The battle was over, the invading gnolls dead or dying. Three uninjured survivors moved over the gnolls, ensuring the injured gnolls acquired the dead status. The rest took up their fallen brothers and sisters, binding wounds and helping them back into the town. Hollis directed people with easy authority. Darron looked pale and worn. His magical exertions must have been more difficult than Wali thought. He had undone the stone spikes, drawing them back under the earth as they were no longer needed. The older man made his way into the town on his own.

Hollis finished organizing the recovery action and approached the boys. Looking around at the carnage, the boys were a bit shell-shocked. Neither had seen this much blood spilled in a single afternoon. Hollis stood next to them, surveying the growing mound of corpses. “Good work, gentlemen. You will be well rewarded.” He said solemnly.

“How many did we lose?” Wali asked, looking at the few stretchers being carried back into town.

“Two dead, two more may die depending on the gods’ will,” Hollis replied quietly. “Would have been more if not for you two. That’s some spear you have there.”

Gale crackled as lightning curled around the tip. It exalted itself, “I am the destroyer!” in Wali’s mind. Wali could only smile and shrug.

“Next time, though, a little warning would be preferred. If that hadn’t played out as it did, it could have turned ugly.” Hollis continued, a bit stern.

“Yessir, but hopefully, we don’t have a ‘next’ time,” Wali replied.

“That’s a good point,” Hollis replied, chuckling. “Head back to the inn, get cleaned up. I have some things to do. Then I’ll bring your pay.”

Yacob started to reply, “We don’t need….” But Wali shushed him.

“Will do, sir.” Wali interrupted. Yacob gave him a troubled look before following Wali to the inn.

Back at the inn, Barnaby already had drinks and food waiting. Word had already spread through the town of the fierce battle at the gate and the actions of these two young men. While they were not heroes of the town, they had earned some solid respect among the citizens.

“Ain’t had this many baths in a long time.” Muttered Yacob as he toweled off after a second bath that day. They returned to the great room to find it packed with guards and militia. The crowd cheered at the boys, and drinks were passed around to them. It seemed that a celebration was in the works.

Captain Hollis walked in with a large parcel under one arm. He waved as the crowd cheered for him and found Yacob and Wali at one of the tables. Room was made for the Captain as he accepted a mug of ale. He turned to Wali and Yacob, “It seems you have made a name for yourselves here. The right kind of name too.” He was smiling at them. “I’d like to thank you personally. We would have had far more casualties without your help, that was a huge force of monsters, and they had a powerful caster among them. That was something we don’t see but once every generation.” He said.

Sliding a pouch of coins from inside his armor, he tossed it to them. “Four gold, hazard pay, special duty pay, and bonus for exemplary actions,” he explained. He then pushed the large parcel over to Yacob, “I saw you fight today, and running around in a shirt and breeches is a fast way to get dead. This is an old set of my own armor. We’re of a size, so I think it will fit you. You’ll have to get a gambeson, but that’s simple.”

Yacob looked both thrilled and chagrined. “I can’t accept this, sir,” he said.

“No, you deserve it, and it’s not doing me any good beyond gathering dust in my cellar,” Hollis said, pushing it further toward Yacob. Yacob unwrapped the parcel to find a collection of plates and a harness of old leather. The steel was unpolished and unmarred. Wali could sense a low-level enchantment on the set. A breast and back plate, pauldrons, and vambraces, as well as a set of partial leg plates covering the front of the thighs, knees, and shins. It wasn’t a complete set of knight’s plate armor, but it covered the critical areas most often struck. This armor set seemed to be custom-built for a large man. It would fit Yacob easily, with some minor adjustments. “This served me well for many years while I was in the wars and adventuring on my own. Wali’s got his armor, but you have just the shirt on your back. Think of it as a personal thank you for saving my little sister’s life. That last gnoll you drug off that guard, that guard was my little sister. You probably saved her life. Hopefully, you won’t need this to save yours, but I hope it does.”

Yacob examined each piece with wonder in his eyes. “Umm, thank you very much, sir,” he said reverently.

Hollis turned to Wali, “Also, Darron sent his thanks and asked if you two would like to stop in for a bit before you leave town.” Wali agreed, and Hollis left them to spend the rest of the celebration with his team. Wali and Yacob gulped their drinks and headed upstairs to their room.

After a while, the two sorted out how to get the armor put together onto Yacob. As Hollis had said, he would need a padded coat, but it fit him well enough. The leather harness was the key to the puzzle. It oddly reminded Wali of some BDSM harness he had seen long ago. There was an enchantment stitched into the leather. The individual plates were non-magical, but the harness allowed them to snap onto the body securely. The armor covered Yacob’s chest, upper back, shoulders, thighs, knees, and shins. The midsection was primarily protected by the harness’s wide leather belt, which he found to be supple when moving and hard as solid wood when struck. The arms, lower legs, and head were the weak points. It would allow Yacob to move relatively easily, not hindering his movement, and did not clank around like the full plate suits.

They headed back downstairs; Hollis saw them and raised a mug their way. They first stopped at the tailor’s shop, which happily took their money and told them the coat would be ready in three days. Next, they followed directions to a small manor off the main square, Darron’s home.

Darron’s home was almost as large as the inn, two stories tall and made of finely wrought stone. A servant showed them in, telling them that they were expected. He brought the boys to a library. The room was not huge, but the collection of books was plentiful. Wali looked at the shelves and saw the collections of stones, dried herbs and flowers, and other knick-knacks spread liberally around. Darron’s book collection was not much more extensive than Longtooth’s. It was just spread out to look more impressive, as books were not cheap. Four chairs sat around a table, and a steaming teapot sat with a trio of cups atop it.

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Darron sat smoking a pipe in an oversized chair. He set a book aside and rose to greet the young men. “Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you so much for your help today. You were very impressive.” He said with a big smile. “Sit and be welcome.”

The two sat; Darron saw them looking around nervously, “Don’t worry about it. I’m an old rich man who has come to this valley for his retirement. I like nice things but am not so stuck up that I would mistreat those around me. We are all people just trying to walk our paths.” Darron said calmly. He seemed genuine as he looked over the boys once again appraisingly. “I’d like to thank you for protecting me back there, and I have a few questions if that is all right?” he asked.

Yacob answered for them, “Yeah, sure. Happy to help. What would you like to know?”

“First of all, what spell did you use for the wave of earth? I didn’t recognize it.” Darron asked as he took a cup of tea after pouring it for his guests. Wali looked over at Yacob, also wanting to ask his friend the same question.

“Well, I saw how you pushed out the spikes like that and tried to do the same thing,” Yacob replied sheepishly as if he was a boy being scolded.

“You are not in trouble, young sir. Without a rune circle, I haven’t seen anyone do something like that.” Darron hastily put in. Yacob brightened as he found out he wasn’t guilty of anything.

“I think I know what is going on,” Wali said. “Yacob is a Natural Talent.”

“Ahh, I see. Magic has so many ways to be used.” Darron said brightly. “You must have the Earth aspect then, yes?” he asked Yacob.

“Yes, and the Fire aspect,” Yacob said, nodding.

Darron turned back to Wali, “You are a Colri, yes? Spirit magics? Who taught you?” he asked curiously.

“Yes, spirit magics. Our Spirit Talker, Longtooth, taught me.” At the name, Darron brightened.

“Yes! That old wanderer passed through here many years ago, and I thought I recognized your leathers.” Darron said. He paused in thought for a moment. “I want to be honest with you. I am always seeking to learn new things and share my knowledge with young folks. I have a proposition for you two. What would you say about a sharing of knowledge? I would like to teach you, Yacob, some more advanced ways to manipulate the Earth aspect. That is my own aspect as well. While you are a natural talent, your brute-force techniques will soon exhaust you. I would hate to see a talented individual like yourself get slaughtered by your ignorance. I would also like to learn from you, Wali if you would. I can put you up for a time in my manor here. I have rooms to spare.”

Wali looked at Yacob, “What do you think? Take a pause here for a while and get some training in?”

Yacob replied, “Uh, sure, I guess we aren’t in a hurry. I sure wouldn’t mind sleeping in a bed instead of on the road.”

Wali asked Yacob, “Maybe you can ask Captain Hollis to train with the militia too? You said you wanted to learn to fight. No better place than with them, I think.”

Yacob’s face brightened. “Yeah, I’d like that.” He replied.

Darron had listened to the interplay between Wali and Yacob. For Darron, it was a chance to learn a rare form of magic, for the Colri were widely known to be the masters of it. For the boys, a chance to pause and have Yacob train for a while was valuable. The past few fights had clearly illustrated that Yacob was a talented, if unskilled, fighter. Developing that talent was important. Wali also sought to understand the runes and circles that Darron had used. They were not the same as the glyphs the Colri used.

For the next hour, they hammered out the details. The boys would stay with Darron as part of his household for a month. Six of nine days, Yacob and Wali would train with Darron on the ways of the formalized “Imperial Style” Earth magics during the mornings. Yacob would then go off and train with the master of arms at the guard house for the afternoon. At the same time, Wali would instruct Darron on Colri Spirit Magic.

Yacob and Wali became regulars in and around town. Yacob and Darron spent most of the time in the back garden of the mansion, a sprawling rock and stone garden that would make any Zen master jealous. They shaped, moved, shot at, and manipulated the earth and stone in ways that made Wali’s head spin. Yacob impressed the man by slowly duplicating his spells, even mirroring some with his flame aspect magic. The techniques to manipulate Earth were similar enough that they crossed over into other elemental aspects. Wali did not have the same sort of success as Yacob. A natural Talent using his aspects was a force that no spell caster could duplicate. Wali still learned a lot. The exposure to the rune-based Imperial Style of magic that Darron taught them was profound. Wali likened glyphs to the code for a computer’s operating system, while the Imperial Style was a more modern and fine-tuned programming language. Not necessarily more powerful, but with more finesse and clarity than the glyphs.

Yacob would take his tired mind to the marshaling yard at the central guard station in the afternoons. There a middle-aged woman would beat him black and blue daily. He tried many different weapons; each was found wanting compared to his natural magical talents with stone and fire. He would return to the manor beaten and bruised but happy. His confidence grew daily, as did his mastery over his magic and his stone fists.

Wali and Darron spent the afternoon teaching Darron the ways of the Spirit aspect. Colri spirit magic wasn’t a secret art. Darron understood and could read and understand glyphs, but his foundational exposure to Spirit magic was thin. Over the month, Wali learned how to translate glyph to rune and now further understood the depth of magic that was yet to learn. Darron learned to see and communicate with Wali’s totems and understand the bond of a totem spirit. Imperial Magic taught one how to bind a spirit against its will but not how to become a partner and companion. Both methods had their place as some spirits were dangerous without a compulsion to bind them like Gale. A partnership bond was far more beneficial to both parties, however.

At the end of the month, the three of them set out into the forest. No other monster attacks had come, but Wali wanted to investigate the cause. Something out in the forest was causing the monsters to be generated, some natural eddy in the flow. Darron knew of the source and led them there.

In a near perfectly circular clearing was a large black basalt stone. A monolith sunk into the earth. Five meters on a side and sticking seven meters into the air. Nothing grew within the circular clearing, no moss, no grass, only hard-packed stone, and dry dirt. They did not enter the circle but stood on the edge; none of the spirits would go inside. Even Gale was quiet. The presence of the stone silenced Gale’s constant howl for blood and destruction. The monolith drew in the mana like a vortex, the ring around it had been scoured by the flow of power drawn in by the thing. Wali was reminded of a certain stone back home, the one he had fought the Spirit Boar that had provided his offering for his Naming Ceremony.

Darron was the first to speak, “This is a demon-binding stone, I think. I’ve read about these. The myths about them state that long before the Imperial Throne was even founded, great demons walked the world. Over time armies and nations would clash and fall before them. A hero rose from somewhere. He found a way to defeat the demons with the help of the gods, but he was not strong enough to slay them. The few he did kill came back sometime later, for they had only been banished back to whatever plane they came from. In the end, he would beat them into submission, and then with the help of a troop of archmages from across the world, he would bind them into stones like this. Had never seen one before this one. Most scholars think that the myth is just that. Common academic conjecture is that these stones are a natural mana sink, drawing mana down into the earth. Others cite the perfectly formed geometric structure as having to be a manufactured thing.”

They made their way home, more somber than they had made the trip out. While they had seen the source of the monsters, there was no way for them to solve it.

Deep in the bedrock, deep below the ground, a long slumbering presence stirred. One of a myriad of purple eyes opened and watched the trio depart before returning to its slumber. Little did they know just how real the myths were.

The boys stepped onto the road three days later and headed for Belge.