In Shroudmoor, they only had to deal with the aftermath of an imp attack. When Kendrick, Bellara, and Sahni arrived in Timberford at midday, it was another story entirely.

“What happens if it’s still there?” Sahni asked her fellow witch fearfully. Kendrick thought back to when he was first brought to this place, that unholy, unnatural wailing roar he’d heard in the distance, the urgency with which they had to flee.

“I have enough aura to portal all three of us a short distance,” Bellara answered. “We’ll lay low and regroup after that. Unless of course they have any other witches there. Then...” Her voice trailed off again. “We’ll just do what we can. Okay?”

Timberford was the largest settlement Kendrick had seen so far in the Ecumene. The sign at the town limits looked a fair bit newer than some of the weather-worn signs they’d passed previously, and it read “TIMBERFORD WELCOMES YOU.” The outskirts were dotted with houses and the odd shop or two, none of which seemed to be inhabited at the moment.

“Okay, Kendrick,” Bellara said authoritatively, “the next step of your training will have to be hands-on experience.” She drew the Psysword from her bag and set its heavy weight in his outstretched hands. “Imps are tougher, and more dangerous, than shades. Watch as we go and then step in when I give you the signal. Understood?”

“Got it,” he answered with a solemn nod.

“Good. We’ll have our work cut out for us today. Aldiel help us if the demon is still afoot... Keep your lens on just in case.”

Kendrick tapped his lens to activate it.

SAHNI

{82}

HUMAN WITCH

He said, “Sahni, you’re still at {82} today. That’s lower than you usually are, isn’t it?”

“This hangover is holding my aura back from recharging at its usual pace,” she answered glumly. “Yesterday was challenging for me, too.”

BELLARA

{155}

HUMAN WITCH

“Don’t worry,” Bell said, clenching her fists with resolve. “Your talents came in handy yesterday. Today, you can play backup. Or even watch from the sidelines if you’d like. It’s been too long since I’ve gotten a good workout beating the pus out of these monsters.” She flashed both of them a grin. “Better yet, why don’t you help Kendrick out today? The two of you put together might be enough to match my battle prowess.”

“Okay,” Sahni replied. Then, quietly, she added, “It’s not a competition, you know...”

They passed a few more rows of houses and deserted paths before catching their first glimpse of action.

A woman stumbled backward out of the door of her house, falling back hard on the cobblestone before the trio. An imp, its blue-gray skin even more unsightly in the light of day, suckled at the victim’s collarbone. Its clawed limbs sank into her flesh as it fed.

HUMAN {53}

IMP {33}

Bellara elbowed Sahni. “You’re on cleanup.” Then, as she trotted after the woman, she said in a louder voice, “This is going to hurt but I promise we’re here to help. Pugnus ampla!” She wound up a punch—Kendrick saw the fleeting instant when electric aura snaked from her midsection through her punching arm—and swung hard on the imp.

The force of the blow dislodged the creature from the woman, who now had multiple gashes and a deep bite wound in her chest. The victim was hyperventilating and sweating profusely. Sahni ran over and began muttering bhisalvas to start the healing process.

Kendrick, meanwhile, ran after the imp, unsure about the source of this sudden surge of courage. Am I still drunk? he wondered. He thought he might even give the Psysword a try until he saw Bellara had other ideas.

“Pugnus,” she spat maliciously. Her fists glowed faintly with aura. The imp was on its back, flailing its limbs trying to right itself like an overturned beetle. Before it could do so, Bellara hit it hard in the midsection with a devastating punch. Then another. And another. She pummeled the creature until black blood spurted out of its insectoid mouthparts and its bug eyes bulged from its bulbous head. Then, at long last, she swung one last time and it dissolved instantly into a mist of what looked like aura—except it was gray. “Tainted already. Damn waste.”

“Tainted?” Kendrick echoed. “What do you mean?”

“If you can put them down fast enough after they feed, you can usually salvage some of the aura they’ve siphoned. The longer they can, you know, digest it, the more it corrupts. Denizens of the Underworld have dark aura. Those from the Overworld, and most life forms in the Ecumene, have light aura. But they can’t be mingled without the one of greater volume changing the nature of the other. A little dark in light becomes light and vice-versa. Typically, only light aura can be wielded by anyone outside the Underworld.” She swirled her finger in the dissipating gray cloud. “It had already started digesting its meal. It must have been feeding on her for some time. Filthy wretch.”

He studied the fading gray aura until a stray wind picked up and blew it all into complete oblivion. “That thing had a reading of {33} just now. So they’re a lot tougher than shades, huh?”

“You didn’t gather that when one tried to attack you in Oakenpost?”

“I knew they were worse...” The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he scratched it. “I just didn’t know how much.”

Bellara raised her index finger didactically. “A good rule of thumb is to remember that it’s very rare for a shade’s aura reading to reach double digits. They’re almost always 9 or lower, and usually 5 or lower at that. Imps, on the other hand, are almost always in the double digits, and very rarely reach 100.”

“100?!”

“Relax. That’s only the exceptional ones, and only after a sizeable meal. They can’t sustain that level for long. Most of the ones you’ll find, assuming they’re not starving, will range from 20 to 60.”

And here I was finally getting comfortable popping single-digit shades, he lamented privately. Why can’t I just be the guy who does that?

“We have to go,” Sahni said as she passed them on the street. “More people will need our help.” Looking back, Kendrick saw that the woman was up on her feet and seemed physically back to normal, although clearly traumatized by what had just happened. The woman ducked back into her house and closed the door behind her. A muffled thud may have been her closing a wooden drop bolt to lock it.

Shroudmoor was not all smiles and sunshine, certainly, but the situation in Timberford already had a much darker vibe.

As they pressed on deeper into the town, Kendrick thought, Please, just let the demon be gone.

***

“Obstrae!” Sahni proclaimed, holding out her hands in a strangling pose. The next instant, a white ring of aura bound an imp around its midsection, holding it in place. The creature thrashed its arms and legs to try to free itself. “Kendrick! Now’s your chance!”

Okay, he thought, this is it. He held the Psysword in his hands and grasped the hilt with a firm grip. You can do this. You’ve got this. Just one. Just like the shade. It’s not going anywhere. And... On!

He opened his eyes to find that the crystal embedded in the sword’s crossguard was dim as a rock. The weapon was silent. Where there should have been a gleaming blade, or at least a bludgeoning lump of loosely gathered aura, there was only empty air.

“Kendrick?” The blue-haired witch broke her focus to look back at him. “What are you doing?”

“I-I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I don’t know what’s happening. Why isn’t it working?”

“You need to... You need to keep your concentration up.” She seemed to take her own advice and brought her gaze back to the imp she’d snared. “Just focus.”

“It’s not working. I don’t know if I can do this!”

“Kendrick, I believe in you! You should believe in yourself, too!” She paused to let her words sink in. “You can do this, we both know you can. Just take a deep breath and try again.”

Shake it off. Okay. Deep breath and try again. He breathed in through his nose, held it for a couple beats of his pounding heart, and let it out through his mouth. She really believes in you. Don’t let her down.

He felt that telltale tickle, that sixth sense reactivating somewhere inside him that let him glimpse the ripples in his metaphysical pool of aura. He felt it sloshing around inside him like water, or like wind in a bottle, or like neither, something stranger and more mystifying. He was attuning himself to his aura once more.

“Pyrios!” Bellara yelled. Kendrick heard a brief whoosh of crackling flame. When he opened his eyes, only wispy dark aura remained of the imp; Sahni’s spell had already been broken.

“Bellara!” Sahni protested. Even in her moment of indignation, she was still softer-spoken than one might expect. “Why did you do that? He was getting ready to practice...”

“When I said hands-on experience, I meant experience,” she told Kendrick in a scolding tone. “This is not a training exercise where we have time to dally. Lives are at stake. If you don’t have the mental fortitude to use the Psysword right now, then find a good place to hide, and Sahni, save your aura for the wounded and dying.”

“So, it’s like that, huh?” Kendrick replied, now gripping the Psysword with only one hand. “I’ve been here for what, a week? And because I’m not perfect then I’m disposable?”

“I’m not here to coddle your feelings right now,” Bellara shot back. “We’ve wasted enough time talking already! Either fight or don’t! We may not always be there to hold your hand! You need to start learning how to handle things for yourself.”

He scoffed. “That’s rich coming from the one who brought me here to help her in the first place. Just watch. In another week I’ll be slaying demons by myself and leaving you in the dust, and then we’ll see how—”

Sahni screamed and then Kendrick was on the ground.

He’d been tackled—hard—and not by either of his witch companions. Not by anything human.

IMP {21}

An imp latched onto his stomach and frantically burrowed with its claws to try to rip through his tunic. Its chitinous mandibles clicked voraciously, also probing for a way in.

His adrenaline surging, Kendrick tried to call for help, but he found himself merely making a loud, incoherent yell. Time seemed to slow to a standstill around him. With his free hand, he grasped futilely at the imp’s cold, leathery skin. He dug his fingernails into its eyelids. Couldn't get a good grip on it. No use.

Running footfalls pounded the cobblestone nearby. Someone cried out, “Obstrae!” A metallically ethereal clink rang out through the air and he waited for the trap to close around the imp.

But it was Bellara who had cast the spell...

...on Sahni.

“Hey!” Kendrick yelled. “Hey!”

“Do it!” Bellara barked at him. “Use the sword!”

“Let her go!”

“Just do it! You need to learn! We are out of time!”

Sahni struggled at first and then broke down crying.

“Bellara, that’s enough!”

“Kendrick, just do what you need to do—”

“I said STOP!”

Suddenly, light and heat shot forth in front of him.

The imp hissed, seizing angrily, when the blade of the Psysword finally activated and severed all four of its limbs at the wrists and ankles. The force of the sudden jutting of aura launched the creature an arm’s length away from him. At once, the obstrae spell binding Sahni dissolved, and the tearful blue-haired witch fell to her knees with her head hung low.

Bellara trotted over toward Kendrick and the maimed imp. “That’s all I wanted to see, and look, you did it!” The fingers of her right hand curled into the C-shape they usually made right before executing that fire-based spell she was fond o fusing. “I’ll take care of the—”

Shink! In one fluid motion, Kendrick swung the Psysword down to decapitate the imp. It ceased moving instantly and, a moment later, all that remained of the creature on the cobblestone street and its claws embedded in Kendrick’s tunic disintegrated into wisps of black smoke and fragments of intangible black ash that drifted through the air.

“There!” he snapped at her, rising to his feet. The Psysword’s aura blade hummed with his channeled energy called forth in a moment of both great need and great emotional exertion. “There, are you happy now? The imp’s dead. I killed it. See?” He swung the weapon around wildly in the place where the Underworld’s spawn had been, clearing away the dark aura until it was utterly vaporized into the surrounding air. He pointed the blade at her now from a distance. “What the hell is wrong with you? To do something like that to Sahni? To me?”

Bellara’s initial excitement over Kendrick’s progress waned as her brow furrowed and her lips puckered in a remorseful frown. “I-I just didn’t want her to keep shielding you from every—”

“Shielding me from what? This war, this end of your world that you dragged me into, Bellara?” He panted from the exertion of battle and the rush of adrenaline forcing blood through his body faster and faster. “I think anyone would agree I’ve been pretty cooperative so far. I’m willing to go the distance but you can’t shove me there!”

“Bellara,” Sahni whimpered. “Why?” The redhead approached her friend gingerly with a hesitant gait.

Before any of them could say anything else, a high-pitched, quiet growl caught their attention. Another imp skittered out from behind a building. Its enormous black almond eyes squinted hatefully at them.

“We’ll talk later,” Kendrick grumbled bitterly, raising his Psysword in both hands. “Let’s take care of this first.” The imp charged at the three of them. Taking point, Kendrick stepped forward and lifted the Psysword above his head, bringing it down at just the right moment to cleave the imp in two vertically. Both halves were dark aura smoke before they hit the cobblestones.

Upon closer inspection, he saw that his weapon was far from the clumsy club it used to be. There was now a distinctive sharpness to it—at least on the business edge that sliced the imp. Still, the other parts of the blade were smoother and rounder than ideal.

Progress, he thought. Who knows? Maybe next week you’ll be demon bait to sharpen it some more.

“Pyrios!” Bellara shouted. Another imp went up in flames trying to execute a sneak attack.

Sahni finally stood up, drying her eyes, and held both of her hands in a grasping pose. “Obstrae!” Her voice cracked slightly when she cast the spell this time.

An imp in an alley between two houses was caught in Sahni’s projected ring of aura. Kendrick ran after it, side-eyeing Bellara to make sure she didn’t steal his kill, and then he ran the creature through with his weapon, destroying it instantly.

They combed the cobblestone streets of Timberford in this manner for the first half of the afternoon, picking off imps one by one. When someone needed healing, Sahni did her work while the other two stood guard. They abided by an unspoken agreement to take turns alternating kills—unless one or more of them were in trouble, and then they helped the other. Pyrios. Obstrae. Swing the sword. A grueling but productive rhythm.

It was finally broken when they saw a large plume of black smoke rising into the sky. It looked to Kendrick like a fire was burning somewhere. They ran after the source of it to get a better look.

It came from the center of town, a circular plaza of sorts with two or three dozen wooden stands and shops for fruits, vegetables, meats, breads, clothing, jewelry, and other knickknacks. A small crowd had gathered. The trio gently nudged their way through it.

Five individuals—who appeared to be four witches dressed not unlike Bellara, as well as a wizard with a braided white beard clad in form-fitting arcane garments—pumped their fists in the air and cheered. Kendrick took a quick reading of them with his lens.

HUMAN WITCH {143} HUMAN WIZARD {162} HUMAN WITCH {164} HUMAN WITCH {156} HUMAN WITCH {112}

They all stood encircling a heavy cloud of what Kendrick soon realized was fragmenting dark aura rising like dense fog. On the stone street beneath it was the scorched outline of what they had apparently slain.

It seemed rather tall—at least a full head taller than Kendrick, but maybe more—and brawny. The outlines of its physique made it seem like it had been a hulking mass of muscle in life. While its hands ended in five clawed fingers, much like imps, this being’s legs seemed to have tapered off into cloven hooves. But the most striking feature of all was the pair of horns jutting out of either side of its head—they were both curved and each about as long as Kendrick’s arm.

“The demon,” Sahni gasped. “They got it.”

“Thank Aldiel,” said Bellara. “Although a group setting might not have been a bad way for us all to get some experience fighting one.”

“You’re obsessed,” Kendrick muttered.

She shot him a glare. “No, you’re just detached. You got here a few days ago. Try living this nightmare for two years. You’ll either turn out like me or like the shut-ins terrified to leave their homes close to sunset.”

Interrupting their argument-to-be was a portly man who stood in the center of the plaza on a wooden crate, waving his arms to get everyone’s attention. “Aldiel be praised, we have won the day!” he exclaimed, and loose cheers erupted throughout the audience. “All those who fought valiantly in defense of our town today, please step forward!” The four witches and the wizard who had slain the demon obliged.

“Kendrick, give it to me,” Bellara whispered. She held out her hand discreetly next to him without turning her head. “The sword. I don’t recognize any of them, but they could be from the Redrune Academy. We can’t be seen with this right now.”

Looking at the weapon in his hand, he realized he’d already lost focus enough for the channeled aura to cease flowing; it was inert again. He jammed the hilt into Bellara’s hand and she stuffed it into her bag. Then he watched as another wizard stepped forward from the crowd, folding his hands in front of him with a subtle smile.

“Those three!” hollered a woman in the crowd, pointing at them. Kendrick’s stomach tied itself in a knot. “See them? They were helping, too!”

“Oh, don’t be modest,” said the stout man, grinning broadly. “Step forth, young heroes, won’t you?” The trio did as they were asked, timidly at first. “Anyone else? Don’t be shy, now! You deserve recognition for all your acts of courage on this harrowing day! Let us all applaud those among us who rose to the task of defending this town from the onslaught of the Underworld!”

All the townspeople around them started clapping, cheering, even whistling their praise to the nine volunteers who had helped defend Timberford. Kendrick’s anger toward Bellara started to soften—only a little. Then he figured he might as well back off and settle in for another night of relaxation before confronting her about it in the morning. He was sure they’d be off on their travels again after breakfast.

Travel, fight, rest, repeat... it seemed to be all that life in the Ecumene had to offer him. He consoled himself with the thought that after his skills with the Psysword had been put to good use ridding the realm of Underworld invaders, it wouldn’t take long for Bellara and Sahni to send him back to his own world safe and sound. Then he could put this all behind him...

“And let’s hear it,” the man in the plaza yelled over the applause, “for each and every one of us without magic who fought to defend this beautiful town as well!” Another loud cheer erupted from the audience. “Esteemed guests, if you don’t already know, I am the town’s mayor. On behalf of my people, won’t you join the town wizard and the rest of Timberford in celebrating our glorious victory this evening?”

Kendrick smiled and felt compelled to answer for them. “We’d love that. Just point us to the nearest tavern,” he chuckled.

“Oh, nonsense!” the mayor snorted. “That’s far too dull! We can do that any night, lad! Tonight calls for a celebration! Tonight, we feast!”

Then came the loudest bout of cheering from almost everyone congregated in the plaza. Kendrick felt watched, so he joined in clapping and trying to return a smile to blend in with everyone else’s enthusiasm. The racket then divided into numerous clumps of conversations all around them and the crowd dispersed to make preparations for the feast.

“I suggest a truce for the night,” Sahni offered. “Those five slayed a demon. Everyone seems so happy. They don’t deserve to be brought down by our squabble.”

“That’s fine,” Bellara said with a shrug.

Kendrick sighed. “If you say so, Sahni. I’m game.”