The buzzing sound quickly amplified as a stream of wasps began to emerge from underground nests.

They were larger than any normal wasps I'd ever seen, and their carapaces glimmered in the light like glass. Each one only felt like a first gate, but there were so many of them…

"Crystaldigger Wasps!" Kene shouted as he began to dig around in his spatial ring, looking for something.

I flexed my mana and my Briarthreads burst out around me, while I set Pinpoint Boneshard to whirl around me in a defensive formation.

Dusk poured power into her new enchantment, the armor rising out of the ground and forming around her.

The wasps divebombed at me, but the whipping briars knocked them off course in my defense.

I half expected them to die when swatted by the briars, but the wasps crystalline shells were made of sterner stuff, it seemed. Still, the ones that it hit did back off, their mana drained.

A vial of something sailed past me and struck the trunk of the tree, causing a huge plume of greenish smoke to burst forth.

Where the smoke struck the wasps, they began to buzz around in confusion, seeming totally disoriented and non-aggressive.

"Phemerone confusion," Kene explained from behind me, holding their hat close to them as its defensive enchantments protected them.

The buzzing redoubled as the earth split open and a giant crystalline creature, half wasp, and half bear, erupted from the earth.

I didn't need Kene to tell me what this was. It couldn't have more obviously been the queen if someone had lit it up with neon lights and put a crown on its head.

The queen let out an angry buzz and swooped at me, and I flexed Briarthreads to defend me. The spell cracked and strained, but it managed to block the blow.

Pinpoint Boneshard whipped around and smashed against the queen's carapace, but it did almost nothing. Even still, I kept the spell going, smacking against its wings, just in case I got lucky.

The queen let out a bellow, and the wasps in the area suddenly all turned as one. They began divebombing at me, and I poured power into my Briarthreads spell frantically, trying to keep them off.

A few slipped through, but they were still held off by my defensive aura spell… for now.

Kene tossed another vial, and this time it struck the queen and bloomed into flames. She let out an angry buzz, and the wasps turned their attention to him.

Primes.

I ran my mind through my mana-garden, looking for a spell that could help.

There was one thing. The half-built shadowy tree that would one day become Crow's Shade Messenger.

The spell array was built in two parts. The first half was a call to attract the shade of a crow, or similar bird, and infuse it with my own mana, while the second half was responsible for guiding the crow and the message.

I focused on the first half, letting the second half slip out of my mind.

I twisted my death mana in the air around me, sketching the rudimentary spell.

Then I dumped power into it, sending out pulse after pulse of death mana. I wrung my garden dry, then converted my temporal and spatial mana and send out pulse after pulse again.

I felt the spell solidify in my spirit. It wasn't a rive, not fully, but I felt like I was halfway there.

Then the queen broke through my Briarthreads spell. She hit me, sending me stumbling back, and I fell back, landing on one hand. I heard something crack, but there wasn't much pain, so I ignored it and stood.

I called Briarthreads again, and instead of keeping them defensive, I sent them lashing out in attacks at the queen.

They didn't do much, but they helped to keep her off of me. I converted down my second gate life mana to keep up the steady stream of whipping briars.

Several of the smaller wasps pierced through my defensive aura pin, and would have left me stung all over if it weren't for Dusk. She waved her hands and lumps of damp, mossy earth forged itself out of her mana. They struck at the wasps, driving them back.

I was still left with a handful of stings, but it was nothing compared to what it could have been.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Then came the caw of a crow.

I glanced over to see the shade of a crow sitting in the tree. By and large, it looked like an ordinary crow, but the blackness of its feathers was deeper, more like looking into the void of space. It was also ever so slightly translucent, as if it weren't entirely there.

Then there was another caw, and then another. Soon an entire flock of crow shades swarmed through the area.

They didn't do anything at first, but when a wasp passed by one, it nipped on it. Seemingly impressed with the taste, it let out a cackle and dove in, with its murder following just behind.

The air was filled with shadowy figures as the murder of crows feasted. Each wasp held more magic than the crow, but the crows were larger and stronger, and they also held the natural advantage of predator versus prey dynamics.

Seeing her colony being slowly but surely torn to shreds, the queen let out an angry buzz, and then turned and raced away, fleeing through the trees.

Her colony turned and fled with her, and some of the crows broke off to pursue her. The rest of the murder began to slowly break apart, but a small core of about five of them stuck around, staring at me.

Dusk approached them, hopping off my shoulder and climbing down my side while whistling to them.

I tensed, momentarily worried the crows may decide that she was a snack too.

Instead, she opened a small portal, and the five crow shades slipped into her realm.

I walked over to Kene with a shaky smile.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," they said, tapping their hat. "Third gate defenses, they couldn't really hurt me. The queen probably could have, but you kept her pretty well occupied."

They glanced me over,and their eyes widened.

"Your wrist!"

I looked down at my wrist. It was a bit sore and swollen, but when I flicked Analyze Life on, I saw why Kene was worried.

There were cracks running throughout the bones in my wrist.

"I don't feel it," I said, twisting my wrist.

"Adrenaline," Kene said, gently taking my wrist. Green light began to wash out of my hands as the bone began to heal.

Midway through the healing, the pain set in, and Kene had to cast a pain reduction spell on me. After healing my wrist, he purified the toxins left in me from the wasp stings, and then healed those over too.

By the time they were done, I felt healthier than I'd been when they started.

"Do you want to collect the plants?" I asked.

"Absolutely, but you're carrying them back," they said, grinning teasingly at me.

"I can do that," I said, waving my hand and snapping open a portal to Dusk's realm.

"Cheater!" they responded, gently slugging my shoulder. I stuck my tongue out at them in response.

After tussling for a few moments, we broke apart and began to collect flowers. Some of them were ordinary, and some were magical flowers, but we collected a good number of each of them.

A few hours later, we finished with the flowers, and I looked at the tree and the gourds.

"What about them?"

Kene glanced over it before nodding approvingly.

"Second gate Red Star Tree. The gourds are Spirit Gourds – or at least, they will be when they're done growing."

"You recommended me a Green Star Sapling a long time ago," I commented. "Any relation?"

"Red Star Trees can only grow to fifth gate, and they're not as powerful sources to drain for mana as the green variety. They do start growing spirit fruit at first gate, though. Mana-apples, I think. They'll probably be in bloom next month?"

"Do you want it?" I asked. "I technically only need a piece of it for my staff."

"Nah," they said, shaking their head. "I've got a couple of good mana sources that keep me topped off on the busy days in the village. I'd like a spirit gourd or two when they're grown, though."

"Of course, I'd be happy to give you as many as you want. What do spirit gourds do, though?"

"They're naturally formed spirit traps," they responded. "Not quite as mana efficient as the spell, and they don't automatically recharge like the enchanted ones, but they're still useful."

I glanced at their tattoos and wondered if the gourds may be useful for their condition.

"Like I said, take as many as you need."

Dusk, who until that point had been sword fighting with a flower, ran over to the Red Star Tree and put her hands on it. Her mana spilled out of her, and slowly but surely coated the tree and the gourds. She trembled like a leaf, and then the tree was gone, along with a chunk of the dirt.

"Now there are two craters here, good job!" I said with a laugh.

"Speaking of… they are called Crystaldigger Wasps for a reason. We should see if their nest has anything good."

We wandered over to the hole that the queen had emerged from and swept it with our mana senses before entering.

Sure enough, there was a pile of crystals scattered throughout the small cavern. Most of them were ordinary quartz or jasper, not anything valuable, but there were a handful of nice ones.

Three nuggets of amber caught my attention. Each one of them glowed to my mana senses, giving off a steady stream of temporal mana. Two of the chunks were only first gate, but temporal treasures were hard to find.

One of the those two had a scorpion-like creature encased in it, and it gave off a strong sense of death mixed with time.

The third chunk was second gate, but it was clear.

I was tempted to just establish the amber as a new Temporal Basin, but I held off until I could get Meadow and Ikki's advice, and just tucked them away. Amber wasn't a crystal, after all.

Kene found several lumps of first and second gate salt crystals, which they were delighted about – magical salts had a thousand and one uses in alchemy, apparently – as well as a piece of fyre-opal.

"We made out like bandits," I commented as we loaded everything into Dusk's realm for the trip back.

"We did," Kene said. "We'll have to keep that locus in mind. It may only be second gate, but it won't go undefended forever. But as long as we're prepared, I think we should be okay."

"For sure," I agreed. As we headed to our brooms, Kene dropped a fireball on me.

"Would you be interested in going to the Carnival of Color with me? The village has a pretty nice one, but I could also take the day off and head into the city for it. It's been way too long since I've been to the city anyways."

They said it so casually that it sent me into an entire panic as I tried to figure out if they wanted us to just go as friends, or if it was a date, or if it was a sort of date to get to know eachother without dating.

But we already knew each other. Would our date mean we were dating, then? I felt like it should, but I didn't know if Kene felt the same way.

Was it a date at all? Maybe they just wanted to hang out.

Maybe they weren't even interested in romance at all.

I took a deep breath to steady myself and then answered.