Callie was waiting with the others when we got back inside, and she tackled me in relief. “Shane! What WAS that? Those screams…” she shuddered. “I felt like it was drowning me in my worst fears. I kept seeing visions of you dying, my mom being killed, even Jessie getting murdered. I tried to use the bond to pull strength from you but I couldn’t shake it.”

I grimaced. “I don’t know what it was, but I felt it too. I went through a similar experience back on Rackham, where a priestess burned me with this fear inducing ego fire. I think it gave me a tolerance.”

“So you think I can resist it better next time,” her face fell. “I feel like such a weakling having to run in here and hide, but I just…I couldn’t think, the fear was suffocating me.”

I looked around. “How about the rest of you? Are you doing alright?”

Chelsea, Serah, and Holly looked mostly fine. My sister grunted her annoyed agreement. “My purification flame helped, but it took a bit to work. The girls were able to resist by summoning their inner light but was a constant drain.”

I glanced at Gabe, who shrugged. “I was actually ok. My Adamant Path makes me all but immune to mental effects like that. I have a responsibility to protect her ladyship though, or I’d have been out there fighting with you.” He shot me an apologetic smile, but I just waved him off. I knew he had a job to do.

Mel seemed mostly ok, if a bit quiet, but Daysia looked seriously spooked. I was on my way over to talk to her, but Callie beat me there, wrapping the smaller girl in a tight hug. “Hey, don’t worry so much, ok? The rest of us have been doing this for ages and we were just as scared. You’re alright, we all are, and we can figure out where to go from here. Everything is alright.”

“I…don’t know about that,” I said apologetically. Callie shot me a glare, but I shrugged. “Sorry, but we ran into one of the god world D-rankers out there, at least we think so. They were…they were really strong.”

Danger Sense scaled with how much of a threat to my life an attack was, and it had been SCREAMING at me when I reacted to that arrow. In Mornax and Sammael both and wearing my C-rank plate, and I was still sure that shot would have seriously injured if not outright killed me. That had been a Solid Path attack, at LEAST, and it might have been supported by a Chronicle.

And this was just the first one of them we’d run into. Who knew how strong the others were, I’d been so convinced we could handle anything our own level, but I was starting to feel like this wouldn’t be as easy as I’d expected.

Turning to Wesley, who was staring at us like he couldn’t decide if we were monsters or saviors, I decided to broach the obvious topic. “Have you heard about any outsiders showing up recently? Really strong ones maybe working for Malzareth? The one we saw had a candle like that one in his ship. What is that, by the way?” I gestured at the green flame candle illuminating the center of the house. I had a general idea based on what he’d said earlier and the flames on the walkways, but it would be good to know WHY it seemed to keep things from the sea at bay.

He cleared his throat, trying to recover from his silence, or maybe just terrified of us now. “Ahem, sir, no, young master, no, great lo-”

I held up a hand. “Man, I don’t even slightly have time for all that, just call me Solomon.”

“Yes, Lord Solomon,” he bowed his head and I sighed. “These candles are a special type of repellant that holds back the mist from the sea. While it may look harmless, in reality the mist contains vapors from the frothing waves, and it spreads the dark powers of the sea inland. The dark power of the water is repelled by these flames, and so we use the candles to keep ourselves safe.”

I blinked at him, waiting for more information. “But…why?” At his blank look I elaborated. “WHY do they drive back the darkness from the water?”

“Ah, the darkness fears the light, as all darkness does,” he said philosophically.

“So…all candles protect you?” I pushed, determined to get to the bottom of SOMETHING about these damned candles. I was sure that knowing how they worked would be useful, and I was getting NOTHING about them from Dantalion.

He shook his head. “No, just these.”

I stoically ignored the snickers from my friends, though I was glad to see Daysia perking up a little. “Anyway, have you heard anything about newcomers?”

“No, Lord Solomon,” he said immediately. “But we are a small village, and we don’t receive many visitors. Leastwise not ones who still number among the true living. You may have noticed my suspicion upon your arrival.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I got that. It’s fine, we just need to head for Highhaven I guess. Anything we should be wary of when we get there?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Almost everything,” responded the somber mayor. “Highhaven is a dangerous and violent place. Though, I suspect anyone who can destroy a wave of Pale Men should be capable of holding their own even in Malzareth’s domain. If I might offer any advice, it is not to trust any local forces. Highhaven is Malzareth’s personal plaything. Any forces that exist within its walls do so at his sufferance. Regardless of stated position or outward anitpathy, if they call Highhaven their home, they must bend the knee to Malzareth in private.”

Malzareth who was PROBABLY a C-ranker. Lovely. “Noted. But we could use more information before we arrive. What can you tell us about his guards? Mistwardens, you called them?”

“The Mistwarderns are the dogs of Malzareth,” he said caustically. “They can do essentially whatever they wish, and this abundance of power draws the worst of the worst. They wear specialized helmets that contain candles to drive back the mist, and they’re supposed to ride the countryside, repelling Pale Men and robbers. Instead they only bestir themselves after a village is destroyed, unless you pay them an extra tithe to offer more protection.”

Abel nodded. “Protection rackets are pretty common everywhere. Back when we lived in the WCP we saw them all the time. Not surprising that the weird haunted ocean hellscape has corrupt patrolmen.”

“It’s good to know in advance,” I said firmly. “Means we can avoid them. Do you have any of the candles? Might make our journey a bit safer.”

“Sadly, no,” he said regretfully. “The methods for producing Mistbane Candles has been lost to time, at least as far as anyone out here knows. We buy ours from Highhaven. These are diminished, and can only last a year or two with consistent lighting. We suspect he has some method to melt them down and redistribute the power to create more inferior copies.”

I examined the candle. I hadn’t paid too much attention to the flames on the walkways, but after going back to double check it, they DID come from candles, but the candles seemed MUCH weightier than these. Still D-rank, but more than just entry level. He was probably right.

Thanking him, we asked if he had a place for us to stay. We’d been planning to head right for Highhaven, but knowing how hostile it could be, we decided to rest here for the night and make our approach during the day to give us more time to feel out the situation. While he didn’t have much extra room where we were, he did point us to an abandoned shack we were able to repurpose with materials we had on us.

Once we settled in, we had a meeting. “Alright,” I said to my friends. “This has been a lot to get into, but I think that given what we learned today, a bit of training before we go might not hurt. Specifically I think we should try to train your mental resistance in case we meet more Pale Men.”

“Agreed,” said Abel. “We weren’t expecting it, but this particular weakness is a major liability, especially if there are more powerful Pale Men out there. But how do we train it?”

Bethy raised a hand. “Oh! I can help! I’m super good at mental manipulation, and my Domain makes hitting a bunch of people at once easy. I can be a little scary when I want, so we can just beat them into shape that way.”

I laughed. “Good thought,” I said with a smile. “But I think something a bit more targeted would be better. I’ll create a mental protection technique, and then teach it to Callie through the bond. Teaching a technique to a normal person is a bit rough for me, because….well, you guys just don’t really get things that come easily to me. But Callie should be able to translate fine, at least for a basic general technique.”

Teaching a Skill like my staff art to Bella had been easy enough, but trying to teach her my mother’s Supernova Step had been tougher than I expected. She learned it eventually, but I realized in the process that a lot of things I just naturally understood about technique usage were completely unintuitive to her. We didn’t have time for me to create a complicated technique and dumb it down for everyone.

Callie perked up. “Oh, am I going to get to experience what it’s like inside the Pride library? I mean, I’ve been there, but not during your creation process. That sounds like fun!”

“Glad you think so,” I laughed. “Hopefully you can maintain that enthusiasm, because I feel like technique creation would be boring to watch otherwise. While we’re at it, I can try to tweak your Dance of the Abyssal Fairy if you want, help align it with you a bit better.” Our connection should let me use her techniques like she could use my forms, and being able to upgrade her capabilities was a benefit I’d never really considered.

Being part of such a unique experiment seemed to make everyone perk up a bit. Granted, most of them wouldn’t be doing much, but it gave us all something to focus on. Daysia and Bella, the least experienced of our number, seemed to be most shaken, even if my apprentice hadn’t been as open about it as our Dryad friend.

I could feel through the bond that Callie was excited too. Partly because she wanted to both get stronger and be less vunerable to the mental influence, and partly because she was excited to show off how much she’d grown since the last time I’d seen her stats a few months ago.

Of course, the actual process would take place inside my soul, so there wasn’t much to watch, and after the two of us sat down and clasped hands, the others quickly got bored and went to sleep, with only Abel staying up, insisting on standing watch in case we got another wave of enemies.

Callie and I closed our eyes, retreating into Pride, where Callie had been before. When we arrived, she looked around, amazed by the construct. She hadn’t been here long before, only for a bit during my Chronicle condensation, so she wasn’t really used to it yet.

She glanced over at my staff, floating above the pedestal where the Ten Demons Tome sat, and then spun to face me, a determined look on her face. “Alright. Let’s do this. How do we start?”

I considered that. It was an interesting question, because custom made techniques were usually based on my own personal abilities. I couldn’t use Mornax as a base since most of them wouldn’t be able to use it. I quickly came up with a plan, then focused back on my wife. “Alright, I think I know how to start, but before we do, there’s one other thing. Let’s see how much progress you made while I was gone.” Between her godslayer rep and training with my grandmother, I was looking forward to seeing how much stronger she’d become.