It didn’t take me long to reach the side path that led to Azarus’s house. I didn’t even get stopped once on the way, even though I was far from the only person on the path. There were dwarves all around me, streaming back into town from the back clearing now that their ‘entertainment’ was over. Rather than be concerned about the senseless violence that Magnus had been inflicting on people, they seemed more interested in gossiping about Magnus’s injury.

These bastards…

I don’t think I gave a shit if they were all killed in the Ward Break anymore. Not after how they’d all cheered on desperate slaves senselessly killing each other.

Slipping into the side path, I glanced around. Nobody else was outside, and for once I didn’t hear Azarus working in the forge. Flicking my eyes upward, I tried to take the time. It was getting to be about evening now, and the sun was only starting to lower across the horizon.

I frowned. Was it possible that Grey and Azarus had no idea about anything that had happened in town today? Yes, yes it was I decided. They were isolated out here, and wouldn’t have heard anything considering the house’s distance from both the clearing and town proper. Shit, I wasn’t even coming back that late. I’d stayed out later than this at Van’s shop, just testing out Aetherial Melding and helping Bleddyn with his workload.

Bleddyn…

I shook it off and started jogging my way across the clearing. Once I reached the front door, I barged in without bothering to be quiet, careful not to jostle Walter too much. “Hey!” I called out to the house. “Need a little help here!”

I heard a thump from upstairs and rattling noise from under the staircase. I guess I knew where everyone was, now. Moments later, the door to Grey’s room under the stairs opened and the man himself poked his head out. “Nathan?” He called out confused, turning his head to face me. “Whatever is…the…problem…” He trailed off at the sight of a bloodied teenager resting on my shoulder. Grey cursed and waved me over. “In here, quickly!”

I did as he bid, hurriedly walking over and maneuvering my way through the doorway. Once inside, I found Grey rummaging through his desk, pulling out bottles of potions and various medical supplies. “On the bed.” He said curtly, not turning to face me.

Carefully, I made my way to his bed and laid Walter down on it, mindful of his head. Once I was done, I took in his state for the first time since the tent and cursed softly. He didn’t look good. Walter looked like he had lost even more color, and his breath was coming in short and shallow. I was interrupted by Grey wheeling back over and dumping a load of supplies and bottles on the bedside table, before leaning over to inspect Walter. His eyes lingered on my makeshift bandage before flicking up to meet mine.

“What happened?” He asked me seriously.

“Knife wound to the gut,” I answered curtly, knowing full well that wasn’t the only thing he was asking. “I did what I could with Aetherial Melding-” I was interrupted by the door behind us slamming open to admit a bare-chested Azarus with soaking wet hair, wearing only a pair of pants. I continued without acknowledging him. “So I’ll have to dissolve the internal stitches at the same time you give him potions.”

“The hell…” I heard Azarus breathe out behind me. I ignored him.

Grey stared at me for a moment before nodding. “Let’s get to work then.”

………………………………………

Grey and I worked on Walter for the next half hour. We took turns between sessions administering various potions and me dissolving my makeshift sutures through Aetherial Melding. It took longer than I’d hoped it would because I’d already strained myself near to my breaking point using my Profession. By the end, I was surprised that I wasn’t unconscious.

But we did it.

Woozily, I tried to focus on Walter to see how he was doing. Though my eyesight was blurry, I could tell that he looked much better. The huge knife wound on his stomach was nothing more than a vivid red scar by now, with my simple linen sutures nowhere to be found. I knew that the ones I’d placed on his large intestine were gone as well. He was breathing much steadier now, and even had some color back in his cheeks. He’d better, considering how many blood-replenishing potions we’d poured down his throat.

In a fog, I thought I heard someone calling my name. I tried to focus. Looking up, I found that Grey was now looking at me in a concerned manner, and not Walter. Azarus was standing behind him as well with a furrowed brow. Slowly, I blinked one eye at them and then the other.

“Yesss…?” I slurred, trailing off.

“Nathan…what happened?” Grey asked me, troubled. “Who is this young man? I thought you were just going to visit Vandimar’s shop today.”

Azarus spoke before I could. “His name’s Walter Meyers.” He said with a frown. When Grey turned around to look at him with a raised eyebrow, Azarus shrugged. “Observed him.”

When Grey turned back around to look at me, he did so with a furrowed brow of his own. “That name…isn’t that the young man that taught you Wildshaping, Nathan?... Nathan?”

I wasn’t paying attention to them. Instead, I was trying to get up and walk to the door. Stumbling to my feet, I took one staggered footstep. “Can’t…can’t talk…gotta…gotta ssssave…Bledynnn…” I didn’t manage either another step or another word.

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Instead, I fell over face-first, losing consciousness on the way down.

………………………………………

I snapped back to awareness all at once, shooting upright from a prone position. Looking around wildly, I found that I was in my own bed for once. Memories rushing back to me, I cursed. I’d pushed myself too hard, trying to save Walter. Looking out the window, I guessed that it was sometime in the middle of the late night. I felt dread pool in my stomach. Who knows how long Magnus’d had his hands on Bleddyn by now?

I knew that I’d pushed myself too hard saving Walter, but I was going to have to push myself again. As I got up from the bed, the thought crossed my mind that Grey and Azarus didn’t even know what had happened to me yet, but it didn’t matter. If they were still up, I’d tell them after I’d succeeded.

I needed to finish the Ward Breaker, if I wanted to save Bleddyn before he was tortured to death.

If that hadn’t already happened…

Luckily, I had everything I needed for it here in my room already. Moving over to my small work desk and sitting in the chair, I started pulling materials out of the drawers. First, I pulled out the physical blanks I needed for the artifact. With Azarus’s help, and Grey’s guidance, I’d ‘smithed’ these myself over the last few days. Made of silver, they resembled a two-pronged long fork with a thick handle, more than anything. Nearly as long as my forearm, the blanks were mostly a silver rod with a spherical cap on one end, and two sharpened prongs on the other. There were circling strings of tightly carved runes running all up and down the length of it, terminating and meeting just below the prongs in one large rune. That was the activation rune, I’d learned. Inside the end cap were multiple cores that we’d harvested from monsters over the last few weeks. They were meant to power the device.

From what I’d been told, once it was finished, you were meant to stab the prongs into the ward stone, press the rune, and the Breaker would do its job.

All I needed to do now was to shape the enchantment, and then layer it over the blank. The problem was, that was the hardest part. Most people weren’t capable of this kind of work until they were able to shape Mana even if they had Enchanting as a Profession, but I was cheating through Aetherial Melding. Raw Aether would work just as well as the Mana to power the enchantment, according to Grey. But it would be harder.

I was determined, though. Not only so we could get out of this fucking town, and not only so I could finally kill that bastard, Magnus. But so I could save my friend.

I got to work.

………………………………………

“Fuck!” I hissed, throwing away another ruined blank. It impacted the wall above my bed, prongs first, and stuck into it. I didn’t care though. I just picked up another one and prepared myself.

I’d already ruined two of the blanks by burning them out. The reason that it was harder to layer raw Aether as the enchant was because of how much more potent it was than normal Mana. It was so potent in fact, that it was destroying the blanks, essentially burning them out and ruining the precisely carved runes.

Entering into my trance, I stopped myself before I could go any further. Slowly, I leaned back in my chair while letting out a sigh while folding my hands over the blank. I couldn’t afford to ruin many more of these. I didn’t have enough to waste them on frustrated repeat attempts.

I was getting pretty close, though. I felt like I was successfully creating the enchantment just like Grey had taught me to, but I was fumbling the attachment at the last moment. The Aether was just too strong, and it resisted enough that I had trouble in those last few crucial seconds.

I needed to calm down.

After a moment, I recalled not too long ago when I had managed to find a moment's peace. About a week ago, I’d entered into a deeper trance than usual and fallen into a state of almost meditation after an uncomfortable talk about family with the guys. In that trance, I’d felt more connected with Aether than I ever had before or since. Well, it was worth a shot.

Slowly, I sank deeper into my trance. Before long, I began to feel the current and pulse of the Aether around me more keenly. Breathing deeply, I lifted a free hand and began to direct the invisible energy to swirl about and coat me, not unlike how I had before.

Yeah…

This was working…

I could feel myself begin to relax as I was embraced by the Aether of Vereden. After a time, I was so in tune with it again that I felt that same tapping sensation on my back as I did last time. That was the endlessly repeating Mana-based activation enchantment built into the collar. The one that couldn’t do anything because I didn’t actually have a real brand for it to activate. But…

Something was different.

Sitting up straighter in my chair, being careful not to lose my hold on the ambient Aether, I concentrated. What was that? Every time I felt the useless tapping sensation, I felt an answering reverberation from the Aether cloak that surrounded me. Focusing harder, I paid rapt sensorial attention the next time it came. There! I was dumbfounded and confused at the source.

It.

Well.

It was coming from the enchantment blank…

I had never taken my hand off of it while I was meditating on the Aether, and thus it had been covered by the same cloak of invisible power that I was. Every time the activation enchantment touched the Aether, a portion of it propagated across the energy and reached the blank. The blank was then acting as if it recognized the activation signal briefly and responding, but nothing more than that.

That…shouldn’t happen. Not from my understanding of enchantment, at least.

As I’d been taught, a blank only responded this way when it received Enchantment ‘intent’ that was compatible with its runic architecture. Hell, I’d felt a version of this only a few minutes ago when I was burning out those other blanks.

Slowly, clawing its way from the depths of my subconscious, an idea rolled over me. It…if this worked. If I was willing to potentially waste an enchantment blank on this idea.

It would change everything. It would change Vereden

I took a deep breath.

Fuck it. I still had two more if this one burned out. The potential was too high.

Concentrating, I picked up the blank in both hands and began to layer the Ward Breaker enchantment again. But this time, I stripped parts of it out. It didn’t need to be as powerful for my idea, it didn’t need as many redundancies. It didn’t need to bypass as many built-in defenses as a Ward Stone had. It didn’t need to overpower a physical object with so much injected raw Aether from monster cores that it physically exploded.

My target only needed the most crucial, fundamental core of the Ward Breaker enchantment.

Deactivation.

The enchantment clicked into place.