Ryn of Avonside

The river we’d been following curved back on itself for nearly a hundred miles, so we chose to take a road that branched off. According to a rough map we’d picked up in the last town, the road would lead us deeper into the heart of the empire. Our next destination was a large town situated on the banks of a much larger river—the parent to the tributary we’d been following until now.

That river, called Zhaferistra, or the river of conflict, was the central artery down which most of the western empire was built. In fact, tributaries from that river extended so far up into the high plains, that you could fit the entire length of our first adventure along it.

As for the ominous name, that was due to the two thousand years of conflict that had occurred along its length. Kingdoms, city states, multiple iterations of the Ghraigari Empire, and even a democracy, had risen and fallen, all seeking to control the vital trade route.

After the ruined city where we spoke to Ollinfer, we began to see the signs of those old civilisations all around. In the distance, we could see the forlorn outline of a broken fort that sat atop a hill. Closer at hand, a shattered, ancient shrine was halfway slumped into a bog. At one point, we even saw a weathered road marker that we could swear had Republic-era latin carved into it.

That pretty much sealed the deal for us on where some of the ancestors of Ghraiga originally came from. It was obvious that a great many other cultures had been blended in with it, of course, but it answered a few minor questions about them.

During our trek along that road, we passed through a low valley, where more forest was able to grow than normal. The dry, scraggly trees of the plain grew taller and more confidently with the valley to retain moisture. The animals appreciated the oasis too, if the noise could be relied on. So many chirping birds.

“It's odd,” Dr. Ross commented as we were enjoying the lush scenery. “This is the kind of place where you'd find a small village. The soil is probably very good.”

“It smells protected,” Eilian said, sniffing the air with her mouth partially open. The obrec sense of smell was crazy sometimes.

Ross gave her a curious look. “Protected how?”

“I have a feeling we'll be finding out,” the golden mage muttered.

Sure enough, five minutes later, the protector of the vale made its presence known.

A herd of animals that looked like they might be a non-domesticated sheep was busy eating from the flora of a large meadow. In their centre, stood a massive version of those sheep. Its skin and fur were stone and moss, while its eyes glowed with a deep, grey light. Its curled horns were massive, and unlike the mundane sheep, had vicious spines along the curved edges.

Under mage-sight, it appeared as an opaque entity of magical power, with unseen wind twisting tendrils of that power away like streamers on a kite. Its eyes were bright enough that they left spots in my vision, too. Grace and I shared a look — we'd both had the thought to turn on our shiny eyes — and I saw the awe that I felt mirrored in her expression.

The guardian of the herd watched us with wary curiosity, and as its head turned, stone dust flaked off from its neck, only to vanish before reaching the ground. Our first instinct was to stop and stare, but in hushed, urgent whispers, Eilian urged us onwards.

So, we kept following the road while hollow, grey eyes tracked us the whole way. Once, when Ross’ aid, Tom, tripped on a bump in the hard dirt road, the guardian sheep huffed and took a warning step towards us. The sheep, seeing their guardian move, quickly rushed to huddle behind it. After that, a host of dark, mundane eyes joined the grey ones in watching us pass.

Eventually, though, we did make it past, and when a copse of trees broke line-of-sight, Eilian let out a long held breath. “Fuck me. Spirits like that always scare me off the edge.”

“That was a spirit?” I asked, glancing back the way we'd come.

“Aye, and a powerful one too,” she nodded. “Just remember, newcomers, that this Ring is far more arcane and mysterious than your old home was.”

With that warning, and a newfound curiosity for magical creatures that weren't immediately aggressive, I began to stare around with mage-sight.

Every now and then, I caught a flash of magic in my peripheral vision, and when I looked normally, a particularly odd antelope or bird would be staring back. I guess there was a lot more magic escaping from the realms than we initially thought.

Another thought occurred to me, and I looked to Eilian again. “Hey, do magic items exist? Like, I know magitech exists, but what about items that are just enchanted in and of themselves?”

Adam, Duncan, Grace, and Eilian all looked at me with bemused expressions. My own girlfriend was the one who answered. “We’re all wearing enchanted rings, my love. Also, how do you think magitech works? It’s just combining enchanted parts and a power source.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat.

Eilian clicked her fingers as though she'd remembered something and pulled one of her gloves off. With a few wiggling twists, she then removed a bracelet from her wrist and held it out.

“This is enchanted for protection. It makes it more difficult for projectiles to hit me. I bought it from a travelling Deep Facet mage — they're better than most at enchanting metal and gemstone objects,” she explained.

Curiously, I took the bracelet and turned it over in my hand. Under mage-sight, it had a silvery, light-refracting look, although its mundane form was a simple tarnished silver.

“How well does it work?” I asked, handing it back.@@novelbin@@

“It's okay,” she shrugged, putting it back on. “I tested it once, and it will turn killing shots into flesh wounds, or glancing blows into misses. The best part is that it is always working. There's no casting, no fragile spell plant, nothing — just a bracelet that can gently nudge arrows away from me.”

“I want one,” I said, pouting a little. Nobody told me that enchanted gear was an option!

“Your armour is… like that,” Grace said falteringly. “Protection enchantments are worked into it. They're not top of the line or anything because we're having to do them the slow, ineffective and mundane way, but there is a bit of magic in the armour.”

She wasn't wrong, once I was thinking about it. I guess I just hadn't made a few connections until now.

I continued asking questions after that, intrigued by this new avenue of magical theory. Supposedly, any mage or warlock could imbue an object with an enchantment, but some were far better at it than others. Nameless Garden mages, unfortunately, were some of the worst enchanters out there. It took us months to imbue an object with any enchantment that used even a moderate amount of power.

Apparently, Esra had cheated with the Order's rings, too. She enchanted a crystal that already had strange properties, then chipped pieces off to… well, it was complicated. As for mundane people doing enchanting, they used little implements that were part etching tool and part tattoo needle. Instead of ink, they used little vials of magic from whatever realm they were looking to invoke.

I think the thing that bothered me the most about it, was that compared to creating spell plants, it was all so esoteric. Well, that and the fact that I wasn't going to be able to make anything super cool with my magic.

Two days later, we passed by another ruin. This one was far more intimidating than the crumbling, overgrown city. Atop a massive outcrop of rock that looked like a partially sinking ship, an ancient city had been built, with a huge, wrecked fortress at the peak.

Eilian had nothing she could tell us about the dry, desolate city, other than what our eyes could plainly see — it was really fucking old. The odd thing was that while it was obviously made by humans, the architecture was utterly foreign to us. As far as we could tell, it had no specific cultural markers that we could point to. It really put into perspective just how long the Ring had been stealing people from Earth.

As we followed the road around a ruined stone tower, I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle up. I tugged the hood of my cloak back a bit to widen my field of vision and glanced around.

Was it more demons? I usually had this type of sense for magic, but— a whistling broke my train of thought, and an arrow pinged off my shield. Someone cried out — Jenna, I think, and when I turned, I saw her crumble to the ground. More whistling followed, and arrows clanged off the heavier armour of the boys, Grace's helmet, and Eilian's shield.

“Fuck!” Adam growled, as an arrow buried itself in his chest plate. It dangled there for a second, then he pulled it out. The tip was just barely bloody — the armour did its job.

“Cover the squishies,” Duncan called as he urgently fumbled his large tower shield down off his back.

Dr. Ross and Tom were quick to dive for cover — fear in their eyes. Jenna was writhing beside them, clutching weakly at an arrow that protruded from her chest.

The old professor was trying to help her, but he wasn't trained. There was nothing he could do. I didn't really have a way to heal her either, other than to pump growth magic in through the wound and hope for the best.

A loud boom ruptured the air, dragging my attention off her for half a second. Grace stood with her body side-on to her target, and smoke trailed lazily from the barrel of her gun. She fired again, and the revolver mechanism rotated. She was using the massive, mundane slug rounds instead of magical canisters. She continued to fire, even as the arrows stopped coming.

I left her to it and rushed over to Jenna. A part of my brain was having a full panicked, screaming meltdown, but thankfully a more assertive section of my mind was in control. With steady hands, I reached down and snapped the arrow off near the wound, then using telekinesis, I lifted her slightly.

Peering underneath, I saw that the arrow had passed all the way through. The tip was a thin arrow shape — not a full broadhead. I pulled it the rest of the way, removing the remaining half of the arrow. Blood began to pour from the wound, and if the placement of the arrow and the noises she was making were any indication, then one of Jenna's lungs was filling with blood.

Not knowing what else to do, I placed my palm to the wound and sent a small tendril of growth magic in through the breach in her natural barrier. The bleeding slowed to a stop as I used my magic to stabilise her, but I didn't dare go further. Organs were delicate, and growth magic was a blunt instrument that basically just enhanced the body’s natural healing process. I kept the amount I used light so that actual medics could correct anything that I did wrong.

Finally, with the danger of her bleeding out or drowning in her own blood postponed indefinitely, I wrapped her, Dr. Ross, and Tom in tendrils of power, and transported all of them to my grove.

“Ross, get her help,” I ordered, giving him a look to make sure he understood. “There's probably already some buns on the way. Use them to get help from the Order. I'm going back.”

Then, I was gone, back on the Ring. The moment I arrived, another arrow bounced off my shield as I arrived and whirred up into the air, spinning madly.

My skin-tight shield — newly remade and improved — expanded into a bubble around me. It was much stronger when it didn’t have to mould itself to my body.

A sudden, slightly distant scream gave me a point to investigate, and I vanished with a whump of displaced air. I reappeared several yards in the air, around where the scream had come from, and looked down to see Eilian behead a man with her glowing sword. One already lay on the ground, crying as he tried weakly to crawl away while a long ragged slash down his back spewed his life out into the grass.

A flash of movement in the grass to my right caught my attention, and I looked over just in time to see a dozen men rise and collectively loose their arrows at me. To my surprise, the arrows caused a significant drain on my reserves when my shield repelled them. How the—

Under mage-sight, the heads of the arrows glowed with murderous magical energy. These assholes were ready to fight mages! Too bad we weren't your average footwizard.