Chapter 28

As they ran through the woods the species of tree had begun to change to one that seemed a lot more comfortable growing closer together than in the surrounding area, but Ben had low hopes that it would help. It could be a large area but surely anyone looking for them would find them soon, all he could do was try and find a place to hide, squeezing between trunks and trying to avoid some of the lower branches.This slowed down their progress significantly, but if they weren’t going to be able to find anyone else what choice did they have?

As they moved deeper in they found an area where the ground between the trunks was covered by waist-high shrubs growing around them. They could either walk through them and keep going or try to hide in them.

“What do you think?” He quietly asked her. “We could try and lay low here or pass through. Maybe we could climb up a tree if we can find any sturdy enough, the branches on these ones look too thin though,” He was cursing himself for not thinking about it earlier but it was too late now. Besides, that would have definitely left them trapped in one place. He didn’t have much hope of Thera's magic saving them, by the time their pursuers got within range they would probably get to them before she could activate her spell.

“Let’s hide for now. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

He really doubted it but without many other options they walked down into the bushes and sunk down next to each other.

Myriad said with a voice still filled with dread.

“Thera,” Ben whispered as low as he could to get her attention. “I don’t know what you have against physical contact but please try to ignore and take my hand. I have stealth, even though it’s low, if I apply it to us it should help at least a little.”

For a second he thought she would go for it, but she gave her head a regretful shake. With a voice filled with pain she spoke back. “I’m sorry, I… I just can’t.”

No matter how wrong it would feel Ben was one hundred percent sure Myriad was right. Even if he didn’t remember his first death, one was enough. Besides, all he would be doing was breaking whatever small amount of trust he had managed to build, and he honestly had no clue how much of it he had even gotten from her.

But that was the problem. No matter how small it was, he had spent over a month working hard to gain that little bit of trust. He didn’t want to destroy it now, especially when it probably wouldn’t be enough to save them anyway, so he gave another option.

“Okay, then what about letting me enchant your cloak? I’ll activate my stealth and when I’m done you should be able to activate it, okay?”

“That won’t work,” She told him with a voice filled with sorrow. “I can’t regulate my mana well enough for most enchanted tools, I basically just break the enchantment.”

“Alright then I’ll apply it and activate it for you, I’ll just have to touch your cloak, I won’t touch you, alright?”

“...Okay do it,” She laid her arm out on the ground beside him and he grabbed her loose sleeve, about to start when he felt something. An enchantment already laid on it.

He thought to himself, before ultimately brushing it away. From what he could tell it was a weak one, he couldn’t even guess what it could be for, so he decided to ignore it for now. Instead he focused on the task at hand and started.

He activated his stealth and felt his mana move through him as he started to try and lay it over the cloak. He was trying to be as fast as he could, every second counted here, so he stretched his energy to try and place the entire enchantment at once.

It was then he felt a problem. Something he was deeply familiar with from all of his times using his skill to carve statues. He felt the enchantment break, along with the material it was being attached to.

Long strips tore into the cloak and he heard Thera gasp as he panicked himself.

He was torn somewhere between screaming, crying, and needing to apologise to Thera when Myriad's panicked voice tore into his mind.

The sound of stomping feet and breaking branches suddenly filled the forest and Ben didn’t have time to ask how it was attracted. He looked at Thera and saw her panicking, the white skin of her arms peaking through some of the tears in her damaged cloak. He took a breath and prepared himself.

“Thera run. I’m going to try something so have Myriad direct you to help.”

She looked over to him, face still obscured despite the panic in her voice. “What, no! You’ll die!”

There was no time to argue about it. He stood up and faced whatever approached. Time would tell how this would turn out and he began to truly lose himself in his feelings.

He panicked.

He didn’t want to die. He knew there wasn't going to be a third chance at life and he was afraid. He never saw the few friends he had in the world. He didn’t want to go through the pain of something trying to eat him, the first time had been bad enough. He didn’t want Thera to die. This stupid thing found her immediately after he broke her cloak, there was no way the two events weren’t connected. He didn’t want to die without making an impact. He needed to show all the assholes who decided he didn’t have any worth that they made a mistake.

A creature broke through the woods, unlike anything he had seen yet in the world. As big as a horse and with hideous rubbery grey skin. It ran towards him on six pointed legs and stared at him with dozens of horrifying mismatched eyes, none of which looked like they belonged to the same creature, before it opened up a jaw as wide as his head and lunged at him.

Ben was scared to death, he had worked himself into a panic and was reaching an arm out at it as if that could stop it, but the monster chose to ignore it entirely, instead gouging its teeth into his unguarded torso. In the back of his mind he thought he heard Thera scream.

None of it mattered to Ben though. The moment the beast pierced his flesh, he connected to it.

All of the panic, the fear, the regret, the pain. Everything got transferred over to the alseer, and the monster clearly wasn’t prepared for it. Almost immediately it let go and began to run in the opposite direction, as if its life depended on it, at least it certainly thought it did.

He briefly thought he heard another voice in the distance yelling at it, but Myriad was also screaming in his head and Thera was above him. Apparently he was on the ground. Had he fallen when the creature tackled him or after? Holding his thoughts was getting hard.

He was pretty sure Thera was saying something, screaming it really, but he couldn’t make out the words. As he gazed up at her above him and thought he could just barely make out some of her features before everything slowly faded to black.