Gavin could feel it building in his chest, a scream that would release all the rage and frustration that had accumulated over the past week. Only the knowledge that his control over six octaves could possibly turn his scream into a sonic weapon kept him from doing so, but only barely.

This was supposed to be easy.

They were only here to clean up the loose ends left from when they'd defeated the Conclave. The final battle had as glorious and dramatic as those tended to be, but the victory had come at too high a cost. Gavin had cast the spell that decided it, but with it he'd lost the chance to save one of their own. He'd looked into Varyn's eyes as he'd done it, seen him realize what Gavin had done, and go through all the stages of regret before he finally smiled, and nodded in understanding.

The curse claimed him soon after.

His loss had hurt them all, but it devastated Verona. A week passed before she could even talk, and when she did, she suggested this: a quick little trip of goodwill across the continent, fixing all the various odds and ends you get from a grand adventure: returning stolen items, reconciling with old enemies, collecting the Shards. All so that by the end, they could live the rest of their lives in peace, or whatever passed for it.

And it had all gone so well.

Except now, this bloody child... It was harder to tell with half-elves, since the eternal youth of their elven lineage gave them a ridiculously long period of babyface, but now, Gavin was sure. Only a child would act this...bratty.

“If you so much as touch me I am leaving,” Lang hissed, backing away slowly. Verona was trying to calm him down, without much success. “I'm perfectly fine as I am, and you never mentioned we'd have to get into any “potential combat situations”. I see your notebooks. I know you keep records.”

Nazaari scratched his left feet against the ground, a sure sign of his annoyance. “We have only your word to take for it. Verona relayed the details of your so-called “fairy transformation”, and while I consider that to be of dubious medical legitimacy, I nonetheless have a responsibility to make sure your body isn't in possession of any deformations or...deficiencies.”

Lang turned to Verona, who winced. “My so-called... How much didn't you tell them, Verona? Should I just fill you in on the rest of my childhood? Secret frustrations, unaccomplished dreams, the time I wet the--”

The half-elf's tirade was interrupted by a bonk. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slowly fell backwards, landing with a thud. Behind him, Chad gingerly held the white orb in his hands. Verona gasped. Chad shrugged.

“We tried asking nicely, didn't we? Besides, we're wasting time.” He pointed at the great tree, its spindly, thorny limbs slowly rising in the horizon.

Nazaari mumbled something about concussions being a serious matter, but he immediately got to work, checking Lang's pulse before taking a pinch of powder from a bag in his belt, and sprinkling it over him. Verona ran over to help.

Gavin got off his hammock. “Good call, Chad,” he said. “I was going to cast something, but I've always appreciated your style. Straightforward. Efficient.”

Chad blew on his fists, and grinned. “No spell slots wasted, either. These guns don't need ammo.”

Gavin was about to ask what a gun was when Nazaari spluttered, the halo of energy he casted around Lang's unconscious form flickering briefly.

“Gavin, come here. What am I looking at?” he said.

The gnome walked over to where he stood, casting an arcane eye on where Nazaari was pointing at. With his magical sight, he could see the lines along his body where the energy needed for magic flowed. They appeared as glowing white arteries and veins, and while they were open and developed as a regular magic user's would be, they were tangled into a jumbled ball above Lang's liver, the energy center of the body.

Gavin frowned. “The wiring's twisted as hell. Looks like someone took this section apart, and did a really bad job of putting it back together.”

“My thoughts precisely,” Nazaari agreed. “If he'd tried to use magic right now, it would have likely resulted in an energy backflow. It would make that first spell exceptionally powerful, at the cost of burning out his circuits. With a big enough spell, the blowback would prove to be...explosively fatal, if not for him, then for anyone nearby.”

Gavin whistled. “I haven't seen work like this since that arcane surgeon in Songstress a couple of years ago. Wonder why drama queen over here's got it?”

Nazaari shrugged. “No matter,” he said, drawing a claw across Lang's shirt, slitting it open and exposing his chest. “Hey!” Verona protested.

“It's simply a matter of rerouting his circuits around the blockage,” Nazaari continued, pulling out a scalpel from his bag, and blowing a small burst of fire on the blade to sterilize it. “It'll disable his magic, but it should mitigate the danger of-”

“This isn't right,” Verona protested. “This is exactly what he didn't want you doing, Nazaari.”

Gavin furiously scratched his head. “We literally don't have time for this,” he said, irritated. “Either we do this right now, or we drag him to the tree and try not to stand too close to him when he blows.”

“I promised he'd be my responsibility,” Verona insisted. “I can't let you do this.”

Before the argument could continue, the tree above them rustled, as Bati, who had been keeping watch, leapt off of it and landed smoothly on the ground, her feet inches from Lang's head. She crouched down and peered at his chest.

“Everybody shut up,” she said, her eyes narrowed in concentration. “I got this.”

She marked three spots around his liver, her lips moving as she chanted something softly. Nodding, she straightened up. Her hands blurred as they came together in a series of complicated positions, her fingers folding and unfolding in several combinations, until finally, she stretched out her right hand, gripped it firmly with her left, and slammed it down into Lang's stomach with a kiai. Still unconscious, Lang's body flopped around the impact, the breath leaving him in an audible horf before he settled back down onto the ground.

“Two...three...” Bati muttered, raising her fingers.

Suddenly Lang's eyes opened, blank and glowing with a faint white light. He began to convulse, but Bati slipped one arm behind his head and the other around his back, lifting him up. She handed him to Chad, who bemusedly took him, resting the white orb on Lang's body.

“Keep his head up and make sure he doesn't throw up or whatever,” she advised, winking at Nazaari. He stared, his toothy mouth wide open in shock as he watched Lang's circuits slowly untangle themselves. “Secret technique, you see,” Bati said, nodding and sagely stroking an invisible goatee. “Chi's all cleared up now. He should be fine in a bit.”

“That was...” Verona started to say. “Are you sure?”

Gavin clapped his hands together. “You heard her. Secret technique. Now that that's out of the way, let's move out!”

As they walked towards the giant tree, Lang curled up in Chad's arms. His lips moved, his forehead shimmered with sweat. The chi strike had done more than rearrange his circuits. As his magic began to flow back into his system, aspects of him long forced into dormancy began to awaken.

Lang began to remember.