Tim’s analysis of the guards revealed an essence swarming in colors born from soil and incineration, as though the anger of their earth had manifested creatures to bite back. His best guess pegged their armor enchantment between tier 4 and 5, meaning 65% AF before he hurled his attack would barely skirt the surface of a turd’s clean chance in hell.

That lovely picture of wrath eternal brought Tim’s mind encircling the question of the occupants. He supposed some visitors could be of the Dark elements, though more likely they would be of the Light, there to see their enemy in chains. Thus, the true threats would be those on the inside or allies of the Dark that might try to break them out. If this theory panned out, they’d be weak to a Light-born attack. They wouldn’t know a threat from the outside so far inside their fortress.

On top of that, Spirit Memories from Surion allowed him to recognize a tattooed enchantment around the top of their hedge, burned into the wood, but visible to his essence view in Analyze. The tattoo of the dagger in the bush marked them as blessed by top tier traders among Cartel and Artisans. Favors paid for prisoners or what, Tim didn’t know. The knowledge behind the tattoo and their secrets enhanced Tim’s element of surprise and Ranger accuracy. If they hit well, the light would stun and sizzle their cores, giving Tim time to send another.

Tim kept on with his breathing and channeling c-mana into Light Burn for his future spell, all while Gantus fumed with impatience. The swears he unleashed could have put a teen in the corner, crying for the good ol’ days. One fancy little colloquialism translated back as some type of water-based fornication involving electric eels and tacos. Hard shell, for some reason he was sure to include. Man, he wished Dryfu were here.

Is it meant to insult me that your mating rituals are so weird? Tim thought. Am I supposed to envy your kink? How do you even know what a taco is?

“First off, I pity your lack of ingenuity, both in the realm of water sport and fine cuisine. Your world isn’t the only one to invent cooking ground meat in a crunchy boat sandwich. Honestly.”

Tim sensed a strange camaraderie between them, similar to kids he fought in school only to befriend them later through their mutual experience. While the demon expressed rage, Tim knew anger well; sometimes the excising of that sheath is painful, sometimes in tears, and sometimes in belligerent laughter. That said, he blocked him out, having reached enough aura to weave the Light Burn into an aura barb from Chris.

Once the barb was shining in white, Tim equipped his aura crossbow. He relied on the element of surprise, and his fastest weapon in this cramped space was that. Dragon Heads had speed, but not on part with the crossbow, not to mention were more of a Dark based spell, so what it had over the barb in strength was lost to the elemental advantage of the Light spell. The bow won through its delivery, not only with stealth on the ride, but also in how he orchestrated a delay in the Light spell. also gave him a delivery method that waited until the last second to alert their defenses.

He comprised the aura barb as two halves with two Cleanse tips concealed inside the aura dominant shaft. After he pulled the trigger, it would carry both until the last second when a small magic charge from Chris’s pyrotechnics would sever the shaft into two bolts. The discharge of the attack so close to the target would allow the close range Double Whammo to raise the ceiling of impact.

AF 65%.

Tim raised his shooting arm and activated Sniper Sight with Double Whammo forming a leveling bar between the scorched tattoos he tagged on each. Ready G-money?

“Just walk out and—”

Tim exhaled, locked his targets on green, and fired.

His double-whammy perk projected a thin green bar connecting his Greensight from target one to two. If either parted beyond its already stretched range, the reward would fail.

Five feet from the first banyan, Tim pulled his trigger finger again. A whoosh of heat flushed his forearm with a falcon’s grip. The bolt bisected in a microburst of light that halted the banyan’s screen scrolling.

Branches stiffened and flushed into a rotating weapon armed to spray and slay. Needles spun out like drills, emanating a magic wall. Tim’s Healing Bridge surprise packed into the potential Tripple Whammy evaporated in the overpowered banyan retort. Before his combo could lock chains, the tips impacted with a brilliant banana-white dome sealed over the guards and their chairs. Branch needles blackened and shriveled inside. Tim’s light may have been blinded, but it still bled through. The shield glistened and cracked under the lightning bolts’ marks, and the guards within recoiled at the burns.

Both pinpoints damaged the shields with permanent cracks but failed to deactivate their shields and a whoosh of backdraft cast a horizon of fire spell, rushing at him like a pack of demon chihuahuas let out of the gates.

The needles they shot to expel the dome flew in Tim’s direction. Gantus’s obscenities rattled against the inside of his skull. Through that circus of fireworks, Tim tightened his aura into charging Protection. Not quickly enough.

The banyan needles peppered him with hooked spears carrying him on the first flight out.

Not long into the eddying transport, darkness fell into the backdrop, replaced by Chris, Murphy and a snake spear smashing into the interior wall of their treehouse.

How in… Tim didn’t have time to think about how he’d been kicked out of Gantus’s control, or whether he really was. His spell list was a blur; it felt like he’d been kicked through a window and had to find his footing before jumping back in. Except, which way was up?

His troll friends were there too, and three of them pounced on the snake as it unraveled its monkey like appendages to right itself and attack. Their axe work left a bloody mess in their cramped quarters.

More of the four-foot-tall snake monkeys appeared in the sky, tucked their webbed arms and launched into spears with fangs spread. Their transformation shielded them in matted shingles of spell enchanted scales. When they launched at their targets, their form hardened into lances hard enough to cut through the Troll towers’. Their gargling cries announced terrible deaths from inside.

“Shardfliers,” Dryfu said, weak, reading Tim’s question of what creature could kill so easily. “Only weakness after they spear is through their mouth.”

Tim found Battleground first. He cast, and the fizz of spent aura sent a spasm that made him sway. The spell landed and soaked up through the floor toward the wall and then up around the open-air windows.

Booms thundered below as canons fired reinforcements. The shardfliers extended webbed arms to glide and swoop through the barrage of thrown axes. Some fell. Many more reached the launch angle and sprung on a burst of magic to spear their targets true.

Tim tracked the bitter smell like leaves soaked in oil to the snake-monkeys armor. High tiered magic enchantments roasted at maximum heat. The trolls were outnumbered ten to one, but even if it were even, the precision strikes were devastating their high elevation defenses.

Chris shot a vine from behind the shield wall their troll guards formed to bisect their tower. It caught Tim’s wrist and yanked him away from the wall, behind their cover.

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“Glad you could make it back,” Chris said.

No more troll treehouses party with burning ganja and boppin’ Marley’s greatest hits. This place was Full Metal Jacket in Dolby Surround Sound.

Nausea tugged at Tim’s tethers to this realm. The haunting spell wanted him back at the prison, yet something other had a hook in him, and it wasn’t satisfied hoisting him by the ribs the other way. A fear of falling hollowed his breath into mere wind pushed from his empty gut.

“Where were you?” Dryfu asked, sitting with his back against the inner shield, barely able to lift his head to look Tim in the eye. Their mental connection had frayed since he’d seen him. Likely from the long splinter stuck out from his midsection. A pain relieving spell circled the base, powered by a vine in his back, grown out of the moss covering the boards.

“Gastun’s haunting took me,” Tim managed, searching his muddled memories for how he got here. Something weakened it from the source. “His prison—”

An explosion loud enough to mute Tim’s next part silenced him while they took cover. Shield shattered high, and a snake carved down Tim’s back.

Vines grew out of the moss, catching the shardfliers in its maw, restricting a bite aimed at Tim’s head. Numerous vines sprouted and pulled the fighting creature to the floor while bolts peppered its armor, shaking it with bruising blows but not overpowering.

Chris ended it with a staff through the open gullet. The mucus and torn flesh ripped out with the bottom of his staff as he yanked it free. Venom dripped from the bottom, which he collected into a clean glass jar and corked once full.

“We have to retreat,” one of the trolls said, Re’jah, the one who’d given him his soup.

Tim couldn’t agree more, though who was he to help? He owned the might of a flat sack. He scooped Dryfu into his pocket.

A boom echoed from outside their window.

A shardflier speared through Re’jah’s shield and into his ribs. He was dead before his back cracked on the wall.

His friend Na’kel slid like a baseball player into second base grabbing the snake into a chokehold and pulled it from Re’jah’s corpse. Blood flung from its fangs in a furry of revenge. Their sharp ends missed Na’kel’s flesh as he threw it at the wall. It rebounded and he sliced an axe through the wiggling body. His axe bit deeply into the deck, splicing the shardflier in twain. Its head-half flopping on the wood and snapping teeth for fresh flesh.

Anyel threw his axe through the back of its head before it reached Na’kel.

Qrota, the cleric troll who shared paste to help heal Tim earlier, opened a hatch in the floor and motioned Tim to Murphy. “You can jump,” he said, patting Murphy’s head goodbye.

Qrota took a vine and dropped into the shaft, plummeting in a war cry to join the invasion chorus.

Murphy brayed and Tim hopped on, struck by the new normal, and leapt for the exit hatch.

Murphy pounded through thick branches to crash hard enough in the soil that it sent a shock wave into the surrounding cannoneers.

Dryfu bounced inside Tim’s vest pocket, and they both moaned with the jolt.

Gladly, the attack put all the cannoneers on their backs, giving time for Chris and the trolls to flee on their own path.

Murphy galloped after them. Their path angled for a collection of huts and pointed stone walls with an enchanted glimmer protecting the inhabitants. Tucked tightly inside a clearing about five hundred yards into the valley, it felt twice as far as their speed could accomplish. The shardfliers and toiga swarm made a ruckus crashing through the foliage to chase them.

Murphy’s attack gave them a decent lead from the slowly recovering cannoneers and their wobbling efforts to jog closer. Their greater threat came from those hearing the disruption and sprinting for their next meal.

The haunting was weakened from the source, Tim gathered, still searching his memories of the baynan and Gantus’ reaction. His suspicion was Healing Bridge brought him here in the conglomeration of spells and divergent force. That didn’t mean it could bring him back. That spell was sapped.

In a flicker of light and time, Tim revisited the scene when his first arrow erupted in Aura Light. It hurt Gantus, too. Tim felt it all the way to his body. Not enough to free him, but in that he was able to escape the prison… realm. Like levels in an overarching dungeon, invisible to his eyes, yet there to conquer if he wanted to wipe Gantus out. That was why he hadn’t succeeded in cleansing him from the sample in his sword. He had to wipe him out at his core, in his cell.

For now, they had to escape this army.

Troll arrows shot from the town center in sneak windows that slid shut for reloads.

Something speared Tim through the stomach from behind. Time slowed in the holding of the glistening crimson tip. Its tunnel of pain released tingling suctions across his body.

Tim jolted upright, wincing at the pain in his stomach from the web of reeling-sore muscles.

“White Fiego!”

Tim jerked from the touch. Hot bars framed his skeleton and emanated pain in overwhelming waves.

The hands on him pressed in love. Assuring.

The semitransparent hand of the wraith, Rayv. The nephew to the conduit mage who perished for Padstoligan knelt beside him in the tunnel under the grove, returned from his mission with news.

“Rayv.” Pain flared in Tim’s face at the demon touch scars. Dryfu?

“Here,” his friend said, poking out of his vest pocket.

What happened? Tim asked.

“You ripped free from Gantus’s spell. I’m checking,” Dryfu said. The splinter from their vision was still thrust through his side. His gaze showed the pain it took to speak. Rest for a moment. Breathe.

XP bubbled in the sea of pain, dumping in buckets into Healing Bridge and Enclave Gate that made Tim tremble with restlessness.

No doubt some of his suffering was tied to the wispy presence of Gantus’s haunting, which throbbed with pain so hot, he clawed at his demon scars. If peeling them off would remove the burn, he’d endure it.

“Settle down!” Dryfu shouted.

Tim’s breaths labored through a jagged wall of interference—a war inside him between Venom and Crystal aura. His inhale wheezed. Fragments of the prison tunnel, the plan to use Aura Light and the execution, the eruption in the banyan armor.

The little kids from the house in the city center and Rayv hovered, like family beside the bedridden, unsure how to help but desperate for action, for progress.

Their gladdened faces pushed away exhaustion and the effects of magic tarnishing their strength. Whatever part they had to play in his reemergence from the dark spell would wait for their embrace.

Tim reached out and hugged all three. “Thank you. Whatever you did.”

The older was still a teen who’d lost his dad. Even though he could see him, Rayv was spirit based and with Tim’s aura fade, the two embraced as though by flesh. All three —make it five including him and Dryfu caught in the middle— took new strength from the bond.

Tim’s Analyze continued tracing the spell burn scent and essence to a combo spell they had performed to bring him back. A friendship bracelet her father gave her and Rayv who smothered his stomach in flowers saturated with the aura of the fallen. Their juices absorbed into the Light Source in his gut, forming a salve to help him heal where the Gantus infected him. He’d haunted many, and their memories fueled a potent attack. Some of the fallen heard of this prison where demons were kept. It would require the use of a Moon Golem spell.

“Back to plan… Q?” Tim asked. “Help me up.”

“No,” Rayv said, looking aghast at the bubbling puss oozing from patches in Tim’s stomach. “Gantus’s lost control,” Tim said, probing their spirit memories of the prison run by hordens and how he might need a moon golem to get in. Double crap. “We have to go before he haunts again. I have a plan.”

Lying behind him were Lank, Kari and Chris. All three’s eyes were closed. Their life essence wrapped in the black mist of Gantus’s spell.

“Triple…” Tim bit back the curses he wanted to spew. Losing control wouldn’t help him now. “We need to find a way back in,” Tim added, “but we can’t stay here. His spell is going to track them, so we have to seal them in, while also not causing suspicion. He may think I was just blown out of the memory by the banyan guard.”

Tim grabbed some food, and the kids, Oria and Paiz, gave him drinking water and healing herbs. Pieces of his memories of the Sails connected with images of a Moon Golem fortresses carved from abso stone and the portals connecting them to where the resistance roamed near Silo 19. A map formed along with the plan. “We start with alerting Gorin Three Knot of Née’s execution plans. An alliance with the golems is more critical than Née and his partnership against Hist.”

Tingling weakness from his back into vague clouds of numbness spread down his legs, suggesting he pray for a new body and a month of rest, too but who was he to make a list. Keeping Née from taking the veilspells out of the dungeon while also being torn to find any one of his friends, not to mention Jil, taunted him with too many paths to succeed at any if he didn’t choose one.

Tim put the unknown into sacrifices of praise to his god. The wisdom he lacked must come from somewhere, and he put that focus into his god. And then he tried a little joy to go with it. Why not have faith that the Wind god could win out?

Flashback trauma and Gantus’s slashings barraged his mind with doubt, coupling with the flaring pain across every inch of new scars and deeper still, where it burned without sight or indicator.

Still, he pressed on. Lying down to wallow in his suffering would do little more than prolong what he was called to endure.

Now’s a good time for Replenish, he thought, and cast the healing spell on himself. A mudslide of relief made its way through him in all its welcome mercies.

There were perks to being a priest, after all.