– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 216, Season of the Rising Moon, Day 71 –

Mia was sitting in the sky inside a transparent spatial barrier. Underneath her was a dimensional gate and she observed the large demon army collide with the forces of the garrison in front of her.

“Are you trying to start a war?” howled a giant, silver-clad woman whose body was filled with rotating blades.

“No, we are just going to finish it,” retorted Mia casually. “‘Vigilant and virtuous’, hah.” Mia scoffed. “If anything, it was Tiv that started a war with the attack on Arcana’s barrier.”

“That was not Tiv!” objected the silver-clad woman. “That was just the action of a few individuals and not sanctioned by the Tiv Empire!”

Mia’s eyes narrowed. “You seem to know quite a lot about it.” She spread her arms and shrugged. “But what does it matter? We dimensional mages are also just a ‘few individuals’ with no order from the Arcana government.”

“How can you attack innocent people?!” demanded the silver-clad woman.

“How could you?” retorted Mia in a biting tone.

“They attacked the barrier, they did not attack people!” insisted the silver-clad woman.

“Neither am I.” Mia pointed out while raising her hands. “I am merely maintaining a dimensional gate.” She motioned her hands at the gate below her. Mia’s eyes turned cold. “Don’t play rhetorical games with me. Don’t try to play dumb. The attack on Arcana’s barrier redirected the terrors of the Wastes. Our gates are serving the same purpose.”

“An attack for an attack.” Mia cracked her knuckles. “If your ‘few individuals’ claim the right to redirect the Wastes to another empire, then we will do the same and we will do it better.”

***

Close to Arcana’s border with Tiv, Terry’s group appeared out of nowhere.

“These scrolls are great,” exclaimed Siling happily. “Why don’t we always have those?”

“Because avoiding a few hours of travel is usually not worth the price,” replied Terry with a chuckle. “The permanent gates are pretty great on their own.”

“Rhetorical question, Terry.” Siling giggled.

They had distributed the transfer scrolls between Lori and Siling so that every second scroll was carried by one of the two. If, for some reason, they got separated, then they would still be able to travel the whole distance but with longer walking periods between transfers.

They had chosen Siling as the person with the most defensive role since the main healer is supposed to stay out of combat. They had decided on Lori as the strongest person after Terry. Terry himself had refused to carry the scrolls since he could not completely rule out dungeon shenanigans and he was unwilling to endanger their task in any manner.

“What’s bugging you?” Miguel asked Lori while walking.

“Hm?” Lori turned her scowling face to Miguel and raised an eyebrow. “You mean aside from everything?” She herself was taken aback by the unexpected snark in her tone. Before she could apologize, Miguel already responded.

“Actually, yes,” said Miguel. “Normally, when shit goes down, you have this look of determination and concentration in your eyes. Like with the inscribed earth giant or when we revisited that dungeon for the first time.” Miguel shrugged. “Now, however, you are looking more grumpy than focused. Like whenever Jorg has stolen your dessert.”

Lori tilted her head and stared at Miguel for a moment. “I’m thinking about our cousins.” She frowned. “I can understand Pa. I somewhat understand Uncle Samuel and Aunt Brynn.”

Miguel listened attentively.

Lori shook her head. “But I have trouble understanding our cousins. They were willing to cross vast distances and to empty their accounts and storage items to help, but neither Cousin Matteo nor Cousin Emaldine are willing to stop Pa Bjorln.”

“I think I get it,” interjected Terry with a conflicted expression. He had thought a lot about his talk with Samuel.

“You do?” asked Lori with more than a hint of surprise.

“I mean, considering what happened in the Libra Outpost, Pa Bjorln’s actions are tame, aren’t they?” Terry lowered his gaze. “Almost rational, or more rational at least. At least Pa’s actions have a chance to save Ma Isille. By contrast, Whaka Matteo risked his life even though there was no chance to save Aunt Sigille at that point. Same for Whaka Emaldine.”

Same for me, added Terry in his mind.

“I can understand that they are not willing to stop Pa,” said Terry. “It is consistent.” He smiled wryly. “Perhaps I’m just the hypocrite among us.”

Lori’s scowl was replaced with a pensive expression.

“I’m actually more surprised that your families did not object to you coming with us to the Wastes,” said Terry with a glance at Siling, Miguel, and Calam.

“Wastes, Shmastes,” quipped Siling. “Mana-corrupted beasts sight-seeing tour. We’re probably a lot better equipped than the average waster out in the Wasted Zone and we’re not going beyond the last Guardian Outpost, right?

“My mom said that she expected me to want to roam outside Arcana eventually and that she could not think of a better reason to start.” Siling shrugged. “She only asked me to never set foot near the Lich Kingdoms. As long as we are careful and prepared, she’ll trust me in Tiv.”

“My pa is manaless,” said Miguel. “To him, there is not much difference between going into a dungeon, hunting mana corrupted, or making a trip to the Wastes. All just different shades of unfathomable madness. And right now, even Arcana is not completely safe from the Wastes anymore, so might as well…”

“My relatives said they’re proud of me,” said Calam with a deep smile. “And that my father would have been proud of me as well.”

Terry recalled one of his talks with Calam in which Calam had mentioned that his interest in legends and legendary characters was in large part due to his deceased father, who had been the only person in his family that had properly trained as a mage and Guardian.

Terry and Lori glanced at each other and they could read the thoughts in each other’s eyes. They were grateful to have companions like these.

***

“Why the Wastes did we have to appear right in the middle of these beasties,” grumbled Miguel while running as if his life depended on it.

Because it did.

Miguel needed more than ten large strides to finally evade the giant claw rushing down from above. He rolled on the floor and then examined the ostrich that stood as tall as most buildings in a smaller city. Miguel nocked one of his prepared arrows and fired without hesitation. A thin metal aspect reinforced wire was attached to the arrow.

The colossal ostrich did not flinch when the arrow entered its giant body. It did not even notice when the arrow’s mechanism triggered and a grappling hook extended inside of its flesh.

Miguel dashed to the side while quickly channeling mana into the ring that was attached to the other side of the wire to activate the Immovable Object imprint. He summoned one of Terry’s imprinted tertium slabs and transfixed it at an angle in the air while shooting more wired arrows from behind its protection. In between shots, Miguel glanced towards the side where Siling and Lori were dealing with another colossal ostrich that was still giving chase.

Siling had activated her floating ability and cast Haste on everyone within reach. She skipped into one direction while Lori burst her mana and dashed into the other.

The colossal ostrich chose to madly rush after Lori when its leg unexpectedly tripped over a thin trip wire that had been left in the air by one of Miguel’s arrows. Both sides of the wire were secured to immovable metal rings.

*BAM* The colossal ostrich fell flat on the ground. The wire had even cut deep into the bird’s legs.

Lori immediately followed up with an empowered Shape Earth spell and a parallel casting of Harden Earth. The colossal ostrich’s neck was enveloped by earth that soon hardened into rock.

Siling finished her own spell combination of Liquify Earth and Entangling Roots. The ostrich’s claws sunk deeper and deeper into the muddy earth as it tried to lift itself up.

Meanwhile, the arcane purplemist lynx and wiremoss tarantula soul spirits attacked the ostrich’s exposed eyes.

“Phew…” Miguel returned his attention to the colossal ostrich in front of him. “Crap.” He cursed himself for failing to account for the ostrich’s flexible neck when he spotted the beak rushing towards him from a direction that was difficult to evade.

*Bam* The head of the colossal ostrich was rammed into the ground by an empowered Kinetic Push spell.

Up ahead, Calam used another Kinetic Acceleration spell to propel himself towards Miguel and take the dwarf some distance away.

“Thanks,” said Miguel and rapidly pulled an explosive arrow from his enchanting quiver. Without pause, he fired four arrows into the ostrich’s eyes before the creature could lift its head up again.

Shortly after the arrows had entered the creature’s weak spot, the arrowheads exploded and the metal shrapnels penetrated deep into the bird’s brain. Miguel replaced the fired arrows with fresh, non-magic spares so that his quiver could enchant them over time.

“Happy to help,” said Calam. “Gellath warned me that you might lose sight of your own situation at certain moments. Ahem.”

“That little blabbermouth,” grumbled Miguel before shrugging. “You watch my back, I watch yours. How is Terry doing?”

*Rumble* The noise of another fallen colossal ostrich reverberated through the area.

“Uhh…” Calam prepared another jump spell. “Much better than we are. Siling and Lori took down one. We took down one. That was already Terry’s third kill going solo.” He looked over to Terry. “And he’s going in for the last one. Some of his new items are pretty terrifying.”

Miguel exhaled a sharp breath. “Yeah, especially for these beasties.” He let his finger run through one of the imprinted metal rings that Terry had given him. “This improvement in mana compression is unexpectedly useful.” He watched Terry’s fight in the back.

Terry used a burst technique to accelerate further while provoking the last remaining colossal ostrich. While running, he retrieved one of his prepared items, which he called a skewer box.

Terry summoned and transfixed pieces of wood from his anklets to jump into the air. He infused the cylindrical container of the skewer box with mana and pointed it at the colossal ostrich’s torso. The inscribed plate at the container’s back propelled the more than two dozen small needles forward and spread them out before the chained imprints in the needles all activated at once.

Even if the ostrich had been slower, it would not have been able to see the small needles, much less dodge them. The colossal ostrich’s large body collided with the wall of transfixed needles and every needle pierced into its body with a tremendous force. Its instinctive flinching upon impact worsened its injuries even further and its organs were shredded.

The colossal ostrich collapsed on the floor while the bloody needles remained transfixed in the air. As soon as the imprints deactivated, Terry channeled mana into the inscribed plate again and all the small needles were pulled back into the cylindrical container.

Good investment!

Terry grinned. He had wondered if the inscription was worth the price since he usually considered his throwing weapons to be disposable. He could have replicated the spreading out effect in another manner. He could have collected the small needles manually or with his inscribed gloves, for example. However, the convenience of registering a number of items and having them moved in fixed patterns was hard to beat. Fortunately, Terry only needed to move items that were very small and light. The inscription for Terry’s use case was simple and therefore comparatively cheap.

Initially, Terry was troubled to find a good use for his improvements in mana compression. While it was obvious that it allowed him to cast the spell on smaller items, it was less obvious how this could translate into a practical advantage. It was not practical to shrink his current throwing needles much further since a certain weight was required and he was not free to exchange materials.

At least not yet. Terry had made progress in understanding the interaction between a naturalized oscillating mana charge and the Immovable Object spell but creating the required charge added an undesirable delay to his casting.

“All good?” Lori walked up to Terry.

“All good,” said Terry. He looked expectantly at Siling.

“Yup, no more giant life signatures in the vicinity,” said Siling.

“Still a fan of transfer scrolls?” asked Calam with raised eyebrows.

“Less so,” said Siling with a shrug.

“Much less so,” grumbled Miguel. “I much prefer to see where I’m going.”

“Interested in the colossal ostrich soul spirit?” Lori asked Siling. “That would be quite the sight as a mount.”

Siling snorted. “Yeah, but no. Fast and comfy, yes. However, at this rank, that thing does not have any useful mana abilities. Its size is also rather impractical, I would say. I can’t stuff that thing into a dungeon or into a normal street.”

“To be fair, riding an oddly colored wiremoss tarantula on a normal street also seems somewhat eccentric,” quipped Miguel.

Siling gasped in mock offense.

“You could open up a travel service or something,” suggested Calam. “These things could probably carry fifty people or so.”

“Oy, are you trying to get rid of me?” Siling narrowed her eyes.

“Uhh…” Calam’s expression froze. He flusteredly asked: “No, why?”

“Just checking.” Siling snickered and stuck out her tongue. “No, thank you. I’m still very much into Guardianing, thank you very much.”

“Good to hear,” said Terry with a grin.

Lori and the others nodded.

Miguel looked at the colossal corpses. “Do we need to clean up or something? I’ll get my arrows but…”

“No,” said Terry in thought. “Would take too much time and we are still a long way from the Wasted Zone. Let the wildlife take care of it.”

“What a feast,” said Siling. She smirked at Miguel. “Try fitting that game into your dimensional storage.”

“Even if we had time, my storage items are already filled to the brim with food and other supplies,” said Miguel. “I did not want to rely on hunting along the way this time.”

“I believe the smell is already attracting a few animals.” Siling looked at Terry. “Should I send out Grumpy while we’re walking?”

“There are several larger birds up in the sky,” said Miguel while squinting upward.

“At least two of them have mana,” said Terry. He looked at Siling. “Better not risk it. Grumpy isn’t that sturdy and we’re not searching for anything in particular. We already know the way.”

“How far until we can use the next scroll?” asked Lori.

Terry checked the map of Tiv that Matteo had prepared for him. It included the marked transfer destinations of all transfer scrolls that had been provided to them. Everyone in their group carried a copy of the map.

“This location is between Tiv’s capital in the south and a supply point for death hunters in the north,” said Terry.

“Kind of ironic that they chose to place their capital this close to Arcana’s barrier only to then sabotage it,” grumbled Miguel.

“Probably not the same people.” Siling pointed out with a shrug.

“Tiv’s whole attitude towards Arcana also clashes with silently benefiting from Arcana’s efforts,” remarked Lori. “As far as I see it anyway.” She looked at Siling. “I read through Tiv’s laws and magic restrictions and I find some of them quite disturbing. No wonder they are running out of mages.”

“Uhh…” Calam stared at Lori and then moved his eyes from one person to the other. “Was I supposed to do homework on Tiv?”

“Did you forget?” Siling shook her head. “Tut tut tut.”

“I only looked it up when I did not know what else to do in preparation,” said Lori. “It was a good way to distract myself while regenerating mana.”

“I only looked up some of the flora and fauna,” said Miguel. “Things I need to watch out for and things that might be useful.”

“I focussed more on the fauna part,” added Siling with a grin. “I don’t have much use for poisonous plants and stuff.”

“Good that I’m not going alone,” muttered Calam. “Perhaps I’m still not taking this seriously enough.” Afterwards, he became silent and pensive.

“Our next destination in the direction of the Libra Outpost can be targeted if we move west for a day at normal pace,” said Terry. “Fortunately, we don’t have to keep as much distance from the inhabited areas as in Arcana. One good thing about Tiv is that no one cares about the destabilizing effects of unanchored spatial transfers over long distances.” Terry made his remarks with a wry smile.

“Might have to do with Tiv running out of mages and crafters,” said Lori with a snort. “Not much need to care if barely anyone can do it.”

“So? Do we aim for a normal pace or do we run?” asked Lori.

“On the one hand, I would like to get some more distance to the capital quickly,” muttered Terry. “On the other hand, running may draw more attention to us.” Terry walked while thinking.

“What are you doing?” interjected Siling. “Collecting souvenirs?” She squinted at Terry’s feet.

Terry blinked and looked at his feet. Subconsciously, he had been collecting stones and twigs into his storage anklets.

“Something for my training,” said Terry before looking at the others. “Let’s run for a while after Miguel has salvaged his arrows and wires. I’d say it’s better to collect our breath before the next transfer so that we are ready in case we stumble into another situation.”

“Alrighty,” exclaimed Siling and retrieved a mana container to siphon her excess mana into.

Calam and Lori also retrieved their own mana containers. In contrast to Siling, they first had to absorb some mana to fill their own mana pools after the previous battle.

***

Brynn yawned tiredly while stepping through the door. She put her hands in front of her face and moved them through her hair. When Brynn opened her eyes again, she could not help but smile, because Samuel was standing there with a basket in his hand.

“I thought since you are already choosing to neglect sleep, I should at least make sure that you eat properly,” said Samuel with a warm smile.

“I don’t have much time,” said Brynn apologetically. “I have an idea for condensing the inscriptions inside the chamber that might extend Whaka Isille’s remaining life by ten to twenty percent.”

“That’s what I assumed, my life, which is why I brought everything with me.” Samuel patted the basket and sat down.

Brynn rubbed her eyes and sat down next to Samuel. She felt the knot in her stomach untie while watching Samuel prepare a picnic in the hallway.

“If I had access to a few materials, I might be able to improve the chamber even further.” Brynn muttered to herself.

“Just hand me a list and I’ll check with the Guardians and the Guild,” said Samuel without stopping to place the food in front of Brynn.

“Unfortunately, some of the materials are a bit difficult to acquire,” muttered Brynn. “Not quite as bad as that four-leaved blood tulip but still.”

“We can only try our best,” said Samuel with a hint of sadness.

“I’m not really sure what that is anymore,” sighed Brynn wearily.

Samuel handed her a glass of orange juice. He waited for her to elaborate and speak whatever was on her mind.

Brynn gulped down the whole glass and shook her head. “On the one hand, I’m the best qualified to work on the inscriptions for Whaka Isille’s chamber. On the other hand…”

After she had not finished her thought for several breaths, Samuel asked: “Are you worried about Whaka Terry and Whaka Lori?”

“Yeah…” Brynn sighed. “Mostly I’m wondering if I would be more useful there with them. Or in their stead. I’m very tempted to go search for the missing ingredients and materials in Tiv Palace and their capital myself.”

“What makes you think they would give those to you even if they had them?” asked Samuel in a concerned tone.

“Who said I would be giving them a choice?” retorted Brynn with a dark expression. “This whole situation is their fault to begin with.”

Samuel softly placed his arm around his life’s chosen.

Brynn sighed again. “Sorry, I don’t really want you to see that side of me, my life.”

Samuel placed a soft kiss on her temple. “Who said I would be giving you a choice?”

Brynn snorted slightly.

“Just tell me in case it comes down to it,” said Samuel. “I won’t have you raid Tiv Palace alone, Whaka Brynn.”

Brynn picked up one of the bread rolls. “For now, I’ll focus on improving the chamber. As long as my improvements can buy more time than I need to invest, this seems like the best course of action.”

***