Luke was inspecting the enchantments on the various potion cauldrons as he exercised. After learning the invisibility spell, which really affected anything, unlike what the hooligans used it for, he'd began spending a portion of his time memorizing the enchantments needed to create the cauldrons used in the second to last step of potioneering. He never stopped exercising during this time, of course; his body was a very important part of his magic capacity, after all. He would also spend a significant amount of time making his own magic capacity potions, which were his primary source of water at this point.
"Does the material of the cauldron have any effect on the performance of the potion? I noticed all of yours are aluminum," Luke said.
"I won't say no, since it could and we just don't have the tools to detect the degree of change it causes, but not that I know of. I just get aluminum because people can cast them for cheap," Rhonda responded.
Luke hummed noncommittally as he went back to inspecting the cauldron for a rest potion. He'd already managed to conjure a working exercise cauldron and had decided to temporarily give up on magic capacity cauldrons. Their enchantments were significantly more dense than either the rest or exercise cauldrons. He would be able to take some in with him, but he'd rather confirm his ability to conjure important potion cauldrons now, when he wasn't actively being attacked, rather than his fraxion opponent breaking a potion and leaving him forever unable to create more.
Sadly for Luke, he didn't have the mental capacity to exercise, memorize insanely complex spellforms to make into enchantments, and craft potions at the same time, so he had to choose what to give up when. The only reason he could even conjure the potion cauldrons in the first place is because he could make them gradually, rather than needing to make them all at once. So, it became more like memorizing an entire chess game from move 1, rather than memorizing it to the point you could keep all 100+ board states of a game in your head simultaneously like is required for casting spells.
The hooligans walked in.
Today was not a sparring day, so this confused Luke and Rhonda. They didn't look like they came for trouble - not that they had since the first time they were here - and they didn't look worried, so they probably weren't in trouble.
"Any plans for today?" Dalton asked.
Luke and Rhonda looked at each other before Luke responded, "The usual. Why?"
"It's Christmas," Brendon stated. "Figured you'd have something going on. Not family, since you never mentioned them over the months we've sparred, but something."
"Since you have nothing special to do today, we're taking you out skiing," Jessy said.
"I'd honestly rather exercise," Luke said without pausing his exercising. "Besides, don't you have a family event to be at or go to later?"
"You think we'd have started vandalizing shops if we liked our families?" Brendon asked. "Besides, we've already paid for the tickets. You're coming with us."
Luke looked to Rhonda to save him, but she just shooed him off, saying "Go. You haven't taken a break in over a year, a few hours won't hurt. I don't know your magic capacity even has a limit at this point, you're almost constantly using one form of magic or another. You don't even need exercise potions, now, since you can go from one sip of a rest potion to the next without stopping your exercises. I'm certain any extra magic capacity you get from potions you would have made during the time you're gone would be tiny, and any exercising you miss wouldn't really affect your endurance."
Luke started unconvinced at the start, then slowly looked simply annoyed that she convinced him. "Fine," he said before turning back to the hooligans. "How long do our entrance tickets last?"
"I lied," Brendon stated, "we haven't bought tickets. We can just show up at the place without any sort of reservations, they have their own rental stuff, reduced price if we bring our own stuff. I think it was $3 an hour if you rent, $2 if not. I'm paying, let's go." He turned around and lead the group out before Luke picked them all up and was navigated to the destination by Brendon's phone.
They had to slow down multiple times due to traveling too fast for the GPS to allow them to get positional data from it to make sure they were headed the right way. Ultimately, a 5 hour car trip became a 40 minute flight.
"If you really want to get some sort of training in, why not copy some rental stuff?" Brendon suggested. "It probably won't be the same material, since I don't know what spells you know or even what the skis are made of, but could save me a bit of money while flexing your magic muscle or whatever."
"I could maybe make some wooden ones, as I doubt you'd want iron skis, but I don't know about the straps for your feet. I can't make velcro and I doubt solid wood ones would be very comfortable," Luke said.
As they landed at the entrance to the facility, Brendon said, "Yeah, that's fair. Besides, an extra $4 an hour isn't much, not like we'll be here too long."
They walked in, Brendon payed for 5 hours of skiing for everyone, and they hooked up their skis. Luke got odd looks, being the only one in his usual outfit rather than snow gear. He could just heat himself up with magic, but that kind of thing wasn't common enough, yet, that someone in jeans and a T-shirt wouldn't draw attention in the middle of the snow. People quickly came to that conclusion, but it was still a head turner.
They skied down a slope together, skipping straight to one of the harder slopes, knowing Luke could save them if anything went wrong and they could fly themselves out of most falls. Half way down, after many jumps they were, realistically, too new to skiing to go over, Luke spotted someone in the woods beside the slope. They were just standing completely still, hunched down like they were inspecting something. Luke figured they'd dropped something and everyone continued down the slope. As Luke flew everyone back, he noticed the man in the same spot, but decided not to stop and make sure they were alright unless they were still there on the way back down.
Which they were.
Luke went off the slope and into the woods, flying toward the man at a slow enough pace it shouldn't startle them if they looked back. Once he was close enough he wouldn't need to raise his voice significantly, he asked, "Do you need any help?"
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The man didn't respond, didn't even flinch at the sudden voice. Luke then noticed that the man had some snow piled up on him. Not enough that it would be dangerous or significantly hinder his visibility, but enough that Luke wasn't sure what was going on. Even with a snow suit acting as insulation, the amount of snow on this man should have melted, or at least fallen off if they had moved recently. This was multiple miles from Rhonda's store, but he was certain it hadn't snowed in over a week.
So, Luke, still with skis on, making it awkward to navigate the woods, flew next to the man and put his hand on his shoulder while asking again, "Do you need any help?"
Again, no response, which is when he noticed the knife the man had. He was posed like he was in the middle of stabbing someone. His free arm braced against air as his knifed arm stabbed into nothing. It was like someone had put the most life-like mannequin to ever exist into these woods, frozen mid-attack against an unseen victim. Luke tried to flip the man over to see if he had, somehow, been frozen to death, but it was like trying to lift a bull dozer. He didn't move a single inch. Not even his clothes ruffled.
He bent down to look at the guy's face and it was definitely human. He'd only seen someone manage to get that level of detail in a sculpture's face a handful of times on the internet many years ago. It was stuck in a crazed, murderous smile.
Luke went to ask the hooligans if they knew anything about whatever was going on with that guy and Jessy responded, "Guess you wouldn't have heard, cooping yourself in your girlfriend's shop and exercising all day. The gods saw the murder rate and made their second ever decree, said something about the in-fighting taking away from their enjoyment of the conflict or whatever. Didn't pay attention to the reasoning, but anyone who kills another human gets frozen in place until it's their time to go against the fraxions."
Brendon nodded and added on, "Heard there's been a few cases of that back in the city. No one's figured out a way to move anyone yet. Even froze some guy who initiated a deadly wreck, making them a hazard, since they're just frozen in the middle of the road. Well, they're barely in one of the lanes, but you'd still need to actively avoid them when driving."
"Rhonda's not my girlfriend, but wow. I figured the gods were just here to screw us over against the fraxions. It's nice to know they're not just bloodthirsty beings of unreasonable power, even if they are still horrible people for making us go through all this. They could have just gifted us the knowledge of magic and left, but evil beings will do evil," Luke said. "Hopefully, someone eventually takes the gods out and we can stop fighting, but that will be beyond my time. Hopefully not beyond yours, but I imagine it will take multiple generations for anyone strong enough to do that to come around."
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At the end of their 5-hour skiing session, while they were flying back to the city, Brendon said, "You should go get your girlfriend a gift. It is Christmas, after all."
"Again, she's not my girlfriend; but sure, I could get her something. She's letting me stay at her shop for free, I might as well get her something for that," Luke said.
"You're basically living together and you haven't hooked up?" Jessy asked.
"We're constantly working on our own projects; and besides, we're both going into the arena in a few months. She's probably going in in February, if that, and then I'm following behind not long after. We don't exactly have time to do anything romantic, and haven't taken any long enough breaks to have done anything to get us close to each other," Luke said.
"Boooooriiinnnng," Dalton said.
"Yeah, come on, man. You've had over a year to make some sort of move," Jessy said.
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed how nice her butt is," Brendon said.
Luke just rolled his eyes and said, "I'm not really sure what gift to get her. Anything useful long-term will go to waste, since we'll be gone in a few months. She's pretty much only ever talked about potioneering. I could maybe try to out Dixon for all the shady stuff they've done, but that's not really something in my power to do. I'm not sure what size of anything she wears. I could maybe get her a potion cauldron for something she doesn't have, but knowing her, if she doesn't have it, she doesn't want to have it."
"Food's always a safe bet," Jessy said.
"Maybe a gun," Dalton said. "They're not that useful against fraxions, but maybe you could get some enchanted rounds. I hear those are finally going into production, maybe they'll help her out in the arena. At minimum, they'd be a distraction."
"That's not a bad idea," Luke said.
"I think .50 BMG stuff still works," Brendon said. "Unless I missed someone who tried a real 50 cal gun and it did nothing. I'm not sure she'd be able to withstand the recoil, though."
"Potioneers are obligate spellcasters, remember? She could just use telekinesis to keep fire it without even touching it," Jessy said.
"Oh yeah, makes sense," Brendon responded. "Besides, even if it doesn't work, like Dalton said, it'd be a distraction. Not sure how many of our hits on you are you willingly taking hi9ts to train your medical magic, but distractions are always useful in a fight."
Dalton nodded before saying, "Even boxers from before the arrival used feints to distract their opponents."
"Did the AK-50 guy ever start selling copies?" Jessy asked.
"Not that I know of," Dalton said, "but I also haven't really kept up with him after magic came around."
Brendon looked at his phone, looking for gun shops nearby, before pivoting to looking up the AK-50. "Looks like he's selling copies, yeah. Apparently really good at using metal magic, so he can just conjure new ones, as needed. Pretty cheap, all considered. A quick pop down to Texas and you could have one for only $7500."
"Oooo, nice, that's cheaper than the M82A1, at least," Jessy said. "If he's conjuring them, I'm certain he could sell them cheaper than that."
"It apparently takes a couple hours to make. Says here we can get one made by tonight, if we order now and Luke flies as fast as he can. I don't know his maximum speed, but at the speed we went to the ski mountain, he would be able to make it back just before midnight," Brendon said.
"Perfect. Sound good?" Jessy asked Luke.
Luke shrugged and said, "Sure. The $7500 will eat into my wallet a lot, but I haven't had any emergencies up until now, beyond the first time you broke my ankle, and even then, I learned to mend it only a couple days later. I won't be needing the money for any hospital trips, at least."
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It was 10:53 PM by the time Luke got back to Rhonda's. Without the hooligans along for the ride, Luke was significantly faster. He'd taken the time to also find a box for it to fit in and wrap it up, so it's not obvious what his gift is. If he hadn't, he could have been back a few minutes earlier. The dealer also sold him a few boxes of .50 BMG to go along with the gun, so she wouldn't need to source the bullets herself.
"Long trip," Rhonda said after confirming it was Luke that came back. "Seems they also got you a present. Why didn't you open it with them?"
"It's for you," Luke responded. "From all of us, I guess, though they wanted it to be from me to you. They can't get over the fact we've been living together and aren't dating, but I figured I may as well indirectly pay you back for letting me be here and using your equipment for free. Not sure if you'll like it, but it should help out a bit." He floated the present to the counter while heading back to his exercise equipment.
"Let me get this potion into the cauldron and I'll check it out. I didn't think to get you anything," Rhonda said. "I feel kinda bad not getting you something in return, but oh well. Do I need to set the hooligans straight on our relationship?"
"Nah, it's nothing. If they continue to tease me about it, they can just get more intense sparring sessions," Luke said.
"Oh, true," Rhonda responded.
After a few minutes, she put her batch into the appropriate cauldron and went to open her present. When she opened the generic box, she was confused. "A gun?" She asked.
"Yeah. For the arena. I know you're planning on taking a bunch of potions and guns aren't very useful against fraxions, but like the hooligans said, it could be a decent distraction. Might keep you alive for an extra fraxion or two, even if it doesn't take them out directly."
"I've never used a gun, let alone such a large one," Rhonda said.
"They also had a solution to that: Just use telekinesis to fire it. The rounds are expensive, so we can't practice too much, but maybe on your last few days, we can go to a firing range and we can get you some practice," Luke said.