Jasper stepped through the curtain and into the camouflaged tent at the center of the Birdwatcher’s outpost with a quick stride.

  Inside he found Ruby standing over the work table, her posture heavy, shoulders tense, and face showing signs of another restless night. With arms extended and palms firmly planted on the wooden surface, her sharp green eyes blinked to look over her red-tinted glasses before quickly returning to the parchment page she was reading on the table.

  “Has Flint reported back yet?” she asked without preamble.

  “No. We haven’t seen him again since he left his meeting with you. Which could be an indication of how good the stealth potions you gave him are,” the nomad adventurer joked, trying to defuse the tension he could feel lingering over his old friend.

  The enchantress seemed to either not pick up on his attempt, or simply chose to dismiss it—and with how well Jasper knew her wits, he was fairly sure it was the latter.

  “As I expected. Despite his insistence, he wasn’t ready for the assignment. What of our other, proper scouts? Have they reported back on the situation down in the mines?”

  Knowing better than to insist, Jasper let his discreet smile fade away as he responded with seriousness in both tone and facial expression.

  “They have. Balthazar and his group managed to defeat the lich lord we planted on their path.”

  “Interesting, but not entirely surprising,” the scarlet woman said without taking her eyes off the letter she was still quickly scanning through.

  “The crab then led his party through the underground maze of ravines for over an hour with the certainty of someone following… something.”

  Ruby’s gaze jumped from the paper and narrowed on Jasper’s eyes with an intensity the seasoned adventurer knew all too well.

  “Did he find it?” she demanded.

  “Our scouts believe so,” the man responded. “They arrived at a huge iron gate with a brass locking mechanism.”

  “The core gate,” the woman in red muttered, eyes staring emptily at the table before focusing back on her trusted advisor. “Did he manage to open it?!”

  Jasper shook his head.

  “No. The crab and his group lingered for a while, but then turned around and left, once they realized they could not get past the door in front of them.”

  Ruby inhaled as she closed her eyes. “As always. So close, yet still so far away…”

  A wrinkle of worry formed on the dark skin of Jasper’s forehead as his deep brown eyes contemplated the woman in red with veiled sorrow.

  “You know,” the traveler said in a quiet and soothing voice. “Many years may have passed, but my offer still stands. All you have to do is say the word, Ruby.”

  The enchantress exhaled calmly and opened her eyes, but avoided her right-hand man’s gaze.

  “We cannot give up now. We are closer than ever.”

  “You heard it just now,” said Jasper. “The crab could not enter the core.”

  “Yes,” Ruby said, fierceness growing in her voice. “But now we know there is a core gate down there. The Source, Jasper! It’s within our reach.”

  The warrior breathed in, trying to set his own feelings and thoughts aside as he had done so many times before.

  “You thought the crab would be the answer to it all. Yet, he could not cross the gate.”

  The woman stared out of the tent, through the fluttering curtain.

  “I was a fool. I let my enthusiasm cloud my better judgment. This crab may have been a useful anomaly, but he could never be the true answer to it all. He is a local, a part of the very world and system we fight against. I see that now. We need something else—someone else.”

  Jasper cocked an eyebrow. “Who?”

  Ruby extended the piece of parchment she had been holding that whole time and offered it to the other adventurer.

  “I received this report earlier today. I believe he may be the answer to all our problems.”

  The veteran took the letter and began quickly reading through it with an increasingly deeper frown.

  “Who is this Warren?”

  “Jade caught wind of him a few months back, and has since been on his tail,” the woman in red explained. “At first it was just a hunch, but in time she discovered he was a lot more than she imagined. Check the back of the page.”

  Jasper turned the piece of parchment around and his eyes widened as he scanned the first few lines.

  “How is this possible? A level this high in such a short time?”

  Ruby nodded.

  “And that was just the beginning. He is not like the other adventurers. Jade has meticulously checked his inquiries everywhere he has been. This guy remembers, Jasper. Not his old memories, but he remembers that there was a time before, just like we do.”

  The man’s eyes jumped from the page and stared at her.

  “How?! Has he taken the infusion?”

  She shook her head gently.

  “I believe he has somehow managed to retain a part of his awareness from the moment he got to this world.”

  “But…” Jasper started. “We’ve never managed to encounter anyone like that. The only person we know to have ever broken themselves free of the mind fog was…”

  “Amil,” Ruby finished. “Now you understand why I think this may very well be the one we sought for so long. Whoever this ‘Champion’ is, he is not like the system intends adventurers to be, and he has already managed more in a short few months than most of us do in a lifetime. He is out there seeking answers too, just like us, and without anyone having given him any starting point. Imagine what we could achieve together!”

  The seasoned adventurer thought quietly for a moment, an inner storm brewing within him as he struggled against his own wants and his loyalties.

  “What about this, here?” he finally asked, looking Ruby in the eye again. “This entire operation we set up around this pond, the crab, the dungeon?”

  The woman took the letter back and turned to a pile of papers on her work table.

  “We achieved all we could here. It’s time we move on and prepare to act. The crab was a fluke, a waste of time. You said so yourself, he found the core gate but failed to open it. He is of no more use to me. Now that we know where the door is, we need to focus on finding the key.”

  Jasper watched as the enchantress began moving around, gathering papers and books in her arms.

  “And you believe this Ren guy is the key to it all?”

  Ruby stopped and looked at her partner through the red lenses of her specs.

  “I do,” she said. “Tell the others to prepare to depart. Jade wrote that when she last saw him, Warren was making his way to the north coast of the continent. We need to track him down. I want to talk with him personally. I want everyone ready to leave within the hour.”

  “What of Flint? He still hasn’t returned. And there’s also Amber. She left her watching post earlier and no one knows where she is.”

  “Not important right now,” the enchantress said while quickly storing papers into a chest and missing Jasper’s frown at her words. “They know the protocols and the rendezvous points. We cannot afford to waste precious time waiting on novices and risk Warren slipping our grasp.”

  Jasper struggled against his own words for a moment.

  “Flint may very well still be in those dangerous mines, Amber too, for all we know,” he said. “What about the crab? Are we sure there’s really nothing more to him?”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The scarlet woman dropped a heavy book into the box with a thud and fixed the warrior with a gaze that seemed to burn into his very soul.

  “Forget about Balthazar, we are cutting our losses and pulling out! Anybody left down there now is on their own.”

  ***

  Flint walked through the Black Forest with a proud grin on his face as he pushed his tied prisoner forward through the narrow path between the mounds of snow.

  “Move it, Amber,” he spat. “Dragging your feet won’t save you from the punishment you’re going to face once Ruby finds out you’re a rat.”

  “I’m not a rat!” the bound girl said, glaring back at him. “Bouldy and Balthazar are not our enemies, and I just need to make Madame Ruby see that.”

  The geomancer barked a laugh and then pressed his palm against her back again, shoving her forward.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” he said with disdain. “They’re locals. Puppets. Set pieces for us to play with, to use. Ruby understands this. You’re just a little girl that gets emotionally attached to things. Your job was to watch a stupid crab, and you weren’t even capable of doing that without getting emotionally invested. You put her mission at risk. Do you really think Ruby, or Jasper, will just let that slide?”

  Amber stopped and tried to turn around to face Flint, despite the tight ropes around her wrists being held by him.

  Her jaw clenched and her chin quivered as she clearly struggled to argue against the other adventurer’s venomous words.

  “You’re a bastard, Flint.”

  He grinned.

  “But one with real power now,” the geomancer said, clenching the gauntlet around his hand. “Now move it, we’re almost there.”

  As they stepped out of the dense treeline and onto the familiar clearing where the Birdwatcher’s camp hid, Flint’s smile vanished and his eyes widened.

  It was gone.

  The camp, the tents, the chests and sacks with supplies, everything and everyone was gone.

  “This can’t be,” the adventurer in gray said, looking around in disbelief. “Where did everyone go?!”

  “They… They left,” said Amber, staring blankly at the empty patches of grass where shelters had stood mere hours before.

  “No, no, NO!” the irate adventurer yelled, the rope in his hand creaking as he grasped it harder. “I was going to prove myself! They were all going to see me deliver on my suspicions, and see that I am no longer to be underestimated! Why did they have to leave before I came back!”

  The alchemist girl stared at him with her mouth half open and a furrowed brow.

  “You’ve lost your mind…”

  “The rendezvous point!” Flint exclaimed suddenly. “That’s it. If they had to leave here so suddenly, that means anyone left behind should get to the meeting point to regroup.” He turned to Amber again and tugged at the rope binding her wrists. “Move it! We’re going to—”

  “FRIEEEEEEEEND!”

  A shiver ran down Flint’s spine as he heard the terrifying echo coming from the deep forest.

  With a snap, the geomancer turned his head in the direction of the scream, and saw the treetops in the distance shaking.

  “No…”

  The ground beneath his feet began to tremble, and all the blood left the adventurer’s face as he turned white like the snow falling from the trees with each approaching step.

  “No, no…”

  The sound of wood crashing and snapping grew closer and closer as Flint remained rooted in place, eyes wide, unable to do anything but watch what he knew was coming.

  “No, no, no. I beat him. It can’t be. It can’t—”

  “Friend!”

  A giant humanoid figure tore through the trees, sending branches, leaves, and snow flying as he burst into the clearing with a roar.

  “I’ve beaten you once, I’ll do it again!” yelled Flint as he pushed his free hand forward.

  But nothing happened.

  “W-what?!” the geomancer said, looking perplexed at his own open hand. “How?!”

  As Flint’s gaze shifted from the back of his gloved hand and to the golem standing on the other side of the clearing, he realized what was wrong.

  That was not a stone golem.

  Bouldy stood valiantly at the other end of the field, his entire body covered in rugged bark that was an even darker brown than the uprooted trees left in his wake.

  Their eyes locked, and Flint gulped as he stared into the face of what felt like a nightmare coming to collect on his deeds.

  “Wood?!” the geomancer exclaimed in disbelief. “No! My gloves! I can’t manipulate wood!”

  The wooden golem narrowed his red orb-eyes on the man and broke into a sprint toward him with determination carved into his face.

  “No, no, no! That’s not fair!” Flint yelled, looking around in desperation.

  Still clutching Amber’s rope in one hand, he drove his open palm down with the other. Dirt, gravel, pebbles, and shards of stone ripped through the snow and blasted toward the running golem.

  It did nothing.

  The projectiles bounced off the guardian’s tough bark skin harmlessly, not even causing him to slow down.

  The ground shook in rhythm with his thumping heartbeat as sweat ran down Flint’s forehead, his eyes darting left and right while his mind raced to find a way to stop the angry freight train coming his way.

  A spike of hope surged through him as he spotted a snow-covered boulder protruding from the forest ground, about the size of a bear. That would surely stop the golem.

  Letting go of the rope for a moment, the adventurer used both hands to grasp at the space between him and the rock sitting a dozen steps away from him.

  The boulder shook in place, slowly loosening itself from its resting spot in the dirt and snow.

  “Come on, come on, come on!” Flint grunted, eyes shifting between the rock and the incoming golem that was no longer made of rock.

  Flexing every muscle in his gloved hands as hard as he could, the geomancer ripped the boulder from the ground with his powers and turned to hurl it toward the giant coming toward him.

  “You’re not going to hurt my friend again!”

  As Flint turned in place, all he had time to see was a young woman with loose ropes still hanging from her wrists shove a bottle in front of him before spraying its contents all over his face.

  The rock crashed back down into the ground with a slam as the geomancer brought both hands to his face in pain.

  “AHHH!” he cried, feeling his eyes burn as whatever concoction the alchemist girl had pulled from her pocket clung to him like a gel.

  Crying tears and snot, the adventurer managed to open his swelling eyes just enough to look up and see the distorted daylight be blotted out by a giant figure arriving in front of him.

  “No! Stay away, or I’ll—” Flint yelled, desperately trying to reach for the end of the rope tied to Amber.

  “FRIEND!” Bouldy roared as he brought his fist of bark back.

  With all the might the wooden golem had, he punched the geomancer square in the chest right as he was reaching for the girl with his gloved hand again.

  The air was sucked out of Flint’s lungs all at once as he felt not pain, or even fear, just an absolute sense of shock and complete numbness all over his body. A body which was now rapidly shooting up and out of the forest, toward the clouds in an arch that he was sure would not end well for him.

  ***

  Balthazar skittered through the dense and heavily snowed Black Forest while realizing that, despite having lived right next to it all his life, he had never once been there, and thus had no idea where to go.

  Thankfully, the crab and his two companions—Druma and Blue—would not remain lost for long, as all the merchant needed to do was follow the loud crashing of trees they heard in the distance.

  After a few minutes, the trio reached a clearing in the forest, where they found a golem standing next to a girl, smiling warmly at her.

  “Friend,” Bouldy said, turning to greet them just as the bark started to fall off his body, revealing his usual stone skin again.

  “There you are!” Balthazar said with great relief, skittering closer. “You made it. And you found your friend too. What happened to the snotball who took her? Is he still around?”

  The golem shook his head and smiled.

  “Friend,” Bouldy explained, while making a shooting motion with his arm toward the sky.

  “Oh… dang,” said the wide-eyed crab.

  “Bouldy saved me,” said Amber, smiling and with bright eyes as she tossed aside a piece of rope. “He told me you sent him to come after me. Thank you, Mr. Balthazar. I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t shown up.”

  The crab waved a dismissive claw at her and tried to avoid eye contact.

  “Please, no need for that. A friend of Bouldy is a friend of us all, we couldn’t just let you be taken away.”

  “Although…” the girl started, looking intrigued. “I’m not sure what happened exactly. Flint’s geomancer skills didn’t work on Bouldy anymore, because he was not stone anymore. What did you do?”

  “Ah, that,” said Balthazar. “Just a little imbuement I did on him with some rockwood I discovered down in the mines. It doesn’t actually give him any useful boosts compared to his usual stone body, but in this case, it made him immune to geomancy, so that worked in our favor!”

  Amber blinked.

  “Oh. That was… clever. Although I don’t remember ever hearing of anyone actually using the imbuing skill. Isn’t it supposed to be awful?”

  The crab scoffed.

  “Pfft! Not when you’re me, girl.”

  Balthazar looked around, at the clear signs of what had been a camping site very recently. There were squares and rectangles on the snow and grass where tents had likely been, pieces of cloth and loose wooden boards left behind, and even a half buried campfire still smoking in the middle.

  “They left,” said the adventurer, following the crab’s gaze. “I don’t know why or what happened, but it seems they just took off all of a sudden.” She paused and stared blankly at the ground. “What am I gonna do? I can’t just go back to Madame Ruby. Everything with Bouldy, with Flint. She will know. They will never forgive me or believe a word I say.”

  Balthazar looked at the girl, seeing her palpable struggle and distress, and asked, “Do you want to go back to them?”

  Amber’s eyes gazed up at him, and then at Bouldy, who smiled back at her.

  “I… I don’t know?”

  The crab nodded and sighed.

  “Well, then until you figure it out, come on, you can stay with us. There’s nothing left for you in this forest… or for myself.”

  Balthazar turned and started walking back the way he came, a weight pressing in the back of his mind.

  As much as he did not trust the enchantress or her birdwatchers, a small portion of him still hoped to find them there, and to somehow be able to get some kind of answers about the gate he had found deep in the mountain.

  He had no other leads, or anyone to turn to, and all he knew was that he needed answers.

  Balthazar needed to find out what was inside that core. He didn’t know why, but something deep within him compelled him, and a great feeling of unrest brewed within from not knowing.

  Despite having won every battle that day, the crab walked away back to his pond feeling defeated and unsure of what to do next.

  Something more was missing.