a thatched roof.

They stopped right in front of the hole in the windmill’s base. Jace ducked his head, avoiding a non-moving, dim windmill blade. The wire framework nearly dipped all the way to the ground.

He wished he had a flashlight, or something shiny that he could point through the hole and illuminate the interior, but it was completely dark inside. He drew the bayonet from his belt and flipped it on. It began to whir and shake.

“Ugh, I should’ve brought a hammer or something,” Lessa complained. “Well, knife boy, killing the darkling is on you.”

“I better not be ‘knife boy’ from now on…” Jace muttered. He lifted his foot, about to take a half-hearted step into the dark, when a voice called out to them.

“Oh, Ms. Kendine! Thank the Split you came!”

Jace whirled around, pointing his bayonet at the approaching man. He was an older candlefolk in simple overalls and trousers, and he carried a rusting toolbox. As soon as he saw Jace, he raised his hands and said, “Woah, there, offworlder. Just saw you two heading over, meant no harm by it.”

“Offworlder?” Jace breathed. Well, he didn’t exactly blend in. “Yeah, yeah. Looks like you’ve got an infestation.”

In truth, he wanted nothing more than to turn away and march back to the inn, and pretend there wasn’t anything in here. He’d always been that way—shying away from gatherings to read books, or making excuses to stay out of any spotlight (no matter how large) just because it wasn’t him.

But he could do better than that, and he knew it.

He flipped the bayonet over in his hand. It was time to change something. “Yeah, we’re here to help.” He almost added an ‘I’ll handle this,’ to the end, but he stopped himself—that might come across as too cocky.

This new chance at life was up to him. He could mould himself as he wanted.

“Lessa?” he whispered. “Can I get some light in here?”

She swung her tail out in front of herself, illuminating the space inside the bottom floor of the windmill. A central brass shaft ran down from above. Mismatched wires and tubing surrounded it. A puff of steam shot out of a valve in the corner, shrouding a thin staircase that ran to the upper levels—where they’d seen the shadow of the darkling.

Jace crept up the stairs of the windmill. His shoulders barely fit through the gap between the outer wall and the inner machinery of the building—cogs, shafts, and pulleys. He held the bayonet out in front of himself, ready to attack anything that presented itself. Lessa followed right behind him.

When he made it halfway up the windmill, his sheets appeared. He groaned. "Not now..." This was the kind of sheet that everyone could see—whether they could read it or not.

The dust swirled into formation. [One (1) unsocketed Technique Card within five (5) meters.]

"Thanks, sheet..." Jace grumbled. "Now close, please."

It obeyed.

"It’s saying there’s a card nearby," he whispered to Lessa. “Any idea where it might be?”

"Dunno. Somewhere around here. The windmills use basic technique cards as control systems. Pretty sure this one uses a reset card to keep the Aes blockage build-ups in the blades from getting too bad."

Jace kept climbing, but he asked, "Aes blockages? These windmills use Aes?"

"The natural Aes currents push the blades, yeah. But they get full and build up blockages—like your in-body channels, and kinda like how the cooldowns on your techniques work.” She paused, creeping up the stairs behind him. “When you have a field of life-energy all around, you may as well use it to make something spin."

“Why do you know so much about magic?”

“Holocomics. I…read lots of them.”

Jace’s trust in her knowledge immediately dipped, but he held his tongue.

The stairs curved around, then passed through a wooden floor. Jace stopped and peered through the opening. On this top level, the main shaft of the windmill poked horizontally through the outer wall, and light trickled in through a gash on the other side—only enough for Jace to see the outlines of the objects.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

But there was nowhere for the darkling to go. It was in here somewhere. A rotting stench permeated everything.

Lessa squished in beside him, holding her flaming tail up and illuminating the room.

If there was one way to get its attention, that was it.

The light glinted across the twisted, deformed face of a lion-sized goat. It had no horns, only empty, oozing holes where they should have been. Its head snapped towards Jace and Lessa, but its eye sockets were empty. It let off a high-pitched shriek.

…And revealed a maw of fangs.

[Level 7 Darkling] read the tag above its head.

Jace took a breath and leapt up to the top of the stairs—just as the darkling charged. It ducked under the horizontal shaft of the windmill, opening its mouth wider. Every single one of its teeth was sharp. It pounced, and Jace rolled to the side. He slashed at its foreleg with the bayonet overturned in his hand.

The blade sliced across, slitting the beast’s forelegs and splattering dark tar across the floor of the windmill.

The goat turned on a dime, kicking at Jace. Its hooves had been carved into claws. He ducked away from the first swipe, but the second caught him on the forearm. He flew to the side and smashed shoulder-first into the central bevel gears of the windmill. Pain blasted through his body.

He clenched his jaw and pushed himself away from the cogs. At least they weren’t turning. The darkling leapt at him again, slashing with its clawed hooves. They left a gash in the cogshaft, and a spatter of sparks sprayed across the windmill’s floor.

Jace reached for the beast’s neck, trying to drive his bayonet in, but it lowered its head and rammed him, flinging him into the opposite wall of the windmill. The wooden boards creaked with the impact.

“Jace!” Lessa hissed, still watching from the stairwell. “Use your card!”

Plowing through it would be simple, if he didn’t also plow into the other side of the windmill. He doubted it’d be pleasant. The darkling was a half-decaying beast; the windmill’s walls were solid wood. He knew which had more Resistance.

He concentrated on exactly where he wanted to end up—the opposite side of the windmill’s top level, where Lessa waited. Hopefully, he’d drop out of hyperspace right before he slammed into the wall.

He stomped his foot down, pushed a surge of Aes through his core, and manifested the card. It appeared in the air in front of him.

The darkling lowered its head and turned towards Jace. It was about to charge, but he’d win that confrontation.

He snatched the card out of the air. It guided the Aes through his channels in complex swirls—patterns too complex for the mind to comprehend—utilizing the built-in technique circuit. Aes rushed to his fingertips.

The darkling sprang to the side.

Jace blasted through the air, but there was no impact. In a single boom and flash, he appeared on the opposite side of the windmill—a few inches from the wall.

The darkling had recognized he was about to use a technique and moved.

Jace turned back to face the creature. It might have recognized a threat, but it was just an animal. He tucked his head and raised his arms, about to use his technique card again.

When he tried to push another burst of Aes through his core, nothing happened.

He hissed, “Shit. It’s on cooldown.”

“Get its attention,” Lessa whispered. “Keep it distracted.”

“What?”

“I’ll grab the windmill’s embedded technique card for you!”

Before Jace could argue, she leapt up the last set of stairs and ran into the windmill’s upper level. She ducked under the horizontal shaft and sprinted to the other side, where more tubes and tangled wires awaited. The darkling had chewed a bunch of the machinery up, leaving a gap for Lessa to slip through.

The darkling’s head swivelled towards her—she was the one with the burning tail, and the most vibrant prey—but Jace sprinted towards it, shouting and waving his bayonet. “Over here! Look this way, not at her!”

The darkling opened its jaw and shut it again, as if warming its muscles up. Though it didn’t have eyes, it had some sort of sense of its surroundings. It spun towards him and bounded across the open half of the windmill. He ducked to the side, letting the beast slide past. It charged again, and he ducked again. Repeat. He needed to buy time.

“Almost there…” Lessa muttered.

He didn’t know how long it had been. Thirty seconds, maybe. It felt longer. Finally, the darkling caught the sleeve of his coat with one of its black fangs. The tooth ripped all the way through the fabric. It didn’t puncture his flesh, but the creature still pushed him back across the windmill, pinning him to the wall right beside the staircase. It slobbered and gnashed, and it tried to gash him with its claws. If he didn’t wriggle his body side-to-side, it would have slashed his gut open. It kept him pinned with its tooth, but it couldn’t get a direct hit in.

“Aha!” Lessa exclaimed. She emerged from the nest of wires with a flimsy plastic-and-wire card. With a flick of her wrist, she flung it across the room. Jace snatched it out of the air.

A tag appeared above it. [Technique Card: Cleanse Cooldown Buildups (Common) (Utility) (Compatible Class: All) (Compatible Aspects: All)]

He didn’t have time to read the ability description. With intent, and with his jaw clenched, he hissed, “Eject my current card! Make room!” The darkling’s claws still thrashed, trying to rip him apart. He leaned to the side to avoid them.

A sheet appeared in front of him, half-immersed in the darkling’s head. [Eject current card: Trigger Hyperspace Jump?]

“Yes!” Jace yelled.

The hyperjump card materialized in his hand, no longer floating. He shifted them with his fingers, then tossed up the new Cleanse card. He had a plan—if the card did what Lessa said it did.

He snatched the new card up out of the air and crushed it in his grip. Just like the first time he’d socketed the Hyperjump card, it dematerialized into a puff of sparks.

It activated without warning.