BT - Book 1 - Chapter 91

The light from the ritual faded, leaving a ring in the center of the engraved circle, glowing dimly.  Micah tapped his chin with an index finger, contemplating the complex and beautiful piece of platinum jewelry.

He picked it up, holding the cool piece of metal in the palm of his hand.  Even with the amount of destruction done to the ritualist’s body by the failed teleportation, he’d managed to collect four rings, a necklace and her control rod.  In any other circumstances, between putting down a hated rival and collecting a significant amount of heavily enchanted loot, the raid would be considered an unmitigated success.

“What’s it do?”  Micah blinked and looked up at Trevor, leaning on his spear in the doorway to the crude log cabin where he’d been casting his spells.

“The ring stores enough mana for a use of the spell Flash Freeze,”  Micah unfolded his crossed legs and stood up, pocketing the jewelry.  “It casts automatically when the bearer is hit, encasing whatever struck them in a block of ice.  The only downside is that it takes about two days to recharge on its own after use.”

“That sounds useful,” Trevor nodded agreeably, “anything else worthwhile in the haul?”

“Another ring that keeps Regeneration running constantly,” Micah walked to the door of the cabin, Trevor stepping aside to let him pass, “the pendant creates a force field that absorbs 500 hit points worth of damage per day before deactivating, and the last two rings look like they’re supposed to work in tandem.  One summons a fairly large globe of water while the other lets the bearer move and breathe freely underwater.”

Trevor whistled appreciatively as he fell into step behind Micah, the two of them walking over to the new construction dotting the edge of the lake.  Esther was running back and forth on the shore, mud covering her clothes.

“How are they settling in anyway?”  Micah inclined his head toward Esther.  “I know moving out of the city must be rough for them.”

“You know how they are,” Trevor shrugged.  “Dad’s pretty resilient, and Esther misses her friends, but honestly I think it’s been pretty good for Mom.  Of all people, Sarah has started to warm up to her.  Whenever she’s not out hunting, the two of them spend a lot of time together around the camp.  Frankly, I think it’s been good for Sarah too.  Now that she’s met our family, she’s a bit less distrustful of both of us.”

“That’s good,” Micah sighed.  “I don’t think we can safely move them back to Basil’s Cove until we resolve matters with Baron Hurden.  It’s just too much of a risk.  Only the ritualist was involved in Esther’s kidnapping, but who knows what she told the Baron.”

“Speaking about the ritualist, what’s the story with that metal rod she had?” Trevor asked, a slight smile on his face as he watched their sister shriek and jump into the ankle deep water.

“A daemon control focus,” Micah responded.  “It can be amplified by a ritual, but the general idea is that it lets you wrest control of a free daemon or one bound by someone else.  As best I can understand, unless you have a rod of your own, combating it should be impossible.  If it weren’t for the fact that I picked up a fairly obscure skill in a previous timeline, she would have grabbed control of the Luoca from me.”

Trevor stopped, prompting Micah to stop as well.  He turned around to find his brother frowning at him.  The other man chewed his lower lip for a minute, clearly mulling over something.

“We would have been dead if that happened, right?”  Trevor asked, the question clearly rhetorical from the certainty he said it with.  “Like, you probably could have managed a fighting retreat against either one of them, but combined, that would have just been a game over, right?”

Trevor didn’t look happy.  In fact, Micah was surprised to note, the usually fun loving young man was starting to look a bit angry.

“Yeah,” Micah scratched the back of his neck, “I didn’t even know that things like the daemon control focus existed.  None of the books I’ve read really talk about them, so the ritualist using one on us was a bit of a surprise.  Once I regain control of the Luoca, I’ll look into a way to minimize the chances of that happening to us again.”

“Once you regain control of WHAT!” Trevor’s voice swelled to shout as he planted the butt of his spear in the muddy soil, glaring at Micah.

Over by the new construction, Drekt stopped trimming branches on a log and began walking over toward the two of them.

“Micah,” his brother pointed at him, his hand shaking, “in your last timeline, the daemons turned you into a monster.  Nothing could come near you without becoming sick and dying.  Here in this timeline, you’re finding out that you aren’t as in control of the daemons as you thought.  Tell me Micah, how are you going to know if there is something else you haven’t learned about them?”

He opened this mouth to respond, but Trevor raised his voice, speaking over him.

“Are you just going to make some sort of wisecrack and rely upon your experience?”  Trevor asked, his voice quivering.  “You’ve dismissed our concerns about the daemon for months.  You’ve said that it’s a necessary part of your plan.  Well, right now you are zero for two on summoning daemons and not having it come back to bite you in the ass.”

“If you regain control of the Luoca,” Drekt put a hand on Trevor’s shoulder, trying to calm the young man, only for Micah’s brother to brush it off, “then what?”  Do we pretend like this never happened until we find another gap in your knowledge that ends with all of us dying?  You’re being arrogant right now Micah.  You might have more answers than Drekt or I, but nobody is perfect, and you need to admit that further cooperation with that monster puts all of us at risk.”

“He is right Micah,” Drekt said soothingly, a look of concern on his face as he looked at Trevor’s quivering form.  “You should just let the Luoca go.  Let the Royal Knights or someone handle it.  As hard as it will be to fight the Khan, a monster that has demonstrated the ability to slip its leash at a critical moment isn’t exactly the sort of ally I would want for that battle.”

Micah stared up at the sky, chewing on his lower lip for a second as he pondered how to deal with the situation.  On one hand, he was still far from strong enough to fight the Khan.  Without the Luoca, the Caverns of Rust weren’t an insurmountable challenge, his new spells combined with the rapidly rising level of the rest of the party at least gave them a fighting chance.  On the other, Drekt and Trevor were far from wrong.  Using the daemon had always been a risk, one that was beginning to seem like a worse idea with each passing day.

It wasn’t like he needed the uncanny monster.  Studying the items left behind by the ritualist gave him some new ideas for equipment.  Advanced enchantments might help make up the power gap left by the Luoca’s absence.

Of course, none of that addressed the elephant in the room.

“It didn’t leave,” Micah didn’t look down from the afternoon sky, unable to meet the gaze of his friend and brother.

“Of course it left,” Trevor’s words were almost a question, “I watched it go.  Come on Micah, you don’t need to screw with us like that.  What’s going on?”

“It came back Trevor,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair.  “Every once in a while I see signs of it near the edge of the lake.  I don’t know if it’s here because this was its home for so long, or if it’s stalking me, but that’s why I’ve been too busy to leave the encampment.  I just can’t leave our family when it’s out there, waiting.”

“What do you mean by signs?” Drekt asked, his large face furrowed in concern.

“Holes in the soil from its legs,” Micah shrugged, “dead grass, a faint sense of the energy from Elsewhere.  I suppose it could theoretically be another Luoca, but I’d be surprised if there were another person who could summon one in the entire kingdom, let alone a different daemon nearby.  It’d just be too much of a coincidence to be anything else.”

“Are you sure?” Trevor asked, glancing worriedly at the treeline.  “Would you even be able to beat it if it attacked?”

“I can’t be entirely sure,” Micah replied, his expression sour, “but I don’t know what else to say.  No one has seen the thing, but if you can think of another monster whose very presence breaks down the natural order and saps the life of everything around it, I’d be ecstatic to entertain other theories.”

“As for beating it,” he cocked his head back and forth, considering his prospects.  “Maybe.  It’s injured and I’m getting awfully close to level forty.  I’d prefer to have a second specialization to evolve-”

Micah stopped, glaring at Trevor for a second.  At least his brother had the presence to blush when he realized what Micah was talking about.

“Once I evolve Trevor’s spear art,” Micah continued, “I should be able to beat it.  The Luoca’s wings will be hard to deal with, but the missing leg and tail will help limit its avenues of attack.  The real problem will be its speed and regeneration.  The Luoca can take an obscene amount of damage before it goes down, and even if I can fight it on equal footing for a time, I’ll be spending most of my energy on dodging rather than actually subduing the thing.”

“That’s why I wanted to work on the control rod,” he hefted the short length of silvery metal.  “If I could figure out the ritual that went along with it, I should be able to reassert my control over the Luoca.”

“Micah,” Trevor shook his head, “if there’s one thing that your timelines have taught us, it’s that your daemons will not be contained.  They will break free. They will expand to new territories.  No matter what barriers you set up, if you give them enough time, the daemons will find a way.”

“Fine,” Micah sighed, looking down at the metal bar with some reluctance.  “We can attune the ritual to someone else and use the rod to pin the Luoca down so I can kill it.”

“There,” Drekt nodded, “a much better plan, one that Ankros would approve of.  Finally we will be rid of the abomination.”

“It’s still not really a full plan,” Micah admonished, rubbing his thumb over the focus.  “We’ll need to set up a proper trap and that means both bait and enough firepower to ensure that the Luoca isn’t escaping when we spring it.”

“Unfortunately,” Micah looked around the burgeoning camp, “I don’t think it's safe for me to leave, but we’re going to need a fuel source for rituals.  That means that we’re going to need to send hunting parties out through the teleportation network.”

“I’m assuming that we would be those hunting parties,” Drekt nodded.  “I believe that Trevor and I could handle that.”

“Good,”  Micah replied.  “I’ll keep the daemon at bay.  You gather as many animals as you can.  The older and more regal the better.”

“Do you mean like powerful and evolved monsters?”  Trevor frowned.  “We can try, but I’m not sure that Drekt and I will be able to manage that.”

“No,” Micah scratched the back of his head, slightly embarrassed.  “I mean old as hell.  Evolved is still better, but mostly I just want old.”

“Don’t ask,” he waved his hands, “the answers to your questions literally got me enslaved for a timeline.  Just find me a bunch of big, old animals.  I’ll figure out the rest from there.”