The hike to Oakenpost took up a good chunk of the remaining daylight. Along their walk, they came across wooden signs with arrows pointing in different directions, each inscribed with the names of different towns. Kendrick found them crudely fashioned and seemingly ancient, weathered around the edges, their letters nearly smoothed over with time.

Near the midpoint of their journey, they passed a cluster of trees bearing that spherical green fruit Sahni had pointed out earlier. Kendrick plucked two of them from the tree, jumping to snatch a third one, and handed one each to his traveling partners. Sahni accepted hers with a smile; Bellara raised a hand to decline, but Sahni took a second one from Kendrick and thrust it into Bell’s hand, who finally relented with a chuckle as if to say, Where are my manners?

The lime-colored fruit was mealy but almost cloyingly sweet—like sugary applesauce that one could chew, Kendrick thought. The deep green skin on the outside was mostly just a fibrous seal on the fruit’s soft innards.

Rays of the late afternoon sun jutted between the trees when they finally arrived. A wooden sign at the village limits read simply “OAKENPOST.” He wondered why he was able to read the names so clearly—then again, how could he read the words and numbers in his lens? How could he converse so naturally with his two traveling companions? It must have been a byproduct of the magic used to bring him here, he reasoned. There was no other explanation.

Bellara stood in their path and put her hands on her hips. “Plenty of time for all of our auras to recharge. What do we read?”

Kendrick tapped his lens. “Bellara, you’re at {118} and Sahni... You’re at {89} currently.”

Sahni pointed the aurimeter at him. “You’re back up to... {9} now. That’s your highest reading so far! Still, you need to be cautious.”

“We’ll be on guard,” said Bell. “You just focus on doing your thing with the Psysword.” She jabbed a finger to his chest with the word “you” and he stood up straight.

“You there!” a shrill voice called out. It appeared to belong to a portly woman down the dirt road from them. She was dressed in several garments that looked peculiar to Kendrick, all of them varying shades of gray or beige. The woman walked with a waddling gait, pumping her fists as she went. Her cheeks were red, her blue eyes small and beady, her frizzy straw hair wildly unkempt, and she did not appear to be very happy.

“It’s Usilde, isn’t it?” Bellara greeted her, offering her hand for a handshake. It was not reciprocated.

“It’s nigh a moon late, is what it bloody is,” the woman answered, huffing with exertion. “Where in the Ecumene were you?”

“We made a slight detour to fetch a guest. This is Kendrick. Say hello, Kendrick.”

He flinched when the woman’s bulging gaze flitted to him. “Hello, K-, er, no, just ‘hello.’” He smiled awkwardly.

“What’s wrong with him?” Usilde asked matter-of-factly.

His polite façade dropped. “What’s wrong with me?” he echoed. “Lady, I got here a few hours ago—”

“Never mind that,” Bellara interjected. The redhead offered him a diplomatic smile. “Kendrick, you’ll have to excuse our hostess. I don’t believe she’s had much sleep recently given the... situation here in Oakenpost.”

The woman shook her head, scratching an itch under her frizzy mane. “It’s every night with these infernal things, Aldiel damn them. Slippin’ in under closed windows. Up through the cracks in yer floor. People try to sleep through it and they’re jolted awake by the most horrendous dreams, and you know that only draws more of ‘em.”

“Being the sole town witch is a thankless job, I know,” said Bellara.

“I’m up most nights ‘til the crack of dawn squashin’ ‘em, and then I’m lucky to squeeze in a morning nap. Then there’s chorin’ to be done!” She shook her head again and spat on the ground. “I tell ya, it seems like every time I get one, more come skitterin’ out the next night.”

“Like cockroaches,” Kendrick mused aloud.

“Like what?” Bellara and Usilde asked in unison.

“Oh.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Never mind.”

Usilde gave a puzzled look to Sahni, then to Bellara, who said, “Well, Usilde, we apologize for being so late, but the shades will no longer be a problem. Kendrick here is wielding a very special weapon on loan from the Redrune Academy—” Sahni gave an anxious sigh “–and he’s about to go on a shade killing spree this evening. I will personally mop up any strays that he can’t. How does that sound?”

The woman leaned toward Bell discreetly. “Him?”

“Dammit, Bellara, give me the thing!” Kendrick snapped, and the redhead tried to hide her laughter.

They marched toward the center of Oakenpost, a village that amounted to two dozen or so houses and other assorted buildings. The long shadows of dusk stretched to unnatural lengths and their edges squirmed with the pestilent activity of shades.

Kendrick tapped his lens; numerous tags reading “SHADE” popped up all around him, paired with their respective aura counts, all within the manageable single-digit range. Too much stimulation again—he tapped his lens once more to deactivate the readings. The shades were easy enough to spot by sight anyway. His heart raced not with paralyzing fear but with a more agreeable mix of anxiety and excitement.

“Are you ready?” Bellara asked.

“Let’s do this,” he answered solemnly.

The Psysword flickered to life, humming softly with the vibration of his aura. The aura he manifested took on its familiar blunted shape and roughly equaled the proportions of a dagger rather than a true sword. Feeling the energy was like discovering a sixth sense in his body, closest to touch but with some similarities to sound, too; he was becoming vaguely aware of the weight of the aura inside him and how the aura that manifested was merely an extension of that. He willed the aura to take the shape of a sharp blade. Though unsuccessful, he did manage to flatten his Psy-club ever so slightly before it sprang back to its former misshapen self. Practice makes perfect, he thought. One thing at a time.

Several shades broke away from the elongated shadows and slithered out toward them. Kendrick raised the Psysword and brought it down on the ground hard.

“I got one!” he hollered with glee. The first shade wrinkled into oblivion and vanished.

Two more were closing in on him, forcing him to make a tactical decision as to which one he would strike first. One of the shades lunged and earned the wrath of his weapon—the second one flinched at this development and skulked around to find a better angle of attack.

“Good work, Kendrick!” Sahni congratulated him. He could hear the clunky metallic sound of the aurimeter being handled. “You’re at {6} aura currently. It looks like you’re making good use of the aura you’re already channeling. Nicely done!”

The other shade of the pair retreated from him and slinked up the side of the Oakenpost cobbler’s shop. Kendrick pulled the relic back and thrust it at the target—burying the aura in the mortar between two bricks. It had sharpened into a blade for a split second and just long enough to deal the killing blow to the next shade.

“Now that is what I was waiting for!” Bellara called out to him. “You sharpened the Psysword with your mind! We need to figure out exactly what you did so you can train to replicate that. Well done!”

Hearing genuine praise from Bellara, rather than Sahni, was a strange feeling for Kendrick. He felt an odd tingle in the pit of his stomach. Focus, he reminded himself. Bracing his boot against the side of the building, he pulled hard on the hilt of the weapon, extracting it from the mortar and allowing him to wield it against his next challenger.

Shades had frightened him earlier that same day, even paralyzed him with fear. Now they were little more than insects to him—trouble in large numbers, to be sure, but easy enough to deal with one by one if he kept a cool head about it.

“Aldzin,” Bellara said after a long while, picking off a shade from a fair distance. A long needle of light pierced it through the midsection fatally. “Sorry. That one was wandering and I didn’t want it to surprise you later. Keep it up!”

Luckily for them all, shades were no master tacticians; they had no semblance of strategy in terms of combining their numbers or coordinating their attacks in such a way as to overwhelm him. Any time they approached him in groups it appeared to be by complete accident, and usually they were content to come at him one by one, devoid of all but the most base danger-avoidance and attack instincts. All the easier to kill.

He toiled away like this for what felt like a long while but in actuality was probably dilated by his surging adrenaline. “How am I doing now?” he asked.

“Wonderfully, Kendrick!” Sahni answered without skipping a beat. “We’re very proud of you!”

He smiled. “Thanks, but I meant my aura. Am I running on empty yet?” He bashed another shade to nothingness.

“Your aura reads... {4} currently. Maybe we should think about handling the rest from here? We don’t want him to utilize too much more at this point, right?”

“You’ll be fine,” Bellara assured him. “You’ve already taken out over a dozen of them. Shades are naturally drawn to aura and we have a decent concentration here between the three of us. I’d imagine you’ve probably gotten almost all of them by now.”

And so Kendrick went on battling the infestation that plagued Oakenpost, slaying shades in the unpaved dirt streets, on the sides of buildings, and beneath the trees that surrounded the village. Sahni and Bellara trailed after him wherever he went, giving him enough distance to do his work. Late afternoon bled into dusk and the line between light and darkness began to blur.

Previously, he had been able to identify unnatural movements in the shadows of other objects. Now, though, the shades had the advantage of night to conceal themselves. It got to the point where he could only identify their approach by the chill they gave off or a sudden feeling of dread.

“How many more are there?” he asked. Bravado gave way to uncertainty. “Am I almost done? Please tell me I’m almost done.”

“Well, your aura must be getting low now,” Sahni commented. “But the area still feels... wrong, somehow. You should conserve your aura from here until we figure out what’s going on.” As she fumbled with the aurimeter, he could barely make out her shape moving in the deepening dark, but he heard the contraption’s clunking all the same. “Your aura is down to... that can’t be right.”

“What does it say?” Bellara asked.

“It’s showing a reading of {63} now.” She swept the device side to side, pausing as it passed by Kendrick each time.

He held the Psysword in one hand and flexed his other arm. “Did I hear that right? {63} aura? Blowing my old records out of the water here. I really am this hero you’ve been waiting for, aren’t I?”

“Kendrick, check your lens,” Bellara told him. There was neither mirth nor scorn in her voice, but rather something like concern. “Okay, fine, we may need to intervene here.”

My lens, he thought. I should have been using this the whole time. A quick tap to the arm of his monocle activated the magical interface and he began a scan of his surroundings.

SHADE {3} SHADE {1} SHADE {4} SHADE {1} SHADE {2} SHADE {2} SHADE {1} SHADE {3} SHADE...

“Uh... l-… ladies?” His entire field of vision populated instantaneously with too many aura readings to count, all of them shades, all of them in extremely close proximity. They were one with the night and completely indistinguishable by sight. But they were all there. All stalking him.

“Aldampla!” Sahni cried out. She threw a crystal toward Kendrick, which arced through the air and landed in the dirt next to him, coming to life with a sudden burst of light. This magical glow emanating from the crystal illuminated the enemies.

The shades were standing upright now. Upright like people. Gaunt, misshapen, soulless bipeds. A small crowd of them. They flinched at the sudden light but remained undeterred from their prey.

Then they attacked.

Bellara yelled “Ald—”

“Parto reig!” Sahni interrupted her.

Thunk. Thunk. Thump. Kendrick looked around him to see numerous shades dogpiling him... or at least trying. They crushed and flattened themselves against an otherwise invisible barrier that occasionally flickered with undulating lines of electric light. It surrounded him on all sides by about an arm-and-a-half’s length in each direction.

Kendrick stepped forward and reached out to touch the barrier—his hand passed through it and a shade grabbed his wrist. He gasped at the cold touch. Reflexively, he yanked his hand back, and the shade impacted on the outside of the barrier.

I can cross it but they can’t, he realized. That’s perfect! He readied the Psysword. I only have {3} more aura left at most. Better make this count.

He held the weapon out straight and swung it around the perimeter of the barrier. His aura made a crackling sound, spitting white sparks of magical energy where it intersected with the barrier, but it still crossed the threshold with no resistance and made short work of the shades outside. The illumination of his aura, plus the crystal Sahni had thrown, let him see the fruits of his labor, spindly black silhouettes being decapitated, bisected, and otherwise cut to shreds that disappeared from this world.

It was over in a matter of moments after that. A straggler here and there threw itself against the barrier, only to be neutralized with relative ease. His greatest obstacle was his falling aura—he could feel his energy beginning to wane noticeably. His vision blurred for a moment before refocusing.

“That’s the last of them!” Bellara called out to him. Her voice echoed in the quiet night air.

The barrier came down and Sahni and Bellara rushed over to congratulate him. “You’re still at {2} aura,” said the former. “That was a bit too close for comfort, but you did it! The town of Oakenpost is free of shades thanks to you!”

“Couldn’t have done it without your help,” he answered her truthfully, still catching his breath. “Many thanks for the assist.”

The town witch waddled over, and as the crystal illuminated her face to a greater degree, Kendrick thought he saw the hint of a smirk to go along with her raised eyebrows. “Got to say,” Usilde chimed in, “I saw that goin’ a couple other ways, to be frank, but I never woulda thought you’d do such a bang-up job. Never been more pleased to be wrong. On behalf of Oakenpost, I’d like to thank you for your help.”

“I’m proud of you both,” said Bellara. “Kendrick, you’ve shown promising progress on your first day. And Sahni, you were worried about him, but rather than call the whole thing off so we could handle it, you helped him to take care of it on his own. I know that must’ve taken some restraint on your part.”

Sahni grinned a wide grin and scratched the back of her head. “Oh, it was nothing. He was really showing some improvement. I wanted to give him his time to shine, that’s all.”

Maybe I really can do this, Kendrick thought. That wasn’t so hard. A whole village full of shades, and I took care of things with just a little support. Who knows what I can do next? Maybe in the next few days I can go out and—

“You, boy, watch out!” Usilde shrieked.

Kendrick turned around to see a hideous creature tearing after him at full speed from the dark. He didn’t even have time to react.

“Obstrae!” Sahni shouted. A ring of white aura closed around the neck of the monster. It used its tiny, clawed hands to try to break the magical restraint, but it was no use. Kendrick was able to get a good look at it suspended in midair, close enough that he could reach out and touch it if he were insane enough to do that sort of thing.

It was about as tall as his shin was long, with mottled blue-gray skin, two tiny hooked horns on the sides of its bulbous head, black, insectoid eyes, and bug-like mouthparts to match. Its inverted teardrop-shaped head tapered off into a set of serrated mandibles and an ugly, moist circular tongue of sorts with hairs sticking out of it.

“What... is that?” he whispered, horrified.

Bellara took a step forward. “Get back.” Her voice was solemn and totally drained of her earlier enthusiasm. Kendrick did as he was told, and Sahni and Usilde stepped aside in turn. “Pyrios!” From Bellara’s midair punch sprang a jet of orange flame that engulfed the creature, incinerating it in one quick moment. Sahni’s spell faded once its target was removed.

“Holy...” Kendrick mumbled.

“Far from it.” Bellara blew air on her fist, sucking on her knuckles. “That was an imp. May have been drawn to that aura spike. The output was small, between the Psysword and Sahni’s spells, but they’re getting ravenous lately. We need to build a warding fire for the night. Sleep in the morning.”

And just like that, all the excitement of his accomplishment was wiped away, incinerated like that little fiend in Sahni’s trap. Kendrick helped the other three gather the firewood and arrange the crystals. His first night in the Ecumene was just getting started.