The interior of Ahken was much nicer than the exterior to the extent that Flyte was confident that the outside was meant to be a deterrent. Where the outside was crumbling, the inside walls were faultless and even the buildings looked nice, polished even. It was hard to imagine that this town was one where half of the people inside would die within a decade.

It was as Lebrandt said. Looks can be deceiving.

The citizens looked happy enough, which Flyte figured meant that they were right between rift expansions, as they weren’t mourning or preparing for battle.

The entire army had been allowed inside Ahken’s walls, which interested Flyte as their numbers were within the three hundreds.

It could have been that they felt that they couldn’t do anything to an army that large, or it could be the reverse.

Deciding that it didn’t really matter, Flyte began to explore alongside Ander and Elliot.

Ander looked exhausted for the most part while Elliot seemed on edge. His hand fiddled with the hilt of his borrowed sword.

“Come on guys,” Flyte said. “Loosen up. We’ve been through a lot on our way here, it’s time to enjoy ourselves and unwind. Nothing is going to happen here.”

“If you say so,” Ander smiled with a smile belonging to someone who should be sleeping. Elliot didn’t seem to have heard Flyte.

“Hey Elliot,” Flyte nudged his friend’s shoulder. “What’s up?”

Elliot kind of jolted back into reality, startled by Flyte’s touch. “Sorry,” he began. “What did you say?”

“I was just asking what was going on with you,” Flyte answered, a little worried.

“Oh,” Elliot chuckled, his eyes holding a certain hollowness within them. “I just haven’t been able to sleep for a while.”

It seemed that the desert hadn’t been kind to Elliot. “Okay,” Flyte said. “Then let’s find you a place to rest.”

Elliot’s lip twitched upward in an almost-smile. “I don’t think that’s going to do much.”

“Why not?” Flyte asked.

“Well,” Elliot looked a little embarrassed. “I have awful nightmares every time I close my eyes.”

“You do realize that I can fix that, right?” Flyte asked.

“That would be nice,” Elliot said while turning his head toward Flyte. Seeing his sincerity, he opened his eyes a few degrees wider. “What, really?”

“Why else did you think light mages existed before these shades began appearing everywhere?”

“I didn’t,” Elliot answered in a giddy voice.

Flyte laughed. “That’s fair.”

The trio found a small inn run by a swamp goblin named Yodym. In the cheap room they rented, Flyte sat in a chair facing Elliot.

“Okay,” Flyte said. “Just to make sure, you want to be nightmare free for this nap, right?”

Elliot lost control of his inner demons for a moment and shouted “No!” before reaching for his sword. In a monumental strain of his will,

Elliot was able to wrestle control back for himself and drop his sword as sweat dripped from his head.

“Yes,” Elliot weakly but firmly said. “I do.”

“Okay,” Flyte placed his hands atop his friend’s head.

“Nelar.”

Elliot’s face radiated peace, then, he fell asleep.

“Now that that’s done, do you want to go to the market to buy paper?” Flyte asked Ander.

“Sure,” Ander said tiredly.

“You know what,” Flyte said, noticing Ander’s condition. “I could also use some sleep, so let’s get paper later.”  

When Flyte woke up from his nap he walked outside and looked out the window.

‘Would I have lived here if I could have?’

Maybe he would have. He wasn’t a big fan of sand, and he didn’t know if he could survive even one rift expansion, but he did know that magic brought him happiness.

‘I’m definitely lucky,’ Flyte thought to himself. ‘If things hadn’t gone exactly as they did, I wouldn’t have had such great opportunities. I went from the next to be executed to a free man in mere moments.’

And Flyte couldn’t be happier about that. He did wish that Will wasn’t a part of it, and he simply could not forgive him of his atrocities, but that’s why they had travelled through the Rift in the first place. Flyte wouldn’t have to forgive Will.

“Afternoon,” Ander greeted as he walked out of the inn.

“How do you look so much more well rested after so few hours of sleep?” Flyte asked.

“It’s called a power nap for a reason,” Ander smiled lucidly.

"No kidding," Flyte laughed. "You wanna leave now?"

"Why not?" Ander asked.

"Alright, let's head out." Between the pair of aimless meanderers, Flyte was the one who lead.

After an extremely long while of searching, the two finally found what seemed to be close enough to a market for their standards. Ander was lucky that the strange shadowy fogs of the Rift held back the sun's heat, otherwise Flyte would have probably complained the whole time.

"How much paper do you have?" Ander asked the first merchant they saw.

"Paper?" the merchant began. "Maybe four hundred pieces."

"Awesome," Flyte took over joyfully. "Can we buy all of them?"

"All of them?" Ander and the merchant exclaimed in sync.

"Yep," Flyte said. " I plan to use a lot of it, and it's not exactly expensive."

"Well...," Ander trailed off. "It's not the cheapest thing you could splurge on, but it is within our budget."

"Paper's not cheap?" Flyte asked. "But it's so flimsy

"Not really," Ander said. "It takes quite bit of work to make it, but again, it's within our budget easily, so we can still buy it."

"Okay then," Flyte said to the merchant. "We'll take three hundred pieces of paper."

"You're dropping a whole hundred?" the merchant almost sadly asked.

"Yep," Flyte said. "We've got places to go, and I don't want to stain our spending limit."

"Fair," the merchant start smiling roguishly. "Are you ready?"

The merchant pulled out the papers and stacked them up on the countertop after carefully counting them a few times. "I'll sell all of these to you for a mark," he said.

"Are you kidding?" Ander asked. "Those papers look like they're hardly fit for a hog's backside, there's no way I would buy those for even a forth of a mark."

The papers weren't so bad looking. The top few were a little water damaged from their time of use as a coaster, but they were quite fit to write on.

"What if I set the price to be five pins?" the merchant asked. The amount was worth half of a mark.

"Six would be better for me," Ander said.

The short man blinked a few times. "Six? I can agree with that."

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"I've changed my mind," Ander said, as he pinched up a small hand carved, wooden figure. "How about two pins and this figure?"

"I own that, what are you even doing?"

"Shades, I really thought that would work," Ander said before twirling toward Flyte and whispering: "He's close, start juggling and I think we've got him."

"I don't know how to juggle," Flyte responded, not bothering to keep his voice down.

"Shades," Ander muttered.

"Just how tired are you, Ander?" Flyte asked.

"Quite."

"Okay, sir," Flyte began taking over the haggling. "How about three pins?"

"I can't go that low, but four pins, five alyns would work for me."

"Four pins flat?"

"Can't do that either."

"What about four pins and this instructional note written by Ontin, the honorsoul in the mountains north of here?" Flyte offered, pulling out his single page on discharging spells.

"Interesting off," the merchant said. "Can you prove the note's authenticity to me?"

"It has his seal on the back," Flyte said, turning over the page.

The man looked closely. "That it does. I believe we have a deal." he extended his hand, and Flyte took it. "That was some fun haggling, if nothing else, so feel free to come back whenever!"

"Sure thing," Flyte smiled brightly as he picked up the mass of paper and walked out the door.

"Ander," Flyte said. "I think you might need a real night's sleep."

"Probably," Ander responded. "But it's hard to sleep with all of this stress, and that doesn't even bring time into the equation."

"What's stressing you out?" Flyte said.

"Everything seems to be coming to a head," Ander started. "Elliot is fighting a losing battle against his inner demons, which we can't fight, and I'm not sure that Ontin will get to us in time to save him. To add onto that, I have to keep the prophecy in mind, else someone could die. We're playing with lives, and even if we knew the rules to the game, I'm not ever going to be okay with that."

Flyte looked at Ander empathetically. "I know how you feel, I really do. It's hard to stay positive like this, it really is, but for Aliran's sake, Ander, try to have a little hope. You've got this under control, can't you see that?"

"Not really," Ander answered. "I feel like I'm going in blind, I've got no way to gauge myself, and i can see no positive results to what I've done."

"You're doing everything you can," Flyte said. "The results just aren't always so easy to see. You're making everyone's time out here easier. No one can blame you for whatever happens."

I can, and I will," Ander said. "I already know that. I'll ask myself what I could have done better, and I'll find a thousand different things."

Flyte stood silent for a moment, then continued to think. "It's a hard burden to bear, Ander, but know this: I'll be right beside you, feeling what you feel. There's no point ruining your health helping people when there's a point that your bad health will limit your ability to help."

Ander furrowed his brow. "Why would you feel those same feelings as me? It wouldn't be your fault."

"And it wouldn't be yours either!" Flyte's voice raised unintentionally.

"But-"

"But what?!" Flyte asked. "Who cares if you're meant to lead us? We all have free will, do we not? We can all help each other, that means that loss can hardly be any one person's fault. Do everything you can. That question: 'could I have done more?' is a part of mourning, so don't exclude me from mourning whatever loss comes." With the heat of his words, Flyte ended up needing to lean on a nearby wall.

"I guess that's fair," Ander said quietly. After a short chuckle he asked: "why are we thinking such negative thoughts in the first place. No one is dying, and nor will they so long as we stand."

"You've got that one right," Flyte said vehemently. "Now, let's get this paper back to the wagon."

After a short walk, Flyte and Ander were able to drop the papers off.

"Okay," Flyte started. "Now that that's out of the way, what o we need to do now?"

"We should proba-"

"Citizens of Ahken," A voice boomed, as loud as thunder. "It is y unfortunate responsibility to notify you of Lord Herald's call or your blood and my duty to deliver it to him. It is my wish that you might forgive me for such harsh news; however, I will not relent if you do."

As soon as they heard the voice start speaking, Ander and Flyte were running over to the best vantage point to see the speaker.

"Oh no..." Flyte's exclamation trailed off as he saw what approached from outside the walls. What could have been tens of thousands of rift monsters surrounded Ahken, including those who only appeared in father Rift sections.

Ander's face was grim and full of intense seriousness despite his tired manner of action just before.

"Aliran help us," he muttered.

"You!" the thunderous voice shouted.

Ander turned to it and his face twisted into a snarl. "Henrick, what have you done!"

"I've finally become strong enough to take my revenge," Henrick said. "Lord Herald must have known that you were here and decided to reward me. Finally, I shall vindicate myself with your blood as you dry up in the desert sun."

"Prepare to face the wrath of 'Charon'!"

Henrick leapt into the air, his body propelled by some form of magic. In one fluid motion, he drew his sword and slashed at Ander, an acred blade of wind carrying the attack as the sword glowed a light gray shade.

Parendyne seemingly appeared and intercepted the attack by placing two of his swords in a "V" to split the wind.

"Who are you?" Henrick demanded.

Parendyne chose to ignore the oddly motivated mage and instead turned toward Ander. "Are you two going to be able to defeat this guy?

"Of course," Ander said. "Shades, it should be pretty easy."

"Great," Parendyne in my group will work on killing those Rift monsters down there."

"Sounds good," Flyte said. "I'll see you in a bit."

"Parendyne," Ander said. "Feel free to get Eris and some of the others to guard the young in your group so that you light mages don't have to leave them alone."

"Thank you, Ander," Parendyne said.

Needless to say, Henrick was infuriated. He slashed toward the spot Parendyne stood, but the elf was gone before Henrick was done with even the first swing. With that, his attention was focused solely on Flyte and Ander.

Flyte burst forward at the same time as Henrick, both blades crashing in the middle. They kept and even exchange for a while, their swords moving like lightning as they exchanged parries and ripostes.

Henrick launched his wind slash at close range, forcing Flyte back, and Ander took his place.

With no access to his own speed magic, Ander was at a clear disadvantage, as he could only rely on his stone manipulation and strange prediction skills to keep Henrick's faster sword at bay.

'I hope this doesn't feel too strange for you,' "Elgro," Flyte said, strengthening Ander's body.

Ander twitched slightly at the odd sensation, making his sword just barely miss the right position.

"Sari, sari, sari," Flyte screamed as quickly as he could.

Ander moved his stone arm to catch the approaching blade, but he moved too fast, and Henrick was able to adjust his sword's path.

Luckily for Ande, he had trained his troops well. An arrow fired by Garrick pushed Henrick's sword right into Ander's hand.

Siezing this opportunity, Ander cut into Henrick with the sword in his other hand.

Henrick retreated as best as he could and healed himself. Raising his sword, he formed dozens of combustible balls of fire in the air around him.  

----------------------------------------

Behind Ander, Flyte fired tiny light spears into every single fireball before Henrick could throw them, causing a huge explosion.

When the smoke cleared, the rest of the dark circle mages under Henrick's command were there.

"Not strong enough to take us alone?" Ander asked.

"Obviously I can," Henrick said. "But suffering is best wrought with many."

As Henrick spoke, Flyte dove in, dealing nonvital wounds to several of the unprepared mages while knocking them out with his glowing sword. With a snarl on his face, Henrick prepared a huge slice of wind to slash at Flyte with.

'Not today.' Ander burst forward, putting his magically imbued speed to the test. Ander put all of his strength behind one left hook to Henrick's face.

Landing it, Ander threw the Dark Circle mage into a nearby wall.

"Focus on me," Ander said as Henrick struggled to rise. "If you're even a passable leader, your subordinates should be fine."

"Fine," Henrick growled. "Elgro." On casting the spell, his voice had a dramatic change in pitch.

The whole left side of Henrick's body morphed, growing chitin and gaining muscle. On his back, again only on the left side, he grew four arachnid type appendages that were made of bone and covered in thorny masses.

Henrick scrambled toward Ander, cracking the ground with the sheer force of his movements. He leapt into the air, preparing to imple Ander with his new limbs and sword.

Seeing that, Ander formed a dense shield out of all of the loose sand around him and turned around, blocking the four arms with his large shield and the sword with his own.

Henrick landed a few feet away, so Ander set Dancing Flames ablaze in preparation for the coming battle.

Henrick poked at Ander with a bone spike but moved too slowly, and Ander was able to cut off the thorned appendage with his flaming sword, charring the bone around the cut.

"Augh." Henrick screamed. He chopped wildly with his sword, forcing Ander to block with his shield.

Ander turned the sandstone under Henrick's normal foot into normal sand, tripping the amalgamate before his sealed his foot into the now resolidified sandstone.

To get out of this, Henrick simply punched the stone with inhuman levels of force and continued on the offensive.

'Why did I let this guy live?' Ander cut off another two of Henrick's bone legs, but they grew back in just moments.

Thoroughly incensed with rage, Henrick rushed forward, ignoring the wounds he received in the maneuver, and threw Ander to the ground, shattering the roof below them.

When Ander came to, Henrick's sword was arcing toward him, giving him only an instant to react.

Ander barely caught the blade between both of his. Even so, a thin slice of wind cut into him, albeit slightly as Henrick hadn't even intended to make that attack.

Under immense pain, Ander only had room to think as Henrick reared for another strike.

'That day, when Henry stabbed Henrick, the knife he used was very brittle and weak, right? That means that some of that metal could have stayed in the wound. That could be why I let him live, knowing that he'd heal.'

Ander let his senses reach out into Henrick as the blade descended, and he could feel them. A few small, almost unnoticeable scraps of steel in Henrick's chest.

Ander took control, blending Henrick's body from the insde before he could be killed.

Henrick stared down at him with shock, blood pouring out of his mouth as he staggered back. The way he moved his arm implied to Ander taht he was preparing to heal himself.

Ander pulled Henrick's blade out of his hand. Screaming through the pain of his laceration, Ander flung the sword at Henrick's head, dashing the man's brain before he could even think the word "elgro."

'I guess we both got what we wanted. You leave me here suffering, and I take my revenge. I still wonder, when is revenge going to be worth it?'

Panting with severe exhaustion, Ander laid down and passed out.  

----------------------------------------

"Well," Flyte started. "That was... a lot."

"You've got that right," Glow whistled.

They stared at all of the incapacitated mages that lay before them. Some had stab wounds from daggers, some had no marks whatsoever, but all were going to live.

"Well, let's go and find Ander," Flyte said.

"Okay," Glow whistled merrily.

They looked through the battleground until they saw pools of blood and a holed ceiling.

Looking down the hole, Flyte and glow found Ander sitting in a pool blood, partially coming from a shallow though long cut along the middle of his body, but mostly made up of the sickeningly brutalized corpse on the other side of the room.

More disturbing than that was the man standing over Ander. He was covered in full plate armor and carried two huge swords and an axe. On his left shoulder there was a half cape drapped, uncaringly placed.

"You," Flyte said, recognizing the figure. "You're the mage slayer."

The mage slayer looked up and laughed, the cut on his visor gleaming in the weak sunlight. "Yes, but my cohorts, who you murdered, call me Thalreion."

Thalreion drew his sword and plunged it into a death dive towards Ander's chest.