I am the last off the field, or what is left of it. Looking back at the huge circular lawn stretched throughout the chamber, all I see is a ruined waste, mounds of grass and earth piled together in places, some places so bare that the white stone two feet down is plainly visible. It makes me wonder how anyone else is going to play a match after ours.

Arabella sits atop the floating cube of black surveying the destructions with a little smile on her lips. Our eyes meet for a moment. She nods to me, and I return the gesture, though I doubt either of put any thought in it.

“I’m first!” I hear Clarice call behind me.

Whirling toward the room, I catch the barest trace of the woman disappearing around the corner of the room toward the wash tub. The archway of the room’s wall reappears once I am fully inside, and the more plush chair molds perfectly to my tired and beaten body. Most of the bruises came from throwing myself at those siblings over and over again, but there was plenty more to groan about. I stare down at my hand, flexing the fingers that had been broken just a few minutes before, wincing as they pop.

There is time to consider just how much damage I have done to myself over the last few months, just how much damage others have done to me. Far too much for a normal person to survive, far too much for most magicians to survive as well. Would I have taken such brutal punishment if I didn’t know that I would survive it? I doubt it. I suppose that would make any other specialization superior to the one that I have.

“New gifts,” Jor’Mari says around a mouthful of pear, holding up a box in his hand for everyone to see. My eyes linger on the pear, a bright yellow Birsmith that sets my mouth to watering. The sensation sparks another, the cold and wetness of my clothes and the feeling of grainy mud beneath my fingernails, in my hair, and a bit between my teeth.

“I’m hungry over here,” I say to him as he tries to open the latch on the box with one hand, still holding his pear.

“You have legs, don’t you?” he says before sticking the pear in his mouth to open up his other hand.

“What do you want, champ?” Jess asks, looking into a large basket made of woven poplar. “We have all kinds of produce.” She pulls a full head of cabbage from the basket and looks over at me with a raised eyebrow, or I suppose she would have if she had any eyebrows. I wonder briefly if she picked up the expression from some of us haired individuals or if that was a thing lizardkin did naturally.

“Are there any more pears?” I ask.

“Mmmm.” Jess rifles through the basket, pulling out a plump green pear and some off and lumpy purple fruit. “Are these a pear?”

“That one is.” I fail the catch when she tosses it across the room to me. Thankfully, there is a basin of water nearby to wash off the fruit and my muddy hands. I take a bite, noting the sharp sourness that turns into a mild sweetness, the flexibility of the flesh, how there is just the tinniest dash of chewiness that lets me know the fruit is perfectly ripe. Sifildian pears are a novelty where I am from, but the few times I have had them they have always set my mouth afire with delight, and now is no different. Too bad father could never get them to grow in our weather.

I release a squeak of satisfaction as I take another bite of the pear, shivering as I chew on it. It is impossible not to.

“That good?” Jor’Mari asks.

“You have no idea.”

He looks down at his own fruit, seeming a little disappointed. “You would be a riot at a market, I’m sure.” Behind him, Jasper asks in the most polite way for Clarice to hurry along with her bath.

“Depends on the market,” I say with a shrug. Exeter bless me, a perfectly ripe pear after a day’s hard work is the best thing you can ask for.

“I’ll show you around one sometime,” he says. Jor’Mari looks around on the table for a moment before spotting and hefting a fist-sized wooden box. “This one has your name on it.”

“Give it here then,” I say. I groan, cheeks flushing when the box slips between my fingers and clatters to the floor. Why can’t anyone just hand something to somebody? I scoop up the wooden box, finding it satisfyingly heavy in my hand. Turning over the amber wood box in my hand, I find my name scrawled in beautiful silver engraving across the top, the lid latched with a simple turn-lock.

Retreating back to my chair, I pocket my muddy boots back into my inventory before kicking my feet up on a footstool. Before, whenever we won a match, all we received was some nice food. Was this an extra gift from winning all three matches, or a gift for merely getting through all of them? I don’t know, but what I found inside confirms for me right away that whoever gave me this specific gift has been watching me closely, maybe a little too closely for my liking. The vials, each about as long and wide as my thumb, shine up from a bed of black velvet inside, the shy glow of the liquid inside each letting me know at once that they are magical.

Ambrosia of Sky(Rare):

An elixir of Affix Ambrosia holding the affix of sky. This is a commonly sought after item for journeyman magicians looking to strengthen their affinities with certain aspects and for enchanters. The affix of sky is rarely obtained and even more rarely useful to a magician, but those able to make use of its strange qualities have select potential.

Ambrosia of Cold(Rare):

An elixir of Affix Ambrosia holding the affix of cold. This is a commonly sought after item for journeyman magicians looking to strengthen their affinities with certain aspects and for enchanters. Cold, one of the most common and useful affixes, still requires an incredible amount of work and ingenuity to truly master. This ambrosia is but just one small piece toward that mastery.

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Ambrosia of Strength(Rare):

An elixir of Affix Ambrosia holding the affix of strength. This is a commonly sought after item for journeyman magicians looking to strengthen their affinities with certain aspects and for enchanters. A common affix, but also one highly sought after. Most magicians attempt to boost their affinity to strength, and enchanters covet the affinity as well.

I brush my hand over the vials, feeling the thrum of the glass beneath my fingers. For some reason, a feeling of self-consciousness overtakes me, and I snap the box closed.

“Anything interesting?” Jor’Mari asks, holding up a cut ruby, his own box open in his other hand. I glance at the gemstone, an interesting trinket that helps defends against mental attacks apparently.

“Interesting, to say the least.” The box disappears into my inventory. “That is an interesting piece as well.”

“You know what it does?” he asks, holding up the gem. “There was no explanation inside the chest for me.” I give him a short description of what the item does. He looks thoughtfully at it before returning to the box and fishing out a new piece of fruit to bite into. “That ability of your is useful.”

“I know.” Using the eye to tell me about everything that I am looking at has become almost second nature now. There is an entire profession devoted to prospecting, appraising, and identifying magical items and the usefulness of monster parts. If everyone were so blessed with the artifact that I have, they would all be out of a job. “At the very least, it should help keep my place on any team. That, and my ability to disenchant monsters.”

“Both useful,” Jor’Mari agrees, “but I think that you might be selling yourself short.”

“Maybe,” I say. “I can also be a pack mule for an entire team if I need to be.”

He smirks at that, that devilish quirk of his mouth that is so infectious. “Now, there you go, a useful team member if I ever heard of one.”

“Can you tell me what this does?” Jess asks, holding up a necklace that looks to be made of gold.

I squint at the jewelry, a provincial part of me wanting it as soon as I see it. I have to remind myself that I can now afford to buy such beautiful accessories myself, if I ever make it back to civilization that is. “It is a power bearing magical item. It bears some power called Golden Facility, though I have no idea what that means.”

She looks down at the necklace. “I don’t have any power bearing items,” she says.

“Not even your artifact?” Jor’Mari asks.

“Would that we were all so fortunate,” Jess says, hooking the necklace around her neck. “As repayment for the identification.” Without warning, Jess scoops Jasper off his feet in a bear hug from behind, sending the man into confused and embarrassed sputtering. “The next bath is for you, Charlene.”

Spotting a recently washed and pampered Clarice coming around the corner, I make no delay in dashing out my chair and heading for the wash bin, ignoring Jasper’s protests as I cut the line. I find two more changes of clothes waiting for me in small wash area, which is fortunate given the state of my current clothes. I only really notice all the rips and tears in the expensive cloth as I peel them off, tossing them to the side. Maybe I’ll burn the rags later.

Sleep comes to most of us hard. I sit in my cot, seeing perfectly well in the dark and listening to at least three of my companions snore away, though I won’t reveal who. Sleep has become less and less needed for me, and I find the nights comforting. It is not so much that I am lonely–the only other person conscious is Samielle, thumbing through the pages of a book by candlelight–but there is something to the quiet of the night while everyone else is asleep.

I wonder a bit how I will spend my nights in the future if this lack of sleep continues. There is a romanticism in the thought of wandering the towns and fields at night, enjoying the world without anyone in it for a while. The thought doesn’t scare me as much as it once would have, doesn’t scare me at all really. Hard to be concerned about strange men and people lurking in dark alleyways when you have punched your burning hand into the eye socket of a giant monster.

I look down at the vials in their box lying across my blanket-covered knee. Understanding what to do with these is awfully difficult. Outside of the fact that whoever gifted with me with these vials must necessarily know about my abilities, but they must have also been watching me throughout the trial as a whole. There is no other reason for someone to gift me with items that specifically are used to enhance affixes; first rank magicians do not worry about that for the most part, myself being a rare exception. I have to conclude that Arabella gave these to me, probably an attempt to ingratiate herself to me once again.

I don’t really hate the woman, but the more I see of her, the more I come to think that she is deceptive as a default. She finally admitted to me that she did know of my brother, and that riding his coattails is the only reason she took an interest in me. She has a further reason for investing in me, going to such lengths to make me indebted to her and her guild. I just don’t know what that is yet.

All of the suspicion does little to let me know what to do with the vials. From what I managed to do with the Growth aspect, I have finally come to more closely understand what Emperor's Prerogative is all about. Normally, a magician will be tested for their affix affinities at some point, typically before they integrate essentia to determine which essentia would most closely align with their natural affinities, or shortly after reaching rank two to point their way forward. As I have come to understand, increasing your affinity with your native affixes is vital in reaching the third rank, as the body of a magician is reborn fully into its more permanent state when reaching rank three, and strong affixes have something to do with this.

This is going to work differently for me, that is becoming abundantly clear. The first time that I laid eyes on my soul, there was only a single affix imprinted upon it, the affix of fire, meaning that I only ever had one natural affinity to begin with. After what I did in the underground dungeon, forcefully imprinting the Growth Affix onto my soul, my understanding of my conflux became clear. Emperor’s Prerogative told me before, but I lacked the context to understand when I first looked at the ability. I am not bound by having native affix affinities. With enough affixed mana of any one affinity, I should be able to imprint it onto my soul. Hopefully I will find a less painful way to do so in the future.

Which leaves the matter of what to do with the vials. I could drink them now, and they might have enough affixed mana inside of them to imprint on my soul, but they also might not. Each of the three vials are also incredibly useful enchanting materials, and I have been searching for powerful affixed mana to begin working in that realm once again. If I drink the vials, and find that they do not have enough mana inside of them to imprint with, should I use them for enchanting? Should I save them and try to find more of the same mana to gain enough to imprint my soul with? How could I even find such rare kinds of mana?

As I am, some of these affixes of mana won’t be particularly useful to me if I do imprint them on my soul. I have no idea how the Sky Affix could even be applied to any of my abilities, and I am well aware that not every kind of affix can be applied to any ability. I could completely waste such a source of magic by putting it onto my soul instead of using it to create something actually useful.

I sigh, snapping the box closed and laying my head against the wall. Why can the way forward never be clear-cut. Maybe things will look better in the morning. Returning the box to my inventory once again, I try to make myself comfortable on the cot. Jor’Mari snoozes away, just a bed over, the rise and fall of his strong chest so constant you could dance to its rhythm. You would never know, looking at strands of snow white that fall over his face or the way he delicately clutches his blanket between his forefinger and thumb, that the man is a coy bastard. At night he is just a pretty and pale boy, no sadness lurking behind a smiling face. I fall asleep listening to his breathing, lulled by its constancy.