“Let me start by saying, I don’t really know how this works,” Kelsey confessed.

She and Tyla were belowdecks, facing each other, sitting crosslegged in the very front of the boat. It was cramped and a little uncomfortable. Anton had reduced the engines to the minimum, and they’d all gotten used to the thrum thrum of them enough to think it was quiet. The only other people down here were the ones sleeping.

It was as close to a private meeting as possible, under the circumstances.

“I’ve never seen it happen,” Kelsey continued. “Mel has, but she never stuck around to see the results. Not that some dungeon raider was going to stick around and detail them for her to hear.”

Tyla nodded. It seemed appropriate, even if she had no idea what the Numina was talking about. Kelsey hadn’t yet seen fit to mention what “this” was but Tyla paid rapt attention nonetheless.

Kelsey gave her an unimpressed look. “That was a warning,” she said, “A warning that I don’t know what I’m doing, but you’re just going to follow my advice willy nilly, aren’t you?”

“I’m not sure,” Tyla said carefully, “what wisdom or knowledge you think I have that you do not, Numina, but I shall carefully consider all my options before I follow your advice.”

Kelsey snorted. “That was awfully close to humour, Tyla, are you sure you’re all right?”

She continued on without waiting for a reply.

“What we do know, from what we’ve heard, is that a Wizard can absorb other dungeon cores into his own, to grow stronger.”

She pulled out another dungeon core. Tyla stared.

“I picked this up while you were leading al Kadir around by the nose,” Kelsey said. “There was a wizard, but none of his spells included protection from lead.”

She held out the core to Tyla. At Kelsey’s encouraging nod, Tyla reached out to take it.

Then she stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Kelsey asked.

“It feels… like I am not supposed to have this,” Tyla said. “It feels wrong to touch it.”

“It’s rejecting you?” Kelsey asked, leaning forward.

“More like… I’m rejecting it? This feeling comes from within me,” Tyla said. “Or maybe… it comes from my core?”

With all the meditation she had done, and her constant contact with her core, Tyla often felt as if the core and her were more than just connected. Sometimes, she felt as if the core was part of her.

“Interesting,” Kelsey said. “Mel says that the wizards never touched the core directly, they touched it with their core.”

“You didn’t mention that before,” Tyla said reproachfully.

“I didn’t know it was important,” Kelsey said. “We don’t have a lot of data points here, Tyla, and you might be the only wizard I see for a while. I want to get as much information about the process as possible.”

“Does that mean,” Tyla said slowly, “that you want me to touch it?”

Kelsey paused to consider. “Do you want to touch it?” she asked.

“No,” Tyla shook her head. “But… I will if you ask it of me, Numina.”

Kelsey blew air through her teeth. “That attitude is going to get us in trouble someday. Let’s stick with your instincts. They’re a much better guide than whatever theories I’m working with.”

“As you wish,” Tyla said, bowing her head. “Then… I should touch it with my stone?”

“Yeah,” Kelsey said after another pause. “Feel free to stop if it feels wrong or anything.”

“I will,” Tyla said. She fished her core out from under her robe. It was still tied up to the chain around her neck, so Kelsey held the core close enough for Tyla to touch it.

This time Tyla felt no unease. Her hand practically moved forward on its own, gently touching her stone to the one Kelsey held out.

Both stones started glowing brightly, too brightly to look at. Tyla closed her eyes, but she didn’t pull away. She didn’t feel like she should.

She felt a pulling sensation as if she was being drawn into the stone. Or… no. The stone was being drawn towards her.

There was a final flash of light, bright enough to shine through her eyelids. Then darkness. Tyla opened her eyes.

The other stone was gone, without even dust remaining. Kelsey was looking at her expectantly. And Tyla was… full.

“I—I need to meditate,” Tyla said. She held the stone on her lap and tried to focus. She tried to ignore the protests of the woken crew members, of the other crew coming down to see what had happened. Kelsey was shooing them away, Tyla didn’t need to worry about them.

She needed to understand what was in her.

The warm presences that she felt had been joined by another. That only made sense. The magic that swirled around them, and seeped into Tyla was stronger. Too strong for the controls she had placed on it to hold. She needed to re-establish her command of it.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The first step was establishing what had changed. While everything was roiled up, only some of the kinds of magic had actually increased in strength. She needed to—

Tyla paused. There was a new kind of magic within her. It slipped out from under her grasp like quicksilver. For a moment it appeared to be Earth, then it slid away like Water, before fading away into Air. It was—

Illusion, Tyla realised. Always seeming to be what it wasn’t.

With a rush, the knowledge of how to use it came to her. There wasn’t very much of it, but when she got stronger she could use it to become invisible, to change her appearance, to shift her apparent location.

You have completed Level 5. Please select a new Class.

Tyla hadn’t even noticed the experience coming in. She perused the list of classes, but there was only one that she wanted. The one on her Path.

Dungeon Witch (Rare, Tier 2)

Select Dungeon Witch, she thought.

Applying Benefits for Level 1

Strength + 1

Dexterity + 1

Perception + 1

Willpower + 1

Charisma + 1

Assign free point:

Tyla brought up her status to see where she should spend the free point.

Tyla Greenwalker of the Padascar Tribe, Dungeon Witch (Level 1)

Overall Level: 13

Paths: Padascar Hunter (Broken)/ Doxy (Broken)/Apprentice Dungeon Witch/Dungeon Witch

Strength: 12

Toughness: 8

Agility: 10

Dexterity: 18

Perception: 20

Will: 15

Charisma: 10

Traits

Persistent Tracking

Silent Shot

Danger Sense

Sense Magic

Cast Lesser Charm

Kelsey had told her that Willpower was the most important Ability for wizards. But what she had right now had served her well. She still wanted to fight with a bow or the guns that Kelsey supplied, so more Dexterity would be useful. On the other hand, her Agility was being left behind.

Agility, she thought.

Agility + 1

“How’d it go?” Kelsey asked as she returned and saw that Tyla’s eyes were opened.

“It went well,” Tyla answered. Knowing that Kelsey would want specifics, she added, “I gained strength in Destruction, Control and Perception magic, as well as Animal. And I gained Illusion magic.”

“Nice,” Kelsey said. “Still no Create?”

Tyla shook her head.

“It’s a gap,” Kelsey admitted. “But we’ll get over it. And I can see you got a new class, so there’s no need to be modest about it. Welcome to full adulthood!”

Tyla grimaced. “I feel like I reached that milestone some time ago, and it wasn’t pleasant,” she said.

Kelsey was entirely unabashed. “That doesn’t count,” she said. “You think events are what makes you an adult? Hardly. It’s arbitrary counts on a mystical system that make you a man. Or a woman. Now get upstairs so everyone can congratulate you on making it to Tier two.”

Tyla bowed her head. “Yes, Numina,” she said.

----------------------------------------

It wasn’t a party. Kelsey had very specific notions about what constituted one, and this did not qualify, as she loudly declaimed to anyone who would listen.

Kelsey’s notions didn’t exactly match up with Tyla’s idea of a celebration, but she had to admit that this didn’t qualify for that, either. There was no bonfire, no feast of roasted meat. There were drinks, Kelsey saw to that, but Anton had insisted that the mead and wine be rationed. He didn’t want widespread drunkenness onboard.

That much matched with Tyla’s memories. She was old enough that she hadn’t been forbidden alcohol, but the tribe mothers had looked askance at her if she asked for more than one cup.

Kelsey had protested, once again mentioning the lack of conformance with her party standards, but even she had eventually agreed that the loss of coordination and emotional control were not welcome aboard a small ship at night. It would be all too easy for someone not in control of themselves to fall overboard, perhaps without anyone even noticing.

Because people were slipping off into the darkness, trying to find a private place on the all-too-small boat. Everyone had started on the main deck when the gathering—Kelsey insisted on calling it that—had started. There had been congratulations on reaching her second Tier that Tyla could have done without. Too many people, in too close quarters.

Although it had sent a thrill through her when Baron Anton had shook her hand and thanked her for all that she’d done for them. As if he hadn’t saved her. The man had a presence to him, and he seemed to be getting just a bit bigger and more muscular at every level.

Tyla had made her exit once everyone had finished congratulating her. The words and the feeling weren’t fake, but there were only so many times she could be thanked and greeted, without it getting repetitive. Tyla didn’t want to distance herself. The girls that she had gone through slavery with were more important to her now than her friends back in the tribe had been. But there was only so much she could take.

Her climbing skills and her darkvision allowed her to claim the crowsnest. On a bigger ship, it would have been a platform, perhaps including some shelter. On this boat, it was a handhold, conveniently nailed so that she could hold it and sit on the mast’s crossbar.

Even so, she felt comfortable here. It was the closest she could come to being perched on a tree branch. There weren’t any ships to be wary of, no rocks or shores in sight, so there was little need for her to be alert. She could relax and watch over everyone below.

The boat wasn’t big enough for privacy, but people were trying. For most, the darkness made it feel like you were alone with the person you were softly talking to. It was pretty amusing to see one couple, looking for a spot, stumble into one pair after another.

People were pairing up. No one was having sex, no one was that comfortable with the very limited privacy that the darkness provided. And Tyla thought that many, if not all, of the girls, weren’t ready to be reminded of their previous Class.

With Baron Anton taken, and jealously guarded by Baroness Aris, Zaphar had, without even trying, attracted the attention of most of the rescued ladies. He had been a part of their rescue and he got more dashing with every level. He hadn’t done anything with that attention, mostly because he was more skittish than a scared cat. Now that the boys had joined them, though, he was no longer the only game in town.

Some of the girls had been reunited with sweethearts, some of the girls were looking for someone to protect them. Zaphar had watched his bevy of beauties start to slip through his fingers. He’d been forced to act, to decide which of them he wanted to spend time with.

Tyla could see him now, talking intensely with Lyra in a quiet corner. That was probably as far as it would go tonight, with both of them lubricated by only a single cup of wine. It was a scene duplicated many times around the boat. A lot of quiet talking, a little bit of kissing. The occasional embrace.

Right now, both sides wanted to share their story with someone. Tyla didn’t imagine that the boy's experience had been much better than theirs. The rest would come in due time. Tyla knew that her fellow rescuees were strong. They would recover.

And if any of the boys wanted to try something before her sisters were ready, Tyla still had her knife.