Night fell, and Helbram slipped from sleep and into the void. The black space had lost the suffocating feeling it had when he first started to use it, and the vastness of its endless depths had instead felt more… confined around him. Where it felt like he was in an endless ocean before, he now likened it to a private island. Such mental framing made the “ground” beneath his feet feel solid, and he walked along it for a few steps before a tongue of pale green flame appeared. It remained steady, more like something that would sit on top of candlewick than a roaring fire. He was used to this sight, and had been able to find it in his dreams more readily with practice and time.
From the flame emerged none other than himself, or rather, an inner representation he had spoken to many times at this point. Unlike Helbram, he was without armor and wore a simple gray tunic and dark pants.
“So, not going to be plagued by dreams of a little girl this night, are we?” His reflection asked.
Helbram frowned. He knew that this was a representation of a less… burdened version of himself, but that didn’t lessen the shame he felt from hearing the words spoken.
“Id… can we not linger on that, please?”
His reflection shrugged. “I only speak of it because it’s on our mind, but fine, you’re wanting to do some practice against the Shells, yes?”
Helbram gripped his hands hard enough to hear his knuckles pop. “Gods, I do wonder how I would be seen if you slipped out.”
“We would certainly be holding many more ladies in our hands, that’s for cert-”
“Enough, let us just get to practicing.”
Id frowned, but he stepped back and pointed up. A small tongue of flame appeared in the sky before flicking away and leaving a Node Shell floating in the air. This one, he recognized from previous experience. Annoying, painful experiences that made the dot of Ether that formed at the center of the orb almost mocking. Id pointed down, and an Assault Shell appeared in the same manner. He pointed at a blank space, but paused.
“You really are stretching the limits of our imagination,” Id remarked.
“The more you do it, the better you get at it. It is like a muscle,” Helbram said in a matter-of-fact tone, “But also, stop talking like that. You sound like Xanchil.”
His reflection grimaced. “Now there’s a sour thought. Point taken.”
Id focused, and a Soldier Shell appeared in a burst of green flame. Helbram hadn’t seen one himself, in person, but given Leaf’s description and the information from Elly and Kali, he had a good idea of what to think for it. The Soldier flicked its arm to the side, shooting a blade of pale gray metal out from its gauntlet. It jutted out from its wrist and rested against the back of its palm. Its other hand flexed and a rune at the back of it flared with pale blue light. A translucent shield formed above the rune, no bigger than a buckler in size, but Helbram’s wasn’t quite sure if that could be expanded or not. He remembered that the construct should also be able to fire bolts of magic as well, and when that thought entered his mind, he could see power seeping out from both of the Soldier’s palms.
Id pointed at another empty space, but Helbram raised a hand.
“Knowledge on the Sentinel is limited,” Helbram said, “It will not be productive to train against speculation.”
“Could make that sword arm better,” Id suggested.
“Perhaps, but we shall save that for another time.” The warrior reached back and pulled his shield from its plate. “For now, let us focus on what we know.”
He readied his guard and walked towards the Node. It faced him as he drew closed, twitching like it was a head tilting with curiosity. That movement always unsettled him in the past, but, in this void, there was only one to deal with. After the Node observed him for a few seconds, its eye flared and a bolt of magic flew from its body. It splashed against Helbram’s shield with the force equivalent of a punch. Painful if it landed a direct blow, but easy to shrug off with his shield. The warrior shrugged off a few more of the bolts with his shield, feeling for the rhythm of its attacks.
He may not have fought Nodes in years, but he remembered getting pummeled by them so much in the past that this practice was like waking up old muscle memory. After the fifth shot was fired, Helbram flicked his hand out and summoned his spear into his palm. With a quick flick, he struck the Node with a toss that landed the spear right on its eye. The weapon bounced off of the Shell, but it hit with enough force to disable its Ego. The now inert Shell struck the ground and rolled before disappearing in a burst of flames, only to reappear in the air again.
He latched his shield to his back and summoned his sword into his hand before switching to a half-swording stance. One hand gripped near the tip of the scale-patterned blade, and he inched towards the Assault Shell now. When he was within a stone’s throw of it, the construct’s eye blinked in recognition and it spooled its wired limbs into itself to roll at Helbram. The sprung at him when it closed half the distance, letting some of its wires spill free to coil into the shape of a large sword that was being carried into a horizontal slash from its momentum. Helbram caught the blade with his own and kept his legs bent to absorb the shock of the blow. He pushed the attack over him, which sent the Shell careening off course and into a bounce.
The warrior pursued and was on the construct right as it tried to form legs to stand up. He flipped the grip on his sword to where he now held the blade in his hands, and slammed the handle against the Shell like a hammer. Its lights flickered as its body bounced from being struck into the ground, but Helbram wasn’t done. He reared back and stammed the crossguard into it once again, which robbed the Shell of its light. This one also disappeared in a bust of flame and reappeared back where it stood before.
Helbram switched to holding his sword in one hand again and sighed. “For want of a good hammer…”
“Finding a proper warhammer, in the Freemarks? You’d have better luck becoming an Awoken,” Id said.
“I know, but I cannot exactly stop myself from dreaming, now can I?” He looked over to the Soldier Shell. “Last one for a test…”
“A rough test, but have at it.”
Helbram pulled his shield from his back and strapped it to his arm again. He approached the Soldier with both sword and shield raised, even more cautious than he was with the other constructs. This one did not react until Helbram was within arm’s length of it, and when it did, it was quick. The Shell’s armblade glinted in its swing, stopping as Helbram caught it with his sword and bound it with his crossguard. He forced the weapon down, but before he could exploit any opening the Soldier’s opposite hand flashed.
Helbram raised his shield just in time to catch the bolt of Aether fired from the construct’s palm. It struck harder than the Node’s and forced him a step back, and from there the Soldier began its continued advance, which the warrior allowed. Like Golems, Shells possessed enough “reasoning” to try and exploit any weaknesses. To what degree a Soldier was able to do this, he didn’t know, but in his mind he believed it to be more advanced than what an Assault Shell was capable of, and he knew Id would be taking care of translating that belief into the construct’s actions.
The Soldier pressed the assault with its shield first, slamming it against Helbram’s own to try and move it to the side. Helbram slackened his guard a bit to see what its next move was, and titled his head to the side to avoid a thrust in the miniscule gap that had been made in his defense. That almost felt too precise, too clean for what was supposed to be the equivalent of a foot soldier, but Helbram stuck to keeping an image of that sort of “skill” for the Shell in his mind. It was better to overprepare than be filled with regret later.
The stab was followed by the armblade flipping around to turn a glowing palm at Helbram’s face. He kicked the construct away and stepped back to avoid the blast of energy that followed, seeing a few spots in his sight from where the flare of it going off had nearly blinded it. The Soldier then faced both of its hands at Helbram, who tucked behind his shield. A volley blasted from the construct’s hands, each shot bursting and washing over Helbram’s guard. He kept his shield at an angle to deflect most of the force, which allowed him to rush the Soldier, who didn’t retreat upon his approach.
Helbram’s sword thrust forward in a stab aimed at the construct’s chest, but it brought up its own shield to block. With a flick of his wrist, the warrior flipped the blade around to switch to an upward slash instead, this time aiming at the Soldier’s arm. He grimaced as he felt his arm shudder from metal striking metal, but his blade bit between the gaps in the construct’s armor, which allowed him enough leverage to force its arm up. Helbam slipped his shield into the created gap and slammed its edge against the Soldier’s torso, leaning his full weight into the blow.
The attack forced the lights within the construct to flicker, and for the first time, it moved back. It tried to cover its retreat with bolts of energy fired from its hands, but all Helbram had to do was pay attention to where its arms pointed, and time the flashes that preceded each bolt. He skipped forward, dodging the projectiles as he closed the gap once again. It countered his advance with a thrust of its armblade, but Helbram swept that to the side and drove his pommel into the Soldier’s head. Lights flickered again as it staggered back, but it retained enough function to raise its shield in defense. Helbram swept its foot instead, forcing it to its knee for a short moment. That was enough of a window to let the warrior bring his shield around in a hook to drive its edge into its head. The blow knocked the Soldier to the ground , and Helbram dropped his shield to grip the blade of his sword with both hands again. He sidestepped the shots that the construct fired to keep him and back, and landed a final strike against its torso with his crossguard. The lights flickered, and it went still before disappearing and reappearing to where it stood before.
Helbram lifted his visor and rubbed his chin.
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Id gave him a dull look. “No, it wasn’t too easy, you’ve just gotten better.”
The warrior looked at his reflection with surprise. “Did you just compliment me?”
“You complimented yourself, you prideful twat.”
Helbram snorted. “I suppose that is true. However, I think the Soldier should be made more difficult to fight. Elly’s information is reliable, but-”
“Always prepare for the worst, right?”
“Exactly.”
“And what of the other Shells? Are you going to make them more difficult t-... but of course, you’re going to fight them all at once.”
Helbram flashed Id a grin, “And in greater numbers.”
Leaf kept his senses focused on the forest around him. The Hunter’s Canvas was concentrated on enhancing his sight, smell, and hearing, and through the crisp, snow covered forest, he didn’t detect anything nearby aside from Snow and Shadow stalking through the forest shrubbery, and Jahora, who was knelt upon the ground. The Mage had a single Circle alight around her head, and was scratching an Orthodox rune into the dirt, one that looked like a crow’s foot. Upon finishing it, she reached into the pouch at her side and sprinkled a pinch of translucent dust over the symbol. It filled with a pale blue light before fading, but Leaf could still catch glimpses of it from certain angles.
“There,” Jahora said in a low voice, “Just a couple more, and the barrier should be complete.” She looked off into the forest, her mouth twisted as if she was trying to calculate something. “You’re making me put this over quite a large area.”
“This is its marked territory,” Leaf explained.
“Yes, but wouldn’t it just be more efficient to contain it to a small space within it?”
“Imagine if I came into your house and locked you into just one room and told you to stay put for a week or two. How would you like that?”
Jahora grimaced. “Point taken, shall we move to the next location?”
Leaf scanned the area once again, and detected no movement nor scent of the manticore. “Yeah, let’s go.”
They walked in such a way that allowed them to leave the forest brush relatively undisturbed, but Jahora had grown more adept at that over their travels, which let them proceed at a comfortable pace. The cubs patrolled around them with a deftness that Leaf would have normally attributed to a fully grown wolf, but given that they were Enlightened, he wasn’t too surprised by that.
“Do you think this barrier will seal other animals in it as well?” Jahora asked.
“Most likely. That would give us some leeway in keepin’ the manticore fed,” Leaf said.
“That seems a bit cruel.”
The hunter sighed, “Aye, but nature by itself is a cruel mistress. A predator is meant to hunt, so even if we didn’t raise the shield, the beast would have stalked them out somehow, some way.”
“How did such a beast even wander into this territory?”
“No idea, but it bein’ here would explain why we haven’t seen any Scalehounds or wolves… average wolves, stalkin’ about. They know there’s no point.” The passed under a thin portion of the canopy and Leaf looked up through it. He could see the peaks of mountains from there, but their distance would have been at least half a day's walk away. “We are near the Spine, so it probably climbed down from there, lookin’ for food, and settled here. Would explain its body, though I couldn’t tell you where all the other traits came from.”
“From some oddity the Cycle, most likely,” Jahora suggested, “I’m sure Merida would have more insight into the matter.”
“That she would…” Leaf’s voice trailed off.
The Mage noticed that, and smirked while elbowing his leg. “Though maybe she would be too distracted by you looking at her with such longing.”
“Shut up,” Leaf said, but he didn’t deny anything.
“...why didn’t you ask her to come with us?”
“Because, I had a feelin’ that she was out lookin’ for something else, and I didn’ want to get in the way of that. Can’t really explain it, but that was my intuition.”
“And what will your intuition tell you to do when you meet her again?”
Leaf flashed a dramatic pose. “To lay on that Broadcreek charm and ask her to tea.”
Jahora chortled. “Oh she would practically melt at that. Though, she would say yes, I know that much.”
They shared a smile and kept walking until they reached the next spot that needed to be enchanted. Leaf returned to keeping an eye out, and Jahora knelt down to scratch out a rune.
“Were only Elly so open about what she feels…” the Mage said as she worked.
“Somethin’ goin’ on?” the hunter asked.
“Well, it started around yesterday, while we were working on the door. I wouldn’t say she was rushing me, but rather herself, like she had to solve code.”
“Maybe she just wants to push ahead. It’s pretty irritatin’ to be kept from a goal by just a door.”
“Perhaps, but she wasn’t like this when we first started. She was more patient…”
“It was after Helbram let it slip about her master, right? Maybe that did somethin’.”
“True… I can’t believe I never made the connection that Agatha was the Stormcaller.”
“You need to explain to me what the hells that even means.”
She looked at him like he was from a different star, but then her eyebrows lifted. “Right, you have never actually been to the Kingdoms. The title is pretty self explanatory, a Mage so powerful that she is capable of conjuring a storm all by herself. Not just some loud obnoxious one with a heavy rain and irregular claps of thunder to keep you awake at night, but a storm, a veritable tempest with winds strong enough to rip apart even stone buildings.”
“Gods, it's a good thing I didn’t get on her bad side. I knew Agatha was strong, but to be that powerful…”
“She is one of the few Mages in the Kingdoms to have reached the Fifteenth Circle, and one of the oldest… centuries old,” Jahora clarified.
“And Elly was her apprentice… that’s a large shadow to stand in.”
“I don’t think that she’s much concerned about being in the shadow as opposed to living up to it,” Jahora said, “Elly has never been much for attention, as much as she tends to get at times. No, I think she wishes to justify the time that Agatha spent teaching her.”
“I don’t think her master would care about that.”
“No, but Elly clearly does, and Helbram’s mention of Agatha to Kali has now placed the Stormcaller’s reputation on the line. In Elly’s eyes, at least.”
Leaf clicked his teeth. “I bet Helbram is kicking himself for that one, too.”
“Most likely, the man doesn’t like feeling like an inconvenience. At least he seems to be in a brighter mood, regardless. He looked quite refreshed this morning.” Jahora looked up when Leaf didn’t immediately respond. “Unless you’ve noticed something.”
“It’s more a feelin’ than anythin’ I can confirm,” he admitted, “but it almost feels like he’s leanin’ into all of this to avoid thinking about somethin’ else.”
“Like in Geldervale?”
“Not that bad. It’s more like…” he snapped his fingers a few times, “ignorin’ an itch that you can’t scratch. That sort of thing does wear on you after a while.”
“I have a feeling that Helbram has a great many things wearing on him…”
“Aye, and tryin’ to get him to talk about them is like tryin’ to uproot a bloody tree. Just because he’s as tall as one doesn’t mean he has to act like ‘em.”
“He’ll speak when he needs to. He always does,” Jahora reassured, “For now, the only thing we can do is support him and Elly as best we can, and get that last rune down.”
The edge of evening granted the sky a red hue that overcast through the holes in the thick branches above them. Leaf and Jahora arrived at the final location in silence, and this time the hunter had recalled Snow and Shadow to his side. Jahora had warned him that activating the barrier would cause a large disturbance, and so he didn’t want the cubs anywhere but his direct line of sight. She carved another rune into place, and looked up at him for confirmation. He gave a nod, and she cast the final part of the enchantment.
A line of pale blue shot from the rune and across the ground, arcing slightly as it went to connect the spell with another rune off into the distance. Another line came from the opposite direction, and when it connected to the symbol at their feet, it filled fully with light. A snap cut through the air around them, and Leaf saw a translucent sheen shoot up from the bright line and curve to form a dome over the manticore’s territory. The near glass-like look of the barrier reminded him of something…
“This is like that shield back at Goldshire,” he remarked.
Jahora stood up with a proud air. “You’re right! Elly and I have spent some time discussing how to set up something similar to a Ruhian Shield Spire and I eventually settled on this. Orthodox does a fine job of keeping a spell’s structure more defined, so I went with that script for this one. It’s not nearly as strong, not even a hundredth, if I were to guess, but it should hold well.”
“I’ll say.” Leaf knocked on the barrier, watching the impact ripple like water across its surface. “I’m almost nostalgic, lookin’ at this. I know nothin’ about magic, but this is impressive.”
“Nothing compared to what you would find in the Six Kingdoms,” Jahora admitted, “But it is fine work. It still needs regular applications of crystal dust to maintain, however…”
“I can take care of that while I hunt, would be a good reminder of-”
The crashing of trees cut him off. He caught the sound before the others, a rapid, vicious noise that barreled towards them. He readied an arrow in his bow out of instinct, and this movement signaled for Jahora to prime a spell in her hands. The cubs went on their haunches, growling, but Leaf stood in front of them.
The manticore broke from the brush, not even slowing a beat upon seeing them. It crashed into the barrier, the impact great enough to shake the ground under them, but even as the magical shield flared with pale blue energy, it held. The beast was unharmed as well, and snarled a sound that was a mix of a mountain lion’s yowl along with the hints of a man growling. That alone was enough to send shivers up Leaf’s spine, but looking at its twisted, malformed face up close also made his gut clench. Its man-like lips snarled upwards to reveal its fangs, dripping with a drool that steamed once it hit the ground.
Leaf betrayed no emotion to the beast. After all, he had fought far more grotesque creatures not so long ago, but that hint of human in the manticore’s face put a sour taste at the back of his throat. Jahora remained unflinching as well, and the two stared at the beast as it paced back and forth. Multiple times did it growl at them, flapping its wings in frustration, but it didn’t make for another lunge. When Leaf stepped towards it, his Core surging with Ether to the point that a sky blue aura flowed from him, the manticore paused. Hunter and beast met held each other’s gaze, and the manticore broke the stand off by stabbing its tail at him. Its tip dug into the barrier, sending a ripple of energy across its surface as it tried to break through, but the shield showed no signs of failing. Leaf remained unflinching through it all, and with a final snarl, the manticore leapt back into the trees.
“That… was disgusting,” Jahora said.
“Yes it was.” He kept a lookout for a while longer, sensing no more traces of its presence before turning away. “Come on, we should head back.”
Author’s Note: Bit of a reflective chapter here. With Helbram, I always want to show how he's using the void to train, so I went a bit deeper into it here. For Jahora and Leaf, this plays more into me wanting the party members to interact some more. I was falling into a trap where they all seemed to be talking to Helbram, but never each other except for like one or two remarks. That doesn't really feel natural, so I've been trying to remedy that. Helbram will remain the main character, but I don't want interactions to feel artificial.
Let me know what you think!
Till next update everyone, have a wonderful time ^_^
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