Ruinous Return

After they bent the knee, she showered them with inscribed items: various objects that could be activated with the use of mana and would perform a spell effect. The most valuable to the Free City were the statues that Lyn erected, not just there, but all over her empire. Statues that had inscriptions that allowed for the creation of fresh water, the healing of injuries of various levels of severity, and even the ability to fix physical deformities or change race and gender if they had the mana. They could be carried to fields and would grow crops with enough manpower and mana. In her empire, the populace wanted for only luxuries – and those would be provided soon enough by artisans and craftsmen.

As she went inside the lighthouse, the workers regarded her with awe. Word travels fast, she thought as she incanted a storage spell and pulled another statue out, placing it inside the lighthouse. She was not just here to deliver her statue, though. She channeled mana into the inscribed bracer that integrated into her black adamantine full plate, and a three-dimensional map of the local area appeared in the air above her. Right, so the dungeon is under the lighthouse.

Looking down at the stone floor, she raised her palm. "Thalion min / caratho rath trî i gaear / i echado i amarth an ledhad / a panno han bo nin / sui denid na rath." The stone split apart and formed a tunnel that she descended into, and the ground sealed behind her. Deep down she traveled until she fell into open air. The inscribed cloak in her armor activated, drawing upon a minute amount of her prodigious mana reserves, and she descended slowly into the grotto. I could have gotten in here from the ocean, she thought as she landed in front of a dungeon gate, glancing to the side to see the placid pool with the scent of salt.

Dungeons were created by the Elenthians when they left Ghomar and were extradimensional challenges that awarded incredible rewards upon completion. Lyn read the information about the dungeon that was etched atop the ornate, golden gateway. This door marks the dungeon of Vroxar, the breaker of armies. Threat within – battlefield combat. Reward – dungeon core, artifact weapon, body enhancement.

Lyn reached down to her hip and unlatched the black adamantine sword hilt. She let mana flow through her mana channels and into the blade as it ignited with coruscating elemental energy. Thanks to the Spellblade and Elementalist hero cores, she could effortlessly swap the type of damage her weapon would inflict, even combining different elements to produce a variety of effects. The weapon grew in length as she willed it to become an enormous greatsword – perfect for cleaving large numbers of foes.

She took a deep breath and rapidly fired off one more spell. An upgrade to her usual physical augmentation for combat encounters. "Gothron i gwanno / min enni / na rem in edin nin: / na nin togwath, athano hain thron, gwelu, throneth, a nîn rath; / na nin inath, cirad nin hoth; / na nin inedhil, athano nin thîr a cirad nin; / na nin rhaw, hathol han uin del / Bartho men uin naeg / a gwain men / min i perian / i telia naeg."

Light blue energy cascaded around Lyn. Her muscles expanded in size as the armor grew to accommodate the new mass. Her strength, speed, reaction time, blood flow rate, and senses were all heightened to the peak of what her body could achieve. A film of neon-blue energy surrounded her body as a barrier flared into existence – which would absorb damage suffered and drain her mana pool instead of allowing damage to pass to her.

"Alright," she muttered. "One more thing to do." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the constant, near-insignificant drain on her mana from fueling her various spells. "Ladatho aníra en-thalion / en-gwathren a galu / an rithia i aew an-uir / a tôgo na ai hero thalion gond / En garo na ered i garan." A torrent of black and white lightning arced from her palm, into the subterranean tunnel, and out to the sea before blasting skyward, shattering against the atmosphere. A signal to indicate to the three remaining, free-floating hero cores, that they could race to the dungeon she was about to conquer, replace the mana core reward at the end…and be set free.

I\'m getting you out of there, Lyn thought as she pushed her way through the purple film and into the familiar, square rooms of dungeons. She walked up to the square pedestal and pressed it with her clawed hand. The object descended, and the walls fell away. Lyn found herself standing on an enormous battlefield, in the middle of two charging armies. Above her, in Elenthir, was a series of numbers. A kill count. "Ten thousand? That\'s a bit much," she muttered as she readied her blade.

This type of dungeon encounter was one she had experienced before, but back then when she was only the Scout hero, they had a group of six, and were assigned to one of the armies. Here, Lyn was alone – an island in what was about to become a sea of blood. She had to kill as many as the display above her indicated. "Come on then!" she shouted in English as the forces closed in on both sides.

She could destroy both sides with a single, colossal spell. But she wanted to practice. Those types of large-scale spells drained a prodigious amount of mana, and she wanted to test herself against such a large force with sheer strength of arms. If she was going to be traveling from battle to battle, she would need to rely on her weapon mastery.

The ground rumbled, and she stood her ground as the two forces charged into each other, and she was caught in the fray. She cleaved with enormous, horizontal swings, charging her blade with pure lightning to take advantage of the metal armor her opponents wore. The energy coursed through them, and the number counter above her started ticking upward as men were fried alive, their skin burning and roasting as their eyes popped out of their skulls. Screams of pain and agony were all around Lyn, and she felt the blunt impacts of weapons against her generic barrier.

A bolt of shadow arced across the battlefield and into her barrier, sapping her mana. Looking that direction, Lyn took off at a sprint, carving her way through the army, creating a bloody canyon of death and mayhem as she charged ahead. An unstoppable tide of devastation. Finally, she made it to the mages, her body covered in blood and gore. They unleashed a flurry of spells at her, and she batted them aside with her blade, willing the weapon to shift to lava rather than lightning. She carved through their ranks but had to drop her barrier to maintain her mana reserves.

She felt a dull pain begin to grow in her left forearm. An indicator that she was taking damage and could soon unleash another unique internal spell. Reversal, courtesy of Nami\'s Spellblade hero core. She could feel more spell impacts as the mages retreated, firing off their incantations. Lyn tanked the hits and chased them down, heedless of the lesser troops that pelted her with arrows and rained weapon swings down on her.

Just as she was about to scream aloud from the pain building in her wrist, she unleashed a horizontal slash. "Teitha!" she shouted as the pain transferred down her wrist and into the blade, empowering her slash to grow in size and length. She carved through several thousand with a single empowered strike.

Pain began to set in. Not accumulated pain, but the pain from bruises all over her body. Her armor prevented almost all weapons from actually hurting her, and her body enhancement of Ironhide prevented non-mana-charged weapons from getting through her skin. But that didn\'t stop bruising. She utilized an internal, destroyer-only spell that she could cast with thought alone. Anor min / nartho hain i daeth nin.

A surge of the hot mana rose in her chest and soothed away all wounds, instantly bringing relief to her aching body. She wheeled about and charged the next cluster of soldiers, carving left and right, losing herself to the joy of battle and consequence-free carnage. Dungeons created constructs, truly guilt-free violence as Lyn could utterly obliterate her foes without any remorse. And yet, she knew that when she went to war against real flesh and blood enemies…she would have no problem obliterating them.

She constantly kept track of her reserves of mana. Thanks to the Knowledge hero core, she had perfect recollection of everything she experienced, and so she knew exactly how long she could last in a battle like this, without draining all her mana, and which spells she could use all the time, versus what she should toggle on and off with recasts.

As her mana depleted, she began to draw upon an inscribed item – an amulet that stored mana – passed to her from the prior Destroyer\'s incarnation. She dropped all her spells, and as her body returned to its regular form, she rapidly incanted another verse. "En ethiel i thalion min nin / i beleg bregol en-ngurth / na garo nin rhaw / a adlethad ha na / i beleg nadhras sui ar." Her body morphed and shifted, and within a second instead of a Duskari warrior there stood an enormous, black dragon with glowing-blue outlines around the scales.

She turned on the main bulk of the army and trampled the forces, keeping an eye on the kill counter above her, and noting the rate of drain for the shifting spell. Unlike the Shifter hero, Lawrence, her transformation cost a consistent supply of mana, and when she stopped feeding the spell or when she ran out, the form would revert. In this form, though, her scales were as hard as her armor was, and the accumulated bruises that she felt were much easier to ignore, as they were spread out over a larger form.

Not only that, but there was no way that a lucky, strong hit could cause internal damage. There was simply too much meat in the way. A massive improvement over her Humanoid form in that regard. She felt the army crunch under her massive claws, and she swept her tail side to side; the simple motion akin to a wrecking ball that plowed through masses. The kill count above her head had maxed out but kept ticking up. What the hell? Lyn thought. That\'s not happened before.

A voice spoke in Elenthir, reverberating all around her. "You have passed this part of my trial," the gruff, male voice growled out. "You may choose to keep going if you desire. Otherwise, state your intent to leave." The battle continued to rage around her, but she was seemingly ignored.

Lyn spun in place, extending her claws as she raked through the army. "What do I get if I keep going?" she asked aloud, her draconic voice rumbling through the battlefield.

"Nothing except the joy of carnage."

Well, I can at least limit-test my dragon form\'s duration. She continued her wave of carnage and devastation. The battle resumed for her, and she once more felt people hitting her with mana-charged weaponry. And, as her mana began to dwindle, she attempted something that was used against her so long ago. A breath weapon. She inhaled deeply and exhaled in front of her and felt her mana core surge upward as a stream of prismatic, multi-elemental energy cascaded out from her open maw.

Power the equivalent to thousands of tons of TNT, cascading outward in a cone of destructive energy. The battlefield in front of her was torn asunder and obliterated, leaving nothing but a steaming, scarred landscape for a mile out. "Alright, I\'m done," Lyn said as her body reverted to her Duskari form. Even her blade, Cataclysm, sputtered out as her mana was completely depleted. Note to self, the breath weapon\'s mana consumption is insane. That explains why Yheron only used it once against us.

The walls of the room rose around her, and the hallway leading to the reward chamber opened. Lyn walked forward and looked at the three items on the altar. A wooden box that held a dungeon core; a long, thin wooden box; and a massive lance. She tapped Cataclysm\'s hilt to the lance, and the artifact weapon was absorbed into hers – a new form her artifact could take.

The thin box was difficult to open, but once she wedged her clawed fingers in, a strong scent of must hit her. I was missing this body enhancement, she thought with delight. Nevermelt Ichor, a defensive enhancement that would make her resistant to acid. She channeled mana into the inscribed storage choker on her armor and placed the body-enhancing item into the extradimensional storage space.

Last, she approached the wooden box and opened it. The core swirled with a blood-red hue before shifting to a swirl of white snow. She picked up the mana core and heard the voice of a dead hero in her mind. Ashley Firona, the Warder. She died in their third dungeon on Ghomar…one of the first to pass away.

I forgive you.

"Sorry?" Lyn replied in English.

I forgive you for setting off the trap that got me killed. You and Ben both. I mean, it\'s not really your fault since Zack wasn\'t there to disable the traps…but I forgive you, nonetheless.

"Thanks," Lyn muttered in response. "How have things been?"

Trapped in the statue of Aelor? Okay. This liminal state of being between life and death is not uncomfortable or boring…just weird. I want to go home. Back to Earth – and from what Gina said when I bumped into her, these doors will open once you consume my mana core.

Lyn was not particularly close to Ashley. Ashley was into sports until she got her first cell phone, and then she was addicted to social media and gained quite a following. That\'s when she somewhat isolated herself from the other classmates. "Well, I\'m happy I can set you on your way. Mind telling me the unique stuff about your core?"

Sure. I\'m also going to leave a message. Mind playing it for Trisha?

"Of course," Lyn replied. The two had been good friends, and it was the least she could do.

The Warder hero core gives your barrier spells an effect where incoming damage is halved before applying to your mana reservoir. So, if you were hit by, say, a two-ton object, the actual damage imparted would be that of a one-ton object. I think. I\'m not good at math or science. Also, you can telepathically communicate with people within close proximity. I never used that, because I didn\'t want to be rude.

"Great to hear. Okay, any external spell types?"

Well, you already have access to barrier external spells, and that was kind of my specialty. There\'s a reason I worked with Ben so much.

Lyn nodded, recalling the several occasions when the woman had placed her hands on Ben\'s back as his own barriers blocked incoming damage. "I can use that Warder core ability on other people\'s barriers."

Yes. I mean the only other thing that I could think of is flora. I never used it much. Flowers aren\'t my thing.

"That\'s…all plants. Not just flowers."

Well, no one told me that! Gah. Alright. Good talking.

"Ready to go home?"

Yup! I want to kick off my influencer career. Plus, I have a great idea for a video series of skits based on our time here. It\'ll make me a sensation!

"Alright, safe travels. Best luck with the career." Lyn squeezed the mana core and felt it slide down her mana channels before it was consumed by the Destroyer core. A flare of energy cascaded from her before the "voicemail" of a left-behind message within the core played through her mind.

Hey, Trisha. I saw your family through Lyn\'s memories. I\'m so happy for you! Oh, if only I could take some selfies with the kids and be the auntie! Love you, girlfriend! Make sure you get, I don\'t know, a painting or something with your kids as they grow up. \'Kay? Hugs and kisses!

Lyn sighed and placed her hand on the altar, returning to the grotto as she checked her bracer for the next dungeon location closest to her. The dungeon doorway behind her vanished. She sat down as she waited for her mana to refill. First, back home to use this body enhancement.

Cecily pored over the reports from the outlying regions. Her forces had been training up over the past seven months, and all the provisions were supplied. Her navy stood ready off the coast of Sidalon, the island duchy that created the bulk of the ships of the navy. Her armies, numbering some one hundred fifty thousand due to patriotic fervor and a recruitment push, were stationed in Rist, across the river from Faron. That was where King James of Khrelardia was organizing his forces.

She picked up the glass of blueberry wine and sipped it. Numbers wise, I have the advantage, she thought. And the devotion of the people. James\'s citizens are serving because he is the king calling them to war…whereas my people think of this as a holy crusade. She knew well enough from Earth\'s history how fanatics could turn the tide of a war. One only had to look at the insane battles of the Middle Ages between Abrahamic religions to learn that lesson.

She looked at the map and traced her fingers along The Rill – the enormous river that marked the border between her lands and those of King Skir of Trisk. Her spies had reported that he had bent the knee to this new incarnation of the Destroyer. These seven months, her spies had absolutely no luck in infiltrating the Valley of the Volcano. But her few seers were able to discern that many heroes had allied to this empress\'s cause.

Trisha, Brad, Lawrence, Thomas, and Ben. Lawrence surprised her, because she thought him dead, but he must have survived that encounter with the dragon somehow and just laid low until a good opportunity came up. She doubted that any of those heroes would actually engage in war. Maybe Lawrence, but definitely none of the others. Ben was the only one that concerned her, but she learned of his family, and knew that his Guardian core would push him to be protective of them; more so than an empire he only recently joined.

The fact that these heroes rallied to this person did seem to confirm what that letter said almost a year past – Lyn was back. And she was this Destroyer. Cecily reprimanded herself; she had been too full of herself. The Ruler core had been helping to shape her actions, and whilst it provided insightful "nudges" toward specific courses of action…it did not in regard to this Destroyer. That was all her. And she admitted to herself that she had been making mistakes by not considering this was Lyn, and not taking her seriously.

Lyn was powerful. There were reports of the Free City of Bashinol being visited by the Destroyer. The whole of their bay had frozen over in the late summer – and it was reported that a single person did that. They bent the knee shortly after as the powerful mercantile republic fell under the leadership of the Shedai family. That caused coinage throughout two-thirds of the world to switch to the Eternal Empire\'s currency. Valagonia thankfully had plenty of food and trade goods to come up with their own currency…but the loss of some assets to hire mercenaries was a drastic blow that Cecily had not expected.

Cecily had no allies. Valagonia stood alone. Empress Rivers had vassalized every kingdom…including Khrelardia. She had learned that from her various informants in the past few weeks. I\'ll be fighting against an entire world. I\'ll be Germany to the Allies. Surrounded on all sides and conquered. Just like Germany, however, she had industrialized. She had laid the groundwork over a year ago, and those efforts had come to fruition in the past two months. She had several factories producing firearms.

Cecily was smart, no question. She was the smartest in her class before they were summoned. She studied all manner of subjects because of her voracious interests…and the history of war was fascinating to her. She knew enough for basic firearms and collaborating with some of the more…outlandish engineers in Valagonia resulted in a type of rifle that now all the standing army were outfitted with and trained to use. She had even taken the time to personally inscribe cannons with fire elementalism – so she had actual artillery with exploding, flaming shells. Due to the blind fanaticism of her citizens…there was no chance that word of her new developments got out.

She had to sacrifice some of the other technological advancements she had wanted to prioritize, but if she did not survive the coming war, then it would be a moot point anyways. She was strong, there was no question about that. Her mana reserves could enable spell use that spanned entire battlefields. But she could not be on every front – the southern oceanic front, the western front along the Azure Divide, the northwest front of the Valley of the Volcano, and then the north and east against Trisk.

She tapped the map. Even with guns, it\'s a bleak war unless I do something drastic. There were many options available to her…but she was hesitant to do any of those until her backup plan had been enacted. She had finalized her VEROG project (Valagonia Eternal Resurrection of the Goddess) and had found a suitable host who was placed in spell-induced stasis. The rest of the VEROG candidates were matched off with the best breeding material possible – providing future vessels for her to transfer her mana core and consciousness to.

The spell she needed eluded her though. Thomas had taken all the knowledge from the Ruins of Elent. Save for the actual inscriptions on the walls. Those were recovered with charcoal rubbings. The language was extremely difficult, and would require an expert in the field.

Cecily\'s luck held out. A mage from Professor Misery\'s school – a fourth-year student – had arrived six months prior and was busy in Cecily\'s employ. She was dissatisfied with having a Vharthon running the school after Misty suffered backfire from a time spell. It was this woman who ran to the edge of the chamber and bowed. "Princess Cecily, a moment!"

Cecily turned to the woman. "Approach."

She ran up and bowed once more. "I have been able to deconstruct several words from the charcoal rubbings. That, combined with my existing knowledge…I think I\'ve done it!"

Cecily stood up and walked over. "Show me." She placed a hand on the woman\'s shoulder, a person she had thralled to her to ensure loyalty.

The woman nodded and pulled out a notebook. "It\'s this set of verses. We will have to scar the body like what Thomas Harrow did – I got a look at him as he recovered back up in Vharthos."

Cecily grinned and ushered the woman toward her wing of the palace dedicated to the VEROG project. "By all means…let us get started." Finally…immortality is within my reach. And then, I can work toward my next project. She had enough mana but wanted that insurance policy in case what she was going to attempt backfired in some way.

In her interactions with the various citizenry, she noticed they had a similar curse word to "hell" – they called it the "abyss." There was no information regarding this place that could be found in the written record, just a curse that was used and passed down, its original meaning lost to time. But through one of her diviners – who committed suicide from what he saw – she learned that it was some type of extradimensional space. A storage space that was hinted at throughout history by the prevalence of this one curse word remaining in the shared lexicon of every language on Ghomar.

Cecily\'s Ruler core made her mind an impermeable bastion. No outside force could affect her thoughts. Whatever was in this abyss was incomprehensible to a regular mind, and Cecily\'s mind was anything but regular.

Once her safety backup was in place, she planned to peer into this storage dimension and see what lay within. If it was some type of living creature, trapped away, then she could kill it and siphon its mana core to empower herself. If it wasn\'t, she would learn what it was, and find a way to use it to tip the scales in her favor.

And if she died in the attempt she would just come back in her new body, which was about to have Elenthir verses carved into it, making it a much stronger "base" form that she could improve upon. She had already acquired a dungeon core from a very, very expensive business deal, and that was implanted into the body in the event her Ruler core did not return to her for some reason. That would set her back tremendously mana-wise…but it was better than starting with a peasant\'s mana core.

Plans within plans. Backups that had backups. Cecily was going to be prepared for the coming war. Her will was unbreakable. Her resolve, unshakeable. This world owed her for ripping her away from her perfect life. And she would take what she was owed.

All will serve me, in one way or another.

"Daddy? When will you be back?" Tevol asked.

James knelt and hugged his two boys. "In a month if everything goes as planned," he said softly.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Are you going to stop the bad people?" Tovol asked.

"Yes," James muttered as he nodded. "I\'m going to keep everyone safe. Your dad\'s the Paragon hero, after all." He reluctantly let his boys go and stood up, meeting the gaze of his loving wife.

She walked up and embraced him, hugging him tight. "You better come back alive," Maria whispered.

"I will," James whispered back. The goodbyes had been ongoing for almost thirty minutes now…and James knew he had to go, as one of his men cleared his throat for the second time.

"Sir, we must depart," the captain of his king\'s guard stated once more.

James nodded and looked past his wife at the two Duskari who were in the back corner of the room. Gael, Lyn\'s personal bodyguard, and Bolvon, her Shadowstalker – both assigned to protect James\'s family. "You\'ll keep them both safe?" he asked in Khrelardian.

"Yes," Gael replied as he stood up. "We will keep them safe." He gestured out the balcony behind him. "Empress Rivers has sent a second squadron of Duskari specialists. We will have plenty of men to supplement your defenses here."

Bolvon nodded and walked to the balcony before vanishing in a sudden surge of darkness. This drew the boys\' attention, and they both ran over to the balcony. "Where\'d he go?" Tevol asked as he and his brother scoured the space.

James chuckled a little. "Thank you." He gave his wife one more kiss before he left the royal apartments. The walk through the palace was a blur, as James could only think of the recent events of the past few weeks. His forces were fully arrayed and drawing up in Faron, across the Azure Divide from Valagonia\'s marshalling forces. His navy, to the south, was patrolling the waters off Khrelardia\'s coast – with supplemental forces from the Free City of Bashinol, who were also under Empress Rivers\' command – and would keep the homeland safe.

Khrelardia\'s strength came not from its navy, but instead from its heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. The heavy armored units would decimate any levies they came across, and when integrated with the rest of his armed forces would ensure they could break through enemy lines. Hostile archers were not as large of a threat, either, due to the surety of their steel.

James left the palace and looked back once more. This might be the last time I see it, he thought. The last time…I see them…He felt tears begin to well up and put on his helmet to prevent any from seeing. The thought of not being there for his family was wrenching him on the inside…but the men needed their Paragon hero on the front lines. The morale boost of just his presence alone would be monumental.

Kor\'s Hold would be secure. The city guard were well prepared and had fortified the city, closing off all means of access and monitoring entrances and exits. His family would be safe, and if James did fall on the battlefield, they would be whisked away to Lynhold and kept secure.

He mounted his steed and slowly guided it through the streets, waving his hand slightly at the gathering crowds who cheered on their ruler, their Paragon, to war. He replayed the conversation he had with Lyn a month prior when they were laying down plans and preparing her assistance.

"I\'ll be on the battlefront," she said. "First at the initial fighting across the river, and then I\'ll utilize the lightspeed travel spell to go wherever we need reinforcement to the lines."

James nodded and pointed to the duchy of Komorra, north of where the main battle would occur. "What of those forces up there?"

"Cecily has figured out that the Eternal Empire has vassalized Khrelardia, the Free City, and Trisk – as well as the lesser kingdoms of Foks, Raptol, and Vharthos." She leaned back and sighed, scratching her head. "I\'d bet she plans on assaulting the Valley of the Volcano itself, if for no other reason than to just bottleneck any forces assaulting from the north."

James pointed to The Rill. "Trisk plans on assaulting from the northeast?"

Lyn shook her head. "I am keeping Trisk\'s forces purely on the defense." She pointed to the Azure Divide. "Valagonia is fenced in by The Rill and the Azure Divide. With their assault across The Rill impossible due to the walls, they have no choice but to assault along their western front."

"We are doing that plan, then?"

Lyn only nodded and flashed a smile in response.

The game plan was to rely on Cecily\'s eagerness to conquer. There was a reason Lyn had not erected walls along the Azure Divide as she did the other two main rivers – she wanted to force a single, large battle. One where she could dominate the battlefield and exert her power to prevent the most bloodshed possible. To completely break the spirit of Valagonia\'s army before marching directly for Cecilaria to throw down the princess.

James brought himself back to the present as the group left Kor\'s Hold and headed out toward Faron. The miles passed by quickly on horseback, and aside from the times he set up camp, he felt a dull, subdued feeling. Numb to the world as he thought about war. War against other people, not against monsters or a "fake" war inside of a dungeon. There was only so much that shock and awe could do against fanatics.

Word had spread throughout Ghomar that Cecily was fulfilling a prophecy laid down by the founder of the kingdom she took over. James had never heard of the prophecy, and it seemed like no one he spoke to had, either. It was not recorded by scholars, but there were hints that the hero who founded that kingdom secreted away dozens of prophetic visions in scrolls somewhere inside her palace. In any case, the Valagonians were fanatics. Every report that James was able to gather with his master of whispers\' help pointed to the fact that if he lost this war, all non-Humans would be slain.

I have to save them all, he thought. I\'m the chosen hero. I might not have the Paragon core…but I am going to be the one who saves the world. Lyn could rule it; she had the power and longevity, but he would fulfill his dream of saving the world. This time, from a magic-wielding dictator. This time, he would get the glory for himself instead of stealing it from a dead ally. This time, he would ensure that he earned the victorious return to his loving family, and a life of peace and prosperity.

A few days passed, and he arrived in the main camp. As soon as his guard rode into the camp, cheers and exhortations went up from the troops.

Their hero was here, and victory would be assured.

Kory rolled his shoulders as he got comfortable in his armor. His unique squad of ruthless bastards had been hardened over the past seven months. Now, they were a force to be feared. From recruits to battle-crazed, bloodthirsty sons of bitches who had a fanatical devotion to their ruler that ensured they would fight to the death. Cecily had even paid a surprise visit to Kory\'s training camp in Komorra and had layered mind spells upon them to eliminate their feeling of pain when they saw blood.

Not only that, but Kory\'s group had gained access to the first batch of rifles from the production lines, and he had been training them, finally putting his years of hunting experience from going deer-shooting with his pops to use. The result was a group of soldiers who were just as deadly from a distance as they were up close.

He looked down at the map laid across his lap as his horse whinnied. Valagonia\'s forces were marshalled in Rist. Seventy-five thousand strong, all outfitted with rifles, bayonets to turn them into spears, and swords for when the fighting got to close quarters. They had forty cannons, and there were more veteran troops mixed within.

Kory, on the other hand, only had ten cannons and a force of five thousand infantry, and a thousand cavalry to augment his deadly force of five hundred. They were to hold any reinforcements from coming through the Dragon\'s Maw at the Valley of the Volcano – to make it a single-front war. In the worst-case scenario, they would be assaulted by the Destroyer\'s forces. Best case scenario, they would just be making camp and taking a few pot shots across no-man\'s land.

And Kory wanted the worst-case scenario. It had been months since he had split someone\'s skull asunder with his hammer. Since he had cracked bones with the intent of killing his opponent. Since he reveled in bloodshed. And here was his chance. He could assault the Dragon\'s Maw, batter down the stone walls from far beyond retaliation range with his cannons, and then surge into the Valley of the Volcano.

The thought of crushing the Newen and Duskari that he had fought in the past filled him with a sense of elation.

"M\'lord!" a messenger shouted as he rode up and handed Kory a letter.

Kory ripped it open and quickly read it. "Go time!" he shouted out as he crumpled the letter and let it fall to the ground. "Let\'s pick up the pace! We have a war to start!"

Forces were on the move. The war in the south was about to begin. After he smashed this new empire, he would go there and completely obliterate Khrelardia\'s army. James would die…and with luck, he\'d get the kill.

The men quickly mounted up. His force, anyways. The rest that were under his command took much, much longer to get ready, and he found himself waiting impatiently for the rest of the army. As soon as they were able to march, they began trudging north. A marching beat was sounded out on the few signaling drums.

The Dragon\'s Maw came into view a few days later, and Kory set up his base camp with it just barely visible on the edge of the horizon. From here, they could regroup. His specially trained troops created their fortifications with a speed that astonished the rest of the soldiers, and within half of a day an enormous series of earthworks and sharpened stakes was erected, with tents and camp facilities behind it.

Kory stood on a raised spur of earth and supervised the moving of cannons into position. They would have to move closer, but for now they served as defensive turrets in case their opponents sallied forth.

Tomorrow morning, he thought with glee. Tomorrow, we fight…I\'ll knock down those fucking walls and obliterate all of them. He could feel the Berserker core within him bubbling with a red-hot fury. His blood pulsed through his body, and he felt on edge. I won\'t be sleeping tonight, he thought as he walked to his well-appointed tent.

"There you go," Trisha muttered as she finished feeding Gina and Misty from their bottles, putting them down into the crib in her office.

There was a knock on the door, and it opened. Lyn walked in and gave her a small wave. "Hey Trisha. Do you have a bit?"

"Of course. What do you need?"

"First…I have a message for you." Lyn closed her eyes, and a few moments later, Trisha heard the message that Ashley had left for her. Hearing her friend\'s voice made her cry, but she wiped those tears and smiled.

"She\'s in a better place now," Trisha said quietly.

Lyn nodded. "Yeah. I know you two were really close. I\'m sorry she couldn\'t be here with you."

Trisha shook her head. "Do you need anything else?"

"Body enhancement," Lyn replied as she pulled out a thin, wooden box. "I trust you have tubs here somewhere that we can do this?"

Trisha nodded. "Let me get a nurse to watch the babies."

Lyn walked over to the crib and gently rocked it with her clawed foot as she looked in. "They\'re both sleeping so peacefully."

"Yes," Trisha replied as she lifted her communication amulet and spoke to one of her nurses. The woman came in a few minutes later, and Trisha escorted Lyn to one of the bathing chambers, with large tubs and several handholds to assist people who were injured in washing.

Lyn\'s armor vanished along with the rest of her gear as she lay down in one of the smaller tubs. She reached into a storage dimension and pulled out a small box. "Nevermelt Ichor."

Trisha nodded. "That\'s going to suck."

"It would," Lyn replied with a small chuckle. "If you weren\'t here."

"True." Trisha reached into her pocket and pulled out her notebook. She didn\'t have the same level of mastery of Elenthir as Lyn or Thomas did, but she had jotted down enough words that she was able to effectively make any healing spell she could dream of. With Thomas\'s help in the past, she was able to even create new words for body parts that the Elenthians had not developed. She flipped to the section of her book that would induce a complete lack of physical sensation, effectively turning off all of the nerves and other signal receptors in the body. "Ready?"

"Yup. Let \'er rip." Lyn opened the box and began slathering the waxy substance over her body. And not just on her exterior; Trisha recoiled slightly as she read the verses to cast the spell from her notebook. Lyn was applying the waxy substance everywhere she could reach – inside and out. Including inside her mouth, her eyes, and every other orifice.

Fucking madwoman, Trisha thought as she continued the verse. After she finished it, she took a seat as Lyn continued to apply the substance. As long as the Healer hero focused on the spell, the effects would remain present. "Who is left?"

"Gina and Julie," Lyn replied. "Two more dungeons that successfully call the other heroes to that location…and all our old classmates will be freed."

Trisha nodded. "I wonder…what will happen if, say, Kory or Cecily dies, and you\'re not the one to do it? Will their cores free-float?"

"No clue," Lyn replied. She finished applying the waxy resin and lay back in the tub as the body-enhancing substance continued its work. "You\'re okay with them dying now? That\'s a turn. The past few months you\'ve been insistent on taking them alive and stripping them of their cores."

Trisha sighed and twiddled her thumbs. "I don\'t think you can capture either of them. Kory would rather die than give up – but he was incapacitated when he got cocky. I suppose if you cut off the prosthetic leg, you could eventually tire him out and he\'d then be capturable." She shook her head. "But Cecily deserves death at this point. We know what she did to Brad. And the racism against non-Humans…Cecily shouldn\'t get a second chance."

"I agree."

Trisha perked up at that. "Thomas said that people saw \'doors\' when they died. The other heroes you\'ve freed talked about having a choice. Can you…stop a choice from being made?"

"No clue," Lyn replied. "I found out that Volio didn\'t have the option of coming back to Ghomar, because my Destroyer core prevented that from happening. And since he was so stubborn, he ended up being annihilated. He could have left and gone to Earth…but he ran out of time."

Trisha shook her head as the waxy substance faded from Lyn\'s body, the prismatic, hexagon-style scales covering her form taking on a very minute green sheen. "Cecily shouldn\'t have a choice, either. We know from what you\'ve said when you went back that you had all of your memories of Ghomar." She looked at the ground and whispered, "We can\'t risk Cecily coming back to Ghomar like you did."

"I don\'t see how she could," Lyn replied as her armor remanifested and she stood up. Trisha ceased concentrating on the spell as the drip of mana was cut off. "I had enough mana to come back because of the Destroyer core. If I consume the Ruler core…she\'s not going back with a core. No mana. No resummon."

"Should she even get that chance though?"

Lyn got out of the tub and sat next to Trisha. "You want me to annihilate her. Like Volio."

Trisha couldn\'t believe she was doing so, but she nodded, nonetheless. "Yes. What she\'s done, it\'s horrible. If there is any real sense of right and wrong, she needs to be punished. The ultimate punishment. Completely gone…forever."

Lyn sighed and nodded before standing up. "I agree. I don\'t know if I can annihilate the soul or consciousness within a mana core at will, or if they have to be stubborn like Volio. But I\'ll try to utterly destroy her if I get the chance."

Trisha nodded, feeling numb. "I can\'t believe I\'m okay with this." She felt Lyn clasp her hands gently, and the scaled, clawed embrace exuded a warmth all its own. She brought her eyes up to meet those bright, blue eyes with the inner flame.

"It\'s okay. I\'m the closest thing to a deity here on Ghomar. And I completely agree with you, Cecily needs to suffer for what she did."

"If that\'s all, I\'d like to get back to work."

Lyn nodded and stood up. "Thanks. Oh, also, I\'m saving up dungeon cores that I find and can\'t use – repeat spell types, you get it. I should have enough to give dungeon cores to your kids if you really want them to have a leg up."

Trisha stood up and straightened her dress. "I\'ll talk with Ben about it."

Ben had just finished the last set of drills outside of the northern exit of the Valley of the Volcano when his communication amulet buzzed against his torso. He picked it up, and poured some mana into the inscribed item. "Hello?"

"Hi sweetie," Trisha said. "Do you have a minute?"

"Sure," Ben replied as he looked around at the troops that were resetting to a ready formation. "What\'s up, sugar?"

"Lyn came by and offered us dungeon cores for our hero cores."

"Every week, like clockwork," Ben muttered.

"Seems like she\'s sweetening the deal a bit. She\'s offered us dungeon cores for the kids."

That made Ben pause. He was protective of his family, fiercely so. And he was loathe to give up the Guardian core, despite his knowledge that it was changing his personality and making him more and more of a papa bear – which as of right now, wasn\'t causing any issues.

But he also knew that he could easily train up a dungeon core to make himself just as capable mana-wise. And the idea that his kids could have such a huge head start in life just by virtue of their mana core being better than everyone else\'s…the offer was tempting. Very tempting. Who wouldn\'t want to give their kids the best chance in life, and a leg up on everyone else?

"Hon, you there?"

"Oh, yeah," Ben replied hastily. "Can you give me the afternoon to think on it?"

"Sure. Are you going to be home for dinner?"

Ben looked at the formations that were finishing their grouping up. "I will be home on time."

"Alright. See you then. Love you."

The amulet ceased its minor buzzing and faded. Ben tucked it back under his shirt and continued running the infantry through shield-wall, phalanx formations. These soldiers had trained relentlessly throughout the fall and winter, and that whole time they had daily mana circulation sessions, improving their capacity to the point that all of them could use barriers and the various types of elementalism. A handful could even use flora and animalism spells, which were slightly above elementalism in their mana requirement.

The result was a very defensive force that, through Thomas\'s help with crafting a spell, could act as a shield wall that would block all enemy attacks – magic or mundane – and provide a protective sphere around the unit and those behind them. Ben\'s knack for barrier spells also ensured that he selected men in each area of each formation to use a specific type of barrier. The result was not a single, huge, generic barrier – but rather several overlapping layers of element-specific barriers.

The day of training came to a close, and the force went back inside the Valley of The Volcano. Ben mounted a horse and rode back to Lynhold, dropping by the public baths to take a quick dip in the hot springs – courtesy of Lawrence with Lyn\'s help – and then went home to his very excited kids. As soon as he walked in the door, Eli, Lyndra, and Gil, all tackled him. "Oh, you rascals!" he said as he pushed his way in with the kids clinging to his legs.

"Bring down the titan!" Gil shouted in broken Khrelardian. He had been learning the other two kingdoms\' languages since being adopted.

"Come on! Grab the legs harder!" Eli replied as he tried to wrap both arms around Ben\'s legs.

Lyndra snuck behind him and tried to tie his laces together, but Ben just spread his legs, and she shouted out, "Plan B!"

The boys planted their feet, and Lyndra jumped up as high as she could before pushing forward. Ben allowed himself to fall and be "overwhelmed" by the kids as he play-wrestled with them, laughing jovially. This is what I live for, he thought as the play wrestle continued until he wore the kids out.

Once they were lying, panting from the exertion, Ben stood up and scanned the garden outside. Lawry was sitting next to an enormous raven – Whisperwing, Lyn\'s personal raven – and talking with the bird at length. The two were practically inseparable. Lyn didn\'t seem to mind, and Whisperwing was sort of like a family pet at this point, except for when Lyn was present in Lynhold proper.

Trisha was at the dining room table, setting out some plates. Ben went over, grabbed her by the waist, and kissed her passionately before helping to set the table. "Okay kids," she shouted. "Time for dinner."

Lyndra went to the door to fetch Lawry, and soon enough the whole family – minus the babies in their crib nearby – were seated around the table. Trisha brought over their weekly special treat – pizza. The brought-from-Earth food was quickly making itself a staple in their household and had begun to slowly spread across Lynhold once a few cooks got a taste of it. But the Baxter household knew moderation, and Ben especially knew the importance of a balanced diet. So, for them, it was once a week.

The kids spoke about their lessons. Gil and Eli were some of the first students in the new school system and were showing exceptional promise in every realm of academics save for mathematics. Lyndra, on the other hand, excelled in math but was not doing well in the other subjects. Lawry was their resident artist who was average in everything, but his artwork of flowers and other nature scenes was astonishing. The creative one of the kids.

And the two eldest boys had begun learning Elenthir. They could even manifest very, very small spells by exhausting all their mana, and they had been incorporating that into their play, much to Lyndra\'s chagrin.

After the meal concluded the kids ran off to play, Lawry ran outside to see if Whisperwing was still there, and Ben cleared the table as Trisha sat with a glass of wine. "Did you want to talk about it now?" he asked.

Trisha nodded and set her glass down. "Neither of our hero cores are affecting our personalities in a bad way…but Lyn came off as different this time."

Ben nodded. "I\'ve noticed as well. At the council meetings she seems a little more irritable. A little more on edge."

"Do you think it\'s the war coming soon?"

Ben shook his head as he finished clearing down the table and sat next to his wife. "No. She\'s dealt with war and violence – more than you and I have." He took a sip of his own glass of wine and sighed. "I think it\'s all those mana cores. Yeah, that Destroyer core might be her primary one, but those other hero cores are in there still…changing her slowly." He looked up to his wife and squeezed her hand. "I\'ve thought about it since she first asked us…I\'m okay with it."

Trisha nodded. "So am I. Maybe since ours are more…stable, for lack of a better word, they can help balance her out?"

Ben nodded. "I hope so. Want me to call her?"

Trisha sighed and gulped down the rest of her wine. "No time like the present." She picked up her amulet. "Hey, Lyn."

Ben leaned back. Just like a cell phone call, he could hear Trisha\'s responses but not what she heard. The sum of the conversation was that Lyn would come over before the kids went to bed.

Trisha let the amulet go. "She said it does hurt a little, from her experience doing the core swap." She looked at the crib. "She already gave a dungeon core to Misty. Do we want her to give one to Ginavieve?"

Ben nodded. "All of our kids should have the best leg up possible."

Trisha nodded. "Agreed."

The two sat there, just content to be in a safe and happy home, relishing each other\'s presence. As night fell, Ben went outside and called the kids in to wash up and then gather up downstairs for family game night. Another tradition he kept from his own family\'s time on Earth. Every Friday, it was pizza and board games with the family. The days might be named differently, but he wanted to keep traditions alive.

They didn\'t have many board games, but simple ones like charades, tic-tac-toe, and checkers were easy enough to improvise on Ghomar. Plus, regional games, including something analogous to chess. Lawry was very skilled at that, and even Ben found him hard to beat despite his young age.

As the family gathered in the main room and played, there was a knock at the door. Ben answered it and saw a very pleased looking Lyn, who immediately gave him a hug. "Thank you so much," she whispered to him.

"You\'re welcome," Ben replied. He looked over to Trisha and nodded. She stood up. "Okay kids, we have a special guest. Please, sit on the couch." She pointed, and the kids followed her instructions.

Lyn walked into the living room followed by Ben. She crouched in front of the kids to be at their height. "Hey kiddos."

"Empress Lyn!" Gil said with a small head nod.

"Auntie Lyn!" Eli, Lyndra, and Lawry said all together. They rushed forward and hugged her before scrambling back to their seats.

"I\'ve talked it over with your parents, and we\'re going to do something really, really special." She reached into her storage dimension choker and pulled out several wooden orbs – seven in total – and a tube-shaped device with two spheres. "You four, and your baby sisters, are going to be really, really special. You\'re getting powerful mana cores." She held up a clawed finger, "But…you must be responsible with this new power. With great power comes great responsibility."

Ben let out a slight chuckle at the comic book reference. "You going to have them do it the normal way? Consuming a core?"

Lyn nodded and looked back to the kids, keeping their rapt attention. "If you don\'t use this power responsibly, then you\'ll be grounded." She grinned and let her mouth shift slightly to a more draconic maw. "And then if you keep misbehaving, I\'ll eat you up!"

The kids nodded, still fully enraptured at the promise of a gift and not at all phased at the possibly very-real threat that put Ben on edge. Lyn walked them through the process of claiming a dungeon core. He knew that the decision didn\'t really matter here, as all dungeon cores would give the same benefits to any native of Ghomar who acquired one.

For the kids, it would mainly be the color. And it would change the hue their mana manifested as.

Both Gil and Eli hesitated for a few seconds, and Lyndra walked up to the center-most orb, opening the small latch, grabbing the swirling, bright-yellow mana core, and squeezed it as Lyn instructed. She let out a brief gasp and then giggled. That was the signal to the boys that it was safe, and they both grabbed cores as well, bright red for Gil and deep green for Eli. Lawry was last, and he went through each orb until he found one that was pink, and he, too, consumed one.

"Now kids, I want you to repeat after me." Lyn slowly walked them through a simple Elenthir verse that would let them have their mana flow out and protect their bodies – an extremely simple barrier spell. The three kids giggled and laughed as their forms were covered with their mana. But Lawry was silent and introspective as usual. He muttered something else, and the barrier exploded in a cascade of flower petals that caught everyone\'s attention.

Trisha looked shocked. "How\'d you do that?" she asked softly.

"I remembered," Lawry replied softly. "You use that word to make flowers grow," he said as he looked at his mom. "I used \'flower\' in my sentence."

Ben laughed and went to his kids. "Alright. Say thank you to Auntie-Empress Lyn."

The four kids all bowed slightly as their parents had taught them and thanked her before they rushed up the stairs. The three others were begging Lawry to tell them how he made the flowers bloom in the air, and their voices faded upstairs.

Lyn scooped up the empty wooden orbs and went over to the crib. "You want Ginavieve to have one, right?"

Trisha nodded. "But you\'ll have to use the device."

Lyn nodded. "I know. Just be ready to pick her up. She\'ll probably cry a bit."

Ben felt a surge of energy rush through him, and instinctively he covered the crib and looked back at Lyn, growling out as his mana began to seep from his mana channels. "No one hurts my kids!" he shouted.

Lyn backed off, and Trisha gasped slightly. "Honey…"

His wife\'s face brought him out of it, and he shook his head before standing up. "…sorry."

"Maybe we should do you first," Lyn said. "Seems like that protective nature is a bit overbearing and just hasn\'t been provoked."

Ben nodded and sat at the table, taking off his shirt. "Yeah…that\'s the first time I\'ve lashed out like that."

"Your hero core might not have as negative of a personality shift, but it\'s still there. Lurking…this is for the best," Lyn said softly as she prepared the device and socketed a dungeon core. "This is going to hurt a bit."

Ben nodded, and Trisha came over to hold his hand. "I\'m ready."

Lyn\'s mana surged into the device, and it glowed a neon-blue. Ben gasped as he felt an intense pressure on his chest – as if someone shoved a hose against his skin and turned on a vacuum. He felt a sharp flash of pain, then the world began to fade to black at the edges of his vision before his sight returned to full, and he felt a thump in his chest. "All done!" Lyn said as she pulled out the swirling, deep, earthy brown guardian core, squeezed it, and consumed it.

Ben took a deep breath, feeling…relief. A sense of finality as he gave up his Guardian core, and resigned himself to rebirth on Ghomar as an afterlife. Thomas was not positive, but he was pretty damned sure, that replacing a hero core with a dungeon core removed the ability to go through the "Earth" door upon death. And for Ben, that was okay, since Thomas was also researching a way to somehow "thread" his and Trisha\'s souls together so they would always find each other each time they were reborn. Literal soulmates.

He looked to Trisha and glanced down at her shaking hand. "Oh, sorry!" he said apologetically as he let her hand go. He had accidentally been squeezing very, very tightly.

She shook it and laughed slightly. "How are you feeling?"

"A little tired, and a little weaker." Ben swirled his mana core in his chest. He did not feel nearly as much as before – probably three-fourths as much. Not too much of a setback, he thought. Maybe a year or two of mana circulation exercises to be back up to where I was. "Where\'d you get all these dungeon cores anyways?"

"Thomas," Lyn replied as she socketed the next dungeon core into the device. "He had stocked up. No clue how he managed to clear so many dungeons. I bet he buffed up his wyvern with spells and just brute-forced the combat that way. And the mind stuff – well, he\'s smart."

"Let\'s do me next," Trisha said.

His wife sat down on the chair and unbuttoned her shirt, nodding to Lyn as the empress repeated the process. She locked up slightly before relaxing, and Lyn ejected the Healer core before consuming it.

Ben reached out and held his wife\'s hand. They both shared a silent, inner sigh of relief. Not at the loss of their hero cores – that was a bitter pill to swallow – but the knowledge that their personalities were their own, and the hero cores would not change them anymore.

"Last one," Lyn stated as she reloaded the artifact. "Hold Gina tight."

Trisha went to the crib and picked up her baby girl, holding her steady. Lyn performed the procedure, and as Gina cried, she shushed her and rocked the babe in her arms. "It\'ll be fine, just a little pain now."

"Now…mind telling me the special stuff about these?" Lyn asked.

Trisha sighed and put a hand to her head. "Well, good thing I actually studied medicine. So, the Healer core lets you instantly diagnose injury or affliction. And when you use a healing spell, you can use partly your mana, partly your target\'s, or any mix of the two."

Lyn\'s eyes went wide. "That\'s…wow."

Trisha nodded. "It\'s a useful skill to have. So, if there\'s a case I can\'t crack, I\'m going to be calling on you to come to the hospital."

"I serve my people," Lyn replied as she turned to Ben. "And yours?"

"Barriers can cover larger areas with no mana cost increase. Also, your generic barrier acts like a specialized one against every spell type. No more guessing types against enemies."

Lyn grinned and let out a giggle – which caught both of the Baxters off guard. She bowed slightly. "Thank you…both of you. I promise, I\'m going to make sure your family has the best lives possible."

Ben nodded and handed Ginavieve to Trisha. "May I show you out? We\'re tired."

Lyn nodded and Ben led her out before shutting the door behind. He walked back to the crib, picked up Misty, and the two parents went upstairs. They put the babies into their crib, and then made sure the children were getting to sleep. Finally, Ben lay down upstairs and snuggled up to his beloved. His wife. His soul mate.

Everything worked out in the end.