Kane and Quentin sat in the guild hall. While Quentin continued to devour the bestiary, Kane had taken an interest in magery. He read from Hans’ beginner guide to spellcasting, learning the foundational theory before the Guild Master was willing to help him cast. A wooden sword equivalent didn’t exist for spells–that Hans was aware of–so he insisted that students understand the full scope of the dangers before they practiced live spells.

Skipping that step was like giving a child a sharp blade without instruction on how to handle it safely. And that sword could explode.

Hans had thousands of analogies and metaphors for swordplay yet very few for magery.

If any of the Gomi children were going to dive into serious spellcraft, he was glad Kane was going first. He would set a good example for responsible practice. Oftentimes, children respected the advice of an immediate peer more than the instructor, as counterintuitive as that sounded. That used to frustrate Hans, but his effectiveness as a teacher jumped when he encouraged it instead of fighting against it.

Every student learned differently. The commonalities between those learning styles were like ears, noses, and mouths–everyone had them, but no two sets were exactly alike. Whether it reduced their nervousness or tapped into a more familiar communication style, Hans wasn’t sure, but a younger child learning from an older child could propel a struggling student forward.

Kane and Quentin had paid off several times over. In that respect, they were instructors themselves. They just didn’t know it. More importantly, the students they helped didn’t know it either. Come to think of it, Gunther’s exploits had a similar effect, inspiring more children to take classes at the Adventurers’ Guild.

Kane and Quentin laughed quietly about the succubus entry in the bestiary, whispering so Hans wouldn’t hear teenage boys doing what teenage boys often do. They tried to swallow their muffled “teehees” when a tusk-touched woman entered the guild hall carrying a plate wrapped in paper.

She looked familiar, but he couldn’t recall her name. She had faint features of tusk in her face, but looked human otherwise, save for the yellow in her skin.

“Am I interrupting?” She asked, timidly.

“Not at all. What can I do for you?”

She set the plate on his desk. “We didn’t have all of the right ingredients, but I baked you cookies. I know it’s not much, but I wanted to thank you for what you did.”

“What did I do?”

“...Rescued my daughter from gnolls.”

Smooth, Hans. Real smooth.

“Right, of course. Sorry.”

The tusk blushed, her cheeks looking slightly orange as red pushed through her tusk skin. “No, don’t be. I’m sure you’re very busy.”

“How is she? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Depends on the day,” she replied with a deep, tired breath. “She still has nightmares most nights. Seems like all of the kids do, but her days are generally better. She’s made friends and is keeping to her lessons.”

“I’m really glad to hear that. I know you two have been through a lot.”

She nodded that they had.

“Gomi has been really good to us, though. Everyone’s been so nice. It feels like a dream.” She paused, as if giving Hans room to speak. When he didn’t, she said, quickly, “Well that was all. I hope you enjoy the cookies.”

She turned on her heel and left the guild hall.

Hans lifted a corner of the paper and pulled out a peanut butter cookie. With half a cookie in his mouth, Hans asked the boys, “Anyone want a cookie?” He pushed the plate to the edge of his desk. When he looked up, he saw two wide-eyed faces staring back, their cheeks about to burst with laughter. “What?”

“Is she your girlfriend?” Kane asked.

“He’d probably remember his girlfriend’s name,” Quentin added.

Lifting his hands, Hans said, “Whoa whoa whoa. Your imaginations are getting the best of you.”

Kane’s tusky grin grew. “She definitely likes you. Her name is Tandis, by the way.”

The Guild Master repeated the name mentally to himself.

“Do you remember our names?” Quentin teased.

“Listen here, wise guys,” Hans began. “Names are a weakness for me. Always have been. I could remember a person’s entire backstory but forget their names.”

“Really? You remember a whole bunch of other stuff most people would forget but not names?”

“A year or so after I started teaching in Hoseki, I had a new student join by the name of Frank. Great guy. Made a living as a painter, houses and furniture mostly. He never missed a class, he trained hard, and he was nice to the other students. But he was grumpy all the time. I’d say ‘Frank go drill with so-and-so’ or ‘Hey Frank, watch your hand positioning there.’ He would do what I told him, but he always seemed mad about it.

“This went on for over six months. Then one day I ask Frank to pair off with another student and he looks at me and says, ‘Mr. Hans, my name is Stephen.’ I was so embarrassed.”

Kane and Quentin laughed.

“She still likes you,” Kane said.

Hans sighed. “Even if she did–and she doesn’t–it wouldn’t matter. It’s bad form. You two should remember that for when you’re adults.”

“Huh?”

“Her daughter takes classes here sometimes and may take them more often when the snow clears. I’ve seen more than a few instructors date the mothers or fathers of their students. It never ends well, and it’s unbelievably uncomfortable for the child, especially when the breakup hits. And definitely for the teacher too. As a rule, I don’t entertain those ideas.”

“That’s a dumb rule,” Kane said.

“It’s a good rule, and if the two of you are done bullying me, you can get back to reading.”

Tandis baked a hell of a peanut butter cookie, though. The texture and flavor made each bite a delight.

“What about sirens?” Quentin asked, abruptly ending the silence a while later.

“Yes, I have a rule against dating sirens or any other monster.”

Quentin said, seriously, “No. I mean for the squonks.”

Hans looked up to give the teen his full attention. “Go on.”

“We used to have a dog for hunting. He would run real far sometimes, so my dad got a whistle. When you blew on it, it didn’t make a noise, but my dad said it did. We just couldn’t hear it. Dogs could though, so if the dog had wandered too far, he could use the whistle to call him home.”

The Guild Master saw where Quentin’s logic was going, but he restrained himself. It was Quentin’s idea, and he should get to explain it before Hans gushed.

“I know sirens are way different from squonks, but what if a squonk’s call is like a siren’s and we just can’t hear it?”

New Quest: Test Quentin’s siren-squonk theory.

“Well done, Quentin. Very well done.”

“It’s not too much of a stretch?”

Shaking his head, Hans replied, “Any hypothesis will feel like that, at least a little bit. That’s kind of the point of making a hypothesis. You looked at the data you had and asked, ‘What if they connected like this?’ It might not, but you don’t know until you test it. Your hypothesis is easy enough to test.”

“Does that mean I get to come along?”

“No, but nice try.”

***

“What if there was a threshold, some sort of standard people met before we told them about the dungeon?” Olza asked. She had been reading on Hans’ couch, which had become a frequent evening pastime for the two of them, when the idea struck.

Hans looked up from his own book, thinking.

“Or is that the same problem as telling everybody but takes longer?” she added before Hans could answer.

“Yeah, you might be right. Any of those people could decide to tell.”

“It would also create a ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ situation,” Hans said, remembering Galad’s wisdom. “Being left out doesn’t feel great.”

“True. Very true. I’ll keep thinking.”

Asking her if she wanted a refill–she did–Hans went downstairs to the storage room to refresh two mugs of Tribe beer. The question of how to manage the news of the dungeon had weighed on him from the day the hole to the dungeon opened. Keeping the discovery secret from the rest of the world made sense to prevent adventurers and other troublemakers from coming to Gomi, but Hans wasn’t willing to lie to his neighbors for the rest of his life to keep that secret. Gomi needed to know. The people deserved that.

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But how?

He had repeated his reasoning over and over and had yet to find a solution.

“Did you decide what to tell the guild?” Olza asked as Hans returned, passing one of the mugs to her.

“About the dungeon?”

“No, about your resignation or fake-resignation or whatever it is.”

“That’s another unsolved problem,” Hans said, propping his feet back up on his desk. “My annual report is due as soon as the snow clears, and I have no idea what the guild will do about Devon’s complaint. Them removing me is a real possibility. Guild Masters have been removed before, but usually it’s for something obviously terrible.”

“Did you do something terrible?” Olza’s face changed as soon as the words left her mouth. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant–”

“Don’t worry. I know you didn’t mean anything bad.”

“We can change the subject. It’s none of my business.”

“I cheated his oath,” Hans said after a pause. He spoke as if moving his lips unburdened something heavy. “Have we talked about Paladin oaths before?”

“A little bit maybe?”

“The oath is the link that gives Paladins power from their chosen deity, binding them together in a way. The Paladin is then obligated to follow their deities code or be punished for breaking their oath. Not a lot is recorded about what Paladin oaths entail because there haven’t been very many, but it’s believed that they are an incredibly advanced form of magic.”

A deity visited Devontes, Hans explained, and offered him the powers of a Paladin. Olza already knew that gods and deities and the like didn’t typically interact with mortals. These beings were known to exist, mostly through legends and relics discovered by adventurers, but their names were lost, as were the majority of their stories. The kingdom didn’t have temples or churches, and few people prayed in the old way. If they did, it was to the “gods” broadly.

Devontes’ patron deity never gave their name, citing their own safety among immortal beings, but provided a miracle to demonstrate both their power and goodwill.

A small family of homesteaders was attacked by zombies and became zombies themselves. Where most magic would banish the undead to spare the mortal soul trapped within, this deity reversed the zombification entirely, a resurrection of sorts. Olza gasped at that, her work as an alchemist making her acutely aware that thousands of people over the ages had pursued such a remedy for zombification with no success.

The miracle was confirmed by several mages and academics, but Hans still urged caution. Deals with gods were dangerous, especially one cloaked in secrecy. The Hoseki Guild Master and elder Platinums, however, called it a blessing and encouraged Devontes to make the oath.

“We stopped talking after that. We’d interact if we had to for the guild, but otherwise, our friendship was over.”

She winced.

“The oath took him to Diamond, and then when the king agreed to erect a statue to honor the deity, some monstrosity of Devon kneeling to pray, he moved to Platinum. I don’t know the specifics, but my understanding was that the new rank accompanied new abilities.”

As a Gold-ranked, Hans wasn’t privy to such information, so he went on teaching his classes for the Guild. Some time after Devontes achieved Platinum, Hans was teaching a kids’ class in the Hoseki training hall. Partway through the class, Devontes and his entourage entered and began sparring loudly at the other end of the building. Mostly they were making jokes and fooling around, though.

“First of all, Devon knew that was a pet peeve for me. Use the facilities, that’s fine. I have no problem with that, but be respectful if a class is in session. It got to the point where I couldn’t hear myself talking to my students, and these are kids, so they lost focus fast.”

Hans approached the group–five Diamonds and Devontes as the only Platinum–and asked for quiet. They nodded their heads and waved him away, going right back to their previous volume when he returned to the class. When Hans asked again, the Diamonds laughed at him.

“I can’t remember the exact exchange, but when it was clear they weren’t going to quiet down so I could teach, I made a wiseass remark about their technique being a bad example for the kids, so if they were going to be loud, could they at least put the swords away before the kids learned their bad habits. It was a dumb thing to do, but I did it.

“That didn’t go over well, so the arguing got heated, there was lots of cursing. At one point, one of the Diamonds said they were learning from the world’s strongest Platinum and that I should know my place.”

“You didn’t…” Olza said with a faint gasp.

Hans shrugged. “I’m not proud of it, but I made some remark about how I’d kick Devon’s ass on a level playing field and how he would never be brave enough to spar me, skill against skill, no Paladin abilities or other spells.”

Olza’s eye went big.

Surrounded by his followers and watched by a few dozen children present for class, Devontes accepted the challenge. Seconds later, Hans held a blunted training sword and stood across from the Platinum Paladin who held one of the same. Unlike the wooden swords they used in Gomi, these were real swords with dull blades. They were less dangerous than a sharpened sword, but still plenty capable of maiming or killing someone.

“I know how much you like shortcuts,” Hans said to Devontes before the match. “How do I know you won’t cheat and use an ability without us knowing?”

One of the entourage Diamonds yelled about daring to insult the integrity of a Paladin.

Hans kept his eyes on his former student. “I know you better than your goons do. What assurances do I have? I’m happy to spar but dying to a fireball isn’t on my agenda for at least another week.”

Devon scowled and yelled for quiet. “So you can’t make excuses,” he said loud enough for all present to hear, “I, Devontes the Paladin, swear on my Paladin oath to not use Paladin spells, abilities, or any other form of magic against Hans. Happy?”

“That works for me.”

Even without his Paladin blessings, Devon moved far faster than many Platinums. Hans, mostly retired from adventuring and a Gold-ranked, couldn’t hope to keep up. Instead, he relied on skill, experience, and his familiarity with Devon’s fighting style. The vast majority of the Paladin’s combat knowledge had come from Hans, and Hans had observed him training and fighting for years and years. If Devon was an actor performing a script, Hans was the writer who authored the script in the first place.

He knew what came next. Always.

Devon’s first thrust, flying at Hans with the speed of an arrow, pierced only air as the Guild Master stepped and parried, circling to the outside while narrowly escaping harm. Devon threw a back elbow with his sword arm to rotate his body back into position. When Hans blocked the elbow with an arm, the force staggered him, and the Paladin immediately reversed direction to go from a back elbow to a slash.

Again, just in time, Hans parried. As soon as his sword made contact with Devon’s, he stepped closer, hooking the back of Devon’s foot with his own. The Paladin didn’t go to the ground, but the trip made him stumble and enraged him further.

The attacks came faster and faster. Hans parried and dodged and blocked, relying more on his ability to predict Devon’s next attack than his ability to read his opponent’s movements in the moment. He didn’t have the reaction speed and agility of the younger, more powerful adventurer. He had to move to defend the next attack before it began if he hoped to keep up.

“Devon’s favorite technique was this kind of upward slash. It started low and came up on a diagonal, almost like an underhand toss. The problem with that attack is you have to rotate your hand to get the angle right for the sword, the thumb twists wide and exposes the pommel as well as the bottom of the hand. And he would always use it from his backfoot.”

Olza looked at him, clearly not understanding the technical explanation.

“Your stance always has one foot forward. In this case, he had the foot on the side of his sword arm back and the other forward. The most important thing, though, is that I knew he had the habit, and that positioning meant the sword had to travel more distance than most sword attacks would. He got away with it because of his speed, but it was still a bad habit.”

When Hans saw Devon’s foot step back to set up the upward slash, the older adventurer was ready. With a quick slide forward, Hans blocked the pommel with his free hand. Too close to use his own sword effectively, Hans grappled. With the Paladin slightly off balance, Hans slammed his chest into Devon’s while one of his legs laced between his opponent’s legs and donkey-kicked backward. The force of the chest push, combined with the leg lace and the torque of Hans’ upper body, dropped Devon to his back with a slam.

Out of reflex, Hans twisted the elbow of Devon’s sword arm, locked his wrist, and disarmed the sword.

The room was still and quiet.

“Again,” Devon demanded as he stood, unarmed.

“No. I have a kids class to teach.”

“I said, ‘again.’ I’m your superior now, remember?”

“Why? So I can drop you again in front of your friends?”

Then Hans heard his femur shatter.

“This part is always hard to explain,” Hans said to Olza. “I didn’t see it happen. I was standing there one second, and then I blinked and I was on the ground with an all-new bend in my leg.”

One of the witnesses described it as a “teleport,” but with some asking around, Hans learned it was actually a Paladin ability that was so fast it looked like a teleport. In reality, it was a forward dash.

In a way, Devon moved “through” Hans’ lead leg before ending the dash. The force of the impact snapped Hans’ femur in an instant.

“Oh my gods,” Olza said softly. “That’s a terrible injury.”

Hans nodded. “I was in bed for three months and couldn’t train for another five, but that’s not the end of the story.”

“You’re going to tell me you fought Devon with a broken leg? Really?”

“No, nothing like that. I was in shock, just staring at the break, trying to decide if it was really happening or not. I heard screaming, and I had the thought that it was probably mine, but it wasn’t. Devon was on the ground a few inches from me, howling in pain. I’ve heard a lot of things experience pain, and the way he shrieked, it was the worst I’d ever heard.”

Then Hans’ shock wore off, and he felt the pain of his break for the first time, descending into his own torrent of suffering. He didn’t learn what happened to Devon until much later when the Hoseki Guild Master visited Hans in bed, his leg recently reset. Hans was half-delirious from the combination of pain relievers and the pain that even magic couldn’t stop.

“He’s standing over me, cursing me out. I’d never seen him so mad. It was like he was possessed. He kept saying that I was a disgrace for tricking Devon and demanded I release Devon from his oath this instant.”

“From his Paladin oath?” Olza asked.

Hans smiled with sadness. “No, the oath he made to me. When he promised not to use his Paladin abilities against me, he didn’t specify a time or duration. He didn’t say ‘for this match’ or ‘until the match is over.’ He simply said he wouldn’t use his power against me. Period. A lot of people think that it was something I did on purpose, some sneaky plan to spite Devon out of jealousy or some such nonsense. It wasn’t. It just happened.”

And the punishment for breaking a Paladin’s oath was severe. Devon was in bed in agony for 24 hours, screaming as he had in the training room. The guild tried every potion, spell, and prayer they knew, but none of their resources could undo divine suffering. When the agony finally abated, Devon found that he no longer had his Paladin abilities, and they didn’t return for six months. Had he killed Hans, Devon would have lost them completely and likely his life as well.

“You didn’t free him of the oath?” Olza asked.

Hans shook his head. “I acted like an ass. It was my job to diffuse the situation and move on, but I let my mouth run. I was so angry with him, with everyone. I shouldn’t have behaved the way I did, and I know that, but I didn’t have that realization until well after my leg was healed. At the time, I was bitter, so I refused. That didn’t help my standing with the guild very much.”

“Did you release the oath later?”

“No,” Hans said, ashamed. “I know I should, but I can’t. Part of me wants to argue how keeping the oath is the smart move for my survival if Devon wants revenge, but really I’m still mad and still hurt by everything.”

After that story, Hans and Olza didn’t talk more that night. They sat in each other’s presence, reading quietly. When Olza stood to leave, she saw Hans asleep at his desk, snoring. She draped a blanket over him and quietly returned home.

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Expand the Gomi training area to include ramps for footwork drills.

Design a system for training dungeon awareness.

Research the history and legends of the Dead End Mountains.

Protect Gomi.

Train Gomi adventurers to keep the dungeon at bay.

Design the ultimate strategy for hunting squonks.

Solve the town secret problem without being a conspiracy weirdo.

Design a dungeon cabin.

Test Quentin’s siren-squonk theory.