Their sleep went better that night after dinner. Rory was a little afraid of more battles popping up all over Hillhard, but there were no more incidents of the kind. At least, none they could see. Rory was going to have to call in more Wraiths for an update in the morning.

He was up too early. The sun still hadn’t risen properly yet, and the only ones who could keep him company were the ones who were keeping watch. Rory had no intention of interrupting their task.

Not that he needed to. Viv was up too. It was strange, and it bothered him a little since he began to think she wasn’t getting much sleep, but she seemed as alert and refreshed as ever. There was no trace of fatigue anywhere on her.

“Good morning,” Rory said, greeting her with a kiss and a smile.

Viv stretched after stepping back. “Good morning. Are you ready to fight?”

Rory had been about to head towards the grocery storage area and grab a snack, but he paused. “What?”

Viv twisted and turned her arm and neck so that the joints popped. There was a fierce light in her eyes. If Rory hadn’t been taken aback by her question, he’d have taken the moment to lose himself just staring at her. “How long has it been since you’ve practiced with that staff of yours, Rory?”

“Uh… that’s a good question.”

“Dear, you can’t always busy yourself helping others improve their Sigils and raise their Tiers without ever focusing on yourself.”

“You’re not wrong.”

She smiled. “Come on, let’s go practice. It’ll be fun to get those old bones of yours some exercise.”

He followed her. Well, after they’d had a quick, small breakfast, of course. Rory shovelled in some bread and jam, delicious food of the great gods. Then he quickly hurried after his impatient wife.

Viv seemed younger to him now. Of course, she had always had a youthful spirit, and the Sigil of Prime helped keep her energy levels at a stage that was closer to someone a third her age. But Rory was starting to suspect that the Sigil had grown enough to start manifesting its effects physically. Her wrinkles and laugh lines had lessened, her skin looked fuller, and her hair was a little darker, instead of silver.

“Viv,” Rory said as they walked to the rear of the palace. “Do you feel different from before?”

She looked back, though she kept walking forward. “What do you mean?”

“As in, do you feel… younger, I guess? I mean, I know your Sigil of Prime helps you feel like you’re twenty again, but has it been showing physically?”

She stopped and frowned at him, her eyes taking on a thoughtful cast. “It might be, I’m not sure. I guess I haven’t been paying attention.” Then she got a crooked little smile. “Why? Have you been noticing changes?”

Rory smiled, feeling the heat rising up his neck. “It’s hard not to notice.”

Feeling his heart lightening up, Rory followed Viv to the rear of the palace.

“Oh look, we have an audience,” Viv said. She was staring at the ghost of Emberteeth trying to climb a tree. “It certainly looks like it’s having fun.”

Rory snorted. “That makes one of us.”

They took their spot farther away from the cars and the occasional ambling spirits, in a somewhat open area. Rory recalled the spot where his traps had caught their first ever Rockback. Maybe the ghost that slipped past the wall was the same one. Who knew.

“You ready?” Viv asked, summoning her Omnipresent Sabre.

Rory followed her lead and took out his Staff of Deadly Winter. The hollow eye sockets of the metal skull glowed with eerie blue light. “Go easy on my old bones.”

She laughed. “No chance of that.” Viv tensed all of a sudden. “Prepare yourself!”

With a shout, she attacked, and the fight began.

In essence, Rory was no match for Viv. His combat abilities amounted to using his blizzard to keep enemies at bay, and his Frozen Lightning wouldn’t even work on other people, only monsters. As such, he was quite limited when it came to facing off against other Sigil users.

But Viv had no such trouble. Her arsenal was stacked with everything she could need to take care of nearly any situation she was faced with. Aside from her Omnipresent Sabre’s furious power, she was now able to throw around a lot of lightning thanks to the Sigil of the Thunderclaw. When it came to defending, her Sigil of Smoky Stealth and the teleporting ability of her Omnipresent Sabre were unrivalled.

In the end, Viv was the exact opposite of Rory. She had little problem cutting through his blizzard with her crimson sword, even if it took a couple of slashes to get the job done. Once she was close enough, she spooked Rory with a salvo of lightning that blistered around him without touching once. Viv didn’t want to really hurt him.

To end their first bout, she evaded his rather frantic blast of ice, got in close, and aimed the tip of her Omnipresent Sabre at his face.

“I’d say I win,” Viv said. “But the fact that I won so easily doesn’t feel like a good thing.”

Rory sighed. “I haven’t ever needed to fight well, at least not against other people. You on the other hand…”

Viv nodded. “I get that, and I know you won’t ever be able to do what I can do. And in the same way, I can’t do what you can. Our talents lie in different directions. But we can still optimize and make things better, right?”

She wasn’t wrong about that. Rory was out of practice thanks to his other priorities, apart from facing the various monsters they came across. Alongside periodic breaks, she helped him practice using his staff more fluidly and in a timely manner. Basically helping to speed up his reaction time, and react to things accordingly.

However, she had some criticism that couldn’t be helped with simple practicing and sparring.

“You need something to help you defend or evade,” Viv said when they took their next break.

Rory wiped sweat off his forehead. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, your blizzard and your traps aren’t going to stop monstrous attacks, are they?”

“Well, I guess not, if you put it that way.”

“We need some kind of barrier. Do you have anything like that on you?”

Rory hadn’t brought his backpack that held all the Sigils he had Woven into existence but hadn’t found much use for. The problem was that he didn’t think he had anything that would satisfy Viv’s requirements. Though…

“You think I ought to take a Sigil of Barricade from Sue?” he asked. “Since she can’t use it anymore.”

“That would be too cruel, Rory,” she said quietly.

Rory took a deep breath. “It was only to see the ingredients for it. Then we can get the ingredients ourselves, and then I can use my Weaving on it to turn it into an actual Sigil. That would help with defending.”

“Maybe. Are barricades your kind of thing?”

Rory wasn’t sure. He enjoyed Sue’s defensive capabilities. But he wasn’t sure he’d be great at using them on his own, or how his usage would go along with his other Sigils. The blizzards would need strong supply of air to run correctly, which meant the walls thrown up the barrier might even impede his other Sigil.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think that would work, now that I think on it. I don’t want barriers that block airflow. Otherwise, the blizzard will peter out.”

“That’s true. But I still think you need something to help stop long-ranged attacks.”

“Yeah…”

They sparred a little more, though Rory was distracted by Viv’s idea that he needed a defensive Sigil. Honestly, there was no point keeping his staff’s other slot empty for no reason. He needed another Sigil, soon.

But as they took another break, this time deciding to head back to the palace’s main hall to get some water, they heard a shout. Trish came running at them, rounding the near corner of the walls of the palace’s main building.

“What is it?” Rory asked.

“The Wraiths are here.” She breathed deeply for a few moments after her run. “Well, a Wraith and a Ghoul. I think they want to talk.”

Rory nodded and headed back to the courtyard with Trish and Viv in tow. As tired as he was, he didn’t want to slow down. The Wraith Lord’s minions must have come with news.

The creatures were waiting under their signboard. One of them was staring at the board, the glowing green eyes tracking the letters. Rory’s own eyes widened at the realization that the Wraith was trying to read. He hadn’t thought them capable of it before, but then, the Sigil of Learning had to be teaching them a lot of things. Reading wasn’t unfathomable.

The Ghoul, for her part, was staring at the distant ghost of a Dreadraptor roosting on a tree branch. Maybe she had a hankering for dead birds.

“Hello,” Rory said to grab the attention of both of their guests. “What brings you here today?”

“We come bearing news,” the Wraith said.

“Of course. We’re all ears.”

“The Wraith Lord has been facing troubles from both Homeworlders and Otherworlders. He may request assistance soon, so if you wish to mentally prepare for it, you may do so now. We have been unable to find any more Homeworlders or Otherworlders in danger who might need your assistance. However, we found another group of Homeworlder survivors who aren’t associated with the warring factions.”

Rory stared at the Wraith. That was a lot to take in. He actually ended up asking the Wraith to repeat himself so he could understand everything he’d been told properly.

“Okay,” Viv said. “First thing’s first—what happened to the Wraith who went after Arelland?”

The Ghoul made a guttural noise in the pit of her gullet. “The one who you sent returned soon, unable to make contact with the elf in question and driven off by his faction.”

Rory sighed. He had suspected that such an outcome wasn’t impossible. He had hoped that the Otherworlders would have been willing to at least hear out the Wraith as long as it displayed a sign of its growing intelligence, but it seemed they weren’t afraid of being too careful.

“We’ll have to find some other way to contact him,” Viv said.

Rory regretted not giving Arelland a walky-talky Warded with a Sigil of Calling. But the past was the past. Next time he saw the elf, that was the first thing he’d do.

“What sort of trouble is the Wraith Lord having?” Rory asked. “Why didn’t he tell me about it over the Sigil I gave him?”

“I am unaware of the latter, but it may be that it isn’t an urgent enough matter. He is simply afraid of the Otherworlders or the Homeworlders taking direct action against his home, which isn’t an impossibility. They didn’t like any others interceding in their territories.”

“That is a concern, though I hope you’re all staying out of the Otherworlders’ and the Homeworlder’s way.”

The Wraith and the Ghoul nodded, though not very convincingly.

“We’ll make note of the new survivors,” Viv said.

“I’ll go get them,” Trish said. “I can’t believe it’s taken this long to find more. I was sure we already had all of them here.”

Rory nodded with his lips pursed. “I wonder how they managed to survive.”

Distracted as he was by the prospect of new people this late into the apocalypse, there was something niggling the back of Rory’s head. While Viv noted down all the information their contacts had about the survivors, Rory peered at the Wraith. There was no sign of any green aura, though the air did feel a little… stale.

“What are you doing?” Trish asked. She had a twisted expression on her face.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Rory said. “I’m not going senile. I’m just curious if they have their Lifedrain aura active.”

“Why? I think they do.”

“They do? How can you tell?”

She shrugged. “I can feel it. It’s in the air, though pretty faint. I’d say you’re getting old, old man, but you’re already there.”

Rory decided not to roll his eyes and focused back on the Wraith.

“What’s going on?” Viv asked, looking between him and Trish.

In answer, Rory activated his Weaving and focused it on the Lifedrain aura around him. “I’ve got an idea. Hold still, please.”

He said the last bit to the Wraith. The creature froze, though Rory wasn’t sure if it was at his command or at the sight of the white lines of his Weaving twisting and turning everywhere. Rory didn’t see anything get reduced, but he did get a new Sigil in his palm. It was a light green, its image showing a strange, thin pipe with a sharp, piercing end.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Lifedrain. When you really look at it, it’s your life that only matters in the end. As such, everything else exists to simply feed you.

[Cerulean VIII] allows 1% health regeneration every minute in the presence of enemies and suppresses magic by 5%.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Exceptional

Tier: Cerulean VIII [0%]

Efficiency: High [68%]

Rory stared at the new Sigil. Such a nefarious new ability. He wondered if it was a passive ability. Well, only one way to find out. He repeated the process to get a few more Sigils of Lifedrain, just in case he needed more of them.

“What are you going to do with that?” Viv asked.

“Find a way to incorporate it into my staff,” Rory said. “You can handle things with them, right?”

He indicated the Wraith and the Ghoul. Viv nodded distractedly, her eyes still focused on the Sigil. She was probably wondering what he was going to do with it. Well, he wasn’t about to spoil the surprise, especially since he wasn’t sure if it would work. But that just meant he had to try it out.