By morning, Kaden had told—and retold—the story half a dozen times to an evergrowing list of Centurions. Rangers came from everywhere. They hadn’t declared Viktor and his team dead, and wouldn’t for months, unless someone survived, in which case everyone else would be declared dead. Druids, Rangers, a Councilman from Kaden’s city of Verona, the Guildmaster, even a [King] from a Kingdom far south.

A Centurion [Man At Arms] put Asmodius’s spear through its paces, testing how long it would exend. The answer was disappointing for Kaden, as he didn’t have the Soul stat to use effectively. The manacles resisted everyone, even the master [Thief], which didn’t upset them. If anything, it made them happier.

Kaden wasn’t ready to sell anything, but the other problem was that keeping artifacts—ones people knew about—would lure people to the Holding. After hours of debate, he called Sara. “Can you make a deal for the manacles and the spear? I’m keeping the eye of Asmodius. It’s not a gift or treasure, it’s a burden.”

“What should I aim for?”

“How long has it been since you upgraded your weapons? See what you need. See what Eve needs. Actually, there is one thing Druids could help with.” He sought out Tanny and waited until the man was alone. “You’re going to get a weird request. I’ll understand if you want to say no. I…need animals and Beasts. All different kinds. I need them alive. And I’d rather not talk about what happens to them.”

Explaining that he used them as [Entity Seeds] would be awkward.

“You’re not the first class that uses [Sacrifice]. Most [Shamans] do, too, and they don’t talk about it either. We can set up deliveries. It’s not cheap, but it’s possible.”

Kaden nodded and shook his hand. “When my [Beast Taming] levels up, I’ll be back to learn.”

He didn’t know when that would be.

Eve had gone back to thank the instructors and set a plan for continuing her learning, Sara was arguing viciously, and Kaden sat in the sun, throwing a mana rat skeleton for Vip while Trinity basked beside him. She’d rolled over, exposing a cream colored belly to the sun.

“Am I interrupting?” Ravena had snuck up on him.

Maybe sneak was the wrong word, since she had a procession of druids behind her. She’d ignored-up on him. “You came here to trade with us. You were injured in our grove. Under the watch of our spirits. I can’t undo the Demon attack, or remove the damage to your chest. But I can do this.”

Kaden stood as she opened a carved wooden box. Nestled inside was a seed the size of his fist, which glowed softly in waves, like it was taking a deep breath. “What is it? Sara’s got [Gardening].”

“Even Tree Forms are not forever. When a Centurion Druid is ready, they return to Nature. Their Tree Form flowers one final time and produces this. It’s a [Shield Tree]. Demons suffer constant damage for being near a [Shield Tree]. It will be small, but it will grow. Plant it near your home.”

Kaden took it from her and stored it with care. “I’ll protect it.”

Oh, that smile as she laughed. “You don’t protect it, it’s a [Shield Tree.] Demons will hate it. If they cut it down to the ground, it will grow back. If they burn it, it will heal and grow stronger. Every bit of damage it does to one of them strengthens it. It’s not just a tree. It’s an anchor of this plane. Every Grove has a ring of them at the heart.”

Kaden was hesitant to give her a hug. Fifteen year-old him had so many different ideas, none of them respectful. “Thank you. For trying to help me when I didn’t even have a class. I probably would have loved life here as a [Druid.] And for tolerating my…interest.”

“Oh, still so sweet. Will you sing—”

“No.” Kaden had limits. “I don’t do that anymore. Some mistakes you only make once. Or twice. I might have serenaded Trella when I was drunk.”

Ravena reached out to brush his cheek. “I heard what happened. Such a frightened little girl, now a [Shadow Blade]. These years—these early years—every day seems like an eternity. Hold on. Have faith. Keep growing. That’s all you can do.”

A flight of owls came swooping in to the TreeSpace where Sara negotiated, and one landed on Ravena. She listened, then looked up with a smile, even as tears began to roll. “There were survivors from Viktor’s Party. Five of them made it out with the corpses of the others. We think they can be resurrected. Most of them.”

Her tone told Kaden what he needed to know. “Viktor?”

“An Abyss Lord’s very presence would kill you right now. This one was a rot, a living corruption, and not even a Centurion can survive that. But he was level one hundred and twenty eight. Multiclassed so many times it was a running joke. And he’ll be remembered as the man who shook the foundations of Hell.” Raven spoke the last as a pronouncement. “His corpse cannot be buried, it contains the rot, but we will burn it here in the grove. It’s the last thing we can do for an ally. Come, they’re bringing it now.”

Kaden went with her.

He hadn’t known Viktor well.

At all.

But there was a certain kinship that came from standing before a Demon Lord and mocking him. From walking into Hell, straight into a trap and smiling all the way. And Kaden couldn’t help wondering if the way he’d been able to speak in the presence of Asmodeus had been his own will, or Viktor lending him strength.

At the far edge of the grove, one meadow held no green, no grass. Sharp rocks jutted up, shards of obsidian around a funeral pyre. A portal opened, and through it came a group of Rangers, all of them Centurions.

All of them wounded.

All of them bloody.

They carried a bound body wrapped in green Mana.

Within it, black tar sloshed back and forth, a living vessel of corruption.

Ravena went to meet them, and spoke quiet words as they set the blob down on the funeral pyre, then hurried out of reach.

“Be at rest, friend.” Ravena triggered a skill, and for a moment, the sunlight above morphed. Moonlight shone down from a night sky above them, and through the darkness came flares of light. Shooting stars, which struck the pyre, enveloping it in white flames that consumed the corruption.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The fire blazed hotter and hotter.

Sweat rolled off Kaden’s face, and his skin tingled as the fire burned.

Then the air popped.

The fire went out.

And the Rangers visibly relaxed. Some wept. Some laughed. One approached Ravena and Kaden. “He didn’t die straight away, it took weeks. Said he wanted you to know he was at peace with it. That it was a good trade, the seventh Abyss Lord for a single [Ranger].”

Ravena bowed her head. “It doesn’t seem like a good trade right now. Perhaps, in the centuries to come, it will.”

“Hey. [Beast Master.]” The Ranger woman turned to him, and tossed him something. An Inventory package. “For later.”

Kaden gave her a nod, curious what it would contain.

“Virgil Birch’s boy should know how to use a bow. You’re no [Ranger] but your dad? I saw him put an arrow through a King’s eye from a mile away once. Shot through a forest, through a window, put the arrow through the King’s skull. It might have come out the other side, I don’t know, we weren’t checking.”

Kaden couldn’t picture his Dad that way. “Why?”

“Same as always. Royal curse, mad king, you know how it goes. The Royal family panicked. Queen took her kids, made a run for it straight into that [Shadow Blade] wife of his. Snick-snick-snick, whole family dead in seconds. Woman gave me the creeps. You’d be looking at her in one place and another at the same time. Not her shadow—or if it was, I sure couldn’t tell.”

“You knew them?”

She shrugged. “Much as anyone did. Son of a bitch had a bow made for killing royalty, and let me tell you, there were a few decades when every time it rained, the Royals began to sweat. That was assuming his wife didn’t find you. She had dead eyes, you know? Like she looked through you.” She smiled as though it was a compliment.

And left.

Kaden put the package away, shaken. Viktor had known what was coming. He’d said it was entirely possible he wouldn’t come back. But hearing people talk about his parents, people who knew them, left him with questions he’d never have answers to.

Or answers he didn’t want.

Ravena respected his silence as they headed back to find Sara shaking hands with a group of Rangers and Druids. Eve stood there, holding Vip, who definitely did not want to be held, based on how she wiggled.

“It’s been a pleasure,” Sara said. “Not all of it. Not the part where we were attacked by demons, or Kaden was mortally wounded, or stalked by a Demon’s Daughter, or our trip to Hell. All that was terrifying, but the other parts were wonderful. You throw an excellent feast.”

Kaden shook Olidar’s hand. “We’ll be back. Next time I get some weird plant pollen thing, I know where to take it.”

“The healing pollen’s fertile. Ravena will start using it this year. In a decade, her healing will be even more powerful,” Olidar said. “And we have uses for that Rage pollen. If you’ve ever seen a Bearserker, imagine one three times the size and ten times as angry.”

Kaden didn’t want to imagine that.

He wanted to be home.

“Until next time.” Together, they went to the FarPortal, and Kaden pulled Trinity into his soul. The trip back was no rougher than any other time, and Kaden knew to roll as he landed, then used [Moment of Speed] to leap back to catch Sara as she fell upside down out of the FarPortal.

“Careful,” he said as he set her upright.

“Someone needs more PortalMage lessons,” Sara said to Eve. “Many more lessons. So many.”

If it bothered Eve, she didn’t show it.

Kaden waved to the others. “Ravena gave us a gift. A way of saying ‘I’m sorry a Demon’s Daughter tried to tear your heart out and now you have some metal bonded permanently to your body.”

He headed to the far side of the Farmhouse, between the Crafting Workshop and the Guest Tower which was still technically Wren’s. The [Shield Tree] seed felt warm in his hands, and even now, he felt [Guardian of Life]’s effect on it. “This is an anti-demon tree. Groves use them at the heart to protect children.”

Sara drew her enchanted trowel from Inventory and joined him. “My [Gardening] skill is going crazy. I can’t even read the status on that, but I can tell you this - you could plant it right against the house and it would grow through and around the house. It might even take over part of it.”

That sounded like a plan. Kaden let Sara dig , then gently put the seed into the ground and patted the earth down on it while Trinity watched intently with all three heads.

Vip peed on the spot, which Kaden chose to interpret as helping.

“Is it going to errupt?” Eve asked. “Are we talking magic bean stalks? Because those are terrible. Almost impossible to cut down.”

They waited.

And waited.

“It’s growing. I can tell you that, but maybe [Shield Trees] grow slowly?” Sara stood and dusted herself off. “I have so many things to do. My gardens are overrun.”

“I need to check on my dungeon—”

“Yes, you do.” Yuni—Ashi. Her name was Ashi. Her voice came from above him. She hovered there, arms crossed, a perpetual look of mild displeasure on her face as she looked at him. She’d changed the wraps that kept her from absorbing too much Mana, and now they were light tan, almost white. The different mana beads sewn into them flashed in different colors as she settled down lightly. “I come back to see how you are, and you are nowhere. You are all nowhere, except for Trella. She is where I expect.”

“It’s been a couple months. We had stuff to do, and we’re going to have more. Munoz is almost done processing the [Storm Condor] feathers from Jagi’s bird. How is he?”

Ashi pulled back her hair, which was shiny black and tied it so it didn’t hang over her shoulders. “He is not in Vichor, but you know this. The City is quiet. Many wait to see if my brother will return. It was only a few days. Time for Mother to instruct me.”

Ashi looked to each of them. “Lunar Mana? Was it not unpleasant, Evelyn?”

“Druids know tricks Vichoreans don’t.” Eve replied. If Kaden had called her ‘Evelyn’ it would not have ended well. “Perhaps we could make a deal to extend Vichor’s knowledge of magic. And if it was unpleasant, I’d do it all over again.”

“You have grown stronger,” she said to Sara. “This is good and right. It will be a pleasure to fight by your side as we destroy erratic dungeons.”

“You had be at ‘destroy.’ And ‘erratic.’ And ‘dungeons,” Sara said, offering a hug.

Ashi did not accept.

“What is this?” Ashi approached Kaden, slipping her hand under his top to run her fingers along the metal. “What disaster required such an act? I must know.”

“This is awkward and I’m hungry. That’s twice the number of reasons I needed to leave,” Eve said. “Good luck figuring out how to explain this, Kaden.”

“Come, we must tend your Dungeon. It was ready to Rank up days ago. Why did you not do so?” Ashi asked.

“Because every time I rank up, I have this time period where I can’t tell what’s me and what’s the dungeon, and it’s a good thing I waited, because the Demon’s Daughter—” Kaden stopped as Ashi turned on him, her look horrified. “Those are demon wounds?”

“Sara?” He asked. “You want to explain or you want me to?”

“Are your story telling skills like your singing and song writing ones? Perhaps I should,” Sara said.

“You have never written a song for me. Or sung for me.” Ashi’s tone held menace.

“You and I were trying to escape your psychopathic brother. It wasn’t exactly a ‘singing and songwriting’ time in my life.” Kaden began to suspect he’d never hear the end of this.

“Also, he wasn’t fifteen, you aren’t a curvy Druid teaching him hands-on,” Sara said.

“Who was this [Druid]? What was she teaching? Where were these hands?” Ashi asked.

This whole discussion was going entirely the wrong way, so Kaden lead in with his version of the story. One which downplayed the danger, emphasized the loot and completely ignored Naski’s oath of revenge.

“I am not familiar with ‘Hatred Mark.’” Ashi said. “Show me the logs, perhaps it can be dispelled. I would not hesitate to ask this of Mother.”

“It means she can track me.” Kaden was in absolutely no rush to meet Ashi’s mother again. She was so close to ascension even perceiving her was near impossible. “If she tracks me down, I will kill her. Maybe I should have done it then.”

“No.” Sara’s declaration was absolute. “She’s thrown out of Hell, didn’t deliver Asmodeus’s eye, and claiming she’ll hunt you down is at best a claim. If you stayed and fought, I would never bet against you, but a level thirty Demon’s Daughter would be…difficult.”

Ashi hadn’t spoken. She looked from Kaden to Sara. “We have business to take care of. It is time for Kaden to raise the Dungeon’s rank again. And then I want to hear from the beginning. Leave nothing out. Tell me of this threat to a Dungeon Master of Vichor. I will not show mercy.”

Raising the rank was natural and exciting, and the consequences, always terrifying. But it was time.