It didn’t take me long to reach the side path that led to Azarus’s house. I didn’t eveopped on the way, even though I was far from the only person oh. There were dwarves all aroureaming bato town from the back clearing now that their ‘eai’ was over. Rather than be ed about the senseless violehat Magnus had been inflig on people, they seemed more ied in gossiping about Magnus’s injury.

  These bastards…

  I don’t think I gave a shit if they were all killed in the Ward Break anymore. Not after how they’d all cheered on desperate sves senselessly killing each other.

  Slipping into the side path, I gnced around. Nobody else was outside, and for once I didn’t hear Azarus w in the fe. Flig my eyes upward, I tried to take the time. It was getting to be about evening now, and the sun was only starting to lower across the horizon.

  I frowned. Was it possible that Grey and Azarus had no idea about anything that had happened in town today? Yes, yes it was I decided. They were isoted out here, and wouldn’t have heard anything sidering the house’s distance from both the clearing and town proper. Shit, I wasn’t even ing back that te. I’d stayed out ter than this at Van’s shop, just testing out Aetherial Melding and helping Bleddyn with his workload.

  Bleddyn…

  I shook it off and started jogging my way across the clearing. Once I reached the front door, I barged in without b to be quiet, careful not to jostle Walter too much. “Hey!” I called out to the house. “Need a little help here!”

  I heard a thump from upstairs and rattling noise from uhe staircase. I guess I knew where everyone was, now. Moments ter, the door to Grey’s room uhe stairs opened and the man himself poked his head out. “Nathan?” He called out fused, turning his head to face me. “Whatever is…the…problem…” He trailed off at the sight of a bloodied teenager resting on my shoulder. Grey cursed and waved me over. “In here, quickly!”

  I did as he bid, hurriedly walking over and maneuvering my way through the doorway. Onside, I found Grey rummaging through his desk, pulling out bottles of potions and various medical supplies. “On the bed.” He said curtly, not turning to face me.

  Carefully, I made my way to his bed and id Walter down on it, mindful of his head. Once I was done, I took in his state for the first time sihe tent and cursed softly. He didn’t look good. Walter looked like he had lost even more color, and his breath was ing in short and shallow. I was interrupted by Grey wheeling back over and dumping a load of supplies and bottles on the bedside table, before leaning over to i Walter. His eyes lingered on my makeshift bandage before flig up to meet mine.

  “What happened?” He asked me seriously.

  “Knife wound to the gut,” I answered curtly, knowing full well that wasn’t the only thing he was asking. “I did what I could with Aetherial Melding-” I was interrupted by the door behind us smming open to admit a bare-chested Azarus with soaki hair, wearing only a pair of pants. I tinued without aowledging him. “So I’ll have to dissolve the internal stitches at the same time you give him potions.”

  “The hell…” I heard Azarus breathe out behind me. I ignored him.

  Grey stared at me for a moment before nodding. “Let’s get to work then.”

  ………………………………………

  Grey and I worked on Walter for the half hour. We took turween sessions administering various potions and me dissolving my makeshift sutures through Aetherial Melding. It took lohan I’d hoped it would because I’d already strained myself o my breaking point using my Profession. By the end, I was surprised that I wasn’t unscious.

  But we did it.

  Woozily, I tried to focus on Walter to see how he was doing. Though my eyesight was blurry, I could tell that he looked much better. The huge knife wound on his stomach was nothing more than a vivid red scar by now, with my simple linen sutures o be found. I khat the ones I’d pced on his rge iine were gone as well. He was breathing much steadier now, and even had some color ba his cheeks. He’d better, sidering how many blood-replenishing potions we’d poured down his throat.

  In a fog, I thought I heard someone calling my name. I tried to focus. Looking up, I found that Grey was now looking at me in a ed manner, and not Walter. Azarus was standing behind him as well with a furrowed brow. Slowly, I blinked one eye at them and theher.

  “Yesss…?” I slurred, trailing off.

  “Nathan…what happened?” Grey asked me, troubled. “Who is this young man? I thought you were just going to visit Vandimar’s shop today.”

  Azarus spoke before I could. “His name’s Walter Meyers.” He said with a frown. Wheurned around to look at him with a raised eyebrow, Azarus shrugged. “Observed him.”

  Wheurned back around to look at me, he did so with a furrowed brow of his own. “That name…isn’t that the young man that taught you Wildshaping, Nathan?... Nathan?”

  I wasn’t paying attention to them. Instead, I was trying to get up and walk to the door. Stumbling to my feet, I took oaggered footstep. “’t…’t talk…gotta…gotta ssssave…Bledynnn…” I didn’t maher aep or another word.

  Instead, I fell over face-first, losing sciousness on the way down.

  ………………………………………

  I snapped back to awareness all at once, shooting upright from a prone position. Looking around wildly, I found that I was in my own bed for once. Memories rushing bae, I cursed. I’d pushed myself too hard, trying to save Walter. Looking out the window, I guessed that it was sometime in the middle of the te night. I felt dread pool in my stomach. Who knows how long Magnus’d had his hands on Bleddyn by now?

  I khat I’d pushed myself too hard saving Walter, but I was going to have to push myself again. As I got up from the bed, the thought crossed my mind that Grey and Azarus didn’t even know what had happeo me yet, but it didn’t matter. If they were still up, I’d tell them after I’d succeeded.

  I o finish the Ward Breaker, if I wao save Bleddyn before he was tortured to death.

  If that hadn’t already happened…

  Luckily, I had everything I needed for it here in my room already. Moving over to my small work desk and sitting in the chair, I started pulling materials out of the drawers. First, I pulled out the physical bnks I needed for the artifact. With Azarus’s help, and Grey’s guidance, I’d ‘smithed’ these myself over the st few days. Made of silver, they resembled a twed long fork with a thick handle, more than anything. Nearly as long as my forearm, the bnks were mostly a silver rod with a spherical cap on one end, and two sharpened prongs oher. There were cirg strings of tightly carved runes running all up and down the length of it, terminating aing just below the prongs in e ruhat was the activation rune, I’d learned. Ihe end cap were multiple cores that we’d harvested from monsters over the st few weeks. They were meant to power the device.

  From what I’d been told, o was finished, you were meant to stab the prongs into the ward stone, press the rune, and the Breaker would do its job.

  All I o do now was to shape the entment, and the over the bnk. The problem was, that was the hardest part. Most people weren’t capable of this kind of work until they were able to shape Mana even if they had Enting as a Profession, but I was cheating through Aetherial Melding. Raw Aether would work just as well as the Mana to power the entment, acc to Grey. But it would be harder.

  I was determihough. Not only so we could get out of this fug town, and not only so I could finally kill that bastard, Magnus. But so I could save my friend.

  I got to work.

  ………………………………………

  “Fuck!” I hissed, throwing away another ruined bnk. It impacted the wall above my bed, prongs first, and stuto it. I didn’t care though. I just picked up another one and prepared myself.

  I’d already ruiwo of the bnks by burning them out. The reason that it was harder to yer raw Aether as the ent was because of how much more potent it was than normal Mana. It was so potent in fact, that it was destroying the bnks, essentially burning them out and ruining the precisely carved runes.

  Entering into my trance, I stopped myself before I could go any further. Slowly, I leaned ba my chair while letting out a sigh while folding my hands over the bnk. I couldn’t afford to ruin many more of these. I didn’t have enough to waste them on frustrated repeat attempts.

  I was getting pretty close, though. I felt like I was successfully creating the entment just like Grey had taught me to, but I was fumbling the attat at the st moment. The Aether was just to, and the resisted enough that I had trouble in those st few crucial seds.

  I o calm down.

  After I moment, I recalled a moment not too long ago where I had mao find a moments peace. About a week ago, I’d entered into a deeper trahan usual and fallen into a state of almost meditation after an unfortable talk about family with the guys. In that trance, I’d felt more ected with Aether than I ever had before or since. Well, it was worth a shot.

  Slowly, I sank deeper into my trance. Before long, I began to feel the current and pulse of the Aether around me more keenly. Breathing deeply, I lifted a free hand and began to direct the invisible energy to swirl about and e, not unlike how I had before.

  Yeah…

  This was w…

  I could feel myself begin to rex as I was embraced by the Aether of Vereden. After a time, I was so in tuh it again that I felt that same tappiion on my back as I did st time. That was the endlessly repeating Mana-based activation entment built into the colr. The ohat couldn’t do anything because I didn’t actually have a real brand for it to activate. But…

  Something was different.

  Sitting up straighter in my chair, being careful not to lose my hold on the ambieher, I trated. What was that? Every time I felt the useless tappiion, I felt an answering reverberation from the Aether cloak that surrounded me. Fog harder, I paid rapt sensorial attention the ime it came. There! I was dumbfounded and fused at the source.

  It.

  Well.

  It was ing from the entment bnk…

  I had aken my hand off of it while I was meditating oher, and thus it had been covered by the same cloak of invisible power that I was. Every time the activation entment touched the Aether, a portion of it propagated across the energy and reached the bnk. The bnk was then ag as if it reized the activation signal briefly and responding, but nothing more than that.

  That…shouldn’t happen. Not from my uanding of entment, at least.

  As I’d been taught, a bnk only respohis way when it received Entment ‘i’ that was patible with its runic architecture. Hell, I’d felt a version of this only a few minutes ago when I was burning out those other bnks.

  Slowly, g its way from the depths of my subscious, an idea rolled over me. It…if this worked. If I was willing to potentially waste an entment bnk on this idea.

  It would ge everything. It would ge Vereden

  I took a deep breath.

  Fuck it. I still had two more if this one burned out. The potential was too high.

  trating, I picked up the bnk in both hands and began to yer the Ward Breaker entment again. But this time, I stripped parts of it out. It didn’t o be as powerful for my idea, it didn’t need as many redundancies. It didn’t o bypass as many built-in defenses as a Ward Stone had. It didn’t o overpohysical object with so mujected raw Aether from monster cores that it physically exploded.

  My target only he most crucial, fual core of the Ward Breaker entment.

  Deactivation.

  The entment clicked into pce.