When the band marshal ordered the two guards who would stay behind to watch the house, to go through their bags and "take stock of the house for it"s new owner to ensure nothing was taken that shouldn"t be", Orison choked down the indignation. He had already antic.i.p.ated that they would but hadn"t expected to have it tactlessly thrown in his and his mother"s faces so blatantly. The "watch it fur ball" muttered by the solder tossing the pawed through travel bags sloppily on the cart didn"t escape Orison"s notice either. He just silently promised to find a way to give that particular soldier h.e.l.l on the road.

Once it was time to leave, the same soldier who had slurred Droya earlier was about to lay his hands on her, presumably to manhandle her on to the cart. Seeing that the band marshal wasn"t exactly happy about it but also wasn"t going to do anything to stop it, Orison came to a rage fueled revelation. If he played meek child all the way to Whiteriver, him and his mother would end up arriving there little more than the disgraced prisoners they were being shamed to look like.

Orison glared at the offending soldier and shouted, "Stop right f***ing there! This is a f***ing honor guard or did you forget what the first part of that t.i.tle means?"

Droya, more on reflex than actual disapproval in her jarred state, shrilled nervously, "Orison, watch your mouth!"

Orison also reflexively responded, "Sorry, mom." That caused all the men aside from the cursed soldier and the marshal to chuckle, or in one soldier"s case, to outright laugh, making Orison"s ears feel like they were on fire.

With a "cut it out" motion at the angry soldier, the marshal turned to Orison and said dryly, "Do you refuse the escort of this honor band, Orison second son?"

Orison took a deep breath and replied as calmly as he could, "No I don"t but don"t sit there and pretend a prison cart is proper and don"t pretend not to see one of your soldiers try to treat my mother like she is one. Either be an honor band marshal or drop the pretense so I can have Lyra carve you up for slighting her oath bound leader"s widow and son. She might not do it for me but she"d do it for him."

Everything slowed down under the rush of adrenaline Orison felt when the angry soldier lunged for Droya with his side dagger drawn. In that moment, Orison processed that the man wasn"t going to threaten her, he was going to try to kill her. In the back of his mind he registered that no one was coming for him. In fact, one of the solders was reaching for the angry one in what would be a failed attempt to stop the dagger before it could swipe at her neck.

Droya was no slouch. She was already turning to try and block the weapon but she had been taken too off guard. Neither was Morrel but his vantage point in the trees was blocked by the cart. Even Orison himself only had a partial view of what was happening because as Droya turned, her body was eclipsing his line of sight on her a.s.sailant.

Orison"s subconscious was feeding him all these sc.r.a.ps of information faster than lightning strikes and along with them were two pieces of memory catalyzing a reflex reaction decision that he already was performing without even realizing what it was exactly before he had finished it. Two conjoined souls and an overclocked mind pulled off a perfect harmony of magic and muscle. An ethereal battleaxe had no sooner appeared in Orison"s hand before it was flung with all the strength, speed and coordination his body could produce.

The battleaxe should have dissipated before it could reach it"s target but the torn ligament in Orison"s right shoulder bore evidence that the axe was justified in reaching beyond his previous best of twenty feet to clear an extra seven. It should have torn through Droya"s shoulder at the base of her neck, knocking it off course and glancing the soldier"s armor but the second alien insight granted by Changing Winds remained intact within Orison"s mind. The magic of the axe might have been keyed to recognize the difference between companion and enemy as it buried itself in the target"s face, but it shouldn"t have stopped the last living thought of the dying soldier from finishing the slash of the dagger across Droya"s throat. Fortunately, Orison"s nearly impossible subconscious calculation took into consideration the last remaining bug in the axe"s spell model that caused it to burst with mild force when it dissipated. That force was just enough to make the dagger deviate from a sliced juggler vein to a scratch just deep enough to draw a single small welling bead of blood hidden by her black fur.

All eyes were on the split-faced soldier as he stumbled one step back before falling like a chopped tree. A few seconds later, all eyes were on Orison as the boy climbed onto the cart and sat on the bench to better hide the sudden weakness in his legs.

Allowing the necklace hidden underneath his robe to begin the process of healing the mult.i.tude of self inflicted harms, Orison addressed his captivated audience while he tried with all his might to keep his voice from trembling. "Contrary to what you may have been told or personally believe, I have no intention of trying to take anything that rightfully belongs to my brother. I"m not suicidal enough to covet Northland t.i.tles and property in the face of a rightful inheritor. What I do want is to make sure no greedy pig is trying to steal it. What I do want is justice if it has been, complete with that pig"s blood used to water the flowers of my father"s memorial which is no doubt being erected even as we speak. For the sake of my mother, I want a respectable portion of my father"s financial a.s.sets so that hopefully, once I claim the Empire holdings my brother cannot since he will be inheriting the Northland t.i.tles, my mother and I won"t arrive there little better than beggars. Now you know the extent of my dastardly plan. Are you F***ING SATISFIED!?"

As Droya stepped into the cart to hold Orison as if she was trying to hide him from all the ugliness in the world, the solders milled around the dead body while the marshal tried to figure out what to do with it.

Seeing the marshal"s indecision and guessing about what could be causing it, Orison said, "A soldier died protecting what he believed in. I may wish he was being tortured in the deepest abyss and decried from the Brow of the World for the worthless trash he is to me for trying to harm my mother but I"ve no quarrel with his family or the rest of you as long as we can treat each other with due respect from here on out. If the price of peace is keeping our mouths shut about what happened and allowing you to spin his death into something a little less tarnishing, then so be it."

Orison noticed after his declaration that two soldiers trudged back to the house looking relieved and the remaining four soldiers of the band seemed a great deal less tense. The band marshal being no less dour was understandable. He was going to be the unlucky fellow that had to fabricate a story close enough to the truth that it wasn"t technically a lie but far enough away it didn"t ruin his and his soldiers" reputations.

Feeling drained and aching from adrenaline backlash, Orison was more than happy to let Droya take charge of the situation after making sure she was okay. His concern was appreciated but unnecessary as her brush with death only "knocked the cobwebs loose" according to her. She did seem more vital and alive after the incident. It probably helped that from her vantage point, the ghostly battleaxe was just a blue flash in front of her rather than a grim reaper that looked like it was going to take her life instead.

On the road, while Droya was smoothing things over and getting filled in on the possible reasons the soldier attacked her, Orison found himself distracted by an unfamiliar sensation coming from inside his s.p.a.ce. It had been there since he had killed the soldier but it took some time and breakfast to calm the tremors and strained muscles enough to notice it. Delving inward, he discovered that he could "see" inside unlike before. It didn"t take long for him to realize he shouldn"t focus too much on the s.p.a.ce itself, especially while observing an object. Time and distance within seemed far more subjective than objective and focusing too much on it hurt his mind.

Clearing random thoughts, Orison tracked down the source of the unknown feeling. Buried deep within his s.p.a.ce lay a crystallizing wisp of spirit. As he observed, a portion was absorbed by the s.p.a.ce itself. Following the process of that absorption, infinitesimal lattices where forming links with his body and magic source, bolstering them. He realized the one wisp would not do much but if there were thousands of them, his intuition supplied, he could become powerful. If there were millions? G.o.dlike. Billions? Beyond limitation.

Excitement building, Orison returned to the wisp to learn more about it only to see a black crystal remained. For a split second, Orison stared at the crystal in confusion before a sudden dread wiped away his excitement as if it had never existed. Although it wasn"t an exact match, game lore and arcane knowledge supplied an answer. It was a black soul gem.

The very un-game-like world around him was filled with little disappointments when compared with its virtual partner. Alchemy was complex and dangerous. Learning skills and spells was no less arduous or difficult when compared with higher education or martial arts practice on Earth. When it came to enchanting, however, Orison was was equally disappointed and relieved.

Much like in the game, eternium shards were very rare and mages used them for their most important works such as prolonging their life or empowering an artifact that represented their life"s work. Nearly every mage learned the art of enchantment at some point but usually only made a small handful of the more mundane and practical ones over the course of their studies and Orison knew why. An enchantment needed a portion of a soul for the magic matrix within to "live" becoming a more permanent presence in the world. The more powerful the enchantment, the larger the amount of soul needed to fix it into a "living magic" state.

Though Orison had been disappointed that soul gems seemingly didn"t exist and that enchanted items not made from eternium crystals weren"t that extraordinary, he was relieved that the secrets to creating them were delegated to the precious shards or empowering from ones own spiritual essence. After he had been here long enough for the realities of this world to solidify and expand his horizons beyond the skill books and alien blessings in his brain, his relief turned into pure thankfulness. Only the stronger supernatural creatures had spiritual essence attuned to enchantments with the same ease and purity as humans. Who would hunt for dryads or greater undead when there were disadvantaged folk everywhere that wouldn"t particularly be missed, such as the local orphanage if a beggar couldn"t be found? Orison hoped it would be most mages but he far from believed it.

There was no doubt that powerful mages in this world may know such a dark secret but if they did, they were keeping it to themselves which left Orison to work out the moral ambiguities for himself. Perhaps it was because of his own experiences within the spiritual realm but he possessed a small amount of sympathy for the black crystal that represented what was left of a potentially immortal soul, in theory. Orison realized that much of his pondering was only theory with little evidence for any of his conclusions so he just decided to stick with what felt right. The idea of justified killing in self-defense or in defense of others didn"t feel wrong or even bad but harvesting their soul? It seemed like a case by case kinda thing but real life wasn"t usually kind enough to give a person time for complicated judgment calls. Killing an insulting a.s.shole or emotionally neutral obstacle to a needful goal was already a slippery gray-scale. Acting the vigilante didn"t seem like too bad an option to Orison but the boundaries on who deserved to just die and who deserved no spiritual second chances, whatever they may be, was very unclear to him.

The why he could and the when/if he should might be unclear but the how, he wasn"t too far from cornering. When he had indirectly killed the crazy elf, he didn"t even have his s.p.a.ce but it likely wouldn"t have mattered since the abyss lord was the one who did the deed. When he went hunting with Morrel, neither bow nor dagger elicited a response but the woodland creatures may not have had enough juice to draw his attention. In this instance, he had used his bound battleaxe. Even in the game there was a conjuring specialty that could explain how a bound weapon could do it but he was no where near the proficiency necessary to qualify.

As with most mysterious matters Orison encountered in recent days, his best deduction came from game cues and real world knowledge combined. Until he set it in stone with a little practical experimentation, he believed it to be a combination of bound weapon model, the inherent connection a mage has with their magic and the basic/mysterious functions of his s.p.a.ce. If true, soulless constructs like Stupid Horse and elemental constructs could do the same for him, in theory.

Inspired, Orison asked Droya"s permission to buy some "fresh meat" from the farmhouse they were approaching. After pointing out that he had a magic theory to test and it doubled as a way to sweeten their escorts disposition without seeming like a bribe, she agreed. The snag ended up coming from the band marshal who was insistent on continuing to their first camp spot. After protesting loudly about how his desire for a hearty supper only made the trip more enjoyable for everyone and would hardly delay them any significant amount of time, the marshal conceded, more to his own men"s pressure than Orison"s entreaties.

A dead pig and a petty soul gem later, the boy had confirmed his suspicions. More so, Orison had discovered that soul essence at this low of a quality even drew some of the lattice the first soul had created back out to aid the crystallization resulting in a net loss rather than a gain. He bitterly vowed never to kill helpless woodland creatures or farm animals with magic again, unless he was starving.

The most good natured of the band, a man named Thorrinson, sat beside Orison by the fire and said, "I finally got a good look at your head splitter when you butchered that pig for your mom. Where"d you pick up that trick?... If you"d rather not say-"

Orison snapped out of his thoughts and after he registered the question, he said, "Found it in the journal of the elf cultist I killed. It was a buggy piece of c.r.a.p but I have it ironed out mostly. The rest is locked away under a cipher I couldn"t figure out."

Thorrinson nodded sagely and said, "Ran into something like that a few years back. Since I had a touch of the gift myself, or so ma said, I tried learning it. I fear it was the same as yours. First spell was fine, makes a bit of water. But the second one, it was a mess. Couldn"t make heads or tails of it. As for the rest? It was gibberish except for a couple pictures...

"Found a mage who liked trying to figure that kind of stuff out and traded him for a mending spell and a bit of gold. He told me if it took more than a month or two to figure the spell he gave me out, I should stick to soldering. Being as I was past my mid twenties at the time, I think he meant it kindly. It took me four but I wasn"t bent on it. Still, with those two I"ve saved a fortune in equipment repairs...and the runs."

Orison said, "Trade you my Degree Shift for your mending spell. It can help you light a fire or cool down a drink but I think its main purpose is to be a cleaning spell. It does that by..."

Thorrinson waited for Orison to finish but seeing the kid seemed distracted, he said, "Deal. I"ll even throw in the water one being as you"re bright and all. You might be a big shot mage in the future and I can tell my grand-kids I traded spells with you."

Orison nodded absentmindedly as he mumbled, "Simple spell, junk spell and then a ciphered section..." Unbeknownst to Orison, a constellation briefly twinkled a little brighter in the night sky.

He jumped up and said excitedly to Thorrinson, "Simple, Junk and Cipher! It"s the key, the lock and the treasure, man! Tell me. Did your dead mage happen to be a Dominion t.w.a.t too?"

From the tent behind them, Droya said, "I let it slide earlier but one more vulgarity and I"ll be washing your mouth with soap, your soap."

Orison groaned, "You only let me bring the one bar!"

She purred menacingly, "Then you best keep your mouth clean so you can use it on the rest of you."

Underneath the night sky, dimly lit by the campfire, the face of the band marshal cracked a smile that carried a hint of sad nostalgia as the rest of his men chuckled.