They soon encountered Raven, the tavern’s barmaid. Petros, cheeks reddening at the sight of the older teen, tried his best to be casual, stammering out a greeting. Meanwhile, Jack looked at Raven’s “loose filaments” with curiosity and eagerness. Before Petros realized what was happening, Jack used his strange new ability to connect her to the Source. Still hidden in the alley’s gloom, the old man frowned deeply. His mind churned with the possible consequences of “championing” someone with such reckless generosity—and how it might unsettle the fragile balance of this severed realm.
A quiet sigh escaped the observer’s lips. He stepped back into the darkness, trusting he’d chosen the right mortal for the job. Jack’s trajectory might be more promising than those who failed before him.
Jack and Petros proceeded out of town, the roads quickly thinning into a rugged path heading west. Petros opened his journal while they walked. After his meditations with Jack, he’d leveled up twice, enough to boost his mana regeneration and Soul Mend to Level 2. He mentioned his new Life Surge skill again—the powerful resurrection ability acquired after he’d saved a little girl’s life back in Pendle.
“I still don’t know if ‘death’ is final here,” Petros said, flipping through the scrawling text in his journal. “But if something happens to you, I’ll have a shot at bringing you back.”
Jack offered a wry grin, eyes fixed on the road ahead. “I’d rather not test that if we can help it.”
They passed an older woman driving a wagon toward Pendle, a boy and girl perched beside her. Petros noticed how Jack focused on the children, who greeted them politely as they rode by. The moment the wagon was out of earshot, Petros raised an eyebrow.
“You did it again, didn’t you?” he asked, half-accusing, half-amused.
Jack shrugged, pinching thumb and forefinger together. “Only a little nudge, the girl already had the potential. Like flipping a switch.”
Petros shook his head, but a smile tugged at his lips. The ripple effects of connecting random townsfolk to the Source were too big to fathom right now, and they still had Gondel’s training to complete.
When they arrived at Gondel’s campsite, a modest clearing where a small cabin and two archaic “pods” sat half-concealed by runic inscriptions, they found the wizard crouched at a fire, boiling water for tea. He looked up as they approached, offering a smile that never reached his eyes.
“Welcome back,” Gondel said, rising to his feet. “I trust you kept busy in Pendle. Petros, there are books waiting inside. Olom’s Principles of Arcania and Chronicles of the Sevenfold Seal. Compare Olom’s theories on sigil traps with the higher-level conjuring methods—he missed something crucial.”
Petros nodded eagerly and hurried into the cabin, leaving Jack alone with Gondel. The old wizard gestured at the pouch slung across Jack’s side. “Let’s see what you’ve crafted, then.”
Jack conjured his staff with a showman’s flourish, a crooked grin on his face. Gondel squinted, distrust evident. He held out his hands, expecting Jack to pass it over, but Jack kept it balanced atop his palms, as though it refused to let anyone else hold it. Gondel tentatively reached for the staff, only to have his fingers pass right through the wood as if it were an illusion.
A scowl deepened Gondel’s features. “What have you done?” he muttered, stepping back warily while Jack’s staff re-solidified in the young man’s grip.
“I’m… not totally sure.” Jack’s expression was half-sheepish, half-proud. “It behaves like it doesn’t want to be touched by anyone but me.”
Gondel leaned in again, studying the twelve runes etched into the staff’s upper section, four symmetrical rows flaring out near the top. The metal finial at the tip drew his eye—finely wrought by Henry, presumably. He had to admit the craftsmanship was superior, but worry lined his brow.
“You learned these runic arts in your homeland?” Gondel asked in a measured voice, fingers drumming the air in vague patterns.
Jack’s cheek twitched with embarrassment. He almost denied it, but recalled that Asil’s notes about SR3 were the actual source. “Let’s say… yes, we dabbled in such theories.”
The wizard nodded slowly. Unsure how to proceed, he pointed at the metal cage-like finial. “Right now it’s empty. We’d want a proper incantation to embed a monster core or crystal… but first, we must prepare the staff with wards.”
Jack brightened at the mention of a “core.” He rummaged in his pouch until his fingers closed around a particular orb: the Alpha Wolf Core from a previous kill. Before Gondel could react, Jack slammed the orb into the staff’s filigreed top. Gondel’s eyes went wide with horror.
“No, you fool—” Gondel cried, lunging forward. He tried to grab Jack’s wrist, but the moment Jack pressed the orb into place, energy flared. A sudden shock lashed out, throwing Gondel backward a few steps. The wizard caught himself before hitting the ground, glowering as the staff’s finial began to glow. The wolf core merged seamlessly, morphing into a translucent orb of swirling blue.
“What have you done!” Gondel barked, leveling a furious glare at Jack. “I told you there’s a procedure. Rituals. Incantations. You can’t just—just jam a monster core in your staff on a whim. The repercussions—”
Jack swallowed hard, not wanting to provoke the wizard further. “I thought you meant I needed a gem to complete the design. And it was an alpha wolf core that might—”
Gondel cut him off, voice taut with anger. “You know nothing of the chain reactions that can result from an improper binding. There can be a backlash or contamination, especially if you haven’t purified the core or warded the staff with synergy spells.” His knuckles whitened at his side, and for a moment, it looked as if he might snatch the staff away despite the risk of another shock.
Jack spread his hands in apology. “Honestly, sir… I didn’t see a problem. My staff needed a finishing piece.”
Gondel exhaled slowly, forcing composure. “We must observe it—at least. If the synergy proves unstable, you’ll face far more than a broken staff. The Source isn’t a toy, boy. Not for you, not for Petros, not for anyone.”
The tension lingered. Jack held the staff at his side, reluctant to say more. Gondel slowly approached, swirling patterns of energy dancing over the staff’s new orb. His anger gave way to a kind of resigned concern, as if he realized it was already too late to undo Jack’s impulsive act.
“I do hope,” Gondel muttered, rubbing his still-tingling arm, “that your numbskull instincts are worth the cost we might soon pay.”
Gondel slipped away from Jack without a word, pacing the perimeter of his camp with a furrowed brow. The campfire crackled behind him, casting jittery shadows across the threadbare clearing, while Jack remained near the lone cabin, fiddling uneasily with the staff that had just caused such an outburst. The old wizard needed time to think, to wrestle with the implications of everything that Jack had done in a day’s time.
He recalled vividly how, in the mere twenty-four hours since Jack had first demonstrated his “abilities,” the man had grown exponentially stronger—at a rate Gondel had never witnessed in his entire two centuries of life here. Gondel’s mind churned with the risks: One wrong step could implode this entire region. Something had changed in the fundamental laws of magic since the Great Disconnect. Maybe it was the presence of these newcomers or the world’s magic straining to be unleashed. Gondel only knew that Jack and the boy named Petros were shaping up to be the keys to restoring everything he’d lost.
Yet the old wizard couldn’t ignore the danger. One grievous error, and the entire area could be annihilated in the ensuing magical backlash. Was the gamble worth it? Gondel exhaled slowly, reminding himself that he might have to accept a Jack with so little caution to achieve his goal—unlocking the Source and returning magic to Aerothane. So he let out a resigned huff and decided to see this through.
Meanwhile, standing by the fire, Jack allowed curiosity to get the better of him. Concentrating on the “mage sight” he’d recently discovered, he peered at Gondel through his mind’s eye. He could see filaments—the same faint threads of potential he’d spotted in Henry or Raven. But unlike with them, Gondel’s strands looked… cauterized. Where the blacksmith’s or barmaid’s filaments reached out eagerly, Gondel’s were severed and sealed, as though burned at the roots. Worse, Jack noticed that while filaments from the Source drifted toward Gondel, they were weak and aimless, as if they remembered him but no longer recognized him properly. It pained Jack to see that the once-mighty wizard indeed was cut off. On a whim, Jack considered trying to reconnect him, but the weird finality of those severed ends made him balk—instinct said he couldn’t. Or shouldn’t.
Inside the battered shack, Petros sat hunched over a narrow table, an oil lamp providing weak illumination as he pored over two large tomes: Olom’s Principles of Arcania and Chronicles of the Sevenfold Seal. Gondel had commanded him to cross-reference the two. Still, instead of discovering holes or missing theories, Petros realized each author looked at magic from different angles—two men describing the same elephant but from opposite sides. Occasionally, Petros paused, flipping to a side reference in a third open book: Shadow Tongue, with scrawled translations in the margins.
A slight smile played on his lips. The puzzle pieces clicked together in his mind, bridging sigil-based conjurations with high-level arcane logic. His revelations came in a sudden burst of clarity. The synergy that neither Olom nor Jaq (the writer of Chronicles) had independently nailed down now made sense when Petros layered both approaches and factored in the hidden grammar of the Shadow Tongue. Before he knew it, his journal buzzed with level notifications. He ignored them, too engrossed in scribbling new notes, adrenaline surging at the idea of real spells he might test out.
He didn’t look up until the door opened with a gentle creak. Jack walked in, exhaling a sigh that rustled the dust in the cabin’s stale air. “I think I broke Gondel,” he said wryly, glancing over his shoulder at the old man’s distant figure.
Petros rested a hand on one of the open tomes, meeting Jack’s gaze with a knowing grin. He’d heard the commotion outside. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”
Jack shrugged, half-grin on his face. “He’ll get over it. Or he won’t. You know how it is. Anyway, how’s the reading going?”
Petros laid down his quill and gave the wizard manuals a fond pat. “Pretty good. I think I’m onto something big—like bridging the differences in these conjuring methods. I can adapt these spells for healing or advanced support if I'm right. I leveled up twice just from the insights alone.” Excitement danced in his eyes, though he tempered it with caution. “Want to go test some theories? Or maybe do more meditation?”
Jack glanced behind him at the gloom settling over the clearing where Gondel paced. “I doubt he’ll want me around right now. You read my mind, kid,” he said, subtly gesturing to Petros to gather his gear. “Let’s give the old wizard some space. Maybe we’ll practice further out in the woods.”
Petros nodded eagerly. In a flurry of motion, he stashed his new and old volumes, plus the extra notes and the Shadow Tongue guide, into his pouch. For a moment, he paused at Chronicles of the Sevenfold Seal, fingers trailing over the ornate cover, before gently tucking it away as well. “Lead the way, Jack.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
As they slipped outside, they could see Gondel’s silhouette on the far edge of the clearing, arms folded behind his back as he stared at the purple sky. He didn’t acknowledge them leaving. Jack caught Petros’s inquisitive look and offered a reassuring nod.
“Trust me,” Jack whispered. “He’ll stew, but he won’t stop us. At least not yet.”
With that, they vanished into the twilight of the forest path. Overhead, the first stars winked into being, and somewhere behind them, Gondel quietly wrestled with his regrets, hopes, and the unstoppable force of Jack’s impulsive magic. Whether Jack’s next steps would genuinely break the old wizard’s plan or complete it remained to be seen.
They moved away from Gondel’s camp without any real destination—heading north, away from the busier roads, just following the winding forest path. Jack led the way, staff propped casually on his shoulder. Petros trailed him, absorbed in recounting the lore he’d learned from Gondel’s books. Saul trotted a few paces ahead, ears perked for any sign of danger.
Petros explained how, before the Great Disconnect, the war with the demon forces was all but lost. An apocalyptic struggle ravaged Aerothane, countless lives consumed by the Demon God’s armies. Even the precise name of this deity was feared—no one dared record it, lest writing it invoke his wrath anew. The tide finally turned when a desperate spell banished the Demon God from Aerothane, but at a monstrous cost: most of the mages who performed the incantation were annihilated by its raw power. Gondel survived as one of the three final high wizards, but the resulting severed magic left him—and the world—hopelessly disconnected from the Source.
“Aerothane’s races scattered after that,” Petros said, pushing aside a low-hanging branch. “Elves and dwarves disappeared, fae folk retreated, and orcs… no one has seen them in ages. Humans tried to rebuild, but the monarchy was virtually wiped out. Goblins kept to themselves until recently. Now it looks like they’re getting bolder, maybe sensing the Demon God’s return.”
Jack gave a low whistle at the scale of it all. “Sounds like we arrived just in time for a second apocalypse.”
Petros rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe. Gondel’s been hiding out for centuries with barely any residual magic. But something in the laws changed. You and I—” He shrugged. “We might be the key to reconnecting everything. Or at least that’s what the wizard’s notes hinted.”
Saul suddenly froze, letting out a low growl. He turned to Jack with a warning glance. Petros swallowed, scanning their surroundings. “That’s… the goblin camp, right?” he asked, glancing at the trail branching off to the left.
Jack nodded, eyes narrowing. They had decided to come here purposefully—to test their new spells and gather experience. According to the hints from their journals, the encampment housed multiple mid-tier goblins and maybe an alpha or two.
They crept closer, noticing the cluster of crude tents pitched around a small fire. Petros’s journal buzzed with an update:
Goblin (Level 8) x5
Goblin (Level 9) x7
Alpha Goblin (Level 10) x2
The plan was to strike from a distance, whittle them down with spells, then let Saul handle any stragglers. But just as Jack opened his mouth to outline a cautious approach, a Level 8 goblin stumbled upon them, literally mid-urination behind a bush. The goblin blinked in shock, dropped its makeshift weapon, and scrambled to sound the alarm.
“Too late,” Jack said, cracking a grin. He raised his staff, a spark of lightning dancing along the runes. “Chain Lightning.”
A surge of electricity leapt forward, striking the goblin and leaving it smoldering on the ground. Hysterical cries rang out as the remaining thirteen charged from the camp, brandishing spears and jagged blades.
Petros inhaled sharply, the adrenaline hitting him like a jolt. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way.”
Saul sprang forward, letting out a bone-rattling growl at a Level 9 goblin that came dangerously close to Petros. The goblin tried to slash the wolf, but Saul activated Wolf Hide mid-lunge, a faint shimmer reinforcing his pelt. With a snapping bite, he pinned the goblin, finishing it before it could cry for reinforcements.
Jack planted his staff in the dirt, synergy crackling through his fingertips. Petros nodded, stepping behind him to cast Spirit Guardian, summoning a faint, gold-tinged aura that circled them protectively. A pack of goblins barreled closer, weapons raised.
Flames arced from above as Fire Rain rained down, courtesy of Jack’s newly buffed magic. Two Level 8 goblins fell instantly, but the others hissed and darted around the scorched earth. Petros kept healing Jack’s nicks and bruises, while also buffing Saul whenever the wolf pounced on another target.
“Could use some wide crowd control,” Petros muttered.
“Got it,” Jack replied. Planting his feet, he slammed the butt of his staff into the ground. “Earth Shatter.” The soil trembled beneath the rushing goblins, creating fissures that tripped them. Several tumbled headlong, momentarily vulnerable.
But the final two Level 9 goblins and both alpha goblins (Level 10) roared defiantly, leaping over the cracks. They converged on Jack’s position, forcing him on the defensive. Even with his staff’s enhancements, the onslaught was intense. He let loose another Chain Lightning, only to find the alpha goblin absorbing most of the blow with a grunt.
Saul tried to flank, jaws snapping at the bigger alpha, but the goblin activated Rage, a bestial aura that hardened its skin to near-impenetrable resilience. The wolf’s fangs skidded harmlessly along the alpha’s hide. Petros rushed in, casting a heal on Saul to make sure he didn’t get battered aside.
The other alpha goblin tackled Jack, knocking him flat on his back. One clawed hand battered at Jack’s chest, each strike half-deflected by a hastily raised mana shield, Jack taking advantage of his newly acquired mana control. Petros sprinted over, letting the final pulses of Spirit Guardian hamper the goblin’s swings.
The alpha activated its ability, Bolder Fist, both arms raised for a lethal finishing move. Jack braced himself for a final blow, but Petros flared a healing burst, distracting the alpha just enough for Jack to slip free.
Jack’s staff glowed as he gritted his teeth. “Zural… Naath.” He uttered the runic words carved into the staff—two of the twelve runes he’d painstakingly inscribed. A surge of soul-damaging magic rippled along the staff and into the alpha. The goblin screeched in shock as a bluish aura ripped through its spirit. With a final shudder, the alpha dropped, collapsing on top of Jack in a lifeless heap.
Petros hurriedly helped roll the goblin’s massive body off his friend. Jack lay there a moment, panting, bruised but alive. The last of the lesser goblins had scattered or lay dead, leaving the campsite eerily quiet. Petros ran his hands over Jack’s injuries, channeling the last of his mana to seal cuts and bruises. Saul limped over, tail wagging weakly, blood matting his fur from lesser scrapes. Petros healed the wolf as well, ignoring his own fatigue.
Slowly, Jack stood, staff clutched in his right hand. Their journals buzzed with furious messages—level ups, skill unlocks, possible alpha goblin loot. He exchanged a tired grin with Petros.
“Worth it?” Petros asked, lips quivering between a laugh and a groan.
Jack exhaled, scanning the carnage. “I guess so. We needed the experience… and it’s a step closer to being unstoppable, right?”
Petros smiled despite the dark stains on his robe. “One step, yeah. Just hope we don’t run into anything bigger soon.”
Jack and Petros collapsed onto a lichen-coated stump to rest, the pungent scent of damp earth lingering in the air. Saul, exhausted, sprawled at their feet, occasionally twitching in a snore. A deep, tired silence settled over them until Jack began to laugh out of nowhere. It started as a soft chuckle but soon grew raucous, gasping hilarity, leaving him nearly doubled over. Petros stared in confusion, but the mirth was contagious; before long, the young Spirit Warden was laughing so hard he fell right off the stump. Saul stirred, lifting an ear to peek at the two humans flailing about, then simply huffed and drifted back to sleep.
“This game is the balls,” Jack finally managed to say once he caught his breath, still lying on the ground gazing at the canopy above. Petros—hands folded behind his head—just nodded, grinning up at the clouds. The chaos and intensity of their battles had momentarily given way to a delirious sense of relief.
After a moment, Petros shifted to look at Jack. “What spell did you use on that last alpha goblin? You shouted ‘Zural Naath.’ That wasn’t in the normal cast list, was it?”
Jack rolled his head to face Petros. “It’s two runes etched into my staff. I guess they mean ‘Soul’ and ‘Void’ in the Shadow Tongue? I channeled mana through them, specifically to damage the goblin’s spirit. Honestly, it was instinct—something I half-remembered from Asil’s old SR3 lore. She’d do all these deep dives.”
Petros smiled, recalling his own excitement about bridging magical theories from Gondel’s books. “I can’t wait to meet her,” he said, then caught himself. “I mean, properly meet her. I hardly spoke a word to her at the beta office before we ended up here.”
Jack let out a soft sigh. “She’s amazing. She’ll definitely get a kick out of you, though. You’re an even bigger lore-hound than she is.”
A gentle stillness settled over them as they each thought about family far away in Aerothane, forging their own paths. Eventually, Jack sat up, rummaging for his journal. Petros followed suit, absently raising a hand. His own journal simply appeared, phasing into reality.
“Huh, convenient,” Jack muttered. “You conjure it now like I do my staff.”
Petros flipped open the book, scanning new notifications. “Yeah, it’s neat. So, do you see weird inconsistencies in your pages?” he asked, tapping an oddly worded line in his own. “Like the text changes format. Maybe the devs are adjusting it on the fly?”
Jack frowned thoughtfully. “That’s my guess too… or something else is going on. But for now, let’s just roll with it.”
The small talk gave way to excitement when Petros noticed another cluster of system messages. “Oh geez, I leveled up twice again!” he cried. “I’m up to Level 8 now. I must have gained a ton of XP from that alpha kill and all these other goblins.”
“DING indeed,” Jack teased, flipping through his own pages. “Same here. I’m 8 as well. Must be from channeling my runes and leveling chain lightning and stuff. Sweet.”
A fresh wave of adrenaline coursed through them as they tallied the loot gleaned from the goblin corpses. They both picked up standard goblin cores, a special alpha core, coins, and ragged trinkets that might be worth a bit of coin. Jack also scavenged a few battered goblin tools—worthless at first glance, but he tucked them away anyway. Petros found some leftover scraps of pelt and metals, splitting them with Jack.
“Think I can upgrade my outfit with some of these,” Jack mused, picturing fresh gear to fit his staff-wielding aesthetic.
Petros chuckled as he snared a chunk of battered iron. “We can give these to Henry. He might do something with them. Or we’ll find a new blacksmith if you keep linking people to the Source.”
Once they were rested and fully healed—Petros’s improved mana regeneration made quick work of restoring their stamina—they pressed on, letting their newly heightened senses guide them deeper into the woods. Their mutual synergy allowed them to pinpoint smaller goblin camps that popped up, keen to test their growing strengths and accelerate their leveling.
By nightfall, they’d located another goblin outpost near what looked like an abandoned mine entrance. Seven goblins milled about the perimeter, none above Level 9. With Petros’s subtle scanning, they crept into position, unleashing an evening ambush aided by starlight. Petros provided a soft glow of Spirit Guardian to shield Jack while he rained chain lightning on two startled lookouts. Saul roamed the perimeter, pouncing with ferocious growls and layering Wolf Hide for protection. The goblins scrambled in panic, outmatched by the calm efficiency of Jack’s spells and Petros’s timely buffs. Within minutes, the outpost was cleared, leaving them more loot to stash and lumps of ore that glinted in the moonlight.
The pair continued in a similar cycle for the next few days—wandering through remote areas, crushing any goblin pockets they found, and learning new spells. Petros tested advanced healing arrays, gleaned from Chronicles of the Sevenfold Seal. Jack refined his staff-based runic attacks, weaving “Zural Naath” with variations of chain lightning or earth shatter. Each encounter brought a sense of rising momentum; a trio of Level 9 goblins posed no threat at all by the second day, and alpha goblins fell to cunning synergy between Saul, Petros’s healing, and Jack’s staff channeling.
By the end of the third day, they’d carved out a sizable safe zone north of Pendle, systematically pushing back goblin forces. Petros nearly dropped his journal in surprise when it updated mid-fight to reflect that he’d just hit Level 10. Jack, not far behind, soared to Level 11 after chaining some impressive kills. Their half-exhausted and half-victorious laughter echoed through the silent woods as they realized how far they’d come in such a short span.
“Our pockets are loaded with cores and coins,” Petros remarked when they finally decided to head back, balancing a large satchel of random scraps. “And… we’re seriously leveling like it’s nobody’s business.”
Jack grinned, staff slung across his back. “Told you this is game logic on steroids. Once Asil sees how far I’ve come…” He trailed off, yearning for a reunion with his wife.
They set off southward, spirits high. Petros hummed in anticipation of showing Gondel his progress. The old wizard might gripe about the unorthodox methods, but Petros was now brimming with insights for conjuration, ready to blow open more of Gondel’s arcane dogmas. Jack’s mind wandered to forging new alliances, reuniting with the rest of the “outworlders,” and pushing the frontier of Aerothane’s severed magic. Meanwhile, Saul trotted behind them, muzzle flecked with dried goblin blood, as if proud to be part of the unstoppable trio.
The hush of the forest parted around them, letting the day’s final light usher them closer to civilization—and maybe, at last, a plan that could restore the Source to a land desperate for hope.
A week into their grueling hunts, the trio turned south to return, loot-filled packs and newly-honed skills in tow. Without warning, Jack froze, his senses crackling with sudden alarm. Petros caught the sharp change in Jack’s expression and glanced over, puzzled, until he too felt a faint, ominous stirring in the air—though far weaker than Jack’s keen perception.
“There’s trouble in Pendle,” Jack said in a hushed, urgent tone, breath quickening. “A gang of thugs... invading.”
No one questioned his claim. Petros’s eyes widened, heart already racing, and Saul bristled in at the spike of tension rippling through Jack. In unspoken agreement, they broke into a run, tearing down the forest to the road with resolute haste. Pendle lay less than an hour away, but whatever threatened the town was already in motion. They could only hope to arrive before catastrophe struck.