Chapter Sixty-One: Peril

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“We have to stop that ram!” Darren shouted, darting forward but being stopped nearly instantly by a troop of goblins who spun on him. As empowered as he was by the stamina potion, it had stripped Darren of some of his fluidity. He fought like a jerky puppet, blade snapping back and forth as he killed the inferior-grade mobs.

Roan started to calm himself with his breathing exercises and winced as the stone began to dim. With a shout he dropped his warhammer and leapt, grabbing the lowest branch of the nearest tree on the edge of the forest and hauling himself up. He had to hope the defending mobs had some way of identifying friend from foe as Roan stoked the anger that burned inside of him.

Rage and grief were twins who slumbered in him, kept contained by years of hard discipline from Old Bao. Abandoned, neglected, alone.

“They said they loved you, but they still entered this tower. You weren’t enough to keep them from entering. They abandoned you! Left you to starve on the streets of a dead city. A city left to ruin. You survived on pity and charity. Because you’re weak!” The voice howled in his head as he felt the familiar anger start burning, intermingled with the despair that came with it.

The red stone burned bright as he lifted the staff and aimed at the six ogres and their tree. Crossbow bolts rained down on them, peppering them, but it wasn’t slowing them as they picked up speed. They were halfway across the killing zone as Roan’s emotions fully fanned to life for the first time in years. The glow of the stone was a star reborn, energy beginning to crackle around it as Roan tried to figure out how to use it.

“Think of the anger leaping from the stone. Think of a blazing inferno of your rage consuming your foes,” the voice whispered and Roan pictured heat and rage flying from the staff and towards the ogres. Heat blossom as a leg thick spear of fire launched toward the ogres.

Exhaustion hit Roan as he slumped instantly, the staff tumbling from his fingers, the stone dull as it hit the ground. Roan watched as the ram exploded into a fireball, consuming all six of the ogres instantly. They didn’t die, not with how tough they were. Instead they ran screaming in agony, bodies aflame, torches in the night as they crushed their own allies in their panic.

“Roan!” Darren shouted and lethargically Roan turned to look at the strategist. He’d dispatched the entire squad of goblins and stood around with a slightly concerned look on his face.

“I’m fine,” Roan managed to say as he slid off the tree branch and hit the ground with a grunt.

“You used mana without a core, you idiot. Your body is drained,” Darren said, sliding under Roan’s arm and helping him stand. Six more kill notifications filled his feed as the ogres finally died.

“Got that. Need mana core and not my body’s mana,” Roan said as he looked inward at himself. It was the work of a moment to get his breathing correct and feel the sense of being he’d found in the temporal chamber.

When he’d left the room he’d been a stream of energy racing through his body, thin stream sure, but constantly moving. Now he looked like a drought ridden desert river bed. A hunger surged through him, bending him in half as he groaned in agony.

“Mana deprivation. You’ll live and a lesson was learned. Don’t use magic without a mana core,” Darren said, dragging Roan toward the gates. With the ogres rampage they’d cleared out a wide swathe of the area, simply crushing the goblins around them in their pained panic.

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“ROAN!” Moira shouted and she broke from the lines, rushing toad them with her weapon, now a staff, flicking out this way and that as she knocked back the few goblins that came at her.

“She’s a good healer. Didn’t think she’d go that way, honestly,” Darren muttered as the short woman got to them, taking up Roan’s other arm, for which he was grateful. His feet weren’t working properly and having less weight to move was better.

“Eight ogres and two shamans. A productive night.” The voice whispered before falling silent.