The hub crystal is one of the most important, and yet least remembered, components of modern settlements. After you join a settlement, you no longer need to be in physical contact with it as all its major functions can be accessed from anywhere on the planet. This causes many to forget about its presence after a while. However, there’s a reason why hordes always rush towards the hub crystals, and why the ratkin aim to secure them during their raids. It’s a relic of great power, and the links with its users can be manipulated.

Giada Marino - Scholar - Intricacies of the System

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Thankfully, Mia telekinetically caught him and floated him down. Landing, he dashed over and beckoned her to follow with an intense expression on his face.

“What happened?” she asked, growing increasingly worried. She had already been restless since he had taken so long, deliberating whether she could come up and check what had happened, but eventually she had decided to have faith in his abilities. However, seeing him so disconcerted now, she wondered if she should have gone up earlier after all.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said tersely, “But we need to leave now; it’s not safe here anymore.”

“Oh, okay,” she replied, trusting him once more as they sprinted back to the village proper. Since he was significantly faster than her, he slowed and kept to her pace while warily scanning around, paranoid that Amara would abruptly change her mind and give chase. Fortunately, she didn’t, and they made it back without incident, if flustered.

Coming up to Ethan’s house, he spotted Bandit roosting on the roof and called out. “Bandit, fly up and scan the area now. Warn us the second you see any of the shaerd leaving the fort.” The owl curiously bobbed its head, its electric eyes studying him, before finally lifting off into the sky.

Mia stopped beside Silas and bent double with one arm against the wall and another propped against her knee. Flushed with exertion, she was panting hard, so he allowed her to recover before starting. “The entire thing was a trap - they knew about Clio’s plan from the start, and they only let her carry it out to catch me.”

Mouth agape, she stared at him as the lights came on in her head. “Wait, why?” she asked, befuddled. His spear was grimy but not bloody, and his armour lacked any signs of attack, so clearly it hadn’t been to hurt him. But then why?

“I don’t know,” Silas admitted, just as confused as her on why they hadn’t attacked. Nicon had been severely opposed to violence from the beginning, but as for the reason why, he hadn’t a clue. Maybe there was something deeper to the plot he wasn’t getting, or perhaps the brown shaerd simply understood how much easier it would be to let him have what he wanted than to truly corner him and face his fangs. Maybe it was as simple as not wanting any violence in his immediate vicinity. Who knew at the end of the day? “But the information we got from Clio is wrong. She wanted to kill Nicon over a love triangle or whatever.”

“So he’s not the one casting a spell over the village? Amara’s not controlled by him?” Mia asked.

Recalling the scene in the bedroom, Silas replayed it in his mind before answering with a furrowed brow. “He’s got an alluring aura that makes you want to be close to him, and he can detach that from himself onto other items. I guess that’s what he did to hub crystal or whatever to affect the villagers here. As for whether she’s under mind control, I don’t know; it’s clear that she’s head over heels for him, but who knows if that’s artificial or not?”

Likely hearing the noise from outside, Olivia peeked out of the doorway and saw them conversing a few strides away. Silas spotted her and gestured a raised finger, signalling they would come inside in a second. Mia ignored this exchange as she chewed her lip and tried to connect the dots from what Silas had said. “So he could have cast the spell over Valrun’s Keep under her orders? Did you speak to her?”

The Duellist cringed with a face of distaste. “Yeah, she was arrogant and unpleasant. She only released Ethan from the citizen’s list after Nicon asked her to, and she’s keeping the others all shackled simply because she wants more subjects.”

Mia frowned. “That’s not how I remember her at all, so maybe she is under mind control after all.”

“Or maybe she’s just changed since your initial meeting,” he suggested.

“I guess that’s also possible,” Mia admitted, before shaking her head as if to clear it. “Anyway, you said Ethan was released. Good job!”

“I hope so, at least,” Silas said. He took a deep breath and crossed his fingers, then strode towards the doorway. Entering, he saw Olivia hovering by Ethan who was now sitting up, rubbing his head with a dazed look.

“You did something, didn’t you?” Ethan asked at once, peering over. “I feel like I’ve just woken up from a nasty nightmare.”

Silas felt his hopes rise, but decided to ask one last question before he let them skyrocket. “Do you want to leave Valrun’s Keep now?”

Ethan arched an eyebrow and his face wrinkled somewhat. “I guess so - I’d like to see Riverside and all those other people you mentioned.”

Overcome with emotion, Silas rushed forward and pulled his brother into a bear hug, maintaining it until he felt Ethan frantically patting his shoulder. He tilted his head up and looked in confusion.

“You’re crushing me,” Ethan said, wearing a stupidly wide grin despite his words.

Silas reflected the smile back and mussed his hair. “Good, good. But you need to get ready to leave right away: I’ve pissed off the princess, so it’s best we leave before the shaerd come knocking.”

“Of course you did.” Helped by his older brother, Ethan struggled out of bed, his legs stiff and weak from lack of use. Although the runes had increased his recovery rate, it hadn’t healed his body fully in what little time it had. Fortunately, there wasn’t much preparation to do before they were all ready, and Ethan straddled Silas’s back in a piggyback. Just before they left, however, the younger Wycliffe stopped them all.

“What about everyone else here? Did you save them as well?” Silas’s stiffening was clear enough of an answer to him. “If they’re affected like me, they won’t even consider leaving Valrun’s Keep no matter how bad it gets here.”

Mia nodded with him, similarly worried for the people she had lived with for a month. “We can’t abandon them. They’re good people who don’t deserve to be trapped here.”

“It’s alright,” Silas replied, “Once we get to Riverside, I’ll bring over an army to clear the fort out and take over the hub crystal. Clearly that’s being used to chain people here, so as long as we have that, we can break the effect.” In truth, he had hoped to never again return to Valrun’s Keep but since Ethan and Mia were concerned over their neighbours, he figured he might as well extend out a helping hand.

His words sufficiently appeased them, and they were soon on their way out. Some skinny brown shaerds were out on the streets, but few of the other types, especially ones as armoured as the soldiers in the fort. This was a relieving sight, although Silas was a bit confused over why Bandit had still not returned: should he have specified a time frame for the owl to follow his order for, or had Bandit simply gotten distracted and flown away again? As if detecting his thoughts, a distant dot in the sky rapidly grew into something more as Bandit plunged through the air, swooping low and landing with a great gust of wind. Before they could even yelp out in surprise, the owl began hooting and hissing, forming together a frantic sentence.

Listening, Silas’s emotions rode a rollercoaster into a dark, cavernous tunnel as he went from confused to shocked to distressed. After making several rounds of the village to keep a beady eye on the fort, Bandit had then drifted off and spotted several shady figures. Gliding over, it had recognised them as overgrown rats (advance ratkin troops scouting out the area, Silas figured) whose numbers drastically increased the further it went until it reached solid, marching blocks of them.

“Have they surrounded the village?” the Duellist asked before anything else. If not, there was still the hope they could slip under the radar and sneak away before the net tightened around them.

Bandit cocked its head up and down, and Silas felt the hope drain from him. “Are you sure? All directions?” The owl nodded again. “Fuck!” If he was in a trained group, he would have considered finding the weakest point and breaking through, but that wasn’t at all the case here. Only three out of the five of them could fight, and the other two would need to be protected during the combat as well. While it was still a possible mission, Silas baulked at the thought of endangering Ethan and risking his death after all that had been done to save him. No, they would have to stay here and do it another way. “We need to get into that fort.”

Mia immediately shook her head. “This has happened before, and we tried then as well to enter the fort. They killed those at the front and the rest of us scattered after that.”

At that moment, Silas recalled Brigette’s last words to them. Although he found the blonde irritating and tiresome, he now found himself sympathising with her as he realised how infuriated and helpless she must have felt in having such a brilliant defensive position nearby, only to be barred from using it. From all he had heard, this hadn’t just happened once or twice either. Eventually regaining control, he switched tracks as his mind went down a more precarious route. “Bandit, how many ratmen are coming?”

The owl replied with an estimation in the hundreds.

The Elementalist recoiled at the hoot, shaking her head in disbelief. “The most we’ve had is a hundred or so and that nearly ended us all last week. We’re royally fucked.”

“Did they ever let you into the fort? You mentioned Amara used to be different in the past,” Silas asked Mia.

“At the start we were regularly allowed in, especially during assaults. But that’s before Nicon was around and started casting spells over the village,” she replied tonelessly as if her mind was elsewhere. Finally coming to a conclusion, she gulped and her eyes widened as she turned to Silas who wore a similar expression. “Do you think he’s controlling her after all? Should we do it?”

He breathed out deeply, finding himself torn apart by what he intended to do to the only shaerd who had treated him kindly. “Well, it was our plan from the start.”

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Compassion is not reciprocated on Idroa. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, so show no mercy to monsters, no matter how helpless or alluring they seem. You never know when they’re going to bite you in your back.

Lavanya Sanghvi - the Monster Bane - Adventurer’s Guide to Surviving the Idroan Wilderness