"I'm gonna be honest," Olivia told the Mendicant, "even with you healing me, I'm not sure I can do this."

As she spoke, the squire couldn't help but slowly edge back towards the hospital. The forces the Mendicant had predicted had rapidly appeared, and their actual presence was much more intimidating than the mere idea of them had been.

In the center of the group was four ogres. Even the smallest of them stood at ten feet tall, their frames massive and ugly, with too long arms, too wide shoulders, and too broad feet, as if someone had made a set of oversized clay statues and then let them melt before they were finished.

To either side of the ogres were a collection of warbeasts, the lesser monsters created by the warping effects of miasma transforming large animals. The sword-ribbed donkeys and iron-plated boars, Olivia had heard about before, even if they were more disturbing in person. The lava-filled cows, though, and the heavily fortified draft goats, were new.

Olivia was fairly confident in her ability to defeat any one, or even two, of the warbeasts, but the ogres were a different story. Even at Apprentice level, she knew that she would be a poor match against the sheer power of a moderate monster. Her attacks would be hard-pressed to deal any significant damage to a single ogre, while they would be able to kill her with a single blow, Mendicant or no.

And that was ignoring the sheer number of the outsiders. Even the attack on Jellis, the largest outsider raid Oli had ever even heard of, Adeline had only described a couple of ogres. To have four of them, with back up, all coming at the hospital together…

"What do we do?" Oli asked, panic creeping into her voice.

The Mendicant hadn't broken their gaze away from the outsiders since they arrived, and didn't do so now, answering Olivia without moving their head. "You stay back," the sage said simply. Their words were firm despite the trembling weakness of their current body.

"What?"

"I may be a simple healer," the Mendicant said, "but I think these outsiders don't understand what a healer may be capable of."

Thus far, the group of hulking outsiders had, for some reason, been content to wait some distance away, returning the Mendicant's even stare. But, as if the old celestial's words had been provocation enough, they finally broke forward, an ogre lumbering at the hospital with two warped draft goats behind it.

The Mendicant didn't move, not even gesturing at the attackers. But the warbeasts nevertheless collapsed to the ground, legs kicking futilely at the air as they thrashed, lost in seemingly horrific pain without any apparent cause. The ogre got a few steps closer than they did–then, with a pair of cracks as loud as thick branches breaking, it fell to the ground, bellowing with its own pain. More cracks, just as loud, echoed through the morning air, each drawing a sudden and harsh convulsion from the ogre, and only then did Olivia realize what the Mendicant was doing.

The sage was breaking the ogre's bones inside of its body.

"I have lived a long time, Olivia," the Mendicant said. Their voice was still calm, but there was something more to it, something as cold and inevitable as the approaching winter. "I have treated countless injuries, sicknesses, and afflictions. And what I can cure, I can inflict."

The sight of one of their own being defeated so easily sent the remaining ogres into a rage like Olivia had never seen, and the rest of the monsters charged at the hospital.

None got within ten feet.

Olivia watched, horrified, as the Mendicant showed the fruits of a life spent helping those in need, returning every agony they had ever relieved onto the rampaging outsiders. Olivia watched as ogres and warbeasts alike died to diseases that rotted them from within, to aberrations that destroyed their brains, to fractures and lacerations that left them helpless on the ground. She watched one ogre begin to claw at its own skin, tearing itself apart as its blood turned to poison inside of it, while another collapsed, its lungs no longer taking in air.

"The outsiders believe themselves different from humans and wraiths. Much of our kind think the same. Both are wrong. All living things share certain similarities–and certain vulnerabilities."

The last of the ogres fell after a wet noise in its chest presaged a blooming bruise under its skin. Somehow, Olivia knew without being told that its heart had simply exploded inside of its chest.

"I appreciate that you came to warn me of the attack, Olivia," the Mendicant continued, their tone still mild. "But I need no further assistance from you to defend my patients." The celestial pointed a wizened finger to the distance. "These pulses of foul magic seem to be emerging from the vicinity of the Lifetree. If you are to have any chance of spoiling the hag's plans, that will be where you need to go."

Olivia nodded at the word, but her face was still pale. She was unable to turn away from the remains of the raiding outsiders, destroyed without so much as a fight. Is this the power of a Master?

"Olivia." The Mendicant's words were quiet, but they startled Olivia anyways. The squire turned back to the celestial. Their eyes were sympathetic, and weighed down with a lifetime of pain. "You need to go. Quickly."

Olivia slowly nodded again, desperately trying to draw herself back together. "The Lifetree. Right. Th-thank you." The squire forced herself not to look at the twisted remains of the outsiders as she turned and ran in the direction of the grove at the center of Keystone.

#

"Well that's not good."

Allana turned to look at Tenebres, his breathless words causing her to reach for her daggers. Both had felt the pulse of malignant magic that had emerged from Keystone, felt it in the way only wraiths could. It vibrated down to their bones, like the tines of a tuning fork held against their souls.

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"What is it?" she asked, clearly unnerved.

If Allana was unnerved, Tenebres was downright panicking. Not only could he feel the creeping, foul magic through his nature as a wraith, he could feel his gift of the void responding to it, the gaping brand on his chest flaring from the presence of magic so closely aligned with its own.

"It's magic from a dark world," Tenebres explained through clenched teeth, recalling Kenton's explanation of the four worlds. "The hag must be drawing in magic from the Chained World somehow."

"Okay, yeah, that seems not good," Allana agreed. "What do we do?"

Tenebres swallowed, trying to force his brain to work through the unsettling feeling of the turbulent magic. He fell into his formulae, calling on the cool, rational logic of a mage to insulate his thoughts and stop himself from plunging back in memory to the last time he had felt the magic this disturbed: while he had been stretched across a cool stone table.

A distant cry pulled Tenebres back to the present. Allana reacted even more suddenly, pulling her daggers free and turning in the direction of the town.

"No!" Tenebres barked before she could disappear.

The girl turned, appearing as confused by the order as the fact that she had unthinkingly obeyed it.

"I'll help the town," Tenebres told her. "You get to the Lifetree–anyone trying a working like this would have to overcome the magic of the grove first."

"But–"

"There's too many outsiders in town for you to help, Allana."

"What?"

Tenebres waved a vague hand at his brand. "I can feel them–gnolls and goblins, mostly. My fiends can handle them. You need to stop this ritual itself."

Allana wavered, obviously torn between keeping her friend safe and going to the town's aid.

"Please Allana," Tenebres told her. "I'll be okay. I'm not planning to get anywhere near the actual fight."

Allana frowned–but after a moment, she nodded. "Stay safe."

Then she was gone.

"Right," Tenebres said, taking a moment to sigh before he sat down. "Stay safe. As if it's that easy."

Fortunately, at the very least, it was much easier than it had been when he was Novice level.

[Void Invocation] activated

#

The first witch died without ever noticing Seeker's presence, their stolen sword plunging in between her shoulders and out through her neck, splattering the ritual carving with blood and gore.

Across the triangular ritual array, the hag opened her unnerving, reversed eyes, milky white irises glaring out from pitch black orbs. Seeker didn't wait to banter with her or see how she'd respond. The adventurer immediately hauled the first witch's body up and in front of them, using the corpse to block the lance of black fire the second witch promptly hurled at them.

The smell and sight of the reeking corpse incinerated by its own ally might've caused Cadence to hesitate, but Seeker had no time for that. They simply lifted a foot, braced it against the crackling body's back, and kicked it off of their sword at the second witch, catching the gnoll mage by surprise.

Before she could disentangle herself from the corpse, Seeker reached down to their belt, unhooked the oil lantern they had taken from the floor below and threw it atop the pile of burning gnolls. Its reservoir broke with a crack far too small to reflect the sudden wash of flames that sprang up, the oil catching aflame and consuming the second witch as well. That had gone even better than Seeker had expected but, with a shrug, they chucked an Ignite on the pile too, ensuring that neither witch would be of further concern.

Two outsiders, each a considerable threat on their own, killed without a single hit taken, thanks to the element of surprise and the preparations Seeker had thought to make before the fight even started. They didn't have much time for self-congratulation, but they had to admit, that was fairly impressive.

Still. The third wasn't going to go down so easily. Seeker finally turned to regard the rot hag herself. The bulbous outsider, with her tumor-like globs of fat, hadn't moved from where she sat, still watching Seeker carefully.

"Well, you're truly a bigger problem than you appear," the hag observed, her voice somehow managing to be grating and guttural at the same time. "Those are difficult to replace, you know."

"You probably should've killed me while I was unconscious," Seeker noted confidently. They weren't normally one for banter, the way Caden often was, but if the rot hag was willing to waste time, then they were too.

"It appears so," the rot hag admitted, studying Seeker like a rodent that had managed a particularly impressive feat of evasion. "But my matriarch wished to study a mythic gifted, and I knew there was one amongst your little party. Little did I think it was you–the wraith girl seemed much more likely."

"Who said I had a mythic gift?" Seeker asked. That wasn't the real question, of course. Someone had revealed to the hag that their cadre had a unique gift among their ranks, but whoever it was, they either hadn't known or had purposefully not revealed that there were, in fact, two.

The green-skinned hag threw back her head, letting out a cackle that set Cadence's teeth on edge. "It's too bad," the hag said, ignoring the question. "I'll just have to disappoint Medis. I can't allow you to live any longer."

"I wouldn't be so certain it'll be that easy, hag."

"Oh, you've certainly proven yourself more capable than expected, I'll admit," the hag said, her words bubbling thickly with that unsettling laughter. "But you're out of tricks, little adventurer. Alone, armed with only a crude weapon. Any time now, one of those wonderful hunters I suborned will come down here, and this will be over–assuming I haven't already killed you by then."

"Are you sure you're not over estimating yourself? I've been told rot hags are among the weakest of your kind," Seeker commented.

That stole the cruel mirth from the hag's eyes. "We'll see how weak you think I am, little adventurer. With each moment, the magic of my home sinks further into you–even now, you must feel it, do you not? Mine is the magic of decay, of corruption, of the slow death–and I will enjoy showing you just how long I can make your dying moments last!"

The hag lifted her spindly arms, and dark energy gathered to her, a rotten mix of yellow and green light dancing along her too-long fingers and jagged nails.

Seeker let the rest of the bravado fall from their face as well, settling into a ready stance, their longsword held ready, Ignite at the front of their mind.

They had at least two Surges left before they ran out of energy, but that was assuming no further uses of Ignite burned through their stamina and focus. They could, perhaps, Surge strength and speed and hope to end the fight before they ran out, but Seeker knew better than to bet on that strategy. It had failed, horribly so, when fighting Hellesa, and even if the rot hag was weaker than the corpse hag had been, Seeker didn't know if they could end the fight that cleanly.

As the hag said, their fight was on a time limit, even if neither of them knew exactly how long they had. Eventually, either one of the hag's servants or one of Seeker's friends would find their way to the ritual array and tilt the balance. And if that was the case, then there was only one combination of Surges that could carry Seeker through.

[Soul Surge] activated

Stamina attribute boosted

Focus attribute boosted

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