How do you know your foes are vanquished and you are safe from danger?

  -Traveler’s guild student

  After the fight with Euberon, I have a sense of derealization. I feel like I’ve just woken from a long dream, a dream so long and complex I need to take time to remember who I am. I was so consumed in Euberon’s quest for vengeance and domination, in the memories that spun out before me, for a moment, I forgot I wasn’t a renegade warlord.

  I was never overtaken in any real sense; there was no battle of souls or manifestation of his will to overtake me. It’s like reading a book or watching a movie where you’re too invested so that you forget where you are when the credits roll. Where you dress up to act like the character in the story at a convention, but get swept up in the act. I’m appalled I was so lost in the pain, rage, and loss, that I forgot who I was. That I’m not a killer; I dedicated my life to healing and helping others.

  I take a deep breath, glad to have a moment to breathe, to do something familiar and grounding: healing. I flit between my teammates, checking their vitals and casting healing magic. The repetitive motions are a touchstone to wade back to my reality, as I walk through the mechanical motions of healing my teammates, ingrained in me from years as a mundane healer on Earth.

  I walk back and forth between them, and in the back of my mind, I navigate through my own thoughts. All too soon, my moment of quiet and self-reflection is over. I finish another round of healing on Benjamin when he groans, stirring awake in a sudden jolt. He cries out and backs away from me in a blind panic. His eyes are wide, and strong waves of fear emanate from him as he tries to create distance between us.

  “Hey, it’s ok, we won,” I reassure him while putting my open palms in the air in a calming gesture.

  The stark fear veiling his eyes recedes, so he recognizes where he is and who I am.

  “We won?” He asks weakly, unbelieving.

  “Yeah,” I say, trying to sound reassuring, but my fatigue saps any strength from my words.

  “Olivia- is she-” he cuts off, unable to finish his question. I feel a heavy fear of loss weighing down on him. It’s one thing to hear how he dedicated his life to protecting his sister, but it’s another to see how the responsibility of his sister creates a burden on his psyche. How the ever-looming fear of loss manifests through his paranoia. His head frantically turns to locate her body, only a few feet away. He crawls over to her. He puts his hand against her mouth, feeling the warm puffs of her breath as she sleeps.

  “She’s fine, well, not fine, but she’ll be ok.” I say as I motion to her sleeping form three feet away, “She’s still fighting the toxins, but her body is slowly fighting them off.”

  He straightens up and his eyes brighten with a firming resolve as he regains control of himself, but a frantic tone still leaks into his words when he says, “We need to grab them and leave.”

  Then he turns to me, eyes narrowing with judgment, “Why are we still here? Why haven’t we left yet?”

  I let out a mirthless chuckle. So quick to change from the hopeless knight carrying the burden of protecting others on his shoulders, to accusations. I guess I should thank him; I was teetering dangerously close to empathizing with Benjamin. “I cannot fight off the sewer rats and carry you back. Now that you’re awake, maybe you can help carry them.”

  I motion toward Kurt, hoping he will carry the bigger man covered in weighty metal armor. Wordlessly, he trudges towards Olivia, ignoring me, and grabs her staff before flipping her over his shoulder to carry her unconscious form. Then he turns back when he sees I haven’t moved, “Well, are you coming?”

  I roll my eyes. I mentally psyche myself up, preparing to lift my cumbersome friend despite feeling like my body is wrung out. It’s not only that I don’t want to carry Kurt because I’m exhausted, but if there’s a fight, I will need to be the one to step in to deal with it.

  Benjamin is still quite feeble, so I’ll need to be ready to cast magic from my dwindling mana pool, and if I do drop Kurt, his heavy armor will sink him straight to the bottom. I begin limbering up, hoping I will find a well of strength for the trek ahead, when Morgana walks over and effortlessly picks him up. I eye her for a second, surprised by the feat of strength, and curiously probe through the bond.

  I’m still a little shaken from the end of the fight. I saw her in that horrific form earlier, covered in blood with fangs and claws, but now she’s back to looking like a porcelain doll. Despite looking the same, I can feel she has changed after the fight. She feels more powerful, but I can feel a different texture through the bond. If her emotions were embers before, now they feel hotter and volatile. Like someone is trying to create a fire with gas, but they don’t quite have enough gas to keep the flame going; the embers will periodically combust in a fitful explosion as enough gas accumulates.

  ‘Do you want to stay?’ she asks, ready to follow me no matter what I want to do. She would lay my friend back down and wait hours, days… even years in this sewer, regardless of the danger, until I’m ready to go. This time, though, it’s less out of deference to my commands but more out of concern, or the closest thing to concern she could emote with her muted emotions.

  While I can’t feel strong passion from her, this is different. She’s taking the initiative to pursue what she wants, rather than reacting to my commands. I’m not sure what to think about this development. On one hand, she’s gaining independence and vitality, but on the other hand, I think about what caused the change; back to the gruesome scene of her needlelike teeth sinking into Euberon’s heart.

  I wearily shake my head as I clear the memory, ‘No, we need to go; we stayed too long already.’

  I look back at the dead elf one more time. Whatever Morgana did to the elven mage in the center of the room had fundamentally changed him magically. While everyone was asleep, I considered raising him to help protect my weakened teammates. My raise spell form wouldn’t sink into him like it should for a corpse. I ran into this before, when the head or spine was destroyed. Still, something seems different, in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. My intuition tells me there is a clue here about how magic works. Maybe the mana pool is in the heart, or the mana pool is connected to the heart, brain, and spine?

  Most dead bodies have some reaction as the magic attempts to sink into the corpse, even if they are unusable, but his remains felt as lifeless as the stone around us. It’s a mystery, but more importantly, it means that I can’t raise him to help fend off the sewer rats. Fortunately, there was a large pile of corpses ready to be used at the entrance of the tunnel. The same rats I had pushed out of the way to get into this room.

  I raise the pack of mushroom-ridden rats and command them to act as a vanguard as we move back to the entrance. Raising the mushroom rats works better than I planned. No other denizen wants to take a bite out of the mushroom-ridden flesh. Our trip back is eerily uneventful, but I’m not going to question it.

  When we arrive at the entrance, the wire is still in place, but the gate is locked and shut. On the ground is a note with a bundle. I pick up the note and smooth out the pulpy paper.

  I feel my head sting as unbidden memories come to my mind in rapid fire. Flashes of Euberon moving through the sewer, reading notes in the past, and laying some notes of his own. I grab my head and grit my teeth as I endure the onslaught of images. The patchy scenes aren’t as clear as the memories I saw when I was fighting Euberon, but the feeling they evoke tells me he had a standing deal with the mayor. The mayor gave him food and water so long as he killed those sent to the sewer and returned their gear.

  The note and the memories confirm the mayor knew about the elf and was somehow in league with Euberon. The storm mage didn’t enjoy living in the dirt and grime of the sewers. I wonder why he never broke free of the sewer. I know he was caged not only by the iron bars but by his own all-consuming need to get vengeance, but still, he had a family somewhere out in the world waiting for him. At least what was left of his family was out there. With all his power, he could have found a way to break free.

  The only thing I could think of was that he wanted revenge bad enough to live in the filth under the city, even as it consumed him from the inside. It was a siren song I’m too familiar with, but a temptation I resisted after my father’s death. Seeing how Euberon turned out, I’m glad I didn’t let my own anger drive me to madness, even if I didn’t escape unscathed.

  In the end, the note only confirms what I already suspected: that the mayor is aware of Euberon and the dangers the sewer represented. Looking down at the paper again, I realize that I can read the note; I can read elven. This is like the last note, and I realize the first note is written in Elven. I wonder what else mind mojo I performed while extracting memories might give me, besides the ability to read elven. I stuff the note in the pocket of my robe.

  As I read the note, Benjamin unties the wire and pulls on the door only to find it locked.

  I curse under my breath. The magic at my disposal is not destructive enough to deal with the iron door. Olivia could probably melt the door, except even if we woke her, with the sun set, there isn’t much light for her to draw on. My mind whirls as I change gears to think of ways I can get us out. When Olivia wakes, we can shatter the metal by quickly heating it with her flames and cooling it with my ice magic. While I wait for her to return to consciousness, I can try sending water between the bars before freezing it, and using the expanding ice to-

  *click*

  I look over to see Benjamin with his hands through the bars. He pulls back his arms and stuffs the bent metal wire in the pockets of his clothes before swinging the door open.

  When he sees me looking at him in astonishment, he just shrugs. “Not everything requires magic wilder.”

  We exit the sewer and enter the clearing outside, to find not only the guard gone, but our wagon is gone as well. I look around for clues as I decide which emotion to give in to: to sigh in exasperation or scream at the guard for stealing our stuff. I shouldn’t be surprised. The mayor knew we were walking into certain death, and the guard outside wouldn’t be endeared to us after we knocked him out.

  Benjamin looks over at me with a weary face, “It was too much to hope they would leave it here. They probably have it back at the inn. The mayor won’t be in any rush to sell our stuff, so he’ll take a few days to get the best price when selling off the gear.”

  “Do you think we could make it to the Heartbran estate on foot?” I ask, hopeful that we can leave without attracting any attention. I know it will be better to get the wagon before leaving, but I’m concerned that my teammates will be more of a hindrance than help should a fight break out. Of course, I’m far from being in top shape myself.

  Benjamin shakes his head. “It’s at least a hard week of walking, and that’s if we were in any shape to begin the march to the estate.”

  I grimace, knowing there won’t be an easy escape after finishing such a taxing fight. There won’t be time to rest for a while yet.

  Over the next two hours, I sent rat scouts into the city under the cover of night to scout ahead and help us find our wagon. The last thing we want is the guards to stumble upon us; losing the rat scouts is a small price to pay for our continued freedom. It turns out the guards did return the wagon to the inn, but the guards took our horses for themselves. When I found the wagon at the inn, I had hoped the hard part was over, but we keep facing mounting setbacks.

  In a dark alley out of the way, so no one sees us, I turn to Benjamin and whisper, “I found the wagon, but the horses are gone. What do we do without the horses?”

  He scratches his chin in thought. “Can you raise horses?”

  “Maybe, if you have any dead horses on hand,” I answer, shrugging.

  Over the following hour, we safely make our way to our stolen wagon and dump the sleeping forms of Olivia and Kurt in the back. I know next to nothing about horses, so I leave the issue of finding a draft animal to Benjamin.

  To our surprise, the innkeeper is willing to sell us a pair of old mares he’s keeping, which he used to transport supplies around town. Benjamin is forced to reveal our identity as we saddle up in the wagon. I’m prepared to knock the old man out, but through my empathy, I know he has no recognition of who anyone in our party is. If anything, he thinks we’re being a bit melodramatic with all the sneaking about.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  While I’m hooking the horses up to the wagon, the ever-paranoid Benjamin walks out of the inn. He informs me that he knocked out the innkeeper and tied him up. It likely would have been days, if not longer, before the mayor found that we were gone, but an angry innkeeper will alert the guards and the mayor far sooner. I swallow my anger, realizing it won’t help me even if it’s justified.

  Without any further delay, we’re off into the night. To exit the city, Morgana and I will have to knock out the guards and raise the gate just long enough to exit. Fortunately, there is only a skeleton crew manning the gate we plan to leave from. Morgana runs up the wall as I approach the two on the ground. I use my stealth spell forms to get behind them and knock one out before pinning the other to disarm and tie him up. Morgana opens the gate long enough for us to drive through before jumping down to join us.

  Driving horses through the woods at night isn’t an experience I would recommend. Driving in a car at night is bad enough, but the headlights cut through the darkness to show the road ahead. We light lanterns to illuminate the way, but it’s barely enough to see five feet in front of us.

  “I can barely see through the night. Are you sure this is wise?” I would actually be better off without the lanterns, but if we turn off the lanterns, the horses won’t be able to see where they are going.

  “It’s not, and I wouldn’t be pushing the horses so hard, but I know you can heal them if they stumble.”

  I groan, assuming I can fix anything after it’s broken is not a strategy. I’m not well-versed enough with horses to know what I should do. I’m tempted to make Benjamin walk in front, to look out for anything that might cause the horses to twist an ankle. The risk isn’t worth a few minutes of a head start. I chuckle, thinking about how it’s like speeding while driving in my old life. Drivers would go at reckless speeds, endangering themselves just to arrive two minutes earlier.

  One of the horses cries out, and the wagon comes to an abrupt stop. I don’t have time to stop his mad gambit; the first horse hurt its ankle. In pain, the horse lets out another crying neigh and bucks, causing the wagon to shake. This wakes Olivia and Kurt. I jump out of the cart, pulling on my water to heal the horse's ankle. It’s not until I’m in the process of knitting the torn flesh inside its leg that I realize how much stronger my spell form is. Knowledge of healing water magic subconsciously leaks into my casting. I remember pieces of how to make the casting stronger, faster, and more efficient.

  With Olivia awake, she cast orbs of light in front of the horses to prevent them from stumbling again. By the time I’m done healing the leg, Olivia has cast orbs of light and is sitting in the front. The much brighter orbs float above the animals, revealing the path fifty feet ahead.

  “Good, you are awake,” I grunt, sterner than I mean to. She blinks at me owlishly, not quite fully awake.

  “What happened?” She asks groggily. I think about what to say about how the fight ended- and that’s as far as I get. I’m too tired to talk about this now.

  “It’s your turn to take over,” I say before jumping in the back and lying down. I feel the wagon lurch forward as I drift off to sleep, but all too soon I’m ripped from the peaceful void. A stark cold knocks me from my dreamless sleep. I squint up to see a tired Olivia.

  “Good, you are up. It’s your turn to take over.” She says, parroting my words back at me. I can tell this is revenge for how she was woken the night before, but I had no control over the horse bucking. If anything, it was Benjamin who was to blame for the horses getting hurt. I turn my angry glare over to see Benjamin holding a wooden bucket.

  “What? You needed a bath, smelled like a sewer, and we needed to wake you up to take over. I took care of three tasks at once.” He says nonchalantly as though splashing cold water on me is justified. I groggily blink my eyes as I take in my surroundings. I take a deep breath, trying to see the situation for the practical joke it is meant to be.

  “You realize we all smell like sewer...” I retort. He shrugs in response, as though it's unrelated. I look and find the stream he pulled the water from a couple of yards away, and grin. Olivia’s and Benjamin’s smiles drop when they see my grin, and their eyes follow my gaze.

  “-and you decided to wake a water- wait no, an ice mage by pouring cold water on him.” I continue, “Right next to a fresh stream.”

  The cocksure grin is wiped from his face as he turns to Olivia with a pleading look. “You said we needed to wake-”

  She has a mischievous grin as she refuses to meet his gaze, even turning to face the other direction. “I don’t know what you are talking about. You are the one holding the bucket.”

  Benjamin turns to me. “Ok, hold on just a- *unintelligible garbling as a fire hose of water hits his mouth*.”

  I pause for a second. Benjamin wipes his face before pointing his finger at me in accusation. Wrong move.

  Benjamin inhales, “I- *resumes unintelligible garbling*.”

  I see Olivia snickering beside him. I turn my devious grin on her. She waves her hands, “No… no… I didn’t wake you with the cold water; that was all Benjamin. Look, the bucket is in his hands.”

  I’m not sure who she is trying to convince. She’s a fire mage, she could have at least warmed it up some before splashing me.

  I grip the staff from the dungeon as my grin widens. I have to say the items I got from Euberon are quite nice. I haven’t had time to examine them, or even my blinking notifications at the corner of my vision, but that said, I can feel and see the difference they make. Before having the staff, I could comfortably control a sizable stream of water, roughly thirty inches across, or the size of a rubber exercise ball. Now that I’m holding the staff…

  I flick my eyes up. She looks up right as a massive shadow is cast over her. Floating in the air is a ball of water half the size of the wagon. She starts to say something, but doesn’t get to finish her sentence as crisp, cold water cascades down on her. As I’m helpfully giving Olivia a morning shower, I feel the wagon rock as someone launches from the wagon. Then from my side, I hear heavy thudding. I look over to see Kurt sprinting for the stream, armor still on.

  “I can take my own bath.” He screams as he jumps into the water. Morgana looks from the back of the wagon, head tilted like a curious puppy.

  ‘Do I need to go jump in the river too?’ I feel innocent curiosity in the question from her, whatever senses she retained in her undeath, smell isn’t among them.

  I politely ask her to go shower off the sewer smell before walking past a soaking wet Olivia and Benjamin, wiping water from their face as they stand in their drenched garments. My own clothes are dripping wet as well, so I pull most of the water from my robe with my magic and toss it to the side, which just so happens to be where Benjamin’s face is. He probably should have picked a better spot to stand in.

  Despite the brief levity of the moment, there is the stalking fear that the mayor will send out the cavalry to track us down. Fifteen minutes later, as we give the horses a break and grab some food from our supplies, I ask, “Do you think the mayor will send out knights, all the way out here, just to get us? I mean, I know that he tried to kill us, but how far do you think he’s willing to go? Sending knights days away from the city on short notice sounds like a bad idea, especially if you’re sending knights against a mage who can shoot freaking laser beams!”

  Everyone looks grim. The mayor already tried to kill us, and he needs to take us out or else he’ll face backlash.

  Olivia answers, “It’s better that we keep moving and never have to find out.”

  So, after a short pause to feed and water the horses, we are back on the road. Olivia and Benjamin lay down in the back to sleep, as Kurt and I drive the wagon.

  “Will the horses die if we continue to drive them as hard as we are?” I ask Kurt. I heard about it in stories, horses driven so hard they keel over and die. I’m scared, but driving them so hard that they die won’t benefit us.

  Kurt puts his hand out flat and wobbles it back and forth. “Maybe… we do have you to heal them. That’ll help, but we really need a healer who can remove fatigue to do it right. We’ll run them through the rest of the day and then rest tonight. That’ll put us about a fourth of the way to the estate. If knights come for us, then we can cut the horses from the wagon and ride the horses at a sprint the rest of the way.

  It won’t be the first thing on their mind, but the estate will have more resources to heal and take care of the horses. The mayor caught us like wizards without their staves when he forced that quest on us. Once someone reaches the Heartbran estate, the mayor’s men won’t stand a chance.”

  I nod and watch the road for a while. Once I get my fill of the countryside, I decide to focus on the thing that tempts every adventurer to start their journey into danger. It’s time to examine my loot.

  I start with the staff in my hand.

  I whistle. The staff gives a considerable increase in spell power and reduction in cost, but the spell form rank-up is the greatest boon.

  Kurt looks over and glances at the blue and white staff with a white crystal nestled at the top.

  “I hope something good came out of almost dying. Is it good?” Kurt asks.

  “Yeah, it’s rare. The ball of water I splashed on Olivia earlier would have been beyond me before having the staff, but I did it earlier without breaking a sweat.” I say, rubbing the staff affectionately while suppressing the desire to call it my precious.

  He gives me a strange look as he says, “Hey man, if you want to rub your staff, do that in private.”

  I chuckle as I see the smile he’s fighting and nod. Next, I look at the two rings.

  It’s unfortunate I can’t take advantage of the affinity bonus of the ring of clouds, but the ring of shallows is a nice upgrade.

  “Kurt, do you want this ring? It has an increase in Int and Dex.” I ask, handing him the ring. He pauses for a moment to examine the ring.

  “I’ll take it for now; it’ll be nice to be able to have the stats, and having some minor lightning absorption won’t be too bad either,” Kurt says, pulling off a dirty copper ring while slipping on the opal ring.

  “What do you mean? How will it help you absorb lightning?” I ask, curious. To my knowledge, we used the bands of resistance, which inhibited a person’s connection to an affinity, but this should be doing the opposite.

  “There are two ways to prepare against an element: you can either create resistance or absorption. We used resistance since it’s far cheaper, but the tradeoff is that it's harder to affect you with that element. Increased affinity with a spell will give greater absorption. It will allow my aura to convert a part of the spell into mana. Most of the time, resistance is cheaper, stronger, and easier to get, but the absorption is a nice byproduct in addition to the stats.” He explains.

  “You’re saying I could have absorbed the mage’s water spells?” I ask.

  He chuckles, “You’re asking the wrong man. I know I can convert a point or two of damage to mana with a high enough artifact-given affinity, but consciously absorbing a spell… you’re talking about archmagis territory.”

  I digest his words, then I examine the crown. As text fills my vision, my eyes go wide.

  I thought that the staff had done the heavy lifting to help me control more water, but based on the description, the circlet had done considerably more. The ability to reduce channeled spells, increase my mana generation, and my mana pool are all major boons. This will open so many doors for me. I can raise stronger minions, maintain more enchantments, and spend more time practicing my magic. I think of all the benefits my new gear will bring and smile.

  “That good, huh?” Kurt’s voice breaks my internal brainstorming.

  “What?” I ask, so lost in my fantasies, I don’t realize what he’s referring to.

  “You looked at the crown and… Is it rare?”

  “Epic,” I state.

  Kurt whistles. “Olivia is going to be jealous.”

  I feel a bit guilty as his words hit me. The staff and the ring benefit me, but the circlet is not aligned to a specific affinity. Despite landing the final blow, we had taken on the dungeon together. Taking all the high-level artifacts from the sewer for myself would be incredibly selfish. “Do you think she will want it?”

  Kurt snorts. “Don’t look so down. You did a lot to help us on the coast and the sewer. You earned your share of the loot. She’ll complain, nobody likes walking away from a close call empty-handed, but having a well-equipped healer will be a bigger boon than even a legendary item.”

  When those words don’t move me, he puts an arm on my shoulder and says, “I get it, this is your first time getting magical artifacts. Just remember, there’ll be more opportunities. The Heartbrans have a dungeon, and that will only be the first among many chances to grow.”

  I nod and watch the countryside, taking in the trees, the vines woven through the trees, and the woman staring out at me- I blink and stand up to find her gone. My heart hammers in my chest, and I look around to find none of the vines nor the woman.

  “What’s wrong? What do you see?” Kurt asks, tense.

  “Nothing. I think I’m just sleep deprived.” I remember having dreams about a woman in the forest, but to hallucinate it… I really need to take a break from the constant life-or-death situations.

  I sit, frantically scanning the tree line for any sign of vines or the woman from my dreams. My first, second, and third searches end with bupkis, as though I imagined it. After taking some time to decompress, I feel around in my pocket, rubbing my thumb over the cold surface of one of the training stones. I internally debate training with the armor stone, but instead, I focus on honing my magical sight. If I can see mana, it will be a major stepping stone towards improving my mana control.

  My tolerance for experimenting with laying mana over my eyes is short. Each time I layer water, darkness, or mind mana, I want to vigorously rub them. So, after some nominal success, I turn towards focusing on unaligned mana. I haven’t gotten the hang of manipulating unaligned mana, but I’m making progress with the training stones. This time, I consciously try to focus inward as I will the stone to fill. A few hours of trial and error, and I start to get a sense of it.

  I really need to figure out what the touchstone for unattuned mana is. Darkness affinity magic requires darkness, water affinity magic requires water, and unaligned affinity comes from within me. I’m still getting the hang of it; my control of unaligned mana is rough, but I’m able to strain a tendril of mana from my hand and fill the mana stone.

  After reliably getting the constitution stone to work a few times, I start experimenting with unattuned mana. I thread mana from my hand without the stone. The mana extends about an inch before I lose control, and it starts dissipating. My mana bar slowly decreases as I continue channeling the tendril of mana.

  Watching the phenomena makes me curious, why would unattuned mana fade only an inch away from my body, but I can control attuned mana many meters away from me? By now, I’m familiar with magic enough to realize it’s some type of inherent property in the affinity type, but if unattuned mana is limited by distance, is there some other benefit to unattuned mana?

  Until now, I’ve only heard of unattuned being used in a few self-enhancements by knights. Maybe unattuned mana has inherent enhancing capabilities. The more I think about it, the more unattuned mana enhancement sounds very similar to the artifacts I carry around. Is unattuned mana needed for crafting artifacts?

  Until now, I’ve only heard of artifacts coming from dungeons, but maybe there are other ways to get artifacts I don’t know of. Can artifacts be modified, repaired, or created outside of dungeons? I’ll need to investigate more once I have time and a better grasp of mana manipulation. Putting aside that line of thought for now, I realize I haven’t done any tests to see how far away my magic will work. I’ve tested volume but not distance or height. I focus above my hand and slowly channel my water affinity to control a small ball of water. I move the ball away from my hand, taking note of how far away it is.

  I’m able to float it a hundred yards before I start to lose control. I pull it back to swirl the water around my hand, trying to feel out the connection. Unfortunately, my ability to feel the mana is limited, and without being able to see mana, I’m at a loss for what is going on. Putting aside the question for now, I continue practicing filling the training stones.