Harlan awoke. Balor was gone, he would get up but the slight creaking of the bed was like a fireball next to his head, he tried to cast a dampening ward to get rid of the sound but he couldn’t.

A nurse nearby called for a doctor, the sound of her yelling made him want to slip back into a coma.

Eventually the doctor came and realized the source of his pain, putting up a total silence barrier and then someone he didn’t expect walked in.

“Harlan, can you hear me…?”

“Why are you here? Where am I?”

“You hurt your soul… really bad. Your… Brother explained what happened, he has been working with the doctors to fix you, I’m going to get him.”

Relly left the room for a few minutes, she came back wearing Balor, who slipped off her finger as soon as he saw that Harlan was awake.

“Brother! I nearly lost you. Do you remember anything that you should’ve learned?”

“Barely… what a waste.”

“There will be time to learn more later, just slowly. But for now, you cannot use magic. Your ability should come back eventually, but for the next 2 weeks you shouldn’t use any at all, you can’t really. Your soul… well when it took in that knowledge it just… it fractured, if I wasn’t already linked and I didn’t know your soul you would’ve died. I shut down your mana channels leading from your soul, you can’t let any out now, but once you are well again, they should open without needing to do anything.”

“Where is this, it’s familiar.”

“The royal infirmary, it was decided that you couldn’t be left in the hands of a counts doctor, not that the ones here are much better, but they learn much faster at least.”

“I’m… going to sleep again.”

“Yes brother, sleep.”

It was another 2 days before he woke up again, feeling much better.

Balor was gone again, but this time Harlan could get up on his own.

“Sir Fomoria, you shouldn't be standing.” a doctor tried to force him back down, but lacked the strength to do so.

“I will be alright now… where is my brother?”

“Yes… The ring… I will get him, lie back down.” The doctors were all more than a little annoyed at listening to the instructions of a floating ring.

Instead of the doctor returning it was a royal guard.

“You will have an audience with the king.”

Harlan didn’t question it, just followed behind the large man.

He entered the throne room where Balor was already placed on a table.

Harlan kneeled, still a little stiff.

“Rise, this is no trial.”

“Your highness, what am I here for?”

“That ring, it is a danger, would anyone else have it? I might demand it be destroyed. But instead I will ban the creation of new souls like this, with a free will comes many dangers, and also opportunities. You will, once recovered, make another ring like it, grant it knowledge, and hand it over to us. In exchange you will be granted a sum of 100 gold.” Harlan was shocked, with 100 gold he could do a lot, his family could buy every farm surrounding them, and then pay them to work. Making his father a large landowner, setting them up to never need to work again.

“This is outrageous, your highness. Harlan lacks any economic experience, only my second hand knowledge which wasn’t even properly assimilated. I counter your offer, 1000 gold, and our family gains nobility. And, Harlan is allowed to make me a brother. And he is no longer locked to the Redwall estate.”

The king just laughed.

“300 gold, you will be allowed to roam freely, and you can make your brother. But only after you have granted us our researcher soul. And your knowledge of this process is to only be held by the royal family from this point onwards. It will be classed as forbidden magic, there are too many far reaching implications to allow this to spread.‘

“Deal. Harlan, bow to him, I can’t.”

They left the room, the king called in and spoke to the 1st prince.

‘Keep a close eye on the boy and his ring, it has a great deal of an ego problem. Thinking itself a negotiator. Make more deals when you can before it learns how to actually make demands, the boy seemed to defer to it for this.“

And then Harlan went to a final check up and returned to the Redwall mansion.

Autumn was already waiting for him, she was clearly disturbed by his sudden near death experience.

“Everything has been explained already. You need to rest.” She rushed him back to his room, where a large pile of books was waiting.

“You are going to be reading, no more all night excierices, no more crazy experiments, just learn something that doesn’t kill you, alright?”

“It’s fine, I just made a mistake, next tim-”

“Next time? Do you PLAN to die? You were gone for 3 years, then you show back up and it’s great, and now you made that… brother ring, and you nearly killed yourself trying to learn things too quickly. You are young, you have already done far more than I did at your age… just… slow down, smell the flowers, read some stories, play with other children, get a hobby. The world will still be here.” Autumn was in tears by the end of her plea. Harlan knew she was right, he had spent too much of his life already trying to learn new things, to get stronger, the incidents of powerlessness he felt had left deeper scars then he realized.

The werewolf, the royals taking him, nearly dying many more times along the way. It was just too much.

“I’m sorry… I’ll slow down, I’ll live, it’s alright, no more experiments. Not unless it’s with the count, and I know it’s already safe. I can’t even do magic right now, and I won’t for a little while still.”

Autumn calmed down, and Harlan did too.

He started reading books every night instead of doing his exercises, after 2 days he found a new hobby. He liked carving wood. He had a lot of time to make little trinkets, he liked carving owls most.

He walked through the garden with Ava, slowing her down as well.

He just talked with others, learning the names of all kinds of thing, he hadn’t really read any bestiaries since before he was taken away. He got into the habit of trying to carve the new creatures he read about. After 3 weeks of this he still hadn’t used any magic, he could again, but he didn’t feel that consuming fear that if he ever stops getting stronger he will fall behind and die.

The count and the crown however were still wanting the deals to be fulfilled.

He took out another part of him, this time it was just a small fragment of his curiosity, and then grew it. The vessel the kingdom had provided was a large crystal ball.

He and Balor spoke with him for a few minutes before handing him over to the royals. He didn’t even get to know what name it would have.

Balor had already started some of the work on getting the count’s people trained and the mimic orchard grown.

Harlan finally started on weapon training again, but not before making his new brother. Formed from some of his memories of protecting himself, a weapon built on anger seemed like an awful idea to Harlan and Balor.

Lugh, his machete. When he spoke to him Lugh said he got his name from the same place as Balor.

Harlan didn’t even ask where, feeling some pull to avoid the question.

“Big brother Harlan, what should we do?”

“We will go for a walk. You are young, the world will still be here when we get back, training can wait. And you can just call me Harlan.”

Harlan decided to walk to a stream he knew about near the mansion from a map he had read.