When someone knocked on their door late into the evening, Fae and Bren were understandably confused. The Rulers hadn’t reintroduced the curfew yet, making it legal to move around at such a time, but it was still rather late, and they didn’t usually receive a lot of guests in the first place. Even stranger was how forceful the knocks were, and they only grew in intensity. These factors combined made them assume the worst: The Rulers had changed their mind and guards were coming for Bren.

Varying scenarios ran through his head as he looked at Fae across the kitchen table in a panic. Their apartment had only that one entrance, and it was on the third floor—a clean escape was out of the question. Given the small size of the rooms, there also weren’t many spots to hide in—they would find him in seconds. That left two options, accepting his fate or fighting.

After considering it for a moment, Bren made the split-second decision to grab his sword from the kitchen counter and motioned for Fae to follow him to the door. He positioned her right behind it, while readying himself for whatever awaited him on the other side. How many would they send to get him? Two? Four? Entire squads? His future would hinge on the answer to that one question.

Fae grabbed the door handle and the key inside the lock, while Bren’s grip on his sword tightened. On his signal, she turned the key and pulled the door wide open. Ready to strike, Bren stepped forward.

“You!” a voice called from the hallway outside.

Bren was about to carry through, when his brain registered what he was looking at.

“I finally found you!”

Before him stood not a squad of guards, but a single priest. With disheveled hair and a somewhat deranged smile on his face, he stared happily at Bren, unperturbed by being threatened with a deadly weapon.

“Oryn?” Bren asked, perplexed.

“I need your help! Can I come in?”

Without waiting for a response, Oryn sidestepped the blade pointed at him and entered the apartment. Thrown for a loop, Bren let him pass, while Fae peaked carefully from behind the door, furrowing her brows at their visitor.

“Oh! You’re here too!” Oryn remarked when he saw her. “Perfect!”

Neither Bren nor Fae were able to make sense of what Oryn was doing here. They had both seen him interact with Tomar, but that was the extent of their acquaintanceship. This also meant they had decidedly few topics to discuss, and Fae quickly closed the door in anticipation that their neighbors weren’t supposed to hear this.

“Please help me get out of Alarna!” Oryn pleaded. “You two know how I can leave and find them, right? You know the Wildlands!”

With that one sentence, Bren understood the core of what was going on and relaxed, lowering his sword. While he didn’t know Oryn personally, he had seen enough of him to know that he was obsessed with Tomar, his abilities, and his teachings. Bren was still surprised that he came for them, but then again, this oddball presumably didn’t have a lot of people to rely on—especially ones who had sided with the divine messengers.

But even though his core motivation seemed obvious, Fae was confused by his mannerism and desperation. There seemed to be more going on.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“The High Priest is insane! He made me kill five people today!”

“What!?” a deep voice bellowed from the kitchen.

Grym stepped out from behind a wall, followed by another trusted guard, Taul. They had hid themselves to support Bren if needed, but were now glaring at Oryn.

“What do you mean by that?” Grym asked forcefully.

Faced with the older, grizzly guard, Oryn momentarily faltered and became more timid. He swallowed hard before responding. “H-he wants me to create more mana users... Even though I told him about the risks! But he wouldn’t listen!”

“Mana users?” Fae asked quizzically.

“Sourcerers... Divine messengers! Whatever you want to call Tomar and Lilly!” Oryn explained.

“Wait, you can just give people those abilities?” Bren asked in surprise.

“That’s the thing, it’s not that simple! Tomar warned me that the process was dangerous and asked me not to attempt it. But the High Priest didn’t care... He forced me to try it again and again, even after priests died. I-I...” Oryn hung his head in frustration. The irony of him calling the High Priest insane was mostly lost on Bren and the others, not knowing the details of his past ventures. “I’m squarely for advancing the scripture sigil research...” Oryn continued quietly, “and maybe I’ve done questionable things in pursuit of that in the past, but I don’t want to put people’s lives to waste...”

Bren looked between Fae and his father. They weren’t sure whether they could trust Oryn’s words, but at the very least they wanted to hear more. If Orthur was to create more mana users, it could do more than just push the scale of power to his side. It would throw the whole damn thing out the window.

“Come in. Tell us what exactly happened,” Bren prompted and walked into the next room.

Everybody took a seat around the kitchen table and listened to the priest’s story. After High Priest Orthur freed Oryn, he demanded to be told everything that happened while he was away. With a feeling that he couldn’t reject him, Oryn began telling Orthur of many of the wonders he had witnessed or heard about.

From Tomar freely using water scripts, to Gallas appearing in front of them, from Aelene fighting beasts, to Riala producing fire. Once he began, Oryn wasn’t able to restrain himself. He had to gush about it after having taken a small peek into this world, and Orthur had always been a willing listener. The more interesting the research got, the better. This time, however, something was different. As Oryn went on and on, the expression on the High Priest’s face had turned sinister.

Attempting to create more mana users had been postponed in the past. They already had Aelene and were still studying her abilities, and there was also a severe lack of water sources to use for the process. After a few very pointed questions, however, Orthur discovered that his subordinate now understood how to achieve the same effect using Oryn’s body.

From there, the situation quickly deteriorated. “Volunteers” were gathered, scripts were written under threat, and disaster took its course. The first priest to undergo the procedure immediately started screaming in agony from the mana coursing through his veins and died seconds after. Following this first attempt, Oryn needed a while to recover, but this only ended up worsening the situation.

For the second try, the High Priest ordered three priests to receive mana at once. All three succumbed to the burning sensation. It didn’t appear like it was going to work, but despite Oryn’s pleading, Orthur wouldn’t stop. Adamant that success was just a matter of time, he called for three more priests. Surprisingly, he was proven right on this third attempt, because one priest ended up surviving. The problem was that he was like Oryn, with such a small amount of mana that it was practically useless.

Oryn fell unconscious for the third time, but when he woke again, he decided he couldn’t continue, worried about how many more people would die and what the High Priest would do with the ones who ended up like him. Most importantly though, he was concerned about Orthur’s end goal. If he was readily sending people to their death in an attempt to create mana users, what was he going to do once he had them? Had he planned to use Aelene as a weapon before? What would such a person do with the powers Tomar and Riala held? He didn’t want to find out. At the first opportunity he got, he took his secret notes and escaped the temple, in search of the only people he could think of who might help him—those who were close to Tomar.

“I knocked on a dozen doors until I found you...” Oryn said. “Please, you have to help me.”

The Fighters in the room were distressed, but not necessarily surprised. Whispers about Orthur’s ruthlessness were circulating among them, and many assumed that the temple would happily take control of the town given the chance. Hearing about the abilities of Tomar’s group, Orthur would be irritated to have lost Aelene, and would naturally do what’s necessary to get new mana users. Grym explained as much to the others.

“Why did they even let him out if he’s that mad...” Fae wondered.

“I assume there’s no proof he ever did anything,” Bren said. “They can’t keep him locked up if he’s presumed to be innocent.”

“Hm,” Grym grunted in affirmation.

“And why didn't you go to the king?” Fae asked Oryn. “I mean... If he’s killing people, and he might be preparing for the next coup, they can throw him in a cell again.”

Oryn looked down at the table sadly. “I’m afraid the... ‘evidence’... has been disposed of already,” he said. “Even if the other priest were to corroborate my story...”

“No. It wouldn’t be enough,” Grym said.

“Also...” Oryn continued. “After today I don’t want to trust the king either. Wouldn’t he want this power as well? He hunted Tomar after all. And that was before he was this strong.”

“You’re right,” Bren said. “Given the circumstances, you are their best bet for creating more mana users. To stay in power... and...” Bren’s eyes widened in realization, “to take revenge on him.”

Silence fell over them as they let all this information sink in. After a few moments, Fae spoke up.

“One thing seems odd,” she said. “If there’s five people this worked on, why does almost everybody else die?”

“I wish I knew,” Oryn said, frustration in his voice. “Unfortunately not even Tomar seems to have figured it all out yet. I have my own hypotheses, but...”

He seemed hesitant to speak of unfounded guesses, but Fae’s curiosity was piqued. “Will you tell us about them? Please?”

The priest contemplated her request for a moment, but then shared his thoughts. “Well... Among people who became mana users, there’s few ordinary ones. Actually, me and the other priest are the only ones. Tomar and Lilly have an unnatural understanding of the scripture sigils and everything surrounding them. Aelene doesn’t, but she has an aura close to a goddess, making her special in her own way. And the young Riala appears to be a prodigy who leaves behind even Tomar and Lilly in certain areas. I don’t know what makes them special, but I believe that it was essentially just luck that it was these four who were met with this fate. They are the exception, and I’m the rule.”

“I guess you’re a bit of an exception as well, seeing how you’re alive,” Bren said.

“Maybe so,” Oryn said with a sad smile. “Either way, I don’t see another solution but to get out of this town. Both for my own safety and that of others.”

Once again, Fae and the Fighters at the table glanced at each other. The question wasn’t whether they would go outside, but whether they wanted to take Oryn with them. They weren’t having this meeting between Bren and his father for fun, but because a plan was already in the works. Communicating non-verbally, gazes were met with shrugs, raised eyebrows, and careful nods.

“Well?” Bren asked his father.

“We will take him with us,” Grym said. “Not doing so would be riskier.”

“Alright,” said Taul. “We will have to leave earlier in that case, right? I will prepare one more bundle of supplies.”

“Make it two,” Fae interjected happily.

Oryn watched on in surprise and confusion as they began planning their departure.

“Two?” Bren asked, scrutinizing his fiance.

“If you’re taking a weak-ass priest, I’m so coming with you as well,” Fae said.

“We talked about this, we might not even make it out of Alarna. You’re staying here where it’s safe.”

“Safe?” she asked, mockingly. “Are you kidding me? Five minutes from where someone is killing innocent priests? In a town that was just attacked by a category ten? Please. I’m going, end of story.”

A smile on her face, Fae stood and grabbed a bag into which she began to throw things, while Bren hurried after her, failing miserably at stopping her. Grym and Taul briefly discussed their next steps and then stood up from the table as well to make preparations of their own.

Oryn was left behind dumbfounded. He was unable to comprehend everything that was suddenly happening, but one thing he did understand. They were thankfully going to help him.