Inte wasn’t lying. It was gonna be a hike. Just not like they thought.

  Before leaving, Inte showed Tim how to install the crossbow and bow improvements. Crafting, Accuracy, Power and Speed all boosted by 25%. This would help as they risked demons and rickens of various kinds between them and the Farmstead.

  With less attendance to these tunnels came the increase in predators and less tending to Algae, which was harvested for air cleaning Inte equipped them with hooded masks. Tonda and Murphy’s made them as adorable as life-size teddy bears.

  Tim’s face mask tugged on his face patch like duct tape on a tender scab. Nevertheless, the toxins in the air from the unkempt rift aura could cause irreversible damage to vital organs. Spirit Memories provided examples of human and beast reacting to the cravings that overwhelm when too much rift aura collects in your blood. E’Tic wasn’t the only one inside Tim’s head to have seen the cannibalistic chaos that followed when one crossed that line.

  He adjusted his new fur strap from Magic and Mayhem so it wasn’t so close to the painful area in his upper chest. Tim worked through his stretches, forcing new breath into the pain centers and releasing the exhaust in his exhales. X’ing Hale would be proud. He hoped Jil was safe, wherever she was. Inte said Ja-Seong might have a clue where she might be, which meant the best he could do was get to the Farm safely and quickly. through the tougher moments.

  The walk gave Tim time to think about his purpose, about the restriction of pain allowed by the God he served. Wisdom joined him in a presence of comfort that he would rejoice when his efforts led to others suffering less, be it from rift aura, orphanhood, or any one of the mounting threats on his list.

  Before they left, he’d quickly cleaned his gotr sword and dagger so he could now sharpen the blades with his new enchanted cloth. He was grateful for the new tools, and all of his bandoleer jars full of tinctures and other meds to put on his Rryeg’s Belt. As he beat his body into submission to hike through the aches, sharpening sword and soul alike, and breathing through this evolving core to power each step, he recalled the wonders of the past day with intentional gratitude.

  In this position of reflection over how his trials had shaped him, hope unlocked potential for far greater. Considering Inte and Ja-Seongs’ patient suffering gave him a greater appreciation for the exercising of gifts and new skills he’d acquired. The length of their victory eclipsed the trials he could ponder into a shadow the size of a disintegrating speck.

  Tonda nipped at his heels. Tim pet her head and soothed her with calm words. The power she’d absorbed from the ricken to boost her leaps gave her extra energy, especially with her advanced sense for adventure.

  In contrast to her excitement, he labored through every step like a rung towel. Inte said the patches were soaking the demon aura—pretty similar to rift aura because the Riftlord and his aura empowered the demons, but with distinct elements traceable to the spell cast when the demon cut him. In short, they soaked this aura from the wounds so he could heal. Inte encouraged him through those strides by reminding him the internal tearing was helping drawing out the poison through the disturbance. Once completed and the Eiyero-laced magic depleted, it would dry off and peel away. The EQ score of 14 meant it still had teeth. For now, the Eiyero made his bones ache and his ears hurt. A high mixed with fear carried him while his muscles twitched.

  This was some funky knockoff compared to what the artisans put in the nixstone skulls, and he was paying for it. Still, XP from Poison Resistance, Healing, and Cleanse attached to the drug in his blood first because of their forefront on his activity. They bonded like magnets connecting throughout his body, cramping it with less space and deep aches. After earning the new skill for Enclave Tree, there was apparently still Eiyero to go around.

  As the patches worked away the demon aura, Spirit Memory woke more of E’Tic’s life and memories. He’d taken this tunnel many times with more glow worms to light their way. Now the ceiling to floor, brittle white weeds invaded every inch of open rock. Tiny flowers with black eyes watched them by the thousand. Tinnier threats inched about under their surface, sensing Tim and his friends with their pure blood ready to infect.

  Tim practiced White Fire onto a torch hung from Murphy’s hind quarters but let Inte think he needed to lead. E’Tic’s memories of a cleaner path made him wonder if Inte had been here since it became so overgrown.

  Dryfu didn’t mind the load-up on breakfast and bug snacks for later.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Inte said. “They are a proud species. Hate anyone knowing anything about em.”

  Inte caught Tim eyeing his staff and just shrugged. “It’s actually not that hard being this cool,” Inte said and kept his lead on their stride.

  Tim was about ready to show him what Peel looked like, noticing his stamina improving and c-mana building when their path rounded to a Y intersection. One side was boarded off and a warning was painted with a Sails wave to sign off their authority.

  Inte’s stride flowed to the clear tunnel, if you could call stalagmite dripping with corrosive acid water “clear.”

  Tim’s memories cast a different picture on picture when the tunnel was unboarded and he saw E’Tic enter with friends. It led to a ballfield back then. More than that. It was a park for workers to play with their families and have picnics while breaking from the mines. E’Tic had a distant horizon of good memories and one terrible one.

  Tim stopped. Tonda spun and hopped gayly back at him, sensing adventure on his scent.

  Inte glanced over his shoulder with concern. “Oh, Hist’s Balls. No. No. Let’s go. I didn’t waste my good patches on you to let the ricken eat you. You belong in a bed for near to three weeks. Come on, fool of a priest. Bring your donkey. The jexin isn’t that strong yet. I’m not.” Now he turned to face Tim and sighed. His shoulder flexed like, You want to make me show you I’m not afraid? Eyes locked in, he said, “All right,” and started toward Tim. “It would be a shorter trip; I was just trying to take it easy on you. But all right. Let’s do this.”

  Inte stepped up to Tim and the boarded tunnel. “You’re the one with the axe. Have at it.”

  Tim did have at it, for those in the know. It felt good to get the blood flowing with a little morning walk followed by chop suey. He activated Tracking and Danger Sense to ensure the coast was clear through his noise.

  Inte helped with a good wallop of his war bell, if he could call it that.

  It’s a word I’d rather not hear you butcher, so we’ll go with that, Dryfu said just to Tim, then out loud, “I just told him to call it War Bell. Go with it.”

  Inte snickered between labored swings. “Bell get Rung.”

  War Bell swung like an all-aluminum alloy bat ready to launch a home run. His first swing cracked the top corner free.

  Tim followed with a strike through the middle and Tonda’s bounce attack smashed enough of the rest to move on through.

  An odor like death trapped in a bowl of its own feces met his face like a furnace wave.

  Still, Danger Sense said the tunnel was clear of anything big enough or strong enough to worry over. Thus, fool of a priest led his donkey and friends into its canal.

  As they walked, Tim recalled almost in a trance the memories of the school yard abuzz with the news of the location of the lost boys. The tunnel he walked in was sealed since they were found dead in a gruesome macabre mixture of ricken ambush and Crimoan saltiness. Too bad they couldn’t have paid for it without the boys, but rumor was they’d lain in wait and released the ricken as a bit of cartel business and a message to one of the boys’ fathers.

  Half a mile in, their tunnel exited to a field with a tall ceiling carved by sophisticated mining and quarry making. The silence heightened Tim’s nerves to a predator on its way. They’d be run down in the tunnel if they retreated.

  No, it was time to show Inte a Peel.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  In the same direction as the ricken was the counter tunnel across the park was the tree grove where the boys were killed. Their bodies were preserved by the heavy ricken on top and the falling of the leaves to maintain an aura reserve he dreaded opening. Sure, he and his would love to dip into the aura power like empty jars to a cool well of clean water.

  “I’ll play decoy,” Dryfu said and zipped off.

  “Where’s he going?” Inte asked.

  Tim pointed to the trees between the ball field and the pavilion-like structures. E’Tic remembered the report that the ricken had been hiding under the tables. A wolfish creature of the same ancestry stalked them with a pack on its heels. That side of the park was spread with the gnarly Goso El Sinuous trees E’Tic grew. Left this long unkempt, some had collapsed under rot or ivy, others kept their fingers outstretched in the snail’s race for space under the mined dome. Time and isolation had allowed those left standing to clog a clear path to see the top. If they found Kari and Sa the sorcerer, they would have a wealth of material for demon traps in this forest.

  Tim’s exchanges with the Venom in the Rift Aura had trained his eyes and intuitive senses to notice the increase in Dimensional Gas density, and it was so well at home here he felt like a trespasser. The alien sensation sent an anxious shiver through him. Not only did it force their masks to suck through complicated filtration, and that whir through each breath was obvious to all, but what Tim knew uniquely was how the Dimensional Gas changed everything, from the root out. Weed stalks and bushes permeated it in their flowers and underground growth, drawing from the Riftlord’s riftstone to a degree Tim couldn’t yet tell. Enough for his Danger Sense to prick every nerve from ear to ear with a rising panic. Tim forced it into submission and analyzed the seven ricken pack formed in a wide perimeter with its alpha galloping at the center.

  Dryfu coiled up a Tornado and zipped off to greet him.

  “Happy hunting!” Tim called after. “I’m gonna fuel up,” Tim said and saddled Murphy. “Sorry, bud. The rest’s over. Hopefully the reward on the other side will make it worth your time.”

  Murphy snorted and jostled a little as Tim climbed aboard. “Let’s get it!”

  His charging Peel sent a jolt into the beast, and he rocked in his front hooves. Kicking backward while Tim held onto more than just the saddle. The Peel charge required a stronger frequency to transport another object as heavy as Murphy with him. Thankfully as soon as it locked in, it also hooked into Murphy’s aura—They shot out of the gate into the pungent stench. Whatever that was, it was not letting up.

  Tim eased back on the Peel before they reached a fence bordering the ball field. They broke through, too fast for him to slow Murphy. The Peel opened the gas on Murphy’s aura generation, it seemed, and now they had to plow through weeds taller than the donkey’s line of sight.

  He tumbled and took Tim with, drawing two ricken from the trees beyond the pavilions.

  Tim kept them aimed at the grave and his sense of timing flared. The ricken were charging hard, low to the ground.

  A howling sounded from park’s center and both heads turned for their alpha.

  Tim lifted Murphy off his newly sore leg and ran for the grave.

  Tonda sprinted through the field to beat him there. She did, leaping the fence he’d peeled through and landing within siding distance of the leaf ring circling the tree. She spun in her own circle and slid off to trip in the weeds.

  Tim trudged through a coiled weed tangled on his boot and stuck his sword in the aura well.

  Frigid Rift Aura froze Tim’s veins. In their grip, time and dimension switched to the past, first to Cabir and the big day he had before him.

  The boys had come to look for a ball the youngest among them had lost at recess. This nine-year-old had retrieved his two friends after school to come find his older brother’s favorite ball, the one Cabir had lost in the woods at recess.

  At the time, their small school for full-year miners and farmers’ kids would visit this area during the day. Mirrors placed within drilled tunnels allowed them to reflect light into the mines and throughout their otherwise self-contained society. The time periods were strict because when the lights went off the glow orbs left many shadows.

  The richest memories were through the youngest, who had fallen to rest first.

  Cabir charged and rammed a trash bin into the ricken before it could pounce. The memory carried Tim over the bin as he joined Cabir. Fangs pierced his throat. Unimaginable strength clenched, carving and snapping the strangest string instruments Cabir never knew could fit so tightly in his skin.

  Heat flushed out from the wound, followed by tremors. Tim couldn’t escape the memory for all his worth.

  The ricken took chunks of flesh from the tender boy before scramming for something beyond. Cabir wasn’t so sure it mattered. A chill was spreading through him like a wandering nightmare in the dark. Shock held his breath in more distant, labored efforts. Soon, the chill would seal his insides for good.

  Other memories fed Tim with Shawn’s heroic, though painfully futile retaliation. Ziz stabbed through the ricken, but the creature’s weight and curved claws tore into Shawn’s gut as if it were wet paper. The gash opened him across the stomach, emptying vitals from a life poured out too young.

  Ziz retrieved his sword to four ricken creeping, teeth barred and dripping.

  A finger snapped and a man called out “Jo shak!”

  The ricken halted. Eyes locked on Tim as though plotting the blessed moment when their master would set them free.

  Ziz remembered the scent of his friends’ feces and pooling blood.

  Then the sight of Gantus in human form. The sharp cheek bones and once-broken nose were a fingerprint on his soul. How’s…

  Some servants of Hist are granted new forms and classes as well as first pick from his storehouses. Gantus must have been a Crimoan before turning into what you classify as demon.

  Got it, so this was before his reward.

  “Greetings, son of your great Loc head.”

  Tim knew through Ziz that Gantus referred to a local workers Union where Ziz’s father was the leader. A pit opened in his stomach at the realization his father was responsible for his friends’ death, and more than likely his own.

  Tim could have wept for that dreadful prophecy foretold. At the oldest, Ziz was still only eleven and just had his first kiss this summer. Mere boys called to serve in a man’s war.

  Ziz knew his dad had been nervous about an upcoming vote.

  “This is really an unfortunate introduction,” Gantus continued, stepping over Cabir’s ruined body as if he were spilled milk. “Believe me, I’ve tried to relay the certainty of our position.”

  The cartel always spoke in a Royal we, as Ziz’s father called it, when often it was them making policy on the spot.

  Ziz straightened his sword on an edge lined to pierce Gantus in the eye. “Stop.”

  Somehow, despite the ache from his teeth chattering, he managed to calm his nerves enough to hold his sword perfectly still. “One perk of being the son of the speaker is how his friends like to share their wealth. This sword is my favorite. I can take your ricken first and then you if you’d like.” Something wet trickled down his thigh. Not urine. He was surprisingly dry in that regard. A faint pain in his ribs drew his offhand.

  Gantus observed with an unpleasant smile. Like when the wolf knows you know you’re trapped.

  Ziz’s finger pressed into blood-soaked cloth. A glance down revealed a claw broken off in his chest, too high and too deep to be real. Not a mere flesh wound.

  And somehow, he remained standing. New resolve affirmed itself in Ziz’s lowering the tip of his sword aimed at Gantus’s crotch. “Or I can make my point with you and whatever issue you have with my father. When he finds out about—”

  “Believe me, he’ll find out,” Gantus said, and stepped closer, eyes begging Ziz to draw some blood. “How soon and whether you’re there to tell him is up to you. And what you do in the next few seconds.”

  He stopped within inches of Ziz’s blade, his gleeful gaze drilling down on the broken claw. Every breath allowed the tip to dig deeper. His head swam. Arm dipped–straightened in renewed purpose and aim. “I said stay back. I’m thinking you’re gonna need to say goodbye to little Ganty 'cause I gave you one job and you’re not getting it.”

  Danger Sense tugged Tim through a resistant fog to the present. Ricken sprinting, rising and falling like white water rapids, faster than the toiga and almost like a locomotive in how their legs churned through their strides, white fur shuffling over clenched muscle in a mesmerizing dance of power.

  Tim uncorked one and then a second grenade, tossing them at Alpha. They erupted and threw Alpha and his two closest mates sky walking in the wind. Tim returned to the memories as Tonda’s lightning blast of a pounce struck Alpha in a tumble roll. The aura pool responded in pulses that maximized every potential skill he thought to employ. He pressed it out into Tonda and her attacks. She slashed a flaming blue claw across the ricken’s throat and leapt, teeth stretched wide.

  Tim sat back on Murphy and let the donkey absorb the aura into his hooves. Memories recalled Ziz's sneak shot, the barb that erupted from the tip of his sword; how Gantus fell; the ricken charging Ziz from all sides.

  Ziz’s memories ended in a similar wandering into the chill, hopeful he’d find his friends and together they’d find their way back, somehow. All that mattered was that he found them.

  Ziz knew Gantus would not let him live with his honor, so he took the only honorable path presented. The ricken he slayed on the way down was nothing on its own, for he and his friends had trained for such battles. No one would have expected him to handle all four, and the hole Ziz put in Gantus’s voice box meant no one would be calling his beasts back from their reward.

  Tim equipped these memories of training for the fluid attacks required to fell this species of ricken. Inte’s icicle staff cut as easily as lava spearing the ricken who flew his way.

  They left the corpses in a pile by the boys’ grave, then carried on toward the Farmstead.

  Tim shouldered a new weight in that hike through roots wider than him. He’d come to love and sympathize with many. The magnitude made him question how many more he could carry.

  Reminding himself that he wasn’t the one carrying anyone helped ease that fear, for a time.

  They traveled through the Borderland’s Kayo Forest using the kids’ memories of avoiding sinkholes and where knee-high ant looking ricken had made nests.

  Thankfully they arrived without finding any new nests or sink holes, approaching the dark Farmstead through a field where the crops had long ago decomposed and produced as many weeds as rogue crops.

  Tim Foraged some food and rare herbs, according to Dryfu, and watched as Inte located a spare key in a bird house hanging by a low branch.

  Inte unlocked the door, and they entered the deathly silent house, interrupting its peace with the whine of the door.

  Tim delicately removed his mask, then called out, “Ja-Seong?”

  His voice echoed off the high ceiling and open space greeting them in this interchange room connecting to many avenues.

  No one replied.