“____” speaking

‘____’ thoughts

*____* telepathy

translated from Eldritch

---------------------

“What’s so special about the town being under attack that it required that amount of panic?”

Cecil glared at me but then stopped once he realized that my question was serious.

“The only time the bells are rung is when there’s an attack that could possible get into the town and destroy it. Any other fight usually goes under the radar. This must be big and if the increase in Eldritch sightings are any indication we have reason to worry.”

“If it’s just an Eldritch, what’s the big deal?”

“You’ve never met one of the larger Eldritch have you?”

I thought about it and recalled each Eldritch I had ever faced and came to the conclusion that I had never fought anything that could be considered huge by any stretch of the imagination.

“No. I haven’t fought anything that large. The biggest Eldritch I’ve seen was about twice the side of a horse.”

“Well humans have classifications for Eldritch, I won’t go into them right now, but in order to have those bells rung the Eldritch has to be what we refer to as a town breaker. It’s either large enough to get through the wall or it has some other method that will allow it to get inside such as flight.”

“So why bring us here?”

“Because I’m going to go help and I can’t have either of you out there.”

Ormonde’s face dropped at the thought of being left behind.

“Why can’t we help? I can fight. Vio and I have practiced.”

Before Cecil could state his reason I cut him off.

“Ormonde, as far as I care the Eldritch can take this city. Humans and Eldritch share the same place in my mind and I have no reason to help.”

“Then you stay here. I can still go.”

“If you do you’ll have no one to protect you because I’m not going to do anything as long as you’re fighting with the intentions of protecting humans.”

“Vio, Ormonde, this argument can end here because neither of you are leaving this room once I head out.”

I turned to look at Cecil and gave him a critical inspection to figure out how strong he would be in an actual fight.

“You don’t seem like a fighter though.”

“I’m not.”

“Then how do you plan to help?”

“Tanzi is a spirit of patience. Because of him I can use time Arcane to augment my thinking abilities and help with strategies and tactics to deal with the Eldritch. Every living being has a pattern and all I do is find it and tell those who are fighting what it is.”

It was a good enough reason for him to be needed and it fit what I knew of him in terms of strengths and weaknesses. After a quick bob of my head I went over to one of the beds and lied down on it while leaving my feet hanging off the edge.

Ormonde and Cecil started to talk and in quickly devolved into and argument on why Ormonde couldn’t help. Cecil raised his voice and ended the argument by doing so. I hadn’t been paying much attention to what was going on but was aware that someone was coming towards me and sat up. Ormonde passed me and threw himself onto the bed next to me and I was shocked to feel how much anger he was radiating but I didn’t miss the bit of insecurity that was buried beneath it.

Cecil was standing in the doorway with Tanzi on the other side of him and he looked at me while making sure he had my attention.

“Vio keep an eye on Ormonde for me and try to keep him out of trouble.”

“No promises but I’ll do what I can.”

He seemed satisfied enough with my answer and shut the door behind him, the lock clicking into place before we were left with only the sound of the bells around us. A few more minutes passed and eventually the ringing of the bells stopped and was replaced with the barely audible sound of combat.

I had relocated myself to the top of the bed and was leaning against the wall while waiting for Ormonde to try something. He finally stirred and wiped his cheeks and eyes with the back of his hand while getting to his feet.

‘Now what’ll he do?’

He turned to me with conviction in his eyes.

“Come on, we’re going to go help.”

“Alright.”

Ormonde was taken back by my instant agreement and his shock quickly dissolved into suspicion.

“Why did you agree so readily? I thought you weren’t going to help?”

“I’m not going to help, that hasn’t changed, but there’s no point in trying to stop you.”

“Why?”

I shrugged my shoulders before I stood and jumped off the bed.

“Well, if I use earth Arcane you can easily break it down. Wind Arcane wouldn’t really help keep you contained since you could use earth or wind yourself to stop it. I’m not going to use fire to stop you for the same reason I haven’t taught you how to use it; It’s too destructive and difficult to control. Plus my fire’s unique compared to other flames. Anything else?”

“Will you help me get out?”

I shook my head.

“Nope. You’re on your own from here on out. I’m just going to be tagging along for the ride making sure you don’t get killed.”

Ormonde just stared at me before heading over to the window. I watched with crossed arms as he pushed a chair over to it and proceeded to open the window before returning to the bed for the sheets.

“Why don’t you just turn ethereal?”

He continued tying the sheets together and carried them over to the window.

“Wouldn’t help. The walls are made to prevent spirits from going through them; the windows are the same way.”

The conversation died as Ormonde continued to busy himself and started to pull at the sheet rope he had made to make sure it wasn’t going to come loose. Content with his work, Ormonde climbed up onto the chair and started to make his way down the rope. Once his head was out of sight I meandered over to the window and hopped up onto the chair in order to watch his descent.

We were only on the second floor of the inn but the way Ormonde climbed made it look like he would risk falling into a never-ending abyss if he let go and dropped the rest of the way to the ground. He did get there and once he was sure of his footing let go and looked up at the window and beckoned for me to come down as well.

I rolled my eyes at him and jumped out of the window without giving the sheet rope a second look. Just before impacting with the ground I turned myself ethereal and stopped all of my momentum before returning to my corporeal form and walking over to where Ormonde was staring at me wide eyed.

“You made it so much harder than it needed to be.”

“Yeah, well, um, at least there’s a way back up.”

Ormonde turned and started to walk off in the direction of the nearest point of battle and I followed closely behind him. There weren’t any changes that I could see in our section of the town but trails of thick black smoke told a different story for other areas.

To his credit, Ormonde knew his way around fairly well and I was impressed with how well he was able to navigate the main streets and alleyways in order to get to where he wanted. The number of bodies we had come across had been surprising low and I figured that had to do with the earlier warning. In a matter of minutes I could see the orange glow of fire and hear people screaming at each other alongside the sound of metal on bones and flesh.

We rounded the corner and my opinion of the people defending dropped. A group of thirty men and women were holding back about twenty identical Eldritch. The Eldritch in question were small, around the size of a large dog, and had the general body shape of a person although the hind legs looked somewhat like a frog’s. I caught the glint of claws on the end of the thin hands and the scrapes along the walls informed me on how sharp they were. Their heads were covered with a thick mass of tendrils that resembled braided hair and flowed backwards towards their hind legs;I was unable to see any facial features beneath it.

My overall impression of the Eldritch before me was quite low. There didn’t seem to have any special tricks from what I could tell and a quick check verified that they didn’t have any Edin augmenting them aside from the natural flow that circulated their bodies meaning they belonged to Kal. Then one jumped.

It wasn’t jumping at a person but at the wall of a building and upon impact it stuck and stayed there while holding its hands and feet flat against the wall’s surface. These Eldritch had the ability to climb things and they were numerous; it made sense why this would be considered a threat but there was no real threat from what I could see.

If that was how these Eldritch worked then why did it take a group of thirty to hold back roughly half their number? I couldn’t see any casualties on the defender's side, not counting civilians of which there were plenty, while there were six or seven bodies lying further down the road belonging to the Eldritch. Some of the defenders had patches of blood soaking through different areas of their clothing and some of their armor was damaged but how that happened I didn’t know.

Someone within the group issued instructions and the Eldritch on the wall was knocked off when the wall rippled. Instead of righting itself the Eldritch just fell and let the defenders come to it. About the time the Eldritch reached the level of the defenders one of its hands shot out and grabbed one of the nearby people and twisted its hand before letting go and jumping away. The person who was grabbed screamed while gripping the area where the Eldritch had grabbed him and the blood dripping off the retreating Eldritch’s hand told me why.

My mind started to run at full speed to figure out what allowed these Eldritch to cling to the walls and damage people at the same time. I continued to watch the fight and saw the same tactic of causing minor injuries before retreating used again at the loss of another Eldritch.

Ormonde had joined the group and was sending the occasional rock or spike at the Eldritch to try and cull their numbers. His attacks were about as effective as the others and the only damage he did was to the surrounding area. These Eldritch were made to wear down their prey and then strike and I knew that time was coming.

I left the corner of the building I was by and joined Ormonde while being shot a look from a few of the other defenders.

“Here comes another one!”

The call came at the same time as an Eldritch jumped up onto the wall and instead of waiting lunged at the nearest person to it. Before the target of the jump could react they were on the ground with the Eldritch clawing at their midriff trying to get through the armor that they wore. The smoke and few flakes of red told me that it was succeeding.

“Get it off her! We need a medic up here! Scrawl! Dinta! See what you can do to distract ‘em!”

A quick sword stab and the Eldritch on top of the woman who was now bleeding out fell limp. It was kicked off the woman towards the Eldritch that had remained outside our range as a figure wearing a black and red robe rushed over to the limp figure. I could see the telltale red of blood leaving the wrist of the robed figure as they slid into position and forced their wrist to the mouth of the downed woman.

Another assault came at about the same time as the woman was able to get to her feet and the robed figure rushed off to another part of the group to try and save another life.

“Scrawl! Dinta! Fall back! Ferin! With me! We’re doing a hit and run on them. Gimmle! Give us cover on our attack and retreat. Everyone else keep your eyes on your surroundings in case more of these fuckers show up.”

The woman who had called out the orders pulled out a small flask and took a swig of it. Her body seemed to contort for a moment before the muscle on her body enlarged slightly and her hands grew claws. The man called Ferin had gone through similar changes and the two leap at the Eldritch in front of us while a few blasts of wind shot out from the back of our group.

Even with the supporting fire, the pair that had advanced forward had to make a hasty retreat after only dispatching three of the Eldritch. More Eldritch had crawled out from the alleys and a shout behind us signaled that they were there too.

What had once been an organized group quickly fell apart as the defenders became outnumbered two to one and Ormonde and I were left standing in the middle of the road by ourselves as other broke off to fight or run.

“Still want to do this?”

“Yup.”

“Then go for it. I’ll watch your back but I won’t fight your battles for you.”

As if on cue an Eldritch jumped down from the rooftops and landed in front of Ormonde. The two stared at each other and I knew that Ormonde could win if he thought about what he did and had been watching how the Eldritch attacked.

Without breaking eye contact Ormonde stomped the ground and send a ripple along it to try and knock the Eldritch off balance while creating four stones above each hand. The Eldritch remained unperturbed by the attack and started to move forward.

Seeing that his first idea didn’t work, Ormonde molded the stones hovering by him into disks and threw all of them towards the Eldritch. I knew what the outcome of this was going to be and it was a lesson that he needed to learn if he ever wanted to fight against Eldritch with any success.

His aim was true and the disks would have hit their mark but the closer they got to the Eldritch the more unstable they became and about the time of impact the disks had all but disappeared.

Ormonde froze in place. It was one thing to have your attack not connect, but it was another thing entirely to have the attack dissipate as if you had never done anything in the first place. I myself had already dealt with three Eldritch in the small amount of time that Ormonde had been fighting but all I needed was a quick puff of flame and they disintegrated into nothing.

I let myself slip into my naturally defensive state and the air around me heated slightly while I returned all of my focus to Ormonde’s fight. In the brief interim I had needed to take out the last Eldritch that approached me the Eldritch he was fighting had leapt at him and was still in midflight.

In a split second decision, Ormonde pulled up a stone pillar in front of him and started to duck in case it didn’t hold. Contrary to his belief the pillar did its job and a muffled thump signaled that the Eldritch had been stopped successfully.

The small hunched over figure behind the pillar didn’t react to the thud and it took too long for him to finally raise his head and see that he was fine. He was still recovering from his shell shock of almost being pounced on and I knew he had seen the result of that happening flash before his eyes.

“Don’t stop moving in combat. You know this. Now get up.”

Ormonde stood and started to back away from the pillar about the same time as the stunned Eldritch recovered enough to find its way to the other side. Seeing an easy target in the running boy it jumped only to be met with another pillar that I made in order to stop it.

“It’s stunned now finish it off.”

“H-How?”

“Don’t ask me. Think.”

The Eldritch I had stunned was trapped on the ground by stone restrains and anyone who was watching would have thought that Ormonde had planned the whole thing. After looking at the chaos around him Ormonde closed his eyes for a second and a red earthen spike appeared in the same location as the trapped Eldritch. I didn’t need to look to know it was dead but I still walked over to it so I could collect the soul before it disappeared.

I turned to look at Ormonde with a smile on my face.

“First kill. Good job. Tut there were so many things you did wrong but we’ll fix that.”

Ormonde relaxed slightly and I knew that it was only a matter of time before he crashed from the adrenaline wearing off.

“Vio! Behind you!”

I turned just in time to watch an Eldritch burnt up into ash mid flight toward me; it had entered my danger zone.

“What? You think these things are that big of a threat? Look at the others that broke up.”

Even though the group had splintered only three of the people in it had died and the others had gathered to let themselves be healed by the church member that had been running around earlier. There were only three Eldritch left in the area and all of them had lock onto Ormonde and I even after my display of power.

“Stupid things aren’t you?”

Another Eldritch leapt at me and was incinerated but the other two got the hint and turned towards Ormonde.

“Ormonde, you’re up again. Keep a cool head this time and remember that they follow a pattern.”

“Wait I have to do both of them at the same time!?”

He was starting to panic.

“What did you learn from you first fight?”

“Um.”

“Come on think! Why did the pillar work but the stone disks fail?”

The Eldritch had been circling Ormonde and I wasn’t worried about them attacking Ormonde at the moment. He knew what the problem had been and even though it took him a minute to realize it he nodded to let me know that he understood and started to gather earth Arcane behind him and turn it into stone.

A small wall protected his back but it also created a blind spot. The Eldritch that had circled behind him lunged at the wall and all the Arcane was pulled out of the stone seconds before the Eldritch would have gone through it. The result was the same as before and the Eldritch hit with a dull thump before falling to the ground and stumbled a little while righting itself drunkenly.

Ormonde came around from the other side of the wall and hid behind it while focusing all his effort on the stunned Eldritch. He tried to send a spike through it outright and a quick bark for me stopped any repeated attempts. Now knowing that direct offense was not the way to go, he opened up a small hole in the ground and let the Eldritch fall into it before pushing it shut. A small puff of flame cleaned up the ground and I was another soul richer.

About the time the last remaining Eldritch reappeared, this time on top of the wall Ormonde had created, another person from the group came over and pulled Ormonde back. The Eldritch jumped at him and the man’s shield arm made contact with the Eldritch and it was swatted away into a nearby wall. Instead of getting back up the Eldritch just slid down the wall; it was dead.

“Kid why are you out here?”

“Because I wanted to help.”

The man looked at the remains of the Eldritch Ormonde had fought before returning his gaze to him.

“I think you’ve done your fair share. You should go back home.”

Without waiting to hear anything Ormonde was about to say, the man turned and started to issue orders to the remainder of the people sitting down. The woman who had issued orders earlier was lying down with the priest next to her and didn’t look to be in good condition. I didn’t care what Ormonde did and said as much. He elected to follow one of the groups and I looked around at the area we were in one final time before we left it.

During the fighting the fires had grown causing most of the area we were in to be brightly lit by the formerly dim orange glow and it was possible to smell the smoke. No one was attempting to quell the flames and it was apparent that the fighting elsewhere was just as bad if not worse than what we had encountered since we had yet to see a single person from the Church of the Radiant Sun or one of the town’s guards.

Ormonde followed behind one of the small groups of people that had been sent towards another section of the town and it only took a little while before more Eldritch were assaulting us. We had been traveling through an alley and they had jumped down from above. The results were disastrous.

The first few Eldritch that jumped each landed on an individual and while other were focused on helping them more dropped from the roofs. If it wasn’t for the quick thinking of one of the people with us, Ormonde and I would have been the last one’s standing. We lost the first three people that had been landed on before we temporarily scared off the Eldritch and left their bodies while continuing forward in hope of reaching more people before another attack came.

We ran into another group of Eldritch, most likely the same one that attacked us in the alley, before we encountered anyone, but this time we were on one of the main streets and had plenty of room without having to worry about attacks from above. Unlike the first fight, I needed to step in more often to stop Ormonde from getting killed as he began to tire and lose focus. The rest of the group was faring better but only by a small margin and the death of people they knew must have been weighing heavily on them.

Ormonde used the same strategy of attack and was quickly learning how to remove the Arcane from the stone he was using at a greater distance. He was now throwing the disks like he had against the first Eldritch he faced but this time he removed the Arcane from the outside leaving only a small portion of the disk’s inside under his influence allowing him to control them without losing his weapon.

He was still following my command to not try and outright spear the Eldritch where it stood but even with the superior tactics and initial advantage in fighters we were starting to lose. Additional Eldritch kept joining the ones that were already hounding us as the sound of fighting and the smell of blood attracted them.

The more the numbers stacked against us the more the other people with us began to huddle together until they were surrounded and only attacked after an Eldritch failed its jump. It reached the point where there were so many Eldritch around us that there wasn’t the time to counterattack before the next Eldritch pounced in hopes of hitting one of us and breaking apart the small circle that was the only thing keeping everyone alive.

“Stand tall! Help is here!”

A small blast of light blindsided a large portion of the Eldritch surrounding us sending some of the more precariously balanced ones to the ground.

“For glory!”

People clothed in white and yellow swept in like a tidal wave and began to dye themselves red with the blood of Eldritch. Each attack took out several Eldritch either by sheer force or through a burst of highly focused fire Arcane that left sparks in the wake of their strikes.

Those around us rallied and fought back enough of the Eldritch around us that we were able to make our way to the warriors of the church. I didn’t feel safe around them but any misgivings I had towards them had to be put on hold since I was more concerned with Ormonde’s safety.

In a fraction of the time we had taken to clear out the first batch of Eldritch the church members had reduced all but a handful of the Eldritch that had surrounded us into ash and corpses. With no current threat everyone present relaxed and those that needed medical assistance were seen to by members of the church with a spirit that had the ability to use healing Arcane.

Once everyone was healed the few church members who had remained behind took the others with them completely ignoring Ormonde and I. Neither of us made a move to follow them and I knew that Ormonde was now thinking similar things as me in regards to his opinion of the church. With the church members gone the area became quiet and the only thing that we could hear was the crackle of fire and the distant sound of fighting.

“So what now?”

“Well fighting is out of the question. I don’t think I could handle another Eldritch at the moment, but I don’t want to go back to the room either. I know I’ve helped but it doesn’t feel like I did enough and if I’m going to get in trouble for not listening to dad then I might as well do as much as I can. So I think putting out the fires is the best option.”

“Go for it.”

“You’re not going to help?”

“Look, do I need to reiterate the point that when it come to humans and Eldritch and who kills who that I! Don’t! Care!”

“But the people who live in these buildings haven’t done anything to you.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Ormonde’s eye’s narrowed and a small frown took it place on his face.

“Why not?”

“It just doesn’t.”

“Fine but can you at least help me in someway?”

I contemplated it for a minute and then thought of something that I could do to make this work in my favor.

“Sure but you need to promise me something.”

“Fine. I agree. Can you just help me now?”

“Ah ah, not so fast. Promises as or with a spirit are binding and cannot be broken and you my friend count as a spirit and are about to make a promise with one. So think care fully before doing that again.”

“What is it then that you need me to promise?”

“We have a connection yes?”

Ormonde rolled his eyes.

“Obviously.”

“And it means that at some point in time you’re going to get access to my memories.”

“Ok. Did not know that.”

“So what I want from you is a promise that once you find out my true name that you won’t use it to force me to do anything that you wouldn’t do yourself.”

His forehead scrunched as he raised his eyebrows and he was silent for a moment before he spoke again.

“That’s fine but why not make it so I can’t use your true name at all?”

“I have my reasons. Now go ahead and make the promise.”

“I promise.”

“No, not the small one. I want the big one; name, cause, repercussions, and everything else. You know how to make one of those right?”

“Um.”

I sighed and ran my hand over my face before straightening and looking at Ormonde.

“I’ll set it up all you have to do is repeat it while agreeing. Got it?”

“Yup.”

I started to gather sound Arcane and encased us in a bubble that would stop any sound from getting in or out. Ormonde would probably be able to tell that I was nervous but I doubted he could tell that I felt like I was staring death in the face and taunting it.

‘Here it goes.’

“Ormonde Everand. I, Vio, ask if you will promise to never use my real name to make me do something unless you yourself would do what is being asked or share it with others when you find out what it is and, in the event that you break either condition, you forfeit the ability to make any requests of me regardless of size or complexity.”

“I, Ormonde Everand, promise you, Vio, that I will never use your real name to make you do something unless I would do what I am asking and that I will not share your real name with others once I find out what it is. I accept the repercussion of this and, in the event that I break either condition, I will forfeit the ability to make any requests of you regardless of their size or complexity.”

“Good. Thank you.”

I released the Arcane around us and took my battle form while materializing my lantern. After unhooking it from my hip, I tossed my lantern to Ormonde and he caught it after a few moments of fumbling.

“What’s a lantern going to do for me?”

“By itself nothing but if you can figure out how to use fire Arcane then once you start sucking a stream of fire into it you can move onto the next one and it’ll finish by itself.”

“So you help has a requirement that I don’t meet and in order to get it I had to meet another requirement?”

“Yup.”

“And you’re not planning on teaching me fire Arcane right now are you?”

“Nope. Fire doesn’t need Arcane to function but, unlike any other thing that can be controlled with Arcane, fire never losses all of the Arcane in it. No clue why before you ask.”

“So if I can sense the Arcane inside all of this fire then I could theoretically control it?”

“Yeah but don’t get your hopes up. It’s a stupidly tiny amount of Arcane; almost nonexistent really.”

“So will you protect me while I try and figure this out?“

“To some extent yes but if there’s only one or two Eldritch I’ll let you know they’re here but won’t do anything.”

“Not great but sure why not? Why couldn’t you just help?”

“I already told you it’s-”

“Because you hate humans and don’t care blah blah blah I get it. It was a rhetorical question.”

Ormonde carried the lantern in one hand and placed it on the ground in front of a burning building before sitting behind it. He sat down while crossing his legs and sent one last look in my direction before closing his eyes to meditate.

I didn’t understand the use of doing what Ormonde did in order to find Arcane in the air; it was just there when I looked for it. There was the possibility that the meditation was the reason that Ormonde had seemed to surpass me in terms of growth but I knew that I could put no faith in that excuse for my own faults.

The fire in the building continued to crackle without any signs of dwindling and the building slowly burnt down as Ormonde sat in front of it trying to find what fire Arcane felt like so he could replicate it. Ormonde suddenly stood up and gathered raw Arcane around himself in an attempt to do something.

‘He definitely didn’t figure it out.’

As I predicted whatever he was trying to do failed and he ended up turning the raw Arcane into earth Arcane and turned it into sand before throwing it onto the building. The sand put out most of the fire and Ormonde spent another five minutes putting out the remaining embers. We move onto the next building and the process started once again.

The house Ormonde chose was in an area that was unnaturally quiet. I had heard people in the other houses when we had first set out and had even felt them start to gather in areas that were probably designated as shelters for when the town was attacked thus the reason for the mostly abandoned buildings. With the feeling of unease in mind, I did a quick scan of the area and was rewarded for my efforts.

I felt them before I saw them and looked towards the building Ormonde was beside in order to watch as three Eldritch crawled out from its burning interior.

“Ormonde. Just a heads up, you’ve got company.”

A small groan of annoyance made it to my ears as Ormonde stood and readied himself by gathering Arcane.

Like some sort of perverted dance the three Eldritch circled Ormonde as he slowly formed stone and then weapons from the Arcane he had collected. Two of the Eldritch jumped at the same time and Ormonde struggled to avoid both of them and fight back. I watched as the Arcane in the air around him decreased dramatically as the Eldritch passed through it and waited to see when he would take notice.

One of the disks he had finished making intercepted the third Eldritch as it attempted to tackle him and it hit the ground and slid before coming to a permanent stop. The other two Eldritch continued to circle and Ormonde was able to dispatch them with little problems after the third Eldritch had been dealt with.

He sat down without bothering to take the time to check his surroundings and closed his eyes in an attempt to make some progress. I felt really bad for him.

“Hey Ormonde?”

“Let me guess. More of them are here?”

“Yeah.”

Just like the other fights, more Eldritch were drawn to the sound of their brethren trying to take down their prey. There were more of them this time, fifteen by my count, and I knew that I was going to have to help if I wanted Ormonde to walk out of this unscathed.

As luck would have it, some of the new Eldritch decided to target the person that was standing still instead of the one that was moving around with small razor sharp disks of earth floating nearby. It was fun watching them jump to their death and it was free souls with almost no effort on my part.

With my help Ormonde quickly got rid of the Eldritch that had attacked him this time and resumed trying to find fire Arcane. The same process of him gathering Arcane failing and then putting the house out with sand continued for a little while before I could tell he was reaching the end of his rope.

His fighting had become extremely sloppy and his dodges were barely fitting of the name. He could still gather and use Arcane without any issues but he couldn’t keep up with the physical fatigue that came with the continuous movement part of combat. I was thoroughly impressed though as he had been going for almost two hours without any real breaks or rests. It was, of course, also highly worrying as he didn’t seem to know when to call it quits.

“Hey, we should really stop. It’s getting dark, well darker, and I’m sure you want to be back before your dad.”

“No. I’m going to figure this out. I just need a little more time.”

“Fine but don’t blame me when you collapse from exhaustion.”

Shortly after our exchange finished more Eldritch came crawling out of the wood works; it was more annoying than anything else. The fight ended with me doing most of the legwork and Ormonde struggling against one Eldritch without getting himself mauled while I wasn’t watching.

I could tell that Ormonde was just about fed up with trying to figure out how to use fire Arcane until he looked at me and his eyes went as wide as dinner plate. He seemed to have though of something and waved me over.

“Yes?”

“Could you just stand next to me while I do this and not worry about the Eldritch that are coming? Also could you let me know when they’re here?”

“I guess, sure. But after this house we’re heading back to the inn because I don’t want to have to listen to your dad yell at me because you exercised your own free will.”

“Works for me.”

Ormonde sat down and I stood behind him and waited for the inevitable group of Eldritch that seemed to find us regardless of where we were. They came as expected and I informed Ormonde that we had visitors and watched with stoic amusement as they burnt to ash around me.

‘Oh you clever little bastard. That’s why you wanted to do this.’

I had figured out what Ormonde was doing and it was very smart on his part. He knew that I used fire Arcane anytime I incinerated anything that attacked me. It was most likely things like this where he was able to see or feel an example that was the cause of his rapid progress.

The next time he stood up and started to gather Arcane I knew he had figured it out and immediately told him to keep the amount of Arcane small. He listened to me and I could feel the raw Arcane turn to fire Arcane and ignite the space it was occupying singeing Ormonde’s arm.

“How do you use this stuff so easily? It’s like trying to stop water from leaking through sand.”

“To be fair I did say it was hard to control.”

“True. Any tips on how to handle it better.”

“Practice?”

Ormonde scowled at me before repeating the same process of turning the raw Aracne into fire Arcane, self inflicted burns and all.

After several very painful looking attempts Ormonde was finally able to control the fire Arcane enough to not burn himself and possibly move the fire inside and on the buildings towards my lantern.

“Alright time to give this a shot.”

I remained silent and watched as Ormonde burned himself again but successfully got the fire to feed into my lantern without any issues. He picked up the lantern and went towards another building and repeated the same steps he had used to put out the first. After putting out the buildings in the surrounding area Ormonde returned the lantern to me.

“That’s it. I’m done. I’m never using fire Arcane again. Hurt so much. Stupid fire.”

Ormonde’s shirt was covered in burns and I could still smell burning hair even though I had put it out before the fire had spread.

“It’s not that bad and it could be worse.”

“Really? How?”

“Well if I wasn’t here you would have lit yourself on fire. Also you’re not dead from attacking Eldritch.”

“I guess. Anyway I can barely stand. Let’s head back to the inn.”

Both of us just stood there staring at each other without talking.

“You don’t know the way back do you?”

Ormonde’s deadpanned expression made me look at the ground in shame. I was normally good with directions but I had spent very little time paying attention to where we were and instead had focused on not letting him get hurt.

“Not a clue.”

“Follow me then. This is going to take a while.”

Our trip back to the inn was quiet and it became apparent that the number of Eldritch had decreased to an almost non-existent level.

*Hey Vio, quick question. Is Ormonde with you?*

*Hi Maka. Yeah he’s with me. Why?*

*Let’s just say you’re going to have a very long lecture to listen to.*

I groaned and slumped over while covering my face with my hands.

“What.”

“Your dad made it back before we did.”

The small amount of color Ormonde had left in his face drained and he started to run back to the inn as if the act of getting there faster would somehow reduce his punishment. I simply sighed and resigned myself to my fate while ignoring the few passersby.

The sheet rope was gone when we returned to the inn and it meant we had to go through the front door and subsequently the door into the room we were staying in. I could tell Ormonde was panicking and it didn’t help that I wasn’t exactly the most stable person at the moment since I knew part of the upcoming admonishment was going to be focused in my direction.

Before Ormonde even opened the door to the room I could feel the anger behind it and knew that my skills at tuning things out was going to be put to the test. Ormonde didn’t get the chance to even touch the door before Cecil opened it. He stood there staring at us with the coldest expression I had seen him wear and when he stepped to the side I followed Ormonde into the room without making a sound.

As the door shut Cecil started talking and I started tuning things out. I caught some of what was being said responsibility this, danger that, and watched as at the end of the whole ordeal Cecil hugged Ormonde while repeating something about being safe. My heart skipped a beat in fear when he turned to look at me.

“Why didn’t you stop him from leaving?”

“I couldn’t.”

“I don’t buy that for a second.”

“Well you did only ask me to keep him safe and I did that.”

“Ormonde’s covered in burns!”

“Which he gave himself while putting out fires. He wasn’t so much as touched by a single Eldritch.”

Cecil looked at Ormonde who verified what I had said.

“So when do we leave? I know you’re not going to want to stay here.”

“We’re not.”

“What? Why?”

“Because we can’t. The town is completely surrounded by Eldritch. There’s no way to get out without letting them in and if we did leave we’d be massacred in minutes.”

“So the stuff that got into the town was?”

“Scouting parties. I’ve never seen this type of Eldritch before but it’s like it’s made to take down towns and cities.”

“And what are we going to do in the mean time?”

“For now sleep. The Eldritch retreated once it got dark enough and there are plenty of people on watch right now.”

I didn’t like the idea of being surrounded by Eldritch with no way out but I would deal with it if I needed to. Ormonde didn’t seem phased by the news and crawled into his bed and fell asleep the second his head made contact with the pillow. There was no point in straining myself to do something that others were doing and I entered Ormonde’s soul and felt myself slowly succumb to the lull of unconsciousness.

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AN: Hello readers! I honestly can't think of anything to say today. Oh well. Regardless of my own ineptitude I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns and for now I'll bid you adieu.

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