The next morning, S’Trace continued his stubborn silence on all topics related to Tim’s Spirit Memory quest. His single offering was to say he would reward Tim after his first peel session. After at least three hours, and what felt like twenty-five peel sessions, S’Trace relented with a curt, “not terrible.”
Sweat dripped freely from Tim’s brow, stinging his eye as the aura realm concentrated exhaust mingled with the vulnerability of his retinas. Heat and humidity stifled his breathing. His hand trembled as he lifted the canteen to his mouth. A deep inhale took in the unique smell of ozone burned by peeling combined with the scorching of timber in their wake.
Tim applied his Map Maker skill despite S’Trace bombarding him with seemingly random directions to Peel and an onslaught of mongrels from the forest’s bosom. The cartography showed a ring where Tim spotted S’Trace planting stones. “What’s with the rocks?” Tim asked.
“Enchanted to send waves like needles up to a mile radius. The juice releases a scent that protects us. We’re closing in the long way. When we get to the center, it’ll just be us and what it keeps on hand for defenses. We can take a short break to refuel and let me work on those mana channels.”
S’Trace handed him some of the good juice. That’s what he called it, and he wasn’t lying. The citrus nectar had a kiwi flavor and the kicking power of the first cup of coffee. “You’re getting better at your first strikes.”
Tim gasped with relief, the sweet sting of the good juice pooling in the aura nerve roots under his teeth. “Using my Hunt skill,” he said, and sucked another breath, “Rryeg’s forms… plus Fleeing. My focus is to always put myself in the best position, knowing the terrain and how to use it to my advantage.”
S’Trace motioned for the canteen. “You’ve had enough. We have limited supply and plenty of work left.”
Tim appreciated their mentor-mentee relationship, but this guy was a thorn bush sometimes. Still, he’d seen him smile. S’Trace cared. Tim gleaned that where S’Trace manicured tiny valleys in the training’s intensity. Its difficulty furthered Tim’s appreciation of their urgency and the challenge they’d face when their time was up.
“Your endurance is improving,” S’Trace said, “and the predictive strikes exhibit a more natural carving in your peel horizons. Not only does that skill allow you to pass through the unseen, but with time in its presence, you gain an instinctive awareness of how everything else tends to slide in. Beginner peeling is mostly about efficient first strikes.” S’Trace chopped the air. “Wise strikes aimed in the right direction. Until we get you a leveling, you can use that brain of yours to cut the right line. At your beginner level, you’ll lack the recovery and reaction timing after the peel. You might not get more than one miss on the vahkel. And it better not be your first.”
With effort, Tim nodded. His body was marshmallow and toothpicks and S’Trace could tell. There’s ol’ softy again.
“One more drink.” S’Trace snapped a towel from his pouch of holding and laid it on the yellow flowered patch of base weed. “Part of the reason for your exhaustion is improper breathing.”
He pointed for Tim to lie down. “On your back.”
Tim followed his gesture and lay on the towel. Aura tickled his neck as the aura cloth started the regen process.
“I didn’t want to give you too much, but now that you’re good and worn down, you’ll better appreciate a healthy breath.” S’Trace guided Tim through diaphragmatic breathing, expanding his ribs, pressing his back to the ground, and pushing down through his lower abdominals.
Xing Hale ain’t got nothing on him, Tim thought in his best Denzel. This truly was his version of Training Day, complete with the psychedelic sky and good vibes killer playing the mentor for a time.
“Good,” S’Trace said calmly.
Tim tried calming himself through the next breath.
“There you go. Exhaling is both strength and healing. That whole area will relax as you breathe through and fuel it with what it needs. Channels open and your natural regen will increase through this cycling.”
At first, not using his chest felt unnatural, but with practice, he gained appreciation for the process.
S’Trace dug his fingers into Tim’s psoas, a long muscle connecting his back with his stomach and down the inside of his hips. Deep pain made Tim squirm, but he refocused on his breathing and the two worked in silence for a short time.
“Okay, now try lifting your leg on the exhale,” S’Trace said, still knuckles deep in Tim’s gut. Tim pushed through, feeling the muscles relax as S’Trace massaged. “Good. Now, with this purposed calm in mind, go ahead with any questions.”
“What’s,” Tim said, pausing as his excitement increased, then pushed it back down as though this were a simple matter. No strange dreams and a “return back” message to part ways. No, this is talking shop. Noooo biggee. “So what’s in that ol’ ledger… buddy?”
S’Trace looked at him strangely. Shook his head. “Not that calm. Not stupid.”
Tim cleared his throat. “Got it. What’s in the ledger?” he asked with more baritone.
S’Trace scowled. “Directions to the tomb and how to avoid the traps.”
“So we’re going back?”
S’Trace held out a placating hand. “Easy now. One mission at a time. But yes. You’re surprised?”
“Well, no. I guess not. But how? Is that a way home? I–”
“Easy,” S’Trace answered with extra pressure on a tight band in the psoas. “If we defeat the vahkel, my brother and I will return with you to help defeat the Murphy. If we accomplish those, I have a suspicion the Whisper might reward us by dropping the leveling jewel in that tomb.”
Everybody was working for the Whisper around here. Hadn’t he done enough yet? Maybe an ice cream cone and a nap? Good book and some bacon?
He missed Dryfu’s presence and retorts. Apparently, this training was just for S’Trace to kick his butt into shape. “Why do you think that would be enough to entice the Whisper to drop it?” Tim asked.
“We didn’t always used to find the jewel. Higher skills and larger expenses to send on hunters has put the streak on fifteen years straight that the jewel has been found and run dry by a pilot nation. Every successive year has seen the jewel waiting in increasingly perilous locations. If I were the jewel, the guardians around Poia’s Tomb would be my chosen defense.”
“They’re worse than the Murphy?”
S’Trace whistled through the hole in his smile. “The three of us will have our hands full with the Murphy. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves; we have our hands full without considering the Murphy. What makes the tomb more difficult is avoiding its traps. Constable Lank and his ledger never made it out of that dive six years ago. Rooster lit an explosive that buried Lank inside; him and his ledger with the clues to find the treasure he stored there that day. Without the ledger, ten thousand peeling Krows wouldn’t stand a chance. It’s a meat grinder down there.”
Tim pushed another breath through his lower abdominals. “Sounds like a real treat.”
“Oh, it will be. Plenty of threats between us and that little dandy.”
“Did Kari make it out?”
“K… oh. Yeah, she took a posting on the northern border, and I never saw her again. Paid her well for what she made it out with.”
“Did that include Lank’s Princess Pearl?”
S’Trace’s brows cinched. “I don’t know. We didn’t come up at the same time. I only heard she was well paid for her services to the President Marte of Wachamia.”
“I’d like to ask the President someday. If she took it with her, I doubt she’d sell it.”
S’Trace returned to Tim’s other side to work on that psoas. His fingers were deep knives, but welcome.
“So I can use Spirit Memory to go into someone’s past and take things?” Tim asked. “Can we do it again and after I snatch the Pearl Screaming Sawed Off, AKA Mighty Atlantis, you wake me up?”
“Focus on your breathing.” S’Trace’s gaze held on a distant thought. “We only had time and strength to do it the once. Why you didn’t snatch it is beyond me. Even if you had, we didn’t have the strength to pull it through. I carried most of the load there. What you brought is a copy recreated by the Spirit Memory spell. It’s rare because of its contents, but the Pearl Aura Gun would require an enormous, tier six level Spirit Memory to pull through and replicate that kind of inherent power.”
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S’trace offered a hand. “You’re done. We have to go.”
Tim accepted, and quickly rebuilt into a jog into the woods after the man.
With their first circle of stones in place to protect them from reinforcements, the next would require descending into tunnels where its kin are waiting, then shutting in as many as possible before descending on the vahkel’s home.
They carefully navigated a descending path into a vast crater with hundreds of tunnels along the sides. In the middle was a dense tree canopy hiding the vahkel mother and her den.
“The good thing is,” S’Trace said, “you need the practice, and her babies are ready to give it.”
“Babies?”
“Some thirty to fifty feet long and wide enough to crush you if they can roll you.”
“Agh. Babies,” Tim said sarcastically.
“They prefer using aura powers to swallow you and draw your aura into their reserves. Use that hunger for aura to distract and redirect. Aura Light is a good skill combined with an accurate Peel to critical hit. Babies won’t give you much freedom if you miss, so strike well.”
Along the grueling path to the center field, Tim missed a few times. Thankfully, the aura flesh he carved on his errant passes slowed the babies enough to finish them with a thrown axe into their brains. He was getting good at that. It played into his double whammo bonus for critical hits, as well as hunting.
S’Trace carried a heavy load, allowing Tim to play the pincer strikes from behind. He wished his companions could be here, but their access to the Spirit Memory was through S’Trace’s higher level abilities, and he was taxing his strength to the max. Tim tried hiding a stroke across his brows to wipe sweat.
S’Trace caught it even though his attention had been seemingly locked on the tall grass surrounding their horizon. Had he heard or seen a shadow?
Tim centered in his form posture with gotr sword gripped in both hands. Despite exhaustion strong enough to make even gripping his sword difficult, Tim settled back into battle an attack-ready stance.
S’Trace’s glare softened to what approximated for a smile on the elder trainer’s face. “Keep your guard. The vahkel is committed to springing its trap. She’ll also be clipped mad about us killing her babies. Above all, she’ll wait for her time to get revenge. One that doesn’t risk her life.”
Tim’s AF peaked at 80% due to a fatigue debuff. Vahkel babies cut him down to less than ten percent health multiple times through their trek here, and while it was cool to use Aura Form, it seriously drained his stamina. Without his Poison Protection and Torture Endurance abilities, their venom would have ended him long before. One time his Bonding worked on a baby and he sent it out to fight alongside him. Too bad its injuries from Tim’s axe slowed it down, and it fell to three lashing out from under a log.
Regeneration items lost their potency as the battle drowned on. He and S’Trace quickly burned through their once heaping reserves. His pouch was down to half a mushroom top and his Hiyer potion. Not that he didn’t try to Forage between attacks. The cavern was a wasteland and a bottleneck. Tim couldn’t believe they made it here. His first Foraging read on the high grass in front of him was about the same. Nothing he could use yet.
Inside the thick prairie grass were bushes and assorted weeds to block their view of the maze and tunnels hidden beyond. S’Trace’s prep on the way warned of the many holes the vahkel made to annihilate swarms of prey in the blink of an eye. In this aura-centric environment, the vahkel cultivated a garden of tunnels and vegetation meant only to its advantage in the hunt. Its speed along the ground burned through the plants to produce a lather of juice that boosted its speed and stamina. Grooves in the tunnels spit it out hot. Its mastery of the tunnels while its prey was blinded by the overgrowth made it like watching a master playing with toys.
“Do your best to follow.” S’Trace’s hands lit with blue aura shaping into a Peel. Tim gave himself one more breath, then launched into his wake. His Peel was still as rudimentary in precision and strength as when he first started, making the ride a bumpy one, like controlling a race car with a sticks and rope. Nonetheless, their practice getting here taught him how much he could lean into it without breaking the spell. He Peeled the edges off S’Trace’s wake, expanding their wingspan cutting into the overgrowth.
S’Trace cleaved through grass to a bush and a rock shoulder height. He banked in. Not enough space. Tim dug into the hot top percent of his Peel’s strength. Heat blasted up his hands and shook to the elbow. A rock chip stabbed him in the elbow and sliced nerves. His Peel shot right while S’Trace careened left of the rock. Tim hit the ground and broke through, catching on barbs in the bushes and falling backward into darkness. Screeching pierced his hearing. Fur and bone pelted his face and hands as he fought bats by the dozens. Muscle memory from his Rryeg’s Squire form helped him knock back his fair share. His momentum in the fall slid to a stop. He covered his face with his tree urchin cloak and shot off in a Peel.
Short. Twenty feet. Danger Sense pinged off something large ahead. Tim snuffed Peel to an awkward, long stride hopping. To clear an approaching rock ledge, he rotated into a sideways jumping roll and stumbled on the other side before crashing in a bush replete with long barbs. Like a boss.
Instinct set him to casting Battleground where he stood.
The surface shook. Something underneath whined like a rope zipping to its end.
Tim popped the top on his hiyer potion, his hands shaking with adrenaline and anticipation for its help.
Something struck the ground and bounced him in the air. He thumbed the top back on before too much juice was lost—praying it wasn’t, he held it until he figured out where he was and how he would fall back down. A bare soil patch caved in where the snake had struck. Fractures in his Protection spell concentrated around that attack’s remnant. No doubt the reason he’d flown ten feet over say, a hundred?
Tim drained the meager remnant of hiyer potion into his mouth and scanned the grass for the vahkel. Danger Sense pinged from all over. Tim focused it to the head of the snake by tracking its direction. Its velocity increased. The path headed for the surface. Tim’s bird's eye view spotted the gap in the grass where an exit tunnel must be.
The hiyer filled him with a carnival carriage of fireworks and rowdy customers. So much he wondered if he could have handled a full dose.
He barely made it to the landing without letting its magic free. Once his feet hit the ground, he shot into a Peel aimed to end at the foot of the tunnel. The shot gave him speed and enhanced his Protection. Not having to use much to clear his path, he settled into his first strike sword form and readied his gotr blade to make it count. Hiyer fueled his propulsion as well as intensifying the strength and layers of protection between him and the atmosphere.
The snake’s head popped out with fangs spread. Venom splashed against the front tip of Tim’s Peel, blinding him as he transitioned to his blade attack. Danger Sense reinforced where to aim. Tim slashed down. Claw swat!
C-mana pushed his strength to the limit and his blade sliced through thick resistance. Heat flushed Tim from the front and soaked him in sizzling venom. A spark bit him in the side. He left his blade in the hide and sprang to get free. Maybe more falling than anything graceful, but he succeeded in escaping the broken fire hydrant of hot venom. He rolled through the grass, singing their stalks with the venom soaked into his protection barrier. When he hopped to his feet, he threw off the Peel and its layer of bubbling grass as though it were a blanket on fire.
The next hit crashed into his side Without the nicety of an introduction. Tim flipped like a rag doll on LSD. Stars and velvet sky filled his sight. Hot stitches stretched new paths along his skull and down his face. He’d have screamed if he could catch his breath. The awkward flip impact had thrown him into made for even more confusion. He clipped the top of a bush and fell headfirst into a tunnel.
The ground rumbled with the vahkel’s passing through nearby tunnels. It was closing in.
Tim Foraged free a handful of the nectar rich roots dotting the walls like thick hair. His first strike had failed, but the Hiyer was still working. A blast of Creed’s chorus belting verse playing in his head, Tim cut the roots and squeezed the juice into his mouth. He spread it all over his face and head like a madman on the run. The tunnel was widened and grooved over much use, giving him clearance to sprint but also taking care of his landings on the uneven surface.
He saw a T intersection in the tunnel ahead and pinned the vahkel’s trajectory for that spot. Coming in hot. Shoot that shot.
Tim equipped his axe and readied for a Peel, gotr dagger in his right, eager for the killing blow.
Spirit Memory wiggled its way into his thoughts as aura from his prior strike and enriched in the olym roots tapped into the vahkel’s memories of this intersection. Intensified by the Hiyer, Tim saw decades of turns and tendencies. Every time the vahkel used this interchange to bank left, he aimed high and hard, forming that dent in the ceiling. Tim tracked that groove through the overgrowth of roots. Picking where to strike with the increasing urgency on when, Tim split his mind into both timelines and Peeled.
S’Trace’s emphasis on repetitive form creating speed and power allowed Tim to confidently aim his axe while calling down strength from on high. He timed it while watching the vahkel executing the same consistent form that it developed over time.
Secret Kill activated with the swinging of his axe. The wound from Tim’s first strike left the vahkel’s near side heavy and not as quick to react against Tim’s Peel speed. The blade caught deep into its neck, near to severing the head. Tim held on his skull struck the ceiling. Thankfully the aura lube coating the surface mixed with the speed and forward motion deflected most of the impact. Still, he barely held on for the ride and needed to strike quickly to activate the double whammo.
Spirit Memory revealed a shadow path ahead. The vahkel has a strong habit of turning into a left groove on its way up the hole. Tim rolled onto the serpent’s top as it veered into the groove. Olym juice sprayed his face, fueling him with strength in the tug of war for the off-ramp ahead. The vahkel charged for the hole, merciless in its pursuit to nail Tim to the wall instead.
Tim cast Battleground into the launch pad. As soon as the serpent’s head passed over, he stabbed his dagger into the near side. The vahkel’s resistance strained against the edge of his blade. On that fulcrum he yanked his axe and turned away.
The head tore off with a slather of ripping flesh. Aura and lifeblood sprayed Tim like a fire hydrant busted at the seams. He curled into the pocket and rode into the other side of the tunnel until the fangs dug deeply enough into the aura soil to stop.
Tim took a deep breath, his heart racing. “Yeah!” He roared, his breath giving way to fatigue soon into it. “Frickin’ Wildcat!” he coughed out, chest aching. He rested his head on the ground.
Glitter dust sparked and enveloped mushrooms and plants in trippy fanfare of the ground evaporating into his form, possibly from the XP and aura exchange. Whatever it was felt great as it landed on his skin and absorbed into his gear like soap bubbles.
The XP that flooded into Tim could have choked a whale. Nearly every skill gained a generation’s worth of experience. The purple pixels swirled around within the chambers and squeezed into the rest of their kind, indecipherable in number. Without a leveling jewel or a nixstone skull, it was little help now. Other than motivation to survive another day.
Then the tunnel cracked above.