Papa Ptolemy’s crept up Tim’s back like death unfrozen.
If Tim’s life were a country song, its title would be Ghosts they come a Knockin. Or maybe it would be a gospel song.
“Papa P, how you be?” Tim mumbled into his pillow. The aura-regenerating benefits of the material had him in a stupor. His scale tipped about 40% toward this being a dream.
A surge of visions entered Tim’s sight through a hot wire wrapped around his skull. Fivels wailing, people dying, a mushroom slave worker trapped making baseball cards for a jilted lover, and Padstoligan burning.
Tim woke up, bolt upright.
Ptolemy’s wispy appendage retracted on a breeze back to his armored side. When they’d first met, his form was torso and up, with a smokey tail, and exposed bone. Now, his tail’s muscles had muscles, and his black leather armor looked fit for a general. Somehow the leather maintained in gas form, able to protect and pass through solid matter… Tim didn’t have time for questions of that sort.
He rubbed his eyes. “I’m up. What do you need?” he asked. “I’m glad you made it back.”
Dryfu swatted open the door to his safe house. “Ptolemy. Greetings. What news?”
Meanwhile, Tim searched for a place to land his feet.
Ptolemy slipped a burning hot rock into his palm and held his fist closed.
“Wh–”
“Trust me.”
The stone released Spirit Memories concentrated for transport. Its heat was produced by the fire of their passing, both in anger and physically as some perished in flames.
Artisans cast spells with reckless abandon. Their scorched earth mission quickly overrunning the city with their glory. Wraiths flew into the foray only to be incinerated by sparkling rocks of magic thrown into their aura. Tim couldn’t believe it. They ignited like supernovas. Poof. Smoke, then wind.
Fivels fared little better. Even their best-armored soldiers couldn’t survive the arsenal of magic more advanced than those that activated the leveling skulls. The molten lava balls melted through and left them to suffer organ failure if they weren’t lucky enough to take one in the heart or head.
What are they doing? Tim thought, gaining his balance as he stood. His AF had only recharged to 32%. His “needs rest” debuff capped his HP and MP at 70% of the max. He’d go to war right now, and kick someone in the teeth, don’t you worry, but full strength? Not close. Deal with it.
“They’re invading the tomb,” Papa said.
Tim figured. Made sense if he were them to do it right away, especially after word of Tim’s skirmish at Chiltonton. Word of the casualties as well as the massacre left at their front door had him on his heels with problems. I’d move now, too.
“Which means we switch plans,” Dryfu said. “Go where you’re truly needed.”
His guide held his gaze while Tim wrestled against his obligation to the people here.
“You’re not just going to chase relics and mythical magic,” Dryfu said. “Our friends are dying right now.”
Papa nodded in solemn approval. “I’ve already spoken to Roz,” he said, as though that alone assuaged his concerns for these people. “I stopped to see you earlier, but you were… unreachable,” Papa said as his smoke tail lifted a heftier pile of parchments than Tim remembered drafting. “I think they have plenty here to get started, and we won’t be long, unless you join my kind in wraith life, then we may have to take a separate trip.”
Tim shook his head and grinned, knowing his friend was playing with him.
Curiosity for what he’d accomplished while unreachable lured his gaze to the parchments. The top one showed a blueprint of the Inn’s front porch facing the north gates, its side porch open to courtyard traffic, and connecting with the second floor and Tim’s balcony. It had a glass bridge to not obstruct Tim’s view from the balcony to the Banner. Tim kind of remembered drawing all of that. Existence required squinting through its haze and uncertain time connecting him to the present.
“Looks to me like you completed your assignment,” Papa said, “and well. S’Trace and his brother have experience building, not to mention the locals. They plan to do this right, and your details are on the ledge.”
Tim wasn’t sure if that was a phrase for wraiths like cool was to warm-blooded humans.
“They’ll get it done,” Papa clarified and pointed his tail at the jar in Tim’s other hand. “Set those down and have another drink. We need to go.”
Tim’s head throbbed. If someone asked him to run across the yard, he’d probably faceplant into a doorway. He blinked and looked for his jar of feel-good juice. Oh, in his hand. How convenient, yet so far.
Eventually, he landed the trough on his dry lips and took a long swig of the tart nectar; it stung, sharp, yet struck by a beautiful hand. The tail of healing stretched deep.
“Roz said they’ll take care of security and already have contacts sending word to brothers, cousins, uncles, all of that,” Papa continued, sounding proud of his people. And how. “Chiltonton has become a rallying cry for revolution, with Open Arms as its new promised land. You can use Aura Form to travel through the rings.”
“I thought–”
“I’ve gained strength.” Papa said. “I can keep you on the line.”
He spoke of the ring transportation. They’d discussed this before, and how Ptolemy escaped through the rings. Freed slavery to the Crimoan and their drug enchantment empire. The ring transportation nearly killed Ptolemy. Also, the rings had yet to be tried since the swap days ago.
“We need your notepad memories to help us get to the tomb before they do,” Papa said.
Memories of the garden and his trip through S’Trace’s juju juice meshed with newer scenes, painting Padstoligan’s entry in bodies and bonfires of filth. They were hunting for something and needed to burn it to remove its casing.
No one was safe in the path of their spells. Fusion bright and overwhelming, they obliterated with room to spare.
Tim could barely move; the visions were so haunting. “Why didn’t they fight me like that?”
“Soak it in,” Dryfu said and took wing toward Tim’s shoulders.
“After losing the jewel, they knew the clock was ticking on their dominance,” Papa said. “We can’t wait for you to make bags of holding. Continue to stir those memories for anything that can lead us to the Crimoan. The dead may have seen their entry and hiding spots.”
He trailed toward the door and Tim followed. It made too much sense not to go. All the plans meant nothing when faced with their suffering. Not only did the Spirit Memories fuel him with their memories, but also their passions. Their wrath became his.
Tim left the city plans for Roz, accepted an unexpected hug, then ran off into the dark city. Flee kept his feet quiet and nimble, so as to not wake the kids. The tunnel stairs sparked Spirit Memories from the people who’d perished when the Murphy invaded this city.
The monster turned into their city’s familiar brayed from a snore, whipped about, and hopped through the people to join him.
“You totally ruined my attempts not to wake them,” Tim said, wearing a grin despite his scolding. Murphy was wearing on him, even with all the people he killed. The creature was a person before the Crimoan turned him into a weapon. Now, Tim had turned his power on its head, transforming the aura generator it had ingested to fight Tim and his friends, and redirecting the spell plus a casting of Ward to make Murphy a helper friendly.
“What are you doing?” Murphy asked. “Don’t go anywhere without me.”
“Okay, but we’re taking the rings.”
Ptolemy studied the donkey, then said. “Yeah. I can do it. You got a little bump for both of us?”
“I will by the time we get to the rings,” Murphy said. “You probably don’t want the stuff I made Tim eat earlier. We’ve become buds since, so I’ll make arm chips for ya.”
Tim was still only moderately sorry he tattooed “Free Rides” on the donkey’s forehead as the seal to his Ward. He preferred chips to logs, though, so he kept his mouth shut this time.
Ring transportation hurt like smashing a lightbulb under your scalp with a hammer.
Papa said it had to hurt to trip the Aura Form, so such was life with his country song.
Not to mention the risk he opened up by transporting between rings; a skilled tracker couldn’t locate a wraith signature, but a human would be far easier to track back to Squire’s Castle if they didn’t secure the rings on the other side.
“Grip the ring where the stone is and squeeze their memories into your path,” Papa said.
Tim obeyed, and the instant his palm placed stone to ring, a vision of somewhere else flashed movies of several heroes and villains fleeing and fighting it out in the alleys and stores and houses across Padstoligan.
These visions produced a different proximity to trouble than where he ended up. The other side opened to a room blackened in smoke. He choked through the bitter air and his accidental inhale.
He hacked through a painful cough, letting more smoke come in to repeat the cycle toward the edge of an airway-cliff. The heat stung his eyes nearly shut. He squinted to make out the circumference of their upstairs room–a bedroom.
Papa smashed open the wooden window and Tim ran with. The leap would have taken his breath if he weren’t already coughing. Murphy appeared underneath him straddling the familiar. A delay from the ring transport, but none too late. Murphy boosted a gust of air into the alleyway to soften their landing to a rough one-two, then off after Papa to the heart of the flames.
Murphy shed a chunk of arm chips and once Tim caught his breath, he chomped away while they rode toward the fireworks.
Artisans fought off an ambush that must have caught them in a hideout. Now with its roof blown off and its safety uninhabitable, nor accessible to supplies, they hurled spells from magical shield holes.
Fivel spears and grenades bucked them back, but the return volley met its match only in the need to reload their arcane ammo.
Tim cast Battleground the instant he was within reach, lobbing it at the nearest line of defenders. The glow of a successful cast lit a familiar race. The elephant-snouted creature was a member of the COIL alliance. Their leader, Nez something, wasn’t in sight. His soldier churned a spiraling blue orb of intensifying light. As Tim rode up, the light illumined the creature’s arms and down into its legs.
Tim would charge with him. He cast Brother’s Keeper on the melee fighter and Healing Bridge at the charred flesh atop his shoulder.
It leapt to the Fivel on its back, cradling a chest wound to stifle the blood, then hopped into a vine and rode into the next turret.
Chris’s hideout.
The revelation of his brother’s essence almost made him trip. Tim had leapt wide to gain a clear shot of one of the artisans. His aura arrow ready, he landed on a ledge at the same time his healing bridge absorbed into Chris’s vine.
They had a common enemy more important than a brother’s squabble, but the surprise caused Tim to lose his Greenshot midway through loosing his arrow.
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The shot forced the artisan to raise her shield. In that instant, the elephant’s snout snapped off a supercharged bolt and he charged. The razor skyline hit the artisan low, spiking a weakness and granting the charging creature time to gain most of the distance.
Tim launched his next arrow into the artisan’s palm. The concentration of energy in the spell ignited with his arrowhead’s impact. Her hand shot back, the explosion thumping far enough it hit Tim in the chest.
Meanwhile, she catapulted eight feet backwards.
Elephant Raider redirected its charge to the next weakest link.
A dragon head made of solar fire burst through the charging foe, ending the life before his snout crashed into the rubble. Shards of the artisan’s broken shield sparked Elephant Raider into electric spasms. Lights flashed. Tim used it as cover and Fled to avoid a second Dragon’s Head.
Its tail licked Tim’s spine in a shiver of shocking pain.
And totally messed up his next shot. The arrow sailed overhead, wasted.
It planted in a crevice between bricks half blown out of the wall they supported. A shade expanded from the darkness to overtake the arrow feathers. Diamond nose piercing glistening with aura and golden circled tattoos helped Tim recognize Frahnk, the Troll Shadestriker and representative of their nation in the COIL alliance. Last they spoke, he’d promised a chance at Princess, the pearl pistol last owned by the former sheriff.
Chris wasn’t among the shadows lit by fire and magic. The commotion in the streets hid many forms in retreat from the fireworks display at the building on fire.
Tim’s low stores forced him to conserve and plan an efficient counter to the chaos abounding.
The energy spikes and rapid release of so many new and exotic abilities disrupted his Danger Sense. If Chris was among them, he doubted it, but couldn’t say.
He equipped his aura blades, tapping into a familiar friend and hoping for a crit on the second attack. He readied to whip an aura axe at the fleeing artisan when the bastard launched a volley of rapid-fire stars Tim’s way.
Tim activated Shield and ducked behind it. The heat and punch knocked him onto his back. Dryfu helped keep it steady until he regained his balance. “Over here!” he shouted over the onslaught turning the aura hot red around the edges. Tendrils of zapping hot bastards pinged off his shield and the ground. He levered it against a thick tree trunk forming the center of an intersection. A carriage broken on its axle sat amidst a ring of weeds tall as its wheels. Once Tim lined the shield into the trunk, Dryfu took off on a corkscrew powered by an F-fighter engine. He whipped around and under the carriage.
A spell shot ricocheted off the trunk and jolted Tim in the gut.
Tim slammed his shield into the ground, cutting an edge in the grass to steady a fulcrum. Waiting for his breath to refill his strained lungs, he held onto the handle and contorted into a small huddle between it and the ground.
The bursts ripped and cracked his shield. Almost too hot to hold or breathe. The oven itched his scalp with its burning waves.
A bolt hit him in the jaw. Right through a sudden crack in his shield. Ouch! Man!
He pulled out his aura bow, knocked an arrow and aimed at the shield. Danger Sense permeated into the immediate area, granting an essence view of the artisan assaulting his shield in turn with four other allies. They threw an explosive response, forcing the artisan to a standstill.
Once the Danger Sense gave him sight on that position, he cast Mist on his arrow and let it loose. It launched through his shield and through a neon white beam cast by the artisan’s staff. A zipline of hot static sizzled through his chin and made his neck ramrod straight. Handshaking tremors. Spine arched in a roller coaster’s peak.
He hit his head against the floor, right on the back of his skull. Zap after zap pummeled him in his exposed torso and left arm.
One of his allies interfered, granting him a second’s relief to twist under the solid part of his shield. While he’d love to help his friends, he’d lost feeling beyond the buzz in his fingertips. The house on this corner had a doorway ajar. Spirit Memories tied to that search for Corki’s past drew him to it. Tim gritted his teeth and started to rise. Not too–
A two-pronged lightning bolt surged into his side, digging under his vest, and Tim dove into the doorway and rolled onto his back.
Bursts of magic ripped holes and wood into splinters, cinders, and ash. Their light revealed a family hiding behind a rolled-over table cornering them on the other side of the one-room floor. Tim gasped through the pain gripping his insides. He cast Healing to push it back against the heat before his bones melted.
The artisan’s spells redirected against a separate onslaught on its position, leaving specks of glowing embers drifting in the torrent of wind and dust.
A picture on a wall of a straw-yellow pony with brown and black spots attached to a Spirit Memory. Corki’s daughter, Oria painted a profile of their horse, Peanut, whom he bought for her last Leveling Fair. The close-up cast a happy horse in her pen, eyes glistening with beauty. Tail shimmering with magic and an air about it capable of concealing far more than met the eye. The horse’s name was painted in fine golden letters around a circle with a partially built bridge against a two-story stone abutment.
Tim guessed it was the horse’s favorite place to go?
Corki’s were one set of legs missing from the three behind the table at the end of the room.
Sifting through his Spirit Memories to find out what happened was like sifting through a beach for a tooth. Tim’s cultivation burn itched under his skin, the aura channels blocked by inflammation and weakness.
Galvanize… Tim played the song in his head and exhaled deeply.
Explosions rocked the world outside in blows so thick they punched his eardrums.
Corki’s vision expanded to joining a local militia who called themselves the Night Watch. They were rebelling against the Wachamia President for selling out to the Crimoan and failing to protect Padstoligan. They were only half the original, and most had joined their brothers and sisters in Tim’s Spirit Memory pool of the deceased. Corki though had yet to perish on screen. Tim didn’t know if that meant he had.
“Corki,” Tim gasped at the view outside.
An eruption nearby sent flashes of light through the ammo holes and muted his second syllable. Someone dropped a bomb of a spell on the artisan defensive dome. It shimmered in green and blue magic, shivering with each assault on its field.
Murphy helped distribute arm chips and bumps of healing. Dryfu was nowhere to be seen. You out there, bud? Tim asked and sent a Danger Ping on a rocket.
“Mom,” said the younger one, a boy peeking past the chipped edge of their table to steal a glance. “He said Dad’s name.”
A pang of grief and longing woke across Tim’s chest like a hungry bear. Paiz. Sweet boy. The long brown bangs cupped such a fragile face. He missed his dad to the core.
Tim fought the tremors, clenching his stomach and turning onto an elbow to help him get up. He was going to take them to where he saw their father last. “Come, we have to go.”
The girl placed a warm hand in his and squeezed.
Corki’s vision attached a new scene beyond their horse’s pen, to the barn where jungle ferns stood out on the fringe. To the naked eye, it would have been just a strange weed, but Tim knew that blend of yellow-green fans from the Troll’s lands. To the cliffside view of their oceanside jungle paradise.
That’s how you got here, Tim thought.
Before he could worry about finding his brother, he had to help the people here. He stretched the vision’s view backward through alleys to the house where he waited with Corki’s family. Padstoligan had grown so much since he’d been here. His time travel visit to the past was to a Tombstone sort of town with a few secrets it liked hidden in plain sight. Now, it looked congested and painted to the point of distraction in aura-lined extravagance on signs and framework built with great cost. He appreciated the leveling spent on craftsmanship, then mourned those whose spirits were now part of his aura and mission.
Their loss drew him in the vision to a tragic end, Crimoan and Artisans with arrow and spell annihilating anyone in their path. Someone must have ratted them out. Corki couldn’t track with so many of his brethren falling to the endless number of enforcers sent to root their cell from the city.
Corki and twelve others made it back to his barn. Papa Ptolemy and a legion of wraith emerged from the trees in full armor and sword. Tim didn’t know they could equip either, but more power to them! he thought as the vision played over in his mind.
Together with Corki’s Night Watch survivors, they’d sent a pincer op on the same artisan who was outside, seeking retribution. Something more…
Focused details faded in the pulse of pain splitting his head in fractured shingles. He had to back off or aura fatigue would take him out of action for longer than he could afford.
Tim stood with the girl’s help. The picture of the horse had a necklace with intricate fashioning to the red gems embossed in gold lattice. He pointed to it and Oria’s face lit with joy. “Is that your necklace?”
She squinted and shook her head. “I gave it to Peanut. My dad says it was really valuable. I want it to protect her from the Crimoan who want to steal her.”
“Oh?”
She smiled again. “Can you take me to my dad?”
“Pack up. We’re going to the stables.”
She gave him a quick, seven-fold love-packed hug, then darted off with her brother in a skipping frolic of an egg hunt to gather their things.
“Papa’s with Peanut!” Paiz squeed and did a jimmy before his mother ushered him to his chest with a key. Their mother ordered their steps in efficient, sweeping commands. They had bags of holding and weapons fit for their hands. In one well-timed effort, she handed him a jar with the purple glow of aurthecary. Its form was thick as honey.
While he waited for the sludge to slide into his mouth, she said “I will see my Corki again.”
Then was off to her things.
Tim inhaled the rich tang of aurthecary fizzing in his nostrils and warming his tired veins.
In his breathing, he studied the necklace of red apple and golden swirls on a black leather saddle front. Tim’s Spirit Memory spoke of Corki investing countless hours and money in leveling so he could give Oria that. He wanted her to have a better future. That and the horse would be with her if he wasn’t.
The Crimoan were no longer waiting for volunteers or recruiting with bribes. Tonight, they came with a knife in the dark and the scream of your children. He didn’t wait until they came for his.
Tim had to get Corki’s family out of there.
“Have you seen him?” The mother asked. She owned a bravery he admired right away. “How?” She studied further. This was the sharp one in the family.
A volley of spells silenced outside. Tim cast Battleground at the door and carefully stepped behind it, Gotr Dagger ready. With Danger Sense on his tongue, a lightning prong lanced through the wall and injected a triple dose of blackout power into his core. What he caught in his dagger might have saved his life, but the dose that broke through put him on his back.
Tim went Full Aura and cringed while a crushing magnitude of electricity vibrated through him. Murphy galloped into view, braying a gust of pink cloud heavy enough to coat Tim’s scalp with a think, tingling cap. He rolled into pitch black, Drawing the aura strength all the way to its coattails in Murphy’s throat. His body passed through the ground and sank in a muddied pit substance created by his Full Aura and the charge from the artisan spell. Tim shoved his hands into his side until his gafka bracelets were under the spell’s rope. Torture Endurance boosted his resistance to its disabling stun spell, allowing him to wiggle his wrists under, cast Mist, then Draw and released Mist.
The bracelets returned to physical form inside the spell, absorbed it through his Draw. Once enough of its power was sapped into his bracelets, he struck out Hand to Hand in opposing directions. The rope chain snapped and short-circuited in a bright flash so hot it cast a wide swath of boiling blisters across his face. Its eruption threw him end over end and backward into the air.
He sent Light Burn into the aura absorbed into his Dagger, then leveled the blade at the artisan and fired. The spell forced him out of Aura Form as it simultaneously healed him past ten percent. His Priest ability shot from his hands in a gnarled tree pose launching Fire and Brimstone while he rotated in the air to land.
Paiz shouted and their mother led them on a sprint through the star fire flashes and shadowed intersection.
Tim’s Light Burn melted through the dome protecting the artisan.
He swept his shield in to defend Tim’s attack. A discharge of blue light rippled through the ground and erupted under the artisan’s feet. It launched him off the burst of broken dirt. Tim concentrated his Light Burn on the center of the artisan’s shield, forcing the artisan to keep his defensive attention on Tim while his allies threw the kitchen sink at the scared rat.
He bounced and skipped like a ping pong ball, throwing Dragon Heads of fire in decreasing strength and frequency.
Aura fire whisked up from the winged curves, drawing Tim’s Light Burn into its deep well. He poured it on as the power sucked his gut dry, sensing it too was near its breaking point. If his friends didn’t execute him first, Tim’s effort would ensure it with the destruction of his shield. Magic Hunt came to mind, and he sent a cast off. Spasms clenched into his ribs. The Light Burn exploded shingles off the shield’s outer coating. His Magic Hunt landed and slid in. Tim wanted memories and power.
This man came for him before, and he’d killed many more here. Tim’s Light Burn fury ripped through the shield and coursed into him with a flare of fire feeding on ripe flesh.
Corki’s spirit enjoyed this.
Tim shuddered through the father’s loss and husband’s grief he knew from the other side. Using that passion as fuel to keep the fire burning, he pressed closer. His beam put the artisan on the defensive.
Explosions of multi-pronged magic on aura flashed from the center of his attack. Shards of shielding shattered. His fire turned the rest to dust.
Tim’s leg failed to return to form and strength in time and he fell through the next step.
Murphy galloped into view, brayed and leapt.
Green orbs like spider eggs lit in the crevices of the artisan’s fingers. His essence read a transition from fending off several to a single foe.
Tim equipped his axe and spun it on a beeline center mass.
After charging the handful of orbs, the artisan had to pull back and throw. Tim’s pre-emptive decision sent his axe on the fly before the artisan could release. The blade spun on a trail of pink and red aura, keeping it on line with his Greensight and powering it to spin faster than his bodily strength ever could.
Murphy’s hooves pushed a wave of resistance, slowing the artisan.
The blade sliced through the artisan’s wrist, lopping his hand off in a flopping over mass of blood and spilled magic.
It hit the ground and made a hollow boom. Green ooze soaked into the ground and pumped a shotgun blast into a new hole. The artisan fell headlong.
Tim didn’t have the aura to Peel and catch Murphy before he fell in after. He cast Swoon to try something.
Dryfu’s corkscrew shot into the donkey’s side knocked him far enough with Tim’s Swoon to clear the rim of eroding soil.
With his donkey safe, and the alleys leading to this intersection newly coated with the more silent din of crackling fire than the explosions of spells.
XP flooded into Tim’s spirit, filling him where exhaustion tugged him down. He gave it the moment and cycled the XP into his aura channels through abdominal focused breaths.
Aura Blades evolved a new ability – Dragon Heads.
The spell advancement came with the vision of Dragon’s Heads riding alongside his Aura Blade attacks. A triple cost would be worth it against the right target.
“Where’s my brother?” Tim asked.
Wraiths parted from the bodies lying in the cobbled stone street. Aura from Tim’s Danger Sense and Murphy’s excess turned their spirit memories into rich mist Tim inhaled. Not like a thief but the owner of the home greeting visitors doing anything possible to fit in the front doors.
He knew then in their memories that his brother had escorted the rebels to safety through his portal. That would be their next stop.
“God of the wind,” said one of the survivors, a local with a pump action magi hand cannon. He stared at the spirits absorbing into Tim’s gut, refilling the strength he lost with the Light Burn.
“Lank told us about you. He didn’t mention this.”
Oria took Tim’s hand and pulled him with her and her mom. Her brother had equipped leather armors over his clothes and a slingshot to go with the goodies in his pouch. She had a bow and quiver full of sharpshooting arrows. Corki treated his daughter well with those. The feathers had a +5 accuracy at distance and shafts enchanted with aerodynamic grooves and reinforced punch.
Tim waved the group of survivors to follow. He and Corki’s family needed to know if he was with the exiles in Troll territory.