Social Butterfly
Janus spent hours working on his [Mana Reinforcement] near the sparring squares.
He was surprised that he didn’t spot Pella or Devon at the Delver’s Guild while he worked. Especially Pella. It seemed like she wanted to spend every waking moment improving.
Maybe they’re just practicing somewhere else. I guess she doesn’t make things explode… yet.
He was beginning to feel the onset of mana exhaustion and decided that heading back home was probably the right decision.
As he reached the plaza fountain, he heard someone call out from behind.
“Hey, Janus!”
He recognized the voice as one of his friends from Bear Station College. He sighed inwardly. If he had his way, then nobody would have bothered him on the way home.
Turning around, he spotted his friend. They were wearing a simple black t-shirt paired with some heavy duty work pants. From his pants, a series of tools were hanging off various loops. Below his curly brown hair was a concerned expression, and he was quickly making his way toward Janus.
“David. How have you been?” asked Janus.
“I’ve been doing fine, but I should be asking you the same!” David answered. “I didn’t have class when that dungeon popped up on the rail line. I heard you were there?”
“I was on the sub-train when it happened, but I was lucky. I don’t really like thinking about it, to be honest.”
“Yeah, man. That’s understandable. I just wanted to check in since we can’t meet up on campus right now. I was going to send you a message, but this is better than that.” David ran his fingers through his hair.
“My, uh, classes were moved here to Crow Station. I’ve been pretty busy with that. Actually, I should probably get going…” Janus was eager to get back home. Socializing was a bit of a drain on him.
He didn’t want to explain that his “classes” were, well, only one class. And that the teacher was a famous delver. It would only extend the conversation and Janus longed for the comfortable sofa in his living room.
“No, yeah, of course. I hope you’re doing well. I guess I’ll see you around,” said David with a curious look, “I’ve been pretty busy too, but, uh, I guess we can catch up some other time.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you around….”
David waved and turned towards one of the vendors in the plaza. Janus watched him walk for a moment for turning back towards the residential district.
He continued on his way back home. Something about the encounter played on his mind. He didn’t have many friends and David was a good guy, but Janus preferred to spend a lot of his time alone. A good book was usually all the company he needed. It was different when he was on campus. People expected him to talk with them there.
He was lucky that Devon basically never spoke to him, and Pella wasn’t all that chatty either. They seemed more focused on training than socializing. He shook his head.
I should be focused on training, too.
-
Janus spent the night thinking about his new ability and what he could do with it. He was starting to understand what Dario meant when he called [Mana Manipulation] special.
He still struggled to move mana around, but condensing it was easy. Once he enclosed the condensed mana with a hardened shell, he could simply move it around by picking it up. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it worked.
Without the shell, he could only move condensed mana a few inches before his concentration broke. If he wasn’t good enough with [Mana Manipulation] to move the mana he controlled, he could just toss the hardened shell with his hands instead.
Condensing mana in the air was different from condensing it within his fist or within a weapon. The mana tended to travel with the weapon. But there wasn’t anything to contain it in the air.
He thought about using pure mana to enhance attacks some more. It was strange how the mana reacted to impacts. It seemed to stay condensed until he — or whoever he was enhancing — attacked something.
Maybe it’s a subconscious thing.
There were still a couple of hours left of the night before Janus needed to sleep. He spent the extra time picturing a spar with Devon in his head.
Dario had said that they would be sparring again tomorrow and Janus intended to be ready.
-
The sparring field was nearly empty in the morning. A lone healer stood by the entrance to the Delver’s Guild.
Janus decided to go inside, to see if Dario was there yet. Inside, he saw Dario sitting on the counter tops of the office island in the middle of the room. Surrounding him was a small crowd of delvers.
At a nearby table, Janus could see Pella and Devon. They looked like they were waiting for Dario to finish… whatever it was he was doing.
Janus made his way to their table and took a seat and listened in. His fellow students gave him a glance before turning back to Dario.
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“And so there I was, missing an arm. The other guy wasn’t much better off, though.” A couple of the delvers snickered. “He was out of shit to throw at me. All of his ghouls and zombies were dead. It was just me and him. I did what had to be done, ya know? If I didn’t take the guy out, there was no telling how much damage he would do. [Necromancer]’s are serious business. I hope we never have to see one of those down here.”
Word must have gotten out that Dario was here in Crow Station. I was wondering why people weren’t crowding over him from day one.
“Sorry to cut it off here guys.” Dario looked to the table and saw that all three of his students were present. “I’ve gotta get back to work.”
Dario slid off the counter top and the crowd started to break apart. The murmur of conversion filled the halls.
Dario reached their table and took a seat before saying, “Alright guys, we’re gonna get a couple of hours of sparring in. A full rotation this time. Each of you will face the others in at least a few rounds one on one.”
Janus wasn’t sure if he should feel excited or not.
It was strange to be looking forward to a fight. The feeling was unnatural. But the opportunity to test out his experiments in a fight egged him on.
He couldn’t help but notice the other delvers were glancing over at their table every once in a while.
“I was hoping it’d be a couple more days before people started to realize who I was.” Dario said.
“That, uh, might be my fault. I asked the clerk where you were the first day I showed up here.” Janus replied.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now.” Dario held up his right arm and a man in an apron showed up shortly after. They exchanged a few words and the man left the table.
“He’ll bring us some tea. The caffeine will do us good.” Dario said.
The group remained at the table until their tea arrived. Dario silently sipped his, looking at each of his students in turn.
Stars, this is awkward. Should I say something? No. Definitely not.
A few minutes passed, and they had all finished their tea.
“Alright!” Dario stated, pushing his chair back and standing. “We’re starting now. Devon and Janus up first. I’ll spar with Pella. We’ll swap Devon out with Pella after a few rounds, and then we’ll swap Janus out.”
The others stood and followed Dario out. Janus hesitated for a moment and couldn’t help but notice how the other delvers stared as Dario left the room.
I want that recognition.
If everything went well, he would have that recognition some day. He stood and jogged towards the exit.
Devon was already nearing one of the sparring platforms. Janus followed after and carefully selected a quarterstaff from the nearby weapon rack.
Hopefully I won’t even need this thing.
He had just gotten into position on the other side of the platform when he heard the dreaded words.
“Three”
“Two”
“One”
“Zero”
Before Devon had even reached zero, Janus was already creating one of his explosive pearls of mana. He had just barely succeeded when Devon started moving.
Janus didn’t have much room to maneuver as he started near the edge of the platform. Taking a page out of Pella’s book, he quickly sidestepped. As he moved, he tossed the small blue ball of mana towards Devon. It landed just to his side.
The explosion knocked Devon off of his feet. He tried to stand back up, but stumbled as he did. There was a crazed look in the swordsman’s eyes. Janus took the opportunity to run forward and knock Devon on the head with his quarter staff before his fellow student could recover.
With a crack! Devon was back on the ground. It wasn’t graceful, but damn did it feel satisfying.
Janus felt a sense of victory as he finally got to be the one flagging for a healer. After a moment, the feeling guttered out. Devon wasn’t getting back up.
“Uh, Devon?” he asked.
The healer arrived quickly and Janus could swear the man scowled at him as he checked Devon’s condition. After a few moments, Devon staggered to his feet.
Janus could see that Devon’s sleeve was smoldering where the mana explosion had made direct contact. The embers glowed a soft blue.
I might need to be a bit more careful about how I use these things in a spar. I know I caught him off guard, but…
“What skill was that?” Devon asked. Janus withered under his penetrating gaze.
There’s something up with this guy’s eyes.
“Uh, it wasn’t really a skill. I can compress mana with [Mana Manipulation] and release it. A second skill allows me to create a hardened shell around that mana. If I release compressed mana within that shell, it creates an explosion.” Janus explained. “I didn’t expect it to… well I didn’t expect that.” he motioned towards the blue streaks that the explosion had seared into the ground.
Janus didn’t really see a point in lying to Devon about how the mana pearl worked. The swordsman probably would have picked up on it and even if he didn’t, then Dario would probably spoil the secret.
Devon nodded. “That’s what Dario meant then. I think I understand. Let’s go again”
-
Janus lost the next few rounds against Devon. He didn’t want to use his new technique too much because of the steep mana requirement. If he could avoid mana exhaustion, he would. Besides, Devon was aware of the danger now and each time Janus attempted the technique, the swordsman would quickly close in and prevent him from finishing the pearl.
Instead, he tried to use other, less expensive methods. He had almost taken another round off of Devon using a flash of light to disorient him. Devon had been blinded for a moment, but had still been able to defend himself against Janus’ clumsy attempts to wallop him with the quarter staff.
After his latest defeat, he heard Dario call out, “We’re switching it up. Pella with Janus. Devon with me.”
Devon left the sparring platform and Pella took his place.
“Finally. I saw that trick you pulled on Devon. I want you to try it on me.” She said.
“I have enough mana to use it a couple more times, I guess. If I see a chance to use it, I will.”
Janus didn’t know why she wanted to be blown up, but he wouldn’t say no. He was sure that if Dario thought it was too dangerous, the man would put a stop to their spar.
I guess I’ll count down this time.
“Three.” Janus started counting.
“Two.” It was strange to be the one counting instead of his opponent.
“One.”
“Zero.”
Pella didn’t move immediately. Janus had to stop himself from moving out of the way. It would only push him closer to the edge of the sparring square. With Devon, he would almost always have to dodge immediately. Pella seemed to be examining him, though.
She had a small wooden short sword in one hand, but that wasn’t the problem. In her other hand were a few weighted sticks. He had already seen her using those sticks as stand-ins for her usual throwing knives.
His strategy with Devon usually revolved around staying as far away as possible, but he wasn’t sure that would still apply when sparring against Pella.
As if to punctuate his last thought, a weighted stick smacked him on the shoulder. Janus didn’t expect it to hurt so much. The shock caused him to drop his quarterstaff.
He only narrowly dodged the next weighted stick by bending over to grab his staff again. Pella was approaching. She had only a single remaining weighted stick in her offhand.
Janus knew he had to dodge the next faux throwing knife. But he also had to stop her from closing. Maybe she wouldn’t be as bad as Devon close up, but he still knew she was better than him.
He decided that action was better than indecision and started forming a ball of mana in the air. Encasing it in a shell, he grabbed it and wasted no time in tossing it at Pella.
It was almost like she knew exactly where and how the explosion was going to erupt. She was already jumping out of the way. Janus was sure her backflip was only to show off.
Once she landed on her feet, she turned and rushed at Janus. The explosion barely touched her. He attempted to get the quarterstaff between himself and her, but she simply knocked it away. A sharp pain in his leg brought Janus to his knee. He saw another weighted stick on the ground near his foot.
Before he knew it, Pella’s short sword was smacking him across the face.