Huge, crystalline spikes erupted from the man in every direction, greater in volume than the man’s own body. They ripped him to shreds from the inside, leaving a bloody carcass draped over a strange star of jagged crystal.

A half-dozen damaged, silver-ranked constructs fell out of the air. Emir moved in a blur as he conjured his staff again and smashed them apart before moving to examine the dead man and the bloody sculpture that had emerged from him. He could sense the magic had faded, leaving an inert object for him to examine.

“That’s not something you just come across on the street,” he muttered to himself as he looked it over. As he did so, he was joined by Constance, his chief of staff.

“This is what happened with the other two,” she told him.

“It wasn’t his power,” Emir said. “It was some kind of object inside him. If we manage to catch up to another one, we’ll need some way to negate it.”

112. The Accumulation of a Life

112

The Accumulation of a Life

While the search for answers continued in the astral space, the support camp was suddenly swarmed with bronze-rankers Danielle and Thalia deemed insufficiently reliable to participate. There was also a pair of silver-rankers, one of whom was named Gloria Phael. She had no interest in running the camp but didn’t want a commoner in a position of authority, so she rallied the bronze rankers, ousted Vincent and installed her son in his place.

The administrative skills of the new camp leader left something to be desired and since Jason had stayed on as his assistant, he did his best to keep things running smoothly. This quickly proved infeasible as the new camp leader had little interest in doing, or even hearing about things. This was remedied by having Jason removed as well.

Left idle, Jason spent his time with Gary and Rufus, who was still barely moving. He would robotically eat a spirit coin when prompted by Gary, but never talked. Gary took Jason aside because they were running out of coins and needed clean clothes. Their possessions had all been stored in Farrah’s storage space.

Jason went and found Vincent.

“That worthless, wet sack of nothing actually had me confined to the tent,” Vincent complained.

“Are they enforcing that?” Jason asked.

“No, but it’s still humiliating.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Jason said. “Gary and I need to do something, so we need you to keep an eye on Rufus.”

Vincent had been giving Rufus his distance, at Gary’s suggestion.

“Of course,” Vincent said.