Dusk watched as the crazed woman marched forwards to kill her older brother, and probably her too, and she made a choice, leaping off her brother and releasing the last bit of her mana in a shockwave spell to push the woman back, while re-sealing the gate behind her, locking them in her realm.

The woman's strange black gauntlet that radiated arcanist magic could get through, but even that took time. Time that Dusk could, and would, use.

She reached into her vaults where they’d stored a dozen assorted mana sources, and began to break them down for power, restoring her mana. She didn’t like it – they could all use that to get nice things and the silver coins too.

But those weren’t worth the death of her family.

She restored her power, and then some, packing her gate to overflowing, packing it with twice the amount of mana it should normally hold.

Her older brother and his partner were slow, since they had to train multiple gates. She only had one, so even though she’d started later, she was already done, her natural spells perfected, and the hand spell knowledge had given her taking a prominent place in the center of her second gate.

She retreated within her mana-garden, even though that cost precious seconds. She reached for the natural spells to manipulate the world that all worldspirits like her were born with.

She could feel them on the other side of the elaborate, carved gates, humming, singing for her to open the gates and take the power that she knew was there.

She’d held off for the slight chance that she’d be able to help her brother during the Beastgate Trial. She didn’t think she would, but she hadn’t wanted to risk ascending early and messing up that chance. She hadn’t wanted to make her brother and his partner feel like they were weak, either.

But those weren’t worth the death of her family.

She brought her mana to bear against the gate, stretching out for the simple truth of who she was, the truth of the worldspirit. Her silly older brother didn’t seem to even realize she had it, but it had always been there, from the moment she first woke up.

The resonance began to shake the gates as she slammed more mana against the gate. The call of the spells beyond grew louder and louder.

She wanted to take her time, to delicately pry open the gates and ingrave the carvings into them that knowledge had provided her. That would help her mana flow ever so tiny bit better, be that tiny bit stronger. Engraving them after would help, but not until she ascended to fourth gate.

But that wasn’t worth the death of her family.

With a cry of pain and rage, the gates exploded open, and mana surged through her, reinforcing her first two gates, and the ungated center where she’d begun to dig.

Within her, she could feel the three powers that hung in delicate balance grow, nurtured by Meadow’s well. Void, resolve, or whichever other name, demanded to be fed.

So she did. Her mana extended out, filling the entire clearing, swallowing it in darkness. With a hum, she ripped it out of Idyll’s possession, and into hers.

“Careful,” came the voice of Idyll. “Grow your own.”

Dusk responded that she would – she’d just needed this bit right now, and Idyll simply grumbled.

With mere seconds remaining, she integrated the clearing into herself, placing it behind the cabin where her brother and his partner often stayed. She diverted more power into growing out her forests more, and she could feel the small folk, crow shades, bugs, and others within her donating more power, letting her lay it out, expanding her lands.

With the rush she was in, and the shortcuts she’d taken, she wasn’t able to grow it quite as nicely and neatly as she had when she’d expanded into second gate, but even still, she could feel the rivers widen and expand, sections of the forest shifting and rearranging. The cabin moved, though she couldn’t stop that.

It would have to be good enough.

Her eyes snapped open, and even she was surprised by the amount of mass she’d been able to pull into herself during the ascension.

Almost the entire clearing was gone, all save for the assassin, the spriggan, the five purple-gold destiny plants, and a pitted hole that led deeper into the earth, no doubt what was left of the caves. The rest of the land was just raw earth now, blank, with no gardening or growth, or even that much energy or mana.

But Dusk couldn’t admire her handiwork for long, so she reached for the newest controlling spell. Control over the winds, at least to some extent.

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She rose into the air in front of the woman, then thrust her hands out and released shockwave spells.

They struck the woman, ripping through the winds around her and throwing her back, not unlike the blow that the woman just struck to the guardian.

The spriggan looked around, then dove at Dusk.

Dusk couldn’t blame it – if it ate her, then it could restore its now severely damaged heart back to at least half power.

But just because she couldn’t blame it didn’t mean she could allow it. She snapped her hands out and reached for the treasure that her brother’s partner’s mentor, the crazy old witch, had given her – the skull that could contain spirits.

The spriggan vanished, and she leapt towards the mercenary, but was caught off guard when a portal opened next to her, and her older brother stepped out, holding his staff in his uninjured hand. She peeped at him, annoyed that he was coming out to fight while he was out of mana, and he shook his head.

The woman had staggered to her feet to throw the hammer at her brother, guiding the winds to aim at her brother.

Dusk flexed her new power and let the energy spin through the circuits within her clouds, then knocked the hammer off course as her brother called up his Briarthreads around him – he must have restored some power from the plants within, but that meant he only had life and maybe some death in him.

Dusk hopped onto the hammer. It was a nice artifact, powerful third gate, made to channel lightning spells, reduce their cost, and not drag on flight spells, so she slipped it into her vaults.

Her brother had lowered his staff to point at the woman and was talking.

“You should leave,” he said. “You’ve lost. Call the contract on me off, and report a failure. If my theory is right, you won’t be in trouble. If anything, I’ll be the one reprimanded.”

“Theory,” she spat. “But you know that even if I do that… I’ll just–”

The spriggan exploded out of Dusk’s containment artifact, and she immediately launched several large shockwaves, overcharging them. They exploded, ripping through the heart of the spriggan.

Its heart had already been crushed once, so it was already almost out of power, but Dusk decided to take a page out of her older brother’s book. She hopped onto the Spriggans chest while her brother and the woman continued to argue. Dusk looked the spriggan in the eyes.

It wasn’t the most intelligent, but it had some cunning. More than enough that it understood Dusk’s speech of nature as she told it that she’d won the glade, and taken it from the spriggan.

The spriggan nodded in agreement.

Good, that made things simpler.

Dusk told the spriggan to leave, and to not seek any vengeance, and the spriggan visibly struggled with itself. Everything inside the spriggan told it that it should die to protect its glade, but dying would do nothing.

Eventually, the spriggan agreed, and Dusk focused back at the talk that her older brother was doing. He was better at that her.

“–eed some sort of recompense for the arcanist potion,” the woman was saying. “It was given to me by the client to help kill you specifically. I can’t turn it down without returning it.”

Her brother ran his hands through his hair, seeming stressed, then nodded.

“I know someone in Teffordshire who can make arcanist level potions,” he said. “Take the boat back to the mainland. You’ll be one of the first people to get off, and while you didn’t get the maximum value from this, that was never what you came here for, was it?”

“No, bu–”

But her older brother cut her off and kept talking.

“Good. Then you should be able to use what you’ve gathered to sell at the highest price, before the market value drops from the glut of people selling. And here.”

He tossed her the bundle of the remaining mana sources – the ones she hadn’t drained dry for her ascension.

“That should cover most of the costs.”

“I–”

“Am lucky I don’t press charges,” he said. “I’ve been attacked before – you can look up the police report, it involved Malachi Roth Baker vs Mallory Emsley Cromwell. Since then, I’ve carried a recording crystal with me at all times.”

He removed a crystal from his pocket, and Dusk had to stop herself from laughing.

It wasn’t a recording crystal at all, just an ordinary shard of glass, probably from one of the broken vials of alchemy bombs, imbued with a bit of mana.

But the woman’s face went pale and she swallowed, so her brother slipped it back into his pocket

“I see,” she said.

“If you agree,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the portal when you’re ready to leave, right before the auction, and crush it in front of you. That way I can’t reasonably press charges, since it would be a case of my word against yours.”

“So I have two more days to gather materials?” she asked to clarify.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I think that’s quite generous. You’re strong, no doubt about that. You can use that to gather quite a bit, and you’ll leave here richer than ever, with the evidence destroyed, and having grown your power a considerable amount from the beasts and elementals you’ve doubtless been killing.”

With a hesitant look, she nodded.

“I agree. I swear by the primes and my mana.”

The oath was an old one, not backed by any actual magic, but people were still hesitant to break it.

“I swear by the primes and my mana,” her brother echoed, then relaxed. “Do you really not know why you were supposed to kill me?”

“All I know is I was told to do it, and preferably to mock you for being weak, though that wasn’t as easy to do when you were fighting up an entire gate.”

A stormy look came over her brother’s face, and Dusk agreed. This had to be the work of Orykson, trying to push them both back into his hands.

“Can I have my hammer back?” she asked, and Malachi pulled it out, then passed it to her, strain on his face.”

Dusk didn’t agree with that, but she wasn’t going to argue. She could feel the treasures burning inside her, after all, so it wasn’t like they’d lost – in fact, they’d gained a lot.

The woman and her brother spoke a bit longer, and then she lifted off the ground to fly away.

“Oh, and you should know,” her older brother said casually. “I didn’t use Burn Future in this fight, but if you were to think about reneging on our deal, it would do you well to remember that I’ve got two full gate spells complete, and didn’t use it. I can ascend whenever I want, much like my familiar could. But the last time I used Burn Future, I killed a war root. And that was before my second full gate spell was complete.”

“You don’t need to threaten me,” she said. “I’m good to my word.”

He waved his hand and summoned a portal back to her world, and the woman flew off.

Dusk threw her hands up and let out a cheer.

Victory!