Scrambling up the rear castle, Adarin readied a root whip and swung it with all possible speed. It cracked in the air like a powder blast, and Liora interrupted her screeching assault of fingernails on Francesco for a moment to gasp at Adarin.
The soldier assessed the situation instantly. Two merchantmen down the line, the red-haired girl—no longer wearing the flower crown but still the almost indecent white dress—was standing at the front castle, waving to Francesco. Now her hands were in front of her mouth, her eyes wide with shock.
Francesco used the momentary reprieve to push Liora back violently. She stumbled but did not go down. She hissed, her eyes glowing with purple light as the planks of the deck under her blackened.
“You. You…” she hissed, and putrid energy collected in her hands.
Francesco gulped, scrambled back, and went through the gestures of casting an abjuration ward. Before things could escalate—he was a talented illusionist, but abjuration was among his weakest disciplines—Adarin cracked the whip three times in sharp succession, hitting the planks in front of Liora.
He ramped up his sound, not caring about the hurt it would cause him. “Cease this foolishness at once! Have the two of you gone fucking mad?”
He dimly noted how sailors, settlers, and soldiers were scurrying onto the decks, observing the commotion from every deck. Perfect—a public spectacle, right after Oakridge. Commodore Ashfield came running up the stairs to the hindcastle, his uniform half off, a sword in one hand, a pistol in the other.
Francesco rallied quickly. The shock was replaced with a calculating expression, then his face grew angry. “That’s right, Liora. What the fuck do you think you are doing here? You’re behaving like a harlot, you—”
But Commodore Ashfield’s voice thundered over him. “Have you brought a civilian onto my warships?”
Francesco’s head swiveled between his three fellow officers. “I… she—”
The Commodore slashed the air menacingly with his sword, pistol at low ready and advancing. “Have you snuck a blind passenger into my military expedition?” Spittle flew from his mouth.
Adarin moved to restrain him but the man shot him a sharp glance, then a swift nod. He’s acting angry—good.
Liora used the moment to go on the offensive again. “That’s right. You dare bring her here after what you’ve done? And now—”
“Shut up!” hissed Francesco and the Commodore at the same time. Their heads snapped toward each other, locked eyes, then broke contact.
The Commodore made a sharp, precise gesture with his sword. “Lady Liora, what in the Demiurges’ name have you done to my ship’s deck?”
Liora stared at her feet, noticing the black rot spreading across the planks. She gasped, looked from side to side, and ran. Adarin moved to stop her, but the Commodore made a gesture and connected to him over the noospheric link. ‘Let’s deal with her later. This… this is the bigger problem.’
Adarin considered, then sent his answer. ‘Agreed.’
Francesco took an involuntary step back under the attention of the two senior officers. Then he rallied, puffing up his chest. “It is my right as a consul of the Order, as a personal disciple of Archmagister von Erlenwald, to bring guests of the Order—”
The Commodore cut the air with a sharp hiss of his sword. “Even if that is so, any guests have to be registered with the commanding officer. Ever heard of operational security, boy?”
Francesco’s eyes flashed. For the first time Adarin saw something like real hatred in them. This is escalating too fast.
He gestured. “Commodore, I will handle this. Take your rest.”
The Commodore opened his mouth, but Adarin made another cutting gesture. “That’s an order. Your adjutants are here.” He gestured to the side, where the two officers—one mage, one sailor—stood. “They’re perfectly capable of handling this, Commodore.”
The Commodore swallowed hard, then turned and stalked off the hindcastle.
Adarin turned to the naval adjutant. “What is customary as a disciplinary measure for such a breach of protocol and discipline?”
The man glanced at his female mage companion, then at Francesco and Adarin. Gathering courage, he spoke. “A public flogging, sir, for such an offense. Twenty-five lashes at least.”
Fuck. Adarin clenched his fist in the privacy of his mindspace. I cannot have him flogged. And now everyone heard it.
Commodore Ashfield connected again. ‘Need assistance, Commander?’
Adarin almost detected a mocking undertone. ‘Go to sleep, Commodore.’
The older man sighed and cut the connection.
Adarin looked at Francesco, then at the girl. I can’t throw her overboard—or into the wilds. It’s not her fault he’s young and reckless. But damn, the optics of this…
He came to a decision. “I shall defer this to the Archmagister’s judgment. After all, disciplining his disciples is his business.”
A smile spread over Francesco’s face and he inclined his head. “I thank you for seeing reason, Sir Adarin. May I—”
Adarin raised the manipulator. “I am not done yet. The girl will stay on a different ship. If I hear that you boarded the same ship as her, there will be consequences.”
Francesco’s eyes widened. “But my personal gear is on—”
“Figure it out. You’re not entering that ship again without my expressed written permission. Is that clear?”
Francesco pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyebrows. Then he let out a long exhalation, shook his head, and turned away. As he left the command castle, Adarin clearly saw the red marks on his neck—hickeys. Should have noticed that earlier.
—
He walked down to the bow of the ship and found Liora sitting there. She turned, her face wet with tears. Before he could speak, she lowered her eyes.
“I’m… I’m sorry, Adarin. That was so stupid. I just thought…” She trailed off, her gaze falling to the waves of the river.
Adarin gave a companionable hum and just stood beside her for long minutes. So much had to be said, but there was no need to speak it after all that had happened.
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Finally, Adarin cleared his throat. “How about we have a look at our gains from the whole affair?”
He smiled as her eyes went wide at his gains. “Twenty-eight levels? I have never even heard that there is a limit to the amount of levels one can gain per day.”
Adarin chuckled and scared his body with a manipulator. “Let's see your gains, then. You also did a number on the Elder Wyvern. I don't think I could have killed it without you injuring it.”
Liora smiled broadly, then brought up her swirling tattoo.
You have defeated 9 juvenile wood wyverns.
Average normalized strength difference: 581%
Levels gained: 6
You have defeated 4 adult wood wyverns.
Average normalized strength difference: 630%
Levels gained: 4
Congratulations. You have defeated Elder Woodland Wyvern.
Average normalized strength difference: 912%
Levels gained: 4
Adarin let out a low whistle. “Fourteen levels is pretty amazing as well, right?”
Liora nodded and studied her attributes. “A lot of the fixed distribution went into movement. I guess my bait and switch paid off.” She smiled sheepishly at him before swiping on to distribute the free points. “I'll go all in on Perception.” That was all the warning Adarin got before she doped her thirty points. He grimaced. She is still so impulsive at times. He studied her attributes.
Level: 30 [F]
Class: Acolyte of Ishna, Cycle of Life
COG: 121 MOV: 118 RES: 130 PER: 180 SOC: 110 FREE: 0
Finally she tuned to her skill and implant level-ups.
Combat Meditation early Tier 1 → Combat Meditation middle Tier 1
Reinforced Bones lesser Tier 1 → Reinforced Bones early Tier 1
Regenerative Transfusion middle Tier 1 → Regenerative Transfusion late Tier 1
Necromantic Blast early Tier 1 → Necromantic Blast middle Tier 1
After Liora dismissed her system tattoo, she gave him a careful smile. “Thank you, Adarin. I… I think I need some time alone now. In my cabin.”
He nodded and let her go down into the bowels of the ship.
He checked on his own attribute points and allocated them all to Movement. Maybe I'll get another implant before I reach whatever the next system stage is. With a satisfied nod, he dismissed the result.
Level 38 [F]
Class: Tactician, World Tree Guardian
Cog: 212 Mov: 196 Res: 210 Per: 139 Soc: 116 FREE: 0
For a long time Adarin remained at the bow of the Magnolia. Noon came and went. He oversaw Francesco working with the enchanters, oversaw the rotations of the watches, and talked to the adjutants, continuing his education in matters of naval warfare. He flexed, strained, and again felt the system interfering with the data that made up his existence. He was growing stronger, faster, more resilient, more capable. It felt so right—but also wrong. How did the monster call the system? The Outsider. The very name made him shiver.
Adarin felt a sense of doom settling onto him as afternoon came. As the evening settled into the beginning of the night, they reached the first river confluence. Adarin tilted his head as he heard the watch standers begin to murmur.
“Do you see that? There. Movement. Shadows.”
Adarin focused. At that moment the ship’s alarm bell went off, he noticed them. Under sounds of the metallic banging he saw the yellow eyes darting through the undergrowth on the riverside, the flashes of canine teeth. Wolves. Dozens, hundreds.
Adarin ground his teeth. Oh, this is a mess. He reached out over the noospheric link to the officers, dreading the atmosphere at the next meeting. Then he considered and thought better of it. He only called Commodore Ashfield up as anchors were dropped and the fleet came to a halt. Cannoneers and musketeers assembled on the decks in an atmosphere of intense dread, not helped by the frantic howling and rustling sounds from the undergrowth.
Just minutes after Commodore Ashfield had left his cabin, the two men studied the situation.
The Commodore cleared his throat. “I’m assuming this is the first challenge your new friend talked about?”
Adarin sighed. “Yes. And the situation here…” He threw a manipulator wide, gesturing at the dense undergrowth and the many middle-aged beeches. Distantly he could see collapsed piers, the remnants of pillars sticking out of the river. Once there had been a town here. Now the forest had reclaimed it with a vengeance.
For a second he frowned. A pulse ran through one of his implants. Groveheart. It’s reacting like on the island. He filed that away for later investigation.
“So.” The Commodore clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Looks like we got a turkey shoot on our hands.”
Adarin shook his head. “We don’t know how many there are in the undergrowth. Furthermore, shooting the wolves doesn’t solve the real problem. This forest is a disaster if we send men there. A single wolf could slaughter a patrol if it’s smart. No—we’ll need a solution from my world.”
He jumped into the limited protocol database and ran through a list he had perused. Defoliant agents. He smiled. I need to work with Liora, but I have just the right thing in mind.
“Commodore,” he said, and began explaining the plan. The smile on the old naval officer’s face grew ever more vicious.
—
Adarin and Liora stood at the heart of Magnolia's bone white wood ritual circle. The ship’s deck was thick with charcoal black lines, sigils, and copper-bound censers belching bitter smoke. Around them, a dozen mages chanted, weaving energy into the circle’s reservoir. Power built like static before a thunderstorm, humming through Adarin’s wooden frame.
“Now,” he ordered.
Liora stepped forward, trembling but resolute. She fell to her knees, arms stretched wide like some mantis-priestess to the heavens. Her mouth opened, and she shrieked like a banshee. A geyser of putrid green fog erupted from her throat, flooding the circle and pouring outward into the dawn air. Adarin's skin crawled with slick sickness just from the proximity. He shook off the sensation.
The ward-mages shielded the ships and crews with abjurations, but the wolves in the undergrowth were unprotected. Barking turned to coughing, then shrill howls as the vapors fell among them. Serves them right.
Adarin extended his consciousness into the ten spider constructs already scuttling across the forest floor. Their sensors fed him data, and he seized it eagerly.
[Detected: C?H?O? – Catechol]
Phenolic glycosides ruptured. Vacuoles collapsing.
Necrotic energy burst leaf cells apart, spilling catechols into open air.
[Detected: C?H?O? – o-Benzoquinone]
Polyphenol oxidase cascade active.
Catechols oxidized instantly into black, tarry quinones, coating the veins of the first leaves. Protein-binding toxins. A contact poison the tree produced for its own defense—now magnified a thousandfold.
[Detected: H?O? – Hydrogen Peroxide]
Reactive oxygen species generation confirmed.
Peroxide foamed in ruptured tissue, tearing apart chlorophyll, bleaching the green from the canopy into jaundiced yellow.
[Detected: ?OH – Hydroxyl Radical]
Peroxide + iron traces → Fenton reaction.
Hydroxyl radicals shredded membranes, splitting lignin bonds. Cell walls liquefied into slime.
[Detected: C?H? – Ethylene]
Stress hormone. Local concentration +900%.
Each dying leaf screamed its own death to its neighbors, ordering them to join it. Ethylene swept the canopy like a silent plague-wind.
Adarin smiled grimly. Perfect. He chained the processes together, bending the circle’s geometry to vaporize the quinones into a rolling mist. Radicals and toxins rode the fog, scouring intact leaves on contact.
The forest began to eat itself.
Leaves curled and blackened, dropping in torrents. Bark sloughed in greasy strips, sap vessels clogging until roots frothed black ichor into the soil.
Wolves stumbled into the open, eyes clouded red, coughing bloody foam. Their fur fell away in clumps as the vapor burned them down.
The spiders scurried onward—one hundred, two hundred, three hundred meters—carrying the reaction deeper. Adarin repeated the sequence again and again, forcing the rot outward in expanding rings.
Until, within a radius of three kilometers, the beech forest stood stripped and skeletal. Clouds of vapor hung low, acrid with vinegar and blood. Leaves rained down in endless mulch, carpeting the bank in rot. The Dray itself was choked with detritus, a river of death.
The pounding in his skull became too much. He sagged, manipulators trembling, and collapsed to the deck with a hollow thonk.
Liora was already curled in a fetal ball, her body twitching with aftershocks of power.
“Well done,” Adarin murmured, voice slurred. His vision swam with blackened leaves spiraling overhead. Then darkness claimed him.
