I find Jess waiting for me out on the lake as I leave the mud-forest. I have to admit, the woman is a sight, sitting in the shallow water, holding herself completely still, waiting for fish to come near her to spear. She doesn’t notice me until I splash over to her, my tired feet absorbing the clear water and welcoming the cool. I sit a distance away from her and start washing the dried blood and mud off my body as I watch her focus on her fishing. She doesn’t make much progress with me out here, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that these shallows don’t look like the kind where the fishing will be good with night approaching. I’m betting that the fish will sleep in those huge holes in the lakebed that descend out of sight.
It takes me a long minute of laying in the water, raking my hair beneath the surface, to rid myself of the dried blood that has caked and matted my head. When I finally come up for breath, Jess is looking over in my direction, and I feel like a new woman. In more than a few ways, I am coming to understand that I am.
“You made it out alive,” she says, standing and wading over to me. She offers me a hand and jerks me to my feet with ease.
“I did,” I say. “I didn’t expect to find you waiting here for me.”
“That elf boy seemed really concerned about you,” she says, flicking her eyes in the direction of the encampment a bit south of here. “I told him that I would look out for you, escort you back to the camp when you were done or go in and get your body if you didn’t return.”
I laugh. “If I died in there, I’m betting that my body would be buried in mud and eaten by fish.”
“Maybe,” Jess admits. “I would just sniff out all the silver and treasure to find it though.”
“Did you recuperate?” I ask.
“Feel better than earlier,” she says. “This water is good for mana recovery, I think. Still feel the itch to get to bed. Think I have a soul reinforcement coming.”
“We did kill a lot of monsters,” I say. Jess motions to me and we both start walking south through the water toward the trees. The sunset comes early in the forest, a good two hours before it would anywhere else that wasn’t surrounded by trees hundreds of feet tall. Even from a distance I can see the general gloom of the forest has already plunged everything else into the cool of night.
“Find anything worthwhile after we left you alone?” she asks.
“A crystal,” I admit. “You might use it to hit something with, but it stings your hands when you touch it.”
“Sounds heavy,” Jess scoffs. “I prefer to be light on my feet.”
“I’ve noticed.”
We lapse into silence, listening to the sound of splashing as our feet cut through the water. As we approach the pebbly shore, I begin to feel the exhaustion of the day seep into me. This was the first time that I have ever hunted monsters, and it was also the first time I ever hunted them alone. When tagging along with Halford’s party, I never felt that I contributed much to the monster slaying, the real adventuring part, keeping people safe. Everything since I finished my set of essentia has been reactive, trying to keep myself from dying. Today was the first time that I woke up and chose to fight monsters, and Exeter forgive me, it felt great.
Not that I was under the impression that these monsters would have ever been a danger to anyone. I doubt that any non-magical citizens would ever stumble upon the mud-forest housing hundreds of monster fish, so finding and exterminating them wasn’t strictly necessary. Despite that, it was hard to feel sympathy for the murderous little things.
“Here,” I say to Jess, handing her a cooked filet of piranha. Even with my new massive mana pool, which if I was being honest, was probably not as large as any other mage in the competition, I needed to take a few breaks during my monster killing spree to recuperate my mana. During that time, I had spent a good bit cooking up some of the fish that my disenchant ability had delivered to me. After probing Galea enough, she figured out how to allow me to name things in my own inventory, and with all the chests I now had, my inventory was starting to read like a pantry.
Jess takes the bit of fish on a stick and snaps off a piece. She chews for a moment before looking back at me with appraisal. “It could use some seasoning.”
“I didn’t think to bring any,” I say. “Had some other priorities.”
“If you didn’t think to bring seasoning, you must not have spent much time in the wilderness.”
“I spent some,” I say defensively. Honestly, Kapin and Bali had always been in charge of food. “Are you from the wilderness?”
“Do you ask because I am a lizardkin?” Jess’ voice holds no contempt in it–genuine curiosity.
“I ask because you sounded judgy,” I say.
She shrugs, sucking the rest of the fish off the stick before tossing it into the rocks along the shore. As we climb of the shore, a thought strikes me, and I manage to make my greaves appear around my naked feet, straight out of my inventory. This storage ring keeps getting better and better.
“I spent a lot of time providing for myself out in the wilds,” she admits after a few more minutes of silence. “I was trying to get as strong as possible for this competition. Good thing I did, the me from a year ago would never have survived that first day.”
“That was just yesterday,” I mutter.
“I know,” she replies, a dark tone behind her words. She straightens her back, setting her hand on my shoulder as we continue to walk. “Today was a lot better.”
“Yes, it was,” I agree.
I am still uncertain what I had been expecting for this competition to entail, but I don’t think that I ever could have guessed. Despite all the chaos and death of yesterday, everyone seems to have bounced back for the most part. Personally, I am going to take all those memories of the first day and squeeze them into a tiny box in my head, throw away the box, and never think about it again.
Today was great. I killed a ton of very dangerous fish, gained three levels, defeated my first rank two monster by myself, and began to discover how my Conflux ability works. I even found a few more chests as I was leaving the mud-forest and picked up a really cool magical item that I want to use soon.
We hear the camp long before we stumble upon it. The clearing that the participants mill about in talking, eating, cooking, and constructing tents in is bustling by the time that we arrive. Light from five fires set out in a circle around the clearing keeps everything well-lit, while the people content themselves with normalcy.
“Have any more food?” Jess asks me as we pass by and nod to a few guards stationed at the perimeter of the encampment. I recognize the faces of the guards and my eye tells me their names, though I don’t think we have ever exchanged words.
“I didn’t have much of a chance to cook,” I tell her, handing her another cooked filet of fish on a stick.
Jess nods toward one of the fires as she takes the food I hand her. “I think Lionel is our designated cook. Might be a good idea to drop off all the monster bits with him. If he has a cooking ability, he will make better use of it than we will.”
“Probably a good idea,” I say. “Everyone might be getting tired of eating bear at this point.”
“It’s only been a day,” Jess says. “How could you get tired of it in only a day?”
“You haven’t adventured with many elves I take it,” I say.
She barks a laugh. “Nope. I am going to go try to find Samielle,” she says, slapping my arm. “The man promised me a good roll and I intend to follow up on that. Hard to say no to broad shoulders like those.”
With another laugh, she leaves me standing stunned in the middle of the camp. She spots Samielle at the same time I do, working hard to stitch together a tent made from Dire Bear pelts. I confirm again for myself that I have only known this woman for a day. Still, I can’t help but admire her.
I follow her advice and make my way over to a large man turning a hunk of meat on a spigot over one of the fires. My eye lets me pick Lionel out of the crowd, and I am a bit surprised to discover that he is the hulking man that helped us fight the Armors yesterday. He isn’t human, though if I wasn’t trying to tell, I don’t think I could pick that out from a distance. His skin is a dark tan that wouldn’t look out of place on a human, but upon closer inspection, it has the same stone-like sheen that Bali’s does. The man is an earthspeaker, well over seven feet tall, with a broad nose and chin, and a smile that never seems to disappear from his face.
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Lionel Coolidge(Rank One)(Level 32)
Hungering Dragon Conflux
The look on my face must give away my surprise when I read the description of his Conflux.
“You see something you like?” he asks me, laughing, his accent a perfect match for Bali’s. Lionel holds up one of his arms, flexing his bicep. “I am looking rather good today.”
“I brought you something,” I tell him, ignoring the posturing. I make two iron chests of uncooked fish appear in the grass just in front of the giant. “I heard you are the camp cook.” I unlatch and open the chests, revealing my day’s haul, and earning my own look of surprise from the man.
“If I can continue receiving as much monster flesh as I can handle, I will gladly share my expertise in its preparation with the rest assembled,” he says, voice loud and hands gesturing around. “The Dragon is always hungry!”
“It is good to meet you, Dragon. My name is Charlene Devardem.”
“Ah,” he says, “the Dragon is not me. Not yet anyway. My name is Lionel Coolidge.” I wonder if it will always feel this awkward to have people introduce themselves to me when I already know their names.
“You have a Dragon Essentia?” I ask. I lean in toward the man, prompting him to bend his enormous bulk down to hear my whisper. “I do too.”
The look of surprise I see on his face when he pulls away from me is worth even admitting something Arabella told me to keep a secret. The atmosphere around here doesn’t really feel as if anyone will try to use my abilities against me anyway.
“You say this so freely,” Lionel says, shaking his head. “You do not covet this information as you should, Little Sister.”
“How old are you?”
He waves away the question. “You must be of a different Dragon than I am then,” he says.
“You have a trustworthy face,” I tell him. “It didn’t seem like much of a risk to tell you.”
His mentioning of his own dragon puts an itch in my brain. I have heard before that there are different kinds of dragons. The most famous ones in the stories are always so different from one another. However, my essentia had simply been the Dragon Essentia, not the Red Dragon Essentia or the Blue Dragon Essentia. I wonder what that might mean for me down the line.
“I must thank the creator for granting me this face then,” Lionel says. He motions to the open chests in front of him. “This is a great gift that you have given the camp. I will make certain that everyone who enjoys the delicious food that I will make of this knows from whom it came.”
“You helped us in that fight yesterday,” I tell him. “Against the Armors. Giving you some fish isn’t nearly enough to thank you for that.”
I extend my hand, managing to make the huge scythe I looted the day before from the corpse of one of the Armors appear, head falling and burying itself into the dirt between us, the weapon’s weight enough to drive the wickedly sharp point home. The dark metal of the scythe gleams in the firelight, and I can see greed come over Lionel’s face.
“I did not help to receive spoils from you,” he says, running his huge fingers over the pommel of the scythe. “This came from your own kill, did it not?”
“It was all a group effort,” I say. “Dovik asked me to try delivering the good things I found to people that we can trust and who can use them best. I have decided that you fit the description.”
Lionel smiles, seizing the weapon. “I will not turn down such an awesome gift. If you ever require anything of me Little Sister, merely ask.”
“Well,” I say, motioning to his spit roast, “I could use some of that bear meat. All I’ve eaten today has been fish.”
“Consider it done.” Using his new scythe, Lionel cuts a slice of the roasting meat away and hands it to me on a big leaf.
I leave him to his work, wandering around the camp, taking bites from the roast in my hands. The meat is far better than what I had eaten that morning. Lionel even seems to have seasoned it somewhat.
I find Macille, and I am about to strike up a conversation with him when a hush falls over the camp. There is a clapping sound from the center of the cleared circle. We both turn to see Dovik stepping up onto a box in the middle of the camp. All eyes turn toward the group’s impromptu leader, and he doesn’t waste time standing on ceremony.
“I know that a lot of you are probably tired after today,” he says. “A lot of you helped us greatly by scouting around so that we could get our bearings. I’ll start by saying what we know.
“The Red Wall that chased us away from the parade grounds continues to stand at the bottom of the slope. I don’t think that there is much of a chance that it will start moving again, but we can’t count out that possibility. From what the groups that went scouting today have relayed to me, the forest and surrounding area seems to be densely packed with rank one monsters with some rank twos sprinkled in here and there. The monsters inside of the forest also seem to ignore most things on the ground, though one group did report that when they tried moving between the trees about fifty feet up, they were attacked rather frequently by rank one monsters.
“It has also been discovered that there are areas inside of the forest set apart from the rest of everything else. Today we have discovered a lake filled with fish monsters, a cave that houses insect-like monsters, and a large patch of sand that was home to monster we still haven’t identified. In each of these areas, there were placed chests that contain coin and magical items. I think that it is pretty safe to say that the people in charge of this competition intend for us to arm ourselves with these items.”
Dovik continues to describe each of the areas found in detail and what was found there. I lose interest pretty quickly, and I turn to Macille. “Did you tell him about everything we found?”
“Most of it,” Macille says. “I didn’t see any reason in holding back too much. A lot of different groups found these kinds of places and there was a lot of treasure to be had. Speaking of.” Macille turns and offers me a staff.
The staff looks to be made of twisting wood, hard and dark. At about five feet in length, it feels like it weighs practically nothing in my hands. A powerful aura of red and orange bleeds into the air from the weapon, but the most fantastical thing about it is that the wood seems to naturally transition into a metal cage at the head of the staff, topped with a ruby.
Lamplighter’s Charge(Rare):
A weapon grown from the fiery dreams of an immolated dryad as its spirit lingered on this side of the veil. The visions of the fire that killed the dryad have housed themselves in this staff, caged inside of the prison that tops it. Fire magic cast with this weapon will find its effectiveness greatly improved.
Enhancement: +10% Fire Magic Effectiveness, +20 Magic
“Macille,” I say, my breath barely a whisper. “This is far too much.” Despite my words, I feel my fingers tightening around the staff, afraid that someone might come and try to take it from me at any moment. The weapon begs me for my magic, and without a second thought, I oblige. As my mana pours into the weapon, the cage at the top of it sparks to life with the orange iridescence of my dragonfire. I draw a few eyes away from Dovik’s speech, but I can’t bring myself to care at the moment.
“I’m glad you like it,” he says. “One of the other groups found it today. Remarkably enough, you are the only fire mage that we have in the group. It seemed like a natural fit for you.”
I can’t keep the smile from my face as I stare into the fire at the head of the staff. I look up to Macille, finding him grinning at my own joy. I feel heat flush to my face and turn away to look up at Dovik. “Thank you,” I say. “Really.”
“We need you at your best,” he says.
“I feel the same way about you,” I tell him. I plant the staff in the ground and pull a magic item from my inventory that I found today after killing the catfish. A band of black silk falls limply into my open palm, the magic that it gives off so subtle in the dimming light of the ending day that it is hard for me to perceive.
Band of the Hero(Rare):
A band woven from the dark hair of Kressiden. This item endows its bearer with the tremendous strength of an ancient hero, and despite its simplicity, it has proven a valuable asset in hundreds of battles.
Enhancement: +35 Strength
To be honest with myself, I was intending to keep the band for myself. Having my strength attribute more than triple over night was something I had been looking forward to waking up to. Considering that I am already stronger now than I ever thought possible before, it had been a fun fantasy.
“What’s this?” Macille asks, delicately taking the band from me, his fingers lingering on my own a bit longer than strictly necessary.
“It will make you stronger,” I tell him. “Sorry that it doesn’t also come with some kind of special ability.”
“I will take all the strength I can get,” he says, his smile still pulling at me. “Help me put it on?” He motions to his arm, and I help him cinch it tight around his bicep. He flexes his hands. “Wow, I can feel it already. I’ve never had an item that helped my strength this much. Thank you.”
“We need to be at our best, right?”
“Absolutely.” Damn, that smile of his is pretty.
A gasp rolling through the crowd pulls our attention back to Dovik. My brain hurries to relay to me the last few sentences the man has said while I only partly paid attention.
“That’s right,” he says. “Bigger than our group. They weren’t willing to share much information with those that found them, but they did tell us this much. In the ruins that their group has come across, the administrators of this competition intend to hold some kind of event that will take place tomorrow afternoon. It has been recommended to us to join this event, and I for one am going to take the administrators up on the offer.”
A general dissent follows Dovik’s words. People shout out their distrust of the runners of the competition. They yell about this being some kind of trap, and I can’t blame them for thinking so. The administrators of this competition have done nothing so far to help earn the trust of any of us.
Dovik waits a while for the shouting to quiet somewhat, gesturing for everyone to lower their voices. “I understand how you feel,” he says. “Truly, no one here can feel as betrayed by the Willian guild as I do. That said, from the description that the scouts brought back to us, the only conclusion that I can come to is that the administrators intend for us to enter a dungeon. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how valuable of a chance that could be.”
At the mention of a dungeon, the murmuring and grumbling dies out of the crowd.
“I’ve only ever heard of dungeons,” I whisper to Macille. “I don’t know anything about them really.”
“I’ll tell you later,” Macille whispers to me, his attention completely caught by Dovik.
Dovik looks to be standing a bit taller now, the attention of the crowd firmly grasped. He smiles, and I have to admit that it helps put me a bit more at ease. “We will take a vote for what we are going to do. I don’t really think that I should be telling anyone what they need to do or what they can’t do. We are all in a competition after all.”
He leads the charge in the group deciding if they wish to try entering a dungeon together. The vote is fairly one-sided. Tomorrow, we will all approach these ruins as a group.