Tristan was woken up by a soft hand touching his face. Blinking his eyes open, he saw Felicity staring at him. “Hi,” she softly said.

  Tristan smiled, “You’re alive. You risked your life for me.”

  “Pff,” she replied as she shook her head. “Please. As if. I just got hit by something unlucky was all. No clue what it was though.”

  “The spiked ball,” Tristan said. “When he pulled it back, it clipped you.”

  She inhaled through her teeth with a slight hiss, “Ouch. That explains it. How’d I survive? Not that I’m complaining!”

  “Obadai can use rejuvenation. Did you push the contents of the storage dimension thing you have out of there before you went unconscious?”

  “Yup!” she said as she sat up all the way and shifted into her fairy dragon form. Curling up on the pillow, she peered at him from a single eye with a sideways glance. “You fed me a lot of elixirs?”

  “All of the healing ones, and I drank the essence ones. We’re tapped out on those two types until I make more.”

  She shook her head, “Shame, that.”

  “But!” Tristan said as he smiled, propping his head up on his hand and elbow, “We have a meeting with the headsman of the town I saved. I’m sure we can get some supplies for potions as a reward for our works. You should have seen it! A bunch of townsfolk – hundreds – tracked us down and offered…all types of stuff.”

  Felicity frowned, “And you didn’t take the stuff?”

  “I don’t need all those supplies,” Tristan replied as he shook his head ever-so-slightly. “Those people have greater need than I.”

  Felicity sighed and flicked her tail back and forth, “You’re a strange one. You’re greedy over your Realm’s essence, yet you don’t give in to that greed for material goods.” She reached a paw-claw out and poked his chest, “Your mother raised you really well. No fairy dragon would be that…what’s the word? Starts with the letter ‘a’?”

  “Altruistic?”

  “That.”

  Tristan shrugged and sat up all the way, glancing down at the discoloration on his chest. “I guess Cure Wound spells don’t fix all signs of injury.”

  Felicity sat up and her eyes went wide, “Your whole torso was crushed! No wonder you couldn’t talk when I first got to you.”

  “Is this…normal? Having my skin like this even after essence-weaving based healing?”

  Felicity shrugged, “No clue. More importantly, how do I look?” She shifted to her elfanoid form and got out of bed.

  Tristan shook his head, “You look fine. No injuries I can see. Maybe because you are a magical species? I know you regrew a wing when I cut it off on our first trip here.”

  Felicity nodded, “Fairy dragons always heal quickly. I think your bruising will go away with a higher Order rejuvenation spell, or time.” She frowned, “If it doesn’t, then you won’t have nearly as nice of a chest.”

  Tristan blushed as he stood up, “Well…thank you for the compliment.” He walked over to his clothes that had been swapped out for freshly laundered ones at some point while he slept. Getting dressed, he picked up his armor and weapon to head outside, but Felicity walked up and hugged him from behind. He felt her petite form pressing against him.

  “Thank you, Tristan, for saving me.”

  “Of course,” Tristan whispered softly.

  She let go and fell in step behind him as he headed out to the forge to fix his dented and damaged armor. “What was the fight like? I only saw you fighting the big thing.”

  Tristan worked on repairing his armor by hammering out the dents as he spoke about the conflict, replaying it not just verbally but mentally once more. He pointed out the various flaws to his decision making. “I wish I could fly,” he said with a sigh as he finished hammering out the chest plate’s dents. “It would have made that fight a lot less hazardous.”

  Felicity kicked her legs as she sat on a nearby, fallen trunk that had been repurposed as a bench for multiple workstations. “Well, I think you’d need air elementalism. So, you need to kill and use your super-special dragonbane spell on a dragon from the Elemental Realm of Air.”

  “And” Obadai’s voice said from the side as he walked over to the duo, “It is a Seventh Order spell.” He smiled softly, “I apologize for listening in, but I have been bored for the past few hours.”

  Tristan glanced over at him, “Fully rested?”

  The Archon nodded, “Yes. May I sit?” he asked as he gestured to the bench.

  Felicity nodded and patted the seat next to her, “I heard you saved my life.”

  Obadai sat down with a sigh, “I did,” he stated as he pulled out his pipe and pushed down some wood chips. Muttering a spell under his breath that Tristan did not catch, a spark flared from his fingertip.

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  “Can you teach me fire elementalism spells?” Tristan asked as he kept hammering away with little taps to get the last of the dents out of the vambraces.

  “You can use it?” The Archon asked as he let out a puff of smoke. “Why don’t you tell me the new spell types you can use since we last spoke of this.”

  “Fire elementalism, smoke elementalism,” Tristan replied. “Just the two.”

  “Hmm…I know of smoke elementalism but never studied it. Fire though, I can teach you that easily enough. When we get on the road.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask,” Felicity said as she kept flutter-kicking her legs to keep herself occupied. “What bloodlines do you have, and what do they let you do?”

  The Archon smiled, “I’m very special. I have three bloodlines. Unheard of, I know, as most have two at most. But…well…I will just say that my great-grandparents planned very far in advance, and some distant cousins from that initial pairing resulted in my combination. They planned every marriage, every childbirth, and every other person they brought in…trying to make the perfect Archon.”

  He cleared his throat, “I have the following bloodlines, and for sake of ease, I will also tell you the spell type that each gives me access to over the normal human restriction of Tenth Order – since technically I am a human.”

  He spent the next several minutes filling in the duo on his vast parentage, family tree, and the different bloodlines along with what each enabled. His first bloodline was called the Lifebringers, and came from the Heavenly Realm, falling along his Angelblood heritage, and gifted him with the ability to use revival spells – which could bring the recently deceased back to life. His second bloodline came from the Demon Realm, from his Demonkin heritage, was called the Corpsecaller, enabled him to use necromancy spells, which could animate the bodies of the dead for various purposes. Lastly, his third bloodline came from a distant, distant common relative of his great grandfather and great grandmother – a Human heritage bloodline to enable divination.

  “In short,” Felicity said as the Archon finished talking, “You could have brought me back to life if I had died.”

  “If I was quick about getting to you – yes,” Obadai replied. “But even the lowest revival spell is Eighth Order. I did not have the essence remaining to do that. Closing that rift to the Demon Realm…that was difficult.”

  Tristan finished up with his armor and put it on with Felicity’s help. Getting his gear re-situated, the Archon walked over and handed Felicity the elixirs he had picked up. She put them into her storage dimension, turned into her fairy dragon form, and flew up to Tristan’s head. “Ready to head out?” she asked the duo.

  Tristan nodded and walked over to the dirt circle. It must have been late in the morning, based upon the sun’s position, and both Onyx and Midnight seemed upset by the early awakening by their handlers. But Tristan rubbed each of them along the jawline, and whispered promises of sugar, which got both horses right back to a good mood, judging from the flicking of their heads and the swishing of their tails.

  The duo mounted and Tristan channeled essence into the ring, transporting the group back to the Mortal Realm. Felicity immediately turned invisible. Riding towards the town gates, they were let in and escorted by one of the guards to a large, two-story building. Leaving the horses outside, the guard promised to keep an eye on them.

  Tristan, with Felicity on his head, and Obadai all walked inside and found a slightly peculiar sight. There was a demon wolf corpse, and a demon bat corpse, both on the table in the center of the room. The large guard Tristan had momentarily butted heads with was present, poking at the corpses, and he was accompanied by an older man dressed in robes with spectacles upon the bridge of his nose who was bent over with age.

  At the head of the table was a lanky, tall man in simple robes with a complex, silver chain around his neck. “Ah, our sudden saviors. Please! Come in!”

  Tristan walked forward and dipped his head in a nod, “I’m Tristan. This is my friend, Grim.” He glanced at Obadai, who just gave him a slight nod as he puffed on his pipe. Looking back to the headsman, Tristan hooked his hands into his belt. “I assume you lead the town?”

  “Yes! Headsman Jacobson, at your service.” The lanky man bowed. “The captain of our guard, Hemfort, and our local essence-weaver, Sorcerer Farrow.”

  Tristan scoffed, “This man is the captain of your guard? Some captain.” He glared at the man, “You should fire him. He did not mount a defense when the signs of a huge spell were right in front of him. If I had not acted when I did, the walls would have been overrun.”

  Hemfort grit his teeth and was about to say something, but the headsman cut him off. “He made a mistake, yes, but an Incursion this close to a town? It’s practically unheard of!”

  “Well, it happened,” Obadai going under the name Grim stated. “And Tristan here saved you lot, whilst I closed the rift. What do you want from this meeting?”

  “Ah, we just wanted to meet our saviors,” the headsman stated.

  “And” the old man, this essence-weaver who, based upon the designation of Sorcerer, was able to use Fourth through Seventh Order spells added, “Knowing the signs to look for in the future would be invaluable.”

  Obadai aka Grim cleared his throat and gave a short lecture on the entire process, which Tristan listened to, but it only echoed what he already knew. Obadai finished with, “And why do you have the corpses of these creatures here?”

  “Finding weaknesses,” the Sorcerer muttered. “They look like usual wolves and bats, but they are…larger, of course, and seem to have multiple sets of hearts.”

  “And other necessary, vital inner parts,” Obadai stated. “Now…if that is all, let us talk reward.”

  The headsman nodded, “Of course. What would you ask?”

  Obadai looked at Tristan, and Tristan cleared his throat before speaking. “I would like any spell books or primers you are willing to part with. I would also like to restock my potion supplies, as I had to use quite a few to survive my encounter with the demon lord.”

  The headsman nodded, “Well, our resident essence-weaver here can speak to the spell books and primers, but as for the potion supplies, you will need to speak with our apothecary.”

  The elderly essence-weaver nodded, “I can provide you with some such tomes that I have accumulated in my small collection. My house is close. Visit the apothecary, then come see me.”

  The headsman continued, “I will send a boy along with you to guide you. Anything else?”

  Tristan shook his head, “No, thank you. We will be heading to the Sapphire Coast. As a last…gesture of goodwill, please do not mention that you saw a white-haired and pale Elf. I have enemies that would seek my demise.”

  The headsman bowed deeply, “Of course. I will spread the word to our citizens. They will not speak of you to outsiders. And I’ll remind them to watch what they say when they are deep in their cups.”

  Tristan bowed in return and left. The Archon joined him a moment later, and a few seconds after that, a boy no older than eight ran out of the headsman’s building. “You wanted to go see the potion maker?” he asked.

  Tristan nodded as he mounted Onyx and Obadai mounted Midnight. “Yes, if you would please lead the way.”

  The boy nodded and began walking. Tristan guided Onyx to follow, and Midnight followed right behind.

  OB Wilder is a wildly underrated author. This story is the perfect mix of Fallout with a fresh LitRPG spin. Super fun with the SPUNK System, a hilarious series of events, and really good voice. I highly encourage this if you like the humor / wackyness of the Fallout series.