From Esper’s Expressions and You
Espers aren’t that much different than you or me. As such, a proper care regiment is of the utmost importance to improving their performance. Though it is always a question of when, rather than if spells will be replaced, research shows that with proper grooming and diet, your Esper is more likely to expend energy to attempt to refresh a more useful spell for the situation from its codex.
For training, a steady diet mixed with wisp essences and lesser esper meat or foliage can fortify a training regiment, create interesting results during the adolescent stages, and modify the esper’s deck of spells.
Of course, a proper care routine is different for each esper. In the bulk of this chapter, we will discuss how to establish a basic care routine and modify it once established for your esper’s elemental alignment and current skills.
———
Closing the book, Simon Tripps groaned and banged his head off the desk.
“Ow,” he moaned, rubbing the middle of his forehead as he sat back up. “I deserved that…”
Leaning back, he sighed and let his ashen locks scatter in the breeze from the open window.
He was seventeen, eighteen in a couple of days, and ready to officially take on an esper for training for his aptitude field. Looking at the corkboard next to him, he ignored the paragraph of congratulations and propaganda from Gatherer and reread the results he’d received two days ago:
Career Path Results for Simon Tripps
Results as of 6/14/107 AE
Trade Work : 94/100
Environmental Awareness : 97/100
Combat Proficiency : 95/100
Husbandry : 98/100
Recommendation : Esper Dependent
“Well, that wasn’t much help.”
With his testing and competency scores, Simon has his pick of the litter for jobs. He could do practically anything. He could take on an apprenticeship within the city, join the local ranger division to cull wisp and dangerous esper populations, or he could compete in the big leagues with the Esper Battle Association going hand-to-hand against another esper duelist professionally. He even qualified for a loan if he wanted to open a ranch if he got the right espers. No matter what he wanted to do, Simon was well-supported and funded. If that wasn’t enough, he could even take on an apprentice for any of his choices if he wanted and make a stipend from the associated group.
So, why was he reading the same book he knew by heart for the fifth time?
It wasn’t like all of this wasn’t common knowledge. If he was taking on a frostox or a maglug maybe he’d have to do some more research, but in Comet’s Peak, north of the Miasma Woods and east of the Blackened Water Falls, they were blessed with an abundance of three espers types: poison, stone, and nature.
“Ugh!”
It wasn’t like the combination was bad to have. Stone and nature espers were hard workers, loving, and essential to the upkeep of the region, but still, it wasn’t like they were exactly hard to care for. The rocats were very self-sufficient, and the bearals were powerful and clever but lacked any kind of real flexibility. He didn’t even want to think about the marsats. The little, poisonous rat-descended creatures made his skin crawl with their deep purple eyes and toxic quills. They were almost as bad as the leafitters. The strange bird-descended tree dwellers were fragile and short-lived to the point they weren’t even an option despite their massive intelligence.
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It was true that he could come across a posth too, one of the more unique moth-descended poison espers with glowing red eyes, but they were usually too old and powerful to bond with at his proficiency level or with any of the stones he could afford. Evolved and greater espers usually were picky and too much for new duelists and rangers. More than one went mad with power and had to be put down.
Simon groaned again as he got up, closed the book, put it back in its place on the shelf, and looked out the window.
Nothing was even remotely interesting here to bond with and train. Even if his first esper was going to be local and free, he’d still trade his thousand tokens for something different. Hell, he’d trade his epsertech if it would get him a frost or fog esper, but that was illegal and trainers of all sorts needed access to the information the Espernet provided.
Putting the book back on the shelf, Simon considered the passage he’d read again. Things weren’t always as bleak as they seemed; a common esper didn’t have to stay that way.
With proper feeding, care, and training, a common rocat could take on a variety of unique traits and typings. Ice wisps were common enough during winter in the region and yearly in the northern mountain range nearby and the southern mountain range near Spruce Knob. Plus, getting a frost-aligned esper would be useful. Their freezing magic could neutralize poisons, most nature-based attacks, and slowed everything else. They had good coverage to compliment the brute strength of most of the options he’d have access to early on. Then again, water may be better with the prevalence of heat wisps in the coastal region he’d be hitting first.
Then he went back to dreaming about foxes before catching himself and finishing his prep work for the final exam.
Bug spray, check.
Sleeping bag, check
Gloves, check.
Antidotes, check.
Battery Bank and phone charger, check.
Lucky charm, check.
Body bag…
He looked at the standard-issue bag. The item sent a shiver down his spine wholly unrelated to his fascination with the frosty ice espers. Everyone had one, and it wouldn’t be the first time someone’s parents bought their precious child’s way through the program with less-than-stellar results.
Body bag, check.
Bandages and ointments…
———
With his bag packed, Simon looked around his room for anything still missing. It was then he saw the clock reading 11:42 am.
Not bad.
Packing hadn’t taken nearly as long as he’d feared. He still had a quarter of an hour to reach the town square, and that was more than enough for the five-minute walk. Of course, June would kill him if he was late.
With the worst of it done, Simon let the tension drop from his shoulders and smiled as he picked up his supply bag and slung it over his shoulder.
“See you later,” he said to the bookcases stuffed with manuals, research, and any fantasy novels he could salvage, the bed with its fluffy sheets and year-round comforter, the simple, steel desk, and the computer rigged with as much outdated esper-tech as he could recycle that sat atop it.
This is it, he thought to himself. Time to see where the world takes you.
As if cued by his thoughts, his graduate-issued phone chimed with a message from his wayward friend.
June: Where are you?? I’ve been waiting out front for ten minutes!!!!! I’m dying!!! X_X
Simon snickered to himself. She was always so dramatic and so easy to get a rise out of.
Simon: Being a sentimental dork. Give me a minute, June.
June: No. Get out here, dork! >_<
Simon: Make me. :P
In an instant, the door downstairs began to bang as June knocked, and he knew the folly of his ways as June’s all too perky voice bounced up from below.
“Hello, Mrs. Tripps! Simon told me to make him come out.”
Simon had never chosen his words more poorly.
The laugh that followed only made it worse.
“Be my guest, dear. Oh, and in case Simon forgets, you’re welcome to come back for dinner with your new esper. Hunter and I would love to hear how you two did, and he wants to check both of your espers out personally.”
Dad always did make sure his friends were well taken care of. Well, all one of them since Luke left last year. Early birthdays had that advantage when the cutoff for seventeen was in the fall.
“You’re going for a duelist, right?” his father’s voice added.
“Yep!”
“Don’t rush your pick. You have a few days out there, so be careful. You wouldn’t be the first to reach for the stars to get burned, and you know how hard it is to recover from—”
“Hunter!”
“What? I’m just telling them to be—”
“We will,” June interrupted, and Simon heard the door to his room squeak open. “Thanks!”
Looking down the stairs, June looked near manic as her red hair framed her freckled face. Despite the warmth, she wore jeans, a loose-fitting long coat, and a large-brimmed hat. She looked ridiculous as she always did, but despite her lanky frame, she thundered like a herd of deer up from below and nearly bowled him over.
“They’re going to leave without us, Simon!” June said, urgently. “We need to get going.”
“I need a few more things,” he lied and then made a show of opening and closing the drawers on his desk, making a decidedly uncertain searching sound.
“Lies!” June declared and pounced like a rocat in waiting. Before he could dodge, June grabbed him by the hood of his more modest sweatshirt. “We leave now, Simon. Onward!”
Simon laughed as she put everything into pulling him to the staircase. June was almost a foot smaller than he was, but she had the heart of a sand cat as she growled and grunted with the pull of the load. He could have easily pulled away, but it just wasn’t worth the fight as the clock burned at 11:50 am.
They did have places to be after all.