“…some disturbing reports out of the northwest, but we never did get close enough to find out what they were about.”

  Larek walked into the Volunteer headquarters with a smile on his face as he heard his betrothed speaking to Kimble, and he was even happier to see that Norde, Verne, and Teena had also arrived.

  “What kind of reports?” the Volunteer leader asked, but before Nedira could answer, she saw Larek and rushed up to him, throwing herself into his arms.

  “There you are! I was wondering if you had forgotten that we were coming home this morning,” she chided him, before giving him a big kiss. After what felt like too short of a greeting, he set her down as he glanced around at the others, each of whom looked tired but happy to be home. He felt slightly bad about telling them that they were going back out, but he hoped they would understand.

  Seeing that Kimble was slightly annoyed at his interruption, Larek asked Nedira, “What was that I was overhearing when I came in? Something about ‘disturbing reports’?”

  “What? Oh, just some rumors coming out from the northwestern portion of the Kingdom,” she said, waving it off as if it wasn’t a concern. “Apparently, there was a report that a few of the Faction members up there were acting strangely, but not like ‘mind-control bug’ crazy, and that they were attacking each other. I never got a straight answer on where this might be happening, which was why it was a rumor,” she emphasized.

  “Still, it could be an outbreak of those bugs—” Kimble began, already turning away to start giving orders for a team to investigate.

  “Sounds like he’s got it handled, whatever it is,” Larek said, as he invited everyone to walk outside with him. He thought it was probably a good idea not to tell everyone in the headquarters building of the search he was about to embark upon, just in case someone thought it was a bad idea and forbade him from going. Not that he would likely listen to them, but he didn’t want to put that conflict possibility out there in the world.

  Of course, he ended up getting some opposition from his friends, so he wasn’t exactly free from conflict, after all.

  “I just don’t think it is a good idea to get that close to the central portion of the Kingdom,” Norde said after he explained what he was planning as they walked toward the city exit. His opinion was apparently shared amongst the others, who all nodded in agreement. What Larek found interesting was that they didn’t necessarily think the purpose of his search was a bad idea, only that it was too close to the Capital and the Gergasi nearby.

  “Yeah, it’s not a pleasant experience even getting close to there,” Verne added, seeming to shiver as he spoke. “There’s a dark feeling in the air when passing by, as if the very land is warning people to stay away.”

  “But I’m not planning on getting that close,” Larek argued. “If the trail seems to lead that way, I’ll turn back; believe me, I don’t want to risk getting too close to the Gergasi right now, either.”

  They still seemed skeptical, but with the Fusionist being so insistent upon going, they didn’t really have any other convincing arguments.

  “Eh, whatever. Let’s go; it’ll probably be a vacation compared to what we’ve been doing over the last week,” Teena mumbled, the exhaustion in her voice and stature mimicked by the others.

  Seeing this, he immediately stopped and asked, “Do you want to stay here and rest first? We can always go tomorrow, I guess.” Larek immediately felt selfish for practically forcing them to go despite just getting back to the city that morning, as he knew they had been quite busy running around doing things while he sat at home or was teaching Fusion classes.

  Nedira sighed, before shaking her head. “No; I think it would be better just to start. Otherwise, I’d be tempted to delay our departure again. Besides, we can rest on the ride over there, at least a little bit.”

  No one else asked to delay their trip, so he figured they were alright with it. Or at least alright enough with it that they weren’t going to complain. Just as they were exiting the city gates, he turned to Verne. “I forgot to ask: Did you happen to find the time to rebuild another Hopper?”

  His old roommate nodded tiredly, but with a smile. “Sure did! It’s parked over there!” he said excitedly, and Larek looked over to see a transport that was subtly different from the others. In short, it was seemingly made of only a single piece of carved wood, but he knew that his friend had spent a considerable amount of time using his ability to manipulate wood to force all of the wood to combine together.

  As far as its appearance, it didn’t look much different from the original; if anything, it was far more streamlined, with some of the unnecessary holes that had been there removed, and those that were more important were widened. As he examined it over with his magical senses, he saw that all of the Fusions necessary for full functionality were already installed, which made him excited to give it a test drive.

  Even if he hadn’t had the new Hopper pointed out to him, he probably would’ve known where it was, based on the group of Volunteers hanging around it, looking rather bored as they seemed to be waiting for something. With a silent thanks to Kimble for arranging for the Volunteers that were to accompany them on their expedition to meet them there, as he had forgotten to ask about them, Larek walked up to the edge of the group and nodded to the only one who seemed to be paying attention. Larek didn’t recognize anyone in the group, which was disappointing, but not surprising given their incredible recruitment numbers.

  “Halt! This transport is not available—” The young man shouted as Larek continued to approach, but looking past him, his hostile stance suddenly disappeared. “Oh, I’m sorry, Lady Nedira, I didn’t see you there. Leader Kimble mentioned that a group you would be accompanying would be using this transport later today. Is this… it?”

  Larek chuckled as he looked back at his betrothed. “Lady Nedira? Is there something I should know?”

  “Hey! Never disrespect the Lady—”

  Nedira came up next to Larek and placed her hand on his arm. “No, nothing like that, my love. It’s just an honorific that someone came up with one day, and despite my urging otherwise, it seems to have been adopted by many of the Volunteers,” she told him. Turning to the now-flustered young man, she continued. “I thought I told you to stop calling me that. Just Nedira is fine, remember? And to answer your question, yes, this is my group. He’s in charge, though, not me.” She pointed her thumb toward Larek.

  The Volunteer seemed confused, before he finally seemed to register who he was looking at. “Oh. OH! I’m sorry, sir, uh, Lord, uh—”

  “Just Larek is fine, especially if we’re going to be working together. Now,” he prompted, “let’s get on board and get moving. I’ll explain our mission on the way.”

  The Volunteers assembled quickly after that, filing on board the new Hopper transport vessel, and Larek quickly acclimated to the inside, which had a different appearance than the original. The major change was the presence of more comfortable chairs and benches that had stuffed leather cushions, which allowed for a pleasant ride, compared to the bare wood of before. It wasn’t luxurious, by any means, but it was certainly a step up from what it was before.

  “Everyone ready?” he asked, and when everyone was settled – each of the Volunteers arranged on the benches with their VREP staves held upright next to them and melee weapons on their belts, ready for action – Larek nodded and got them on their way.

  After nearly running into an incoming transport on his way out of the city, which he only avoided because he could feel it coming before it was even physically visible, he looked at Nedira with an apology on his face as he took them north. Larek would like to say that the near-hit wasn’t his fault, but it was entirely his fault, and it was mainly because he didn’t wait for permission to leave from the Volunteers handling the incoming and outgoing transports; he was too eager to follow the protocol set up to avoid such a disaster, but he promised himself that he would do better next time.

  “Alright, here’s the deal,” he announced to everyone once they were moving toward their destination. “You all know me as The Fusionist, but I obviously wasn’t the first one the Kingdom ever had. Over the years, Fusionists had been an integral part of the Kingdom, not only providing the SIC with Fusions that helped make their weapons deadlier, as well as providing boosts to help them survive against the monsters that would arrive out of the Scissions that attacked the towns and cities all over. But those Fusionists were also responsible for supplying magical lights and tools, such as an axe like this,” he said as he patted the Logger’s axe at his waist, “to help with day-to-day activities. Many of you may have even used these kinds of tools in the past and didn’t even know it, unlike those staves that you’ve been trained to use, or the Sharpen Fusion on your melee weapons. I can see that most of you have utilized some of my students’ need for practice to make your weapons even more effective, which is exactly what the SIC used to do with those who were able to create Fusions back when the biggest threats were Scissions.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “But as for a lot of the other uses we had for Fusions, such as lights and axes? The members of the SIC stationed in each town and city didn’t necessarily have the time to supply the area with such things, so they had to come from elsewhere. Some Fusionists were contracted directly to specific Nobles, working for them to create Fusions for the common people, which in turn strengthened their lands.

  “While full Fusionists were more rare than other types of Mages, there were more than you might expect, which led to the development of the town of Sidleton. Sidleton is—was—the official Fusionist headquarters for the Kingdom, and was where all of the strongest Fusionists worked out of, taking special commissions for Nobles once their obligation to the SIC was fulfilled, as well as furthering their research into Fusions. Unfortunately, all of this information is what I’ve simply heard secondhand, as I’ve never been there – but we’re on our way there now.

  “Sadly, the town we’re heading toward has reportedly been destroyed, with the Fusionists that had been living there unable to be located. While it happened years ago, I believe it might be possible that some of them survived the coming of the Apertures into the Kingdom, and it is our task to find them. Their help will be invaluable when it comes to establishing a new order of Fusionists that are stronger and more dedicated to the craft than ever before, giving us an advantage over any threats we may encounter in the future.

  “Any questions?”

  One of the Volunteers raised their hands, and Larek pointed to him. “Uh, yeah, when did you say this town was destroyed? If it was more than a month ago, it’s unlikely there would be any survivors.”

  “I’m not sure exactly, but the initial survey said it had been destroyed years ago. There were no signs of a battle, however, and no sign of any bodies buried under the rubble of the town left behind. That’s why I believe they might have survived; where they are, I’m not sure, but I can’t help but believe they’re out there somewhere – and I intend to find them.

  “Any other questions?”

  There were a few more about the likelihood that they would be successful, as well as how long they were expected to search for these lost Fusionists, but Larek didn’t really have an answer. He knew that they had at least a few days to search before he had to get back to his classes, but if he was on a good lead, he wasn’t planning on cutting his investigation short.

  As the questions coming from the Volunteers wound down, silence spread around the inside of the Hopper, and it was at that point that he realized his friends had essentially passed out on some of the benches, using their travel time to get some more sleep. Seeing that, he slowed down their flight through the air a tad, wanting to give them additional time to rest, though he suspected that they would still be at their destination within the hour.

  He proved to be correct as he looked ahead of the Hopper no more than 50 minutes later, seeing what appeared to be the beginning of a short mountain range, and nestled along the nearest portion of the range was a clear ruin, with shattered stone and splintered wood piled up in a stretch of otherwise normal-looking hilly terrain. As he slowed down and angled the Hopper to land close to the exterior of the destroyed town, he couldn’t help but notice that the subtle feeling he’d been experiencing for the last few minutes was getting stronger by the moment.

  Before they left, Verne had mentioned that it wasn’t a pleasant experience getting close to the center of the Kingdom, and while Larek had believed him, he hadn’t really known what his former roommate meant by that. Now, though, the pervasive aura that diffused through the area was obvious, and the Fusionist had to admit that “not a pleasant experience” classified it pretty well. It wasn’t like the aura of death that had accompanied the undead Calamity down south, nor was it anything that seemed like it was meant to harm him. Instead, it almost felt like he was standing next to someone that was so angry that they were looking to kill someone, and intruding upon their personal space might just mean that the person they killed was him.

  Fortunately, it was easy enough for him to ignore it, but the others on The Hopper weren’t so lucky. All of the Volunteers were jumpy, looking around as if something was going to pop out and attack them at any time, and even his friends appeared paranoid and more than a bit unsettled, unlike anything he’d seen before. Actually, that’s not entirely true; I’ve seen this before, though on a much smaller scale.

  It was then that he realized this feeling was a result of Dominion magic, though used on a whole different level than what he could produce. Instead of trying to directly influence someone through their mind, such as what Chinli had done to his friends when he was taken away, this was like a blanket of killing intent that didn’t necessarily try to influence the mind and thoughts of anyone who passed within its range. It wasn’t meant to control people or even harm them; rather, he thought it might even be a conscious projection on the part of the Gergasi in their Enclave.

  In other words, they were furiously angry and they wanted everyone within range to know it.

  Perhaps it was a mistake to come here, after all. If I can feel this coming from them, can they feel me?

  If they could, then it was likely already too late. He somewhat expected to feel a whole group of Gergasi attempting to come flying toward his location, and when no one seemed to materialize at the edge of his perceptions, he landed the vessel anyway, despite the potential danger. He was there already, he figured, so he might as well take advantage of it before he was forced to flee.

  Moving next to Nedira, he squatted down and looked her in the eyes. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  His betrothed took a second to meet his eyes, as she seemed kind of dazed from the feeling they were all now experiencing. “I… think so. But we need to get out of here as soon as possible,” she finally responded.

  Wow. This is a side of Dominion magic that I didn’t even know existed. Larek held her hand for a moment and patted it a few times, trying to comfort her; it helped, he could tell, but he could also feel the tiniest shake in her hand that seemed involuntary. She’s generally frightened; this is something I’ll have to see if I can nullify. Otherwise, when I bring everyone to attack them, they might all just run away.

  Since he didn’t even know Dominion magic could do this, nor did he know how he could replicate it, the Illuminated Free Will Fusions in everyone’s head weren’t set up to combat it. The Fusion was simply meant to counteract any direct attempts at mind-control, not whatever this was.

  Regardless of the frightening effect, they had work to do. “Alright, everyone out. Let’s search around and see if we can find any clues that might give us an idea of where the Fusionists here might have gone.”

  The Volunteers were visibly reluctant to leave The Hopper, at least based on their hesitation to follow him out, but they eventually did – along with his friends. No one appeared happy to be there, and more than one appeared ready to bolt at the first sign of opposition, but they still jumped down from the top of the vessel and let him lead them toward the edge of the destroyed town of Sidleton. As he approached, he could see that it was a fairly large town at one point, nearly to the point of being a city, and it spread out horizontally along the bottom portion of the mountain behind it.

  Looking at the rubble that used to be the once-tall walls, the first thing he noticed was how completely destroyed they were. Each of the stone blocks that once comprised the physical barrier had been practically shattered in one way or another, without a single, fully intact block to be seen. There were some that were only partially damaged, but other than those few exceptions, the destruction was absolute.

  Which didn’t make much sense to him, considering that monsters had supposedly attacked the town. Even Thanesh, which had originally been abandoned because monsters had attacked and breached the walls, still had a good half of its walls intact when the Volunteers had arrived to take it over. The reason they weren’t destroyed completely was simple: Once the monsters made their way inside the city, there was no reason to destroy any more of the walls, since their way inside was pretty much secure.

  Granted, it could be that the nearby Rock Trolls that had theoretically attacked the town and killed its residents took some adverse pleasure in shattering everything they could get their hands on, but typically monsters only had one thing on their mind: killing people. This… this didn’t look anything like a force of monsters looking to break their way inside to the town to kill people. This level of destruction looked deliberate, not incidental.

  As he directed the Volunteers to stay in small groups while they browsed around the destroyed town, seeking any sign of the lost Fusionists, or for anything that might make it obvious what happened to Sidleton, Larek climbed atop a large pile of cracked stone blocks that used to be the wall protecting it.

  Stretching his gaze over the old devastation, as he agreed with the original assessment that the town had probably been abandoned for years, he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Not a single building was still standing, and while there were a few partial walls that made it clear where there was a building, the destruction was pretty much absolute.

  What happened here? This does not look like a monster attack of any kind I’ve seen or heard about.

  Closing his eyes, he sent out his senses to look for any sign that someone had been there lately. Since it used to be a town full of Fusionists, he’d hoped he might find some lingering Fusions still around, but surprisingly, there was nothing inside the town. The only ones he found were depleted remnants of Strengthen Stone Fusions on the stone blocks that had once comprised the walls.

  That was even more suspicious.

  While he didn’t expect any of the Fusions that might have existed in the town to still be active, the fact that he couldn’t detect even a single one that had been depleted, as they didn’t normally last longer than a year for most Fusionists, was flat-out wrong. It was almost as if the Fusionists had gathered up every single Fusion before they fled, leaving nothing but the walls behind.

  It was only when he intensified his search, looking for even a single depleted Fusion amongst the rubble, that he finally found something.