– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 219, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 27 –

"That's… great," said Terry half-heartedly. He took a sip of his favorite mana-imbued cold tea from Arcana.

On the one hand, they now had entire armies coming from the Union to support their struggle against the Lich Kingdoms.

On the other hand…

"Venerable Senior!" A martialist bowed down until his head hit the floor.

"Honorable Returnee, should we carry your water for you?" Two younger martialists were nearly wrestling each other while trying to be the one closest to him.

Terry stared silently at the two martialists trying to ingratiate themselves and then at his cold tea. He took a deep breath before taking another sip of tea. He decided to firmly ignore whatever was going on with these loonies, just like he ignored the snickering coming from Amelia's direction.

Terry stepped up on layers of divine mana and caught the gaze of the woman he was looking for. "Chalita!" He descended in front of the people wearing the customary dark green robes of the Shadowed Forest Sect.

"Greetings, Arcanian." Chalita narrowed her eyes towards the captives Terry had dropped off with Edmund. "Are they who I think they are?"

"Shen's mother and one of her bunch," said Terry. "We were hunting down the Bloody Duchess when they showed up to interfere. Not sure if their plan was to desert to the Lich Kingdoms or if they just had it out for me." He shrugged. "I'll leave figuring that out to whoever is taking over the interrogation."

Chalita grinned wickedly. "We would gladly offer some experienced volunteers to interrogate Mei of the Nine-Faced Fox Sect. We've taken over some of their territory, but some of their elders are difficult to track down. I'm sure we can assist each other in gathering the information we need."

"Great, but I won't have a part in it," said Terry while absentmindedly staring towards the mana signatures of Tiana, Elena, and Vess, who also appeared to be coming over. "I'll leave that to Edmund to figure out." He pointed with his thumb towards the dwarven city guard. "Talk to him if you want to get involved. Get back to me if he has concerns."

Chalita pointed towards three of her subordinates to inform her parents and sort everything out. "I'm honestly surprised that Mei had the idiocy of picking a fight with you while we were burning down her sect grounds. I figured she would be smarter than that. Talk about irrational."

Terry puffed his cheeks and creased his brows. "Whatever rationality she might have had appeared far gone. A far cry from how I saw her after the folded space. She said I killed Shen. I don't remember that, but who am I to argue? I'm glad that snake is dead, and I don't think she appreciated that sentiment."

Chalita guffawed to the surprise of her fellow sect members. "That's just perfect! Hah!" She slapped her palm. "She abandoned her sect and got herself crippled because she was chasing the wrong target." She grinned. "Of course, you don't remember killing Shen. That was me!"

Terry raised his palms upwards. "As long as he's dead, I don't really care." He wrinkled his forehead. "But why did she believe it was me?"

"Because it happened while Shen was plotting against you. Right here in Freedom. Right after your battle with the count," explained Chalita before frowning. "Damn, you were really out, weren't you? Must have done a number on your senses for you to not sense any of us after we left the shadows."

"Certainly wasn't my best day," muttered Terry while subconsciously swiveling his eyes towards the many familiar mana signatures spread out across the city.

He briefly wondered why Chalita had not shown up before his gruesome fight against the count, but did not bother asking. He kind of knew the answer already. Chalita had her own goals in life, just like everyone else. Helping Terry was most likely not at the top of her priorities.

"I got better." Terry focused his gaze back on the woman whose soul had switched bodies during their days in the folded space.

"Good to hear," said Chalita. "I think Peter and Annabelle would have been disappointed otherwise. They kept ranting about your freakish perception and how they plan to surprise you at least once. The Blazing Sun Sect should arrive soon, by the way."

"Annabelle?" asked Terry. Didn't she pretend to be dead or something?

"Most everyone has figured out the identity behind the Crow's Ghost by now," said Chalita. "Doesn't matter anymore. The faction of the Crow's Reincarnation has firmly taken over the Blazing Sun Sect. The only reason they're delayed is because they had a little spat with the Thunderous Palm Sect."

Terry tilted his head. He thought these two sects had been on friendly terms, given how they had cooperated when attacking Rafael and him in Thanatos's Whetstone City.

Typical martialists.

Chalita snorted with amusement. "You really can't hide your thoughts from your face, can you?" She chortled. "Under the Twins of the Crow, the Blazing Sun Sect is rising to new heights and the Thunderous Palm Sect doesn't like that from a sect they had considered a future vassal."

"Anyway…" Terry didn't really care to spend more time on what amounted to martialist politics – two topics he would rather avoid than engage in. He cleared his throat. "You're into souls, right? Have you ever heard of a soulless person suddenly gaining a soul?"

"'Into souls', huh?" Chalita frowned at the oversimplification of her sects' secret life preserving techniques. She let it go since the Arcanian didn't know any better, and he probably didn't mean anything by it. "No, I haven't."

Chalita looked at Terry pensively. "Is that what's going on with you? I don't have soulsight to take a look, but I can tell that…" She searched for the right words. "Training with my technique, and especially since I had to use it, I've become extremely sensitive regarding threats to the soul. Like a sixth sense survival instinct."

Chalita looked Terry over. "I didn't want to bring it up since your secrets are your own, but since you're asking me, let me tell you: Whatever is going on with you is nightmare fuel for me. I don't have soulsight to see it, but I can feel it."

Chalita clicked her tongue. "I felt nothing like that when we were fighting the fungus army. When I was here to deal with Shen, I felt something, but nothing compared to now. To me, your presence feels no less dangerous than the magebane wandering around the city."

"Great…" muttered Terry resignedly. He certainly didn't feel as dangerous as he believed Dargones to be, and Chalita's answer only raised more questions.

Perhaps the folks in the Spirit Tower can illuminate my situation? They're properly allied with us now, so it should be fine to ask. I wonder—

"Honorable Elder, get back!"

"Venerable Returnee, please get to safety while we deal with the abomination!"

Martialists from the new arrivals were rushing in front of Terry, evidently trying to shield him from harm… or, more likely, trying to gain favor with him by pretending to do so.

"What?!" Terry's eye twitched when he realized what they were huffing about. "That's my cousin, you—!" He barely stopped the word 'imbeciles' from falling out of his mouth. He did not want to fall into martialist habits even further.

Instead, Terry flared his mana and growled. "You better not lay a finger on him or I will cut it off!" He sighed and excused himself from Chalita. "I'll have to go." He stepped above the crowd and dashed towards where Matteo was chatting with Amelia.

"And you're sure the Bloody Duchess was dead?" asked Matteo. "I don't mean to second-guess, but I just want to hear it."

"Yes, certainly," assured Amelia. "Even if she knew enough necromancy to maintain a phylactery, we engaged her before getting too close to the Lich Kingdoms."

Matteo nodded. "Good. Rafael confirmed he saw her soul during the battle before we split up. Her soul was with her, so she would have needed a soul escape technique to survive that. Dargones's mana would cut off such attempts and…"

Terry dropped down next to them and nodded.

Matteo nodded back before continuing: "And with both you and Terry there, I doubt anything slipped through your senses."

Terry did not have to think long to guess what they were talking about. "Dargones blasted her with so much nullification mana that I doubt she could have used any item to trick us, either. Only an anti-magic ring somehow survived, which reminds me."

He rummaged through his bag from the Arcana Academy where he had put the duchess's ring since the anti-magic refused to enter any of his proper dimensional storage items. "How did it survive the nullification? Is that normal?"

"Anti-magic is complex," said Amelia. "Which makes it such a great tool for mage hunting and such a pain to learn or work with. That ring must be of high quality to be resistant to nullification. Maybe your aunt can tell you more about it. I specialize in anti-magic spellwork, but that ring's anti-magic doesn't originate from an enchantment, and mana-crafting is not my expertise."

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"Terry!" Tiana jogged over through a crowd of martialists giving her weird mana signature a wide berth.

"Step aside!"

"Another mana signature like that…"

"Make way for the Venerable Returnee's other cousin!"

"Ugh…" Terry held a hand to his forehead. He continued his martialist coping mechanism of simply refusing to acknowledge their existence and focused on Tiana and the others, who were wearing various expressions of amusement and bewilderment. Deciding to preempt their teasing, he grinned at Tiana. "Hello, cousin. How can I help you?"

"What…?" Vess's expression further contorted into confusion.

"Did someone hit you on the head too much?" asked Elena with narrowed eyes.

"Greetings, cousin. I had some questions about the disruption burst." Tiana replied in stride. She worked with Siling enough to pick up on nonsense being played without missing a beat. "Actually, I want to try something, but not without you and Matteo around."

"You sure?" asked Terry. "I know you've been interested in it before, but I told you how much my internal focus refractors messed up my mana channels, right?"

"Yes, but I still want to try," insisted Tiana.

"Testing the limits of how much your elementals can shield your channels from harm?" Matteo stepped closer.

"That and I wonder if it might help lessen the elementals' influence," added Tiana. She caught Terry's gaze. "With you as a sensor to guide us, with the elementals as protective layers for our channels, and with Matteo around to suppress the elementals if necessary, we can experiment and we might get the internal disruption workable, not just for demons."

Terry nodded.

"I've already asked Akemi to lend us a few healers as an additional precaution," continued Tiana.

Uh oh. Terry cringed.

"Not too fond of the channelers of the Bright Lady?" asked Vess with an amused grin.

"Still because of…?" Elena looked from Terry to Matteo.

"No, the circle here is… fine." Terry rubbed his eyes. "Bright Akemi is not at all like Bright Willow. Akemi appears more like Cadence." If Cadence had more of a scary temper.

"Then…?" asked Elena before snickering. "Your face is really too transparent."

"They're just… fussy." Terry grimaced. At least with me. "Fussing over every scraped knee and—"

"You scraped much more than your knee." Matteo pointed out.

"Yes, and I agree with them," said Tiana sternly. "You require supervision."

Oh, mana.

"Why do I feel like you've spent too much time with Ma Isille?" grumbled Terry. "And you're not one to talk. You nearly got yourself killed, too."

"He has a point," added Vess.

Amelia slapped Matteo on the shoulder. "You're not in a position to lecture anyone on caution either, might I remind you."

Tiana crossed her arms and stared challengingly at Terry. "Well, I wasn't the one gone missing for years and, fussing aside, the healers will be there. It just makes sense for something like this."

Terry agreed, even though a part of him hated agreeing to that.

"The others are in the Lands," said Matteo.

"Yes, we should gather the whole demon squad for this," said Tiana.

"'Demon squad'?" asked Matteo with a frown.

"What?!" Tiana returned his gaze defiantly. "I kind of like the ring of it. We're demons and we're dealing with it. We're still in control and we're getting better at it. This…" She raised her hand and lightning snaked around it softly. "Has been a gift to me. Challenging and painful, but a gift nonetheless. With my external mana control impairment, I would have never been able to rely on spellwork. This gives me much needed range."

"I like the ring of that, too," interjected Amelia with a sideways glance at Matteo.

Terry could tell that Tiana meant it and that Amelia was mostly trying to cheer up Matteo, to have him focus on positive things instead of the doom and gloom of the past. When Sigille had still been alive, she had always tried the same.

"I don't know about that…" muttered Matteo.

"Well, I might consider a nice elemental for myself, too…" Terry joked, but quickly grimaced. "If I didn't already have some weird soul shit going on." He shrugged. "I figure I shouldn't add more complications to whatever situation is already happening."

"Let's go!" Tiana clapped loudly. "I want to get started!" She walked ahead towards the location of the gate towards the Lands of the Four Towers.

"So what was this cousin stuff about?" asked Elena.

"I told them to back off from Matteo because he's my cousin," said Terry.

"Thanks," said Matteo. "Good that they're listening to you. I hate dealing with martialists."

You and me both.

Terry took a deep breath and then shrugged. "They might have gotten the idea that all folks here with elemental possession are my cousins."

"Oh boy," exclaimed Vess. "Nick will hate that."

Terry recalled the irritating dwarf possessed by ice elementals, and he couldn't help but grin with schadenfreude.

***

Terry briefly hesitated before knocking on the door of what appeared to be a lecture hall and opening without waiting for a reply.

"See, I told you he would come." Siling declared proudly. "Terry has manners and occasionally some sense."

Terry looked unamused by the backhanded compliment, but he knew his friend was just teasing him.

"Excuse me, but can't this wait until after the lecture?" asked an irritated student from the Spirit Tower.

"""No.""" Terry, Ying, and Siling barked in unison while Daiyu merely shook her head.

"What happened to the Bloody Duchess?" asked Ying grimly. He was standing opposite the group of students, and Terry involuntarily had to recall his days at the Arcana Academy.

"The Bloody Duchess died an undignified death," declared Terry, which elicited a sharp intake of breath among many of the students.

"Good," growled Ying in a tone that caused a chill to run down the spines of many students.

"You're an instructor now?" Terry furrowed his brow while looking at Ying. "It seems I've missed something."

"Don't ask," grumbled Ying.

"If it got the four towers united and the Union's alliance moving, then that's all I need to know," said Terry. He pointedly averted his gaze from the look of frustration and impatience on the face of Syn City's mayor.

You're not the only one that would like to tear the Lich Kingdoms to shreds, but this situation is simply too complicated.

Terry had many questions to ask, but given the impatient looks from the students, he thought they could wait. He looked at Siling. "The others and I have a few things we want to try in the training grounds, so we will be there if you need anything. I first have to head to the Spirit Tower Master to ask something."

"Wait, Mina is with Brynn, and I still wanted to clarify something with both of them," said Siling, and jumped up from her seat.

Ying saw a chance to get out of teaching. "If it has to do with Instructor Ser's theories, then perhaps I—"

Instructor Ser? Terry raised an eyebrow. I guess uncle Samuel and aunt Brynn pulled some strings. Good to hear.

"""No,""" whined some of the students eager to learn about permanent soul externalization.

"""No,""" barked Daiyu and Siling.

Terry felt oddly reminded of the times his healers had used similar tones with him and his sympathies for the unwilling instructor rose a few points. "Just do what you can before figuring out how to do more. We'll be moving as soon as we understand what we're dealing with."

Terry and Siling left the lecture hall and walked towards the two tower masters whom they sensed in a meeting room.

"'Do what you can before figuring out how to do more.'" Siling looked skeptically at Terry. "Such sage advice. That was from the Veilbinder, wasn't it?"

"I still can't believe you never read the Path of a Mage," retorted Terry.

"And waste time I could be reading about potential soul spirit candidates?" Siling looked appalled at the very idea. "Besides, as much as everyone talks about him, I figure I already heard everything there was to read."

"Doubt it," said Terry skeptically. He knew the popular perception, and it was closer to the children's novel than the historic account. He had also learned different views on the Veilbinder, both from Damian in Thanatos and from some martialists who mostly knew him as the Godslaying Mortal.

Terry did not press the topic and instead looked at his best friend with concern. "How are you?"

"Fine, I guess," replied Siling with a frown. "I knew my family history was messed up, but I didn't know it was this messed up." She shrugged. "I'm trying to focus on the positive things. I have a sister!" She sighed. "I just have to free her from the Lich Kingdoms first." She grimaced. "No biggie."

"We'll manage," said Terry, and took a deep breath. "Somehow."

"Well, aren't you Mister Half-Confident?" Siling chortled before turning more serious. "Yes, we'll manage…" She puckered her lips and grinned. "And then I'll have a sister. No more ganging up on me in the training grounds! No more whaka against poor little Siling bullshit during spars!"

Terry stopped walking. "That never happened." He looked at his best friend. "And your phrasing doesn't make any sense. As far as I'm concerned, you're already in my whanau. You all are."

"Uhh…" Siling blinked, clearly flustered by the sincerity in his tone. "Look at you springing such weighty responsibilities on me when I'm just talking nonsense." She cleared her throat. "And isn't there some kind of ceremony for declaring whaka or something? You're a terrible dwarf!" She grumbled jokingly.

"Ceremony? Don't think so," said Terry and began walking again. "And being official whaka is a two-way street, so obviously I can't just declare that on my own. It's a commitment that's not to be taken lightly and you guys have a right to choose."

"Uh-huh…" Siling gave him the stink-eye. "You think we all strolled into the middle of nowhere for the joy of fighting undead?" Her expression flattened. "Well, Tiana might have. She seems to enjoy that part more than any sensible person should. I believe she's overcompensating for not being there when we searched for the blood tulip." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, we all think of you as family by whatever name we call it."

"Thanks," said Terry.

"Thanks yourself," said Siling. "So what are these experiments you and the others are planning?"

"Mainly exploiting elemental possession to develop the disruption burst until it has become workable." Terry quickly explained what they had in mind. "Lori wants to play around with the spellwork and aspected discharge combination. Miguel wants to try if he can develop his coldfire aspect into an equivalent of my mana touch. Jorg has a few mana-crafted item prototypes he wants to test." He shrugged. "And I'm still trying to understand the plane drift better."

"I'll drop by at some point," said Siling with a smile.

***

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