Elian beheld the object. It was a thick ring cut from a single blue stone, likely made by the ancient catfolk. This had to be valuable. From a cursory glance, he couldn’t see any traps or insidious hexes waiting to be triggered. There could be danger unseen.

  And there was danger behind him—the spear lobsters spilled into the cavern.

  He snatched the floating object and ran to the exit. Obtaining it must have something to do with blood and pain if the carvings back there didn’t make it obvious enough. But he didn’t know the specifics. Probably needed to endure lots of pain and bleed for hours. The obelisk in the middle could be some sort of measuring device—the higher the red lines climbed, the more… things… would happen.

  He had no clue about those and wasn’t interested in testing it. Not soon, anyway.

  Calling for the ring’s enchantments, Elian noted the binding sigils orbiting the ring. Intricate and difficult to undo. The first enchantment was the one pulsing blue.

  (Sealed) Atoning Fortification of the Penitent

  For each hit suffered, increase by one percent the penitent’s Health gain, Armor, and Magic Resilience, up to a hundred.

  Elian slowed as he reread the enchantment until he remembered angry giant crustaceans were after him. He picked up the pace, thinking, this is an insane effect!

  At maximum stacks, the wearer would double his Armor. Too bad the Magic Resilience part didn’t apply to him, but the Health gain part probably did. Wasn’t that what his pet parasite, as Thorren called it, was doing to him with Rejuvenating Roots?

  The enchantment with a bright green color had an even stronger effect.

  (Sealed) Omamyar’s Abiding Undeath

  Before a strike lands, be it physical or magical, cloak yourself with another layer of life amounting to ten percent of your lost maximum Health to meet it.

  Groff steak and star goose eggs! If he could use this enchantment, the more his Health plummeted, the harder it was to kill him. And if the attacker couldn’t deal more than ten percent of his missing Health in a single hit, then he’d be unkillable. Investing in Health was key. Even better, he could use this enchantment to defend against magic. He’d still need Magic Resilience, lots of it, but this would be a huge help.

  That was… if he could unseal this damn thing.

  When Elian first noticed the runic bindings, he thought of selling the ring.

  Hiring a Runebreaker would cost a fortune. Finding one who could specifically untangle the seals of the ancient catfolk was as difficult as unscrambling an egg. High Priest Ambrose Tolland might be able to do it, but why would he? The Temples of Tribulations would want this ring as a religious artifact. Better just sell it to them.

  Money was money, and Elian needed it. His bad luck when it came to his destroyed possessions was gaining strength. Clothes in tatters and bloodied. He might as well go naked while holding a kitchen knife. His backpack was torn open by the spear lobsters, so he left it behind. Good thing the flowers were with Thorren if he was still alive.

  But after seeing these two powerful enchantments, Elian changed his mind about selling the ring. He’d find a way to unseal this… after he escaped the Dark Forest. The spear lobsters were gaining on him.

  Elian reached an intersection of tunnels. One of the openings had a piece of cloth stuffed into the crack of the archway. He followed the sign Thorren left behind. The spear lobsters were only a few feet behind him, the incessant strikes of their spiky legs on stone becoming more urgent.

  A strike hit his back. He stumbled but regained his balance and kept running. More pokes. He glimpsed the tunnel opening up ahead. Another large space? He had to face them now.

  “Round two, you pesky crustaceans!” Elian turned around and stood his ground. The leading spear lobster rubbed its arms together before stabbing at him.

  The spear arm didn’t reach him. A blur of gold zipped over his shoulder, hitting the spear, and abruptly stopped it like a video on pause.

  Huh? A golden chain?

  The chain didn’t stab the monster lobster’s arm. Going through it like a ghostly specter was the better description of what happened. A dozen more chains shot forward from behind Elian, weaving themselves through the spear lobsters in the tunnel and freezing them.

  “What the…?” Elian turned around. Two people entered the tunnel.

  “Elian, my friend! I’ve returned as promised.” Thorren offered him a healing potion.

  “Thorren! And, uh, priest…?”

  “Priest Yonnik, at your service, brother Elian,” he said in a sing-song voice.

  As Elian drank Thorren’s potion—it’d still help somewhat—his eyes went to Priest Yonnik’s pointy ears. Half an elf and half of something not human.

  The priest’s neck and limbs were disproportionally too long for his body. Very thin, almost skin and bones. The priest had his spindly fingers form a triangle in front of his chest, out the center of which came the chains. If he let his arms fall down his sides, they’d be past his knees. That was if his knees were in the ‘correct’ position. The way Priest Yonnik walked made Elian think he had an inhuman pair of legs. Better not look under those robes.

  “Many thanks for your help, Priest Yonnik.” Elian placed a fist on his chest and bowed. He hid the catfolk ring in the surviving pocket of his torn pants. “I don’t know how long I’d last if you didn’t arrive.”

  “I reckon I could’ve arrived an hour later,” Priest Yonnik said, adding a tune to his words, “and you would’ve been on your bubbly feet nonetheless. Come nearer, brother Elian. Don’t be shy. We’ll leave this place and let the excited costrahastans be with their lives. You’ve disturbed them fairly enough.”

  Thicker chains tinted dark green burst out of the priest’s fingers and formed a ball around the three of them. The chains turned transparent, giving them a view of the outside. As if they were on a charging Vestin steed, the walls of the tunnel outside flashed past.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  But Elian couldn’t feel any movement.

  “It’s like the world is moving while we’re standing still,” he said, amazed by the magic he encountered only now. Seeing this stoked his adventurer’s spirit again. Fellenyr was vast. There was much to learn and much that would be destroyed if he didn’t stop the Giants.

  “My first impression as well,” Thorren said. “It is fascinating to behold.”

  “Priest Yonnik, what magic is this?” Elian asked.

  “That of the secretive Kelmarog residing deep in the Great Chasm,” was the priest’s nonchalant reply, as if exploring the Great Chasm was something many could do.

  “The Great Chasm?” Elian recalled the treacherous voyage on airships over the vast crevasse dividing the world. “I didn’t know there were races living inside it.” He knew of monsters, but this was the first he had heard of the Kelmarog.

  “Kelmarogs dislike nosy humans.” Priest Yonnik’s tone was friendly but laced with a threat. There was something odd about the priest that Elian couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  “At the risk of being a nosy human,” Elian said, “can I ask you how Kelmarog magic helps with surviving Tribulations? Just curious nosiness, if you permit it.”

  “I’ll allow nosiness for once,” Priest Yonnik said, drumming his steepled fingers together. “I pity your dreadful state.” The priest nodded down at Elian’s shredded clothes coated with dried blood. “Let’s see… Many ways, I use Kelmaran magic. Chief of which is to delay the damage I’d receive.”

  “Delay?”

  “An inaccurate but simple explanation is to think of it as stretching time. You’re in a crowded bar. You accidentally elbowed a rambunctious drunk. He punches you so hard he blows out the flame of your mind’s candle, and you lay there on the floor. But imagine, brother Elian, that you can stretch the damage of that punch over several days. It could be a slight headache for hours and hours, day after day. Preferable, isn’t it?”

  “Passing out is the better option, in my opinion,” Thorren said.

  “But if it was a stab to the heart,” Elian said, “no contest, you’d want to stagger the damage of the injury, or you’d die. You can heal yourself, too. Chug bottle after bottle of healing potions. If you’re dead, you can’t—”

  “Heal yourself,” Thorren finished my sentence, eyes beaming with astonishment. “I see it now. This is quite a powerful magic for meeting the Tribulation, Priest Yonnik.”

  “It is, it is…” The priest heaved his shoulders and let out an exaggerated sigh. “But alas, all the bad luck I will ever have converged on the day of my last Tribulation. Do you know how Greater Tribulation works, nosy lads?”

  Elian nodded. “I know there are multiple strikes and different—”

  “Yes, yes, it’s a finicky gamble, really,” Priest Yonnik quickly said. “What I had was six consecutive Spear of Absolution, it’s the name of the most powerful form of the Greater Tribulation. Ihadir would say the Damnation Fist is stronger, but I digress. A million-to-one odds of it happening… and it happened. My defenses were stripped with each strike, and it didn’t end there. I was going to die. Gathering every strand of Kelmarog magic in my body, I stretched the damage for decades.”

  “Are you, um, are you still…?” Elian hesitated to continue.

  “Dying?” Priest Yonnik smiled so broadly that Elian thought of a Grumpbeing’s mouth. “Why, yes. Thank you for asking.”

  Elian kept silent the rest of the way. It wasn’t a long trip. What would’ve taken several hours traversing the entirety of the Dark Forest passed only in twenty minutes or so.

  “What an odd fellow,” Elian said after Priest Yonnik deposited them outside the northern edge of the Dark Forest. The ball of greenish chains rolled away so quickly it was gone in a blink. How it fit through the dense clusters of trees, Elian didn’t quite catch.

  “Quite odd indeed,” Thorren said.

  “How did you find him?”

  “I didn’t. Priest Thalman found me. He couldn’t help me because he was a projection, he explained, so he called for Priest Yonnik.”

  “Thalman is just everywhere, huh? I thought only one priest was assigned to guard the Forbidden Temple. But if they have this guy who can make dozens, maybe even hundreds of illusions, they don’t really have a problem. Good thing you didn’t run into anything dangerous on the way there.”

  “Lady Fortuna says we have enough misfortune for the day,” Thorren said, laughing his lungs out.

  Elian grinned. “Very true. Only the return home left on our plate.”

  “Use my cloak, friend. I assume it’s not very comfortable wearing… that. How are your injuries? Wounds and welts blemish your entire front, even your face. Is my potion not sufficient?”

  “Ah, potions don’t work very well on me,” Elian automatically replied. “But I do have another way of healing myself. Want to see what my pet parasite can do?”

  A couple of hours after sunrise of the next day, Elian and Thorren arrived at the southern gates of Forge Hill. One of Thorren’s cousins, the brother immediately younger than Nelisha, was chatting with the guards while waiting for them. The young boy excitedly ran up to Thorren and gave him a hug before saying he’d fetch his siblings waiting at an inn nearby.

  Elian felt a tug at his heart. He didn’t have any siblings, nor was he particularly close with his cousins. He wasn’t close with any of his relatives at all.

  “Are you going to school?” Elian asked. “There’s still time before it opens. I think I’ll go in the afternoon. I have to deliver these.” He patted a bag fashioned out of weaved leaves containing the blossoms of the Spectral Fairy Azalea. “They go bad in a few days. Wouldn’t want them to go to waste after what we’ve been through to get them.”

  “On the topic of what we’ve been through…” Thorren paused for a moment, closing his eyes, before deciding to continue. “May I offer some words, unsolicited they may be? Not advise, per se. My observations of your disposition.”

  “Um, sure,” Elian replied, unsure what Thorren had to say.

  “You are incredibly durable,” said Thorren. “There is no denying that. With the Stage of Devotion, you’ll coast through your Tribulation in the twenties, maybe even thirties. You should try it there.”

  “I’m not very good at performing in front of crowds,” Elian said. Was this all there is? Thorren had too much seriousness.

  “Ah, I see. What I was trying to say is that your durability has perhaps prodded you to… excessive heroic acts.”

  Elian was a touch irritated. He saved him, and now he was saying he did too much saving? He didn’t say anything, but his expression must’ve shown his thoughts because Thorren clarified himself.

  “I’m thankful you have saved me, of course,” Thorren continued. “Eternally so. However, there is worry as well. Worry that I must share since I consider you a good friend. Even if I was blessed with your sturdy body, I wouldn’t, in a thousand years, think of getting eaten by a Grumpbeing or—”

  “Or get poked for a couple of hours by those spear lobsters. I understand what you’re saying. I, uh, thank you. I’ll take your words to heart.” Elian’s tone ended the conversation.

  As Thorren reunited with his family, Elian turned the opposite way and headed to Vigor Hill. Thorren’s words replayed in his head.

  Reckless—Thorren didn’t say this, but that was the message. Elian was too reckless, the complete opposite of his previous life.

  Before, he had to be very careful as he gathered the required Favor Points to time travel. Even after he did, he continued to be cautious because he aimed to survive as long as possible to gather information. Now, he wanted to save people. It was the time to be a hero because there was no rewind…

  …or was he using this justification to mask his recklessness?

  Elian shook his head, unsure of the line between heroics and recklessness. One thing he was sure of—becoming tankier would move that line to the side of heroics. After his visit to Gideon, he’d research at the temple library. Maybe Priest Thalman was there and could offer words of wisdom.