Heat seeps through the transport chamber, too many bodies crowded in to wait impatiently around the silver disc in the center of the room. Hundreds of large runes are painted in flowing lavender lines upon the wide, ten-foot disc, all connected in a chaotic manner that only a master enchanter might be able to decipher. Halford doesn't need to decipher the intention behind the magic to understand what his eyes tell him.

The twin enchanters that ran the transport chamber had made calculations as registered adventurers trickled into the chamber. They had poured an ungodly number of infused gemstones into slots along the walls of the chamber, each growing brightly before shattering, each destroyed gemstone helping to push glowing magic into the runes. The runes primed like a clock, a wave of light slowly running the circumference of the disc, until just before the end, the light stopped expanding. It sat now, a gap between the two edges of the magic's glow less than a finger's width. Something had stopped it from completing, and no one knew why.

Halford's knee bounces up and down, the floor of the chamber vibrating with his anxiety as he sits upon a stone bench, staring at the incomplete magic in front of him. He kept thinking that the name the desk worker had given couldn't be right. How could his sister be in the middle of an attack on one of the empire's largest cities? The last he'd heard, she had been far, far away, more than an ocean away. She couldn't be here now. But, it wasn't as if they had a very common last name. It couldn't be her, but it had to be.

"You are going to give yourself an ulcer," Bali says.

"Can't," comes Halford's reply. He continues to tap his foot against the stone, his hands clasped under his chin, his eyes glued to the gap between the magic.

Bali sighs, shaking her head and looking around at the assembling group. The adventurers in Ramacalla have never been an impressive lot. The closer one came to the seats of power in the world, the more sparse the adventurers became. They were a lot who made their living cutting through the wilder parts of the world, going to where civilization often forgot the people or where history forgot those who came long before. In the capital, especially the empirical capital, the vast majority of those who called themselves adventurers were dead ends, those who skated by to reach the second level, and enjoyed their centuries of life in semi-luxury.

So, it is no surprise to Bali that those making it to the hall this late at night were, for the most part, blissfully unaware of what kind of hell was supposed to be at their destination. There were exceptions, Halford for one, but the vice guildhead of Ramacalla was here as well, shaking the sleep out of her eyes. There was also a man clad in green and white leathers, his shaggy hair belying the dangerous gleam in his eyes as he chewed on a sugar cane: Green Jack, the bounty hunter.

She finds herself biting her lip and growls at herself for it. Forcing herself to calm is like trying to stop a river, but she tries anyway. Setting a hand on Halford's huge shoulder, she feels the tension running under his skin, the barely-caged power begging to be given some direction. His anxiety is infectious, and Bali finds herself chewing her lip again.

"You were like this before your match with Poplio," Bali says.

"I beat Poplio," Halford says.

"You almost died in that duel."

"But I didn't."

"The kid will be back with the rest at any moment," Bali tries. "When they get here, we will form a plan. You love plans."

"She called for help." Halford's leg refuses to stop bouncing. "I won't fail."

"Let's start with the things we know, isn't that what you are always saying? If monsters are attacking the city, that means that there will be a lot of confusion. If the Duke has lowered the barrier around the duchy, that means…"

Her words are stolen as light suddenly flashes in the transport chamber. While the twin enchanters bicker with one another, the gap between the magic closes on its own, the final connection forming. Lavender light springs up from the metallic disc, appearing like the sunbeams of a strange star cast through mist.

Halford is gone. Bali feels the wind of his passage, but never sees the movement. For an instant, there is a hole in the rising light, a hole large enough to accommodate a single man, before the beams of light coalesce once more. Bali toward the light, watching as the last evidence of Halford's passage fades. It is always like him to run off ahead of them. He had been doing it more and more as of late; his head starts growing each time. Soon, she knows, they won't be able to catch up to him anymore.

"Halford?" The splitting pain lancing through my brain from forcing the identification barely registered. There he was, my big brother, standing over me like a smiling guardian, just like he had done a hundred times before.

"We got your message," he says.

Reality begins to coalesce outside of the shock. His soul presence ripples around him like a second skin, and he holds his two massive swords in either hand, one light, one dark. It is his regalia that draws my eyes. His hair, always blonde and unkempt, stretches down his back in a full mane of golden waves that glow like they are reflecting sunlight. More, there is something to the cast of his face. He reminds me of a great cat, shining golden as he stands over me, a feral beast with the neatly split halves of his most recent kill lying on either side of us.

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Only, the tree is not dead. The ground beneath us rumbles, or rather, the tree does. Halford grabs me, tossing me over his shoulder like a barrel as he jumps from the cleared space. My stomach lurches at the sudden movement; he is far faster than he was before. Less than a second after we move, two more branches crash down on the spot we had been, pulping the split limb still lying there. The wind screams past my ears as we descend. Halford lands hard on another part of the tree, even higher up than we had just been.

He grunts as I push against his head to get off his shoulder. My fingers still tingle, but sensation is returning to all of me, and I can finally feel my toes again. I manage to catch myself as I spill out of his grasp, stumbling and getting my feet beneath me. A few hundred feet away, the limbs of the tree groan like some giant out of myth as they slowly climb back into the air. They remind me of snakes with their movement. I've never met a snake that I liked.

"Are you alright?" Halford asks as I focus.

My injuries begin to heal far quicker as I direct the energy myself, pushing the healing magic toward the multiple fractures in my back. Nothing is entirely severed, or at least it isn't by the time I can put my attention on it.

"I will be," I say through gritted teeth. As my injuries heal, I notice something strange. It isn't inside my physical body, or maybe it is, but the knot touching my spine is connected to the magical pathways. There is something, some pattern in the flow of the channels, that I hadn't been able to recognize as being a pattern before. It heals now, slowly morphing and returning to the original shape I know, and as it does, I feel the potential magic of my dragon wings return. I wish I had the time to dwell on it now.

With a bit of effort, the wings reappear, growing out from my back. Strangely, the magical limbs have a numbness to them similar to the tingling in my fingers.

"You got wings," Halford remarks.

"How are you here?" I demand. "No, more importantly, how are you rank three already?"

Halford opens his mouth, looking like he is about to launch into some long explanation, before he shrugs with a nonchalance only a man of bravado can pull off. "Fighten'," he says.

We both move simultaneously, but it is Halford who manages to get his weapon up first. A clanging sound like the end of the world blows away all air as Halford's blade meets with the clawed fist of a red demon. I see something I thought I would never see: Halford is pushed back, his strength not enough.

His back collides with me as he is tossed away, and I let the blow carry me over the edge of the tree branch we stand on. My wings snap out, taking us into the sky before we can drop more than a few feet. I sail away with my brother in my hands. His sword continues to ring, the metal of the blade buzzing with the aftermath of the strike.

"A peak rank-three," he swears. Halford's aura ripples around him, and he hovers out of my grip, gently bobbing in the air. There is an uncertainty in the way he moves through the air; he must still be new to this. "You shouldn't be fighting a peak rank-three."

"I've never seen that thing," I tell him, using my bracer to stand on the air in front of him.

The tree spreads out beneath us, and from above, the slowly moving limbs seem even more disturbing. Danfalla continues to smolder, but the streets have grown quiet. Beneath the two of us, people move around the base of the dead tree, but there are others as well. I see four distinct figures rise up the side of the tree, four points of light shrouded in magic. One is Iona, and another Illigar; I can tell by the taste of their magic. The other two are strangers, but the density of the presences roiling around them tells me of their strength even without the use of the Eye of Volaash. Somehow, reinforcements have arrived.

A hand-sized acorn moves into the space between us, glowing with an inner light as it shakes. This time, I am the first to move, clapping my hands together around the shaking missile, a glut of black sand solidifying into a sphere around it. The attack came from far below, but I saw it the entire time through my soul presence. Inside the sphere of sand, the acorn detonates in an explosion of magic, but the black sand easily absorbs the power.

"That is the dangerous one," I tell Halford as the sand pours back into my vault, leaving bits of charred pulp to fall toward the ground.

The faceless wood monster stares up at us from the middle of the tree's largest platform. I can see what it is from up here, the top of a stump. This leafless tree had been taller once before it was cut in two. Rubble from the destroyed palace litters the stumptop. The wooden monster stares up at us, a field of flowers sprouting within the reach of her aura all around her. The reach is quite far, maybe five hundred feet. I would like to keep well out of it. Behind the monster, the man continues to concentrate, the twin walls of light on either side of him slowly encroaching on the red pillar in front of him.

"It does look strong," Halford says, testing his grip on the sword in his right hand. "I've never killed a peak rank-three before."

"It summoned this tree. It will be difficult," I tell him.

"You aren't…" he starts to say, but the moment he looks at me, the words die. "Be careful. I can tell you haven't made it to the third rank yet."

"Not yet," I agree. "It shouldn't take too much longer."

We begin to descend without another word as the rest of those climbing the side of the tree begin to arrive at the top of the stump. A strange quietude pervades the air as we all converge. I see the other two now, adventurers each, though I don't know them. We skip introductions, the six of us turning to face the wooden monster as the powerful demon drops to the wood not far off. Six against three, we should be assured to win, but I can't help feel like the wooden monster's rictus grin grows as it looks over at us.

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