Twig and his group of disciples were seated on the wall, cuffed and bound by the royal guard. About forty five stone golems of medium size and a couple hundred skeletons lied shattered across the floor. This was really not how he had imagined his return to his birthplace to happen. Teiming really had been foolish not to think of that. The royal palace guard, one of the strongest fighters and mages of the military forces, reduced this small force to rubble in a matter of minutes. Their priority: terminate possible threats and secure the prince.

Sadly they disregarded even orders from Teiming himself, thinking that he had been taken hostage by a “evil and dark force”. Since when had Twig ever been evil? And dark? Well, actually he was able to understand the dark part. After all he looked like a giant four armed insect with sharp teeth and black chitin armor. Relatively speaking. A insect, even in the height of a child would be a rather small threat.

Teiming had immediately been escorted to his father only after that Twig and his disciples would be released. Jorak sighted. “Hm. Wasn’t I saying that it was a bad idea to teleport with all these skeletons?”, he frowned, struggling in his chains. “Who wouldn’t escalate with a horde of undead suddenly appearing in the middle of a royal palace teleportation plate?!” Twig just shrugged. “Nothing we can do about that. Just keep calm, my master will get us out of here in no time.”

Which made the palace guards freak out again, after all they have not relaxed for a second in Twig’s presence. Raising their spears, swords and holding fireballs or conjuring shards of ice in their hands. Quite odd, considering that they had been much more relaxed the last time he was escorted out of this place. Maybe it was the undead and the golems after all. Sighting himself, Twig looked around.

The other human military men had been separated from the “more dubious” threats. Apparently a bunch of kids and a insect creature were freaking them more out than a few, possibly disguised, military soldiers. Or it was a courtesy to show them a little respect and give them a peaceful quite cell for the time being instead of guarding them with weapons the whole duration of their imprisonment.

But at least Daz, Mira and Marcella were not freaking out. Granted the girls both were asleep on either side of the boys shoulders and he did not dare much a single muscle. After all this chaos they had been through on top of a whole day of walking… they really deserved some rest now. Twig was sure that it would not take too long, until his master returned with their new mission.

Twig felt that he himself was lacking. He knew nothing of that damned tree, which had cost the lives of many humans. Then he was to blame for not knowing enough about his own powers, he was too inexperienced with them and he was not able to teach his disciples enough. He was supposed to be the stronger one, protecting them at all times. But the longer these kids stood at his side, the more incompetent he felt.

And he had another one to worry about now. Jorak. The young ranger was slightly older than his disciples, but Twig made it his mission to teach him new things now as well. He would make him stronger and thus keep himself and others safer. Opening up his monster book, he glanced over his options. What could improve the young archers battle powers? While goblins, trolls and skeletons were good units to use independently they hardly improved the skillset of anyone.

A few hobgoblins could help the young ranger with scouting, additional eyes and ears could prove beneficial? Even fire elementals could be interesting. Especially if one stored away a lot of said element for later usage and planted such crystals on arrowheads? But then again, fire was a good tool for destruction of buildings, laying out distraction and a good combination with oil. A well equipped soldier would hardly be hurt by a brief inferno, no matter how large.

These fire elementals could release the fire, but controlling it afterwards? Not likely. Especially not after a hard impact between arrowhead and ground. No, Twig needed something else. Maybe a different kind of elemental? Water was straight out, so maybe a [Ice Ghost]? But Twig hardly saw how one would go about storing ice in a elemental crystal. Fire was easily accessible. Maybe it was something that could be used in deep winter only? Curious, he inspected it.

[Ice Ghost: A tiny elemental spirit with affinity for the cold, caught in a crystal. It can store and release bursts of ice magic and draws its power from the moonlight. Depending on how the crystals are destroyed they show different forms of release. Kinetic force releases a burst of frost, heat generates a burst of healing magic and continued falling motion results in spears of ice being released. Possible other uses.]

[Manacost: 200 Mana]

[Monster Core Cost: 300 Mana]

Current Mastery Benefits:

1 Fire Elemental Crystal

Forst Movement Slow: 35%.

Healing Magic: Restores 5% of missing health over five seconds.

Needed Charge time without core: 6 hours.

Monster Core Bonus: Can store up to 400% it’s original capacity of moonlight.

Twig smiled. This was promising. And unexpectedly easy conditions to fill them up. Although at least two or three nights would be required to fill a crystal with an additional monster core. And there was still more to discover. Twig wanted something destructive. And a quick glance over his options later he found his match.

[Inferno Beetle: Contradictory to common belief, a inferno beetle does not belong to the family of beetles, but is more closely related to ants. Unlike ants, their queens reproduce asexually and do not require a male. The male beetles however, protect the females with their lives, even going as far as to explode on top of their enemies to protect her. A queen lays between fifty and one hundred eggs, which commonly hatch 99.7% male.]

[Manacost: 5.000 Mana]

[Monster Core Cost: 10.000 Mana]

Current Mastery Benefits:

1 Female Inferno Beetle.

Lays 50 eggs per day.

Explosion Power: 5

Monster Core Bonus: +50 eggs/day, 0.1% chance to spawn additional female Inferno Beetles.

It was rather hard to say, how much explosion power that 5 indicated. Or how big those beetles actually were. Needless to say, breeding them sounded rather intriguing. A free supply of explosives. It honestly sounded too good to be true, so Twig did not overly excite himself. While he was pondering about the possible usages, Teiming returned. All freshened up and ready to go.

“Release them. Hurry.” The guards did as they were told and a few moments later the core group was ready to leave again. Twig immediately inquired about the current plan. “What are our orders, master?” Teiming sighted. “We will port again, this time eastwards, to Norrendale. It’s not the most eastern city we have portal stones in, but the river will allow us the arrive at the northern front in about two weeks time. By foot we would need at least twenty days, even from a closer location.”

The group nodded and most of them were just glad upon hearing that they could lay back a bit more on top of a ship instead of walking for days on end. “Soldiers, step back! Guys, huddle together.” The group stepped closer to Teiming as he activated the teleportation spell. A very brief sensation later, they felt that odd sensation of losing their sense of direction, stumbling and keeling over, before they caught themselves again.

The familiar entry hall of the royal palace had disappeared. The daylight resembling palace interior shifted to a night sky. Instead Twig found himself standing on an empty bridge, what was approximately twelve meters broad and reached over fifty meters across a large river. The river Norr, led from the northern mountainside all the way down south, only to turn eastwards just a few hundred meters shy off Norrendale. A beautiful city, with stone walls and large towers, almost seven and fourteen meters high respectively.

The stone was carved rather skillfully, benefit of belonging to one of the richest families in Antalia. The Sindariths. It looked more like a giant work of art, instead of the strong fortification it actually was. All carved statues served the golem craftsmen of house Sindarith in their four hundred year old quest to protect their home city. While the city had stayed rather sparsely populated, its houses all belonged to the rich noble houses or skillful merchants that could afford to mingle with the elevated bloodlines.

The bridge itself was also carved of stone and large aquatic golems like kraken and sharks promised defense for the riverside. Which was odd in and on itself. Stone golems could not possibly swim, could they? Twig was intrigued by the thought. He was also wondering if it would be possible to shape his golems differently. Granted his spells description said “humanoid” but that was rather vague, and he would try that out later.

Teiming stepped towards the edge of the bridge, fixating his gaze on the eastern horizon. Moon and stars started to pick up in intensity by the minute, as late night was approaching. Teiming had lost his positive attitude and for the first time since Twig had known him. Something was wrong and he was not the only one aware of that fact. Daz spoke up.

“Sir? Is something wrong?”, he asked with a frowning face.

Teiming sighted for a second, then cracked his neck in a twisting motion, before briefing his group. “Well. You all will not be happy to hear what I am going to tell you now.”

Twig and the rest of his group braced upon seeing the rather downbeat face the prince presented to them. Apparently the short visit in the capital had not gone without consequences.

“Apparently the whole report of trolls on the border is not taken seriously at all. There was not a single unit assigned to assess the situation or to deal with it preemptively. Additionally my…” Teiming held his breath searching for a word, that was very much different from the word his father had used. “...unfortunate promises to the northern province were deemed a mistake. I was stripped of my military titles for the foreseeable future. So, in essence, I have no command over you. Well aside from Twig… But I have a plan to regain the favour of the king on the matter.”

Twig was actually really disturbed to hear that. If his master had no military authority, then he himself would have none over his minions either. And he really liked his humans. “What is the plan?”

Teiming smiled weakly. “We are going to ignore orders to stay put and go strike the military base ourselves. You are my secret weapon, Twig. We will be able to do some damage at least. The high command is being more and more foolish and from what I have gathered in my talks with father just now… They are underestimating this war more than a bit. Antalia needs this win against this troll threat.”

“Alright. Sounds good to me.” Twig exclaimed, although still holding some reservations. “But, what of Daz, Mira and Marcella? Oh, right, and Jorak here?”

“What of them?” Teiming raised an eyebrow. “I expect you all to still follow me, even if I am technically not your superior anymore. I am your prince after all. Anyone got a problem with that?”

“No, your grace.” Daz said. The rest nodded and Jorak even bowed briefly. “Not a problem at all.”

Teiming smiled approvingly. “It’s gonna be hard, but I look forward to you showing your skills. We have still about twelve days to travel by boat and then another six on horseback. If we are able to solve the issue quickly we might even be able to return in time for the tournament. After all you all are my fighters there and I expect you to do well. Winner and runner up snatch a precious officer post as well, which will help us control some of the stupid actions all these idiots are thinking up at least…”

Half in thought about the future Teiming led the group to a rather large house next to the harbour. It was primarily reserved for the royal family and they decided to stay for the night, instead of leaving immediately, mainly due to the missing food rations. Twig could hardly wait to try out his inferno beetles and train up some other skills. If he would be able to fix this problem it would surely bring him further towards his ultimate goal: being free of his soulbinding.