Dryfu kept the communication mind to mind, and the personal feeling along with it gave weight to what he was about to say. He was right, the path to the side was already one he’d picked over to get here. Going back up to that hanging death trap of a tower wasn’t exactly his top priority before the memory. Sure, Dryfu. What’s up?
Ptolemy had a point earlier about my past that I hadn’t realized was impacting my performance as your guide.
Oh? I think you’ve been fine, more than fine. A bit snappy at times. Tim had noticed a softer side since they’d met Papa Ptol and his no nonsense fathering without request. You saved–
No. Dryfu flew around to face Tim, stopping him in his tracks. I’ve fought, but that’s not the main duty of a guide. My father raised me better than how I’ve been. Until now I’d forgotten his face. A servant leader I have not been. It’s time for me to get back on track.
Speaking of Papa Ptol. He passed through a wall with a satisfied grin to float in the walkway with them. “Where are you going?”
Tim motioned Papa Ptol to the tower. “The Murphy went there before it finished. I need to find out why.”
“That’s the squire’s post. In an ambush, he would have prepared a trap for anyone who’d follow him.”
The second floor of the castle had hovels built into the wall. Six doorways down, all were broken before the one in the middle of the walkway somehow ended the torment. The rest of the doors to the end were open but not hanging askew nor with remnant stains.
“We better hurry. If the Murphy isn’t awake yet, its saplings will be close after that mimic outburst.”
“I’m not finished.” Dryfu flew into speaking range as he caught up with Tim at a jog. “I’ve dishonored my father’s heritage. Please forgive me.”
Were they not in the midst of a Resident Evil level of haunted horror, Tim might have had more of a reaction than, “Okay.”
Magic Hunt’s aura reach drew him toward the side stairs leading to the second floor. “That’s appreciated. I too am not where I thought I’d be.” In this reflection, Tim let grace have a moment. “We’re good. Thank you. Likewise, I’m trying to get back on some kind of track.”
Tim walked past the doorways leading to glowing pools of aura staining the former home. He wanted to know what was past the last broken-down door. “What’s gonna be different? Have you been withholding information?”
Dryfu rested on the splintered doorway and watched Tim approach. “Mmm… passively, yes.”
Tim stepped into the puddle at the entry. Memory overtook him of a Cartel Axeman named Qaraia, breaking in to kill Rryeg’s family in their room. In the initial scuffle, a ten year old boy threw a net onto the back of the invader.
Tim gasped as the blade returned warfare’s impartial wrath and took the boy’s lifeblood in one stroke. Rryeg seized the opening by tossing an open jar onto the rope net and then a lantern. Green flames burst into a bonfire contained to only incinerate the intruder. The same aura it left in a puddle soaked through Tim’s boots, revealing more than just the wicked life of the up and comer in the Wachamia Cartel’s hit squad.
XP in Magic Hunt and Spirit Memory were both itching close to the next level. His eiyero quotient pulsed through in fading exhales. Eq: 3%.
The aura blended memories and passion from Rreyg’s life as husband, father, and failed protector. In his death, he carried insurmountable grief. His kids weren’t supposed to be tried and suffer, forced to live without him. Anger hissed acid into his core while he strained against fate.
The next best thing—the only thing he could think to do for them—was to preserve their memory. Stopping the Murphy would give his plants time to protect the squire. Its aura feast on the blessed of Squire’s Castle would fuel a rapid regeneration.
Rreyg collapsed in the chill of aura loss. His children had already passed. His wife suffered the final vestiges of her wounds, nearing death with enough strength to live two hundred years more, and everyone more beautifully than the last.
Tim woke from Rreyg’s final memory to track where the warrior had fallen. A long brown strip lying on the wood appeared to have been part of Rreyg’s outfit. Tim peeled an edge then lifted the belt. As it lifted aura bled into the leather and formed six glass containers fit into matching sized sleeves.
Item gained: Rreyg’s tool belt
Description: Rreyg was border security with a green thumb. He believed a strong crop was as good for the city as a steady wall. His belt is infused with a phy core to spark the seeds to a quick sapling phase as well as adds a +5 Defensive bonus to all equipped armor.
Nice. Thank you, Rreyg. I’m sorry you lost your fight, but it isn’t lost. I will carry it on. Tim fit the buckle of the belt around his waist.
+5 Defense added to all armor.
Equipping the belt connected him to a slightly deeper understanding of how aura enchantment lived inside the armor. Like rivers on a map and he was the new source for their delta. An idea Rreyg carried into death sparked to mind. Even as he died, he held onto the hope their squire would finish the Murphy and rebuild their city. Their example of a life free of the greed of the cartel war would continue to make this a safe place for Wachamia to shine.
“I didn’t die like that,” Dryfu said, eyes on Rryeg’s room.
“Good,” Tim said. “Then live like it to see a death with that kind of honor.” Tim’s words fell with a weight of how far he was falling short. “Did I die? To get here?”
“Depends on how you look at death. Is it not a parting of a veil to a new existence?”
“Okay philosopher’s stone. While we walk to the tower, tell me what your life was like.”
“My host and I were together for nineteen years. We weren’t killed while trying to murder innocents, but it was only a matter of perspective. Our path was wicked and both of us were too hardened to care. Our lust for power blinded us to what should have been a point of no return. Once we’d crossed it, it was too late. I’m actually glad we died. That was the only way to stop us. Then I was resurrected to your assignment within what felt like the blink of an eye.”
“No wonder you came out like a kicked bull.”
“A bit.”
“Who was your host party with?”
“The Dutchy. Not as much cartel stuff as it was the Dutchy’s preparations for this Hunt. The difference between the cartel and the leadership atop the Dutchy is hair thin.”
“What were those preparations? You’ve basically told me nothing about your last posting. Your last life?”
“I don’t know what they wanted from the Padstoligan treasure. Honestly, and I would have told you if I knew.”
They approached the warped wooden door leading into the tower.
“The preparations were for war. Removing opponents from the inside out and trusting in the skills and levels we built over the last year especially. In the end, it’s always about winning the Hunt. And you’re not reflecting any kind of presence to the jewel, so the sooner we get out of here, the better.”
More panthers and goblins collected in the periphery of his Danger Sense. Within the acre surrounding the castle, he counted twenty-six. Their senses were weeding through his Protection spell. They knew he was here. They were just waiting for reinforcements, but not for much longer.
Tim yanked on the door. Rust in the hinges squealed. It thudded and stopped, the cobblestone catching the door where the foundation pushed it up. Tim took out his axe and anticipating a steep slope into battle, forsook silence for progress. His axe made quick work of the rotted wood. Goblin riders with scout goggles watched him from the treeline. He stepped through the broken entryway and climbed the spiral staircase. Weight shifted in the tower. Tim halted, not having realized it was this far gone. Papa Ptol disappeared through the floor. Tim thought he’d abandoned them, until a second later he splashed back through.
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“I’ve given us some time. Let’s go.”
Tim’s next steps landed and passed without the floor shifting. He wondered why the door was shut, when in his vision the Murphy had broken–no–it hadn’t broken the door. It was open already. It was a trap. But not for him. The Murphy wouldn’t have closed the door on its way back out. Tim quickly retreated to the doorway, whispering kitten kisses to c-mana his Magic Hunt skill.
Tim’s hand was the squire’s, Aeu’s, pressing the door shut behind him as he left the damaged tower.
Tim knew what he had to do. As he swept back through and up the tower he carried Aeu’s memory of Rryeg’s sacrifice, and the weapon he left behind. The security master’s green thumb and a particularly nasty species of thorned weeds threatening their crops each year, combined to hone a poison creation skill. Which Rryeg convinced Aeu to keep safe in the tower so it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, the way Aeu used it to wound the Murphy all the way back to its sapling form was the very thing that could have saved his family. Aeu had Wicker Sea powder bonded with Rryeg’s oshi poison and threw a pouch into the Murphy’s throat. The amount of oshi he gave the creature could have killed a thousand elephants. And he had a lot more where that came from. A whispered voice warned him not to disturb the poison’s rest. Once released, he might not be able to control its effects, nor the people who would wield it mercilessly. His main deciding factor was the pressure of outside forces prepping to take the castle, and the three of them being outmatched already against a Murphy with more than enough time to recover. Whatever happened between Aeu leaving the tower and his poison storage, he somehow failed to rebirth his city from the current state of ghost town.
“Easy!” Papa Ptol’s exclamation muffled through brick as he flew under Tim’s feet.
While Tim had to admit he enjoyed the thrill of running into the fire, so to speak, Danger Sense convinced him that the tower was going to topple. The only item up for discovery is if he would make it to the bedside chest before the tower buried him in the river.
Panther stalk. Tim cultivated c-mana into Danger Sense to feel his weight displacement on the tower bricks and their fault lines, allowing him to essentially see where to step for least impact.
The tower wobbled left. He cut right, spiraling up the staircase in a torrent of I’m not gonna die today. Wisdom allowed him to pick places to place his feet, ledges to leap from and grab, while supplemented dexterity helped him glide almost effortlessly. His boosted strength pushed his strides with the pounding speed.
Rocks burst, showering him with rubble as a desperate crack broke across the top of the stairs. The fissure separated at the steps leading into the tower chamber, a room fifteen feet at its widest, where books spilled from the shelves and pottery shattered on the stone floor.
Tim’s speed helped send him lunging for the falling tower. “Papa!” Tim shouted, pulsing aura in the cracks under the tower. The ghost split in a razor hot flash, separating into pieces to mend and support the wall. It recovered, precariously shifting but not yet tumbling. All while Tim was flailing in mid-air. He hit the stone and Dryfu tugged backward on his vest, helping both weight of impact and the pain. Tim wished Chris were here so they could shoot vines to loop around the roots exposing a tree inside the bricks.
That same tree matched where the golden chest and bed were carved out of the far wall. Tim snapped his whip around a knob of trunk sticking out of a hole in the wall, on the stair side, and pulled.
“Go, now,” Papa Ptol said through the underside of the tower.
Tim pulled the taught whip to help him to a knee and studied the golden chest. A metallic blue locking mechanism formed into a slanted square at the front. The four-sided button keyhole appeared to be the only chance at retrieving the contents without falling with it. He couldn’t carry the bed. It was carved out of the wall.
Tim cast Battleground on the chest and spent c-mana through his Magic Hunt to scan the aura remnant hiding inside. It tracked to a bb-sized orb set in a chamber at the center of a maze of aura wards. Spell-protection to ensure one slip up would unlock a trigger and crush it between spike and stone. That trap mechanism was an aura armor of sorts, metal enchanted with the power to snuff out a concentrated aura canister. The main intention of this bb was to be a gift for the one who could unlock its housing. Something the head of security ought to know about. Tim dipped into his Spirit Memories for a clue from Rryeg or Aeu’s memories.
Conversations echoed without the clarity of words. A night candle’s glow reflected off Aeu’s face as he watched Rreyg carefully drop the pin into the chamber. He finished with pressing a tab into the keyhole and turning it ten degrees counterclockwise. Something clicked inside. Rryeg handed him the tab. “Now all of our lives our forfeit,” Rryeg said, “except yours.”
Tim latched onto the tab clutched in Aeu’s fist. When he released, Rryeg was gone. The squire’s shadow cast darkness over the shelf where a molded acrylic toad sat, an open smile on its chubby green and yellow dotted face. Aeu pressed the tab into its tongue, revealing the other side of the tab to be a finely crafted black fly. Hidden in plain sight.
The same shelf had a book stacked askew on the lowest point corner. The toad was gone. Tim let Dryfu take the whip. The stykiller’s wings hummed and glowed an eerie green as he gripped the whip handle and flew to reestablish resistance. Tim carefully stepped where he expected the tower could withstand the best. The tower tilted as a small bulwark broke underneath. Danger Sense flared warning that if that section crumbled, it was goodbye baby. “Papa!”
“I’m trying. Hurry!”
Tim reached the other side of the bed to a pile of cluttered books, clothes, and small wooden crates. No toad there or in the profits dumped from the crates. Sealed jars with cracks spilled grain and other goodies. The tree tipped. Tim slid. A jar rolled over the pile. Underneath was the toad’s smiling face, mostly buried by a tented book. The tree wobbled. A warm, acrid fume emanated from Dryfu’s wings. His glowing aura fired off in uneven beats. Tim had to do this now, but the tower would upend if he went any closer to that side.
Indi.
Tim’s MP was down to 33. Tim used 15 to manifest his favorite aura buddy into his palm. Indi barely had time to grab his hat and duck as Tim cupped his palm and swung back to prepare his toss.
“Whooah!” Indi leapt from Tim’s hand. The breeze fluttered his loose shirt and pants. Indi snapped his whip at an open book, tipping it over to absorb his momentum as he landed in a tumble roll. The disturbance to the pile barely registered on the tower’s foundation. Their main problem was the crumbling of stone and wood exposed to rot.
Indi hopped over one jar to slide down the side of another, guided by Tim’s intuition and direction. His little friend reached whip distance to the toad, snapped it out to loop around the fly and yanked it free.
Yes!
Dryfu screamed in exasperation.
Kit cloud kicker. Tim spent the last c-mana in his Magic Hunt to spring Indi up and over the pile to the bed and sprinting across.
Tim, get out!
The tower tipped. Dark prophecy fulfilled. Condemning Tim’s foolishness. They’d been so close, he thought, and fell headlong toward the bed. He snatched his last tincture and downed it before hitting the wall over the bed. Now it was over him.
The tower swan dived, breaking apart in a roar of stone through water.
Tim rattled off Gregor’s poem and cast Protection as everything turned black and full of cold water sucking him down in a power far greater than his.
Danger Sense combined with Protection to reject and eject the water from his nose and mouth. A sheen expanded from his head and glowed through Magic Hunt. Indi!
He followed the little guy’s signal, swimming through water full of silt to a massive pile of stone. He couldn’t—Papa!
The ghost flew down onto the pile while Tim searched for Indi. The MP drain maintaining his protection bubble was too much. He let it go and cast Battleground on the pile of rubble. His MP dipped to 40% and dropped quick as he used Magic Hunt to find Indi.
The current increased, forcing him to hold onto the rocks. Despite pouring all he had into Foraging, he had to break and surface for air. A rock shifted and he lost his grip. His higher Constitution showed up in the stamina he needed to keep afloat, but the wall that fell upriver was settling, causing the current to strengthen and the river to rise. Come on. The sudden jolt of falling and the rush of there to here had frazzled his feel for his aura gifts. He was losing Indi, too. Desperate times. He closed his eyes, focused on the warm buzz of cultivation rippling across his muscles, and shot his hand at the pile. Cat!
Tim’s fist drove a wedge of aura into the cracks between rocks. They spread out and he double whammoed into the opening. His aura spread out in a thick column. Indi fit inside. Tim centered the aura to snap into Indi. His little buddy jerked awake, shook, mumbled, caught his hat. The button. He spun. Tim felt it, sent Indi. The chest was still there beside him. Indi dove into a breaststroke with one arm clutching the fly key.
Indi’s continual manifestation hit the next minute on his timer and Tim’s MP sank into single digits. He lost everything but Indi and pushed aura into his kicks. Indi stuck the fly into the chest, missing the hole. The current threatened his control. Tim again drained the last of his c-mana, now into Parry. Indi stuck his boot into a crevice and wove the key into the hole. Indi turned the key and Rryeg’s belt popped. A short discharge passed through his aura and into the key, disarming a trap he didn’t know about. I’ll take it!
Tim put pedal to metal kicking Indi over the opening and inside. A fist sized brick of the oshi and a dozen small pouches tied with string. Dryfu drilled into the water on a dive bomb toward the chest. A wall collapsed ten feet upriver, releasing a new current driving through him. Indi and Dryfu lifted into the stream’s hold despite their fighting to escape. Tim had an idea.
He took his pouch, kicking against the stream and timed his swing for when Indi and Dryfu were within three feet. A stray current started to sweep them away. Enough c-mana had regened to cat charge Magic Hunt into the pouch. It grew an aura extension, enlarging twice its original size, sucking in his two friends and their prize in a wide gulp.
The use of his skill used up the last of his MP. At the passing of the next minute timer, Indi disappeared from his connection. His hand holding the pouch clenched in a painful spasm and started to fade. No! He’d ran that well dry too many times.
The pouch solidified back in its physical form. Inside, Dryfu and the bulge from the poison brick spiraled down and disappeared below the surface.
The fade took most of his arms. Stream power carried him toward the steam and the falls. His strokes paled against the strength and progress he needed to reach the shore. Every effort to access a skill drew stinging responses from his empty MP. The river swayed him like a baby exposed to the finality of its sacrifice offering. Molech style. The river’s domination seized him with a hold as fatal as it was terrifying.
He arched his back to fight drowning. As strange as it was to consider, his best chance now was going over the edge. Then water filled his throat and hope faded fast. He kicked and swung limbs increasingly less effective. The bottom dropped. He free fell like a wingless bird smothered under a deluge as strong as the open sea.