27. Rootin

‘ Maybe get rid of his red magic?’ my Analytical Side suggested. ‘He’s not really a mage, so it might be easy to do. And without his magic, he should be easier to handle.’

‘It’s worth a shot,’ I agreed and concentrated on my connection with the massive red-eye in front of me. I was about to compose an image I thought would make that happen when the general to the left started moving towards me.

Uh-oh. I couldn’t let this get physical.

I held down the red-eye in front of me and slammed my magic sight into the red-eye to my left. I’d already navigated a chaotic aura once, so I was able to break through much quicker this time. Especially since this guy never gave up attacking.

It wasn’t long before I was pinning down two red-eyes with my presence and holding off a third. The mental strain of dominating in three directions was intense.

Once again, I formed a one-sided connection. And once again, I was hit with images of its life story. Fortunately, there were a lot fewer than I’d gotten with the first red-eye.

I got the impression this red-eye had been taken over by the being of power at the same time as the other general. But this red-eye hadn’t ended up embracing the rage as much as the first one. Instead, he was generally apathetic to the whole mission. As such, he liked killing a lot more than making new converts. He was still a general, and he converted when he needed to, but simply killing other creatures was so much easier for him. Killing was clean—a one-time affair. It was one and done. Once they were dead, there was no need to worry about them anymore.

It made me glad I’d encountered the other general first. He’d wanted to convert us, and that had given us a fighting chance. This guy would have rushed in and taken us down right away.

Mixing attack and defense was so hard, so I decided to just go ahead and attack the last general. I’d be trying to keep three powerful red-eyes down, but at least I’d then be able to concentrate on only attacking.

I carefully locked down the two generals as well as I could while I gathered my strength to attack the third. This way of fighting was demanding, and it felt like my soul was getting weaker the longer I held on to the multiple connections. I needed to finish this now.

I launched an attack at the third red-eye, but unfortunately, he seemed to be better at this type of fighting than the other two. He shifted some of his focus to defense, enough to stop me, but kept the remainder on attacking.

Well, damn. That was just what I didn’t need—an enemy that could multitask.

I kept my defense up, gathered my strength, and tried again.

No luck.

He countered my push and then pressured me even harder.

“You got this,” Annabeth said with a gentle squeeze. “I don’t know what you’re doing, Jason, but it”s working. Just keep going.”

I appreciated the encouragement. But I wasn’t sure how I was going to move forward now. I couldn’t finish off the two I held down, and I couldn’t dominate the third one. So now what?

Normally, this is where my puzzle-solving skills would kick in, and I’d come up with something brilliant—or at least workable. But this battle was heavily focus based, and I just didn’t have enough mental capacity left over to figure out fresh options.

Fortunately, I wasn’t fighting alone. I felt a gentle tug from Penny, and at first, I was too overloaded to pay attention. I breathed through it all, though, and finally locked down enough of what I needed to do to be able to give her a sliver of my attention.

Penny continued to tug at my awareness, trying to make it go outward.

I was confused. What did she want? I couldn’t let go of these three, or they’d attack in an instant. If there was something more I needed to be aware of, it was going to have to wait. I couldn’t deal with anything else.

Penny made big circular motions and then gently pulled again. She was saying something too, but I just didn’t have the spare brain power to figure it out.

Then it hit me. Penny wanted me to expand my awareness again! Just like when I’d been meditating and healing earlier. I’d been bigger than my physical self. My consciousness had grown to the entire sphere of my magic sight. That might work.

I thought it would be hard to make the transition from body awareness to sight awareness. But instead, it happened quickly and naturally. It was like my magic, or soul, or whatever I was using at the moment had been wanting to do this all along.

My body had always been the center of my power, but I wasn’t limited by it anymore. Instead, my awareness fully expanded to twenty feet all around me. I was more than just attacking my enemies. I was the minerals in the rocks—the moss on the floor. I tasted the air and smelled the black warrior ants.

I felt free—no longer constrained by my own flesh. I was all my magical senses at once, and the rush of power was delicious.

Penny was a genius! This was exactly what I needed to win this battle.

I sent her a quick thought of gratitude. Then I gathered my focus and was almost ready to crush the remaining red-eyed general when the Mark of the Lagerel entered the fray.

‘Rest easy, young one,’ it said calmly. ‘Force is not the only answer.’

‘I’m not sure resting is the answer either,’ I replied. ‘If I lie down and take a nap, these red-eyes are going to have Annabeth and I for a snack. I like where my brain is right now, thank you very much.’

The Lagerel laughed like leaves rustling in the wind.

‘The game of possession is best won with consistent progress. After all, vines do not crash into each other or punch their way through foundations. Instead, they exploit every crack and crevice with their roots. They grow both high and low and occupy space in both the light and dark. The smallest weakness is a highway to them, and there is nothing man can make that a vine cannot claim as its own.

‘Roots crack rock and churn the soil. They bind when there is almost nothing to hold on to, and they allow life to flourish in the most inhospitable of places. They are unpredictable, and as such, they use chaos against itself. For where there are roots, there is life. And life is balanced by order.

‘These beings you strive against are chaos and death. Conquer them with your roots. Impose your own order and life. Understand?’

Images flashed before me, underscoring its words. I saw plant life of all kinds, not just vines and trees, growing and thriving in the most unlikely of places. Trees grew out of the sides of cliffs. Grass pushed its way up through concrete sidewalks. Vines wrapped abandoned barns and sucked the rigidity out of their structures. Nature would not be denied, and at the root of it all—were roots.

‘I get the idea you’re trying to convey,’ I replied, ‘but I fail to see how to apply this lesson. Humans don’t naturally have roots, after all, so I’m not sure what to do here.’

Again the Lagerel laughed. It sounded like the pitter-patter of a summer rain.

‘You already have everything you need. These corrupted beings are no match for your soul. To begin, you just need to see the cracks.’

The Mark gestured with a branch, and suddenly, every irregularity in the red-eye’s aura sprang into focus.

‘Then, you can extend your roots into those cracks. In your case, that might look more like owning the space. You impose your will where he is weakest, and as he rages, you grow inside him.’

The Mark highlighted a crack, and just like he said, I claimed it as my own. I was only claiming the space, and the red-eye wasn’t actually there, so claiming it was effortless. The red-eye’s aura flexed, and two large cracks opened up right beside my first claim.

I expanded my control and claimed them too. Suddenly, it seemed like the whole red-eye was filled with cracks, and I swiftly grew my area of control.

The concepts the Lagerel had imparted helped a lot too. Thinking of growing into the cracks like roots and connecting it all with vines made the whole attack feel cohesive and solid. I’d seen vines grow before. Their proliferation was swift and tenacious. Once they grew into a fence or wall, it took a lot of work to get rid of them.

I used that sense of inevitable expansion to power my growth, and it only took a few moments to rip through a section of the red-eye’s chaotic aura—leaving his vulnerable center open and exposed.

‘There is still no need to strike,’ the Lagerel continued his teaching. ‘You have locked down the other two beings by force. Lock this one down with your roots. I think you will find it much easier to contain him.’

I continued to grow, and I couldn’t believe how much easier it was. It was like I was a kung fu root master. I deflected his aura when it challenged what I controlled, and I expanded into the areas where he was the weakest.

The red-eye hissed and tried to retreat, but I had him. He shook with effort, and his mandibles snapped the air, but it was all in vain. I grew through him like poison ivy on crack cocaine.

I locked him down, and this time, I realized I didn’t have to create a connection unless I wanted to. I was curious about this being of power, but I figured this guy wouldn’t have any more info than the other two. The images of their conversion had been chaotic. I could sense what had happened, but I couldn’t get a clear picture of who had done it.

I still had three generals to vanquish somehow, and I assumed this guy”s story was similar to the ones I’d seen already, so I decided to skip the connection. I could feel my physical side was developing a splitting headache, so I needed to keep this show moving along.

‘What should I do next?’ I asked my Mark.

‘I would suggest growing into the other two beings,’ he said. ‘It will require a lot less soul to contain them for what comes next.’

That sounded like as good an idea as any, so I started rooting the second general. This time it went much quicker and was a lot easier. I’d already beaten him, so he had massive cracks everywhere. As soon as I locked him down with my vines, I felt a sense of relief. I no longer needed to continue exerting an extreme amount of pressure on him.

I eagerly started on the first general and quickly locked him down too. Then I gave a mental sigh of relief. It still took effort to dominate the three red-eyes, but it was only about a quarter of what I was expending before.

I finally had enough mental energy to take a quick look at the battle and the rest of the cavern. The two new red-eyes the first general had made had already been taken down by the black ant warriors. I felt sorry for them, but there was nothing I could do at this point.

The evacuation of the black ants was continuing and now seemed to be going smoothly. The black warriors had seemed to come to the conclusion that they couldn’t hurt the three generals, so they had backed off and were leaving them to me to handle. Meanwhile, at the top of the cavern, the Granny Godmothers had dustbusted all the red magic, and their turbo canisters had spun it into neutral magic. I finally had some magic to give to Annabeth!

I called to Octa, duplicated her, and had my new purple octopuses gather up all that lovely, neutral magic and carry it to my partner. When they arrived, they spread out all over her and gently layered the magic against her skin. Then they settled in, waiting for it to be absorbed.

It wasn’t a quick process—it had taken weeks to get Sandy and Annabeth back up to full power after our battle with Isobel—but I knew it worked. It was certainly a lot better than waiting for Annabeth to recover her magic on her own.

Since I had a way of recharging our magic, I needed to take advantage of it and drain these red-eye fake mages of everything they possessed. I started with the first general and sent an image down our connection. I played to his view of the world, and I sent the thought that if he could spit enough magic on me, then even though he wasn’t blasting my aura, it still might take hold and turn me into a red-eye. If it worked, he’d finally have a powerful ally, and he’d be free to boot.

The general embraced the idea and quickly started spitting red magic in my direction. My Surfers swiftly intercepted the magic and redirected it toward the waiting Grannies at the ceiling. The whole process worked so well, I started it with the second general. Soon, both red-eyes were horking up red magic loogies and spitting them at me like pissed-off camels.

I didn’t have a connection with the third general, and he seemed to be the best at fighting with his presence, so I decided to let him simmer for now. I’d come back to him after I’d dealt with the other two.

It wasn’t long before the first general ran out of magic. Now it was time to finish him off.

‘What is the final step?’ I asked the Lagerel. ‘Is presence powerful enough to actually vanquish an opponent?’

‘It certainly is,’ my Mark replied. ‘You humans don’t think of plants as warring with each other, but we fight all the time. Sunlight, soil, moisture—these are all limited resources, and we have to fight to get what we need for survival.

‘In a forest, multiple plants will often fight for one patch of sunlight. Some will win, and in the process, they will grow strong and push out the others. Without the sun, the other plants will wither and die.

‘That is what you need to do with these corrupted beings. You need to do more than root them. You need to supplant them. After all, a being without magic or aura cannot survive.’

‘Thank you for your help with this battle,’ I told him and gave him a mental bow. ‘I don’t think I could have won this on my own.’

He gave a very shallow bow in return—he was a tree after all—but he seemed quite pleased. It felt like I’d been working most often with the Mark of the Deep Earth, so it was nice to listen to the Mark of the Lagerel and learn the way of the forest.

I decided to skip the first general and work on the second one. He was the worst at working with his aura, and he’d be the most likely to bite my head off if he was able to get free.

As soon as the red-eye finished spitting the last of his magic, I went to work. I’d already worked my roots and vines through his aura, but now I kicked their growth into overdrive. My goal wasn’t just to hold him in place. It was to take him over completely.

I found out it wasn’t quite as easy as it sounded. His aura was wild and fractured, and it kept finding new ways to remain connected to his physical self. The more I tried to supplant it, the more violent it became.

The density of my root structure continued to grow, but the expansion wasn’t fast. I was sure from the outside it probably looked like I was just standing there, doing nothing.

As the process continued, I was surprised to find I had an unexpected ally—the massive ant himself! I could sense through our connection that he knew what I was doing, and he was trying to help in any way he could. I realized he viewed the red magic and red aura as a curse. He’d fought it for years and years, with no success. Even now, he didn’t have much hope that I’d win. But he’d much rather choose death than continuing to live the life he’d endured so far.

That motivated me to keep going, but this ant was truly massive. It was like trying to take something the size of a rhinoceros and own it down to the cellular level. That was a lot of ground to cover.

‘Maybe this isn’t the best way of going about it,’ my Analytical Side spoke up. ‘While growing into every part of this creature will certainly achieve the goal, there might be a faster way.’

‘I would love to find an easier way,’ I replied. ‘What do you suggest?’.

‘Remember when you were poisoned by the cobalt slug at the beginning of the Gathering?’ my Analytical Side prompted. ‘This feels an awful lot like that. Once again, you have a mass of hostile magic—well, aura this time—and tackling the whole thing at once is yielding limited results.’

I nodded in agreement. The situations were similar.

‘You won against the cobalt slug by chopping it into smaller pieces and then dealing with the cobalt part of the poison. Let’s try the same idea here. Isolate a part of the aura, and then go to war with the red corruption.’

‘That’s worth a shot,’ I replied. ‘Let’s see how it goes.’

I already had a spot in mind near the rear of the general. My growth had created a natural pocket for the red aura, and it was violently resisting any expansion into this area.

I stopped trying to push it out, and instead, reinforced the edges, sealing it in. Now I had it contained in an isolated section, I zoomed in close and really looked at it.

With the cobalt slug, I’d realized that all I needed to fight was the cobalt color itself. I didn’t need to fight the magic it was coating. Hopefully, the same thing would apply here.

My hopes were quickly dashed, though, as I saw the violent red color had fully infused the aura. Unlike with magic, where the smallest section broke down to individual capsules, it seemed like the aura was a continuous cloud. There were no capsules or anything like that to clean.

Hmmm.

The rooting was continuing automatically with the rest of the general, so I had time to spend observing this contaminated aura. Despite the severity of the situation, I found the whole thing fascinating.

I zoomed in even more and moved my focus into the center of the contained section. It was still just red mist. I felt like I was back in Louisville on a foggy morning. I waited and observed for a minute—just taking it all in.

My sight wasn’t picking up anything significant, so I switched to my other senses. I tasted the mist. It tasted like bland celery. I tasted a different spot. Ewww. Very bitter.

I kept tasting different areas, and it was mostly bland. But every now and then, I got a strong hit of bitterness.

Hmmm.

I switched to smell, and the same thing happened. I mostly smelled a light touch of cinnamon—nothing overpowering. But every now and then, I got a sharp acid smell that made my nose run.

I couldn’t see what I was dealing with, but something was hiding in the mist. I switched to listening, but the mist sounded like faint screams. There wasn’t anything specific I could pinpoint.

My breakthrough came when I focused on touch. I swirled my mental fingers through the mist and felt a faint thread of something wrap around my finger. It sort of felt like I’d picked up a stray strand of hair.

That was weird. As far as I knew, auras didn’t grow hair.

I felt along it, and sure enough, it seemed to be a hair. I rolled it around between my mental fingers and gave it a tug. To my utter shock it tugged back!

I just about screamed in surprise as the hair pulled free of my mental grasp and swam away. This thing wasn’t a hair. It was more like an eel. Ugh.

‘Maybe you can roll all your senses into one and find these things?’ my Analytical Side suggested. ‘After all, you’re used to the normal five senses, but I think that is limiting what you can do. Your soul seems to be more capable than most mages, so I bet you can use other non-human senses like magnetism and electricity. Try just sensing what this is, without typecasting in a particular way.’

I thought that was a great idea, but it was much harder to actually do. Using all my senses at once didn’t feel natural, and I was constantly switching over to sight as my primary source.

I wasn’t in my body, though. I wasn’t really seeing with my eyes or tasting with my tongue. Those were familiar mental constructs, so I naturally gravitated towards using them. But that wasn’t the only way to interact with the magical world.

With all three generals rooted, I finally had enough mental focus to slip into problem-solving mode. The solution was obvious—create a game screen.

I started with my location of focus and made it a 3D avatar. I then created a heads-up display—HUD—that highlighted everything of interest around me. I created a row of icons at the bottom of the HUD that toggled my senses in use. I flipped them on, and my HUD went to work highlighting all the hairs around me.

I expected them to be a lot more than they were, but there were only about twenty of them floating in the mist. They weren’t moving at all. Instead, they just drifted along, like long strands of dust in the air.

I moved over to one of them and touched it. It touched me back, then quickly swam away. It moved like a snake, which gave me chills. At least it wasn’t a spider, though. That would have been really nasty.

I moved over to another strand and zoomed in even more. It seemed like it was composed of dense aura. That seemed strange, but I already knew from dealing with the curse on the Centaur Llamas that aura could be condensed and even dried out.

Wait. There was something at the core of the strand. I zoomed in even more.

I slipped inside the thicker aura and drifted towards the strand of stuff, moving carefully as I didn’t want to spook it. It was pure red and glowed with power. I couldn’t believe it, but it was magic.

It wasn’t a capsule, though, which is what I was used to. Instead, it was a super thin strand of magic. I’d never seen magic in this form before.

‘Actually, it’s been a long time, but you have seen magic like this,’ my Analytical Side noted. ‘Remember how your magic looked before you made your first matrix? It looked like long strands mixed together. At the time, you thought it looked like dust bunnies.’

‘That’s right!’ I replied. ‘I’d completely forgotten about that. When I pulled the dust bunnies apart, the magic strings condensed into capsules, and I just figured that was its natural form.’

‘This isn’t the time, but maybe you need to rethink that assumption,’ my Analytical Side said thoughtfully. ‘These strands are on their own, but they aren’t condensing. Instead, it seems like this is their natural form, and they are doing a great job of influencing all the aura around them. Maybe there are other shapes of magic that work best for certain situations?’

‘Maybe,’ I agreed. ‘The more I learn about magic, the more I realize I still have so much to discover. Right now, though, I need to vanquish this fourth level red-eye.’

Normally, I would have wooed the strand of magic and converted it to one of my colors. This strand had the home court advantage, though. It was a red strand in a thick red aura. Converting it would have taken a lot of focus and energy, and I was tired of this red-eye’s game.

I slammed my focus on the strand, and before it could react, I stripped the crazy red right off of it. Then I injected a tiny bit of emerald green into the strand, just enough to control it, and tossed it up to the top of the cavern. I’d gather it up later or have the Granny Godmothers do it for me.

‘OMG!’ my Analytical Side shouted in glee. ‘I’ve figured it out!’

‘What?’ I asked, confused.

‘I know how to make pearls with neutral magic!’ he shouted and started doing a happy dance.

‘Really? How?’ I demanded.

‘You just took a piece of magic and changed it from red to neutral, then to emerald green with your presence alone. If you can put your color into magic, you can surely take it out too! Even if you can’t make pure neutral pearls, I bet you can get really close!’

OMG! He was right!

That was an amazing revelation, and I wanted to have a eureka moment right there, but I had too much going on.

‘We’ll have a proper eureka moment later,’ I promised him. ‘We’ll invite all my soul creations, get naked, and party down the street in true Mardi Gras style! For now, though, I have work to do.’

With renewed confidence and excitement, I got to work stripping the red out of the other strands. My new gaming display made it easy to find them, and I peeled the red right off them like I was in an Indiana corn shucking contest.

After I cleared out the strands in my test section, I found the remaining aura lost its red tint and started falling apart. I was surprised, but once it lost its violent motion, it started looking incredibly old. Then it sort of crumbled away, like a staked blood sucker on the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I guess that made sense, as at its core, this monster was really just an ant that had lived many lifetimes past its normal expiration date. The corruption of magic had kept it alive, but it wasn’t truly an immortal, not like a genuine supernatural.

Now I knew what to do, I quickly used my roots to split the red-eye up in smaller sections, and then removed the red strands. The chaotic impressions I got from the massive monster settled down, and as pieces of his aura vanished, he lowered himself to the ground. His legs relaxed and spread out wide. His head rested flat on the floor.

At the end, he actually looked peaceful. His last thought to me was one of gratitude.

“Go in peace,” I said softly, before my Bank Crystal’s dragonfly swooped in and Stamped him. The massive monster vanished, and to my surprise, its core fell to the ground. I hadn’t felt that. Where had that been hiding?

It looked like a piece of quartz as big as my fist, and it still had an angry red glow about it. I expanded my awareness to the surrounding black warriors. I was afraid they might try to pick it up, but instead, they scooted back like it might curse them. Given how red it looked, that might not be too far from the truth.

It seemed safe enough at the moment, so I left it lying there and turned my attention to the first general in front of me. This guy was more dedicated to his cause, but that didn’t help him at all as I split him up in sections and cleared out his red strands as well.

He hung onto his anger and hatred a lot longer, and it wasn’t until the very end, when the last of his aura became clear, that I felt a measure of peace and gratitude. The last thought he offered to our connection was one of regret. He wished his life had been different—in almost every way. Before the regret could really take hold, though, he faded away.

“Go in peace,” I said again. It seemed appropriate somehow.

The dragonfly Stamped him, and another monster core fell to the ground. I turned to the final general. He surged against my roots in anger and desperation. He’d seen what had happened to the other two, and now I was coming for him.

I hadn’t formed a connection with this guy, and he still had a pool of red magic inside him. That might be a problem, but for now, I’d treat it just the same as I did the red strands.

This general was the best at aura manipulation, and he fought hard to stop me. I ended up carving off smaller sections than the other two, but in the end, he was no match for my presence. All of his strands and capsules were stripped of red chaos and tossed to the ceiling. His aura lost its red glow and then faded away.

Finally, I cleansed the last section, and his body relaxed in peace. His monster core fell to the ground as I said my last words to him.

“Go in peace.”

As the sounds faded, I realized it was over. This whole overwhelming battle was finally over.

Suddenly, exhaustion hit me, and I almost fell on my face.

“Jason? Are you okay?” Annabeth asked anxiously as she commanded the rope to untie us. She hopped off my back. The sudden loss of weight made me stagger.

I was too tired to speak, so instead, I had my Bank Crystal send a message conveying everything that had happened with the three generals. That would give her a much better idea of what had happened, anyway.

I condensed my consciousness back into my physical self, and suddenly, my bruised and battered body let me know it wanted to rest. I groaned as I slowly lowered myself to the ground. I sat there cross-legged and put my head in my hands.

Red and his team had done a fantastic job of keeping me safe. The force runes and the Hexagons’ ability to distribute the impact of a blow across a larger area had let me take on the level one and two red-eyes without too much damage. It was the level three red-eyes where the majority of the bruising had occurred. They had hit too hard and too fast for Red to completely handle.

Annabeth and I had blocked a lot of the attacks, and being grounded in the earth had let me ignore the ones that had gotten through. In the heat of the battle, I hadn’t realized just how many times I’d been hit.

Now the adrenaline was wearing off, it was finally time to feel the damage and recognize that no matter how good I was at blocking, two arms just couldn’t handle that many opponents. Especially when I couldn’t dodge.

I wanted to completely collapse, but I needed to deal with the cores first. They were a bad accident waiting to happen.

‘Penny,’ I called, ‘can you help me store these?’

I crawled across the soft moss and picked up the first one.

‘Sure thing. I got this,’ she said confidently and sucked it into the storage section of my Throne Room. I trusted Penny, but the last thing I wanted was any red contamination finding its way into my Spark of Creation, so I popped into my Throne Room to see for myself.

‘It is always good to double check,’ Penny smiled. ‘Especially with something as dangerous as corrupted cores. Come this way and see for yourself.’

She led me over to what seemed to be a gun safe. It looked thick and sturdy, and the walls were saturated with my magic. I opened the safe, and inside was another thick box—also saturated with my magic.

‘Do you feel anything?’ Penny asked.

I shook my head.

‘I can’t believe it, but even with the small box, I can’t feel a trace of red magic.’

‘Excellent,’ she replied happily. ‘Now go and collect the other two cores. We can’t leave them lying around. I don’t think you will want to do anything with them, but who knows, maybe the Bank will think they’re valuable.’

‘I can vouch for that,’ my Bank Crystal spoke up. ‘These cores are heavy with blood and chaos, and that can be very valuable to some professions.’

‘I”m afraid of what evil mages could do with these,’ I said with a frown. ‘They make movies about items like this, and it usually involves nasty guys in dark robes stabbing virgins on alters.’

‘Those are movies,’ my Bank Crystal said primly. ‘And while that might have some semblance to real life, the main use for items like this is to build powerful wards for protection. The blood helps it to target living thieves or assassins, and the chaos is useful for disrupting spells. If used properly, these cores could save lives or protect valuable property.’

‘Oh,’ I replied. ‘Well, I guess that’s alright then.’

I switched back to real life and crawled around to pick up the remaining two cores. The moss felt so soft and comfortable under my knees, and I couldn’t wait to lie down for real.

I popped back to my Throne Room again to make sure everything was good, but the three cores were now safely stored.

‘Thank you, Penny, for keeping them safe,’ I said and gave her a big hug.

‘You are such a pun master,’ she laughed.

‘Huh?’ I replied. I felt confused. I’d made a pun?

‘Keep them safe???’ Penny said like I should know what that was. Then she gestured at the safe she’d made, and it all clicked.

‘Ohhh—yes! Keep them safe! Wow. I can”t believe I missed that.’

I was missing my own puns now? That wasn’t good. I needed some recovery time.

I popped back to real life as Annabeth finished experiencing my long update message.

“My goodness, Jason, I can”t believe you did all that.” Annabeth shook her head in wonder. “From my perspective, it looked like everyone was glaring at each other for a long time. Then they suddenly started keeling over, and the fight was done.”

I think she”d planned on giving me a hug, but then it seemed to register with her that I was on my knees.

“What are you doing down there?” she asked.

“I”m too sore to stand up,” I grimaced.

“Well, stay down there,” she laughed. “I”ll come down to you.”

She slowly got down with me, groaning the whole time. Obviously, I wasn”t the only one that had gotten pummeled.

I moaned and groaned some more as I scooted over to her, and somehow the whole thing became comical. I started laughing, and she couldn”t help but join in.

“Stop it!” she cried as she lightly smacked me. “It hurts too much to laugh.”

Of course, that just made us laugh even more. It felt good to have a playful moment, painful as it was.

“Nobody said being an immortal was easy,” I sighed after the laughter died down.

“You got that right,” she agreed. Bermuda chose that moment to make an appearance and join our comfy time.

“Where have you been?” I demanded. “I could have used your help with those monsters. They were huge!”

He just licked my face and then looked off in the distance like he was too wise to answer. I grumbled at him some more, but then I found myself scratching him under his chin just the way he likes.

Well, damn. He had trained me too well.

Bermuda gave me a look filled with contentment, and I just couldn”t stay mad at him. Not that I was really mad at him to begin with. But a little more help would have been nice.

“So, do you feel different?” Annabeth asked.

“How do you mean?” I replied.

“I feel sore,” she said. “But in a new way.”

“Oh?”

“I”ve trained a lot at the arena on the beach, so I”m used to feeling sore after a workout. But this isn”t it. I”m also used to bruises and getting hit, but this isn”t it either. It”s something else. It’s like my magic feels sore.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “Fighting with presence, or glow, or whatever the other mages call it, is exhausting. I feel like I”ve been up all night giving a speech to hundreds of people while defusing a bomb that could blow us all to smithereens.”

“That’s exactly it,” Annabeth agreed. “I feel raw, emotionally. Like, not only was I giving a speech, but they were a terrible audience, and they were screaming back at me the whole time.”

“That’s why this feels so nice,” I smiled. “My soul needs a little snuggle time with my best friend in order to recover. I know we could get up and keep going if we had to, but I think a few minutes of relaxing, healing, and processing that neutral magic would put us in a much better position going forward.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Annabeth said lightly. “But one of us should probably keep an eye out for fresh enemies.” She made like she was going to sit up, but I held her close.

“I got it,” I said. “I can do my healing cycle and keep an eye out at the same time.”

“Okay,” she agreed and closed her eyes. Annabeth was putting up a brave front, but she must really need this to have agreed so quickly.

I looked around me with my magic sight, but everything still seemed peaceful. Most of the black warrior ants had left, and there were only a few keeping an eye on us. I assumed that was okay, as our five-legged worker friend had come out of the tunnel and was now standing watch.

I didn’t need to, but I took a second look around anyway. There were no enemies in sight.