After Humphrey calmed down and let Lindle off the hook for the raid thing, Lindle and Thalia brought him up to speed on everything else concerning the dungeon and Lindle’s new class. Nothing was a bit more difficult to explain without the unfinished homunculus being present, but it wasn’t too long until Humphrey was satisfied.

The ranger wasn’t especially concerned with the magical implications of his class and Ethos, he found the magic items themselves more interesting, taking the Petalshade ring for a spin. They made a game out of Humphrey using the ring to try and hide while Lindle and Thalia tried to find him. The glade had plenty of shadows created by the foliage for Humphrey to deepen, and combined with a ranger’s stealth Technique, the beastman was extremely difficult to spot.

Lindle would have wanted to see if he could use [Ethos Attuned] to find him, perhaps through the ring, but he was wary of blinding himself from the True Grove’s Ethos again, so he was stuck stumbling through the brush without any tricks. Thalia didn’t have much better luck despite being much better at moving through the vegetation until she thought of wildshaping into a dire wolf and following her nose.

They found Humphrey eventually, though it still took the better part of an hour. The ranger was snickering as he emerged from his spot sequestered between a tree and a bush embarrassingly close to their starting spot, the darkened shadows hiding him fading as he took off his ring. They had figured out that Humphrey seemingly thought of Thalia’s wildshape before they did, creating a winding path in circles, but without any other better options they had no choice but to follow.

“I thought that ring only worked for a ‘limited period of time’,” Thalia complained as she shifted back to her beastman form.

Humphrey shrugged. “It does, at most, it can stay active for a couple of minutes at a time, I just only turned it on whenever you two got close.”

Lindle and Thalia both groaned as Humphrey laughed as he tossed the ring to Lindle, but Thalia snatched it out of the air before he could catch it.

“Nope!” She said. “My turn next. Stealth techs might be overpowered, but now let’s see you both try and find me.” She waited for both of them to turn around so she could hide.

As they did Lindle glanced at Humphrey. “You know she’s going to turn into something absolutely tiny now right? You’ve got her all competitive.”

“I know,” Humphrey said, looking unconcerned. “If she thought Techniques were unfair, she must have forgotten what Skills I get.”

Lindle thought for a second before making a noise of understanding. “Ooooh. Yeah, she didn’t think this through.”

Once they had given her enough time, they both turned back around and Humphrey said his Skill aloud as he activated it. “[Tracking].” He immediately walked forward into the brush and made a beeline through the greenery as Lindle followed. Both of them were quickly proven correct as Humphrey found a rabbit hiding under some leaves in just a few minutes, unseeable in a dark patch that Humphrey ignored as he poked her, sending Thalia out into the open.

What surprised Lindle was that the rabbit had the ring around one of her paws. Thalia shifted back groaning. “How? I thought I would be hidden for at least a couple more minutes.”

“You were trying to hide as an animal… from a ranger,” Humphrey said, before pointing down at a nearly imperceptible, at least to Lindle apparently, rabbit print in the ground.

Thalia facepalmed. “I’m an idiot.” Humphrey laughed before Lindle interrupted.

“Why were you wearing the ring in rabbit form? I thought everything on your person went with you when you wildshaped.”

“It did,” she answered, “but I couldn’t activate the ring when it was gone like that, so I had to exclude the ring and stuffed a paw into it to keep using it.”

“Interesting…” Lindle reached into his pocket for his notepad, writing it down. He didn’t really understand how wildshaping worked, but he supposed Thalia wasn’t necessarily wearing her clothes when she was in animal forms, so she wouldn’t be wearing the ring either anymore. Where did they go? Were they just gone? Maybe he could make something that could be worn comfortably in both her beastman and animal shapes, or maybe with some kind of effect that synergizes with her transformations?

He snapped out of his concentration as he was tapped on the shoulder, looking up to see his friends looking at him with raised eyebrows and grins, Thalia holding out the ring for him to take. He sheepishly put the notepad away and took the ring.

“Your turn now.” She said cheerfully, her earlier annoyance forgotten.

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“Oh, um.” He looked at the ranger and the druid, and then around them in the dense undergrowth. “I feel like I’m going to be at a pretty big disadvantage.”

Humphrey patted him on the shoulder. “You don’t know until you try, can’t be too hard to do better than Thalia.”

“Oh shove off,” Thalia said as she gave him a light push.

“Fine,” Lindle said, putting on the ring. “I’ll consider it a success if you two don’t find me immediately.”

They walked back to the glade and his friends turned around to give him time to hide. Lindle looked around, searching for a spot. He had to try to make this at least a little difficult for them, so far his own magic item had only played a small role in his friend's ability to hide, though it would at least make it harder to spot him, they both had ways to find him without seeing him. Humphrey would be able to follow his tracks, and Thalia would be able to follow her nose if she wildshaped again, though she probably wouldn’t do it right away since it would be a waste to use a charge of her skill.

Hmm… Follow his tracks… on the ground. Lindle looked down, and then up at the trees. They were dense with plenty of leaves and branches hiding the moon shining through. It reminded him a little of the woods where Lindle and the adventurers encountered the wooly razorbacks. Smiling, Lindle silently cast [Levitate] and pushed off the ground.

He hovered up to a tree and grabbed onto a branch, then he pushed off and flew over the clearing to another tree, and then another further away. He nestled himself in the shade against the trunk between some leaves. His smell might tell Thalia that he went up, but if his scent trail was up in the air, she wouldn’t be able to follow it either. He activated the Petalshade ring and the shadows around him deepened, hiding his body in the shade.

He looked down and watched as Humphrey and Thalia stopped waiting and turned around, striding confidently to the spot he had stood before using the spell. As Thalia stood behind Humphrey, Lindle heard him say his skill aloud again and hid a laugh as the ranger paused, looking around in confusion.

“Well?” Thalia asked him after several seconds had passed.

“I don’t see any tracks,” Humphrey responded.

They shared looks of bewilderment as they split up to try and find any sign of him. After several minutes of fruitless effort, Thalia turned into a wolf again, attempting to sniff him out, before making confused dog noises that threatened to make Lindle blow his cover as her nose led her straight up in the air.

Lindle very rarely cast spells when he didn’t need to due to his small mana pool, and Lindle had only learned [Levitate] after both of them had turned 15, so neither of them had seen Lindle use the spell before. Lindle cheerfully watched Thalia wildly attempt to pantomime to Humphrey that he had seemingly floated away into the sky as a wolf. She was probably out of charges at the moment, so if she turned back to a beastman to communicate, she wouldn’t be able to transform back for a while, so they both wasted a minute or two on charades.

When Humphrey did seem to finally get it, he looked up and his eyes locked on the tree that Lindle had floated up to first. Lindle swore under his breath as Humphrey smiled and told Thalia to turn back. The ranger started scanning the treeline, searching for more clues, and his gaze stopped on the second tree Lindle had traveled to.

“He’s up in the trees,” He told Thalia once she was back.

“What? We would have heard him if he climbed any trees, and his scent doesn’t go up to any of the trees.”

Humphrey shrugged. “Well I don’t know how, but I see tracks in the trees anyways.” He led the way toward Lindle’s hiding spot.

Lindle waited resigned, but he still had a proud grin when Humphrey stood at the base of his tree and shouted up to him. “How in the beyond did you get up there?”

Lindle let the ring deactivate and climbed down, [Levitate] long since faded. He didn’t have much experience climbing trees, but compared to a cliff face in the mountains it was easy. He dropped to the ground and gave a short bow. “Looks like you were right, I did beat Thalia’s time.”

Humphrey snorted and gave him a short round of applause, Thalia sighed. “I can’t believe I came in last.” She gave him an exaggerated dirty look.

“I’m sure you were just going easy on me because it was my birthday,” Lindle said jokingly. Thalia rolled her eyes but smiled.

“Haven’t answered my question yet.” Humphrey pressed.

Lindle opened his mouth and made him wait for a second to build tension, before simply saying, “I cast [Levitate].”

Thalia blinked. “Where did you learn [Levitate]? That’s not a spell the shamans teach.”

“I got a Soarian mage to show me,” Lindle answered.

Humphrey sighed. “Of course you did.”

Lindle shrugged and they all sat down in the grass of the glade. For a simple game, they had all been using Techniques, Skills, and Spells, so they spent a bit more time unwinding and enjoying the scenery.

“WeIl, you did better than expected, but I still won, so can I keep that ring?” Humphrey asked shamelessly.

“Sure,” Lindle said, taking off the ring and handing it to him. “I can try and make something more specifically designed for you if you want to.”

“You can do that?” Humphrey tilted his head curiously, some excitement in his voice.

“He can. Look at my new wand,” Thalia said, taking out Lotus Thorn and showing it to him proudly.

Humphrey looked impressed as he read the description. “That’s pretty good.”

“Probably not today though, I need some time before I can use the Skill to make anything again.”

“That’s okay, I can definitely wait for something like that.”

“If he’s getting one too, he should help us when we go hunting,” Thalia said. “It’s only fair.”

Humphrey laughed. “What are we doing? Forming an adventuring party?”

Lindle blinked, looking at his friends. “An adventuring party…”