The reddish-purple portal swirled open behind Dain’s head, and four pale hands slid out like serpents, curling around his neck.

  Denkesh stopped and stared. The tamer’s face may be obscured, but Dain could tell it was utterly blank with shock.

  “... Great Curator God,” Dain whispered. “I want as many Manabrew Potions as these slabs of scorpion meat will buy.”

  The pale hands clapped—delighted—and began scooping in the wrapped meat he’d tossed over his shoulder. As they did, he also flicked half a dozen empty glass vials behind him, and the pale fingers caught two of them neatly before vanishing back into the portal.

  Denkesh’s stun finally broke.

  “But… how are you…” The rest fell apart into breathy, unbelieving scraps. “How is this possible?”

  Dain shrugged his wingcloak off his shoulders. Unfortunately, the silverplume feathers were torn—two clean holes punched through the middle of the wings where Denkesh’s drill had gored them. The wings themselves were ruffling, groaning in pain, so he gave them both soothing strokes with his hand before passing them back to Belara as well.

  “And please repair them for me,” he said. When one of the pale hands snapped their fingers, he reached into his satchel and pulled out a sack of silverplume feathers he’d bought explicitly for repairing purposes. “This much should be enough, right?”

  The hand weighed the sack of feathers and the wingcloak, then gave him a curt nod.

  And that did it for the stalemate.

  Whether or not he knew who it was Dain was talking to, Denkesh realized his advantage was slipping, so he snapped into a mad sprint, segmented blade uncoiling, scorpion tail rising. He had to destroy the portal before Belara could return with gifts—but that was the desperate reaction Dain wanted from him.

  In one swift motion, he ripped his oreblade cane out of the ground, ignited it, and held it horizontally, a finger’s breadth from his prosthetic palm. Heat immediately singed the metal, but good thing it wasn’t his real hand.

  Let’s see if this works.

  Denkesh closed in fast.

  Honest to god, Dain had no idea if this attack would even work, but he was inclined to try. He pushed ten mana into his prosthetic—more than he’d ever risked in one shot—and the pressure surged up his arm like a storm breaking through bone. The windsphere swirled into existence in his palm like a dense, vicious core of violence.

  The air trembled around the cavern. Denkesh saw it. He felt it. His eyes surely widened behind his mask as he realized this was an attack that he had to dodge, so his instincts snapped faster than thought. He threw himself aside easily, wingcloak flaring—but that, too, was something Dain wanted from him.

  Dain released the windsphere, and as it tore forward, it passed his firelight oreblade, dragging purple flames along with it. Wind and fire fused into a devouring wave that screamed across the cavern, slamming into the bloated queen.

  Purple fire engulfed her.

  The queen, however, didn’t thrash. She couldn’t, really. Her severed limbs and her mutated body left her only enough strength to shudder a few times, eyes dim and wet as the sacs along her back burst one by one, spilling pale meat that immediately charred black.

  She burned slowly.

  “No, no, no!” Denkesh shrieked, voice cracking. He abandoned everything—blade, stance, enemy—and sprinted for the queen, frantic as he tried to beat out the inferno with anything he could get his hands on.

  … That works.

  Good to know.

  Dain, meanwhile, simply turned back to the portal.

  Belara’s hands returned, first, with two Cursed Manabrew Potions. He looked their Tags over once. In total, they’d give him twenty mana and one mana regeneration at the cost of making his joints creakier, heavier, and stiffer for the next three days. A clean, fair trade with a manageable cursed effect, and since he hadn’t drank any potions in the past three weeks…

  He smiled faintly as he took the fizzling purple bottles from her.

  “Much—” He coughed, spitting flecks of blood. “Appreciated.”

  As he gulped down the potions and felt cold mana sliding through his body—a bit of strength returning, a bit of bones toughening—his repaired windcloak came out of the portal as well. The silverplume wings were pristine once again, and both of them immediately curled forward, wrapping around his shoulders for a hug.

  “Alright, alright,” he muttered. “You were only gone for half a minute or so.”

  But far be it for him to understand how a sentient wingcloak perceived time, so he pried the wings off gently before slinging the cloak around his shoulders once again, looking back at Denkesh.

  The man was still scrambling around the burning queen like a child trying to save a collapsing sandcastle, frantically scooping up ruined lab equipment and throwing them into the fire as if that would reverse anything.

  Dain stepped slowly forward, portal closing behind him.

  I should probably get a glove relic eventually, he thought, loosening his grip on his oreblade as he walked. He winced as he looked down and saw blisters already forming on his palm—he was going to need bandages after this. Even if it’s cursed, a relic that can keep my left hand cold will help counteract the heat from my oreblade.

  Eventually, Denkesh heard the footsteps. He whirled, tail sweeping a wide arc as he lifted his segmented blade.

  “You… you bastard! You brute! What sort of monster burns a majestic brood-queen?”

  Dain didn’t answer and lunged in instead, wings flapping.

  Denkesh lunged forward as well, but he was lighter now, the weight of two weeks’ worth of scorpion meat removed from his satchel. With his repaired wingcloak and his additional mana, the feeling was there. The speed was there. He saw the tail arcing at him from the left while the blade lashed at him from the right, so he blocked the blade with his wings—his heavier joints actually helping to stabilize him—and then he slashed the tail with raging firelight, cutting it off before it could reach him.

  Then he slipped into Denkesh’s range, stabbed the firelight oreblade through the stomach, and drove the man into the ground with a powerful crack.

  Denkesh gagged and choked, but his wound didn’t bleed. The firelight cauterized as it pierced, scalding the flesh without granting death, and all the while the bloated queen burned in the back of the cavern.

  … It’s over.

  While the sounds of fighting outside the earthwalls thinned to scattered clashes and distant clicks—hopefully, that meant his party members had finished clearing the scorpions outside and not the other way round—he knelt beside Denkesh, wrenched the segmented blade away, and yanked the alabaster mask off the man’s face.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Now he could see Denkesh’s Tag properly.

  ***

  Name: Denkesh Mavrenk

  Grade: Uncommon-0

  Title: Scholar

  Title Ability: Inkworn Mind

  Acquired Skills: None

  Might: 11 (+1)

  Swiftness: 11 (+2)

  Resilience: 12

  Clarity: 10 (+1)

  Mana: 42/83 (+0.4/hr)

  Relics: Skittering Scorpion Tail (Common-9), Metalmolt Wingcloak (Uncommon-2), Mirage Husk Brooch (Uncommon-2)

  ***

  Denkesh, beneath the mask, looked painfully ordinary. Black hair stuck to a sweat-slick brow, sallow cheeks, and a jaw heavy with unshaved stubble. Certainly not Ostravian. Certainly not that well-spoken man from Corvalenne.

  But the Tag for this one-eyed mask…

  He scowled, turning the stone mask over in his hand, and the moment he laid his eye on the inside of the mask, the Tag popped up.

  ***

  Name: Mask of the T???E???R???O???C???I???D?R???

  Type: Passive Trinket-Class Relic, Common-9

  Attribute Addition: None

  Ability Description: The holder’s name cannot be seen on a Tag as long as the mask is worn. The mask also unsettles and slightly terrifies whatever is staring at it. The passive drain is 1 mana regeneration per hour.

  ***

  The name of the relic is still jumbled, though.

  Is it just some weird word I can’t read?

  Nevertheless, he grabbed the man’s collar and hauled him a thumb’s height off the ground. Denkesh immediately hissed where the oreblade still pinned and burned him—though the firelight was already extinguished—but Dain couldn’t care any less.

  “Where’d you get this mask?” he asked, voice flat. “Who are you really?”

  Denkesh’s eyes rolled towards the mask, and then back up to Dain. Panic rippled over his features. “I told you. I'm Denkesh, ‘Scholar’ of the Lithic Academy… well, I’m not yet inducted, but I study in the outer halls north of the main academy, and I swear I don’t know who she is. It’s just… I’m a scholar, you see, and I’m trying to get into the Lithic Academy, but I need some groundbreaking research for the prestige to enroll, and since my field of expertise is in brood-linked nervous systems in magic bugs—”

  Dain clicked his tongue. “Get to the point.”

  Denkesh swallowed and shivered. “Okay. Okay. Look, I… two or three weeks ago, I was up in the Nazih Forest doing research on a bunch of ironsoul ants—and I was desperate to get some good results with my fast-reproduction serum because this year’s academy admissions close in a month—when this lady just… well, she came up to me in the middle of nowhere.”

  “And?”

  “Well, she asked me about my field, and when I told her, she told me there was a nest of steelplated scorpions with a promising queen down here in Mine Kormuhan. Obviously, I thought it’d be great if I could prove my serum could be used to turn steelplated scorpion queens into tamed brood rearers for armies, but I was worried, you know? I told her there was no way I could run experiments like that so close to Braskir because the local guards would get me after I disrupt mining activities, but she said no, no, and… she gave me these.”

  Denkesh pointed weakly at the mask, the Metalmolt Wingcloak over his back, and a little bronze brooch on his belt in the shape of a butterfly. “She said… what’d she say? The mask can hide my name from people, the wingcloak’ll boost my speed, and the brooch will let me camouflage, making me strong enough to fend off anybody trying to get me. I mean, these are strong relics, right? So I thought I’d just do my research, get my results, and then get out before the local townsguard could get me. I swear that was all I had planned. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, but that first group of adventurers just wouldn’t leave me alone even after I offered them a chance to leave, so I—”

  Dain punched him once in the throat. Denkesh choked on a broken breath.

  “What did she look like?” Dain demanded.

  “I-I don’t know. She wore the mask up until the end and only gave it to me when she was turned around. I don’t even know why she gave these relics to me, but—”

  “Voice. Hair color. Length of her nails. Anything.”

  “She’s… she’s smaller than you, but she’s definitely Obrican. Just small for an Obric lady,” Denkesh stammered. “That’s all I know. I swear. She didn’t give me a name or anything.”

  Dain went quiet.

  Now that he could see Denkesh’s actual eyes—clear, frantic, exhausted—he could tell the man wasn’t lying. He wasn’t one of the one-eyed. He wasn’t part of anything larger. He was just a desperate academic who got pulled into someone else’s design.

  Even still…

  Dain couldn’t just hand him over to Braskir and walk away. Denkesh had seen him open a portal. If that information reached the wrong ears—especially to the Templars in Braskir—the Curator Church would find him, and having Templars on his tail was the one thing Dain couldn’t risk.

  He grit his teeth.

  He didn’t want to kill the man. A man who killed lightly was a man who killed his soul, and if there was anyone he did have the resolve to kill, it was the one-eyed. Life for life, death for death. A thousand souls perished in Corvalenne, and he would have a thousand souls repaid... just not from a man who didn't actually have anything to do with Corvalenne's destruction.

  How was he supposed to keep Denkesh alive without risking his own head?

  Then Denkesh himself gave him an idea.

  “Who… who are you?” the tamer whispered. “That purple portal… doesn’t belong to any of the Seven Curator Gods. How’d you… how’d you even…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, because Dain lifted his left hand and pressed two fingers to his eyepatch in the shape of a pair of scissors.

  Denkesh froze. His pupils shrank. His breath caught.

  “No,” he whispered. “No way. You’re not…”

  … That’s right.

  In the fifteenth volume of The Tales of Seeker Orland, when Orland was cornered by the Sky Soldiers of Xuesi, he made this gesture to signal he was an Umbral Inquisitor of the Curator Church—one of the most secretive factions in the world. The only thing Orland knew at the time was that they were the Church’s shadow soldiers. Their cruelty to those they deemed problematic to the workings of the Church were known to many. They were the ones who handled the Church's darkest errands, and they were the ones with relics and abilities that would never be put in any book, never to be discussed.

  And who else but the Umbral Inquisitors might even possess the ability to open strange portals to even stranger gods, given blessings by the Saint-Archbishop themselves to break the rule of no personal Altars?

  “You’re a man of academia. You're a smart man,” Dain said softly. “You know exactly who I am, don’t you?”

  Denkesh nodded rapidly, breath shaking.

  “So if you’re an even smarter man, then you’ll say nothing when I deliver you to the Braskir guards,” he continued. “Not a word about who defeated you. Not a word about what you saw here. You'll simply confess to your crimes, clearly and politely, and if you breathe one whisper—even to one soul—about what really happened here…” He let the sentence finish itself in Denkesh’s mind. “Well. You are a smart man, aren’t you?”

  Denkesh nodded again in frantic, terrified agreement. "I'll make up a story! I swear to the gods! Rip out my tongue and gouge my eyes, I didn't see any clergymen today!"

  "Will you? The Townsguard might not believe you and torture you for more information, though."

  "They wouldn't! They'd have no reason not to believe me, and the Obric Townsguard aren't brutes!" Denkesh pleaded. "Look, the story is... I came here, tamed some scorpions, killed some adventurers who tried to stop me, and then you guys stopped me! That's a perfect story! Please, they can execute me all they want, but my mama has got nothing to do with this. If anyone's gotta die, please, just let it be—"

  “Good,” Dain said. “We have an understanding, then. So long as you keep your mouth shut, we'll leave your mother alone. I swear this on the gods."

  He released the man’s collar.

  Right then, the earthwall behind them split open with a sharp crack, and Kargun burst through the stone with his giant metal gauntlets followed by Ilvaren, Sahlir, Yasmin, and then Anisa. All of them were bloodied, sweating, panting—but still alive. They must’ve rushed in thinking Dain needed rescuing.

  Instead, they found him standing over Denkesh, oreblade still in his gut.

  “... Request completed,” Dain said, flashing them a tired, dizzy grin over his shoulder. “Queen’s dead, tamer’s captured. Now help me harvest what we can still harvest before the scorpions start rotting.”

  Three of the four frontliners let out triumphant shouts. Anisa released a long sigh of relief, while Yasmin immediately moved to steady her, murmuring instructions about breathing deeply.

  Dain exhaled as well—

  And then the stone mask cracked in his hand, shattering into dust.

  He stared at the pile of dust on the ground, jaw tightening.

  … I still got played, huh?

  The one-eyed he was hunting knew he was close. She knew he’d track the mask, and she knew he’d chase it into this mine. Giving Denkesh her relics was specifically to knock him off her trail.

  But the question is, is she still watching?

  His gaze swept the cavern walls. The dead, burning queen cast long and crooked shadows that didn’t feel like they belonged to only the flames.

  He didn’t like this place.

  Not at all.

  here with 20 advanced chapters, and the link to the Discord server is , which has exclusive daily facts about the world, galleries of the maps, and announcement channels where readers may get early access to new stories!

  follow/favorite/rating! It'll help me out a ton!