Greg propped his head up in his hand, the other pushing a spoon around in a bowl of stew. He’d have preferred to leave Otella immediately, but the boon The Mother Below bestowed upon him made it difficult to even see straight, let alone pilot a floating disc. Seraphae had recovered much more quickly, obviously more resilient to the divine power of her deity mother, and tucked herself under his shoulder to lead him to the nearest inn.

  After ordering their food and drinks, she’d sat down across from him and didn’t speak a word for more than an hour. After finishing off her bowl of stew, she took a sip from a thick wooden tankard, grimaced at it, and then looked up at him.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

  Greg looked up at her without lifting his head and sighed before focusing on the thick brown broth again. “She wouldn’t have done anything else,” he said quietly. “If you hadn’t stopped me, we wouldn’t have even gotten what we did. I would have peppered her with questions until she left.”

  Seraphae pushed her bowl toward the center of the table. “You handled yourself surprisingly well. Deva Quellen said you had a history with her?”

  Greg smirked and scooped up a couple potatoes and a bit of leopler meat. He did his best not to think about the sedan sized pigs with pillbug bodies outside of town as he savored the juicy meat. “We do…sort of. You and I don’t have the kind of trust that conversation requires, though.”

  Seraphae nodded slowly, pursing her lips. “Because of the mind control thing?”

  Greg’s eyebrows quirked, and his nostrils flared. “Amongst other things.”

  Seraphae mirrored his posture, only much more elegantly with her chin resting in her palm, leaning toward him. “And if I were interested in turning that around? What sort of steps would you suggest?”

  “She must be having a laugh. You’d better not even think about entertaining this blatant manipulation.” Isabella continued to rant to herself even after he’d tuned her out.

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath,” he said, though any bite that would have accompanied the words before was long gone. “Let’s deal with Kael and save Maeve…then we can talk about it.”

  “You’re going to let me help you then?”

  “Just get the information from her and go back to Brannoc. You don’t need this hussy’s help!” Isabella continued to bitch.

  “Against the voice of better judgement.” Greg nodded. “They’ll just have to forgive my lapse in decision making this time.” A rumbling growl sounded in the back of his mind, but she finally stopped ranting at him.

  “Thank you.” She tucked a strand of silvery hair back behind her ear as she leaned away from him again. “That’s more grace than I deserve from you. I want you to know that I appreciate it.”

  “Don’t make me regret it.” Greg glanced over at the door as it opened. Light still spilled through as people strode in and out, but they were definitely losing time. “We should head out…Gonna be dark by the time we get back to Rhobair.”

  “You need to rest.” Seraphae followed his gaze to the door. “Besides, our next stop isn’t the city if we’re going after Kael.”

  Greg turned back toward her and raised a brow. “Okay, enlighten me.”

  “If he was in the city, the justicars would have found him by now. He’ll need to have found a spot where he can keep an eye on his dealings, without being in reach of them.” Seraphae hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “I know a few places, but we’re going to need more than a few hours of light.”

  “Who’s to say the Rillon’s don’t have him stashed someplace quiet?” Greg shook his head. “Him getting caught is just as bad for them isn’t it?”

  Seraphae nodded. “And that’s one of the spots we’re going to check. The Rillon’s have a home on Wyrm’s Gap. There is also a tower and an old dungeon in Monarch’s Forest we can check on the way.”

  “Sorry, a dungeon?” Greg asked.

  She gave him a nod. “Yeah, think it used to be a crypt or something. Kobolds took it over a few years back and we took a contract to clear it out.”

  Greg dug his thumbs into his temples, rubbing hard. Of course, there were dungeons. Why wouldn’t there be? Just when the world was starting to feel normal. “Okay…what about the tower?”

  “She’s talking about…”

  “Yekharl’s Tower.” Seraphae and Isabella said at once, the words echoing uncomfortably in his mind.

  “I’m not familiar.”

  “You’re learning from Brannoc Stroud and he never told you about Yekharl’s tower?” Seraphae crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned back and shrugged a shoulder. “It was before my time, but Brannoc and his party pushed through a horde of undead there. Yekharl was a necromancer. He’d been peppering Rhobair with waves of zombies and skeletons for months before the bigger stuff started coming. Old guy at the Salt Lick told me he’d reanimated a dragon and sent it over the walls before the arcane cannons went up.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Four dragons.” Isabella corrected her.

  “Anyway, Brannoc and his party pushed through the army of the dead and into the tower. As far as I know, no one actually knows what happened there…but he was the only one to come back to the city.”

  That’s where they’d died. The images that Isabella had shown him of her soaring over a horde of undead while Brannoc and Maeve’s father carved a path through them. A hollow feeling came over him, but he did his best to keep his expression even.

  “You think he might be there?”

  Seraphae nodded. “He insisted on stopping there anytime we were close. He always had a weird fascination with places like that.”

  “That didn’t send up any red flags for you?” Greg said with a grimace.

  “Red flags? Why would there be a red flag on a tower?”

  “No..not like…” Greg sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Like…a warning that he was a creep?”

  “Oh…” Seraphae pursed her lips and shrugged. “In hindsight, maybe. Seeing as I’m trying to get on your good side, I probably shouldn’t say this, but in my experience, most men are creeps…”

  Greg opened his mouth to retort, then immediately closed it again. “Yeah…you’re probably right.” He surrendered that point. “So sleep here and head out in the morning?”

  “If you’re alright with that?”

  Greg nodded and glanced over at the blinking bar to the right of his vision. He had long overdue notifications to get through anyway. “Alright. Separate rooms, though. No funny business.”

  “Yes sir.”

  After paying for his room, he hobbled up the stairs and collapsed onto a far too soft mattress. Since taking over Brycen the alchemist’s apartment, he’d become accustom to some of the finer things in life. The last few days sleeping on Brannoc’s couch and now this abomination of a cot solidified his sleeping arrangements were the most important of those changes.

  “Alright,” he sighed. “Go ahead and let me have it. You’re upset I’m working with Seraphae.” Greg spoke at the ceiling.

  “That’s a bit reductive.” Isabella started pulling up notifications for him to read. “I’m simply concerned that your basic man brain might be getting a little razzled due to the fact that she is quite beautiful and forgetting the part where she’s a demigod that openly manipulated you multiple times.”

  “Basic man brain? Are we sure I’m the one being reductive?” Greg asked as he read the first notification.

  Ability level up!

  Volatile Step

  Level 2: 35 of 1000

  Upon reaching thirty volatility, you may purge some to teleport instantly to a visible location within range.

  Decrease volatility by 10

  Range 20 ft.

  Another notification for Ruin Edict popped up next, indicating an increase in duration per resonance purged.

  Ability level up!

  Ruin Edict

  Level 2: 18 of 1000

  Execute the will of the gods at any cost

  After eclipsing forty resonance, you may choose to convert all resonance into volatility after a delay. This will heal any non-lethal wounds and temporarily double your strength, dexterity, constitution, and luck for a limited time. Dominant resonance at the time of using Ruin Edict determines additional effects.

  Cooldown: Long rest (minimum eight hours)

  Decrease all Resonance to 0

  Lasts 2 second per 1 resonance

  After the effect ends, increase volatility by half the amount of total purged resonance.

  “Would have been better to decrease the cooldown, but I’ll take what I can get, I guess.” He dismissed the notification, and Isabella threw the next one up for him as he spoke. “What would you rather I do then? Go hunt down Kael by myself?”

  Brannoc Stroud’s Leather Duster

  Rarity:

  Unique Lineage Item

  Description:

  Lined with the fur of an Ashlands Direwolf, this duster renders you immune to weather effects. Additionally, acts as magical leather armor, protecting you from most piercing, slashing, and blunt damage from non-magical sources. Its pockets act as a small extradimensional space.

  New Ability:

  Ashland’s Veil

  Upon activating Volatile Step, you may choose to obscure the space you reappear in with a ten-foot sphere of smoke and ash. Your vision is unobstructed, but no one else can see in or out of the field.

  “Honestly? I’d prefer you go back to Brannoc and work out a different way to deal with this. I get that Maeve is your priority, but working with celestials and Deva can only bring bad news.”

  “Okay, you gotta tell me. What is your thing with them? I get that they are extensions of the gods themselves, but you’ve got some personal beef with them I don’t understand.” Greg scooted up the lumpy bed and laid back into the pillow.

  “I don’t have…beef…” she said the word like it personally insulted her. “I’ve got history with them, and you would be smart to learn from my mistakes.”

  “You would have to tell me what those mistakes were before I can learn from them.”

  The woman let out a huff into his mind from lungs that didn’t exist. “It was before I met Brannoc and Killean. A priest of Theron and one of his celestials took me in. It was before I figured out which god summoned me. There was a decent chance it was Theron, but I was still in very early days of my research.”

  Greg frowned when she paused and shook his head. “I don’t think you ever told me what god summoned you…”

  “You never asked. Veyru.” She said before continuing the story. “They let me travel with them for a few months, completing contracts, sharing loot, etcetera. Then they had what I thought was a perfect plan to take me to the oldest temple to Theron on Ashoria. If there was any place on the continent they could get the god to speak with them, it would be there.”

  “That’s where you learned he wasn’t the one that summoned you?”

  “No, that’s where I learned not to trust priests and celestials.” She said flatly. “They took me up there to speak to Theron, but I was the sacrifice.”

  Greg’s eyes opened again, and he swallowed hard. “Fuck…I’m sorry. I had no idea. Why would they need to sacrifice you to speak to their god?”

  “Unfortunately, their charred remains didn’t provide much during the interrogation process.” She said matter-of-factly. “The first time I spoke to Veyru, they told me I was meant to be a catalyst for some boon they were seeking.”

  “Isn’t Theron like the head honcho god? He wanted them to sacrifice a person for power?”

  “There isn’t really a main god, not like Zeus or Odin. They’re all of similar power, but none of them are above a little humanoid sacrifice.”

  Greg nodded slightly and pursed his lips. “I’m sorry you went through that. I promise I’ll be careful, and I’ll listen to your warnings, of course, but I’ll do whatever it takes to get Maeve back.”

  “I know, and I am aware it’s likely just my bias showing, but that girl has already crossed the line for me.”

  “I know.” Greg sat up long enough to pull off the duster. He folded it so the soft fur was facing out and laid it atop the pillow before dropping back onto it. “I’m trying to have a little more grace. Hopefully it won’t bite me in the ass.”