The following day the knights of the round table emerged from their fortress late into the morning feeling well rested. They'd kept up layers of Sam's aura power that had a soothing effect on their magical synapses that’d been damaged over the past days activities. Now back to a tolerable normal and safely inside the magical protection of the elf enclave Sam was at least willing to consider staying for a time.

  They had reasoned that while they adjusted to the magical corruption they would need to practice keeping their souls locked up tight and the best way to monitor that was in an area of stable magic. Sam had put herself in charge of where the safe line would be and the others had agreed, all just happy to remain in an area where they would be useful.

  They made their way into the centre of town to get acquainted with the village. They were greeted with more than a few friendly waves and smiles as they walked, a noticeable difference to when they'd arrived the first time.

  “There's no street vendors.” Gavin said as they walked through what looked like the commercial district.

  “No, plenty of people working though.” Val said, indicating the line of smith's and carpenters crafting tools and equipment in their workshops lining one side of the street.

  “We should find Wren.” Sam said, looking around as if trying to spot her right there on the street.

  “Or just go straight to the council building, they might like a debrief after last night.” Val suggested.

  “It's also easier to find than one person who might be in town or might be out exploring the wilderness.” Judy added.

  “Town hall it is.” Gavin said, setting off abruptly on a different path.

  The guards from the previous day let them pass without much more than an assessing look. The inside of the cavernous building was dimly lit with a shaft of light hitting the second person in line on the crescent shaped desk. To their right was Wren on the end seat and sat Thwane second on the left.

  “Morning.” Gavin said, nodding to Thwane and waving to Wren.

  “I am Hern, Goodfellow.” Hern said, seemingly caught off guard by Gavins greeting.

  “Gavin, do the thing.” Judy said through gritted teeth.

  “Oh Right, yeah. I am Gavin, Forged in battle, a friend in need, indomitable, imperturbable.” Gavin said, then waited for his companions to finish their introductions.

  “Be welcome Gavin, Samania, Judith and Valerie, you are known to us and are in good standing. Tell me, what is your purpose here today?” Hern said, settling into a comfortable rhythm.

  “Well, we figured you might want a debrief after last night, and also to continue our conversation we were having last night with Wren.”

  “I'm afraid Wren has her duties to attend to until sun down, you are welcome to ask again then.” Hern said gravely. “As to last night, Thwane has availed us of what your company did in our defense. I understand that you diverted no small number of enemies away from our main force.”

  “We did what we could.” Gavin said modestly.

  “Wren believes it is your calling to protect people from monsters wherever they are to be found?”

  “Yeah, that's right.” Gavin said, nodding his agreement. “We aren't likely to be found sitting around with our fingers-”

  “Gavin.”

  “We aren't likely to be found sitting around idle while people are in danger.” Gavin corrected himself looking sheepishly at Judy.

  “And you had no expectation of payment for your services?”

  “Actually, we were talking about doing the opposite.” Sam said stepping up beside Gavin.

  “Elaborate?” Hern said, frowning.

  “We looted a good amount of gear from those monsters we killed and we can't keep all of it, Judy and I can only store so much stuff and we're full up.”

  “That isn't especially enlightening.” Hern said.

  “How's this then.” Gavin said, conjuring a heavy wooden table before them.

  He set out crates open of items, healing and stamina potions, crafting materials, coins, and a small stack of soul crystals that tinkled together in their loose packing.

  “What is this?” Hern said, half standing for a better look.

  “There's food too, a lot of it, but I don't want it to spoil if I take it out. I was thinking maybe putting on a barbecue for the town tonight outside where we're camped?”

  “How?”

  “Oh, right, looting power, do you guys have those?” Gavin said, scratching his neck.

  “No.”

  “Right, well, I can turn monster corpses into useful stuff, and there were a lot of monsters.”

  “We can do the same, though Thwane said there were many hundreds of monsters you killed.”

  “Yeah, nearly a thousand that we could find.”

  “Our ritualists are out there still, working tirelessly to convert a handful of corpses and you can do thousands in a night?”

  “It was more like an hour, but yeah. If you want I can go help out with the others.” Gavin said amiably.

  “That would be appreciated. You can find them on the south side of town.” Hern said, his eyes flashing with excitement.

  “No worries.” Gavin said.

  The team left the council building and made their way to the edge of town. It was simple enough to find the ritual area where a permanent ritual circle had been cast into a single slab of stone, monster corpses had been piled high, trailing a path of blood back out into the forest, branching out in all directions. Half a dozen elves stood around the circle weaving magic into a complex diagram around a single corpse in the centre of the circle.

  Gavin watched for a minute, bending his magical senses to understand what he was looking at. What they were doing wasn't so different to how enchantments worked, they'd just built a magical scaffold out of raw magic and willpower to essentially make a one use magic item that existed without an object to anchor it to. His mind reeled at the connotations of what that meant and how he could potentially expand his own craft.

  After Judy had nudged him out of his thoughts the two introduced themselves and made quick work of the remaining pile, turning over everything they'd collected including some extremely rare soul crystals and a stack of coins large enough to fill a custom made treasure chest.

  That done, the team spread the word that they'd be cooking a feast for the village that evening then spent the rest of the day preparing.

  Gavin spent several hours enchanting an industrial sized barbecue as a project while Val and Judy peeled vegetables and Sam butchered and seasoned the meat. By early afternoon they took a break to work on strengthening their defences against the corrupting magic outside the town, portalling a way off to make sure Sam's aura power didn't inadvertently strip a passing patrol of their magical powers.

  As evening settled they returned to base and began cooking.

  “See, the trick was to heat the steaks to the right temperature as fast as possible without causing a steam explosion.” Gavin explained as he dumped a load of meat onto the grille.

  “Is that what the yelling was about earlier?” Sam asked.

  “Uhh, what yelling?” Gavin said innocently.

  “I heard you squeal like a wild hog I'm a trap.”

  “Oh, nah, that was when I was setting it to only cook dead meat.”

  “Setting it, or accidentally roasting your own hand?”

  “When I'm working on a prototype any mishaps are setting or stress testing, once it's complete then it's an accident.”

  “Oh right, explain to me then why your eyebrows and nose hair vaporised when you turned it on just now.”

  “I don't have nose hair.” Gavin stated emphatically.

  “No, you don't, I watched it burn off.”

  “I was maybe a bit too close to the grille.” Gavin said.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “It's lucky you weren't a little closer, it might have cooked your brain.”

  “No, it doesn't cook living- oh, fuck you.” Gavin said, pointing a set of comically long tongs at her.

  The two continued to banter until everything was set for the evening. Gavin constructed twin tables of ironoak with marching benches in the clearing out the front of the fortress and a stack of mithril plates cutlery. He'd been looking for an excuse to use up his lower tier resources, not wanting to just throw away all the materials he'd worked to duplicate over the past months. More than a few elves had come out to watch and help where they could, some even bringing dishes of their own to add to the table.

  As the sun set they set up strings of glow globes and mingled in with their hosts, exchanging stories from their respective worlds. The council shuffled in after their duties had been concluded and joined the party, digging into the piles of food as the rest of the community sat about laughing and joking with their neighbours.

  When they were done the team put on some light entertainment for the evening. He'd become quite practiced at using Judy's illusion power to replay movies from his world from memory, though as the team had discovered, his recreations weren't strictly accurate. The three women had snuck away to buy a library of dvd’s and equipment to play them, including a projector that they now used to light up the side of the castle with a legitimate copy of the Chronicles of Narnia.

  When all was said and done and most of the families had turned in for the night, Judy and Gavin tidied up the leftovers, shovelling everything back into their inventories with practiced efficiency.

  Gavin was just stifling a yawn when Wren approached, looking slightly apprehensive.

  “Ivery come to thank you on behalf of the council and clan, it seems you have integrated yourselves easily into the community.”

  “To be fair, it's pretty easy to do when you get stuck in to help and put on a feed afterwards.”

  “Yes, apparently food transcends culture.”

  “So, what's up Wren, you didn't just come over to say thanks did you?”

  “No, I wonder if I might come inside your home and continue our earlier discussion.” She said, with a more serious tone than he would have expected.

  “Ahh, yeah, sure. I'm pretty knackered, but it should be all good.” Gavin said, motioning her inside.

  The team all sat in the dining room around the heavy wooden table. Wren sat in silence for a time, as if gathering her thoughts before she spoke quietly and deliberately.

  “I have some knowledge to share that you have previously indicated you want to know, but I need your word that what I have to share never leaves your lips.” Wren said, staring at each of the team in turn.

  “Yeah sure Wren.” Gavin said, smiling genially at her.

  “What he means to say is that as a rule we don't break our oaths when we've made them. Gavin especially might come off as flippant, but you can be sure he treats his promises with the seriousness they merit.” Sam said.

  “Very well. The council has chosen to distribute the soul crystals you harvested and has seen fit to give me one.”

  “Oh, nice, what one?” Gavin asked, his posture going ramrod straight with anticipation.

  “One of the ones from your world, obsidian whip. It's not one I've seen or heard of appearing in our world.”

  “Yeah, we got that off some stone elementals. They were pricks of things to dig up.” Gavin said.

  “I would like to perform the binding ritual here so that you might see and understand how it is done.” Wren said.

  “Like now?” Gavin said, shuffling in his seat.

  “Yes, if you like.”

  “Awesome, you guys ready?” Gavin said, looking to the others who nodded assent.

  “You have seen some of how this works already, our ritualists that we're harvesting the slain before you intervened we're doing something similar.”

  “They were making a makeshift enchantment by shaping mana with their minds right?”

  “Yes, if I understand correctly it's a lot less powerful than the sort of magic you use, but also almost impervious to external magic.”

  “What about healing magic? I've seen it scrub your tattoos right off.”

  “Only for the very young, once the markings have been engraved into our psyches they become permanent. We practice a meditation technique to help against the corruption that helps too. I have heard you practice this also.”

  “We’ve been muddling along, yeah.”

  “With the stones we can fabricate a ritual that imitates some of the mechanisms of a soul, the crystals want to bind to them and when it does, we can set the design into our flesh to draw on our own mana to activate the power.”

  “Is the reason you don't just absorb the powers the way we do because you are worried about becoming a shade? Does your meditation not work with that?”

  “It does to a point, but the stronger you become the more difficult it is to resist. This way we can defend ourselves, but carry almost no risk of succumbing to the effects of the world outside the enclave.”

  “But you're trapped at the first rank of power right?”

  “That's right. I've heard tell that one who has both the tattoos and soul bound powers can use their tattoos to greater effect, though obviously no one here could confirm or refute that.”

  “As you rank up you get access to higher tiers of mana, it makes sense that if you could channel higher ranked mana into a tattoo it would activate higher e- oh shit.” Gavin said, eyes going wide.

  “What?” Sam asked, cocking her head as Gavin shut his mouth and furrowed his brow in intense thought.

  “Uhh.” Gavin stammered, looking to Wren and back to the group.

  All eyes were on him until he made his decision. His mouth uncomfortably dry he explained his revelation.

  “The sword.” Gavin said, pointing to the weapon in question. “It's a battery of all the mana from an entire planet, including the high ranked stuff I can't touch without burning myself out.”

  “You think you could use it to power a tattoo?” Judy asked.

  “Yeah, it might be possible.” Gavin said nervously.

  “I am confident none in my clan would seek to take that sword from you by force, though I cannot vouch for other outsiders, not everyone values friends above power.”

  “All the same, I'd appreciate you not telling anyone about it.” Gavin said, relaxing somewhat when Wren nodded solemnly.

  “We should begin.” Wren said, standing in the centre of the open space as she concentrated.

  The team watched as she began to weave an enchantment in the air, Gavin and the others watching with rapt attention. He, Val and Judy had access to vision powers that let them fathom more than just what their ordinary eyes could see, and with their telepathic link were able to piece together a more complete picture of what they were looking at. Gavin took notes in his user interface, copying down the construction of the enchantment that grew more and more complex as Wren wove it.

  As the elf completed her work she brought out the soul crystal, positioning it in just the right spot. They watched as it dissolved and dissipated to fill the space with flowing lines of magic that set and contracted. Wren held out her arm, collecting the magic like spiderwebs as they clung to skin where they touched.

  Wren released the power of the ritual then showed of the glistening lines of magic burned indelibly from fingertips to elbow. Trickling a seed of power into it the team watched as flesh became hard obsidian, unfurling like a coil of obsidian shards jutting from a heavy whip.

  “That's pretty neat.” Val said, impressed.

  “I've got so many experiments to run.” Gavin said, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes.