Book 3: Chapter 1: Travel Across the Land

  They walked with heads low, boots crunching through soft earth. No one spoke as they moved, none of them had since they crossed the last ridge. There was nothing left to say that hadn’t already been carved into their psychi over the many days of their lives as collared slaves on the warfront.

  Kate’s hands tightened around the hilt of her rapier even as it hung at her side, her knuckles white. Eric’s shoulders were squared as he walked, facial expression scrunched like he could hold the whole world together by sheer force of will. Holly lagged just a little behind, her eyes darting to every shadow in the trees, as if the world itself might attack them next. Tom-Tom walked near Alex, tail twitching, head low beneath his dented cooking-pot helmet. Even the little kobold’s usual chatter had been swallowed by the weight they all carried.

  Alex led them forward at the front, doing his best to show a visage of calm.

  But his thoughts were dark, the betrayal of Terraxum sat like a shard of ice stuck in his throat. They had fought, bled, and nearly died for a throne that had tried to turn them into tools, and then attempted to discard them when it suited their game. He could still see the King’s smirk, still hear Kailan’s voice as he walked into what was essentially his own execution, and still tasted the ash in his mouth from the magical bomb that had taken the prince and everything else with it.

  We left the war behind, he thought, eyes scanning the burned horizon. But it hasn’t left us.

  Even now, every sound made him flinch; the branches snapping, the distant cawing of what sounded like crows, the whispered the wind like a scream against his ears. His hand itched with every breeze, his limbs filled with the urge to fight at a moment’s notice. It was a constant feeling of unease and high-alert, and he hated it. He hated how the paranoia felt like it had been burned into his nerves against his will. The constant hyper awareness that had his mind running in circles tucked inside yet even more circles, all irrational paranoia’s that he knew to be absurd, but just couldn’t shake.

  “So… where are we going?” Holly asked. She spoke low, almost like she regretted speaking at all but could no longer bare the silence.

  Kate glanced at Alex, then Holly, before saying, “Vrung’s Quarry? That was our last safe spot.”

  Eric shook his head. “Safe until Terraxum decides it isn’t. Or the Aerali buy the story Terraxum is spewing and try to come get revenge on us. They’ll know where to go to find us.”

  Henry, walking quietly behind them all as he always did, finally spoke. “We could go further. Past Terraxum’s borders. There are other nations. Places where the king’s reach doesn’t stretch.”

  Lance spoke up then, “You think the Empire won’t notice us crossing borders? We’ll just paint targets on our backs sooner.”

  Tom-Tom’s tail gave a nervous twitch. He looked to Alex, then the others, his eyes darting about as if he was hesitant to say his piece. Alex had to coax him along with a wave of his hand before he finally spoke. “Kobold village is safe. Tom-Tom says so.”

  Alex sighed at this, he hated the idea of putting the Kobold village at risk once more. Their presence would certainly do that. He stopped walking, turning to face them all. “We don’t have a good plan yet, okay. We just know we’re not staying here. We’ll figure it out as we go. I’m thinking that we go to Vrung’s Quarry first, Celeste will know what to do. After that, we decide the rest.”

  They all nodded their agreements, but the tension stayed. The road felt endless, the weight of the war pressing on them with every step. Even Garret, usually the loudest of them all, stayed quiet for a while longer.

  The road wound on, taking them through a patch of forest, its canopy mostly gone, the ground littered with brittle leaves that crunched like bones beneath their feet. They hadn’t seen another soul in hours. It was just them, and the ghosts of their memories, the specters of trauma living rent free in their minds.

  Just like the road they walked, silence stretched on, growing so thick Alex thought it might choke them. That’s when Garret, bless his tone-deaf idiot heart, drew in a deep breath and started singing.

  “I wanna be… the very best…” The tune was off-key, cracked, and far too loud for the solemn landscape. Holly turned to glare at him like he’d grown another head. Kate groaned loudly. Eric stopped dead in his tracks and just stared at him.

  But Garret ignored all of their reactions, he didn’t stop.

  “Like no one ever was! Duh, duh, duh—” he pointed dramatically at Alex “—to catch them is my real test...”

  Henry, of all people, chuckled at the performance. Then without warning, he started humming along, low and gravelly. Lance snorted and joined in on the next line, his voice surprisingly steady and thankfully, far less tone-deaf than Garret’s.

  “To train them is my cause!”

  Alex stared at the guys for two full seconds… then barked out a laugh he hadn’t realized was being held captive in his throat. Kate was the one who broke next, stifling her giggles behind her hand. Even Holly snorted despite herself, and Eric cracked a small smile, shaking his head. Tom-Tom, completely lost, hummed random noises in an attempt to match them.

  Devon jumped in then, surprising Alex with a rather decent singing voice. “I will travel across the land!“

  It was Allie who came in with the next line, and then Peter after that. By the time they hit the chorus, everyone, every single one of them, was singing like idiots. They all knew the words, it was the anthem to a century of nerds and gamers, after all. Their singing was shaky, more half-laughing and half-singing, completely out of tune at some places, but nobody cared; they sang together regardless.

  For a moment, the weight lifted. The dark roadway suddenly seemed a little less bleak, the cobblestones a little less black, the road a little less daunting. They laughed, and it felt like remembering a bit of home, a bit of their childhoods. Maybe it let them pretend that they were still there, that they were still alive and safe.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  But as all things do, the song came to an end. The giggles and chuckles eventually faded after awhile, leaving behind the sound of boots crunching over the packed road and the occasional clink of armor. It wasn’t an oppressive quiet like before, they now instead traveled in a familiar and welcome lull.

  Obby thrummed faintly in the back of his mind, smooth and faintly accented as always. “You’ve been quiet, meatboy. Thinking again? For you, that is a dangerous habit.”

  A plan... we need to plan, Alex replied. Got to figure out how to get more powerful, and quickly. That last fight with the Prince… if we run into anything like that again, we’re all dead.

  “Get more power? That’s easy, [Glyphcraft]; Your control is improving, but you’re barely scratching the surface. A few more inscriptions or enchantments, and you’ll stop fighting like a talented child, and start fighting like a true adult fleshsack.” Obby said eagerly.

  Alex smirked, You just want an excuse to cover me in more tattoos.

  They make you prettier, Obby said. But more importantly, I want you to increase your Wisdom. Your overall power and knowledge will explode because of it. Trust me.

  He shook his head slightly. No. Willpower and Vitality first. Willpower is how I can accelerate my cultivation speed, which in turn boosts everything else. If I can’t survive long enough to cast and punch, control doesn’t matter. I’d rather be the blunt rock than the glass sword.

  “You’re stubborn, you know. I like that... You’re still wrong, though.”

  He sighed and ignored Obby’s pestering for now, instead pulling up his status notifications with a flick of thought. Lines of system text glimmered in a gilded message box in his vision, stark against the dusky background.

  Alex snorted upon reading the System text. The System always knows how to write like a passive-aggressive ex. He thought.

  “It’s not wrong, though,” Obby mused. “You’re chains are indeed broken, for now. But we both know the jailers are still out there, waiting to snap their bindings around your wrists once again. Get your item reward already.”

  He didn’t need more encouragement, he held his hand aloft in front of him and accepted the quest reward. A small sliver of a crystal-like material suddenly appeared in his palm. It was faintly glowing even to his normal sight, and under the senses of his special ability, it looked different. The energy inside the item was highly structured and orderly, as if it was aether energy itself crystallized into a permanent form.

  What the hell is it?

  “Aetherial Prism,” Obby’s cut in. “Just a shard of one though, that’s disappointing, but still a good reward.”

  Okay… but what does it do?

  “Basically its a stabilizer. Aetherial prisms are naturally occurring, but are very rare. They are solid formations of aether and the orderly laws which govern its use and application. It inherently holds an immense stabilizing intent.”

  Stabilizing intent, so what, it can make something chaotic and unwieldy more manageable?

  “It can be used for all sorts of things, but yes all of them lean toward making things that normally wouldn’t work together, suddenly harmonize. Its the magical equivalent to dish soap for the heavenly oil and earthly water.” Obby said.

  Huh? Alex was lost.

  “Look, its a great crafting resource and it will let you do things like create an enchanted aether crystal that holds your [Vita-Surge Cloak] spell, but without it’s drawbacks due to the stabilized nature of the energy in the shard. Okay?

  Oh, oh wow that IS good.

  Alex could suddenly see where this little prism shard could be useful now. Making a very dangerous potion creation process much safer, for example. It probably could have its energy extracted and used to make something like his [Aether Channels] enchantment a much easier, and less stressful, endevour. It could be used for lots of things actually, so he would hold on to it until the moment seemed right.

  The shard was tucked into his bracelet’s storage space before he started to scroll through the rest of his system notifications. All the rest turned out to be kill confirmations from his little rampage through the royal palace; he went through them quickly, message after message flickering past his vision. He didn’t linger on them. He’d done what he’d done, and he held no shame or regrets regarding his actions, only acceptance.

  Once there were no more notifications, Alex instead brought up his quest log screen instead. As he had known, there was still the top problem they faced, which was still waiting for him.

  The Trial timer pulsed at him like an open wound:

  [Time Remaining: 628 Days, 2 Hours, 48 Minutes]

  Alex dismissed it with a grimace, the number gnawing at the back of his mind like a ticking clock in a quiet room; too slow, yet far too fast. They were getting stronger a crawling pace, not enough to avoid deletion when that countdown ended. He wasn’t sure what the exact expectations The System had placed on them, but he knew they weren’t reaching them yet.

  Next, the Martial Style Advancement quest lit up:

  He frowned at this one, slightly perplexed. A thousand hits. You’d think after surviving a war I’d have ticked that box by now.

  “It’s a testament to your skill,” Obby said smugly. “You dodge, you parry, you kill before they land clean hits. You’re too good to get hit that much.”

  The compliment sat oddly with him, pride and disappointment clashing in his chest. Alex pushed it down. There’d be time to finish the quest soon enough.

  He closed out the System screens and focused on his surroundings once more. His teammates still walked with him, each of them lost in their own thoughts, looking their own System screens, or looked about for possible danger.

  It was one thing for Alex to have a plan for his growth, but he had to make sure that all his friends were strong enough to stay alive if he wasn’t there.

  He let his [Aether Sight] flare open, and the threads of luminous color lacing the world became apparent. The others walked as glowing silhouettes ahead and behind him, their auras pulsing with varying hues. Kate’s flame burned bright, quick, and volatile. Henry’s water attunement soothed and softened, and Alex could see small amounts of elements in there was well, a tinge of light and earth perhaps. Meanwhile, Holly’s wind shimmered restlessly. All of them were scanned by his [Aether Sight] and all were found to be Early Stage Adept in various degrees, each on their own path… but not fast enough. None of them were strong enough yet.

  The threats that were piling up behind them were not rumors and political dances in ballrooms anymore. Just as they grew in power in this world, they were also amassing enemies in their wake at a rapidy increasing pace. Basically all of Terraxum and Aeraltih would now have their sight set on their heads. He wasn’t yet sure about the Urhara Empire and the Arcanuum, like Malric Vaunt.

  “They’re strong,” Obby noted, reading Alex’s thoughts, “but you’re right. Not strong enough. Not yet.”

  Then we push harder. Because if we don’t, next time… next time there won’t be a peaceful retreat. Alex replied in his mind.

  The air of the late afternoon chilled as they walked, but Alex didn’t feel it. His mind was already somewhere else, counting days, counting enemies, counting every breath until the next fight ahead of them.