Before leaving E’Tic’s grove to find Gorin Three Knot, Tim studied Lank’s map of the cave tunnels. Glowstone markings represented by an eye with a vertical line on the map location to show where the Sail’s clues would guide them. Tim took off with Spirit Memories and E’Tic’s translations of each point, now all they had to do was make it through.
Once under the river, Sails’ clues written in glowstone marks on the pitch-black walls. Aura strength pulsed through Tim like a hot battery on its last disorganized burst of juice and fury. The memories pitched and swayed outside his location, floundering in seemingly pointless treks when demons were not on their tail.
Casting Aura Light on permeate kept a buffer on their tail. Demons shrieked with every failed attempt to penetrate the glow. Each attack burned precious mana to keep the light burning.
Whispers flowed like spirits within the ear-piercing war cries.
Née is coming.
Née is hungry.
Née will end you.
Their weight pressed in, smothering Tim’s spirit with unanswered fears. Muscles twisted deep inside in opposing directions, as though trying to escape with or without him in one piece.
“Née who?” he teased.
They assaulted his mind with insults, taking the bait while Tim parsed E’Tic’s memories. Through them, Tim recognized some voices from hauntings, murders and crimes against his people. The aura birthed like a spring from this connection heated to a fiery rage. He guided Tim down a narrow tunnel to a room budding with stalactites and stalagmites, some forming columns as wide as an old oak. One had a stairwell carved into a new room they called the Grave Road for its many successful traps, pitfalls, and skeletons of those who remained.
Demons on a shrill song plunged after them.
Tim released his mana from tracking them as a column wide as a bus appeared in the way. Tim’s downward-sloping speed and reliance on passive Ranger balance failed to catch up with the obstacle in time. E’Tic’s memories were back with a fantasy of bringing his daughter to live with him. A memory of a path ahead and E’Tic’s shielding from pitfalls loosely concealed with medium-sized rocks and precariously placed sticks. Tim planted a foot, surged Peel on a hot, angry channel down his legs, and shot for the safety of the path.
His Peel sluggishly propelled him into the gravity of the nearest heavy object–a sign of fatigue and low level of his spell compared to the thickness of the object he tried Peeling through. Chunks of cave stone overhangs bombarded his grip on this spell, punching and jabbing him with their corners. Little pricks. Neuropathological spikes jolted his hands and feet, disrupting his focus. He swayed into one of the pitfalls, but the numbness spread from the appendage warzone strained his ability to right the ship.
His outstretched hand struck a stone. A twig snapped and Dryfu’s tug righted his center, pulling him safely back while a black void opened in the departure of cave weight into its hole. Deep down, the scuttle of stones on the rim was the only sound for seconds. Then a barrage of clacking, and a whoosh of destruction.
Demons wailed taunts from behind, their echoes closing in on Grave Road’s entrance. Eager to feast.
Tonda nudged Tim’s leg. The glint in her eye was a sign of magic mixed with companionship and his stubbornness. Tim’s numb legs and fade exposed by the light in her eyes pointed out this foolishness and the time to accept help. He’d enjoyed the Ranger footing and the experience budding with every minute of cave diving, but for now, he relented and rode Tonda into the tunnel E’Tic built for his daughter.
Tim rolled the stone behind them and Murphy licked his face. The stink breath of wet wood slow roasted in a gas fire resembled the odor of Murphy’s exhaustion. “I know; I’m sorry.”
Murphy licked him again. A toot released something extra funky, and a small cloud of healing aura wafted into the tight space.
Tim cursed his fate and inhaled the murky breath. Tingling replenishment spread down his body with the help he needed to move on.
“You know you love it,” Murphy said.
Tonda growled at the donkey.
As they passed deeper into the tunnel, the demon wailings ceased. The stone was too thick to read their paths, either by Danger Sense or otherwise. E’Tic’s path for his daughter was reinforced with thick walls, and a direct route to the blacksmith, Inte.
E’Tic’s memories reached an end, where fear lay, and the concern the demons knew of a way in and were merely waiting for their chance. Inte, their resident alchemical patcher and blacksmith, would help them. E’Tic’s memories gave headlines of the youthful man with cheery cheeks and a smile like a grown kid.
This character of hopeful bliss swept open a door from the stone, his human demeanor as hard as the cave around them. Inte’s work-side was even more impressive than his jokester persona. His reputation for patching items did not do justice to the assortment of belts and skins hanging across the walls. The colors of enchantment held inside the leatherwork like finely oiled… skins. They looked great, and in a flash of recognition at Tim’s oversight, the proud craftsman spared a trademark smile and welcome them in.
“It’s not much, but it’s what I have,” Inte said in a bow. He rose and studied Tim’s frame. A cold realization draped from the creases in his forehead to his slumping shoulders. Sorrow built a brick room and closed itself within his gaze. “Is he dead?”
Tim didn’t…
“E’Tic.” Inte’s light gray eyes beheld Tim aghast. Terror in his ignorance.
Tim nodded, closing his eyes as though to give the dead his honor in passing and to apply pressure to the bleeding man before him, cut deeply from the loss of a friend.
Inte swallowed. Mind turning wheels, spirit churning through the pain to latch onto something solid. “How did you find me?”
Tim showed his wound with spider black veins where Gantus’s aura infected a wider ring of pink and green around the mark left by E’Tic’s aura. “He left his aura under a tree. I used my Spirit Memories skill to escape here.” Tim held back the part about Née and Gorin until they were further from trouble. He didn’t even want to think about it, lest the demons haunting his mind read his plan and spoil it.
Inte slowed between unhooking belts. He switched to a heavier option with freshly sharpened and brightly enchanted tools including a mallet with pure white skin tied by a brilliant purple lace and bone handle. His fingers danced a song on the sigils carved into the bone crafted in a swirl of browns and black patches over white. The sigils exposed basins of power stored into the handle, spells trained to rise to the surface by a whisper of music Inte whistled while his fingers played the notes.
His thick strength managed them with barely a breath. Once done, a flash sealed the spells into standby. He lopped the belt and his mallet then pointed at a chest across the hall. “Take what you need.” Inte pointed them to a wide chest carved from wood and silver, with an aura enchantment keeping it locked. “We must go before the demons track you here. We have reinforcements outside, traps in place that will slow at least some of them down. I don’t want to lose this place, too.”
He stopped at a bottle opener screwed into the wall, the copper shaped like a siren pinup model and not embarrassed to embrace the winds in all her mermaid splendor. His thumb caressed her long hair. “I’ll be back,” he said, his voice breaking.
Rayv opened the chest like a tackle box. Inside, blades, saws, pokeys and pullies of all manner and pleasure. Rayv took out a bone handle and squeezed. Aura blades sliced out with whiplike speed, locking into place as a dual knife. The sunburst red added a rarity to its alure, and the grooved grip made for easy rotations as well as firm holds. Rayv spun it in his palm to test the weight and slashed the air, casting redlight tracers in sharp lines that disintegrated with a seconds’ passing.
“Looks perfect for demon hunting,” Tim said.
Rayv nodded and slid it in his belt, then stocked up on purple globs of aura like grapes on the bushel.
Ozi berries. They concuss and draw aura from enemies within a ten-foot radius of the eruption. Squeeze until the sac in the middle breaks the seed, then toss. 2 seconds max before they explode. Less if they make impact.
Rayv tossed Tim one. His heart froze, until he told himself Rayv wouldn’t dare. His look revealed only friendship. The ozi floated like a water balloon and shimmered with explosive power. Tim carefully captured the orb with a cradled hand, then deposited the ozi in his pouch, safe in the Whisper’s holding magic until he equipped it again.
Dryfu kept his gaze on Tim as he flew away, snickering at Tim’s sudden pang of fear.
My nerves are understandably on edge.
Dryfu rounded on an armoire with tall double doors and three heavy looking wooden drawers with magical locks. They unlocked at Tim’s interest and a HUD prompt opened a window of text overlay. Four categories sublet from the main folder.
* Staffs and Swords
* Bows and Arrows
* Knives and Throwing darts
* Vegetation and Food
* Magic and Mayhem
Tim was good at this part. With a smile, he picked up capsule bolts he could dose to deliver extra punch to Venom born. The item included a stringed pouch packed with screws and bolts to strengthen both bow and crossbow. Everything in his storage included aura alternate enhancement, meaning it could transform once into aura form. Tim kept them in the base physical form for now. The way Inte left and the getup in Dryfu’s equipping himself, put the Getty up in Tim’s next selection. He swiped a sharpening cloth for his gotr blades and a dozen patches with an assortment of enchantments on top of mending. One halved the weight until impact. Another produced a dome of protection. “Thank you very much.”
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Magic and Mayhem contained a new strap with fur lining to keep the tincture jars safe on the go. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Tim felt like Homer at the donut shop, salivating at top notch material and craftsmanship, from glass to the tip of each blade. The arrows had a sharpness three points higher than Tim’s best. He stocked up a full pack and saved a medium sized slot for a helmet cone Jil could equip on her headdress. Hopefully he’d meet her in safety so he could hand it off as an extra token.
Medicine options ranged from mana to aura regen and enough herbs to convince him to grab a couple of everything.
The wail of demon call hit him like a spike through the temple. Dizziness and shifting sands at his feet plagued his route to the ladder in the back. Murphy and Tonda awkwardly rode in a harness pouch tugged upward via a pully and rope so high Tim lost the top in the shadows between glow bugs.
After climbing long enough to make his arms limp as noodles and his low back a forest fire, Inte whispered, “That’s good, right—”
A discharge of aura like Aeu’s chamber surged through Tim’s skeleton. The blink black invisible world snapped away, replaced by the dim cross lines of sun rays reaching basement cool.
“Watch your step,” Inte called out, echoing off the golden red stone wall framing the dark room. A pipe directed a gentle stream down a drain. Coals popped in a furnace tucked into a secondary room out of view past a column of shadow and disturbed brick.
“We’re far enough from them to let you get a meal or two and some rest,” Inte said. He helped Murphy untangle his legs from Tonda while Tim tugged on the jexin by her ribs.
A hiccup sent a jolt of energy into Tim’s squeeze, tingling new fire into his demon scars.
“It’s okay girl,” he said and set her down. “Just a shock. I’m good.”
“You are Leifman and Jewel Victor,” Inte said, sizing Tim up with a grinning challenge. “I heard nation maker as well. Quite a first impression for someone I hadn’t heard of before this year’s Hunt, who also has not one but two gotr blades. Is that a demon inside?”
Inte eyes bugged out for a brief reaction before he rubbed his hands in excitement. He reached for a handle patched into a ridge in the stone. It flowed blue at the touch.
“It is,” Tim said, studying the handle with its essence. Clearly healing emanated within the white yellow seeds of light disturbed by Inte’s touch.
Warmth like sunlight greeted his hand as he reached through to grip the handle. At the first touch it sent a slithering snake of heat up his arm, sealing over the fade touch so exquisitely, Tim stopped. “Wow.”
Inte offered a white-toothed grin through the doorway above, one even the scars and the trials he bore in them could not stop from shining his joy in hospitality. “More goodies up here, brother. That’s only a taste of what I can make for bandages. Come, come.”
Tim liked this guy. He took hold of the stairwell railing and watched behind. Murphy tilted his head to pet himself as he strode by. Tonda struck it with her tail and shimmied before leaping the stairs in a single try.
This new floor had a stuffy odor like an attic buried under the ocean, and what one might expect when it also turned into a bachelor pad. Skins lay stretched out to dry across nearly every inch of horizontal space, couch, counter, worn-thread emerald-green lounge chair pointed to the fire, and in semi-formally organized piles along the smooth stone ground.
Tim’s Forage sense pressed against its ceiling with barbs of excitement, granting titles through Analyze to every species of skin and, for those kept in binders on the tall-shelved library set in the alcove to his right as he entered, the spell or enchantment imbued into the patches from Inte’s completed work. Spells like “tinderbox surprise,” “alley oop,” “blink brickhouse,” and others translated roughly into English. The potency of the magic gave weight to their potential so much that he could have named them after Sesame Street characters, and they’d still exude intimidation and rare value.
Inte smiled as he caught Tim’s appreciation of his collection. “The Ranger has an eye for the prize. But is it the right one for the right moment?” He pointed nonchalantly at Tim’s face while resting into the cushion of his chair. Drying skins slipped off and he caught them with an extended reach. Clearing his throat, and gathering the skins to his lap, he said, “I’ll have to make one special for your demon scars. Have a seat on the couch. Get up donkey. Shoo. Go tuck one in the corner and I’ll clean it later.”
Murphy forced his sore body off the couch and clumsily brushed past skins on chairs and the single serving table built into the kitchen counter. A bowl and spoon cluttered to the floor, empty save for a splatter of old soup a blank parchment absorbed like a paper towel.
“Cursed donkey, get,” Inte said, now a little serious in his anger. He mumbled something as he observed the damage to his parchment, then tossed it like a saucer at the wall over his sink.
“Anyway, have a seat,” Inte said, now smiling, exhibiting a practiced discipline to force calm. Holding that smile, he took Tim in while Tim sat on the couch. “I’m sorry. I don’t get many guests, and I’m tickled that it’s the new Leifman and potential ally. How many thorns have you pulled from my side in your brief sojourn to Wachamia?” He started to count on his fingers. The claw-like force in his grip showed wealth in hammer time.
Tim tucked away a laugh at the MC reference and listened intently.
“The president. Chump. Never liked him. Good riddance.” Next calloused finger. “Surion Kosteen? Seriously? That’s even more impressive. We hate the artisans. Been at war for decades myself, since one of them stole my cow. Don’t laugh.”
Tim had only just started.
“I loved that cow. Then there was other stuff, too. Growing up, you see artisans and cartel side by side, making deals and keeping the power. Well, most of it. Folks like my parents making a living for me and my sis. When I learned to patch, they tried recruiting me. I refused. I’m not using my gifts for evil.”
For the way Inte went on like a kid in grown up clothes, that last comment struck the chord of a man wise beyond his years. “There was an accident at work the next day. Twenty miners were buried in a dig tunnel. My dad was fired, and lost family and friends in the message the artisans sent to those who refuse. I was ten. But I didn’t take their bait. I knew it wasn’t my fault. My dad told me. He was proud. We would find a way. The Maker makes a way.”
Inte’s focus drifted as he cut into a prepped animal skin. His scissors had fat blades enchanted with a magic woven through his hands at work. This was his craft, and his symbiotic relationship with his tools merely supported the mystery behind the quality he saw en masse on the shelves and surfaces.
“That’s supposed to be my don’t touch before the Third Epoc storage,” Inte said, indicating the shelves Tim glanced back at. “I am glad I was on the lookout for my delivery chariot when you arrived. I sent Rayv to ride with him to the farm. We’ll have to carry what we can to meet them as the chariot would draw unwanted attention to this side of the acreage. I heard about your liberation of Chiltonton and that you’ve made a new nation at Squire’s Castle. I didn’t expect to see you fleeing the borderlands, but then again you and your brother are a mighty enigma. I heard about him before we knew he had a brother. Before we knew he had a gate.”
Inte drew out the last word and leaned in like a storyteller before a campfire. “Now you’re gatewalkers, gatekeepers, cultivators, and blessed with gotr and friends aplenty. But enemies by three or seven times depending on how your COIL experiment goes. I can help you with that.”
Tim wanted to bring up the golems, but first, “Have you heard about Jil or my friends?”
Inte scrutinized the thought into a jar held by his gaze. “Which part? That she went back to Childockia and got in a fight with her dad over your choice to start a nation? That’s as far as I’ve caught up on her. You’d have to be more specific about which of your friends.”
Tim told of the plans from meeting Hist at Silo 19 to the interruption that took Wang and all that to Gantus and the hint, whether it be true or lie, that Jil was hunting for the banished Nivelador. “Don’t tell her I’d pick a moon golem over her, but Gantus knows we’re on the run, and I have friends trapped in a spirit memory spell mix with Kari’s spell. And Gorin would be a great potential ally, so preventing Née from killing him like he did our friend is a priority.”
Tim landed the last few words like a sea plane by a novice. Frankly, the chilled wine set on the table for him had been calling his name. Now that he had the important stuff out, he cheersed Inte and his grand palace of wonders, then gulped sweet nectar. Its consistency was not too thick, with a bit of seed crumbles small enough they were only noticed. In them magic for healing and regeneration was stored.
He set the empty goblet on the coffee table and gasped. Then belched into his quick hand.
Inte laughed. “Brother, I’m complimented by your delight. Have another.” He poured the goblet full for Tim then sat back, his chair rippling like leather underneath.
His posture of entwining his fingers over his lap indicated a casual conversation to follow. Not exactly the urgency Tim was hoping for once he revealed his docket of impossible tasks. At least with how weary he felt from the day’s battle. His every inch of demon scar was red hot and burned anew as his wine wet his lips.
“What were you before you gatewalked?”
“Corporate security.”
“So, military?”
“More like customer service with a radio. But my heart was in the right place. I think. My calling feels more important here and the enemies you mentioned. Your history. I’m drawn to help. Like I can’t refuse.”
Inte raised a brow, examining Tim with respect and understanding. Inte had kind eyes. “And you took that desire to help all the way to level fifteen and head priest of your own nation. Never seen that approach erupt in sideways flames. Nooooope.” Inte’s smile kept it friendly, but his leveled gaze unfaltering and patient, set the question for Tim to answer.
Tim shrugged. “I can’t help the call, only what I do with it. I hope to help as many people and innocent creatures as possible. Do you have any clue where the banished nivelador might be?”
Inte gave Tim a look like he might have a better chance shitting a roasted chicken. “I don’t… but I have a couple ideas for your other two problems: saving the golem and in return we can ask for a portal stone to help us get to your dream before it’s too late.”
“Too late?” Dryfu hadn’t known either whether his friends would return once the days were caught up to when Sa was kidnapped.
“They retreated to a village that’s no longer there. It was overrun by summoners from a rival tribe.”
Tim swallowed through a chocked gulp of wine. “Overrun?” Tim didn’t doubt, only prayed for history to be rewritten by Inte’s response.
“Afraid so. It sounds like you escaped in the midst.”
“What’s the plan to get to our golem friend?”
“Have some more wine.”
Tim’s brow cocked.
Inte mocked the look of surprise with a playful grin. He lifted the patch with edging sewed in enchantment of healing. “My patching level is highest in tool repair and enhancement. It’s a good thing that face was ugly before because flesh repair is my lowest—if you could call it—specialty. And I’ve never done a face. Mostly legs, a foot, you get the point. The wine is to numb the pain to come.”
“The what?” He touched a finger to the fringe of his lip scar. It was numb. So was the fissure crossing his face in three. “What’s it gonna do?”
“Those cuts need sealed. The wine numbs and stimulates happy healers all up in that priestly class. By your third glass we can start in on the others. You’re not leaving that couch until you’re mended right. Don’t worry.” Inte’s cheeky smile helped ease fears of being the under the table dentist victim. “One more disclaimer before I lay the patches.”
Humor drained from the patcher’s face.
Tim thought it was kinda funny. That’s probably the wine.
I’d agree.
Taking silence as assent, Inte said, “In order to speed the process, I’ll have to use Eiyero coating on the underside. You’ve already consumed enough to risk addiction and permanent degenerative disease. Good news is you might gain a level.”
“Why is it required?” Tim asked.
“My specialty’s low level, your puss and all that nasty, and we don’t have six weeks for those demon scars to fully heal. Every time they break open, they infect and send the poison roots deeper. The Eiyero’s a gamble. I’ve never done it, but I looted some recently and I think it has the leveling enchantment.”
“Maybe don’t start on my face then.”
Inte opened his mouth to speak, then paused. “Fair point. Drink up then, we’ll start on your side.”