The four, plus aegis, walked through the woods once again. “You know, for an arcanescent you can really handle yourself in a fight, Tormund.” Nira teased the young mage.

  “Uh thank you. You are quite skilled too.” He replied awkwardly.

  “What all can magic do exactly? Arcanescents were more rare than verescents before, now they are pretty much gone. I was shocked when we found that rogue bandit one.” Nira said.

  “The arcane has many applications. It can be used to achieve almost anything imaginable, and some things you can’t imagine.” He said getting a far off look. “It’s hard to learn though and even harder to control. I’ve only scratched the surface and I use the arguably easiest form, elemental magic. I’m not even very good at it.” He said looking down.

  “Well you make it look easy.” Nira said with a smile. “It’s really cool. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I just wish I could do something more useful. Make plants grow or heal the sick.” Tormund said.

  “You fight for others to be free to do those things. Maybe you can even learn when all of this is over!” She said smiling at him.

  Jesse continued walking, lost in his own thoughts. He was losing himself but wasn’t sure how to stop it. He could feel his empathy slipping. These two killed without thought but were still empathetic to villagers and each other, so maybe it was just a matter of compartmentalization?

  As they walked Jesse idly listened to the two young people banter and lightly flirt back and forth. Myra spoke to his side. “They are cute together.” She said gruffly. A slight smirk crossed her face and her eyes grew distant. “Reminds me of my husband.” Her face dropped after saying that and her brow furrowed.

  “Did it help? Getting revenge I mean.” Jesse asked her.

  Myra was silent for a moment before answering. “No it didn’t.” She said with a sigh. “Though we did the right thing killing those bandits.”

  The two walked in silence for a time before they made camp for the night. They couldn’t flee endlessly without rest. The soldiers they were running from likely were resting too, though they were out of Golems scanning range.

  As Jesse sat by the fire he tinkered with a metal container he had gotten from Myra. It was covered with wires at this point and he was fastening a crystal housing to it.

  “After seeing what those other weapons I made you did, I’m excited to see what that does.” Myra said.

  “That fire beam, what’s did you call it? A laser?” Tormund said, receiving a nod from Jesse before continuing. “Yeah that was insane. It was just like that construct we fought in them ruins.”

  “I’m disappointed I missed that.” Nira said with a smile.

  After the housing was firmly attached, Jesse placed the largest crystal he had in the housing. With a twist the circuitry lit up and the mouth of the metal container began to immediately glow red. Myra’s eyes widened. “You didn’t make what I think you did?” She exclaimed.

  “Yeah its a forge Myra.” Jesse said. “You said you didn’t have a portable one you could carry, well now you do.”

  “I don’t know what to say, this is amazing!” She said.

  “Well i admit it wasn’t fully altruistic. I’ve drawn up some designs I would like you to work on as you have time.” He said, handing her some sheets of paper. Initially he tried to grab them with his left hand but realized his mistake when the hook covering his missing arm tore the fragile parchment. He looked down at his hook hand and sighed. Hopefully soon he would have something more useable.

  In the morning the group began moving north once more. In the distance he noticed a few faint smoke trails.

  “There is a village up ahead.” He said to the young pair.

  “We should check it out. Maybe they have some supplies to spare.” Myra said to his side.

  Jesse nodded. It was unlikely the village housed many soldiers from the look of it, and even if it did it’s not like they knew who they were. Instantaneous communication definitely didn’t exist in this world under the Archons rule. He wouldn’t allow the use of essence so blatantly.

  They neared the town and Jesse could tell immediately that something was wrong. The people milled about but they were thin. Jesse could see their clothes draped loosely on their bodies and their skin was drawn tight. These people were starving. They watched the group walk through town with hungry eyes.

  “What happened here?” Nira asked.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Many villages that farm used magic for irrigation or other effects that improved yield. Arcanescents, though rare, would make rounds to the farming villages assisting with the crop growth.” Tormund said quietly. “Without that and without a nearby source of water or the infrastructure to irrigate, these villages are suffering. The archon doesn’t send food if a harvest underproduces. He also doesn’t lessen his food taxes.”

  Jesse eyed Tormund. He seemed to know a lot about the workings of the government and society both before and after the Archon took over.

  “We need to help them.” Nira said.

  “How?” Jesse asked. “We don’t have enough food to make a difference to this many.”

  “I don’t know. But we have to do something…” Nira shot back. “They will die without something.”

  “I’ll make them some irrigation ditches. A well and some water maybe?” Tormund said.

  “Here, I can give you the designs. We need to be quick though.” Jesse said to Tormund.

  Golem, provide some designs of historic irrigation methods and wells to supply them. Jesse thought at his AI. Then he added Please. Treating Golem more like a person and less like a tool may be important as he continued to develop into whatever he was becoming. Jesse wasn’t sure how to tell if the AI was developing true sentience. He figured though, that it was safer and morally better to treat it as though it was since it was becoming increasingly indistinguishable from the real thing.

  The four moved off and got to work on the irrigation system. They set it up in the fields. The moment Tormund started using magic, the farmers fled the area. After they had completed the work they turned and headed back into the village. One of the villagers approached them. It was an elderly woman. “Thank you! We might be able to grow food and live now. If we can last that long at least. If the soldiers didn’t take most of our food we wouldn’t struggle so much though. They aren’t even eating it. They keep it in a storehouse nearby, just in case the army passes by and needs it.” Nira scowled at this statement and started stalking in the direction of the food warehouse.

  “Wait Nira.” Jesse said, running up to her. “We can’t give them that food. If the soldiers find out they will probably hurt the villagers.”

  “Hurt them more than starving to death?” Nira shot back. “They can claim it was us and that we took the food. If they hide it then maybe they will get away with it. We can’t just do nothing. What happened to showing mercy? Or is that only for your enemies?” She spat at him. She continued stalking towards the warehouse. Tormund moved past Jesse. He gave an apologetic smile. Myra frowned and didn’t move towards the warehouse nor move to stop the two essence users. Jesse sighed. He followed.

  When they got to the warehouse Jesse could see three soldiers guarding it. A woman was arguing with the soldiers who were laughing at her. One of them stepped forward and planted a kick in the woman’s stomach. She doubled over in pain. He drew his sword and yelled about how she was questioning the Archons orders.

  Jesse knew exactly what would happen next. In an instant Nira was next to the soldier with her knife drawn. With a swift movement she sliced his throat. Tormund charged, drawing his sword. The two guards turned towards Nira, drawing their weapons but the virescent was too fast, she moved inside the first ones guard and buried a knife in his chest. The last was dispatched by Tormund from behind. Jesse did nothing to stop it. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to. The Archon and his men were responsible for this suffering.

  “We could have just knocked them out.” Jesse offered weakly as the two returned.

  “Better to not leave the witnesses.” Nira said. Tormund shrugged. “Look, you don’t have to join it but you can’t stop it either.” Nira said. “The sad truth is that this world is bathed in blood. You’re in the middle of things and will get it all over you whether it’s yours or someone else’s. All we can do is try to keep the ones we love dry.”

  “We did something good here.” Tormund said. “These people will live. They won’t starve. Try not to think of the killing. Try to remember what we are trying to do. We will get your daughter back, and maybe in the process we can help take down the Archon.” Tormund gave him a sad smile.

  “I’ll tell the village what to do with the food.” Nira said, walking off. Jesse frowned. That girl reminded him so much of his daughter at times but Rebecca would never be this ruthless. He sighed again.

  Myra approached. “I don’t know how to feel about this Jesse.”

  “I know.” He answered.

  “These people needed help though and they got it. I just hope it won’t bring more trouble down on them.” She continued.

  Jesse just nodded, looking over the starving village with a frown.

  “Anyway, while you were making the field with Tormund, I built the designs you wanted using the new forge. Some of it is scrap I had to cobble together. Once we have more downtime I can improve it. Here, I hope it works.” She said, handing him a heavy bundle.

  Jesse looked down at it in shock. That was fast. He didn’t have time to thank her properly when Golem’s voice rang in his mind.

  “The soldiers have entered my detection range.” Golem reported. “Kaelan is leading them. There is a necrescent. It is likely how they are tracking you.”

  How long do we have? Jesse asked.

  “Approximately 45 minutes at their current pace.” Golem replied.

  “Shit.” Jesse said aloud, drawing Tormund’s gaze. “Kaelan is close. 45 minutes. They have a necrescent, possibly one that we already fought. It must have sensed the essence use here.”

  “We are never going to escape with that thing tracking us.” Tormund said with a frown.

  “We have to try. We can’t fight an entire battalion of trained soldiers. I’m low on essence crystals and there are only five of us.” Jesse said.

  “I’ll get Nira, we can get moving.” Tormund said. “We won’t outrun them though if they release the necrescent to chase us down or the virescent in the group hound us.”

  Jesse nodded. They needed to get moving.