I could see Qent smile, his face vague and shrouded in umbral darkness. The warrior beside him was clad in full plate, I realized that I still didn’t know her name. She walked up to us, greeting Numen with a handshake. “It’s just us I assume?” She asked Numen, Qent trailing behind her to sit by the orc and I.

“Most likely.” Numen replied. “You’re Frejr I assume? Qent is the apprentice this time?”

A name for the face. Just when I needed it, convenient. Frejr nodded. “Yes. You are?” She inquired, head cocked.

“Numen.” He replied with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you. Your participation should make this go a lot more smoothly.”

They made plans into the night, before finally, we called it quits to fall asleep. I took first watch, preferring uninterrupted sleep. Without a fire, the night was drearily cold, and the animals less wary. I lost count of the number of times I’d chased away scavengers and the occasional predator. Most of the predators were alone, and looking for a different meal. They simply growled at me, and left.

I went to sleep soon after, waking Qent for the next shift. He blearily got up, and I stayed awake for the time it took for him to fully engage. He shook it off quickly enough, smiling at me. “Thanks” He said. “I’m fine now, you should go to sleep.” He took up a seat, and conjured a dim light.

“Might want to rely on your night vision.” I said, turning in. “That’s almost like a beacon for people.” I closed my eyes, slowly tuning out the world around me.

I woke naturally, six hours of sleep done. It was almost dawn. We needed to move quickly, the army had likely gotten itself together. We needed to catch up. We found our way back to the army without much hassle, though Numen noted an increased patrol presence. We moved ahead of the army, easy enough for a group travelling light, and prepared ourselves.

It was late afternoon when they filed into our neck of the woods. I’ve always wanted to use that term. We’d watched them lose discipline and coherence as they marched, the sun baking them in their armour, even light as it was. Some of the soldiers had obviously retreated into themselves, their postures indicating boredom and monotony. A perfect time for an ambush.

Fire was honestly pretty damn versatile when it came down to it. It covered distraction, damage and utility all in one. However, when it came to disorientation on a grand scale, there was really nothing that beat Earth. Arrows rained on one segment of the army, spread out now thanks to their sluggishness. The bodies barely had the chance to hit the floor before Qent’s magic kicked in.

The earth shook beneath them, throwing them into disarray. Something split, and a small group fell in. The army now fully shaken, we moved in. Me and Frejr pushed through the opposition, diving it to quickly slash at our opponents. Frejr’s greatsword acted in a way more like a hammer than a sword, sending men flying after the initial penetration. They wailed, their pain and horror evident. I steeled myself, compassion for my enemies had no place on the battlefield, but neither did hate.

Our enemies began to rally after almost a minute, righting themselves and moving towards us. A sudden maniacal cackling sounded from the forest, as a gout of flame suddenly sailed across the sky, laying waste to one of their supply wagons. The soldiers watched, utterly dumbfounded, as we used the chance to extract. By the time we’d reached the forest the fire had been extinguished, by one the mages that lined their ranks. We’d taken a small chunk of perhaps twenty from the army, wounding quite a few more.

We found Qent leaned up against a tree, looking drained and pensive. That laugh had disturbed me, seeming to have come from some otherworldly monster than the man before me. Numen shouldered Qent and we moved deeper again. The soldiers had begun to disperse to search for us, and voices began to penetrate the forest.

Frejr and Qent left to go deeper, as Numen and I instead waited for our own surprises to kick in before we began our work. We didn’t really have a lot of materials on hand, punji bear traps needed nails after all. But pit traps were quite easy to set up, even more so when all we needed was immobilization and not death. Someone screamed as their foot dropped into a hole, impaling itself on sharp sticks embedded in the ground. He gurgled as an arrow found its way into his throat.

I snuck up behind another, who was distracted by the scream, and sawed at her throat with my dagger. She struggled weakly, the blood loss slowly sapping her strength. I dropped her body with a deliberate thud, loud in the now still forest, and I faded away. Someone screamed again, and the cycle began anew. Another ten died before some panicked, running without heed in random directions, losing themselves in the forest. We didn’t chase them, a bird in the hand and all that.

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The stragglers that managed to escape ran back with barely concealed terror, collapsing on the ground before the rest of the army. The others stared at the forest uncomfortably, and the army swiftly moved on, tightening their ranks, as patrols began to spring up. That was alright, we weren’t going to attack right away anyway.

I knelt down next to the corpses, stripping them of weapons and equipment. Most I left, their armour leather and their weapons weak, but I took their arrows along with the quiver, Numen would need them. Some of them breathed their last as I came across them, and others I killed with my dagger, as I had in Raque’s world. I no longer felt anything at their death throes and dying curses, and even now I couldn’t tell you if that was a good thing or not.

We left the bodies unburied, moving further ahead of the army again. I sat, removing some of my armour, and remodelling it to remove some bulk. In truth I hadn’t needed to use all of it for the design I had. Some parts simply couldn’t be strengthened without sacrificing my movement, and others didn’t need to be reinforced to withstand cutting blows.

When Oroc had explained how the Liaen worked to me I’d been surprised. “I won’t teach it to you the way that I was taught, because that’s really the wrong way. The thing about the Liaen is that it runs based on physics. You have to be able to define what you want to change, the magic helps it along, but you can’t define something too abstract. The Liaen can manifest individually as almost anything, but the way each individual atom interacts is rooted in physics, or perhaps chemistry.” He’d run through the basics, teaching me theory I’d forgotten, and to visualize the way it held together.

I’d at the time learned to swap it between three forms. Rigid, tough and inflexible, to a point I could actually manage; pliable but strong, like cloth woven from steel; Soft and easily shredded, enabling me to reshape it to my will. The truly adept would have been able to swap between them almost instantly, perhaps even create their own formulations as they fought, but for me that was out of reach. I smiled wryly to myself as I worked.

“What… what are you doing?” Qent asked, still somewhat breathless. Magic took a toll on the body, left them drained, and seemed to be an uncomfortable experience overall. Numen said he was an apprentice. I thought. But I doubt the master is Frejr.

[Perhaps magic isn’t what he’s apprenticing for.] Page thought, a frown creasing its thoughts.

Maybe. I nodded to myself, and decided to answer him. “I’m making a shield. I’ve gained too many wounds on my left hand from the rescue attempt that I could have avoided.” I folded the piece, reshaping it again and locking it rigid. I made several others in the same way, before working on something to attach it to on my arm.

“That… looks like a fan.” Qent stated uncertainly. I nodded, continuing my work. He frowned in confusion, but I figured it’d be easier to show than to explain right now.

“What happened just now when you followed the plan to burn the supply?” I asked, he quite honestly jumped the gun for that action, I’d expected almost a minute more of time to work, and that laugh… He said nothing, simply looking down.

“I’ll explain this.” Frejr said. “Considering that you are fighting alongside us now.” They said with a hint of disapproval. I arched an eyebrow, if I were to be pedantic they were fighting alongside us, but I guess her disapproval of me stuck deep. “Magic comes from aether, split to fire, water, air or earth. When you split aether to one, its opposite remains, and the remnants stain your soul.” She said. I arched my eyebrow higher, that was… interesting.

“The way it affects each person follows the theme of what it is, though the effects can be unpredictable at times.” Frejr continued. “All of them in large amounts basically amount to insanity. In the case before it was impulsiveness and manic risk seeking thought.”

“Sorry.” Qent mumbled. “I’m still trying to overcome that.” I looked up, his voice had a drowsy quality to it, and he wobbled for a moment, collapsing forward into his lap.

Frejr moved over and laid him down, moving him into what I’d known as the recovery position. Her movements were practiced, somehow fluid despite the armour she wore. I shrugged to myself, setting the finished pieces aside as I continued working. The configuration on my arm was fun to experiment with, though I knew I didn’t really have all that much to work with. Frejr and Numen stayed alert, and occasionally we moved to a different location as Numen found the signs of larger predators that had come for easy meals.

I finished as the sun began to set, and we were about to begin another raid. I tested my new shield, the multiple fan-shaped pieces stacked on each other unfurled counter-clockwise from their position pointing up from my forearm. They each fell into place with a click, forming a rigid, lenticular shield. I then broke the bonds I’d formed to hold them, lifting the final piece and furling them up again. I did this a few times, happy at the way it slid, almost soundless.

Satisfied, I got up, and Frejr woke Qent. He stretched himself, slapping himself once lightly to our amusement. We’d swapped to the opposite forest a short while ago, and the sunlight began to dim. Lights began to come from the convoy, the mages providing illumination from within the group. Their constant alertness had taken its toll, though their lines were a lot harder now compared to what we’d assaulted before. We watched the army from the shadows. No traps this time, but I wasn’t sure they’d try to follow us again after that debacle.

Qent mumbled something under his breath as he rubbed at his eyes. Interrupted sleep hadn’t been good for him, but that was how it was in the forest, especially with all those corpses around. Numen tested his bow, a number of quivers from our opponents hung deeper within the forest, where we had rested, Numen used their arrows now, and had been getting used to the difference. I had taken to using one of their swords, since honestly I foresaw a lot of cutting over the next few weeks, and my sword would really last so long in those conditions.

Frejr stood steady, her sword hanging by her side, etched with runes. How long could we keep this up I wonder?