The Wanderer woke up to the feeling that something was very, very wrong.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out that the problem came from the Broken Lands; even before he called on the link he had to the Hallowed who gave him the feeling of danger, he could tell which direction they pointed and nothing else was in that direction. The Broken Lands were isolated and separated.

  It was also not a surprise that the problem had to do with the last issue he’d had in the Broken Lands. What was a surprise was that it wasn’t the death of one or all of his most recent Hallowed there at the hands of the Broken Lord.

  Instead of loss, he felt power flowing towards him through a link that should have gone only the other way, a link that he’d given his Hallowed no way to touch or call on. It was far too dangerous to even speak without the concealment of the Guide. The Broken Lord hunted those links.

  Something was indeed very, very wrong.

  The Wanderer peered into the distance and saw the space around his Hallowed. He should have seen their entire surroundings, but everything around them was missing, covered in blackness as if it weren’t there. A dark slate surface appeared first, covered in white concentric circles filled and surrounded by glyphs he did not recognize. It was a diagram that was clearly meant to do something, even if he had no idea what. It reminded him a little of things he’d seen M’Beja draw when she talked about spells, though it was more complex and the symbols varied more than what he remembered.

  He didn’t have time to examine it closely before the sputtering, slowly expanding, colorful ball of flame and lightning that rose from the center of the drawing pulled his attention away from the ground. He couldn’t see his Hallows; he knew they were alive and inside the sphere. It was mana run wild, magic and the power of the Patrons conflicting and exploding.

  The drawing on the floor was somehow stopping him from seeing outside its bounds. The Wanderer could see where some of the licks of lightning reached towards the edge of the visible area, but they always stopped before they got there. He could only hope that what prevented him from seeing out also prevented the Broken Lord from seeing in; if this was visible from the outside, there was no way his former friend would miss it.

  The exploding ball was the source of the power that ran towards him, more power than a city of his followers would send. The Wanderer could only think of one sort of thing that could send that much power this quickly: an artifact of another Patron. In the Broken Lands, that meant the Broken Lord; while other Patrons were active in his territory the way the Wanderer was, collecting enough power to create an artifact that would allow a Patron to directly intervene in an area was difficult.

  The Wanderer had never done it in the Broken Lands. He wasn’t about to send his Hallows out to kill other Hallows for the power their Patrons invested in them, and any other method was far too easy for the Broken Lord or his servants to find. A few of the other Patrons had tried, but as far as the Wanderer knew, their artifacts were all destroyed, their power stolen by the Broken Lord.

  The Wanderer could see his links to his Hallowed inside the power-filled space. Sophia’s link burned the brightest, carrying both her own power and that of her two linked Hallows, Cliff and Taika. Dav’s was dimmer, but it still carried more power than was safe for someone who didn’t even have his first upgrade.

  This was not what the Wanderer expected or intended. They were far too weak to fight the Broken Lord’s followers. That was why he told the Transcendent about Sophia’s misstep in stealing the entire Broken Sword; Vorian was supposed to have his strongest local follower take it from her and hide it, preferably somewhere that would either destroy it or more likely simply take the Broken Lord’s followers time and lives to recover. He certainly wasn’t supposed to have them help him steal the Broken Lord’s power!

  This was all too likely to kill all four of them.

  There was something the Wanderer could do, but he couldn’t do it while the power still seethed in opposition to another power. The Broken Lord’s power was fully hostile, as it should be since his people were trying to steal it.

  The Wanderer looked closer. There were two links other than his own present: one to Aeric Openhand, the Beastmaster, and the other to Vorian, the Transcendent. The link to Aeric was smaller, and the Wanderer knew Aeric would not mind if the Wanderer took most or even all of the power. It was not the Beastmaster’s way to steal from another; he wouldn’t prevent his follower from doing it, especially not when the target was the Broken Lord, but he also wouldn’t get in the way.

  The Transcendent was a different story. The Wanderer had no question this was his fault, even if he couldn’t escape some of the blame. He was the one who told Vorian, after all.

  The Wanderer Stepped from his Realm to the Transcendent’s. It was always disorienting, and how different their Realms were didn’t help. Going from a comfortable, open-air view that overlooked distant islands that floated in the clouds of a beautiful day to a mad wizard’s study surrounded by a perpetual storm was always going to be disorienting, no matter how often he made the trip.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “You’re early,” a voice complained from near the floor.

  The Wanderer looked down and suppressed a grin. He never knew what to expect when he visited his more than slightly cracked friend, but right now Vorian fit in all too well with the flaming beakers. His voice came from a two-foot-tall floating flaming octopus monster with glowing eyes. It was impossible to tell if that was Vorian or something he’d chosen to disguise himself as, but the Wanderer doubted his friend would stay that size for long. He always hated not being able to reach his experiments.

  “You were expecting me, Vori?” The Wanderer knelt to put his face at the same level as his friend’s. “Now why would that be?”

  “Because my Hallowed decided to involve people two upgrades below him in a Task I specifically said was second upgrade.” Vorian sounded annoyed, which made the Wanderer relax a little.

  This wasn’t at all what it looked like, which probably explained both Vorian’s current shape and the fact that he was literally on fire. He was angry, but he was angry partially at himself. That tended to make the Transcendent flame and shrink. It didn’t explain the tentacled format, but the Wanderer knew better than to ask about Vorian’s shape. He’d made that mistake and he definitely didn’t need another lecture on the limitations of the human form on both mental and physical capabilities. Once was enough.

  “It does present some interesting options,” Vorian admitted.

  The Wanderer shook his head at his friend. “Tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

  Two of Vorian’s many arms lifted up above his head in an obvious shrug. “Two of them should have been mine. You know that. They have the most beautiful Warps. They’re both Anomalies. Do you know how rare it is for the heavily Warped to stay allied with their base species? And the other one, the purple one; I’ve never seen a Warp that extreme that affected solely the body, but I can’t find any effects on his mind. I’ve looked.”

  The two arms that had shrugged drooped forward in what was probably a frown. The Transcendent might try to change everything about himself, but some things never changed and his body language was similar enough that the Wanderer could still read it. “Not that I’ve been able to look very closely. Why did you have to steal him from me?”

  “He was a lost traveler,” the Wanderer answered easily. “And the Guide called him an orphaned baby as well; you know that places him under my aegis.”

  “The Guide is wrong.” Vorian’s eyes flared with green fire. The Wanderer knew it was mostly for show, but there had to be something behind it as well. “None of them are babies; both Sophia and Dav are in their twenties, I’d guess, while Cliff is older. I have no clear idea on Taika, but the fragments he has left indicate another relatively young adult, likely past the age for a Profession.”

  “The Guide is often wrong,” the Wanderer agreed. “Now tell me what you’re planning to do about it. If you offer them a choice of Patrons, I do not think they will choose you. Not if you’re honest. And you’d best not be offering them the poisoned Hallowing of the Broken Lord.”

  The Wanderer didn’t think that was even an option for the Transcendent; the limits the Broken Lord placed on his false-Hallowed for power were completely antithetical to Vorian, both as a man and as a Patron. There were reasons the Transcendent and the Wanderer were often allied, and it wasn’t simply their long friendship.

  It made for a great way to rile up Vori, though. The Wanderer grinned openly as that half of the Transcendent’s study / lab went up in blue flame.

  While he waited for his friend to literally cool down enough to talk, the Wanderer reached out along the links he had to his Hallowed. Nothing significant had changed yet, but he could already see that the lightning was starting to leave small, nearly invisible, marks on the floor. If the pattern was the reason the Wanderer couldn’t see outside the area, those marks made it all too likely that the Broken Lord would eventually be able to see in. Unlike both the Wanderer and the Transcendent, the Broken Lord didn’t have to be careful about what he sent his people; he could command them to chase the group and even tell them an exact location, once he had it.

  “Why are you trying to purify the entire Sword at once?” the Wanderer muttered to himself. “One piece at a time would give you a chance to repair things between pieces.”

  “I told Los’en to handle them all at once if he had enough Hallowed,” Vorian answered as the fire dissipated to reveal an octopus that still had far too many arms but was no longer on fire. It was half again the size it had been before, which still meant the top of Vorian’s head was roughly at the Wanderer’s waist. He was definitely feeling better. “Only they were supposed to be past the second upgrade! How could he miss that?”

  “I doubt he did,” the Wanderer answered. Now that he’d wound Vori up, it was time to let him down gently. “Did you say why it was a second upgrade Task? It looks like he guessed it was because of the Templars. I wish I could show M’Beja this diagram. I bet she’d know if it’s doing what I think it’s doing.”

  “She would like it,” Vorian answered. The air around him wavered and began to snow.

  He’d have to get past that someday. It wasn’t like M’Beja was dead. At least, the Wanderer was pretty sure she wasn’t. She was, however, indisputably gone and that was bad enough for the man who’d idolized her.

  “So if you’re not going to try to control them like the Broken Lord,” the Wanderer started, expecting the disbelieving grunt that came from his friend, “What are you planning to do with the power?”

  “I’m going to teleport them out of there, of course,” Vorian answered. “That was always the plan. There’s more than enough power to manage that, even with the stuff you and Aeric are siphoning off. As long as they finish, the Broken Lord won’t be able to find where they land because it’s part of a Task award. If there’s enough left, I will offer what else I can. I want to grant Los’en a Signature ability, to help him reach for Grand, but for the others…”

  “I have some ideas,” the Wanderer said with a grin. “We have some time; let’s talk. Let’s start with how we’re going to save their lives.”

  Vorian’s study makes me wince. He should not have uncontrolled fire that close to his books. Even if they are fireproof. They have to be, given how often he sets himself on fire…