Chương 11: Chapter 8 - Beyond the Barrier

Blessedly, for the need to make a decision, the original road out of the cathedral headed east, toward what Alyssia called the Talons, a series of peninsulas along the coast that stretched out into the ocean. Apparently, they would be headed either north toward the bastions or south towards Whiteshackle well before they saw the coast. That ran against Karina's initial understanding of how towns worked. In her world there had been no strict tie to water—at least that she remembered—because water was a constant.

But she understood that there used to be a need for water with every settlement, but the Cathedral of Centric Sunrise was nowhere near a lake or river. That said, as soon as Alyssia had explained the reason, it seemed stunningly obvious. Most people in the cathedral would have access to some sort of magic or enchantment. Why would they need a mundane river? There had been more questions along that line. How much magic was in other places? How constant were enchantments for water and the like?

But Volrick hadn't been a fan of the 'boring' questions as conversation, and kept trying to derail it to other avenues of questioning for Karina. They had been walking for barely an hour and, according to Alyssia, had just passed beyond the barrier when Volrick brought up Karina's class again.

"So what's up with your class? Why so cagey?" he asked. Alyssia slowed, not that she'd been walking that quickly in the first place. As they stopped walking, the quiet settled around them only to be replaced by the chittering of birds in the trees above.

"You really can't leave it alone, can you?" Alyssia said first.

"Hey, I'm stuck with you. Think I should get to know a little more than fire."

"She's a brand-new hero. There's nothing more to know than fire," Alyssia argued.

"She probably just has the basic fates right now either way."

"See, you'd think so," he said.

"But you slowed the second I asked about it, and you won't just say the name, even though she—" he pointed at Alyssia—"knows that I won't know what the hell it does either way."

"Well—" Karina looked at Alyssia. They'd already told him she used fire. The name revealed less than their refusal to say it.

"Cinder Mage."

"Hm." Volrick frowned and for a moment the edge of his sharpened teeth peeked out.

"Yeah, no idea what that means. See what I mean?" Alyssia went to keep walking. Volrick stayed but jogged to catch up once it was clear she wasn't stopping. Meanwhile, the birds continued their songs.

"Nobody's going to know what Cinder Mage means. You know as well as I do—in fact, better than I do—that there are hundreds of classes in the hero archives. You guys talked about the constellations all the time."

"So?"

"So, you brought me along on this quest because you needed someone who understood how to get away with something. Now, I don't know what you're trying to get away with here," he said.

"But just saying Cinder Mage like it's unremarkable is going to get you further than trying to hide what class a hero has. That's like the second question anyone is going to ask."

"Sure," Alyssia said in a way that made it clear she wasn't considering his input.

"I'm trying to be helpful here," Volrick said. He jogged forward again, this time getting ahead of Alyssia so he could walk backward while speaking to her.

"You'll say the class, people's eyes will glaze over, and then you tell them what your chosen name is. Nobody will remember what you were talking about before." He gave Alyssia a moment to respond before turning his attention over to Karina.

"You get it, don't you?" Karina nodded. She hadn't known enough about the world to say whether a class name was unremarkable, but even Alyssia wasn't arguing against that point.

"See, there we go. And now that we've established that I am a helpful member of this party, why don't we discuss keeping our little deal and—""We are following the eastern road and then heading towards the Bastions," Alyssia said.

"Pardon, aide," Volrick said.

"I was speaking to Miss No-Name Hero over there." With the way Alyssia's shoulders tightened, even as Volrick flashed a smile, it was clear who was having fun with this game.

"How long is it to the fork?" Karina asked.

"We won't be there until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest," she said.

"So I suppose we can make a decision over camp tonight. If we want to entertain this…" The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. She dropped the sentence instead of railing harder against Volrick, but three steps later she stomped on a small stick on the path hard enough to snap it.

"Sounds like a lovely compromise," Volrick said. He was still walking backwards in front of the pair, but even then his practiced feet avoided all the debris on the forest trail.

"And to preserve group morale, I'll ask a different question."

"Do you have to?" Alyssia asked.

"Don't you all talk in those church caravans? Gotta do something to pass the time on the open road." By the time they camped for the evening, the forest had thinned. What were originally thick, deciduous trees were slowly replaced by sparse-looking evergreens as they climbed. Long grasses grew in the new space between the trees, and, in many places, the thick black undergrowth of the forest gave way to a dull, gray sand.

It felt like a sharp change to happen in only a day's walk, but neither of the locals seemed surprised by the change of scenery. The only reaction had been Alyssia closing her eyes to enjoy the brief gusts of breeze the new, shorter trees allowed through. She'd even let her hair down. Once marked a place for camp, they settled in, but neither of Karina's companions made a move to set up any sort of shelter.

In fact, neither of them were carrying a large enough bag to contain a tent or anything else that could protect them from the elements.

"Hero, if you can start a fire, I'll get to work on the barriers," Alyssia said. Volrick stood at the ready before she stepped away off to wherever she considered the edge of the camp.

"Guess that leaves me to help you get the firewood, Hero," Volrick said as he tested the strength of a sapling with his foot. There was little fallen wood nearby, though dead lower branches still clung to several trees. Karina was looking for one she could break when Volrick held out his hand. A serrated dagger appeared in a brief flash of black light. He noticed Karina staring before he cut.

"It's a stealth skill," he said.

"Picked it up somewhere around Advanced Two…I think at least. That was a while back." He set the blade against the base of a bare, brittle branch.

"Pretty useful, but only lets me hide small weapons."

"It does sound pretty useful…And the dampener lets you do that?"

"It's a binary skill. Either I can do it, or I can't," he said.

"The dampener does more to skills that have—a sliding scale, would be the way to put it."

"Like?"

"Like if you can make fire, you can make less fire," he said.

"But it's hard for 'the ability to hide a weapon' to get a little weaker. It either is or isn't."

"Interesting."

"Anyway, you're right, it is useful. If you wanna pick up the Stealth Fate," he said, "you can probably just sneak around this hill a little. If you scare a rabbit or something it should pop up."

"I already have it." He raised his eyebrows.

"Nice. Do you understand the fates, or…"

"I get the idea," Karina said as she, lacking a hidden weapon, braced her foot against a low branch to snap it off.

"But I haven't exactly gotten a chance to use anything beyond the fire yet."

"Well, like you said, your class is fire, so it sounds like a good place to start," he said. Volrick began to saw, which ended that leg of the conversation. Karina focused on the branch of her tree and tried to take it off, but it didn't work. It was too thick. What was she doing? Why was she trying to break it? She was a Cinder Mage after all. Karina crouched beside the branch and ran a finger along the strained, cracked bark at its end.

She'd already almost broken it; a bit of controlled burning would do the trick. Controlled being the key word, considering the dry grass and other trees surrounding them. Karina took a deep breath and closed her eyes to focus on the heat. When she searched for it, but hadn't summoned it yet, it seemed to live just beneath her skin, simmering in wait, hungry for another call. Instead of trying to manifest fire whole cloth, Karina welcomed that heat to her open palm.

Instead of the black of her eyelids, Karina saw the orange glow of fire through her closed eyes. She closed her fist around the dancing fire, almost snuffing it out but allowing it to breathe between her fingers. The fire licked her skin as she directed the heat, coiling it around her knuckles and then into a two-finger point at the branch. Unlike with the stump before, Karina thought of a saw more than a shot of flame. As she considered the shape of the heat, she understood her mind's reference point.

It was a blowtorch as opposed to a gun. She folded the heat over itself again and again on the tip of her fingers, holding it there despite how much it raged against her thoughts. It was fire. Fire wanted to be free. Fire wanted to consume. Fire needed to listen. Karina lowered her fingers to the branch. Near-white fire extended between them in a narrow blade. Through the orange lenses, she could see exactly where it touched the bark. The wood whistled and cracked. Small flames caught on either side of the cut.

Twice, the fire raged against the position, wanting to flash outward into a quick blaze or a single blast, but each time Karina caught it in the action, spinning the flames back upon themselves and into that carving knife. The branch dropped. Karina caught it with her free hand before the burning end reached the grass, then pulled the loose flames back toward her fingertips. She laid the branch on a patch of bare sand and dismissed the fire. Its cut end still glowed. [Fate Progressed - Basic Pyrokinesis: 10/10!] [Fate Ascension Available - Basic Pyrokinesis 2] [Fate Progressed - Firestealer: 15/200] [You need to be safe to ascend your Fate!]"Hey! That's a cute way of doing it," Volrick said as he approached.

"I mean, I would have just used a knife, but I guess the church didn't want to give you too many ways to defend yourself and…" He watched her eyes for a moment. Clearly, he could see the reflection of her menu glowing in them.

"What's up?"

"I can ascend to Basic Pyrokinesis Two," she said.

"But it says I'm not safe." Volrick looked toward the trees.

"Because Alyssia hasn't finished the barriers?" Karina asked.

"You don't need a warded camp to ascend." He raised a hand before she could answer. Then he closed his eyes. Silence seemed to spread from him, passing over the camp and into the tall grasses beyond. The breeze washed across the camp, but the usual noise didn't follow it. Volrick opened his eyes.

"Don't make any more fire." Karina let her hand fall.

"Why?" He was looking past her.

"Alyssia," he called, quietly enough that Karina almost missed it. The priestess straightened at the edge of the camp. Whatever she'd been tracing in the air faded between her fingers. Volrick lifted two fingers. Alyssia looked toward the trees. Karina turned. The wind pressed the grass flat in a long wave. Two pale shapes remained upright within it. Large but low enough to hide when the wind died. One tilted its head; the other, noticing they'd been seen, raised its spear out from the grass.

Volrick ran to Karina's side as the demons rose out of the grass and stalked forward.