by Dante King
I opened my eyes. A thick white cloud billowed around me, like the mists that had followed the lampreys.
“Smothering Mist can be used to conceal you,” Nydarth said. “It can be used to hide and to make surprise attacks, though those may be difficult until you become more powerful in the ways of water. At lower levels, it is good for helping you to retreat safely.”
“Like a ninja smoke bomb,” I said.
“Yes, much like that.” Nydarth groaned. “It has been effectively used against me. I ensured, however, that the Augmenter could not use it a second time.”
I concentrated and the mist traveled back toward my body. When it entered through the pores of my skin, I felt my Vigor replenish. It was the only technique I’d learned so far that could be “returned” in this way.
“Don’t you think it’s kind of cliche for you to hate water so much?” I asked Nydarth.
“Wouldn’t you despise something that is your singular weakness?”
I shrugged. “I guess. But I intend on mastering all the elements. Then, I won’t ever have a weakness.”
“Is that so? What, then, do you call the woman who sleeps not a few feet from you?”
I looked at Vesma, curled up on the ground as her chest slowly rose and fell. “She’s a strength, not a weakness.”
“Hmm. . . if you say so.”
I sheathed Nydarth, and her voice immediately quietened. She could still speak while sheathed, but she seemed to get the point.
Ideally, I would have liked to spend some time practicing my new technique to gain a better understanding of how it worked. But a cloud that hid me from attackers would also stop me seeing monsters approaching the camp, making me useless at keeping watch. I would have to find other ways to pass the time until the others woke up.
I figured a fire wouldn’t be a bad idea since we’d passed the danger of nightfall.
I started gathering fallen wood from around the edge of the clearing. I could have used Plank Pillar to harvest burning material, but it would be an unwarranted use of Vigor. A few months ago, I might have used Vigor to make this task easier, but I’d learned how important it was to be ready for a fight at any moment. There was also a certain amount of respect, or perhaps it could even be called honor, for Augmenting. I would be devaluing the ethos of this world by being flippant with its use.
I took the wood I’d collected and set up a new fire near the stream. I carefully built up from kindling to solid branches, then set it alight using flint and tinder. My stomach twisted and growled as hunger pangs pushed themselves up to my throat like a hand crushing my windpipe.
While the flames spread out, I retrieved a pan out of my bag and started making a stew. In went water, leftovers from last night’s rabbit, and a few dried herbs. I made sure not to use the healing plants we’d collected on our journey through the mountains. While the pot simmered, I took some vegetables from our supplies and started chopping them with the knife I had used for prying out skeletal corrals from monsters. I added the diced vegetables one by one to the mix. This was the part of cooking I excelled at—the knife work.
While I cooked, I kept watch over the camp. Vesma’s ‘girl next door’ prettiness was clear now that she wasn’t wearing her almost permanent scowl. Kegohr’s arms and torso were decorated with patches of wiry fur, and a clawed hand rested on his chest. He was snoring like some sort of bear, the sound so loud that I was amazed Vesma could sleep.
I tossed a piece of carrot at Kegohr, and it bounced off his forehead. He swatted at where it had hit while mumbling something under his breath. Still asleep, he rolled over onto his side, and the snoring stopped. His new position revealed a missing chunk of fur on his chest. I guessed he’d lost it during the fight against the lampreys. The spot where fur was missing showed a strange mark on his gray skin, like a tattooed pattern I didn’t recognize. What could it mean? Was it some kind of magical symbol? Or a tribal tattoo from his ogre parentage?
While the stew cooked, I got up and did some meditative sword forms. Nydarth whispered to me as I thrust, sliced, and whipped my sword. I ignored her flirting but paid attention to her critiques of my maneuvers. It wasn’t only Vigor that would be necessary in this monster-filled land but swordsmanship also.
By the time I’d worked up a sweat, the sun was well over the horizon, and the first stirrings of birds had turned into a full-throated dawn chorus as the wildlife of the forest started its day.
A growl made me spin around in alarm, expecting to see a bear or some sort of monster emerging from between the trees. But it was just Kegohr getting up and stretching. He rubbed his eyes with thick knuckles and peered into the stew pot.
“Looks good,” he said, leaning closer. “Smells good, too. We gonna eat?”
I sheathed the Sundered Heart Sword. “Soon. Needs a little longer.”
“Gotta perfect it, right?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t feed you anything that isn’t perfect, buddy.”
“Lies,” the ogre said with a chuckle. “That first meal you made us tasted like something my ma used to give me as punishment.”
“A week isn’t long to learn,” I defended myself. “Besides, you enjoyed it well enough yesterday.”
“That I did. So, when do we eat?”
“Let’s wait for Vesma,” I said with a chuckle.
I hadn’t a meal for myself back on Earth very often, and I’d only ever eaten the food the guild cooks had provided here. This mission had provided me with an opportunity to explore the culinary arts, even if we only ate what we could gather. Vesma and Kegohr seemed to appreciate my cooking, and I liked seeing their faces when I tried something a little different.
I went over to stir the pot. It did smell good. I was getting better at working with whatever ingredients we could hunt or forage during our travels.
“What smells so good?” Vesma asked as she yawned.
“You’re up,” I said as I leaned down to kiss her.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I say it’s time we eat.”
I fished out bowls from my bag and served up the stew. We were all hungry, so the first few spoonfuls were accompanied by satisfied silence rather than conversation. Once I’d taken the edge off my hunger, I turned to Kegohr.
“I see you lost some of your fur last night.” I pointed at the bald spot with my spoon.
“One of those scaled bastards pulled out a chunk. Stings like lemon juice on a cut.”
“Here,” Vesma said as she handed him a small vial. “It’s a healing tonic I made from the plants Faryn taught us to gather.”
“Looks like you’ve got a tattoo under there,” I said as Kegohr applied the tonic. “Does it mean anything in particular?”
He turned his gaze away from me and hunched over his bowl. “It’s nothing,” he muttered under his breath.
Vesma and I exchanged a look. She clearly knew what the tattoo meant, but she didn’t want to tell me. At least, not right now. It seemed she preferred Kegohr explaining its purpose himself.
We kept eating while Kegohr just stared at his bowl.
“Alright, it’s something,” he said. “It’s the mark of a Wild, a half-breed Augmenter like me, whose power ain’t like other Augmenters. We’re touched, you know? Connected to the inner spirit of the element. I never had to defeat a fire spirit to gain control of the element. One day, it was just there.”
“You don’t have to speak about it if you don’t like, brother,” I said. I recalled how he’d learned the Spirit of the Wildfire technique when a group of tainted guild members assassinated his father. He’d sworn vengeance on the entire tainted guild after that. One day, I’d find a way to help him pay those fuckers back.
“It doesn’t go well for a lot of Wilds,” Kegohr continued despite my words. “The connection eats them up. It’s too bloody fierce for them to control. The lucky ones burn out, end up dead or powerless or mad. The unlucky bastards become monsters. They become a threat to everything and everyone around them.”
; Vesma had known him for years, but she still looked uncertain about what to say. Wild magic was new territory for me, its meaning and its dangers outside my knowledge. I didn’t know how to feel about it.
On the other hand, I knew exactly how I felt about Kegohr.
“So? Maybe it’s because I’m still new around here, but what’s the big deal?”
Kegohr dropped his bowl. “The big deal is—”
“It’s just a different way of Augmenting,” I interjected. “Unless it makes you snore louder, I don’t care.”
Vesma went to sit beside Kegohr and laid a delicate hand on his muscular shoulder. “Ethan’s right,” she said. “You’re our friend, and we don’t care whether you’re a Wild or not.”
He sniffed, smiled, and looked up at us. “You guys,” he said, a tear in the corner of his eye. “You guys are the best.”
“Right back at you, buddy,” I replied. “Now, let’s finish eating so that we can get moving again.”
We polished off the rest of our breakfast, washed the bowls in a stream at the bottom of the clearing, and stamped out the remains of the fire. Within a few minutes, we had our bags packed and Vesma had the map out, leading us onto a new trail through the trees. We talked as we walked, telling jokes and remembering friends back at the guild. Around us, a beautiful spring morning was bursting into bloom.
“So, tell me again about this tilivision?” Kegohr asked me as we marched along the trail.
“I want to know more about the internet,” Vesma countered. “All that knowledge at your fingertips. Surely, everyone in your land must be intelligent.”
“You’d think so, but we mostly use it for memes and porn.”
“Porn?” Vesma screwed up her face. “Sounds terrible.”
I laughed. “You’d probably enjoy it. All kinds of new knowledge to learn.”
“Tell her about the midgets,” Nydarth whispered from my sword. I was the only one who could hear her, and I was glad for that now. “The Russians in the temple had a particular fancy for those.”
“Tilivision, internet, porn,” Kegohr marveled. “All these great things, and you decided to come here?”
I shrugged. “You have magic here.”
Suddenly, a piercing female scream reverberated through the trees.
“What the bloody spirits was that?” Kegohr asked.
I glanced at my two friends as I unsheathed my sword. “Let’s find out.”
Vesma grabbed her spear, and Kegohr hauled his giant stone mace over his shoulder.
“Time to be the hero?” Nydarth whispered as I moved down the stream toward the location of the sound. “How positively noble.”
Chapter Three
We raced through the forest, following the sound of the screams.
The trees increased in number, crowded together amid thick undergrowth. Vines snagged my legs and thorns tore at my clothes as I ran full tilt through the greenery. Vesma, small and nimble, darted around the bushes and slipped through narrow gaps, while Kegohr flattened anything that stood in his way like a stampeding animal. Birds scattered from the treetops as we surged through the woods, and animals scurried among the vegetation.
We continued toward the intermittent screaming and found ourselves at a river that was picking up speed and swirling as it approached a waterfall.
“Which way?” Kegohr asked as he held his giant mace aloft.
The scream sounded again, across the river and down the drop to our right.
“That way,” I said.
I moved toward the water’s edge, ready to swim across, but Vesma stopped me and pointed to the left. Only 50 yards away was a log bridge across the roiling waters. Moss clung to its pillars, and creepers wrapped around them.
We sprinted for the bridge, but Kegohr paused before he could step onto it.
“I don’t think it’ll take my weight,” he said as he pressed a foot on a log.
Despite the age of the bridge, it seemed in excellent repair. “It looks maintained,” I said. “Come on; we don’t have a lot of time. That woman could already be dead by now.”
Kegohr put his entire weight on the log, and it snapped with a loud crack. The broken log surged along the river toward the waterfall as the half-ogre stumbled and almost fell into the water, but he righted himself before stepping back onto the land.
“Ugh,” he groaned. “You guys better go along without me.”
“Not an option,” I said.
I didn’t know what exactly we’d face when we found the woman, but I wanted Kegohr by my side. I stepped back onto the riverbank and stretched my hands over the log bridge. Vigor sprang from within me like the creeping vines that entangled the bridge. I twisted my hands a little and manipulated the direction of my Plank Pillars so that they stretched from one side of the bank to the other. Making the planks thick enough to sustain Kegohr’s wait took quite a lot of Vigor, but I still had more than enough if I needed to fight.
“Hurry!” Vesma said from the other side of the makeshift bridge.
“You go first,” I said to Kegohr.
Admiration touched his eyes as he nodded and proceeded to storm across the bridge. Every footfall made the pillars shudder, but he made it to the other side without incident. I followed after him, and we continued until we reached the waterfall. There was no easy path down, just a steep face of boulders and jutting rock, damp with spray and with moss and flowers growing out of the gaps. If the woman was at the bottom, we would have to climb down.
“I haven’t heard anything for a while,” Vesma said above the sound of water crashing and spraying a hundred feet beneath us. “She could be gone by now.”
Another scream drew my attention to a pool directly in front of us, mostly hidden by ferns. I moved so that I could peer through a gap in the foliage and saw two men in tunics. They had grabbed hold of a naked woman with deep brown skin and a mark much like Kegohr’s on her back. Her long braids whipped around as she writhed in her captors’ grips. I noticed that the weapons hanging from their belts weren’t drawn, and my stomach churned as I realized what we’d stumbled upon.
“Let’s gut these fuckers,” I growled between my teeth.
Vesma grabbed my shoulder and prevented me from charging toward the men. “Not yet. Look, there’s more than just those two.”
I followed her gaze to a third man who stood watching, a spear in his hand.
“There might be more,” Vesma cautioned.
“Then, we’ll deal with them,” I said as I gently removed her hand and started toward the pool.
The woman had stopped screaming and was now putting all of her effort into breaking free. She got an arm loose and punched one of her attackers, a blow that sent him staggering back. She tried to dive into the water, only for the other one to grab her around the waist and haul her kicking and squirming off her feet.
Now that I was closer, I could also see that her hair was decorated with seashells and coral, pale shapes against her black braids. Bronze bands wrapped around her forearms and shapely thighs. Whoever she was, she clearly displayed her wealth, and it had probably been the reason why these bandits had assailed her.
Her attackers were half-human half-fish, with ridges running back along their heads and gills flapping in their necks. Knee-length trousers revealed scaly legs that ended in bare, webbed feet. As they struggled to subdue the woman, they called out to each other in a speech that seemed almost unintelligible, made near-nonsense by the flapping of their wide mouths. I managed to catch the word “princess,” and they said “Qihin” several times, but that was all I could understand.
Then I noticed a detail that I’d missed before. At least two of the attackers had “Wild” birthmarks like Kegohr’s, one visible on the side of his neck, the other through a gap that had been deliberately made in the arm of his tunic. Instead of hiding them as Kegohr had done, they were dressed to emphasize these markings. There were even images of the mark impressed on the backs of their tunics.
Vesma came up
beside me, and Kegohr stood behind her. We all dropped our bags. Vesma and Kegohr drew their weapons. They both looked at me, but I kept the Sundered Heart sheathed.
I turned to face the fishmen and pressed my hands together. The Vigor was already prepared and ready, my anger providing a boost to my fire channels. I summoned an Untamed Torch and sent it rocketing toward the fishman who was spectating. The fireball caught him in the back, and he tumbled into the water. Steam drifted from his body, and he staggered to his feet as I moved for his companions.
They let go of the woman and turned to face the new threat while Kegohr and Vesma sprinted along beside me. Our enemies had quickly gained their composure, and the element of surprise was lost.
“Hold back,” I said as I kept my eyes on our enemies. “Don’t get too close. We don’t know what Augmentation abilities they might have.”
One fishman drew a weapon that looked like a massive curved meat hook. The other reached into the water and pulled out a bronze trident with sharpened prongs.
“Thank you!” the naked woman yelled as she snatched her robes from the edge of the river. “I really didn’t have time to deal with them.”
The fishmen turned their heads and snarled, but the woman dived into the water before they could go after her. She continued down the river until her body drifted over the waterfall.
“Is she crazy?” Kegohr asked.
“Yaaa!” the fishman I’d scorched with a fireball screamed as he pulled himself from the water. The gills on his neck flared as he grabbed his spear, its jagged barbs like the head of a harpoon.
He said something again, louder this time and clearly directed at us. Now that I was used to his weird accent, I was starting to make sense of what he was saying. He’d said something about us being intruders from a guild and that he would slaughter us.
“Try it, fish-face!” I yelled. “Let’s see how far you get.”
The blood pulsed in my veins as Vigor flowed through me. It was as if the power had a will of its own, a will to fight. There was no need to resist that impulse, not when I could turn powerful magic against common bandits.