Cover Art First Chapter Patreon Playlist
The Story: After a confusing encounter at a McDonald’s register turns violent, Jon is pulled into a magical bloodbath - and his only chance for survival lies with the pissed-off, perpetually-broke immortal working behind the counter.
---------------------------------
Step by step, the fire’s light faded out, the grass beneath my feet shading to a muted purple-grey before vanishing into black. I let out a shaky breath, lifting my gaze. We’d claimed a bit of grassy field along the mostly-quiet highway, and Cailyn had marked out a line of branches right before the no-go zone. My steps slowed as I searched for it in the darkness. Wouldn’t do to cross it unawares. No, I’d…
I stopped. It was faint, but…glowing with the scraps of firelight that made it out here, I could just barely make out the shape of a man laying ahead of me, tucked in right before the boundary line.
Aedan raised himself up a hair, the light catching the angles of his face more clearly. “Jonny,” he said. “You finally come to realize the wonders of sleeping outside?” He patted the grass alongside him, dropping back to level again. “Let them blabber away the night on their own.”
I chuckled under my breath, ducking my chin. I couldn’t really place why I’d decided to come over and disturb Aedan, since he clearly didn’t want to be bothered with the rest of everyone, but…while I wasn’t enthused with the thought of joining in on Mason and Cailyn’s banter, that didn’t mean I wanted to sit entirely by my lonesome, either. Aedan was better than nothing.
So I eased myself to the ground with a groan of tired bones, finally flopping down to lie flat.
In the hazy darkness, I saw him glance over. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “It’s…fine. Everything is fine. I think.”
Aedan hesitated, his gaze flicking over me. “...Okay,” he said at last. “Well, if you want to rant a little, I’m not exactly going anywhere.”
I signed, drooping against the soft ground. “Maybe. It’s just-”
“But, uh.” When I stopped, Aedan chuckled, raising a hand to mock at grasping his chest. “Necklace on? We can kill two birds with one stone.”
Right. My out-of-control magic. I grimaced at the reminder of another problem I needed to fix, but there was no pretending. I was keeping a handle on things okay without my relic on, all things considered, but…well, it’d been a few hours between our arrival and now, and the itch spreading across my skin was starting to prickle more than was comfortable. I wanted my relic back. There was no way I’d argue with Aedan’s offer.
A bit of the tension ebbed away at the brush of my fingertips against the entwined rings. I closed my eyes for a moment, leaning back and soaking in the blissful relief. That…felt better.
But Aedan wouldn’t sit there patiently waiting for me forever, so I slipped the cord around my neck, putting the rings back under my shirt, and exhaled. “Okay,” I whispered, trying to remember everything I’d done before. Trying to remember the way it’d felt to take my magic and shove it away. My eyelids squeezed tighter as I pushed. “Is…Is it-”
“Not yet,” Aedan said. “Still casting.”
Shit. I forced myself to take a long, slow breath, refusing to let the anxiety build up anew. You don’t need your magic right now. This is just Aedan. We talk all the time.
Something inside of me loosened. I opened my eyes again. “I…I think-”
“Hey,” Aedan said, perking up. He raised his head enough to grin over at me, waggling an eyebrow. “Would ya look at that? We’ll make a halfway competent mage out of you yet.”
“Shut up,” I groaned, shaking my head. “So it’s working.”
“Well, it’s not working, more like.” When I made an irritated noise, he snorted. “Let me have my fun. You’re good now, so…What’s going on?”
I froze, the words right there on the tip of my tongue. The weight of it all hit my chest again. I grimaced. “It was Brendon,” I said, turning my eyes back to the stars. “He…just wanted to pass on an update about the enemy crews in the area. It’s all looking good, by the way. We should be clear for a while, unless they sniff us out and come looking.”
“Okay,” Aedan said. “So why d’you look like you’ve got a stick shoved straight up your ass?”
Eloquent as ever. I made a face. “But…he reminded me about my parents, too.”
“Wait, Daddy Christensen’s still in the picture?” Aedan said, glancing over again. “Shit, Jonny, I didn’t think-”
“They’re both still alive,” I said, shooting an irritated look his way. “And don’t start with any of that.” I shook my head, letting my eyes rise. “After Greenville happened…they thought I died. Me and Keira both. I couldn’t let them stay like that.”
“And they know about you?” Aedan said. “I know you said-”
“Yeah,” I said “I was just a kid when I got my relic. They both found out when stuff started turning weird with it. They just…didn’t really know what to make of it.”
“Fuckin’ lucky, the whole thing,” Aedan said. For once, though, he wasn’t smiling. “You were a demi who didn’t know shit about how we work. If you’d gone and made a public stink of this-”
“We’d probably have gotten killed by Carl, or Noah, or Anke,” I said heavily. “Yeah. I’ve put a lot of thought into that, y’know.”
“I bet you have.” The faintest snort curled at the words. I heard him sigh a moment later, though. “So you told them what happened?”
I grimaced. “...Yeah. They don’t understand. Not really. But I…I told them to hide out for a while. Get out of the line of fire, in case any of Noah’s cronies decided to make a bid for leadership.”
“Did they?”
“Don’t know, do I?” I retorted. “We-”
“Magic,” Aedan said.
My lips curled into a scowl—but I took a tighter grip on my magic, forcing it away again. “We left Greenville. First to Detroit, then to Anke’s place. I haven’t exactly kept up on the news back home, and…” I shook my head. “They’d moved out of Michigan long before I met you. They’re living down south now.”
“South enough to be out of the range of the war?” Aedan’s voice was quieter, but sharp. “Do you think-”
“Probably,” I mumbled. “I don’t think they should get sniffed out. Neither of them are demis. As far as I know, anyway. If my grandpa had another relic to give my dad, he definitely didn’t say anything about it.” He would’ve told me. I was pretty sure about that. And I could still remember their panic when I first showed signs of oddness. It hadn’t been imagined or invented.
“If neither of them are magic, then I really don’t think they’re going to get spotted.” Christ, now he sounded all gentle, which was somehow worse. “I mean, I know how that shit goes. You’re going to worry regardless, but, y’know. Don’t let it get to you.”
“I know.” I sniffed, wiping at my nose, and shook my head again. “Just…if Madis has all this knowledge like Anke says…he’s looking for me. Maybe he figured something out about my family. Maybe he-”
“Calm the fuck down,” Aedan said with a groan. “You’re making me tired just listening to you. Yeah, Madis is probably going to be…pretty interested in you.” He drooped. I glanced over in time to see his eyelids sag lower. “I…know that much about him. He loves oddities, and he loves old magic. That’s…why I…”
His voice dropped away. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “It’s why I had a deadline, once I realized Anke knew about you too,” he said.
“The kidnapping,” I said. “With Cathy.”
He hesitated, but nodded. “...Yeah. That was her warning to me. She was giving Madis the information he wanted.”
“And giving you one last chance at death before he got here.” It wasn’t a question. At the same time, though…it wasn’t an accusation either. Maybe it would’ve been at one point, but I was coming to understand them all a little better. And even if Anke wanted Aedan to stay around, she hadn’t wanted to arbitrarily deprive him of the very thing he’d spent an eternity hunting for. What a tangled web.
Aedan looked away. “I didn’t know what else to do,” he whispered. “I’m not strong enough to stand up to Madis. I don’t have a crew. I’ve never had any of that shit. If he wanted you…” Again, he swallowed. “What could I do? It was already done. Decided. All I could do was-”
“I know,” I said, turning my sights back to the stars glimmering overhead. “It…was a bad situation for everyone.”
“Yeah,” Aedan said, his voice hoarse. I saw his chest rise as he took a long, deep breath. “B-But. Point is. Yeah, he’s going to be interested in you. But he’s got no reason to think you’ve got parents around, right? That’s not exactly normal for most of you twerps.”
“I guess,” I said. I was pretty sure I’d been told something like that before—it just didn’t make me feel any better. “I just-”
“If you’re so worried about it, why don’t you ask Anke?” Aedan said. “I…can’t do much to help. But she can.”
“Anke?” I murmured, glancing back toward the fire. “That’s-”
My blood chilled as I caught sight of her watching Aedan and I sidelong, blue eyes glinting in the firelight. Before I could say a word the moment passed, and she was back to murmuring something that made Amber bust out into cackles.
“Y-Yeah,” I said, forcing myself to look back to Aedan. “I guess I could, but-”
“You’re slipping again,” Aedan says. “You’ve got to stay focused.”
“Shit,” I mumbled, licking my lips. One hand settled around my necklace. “Sorry.”
“Fuck, don’t apologize to me.”
When I was pretty sure that my relic lay cool and dormant again, I stretched out again, running my useless fingers through the grass. “I probably could,” I mumbled. “Just…I dunno. She’s already champing at the bit to get me locked down working for her, in one fashion or another. I just…I don’t know if handing her more leverage is a good idea. And…” I grimaced. “I don’t know what my family can really offer. They’re not magic. They couldn’t pull their weight.”
“Guess that makes sense,” Aedan said. From the corner of my eye, I saw him wrinkle his nose. “Still…I think you should ask her. She’d probably help them out if it meant getting a debt out of you.”
“You immortals and your debts,’ I groaned. The urge to roll my eyes grew stronger. “Is that all you think about?”
“It’s a constant through the years,” Aedan said, a chuckle under the words. “Not much else is.”
“...Okay, fair enough.” I fell quiet, unable to really argue with that. I wanted to, but…if it meant keeping my family safe, maybe the right thing to do was acknowledge that Aedan had a point. Sure, I might wind up owing Anke a favor, but when she already had me by the short hairs, how much did that really matter? If she wanted something from me, I didn’t exactly have a lot of room to argue.
So I shut my mouth, grimacing, and watched the stars.
That was enough, for a while. I’d been given a lot to think about, between my parents, and Madis, and the scene in that long-distant concrete cell. The worries were starting to purr along more quietly, at least. I could keep a handle on things. Ever so slightly, I smiled, letting my eyelids droop.
“U-Uh. So.”
Well, that wasn’t like Aedan. I raised my head a fraction of an inch, fixing a look on him. “What’s up?”
“You…You don’t have to answer if you don’t want. But, uh. I just thought-”
“Pretty sure we’re past being shy,” I said. “Just ask.”
He let his head fall backward, then nodded. “...Yeah. Guess you’re right.”
I waited. He took a long few moments, but finally, I heard him take a deep breath.
“There’s something going on with you, isn’t there?” he said softly. “Back there in base. I…I don’t know what, but…Your woman wouldn’t bite my head off for nothing, and…sometimes, you…you seem like-”
“Ah,” I mumbled, and bobbed my head. My pulse quickened. I really didn’t want to talk about this—but he deserved to know. If nothing else, it wasn’t fair to let him keep putting his foot in his mouth over stuff he didn’t know.
So I sighed, planting one hand against the grass, and pushed myself to a sitting position.
His eyes snapped to me. “Jon?”
“I…didn’t tell you before.” I shook my head, laying my hands in my lap, and clasped them together as tightly as I could. All I got was a twinge of pain, but I saw his gaze drop to follow the motion. His brows furrowed, and I smiled faintly. “You…did a fair bit of damage to my hands, back then. And they didn’t react well to it.”
Slowly, Aedan pushed himself up alongside me, his eyes dark. “Wait, so-”
“I’m fine,” I said. One finger at a time, I unwound my hands from each other, then turned them palm up, letting the scars catch the light from the campfire. “But…I’m still dealing with these, a little.”
Aedan whispered something in Irish under his breath, the corners of his eyes creasing in consternation as he took my hands in his. And it actually came through in Irish, so…well, I’d take that as a win, however small. His thumbs traced over the thick ribbon of silvered flesh. “But…Anke has healers. She could fix this. So why the fuck didn’t she-”
“They tried,” I said. I didn’t try to pull away, even if the numb, hollow sensation against my skin sent prickles down my spine. I grimaced. “It’s…look. There’s not really a nice way to say this, and all that. Just…it’s okay, but…”
I looked away, unable to hold Aedan’s gaze. “You didn’t exactly do much to keep my hands from getting fucked up, after you sliced me open,” I mumbled. “So…they got infected. Really infected. And then I got thrown out into the forest and left to sit there, and…well, it got worse.”
“Jonny,” Aedan whispered. His hands slipped free of mine at least, and I saw him draw back ever so slightly. “I didn’t think-”
“I know,” I said. “You…really didn’t plan on needing my hands to be healthy.” I shook my head, clasping my hands again, and flexed the fingers against each other. “Hannah put me back together again, once they found me. She patched me up, but…it caused a lot of scarring when she did. Anke’s healers are good. They’re not miracle workers.”
“And that’s why you don’t have a gun.” His words were leaden, little more than a murmur. “Is that it?”
I chuckled. “Pretty much.” Extending one hand again, I curled my fingers—and watched, mute, as they twitched, the torn skin of my palm dancing with the exposed tendons beneath. “I don’t have a ton of mobility with them anymore, and if I’m too reckless with what I try and grab, it hurts. Can’t feel much with them, normally.” I shrugged. “But I can get by fine. With most things it’s just a matter of bracing and squeezing at the right spots. I don’t need a ton of finesse to dial my phone or use a fork. It’s tough sometimes, but if I drop it, no big deal. Keeping control of a gun? That’s…a bit different.”
Aedan nodded, but his eyes were still downcast. “There’s got to be something she can do.”
“Maybe,” I said with a sigh, letting my hands fall again. “Maybe when all of this is over, she can help me with that.” And I’ll wind up even further in debt to her. I grimaced. “But…right now, this is fine.”
Aedan shook his head slowly. “Jonny, I-”
“If anyone’s to blame, it’s Madis,” I said quietly. “It’s because of him I got stranded out there to rot. You were coming back for me. Right?”
A long silence—and then Aedan nodded. “Yeah.”
“See?” I said. I flopped back to the grass, letting my hands fall into the black. I couldn’t feel everything, but the sensation of the coolness enveloping me was a little slice of bliss. “His fault. Not yours.”
“But-”
“Don’t try and blame yourself for everything,” I said, more softly still. “You fucked up. But this wasn’t all you.”
He sat there frozen, eyes down. Finally, he nodded. “Thanks,” he whispered.
All I could do was smile grimly, letting my weariness simmer higher. I was too damn tired for this mess—and yet, I found I felt a bit better, after laying it all out. It was one less thing I had to worry about, now. Another step forward.
Maybe someday, we could put all this behind us and just be normal again.
Until then, I closed my eyes, leaning into the soft grass, and let the sound of my friends’ distant laughter pull me under.

I get like +50 floors every season this time finishing on floor 450+ on both of my accounts (they Are pretty similiar expect the Athane switched for Mythic+ Asolise) i think mages Are not the answer to this gamemode pls any tips who should i build im working heavy on Warriors