Exceptionally late in the following morning, the Gomi chapter of the Adventurers’ Guild hosted another town hall with Mazo’s party attending as guests. Becky, Hans, and Olza recounted their adventure, sharing where they found the flower and that they believed the flower disintegrated the gnoll.

While squonks and orcs were still on everyone’s minds, discussing the nature of the flower was part of keeping the town safe. If they kept the discovery a total secret, an innocent hunter or hiker could meet a surprising and definitive end. Worse, that innocent could be a child.

Galinda and Charlie had briefed Mazo on the squonks prior to Hans returning to town. The Blue Mage hadn’t seen or heard of a creature with that description, but she was disappointed she didn’t have the chance to steal its aura of hopelessness ability. Hans tried to discourage her from complaining too loudly about that. A victim of that aura might not appreciate it.

Hans explained why he had contacted Mazo about the flower and asked the halfling to share what she knew, if anything.

“I don’t know much about what it’s capable of, but I have seen it,” Mazo said. “I only had the one and used it when I was on my blood alchemy kick.”

Olza raised an eyebrow.

“Oh no no no. That makes it sound so devious. I was watering plants with my blood to form a bond, hoping I could use the growth in my projects.”

Everyone but the lizardmen stared at her, mystified.

“What? It’s an old earth mage spell, from the old days. Like binding a familiar but with plants. It’s not weird. I swear.”

Waving a hand to get the halfling’s attention, Hans asked, “Mazo, where did you find the purple flower?”

“I saw a single blossom at Reavers’ Rest. I didn’t disintegrate though.”

“It’s a dungeon, long ways from here,” Thuz clarified.

“Was a dungeon,” Izz corrected.

Mazo saw the confused looks of the townspeople. Hans gestured for her to go ahead and explain.

“Reavers’ Rest was an island dungeon. Before anyone knew about the dungeon, it was a popular place for pirates to swap stories and do business. Then one of them found the dungeon, and they all got eaten by hodags.”

Hans jumped in to explain that a hodag has the body of a hairless panther with horns running from its tail up to its neck. Its head had two horns, similar in shape to a bull, and attached to a flat-faced oversized head. Its mouth could chomp a human skull with ease.

“Most of the island is gone now. The cause is disputed somewhat, but most of the research we’ve seen suggests a blown dungeon core–that’s the ‘force’ that can create monsters in dungeons. If the monsters come back regularly, then there’s a dungeon core around.”

Dungeon cores were incredibly rare occurrences. Only three had ever been discovered, and none of them were accessible for study. The vast majority of dungeon crawls took place in fortresses or lairs or caves populated by monsters not from dungeon cores, creatures who bred and spread the old fashioned way. When a dungeon core was found, it was a major economic boon if managed carefully, but it was also a persistent risk to anyone living nearby.

Lemura Labyrinth, the dungeon that drove Galad, Galinda, and their parents to Gomi, was the result of a dungeon core.

The Reavers’ Rest dungeon core, Mazo explained, became a hotly debated topic because any evidence of why the core detonated was vaporized along with the island. Two parties of adventurers were believed to be in the dungeon at the time, leaving some to theorize that one of the adventurers attacked the dungeon core directly. No one actually knew if it was possible to destroy a dungeon core because none had been studied to any meaningful degree.

Other theories included an overload of whatever powered dungeon cores or the dungeon core dying of old age, but no one knew what made dungeon cores “alive” or if dungeon cores aged in the way that other organisms aged.

Regardless, the detonation of the Reavers’ Rest dungeon core took the known count from three to two.

“Oh gods, I sent Hans on a tangent,” Mazo said, teasing the Guild Master. “I found one of your purple flowers at Reavers’ Rest, or rather, where Reavers’ Rest used to be.”

Olza perked up. “What does that tell us?”

Mazo shrugged. “Does the flower follow a mass casualty event? Maybe it needs a ton of energy to germinate a seed? Did hodags have something to do with it? It didn’t help me with what I was looking for. That’s all I know for sure.”

“Any ideas, boss?” Becky asked Hans.

Hans scratched his beard. “It’s another data point. Not an answer, but we know a little bit more than we did before.”

“Hmm…”

“Mazo, absolutely not,” Hans said.

“It was just an idea,” Mazo replied innocently.

Olza looked around. Izz noticed her curiosity. The lizardman leaned forward and said, “Miss Mazo is proposing that she eat the flower to absorb the Disintegration spell.”

Mazo shrugged. “My personal hobbies aside, do you want my advice?”

“Please,” Mayor Charlie said.

“Keeping quiet was a good idea. Watch where they grow and see if you can learn any more. Doesn’t sound like they are likely to be found by anyone else. I can do some discreet research and let you know if I find anything.”

Mayor Charlie nodded. “We would be very grateful,” he said, inclining his head.

***

When the rest of the townspeople left the guild hall, Olza and Becky stayed behind to talk to Hans and the Mazo entourage.

“Disintegration… Ah. That would be a real treasure,” Mazo daydreamed.

“You have to be pushing Platinum. Do you really need more spells?” Hans asked.

“I’ll never be Platinum,” Mazo scoffed. “The royal family needs you to kiss a bunch of rings and run their personal errands before they grant that.”

“You’d say no to the king?” Becky asked.

“Nobody wants anything to do with a Blue Mage until they can win wars. If he wants me to be an attack dog, he can try and make me.”

Mazo knew what Hans had long suspected: Her arsenal of monster abilities made her one of the strongest mages alive, if not the strongest outright. The spectacle she put on so casually for the people of Gomi could have put down an army, and there were no other Blue Mages above Silver in the Guild. The halfling was the only one crazy enough and smart enough to take blue magery as far as she had.

“I’d like to brag,” Mazo said. “Thuz and Izz are the only ones who know about this, but I think I’m close to cracking learning non-attack spells.”

“That’s huge,” Hans said.

“It’s a clever design,” Thuz said. “It will be a nice break from the shell.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“You still use that?”

Mazo nodded proudly. “I’ve made some adjustments to the shell since you’ve seen it. I have a bit more coin than we did when we were younger. Makes it easier.”

“Seriously, Mazo,” Hans said. “What didn’t you say in the meeting?”

The halfling paused. “Several things. Umm…”

Hans assured her that he trusted Becky and Olza like party members.

The halfling paused and then nodded. “The Guild is getting reports of orcs massing near the frontier border, but it’s a bit more than an orc raid… I’m just going to say it outright: Tusk-touched are joining the orcs. We don’t know why.”

“That don’t…” Becky stammered. “You’re sure?”

“Only a few reports so far, but we all know how people can get. Might be wise to be extra careful with the Tribe for now. This place is pretty special. Worth protecting.”

“You think someone would come for the Tribe?” Olza asked.

Mazo frowned. “I think it’s more that certain people will use it as an excuse. Evil people can get scared people to do stupid things.”

“As it is now,” Hans said, trying to reassure the room, “This news is troubling, but we have to remember that Gomi hasn’t been exposed. Being careful, like Mazo said, is a good idea. Panic isn’t.”

New Quest: Talk to the Tribe about the potential threat and contingency plans.

The halfling agreed. “I don’t know how– Umm.. I’ll be direct on the next item. Devon is lobbying for the Guild to drop any Guild Masters below Diamond.”

“What?”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Becky raised a hand. “When you say Devon, do you mean Master Devontes? The hunky Platinum adventurer?”

Thuz and Izz nodded.

“Why would Master Devontes care about Gold-ranked Guild Masters?” Olza asked.

Mazo looked back and forth between Hans and the Gomi townspeople. “They don’t know?”

Hans shook his head.

“Hans trained Devon, Apprentice through Diamond. Hans built Master Devontes.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“He never takes any credit,” Mazo said to Becky and Olza. “Izz? Thuz? Am I exaggerating?”

The lizardmen shook their heads and almost in unison said, “Built us too.”

“Half the Diamonds in the Guild trained under Hans,” Mazo added. “Master Devontes would still be Devon if he came up in any other chapter.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Olza asked.

Hans shrugged. “She’s exaggerating.”

The halfling said she didn’t know more about Devon’s crusade but would write if she heard anything. The last item on her list was to ask Hans a favor: She needed his help breaking through her research challenge. Mazo wanted to become the world’s first “Purple Mage.”

New Quest: Help Mazo with her Purple Mage project.

***

To learn a monster’s ability, a Blue Mage had to experience–also known as not dying to–the ability they wanted to learn. While the monster attacked, the Blue Mage performed the ritual that made Blue Mages possible, capturing the monster’s ability and linking it to an incantation of the caster’s choice.

Aside from the extreme danger of allowing a monster to attack you, Blue Mages had another weakness: They could only learn attacks. All of the unusual abilities monsters used to hide or heal or protect themselves were out of reach, which infuriated Mazo. Her magic put her so close to a completely unexplored area of magery, but no one had ever pushed the class to that level.

In fact, the magery community decided long ago it was not possible and then went back to ignoring Blue Mages as best they could.

For Mazo’s part, she had been attacking this problem for the last decade with no progress.

“I have two potential solutions to test,” Mazo said. “The first is to use a Polymorph spell. I polymorph into the creature, use its ability, and since I’m using it on me, I learn it permanently… in theory.”

Which had significant weaknesses. While a skilled mage could copy any living creature with Polymorph, no one but the masters of Polymorph could duplicate the target creature’s abilities, but even then it had limits. Most casters didn’t go as far as to copy anything beyond the physical appearance of a creature. Mimicking even low-level creature abilities, like an electric lizard, was on par with the difficulty of assuming the body of a dragon with no abilities.

No mage Hans or Mazo had ever heard of had advanced far enough to Polymorph into the largest monsters and keep their abilities.

Mazo was not above learning a new spell, but she would need many years before she could start experimenting with mimicking abilities via Polymorph. Worse yet, she didn’t know if that plan would work, so she could devote herself to training Polymorph to the degree she needed only to find the plan was a bust.

For that reason, Mazo disliked the Polymorph plan.

“Don’t freak out about this next one, but my other idea is to use a Mind Swap spell to put me in the monster. I use their ability, learn it, and swap back.”

Hans rubbed the bridge of his nose.

The plan had multiple problems that Hans could see. To start, the Mind Swap spell was taboo for obvious reasons, and no known mage in history had cast it. The only confirmed practitioners of Mind Swap came from high-level psionic monsters, many of which were native to the infernal plane. One particular creature used Mind Swap on its victim, set into motion killing itself in its new body, and then swapped back right before the victim expired.

To test this idea, Mazo would need to hunt down one of these psionic monsters and use her blue magery to learn Mind Swap. That was dangerous, and not just for Mazo, but for humanity. The halfling was a walking arsenal of overpowered abilities, and mind swapping with the monster could give the monster access to her abilities, potentially. If that monster kept her from re-swapping, it could have her spells permanently.

“A fair concern,” Mazo admitted, “but remember I choose my incantations. All of my spells are cast in a language of my design. The monster wouldn’t have that.”

A small comfort for watching a monster run off a cliff in your friend’s body.

The halfling started to describe a plan involving a chain of mind swaps to keep the monster from ever using Mazo’s body, but Hans raised a hand.

“That’s a lot of risk when we don’t know if it’s possible to learn non-offensive abilities from monsters,” Hans said.

“I know!” Mazo shouted. “That’s why I need your help. I haven’t been able to solve that. I thought I was close with the gazers, but none of them survived the vivisection.”

“I’m not even going to ask.”

“Very wise, Mr. Hans,” Thuz said with Izz nodding, a distant look of shock and horror in his eyes.

The Guild Master scratched his chin. “I’m going to need more than the day to think on this. If you haven’t cracked it, I’m not sure how much help I can be.”

“You see things differently,” Mazo replied. “If there’s a connection somewhere I missed, you’re the most likely to find it.”

Hans face shifted with a realization. “Have you looked at area of effect spells?”

The halfling raised an eyebrow. “Defensively?”

“Yes.”

“Same problem. It only affects the monster’s allies.”

“So become an ally?”

Mazo’s eyes went wide. “We could charm it and then get it to use its ability!”

“I know that shortens the list of what you can learn by a lot, but maybe it’s a start?”

She nodded enthusiastically, already deep in thought.

“If we can’t get that work, that might be a sign the problem is deeper than just having to experience it.”

Quest Complete: Help Mazo with her Purple Mage project.

“And in much less time,” Mazo agreed. “May I write you with our results?”

Hans thought on that. “I’ve made a promise to not attract attention to Gomi. A bunch of guild mail between you and I might draw someone’s curiosity. It might be slower overall, but if you didn’t mind using the caravans, we could exchange letters that way.”

“That’s quite the delay on getting a response back, but I suppose it will give us both something to look forward to in the winter.”

“Oh, we aren’t getting any mail here in the winter. The snow blocks the road.”

Thuz and Izz both shuddered. Lizardmen despised cold weather of any kind on account of being reptilian. Few ever left their desert or jungle homes because of the cold. A chill wind was enough to convince many lizardmen to turn back, making adventurers like Mazo’s attendants rare. Though the two Golds were adventurers, they still avoided the cold whenever they could.

“You must really want to be a Guild Master to put up with that.”

“I do.”

Mazo gave Hans a sad smile that said she was supportive but worried what this path may do to her friend. She shared that she and the lizardmen planned to depart the following morning. When Hans protested that they hadn’t spent much time together, the halfling reminded him she spent a few days in Gomi waiting for him to return from his job. She had appointments to keep and had to be on her way.

Hans understood. Such was the nature of befriending adventurers. They were always on the move, making every meeting and fellowship a fleeting moment. That was true for training adventurers as well. If Hans did his job as an instructor well, the students he grew to love would eventually leave. They always did.

Now that he was retired from adventuring, he felt like a pebble in a stream, watching the waters of life rush by.

***

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."

Pick up the guild provisions from the caravan after next.

Identify the unknown purple flower from Olza.

Prepare a booklist for Mayor Charlie.

Prepare for winter, and don’t forget the beer.

Brainstorm ideas for safe approaches to training on uneven terrain.

Design a winter curriculum.

Acquire winter adventuring gear.

Talk to the Tribe about the potential threat and contingency plans.