Near the central cairn, there was an overwhelming feeling of magical power. It surged around me, invigorating and yet frightening. Not quite the power of the elemental core that had been stolen from this Vigorous Zone but still a potent source of magic.
I turned and faced the onrushing beetles. With a flick of my mind, a Mud Entrapment appeared beneath the leading creatures, trapping them in its thick goo. More beetles were coming around, so I didn’t have time to pick off the trapped individuals, as I’d done before. Instead, I reached out with Crashing Wave into the water part of the mud. A tidal wave of mud rippled through the ground, lifted up 10 beetles, and smashed them against nearby cairns.
As the remaining beetles swarmed around the edges of the mud, I clutched the Depthless Dream tight and called on the Crashing Wave again. This time, I sent out two waves of mud, one to the right and the other to the left. They slopped over the advancing beetles, not trapping them as totally as if they had stood in the mud, but still slowing their advance.
Now, I had a use for my other strongest element: fire. I took hold of the Sundered Heart with one hand and held the other out in front of me. A fireball appeared and quickly expanded in my palm as I channeled the Burning Wheel. It grew into a flaming whirlwind that I flung away from me, right into the mud-coated beetles.
The Burning Wheel careened wildly back and forth across the boneyard, bouncing off the cairns. As it hit patches of mud, it baked them dry. The sticky mass that had slowed down the beetles turned into a series of individual prisons that pinned each one in place with immovable clay. They strained against it, but none of their legs were individually powerful enough to break through. When the Flaming Wheel finally made its escape between two of the cairns, leaving me and the beetles behind, not one of the creatures remained free.
I stalked across the sea of hard-baked clay that had been our battleground. I stopped at each individual beetle, found a gap in its clay coating, and thrust in my sword, trident, or knife to finish it off. The ease of dealing with them this way made me appreciate my new mud techniques all the more.
When I was done collecting their cores, I leaned back against the towering central cairn and caught my breath. I’d just used up a hell of a lot of Vigor. My body was trembling and my nerves sizzling from the power that had run through them.
It was getting late in the afternoon as I sat at the foot of the great cairn with a heap of scarrick beetle cores in front of me. I pressed the cores against my chest one by one, holding each in place until my body had absorbed it. The power throbbed through me, a suitable reward for a long day of fighting.
I felt the tipping point at which a new power was available within me and kept the rest of the cores inside my pouch. I wasn’t sure whether there was a market for selling additional cores, but it sounded like a reasonable thing to exist in this world.
I stood up and held out my arms. It was time to test what I had learned. I opened a channel within me and let Vigor flow.
Almost immediately, the ground beneath me softened, and I plummeted into it. I yelped in alarm and got a mouthful of dirt before I realized what was happening; this was the Hidden Burrow technique that I’d seen Tahlis use.
With that in mind, I directed the power. The earth in front of me became as soft as water. I strode through it for half a dozen paces, then directed the power up. The ground beneath me hardened, the ground above me softed, and I shot out beside one of the smaller cairns.
I tried it again. This time, after sinking into the ground, I used the technique’s power to push me along instead of walking. Suddenly, I was darting around the boneyard, disappearing in one place only to reappear somewhere else entirely. It was like using Crashing Wave to propel me through the water, an extra burst of speed as well as the concealment of moving underground.
I laughed excitedly as I stood beside the great cairn, panting from exertion.
“Such good work, my sweet man,” Nydarth spoke in my head. “And now that you’ve got all this lovely earth magic, it’s time to create another core, this time with fire.”
“I suppose that’s only fair,” Yono said. “You’ve done some wonderful work with water and, of course, with our beloved Kumi. But the Swordslinger needs to have a variety of techniques. Although I don’t like the idea of our beloved man venturing into the spirit realm while enemies could be nearby.”
My recent powers had all been about earth and mud. Could I use them to build walls around me, or perhaps a sea of mud that would stop attackers in their tracks? I wasn’t sure I trusted that to hold for the time it took me to forge a new core. What about my new technique, Hidden Burrow?
“I’m going to try something,” I said to the spirit weapons.
I let the earth power flow through me. The ground softened, and I sank into it. Soon, I was several feet down, close to the central cairn and the magic that flowed around it but completely hidden from view. Thanks to my connection with the earth, I could still breathe, despite the soil pressing in around me. Here, in my own small pocket beneath the ground, I was safe from anything that might happen above, whether passing monsters or scouts from the Unswerving Shadows Cult.
I drew myself into a cross-legged pose and
