The mayor met them outside his cottage, nervously fingering a ring of rusted keys like they might ward off bad news.

  “You handled it?” he asked.

  Kael gave a slow nod. “The wolves are dead. The source was… worse than you thought. Some kind of corrupted well tied to a broken artifact. Your town’s safe for now, we dealt with the source as well.”

  The mayor blinked. “I don’t know anything about artifacts. Or wells. Just an old watchtower no one bothered with for decades.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Wade said, brushing a patch of dried blood off his sleeve. “You’ve got your roads back. We are kind of new to this, do you pay us or the Guild when we return?”

  “Depends on the job, Guild issued quests they pay upon completion, but for a request like this one, the money comes from me.”

  He paid them in a gold coin and the rest in silver — small-town wealth, barely enough to make the job worthwhile. But none of them argued, they ’d gotten something much more valuable.

  The three sat around a half-splintered table, steam rising from bowls of onion soup. It was thin and forgettable, but after hours of mana burning and bloodletting, it felt like a feast.

  “So,” Wade said between spoonfuls, “do we go back?”

  “To what?” Doran grunted.

  Wade looked at Kael. “Atherhold. What you think?”

  Kael stared at the soup. “I don’t see much reason to. Not going to be many jobs worth our while in the capital, and every job is going to be a several-day journey at least.”

  Wade shrugged. “Works for me. Never really got to see much of the world, lived most of my life on the border, and then recently just in the academy.”

  They asked the innkeeper ’s daughter — a bored, sharp-eyed woman who looked like she’d been born tired — about the nearest Adventurer's Guild outpost.

  “Closest one outside the capital?” she said, drying a glass. “Probably Lowrest. East of here, past the marshlands.”

  Kael leaned back, considering.

  “We ride at dawn?” Wade asked.

  The morning sun filtered through a cracked stable window as the horses chewed quietly and the last wisps of night-cooled mist coiled off the grass. The three men had set out early, riding light but not rushed. Kael sat slightly slouched in his saddle, one hand resting on the bag tied to his side.

  Inside it, wrapped in worn cloth, was the cracked mana core, and in a separate and nice bundle, the artifact.

  Wade kept glancing at the bag like it might start leaking mana.

  “So,” he finally said, “you gonna tell us what that core actually is, or should I just keep pretending I don’t care?”

  Kael tugged the satchel open just enough to let light flash off the fractured blue-green crystal inside.

  “I paid sixty gold for a Grade III core,” Kael said. “Which was in pretty decent shape. This one? It's a Tier IV minimum, but it’s hard to tell exactly. A lot of the powers been sapped out, but still.”

  Wade let out a low whistle. Doran raised an eyebrow.

  “How much would it have gone for intact?” the warrior asked.

  Kael gave a dry chuckle. “If it was full integrity? Easily three hundred. Maybe four, but honestly, that’s just a guess; never actually seen a Tier IV core. Now?” He glanced at Wade. “We might get a hundred or so, if we find the right buyer.”

  “And the wrong buyer?” Wade asked, then looked to his right, “Doran, you know better than us? How is the guild with this kind of stuff? Do they offer fair prices?”

  “They take a fat cut of any reward outside of the quest pay. Their prices are reasonable, but the main reason for selling through the guild is that most adventurers can’t be bothered to stick around in the same place to try and sell things, or wait for an auction. So, most just sell it to the Guild for a set price while the Guild uses their channels to make a killing without the time crunch. The higher rank you are, the better deal they give, but still.” Doran answered.

  “Let me check with my contact and see what the difference in price is.” Kael decided.

  They rode in silence for a moment, the hooves of their horses muffled against the moss-covered road.

  Wade finally gestured toward the artifact. “What about the other thing? You think it’s valuable?”

  Kael shrugged. “It pulsed with mana, and definitely had a role to play in that fucked up mana, but I couldn’t read the pattern. It was way beyond our capabilities to even grasp. And Spiral Fade just shut down the spell formation and I haven’t been able to sense anything since.”

  “We're getting that appraised before we try anything stupid,” Wade muttered. “I've seen relics blow off a lab assistant’s hand just from being polished wrong.”

  Doran grinned. “How’s your polishing game, Wade?”

  “Ask your ma, meathead.”

  After an hour, they paused under the shade of a leaning pine. Wade passed out dry bread and smoked jerky while Kael unrolled the small cloth pouch of their Ashwick payout — 1 gold and 25 silver. The tier I cores they would likely just sell at the Guild for a set price, which, based on what Kael heard, was give or take 8 silver, depending on quality.

  “It’s not bad,” Wade admitted, counting out his share. “Could stretch this coin for two weeks easy. More if I sleep on roofs again.”

  Kael eyed him. “Or we could reinvest it. Get some actual gear.”

  Doran looked up from his food. “What kind of gear?”

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  “Protective enchantments,” Kael said. “Reinforced cloaks. Enchanted boots so my fucking socks don’t keep getting wet.”

  Wade raised a brow. “Not a bad idea, especially if we are in it for the long haul. Use the gold from that core to buy gear and whatever else we need while use most of our future quest fees to pay for travel, food, and lodging. Doran what do you think? You want to stick around?”

  There was an awkward silence as Kael and Wade both looked at him, hopeful.

  Doran just laughed, “You guys really don’t get it huh? Most parties don’t have a mage, and those that do, most of the time at the lower levels, all they are good for is lighting up a tunnel or healing cuts. One party I was in the fucking mage blew off his hand with his own spell while I was right next to him and I was on bed-rest for a week. Now, I’m in a party with two academy mages. Whatever you guys need I’ll do and wherever you go I’ll follow, I’m not wasting this chance.”

  Wade and Kael looked at each of and gave a little shoulder shrug.

  They were two days from Lowrest when the trees changed.

  The soil grew darker. The wind picked up, and even Doran — who barely noticed weather unless it was cutting his skin open — slowed his horse and sniffed the air.

  “Something burned down,” he muttered. “Fresh.”

  Kael ’s fingers twitched. He’d been sketching out a slightly revised version of Spiral Fade on the inside of a spellbook cover, tuning the glyph spacing to compensate for short-casting. Now he tucked the book away and scanned the roadside.

  It wasn ’t hard to find.

  A mile down the path, near a collapsed hunting stand, the creature waited. It was hunched like a bear but longer, broader — fused with root and earth, its fur cracked with crystal and its eyes a pulsing green-blue glow.

  Doran dismounted first, drawing his axe.

  Wade flicked a spell between his fingers, wind curling along his forearm. “What’s the plan?”

  Kael narrowed his eyes. “I… I’ll try another blinding spell. Maybe we can distract it.”

  But the moment they moved, the thing screeched . A warped, choked howl — and it charged.

  Doran met it head-on, his blade sparking against crystal as the creature slammed into him with crushing weight. Wade moved fast, casting an Air Break that sliced across the beast ’s leg, forcing it to stumble.

  Kael stayed back.

  He reached out to cast a actoyle tier spell Flare — but the creature ’s surprisingly swift body, easily dodge. Every time he started the circuit, it looked towards him as if asking him to attack.

  Wade shouted, “Kael!”

  “I’m trying!”

  The beast swung wildly and clipped Wade, sending him skidding across the grass. Doran shouted, grabbed the creature ’s jaw, and yanked its head back. He wasn’t strong enough to hold it — but he bought time.

  Kael grit his teeth.

  His hand trembled, not from fear but from frustration.

  Do something. Anything.

  His mind racing he cast, a low-level earth based spell which altered terrain slightly. With Doran skill clinging onto the beasts back the sudden change in the ground caused it to fall down face first.

  Doran seizing the opportunity drew his axe once again and embedded it right in beasts back. Both mages followed up with the same spells they had just cast.

  It ’s body collapsed, limbs smoking.

  Wade groaned and sat up, rubbing his ribs. “That thing hits like a motherfucker. You good, Doran?”

  The warrior nodded, brushing dust and blood off his coat. “Should’ve gone for the knees sooner.”

  Kael knelt by the body, fingers already searching for a core — but before he could, they were forced to stepped back as the monster ’s body went up in flames from Kaels spell, the core inside it too damaged harvest.

  “Well,” Wade muttered, “there goes our bonus, a Tier II core would have been the cherry on top for this trip.”

  Kael didn ’t speak.

  He stood staring at the ashes. His spell had finished it — but it had also ruined the loot. And more than that, he ’d been nearly useless until the last second.

  Wade walked over, brushing dust from his shoulder. “Why the fire spell? ”

  Kael nodded. “Felt like my only option.”

  “It worked, barely. But yeah… you need more.”

  Kael ’s voice was low. “I want to learn Fraybind . ”

  Wade raised an eyebrow.

  “Really? The counter-spell?”

  “I can unravel constructs, and destory an entire armory” Kael said. “But in a real fight? Against a mage, a caster, or a monster with active field magic? I’ve got nothing. I need to learn how to damage things that move.”

  Wade smirked. “Fraybind’s not going to be easy. You need sharp focus, fast circuits, and instinct. Not much time to think when a spell’s flying at your face.”

  “Then we start slow,” Kael said. “I can’t keep waiting for perfect conditions.”

  Wade clapped him on the back. “Alright. Next stop: spell drills. And maybe don’t light the next corpse on fire.”

  Doran grunted as he mounted his horse again. “Just don’t light me on fire and we ’re fine.”

  Kael managed a grin. It didn ’t reach his eyes — not quite — but it was real.