Cadence fell through endless splintered space, pumping everything she could into her Soul Surges in a desperate bid to hold herself together, to keep her mind functioning, to try to-

Seeker's eyes narrowed. They didn't really, because in this place that wasn't a place, Seeker wasn't even sure if they still had a physical body, but their consciousness nonetheless expressed suspicion.

Somehow, on this plane the void hag had projected them into, Seeker was able to see something of the mechanics behind what the hag was doing. Perhaps it was their joint awareness boon and will Surge, or their past exposure to reality magics at Storyteller's side, or the same undefined nature of their soul that had allowed them to accept a gift that should've been beyond their ability. Whatever the reason, they could somehow perceive just a bit of what was happening to them as they tumbled through this nowhere space.

The glades were distortions, that much they already knew. The overlap of the Realm and the Chained World had created fractured spaces, which resulted in the multifarious glades. What Seeker hadn't expected was the links, the eldritch equivalent of tunnels or roads connecting the glades through this non-place they were now tumbling through. Seeker could feel the cold, oppressive magic emanating from those links, and had no problem identifying it as the stifling magic of the Chained World, a force they had encountered at this level of density a couple times now.

The hags had somehow mastered the magic of the glades. That wasn't good.

But there was more than that. Multiple tunnels connected to a single point, one that Seeker couldn't make out–but just considering the space seemed to tow them in its direction, like it was emitting some sort of arcane gravity, drawing them in…

No. It took all of their enhanced will, but Seeker turned aside from that place, their attention shifting to the nexus of links that was directly adjoined to that central point. Most of them led back to the various glades–allowing the hags to move through the Wastes at will, perhaps?–but some few led away, spiraling into distant reaches that Seeker couldn't quite make out.

In fact, it all was starting to become blurry. Perhaps the void hag's working was running its course, or maybe Seeker's Surge was starting to run out. In any case, they suspected their ability to exert even a small amount of control over their situation was rapidly coming to an end.

And yet… they couldn't turn away from one of those links. It was as oppressive and cruel as the others, but something in its magic felt different, familiar, almost. Like it was…

Home.

Something deeper and more powerful than Seeker's conscious will identified the nostalgic feeling of that link, and they were incapable of turning aside as their soul sunk into that link, and then they were-

#

The barrens were silent around them. No rustling rodents. No buzzing insects or singing birds. There was none of the undergrowth and loose leaf detritus that perpetually coated the forest floor of any natural wood. The trees around them were neither evergreen nor deciduous. Their leaves clung to their high, twisted branches, soaking in the sun without allowing any to reach the bare ground below.

What little light filled the barrens shone directly down on Seeker from a hole in the foliage above. There, the unnatural trees had begun filling in a broken section, working to once more repel all sunlight, but they hadn't managed it quite yet, allowing shadow-dappled light to trickle down to Seeker's prone form.

It seemed impossible, but they were… home. Or at least, not far from it.

The link that Seeker had been drawn into had connected the glades of the Arboreal Wastes to the barrens outside Felisen, more than two hundred miles away.

"That's… really not good."

It made some things make sense, though. Storyteller had called the barrens a thin place, one of the points where the reality of the Realm was its weakest, allowing more outsiders to crossover–essentially turning them into tiny, discrete Wastes. But as far as Seeker knew, even Teller hadn't been aware that the hags had made those thin places into something similar to sigil stations, points that they could rapidly travel between.

Seeker thought of the central point they had seen, the nexus that all the glades connected to. A staging area, perhaps? The true hiding place of the Coven of Whispers and their remaining forces?

Weakly, groggily, Seeker lifted their head, looking at the barrens. It wasn't their imagination–they had awoken in the exact place where Storyteller had killed the ogre years before, the place where Seeker was unconsciously bestowed with their first gift.

Cautiously, they got to their feet. At least their body seemed to be working more or less correctly–they expected to be more drained from the void hag's working, but their disorientation apparently didn't extend to their attributes.

They were alone. Perhaps because Seeker had managed to maintain some form of consciousness through the hag's working, they had evidently ended up somewhere else from where the others, and Allid's party, had presumably been sent.

This wasn't good. Seeker needed to get back to Elliven, needed to find out what had happened to their friends, needed to tell Adeline and the High Court and the sentinels what they had learned–but it would be a trip of weeks to make it back there.

Unless…

"Is this in your plot too, Storyteller?"

"Calling for help already?"

Seeker whirled on the guttural, burbling voice, Cinderbrand leaping to their hand.

They turned in time to see Ellevesa waddle around a tree, her bulbous body quivering with suspicion.

"How is it you got here, child?" the rot hag asked. "My sister's working was very clear…"

"Maybe humans aren't quite as ignorant as your coven likes to imagine," Seeker replied. Even as they spoke, they lifted their sword, falling into a ready stance.

Ellevesa replied with a disturbing cackle. "No… no little gifted, they are not. But then, there is something special about you, isn't there? Something I noted even back in that little valley."

Seeker wavered a moment, their will Surge subsiding. No time for that, not now.

[Soul Surge] activated

Stamina attribute boosted

[Soul Surge] activated

Focus attribute boosted

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Instantly, the drained feeling of their first Soul Surge lapsing faded away, their arm steadying.

"You mean the first time I defeated you," Seeker said. "I forced you to retreat then–you think I can't do so now?"

"Oh, yes, you did," Ellevesa's too-wide mouth split at the edge, a jagged smile revealing a mouthful of crooked, yellowed teeth. "But then, I was supported only by those two useless mongrels."

"And this time, you face me alone."

"Do I?"

Ellevesa's question was answered by a stomp, a footfall heavy enough to shake the ground and set the twisted trees to quivering.

A footfall that sent Seeker's mind flying backwards, to before they had power, before they were truly free.

Seeker blew out a long breath.

That really really wasn't good.

#

Seeker and their team had trained for months now, in a wide variety of situations. With them by their side, Seeker was confident that they could handle nearly any moderate rank monster.

But even for all four of them, trying to fight a rot hag and an ogre simultaneously would've been a stretch. For Seeker by themself? It was a futile struggle.

They rolled out of the way of a slammed fist, the ogre's forearm likely weighing as much as Seeker's entire body. The rumbling impact of the hit threw out a shockwave of dust, Seeker's Surged coordination the only thing that allowed them to maladroitly get to their feet and leap to the side before a sizzling jet of decaying magic shot through the space they had occupied.

The ogre was as ugly as the first one they had met, in these same barrens, more than a year before. Its too-wide, too-short legs made it slow, but its sheer size and the unnatural length of its arms, even compared to its twelve-foot frame, more than compensated for its awkward movements.

The oversized outsider brute had placed itself between Seeker and Ellevesa, keeping the adventurer from closing on the more vulnerable hag, forcing them to dodge attacks from both outsiders at once. What few chances they had for a counterattack were barely effective, even a smoldering Cinderbrand able to leave little more than shallow cuts and mild burns through the ogre's thick, clay-like skin.

"Dance, little adventurer, dance!" Elevessa's burbling cackles continued as she occasionally pitched in blasts of corruptive magic, leaving behind smoking craters that continued to narrow Seeker's own movements options. Soon, they knew, they'd run out of room, or miss a dodge, or their stacked Surges would wear off, and then…

They just needed something to tilt the odds in their favor, a momentary distraction so that Seeker could get behind the ogre and close on the hag herself. Normally, Allana or Olivia would provide that diversion, but without them here, Seeker was forced to see just how reliant they had grown on their party. They were strong alone, sure, but the gift of the echo was its best when around others, whose powers they could reflect and complement.

Seeker bared their teeth. There was nothing else for it. They'd just have to risk a dive between the ogre's stumpy legs and take advantage of-

Their train of thought came to a screeching halt as a mountain bear, a titan of a beast almost as tall as the ogre and likely even heavier, covered with dense gray fur, lumbered through the twisted trees and slammed into the ogre like a battering ram, sending the outsider flying to one side.

Seeker blinked.

And then they moved.

Ellevesa seemed as surprised by the battle's sudden turn as Seeker was–not that they could blame her. It wasn't every day you saw a living mountain of fur and muscle and claws charge at an outsider like a drunk in a tavern brawl. But that moment of frozen surprise gave Seeker the chance to close the distance with the hag, their body singing with the speed of their Surge.

Ellevesa barely got her arms up in time, and there was a sound like fatty bacon sizzling in the pan as the flaming Cinderbrand cut into both of her arms, leaving a pair of deep, blackened cuts in each of them.

Seeker jumped back, regained their balance, and pressed in again, forcing Ellevesa to the defensive. They knew that every moment was fleeting and precious, that even the giant bear wouldn't last long against the sheer strength of an ogre. And so they wove their sword into a blistering blanket of cuts and thrusts, Ellevesa's decaying magic unable to rust or rot the finely made wolfram blade and incapable of stopping Cinderbrand's flames.

Seeker put everything into the attack–but it still wasn't enough. Ellevesa's backwards eyes, milky white pupils surrounded by inky blackness, narrowed as she realized what Seeker was doing, and she allowed the adventurer to land a pair of vicious cuts to her chest, trusting in the potency innate to hag flesh to protect her as she incanted the spell Seeker had feared through the fight.

They leaped back, their Surges draining by the moment, and ran for a nearby tree, trying to place it between them and the hag–but their speed wasn't enough. A fine mist shot from Ellevessa's hand, and while Seeker managed to get their head and part of their body behind cover, the rest of the searing acidic mist soaked their exposed legs and their right arm, chewing through their armor and skin with equal ease.

Cadence screamed in pain, Seeker shattering and fleeing before the searing agony of the hag's acid. Her legs just stopped working for a moment, and she collapsed, her head falling on the far side of the tree she had tried to hide behind. Cinderbrand fell next to her, his flames winking out as he left her hand.

And there was Ellevesa. Burned and blackened and bleeding, she still stood. Behind her, the struggle between the ogre and the bear had come to an end, the mauled, bloody ogre stumbling to its feet, leaving behind the corpse of…

Wait. Where was the bear? What had happened to its body?

Cadence's mouth parted in sudden understanding as she stared at the empty crater the bear's body should've been in, and then Seeker smiled a pained, bloody grin. The acid had passed, leaving them scarred and wounded, but still alive.

Though it took all of their strength, all of their will, Seeker managed to get Cinderbrand vertical, thrust point first into the ground. With that done, they had a lever, a crutch, they could use to start pulling themselves upwards.

"Pathetic," Ellevesa spat. "You think you can kill me? You think you can stop my sisters? You can do NOTHING! You are NO ONE!"

Seeker finally made it to their feet, and though every muscle in their body screamed, they lifted their sword, pointing it straight at Ellevesa.

"You can make whatever claims you want," they told the hag. "I know who I am, and I am more than you can possibly know. I am Cadence of Felisen. Ignite."

Cinderbrand burst into scintillating flames.

"I am Caden Wanderborn. Spark."

The flames circling Cinderbrand grew wider and wilder.

Seeker's eyes narrowed, and they saw Ellevesa's doing the same, the hag appearing to realize that Seeker wasn't ready to give up, not yet.

"I am Seeker, ward of Storyteller, fated to be the next archon of the Adventurer–and my story does not end with you, monster! Cinderbrand, incinerate!"

The flames orbiting Seeker's sword condensed into a nearly solid ball of flame and force, every bit of heat stored within the enchanted wolfram forming into a single burst of power.

Even had the flame's light not burned Seeker's eyes, they wouldn't have been able to track the projectile. The burst of fire crossed the distance between Seeker and Ellevesa in an instant–and then it detonated, and everything went black.

#

Seeker woke to gentle fingers stroking their hair, their head pillowed by a soft lap.

"Chew," a familiar voice commanded, and Cadence obeyed instinctively, the lump of sour mush in her mouth quickly sliding down her throat–and pleasurable tingling immediately started running through her body.

"I… I've gotta… Elliven…" Caden mumbled, trying to make his mouth work, trying to make his thoughts move. They resisted him as much as his body did.

"Shh," that gentle, nostalgic voice caressed Caden's mind, and his traitorous body obeyed its urgings.

"It's okay," Ryme said. "It's okay, you're safe. Rest. Recover."

"Mmmkay," Cadence said. It was easier to agree than to argue with the chief hunter.

It was almost funny. She had travelled the breadth of the heartlands, only to end up back in Felisen to finally complete her trial hunt alongside her mother.

In recognition of your successful hunt, the Elder has offered you [the Gift of the Hunter].

You cannot accept a third gift at this time. Reach Initiate with both of your gifts to open up your third gift slot.

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