After multiple rounds of hard-fought snow-based combat, the three of them had to eventually call a ceasefire once one of the older druids found them in the glade mid-battle.

There was a close call when they had all almost pelted the man with snowballs on instinct once he had stepped into the clearing. Luckily the druid had smoothly avoided the trio of attacks and had accepted their embarrassed apologies with grace, but he still had ushered them out of the True Grove afterward with a reminder to Thalia to not be late for lessons tomorrow, and another to not invite non-members of the circle into the True Grove without approval.

It was pretty late into the day when they exited the True Grove, their energy pools near empty and

they were all simply quite tired, so they decided to just walk back to Lindle’s house. Lindle’s mom had finished closing up the store when they arrived and had invited his friends inside, teasing Thalia about having permission this time.

His mom brought out a cake while Lindle introduced Nothing to Humphrey. The ranger had been similarly surprised by the little construct on first reveal, but he greeted them and had been quicker to accept their presence than Thalia, though Lindle wasn’t sure if it was because Humphrey had prior warning or if he was just faster to accept things as they were.

It had been funny when his mom placed the lit candles on the cake, producing a now familiar confused reaction from his friends, where then his mom explained the concept of a birthday cake to them. It was nice to not have to be the one to explain something new for once today. Birthday cakes were apparently one of the few things his mom brought with her from her homeland.

He wasn’t sure if they did it exactly the same as where she was from, but his mom always put some real effort into his birthday cakes, leveraging her knowledge of alchemy to create candles that threw out multicolored sparks in intricate patterns. The cakes themselves were also, in Lindle’s opinion, the best food in the Glacial Reach. Sugary foods were rare in Glacerhine just in general, and his mom applied her well-trained alchemy crafting skills to her cooking and baking. She simply baked using alchemical materials and gear, which would probably frustrate any actual cooking-focused class user, but the result had them all stuffing their faces with slices of cake so good it was magic.

The thought of magical food had Lindle pause mid-bite. Could he make magical items that were food with [Artifice Crafting]? Or any consumables in general, such as potions? His focus was quickly sucked back into eating, so he quickly asked Nothing to make a mental note of it before he forgot, which he did before he finished his slice.

Once they were all thoroughly stuffed, Lindle and his friends wished each other a good night and they each headed home. Lindle felt a strange melancholy feeling overtake him for a moment as they left. Tonight would probably be the last time he got to enjoy a birthday like this, at least for a long time, he didn’t think he’d be able to get one of his mom’s cakes wherever he would be when he turned 16 or older. It had been the first one he’d gotten to enjoy with real friends too, even Humphrey and him hadn’t shared more than some well-wishes growing up each year. It was really typical that the year he had decided to leave the village was the year he had actually solidified their friendship, alongside forming a new one with Thalia.

Lindle pushed out the gloom-ridden thoughts with a sigh. There was no use dwelling on them, and he was tired and full. He had briefly entertained the idea of going back into the workshop, but a resounding no accompanied by a wave of disapproval from Nothing stopped it before it gained any momentum. His little stunt making Lotus Thorn before his Ethos strain had receded fully necessitated a full night’s rest according to the homunculus, the wand had been a little more powerful than they approved of, but they hadn’t said anything at the time as to not ruin the moment giving it to Thalia.

Even when you wake up tomorrow, I would still give it a few more hours before you start making things again.

His mom had just chuckled after she got the message relayed to her too, reaching up to ruffle his hair. “Happy birthday Lindle, get some sleep.”

After giving his mom a hug Lindle returned to his room to do just that. Closing his eyes he drifted off.

Lindle was somewhere warm, staring down into his hands as black dust slid from his hands. He was surrounded by it, a field of black dust, an entire tundra of black dust. Dunes of black material shifted in the wind as far as could be seen, not that he was looking.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Lindle’s eyes were firmly locked on his hands, seeing his own Ethos from inside his hands shining so brightly it was almost blinding, but he didn’t look away. He didn’t want to look around him.

It really was warm. The heat was flowing up into the night sky from the black dust in waves, so hot that the air seemed to shimmer. Still, Lindle stood, looking down at his hands as the minutes passed.

Eventually, Lindle heard something behind him, a loud thump of something heavy impacting something soft, before a heavy gust of air exploded past him, plumes of black dust kicking into the air. Lindle finally moved, a heavy slow sigh escaping his lungs. He still didn’t want to move, to turn around and look, but he did so anyway, dropping his hands and letting his Ethos recede from his hands.

Lindle raised his head, turning around to see-

Lindle’s eyes snapped open, his heart thumping in his chest. Why was his heart beating so fast? Sweat beaded from his brow that he wiped away, before he looked at his hand, slowly opening and closing his hand until he eventually calmed down. He had been so calm in his dream, but as soon as he woke up he had felt as though he was going to explode from fear for no clear reason.

Though really, Lindle almost never remembered his dreams, he was surprised he remembered this one so clearly. If he had woken up like this normally, he would have assumed he had some intense kind of night terror, but nothing in his dream had resembled anything that would freak him out like this. He had never had a reaction like this waking up before either. As he thought about it though, there was a strange sense of familiarity too, but he couldn’t recall anything specific, even as he drew on his newly raised Int stat to boost his memory.

Eventually Lindle gave up trying to figure the dream out, it probably was just a dream. Perhaps he was remembering his dreams now that his Int stat had increased, hopefully he wouldn’t keep waking up like that in the future though. He got out of bed to start his day.

He helped his mom open the store and they hadn’t been long past opening when some familiar faces showed themselves.

“Lindle!” Dorothea called out to him, rushing up to Lindle after bursting in the door. “You’re here! We looked for you yesterday to see how getting your first level went, but the store was closed and no one responded when we knocked on the door.”

Rosato, Chip, and Theodore all entered behind her to crowd around Lindle, looking at him in curiosity. Well, he assumed Theodore was curious behind his mask, but he was facing Lindle pointedly like the others, waiting for an explanation.

Remembering why no one had been able to find him yesterday had a small blush spread to his cheeks, as Lindle looked to his mother for help. She was firmly locked in conversation with a customer, who was looking curiously at Lindle and the four adventurers surrounding him, but she looked straight ahead and ignored him, pulling the customer back to their purchase. Apparently, she only felt the need to rescue him if it was from Thalia, but at least she was distracting potential eavesdroppers.

Lindle looked back to Dorothea. “Everything went fine. Great actually! I got my class. We just got kind of… distracted testing out my new Skill. We forgot to open the store and didn’t hear anyone at the door, we missed a lot of people it looks like.”

The party all gave sighs of relief and Rosato and Chip started chuckling. Dorothea gave a giggle and gave him a sympathetic nod, one that Theodore surprisingly gave him too.

“Some first Skills can be like that.” The rogue said. “You get a lot of energy from your first set of stat bonuses. Combined with certain Skills, you can spend hours playing with it until you drop, ignoring everything else.”

Lindle wondered if there was a story there, but Theodore didn’t elaborate, the masked man falling back into silence.

“Either way, we’re all glad that you’re alright,” Rosato said. “I suppose we didn’t consider it because he couldn’t find your mom either. I’m guessing if she was just as distracted helping you, then what you got was pretty interesting?”

Lindle glanced over to the counter with his mom and her customer, and walked with the adventurers closer to the back, away from the door. “Yeah, it’s called [Artifice Crafting], I spent all night after I got to level 1 crafting items, we were distracted testing them out.” He said in an excited whisper.

“Are they… you know?” Dorothea whispered back, hesitant about saying the word aloud. Lindle still didn’t know much about artifacts, but the possibility of his class being tied to them was the real danger that kept him from sharing his class out in the village. It would be pretty ironic if it turned out that there was no connection and he had done so for nothing, Artificer being a complete unknown to them and Soarstrum at large, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“I guess I don’t know. Nothing about the skill told me whether they were or not. Here, you can look yourself.”

Lindle took his Hotpond Band from his wrist and showed it to Dorothea. Her eyes widened as she began reading the status that popped up.

“That… is the weakest Artifact I’ve ever seen.”