Between one instant and the next, my thoughts slowed, and even thinking became hard.

You have sustained shadow damage.

Your void armor has reduced the damage incurred by 15%.

Void armor charge remaining: 95%. Your health has decreased to 90%.

“Prime, are you okay? Your mind, it feels wrong.”

Ghost’s sending came through our link, bright and clear, but brushed by so fast I almost failed to catch it.

You have sustained shadow damage.

Void armor charge remaining: 90%. Your health has decreased to 80%.

“I’m… alright,” I replied. I knew I was. Or at least I thought I was. This was all part of the plan. Wasn’t it…?

Why was I here again?

The wisp.

Oh… right.

You have sustained shadow damage.

Void armor charge remaining: 85%. Your health has decreased to 70%.

The creature—it was my friend, wasn’t it?—floated above me, less than three feet away, close enough for me to reach out and touch it.

A ball of condensed darkness took shape in the space between us. It roiled and churned with thick weaves of shadows so dense they looked almost solid. That’s… pretty, I thought and began to stretch out an arm.

The darkness flashed, and the orb surged forward.

A shadow orb has injured you!

Void armor charge remaining: 74%. Your health has decreased to 44%.

I staggered backward, hurt more by the wisp’s rejection than anything else. The pain from the orb’s strike—little more than a distant sensation of numbness—was easily ignored.

“Heal!” Ghost screamed.

Heal? Could I heal?

Of course, I could. I had a potion bracelet on my arm that—

Not that. Quick mend.

Oh, yes.

Summoning psi, I gathered the necessary weaves or tried to. Time and again, they slipped out of my grasp. Disobedient things, I scolded but persevered on. Ghost didn’t sound happy, and I didn’t want to anger her further.

You have sustained shadow damage.

Void armor charge remaining: 69%. Your health has decreased to 34%.

The wisp began forming a second orb.

I paused. It was as beautiful as the first. Would it grow as large? I wondered.

“Don’t stop casting,” Ghost ordered.

The command confused me. What was the hurry? But I couldn’t disobey Ghost, not my familiar. She knows best, I thought sleepily and resumed my laborious casting.

You have sustained shadow damage.

Void armor charge remaining: 64%. Your health has decreased to 24%.

Quick mend triggered! Your health is at 44%.

I stopped again, surprised by the Game message. Had I cast quick mend already? I didn’t recall doing so. Hmm, should I continue? Would Ghost be mad if I didn’t?

But any concern I felt over the possibility faded as the orb before me reached full size. My attention swapped to it. It will flash again soon, I thought happily.

A shadow wisp lord has evaded Nyra’s attack.

An arrow streaked through the air, missing my face by only inches. I blinked. What was that?

The projectile gave the wisp pause, too, and I saw the orb’s churning slow as the creature’s regard turned elsewhere. My shoulders sagged. How disappointing. I thought I was—

You have sustained shadow damage.

Void armor charge remaining: 59%. Your health has decreased to 14%.

Void thief triggered!

You have acquired the channeled spell, embrace of shadows (stolen), from a shadow wisp lord and will retain memory of it for the next 12 hours.

Embrace of Shadows (stolen) is a tier 5 spell that surrounds the caster in a debilitating aura 6 yards in diameter. The aura’s shades will haunt the mind of any creature—friend or foe—that enters the spell’s field of effect, causing them to become shadow-haunted.

Entities afflicted by the debuff will find that their thoughts grow wayward or grind to a halt altogether. Note that the spell is only effective against sentient foes. Creatures lacking higher thought processes are largely unaffected.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

The aura will remain manifested for as long as the caster channels the spell.

Void siphon activated!

A conduit has been forged between you and a shadow wisp lord, allowing you to steal mana from your foe whenever it casts a spell at you.

Void negate activated!

Your void armor has learned to completely resist the effects of the embrace of shadows, granting you effective immunity against the spell for the next 12 hours. Note that your void armor must be operational in order for negate to function.

You are no longer shadow-haunted.

As quickly as it appeared, the fog around my mind vanished—and the direness of my straits hit me.

The orb flashed.

Letting instinct take over, I flung myself to the side.

You have evaded a shadow orb!

You have siphoned a portion of a shadow wisp lord’s mana. Void armor charges remaining: 61%.

“Prime, you’re back!” Ghost cried, unadulterated joy coloring her voice.”

“All thanks to you,” I sent back, spinning psi as I rolled back to my feet. “Thanks for keeping me alive.”

“You’re welcome,” she said cheerfully. “Do you need any help?”

“Not anymore,” I murmured as the wisp floated closer. Its aura enclosed me again, but of course, it no longer had any effect on me. Stopping two yards from me, the creature began summoning another shadow orb.

Keeping a wary eye on the growing ball, I kept casting.

I’d made a foolish mistake by starting the encounter without my mental shields raised. I had assumed—erroneously, it turned out—that as a creature of magic, the wisp would have no mind-affecting spells. I’d been wrong, and it had nearly cost me my life.

You have cast fortified mind, reserving half of your psi for your mental shields. Psi remaining for use: 50%.

Raising my mental defenses now was not strictly necessary—I could no longer be shadow-haunted—but who knew what other mental manipulations the wisp could perform?

It paid to be cautious.

My psi defenses in place, I began casting anew. Seconds later, the wisp’s fully formed orb surged toward me, but with my mind free of the shades, I had no trouble sidestepping the attack.

You have evaded a shadow orb. Mana siphoned.

I circled my foe. Twice now, it had failed to hit me. Would it change tactics? But no, another ball of darkness was forming beneath it.

Motion at the periphery of my vision drew my attention.

It was Algar—waving frantically. No doubt, he was wondering if I needed help. The earlier hit I’d sustained must have worried him as much as it had Ghost. Raising my hand, I gave him a thumbs-up.

A second later, another arrow arced across the sky. Good, Nyra had resumed firing.

With one eye on the approaching projectile and another on the wisp, I kept weaving psi. Contrary to its name, quick mend was not a combat spell, and it had a long casting time, but after my time in the arctic tundra, I’d learned how to use it while on the move. Still, enacting the spell in battle required patience and time.

Nyra’s arrow neared the end of its arc. My eyes narrowed. It looked on target. Watching intently, I waited.

The projectile screeched downward. Oblivious, my foe kept casting.

Nyra has grazed a shadow wisp lord.

There was no contact.

The sniper’s arrow passed straight through our ethereal foe—but not before inflicting a small measure of damage on the way through.

“Well done, Nyra,” I murmured, my gaze still on the wisp.

Despite the assault from above, the creature did not turn aside from me, seeming to have decided I was the greater threat—which, truthfully, I was. Giving the group on the hill another thumbs-up, I leaped over the next orb the wisp flung my way.

I suspected I would be spending the rest of the night dodging, healing, and channeling. And I didn’t mind in the least. Given the strength of the wisp’s Shadow magic, the encounter would benefit my null force skill as much as it did Nyra’s archery.

An almost perfect training scenario, I thought with a smile.

✵ ✵ ✵

It took twelve long hours to kill both wisps.

I’d spent nearly the entirety of the last twelve hours on my feet, dodging one orb after the other, while Nyra peppered the creatures with arrows, exhausting quiver after quiver—the ever-efficient Algar had brought spares.

Although, ‘pepper’ was perhaps not the right term.

During the initial few hours, my apprentice had missed nine times out of ten. But miss or hit, every draw of the bow improved her skill, and as the hours dragged on, her accuracy improved, and killing the second wisp took only half as long. In fact, Nyra not only managed to train her longbows skills, she also improved her focus skill, using it to regain her stamina between volleys.

The only downside to the encounter was that Ghost was unable to participate. While her direshield would likely protect her from the wisp’s mental assault, she had no way to heal the damage she’d sustain from its aura, and in the end, thoroughly bored with the whole exercise, she went to sleep.

Nyra has killed a level 201 shadow wisp lord.

You and Ghost have reached level 205!

Your follower, Nyra, has reached level 21!

Your dodging has reached rank 18, your insight rank 21, and your null force rank 6.

Exhausted, I sagged to the ground as the second wisp finally died. It seemed that despite my best efforts to affect the battle’s outcome only minimally, the Adjudicator had seen fit to award me a level—thereby reducing Nyra’s own gains in the process. The skill advancements, I didn’t mind, at all.

I’d gained three whole ranks in null force, improving my void armor’s Light, Dark, and Shadow magic resistance granted by fifteen percent. Not too shabby for a half day’s work, I thought, stifling another yawn.

My gaze dropped to the stone floor. Drained as I was, even its cold, hard surface looked inviting, but I couldn’t sleep, not yet. “Ghost, you’re awake?”

No response.

Sighing, and more than a little jealous of the sleeping familiar, I pushed myself back to my feet. There was work to be done. Striding over to the wisps, I set down the alchemy stone. While I waited for it to collect the reagents from the translucent corpses, I invested my newly acquired attribute point.

Your Magic has increased to rank 42. Other modifiers: +20 from items.

“What’s that?”

Turning around, I saw Nyra, Algar, and the rest of the soldiers approaching. Ghost, still napping on the hill, was conspicuously absent.

“This,” I said, picking up the small object, “is an alchemy stone, and it’s the only way players like us can harvest our kills.”

New ingredients acquired: 10 x shadow ectoplasm.

Nodding absently at my answer, Nyra surveyed the arrow-strewn clearing. “This was a lot more effort than I expected,” she admitted, looking as exhausted as I felt.

I snorted. “Those wisp lords were elite creatures, and ordinarily, you wouldn’t have even been able to scratch them.” I held her gaze. “You did good.”

She ducked her head, uncomfortable with the praise.

“More than good,” Algar added. “The army would not have fared as well.”

I looked at him curiously. “How would you have done it without players to assist?”

The captain shrugged. “The marshal usually deploys two full companies—mostly archers—to deal with the wisps, but even with such a weight of numbers on our side, there are often casualties.” He gestured to the empty clearing. “This took time, yes, but there are no fallen to mourn. A much better outcome.”

“Much better,” I agreed.

Nyra straightened, her confidence buoyed by Algar’s words. “What now?” she asked eagerly.

“We return to the city and sleep,” I said firmly.

“Oh,” she said, looking somewhat disappointed.

I smiled. “But first, let’s go find out how the Adjudicator has chosen to reward your efforts.”