The next three days proved more miserable than Tim could have imagined. The chief escaping during night two wasn’t the worst of it either.

  Glad to be alive was the mantra above all that kept him going, even as he hated how that marked such a great distance between him and Tonda. Leth huri coated the house by the morning of the first day. Even if they hadn’t, the morning sickness combined with Venom poisoning, both from the first night at the inn and the leth huri bites.

  His first night bearing their marks was spent in fever dream. Lying in his own sweat still, three days later, hidden in his Protection spell while leth huri as tall as adult Dobermans, Tim struggled to wade through those dark memories. He wept anew, grieving Tonda and his failure to even draw her spirit. Had she passed in emptiness, waiting for him to rescue her from the sleep of the animal kingdom? Lying in the cover of magic, feet away from leth huri unable to see through his invisible mirror where they could easily pounce and puncture him with too many holes to count.

  Inte absorbed a dozen up his leg and into his ribs before he could fight it off, and that was one a third of the size as the legion filling the field around them.

  Tim was exhausted, but it was too early to sleep. He had corpses to drain.

  A leth huri appeared in his palm, drooping under the weight of a good sized one. Its physical life gone with its ceased breath, but inside waited Venom aura he would raise and translate into the shielding they’d need to withstand the night—potentially absorbing a reserve into his crown to help the next time they had to fight.

  The battle from their house to here cost many of them the poison of a leth huri bite. His Exorcist boost to antidotes to the leth huri venom meant he could start making them as he caught his breath from the run. He skinned the exoskeleton at the top of one leg, carving a line down to its sticky nub at the end, then cast Takekuma Raiser to search for its spirit. These had to be captured before collecting the venom and transferring it into anti-venom.

  Ja-Seong’s leveling the last two nights gave him an additional level to his Ranger class, and the spell that broke in half the first try evolved into Hunter’s Gambit.

  As an offensive spell, Hunter’s Gambit risked in order to gain an advantage. If he risked an early strike, or the first strike, for example, and his intended advantage was to put them on the defensive or start with a disadvantage brought about from his strike, the risk could form into various retorts. It could be their evade gains a higher percent than base—all depending on level-to-level matchups, conditioning, accuracy of attack and ability for the recipient to maneuver… several factors would influence the result, and the low level of 1 in this skill meant the risk to reward would be nearly even. The cost was twice his other base level spells, but as Dryfu had coached him, use it as often as you can to reap the rewards of a higher level and lower risk later.

  All that to say, Tim was tempted to blow their cover in a White Fire assault wide enough to circle their camp, then they could bolt for the secret tunnel he had taken the first time he came through he with Inte.

  He’d much rather skate to the orchard and make sure the kids were okay before he shut his eyes this night. He was plenty exhausted, and his slow as molasses regen on top of the cost to add Hunter’s Gambit to his cocktail. Not much longer.

  Another benefit to Hunter’s Gambit, and a large reason why he endured migraines and tremors down his legs, was how it worked with Party Oversight, if woven efficiently. He could risk ten percent greater reach to ping local allies, but a nearly equal reach to potential enemies.

  Leth huri surrounded them. Venom glistened from maws rowed in fangs, wide open in anticipation of finding the home of his scent. They sniffed at the remnants of his fight with the ricken earlier. So far, his new camp was hidden.

  His force broke a dead leth huri’s limb, and its spirit glimmered along a crease no longer than his thumbnail. He hooked his finger inside before it could slip out. His tip pressed it to the curved and slick interior, and it wrestled free.

  One of the leth huri clicked bone on bone as it craned its head back toward Tim. Ten feet away, it stared through him as though to spear him to the wall.

  Tim had no idea if it saw him and was waiting for him to make the first move. His heartbeat sucked strength with each weighted thump.

  Saliva dropped off a fang into the shadows. The leth huri took another stride, it’s multi legged effort gliding with the welcome embrace of a cold shiver. Ten feet crossed in the mesmerizing dance.

  Tim was tempted to drop it all and stab White Fire into this punk’s cranium just for looking at him wrong.

  At a mere foot from Tim’s sweat ridden face, the aroma of boiling cabbage in pine tar it exuded was enough to tempt him to scoop his insides out with an orange peeler.

  Not yet.

  Dryfu landed on his crown as gently as a branch in a breeze. One of his level up additions granted him greater comprehension in his reading and translation. Over the last three days Tim barely made it out of bed let alone downstairs to the library. Nevertheless, Dryfu read, and they discussed until he thought Tim had a handle and they could move on.

  One of the topics they studied was the resistance travel routes. It so happened one of the tunnels leading out of this park was one of those routes. Tim’s intended advantage split two ways, to torch the nearest spider baddies and secondly, to send an SOS. Hopefully Jil or someone that could help them would hear and they could go down the mines together. The leth huri were too thick to enter through the farm, and the ricken of the borderlands were too many to go that way with their small company either.

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  The leth huri swayed closer, its red eyes amassing then stretching apart into two cones scanning slowly back and forth.

  It could walk through the bubble, but it couldn’t see them while they were in it, so they only had to remain untouched to keep hidden.

  Three, four, and five little homies marshaled through the weeds like fingers of a nightmare comb weaving their way to scratch the itch once and for all.

  Any nearer and the White Fire he had cooking would torch his friends as well. Kitten gotta purrrr. Tim clenched his diaphragm to expel his c-mana enhanced spell and blew Blinding fire into his hands. Pillars of Aliens meet Dirty Sanchez beaconed the sudden smoking husks to have a bite. Have a good long bite.

  Tim exorcised some of his pent of demons with the cranium crunch he delivered on all Eye-baller. Heat flushed out in a sonic boom of bone and guts. Leth huri skeletons ruptured and split, spraying venom and replenishing aura for Tim to issue the second part of his Hunter’s Gambit.

  He directed the aura into his helmet and mentally sang his dang head off. Shrill skull throbbing power pulsed hair-raising electric energy into a beam that built inside their perimeter for a five count, then launched on a jet, faster than any Danger Ping he’d shot and spreading out with exponentially more width.

  A whip of White fire lashed a lasso around their Protection. Tendrils stuck long enough to rip flesh and singe what stuck to the fire until it evaporated into sour smelling pillars of smoke. In the commotion, the debris filling the air provided extra camouflage, allowing Tim to equip Farji and slice a wider path.

  The Danger Sense element erected a corridor of blue framing. Tim whistled through his helmet and swung his sword through a charging leth huri.

  The beast took the sword above its eyes and in its ducking, Tim dodged the downward bite. His team joined him in the corridor and bolted.

  The pathway illuminated a partially hidden tunnel out. He, Inte and Wilqo equipped pickaxes and slammed them down on the loose rock. Some kind of spill dropped this rubble into a blockage. His Danger Sense read it as their best way out.

  The leth huri scrambled, their many legs punctuating the din of Tim’s escape with their own shuffling through grass and stone.

  Murphy built a bit of steam on his way to the tunnel and jumped for a cannon ball donkey style. His aura boosted leap landed with a wallop that shook the rooks free.

  Inte spread a patch into the ceiling corner by pounding his mallet under its girth weighted down by the loose rock above, separating from a crack inching its way above them.

  Once Tim had everyone through and into a cozy tunnel built for two by two… short folks, then signaled to Inte, who ripped the patch free in time to avalanche the leading leth huri into a ground pounding overbite.

  Danger Sense lit the narrow passage in stone illuminating blue. The upward angle contorted in grooves reminding Tim of the store houses from E’Tic’s memories. Little hidey holes stuffed away in carefully dug guerilla encampments capable of shelter and maybe more to help their cause infiltrating Silo 19’s borderlands on their way to the moon golems.

  Tim drank a tincture and took a moment to redirect toward the Warded pocket of E’Tic’s aura containing memories. Souls pricked with life and beads of new aura helping fuel his vision and steps to guide them through a treacherous tunnel of pipe strong weeds, poisoned with barbs sturdy enough to slice through his armor.

  Poison Resistance flared at each abrasion, seeping strength the martyrs stored in his Spirit Memory Ward refueled in pleasant waves of company and encouragement.

  The boost to his field of vision allowed him a clear enough head to project Party Oversight and fill in the rest of his party on the memories guiding him.

  “Careful,” Rayv replied in his head. “They expanded their territory under the borderlands, including the way E’Tic used to reach the storehouses.”

  Not long after his warning, Tim’s marching pace slowed to the approach before a walled over impasse. Rubble pressed into locked position sealed the six-foot-high walkway. Vines coated the rocks and moss, growing through crevices buried in their girth.

  Tim took out his pickaxe and angled the sharp end at a seam along the top, then dragged the tip across the stone. He cast Draw and Magic Hunt and Analyze in a permeating pressure outward from his blade.

  On the other side, a presence pulled. Tethers hooked into his hip set a course of fire down his leg. The spell flowed through warded aura and contained enough of a hint of ally essence to convince Tim to live and go.

  Dryfu’s awareness alarmed in impatient silence while Tim held still.

  The memory picked up from the oil painting vision of the black smog and red eyes upon the wings of a rising phoenix. Gas hardened into feathers stretched and folded on the tremor of undercurrents. He sailed upon its shadow, eager on its transport to discover its hoped for destiny.

  The phoenix’s eyes watched him from wings strained against turbulence and elevated temperatures. It burned his eyes dry and touched tendrils to delicate flesh atop the roof of his mouth. Yet he had to inhale to proceed.

  A wellspring of power poured into his throat. Light born fissures hollowed space between the eyes, tearing the feathers, to expose the aura emanating from within.

  The Phoenix was E’Tic’s mission, and on the other side of this wall was the intended landing place of his message. Nee, the demon rider who killed E’Tic, chose him because of what E’Tic’s friends had stolen from the mines. A spell derived from the ricken and Venom, though not used in centuries.

  Revelation swept him from Yapeem’s discovery of the scroll of Phoenix and the ultimate spell in its tier tree to E’Tic’s plan to deliver it to Gorin Three Knot before Nee’s bomb sent crushing water works onto the moon golem’s fortress. This was how E’Tic planned to reverse course the relations between humans and moon golems as well as whatever good would come from halting Nee’s plans. Not to mention the potential swell in resistance to the CWAD alliance with Hist by adding moon golems to their side.

  The pile of rocks before him were set by Girri, a dust and drivel rebel with a soul formed by abso and vinegar. At the realization of who cast the spell, purple flares lit along the sheet of moss and vine. Firecracker pops of aura energy set of charges flowing renewed strength and new visions through Tim’s pickaxe into his soul.

  This was the Padstoligan Resistance’s tunnel and the storehouse just inside.

  The foliage burned up in a butterfly and honey display of light motes and aura cinders vibrant in life and thick enough to allow Tim to absorb the spell components. Foliage faded to stone and stone to expanding space as light from the spell cast clearance upon the dirt floor. Dry and cool.

  Fresh oxygen filled him and gathered the cinders of Phoenix Tier 5.

  You have gained the Spells: Eyes of the Phoenix and False Wall.

  Beyond the rise of light and the tunnel floor, stood a man coated in so much dirt and oil the whites in his eyes took over Tim’s focus, along with the mottled bits on broken teeth forming his smile.

  The man slouched to his left in a bowing step desperate for the cane he used to prop the other step toward Tim. His odor emanated sour rot into the tight confines.

  “Quickly.” Girri wagged them in. “Many groups know you’ve come this way.”