“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you collect manastones?” Gwen asked, looking up at the cloudless sky as we walked. It sounded like something, just something to break the silence.

“Need to make a living,” I shrugged.

“No, I mean why do you do it instead of collecting mana? Isn’t it less profitable?”

“Not exactly. The goblins and kobolds are the only monsters you really see around Kirshe, with the amount of mana you can collect from them, if you factor in the equipment upkeep and chance of days where you can’t find many monsters, you probably wouldn’t make much more than just collecting raw manastones. Such a small profit margin just isn’t worth the huge increase in danger. You can’t make a living when you’re dead.”

“I see…” she mumbled, “must be hard way out here. Why did Herral settle out in the boondocks anyway? Why not move inland to a larger city?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know, I haven’t talked to him about it. But… if I were to guess, it’s because there aren’t many gods out here.” Both of the girls, and Rowe raised an eyebrow at that one, so I explained. “Even in the countryside, there need to at least be a couple gods to keep people safe. Just because there aren’t many monsters doesn’t mean a god should pack up and leave. If everyone did that, there wouldn’t be any gods left in the outlying areas.”

“If they all did that,” I continued, “and Carrow noticed, there’d be another massacre like Thoth,” referencing when the old god of vengeance destroyed Thoth and the Pillar of Heaven, the seminal event that led to the current, screwed up state of the world. Well, none of the Pillars of Reality were in the boonies by definition, since the new gods flocked to them specifically to protect them from Carrow, but the destruction of outlying towns would eventually impact those larger cities that relied on them for things like food, so it would still be a huge problem.

“That’s a good point… but are there even any gods living in Smithtown right now?” That question was directed at Rowe.

“I think there are one or two, haven’t seen them around in a while though.” We kept walking for a bit after that, before Gwen spoke again.

“That’s a bit troubling.”

“Yeah, that could be a problem,” Sharya quietly agreed.

“If there are no monsters around, the gods leave. If there are no gods, there’s no protection against monsters. To be honest, if Carrow attacked the outlying cities, I doubt even Kirshe would stand long,” I commented.

“Really?” Rowe asked.

“Yeah, we have a few gods in town, but it’s not like any of the Blessed are particularly strong with just a few goblins and kobolds to fight. These two are probably stronger than anyone in Kirshe.”

“Wait, really? That’s a serious problem you know,” Gwen said with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“Yeah, I know, but there isn’t anything to do for it. It’ll be fine as long as the monsters stay away, but if they come back, we’re totally screwed.” I shook my head, as did everyone else.

As with the journey out to Smithtown, the walk was uneventful. It looked like Rowe worked in construction, so he was fit enough to almost keep pace with us. He was dripping with sweat and dead tired by the end of each day, but we only had to slow down a little bit, and still arrived back in Kirshe in three days time. After a brief respite and resupply, we left for Flaren.

Immediately, the trip was a bit more rough. The further we walked, the more often we had to stop to kill monsters in our path. At first it was just the goblins and kobolds I usually saw around Kirshe, but on the second day we crossed over the wide, slow moving Cedar River that separated the inner and outer areas of the continent and immediately came across more dangerous monsters. There were common ones like orcs and lamia, but the Insectile karx, with their long, spindly arms terminating in razor sharp blades were the worst among them. They had a knack for sneak attacks, dropping from trees or popping out of bushes, lashing out with their bladed arms almost too fast to react.

With the appearance of the new monsters, we assumed a more defensive formation, Gwen in front with her weapon drawn, followed by Sharya, then Rowe, and finally myself to bring up the rear in case a monster tried to sneak up from behind. Gwen did most of the fighting, it was my job to deal with anything that made it past her. Even so, I wasn’t familiar with the different types of monsters, and needed Sharya to heal me after most fights against them. It was more tense and we spoke very little as we walked.

“Allistor.” I looked up from my food at Gwen when she called me. We were stopping for lunch, three days into our trip. According to the girls, we were going to be entering the most dangerous leg of our journey tomorrow. The Fare Fields, a massive flatland area that surrounded Flaren and continued a long way south, stretched to the horizon before us. A grassy plain four days walk across was a bit much.

“Yeah?” I asked, reaching out to accept something Gwen handed to me.

“It’s going to be more dangerous from here on, that’s the circle for my fire spell.”

“Uhh, thanks? Is it really alright for you to give me this?” I asked. I unfolded the piece of parchment paper in my hands and looked over the circle written on it. Usually people were really secretive over their magic.

“It’s fine, it’s a really simple spell, lots of people know it already. You won’t really be able to focus on casting while fighting, especially without any previous magic training, so only use it to attack monsters at a distance.” I nodded and looked back at the circle one more time. It was drawn cleanly in charcoal on the rough parchment paper. A circle, inscribed with a square and a triangle, both touching the edges of the circle.The inner edge was ringed with foreign characters, with just enough space between them for the inner shapes to intersect the outer edge.

I stared at it for a while, letting the lines burn into my memory. Another benefit of a god’s blessing, the ability to perfectly memorize magic circles, given enough time. This was a simple one, so it only took me a few minutes. Now that I knew it, I would be able to cast it whenever I wanted.

“Also, remember it’s not as powerful as mine. It’ll be more useful for stunning and disorienting monsters than injuring them.”

“Yeah, I’ll remember that.” Thinking back on it, it had taken her two shots to kill a kobold, so against tougher monsters, it really wouldn’t be very effective at all.

“You should take a practice shot,” Sharya commented. I’d never cast real combat magic before, but I knew the basics from working with the stove back at Herral’s house.

I shrugged in response and raised my hand, aiming at the ground a short distance away. I pictured the circle and committed mana. My mana first formed the circle, a faint glowing tracery in the air, and I continued committing more. After a few seconds, Gwen said it should be enough. One more mental push and the circle activated, the spell absorbing the mana and transforming it into its new form.

A ball of fire appeared out of thin air in front of the rapidly vanishing circle and flew into the grass a few paces away. When it struck the ground, the surface exploded and flames spilled over a small patch of ground, blackening the grass there. It was much less impressive than Gwen’s, I could see why it wouldn’t be useful for dealing damage; it could only singe grass right now after all. I wasn't a mage after all.

On the other hand, it was a very efficient spell. I didn’t even feel drained by casting, so I would be able to use it a lot before worrying about using up all my mana. “Thanks.” The girls nodded, then we finished our meal and moved on.

Soon after entering the Fare Fields, I realized that they weren’t actually completely flat. Shallow rises and dips in the surface that weren’t apparent when viewed from afar became more apparent closer up. From the top of each faint rise, we could see for kilometers around, but could also be seen over the same distance. If we did that, we’d quickly end up swarmed by every monster from here to the horizon, so, we weaved through the shallow valleys to keep out of sight.

That came with its own problems, pockets of various monsters wandered over the plains and we frequently skirted into one depression, only to find a half dozen satyr’s or dryads. The spell Gwen had taught me proved immensely useful in those cases, a pair of fireballs washing over the group often bought Gwen enough time to cut down half of them before they knew what hit them.

On the third day in the fields, the sixth day of our journey, we woke as soon as the rays of sun appeared on the horizon. None of us had slept much due to the ever-present threat, except Rowe of course. He was so tired from keeping pace with us, he was out like a light every night. We ate quickly before we continued; it was too dangerous here to travel without our weapons drawn. The sun rose overhead, and gradually slipped back down once more. A little after noon, Gwen climbed to the top of a hill, lying down so she didn’t stick out, and reported that she could see Flaren from here. It was actually quite close, not even a day’s walk. However, it would take us significantly longer to reach it in this situation.

“We’re actually lucky, we haven’t seen any trolls or giants. That must mean they’ve been attacking the city,” Gwen explained. The sun had nearly set, we’d be digging in for the night soon.

“Wait, isn’t that a bad thing?” I asked. It was good that there was less opposition in our way, even with my blessing I was ready to fall down from the constant fighting.

“No, it happens all the time. It’s not on a set schedule obviously, but they tend to attack every week and a half or so. We’d been hoping our timing would match up on the way back, and we got lucky.” As she said that, we rounded a hilltop, a new valley coming into view. Standing before us, a variety of monsters were turning to catch sight of us.

It took a moment to react, my hand coming up to cast. By then, Gwen had already nailed the closest one, a dryad, with her fire spell, then the lamia behind it as the group of monsters dashed to cover the distance between us.

I moved up from the rear, having committed almost enough mana to cast twice. My first shot landed somewhere in the center of the group. While I finished the second spell, the first monsters reached Gwen. They were a gnome and and a dog-type monster I didn’t recognize in the front, with more following behind. I couldn’t count the exact number because they were moving too quickly, but Gwen would deal with them.

My sight shifted to the karx that leapt over the fight and scrambled like a spider on its four hind legs as it approached. I fired my second spell at it, but it shifted sideways and lashed out with its two front bladed arms. I back-stepped, I’d fought these ones enough to know that they often attacked too early when charging, their target barely in range at the tips of their blades.

After its opening attack missed, the karx stopped short. We both stood for a moment, waiting to see who made the first move. Its pair of blades were about as long as my own sword, and the spindly arms they were attached to, about twice that. Its reach being about double my own made it difficult to fight at long range. I had two options. I could stay put and defend like usual, to prolong the fight until Gwen cleaned up the monsters in front. However, there were a lot more monsters fighting her now than usual. To defeat the karx and help her out, I’d have move forward to make up for the difference in reach.

I shifted my feet; given the number of monsters, it would be better to take down the karx instead of waiting for her. The moment of stalemate passed, and I made the first move. Charging directly forward, I watched for the first attack. Almost faster than I could see, it swiped down from the right. I lifted my sword, blocking the blow with the flat of the blade, bracing my whole body against the other side to take the impact.

However, the difference in physical strength was obvious. Its bladed arm slid across my sword with a shrill ring, throwing me sideways. I slid, skidding a few steps across the grass. I grit my teeth when the pain hit, it had managed to cut across my stomach with that attack too. Kicking back off, I entered its range again, but read its movement correctly this time. I leapt over the blade that swung up from a low angle.

I crashed straight into the karx, grabbing hold around its chitinous body with my shield arm and plunging my blade directly through its chest. It let out a shriek and tried to shake me off. I took the opportunity to draw my blade out and jump back before it returned to using its blades.

A gush of sickly purple blood poured from the gash as I readied for the next bout. It seemed like the wound was fatal, but not immediately. I narrowly weaved past a few attacks, but still received cuts here and there. I had no luck getting my blows through its defense, until I blocked an overhead slash with my shield. Bracing with both hands, it still wasn’t enough to overpower the dying karx, and it forced my groaning legs to buckle against the ground. So I lifted my left shoulder, tilting my shield and its arm slid off, grinding against the sword in my other hand and almost knocking it from my grip when it wrenched my wrist sideways.

“Come on!” I grunted, grabbing for the deflected arm and severing it with an shaky upward swing of my own. I let out a panting breath as it began to bleed out, but it wasn’t done yet. Before I could react, it swung down with its remaining front arm, slicing another shallow cut all the way down my chest. I staggered back.

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I stood unsteadily and raised my shield to defend, but my vision was swimming and I couldn’t muster any strength in my shield arm. The karx started scuttling forward, its remaining bladed arm pulling back to strike.

Sharya ran in from the side. She held her quarterstaff by one end, spinning around with the weapon extended all the way. “Yaa!” she shouted, slamming the other end of the weapon into the torso of the monster. A loud crash sounded from the impact, with smaller crunching sounds following, and the karx went tumbling to the ground with its thin chest caved in. Sharya’s weapon rebounded, flying from her hands and she yelped and fell to the ground after the full-out attack.

I only took a moment to glance around. Taking stock of the situation, Rowe was fine, crouched a short distance from the battle. Sharya was sitting and shaking her hands, and Gwen was still fighting. I hefted my sword and started moving forward to help Gwen.

“W-wait!” Sharya called from the ground and my feet stopped for a moment. Actually- I finally stopped long enough to take my own condition into account. My arms were dead tired, I had dozens of cuts all over my body. My breathing was ragged, and it felt like my right wrist might be sprained. I didn’t really feel any of the pain yet, just the adrenaline and my own heart pounding loud in my head.

Forcing myself to think logically through my clouded brain, I knew I couldn’t go to the front. Sharya had dropped her weapon and couldn’t protect Rowe. “Grab your staff,” I told her, “I’ll watch Rowe.” She ran over to pick it up while I stood for a few more seconds, keeping an eye out for any more monsters sneaking up on us. Up ahead, Gwen was still facing off against a karx, two lamia, and a satyr, weaving between each of their attacks while trying to land one of her own. The two lamia seemed to be the biggest problem, their large snake tails winding around constantly, trying to encircle her and keep her from moving. It forced her to keep dodging so she didn’t have many opportunities to attack.

Sharya came running back, freeing me up to move again. However, I didn’t think I was in any shape to run into that fight right now, so I started committing mana as fast as I could. I counted off the seconds. Since I couldn’t actually sense mana, I had to guess when I’d committed enough to cast. When I thought I had enough for two fire spells, I raised my hand, formed the circle, and fired twice.

I shouted, “Incoming fire!” and Gwen ducked immediately. The two spells hit the group of unprepared monsters, the flames rolling over all but the karx, which backed off in time. While they were stunned, Gwen lashed out with a flurry of attacks, cutting down the three monsters in an instant. It never ceased to amaze me just how fast she was.

The last karx charged forward, slicing down at her from both sides. Gwen spun her blade in front of her, then back again. I couldn’t even see the weapon as it moved, but both of the extended arms flew through the air, cut off in one motion. Finishing the spin, she delivered a strong blow directly to the karx’s midsection, cutting it clean in half.

With the last monster dead, Gwen stood poised for a few moments, shining sword at the ready. She looked around to observe the field, littered with corpses after the battle. When she was satisfied the danger had passed, she flopped onto her back, panting heavily.

“That one was pretty rough,” she commented between breaths. A manastone was thrown in our direction and Sharya deftly caught it. “I’ll leave it to you,” Gwen waved from the ground. The younger girl took a look at my injuries before doing as Gwen instructed. I pulled out some manastones as well and began collecting their mana too. If we allowed the mana to dissipate from the corpses of so many in one place, it might drawn more monsters from nearby, not a pleasant thought right now.

Once we were finished, Sharya healed my wounds, one after another. Then Gwen came over and for the first time, I saw her covered in cuts and scratches as well. Sharya healed her too, but by the time she was done, she looked pale and her eyes were glazed over.

“Are you alright?” I asked. She hadn’t done much fighting, so seeing her shaky made me worried.

“Fine, I’m just not used to using so much magic.”

“Healing magic costs a lot of mana, that’s why she always draws her circles,” Gwen explained.

“Ahh, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to get hurt so much!” I apologized.

“It’s alright, my job is to make sure you can keep fighting, no matter how much you get hurt.” She muttered something I couldn’t hear after that. I didn’t ask her about it, no matter what she said I still felt bad relying on her so much to heal me that she looked ready to fall over.

“Come on, we don’t have very far left. The area around the city should be pretty empty, let’s go,” Gwen cut in. We all nodded. Looking around at our group, Rowe looked like he had the most energy left of any of us, for the first time since the trip began.

It was the middle of the afternoon and we only had a short distance left. Seeing that, we upped our pace to a jog and reached the outer wall of Flaren in a short time. Rowe looked ragged by the end, but even we were more drained by the run than we would normally be.

Standing outside the wall of smooth gray stone dyed orange in the light as the sky began to shift color, I looked up toward the top. It was tall, the height of a six story building maybe, and I couldn’t tell looking at it, but it must have been strong enough that even powerful monsters couldn’t batter it down.

I looked side to side, there should be a number of gates into the city. “How do we get in?” I asked when I didn’t spot one nearby.

“There are four main gates,” Gwen explained. “We can’t use them right now because there are thousands of monsters attacking them.”

“Then what do we…” I started, but she finished explaining with a smirk.

“For these times, we do this.” She pressed two fingers together, put them to her lips, and released a extremely loud whistle. For a minute nothing happened. It was just long enough that I started to wonder if something would happen, and then a rope ladder appeared at the top of the wall. It unrolled the entire length down the wall, clattering loudly against the stones.

“Just like that,” Sharya giggled.

“Wow,” both Rowe and I gaped up at what we’d just seen. The girls shared a laugh at our expense.

“Well sorry we’re from the country. You saw Smithtown, we hardly even have a wall,” Rowe shruged tiredly. With that comment, we all started to climb. It wasn’t a hard climb, but it was a long way up and we were already tired, so everyone was panting heavily when we arrived at the top of the wall. As soon as I stood, my view filled with the town spread below. Brick buildings stood, all packed close together, and the last rays of sunlight slipped over the walls to cast a blazing orange glow across the rooftops below.

Looking up, I gazed past the town, to the far wall, and beyond. In the distance, the grassy green fields stretched to the horizon. I turned, and saw that they continued, on and on in every direction. Small dark dots spotted the plains, monsters wandering, some alone and some in packs, but all around continued the green grassy fields, rolling for what seemed like forever, to the circular horizon.

And beyond that, horizon, I saw a few seemingly tiny spires. Seemingly, because they were hundreds, even thousands of kilometers away, stretching out to infinity above us. The Pillars of Reality.

An elbow to the ribs brought me back to this reality. “Told you so,” Gwen jabbed. Unable to come up with a rebuttal this time, I just grinned. She was right.

“You sure did.”

We stood for a little longer before thanking the guards who had helped us up, and following the girls who lead us toward the closest set of stairs back to ground level. From there, things went smoothly, dropping Rowe off at his relatives, he thanked us for the escort and the girls received their pay.

From there we went to their god’s house. The trip through the city was amazing. The streets were crowded with clusters of people. I saw very few blessed, but that must be because they were all fighting at the gates. Shops peddled their wares on almost every thoroughfare we traveled, and the girls exchanged greetings with dozens of people. A few tried to strike up conversation, but they gently refused, explaining that we had just returned and had to meet with Vanne as soon as we could. Vanne, I thought. As busy and exciting as the city was, now that we were here, my thoughts just kept returning to that question. Just how did Herral and Vanne know one another? “One way to find out,” I whispered under my breath.

When we finally arrived at their god’s house, I stopped in the street and stared. It was a massive multi-story mansion. Deep brown bricks made up the walls which rose high above, eventually leading to a number of pointed spires, like an actual castle. Numerous windows and open air terraces dotted the walls around the upper floors.

“Impressive huh?” Gwen elbowed me in the ribs.

“Isn’t this a bit much?” I didn’t know what else to say.

“You haven’t seen our following,” What, did they have a thousand people? “Come on, we can’t stand out here forever.” She gave my back a push to get me moving, and we entered the house.

There was no one in the front room, so we proceeded through a number of corridors, rugs and paintings everywhere. We wound up at a spiral staircase, climbed two levels up, and took a number of turns. I was thoroughly lost by the time we arrived in a small area with a number of chairs lining the walls. They were all empty right now, making me wonder what they were for exactly. Proceeding past the empty rows of chairs, we arrived at a door. Gwen knocked and a voice called, “Come in, come in!”

“Ah, Gwen, Sharya, you’re back,” the same voice spoke when they entered the room. I walked in after them, “And who is this?” he asked as soon as he saw me. With my first look into the room, I saw a man, the one who had spoken. He had short blond hair, with a face that looked old, but also like he’d aged well. Next to him sat a woman with her back to him, her long, dark hair shifted forward while she looked sideways at me. Her shirt was half off, her arms out of the sleeves, but still hanging down her neck and down the front, so that only her back was visible.

On her shoulder was a large mark like a tattoo. I couldn’t see much the detail, but the size alone was striking. From the top of her shoulder, it stretched all the way around onto her back, across her shoulder blade, and halfway down her back. It was her blessing mark, but that size… I’d never seen one so large before. Just how powerful was she?

My attention snapped back from the mark when an elbow stabbed hard into my ribcage.. “Ah sorry. I’m Allistor.” I gave a small bow.

“I’m Vanne,” the man replied. I was too tired, it took a moment to process what he’d said, and relate it to the current situation, before I understood. We’d just walked in on him working on someone’s blessing.

“Ahh, umm, uhh, s-sorry!” I stammered out, giving significanly deeper bow this time. “I didn’t realize. We aren’t interrupting are we?”

“It’s fine,” he chuckled. “Now, what business do you have here today young man?” he asked while returning to looking at the mark on the woman’s back.

I raised my head again, but Gwen beat me to it. “We hired him to help us with the escort request we were working on.

“Oh? You needed to hire more help for that?”

“Yeah, because Dominik ditched us again.” Both Gwen and Sharya scowled. Vanne nodded knowingly, I guess it really did happen a lot. “We paid one hundred in advance, we owe the other four now.”

“Ok, just a moment,” he responded, rising from his seat and walking to a desk on the far wall. He drew four cloth bags from a drawer, followed by one larger, empty bag. He poured the coins from the separate bags into the larger one, then tossed it over to me. I caught it and staggered a little, unaccustomed to holding more than a month and a half worth of money at once.

Figuring I could count it later, I stowed the money in my bag for now while Vanne returned to his seat. “Is that all?” he asked, starting to return his attention to the dark haired woman. The girls nodded, but I held up a hand.

“Actually, there was one other thing.” That drew a confused look from everyone present. “I was given a message for you. Herral says hi.”

His response was immediate, “Herral!” he shouted, slapping a big hand on the back he’d been working on. It drew a hiss and a glare from the woman, but he ignored it. “I haven’t seen him in ages, how’s he doing? Where does he live now?”

“Uh,” I was too tired to keep up with him. I had to stop and think for a second to figure out how to address his questions. “He’s alright, he’s living in Kirshe now. I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“Yeah, we go way back,” he laughed, then his tone changed, boasting, “we were friends all the way back. Back before we met Fianna.”

“Huh?” That line drew a gasp from everyone, even his own Blessed. It was rare to hear a god talk about Fianna. The old goddess of mistakes, currently the goddess of unrealized potential. But more importantly, the singular reason our world still existed.

It was a terrifying story everyone was taught in their infancy, but almost never mentioned after. The way she had saved the world from the old god of vengeance by giving her divine power over unrealized potential to humanity, through her creation of an entirely new pantheon of gods after the destruction of the Pillar of Heaven.

I’d never talked to Herral about it his ascdendance to godhood. He’d never actually said he didn’t want to talk about it, but somehow it felt like something you shouldn’t ask about either.

“We met Fianna in Kordenzin,” Vanne continued without prompting, and we all listened with rapt attention, hanging on every word. “She’d started traveling after Thoth, ascending people left and right. We became gods together, and were together for decades before he eventually took off to do something or other. Haven’t seen him since. So he’s living on the outskirts now is he?” Vanne muttered with a hand to his chin. “He ever say why?”

I shook my head, then, “I think it’s because most of the outlying towns don’t have many gods to protect them.”

He raised an eyebrow, so Gwen explained, “according to the man we escorted from Smithtown, there are only a couple gods living there, and he hasn’t even seen them in a while, so they may already have left.”

“I see…” he nodded solemnly. “That’s troubling, I’ll bring it up with some of the other gods. Still, it’s really good to hear from Herral again,” a big smile returned to his face. “When you go back, can you tell him that I returned his greeting?”

“I’d be glad to.” With that, I took my leave. I needed the girls to show me how to get back out of the enormous mansion.

“Get some sleep tonight, we’ll help you out of the fields tomorrow,” Gwen said while we stood on the street outside.

“Oh that’s right, it would be difficult getting back out on my own huh.”

“Don’t worry, it’s simple as long as it’s just us, we can run through and avoid fighting.” I nodded and we split up for the evening. It was already dim, the soaring walls blocking the light of the sun, still a ways from setting, when I returned to the city streets. Even so, I was ready to fall asleep standing after the brutal last leg of our journey. But despite my fatigue, there were still a few things left to do. Shopping, eating, equipment upkeep all went by in a blur, until I settled into bed at the inn, and drifted off to sleep.

At dawn the next day, we all met outside their god’s manor once more, and we followed the plan as they’d explained it. After entering the fields, we ran straight across, paying little mind to the monsters we flew past. Freshly rested and without a civilian in tow, the trip in that had taken us almost four full days was shortened to just a couple hours on the way out.

At the edge of the Fare Fields, we all stood, rather winded, to say our goodbyes.

“It was nice. I hope if we meet again, we can work together once more.” Gwen said.

“Yeah, turns out I got more than I ever thought out of this trip,” I grinned. Learning more about Herral, Vanne, and Fianna was worth more than any amount of money. We shook hands, then I turned to Sharya. “I’m sorry I made you use so much magic on me,” I scratched my head a bit awkwardly, unsure how to put it. “Thanks for keeping me going, I never would’ve made it otherwise.” Then I remembered what she had said when we first met, about learning magic to help in battle as well. “I hope that you have good luck learning combat magic.” I gave her a thumbs up.

“Actually, I think I’m going to uhh, stick with healing magic.” She gave a small, awkward smile in return.

“Oh, I see.” I wasn’t sure why, but if that’s what she wanted. “Then I hope you can become a good enough healing to keep someone like me on their feet without any trouble.”

“That might be a long way off,” Gwen teased.

“Hehe, that’s probably true,” I chuckled. “Still, I gained a lot of good combat experience from this too. I can see how everyone out here would be strong like you guys.” That drew a laugh from them.

We stood for a few moments, just smiling between us. Finally, I turned back toward the south and started walking.

-The End-