The magical bolt singes the air as it blisters past me and impacts the tree a dozen paces from my back. The sap within vaporizes on contact, and a ground-shaking crack rockets massive splinters in all directions.

I already dove for cover the moment I saw the bolt coming, and, nestled in the overgrown patch of wildflowers, I tuck myself into a ball to try to avoid at least some of the wooden shrapnel that rains down. I’m not as successful as I want to be, but nothing punctures, even though some larger pieces hit hard enough that they’re going to leave some bruises. It could certainly be worse. I’m glad I wasn’t standing any closer to the tree line.

The massive troll I was pelting with arrows just moments ago seems completely unbothered by the explosion as the decelerating wooden missiles bounce off its thick, purple-gray hide without a single point of damage floating into the air.

It bellows anyway. The act blows spittle across the meadow’s late spring grasses and flowers. Then, with that sentiment expressed, it turns and flees, barreling away from me and toward the edge of the woods some hundred or so strides away.

I push myself up to watch, idly nocking an arrow just in case the creature suddenly changes its tactic and decides to charge. My mundane arrows haven’t been hugely effective against it, but they have been annoying enough stings that I can’t imagine it would pass up the opportunity to try to pulverize me if it thought it could get away with it.

The creature doesn’t seem to be thinking along those lines, though. Instead, it runs away from me at full speed across the wide meadow—straight into one of the trip traps we’d tied around the perimeter before we even initiated the combat. I can’t help a brief moment of pride as it falls forward, out of my clear view. We have, over the last several weeks, improved significantly in not only planning our encounters, but implementing those plans: we’ve come a long way from the let’s jump out from behind these boulders and see what happens strategy that we employed against the river goblins on our first notice board mission.

Fighting all those undead may not have earned us the near legendary artifact we were looking for, but it certainly helped get our feet under us.

I can’t see the details through the distance and the shadows of the trees, but from the sudden commotion, I have to assume that Tyrus is on the troll immediately, probably seeming to materialize out of nowhere. Just as quickly, everything silences except for a small flock of excited birds that burst up from the canopy into the bright, mid-afternoon sky.

Sighing, I drop the arrow back into the quiver at my hip and glance to my right where Meg is coming out of the tree line, similarly sliding her weapon back into place across her back. The giant sword catches the sunlight and I have to blink away from the reflection. The tall, brown-skinned human tosses her long, black braid over her shoulder as she meets me in the middle. She folds her arms and frowns across the meadow toward where the troll disappeared and fell. We can vaguely see its unmoving shape in the distant shadows.

“Well,” she says, “at least Tyrus won’t be able to complain he doesn’t get to do anything.”

“Small mercies.” I wrinkle my nose as a breeze blows the smell of the creature our direction.

Flynt and Jonas approach from my left, picking their way through the overgrown grasses on that side of our battlefield. Flynt looks like he took a mud bath, and I can’t help but raise an eyebrow.

He shakes his head as he gets within earshot. “Don’t ask.”

“I’m very curious though.”

“There was a hole hidden in the grass,” Jonas explains.

“That wasn’t a hole,” Flynt replies.

“What would you call it?”

Flynt frowns down at himself, picking at a dirt clod hanging on his shirt. He sighs. “I don’t even know. A pit?”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Jonas. If it weren’t for those roots, I’d still be down there.”

“You should have watched where you were going.”

Flynt glares. “I was watching. You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention.”

“You should have told me you were stopping.”

“You should have been following at a safe distance.”

“You told me to stay close!”

Flynt pinches the bridge of his nose and bows his head. Meg and I exchange looks, trying not to laugh.

“What I’m hearing is that you two work well together,” Meg says, which breaks me, especially as Flynt casts his glare at her. The way he sets his jaw forward lightly bares his small, quarter-ork tusks, which might have been more intimidating if we didn’t know him.

“Someone else gets Jonas duty next time.”

“Jonas duty?” Jonas says. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Meg claps our healer on the shoulder, chuckling as we begin to trudge forward toward the troll—and, presumably, our triumphant dwarven rogue. Flynt and I follow a couple of paces behind. “It means that we need to get you some more offensive spells.”

“You always say that as if it’s so easy. Magic isn’t a new sword, Meggers. I keep telling you. I can’t just pick it up and expect to wield it without consequences. I can’t just learn new spells like that.”

“Why not, though? Flynt can,” I point out.

Jonas sighs heavily, shoulders collapsing under the weight of that statement, and he shakes his head.

“To be fair,” Flynt says, “I am a classically trained combat sorcerer wielding nature magic. Jonas is a self-guided channeler.”

“Yes, yes, we know, you’re very accomplished and important,” Jonas says over his shoulder. “We’ve heard it before. No one has forgotten. Though you seem intent on forgetting the fact that I’m not self-guided! I have a mentor.”

“Oh right. This mysterious mentor.” Flynt’s voice has a light edge to it. “I’ve still not met them, are they here?”

“No, they’re not here.”

“So they’ve been mentoring you how, then? Mailed correspondence?”

Jonas shakes his head again and grumbles something under his breath. Meg chuckles a little bit and bumps his shoulders as they walk ahead of us.

“Once more for those of us in the back?” I ask.

Another muttered something, and then: “That doesn’t mean I’m self-guided.”

Flynt does a good imitation of Meg as he rolls his eyes. “You always react as if it’s such an insult. There’s nothing wrong with being self-guided. If anything, it’s more impressive. But, practically speaking, it is going to be more difficult for you to develop new skills. It’s not a slight, Jo. It’s just reality.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“I know we’ve tabled it in the past, but I’m wondering if we shouldn’t actually consider seeking this person out,” I say. “I’m at the point where I’d really liked to get out of Oosal for a little while. All these monster hunting missions are wearing me down a little.”

Meg glances over her shoulder at me. “How so?”

I shrug a shoulder. “They’re just making me sad. And you can’t tell me that they’re particularly satisfying for you.”

“Well, no. But it’s better than sitting around doing nothing. At least we’re getting good experience.”

“Are we?” I raise an eyebrow. “I feel like we’ve hit a plateau.”

It’s been nearly a month and a half since our return from the failed expedition trying to track down a dangerous lost artifact called the Stone of Ylaura. We’ve generally stayed around Oosal, taking notice board missions from the city and the occasional quest from Nyssa and the still mysterious Hand of Z organization that she (and, I suppose, we) work for.

It hasn’t been idle time by any stretch of the imagination. Spring apparently means a burst of monster activity around the foothills. But, while a lot of the monsters have been fairly high value, there has tended to be only one or two of them at a time. This means the [Experience] rewards haven’t added up very fast—certainly not as quickly as, say, fighting an army of several dozen reanimated skeletons, zombies, zoombies, and otherwise undead things. As a result, I’ve been stuck at [Level 5]—and I’m still not even close to reaching [Level 6]. It’s getting frustrating.

“I suppose we could think about setting off,” Flynt says, thoughtfully. “The weather is better, and we’ve certainly grown a lot in the last month. A change of pace might be nice.”

“Just as long as we don’t do it on my account. I don’t even know where my mentor is.” Jonas’s tone is short and sharp, and his expression is knit into a scowl as he trudges through the knee-high grass just ahead of the tree line. The troll’s sharp, pungent odor is even more pronounced, managing to drift above the dry floral smell of the rest of the meadow. “He wouldn’t help anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s an asshole, Keira. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Okay, fine.” I raise my hands in surrender. “I’m just trying to consider possible solutions.”

“That’s not one of them.”

“Point taken. I won’t bring it up again.”

“I doubt that. You said the same thing last time.”

I exchange glances with Flynt and then look to Meg, whose expression has tightened. She and Jonas knew each other well before the rest of us came into the picture, both originating from outside Mornrise, a small city on the eastern coast. But, even two months and change into our (friendship? partnership? something else?) there’s definitely a lot that I’m missing.

All five of us have our secrets, and although he usually tries to hide his behind an affable demeanor, Jonas is no exception. He’s never said anything, at least not to me directly, but I’ve known for a while that his magic is necromantic in origin, and he clearly doesn’t like to talk about it much. The occasional sympathetic looks from Meg make me think there has to be a lot of trauma there.

We follow Jonas into the tree line, and the shade of the canopy casts a light chill over us. The troll’s body is stretched out and face down in the dirt a couple of paces in, already beginning to decompose, which helps to account for its increasing stench.

People and animals seem to have a normal decomposition process from what I can tell, leaving behind bodies that will eventually turn into skeletons. High magic beings, like giants or even the long-extinct dragons, do the same. But the low magic monsters seem to breakdown fairly fast once they’re killed, and no one really understands why. It reminds me a little bit of how mobs in videogames just fade away (which makes some sense given that, in my reality anyway, Qeth is exactly that).

The in-universe explanation is more convoluted, involving the freeing of the creature’s [Essence]—the magical energy that seems to infuse everyone to some extent (despite the fact that its power has apparently been on the decline over the last several centuries). It doesn’t quite make sense. There’s a lot like that, and sometimes it makes me think that all this must be real life, if only because of the plot holes.

Meg rests a hand on the creature’s side as she squeezes between it and a large tree, pausing only briefly to survey the size of it. The troll is probably just shy of twelve feet tall—just a little smaller than the undead hill giant we fought—and has a lot of heft to it. That said, it doesn’t look much like what I would’ve expected it to. While it does have long, ungangly limbs, its features are much more reptilian than anything else. Its skin reminds me of a crocodile’s, and its face is scaly with notable eye ridges and a nose that’s really just slitted nostrils. Based on the fantasy stories I know, I’d never look at this thing and think troll.

“Tyrus?” Meg asks, sounding amused. I follow her gaze to where the dwarf lays sprawled on his back a few strides ahead of where the troll fell. “You alright?”

He groans in response and doesn’t move.

She frowns and glances at me before edging closer. “Okay, I mean it—are you okay?”

“Anyone else anticipate the magic?” he asks. “Because I didn’t anticipate the magic.”

“No, that surprised me, too,” I admit. “I thought only northern trolls had spells.”

“Glad I’m not alone.” He moves awkwardly to sit up. He’s a mess. His hair looks like he put his fingers in an electrical socket, and he’s splattered with blood—though it doesn’t appear to be his. “What kind of troll has a Death Rattle?”

“None. Trolls aren’t capable of that kind of magic,” Flynt says.

“No? Tell that to my beard.” Tyrus gestures toward himself. “It was just growing back, too.”

“You look fine,” Meg says. “Nothing a little brushing won’t take care of.”

“I feel singed.” Tyrus looks toward Jonas as our healer kneels next to him. “Be honest—am I singed?”

“You look… something,” Jonas admits. “Are you hurt?”

“Just bruised. I jumped away in time, so it glanced me. If I didn’t move as fast as I move, though…”

Meg frowns down at the troll’s form and motions for me and Flynt to help her roll it over. We don’t have enough room to get it fully on its back and instead have to tilt it on its side against some trees. It’s already starting to sag.

I’m not an expert, but it doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. There’s no jewelry or armor, no buzz of magic coming off its skin—something I’ve found myself more sensitive to since we found the ancient sanctuary space in the hill giant catacombs. This is just a creature. A big, smelly, ugly one, but a creature just the same.

My magical bag, which has historically sat comfortably against my hip like it was molded to it, takes that moment to awkwardly swing around to the front, throwing off my movement and causing me to stumble into the carcass. I grumble and shove the bag back where it belongs as Flynt raises an eyebrow in a silent check-in. I shrug. Something I did a few weeks back changed its shape, and it’s been a little unwieldy ever since. It’s starting to get annoying, and if we didn’t depend on its trans-dimensional space to carry everything we need on the road, I’d be tempted to leave it behind.

“I’m not seeing anything to suggest the troll was capable of a Death Rattle, Tyrus,” Flynt says, shaking his head. “Magic like that tends to leave clear evidence. Are you sure it wasn’t just force effect? I mean, that alone is strange, but it did blow apart a tree.”

“Look at my face, Flynt. This had charge to it. That was no force spell.”

I nod. “I don’t think it was force against that tree, either. It exploded like it was hit by lightning.”

Flynt’s face creases. “I don’t know, then. I’ve never heard of a non-person wielding that type of magic, and I’m not seeing any kind of physical evidence it could. At the very least, magical theory says it would need some kind of focus.” He holds up one hand to display the faint tattoos patterned over his pale green forearm that help him to channel his [Essence]. “And I’m not really sure what the implications would be. I think all we can really do at this point is tell the city authority it’s a possibility.”

“And then hope we don’t get tasked with further investigating,” I mutter, shaking my head. “I really don’t want to do anymore troll hunting, guys.” I nudge the creature with the toe of my boot, which sinks into the now pliable flesh much more than I expected it to. The sight turns my stomach and I wrinkle my nose.

“Someone has to,” Tyrus says. “What’s wrong with it? Unexpected magic aside, this is a pretty easy payday.”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.”

“This doesn’t have to do with that Stone, does it?” Tyrus frowns at me.

“No,” I reply, maybe a little too fast—even though it’s mostly the truth. The Stone of Ylaura is still on my mind, of course, if only because the [System] doesn’t seem to think that particular storyline is over for us quite yet (though I still can’t figure out what the notation in my [Quest Log] actually means: don’t let it get away? Away from where? And that’s not even taking into the account the fact there are whole paragraphs of literal question marks in my [Journal]).

My party all give me a meaningful look.

“Really, it’s nothing to do with that. It’s just… this doesn’t feel like the kind of thing that needs us. I get that we’re not the Silver Swords or whatever, but we’re definitely ready to handle bigger missions than guard patrol. I want to do more than just pick on defenseless… creatures.”

“They’re not exactly defenseless,” Jonas says. “Trolls are deadly. Even without magic.”

“No, I know. This one just didn’t especially seem like it. It’s thrown me off a little.” I think back to the entirety of the engagement, from when we ambushed it at the pond through to herding it into the meadow and forcing it back into its death at the hands of a magical-dagger-wielding dwarf who moves like a Cirque du Soleil performer. “It didn’t even attack us, except in defense. It just seemed to be trying to get away. It seemed scared.”

Everyone falls quiet at that and we look down at the lifeless form.

“Okay,” Flynt agrees, softly, nodding. “We’ll talk to Nyssa. See if we can convince her we’re ready for something else. Maybe she even has a lead on that Stone.”

“It’s really not about the Stone,” I murmur.

“Maybe she does, anyway,” Meg says, offering a small smile. She reaches over to squeeze my shoulder. “Or maybe there’s some other quest we can take on. You’re absolutely right. I think we’ve shown we’re ready—we can do more than this.”