Elion found Snickers outside, preening. “Why do you look so smug?” Elion grumbled. “You ran off as soon as the fighting started. Snickers stretched and yawned. “What’s your secret anyway?” Elion asked. “Why do girls like you so much?”

Snickers did not reveal his secrets.

Elion picked up the cat, letting him lay across his shoulders like a heavy fur mantle. He started walking around the tower, breathing deeply to clear his head. Snickers flicked his tail lazily in the air as they walked.

After a few laps around the outside of the tower, Elion dared to peer back inside the garage. Gorman and Keyla were gone, having finished their work. The bodies now lay covered by tarps and Keyla had cleaned up the gore.

Elion walked upstairs, past the bedroom doors and into the living space. He found Keyla at her workbench, assembling a new rifle. She didn’t look up when he walked into the room. She used a metal etching needle like a pencil, carving small runes onto each piece, causing them to fuse together. He stood and watched her work, wondering what he should say.

“How did you learn to make guns?” he asked finally.

Keyla didn’t look at him, continuing to work on her firearm. “From my dad,” she said. Elion searched for a follow up, but she continued without a prompt. “He invented this design. Laser rifles, I mean. People came from all over to buy them from him.”

“He was an Artificer?” Elion asked.

“Yes,” Keyla said. “But he was also a smart engineer. He had other Artificers who worked for him to build the guns.”

Elion looked at the workbench, and the tools lying around. The small area felt so different from the garage. So much more… Keyla. And so much less Gorman.

“Why don’t you do this down in the garage?”

“I don’t like being around… them. Besides, stuff down there uses Gorman’s organizational system.”

Elion understood. He also did not like being in this tower, knowing about the mutilated dead bodies lying in the garage below. And the tubes of beating human hearts sitting at the top of the tower.

“Why did you… do that?” he asked.

“We have to,” Keyla said. “The Threnody Core powers the whole town, and the bridge, and everything.”

“Is that the thing that I saw, up in the top of the tower?” Elion asked. He remembered the equipment too clearly, the vials of pale fluid filled with beating hearts. “A Threnody Core?”

“Yes.” Keyla grimaced.

“And you use… dead people’s hearts to run it?”

“It’s one of Gorman’s inventions,” Keyla said. “He has learned to harness the machine of the human body. When people die, a lot of their parts are still useful and valuable.”

She leaned back in her chair, turning to face Elion. “We used to only use hearts from people dying of old age. But since the Shard, and scavengers attacking, we’ve been using those. We make Threnody Modules by harvesting hearts, and the machine changes remaining lifeforce into usable energy for the town.”

“Ew,” Elion wrinkled his nose. “That seems ethically questionable.”

“We wait until people are already dead,” Keyla said. “Then instead of burying them, we reuse the parts that they don’t need anymore. It makes sense.”

“I guess so,” Elion said. “It’s just like weird magical organ donation.”

Keyla turned back to her work.

Don’t people get kidnapped and have their organs stolen all the time on Earth?

Elion’s stomach churned again as the image of Gorman cutting into the dead scavenger came back into his mind. He tried to settle his rising gorge.

He wondered if he had any obligation to protect the dead. Or the infected. He recalled the promises he had made as he knelt before the Altar and he begged for the power to help Kasm.

“You will stand as a shield to your people.”

“You will wield your blade in defense of the truth.”

“You will fight to save your friends and your enemies.”

He wanted to do all of them. He wanted to help protect Keyla from participating in the butchery he had just witnessed. Should he have done more to defend her from Gorman? But his promises offered him no guidance on what to say or do now.

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he opened his mouth.

“I—” he began. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let him—”

“Stop bothering me,” Keyla said. “I’m busy.”

Elion stopped. He watched her for a few more minutes, his mouth open as he tried to find words. Eventually he turned and exited the room, leaving her to work.

Back in the garage he looked around for some large drums he could use to construct a boat. He needed to get away from this place, to get off this island. His search was halfhearted, remembering the finger he had found before. Besides, the presence of the two corpses disquieted him.

He did find a few barrels, but they were heavy and there was something inside of them.

His attention kept coming back to the transmitter in the middle of the room. He’d been turning the idea over in his mind—it was a risk, but if he could get it to work, it would be worth it. If it didn’t work, he needed to have his boat ready for a quick escape.

Always in the back of his mind the memory of Liora lingered, screaming as Dorian’s Arachnatronic pulled her across the front lawn. She dangled limply between two warlocks as they pulled her into the swirling portal.

If Zev is dead or captured, then I’m the only one left who can help her.

Somehow, Elion had to find her. The goal felt more impossible now than ever, but he clung to hope. Strange and incredible magic operated on Kylios, and somehow he had tapped into those powers.

He wasn’t a Knight like Zev though. Zev had a full suit of armor, and a powerful sword. All Elion had was a stupid loincloth and a butter knife.

But every game I’ve ever played I started out as a noob. When you’re underleveled for an area, you just have to get out there and grind.

He pulled the glittering blue gemstone from his pocket and examined it, admiring the way it sparkled in the light. An Aurelian Tear.

Elion closed his eyes. “What do I do with this?” he asked. “How can I use it to level up?”

<< Place your Ascendency Stone on the Altar >>

Right. Of course. Why did everything have to be at the Altar?

Someone knocked on the door. Elion tucked the Ascendency Stone back into his pocket and peered through the window. The crowd had dispersed. Kasm stood outside, knocking gently.

Elion opened the door. “Hey, Kasm.”

“Elion Walker,” Kasm said, hugging Elion tightly. Elion returned the hug half-heartedly. After the strange green Heranan magic had healed Kasm and the boy had screamed about attacks by the infected, they had brought him back to his home. Elion hadn’t seen him since, though everyone in town had been talking about him.

“How are you doing? How’s your side?”

“It’s perfectly healed,” Kasm said, breaking off the hug and pulling up his shirt to show off the smooth skin. “No sign of scarring or anything. Even the birthmark that I used to have here is gone.” He pointed at his side. Elion didn’t see anything there.

“That’s amazing,” Elion said. His own pemalion wounds had also left no trace after wading through the magical glowing vines.

“That’s not the point though,” Kasm said. “Something happened to me.” He grabbed a potted plant off of the porch and brought it into the garage, setting it on a table.

The plant, little more than a stick poking out of the dirt, had seen better days. Elion raised an eyebrow but did not interrupt. Kasm closed his eyes, cupping his hands around the twig.

A distant rushing noise filled the air, like the sound of a waterfall a long way off, or the wind rustling through tree branches. Green light glimmered between Kasm’s hands. Elion leaned in to get a better look, and saw a small bud swell on the end of the stick.

Leaves sprouted beneath the bud, stretching out to brush against Kasm’s hands. The bud swelled, then opened, folding out a layer at a time, revealing a small red flower within. Elion’s eyes grew wide as he watched.

Kasm gasped for breath, wiping perspiration from his forehead. He beamed at Elion, his face pale. “It’s hard, but I can push it further. I can make it grow into a fruit. Want to see?”

He started cupping his hands around the flower again, but Elion stopped him.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Don’t overdo it,” he said, remembering his first experiences using his Aurelian abilities. “That is incredible!”

“I know!” Kasm said. “I needed to show you. Maybe I can help save Keyla’s mother, and all the others!”

“Slow down,” Elion said. “I imagine healing an infected is much harder than making a flower grow.”

Kasm shrugged. “Maybe. But I’ll do it. I think I’m a Cultivator now!”

“How would you not know?” Elion asked, recalling his experience at the altar. “Didn’t you have to… swear oaths or something?”

“Nope,” Kasm said, shaking his head. “I was just taking care of our plants and I started seeing the Praxis messages that said I could ‘Cultivate,’ and the plants started growing.”

“That’s not exactly how it worked for me,” Elion said. “Maybe this is something different.”

“You’re an Aurelian. Of course it’s different. I’m a Heranan Cultivator now. I can heal things!”

“So were your parents Cultivators or something?” Elion asked. “How does it work?”

“Not as far as I know,” Kasm said. “I read in a book once that you just need a Cultivator to vouch for you to gain acceptance to the Way of the Seed.

“Have you tried healing anything yet?”

“Not yet. But I think I can. It says I have the Heal Flesh Seed.”

Elion was not convinced. “It might not be that easy,” he said. “And you’re probably not that strong, since you just started.”

“Maybe,” Kasm said, undeterred from his enthusiasm. “Or maybe I’ve been blessed with the power we need, the power we’ve been asking for! I sat outside at my runic rings for months, working on them and trying to make them perfect. I read the whole book about runes of power. I know I didn’t mess them up. They were beckoning, summoning the power of Herana. Not Aurelia. No offence.”

“We should probably tell Keyla,” Elion said. “Gorman was mad because she didn’t have a plan to help her mother. But if you’re really a Cultivator…” Elion still felt like Kasm wouldn’t be strong enough to heal infected yet. He shouldn’t be. It wouldn’t really be fair, after all, Elion’s abilities still felt quite weak.

The boy would have to train, level up, grow his skills before he could really be useful. He touched the Aurelian Tear in his pocket.

“Where is Keyla?” Kasm asked. “Let’s show her.”

“She’s upstairs,” Elion said. “But she’s a little grumpy…”

Kasm ran up the stairs with his potted plant.

Keyla watched in wonder as Kasm caused another flower to sprout and bloom atop his potted plant. All the pain and frustration from Gorman’s reprimand melted from her face, as though it had never happened.

“Kasm!” she exclaimed. “You really think you can heal infected?”

“That’s what my rune message was asking for! It’s why I made it in the first place. We needed a Cultivator hero who could heal the infected, and save Aterfel from that Shard. If I got Cultivator power but not enough to do anything, that would be stupid.”

“Your rune circle also brought him, though,” Keyla said, jabbing a finger at Elion. “So maybe everything you got is stupid.”

“I’m not stupid,” Elion protested, wounded by the comment.

“You’re right, Keyla,” Kasm said, taking the teasing comment too seriously.

“Hey!” Elion said, but they ignored him.

"I’ve been thinking about that,” Kasm continued. “I think he might be here for a reason too.”

“What might that be?”

“I don’t know,” Kasm said with a shrug.

“How do we test your abilities?” Keyla asked. “Have you tried to heal anything?”

Kasm shook his head.

“Bruises!” Keyla exclaimed, and before Elion could stop her she was pulling his shirt up, revealing the marks where Elion had been shot. They stood out from his skin, circular welts surrounded by deep black and purple stains.

Elion reluctantly took his shirt back from Keyla and held it up so that they could inspect the damage. Keyla probed one of the bruises, her finger cold as ice.

Elion flinched away.

“Hurt?” Keyla asked.

“No, your hands are just cold,” he whined.

“Baby,” Keyla muttered, but tucked her hands inside her armpits to warm them.

“Okay, let’s see,” Kasm said. He placed his hands over one of Elion’s bruises, and closed his eyes.

“What do you see?” Elion asked. “Text?”

“Yeah,” Kasm said. “It’s kind of weird though.”

“It’s normal for Ascended,” Keyla explained. “It’s how most people interact with Praxis.”

Kasm did not reply. A pale green light shone from the seams where Kasm’s hand met Elion’s skin. Elion felt a frail warmth, but couldn’t tell if it came from healing magic or just Kasm’s touch.

“Is it working?” Keyla asked.

Elion shrugged. “It’s not fair that he already figured out how to use Praxis without saying everything out loud. I feel like a baby.”

Keyla rolled her eyes at him. “You’ll get there.”

Kasm swayed to one side, then crumpled to the floor. Keyla caught him before he fell entirely.

“Kasm!” she cried out.

The boy opened his eyes, looking woozy.

“Did I heal it?” he asked.

Elion pulled his shirt back up and checked. The welt had nearly disappeared, and the black and blue discoloration had faded to a sickly yellow.

"It looks a little better,” Elion said.

“Zelian’s Halls,” Kasm muttered.

“Watch your tongue,” Keyla warned.

“Sorry bud,” Elion said. “Looks like you’re going to have to get stronger before you can heal infected.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re not infected,” Kasm said hopefully, standing back up. Keyla and Elion shook their heads.

“Where did you get those bruises from, anyway?” Kasm asked.

“Someone shot at me,” Elion said.

Kasm’s eyes grew wide as dinner plates. “And you only got bruised?”

“I—uh, was wearing my Aurelian armor,” Elion said.

“You have armor?” Kasm exclaimed. “I want to see it! Can I see it? Tael will be so jealous. Why didn’t you put it on when that pemalion attacked us?”

Keyla met his eye and grinned. No way was Elion going to show Kasm his shiny golden speedo. Not after the way the boy had reacted to seeing his knife.

“Probably not a good idea right now,” Elion said, using his eyes to tell Keyla to stay quiet. “It’s a little hard to work with…” Kasm’s face fell. Elion seethed. Why did his armor have to look so stupid?

“Maybe we can use your Tear,” Keyla said.

“You have a Cend?” Kasm asked, eyes wide.

Elion fished around in his pocket and recovered the blue gemstone. “This?” he asked. “What do you mean? It’s mine. I mean, it’s Aurelian.”

“We call them Cends for short,” Keyla explained. “Any Ascended can use any kind of Ascendency Stone. Wealthy families purchase them so their children can skip over the early levels and get to the more interesting stuff faster.”

Elion frowned. “That’s some serious pay-to-win nonsense. You have all these amazing powers and rich people still get to skip the grind?”

Keyla shrugged. “It works out for everyone. If you don’t come from a wealthy family, you can sell Cends and help your family. That’s what Gorman used to do, before.”

“Surely leveling up is a better way to help?” Elion said.

“Not when you need food or shelter. You can buy a lot of things with Cends. Ascendency power tends to be too focused.”

“Still sounds sucky,” Elion grumbled. “Next you’re going to tell me about the microtransactions.”

“What does that mean?” Keyla asked, and Elion wondered how Praxis translated his last sentence.

“You really think that would work for me?” Kasm asked. “You think I could use that gem to gain more power?”

Elion shook his head and opened his mouth to say ‘no.’ After all, the Ascendency Stone was his. He earned it. And he needed it. He needed more power if he was ever going to be able to find Liora.

Keyla caught his eye and warned him off with a shake of her head. He closed his mouth abruptly.

“Maybe,” she said. “Worth a try.”

“How would that even work?” Elion asked.

“You’re the Aurelian,” Keyla said. “What do you think?”

“The Altar I guess,” Elion said. “I think that’s where I have to go to use the Tear. Besides, I think I lost another of these Tears there.” Elion silently cursed himself for losing the other one. Maybe if they could find it, he would feel better about giving one to Kasm.

“Can we go there?” Kasm pleaded. “Can we try it?”

“They’re Aurelian Tears and it’s an Aurelian Altar,” Elion said, “So don’t expect too much…”

Keyla hit Elion in the arm as Kasm looked crestfallen.

“Sure Kasm,” Keyla said. “Let’s go try it.”

“Yes!” Kasm exclaimed, running out the front door.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Elion called after him. “It probably won’t work, and you’ll just be more disappointed if we can’t figure it out.”

“He’s just a kid, let him be excited,” Keyla said. “Besides, I’m like 65% sure that it should work!”