I awoke to find Dusk, Kene, and Meadow leaning over me. Dusk was channeling her mana directly into me, letting it break down into energy to help pay off the physical debt of Burn Future, and Kene was tending to my legs.

They were in bad condition, but it was nothing compared to the ache in my spirit.

“What… happened?” I asked.

“I heard things go silent after the fight,” Kene said. “So I came out to check on you, and saw you passed out in a pool of your own blood. A few moments later, Meadow arrived. She’d been using the plants in the area to excavate her way down into the castle.”

They pointed to a second hole in the ceiling.

“Luckily, you mainly seem to have clean slices through your legs, and a broken ankle.”

Kene cast a few more spells, and Meadow took over the explanation.

“Your physical wounds weren't terribly severe, considering that you had Kene and I here. But the trouble was your spiritual wounds. You channeled a lot of power that was much stronger than you. If you hadn’t had Magister’s Body, I would have had to step in much sooner – it allowed you to offset enough of the damage, since you were primarily dealing with energy, not mana. If you hadn’t been working with plants, and hadn’t had the Magister’s Body, then channeling that much power through you would have wound up permanently crippling your mana channels. On top of both of those, if it weren’t for my, Kene's, Dusk's, several brownies', and the Peacepyre’s regeneration spells all working in concert, they’d be damaged. More than even that, the only reason Kene managed to do it was the solar spells that help restore the spirit, as well as their breakthrough. As is, they’re wrung out, but usable. You should avoid casting any spells for at least a week, after which it may be painful, but it should be safe.”

“That’s good,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

Dusk let out a river-burble, saying that that it was stupid of me to have fought the root right away. I should have retreated to her realm with Kene, then waited until we were all healthy before emerging to attack the root again.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “I just thought… If I did run away, it might attack the town.”

“It likely would have,” Meadow said.

“Which is the main reason I’m not mad at you for doing something so reckless,” Kene said. “That and your use of the Blood Carnations was actually clever.”

I let my head hit the ground and closed my eyes.

“You did well, considering you were up against an opponent with fourth gate levels of power,” Meadow admitted. “I thought I was going to have to step in during the fight, not just to help you recover. But that said, don’t take risks like this again. I won’t always be here to pull you out of the fire if things go wrong.”

I swallowed and nodded.

“I won’t take stupid risks like this again,” I said, and was about to ask about the breakthrough, but opened my eyes again as I felt myself being pulled up. Kene wrapped me tightly in a hug, so tight that I had trouble breathing.

“You better not,” they admonished, and their voice came out choked, like they were holding back tears. “You could have died. I… I get it. I get why you did it. I’d be a hypocrite if I said that near-suicidal attempts to help people aren’t allowed, but… By the primes, be careful.”

I actually let out a sigh of relief at that. I hadn’t actually really thought about the fact that Kene would have understood. They helped people in a very different way than I did, but… they understood putting your own safety behind the safety of others.

I hugged Kene back, and we held each other for a long, long time. When we finally broke apart, both of our eyes were blurry, and neither of us commented on it.

“But what’s this about a breakthrough? Did you ascend to third gate?” I asked, now that we were separated.

I hoped they hadn't. Power was good, but the golden elixir of the Idyll-Flume could help them push back the hag, and they couldn't enter if they'd broken through to third gate.

“Not that kind of breakthrough,” Kene said. “As we were healing you, I felt a weird sensation come over me. I started pulling on more mana than I usually had, it was recovering quicker, and even the physical treatment I was giving you seemed to go off without a hitch.”

“A Nascent Truth,” I said, then looked to Meadow. “Right?”

“Indeed,” she said. “Near as I can tell, Kene formed the Nascent Truth of Succor. They can enforce their spells and actions while using them to aid others and help those around them. It’s a good thing to embody and connect to. It even allowed their healing to repair a bit of the damage to your channels.”

“I need a way to reinforce my spirit,” I said, and Meadow smiled at me.

“Well,” she said. “Isn’t it convenient that you’ve got a way to help repair the damage, and to help reinforce your ability to channel lots of mana, and more importantly, energy?”

I looked at Meadow seriously.

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“Were you planning this?”

“Not this specifically. But I did think it was likely that you’d need it eventually. Admittedly, I didn’t think you’d get this far so quickly. Your determination is… Higher than I anticipated.”

She smiled slightly at the last words.

“I think I’m done,” Kene said as they cast a few more diagnostic spells on me. “I can’t help anymore. You’re physically fine, and magically strained, but okay.”

I hugged Kene again, and they hugged me tightly back.

“Thank you,” I said.

He pulled away a moment later, and we turned to Meadow.

"My staff... Is there a way to repair it?" I asked her.

"It can be fixed, but you'll need new natural mana sources," she responded. "Its connection to you has preserved the copy of the spells contained within, but don't expect it to take the same form when you rebuild it."

That did sting. I'd put a lot of work into my staff, and to have to redo the hardest bits? It wasn't fun.

I sighed, but didn't complain. After all, better to lose my staff than my life.

“If you want some good news," Meadow said as she passed me the strange glowing sphere, “Since you killed the war root, Kene and I agreed that you should take this.”

“What… Is it?” I asked.

“A fourth gate energy battery for knowledge and mental energy,” Kene responded. “We looked at it while you were out. Energy batteries like that are used in building advanced greenhouses. Modern ones are much more compact and don't have the runework so visible, but it’s still functional.”

Dusk swelled with pride and let out a rustling-leaves noise, saying that I didn’t need such inferior devices, since her nature as the spirit of the Astral Realm let her manipulate it directly. I patted her head and thanked her, then put her on my shoulder.

“Can I… Plug it into the Magister's Body somehow?” I asked Meadow. “Supercharge my mind?”

“You just got an example on why channeling power you’re not ready for is a bad idea,” Kene reminded me. “Also, no.”

“Kene is right,” Meadow said. “You could try and take it in, but these are growth spells dependent on you. The best you could manage would be restoring energy that you’d expended.”

“That still sounds useful,” I said. “For when I’m third or fourth gate, at least,” I added when I saw Meadow and Kene both tense.

I handed the sphere to Dusk, who sent it into her treasure vault, but frowned as a thought occurred to me.

"How come channeling third gate blademoss and fourth gate energy did such a number on me, but I can use third gate enchantments, like my broom, just fine? Kene's defensive spells in their hat are third gate."

"A broom isn't directly connecting to your spirit," Kene said. "When you're controlling the Blademoss or draining the war root, you're doing so with spells that open a bridge to your mana, and thus, your spirit. Even then, doing it once or twice is fine – we both did it against the root some. It's that you kept doing it, over and over again, that strained your spirit."

I nodded, and took a bit of time to relax and recover, before I turned to look at Meadow.

"Are we ready to head back now?" I asked.

“If you want,” she said. “But you could also look around and loot the castle. It was probably ransacked by the girl who attacked it, but she couldn't have had the time to get everything of value out."

“So!” Kene said, trying to lighten the mood. “Looting time?”

“Looting time,” I agreed.

We wandered through the rooms of the underground castle, looking for anything of interest. This was an old castle, so most magic we’d find would likely be out of date, but you never knew when you might stumble across an odd treasure. Maybe the literal treasury?

Most rooms of the castle were a disappointment in that regard, just containing compost and waste, but there were a few interesting places.

We found a room that had probably belonged to a court mage, and they’d obviously been absurdly interested in magical plants and magical beasts. There were the skeletons of multiple creatures throughout the room, half decayed cages with bones in them, and pots that had once contained plants.

There was even what had once been a greenhouse. The spells inside were failing and fading, but it was obvious that this had to have been where the war root had gotten the energy battery. It seemed to be the only one still functioning after all this time.

There were the pots with the remnants of more war roots, but they’d all dried and shriveled up.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I commented. “Why would your grandmother casting a bunch of magic have reached down here and woken these up? They’re dead.”

“I doubt it did,” Kene said. “The war root had probably slowly been feeding on the other roots, then making its way up to the surface over the course of centuries. It takes a long time to dig through that much dirt. It was pretty well set up in the cavern we were in, and fed on wildlife. Grandmother and the hag’s energy probably just acted as a particularly tasty lure to draw it out, and the town noticed it.”

I shivered at that.

We found a closet in the mage’s greenhouse with a huge number of preservation and defensive spells on it. They were flickering, having not been updated in ages, but we still had some hopes when we pulled it open.

We weren’t disappointed.

It wasn’t exactly a crazy haul, but there were a few things – notably, packets of seeds. The preservation spells seemed to have just held enough to keep them viable.

Most of the packets were for managrass, which we discarded. It might have been expensive long ago, but nowadays, it was common.

More interestingly, there were packets of Mist-Larkspur and Vigor-Camas. The first had no real magical effects on its own, but could be mixed with a few mundane plants to make a philter of mist, and the second could improve your strength for a short while after eating it, and was a good component for physical strengthening potions and energy potions.

After the mage’s quarters, the next place we checked was what we assumed to be the king’s quarters, but they were empty. We made our way down into the treasury, and found that the doors had been blown apart, clearly by whoever had attacked the castle.

Most everything had been emptied out, but as Meadow had predicted, not everything was, especially stuff that had once been under wards. Those wards, so run down on power, were now easy to break, and we actually found a few vials of gold dust. Not a ton, but given how rare gold was in Mossford, it would probably fetch a few hundred silver.

More interestingly, however, we found a pair of magical items, both of which had been preserved by the wards. They had clearly once been treasures worthy of keeping in a royal vault... But magical knowledge had progressed a lot. Now, they were useful, but hardly something so powerful that it needed royal protection.

The first was a necklace that supported a large, green glass orb. The orb contained a variant of a harvesting spell. It had no active effect – or maybe it would be more accurate to say it was always active, since wearing the necklace would boost the regeneration of all mana below third gate.

The second was a bracelet with a large teardrop shaped gem that contained an artificial mana reserve, and it could hold two first gate, and one second gate spell. Notably, while the person who had the bracelet was the one who could release the spells, anyone could cast the spell into the bracelet.

“Which one do you want?” I asked, and at the same time Kene said, “You should take your pick.”

“No, no,” I said. “You saved me. You pick first.”

“No, you,” Kene said. “If not for you, the whole village could be gone.”

“Fine,” I conceded.