I watched Kiszo begin to hand out the plethora of weapons to the guards. She and the chief bagged the cores and began to organize the villagers in groups to get as many belongings as possible before heading to the closest village to warn of the attack and hopefully get behind their walls for a night of protection.

Kiszo returned shortly after with a large bag on her back. I assumed it was the supplies we needed. Two others behind her with similar packs.

“This is Jaa and Omar. They will be joining us on our little journey that will most certainly result in our deaths. But we’ll not give up on the children and other villagers. I can’t stand the thought of Beema being down there,” said a sad Kiszo.

I would have to tell her about Beema and my ability to die as soon as everyone left the village. We helped the last villagers pack their belongings on the salvaged wooden carts, and they were gone. I walked away and flagged Kiszo to come over.

“There are two things I need to tell you, Kiszo. Both may be very hard to take in. First, Beema is safe and sound, but she is no longer with us,” She grabbed me and lifted me off the ground before I could say another word.

“Where is she?” she growled.

“Let me go, and I’ll tell you, damnit.” She kept me in the air at eye level anyways.

“You ever hear rumors of her talking to flowers? Or the other kids making fun of her?”

“Yes, a child with a vivid imagination when they had no one else to play with.”

“What If I told you she really was talking to someone or something? These somethings were who warned me to take Beema inside the village, then brought me to this massive tree where they said they would protect her. Then what I told you, I could see them as well.”

Kiszo scrunched up her face. I had no idea what she was thinking. Maybe she felt guilty. Maybe she was going to throw me down the massive hole to our side in a rage. Who knew what a woman would think in this situation. Let alone a feline amazonian woman, so I asked. “What you thinking about Kiszo?”

“Why can no one else see these friends? What did they call themselves?”

Whelp wasn’t the hole. That’s good. “They called themselves the #&$^# or &#*$*%. What the hell? They said their nickname was the children of the forest.”

Kiszmo let me go before speaking again. “Her mother always thought Beema was different. I thought the children of the forest were only in stories and tales. When she was younger, barely able to crawl, she would babble at the flowers while her mother would gather herbs and roots. She always talked to the flowers. Her mother said her first true words were to them and not her.”

“Who is Beema to you, Kiszo?”

Kiszo sighed, “She was my bestfriend Nela’s daughter. Nela and another were killed when the queen’s guard first appeared out in the forest. I promised to look after her if anything were to happen to her. I couldn’t look after her with my position in the village, but I made sure she was taken care of. Are you sure Beema is safe?”

“I believe so. They told me they would protect her so Beema could reach adulthood and become a Druid.”

That put the light back in Kiszo’s eyes. “They said that? If that’s true, she has a great future ahead of her. Druids are legendary classes, able to commune with the forests themselves and command the forest to protect them. What was the second important thing you had to tell me? After saying you met the children of the forest and Beema getting a legendary class, you going to tell me you’re a Hero next?”

“I have no idea what a Hero is, Kiszo. Accept from my word. They were figures who fought evil and protected the innocent in stories. I wanted to tell you that if things get bad, you and the others need to leave me behind and save yourself. I will do as much damage to the hive before I die.”

“NO! You’re weak. I will not run while a pup protects me. There is no way I’ll let you give your life away while I still breathe!”

“If I die, I’ll be back here in a day or two, good as new. You don’t need to worry, but please don’t tell anyone else.”

“By all the sun shines upon its grace, you’re a damn Hero!”

“What?”

“Hero’s have many lives. In the legends, they have places of power that allow them to return to once they have been slain. You’re saying you’ve died before and have returned?”

“Yes, a couple of times now.”

“Zeal, if you say what is true, there are others like you. Some are Heros, yes, but others use that ability for gain. The world is almost always run by these vile people on the mainlands. Do not let others know. The weak may sell the information to the wrong people. Even those you saved today would sell you out for a chance at a better life.”

“Thank you for the warning, Kiszo. I don’t know where this journey will take me, but I’m glad I met you and Porcu. Let us head out and find the others.”

We walked over to Jaa and Omar, who tied two rope’s ends together. They did this several more times before chucking the entire spool of rope over the edge of the hole. I looked into the darkness but couldn’t see the bottom. “Do you know any light spells, Zeal,” asked Jaa.

“I don’t, but give me a moment.”

I took out the magic primer book, stared down at it, and then looked back up at Kiszo. “What happened to Porcu? I didn’t see him with those that left.”

“We don’t know. His body was never found, and his cabin had been burnt down,” replied a somber Kiszo.”

“Damnit, you better be alive, you old goat.”

That got a chuckle out of Omaar before Jaa punched him in the arm. I flipped through the book until I found the Tier 1 Torchlight spell. I took a few times to get the intent of light to work, and an orb with a dull light popped into my hand. I tossed it down the hole, but it stuck to the side about twenty meters down, illuminating a fifth of the hole’s walls. I then imagined brighter light orbs and used them in the construct. The next orb hurt my eyes, and I tossed it into the hole as the others began cursing and rubbing their eyes. “Sorry, still new to magic.”

I looked over and could now see the entire hole from the bottom up. The orb clung to the wall about three meters over what looked like the horizontal portion of the tunnel. They were about to head down before I stopped them. “Give me another five to ten minutes. Let me learn as many spells as fast as I can.”

I walked away as my chest began to burn. I wanted to look at my chest, but it could wait. I continued away from them and sat down before leafing through the book, constructing every spell within a few tries. By the end of the book, I had learned a Tier 1 spell from the remaining six schools of magic and could recreate their constructs. I then began to cast each one, shooting them over the village’s wall. A minute later, I felt as if my chest was on fire, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I needed to check on it soon.

I didn’t say a word and began trying out the buffing magic. I cast them on myself. The defensive spell from the Nature school did nothing noticeable, but the Aura shield spell left what looked like a second skin over my body with a light glow to it before it vanished. Again, my chest felt like it was being shredded once again.

I cast both defensive spells on the others, who thanked me. I finally decided to look at my Stigmata and pulled my shirt over my head, removing it. The three others gave out a collective gasp.

I looked down to my left breast and could now see a large, almost all-white flower. At the center was the first rune I had received, and round it was seven white petals and a single blue petal. I couldn’t tell what rune was among the seven pedestals, but I was sure the rune on the blue pedal was the rune for fire.

“I’ve never seen such a large Stigmata before. You even have fire up to Rank 3,” said Omaar.

“Is it possible to have an affinity with every school of magic?” I asked.

“The highest count of affinities by a single person on record is sixteen. I’m unsure if, off the records, that number may be higher,” explained Omaar.

I put my shirt back on, and I watched as Jaa and Omaar walked over to the rope to go down first. Then they climbed down the now lit hole. Reaching the bottom, I observed that the tunnel at the bottom was a perfect three-meter hole headed towards the hive to the southeast and passed our village going northwest. I cast two more orbs in either direction but no Gnit.

I made one of the dull orbs and held it to the tunnel's wall to examine it. “There are no claw marks anywhere on this wall. It’s uniform almost like a worm or a large mole made this tunnel.”

“If a single creature made this from the hive, it’s massive,” said Jaa.

“Let’s hope it can’t turn back around and use the same tunnel,” said Kiszo as she took out a torch and used flint to light it. The other two removed torches from their packs and lit them on Kiszo’s.

I asked to lead and created an Ice lance construct in my head as we began walking towards the hive. Firing a fireball down here would be a quick way to burn what little oxygen might be down here. Some minutes later, we heard the sounds of battle ahead of us and began to run forward. Maybe the villagers had escaped and were fighting for their lives.

I was about to toss another bright orb ahead of me when I began to make out shades of green in various shapes in the distance. The circular tunnel began to glow a very dark shade of the same green, and then the unmistakable shapes of Gnits and a single humanoid ahead of me.

This must be my new Darkvision Trait. It helped me see in the dark but wasn’t good enough for a fight, so I threw the bright orb above the fighters onto the ceiling. Both groups hissed at the blinding light.

I tossed the spear of ice as it materialized in the palm of my hand. The ice pole sank into the Gnit’s side, putting it down. The other party seeing their chance, lashed out at the Gnit and its head rolled from its body. I constructed another lance and tossed it over the head of the humanoid, crashing into another Gnit warrior flanking them.

The lance tore off a massive chunk of the Gnit’s head, and it fell to the ground. We kept running forward, and the defender whipped around, sword at the ready. When we got within three meters of the defender, I could tell he wasn’t a Beastkin but something else. I thought back to Kiszo’s explanation of a Kobold and assumed that was what he was. From the shadow of a small cross tunnel, two smaller heads poked out to stare at us a moment later.

“We mean you and your kin no harm. We are following the Gnits, as they have taken those of our clan, and we wish to rescue them,” said Kiszo before I could speak.

“No, fight you today. Gnit takes kinmates,” barked the scaled canine.

“You may follow us, and we can work together to save both our people,” said Kizso.

“Must protect small. Warden no longer safe,” the Kobold said, pointing to the hole at the side of the tunnel where the two very young pups still stood staring at us.

“I can fix the hole,” I said as I walked up to it. The Kobold jumped between me and the pups. I raised my hands and began to think of what I wanted to do. Using what I pictured packed earth orbs in a three-by-three grid with the intent of filling the hole.

The construct began to form in my mind. Nine earth orbs moving together at the same time up. I opened my eyes and focused on the hole. The Kobold looked at me and back at the hole before barking at the pups, who turned around and ran away on all fours.

I released the construct as I mentally pictured the hole, and the ground began to rumble as a stone wall slid over the hotel covering it, matching the rest of the tunnel.

“Much thanks, I follow,” said the Kobold.

I grabbed the two cores off the ground and began running down the tunnel as I popped them inside my mouth, regaining nothing but mana. I began messing around with the Ice Lance spell trying to figure out how to make it Tier 2. I had no idea how to make ice stronger as I did with fire, so figuring out Tier 2 was necessary. Gnits attacked before I could figure the pattern out. I threw two lances down the tunnel before they were upon us, both hitting the leading two, and they crashed into the ground unmoving.

The three Beastkin went into a frenzy. Kiszo released arrow after arrow, as she cut her way through the Gnits with her bottom arms. Jaar and Omaar both tore into them with incredible skill with swords. The Kobold seemed to choose his fights with more care, only lunging to kill when he saw a chance. The fighters pushed me to the back of the group, where I could toss my Ice Lances.

The waves of Gnit only lasted a few minutes. The bodies that had not turned into cores almost blocked the entire tunnel. Kiszo and Omaar began to hack into the bodies for their cores before moving the bodies so we could get through them.

Jaa helped me pick up the cores while those two cleared our way. The Kobold picked a core up and eyed it strangely. Seeing Jaa handing me the gems, he also tossed it to me.

[ System Notification ]

Six Rank D Bone Cores has given 12 Energy

Seven Rank C Bone Cores has given 28 Energy

Three Rank B Bone Cores has given 18 Energy

28 Energy converted to 280 Mana

Sensory System: 148/200

I watched the Kobold as he observed me tosing the gems into my mouth one after another. I wondered what was going through his mind about me and the others. We must be strange. With my mana recharged and the bodies cleared, we began to run further down the tunnel. I tossed the light orbs every ten or so meters ahead of us to keep the tunnel lit.