Aliandra

  Ali coughed and waved her hand vigorously in front of her face to disperse the remnants of smoke from her recall potion. She gnced around at the familiar bck marble floor with the inscribed runes of the teleportation locus slowly fading, the magical power that had transported her across kingdoms back to the Novaspark Academy receiving room dissipating into the deone.

  Home. It was an odd thought. Myrin’s Keep was certainly not the nice peaceful town that she would have liked as a home, nor was it the ter of learning she had grown up in – nor eveural forest of her father’s Grove. Presumably, she still had an illegal open tract out on her life. But after Volle, Ali felt a sense of relief at returning – a homeing, of a sort.

  Myrin’s Keep broods over the ruins of my past… she shivered. No. I am here now. That’s all gone.

  Yet so many vivid memories lived in her mind. Shivering again, Ali deliberately focused on her present. Her inbound teleportation from Volle was not cheap – traveling such a distah something as weak as a Potion of Recall required a rge infusion of mana from the Novaspark Academy Locus. She quickly arranged for a message to be sent to her friends at the Adventurers Guild so that she wouldn’t o risk walking halfway across town by herself and theled in to refill the mana reserves for the academy locus using her Inspiration.

  While she waited, she turned her attention to the geously crafted runework inscribed into the marble floor. Whoever had made it had been a true artist. The runes were inid silver in a delicate flowing runic script set flush and smooth with the dark marble. The soft glow of purple are mana illumihe entire struct, fring with bursts of energy whenever someone arrived.

  Teleportation Locus – level 42 (Are)A magical locus that serves as an enhaeleport destination.Runic Circle

  Oh, I see its level now! For some reason, this simple, almost trivial development drove home a sense of personal progress and growth in a way that defeating monsters had never done. When she had first used this locus, the advanced runic magic had seemed so powerful and inprehensibly advahat she had only imagined she might be able to uand it someday in a distant future.

  It would take some time for the message to reach her friends and for her mana tee suffitly to cover her teleportatio. She eyed the runes with curiosity and a growing huo know. The official over his paperwork with the zeal of a dog enjoying its favorite bone, and nobody would be b her for a while. She snapped a barrier into the air and sat on it, elevating herself so her feet dangled over the runes, and then powered up her Sage of Learning’s Study Trance. I’ll just memorize all of this, shall I? she thought, as her eyes and mana sight followed the sophisticated mana tracery through the runic structure with her Runic Script and Are Insight skills. After all, the official had given her permission to do just that the first time she had used the locus. She gave herself over to the total focus of her studying.

  “Ali! You’re back!”

  Ali blinked and slowly tore her gaze away from the ruo find Malika rushing toward her with a broad smile on her face, followed close behind by and Mato.

  Runic Script has reached level 16.Sage of Learning has reached level 15.

  The Teleportation Locus shimmered like a mana-imbued picture in her mind, plete airely uood. She had no idea if it would prove useful, but she didn’t care. I got it! I learned a new runistruct!

  “Hi, thanks for ing to get me,” Ali said, hopping off her barrier to greet her friends.

  “Chewing up a few runes?” grinned, his eyes darting to the runic circle as he guessed exactly why she’d been so distracted.

  Mato began, “She’s just hungry –”

  “Of course,” Malika interrupted, giving her a quick hug. “How did it go? Here, let me help you finish paying the mana for this and we talk on the way back.”

  With Malika’s extraordinary talent and her own mostly regeed mana, they quickly settled up and headed out.

  “I got it,” Ali told them, answering the pressing question on all of their minds. “I just o get back to the Grove and try it out on the ke.” She proceeded to tell them all about her adventures in Volle’s Dungeon and about Naia, the Anomalous Mimic Slime who had made it.

  “I’m really flicted now,” Ali said, after expining how she had freed Naia from her impriso. They had just reached the shrine in the Grove, so Ali plopped herself down on a , dry rod studied her friends’ faces, worried that she would find horror or disapproval there. “Dungeons are supposed to be a terrible sce that are full of dangerous monsters like the Skeletal Wyvern or the Wights. But I just couldn’t leave Naia imprisoned like that. Did I do something wrong? Malika, I really missed your perspective down there. What would you have done? If you found a duhat was also a person, and you felt you could trust them, would you have helped?”

  Her friends exged unfortable gnces, and a plex set of emotions flickered aalika’s face. Knowing Malika’s personal dungeoed trauma, Ali was most anxious for her approval, but she was terrified that Malika would hate her for helping the dungeon. She didn’t want to risk her friendship, but she couldn’t see how she would have acted any differently.

  “I would have helped, too,” Malika finally answered. She seemed flicted and terribly unfortable and like she might be on the verge of saying more, but eventually she simply looked at Ali and said, “I think you did the right thing.”

  A huge burden dropped from Ali’s shoulders. Knowing Malika would have made the same decisio liberating and knowing she didn’t hate her for what she had done owerful sense of relief. Ali took a deep breath, settling the turmoil of emotions caused by the knot of worry finally untangling within her.

  “So, what did you guys get up to? How was your lecture, ?”

  “Oh! Lots of drama. broke the guild,” Mato said, with a chuckle as cleared his throat awkwardly and gnced down at the ground.

  “What? What happened?”

  “Half the guild walked out and joihe Garrison or the Town Watch. ’s lecture was great though, he did amazing,” Malika expined. “The newbies think is some strategy god now, like a reination of Lyeneru Silverleaf or something.” Theweehree of them, they filled Ali in oails of how it had happened.

  “Wait, they joihe Town Watch? Isn’t that bad?”

  “Someone has been assassinating guild members, and the Town Watch started cash boo join,” Malika said. “Vivian leaned on the guild and the fkey members quit.” Malika went on to share the details of the exodus. “She was actually pleased about it, right, ?”

  The Half-elf grunted guiltily.

  “Right!” said Mato, wrestling his friend into a pretend headlock. “Right, ?”

  “Oof, get off,” he pined half-heartedly.

  Hmm… Ali had imagined some kind of disaster when Mato mentioned drama, but ohey expined what Vivian Ross had said, she began to uand. Not sure if I agree though, she thought. Strengthening the Town Watch wasn’t something she would have done. But, if their reting of the attitudes of the remaining adventurers stog up on Potions of Recall, asking engaged and curious questions about bat strategy, and where to get better gear was anything to go on, the Guildmaster’s strategy would probably result in much smarter and more prepared adventurers in the long run. At least that’s something. I hope she knows what she’s doing. Ali could certainly appreciate the value of proper training and preparation, given she had started with no uanding of bat, and without her friends, ahe guild, to help her, she would have probably died many times already.

  “Ok, I o get to work,” Ali announced, climbing onto her barrier. Her friends still he elixirs made, and the mana-purified water wasn’t going to make itself. Alighting on the bank of her smelly and murky ke, she paused for a few moments to sider the problem.

  Ugh, this is going to be nasty. First, and in her opinion, most importantly, she inscribed a se runic circle on the bank of the ke. Then she summohree Luminous Slimes arieved her st remaining Uer Breathing potion from her ring ste. This would be so much easier if Seri were here, she thought, but she didn’t want to take the time to travel back to the guild when she could help her friends right now. Wrinkling her the y of what she was about to do, she dowhe nasty potion and dove into the disgusting ke. While she could breathe easily, the potion did nothing to remove the taste of the stagnant waters, nor could it help with the greasy, slimy feel of it on her skin. She shuddered momentarily, and then struck out for the bottom, dragged along by her barrier magic with three Luminous Slimes in tow. She couldn’t see much of anything down here, but the glow from her Luminous Slimes helped, and at least her mana sight was unimpaired by the murk, allowio clearly pick out where her slimes were on the kebed.

  She opened her Grimoire and, guided entirely by mana sight, paged to the mushroom imprint, and began to summon her Psathyrel mushrooms. She summohe tiny water-affinity mushrooms in broad swathes, as many as she could at a time, paying o the mana cost. Whenever she ran low, she destructed anything she could find – rocks and dirt from the ke floor, or even the murky, stagnant water itself. Her mana flowed and mushrooms sprouted as she fell into the zorying to cover as much of the kebed as she could before her potion ran out.

  Imprint: Water pleted.

  Water? Ali looked at the notification for a moment, before deg to dismiss it without adding it trimoire. She couldn’t think of a good use for being able to summon water – especially the mucky stuff she had been using to refill her mana pool.

  Uedly, she inhaled a lungful of water that she suddenly couldn’t breathe. Amid the rising panic of drowning, she interrupted her magic, summoned a barrier, and shot up to the surface, choking and coughing up mud dirty water.

  “Hey, no dying out there!” Mato shouted.

  “Sorry,” Ali spluttered. “Potion wore off.”

  Yuck. In her focus, she had fotten to keep track of her Uer Breathing potion and it had expired while she was still at the bottom of the ke. She drew a ragged breath, spat out some more nasty water, and then made a beeline for her se runic circle, plopping herself down in the ter with a wet spt and finally rexing as the gentle prickle of the magic began to dissolve the stend muck, and her clothes and body began to slowly dry off.

  Grimoire of Summoning has reached level 22.

  Out in the ke though, the greenish-brown muck stirred. Water and sludge swirled zily downward, and, deep beh the surface, she could make out the cascade of blue water-affinity mana spreading out from the bottom where she had pnted her mushrooms. Over the few minutes, streaks of blue broke through the dirt, growing broader and wider like the sky revealed by dissipating storm clouds, until suddenly Ali could see clear through the ke to the rocky bottom and the forest of uer mushrooms she had phe ge was remarkable – brownish-green sludge still poured into the ke from the tributaries, but it dissolved on tact with the rger body of water, leaving the vast expanse of the ke clear and blue. The ge would take loo percote into the mu the bottom and sides, she noticed, but this romising start.

  “Well, that’s much better,” Mato said, staring out at the ke.

  But as Naia had predicted, the water was just water. Nicely purified by the water-affinity mushrooms. I o grow these everywhere.

  She got up, finally , and paged through her Grimoire till she reached the Ooze imprint and summoned one of the Aetheric Slimes Naia had taught her when she had uood Ali’s quest. To her surprise, instead of one, her magic spellbook summoned six of them instead.

  Aetheric Slime – Ooze – level 12 (Are) Swarm x6

  Your reserved mana has increased by +41.

  Ali puzzled over the strange behavior of her magic as the small ooze creatures crawled and wobbled along at her feet. Even the mana reservation seemed in lih a single monster, but there were six almost identical monsters, and she hadn’t been going for volume as she had with her mushrooms earlier. She couldn’t figure it out, but they did seem smaller and perhaps weaker thaher minions around their level. And they did Identify as a swarm, like those Stinging Jellies.

  “Go,” she told them, shooing them toward the ke. Blobbing happily, the tiny blue monsters reminded Ali of Naia as they wobbled down the bank and into the water.

  “Now what?” Malika asked. All her friends were watg ily.

  “Noait, I guess…” Ali studied the ke carefully, watg the almost invisible blue slimes crawl around seemingly at random, expl their new home. They left swirls of are mana behind that created eddies and currents in the ambient water affinity mana the mushrooms were produg, all of which was within the weave of her domain that permeated the entire ke.

  She watched for several minutes, searg for any sign that it might be w, but she had no idea what she was looking for. For all she knew, it might take weeks. Naia hadn’t expined much to her, so she began w that she hadn’t do right.

  Do I need more slimes? Or more mushrooms? Is the ke too big? Is there a missing ingredient?

  As she was w, the swirls of mana within the ke began to synize, eddies and vortices began to ftten out and quieten down, and suddenly, the entire ke stilled, frozen, and unmoving as if waiting in anticipation. Deep in the ter of the ke, a kernel of intense blue appeared. In the instant, a shockwave rippled out from the ter – a silent explosion of mana that shot through the entire ke in a fra of a sed.

  What was that?

  Malika gasped.

  “Whoa,” Mato breathed.

  Slowly, as she watched, the water began to glow, turning a deep cerulean blue that quickly spread throughout the ke, lighting up the trees and the cavern around it with a beautiful rippling light. A glow that she reized instantly.

  “Wow, you don’t see that every day,” quipped.

  “An A Fae doing real magic?” Malika grinned. “Astonishing, right?”

  It worked!

  Ali sat back, basking in the glow and enjoying the beauty of the ke. She didn’t eveo check; she k was mana-purified water.

  “That’s so cool!” Mato said, his voice managing to be awestrud excited at the same time.

  Ali turo find her friends grinning in delight at the radiant blue light that now illuminated almost half the gigantiderground cavern.

  “Here you go,” Malika said, making a rge steel bucket appear in her hand and to help Ali fill it from the ke.

  “Why do you have a bucket in y?” It was rather handy, she had to admit, but even though their new silver rings allowed much more ste, space wasn’t free and there was almost always somethier to put in there.

  “I had Weldin find me one in the market so we could bring enough to impress Eliyen,” Malika answered.

  “But… how did you…?” Ali’s question faltered, half-formed, as a grinning Malika wi her and duhe bucket in the ke.

  But Malika is always so careful with money. Ali had felt so unsure of herself when she had set out to face her first dungeon alone. She felt a lump ihroat and a tightness in her heart as she realized Malika had believed in her enough to buy the bucket before she had eveurned.

  Why am I gettiional about a stupid bucket?

  She identified the bucket, not because she o, but more to distract herself from her embarrassing feelings.

  Mana-purified water.

  ***

  “Wele back, Aliandra.” Eliyen’s expression was calm and serene, as usual, but Ali could sense an expecy that might be lurking just below the carefully schooled elveures. Even the ck of an explicit query about how her quest had gone hung waiting in the air, unasked.

  Ali retrieved the ten vials she had filled in the dungeon and pced them oable. Not wanting to leave her hanging lohan necessary, Ali decided to start with what had not gone acc to pn.

  “I learhe mushrooms, but it turns out that they only the water, they do not create mana-purified water. And I chose not to kill the dungeon.”

  Eliyen’s face fell, disappointed and sad, rather than angry or frustrated.

  “But the dungeon shared the real secret, and I made this,” Ali said, making Malika’s bucket full of mana-purified water appear on the work surfaext to the vials.

  “Oh… Oh my!” Eliyen’s face lit up with a smile of joy. “Do you know hootions I make with that much? That’s more than I could get in a decade! You will have your elixirs – and know that your as will save dozens of lives.”

  “She made aire ke of this stuff. You should see it, the glow lights up the entire cave,” Mato said.

  Eliyen’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but all that came out was a choked spluttering and a cough. “A… ke?” she finally managed.

  “Yup,” Mato answered, clearly enjoying the effect.

  “Well, then…” Eliyen said, colleg herself with obvious effort. “Maybe we save a few more than a dozen. Basil, e and learn how to make the Elixir of Vitality Rejuvenation. It seems we will be making lots of them iure. And you, my dear…” she said, turning back to Ali. “I would love to hear the full story of your advehe duold you how to make this?”

  While Ali reted her adventures with Volle’s Dungeon and Naia, Eliyen’s hands worked with practiced ease, retrieving dried herbs, roots, and various essences and tinctures that glowed with magical potency. Her movements were deft and precise, measuring and mixing with a tinual flow of mana from her hands, a she never missed a word of Ali’s tale. Basil sat in rapt study beside her writing notes as the small cauldron boiled, and the various tinctures stirred themselves with the mana the Elven herbalist added.

  She pulled out a small glowing green crystal, suffused with a deure affinity mana, and ground it up using an imbued mortar ale before measuring a minuscule quantity to add to her creation.

  Ali surreptitiously Identified it.

  Living Essence

  By the time Ali finished up with her story, Eliyen filled three waiting vials with liquid from her magical brewed co, and the fluid slowly settled and began to glow with a soft green light.

  Elixir of Vitality Rejuvenation – level 25 (Nature)e: A potent curative elixir capable of reversing severe madies, poison, corruption, or diseases affeg vitality.Created by Eliyen Mistwood.Potion

  “Take this with food. You should begin to see an improvement within a few hours. I reend not doing anything too strenuous until you’re fully healed – which should take no more than a week. e bad see me if it doesn’t fully clear up by then.”

  “A week?” Mato groaned, stretg his back.

  said, “You perfee of your recipes, see your family…”

  “Thank you,” Ali said, and her words were echoed by her friends as they each collected one of the elixirs.

  As she turo leave, Eliyen stopped her, “And Aliandra, please sider what sort ement you would like for the water a me know when you’re ready. You have no idea how much good we do with what you have achieved.”

  ***

  “Why was she so shocked when Mato told her about the ke?” Ali asked. The ke shimmered and rippled with new, active energies, sending the casg blue light out in all dires. It was certainly beautiful, and it was full of an important reagent. But for someone like Eliyen to react sly, Ali was sure she was missing some important implication.

  “Remember when I told you the vials were worth about a gold each?” Malika asked.

  “Yes?” Ali answered. The rare mana-purified water was certainly an expensive reagent, making the elixirs all the more difficult to get. Ali’s eyes traced the pretty blue patterns in the ke before her mind made the e. “Oh!” she excimed; her mind staggered by the volume of water in the serene blue ke with its shifting glowing light – and how much it might all be worth.

  “Depending on how you choose to structure your deal with Eliyen, you have a real ce of breaking the potion market. Some of those elixirs are going to bee dirt cheap,” Malika answered.

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” Ali asked.

  “For the people needing potions, yes,” Malika said, thoughtfully. “Provided the Herbalists and Alchemists stay in business.”

  “Hey, I just gained bae of my drained health!” Mato’s excmation was met with all-arouement.

  That’s a relief. It was definitive proof that the aged Elf’s magic elixir otent as she had cimed. So much of the tension Ali hadn’t even realized she’d been holding va the evidehat her friends were finally on the mend. Her solo experien the dungeon had been successful but knowing that her friends would be fine was the final piece of the puzzle.

  She took a deep breath, staring out over her now beautiful ke with her happy friends. tent, Ali finally turned her attention inward and pulled up her notifications.

  Grove Warden has reached level 38.+10 attribute points.

  Are Insight has reached level 21.Are Bolt has reached level 21 (+2).Barrier has reached level 28.Martial Insight has reached level 21.Empowered Summoner has reached level 19.

  One level, for defeating a whole dungeon? She sidered it for a few moments. I guess I did outlevel everything by a lot. Plus, these higher levels are being harder, as keeps reminding us. Naia’s minions had been surprisingly effective, but the bination of the low levels and there being no boss monsters probably meant the challenge hadn’t been as hard as it had felt – and she hadn’t really defeated Naia in the end. But there were a few molden glowing notifications waiting for her attention.

  Requirements met for skill adva.

  Are Bolt has reached level 20.Intelligence has surpassed 150.Simultaneously tracked multiple targets in bat.Simultaneously used multiple targeted attack skills in bat.Defeated a swarm of more than fifty monsters.

  Are Bolt gains Multishot.

  Are Bolt – level 20Mana: Fire up to 3 [1 + skill / 10] small are bolts that accelerate and curve toward your mentally chosen target. Bolts be indepely targeted.Are, Ranged, eled, Intelligence

  Accept this adva?

  Oh, that’s nice! Ali studied the skill advance for her Are Bolt spell carefully. There was nothing subtle about it – it was a straightforower increase in her primary bat magic. Shooting three bolts at a time meant three times the power. The requirements were curious too, clearly the adva was based on her ability to split her attentioween multiple spell targets and monsters in bat – a mental tool she had o practice exteo manage her minions and her skills simultaneously. As her intelligeribute had grown, her ability to pay attention to more things grew ensurately.

  The swarm requirement must have beeinging Jellies. That one seemed pretty obvious to her. But what were the multiple targeted attack skills? Direg her minions to attack seemed to not quite fit the requirement. She simply sent her instrus to them to use their skills.

  Oh, wait, Barrier! She suddenly recalled the relentless Scalding Slimes tearing their way through her bone rotes to get at her and shooting shards of her Barrier magic through the gap to puncture the aggressive oozes while simultaneously shooting with her Are Bolt spell.

  It reized Barrier as an attack skill… wow! I did not see that ing. Her practice while trying to get her Barrier magiute the Glimmer Shards seemed to have paid off, but she had dohat mostly as an intellectual curiosity. She had not expected it to be useful or affect her personal growth at all – and even itle, she had used it more out of desperation than any coherent purpose. Yet her work practig her Barrier magic had somehow led to a powerful adva for her Are Bolt skill.

  This ges… a lot of things. She had been thinking of her Barrier skill as purely a defeool in battle, nothing more than a hard wall that could be thrown in the way of ining attacks. Are Bolt was her only attack skill – but she already had ample evidehat her spells could be used in multiple ways. She regurly used her barrier to fly, and it had even gaihe movement trait because of it. This was tellihere was more. Merely practig using her skills in an unusual way had led to this powerful advance – an ued iioween two of her skills. It was something she had always read and knew about, but seeing it py out suddenly made it a lot clearer. Practig shaping her barriers into shards for attack, or spheres for defense might be the thing that unlocked her skill growth, paying powerful dividends iure.

  I have a week while the others recover. What else I learn? Maybe I ask Ryn if she has any new magic books… and will have a lot of ideas for sure.

  Seth

  Requirements met.You have gained one primary css slot.

  The notification chime reached down into the dark recesses of Seth’s mind, where he cowered quivering in horror and fear. The surprise of it shattered his fragile defenses, yanking his awareness bato the awful reality.

  Why now?

  He vaguely recalled he had been waiting for his css initiation to begin for several weeks now. Earning a Lumberjack ger css would have been such a boon for him and Gran. Only now, she was… his mind shied away from what y down that path, and his eyes avoided the crumpled heap lying unnaturally still on the ground.

  He stood out in the sun in what remained of Lyton’s town square. His skin was already cracked and reddened from exposure to the sun. Beside him were four other youths from the town – all from families he knew and had grown up with.

  The only survivors.

  The white-robed mage had desded on Lyton Town like a demon of ice, leaving behind a wake of frozen blood and broken bodies. He had k out there, not far from where he now stood, clutg Gran’s body as the ice through her stomach had stolen her smile, and the kind wrinkles around her eyes. He had screamed, frustrated and furious in the face of overwhelming power and the senselessness of it all, powerless to turn the nces of ice from his own flesh. A, inexplicably, he was still alive. Instead of taking his pain, the mage had bound him to a pole.

  He blinked, his eyes blurred and filled with grit. From up ahead, a tall figure emerged from the forest. A figure dressed in an expeailored bck suit. The ground shook. And then again, as if struck by something of immense weight.

  “Put her over there,” the man said, his cultured and ingruously calm voice carrying clearly across the town square.

  A giant figure emerged from the forest, dragging something behind it. Bed tusks lohah’s forearm protruded from its rotting lower jaw. An enormous three-toed foot raised high into the air and when it came down the ground shook once more. Seth’s breath died in his throat.

  Zombie!

  The man strolled across the square toward Seth, his eyes studying the prisoners. “Thank you, Roderik,” he said. “These will do nicely.”

  “No problem,” came the response as the terrifying Ice Mage rouhe er.

  The man in the suit approached, and before Seth k, he produced a colr and s shut around his throat. With a deft movement, Seth’s bindings were cut, and he colpsed to the ground. He y there for a moment, coughing in the dust.

  “Get up,” the man anded.

  I ’t… But to Seth’s horror, his body forced him to his feet at the man’s words.

  “Stay,” he anded, ah found his body freezing in pce as simir colrs were attached around the necks of the other prisoners.

  “Do you need me for anything else, Alexander?” Roderik asked. “There are many demands on my time.”

  “No, you go. I have a lot of work to do.”

  “Call if you need me,” Roderik said and promptly vanished.

  “Time to get to work,” Alexander decred to nobody in particur and walked out into the square, pausing for a moment to gnce down at Gran’s crumpled body.

  “Arise!” he said in a voice, suddenly deeper and thrumming with power.

  A scream bubbled up ih’s throat as Gran’s body twitched. It writhed from the inside, and before his very eyes, her bones ripped their way out of her body and stood up behind the man dripping gore onto the ground.

  “You shut up,” Alexander said, ah’s throat shut down on the scream against his will. “You, brihe bodies of everyone else,” he said, and the skeleton that had once been his Gran rushed off to do his bidding.

  Seth’s mind fled into the darkness.

  ***

  “You, e with me.”

  Seth’s mind reected with reality at the discertiion of his body moving of its own accord. While his legs obeyed without his permission, following the neancer, his mind screamed and railed against the pulsion that flowed from the colr, f his obedience.

  But his body followed to where a woman y in a crumpled heap against a thick wooden stake that had been driven into the ground.

  “Tie her up, and then feed her this.” In his hand was a vial of the darkest bck liquid Seth had ever seen. He shuddered inwardly at the aura of evil leaking from the vial.

  Seth’s hands reached to do as he was anded, and his mind railed against the pulsion once again, but to no avail. He grasped the potion and the rope and began to tie the woman to the post.

  While his hands worked against his will, his mind was clear to observe what he was being forced to do. The person, or creature the neancer had dragged unscious out of the forest was easily the most beautiful person he had ever seen – smooth clear skin of vibrant green, with leaves clothing her body and filling her hair, soft delicate features, and elfin ears. She looked regal, even id out on the ground. He tried to be gentle, but the pulsion forced his hands to tighten the bonds.

  He removed the stopper from the vial, and immediately a dense bck smoke began bubbling out of it, falling to the ground and seeping in. His nostrils were assailed by an indescribable stench, but still, his hands moved to lift the woman’s head, open her mouth, and pour the vile fluid dowhroat. Within seds, dark patches and bruises broke out on her skin, and a couple of leaves in her hair began to wither and die. He felt sick to his stomach, realizing he was hurting her, perhaps killing her, in some horrific way.

  A loud tearing crack echoed out from the forest, snapping his head around. To his horror, he found the giant zombie troll walking out of the forest, dragging an enormous, uprooted oak, branches splintered, roots shedding soil.

  No! Even though Lyton was a logging town, they always respected the forest, drawing from the new growth, aing the trees that they harvested. Never, never would they cut one of the a oaks. Gran had always told him they o respect the forest spirit that made its home in the dangerous heart of the woods. If they left the big oaks, the spirit would tolerate their modest logging.

  But nothied to the sacrilegious destru of the a oak, and the zombie simply deposited it in the massive smoking hole the skeletons had dug, returning to the forest with heavy steps to get another.

  Suddenly, he looked down at the bound woman he had just poisoned in horror, urgently using his Identify skill as he had been taught.

  Dryad [Great Mother of the Deep Woods] – Sylvan, Tree Spirit – level ???

  ***

  Seth’s mind fled to his safe, dark er while his body carried out the neancer’s bidding. He had been given the gruesome task of colleg the remains of the dead bodies of the vilgers – most of them ripped and torn apart by the violera of their own animated skeletons. If he had been in trol of his own body, he would have fled, thrown up, and screamed. Instead, his mind recoiled from the sight of the gory remains of his friends and neighbors, screaming ihat he had poisohe a forest spirit that they had all so revered.

  When his mind finally re-emerged from hiding, he was standing again, watg the neancer do something indescribably horrific with the remains of the flesh and the extracted ash from the giant oak trees burning i. As he stood there, the zombies returned again and again, feeding the a, sacred trees to fuel the scorg fire, sending tinuous bck billowing smoke rising into the sky.

  It was too much. His mireated into numbness as the neancer molded the dead flesh and the ash with his evil magic.

  “You, e.”

  Seth stepped forward before his frightened mind could register the and. Several skeletons waited in a loose circle around the neancer. He could no loell which was which. The neancer, Alexander, lovingly caressed what could only be described as an abomination of flesh, reassembled into a chaos of horrifying nightmare. It was about the size of a dog, but there was no resembo anything wholesome or natural. A patchwork of randnizable human parts stitched together in ways that made no sense.

  The neaood up and gave him a happy smile, somehow still immacutely dressed in his suit. With a gesture, three skeletons gathered up three of the twitg flesh monsters.

  “Take these out into the forest. Walk in that dire and release one of these Patchwork Horrors every hour, and then e back. Use the skeletons to carry them and defend yourself if needed. Make sure you take care of yourself – I don’t want to lose my sacrifice gang unnecessarily. Just before you release eae, feed it one of these potions.” He handed Seth three vials of a simir pitch-bck liquid, just like the one he had fed to the Dryad. “Any of the mouths will do.”

  Without the ability to resist, he set off with his skeletoinue carrying their nightmare flesh monsters, while hearing the neancer repeat the instrus with each of the other colred youths.

  His mind quavered and trembled, as he desperately tried to ighe g of skeleton bohat followed him, and the abominations they carried. But the forest felt peaceful and quiet after the horror of the undead hive that the neancer had raised from the ruins of Lyton Town.

  After what might have been an hour, he stopped. His feet were bleeding, but the pulsion did not care. One of the skeletons deposited a twitg patchwork flesh stru at his feet, and he ko feed it the potion. It took him a moment to find something that resembled a mouth, eventually deg to split the potioween two openings that seemed to tally have several humah each.

  He recoiled internally against the stench as he uncorked the vial, but his hands were steady as they poured the liquid in. For several moments nothing happehehing spasmed – and to his horror, scrambled to its – well limbs would have been generous. It had two isoted hands and one foot attached to various parts of its fleshy exterior. Three unected eyes sprang open, looking around with demented feverish urgency. An acrid bck miasma began p from various orifices as it began to move.

  The monster scrambled its way over to the ree, belg its miasma. Wherever the deuff settled, pnts withered and bed, dying in seds.

  Blighted Patchwork Horror – Undead Abomination – level ??

  His pulsion made him stand, setting out in the dire he had been instructed. His colr did not care that it made him walk through the dense miasma ging to the ground, ign his mind railing against the absolute tyranny of the neancer’s spoken and.

  His chime sounded as soon as he walked through the miasma, but he didn’t o read the notification to know he had been ied with something dire. It seeped into his flesh, spreading excruciating pain and bing his skin in patches like the Dryad he had ied.

  You have been ied with Undead Blight.A debilitating iion that grows stronger every day, rotting flesh and propagating to everything it touches.-1% to maximum health+1 t per day10% ce to spread Undead Blight on tactIf you die while ied, your body will be raised as a zombieSmall ce per vitality to recover from Undead BlightDisease – t: 1

  It was only by the time o release the third mohat he somewhat recovered his wits. It happened wheomatically pushed a face-height branch out of the way and suddenly realized that the a had ion to the pulsion from the colr.

  It didn’t stop me.

  Cautiously, he began experimenting – probing the limits of his freedom. Very quickly he discovered he couldn’t bring his hands anywhere he colr. Nor could he deviate from the path chosen for him by the neancer. Any thought of throwing the vial away was simply ignored by his body, and if he pushed for it, he quickly earned himself a splitting headache. But minor ges seemed to be ignored. He could bend over, provided he didn’t stop walking. He could move obstacles out of his way, and he could look around.

  Everywhere he looked, he found the lush and verdant growth of the a woods – oak trees as big around as houses. It was a forest that had sustaihe small logging vilge, and provided their livelihood – and iurn, they had respected the a woods. Yet Seth knew with certaihat all of it would be gone in a few days, blighted, aroyed by the Patchwork Horrors he was being made to set loose upon the revered forest.

  He hung his head in despair, trying not to look at all that would be destroyed by his handiwork, while the pulsion forced him onward. But in the depths of his anguish, his eyes caught sight of something lying orail a few yards ahead. Something small and round.

  An a!

  For reasoirely unknown to him, the a lit a tiny flicker of hope within his heart. As were seeds, and seeds represented life and new growth. He had no idea what he was going to do with it, but he stooped down as the pulsion forced him to ast and scooped up the a and put it in his pocket.

  A small, and perhaps meaningless gesture of defiance against his plight, but Seth kept his eyes orail, hoping that luck may allow another a to cross his path.

  timewalk