– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 216, Season of the Setting Moon, Day 34 –

“Where did he go?” Amelia shouted her question.

“Gone.” Jee appeared next to her with a deeply furrowed brow. “Definitely gone and gone far away. Going by the destabilized space, that unanchored transfer must have been quite the distance.”

Amelia repeated the info for Dargones’s ears, who was holding off several death reavers at once.

Jee disappeared and moved from place to place to erase all the remaining dimensional gates.

Amelia nodded when she saw Jee jump back into action. She looked for a death hunter to coordinate with. “No matter the reason, a chance is a chance. Let’s take these things down while we can.”

***

“Hah!” Terry uttered and let go of the metal ball he had been swinging on the chain. He dashed to the side and channeled mana into his bidirectional attraction inscription to ensure that the chain would further tangle around the juggernaut.

Terry had needed a few attempts to get the hang of it. Even though he was familiar with bolas, he had little experience with swinging a chain around. Fortunately for Terry, he had been able to adapt after a few failed attempts.

“HISS!” Unfortunately for Terry, the juggernaut was an unwilling participant to Terry’s plan. As soon as Terry left the protective cover of an immovable object, the enraged juggernaut charged into the gap to smash Terry to pieces.

Terry nimbly dodged into the air with the help of the divine hammer inscription. He had to suppress the instinct to activate the chained imprint in the metal chain. If the juggernaut became wary before Terry had a sufficient setup, then all of Terry’s earlier efforts would have been for nothing.

Luckily, the hellspawn did not pay much attention to the chain as long as it did not impede its movements. Terry was quite proud of managing to direct the chain around the juggernaut’s torso and spikes without creating too much of an obstacle for its legs or arms.

By now, Terry was getting more accustomed to facing the enraged juggernaut. The fact that it was a lot faster than agile proved a big advantage for Terry. An advantage he could exploit magnificently with his Immovable Object spell.

At least I’ve been good at staying alive so far. I really need to improve my offensive ability if— Focus!

Terry was subconsciously examining all the active spells around him – all the transfixed items that provided cover and limited the juggernaut’s movements. Estimating the remaining spell duration and replenishing the mana from a distance while running around the chamber had already become second nature to Terry.

Terry had reached the end of his prepared metal chain.The juggernaut had dragged the last remaining links out of Terry’s enchanted Academy bag and the chain was falling to the floor. Before the chain hit the ground, Terry had already somersaulted in the air and pulled the end of the chain towards him with his bidirectional attraction glove. While Terry was keeping a hold on the chain with the inscription, he used his free hands to prepare the mana sublimator with the biggest lightning-aspected core he had left in his storage.

Now!

Terry grabbed the end of the chain with one hand and the mana sublimator with the other. He darted forward and into the path of the charging hellspawn. Shortly before they collided, Terry pressed as much mana into his channels as he could control. In his state of burst acceleration, Terry wrapped the chain one more time around the juggernaut.

Finally, Terry activated the imprint in the first link. The Immovable Object imprint activated and simultaneously, the carved directional lines guided the mana to activate the imprint in the next link of the chain. Link by link, the whole chain transfixed around the juggernaut.

“Hiss!” The juggernaut was not pleased at this new development. Unfortunately, for the hellspawn, it could not simply press through the whole chain the way it did with the transfixed throwing needles.

Before the juggernaut champion was able to shift gears and dismiss his state of boosted empowerment in favor of switching to an ethereal state, Terry had already placed several transfixed items to further box the juggernaut into a newly created corner. He only left the top direction open.

Terry air-jumped above the juggernaut. He could detect that the juggernaut champion was trying to turn ethereal again. Emphasis on trying. Once more, the active Immovable Object spell and the void step ability seemed to mutually negate each other and it flickered without ever fully losing its corporeal state.

Terry kept an eye on the active imprints in the chain – always prepared to reignite the whole chain of imprints at a moment’s notice. He carefully judged the timing and hurled an oscillating needle between the two multi-faceted eyes of the juggernaut, right at the time the juggernaut flickered. Terry knew he had to be quick for this next part.

Terry used his bidirectional attraction inscriptions to roughly keep the needle in the area where he suspected the hellspawn’s brain to be. Without pause, Terry followed up with the last part of his plan: He aimed the mana sublimator, transfixed the handle attachment and then—

“BOOM!” A dense blast of lightning-aspected mana enveloped the trapped juggernaut that was still unable to turn completely ethereal.

Terry understood that he should keep his eye on the juggernaut being shredded by the lightning-aspected discharge and judge if this was sufficient to overpower the hellspawn’s regenerative abilities.

Nevertheless, Terry also felt his mana sight drawn to the lightning mana that passed the juggernaut and moved towards the dungeon floor. He could detect fluctuating changes in the tiny dungeon inscriptions when the lightning mana made contact. A part of the mana appeared to vanish while some of the inscriptions glowed more brightly than before. Other inscriptions flickered and a part of the mana was even reflected back towards the juggernaut – much to Terry’s delight.

Terry had enough sense to not space out completely and he had already rearmed the mana sublimator with another mana core. Just when Terry unleashed another intense, aspected discharge, Terry spotted something happening to his oscillating needle. It made contact – physical contact – and combined with the juggernaut’s rampaging movements, the juggernaut had sliced its own brain apart on top of being assaulted by aspected mana from the outside.

Terry armed another mana core just to make sure, but before he could use it, the juggernaut champion was gone, vanished completely. For a moment, Terry was dazed and subconsciously focused on the changes in the dungeon inscriptions around him. He believed he had detected different inscriptions reacting at the exact moment that the hellspawn had vanished into nothingness.

Terry blinked absentmindedly. He understood that he should feel relieved or happy, but for the moment, he was just staring and concentrating on his mana sense. Without turning back to look, Terry could sense a platform being raised from the floor. He sensed a set of magic items that had been obscured by the dungeon previously.

“Reward,” muttered Terry. “Special encounter? I’ve never heard of a hellspawn involved in a special encounter…” Deep creases appeared on Terry’s forehead.

A part of Terry’s mind was excitedly prodding him to check out the magic items, but his attention was still drawn by the dungeon inscriptions all around the chamber. There were large shifts in mana that would have appeared nearly random if not for Terry’s honed mana sense.

After several breaths, a movable part of a wall moved aside to reveal a large systematic mana structure. Terry approached the mana structure with eyes wide open. “This…” He blinked. “This looks like a mana lock. A bit like in the demon fortress, only…”

Terry was unable to pin down the difference, but something about these inscriptions was different from the shielding and mana locks he had seen. Subconsciously, he reached out with one hand, but then he controlled himself and stopped. “Not the time.” He turned around and distanced himself from the mana-locked exit. “I should make use of having the room to myself.”

Yeah, who knows how it looks outside? Or how long this will take this time? Or—

“Thanks for the input,” grumbled Terry annoyedly.

Terry arrived in front of the reward platform and discovered two magic items: A necklace and a brooch. He examined the necklace. “Huh?” Terry could feel an effect as soon as he picked it up – a portion of his mana was sucked away. “Hmph.” Reflexively, Terry took active control to stop his mana being drained. “Hmm…” He tilted his head and looked closely at the necklace. “A passive item. Doesn’t seem to be harmful though. What does it do…?”

***

“Get back here, dwarf, we’re still not finished with the treatment!” shouted one of the healers. “You’re still injured.”

Lori was bolting away with a speed that did not betray the fact that she had nearly lost her legs not too long ago.

“No offense, but if you keep pestering her, you’ll only end up with two injured instead of one,” said Miguel dryly. He clenched his teeth as someone fixed his dislocated shoulder. “Hfff…” He inhaled sharply. “Going by the look in her eyes, she’s probably worried that she’ll miss the chance to get a hold of Silver-Eyes Jee. She’ll calm down and behave after that’s been settled.” Miguel blinked and looked to the side. “I think.”

“Hmph.” The healer did not appear pleased but stopped going after Lori.

“Do you believe Jee will help?” Calam, whose forehead was covered by a bloody bandage, asked Miguel.

“No idea,” replied Miguel and shrugged, which instantly caused him to grimace from the pain in his shoulder. “He’s Thena’s older brother. He should know Terry. If we can convince him that we’re telling the truth, he might help us search for Terry.”

“Neither of you is leaving.” The healer was giving the two the stink-eye. “Your treatment hasn’t finished yet. We’ve barely finished the physical injuries. Death mana corruption, blood abomination rage, executioner debilitations, ghoul scratches, zombie bites, —”

“Yes, we’ll behave,” interjected Miguel with a suppressed trace of annoyance. He had heard the list of required treatments after such a battle countless times already. He muttered under his breath. “Until there is a good enough reason not to.”

“What?” The healer squinted at Miguel.

“I said, we’ll behave,” repeated Miguel wryly. He glanced at Calam. “We could use a proper rest anyway.”

Calam yawned loudly. This caused the healer to stare at him intently. Calam could practically hear the healer's reprimand already. “I know, I’m not allowed to sleep yet.” Calam spoke up before the healer could go off on his second favorite rant. “Head injury and all.”

Miguel made a conflicted expression and opened his mouth without speaking.

“Go ahead and try to sleep.” Calam could guess Miguel’s thoughts. “I’ll wake you up if there is anything.”

“I’m running empty.” Siling hurried over and turned to the healer. “I won’t be able to support the healing for a while. I need to recover mana and I also need to talk to Jee or Amelia and—”

“Lori is already on it,” interjected Miguel. “Darted off as soon as their battle had calmed down.”

Siling grinned. “Great minds think alike.”

The healer scowled. Behind the healer’s back Calam was gesturing to Siling. He shook his head. He looked pointedly at the healer. He moved his angled fingers back and forth in front of his throat by rotating his forearm.

Siling cleared her throat and followed the hint to cut it out. “I mean I’ll use the break and make sure that Lori returns to finish her treatment.” She swiftly turned around and left while the healer was squinting at her departing figure with suspicion.

Siling found Lori just when Lori had discovered Jee. Siling hastened her steps to hurry over as well.

“Please please please.” Lori was surprisingly out of breath after she had arrived in front of Jee. She even bowed to Jee.

Jee, who was shorter than Lori despite her bowing, raised an eyebrow. “I don’t remember your face. What do you want? I’m busy.”

“Yes, I—” Lori was too nervous and saliva got into her windpipe, which caused her to break out into a coughing fit. “Ahem… Excuse me… Ahem…”

Jee scowled at her. “Young lady, I’m busy.” He turned around.

“Please wait!” Siling spoke up. “I’m Siling and this is Lori. We’re friends of Thena from Arcana. Lori is Terry’s sister, Matteo’s cousin, Sigille’s niece. We came to Tiv to gather ingredients for a potion to save Lori’s and Terry’s parents.”

“Ahem, we’ve been separated from Terry.” Lori shot Siling a glance of gratitude and then spoke pleadingly to Jee again. “And we can’t reach him without the help of a dimensional mage. Please. It’s been more than three weeks already since we’ve seen Terry in the Wastes to the northeast.” Her eyes became watery.

“How is Thena?” asked Jee worriedly. “Is the broken barrier affecting her?”

“She’s in Arcana City,” said Lori. “Her, Clayson, and Cousin Emaldine have found a place together. My aunt is helping her with the immigration. My brother and our friends are looking after her too. Cousin Matteo is active near the city.”

“Good,” muttered Jee. “Arcana City is the safest place for them.” He sighed. “I should still pay her a visit soon. The whole barrier incident was unexpected.” He nodded slightly and looked at Lori. “Terry kept his promise to me and a simple transfer is nothing much to me. That being said, I have to disappoint you on one point: I won’t be taking you to the Wastes.”

Lori’s expression fell.

“There is no need for you to go there, I will go,” continued Jee. “Saves mana and avoids unnecessary spatial disturbances. You wouldn’t be of help to me anyway. Do you have a tracking device?”

Lori nodded shakily and retrieved her own signaling cube. “This has the strongest signal.”

“Good,” muttered Jee. “I can copy the signal, I just need to know which one it is. Can you flash the link once? Ah wait, is it the looping one?”

“Yeah,” mumbled Lori with a nod. She was wiping a tear from her eye. She felt relieved to finally find a path to rescue Terry but she did not dare to feel at ease yet.

“I still have to coordinate with the others, but once I’m free, I’ll check it out,” promised Jee. “Afterwards, I can also get you and your ingredients back to Arcana. I want to visit my little sister anyway.”

“There you are, little missy!” Wallace stomped over with a scowl.

Lori and Siling looked at each other with confusion.

“I just had a grumpy healer chew my ear off about a fugitive patient.” Wallace crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows.

Siling pointed at Lori. “Safe to say he means you.”

“Go get yourself fully treated!” ordered Wallace. “That healer may be unnecessarily grouchy, but he has a point.”

Lori frowned at being ordered around.

Wallace glanced at Jee. “Are you going to help find Terry?” He was relieved to see Jee nod and returned his full attention back to Lori. “Then you have even less of an excuse to dilly-dally here. Chop chop. A big girl like you shouldn’t be afraid of the doctor.”

Lori’s face flushed at being treated like a kid. “You—”

“That archer friend of yours is currently snoring peacefully,” interrupted Wallace. “A sensible choice I would say, since we don’t know how long this quiet break will last.” He smirked cheekily. “If you don’t hurry, they might place another dwarven beauty next to the archer. That would be a shame, wouldn’t it?”

Lori blushed profusely and for a moment, she looked like a fish that kept opening and closing her mouth without finding the words to speak.

Jee rolled his eyes and teleported away.

“Anyway, go back and tell the old grouch that I’ve done my part.” Wallace unconcernedly walked away with a grin before Lori could retort. He even skipped and whistled.

Siling could not help but snicker, which invited a glare from Lori. Siling raised her hands in front of her. “Don’t look at me. He’s the one who said it.” She cleared her throat. “You should go back to your treatment though.”

***

While most people at the Libra Outpost had calmed down after Weran had suddenly vanished, a few figures were anxiously pacing back and forth on the training grounds.

“If you keep doing that, you’ll have to fix the ground again,” quipped Miguel.

Lori glared at him, which caused Miguel to smile sheepishly.

“Maybe we should ask one of the more experienced Guardians how long this should take?” suggested Calam. “I literally have not the slightest understanding of space magic.”

“I don’t believe it would help, even if we understood a bit,” said Siling wryly. “No idea how far it really is, what is waiting there, or what Silver-Eyes is capable of.”

Lori sighed and began pacing once more.

Jee appeared out of thin air. He was alone, which caused everyone’s expression to fall.

“The bad news is that I haven’t found Terry at the location,” said Jee. “But that seems to have been intentional on his part. I found this buried in a field of blood tulips.” He handed over a signaling cube and a metal box.

“That’s Terry’s cube,” muttered Lori.

“There wasn’t another signal even after I isolated the cube,” said Jee. “Terry must have disabled the links on his Guardian card. Otherwise, I would have received something.”

“The bonehead probably didn’t want anyone to miss the tulips when searching for him,” grumbled Siling.

“That box looks like Terry’s shape metal imprint in action,” remarked Calam.

Jee flicked his wrist and the contents inside the layer of metal were extracted: a wooden box and a sheet of paper. Lori took the sheet of paper while Miguel checked the wooden box.

“One complete set of ingredients – including a four-leaved blood tulip,” announced Miguel. “Terry really found them.”

“But why bury it?” asked Calam.

“Have you forgotten the undead horde?” asked Miguel with a gloomy expression. “If I were him, I would send the dragonfly construct on its way and then try my best to survive. Terry is much faster than me, so he probably tried to lure the creatures away from the tulips as well.”

“...yeah,” mumbled Siling. She was reading Terry’s message over Lori’s shoulder. “The message is addressed to whomever finds the box. He explains the situation with the ingredients and where they are needed. Evidently, Terry did not want to rely on the dragonfly construct alone.”

“Damn it,” cursed Lori. “If he had stayed put, we could have all—”

“I don’t believe that was an option,” interjected Jee. “Not from the tracks I’ve seen.”

Lori closed her eyes and took deep breaths.

“Don’t forget the message he included for us.” Siling put a hand on Lori’s shoulder to comfort her. She looked at Calam and Miguel. “Terry wrote that he’ll come back to Arcana and that we should not worry.”

Calam and Miguel glanced at each other and tried to wipe the worry from their faces. Admittedly, they were not entirely successful in that endeavor.

“Yeah and Terry doesn’t like lying, remember?” said Calam in a slightly forced tone.

“Without us to worry about, Terry doesn’t need to fight and can focus on escaping,” added Miguel.

“A good point.” Even Jee spoke up when seeing Lori worry about her brother. “Escaping a horde is a lot easier than engaging it. Particularly a horde of that size. Unless the horde is willing to split up, there is a limit to its collective speed.”

“Right, and it’s Terry!” Siling patted Lori’s shoulder. “Our homegrown mana-foundational freak. The undead that are trying to keep up with him are probably huffing and wheezing and considering crawling back into their graves by now.”

“Without a signal, there isn’t much I can do, but I can keep an eye out and an ear open,” said Jee. “I’ll coordinate with the others and I also have some business with Dhruv. You should get packing. After I’m done with everything urgent, I can take you back to Arcana. You won’t be able to do much good here.”

Lori grimaced and shook her head – shifting between an unreconciled manner and sheer helplessness.

Miguel poked Lori with the wooden box. “Terry didn’t lie with his signal. Mission completed. We can make sure your parents are alright and afterwards, we can all figure out how to best proceed. Terry made it out of a death-infested dungeon at the arse-end of nowhere. We shouldn’t underestimate him. We’ll just have to keep looking.”

Lori sniffled and stared silently at Miguel. His phrasing had jogged another memory loose. She remembered Isille dragging her to the training grounds after Terry’s last disappearance.

“...eventually there will only be us.” Lori muttered faintly and clenched her fists. “Trying our best for our whaka.” She nodded and mustered the resolve to depart for Arcana. Her gaze rested on Miguel for a heartbeat longer than she intended.

***