They were far from fully recovered and in desperate need of a nap, but Vin and Shia decided an hour was as long as they were willing to wait when they didn’t know just how long Alka had left. Thanks to Introspection, Vin had managed to replenish enough of his mana that he was confident he’d be able to fight off any stray monsters that might get the jump on them during their return journey.

  Not to mention support a Light spell in order to actually see where they were going and not fall into any surprise craters. Figures the one time he actually needed his enchanted gemstone was after he’d given it away to Lumel.

  The aftereffects of Drintus’ Second Wind and Scule’s own supercharged passive wearing off simultaneously seemed to have hit the petian harder than they’d expected. At first, Vin was concerned when he found himself unable to wake the unconscious Rogue. But Reginald didn’t seem overly worried, and Scule didn’t have any obvious injuries, so Vin decided to just keep a close eye on him for now and worry about that later.

  So it was that Vin found himself carefully running back to the infernals’ fragment alongside Shia with Scule and Reginald in his pocket and a motionless golem slung over his shoulder. Before taking off, he had Shia use some rope to further secure Scule’s dimensional bag around the golem’s neck just to be safe. The last thing they needed in their current state was for the bag to slip off and the golem to wake back up. Without Scule’s enhanced speed and with the current state they were in, he honestly was worried they wouldn’t be able to subdue it a second time.

  Making their way through the crater-filled fragment in the dark of night was slow going, but seeing as they didn’t have to worry about any monsters jumping out at them in the odd, barren fragment, they were still able to make decent time.

  Strangely, it wasn’t until they’d crossed back over into the seemingly normal fragment that Shia grunted, making an odd face.

  “Ugh… I noticed a hint of it yesterday when we first ran through, but for some reason this fragment tastes vaguely of death mana. Even more so now that night’s fallen.”

  “Death mana?!” Vin froze, his heart pounding as he remembered the radiation filled fragment. He immediately looked up at the sky, trying to figure out if this one had some sort of giant sun as well that they’d missed somehow. Or moon in this case, seeing as the sun had already set.

  “Don’t worry, not nearly as much as that flat fragment,” Shia chuckled as Vin let out a relieved, shaky breath. “Just enough to be noticeable honestly. Like they have an undead problem or something.”

  “Please don’t give me a heart attack,” Vin said, frowning at the grinning elf. As curious as he was about the odd level of death mana, he’d learned his lesson the first time. Even if they weren’t on a time sensitive mission, it would take some serious convincing to get him to stay any longer than necessary in a fragment filled with death mana.

  He could only assume all those hunting parties they’d spotted during the day did excellent work, because they didn’t encounter so much as a single monster as they ran from one edge of the fragment to the next. It was shortly after passing into the flower filled fragment that Scule finally stirred in his pocket.

  “I see why he likes it,” the petain yawned, poking his head out of Vin’s pocket and taking in their surroundings. “Already back to the flowers? Wake me up when we reach the Witch. I don’t want her messing with my bag without me being there.”

  Vin snorted as Scule didn’t even give him a chance to reply, ducking back down and going right back to sleep, snuggled up with a napping Reginald. He supposed there had to be some advantages to being only a few inches tall.

  Unfortunately, the flower fragment was when their luck finally ran out.

  Making their way across an open field, Vin heard the sound of something rushing toward them, and he cursed as a large shape finally became visible on the edge of his Light spell. Before the weird, long headed wolf monster could reach them and try ripping them apart with its massive jaw, Vin sprung into action.

  Dropping his Light spell, Vin plunged them into darkness as reflexes honed from Alka’s training kicked in, and he cast again without hesitation. “Stone Wall!”

  Despite not being able to see, the darkness did nothing to muffle the satisfying sound of the charging monster running headfirst into a thick stone slab that hadn’t existed a moment ago. As it let out an angry, warbling howl that echoed in the night, Shia shouted at him.

  “Vin, give me a light!”

  “Light!” He recast, illuminating the angry monster.

  “Rapid Growth!” Shia immediately shouted, angling her staff toward the monster. Just as she’d done countless times before, nature mana flooded into her staff and a branch exploded outward, growing so fast it looked as if it had been fired like a projectile. Before the monster could even finish its disgruntled howl, the branch slammed into its neck, piercing straight through and killing it instantly.

  As the monster’s corpse fell to the ground, Vin felt a shiver go down his spine at the sound of at least a half dozen or so identical howls erupting out of the darkness surrounding them. None of them sounded particularly close, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before they converged on this location.

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  “We need to move, now!” He said, securing his hold on the golem and taking off once more. It wasn’t until they’d been running for a few seconds that Shia pulled closer to him, riding atop a loping Blossom.

  “Drop the Light spell!” She demanded, glancing around at the darkness surrounding them as if expecting another monster to jump out at them any second.

  “Are you serious? We won’t be able to see!”

  “And hopefully neither will they!” She argued. “Remember, these things weren’t able to see us from very far away during the day. I’m willing to bet their eyesight isn’t very good! But I bet they can see a large glowing ball of light during the dead of night from miles away no problem!”

  “Okay…” Vin said, dropping the spell and wincing as everything went black. While he was technically still able to navigate thanks to his Mental Map, his passive didn’t really show him things such as elevation all that well, which made running difficult.

  Ignoring the occasional howl continuing to erupt out of the darkness, Vin made sure Shia was close to him as they continued through the fragment in near total darkness. Even if Shia was right about their poor eyesight, they still ran the risk of the monsters picking up on their mana and tracking them down that way if they got close enough. Vin’s own mana was low enough at this point that he wasn’t certain he’d be able to fight if he burned through enough casts of Concealment to hide them all from the searching monsters, so he decided to hold off for the moment.

  Running in the dark was far slower than during the day. Tack on their exhausted conditions, and it felt like it took them a nail biting hour or two just to get through this one fragment alone.

  After his near death experience in the dungeon, Vin never thought he’d be happy to hear the buzzing of giant insects ever again. But when the sounds of large bees drifted out of the darkness, Vin let out a silent prayer, grinning as they finally stepped back into the infernals’ fragment.

  “You should cast Light again. Wouldn’t want to stumble into any of the giant spiders’ webs,” Shia said, checking over their shoulder to make sure none of the creepy canine monsters were nearby.

  One more cast of Light later, and they were once again on the move, their destination finally close at hand. Vin was reminded of the annoying moth-like insects that had swarmed Alka on their original trip through this fragment as the same ones tried to attack his floating ball of light, and he couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory, mentally lifting the ball higher and out of their faces.

  Able to actually see again, it didn’t take them long to maneuver through the forest and make their way back to the infernals’ village. Just like before, Vin felt the strange sensation of his body seeming to try and walk off in another direction without him realizing it, and he focused on his Mental Map, overcoming the stealthy compulsion with ease.

  Finally breaking free from the treeline, Vin headed straight for Madam Trebella’s manor. Finding the door locked, he banged against it, not caring if he woke up half the village.

  “Open the door!” He shouted, continuing to bang against the wood. Yet again he found himself missing the massive strength boost he normally had from Alka, half expecting to see the door rattling from the force of his knocks alone. “We’ve got the body for Alka!”

  After banging on it for another few seconds, Vin frowned, turning to look at Shia.

  “You still have enough mana for a Decay spell?”

  Before the Druid could respond, the door cracked open, and a bleary eyed Malzar stared at them. Yawning, the infernal blinked slowly, taking in Vin and Shia’s ragged appearance and the golem slung over his shoulder. Blinking again, his eyes widened, and the sleep seemed to evaporate from his face in an instant.

  “Wha-”

  “Sorry Malzar, no time to talk. We need to see Madam Trebella, right now!” Vin demanded, trying not to check on Alka’s drifting remnants inside himself for the hundredth time. “It’s important, and she should be expecting us!”

  “Is that why she’s still awake this late?” Malzar asked, before shaking his head. “Sorry! Urgent, right! Follow me!”

  Following the younger infernal into the manor, Vin was surprised to find him leading them straight to the ritual room rather than the Witch’s office. Running down the stairs ahead of them, Malzar called out into the massive room.

  “Madam Trebella, Vin and his group are back!”

  “Already? Damn kid is too fast for his own good,” Vin heard the Witch respond.

  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Vin couldn’t help but gape at the runic array laid out before them.

  Nearly as large as the ritual of purification, whatever ritual the Witch was putting the finishing touches on looked to be almost as complicated. There were already a good number of materials and reagents scattered about seemingly at random, but most surprising were the half dozen dead saplings, each one sitting at one of the points on the six sided star making up the ritual.

  While Vin took in the ritual, Madam Trebella walked over, frowning at the golem slung over his shoulder.

  “I see rather than actually disable the golem, you decided to leave that part to me.”

  “Can you do it or not?” Vin asked, not budging an inch under the Witch’s annoyed stare.

  “Of course I can,” she sighed, gesturing for him to put the golem near the center of the large ritual. There were three circles only a few feet from one another in the middle of all the runes. One was clearly meant for the golem, and one had to be for Madam Trebella as the caster of the ritual. Which meant Vin could only assume that the final one was for him, seeing as Alka was seeking refuge inside him at the moment.

  Once the golem was on the ground, Madam Trebella crouched down, pulling out some sort of blue paint from within her robe and using it to paint a ring around the golem’s neck, directly beneath the edge of Scule’s spatial bag.

  “This will prevent the mana from flowing out of the golem’s power source and into the rest of its body until we’re ready to begin the ritual. Once the ritual starts and Alka is bound to the golem, the paint will be destroyed, and it will be up to her to overcome the golem and take control. Assuming she succeeds, whatever current instructions the golem has will be destroyed, and she will claim the new body as her own.”

  “Wait, assuming she succeeds?” Vin asked, staring at the Witch in shock. “You mean there’s a chance she might fail?!”

  “Of course there’s a chance she might fail,” Madam Trebella said, looking at him like he was an idiot. “We’re about to sever the anchor holding together the struggling remains of your friend’s spirit and attach it to something that already has some sense of self, even if it is purely autonomous.”

  “If your friend isn’t able to pull herself together and survive the transfer…” The Witch paused, shrugging as if it really wasn’t her problem.

  “...she’ll die for good.”

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