The signs of autumn were everywhere. They were different to back home. The mountain trees did not shift to the riot of oranges, reds and browns that Albion favoured, and yet there was a change in the air. The flowers were gone, the wind was cool, and the animals were more focused, fat, and aiming to stay that way before the winter hit.

It also rained a lot.

We had parted from the Golden Keep at the beginning of summer. Splitting apart to go out and right the wrongs of the world. They had said they would stick around Oakwall, using it as a base to handle the issues within their territory, which helped save us some work.

We dealt with the first set of problems with ease. Crushing the various monsters, bandits and the like with barely a scratch or splatter of mud. Our reputation firmly established, a lot more requests for our aid came filtering in.

Some were demands for support, others desperate pleas for aid. We dealt with them as best we could, prioritising human life first and foremost. While a few choices might have allowed us to enter the courts of the kings more easily, our more politically minded members found ways to smooth out our decisions, so even the most stuck-up, self-important monarch did not deny us a chance to snoop around and search for the Grail.

We had spent our time going from kingdom to kingdom. Most were ecstatic to have support. The threat of monsters, bandits and the like had been like a slowly tightening noose and we offered a breath of fresh air.

It led to feasts. Where I and others would distract our hosts while Tristan or one of the quieter members of our cohort would slip below, looking through paltry treasuries of the kings, trying to find our secret objective.

There was no luck so far, and we had visited most of the big kingdoms.

The last bigger kingdom, one with old vaults and a history that stretched back further than the scrawny, botched histories of lesser kingdoms, was the realm of King Phischer.

The man who had snubbed our every advance.

As much as we were tempted to send Tristan in to take a look on his lonesome, it was possible for spies, even at Iron, to be noticed by a skilled rune master or Bronze level cultivator. Getting caught in the man's vaults would destroy the goodwill we had built up.

Phischer was also the kind of man who would kick up a fuss no matter what we did to appease him. The king was trapped at Bronze. It seemed he had failed to ever work out his intent, and then, in an attempt to overcome the hurdle, poisoned his hearth with all manner of 'cures' and 'treasures' trying to breach the divide.

He hated Iron-ranked cultivators. They represented everything he could never be.

The only thing that could get us into his halls was what he hated more than any other. Those who had promised to heal him but failed.

They were his main target. And as such, it was one of his former advisors that we found ourselves hunting. The issue was that the advisor knew just how twisted and obsessed Phischer was, and so the Bronze rank had retreated into the depths of one of the most inhospitable mountains in the entire range.

So it was that we trudged up the sharp hills through the early snows and towards our quarry. Spirits were low.

"I'm am so done hunting this fucker."

"Bors, language."

"I'm am so done hunting this insane, murderous, cannibal! See, that doesn't make it better, does it!"

"Try not to pulverise him. If we have spent all this time tracking him only for you to paste him and have nothing to show the kings, I'll throw you down a mountain."

"If you do not both shut up, I'll bury the pair of you. Or maybe we will just do some more parade practice," Kay growled, wiping the water from her face. At that, the group went silent, proving there was truly no greater threat to a cultivator than absolute tedium.

There was only one way to get parade training right, and an infinite number of ways to get it wrong. I had once seen Bors nearly cry when she had picked up on a poorly shined buckle.

"Come on, we are nearly done. We have got him surrounded. We have all of us here. Just think about the feasts once we are done."

"I'm going to eat an entire suckling pig."

"I just hope this gets us in with that Phischer bastard. He's been so stuck up, not letting us near his 'domain'."

"You sure this will get us a meeting? I know this guy is on his hit list, but there doesn't seem to be a person in the mountains that he does not have a grudge against."

"This is one of the people who failed to heal him. He holds a special level of hatred for them."

"Heal what? His body is full of impurities. No one can cultivate once that happens."

I wisely remained silent, though I did notice a small smile on Bors and Percy's lips. They knew of my exception to the rules.

"I'm not sure I want to meet someone who would consider hiring this guy. He's a lunatic."

"This Sorcerer was more sane back then." I replied. Our current target, a 'Sorcerer' named Vermald, had managed to maintain an air of mystique for years. He had risen to Bronze, which was the highest most anyone in the mountains reached, at an early age and then got stuck. He had plied a trade of being a 'mage' and wise man for years.

If anything, failing to heal King Phischer was his greatest undoing. When he failed, both in healing the monarch and in his attempt to poison him to cover it up, the king had thrown everything behind killing the man. When that happened, Phischer's troops had burst into the 'Sorcerer's tower' that he had been building for decades and found all manner of nightmares.

The Sorcerer rapidly became every local kingdom's number one enemy. It also revealed his second gift. He was Bronze, with affinities for both Runes and Death.

That had given us all pause. While at Bronze the power of Death glamour was limited, it was still one of the most vicious forms of attack. While the gap in power between them meant they could use their own glamour and aura to push away the worst of his attacks, it still meant they had to be careful in the assault.

There was some discussion about involving me in the assault, but I was not exactly used to battling Death glamour myself. I could, in theory, control anything he threw at us, but none of us knew what the effects of that battle might be on me. Would me taking control of the glamour empower it? Would it affect my mind?

I was saved from taking the risk, as the Knights insisted on tackling the man themselves. They wanted a chance to combat the Death glamour and learn from it.

The decision was taken to leave me at our temporary camp, as usual, to protect the horses. As we got higher in the mountains, more Bronze and the occasional Iron-ranked monster was appearing. While Gring and Archimedes would scan for threats before heading out to keep watch for any escapes, there was still a chance something actually dangerous would sneak up on the mounts.

"We are nearing the caves he uses."

"Let's just rush him."

"I know we are all impatient, but do not forget he's killed at least one Iron cultivator who hunted him down. He has managed to tame or compel something with Iron strength. Likely some manner of runic collar," Kay reminded the group.

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That is how the mage had survived. He and his monster had retreated into these inhospitable mountains, where wild Iron rank monsters roamed, using the local threats and his 'pet' to keep himself safe. The few survivors from the last failed bounty attempt spoke of a monster, some kind of horror that no one could describe properly other than 'made me shit myself', 'has tentacles', and 'looks like a bag of offal that fell down some stairs'.

"I'm not a fan of unfamiliar monsters. Everyone stick in pairs. Priority one is staying alive, priority two is killing this guy. Make sure to take him down without destroying the body." Kay glared at Bors.

"It was one time." The big man squirmed.

"It better remain a unique occurrence. Lance and Gawain are on watch in case he tries to run. Let's get this done." They then broke into discussions about the attack plan while I tended to the horses. The others had left their mounts with me, and I, with practised ease, corralled them all together.

I set up a weak array of runes. It was something Tristan had come up with. It did not do anything for sight, but was good at hiding the horses' meagre cultivation and scent. That way we did not broadcast to the whole mountain that there was a veritable buffet of horse meat waiting around.

I had to admit that I was starting to get a little bored with my task. Not least because this time they would be heading into some caves, which meant I had zero chance of seeing anything. At least on the open plains I could watch at a distance, but this time I was only ever going to get second-hand stories about what happened.

It was a nuisance. Trying to get the full story out of them would take forever.

They spread out, removing their cloaks. Those with long blades switched to smaller, sturdier swords that would work better in the tight confines of the caves. Bors looked like he was clutching a knife rather than a short sword.

"Be careful, he's a runes-gifted. Lancelot had training with her father. If you come across a runic formation you do not recognise, do not touch it and signal for her or Tristan, who also is quite gifted with traps. I do not want to dig anyone out of the mountain today, nor find our quarry squashed themselves trying to escape."

"You know what Death glamour feels like thanks to Taliesin. If you feel it and are alone, you call out, no excuses. Do not risk it."

"Move in when you see the signal," Kay finished, before taking a lift with Gawain and Archimedes. The others were spread out in groups of two or three around the mountain. Bors and Gaz had, through combining their skills, mapped out the edges of an extensive cave network.

The Sorcerer had picked a good bolt hole. The maze-like structure had plenty of different routes for escape. And unless he was a lot dumber than we had been led to believe, he also knew they were coming.

"See you soon, Taliesin," Bors called over his shoulder as they headed up towards the mountain, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Then it started to rain.

I cursed. One thing I did not like about pine trees was you could not easily hide under their canopy. There needles reaching to the ground like a ballroom dress.

Instead, you had to force your way through their branches and make space for yourself. Something I'd gotten quite used to. It was not ideal but it kept me out of the wind. As I slipped into the tree, I heard the horses beneath me huddle up to try and get some kind of cover from the sapping cold.

I thought about fiddling with my lute but could not get my head in the mood. The fact that we were hunting a death gifted had put me into a bad mood. Knowing that in all likelihood the Sorcerer's pursuit of power had corrupted his mind. He might have been a right bastard before, but the unhinged stuff we had learned about?

Such atrocities were almost synonymous with death gifted.

Was it something I had to worry about? Right now, certainly not. I was not an average cultivator. Ignoring the obvious fact that I followed a bardic path, I felt that my fellows were all connected to something I did not quite follow.

Given how much travel we had completed over the last few months, we had talked a lot and I had come to realise that my fellow Knights were obsessed with cultivating. They thought about their progress, how to maximise their intake of glamour. What fit their intent. They asked these questions constantly, striving to empower themselves and grow.

I did think about these things, but in bursts. Yet for them, when not in battle or actively drinking, they were thinking about cultivating.

I thought back on my long imprisonment with the Harkleys. Such obsession had been the norm for them as well. I had always stayed out of such discussions, as not only had I crippled myself but I did not want to appear to be having ideas above my station.

Only now, when the talks every day focused on whatever labour we were tasked with, did the focus of the discussion slip to cultivation. Other knightly pursuits made their way into the rotation. Swordsmanship, armour maintenance, and honourable conduct were common.

If not, it was about cultivation. Everyone had a strategy, an approach, a path they were following. Even if they were not exactly sure where their path was taking them, they were focused on putting one foot in front of the other, to eat up the impossible distance between their current existence and reaching the power of Steel.

They compared stages of development. There were seven stages to Iron, and so far only Percy, Bors, Arthur and Gawain were in the second stage. Maeve, Lance and Gaz were following swiftly after them. Tristan was lagging behind, as he tried to conceal the true nature of his powers.

Kay was actually the furthest along at the third stage, which made sense, as she was a few years older. Though she admitted she had paused her progress, focusing on pulling up the foul, parasitic weeds that had crept in during her time under the church's control.

For me, I did not even know where I was in the process. I was certainly only in the first stage, but if I was at its peak or a bare step over the threshold, I could not tell. Perhaps it was because I did not view my power as a tool to battle with, and so did not need to measure my strength.

I had to admit I was also a little scared. Scared of wanting more power. Scared of starting down a path that would end up with me being hunted like this Sorcerer.

I was not at all like the Sorcerer, but how long would that last? Would there come a time where I found myself pursuing power by walking down a path paved with the bones of the innocent? Was he like me and then something made him crack? An event that pushed him to become what he was now?

I shuddered, and rain dripped down from the branches above, going down the nape of my neck.

Swearing, I used my knife to generate some heat and burnt a little wood to get some smoke flowing around me. I was still far more comfortable with my Smoke gift. It did not mean I was not working on my skills. I had read the little book of death curses from cover to cover enough that I could remember each word perfectly. But I did not use Death glamour with any regularity.

I focused on other pursuits. My alchemy was coming along nicely. I had managed to work out some good potions to help heal wounds and maintain our glamour using local ingredients. Nothing a full dedicated alchemist would accept, but for my limited skills it was a victory.

My music was spurred on by witnessing the technical ability of Koko, had developed greatly, and I was learning more about resonance. That magical power which empowered me through my connection with others.

I shifted in the tree as the light squall of rain passed, the horses below spaced out a bit and began to chew the grass. I shook myself, trying to pay better attention to my surroundings and keep watch, but it was not long before I was drawn back into my musings.

Here I was, looking after horses rather than confronting a monster that was a crude reflection of me. I was not doing it because I wanted to carve a path towards power, but just as a means to support our group. So I could stay close to Sephy, so I could adventure and travel. It was for my personal interest, and enjoyment.

I sighed. There was, of course, one other path to power for me.

I really did not want to discover that my Phoenix inheritance expected me to die regularly to progress. With the impurities I had built up, I was confident I could return, but killing myself for progress felt so counter-intuitive. I also worried that each death might make the return harder. The cost was going up, that much I could sense, but I did not know if that was due to my increasing cultivation or some other factor I was not aware of.

I reached into my storage ring to pull out a small snack, a buttery smooth bread roll that I had been handed by a grateful baker in one of the towns. I bit into it, hiding beneath my cloak, using a pair of scraggly pines to keep the wind off me.

As I did, I heard a faint muttering coming from the other side of the horses. Had one of the Knights returned? I froze as I caught a glimpse between the dense branches of the pines.

Elphin was watching a huddled mass of cloaks and misery as it tried to load him up with a collection of bags and a small chest. The horse would let him get some on top before shifting ever so slightly and letting the entire collection topple off him.

"Damned Knights. Come on, horsey." Was someone trying to steal my actual horse?

Was this the Sorcerer? A minion of his? Now I was aware of him, I could sense a gap in my awareness. An area that my attention slid off, like trying to grab a wet piece of ice. Whomever it was, he was using some manner of runes or trickery to conceal his presence, similar to the runes that helped hide the horses.

I extended a tendril of near-invisible smoke from the glamour I had been using to warm myself and used it to delicately pierce the space. I fought down a hiss at what I found.

Death glamour. It oozed from the man, but he was not the greatest source. That instead went to his chest. A stack of runes caged the screams of the resentful dead. I could feel it in the glamour, the hate, anger and fear of the fallen. The last of their will infusing the glamour with a vitriol and wrath that I had never before encountered.

It seemed it was my fate to be part of this story. The Sorcerer had come to me.

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