Jack was gazing at the massive dwarf as he and the others prepared for another day of mithril mining. "So, I can't help noticing that we didn't actually extract any ore, yesterday."

Barlton looked at Jack like he was daft, chowing through a hurried breakfast of fried spider legs and a bit of Drake's dried fruit rations for flavor. "O course not, Jack! We've only begun to saturate ourselves with its potential." He flashed a hungry grin. "Unlike iron, copper, tin, or the precious stones you see glitterin' so prettily on all the walls, mining magical ores is like nothin' else ya can imagine! Ya have to do more than simply hammer at the ore. Ya have to come to understand it, and it, you!"

Jack blinked. "The ore has to understand you?"

Barlton nodded. "O course! If it isn't singing in yer veins, if ya can't feel it bubblin' in yer blood, yer not deep enough in the dream of it ta pluck it free!"

Elof, surprisingly, gave an enthusiastic nod. "I can feel it, Jack! Just like when we make a kill, I can feel a certain something fizzling in my soul after all that coaxing the rock yesterday!"

Jack blinked. "Really... so it's filling you with potency?"

"I said that yesterday!" Said a scowling Barlton, who's hard frown immediately turned to a sympathetic smile. "But o course, yer not a dwarf and can't mine beside us, so are missin' out on a truly grand treat. Because there's benefits to be had beyond simply claiming the ore."

Veti sighed. "Becoming one with Mithril ore. Every miner's, hell, every adventurer's dream. And with all this ore before us... how can it not infuse your very soul?"

"Indeed!" Barlton said with a clap on Elof's shoulder. "And this lad, at least, I know will let the pressure build and saturate his soul. Because doing so will let him pull free the glorious prizes, while leveling up will just balloon him pointlessly."

"And it will increase my vitality and strength. Right, Barlton?"

The dwarf smiled and nodded. "That's one way it can transform you, and not a bad way, at that!"

He and the others stood up as one, moving to the rock. "Enjoy yer training, mages," he said, abruptly raising his pickaxe, and how odd it was to see the other guys doing the same simultaneously. Not like puppets, but rather like masters of a well-choreographed dance.

"Wait, Barlton! A quick question."

The dwarf looked Jack's way, his polite expression clearly masking impatience.

"Would it hurt if I gathered the gems, even if I can't gather the ore? And a second question... will it effect the ore if I, well, used my magic to try to extract it?"

To this the dwarf chuckled. "No worries, lad! Ya want ta spend yer days tryin' ta extract all the pretty glitterin' jewels? I can think of no better way for ya ta spend yer time. But I warn ya, this dream rock is a might bit tougher than the other rock we encountered earlier, thick with the pressure o nightmare. But ya can try! Even if it is but a fraction of the worth of our mithril... if ya can extract those pretty gems, it will only add to our fortune.

"As fer usin' yer magics on the mithril ore?" He snorted. "Good luck with that!" He then turned back to the massive wall of rock before them, striated obsidian and quartz laced with countless silvery veins of priceless ore.

Jack frowned. "Alright, I get that the chances of my first level spell actually extracting it is absurd. But as far as my runes go... I don't want to do anything to hurt it."

"Don't worry, Jack! This aint like forging a steel blade where ya have ta properly heat, hammer, and quench the steel ta get the right crystalline structure fer a blade that has a fine hardened cutting edge, yet is also flexible and can spring back under stress. Mithril's nothin' like that. And it don't matter how ya extract it, magic or mundane, it's all the same."

The dwarf then turned to Jack, pinning him under his gaze. "The secrets to forging mithril, the use of different elements of magic where yer friend and mentor from before used carbon, heat, and quenching, is beyond the ken of any but the greatest of smiths and arcane forgers. So if ya can actually use yer runes, then be my guest." And without another word Barlton began hammering away at the mithril ore, their friends joining in, and within seconds the air was filled with the strangely harmonic ringing sound of the band of four doing their utmost to tear free from dream's bedrock the mineral Greycliff seemed to prize above all others.

Jack turned to a bemused looking Veti. "So, what's say we see if we can extract some of those pretty gems?"

Veti grinned. "Sure, Jack. But first, let's see if I can finally learn your Blood Shield spell."

Jack nodded. "Magic practice in the morning, mining for the rest of the day. Works for me."

The pair of them then cleaned up camp and begun practicing in earnest, allowing the sparkling waters and cavern walls and ceiling absolutely covered in glittering wealth to inspire them, and the envy they both felt for friends gaining bonuses clearly denied them compelled them to throw themselves into their training.

Congratulations! Hex, Brittle Armaments, Weaken Bone, Sap Vitality, & Slow are now Apprentice Rank 1!

You have discovered the secrets of healing weakened bone, scales, and drained vitality.

You have gained a free perk! Your Healing Spells are now Bane Resistant! (Additional +2 bonus with specialized target: Cave Fish)

Lesser Healing is now Adept Rank 4!

Jack flashed a happy grin, truly pleased with his idea of capturing several cave fish as targets for his spells, so the contest of mastering them, the inherent conflict of struggle, would help him grow his skills far more than hitting a mindless target. Best of all, since bane spells weren't fatal, he didn't need endless fish to go through, his healing spell also receiving specialized focus as he used it to try to overcome the very banes he had cast, more out of pity for the fish than anything else, and no one was more surprised than he when he found his grasp of the art expanding, sensing the changes the spells were causing on what almost seemed a molecular level, vindicated by the interface messages he had received as well.

Of course, he was prudent enough to take the time to also practice his least favorite spell, the impending threat of rifleeers bringing home like nothing else just how powerful a fast enough projectile could be.

And a chance to heal gross physical damage, even if he deliberately aimed for tails, healing them before casting any other spells, wasn't to be overlooked either.

Veti was all but glaring at him when Jack pumped his fist.

"Yes! Stone Shot is finally in the apprentice ranks!"

"Really? You actually advanced that spell? All you did was hit that poor fish in the tail half a dozen times."

Jack shrugged and grinned. "Practice against a moving target is probably the most intense training of all, wouldn't you say? I'm not surprised it finally went up."

Veti, however, did not look pleased. "Jack. That's the sixth spell you brought up to apprentice ranks, today. The sixth spell! And we've only been practicing for a handful of hours!"

Jack flashed a sheepish smile. "True. I was just..." he shook his head. "What can I say? We're camping out in the sweetest treasure spot available, a cave you could build a four star hotel around with vast cavern walls covered in gems and priceless ore, the air smelling of cool limestone, tasting of cherry blossoms and magic, all of it saturated in energies so rich I feel like I'm in a waking dream as much as I'm alive. And never have I felt so connected learning a spell as during our practice session earlier! Feeling the magic flow through you like that when you cast the Tier 2 versions of my spells... it really helped bring home the basics, how they all flowed so harmoniously when used in sequence, utterly disabling their targets."

He shook his head in awe. "And each time I cast my Tier 1 versions of your spells, especially challenging myself against a target, I feel like I'm remembering casting it a hundred times before." He then flashed a wicked grin at the fish. "Best of all, with bane spells and targeted casting, I'm able to embrace the most cheesy elements of every RPG game I ever played and level up my skills by striking captive targets over and over again!"

He flashed an infectious grin. "It's all about power leveling our spells, Veti. We talked about this. You should be doing the same."

Veti nodded. "I would be doing that right now, Jack, you know that. It's just that..." she gave a frustrated shake of her head. "I saw you cast Blood Shield dozens of times! You were good enough to spend two hours working with me on that alone. And we linked, player to player in that odd way you showed me and, just for a second, I thought I had glimpsed something wondrous in your mind. But every time I try... Nothing! I just can't get it to work."

Jack winced in apology. "It's my fault, I think. Ice Shield is itself a pristine masterwork of a spell that Master Silvercrest taught me. But over the span of my adventures, the sheer needs of survival, it did blossom in several unexpected ways." He then frowned at it's blood red coloring. "And I think you sort of do need at least a Level in the Blood Sphere, or an Affinity for it, like I have." He winced in apology. "I'm sorry, Veti. I tried to cast the basic version, but it felt wrong, unnatural, like deliberately crawling backwards instead of sprinting forward. I almost..." He shook his head in apology. "I'm sorry our link only lets you get visceral images of my casting my Blood Shield and Crimson Armor in their final enhanced form. Not as they started out before I, well, altered them."

Jack's words petered off as he caught the sudden pallor to his friend's features, the haunted look to her gaze.

"Veti, what's wrong?" He spun around in sudden alarm, fearing an unexpected predator... but there was nothing. Even after carefully scanning the entire room with Infravision and Mage Sight both, the latter nearly blinding him, so saturated the air was with magic, yet he detected no hostile presences whatsoever.

"Jack?" Veti swallowed. "You said Silvercrest. You wouldn't happen to mean Yohan Silvercrest the Black, would you?"

Jack blinked and frowned. "The black? No, he never went by that name. But yes, his first name is Yohan."

His friend's pallor only grew. "Just who the hell are you, Jack? No one learns spells as fast as you do! No one can warp a full handful of spells into blood variants, let alone reach Elite variations of any spells without being well known experts in their field, with decades of experience! And certainly no normal caster could obliterate two score of bugbears with an Enhancer's Tier 2 Masterwork spell like you did... not even Enhancers, Jack! Do you know how hard it is to get any spell to split, let alone four-fold?" And here you are, assuring us all you're a level zero nobody!"

Jack forced himself to cool his own alarm and frustration at Veti's sudden odd flare of panic.

Abrupt enough it had pulled their entire party from the trance of mining.

"Veti? What's wrong girl?" Asked a concerned Barlton, quickly lumbering over, now scowling at Jack. "What did you do, boy?"

Jack just shook his head under everyone's gazes. "Nothing. No, wait, I'm guilty of the high crime of being somewhat skilled at magic, and maybe having the wrong teachers? I'm not really clear on it, actually. You'll have to ask Veti."

Barlton's powerful hand gently took Veti's. For some reason she didn't hesitate to lean against him, seeming to take comfort in his solid presence. "I..." she shook her head, eyes locking searchingly upon Jack's own. "I just don't know what to think, anymore. His arcane proficiency isn't just remarkable, it's downright absurd. He makes geniuses seem slow, even if he doesn't know a lick of actual abstract theory. But when it comes to sensing the feel and flow of magic being cast by others, and emulating it himself?" She shook her head. "I've never seen better."

Aroust smirked. "And I'll bet he's the type who won't make heads or tales of a proper magical tome. He's a savant limited to learning directly from others. When it comes to theory, you're still on top, Veti."

"Probably true," Veti conceded with a nod.

Jack frowned, almost certain that this was incorrect. At least not when it came to magical texts, like the ones he had in his soul pouch even now, all but radiating the memories of the mad mages who had instilled their darkest lessons within those tomes. Tomes that, to dare crack those pages, would be to temporarily embrace the madness and memories of those wizards even as he made their comprehension his own, which was something Jack just wasn't sure he had any interest in doing. And might put off forever. Since controlling minds or dominating the undead just weren't spheres of magic he was particularly interested in.

Stolen novel; please report.

His mother's tome, on the other hand...

Wisely, though, he said nothing, allowing his friends to assume any flaw or weakness or anything else they liked that made him seem more human, more down to earth, more approachable as a friend. Anything so they wouldn't put him on a pedestal and grow ever more distant, leaving him feeling emotionally abandoned and alone.

He shook his head. He was the farthest thing from some elite genius to put on a pedestal, and far more vulnerable than his friends could imagine.

"But that doesn't change the fact that his mentor was none other than Silvercrest The Black, one of the Four Horsemen."

Jack flinched, feeling a cold chill with those words. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Aroust frowned, rubbing his goatee. "Yet he seemed genuinely surprised by that moniker. I'm almost certain that he has no idea what we're talking about. But still..." Aroust smiled and took a seat by Jack before pulling out a flask of brandy, offering Jack a sip, which he took.

"Sorry for the cold stares, Jack, but it seems like your patron might have a tiny bit of history to his name. But then again, who doesn't? And I'm the last soul on earth, or in dream, ha ha, to cast stones. Still, if you don't mind the question, what can you tell us about your mentor?"

Jack shrugged. "He was just the town wizard who taught a few promising students the very basics of the elemental arts, and occasionally helped out with the odd bit of trouble in town. Mostly though, he kept to his luxurious manor of a house, puttering about his magic lab and gardens. Of course that manor was utterly out of place for our town, but no one begrudged him the building, and mother always did love his roses."

Aroust nodded. "Sounds like a wizard who had his fill of adventure and settled down. I don't suppose he's the one who raised you?"

Jack smirked. "Nope, he's not my dad. He's just a..." Jack cut himself off, just shaking his head. "Just someone we knew around town." Because with looks that intense, no one needed to know Jack's own suspicions.

"You knew one of the Four Horsemen?" Elof whispered, gazing at Jack with something close to awe.

Jack laughed. "I don't even know what that means."

Aroust shrugged. "This was quite awhile back. Before my time, actually. Hell, before almost anyone's time. But considering how long adventurers can live... well, let me put it this way. Delvers weren't always content to live and play by the rules, content with an adventurer's riches and a lord's privileges. Even if most are happy to leave well enough alone, so long as the woman and wine and commendations were things they could always look forward to in almost any town. Remember as well that a certain segment of Delvers broke free of the trap that is the endlessly growing experience demands of the mid levels that doom most of us to respectable mediocrity. Some delvers truly excelled, and a handful thought a bit of conquest and slaughter wouldn't be a bad thing by any means."

Jack blinked at this, swallowing a suddenly dry throat. "No kidding."

Aroust's = smile didn't reach his hard black eyes. "There are no saints, of course, Jack. This was at a time when Velheim was embracing it's own expansion, quite happily claiming large swaths of neighboring territory, making vassals out of city states that surrendered without a fight, and razing entire villages to the ground that did not yield fast enough. Slavery was common, and the idea of purging entire races, such as the halflings and lizardfolk, was embraced by the darkest of puritanical ideals."

Jack blinked. "No kidding. I never even heard of halflings or lizardfolk."

"That's because they were genocided, boy. At least on this continent. Weren't you listenin'?" Scolded Barlton, plopping his own sizable behind beside Aroust. "Now continue yer tale. This is where it gets interestin'"

Aroust shrugged. "This was before Bonaparte's later attempts to assert Velheim's greatness, before there was even such a thing as gunpowder to contend with, at least in this part of the world. Velheim was well and truly a power to be feared." Intent brown eyes peered thoughtfully into Jack's own. "That was, at least, until the fanatics running the church and the government at the time decided the world needed to be purged of Elves and Dwarves as well as halflings and lizardfolk... while pretending that the vast mineral and woodland resources that burgeoning empire was hungry for had absolutely nothing to do with their sudden fanatic hate."

Barlton snorted. "Fools actually thought they could take on a dwarven citadel. Ha! We made them pay a steep price, for sure."

Veti nodded. "That's true, Barlton. Your people are credited for holding fast against entire legions of Velheim troops, none of which could enter any of your citadels. Eventually they just gave up and left."

Drake frowned. "But the dwarves didn't actually leave their citadels to help bring down Velheim, did they?"

Barlton bristled at those words. "Of course not, boy! We didn't have the men for that bit o madness! No matter how they tried to bait us, we would not leave. We knew that outside our mountain keeps, their twenty to one odds would work too steeply in their favor. Why, to let ourselves get goaded would be tantamount to surrendering! We're not stupid, yer grace!" Barlton gave a satisfied nod. "So our kings stayed put, no matter how much they insulted our beards." He then flashed a wicked grin. "And it's not like they got off scott-free. Rains of stone were our parting gifts for those rats with our scores o' trebuchets. We must have killed thousands of them bastards by the time they finally made their retreat!"

Aroust nodded. "All true. So, with their attempts to forcefully acquire dwarven cities and technology utterly thwarted, they then attempted to take over the Windridge forests."

"Only to find that the highly exaggerated feats of legendary elven archers were anything but an exaggeration, said a grinning Drake. "Any expedition sent into the great forests was cut down to the last man, which frustrated the tin emperor of Velheim to no end. Why, even their attempts to harvest just the periphery of the forest resulted in unexpected losses."

Jack blinked at this. "So, they couldn't chop down even a single tree?"

Veti shook her head. "They could cut the trees down just fine. The recovered journals even say that the overseer was about to send a letter assuring a massive boon of wood to be sent downriver. But by the next morning..."

"No survivors?" said Jack.

"That's right," Aroust said, continuing the thread of his story. "No survivors. At which point Velheim decided for subtlety, offering power and prestige to the Mentalist and Necromancer's guild, if they could bring the elves to heal."

Jack clenched his fists, doing his best to hide the sudden surge of panic and terror, of screams in the night, and desperately fleeing his burning home from legions of undead washed over him.

"I take it they accepted," Jack forced himself to say, trying to give nothing away, but his fists didn't go unnoticed.

Aroust nodded. "They did. And made remarkable inroads, enslaving entire Elven settlements, butchering the men and selling the women and children into slavery."

Jack closed his eyes. "Bastards," he said.

"No one will disagree with you there, Jack. But that's where the legend of the dark horsemen started to pop up. Dark heroes with an army that was utterly immune to the influences of Mentalists and Dark Masters. An entire legion of fallen men controlled by an Elite Necromancer, shock troops led by a self-styled Deathnight. The mentalists thought they'd be easily enough to overcome, but were quickly proven wrong by a sorceress who could turn their own gifts against them, turning the mentalists into living puppets who would live and die for her, and her alone."

Veti nodded. "And she made no secret about her gifts. That she could tear free their very souls, and did so. And when Velheim battlemages found it impossible to kill the revenant shock troops that led the charge, it was because of the soul-artifacts protecting them that the Grey Witch herself had forged."

Jack swallowed, taking deep breaths, doing his best to ignore the pounding of his own heart.

He wasn't stupid. He knew what was being said. Knew what it implied. Forced to wonder just how old his parents truly were.

But all he said was, "What does this have to do with my teacher?"

"Turns out old Silvercrest wasn't really a fan of Velheim practices either. He was no Elf, human as human can be, and the shortsighted generals seemed to totally forget the many other atrocities they had committed when they tried to stir up genocidal hatred against all elves everywhere."

Veti nodded. "It took time, but Silvercrest the Black went from promising student to trusted adjunct of the archmage himself of Velheim's own Royal Mage's College." She shivered, eyes growing haunted. "A trust that turned out to be very much missplaced."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"He made abominations, boy!" Said Barlton. "Tricked the whole college into following his council when it came to performing a grand ritual that was supposed to cleanse the entire world of those Elves! Turns out it was a ritual that instead transformed all the mages involved into walking abominations! And can you guess who was in control of them all? Who used his army to raise the entire capital before joining up with the Grey Witch, the Necromancer, and the Deathnight, to say nothing of their growing army?"

"Because he was the hidden fourth horsemen," Drake said. "The boy who's entire clan had been butchered by Velheim expansion just a decade before, and the only one who cared nothing about letting the world know his real name. The ace in the hole who had been working with his fellow horsemen in secret for years, before they all burst onto the scene."

He flashed a darkly bemused smile. "Rumor has it, according to the bards, that they had dared the deeps as adventurers for years together before finally declaring themselves ready for the trials to come. And since they were ageless, it was nothing for Yohan to infiltrate their royal academy as a neophyte and work his way up in a corrupt school of mages more than happy to use enslaved humans and elves to fuel their dark rituals, and the even darker appetites of their head wizards."

Jack frowned. "So, what happened? These four horsemen with their army of undead and mage abominations took over Velheim?"

Aroust slowly shook his head. "Actually, no. As bloodthirsty and savage a reputation as they had, especially after destroying Velheim's mage academy and slaughtering their army... they pretty much left the general population alone, right after annexing a rather large territory right on the border of Erovering, and calling it their own."

Jack froze, gazing intently at the duelist. "Wait, so what you're saying is that Greycliff..."

Aroust nodded. "The necromancer became the first duke of Greycliff, undead legions and abominations serving as an army no one dared to cross. Since they hadn't touched Erovering, they were content enough with the change, happy with a buffer between them and an expansionist Velheim, and having absolutely no desire to tangle with Delvers who everyone thought had already achieved legendary status."

Jack blinked. "Legendary being..."

"Anyone over level twenty," Veti whispered.

Drake grinned. "And do you know what the most remarkable aspect of this story is, Jack?"

"Not a clue, Drake."

"That the very mage Veti is so afraid of happens to be the founder of our academy. Who helped forge our ability to embrace Etherial magic in the first place, the only reason why we can enter the Hidden Realms at all!"

Veti flushed, lowering her head. "The academy has had centuries to mellow out the influence of its founder. The founder himself? he was... dark. Very dark. The records make that clear, and Silvercrest did nothing to suppress them. If anything, he took a perverse pleasure in just how graphic the accounts of his experiments, and vengeance had been, declaring truth the greatest virtue of all, transcending any transient notions of morality. A very... twisted man who thought nothing of using captured soldiers as subjects, even if the Academy mages themselves were forgiven of all past sins and treated as equals upon entering the school and taking the oath, a practice that continues to this day." She flushed and swallowed. "I mean the shriving students of all past sins upon giving their oath part. Not the... um... human experimentation part. We stopped that over a century ago."

Drake nodded. "We did indeed." He then smiled at Jack. "Silvercrest might have been mad as a hatter with an extremely convoluted sense of ethics, but he was still one of the greatest researchers we have on record. Which is why hearing his name bandied about so casually by my far too talented friend with his masterwork Tier 1 spells that I seriously doubt are actually Tier 1, piqued Veti's interest, and to be honest, mine as well."

"Scutium Glacies. Lapis Armis!" Jack summoned the shield and armor he had mastered so well that they now felt almost like a second skin, now looking up at his friends. "They're just first level spells, pretty as they are in red. How can they be anything but Tier 1? They're among the first spells I ever learned."

"Red? They're the color of fresh blood," Veti murmured.

Jack nodded. "Yes. That makes them red."

Drake smirked. "And all the stronger for that crimson infusion, I bet. I saw that shield and armor mitigate a certain assassin's fatal strike that could put down abominations into a single blow. A blow that did little more than break your arm. That's beyond the purview of any first level spell, Jack."

Jack shrugged, not really having anything to say to that.

"Is it true?" Veti whispered, her dread of before now thankfully replaced by far more approachable curiosity. "Do you really know Yohan Silvercrest? The one who rode off with his fellows, save for the single horseman that stayed behind, centuries ago?"

Jack shrugged. "All I can tell you is that I learned some very useful spells by a mage who went by the moniker Yohan Silvercrest." Jack gave a sad shake of his head. "A man I'll probably never see again, any more than I will my parents or sisters, the village that sheltered me also keeping it safe from any who would attempt to attack it, or any twice born who dared the Path of Peril, like me."

Aroust gazed Drake's way. "What do you think?"

Drake shrugged. "Does it matter who his family friends are? The so-called Vivisectionist also founded our school, the glorious waking dream that fills our city with magic and wonder almost anyone with the least bit of talent can access, and no one goes truly hungry, where we can help it. Besides, it's not like any of our ancestors' hands are truly clean. My dozen times great grandfather was the necromancer who claimed this duchy, after all."

Drake then flashed Jack a sympathetic smile. "Even if Jack is a direct descendant of none other than The Vivisectionist himself, who cares? My heritage is no prettier. We all know our Jack's a bit of a wildcard, but he's a wildcard firmly on our side."

Barlton nodded. "A wildcard who thought with a clear head when needed." The dwarf swallowed, giving Jack a solemn nod. "A wildcard who showed me his worth when he gazed into my eyes as I was drowning in that awful lake I still can't stand lookin' at, making it clear he wouldn't let me go. And he didn't And I will never be able to repay that kindness. Never, ever, ever!"

Drake flashed his friend a teasing smile. "You could split your seconds share, so we each have an even share, you know."

Barlton's eyes bulged. "Now that's just crazy talk!"

Drake burst out laughing, as did everyone else, even Barlton cracking a grin.

Eventually.