More lampreys closed in, more than I could grab and impale at once. I conjured an Ash Cloud to buy some time and whirled it toward the advancing monsters. They slowed as the black particles infected their eyes and swarmed down their throats.
Leaves rippled past my cheek as Faryn fought off her own enemies at my back. Her Smothering Leaves technique sliced open the scaled hides of the monsters. I jumped forward in the muck, dropped to my knees like a rockstar, and slid into range of the staggering lampreys. Claws scraped against my armor as I cut a hamstring and took out the nearest lamprey’s footing. I stabbed it through the gills and backhanded a blinded monster with my spiked gauntlet of ice. Blood spurted as I decapitated the third monster with a two-handed strike. I twisted out and kicked the detached skull like a soccer ball. The disembodied head rocketed into the face of another lamprey and stunned it.
“Aren’t you cavorting a little too much, sweet man?” Nydarth asked.
“No idea what you’re talking about,” I replied.
I called in a pair of slim, spear-like Plank Pillars beneath the feet of the last two lampreys. The wooden pikes ruptured from the muck and punched straight into the vulnerable gills of the monsters from behind. The lamprey’s incessant hissing rose to a fever pitch, but then their heads lolled forward as the life left their bodies.
I admired my handiwork for a moment.
“You made the Pillars slimmer since your fight with the ice-caked seafood,” Nydarth observed. “You continue to surprise, Swordslinger. Very fine work.”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Faryn tear her sword free of a twitching lamprey at her feet. The swamp around us slowly claimed the monsters as the mud enveloped their lifeless bodies. Faryn flicked black blood free of her blade and wiped it clean in the crook of her arm. Her eyes flickered past me to the Plank Pillars and their ash-covered victims.
“You continue to adapt your techniques to your surroundings.” A wonderful smile broke out over her face. “I’m glad to see that you still use wood as a part of a varied repertoire.”
“You honor me,” I said. It was good to have my skill acknowledged by someone who had spent their entire life Augmenting.
“I don’t think you understand just how impressive this is.” Faryn laid a hand on my chest and ran her eyes across the ice encasing me. “You’re mastering multiple elements faster than even the most gifted Augmenters of legend. Most elementalists only achieve a surface level control over their different techniques, giving up mastery in one element in favor of a variety of powers. That’s what you’re demonstrating now, but at an early stage. Your potential for evolution? It’s positively fascinating.”
My Frozen Armor evaporated in a haze of misty vapor and left her hand on my chest. Faryn looked up at me with a huge smile, and a jolt of warmth spread through my blood.
“I feel like I’m part of something special,” she said. “Let’s see where sap can take you.”
She led me away from the bodies to a quiet pool sheltered from the wind by twisted trees and reeds. I found a comfortable spot to sit amid the winding roots at the edge of the water. Nydarth hummed pleasantly as I laid the Sundered Heart Sword across my knees and closed my eyes.
“I’ll keep you safe as you meditate,” Faryn reassured me.
I grinned at her. “No funny business while my eyes are closed, you hear?”
The elf laughed. “I wouldn’t want to distract you.”
I turned my focus inside myself to the pathways of wood and water. Vigor raced through the two internal routes and pulsed with a different flavor for each. I drew them together and tangled them around and through each other. The familiar resistance flared at my efforts, but I persisted and felt the pathway edges finally give. Vigor whirled together until it hardened within me into a unique core that whispered of mysterious techniques. It radiated a balmy energy that warmed my insides.
I left behind bodily sensations and let go of my thoughts until my consciousness drifted entirely into the spirit realm.
I found myself standing waist-deep in a clear pool in the heart of a forest. Ancient trees stood on the banks and offered shelter with their wide blanket of leaves. The sky above swirled with shifting clouds that shaded me one moment and warmed me with light the next.
Pretty. But I wasn’t here to sightsee. Faryn could only watch me for so long.
I waded from the center of the pool toward the bank. The water rippled around me and broke the perfect stillness of the surface.
The water lapped around my knees as something emerged from between the trees. It was a humanoid figure with skin of bark. A wood spirit. It stopped at the edge of the bank and turned its eyeless face toward me. I’d fought this thing twice before. It didn’t worry me.
A movement in the water made me shoot a glance over my shoulder. Another figure appeared in the forest lake, this one an amalgamation of water and ice. The merman surged forward with savage fury, identical to the last slippery fucker I’d fought to gain access to water Augmentation techniques.
I had a snap decision to make as the spirits closed in from both sides. They had the environmental advantage, but I could use them against each other. My plan was insane, but I’d seen it work for Muhammad Ali. Why wouldn’t it work against elemental spirits in an ethereal forest lake?
I lunged toward the bank and swung a punch at the wood spirit as it closed in. The creature dodged my clumsy strike, counterattacked with a punch in the ribs that drove me back into the shallows, and stalked after me.
Icy arms caught me from behind and hauled me backward. Right on cue. A chill ran through my flesh as I planted my feet. The wood spirit pummeled my
