“This way!” I called to my companions as our sleds glided over the icy ground. The wolf-like dogs tugged on their lines with seemingly endless stamina, but they were built for this terrain, so I gave them plenty of room to run.
I squinted into the swirling snow to keep my gaze locked on the melted footprints trailing through the frozen landscape ahead.
Little did the cultists know, the God of Time was on their tails, and they’d have hell to pay when we finally caught up to them.
The tracks behind us slowly began to fill in with snow, and when I glanced over my shoulder, the evidence of the dragon cultists’ passing had already started to fade from view, but the trail ahead still remained visible. We weren’t very far behind them if the tracks were still clear, but they were using some kind of fire magic to create their path, so the snowfall seemed to melt upon contact with the magically heated tracks. I was torn between rushing to catch them on the move and keeping a slower pace until we followed them to their destination, but there were bound to be more cultists waiting for us at the end of the trail.
I knew I’d have to handle the entire cult one way or another, so maybe it would be best to take care of them all at once instead of dealing with isolated groups.
We traveled for the rest of the day without sight of the cultists who made the trail, but I called a halt when we began to lose the light. It wouldn’t do us any good to get lost in the dark, so we’d have to pick up the trail again once the sun rose.
As long as they weren’t all covered in snow by then.
We set up our small campsite in silence, and my companions wore subdued expressions as we settled in for the night. The dogs yipped and communicated amongst themselves as they situated themselves in their usual piles, and our guide busied himself with repairs on some of the canines’ harnesses.
“What are you going to do when we catch up to the cultists?”
Zenda asked after a while.
“That depends on them.” I shrugged. “I always give people a chance to surrender peacefully, but I’m not about to let them walk over me in any way.”
“If they breathe wrong,” Mahini said. “We will end them all.”
“Not so fast,” I chuckled. “Remember, a lot of these people have been kidnapped or brainwashed in some way. We should wait to see how they act toward us before we make any rash decisions.”
“I’m sure you will know exactly what to do,” Zenda said with admiration in her sapphire gaze.
“I always do.” I winked.
Well, after a while.
It didn’t matter how many times I would have to reset, I was determined to get through the dragon cultists as efficiently as possible. I wanted one hundred percent completion, after all, and I wasn’t going to settle for anything less.
The night passed by swiftly, and we all stayed preoccupied while we waited to go to sleep. Mahini and Jaxtom cleaned the weapons while Zenda wrote in her journal, but Kent spent quite a great deal of time inspecting the dogs for injuries. Their happy yips and barks were pleasant to my ears, and I joined him for a while.
I could pick out the dogs on my team easily, and it seemed to me that they held themselves with an air of authority. The other dogs kept their heads lower than mine did, and even went as far as to shuffle forward on their front paws to get their attention.
Kent noticed the direction of my gaze, and he jerked his chin to the canine who led my team.
“Volka has been doing this his entire life,” the guide informed me in a proud tone.
“He seems more than capable,” I said.
“He likes scratches under his chin,” Kent said, and he showed me how until the dog was practically drooling.
I spent some time bonding with my dogs, and I had to admit they’d wormed their way into my heart. I pictured getting a litter of wolf-dog puppies to bring home to Bastianville, so my children could grow up with pets of their own.
The next morning hadn’t yet fully dawned when I urged my companions awake, and we took down our camp quickly and quietly.
I rushed out of the tent as soon as I was fully dressed, and I scanned the icy landscape for the melted footprints.
I could see the indentations in between the layers of snow, and I crossed the distance to the closest one. It was definitely in the shape of a foot, and the other indentations followed in the same direction. The falling flakes melted upon contact with the footprints, so even with the snowfall, we’d still be able to find the trail easily.
Whatever fire magic they were using seemed to have a lingering effect, and I itched to discover their secrets, but it could be as simple as enchanted boots.
“We’re in good shape,” I said to the others as we loaded up the sleds.
Once we were ready to go, I cracked the reins, and the dogs leapt forward eagerly. I wondered if they wanted to please me more after we’d spent some time together, and I made a mental note to experiment on ways to get them to be more responsive to me.
The footprints grew more and more visible throughout the day, but it soon became obvious the cultists had not stopped to rest during the night. They were now even further ahead of us, so I whistled to my dogs in an urgent tone.
“The dogs can’t take much more of this!” Kent shouted across the swirling air currents as he pulled his team level with mine. “We need to stop for the night!”
I was hesitant to spend any more time letting the cultists get ahead, but we wouldn’t get anywhere without the dogs, and they weren’t invincible. I signaled for a stop, and my panting team loped to a halt.
“Oh, thank you!” Zenda’s face was flush and her eyelashes speckled with frost, but she flashed me a grateful smile. “I am about to freeze to death!”
We spent another night in our tent-igloo structure, but I was restless, and I found it difficult to sleep. I woke everyone up hours before sunrise, and I had the dogs harnessed to the sleds by the time they emerged from the tent. Zenda yawned and stretched as she climbed into her seat on my sled, but Mahini was bright-eyed as she smiled crisply.
“Jaxtom agreed to let me steer the sled today,” the desert goddess said with a pleased smile. “Let’s see if you can keep up with my team once I’ve got the reins.”
“Oh, you’re on,” I chuckled.
Kent eyed us warily as he passed by, and we both laughed.
“Well, maybe not too fast,” Zenda said. “We don’t want to crash.”
I made a new save point before I made any promises I couldn’t keep, but thanks to my ability, I could always guarantee the outcome.
“We won’t wreck,” I promised, and I flashed the historian a wink before mounting the footboards.
The sleds sliced across the landscape faster than ever before, and Zenda whooped with delight as we crested a rise. Mahini shot me a mischievous grin as she pulled ahead of me, and Jaxtom gripped the sides of their sled with white-knuckled fists.
“Yah!” I urged my team on even faster, and Volka’s hindquarters bunched beneath him as he leapt forward.
My team came up against Mahini’s side, and for a moment we were locked in a neck-to-neck race. I kept a careful watch on the trail ahead, and we entered more hilly terrain. The sleds started to catch a little air over the rises, and my feet came up off the boards a couple of times. A stream of snow kicked up in my wake, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Kent’s team far in the background.
Then a large mountain peak rose in the distance, and we drew steadily closer to it over the course of the morning. We stopped for lunch with Mahini still in the lead, and she marched toward me with a swish of her hips.
“I won,” she declared.
“I let you,” I teased, and I grabbed her by the waist to pull her against me. Then I gave her a demanding kiss, and the desert goddess melted in my arms. “I still feel like a winner.”
“We have the rest of the day ahead of us,” she breathed with half-lidded eyes.
“I’ll be in the lead before we stop again,” I promised.
I released her with a grin and turned to grab my water skin from beneath the insulating layers of fur covering my sled. Zenda paced a few feet away from our sleds and stood gazing at the distant mountain, but Jaxtom and Kent were preoccupied with the dogs.
I crossed the distance to the historian, and I jerked my chin toward the peak rising over the hills.
“What are your thoughts?” I asked.
“I believe it resembles the sketch of Mount Pacay from the map our guide has,” Zenda said, and her sapphire eyes twinkled.
“The cultists appear to be leading us directly to our destination.”
“There’s no such thing as coincidences,” I said in a godly voice.
“But what’s the connection?” Zenda shook her head, but then she cast me a knowing smirk. “I’m sure you already have all the answers, and you’re just waiting for me to discover them for myself.”
“You’re a smart girl,” I said honestly, and I bumped my shoulder against hers. “Let me know when you figure it out.”
“Hmph!” Zenda mock-pouted, but her eyes still glittered with amusement. “You’ll be the first to know!”
After I helped melt some snow with my fire spell, we gave the dog teams plenty of water to drink, but Kent warned us not to overwhelm their stomachs with icy liquids before making them sweat some more.
Then we got back on the road, but I barely had to scan the landscape for several moments before I spotted the melted indentations from the dragon cultists’ feet. Fortunately for us, whatever magic they used to march through the snow also made it easy for us to track them. The sun was high in the sky, but it still barely penetrated the heavy gray cloud coverage. It was hours later when I finally cut in front of Mahini and Jaxtom’s sled, and I pumped my fist in the air triumphantly.
“Just as you said!” I could hear Mahini’s laughter echoing through the air behind me, and it created the perfect soundtrack for my victory.
As we continued to follow the tracks, they became more and more visible yet again. The ground beneath was dark in contrast to the white landscape, and the marks went through over a foot of hard-packed snow.
We sped over a hill, but on the other side was a frozen forest, and the evergreen branches supported massive icicles. The footprints entered the woods, so we had to duck our heads down in order to avoid getting decapitated by the five-foot-long chunks of ice dangling from the trees.
The dogs maneuvered through the forest easily enough, but the path curved and twisted, so I struggled to keep my balance on the footboards. Then we suddenly dropped down the side of a slope, and the sled began to catch up to the rear dogs. I pumped the brake, and the runners skittered across the snow.
“Oh, no!” Zenda yelped and grasped the edges of the sled.
“Hold on,” I said.
The path curved to the right, and the ground leveled out once more, but then I saw the tree line ahead end. We emerged from the woods into a blindingly white landscape, and I had to shield my eyes even with the shade covering.
Then I saw the camouflaged structures.
Dotting the hill ahead of us was a small village of domed white tents. Firepits smoldered throughout the encampment, and the
tendrils of smoke rose into the air to join the dense gray clouds overhead.
The melted footprints led directly into the tent village.
We’d arrived at the cultists’ hideout.
I paused for a moment and scanned the scene before me, but I didn’t see any cultists walking around. In fact, the entire encampment looked empty as far as I could tell.
“Stay here with the dogs,” I said to the others, and I hopped off the footboards. “I’m going to scope it out.”
“Be careful, Bash,” Zenda breathed, and her sapphire eyes narrowed. “They could be waiting to ambush you once you’re alone.”
“I can handle an ambush,” I assured her.
I made a new save point before I left the shadows of the trees, but I wasn’t worried about encountering anything I couldn’t handle.
The cultists were just humans, after all.
And I was a god.
Then I headed toward the encampment, but I swiveled my head from side to side constantly in search of any threats. The melted footprints trailed between the white tents, and they circled around fire pits still putting out puffs of smoke. I squatted and rested
my hand over the coals to see how hot they were, but it seemed like it had been hours since a fire had burned here last.
My gaze followed the rest of the footprints until they wound out of sight on the far end of the encampment, but the number of tracks grew with each tent they passed. The entire group had joined the cultists we’d followed here, and they’d all headed toward the giant peak.
I poked my head inside the closest tent, and I found what looked like a workshop. There was a wide wooden bench along one side, and an anvil sat in the center of the structure. Bones covered a shelf on the back wall, and I picked them up to get a better look.
I’d handled the dragon bones I’d scavenged from Smiguel’s corpse enough to recognize bones from the giant flying lizards, and I inhaled sharply as I realized they were trying to make dragon armor.
I put the bone back on the shelf and turned to the work bench, and a pair of gauntlets in the process of being made sat upon the surface. I pressed my pointer finger against the bone surface of the protective wrist guard, but nothing happened.
I finished my inspection of the camp, and it looked very militant to my eyes. Weapons and armor were in every structure, and there weren’t the usual signs of families like toys or livestock. The stores of
food were bare, and the water looked dirty. It didn’t look like they’d been living very comfortably, but they were in the middle of nowhere.
Then I rejoined the rest of my companions on the edge of the tree line, and I took off my helmet to rake my hands through my hair.
“The whole camp is empty,” I reported. “The tracks lead toward the mountain peak.”
“That’s Mount Pacay,” Kent confirmed, and his eyes climbed to the summit in the distance. “What would your enemies want with a dormant volcano?”
“From the looks of it,” I said. “The same thing I want it for.”
“Are ya serious?” Jax growled. The blacksmith crossed his arms over his chest and scowled darkly. “These fuckers are tryin’ to steal our idea?”
“Looks like it,” I confirmed. “We’ll have to go through the cult to get to the summ--”
“Bash!” Mahini gasped and pointed behind me. “They’re coming back!”
I swiveled to see a horde of hooded and masked figures making their way through the encampment from the direction of the
mountain. There had to be at least a hundred of them, but the camp didn’t seem large enough to house them all.
We must have interrupted some kind of gathering.
“What do we do?” Zenda asked. “There’s so many…”
“Fuck it.” I shrugged, and then I marched toward the parade of cultists walking through the camp.
I was surprised by how long it took them to notice me, but they talked and joked amongst themselves as they made their way between the tents. I stood patiently in the middle of the path until the group in the front finally came to a halt. They nudged each other until everyone stared at me through the narrow eye slits of their masks, but I merely gave them my friendliest wave.
“Hi, there!” I said in a cheerful voice.
For a long moment, we all stood and stared at each other in silence, but then the cultists pulled out their red-streaked daggers and charged toward me.
Looks like they’d picked death.
I grinned as my hands found my panabas, and I twirled them around me like a vortex of death as the cultists surrounded me. I could kill now and ask questions later. Several cultists fell
immediately to my blades, and soon the ones behind became wary, so I started to gain some ground.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I said in a loud, clear voice. “Lay down your arms and surrender!”
The cultists formed a tight circle around me in between the tents that lined the path through the encampment, and they moved to close off my escape back to the trees, but that was exactly what I wanted them to do.
“Chs,” I hissed under my breath as I aimed at their feet.
I coated six cultists’ feet in ice and cemented them to the frozen ground before they could come at me again, but this time, they sought to press me back into their net. The eyes on the other side of the narrow slits were cold and blank, and it reminded me of the way the God of the Purge’s followers acted like zombies.
There was no telling how deep the brainwashing went, so I was hesitant to kill them without reason, but I wasn’t above protecting myself.
“Chs!” I shouted as I aimed at the advancing cultists’ weapon hands.
My spell struck their fists, and they yelped as they dropped their fire-enchanted daggers, but the snow on the ground melted around the weapons where they fell. Their eyes barely registered the pain as the frost encased their hands, but they couldn’t do much except bludgeon, so I dismissed the unarmed cultists and aimed my magic at the ones behind them.
The masked figures continued to press in around me, and I cursed under my breath as my stamina started to wane. In the worst-case scenario, I could reset and try a different approach, but I’d hoped to make more headway during this run through.
I flung out ice and water spells in every direction, and I knocked back the bravest with my blades, but there were always more hooded figures to replace the ones I took out.
There seemed to be an unending flow of cultists as they slowly tightened the circle around me, and every time I disarmed one, two more took their place. I was surrounded by masked cultists frozen to the ground, and I used them as human shields to dodge the slashes of daggers from the constant press of enemies. As I expected, the cultists pulled their hits to avoid striking their comrades, so they at least had a small level of awareness.
Maybe I could still get through to them.
I wouldn’t know unless I tried.
But I was done being trapped in their circle of bodies.
Chime.
I stood beneath the tree line beside my companions once more, and it was before I’d investigated the empty encampment. The cultists would return en masse soon, but I still had time to lay some traps to pare down their numbers. They weren’t going to get me stuck in the middle of them again, but I would need my companions to help me get everything in place in time.
“Alright, so here’s what we’re going to do,” I said as I rubbed my hands together. “No one is there now, so I’m going to make some ice spikes to hide beneath the snow. Then I’m going to make walls to funnel them in one direction as they come back into the camp.”
“They’re coming back?” Kent’s eyes widened, and he scanned the camp anxiously. “We should get out of here.”
“I’m going to take over the camp,” I explained. “Then we’ll continue on to the mountain once the cultists are taken care of.”
“Taken care of?” Our guide swallowed hard. “What do you mean exactly?”
“I’m not going to kill them,” I reassured the anxious man. “Not if I can help it. Most of them are innocents caught up in a web of lies, but that’s the way cults work. They brainwash people into giving up their entire identities. I just need to remind them of who they are.”
“I will have no part of it!” Kent wrung his hands together.
“I wasn’t expecting you to,” I said, and I placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Stay here and watch the sleds. The cultists won’t make it this far, but try to keep the dogs quiet anyway.”
“I will.” Kent swallowed hard, but he gave me a firm nod.
“What do you need from us?” Mahini asked, and she had her bow in her hand the next instant. “I can scout the perimeter.”
“I’ll need your help putting my traps in place,” I said with a shake of my head. “I want to slow and injure them, but avoid killing them.”
“Tricky game,” Jax grunted. “But if anyone can do it, ye can.”
“Damn straight.” I nodded. “Let’s do this.”
We worked quickly to get everything put in place, but I whipped out ice spikes and barricades faster than I ever had before. Sweat dripped down my forehead into my eyes, so I had to pause a couple of times to remove my helmet and swipe across my brow. We all
kept a close eye on the path up the peak where the cultists would come from, but we managed to complete everything before the first hooded figure was visible in the distance.
This time, I was prepared.
My companions disappeared into their camouflaged hiding spots, and I got into my chosen place at the head of the path. I had my own fire enchanted daggers within easy reach as well as the two Jaxtom had made for me, but my panabas were already in my fists.
Just in case.
I heard the first yelp of pain from the far end of my maze of ice walls and spikes, but I didn’t have to wait very long before a hooded figure appeared on the path ahead of me. The masked cultists paused when they spotted me in the way, and I gave them a friendly smile.
“Hi, there!” I said. “My name is Bash. I’m the God of Time.”
“You did this to our camp?” the cultist asked as they gestured to the ice wall behind them. “Why?”
“Last time, I killed too many of you,” I said honestly. “I am here to help.”
“We do not need any help,” the cultist said, and it sounded like a man’s voice beneath the lizard-like mask. “We have everything we need.”
“You’re here voluntarily?” I pressed. “People have been kidnapped from Northwatch by Lord Caldera.”
Another cultist emerged from the maze behind the first, and the newcomer glanced hesitantly at the man I’d been talking to.
“Kill him, idiot.” The second cultist gestured to me with the tip of his red-streaked blade.
“He’s not trying to hurt us,” the first man said.
They exchanged words lower than I could hear, but they both kept glancing in my direction. They gestured with their fire-enchanted daggers, so I kept my panabas in my fists.
“He’s right.” I smiled patiently as I waited, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before more cultists found their way through my maze of traps. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
The sounds of alarm echoing throughout the encampment showed my plan was working, but I didn’t have much time before I was outnumbered again.
“I will defend myself if you attack,” I said in a loud, clear voice.
“But I do not seek to hurt anyone. I am on a mission to Mount Pacay, and you stand in my way.”
“Mount Pacay belongs to Lord Caldera,” the first masked man said, but he was quickly silenced by the second.
“See?” I said. “What kind of man tries to claim an entire mountain?”
The two exchanged another glance and some more muttered words, but then the second reached up and removed his mask.
Behind the lizard-like disguise was a young man’s freckled face, and I gave him an encouraging smile.
“Who are you?” the freckled man asked.
“I am Sir Sebastian,” I said as I flourished down into a one-armed bow. “Archduke of Sorreyal, Slayer of Smiguel the fire-breathing dragon, Bane of Pirates, and the God of Time, but you can call me Bash.”
“Y-Y-You slayed the Great Master?” Freckle Face stumbled backward and lifted his dagger threateningly. “You are after Lord Caldera!”
“Pretty much.” I grinned. “I won against your mighty dragon.
What hope do you have of defeating me?”
Three more men in masks rounded the ice wall behind the pair, and Freckle Face quickly put his own disguise back on.
“He’s after Lord Caldera!” Freckle Face shouted, and he stabbed the air in my direction. “Get him!”
I sighed and let my shoulders slump as the men raced toward me with their red-streaked daggers raised to strike, but then I stomped my foot to activate the fleetness ability of my griffon feather boots. I raced between their cloaked forms, and I knocked their weapons from their hands with rapid slashes of my panabas.
I slid to a halt on the other side, and I turned around to blast my ice spell at them. I coated their entire bodies in ice from their feet to their shoulders, but I left their heads free so they could talk if they felt so inclined.
“Chs!” I chanted, and the icicles quickly formed a tight bond with the frozen ground.
It wouldn’t hold them for long since the cultists possessed fire magic of some kind, but it would give me more time to talk to Freckle Face and his friend.
“I can do this all day,” I said. “It doesn’t matter how many people you throw at me.”
“What did you do to them?” Freckle Face asked, and he took a step to place himself between his comrades and me.
“I didn’t kill them.” I gestured to their frozen friends. “Even though I could have, and still could, if I wanted to. I’m a fucking god.”
“What do you want from us, then?” The man behind Freckle Face pulled off his mask, and the brown-bearded man underneath seemed to be much older than the one taking the lead.
“I want to get to Mount Pacay,” I said, and I shrugged my shoulders. “And I want to know you won’t get in my way again.”
“We cannot let you find Lord Caldera,” the brown-haired man said. “That would violate our sacred oath.”
“Lord Caldera shouldn’t have abducted people from their homes,” I pointed out. “Karma’s a bitch.”
They didn’t say anything, and I crossed my arms.
“I take it he’s up on the mountain?” I jerked my chin toward the peak.
The two exchanged another loaded glance, but their expressions told me everything I needed to know.
I couldn’t get to the peak without going through their leader.
More cultists emerged from the maze of traps, but the two men gestured for them to stay back. They were bottlenecked into the path, but the only way forward was through me. Once they were all inside the maze, my companions would close in the ice walls behind them, so there would be no retreat, either.
I had a captive audience.
I turned to the frozen cultists behind me, and just as I expected, the blocks of ice keeping them motionless were beginning to melt around their feet. I reapplied the spell, and I watched as their eyes widened behind the narrow slits in their masks. Their fire magic must be in their boots if that was where the melting happened, but the rest of their bodies were still frozen solid.
“Let’s see who you are,” I said, and I moved around the captive cultists to remove their masks one by one.
Once every frozen person’s face had been revealed, I realized the majority of them were little more than kids. Their eyes filled with fear as I took away their disguises, and they seemed to regain something of themselves again. The blank stares faded as they
struggled against the icy restraints, but they all kept their gazes locked on me.
“You have families who are worried about you,” I said loud enough for the entire camp to hear me. “People searching for you.
What are you doing out in the wilderness living like animals? What has Lord Caldera offered you?”
“My family didn’t care about me,” Freckle Face said. “They’re probably glad I’m gone!”
“There’s plenty of ways to get a new group of friends without joining a cult,” I said. “I have a town in Sorreyal, Bastianville, and it is full of opportunities and a strong community. Any are welcome, as long as they follow my rules.”
“You wish us to switch our loyalties that easily?” the brown-bearded man asked, and the crowd of cultists behind him booed.
“Is this the life your Lord Caldera has given you?” I glanced pointedly at the meager tents and smoldering fires. “A life in a frozen wasteland?”
“The temple is warm,” Freckle Face argued, and the others made sounds of agreement. “Lord Caldera gifts us with special powers.”
“He just taught you some spells,” I said. “You could learn those on your own.”
“Is that how you acquired your magic?” the brown-bearded man asked.
“It took a lot of hard work,” I said with a nod. “But I didn’t have to give up my entire life to do it. If you go to Bastianville, I promise you your lives will be better.”
“You expect us to leave behind everything we know to go to a foreign land?” Freckle Face shook his head. “At least we are still in the north.”
“Then go back to Northwatch.” I shrugged. “Stop living in the shadows.”
I spotted a glimpse of Mahini as she passed between structures off to the side, and I held my breath until she was in her hiding place once more, but it didn’t seem like any of the cultists had noticed her.
This was taking too long, but trying to talk brainwashed people out of a cult took time.
There had to be a better way.
I reset to my save point to get more time on my hands, and the bell rang in my ears long after I found myself standing beneath the shadow of the trees again.
Chime.
I stared at the empty encampment for a moment as I thought over my options. I needed to get the cultists out of the way so I could reach the volcano, and it wasn’t like they were murderers or thieves.
Most of them were just misguided kids who’d had rough lives in the north.
I truly believed they’d be better off in Bastianville, and if I could get them all back to my town, then I could really take my time to get rid of their brainwashing.
I’d just have to blip them all back to prison.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, and then I activated my fast travel amulet to take me to Bastianville.
The blue aura surrounded me, but the next thing I knew, I stood in front of Evangeline’s smiling face.
“The necklace tingles right before you show up,” my wife informed me.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” I said, and I pressed a quick kiss against her lips. “I’m about to start transporting a lot of people here, and I need you to put them in prison. Be prepared to deal with some fire magic, too.”
“How many?” Eva frowned.
“Around a hundred,” I sighed. “I hate to ask so much on short notice, but--”
“You can count on us, Bash,” Eva said, and she grabbed her cloak. “I’ll get Riondale.”
“Perfect.” I grinned. “Be back in a jiffy.”
Then I recalled back to the Northern Reaches with a wave of my will.
My companions blinked at me in surprise, and I turned to make sure the encampment was still empty. Everything looked exactly as I’d left it, and I grinned.
This was going to be awesome.
“I’m going to bring the cultists to Bastianville,” I said. “Once they’re there, we’ll work on undoing the brainwashing their precious Lord Caldera gave them.”
“They won’t cause any more trouble if they’re not even in the same realm,” Mahini said with a pleased nod. “Are you sure you can make that many trips?”
“Let’s find out.” My smile grew even wider. “But I need you all to help me construct a maze.”
We went through the process of creating the bottleneck path through the encampment, but this time there would be no words exchanged. I stood at the head of the maze and waited patiently, but I soon heard the sounds of confusion and pain as the cultists stumbled their way through the ice barricades.
I didn’t even give them a chance to talk as I stalked forward while simultaneously activating my fast travel amulet, and I bear hugged the first three figures to emerge from the maze.
“We’ll talk later,” I promised before I blipped them to the other side of the world.
Riondale and a team of guards were waiting with Evangeline on the other side, and I quickly passed over the cultists before recalling back to the same spot. I could see the shock in the eyes of the cultists coming through the bottleneck when I blipped back to the Northern Reaches, and it sent a shiver of excitement down my spine.
I dashed straight for the line of cultists, and I managed to grab hold of four more of them before I fast traveled again.
Then I repeated the process over and over again until only a handful of cultists remained in the maze. They stumbled away from traps and dead-ends, only to fall into my arms an instant before I carted them across the world to Bastianville.
While using the Amulets of Zyne themselves didn’t exhaust any energy, just the repeated motions of grabbing cultists over and over again began to wear me down. I was breathing hard by the time Riondale and Eva had the entire group locked up, and they didn’t seem too happy about their predicament as they banged on the locked doors of their cells. We’d removed their weapons and armor, and I made a mental note to check their items for stats later, but none of them had used any magic on their own.
“That’s all of them,” I said, and I dusted my hands off. “I’ll deal with them when I come back, but for now, just do the best you can to feed them well. I’m sure they’ll calm down eventually.”
“We’ll keep a close eye on them for you,” Riondale said. “They won’t take a shit without my knowledge, sir.”
“Good,” I chuckled. “Now, I just have to take out their leader.”
“Have fun,” Eva said, and she stood up on her tiptoes to press a kiss against my cheek. “Tell the others we said hello.”
“We’ll be home before you know it.” I waved goodbye, and then I recalled back to the Northern Reaches one more time.
Mahini, Zenda, and Jaxtom paced around the empty encampment when I returned to the north, but they quickly crossed the distance to me when they saw me arrive.
“Just like that,” Zenda laughed. “The problem is solved.”
“No big deal.” I winked. “They need some redirection, but that will take time, and I have other priorities.”
“Speaking of our other priorities,” Kent said as he entered the encampment. “Are we still going to Mount Pacay?”
“Absolutely,” I laughed. “Let’s go.”
We all returned to our dog sleds, but everyone wore light-hearted expressions as they got into their positions. The big canines leapt forward with eagerness and enthusiasm, and we sliced through the middle of the empty encampment toward the mountain.
Nothing was going to stand in my way.
Not even a small village full of cultists.
The God of Time was here to conquer the north.