Current Quests
Justice For Courbefy: Find justice for the victims of the corrupt mayor of Courbefy. Use…
Chosen Of Knowledge: Escort Hugh on his journey to becoming a fully awakened iron…
Healer’s Materials: Gain Healer’s favour by donating alchemy ingredients to the church…
Don’t Kill Anybody Today: Death doesn’t want you to kill anybody today, thank you.
Crimes Of Megève: Justice wants you to solve three crimes in the Megève area.
Wine tour: Vineyard wants you to try the different wines in the Megève area.
Acquire Follower: Dominion wants you to gain another follower.
Chosen Of Hero: Travel north to Lake Auvernier, find the chosen of Hero and recruit…
The team parked their origami mounts outside Orabelle’s and, dust streaming off them from Dave’s cleaning magic, took a seat at a table inside the inn. As they took their seats, Hugh’s friendly face got a serving man’s attention and he held up fingers indicating three beers. Hugh put the awakening stones on the table which drew the immediate ire of Bell.
“What’s what? You’re not drawing any rituals on my floor, adventurer!” warned Bell.
“He doesn’t need to!” sang Sam, “He has-”
“Oh, yes! You said he has his book?” said Bell, apologetically, her entire demeanour changing. “I take it all back. Can you show me, Dave?”
Dave used his cantrip, Evocation of Learned Spellbook, to summon Tome to his hand. He was pretty sure that when unsummoned, it was residing inside his brain. He’d read the details of the spell and his familiar could find its own way out. He’d done it that way once while Sam was sleeping. It felt very bulky upon the exit. The cantrip version was more comfortable and also provided extra utility in summoning it to Dave’s side even if it was already manifested.
“Please, call me Bell. So, I hear that you can do rituals without any mess?”
“And he understands how to do an awakening stone ritual?”
“Well, that’s very kind of you, Professor Tome,” said Bell with a curtsy.
“Oh, and I forgot, I can just clean it up if I poured ritual salt on the floor,” said Dave.
“You don’t even need to try, do you?” said Bell with mock derision, throwing her hands in the air. “You just make a mess wherever you like and just magic it away, don’t you? Other men need to put in effort and learn to clean but not you Dave!”
Dave laughed along with everyone else at her performance.
“No, I’m sorry, sweetie, I did forget you can do that. You do your ritual with Friar Abberton then.”
Dave took tome and opened it up to a page where he’d written his own notes on what each part of the awakening ritual does. He quickly refreshed it all, visualised the image and willed Tome to open to the ritual page. To Dave’s great relief, it worked. He breathed out.
“Well, let’s see what you get. Hugh, you want Sam to hold that bag? Just in case you get a throwing stuff ability or something, you know?”
“Oh!? Err, yes!” said Hugh, realising that it was a good idea. He handed the small bag of awakening stones to Sam who practically hugged the precious stones to herself and smiled her most proud smile up at Hugh who couldn’t help but be proud of himself in return.
Hugh took a navigation stone out of his pocket. It had a clear rectangle in the middle which was surrounded by markings that he guessed was used for navigation by the sun. Hugh put his hand on Tome with Dave who activated the ritual.
Dave’s eyes went to the text box in left lower left vision and mentally clicked on the ability as its hyperlink appeared in the text. Since Hugh was in Dave’s party, Professor Tome could publish the ability on its pages for everyone to read.
Ability: Self-updating Map
Essence: Knowledge
Rank: Iron 0
0% to iron 1
Awakening Stone: Navigation
Type: Ability
Tags: Navigation, utility
Cost: n/a
Cooldown: n/a
Description
Self-updating map. Unveils and maps areas as they are explored.
Detailed Information
Hugh’s eyes lit up.
“Oh! This is so great in writing. It’s so unfair that you Earth outworlders keep getting these identification abilities.”
He scrabbled in his pack for a pen and paper. Dave held up a hand to forstall him and just manifested a bit of paper and used his Telekinetic Scribe ability to write it all out at once with five pens that he kept about his person.
“Thanks!” said Hugh.
“I have a writing-things-down ability and the ability to replay my life. If you ever want a written copy of anything, just ask. You take awakening stones, I’ll make documents,” said Dave, using Pauper’s Paper Production to make a handful of note paper.
“Well then,” said Hugh awkwardly, “can you…?”
“I’ll give you a comprehensive copy of your abilities by tomorrow morning. How many copies do you want?”
“Two. No! Three. A spare, just in case.”
“Sure thing, mate. What’s the next magic rock?”
“Magus!”
“Slap the book!”
Tome shuffled out of Dave’s reach.
“I mean, place your hand reverently on the esteemed Professor.”
Tome shuffled back into Dave’s reach and he enacted the ritual, faster this time, with Hugh who used his awakening stone of the magus which looked like a quartz that was overly colourful. It awakened a new mystic essence ability.
Ability: Project Elements
Essence: Mystic
Rank: Iron 0
0% to iron 1
Awakening Stone: Magus
Type: Special ability
Tags: Elemental damage, channelled
Cost: Variable mana per second
Cooldown: None
Description
Project a beam of damage of the type of your current physical form. Damage and mana costs vary with each form. The streams can be concentrated or spread into a cone but the cone will have the same overall power as the stream but spread out.
Air: Low mana per second.
Earth: Medium mana per second.
Fire: Medium mana per second.
Water: Low mana per second.
Transcendent: High mana per second
Detailed Information
“Huh!” said Dave, mentally clicking on the detailed information. “What if you’ve got no for- Oh, transcendent. Not a whole lot of damage either but it’s all you’ve got unless you take a form. Good burst damage but a mana suck. I’ll give you a breakdown of the numbers in the notes.”
“Appreciate it. Purgation stone now.”
“Where’d you get these anyway?” asked Dave.
“Gifts from the local churches and societies who were grateful for the warning.”
“Fair enough.”
Dave and Hugh used the professor once more.
Ability: Cleanse Ally
Essence: Life
Rank: Iron 0
0% to iron 1
Awakening Stone: Purgation
Type: Spell
Tags: Recovery, cleanse, holy
Cost: Medium mana
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Description
Cleanse all non-bleeding curses, diseases, poisons and afflictions from a single ally.
Detailed Information
“Oh, I like that one!” said Sam, bouncing excitedly and patting Hugh on the arm. “I can’t cure, but I’ve been reading about monsters where you need to remove afflictions or people just die! Your ability is very good!”
“Glad to have it but not looking forward to needing to use it,” he said with his signature whiskery smile.
“You can also use it to heal people in towns you go to!” exclaimed Sam as she realised this fact.
“Oh? Oh, yes. I suppose I can. I’m already healing people I meet. I’ve asked the priest of the Healer in charge of this region and she says it’s fine. I’d better check with her if my new cleansing power is fine.”
“I’m sure it is. Is this something the gods will work out or should we send a letter?” asked Dave.
“I’ll have to contact her,”
“Want me to send a letter with my ability?”
“Won’t be necessary. I’ll ask my superiors to include it in a water-link message. My Lady will tell me the answer.”
“Nice. You don’t seem overly surprised about this ability?”
“No, my first adept ability lets me cast abilities meant for allies on myself so I’ve been expecting some ally abilities.”
“Yeah, good point. Next stone?”
“Karma!”
They used the stone.
Ability: Ascetic Warrior
Essence: Adept
Rank: Iron 0
0% to iron 1
Awakening Stone: Karma
Type: Special ability
Tags: Armour, damage
Cost: n/a
Cooldown: n/a
Description
You gain massive armour and damage bonuses when wearing no armour and wielding no weapons.
Detailed Information
“Oh, thank Knowledge!” cried Hugh with relief.
“Bloody bargain!” cried Dave in disbelief.
Everyone else watching had a chuckle at the difference in their reactions and they looked at each other.
“Yeah, what was with that insistence that you not purchase armour yet?” asked Dave.
“Yeah, was getting pretty smashed by people with the ability to hit my elemental forms but my Lady kept telling me to hold off on getting something made. It made me nervous but I kept my faith!” said Hugh.
“Am I missing something? Why not wear armour in your forms?”
“I did but it transformed with me. Counts as part of the form.”
“Oh, shit! So it-”
“Yeah. Does nothing.”
“Definitely a bargain!”
Hugh laughed heartily, booming across the room.
“Yes it is! Another stone towards cost-effective adventuring. An awakening stone of adventure!”
Dave activated Tome with him.
Ability: Quest System
Essence: Knowledge
Rank: Iron 0
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
0% to iron 1
Awakening Stone: Adventure
Type: Special ability
Tags: Utility
Cost: n/a
Cooldown: n/a
Description
You are provided with guidance through challenges appropriate to your rank.
Detailed Information
“Bloody hell, you too?” said Dave, showing Hugh.
Hugh just grabbed Tome and looked with wide eyes where the text was displayed and after reading it through, laughed raucously. He laughed and laughed until he couldn’t breathe. Nobody really knew what to do.
“You alright?” sang Sam cautiously.
Dave quickly made a cup of tea for Hugh on the basis that it’s what his mum did when someone needed a calming gesture.
“Sorry, it’s just. It’s just… the most mysterious outworlder ability and I just get it? I can just use it now?” he started laughing again. “It’s not fair!”
Sam was patting his arm and Bell was holding his hand now.
“Friar Abberton, this can’t be good for you,” insisted Bell. “Just sip on this tea that Dave brought you. There you go, dear.”
Dave offered the tea into Hugh’s waiting hands who had to calm down to safely handle it. Dave observed that this might be a large part of the calming effect of hot beverages; self preservation.
Hugh continued shaking his head and muttering while Dave went into his UI and compared his ability with Hugh’s. They were actually a bit different. Dave’s included the ability to manifest physical objects as a reward for meeting the challenges but Hugh’s only offered guidance. Wondering what that meant, he looked at the details of the spell. After a little reading Dave found something that Hugh wasn’t ready to learn yet. Not until he calmed down a little.
“How about we get this last awakening stone into you before you suffocate, eh?” said Dave, passing the awakening stone of liberty into Hugh’s hands.
“Yes. Yes! Good idea before I - Oh-ho. Yes, I shouldn’t say anything. You’re right. Last stone.”
They activated the ritual circle with Tome.
Ability: Free Ally
Essence: Life
Rank: Iron 0
0% to iron 1
Awakening Stone: Liberty
Type: Special ability
Tags: Recovery, cleanse, movement.
Cost: Low mana
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Description
Remove any effect that impedes an ally’s movement.
Detailed Information
“Nice!” said Hugh.
“Oh! This one will have its moments,” said Dave.
“Very good against my grabby hands ability!” laughed Sam
“What’s that, Sam?” asked Bell, who’d been quietly observing every ritual.
Sam’s smile switched from happy to strained and she looked at Dave.
“Oh, one of her abilities makes animated hands pop out of the ground and pull things in the area down. She’s just a little self conscious about describing it because she thinks people will find it intimidating.”
Sam sagged with relief.
“Oh, Sam,” said Bell reassuringly. “You should have seen this Justice priest who came through a few years ago. They said he had the doom confluence and being near him, it felt like you were doing something wrong.”
“You’re not intimidating, Sam,” said Dave with a smirk.
“You’re right, though,” said Hugh. “I could use this freedom ability to get people out of your grabby hands ability but really, Sam,” Hugh gave her a cheeky wink, “I hope you wouldn’t cast it on anybody I’d want escaping.”
“Actually,” said Dave, tentatively.
Hugh threw back his head and boomed his laugh.
“Oh, I know that look! What is it?”
“Yes! I have seen that look too!” said Sam to Hugh who nodded with her.
“Well, I’m feeling a little self conscious about it now,” said Dave.
“It is too late for that, Mister Booker! You must say,” said Bell coyly.
“Well, Sam’s ability also hits friendlies? But, it’s those friendlies that enemies group up around,” said Dave.
“Oh!” said Bell, picking up on his meaning first. “You use a teammate as bait to lure in your enemies for the area spell? You have a wicked mind, Mister Booker.”
“What? Dave! It will still hurt!” objected Sam with wide eyes.
“He knows,” said Hugh with a grim wince on his round face and Bell fixed Dave with a satisfied look over Hugh’s shoulder. “He just thinks it’s a good trade. A little health from your teammate in exchange for the same amount of health from several enemies who will also be held down.”
Dave did finger guns and made pew-pew noises while he mimed shooting at people on the floor. Sam gave her strained smile.
“Do not worry, Sam,” said Bell reassuringly. “Have a talk with my husband some time. This kind of thinking is common among adventurers.”
“Alright!” said Sam without conviction.
“Should we try it out? Do a little adventurer practice?” suggested Hugh.
“You can use the stable yard so long as you leave it in the state you found it,” offered Bell smoothly.
“Actually, we might do a bit of casual testing after dinner, Bell. We got some new equipment today,” said Dave.
“Oh, whatever did you get? My Henry says that you must always practise with your equipment so that your body knows how to use it without thinking. This is very important!” admonished Bell.
“And that’s why we’re staying in the lowest magic areas for starters. We’re going by the fields, not the main road. Just getting used to our equipment and abilities with the easy monsters,” said Dave.
Sam had actually been the one to suggest it and both Dave and Hugh had readily agreed.
“Oh!? Well, that will be fine then. My aged mother could feel safe around those monsters,” said Bell dismissively.
“Isn’t your mum a bronze rank?” asked one of the staff.
“Yes!” said Bell matter-of-factly. “But, she fights while screaming with her eyes closed. And, with her umbrella because she forgets to draw her sword. So, she has no feeling of safety, no?”
Everyone except Dave, who merely nodded, gave Bell a dumbfounded look.
“What are you all doing standing around, eh? Take their order!” said Bell to all her staff and stalked off.
To their credit, the staff did take their orders and return to work now that the show was over. They ordered a pot of some kind of spiced vegetable soup, a bread platter and a single, large, fried fish. They’d learned that Funan had a culture of shared dishes so Dave and Hugh made sure to always order that way. Poor Sam had been very lonely these last couple of years and she smiled her biggest smile while filling up her plate with her friends.
“Well, I’m chuffed with what I got,” said Hugh, practically swelling with pride. “I never thought I’d be so lucky as to get the kind of powers I’ve always wanted to study.” He shook his head in disbelief, eyes flicking to a map that only he could see. “Anyway, Dave! What’d you spend all the coin on today?”
Dave swallowed a mouthful of fish, it had been cooked with lemon, and took the first of the items out of his inventory to show Hugh and Sam.
“Well, this one’s for you. Just in case something unavoidable happens in midair,” said Dave. Tome manifested and began showing Sam and Hugh the item’s details.
Item: Sash Of Wind’s Embrace
Rank: Iron
Description
When activated, this sash adjusts the user’s weight for the next hour so that they fall safely to the ground in the air or rise to the surface if in water. Four hour cooldown.
Detailed Information
It didn’t take mana to use and you couldn’t shorten the effect but Hugh took it gladly.
“Wand Of Perfect Falling Icicles, this one is called,” said Dave, moving on, producing and idly waving a thirty-ish centimetre piece of lovingly carved white wood with bits of blue quartz in between the grains. “I got it cheap because it has a slow fire rate and the icicles fire in an arc but when I picked it up, my targeting reticule displayed the arc so I can make it work. Also, its numbers make it a high mana, and high DPS wand, which suits me more than most wand users.”
Dave showed them the wand’s details.
Item: Wand Of Perfect Falling Icicles
Rank: Iron
Description
This wand releases metre-long, sharp icicles from it. The initial damage is physical piercing followed by cold damage over time with continued contact with the icicle.
Detailed Information
“Dee-pee-ess?” asked Hugh, clearly ready to file potential outlander information away.
Dave ran the sentence back through his head and realised he’d used English. He focused and translated into Byzasic as best he could.
“Damage per second. Average damage over time?” said Dave. His teammates made faces of recognition and he continued. “So, new wand. Mana hog, hits hard but might be difficult to aim. Next up, the stuff I got for… ugh, disenchanting. For materials, you see?” Dave quickly had a pen write on his hand ‘for you’ and flashed it at Sam, who grinned mischievously, and then Dave erased the writing and Tome displayed each of the next two items on each open page.
Item: Death Harvest Walkers
Rank: Iron
Description
Passively drain the remnant life force of a recently deceased body upon which you stand, replenishing health, stamina and mana. Only affects targets that had a soul or soul-like motive force.
Detailed Information
Item: Vambracers Of Chilling Minions
Rank: Iron
Description
Monsters summoned using death essence abilities are summoned as though two levels higher than the caster and do bonus cold damage to their target after any successful attack.
Detailed Information
“I won't show them at the table for the sake of politeness but I got some boots and vambraces,” Dave winked at Sam, “that I should be able to extract some life and cold quintessence out of respectively.”
“Oh! I hope not too expensive!” said Sam.
“No fear, Sam,” said Hugh’s deep voice. “They’re restricted kit so they go for really cheap. I don’t know how much cheaper, but really cheap. Dave didn’t waste too much of our money on it.” He winked at Sam.
“Between one fifth and one tenth of the price of a comparable-non restricted item,” said Dave, who’d done some quick estimates.
“Oh! Alright, that’s good!” said Sam with her wide smile and gave a big thumbs up.
“And, for me,” said Dave, pulling out a cuirass and helm.
“You mean to say, also for you,” said Hugh with another big wink. He was really enjoying the double-speak subterfuge of pretending Sam didn’t have a Death essence while never having to actually tell a lie himself.
“Yes,” said Dave with a smile. “Also for me are these.” He indicated for Tome to flip pages to display the items he was showing his teammates.
Item: Manaflow Cuirass
Rank: Iron
Description
This magical cuirass gives an increased mana regeneration buff.
Detailed Information
Item: Manaflux Helm
Rank: Iron
Description
This helm can be activated to restore mana as though having consumed a mana potion.
Detailed Information
“The cuirass will give me an extra spell slot in the morning and the helm was cheap enough that it’ll pay for itself within ten days,” said Dave. “Not to mention the helpful features of protecting my insides.”
“Those are good for you!” said Sam, nodding happily. “Your spells are very powerful and it is good to save money.”
“And show her what we got sold on,” said Hugh with a hearty grin.
Dave nodded to Tome who turned the page.
Item: Burst Of Speed Potion
Rank: Iron
Description
When imbibed the speed attribute is doubled for thirty seconds.
Detailed Information
“The shopkeeper recommended these as a running-away option, since they don’t share a cooldown with health-stamina-mana potions, they’re much cheaper than a silver spirit coin and we can still pop a spirit coin after using one if we need to anyway.”
Sam looked at Dave with round eyes.
“Dave, you are good at saving money. Like my grandma!” said Sam seriously and then covered her mouth to giggle.
Dave opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish, which caused Hugh to start laughing. Dave just gave in and laughed with them.
“You guys are weird,” said Dave, still smiling.
“Is a real thing!” said Sam, her eyes twinkling above her hands.
Dave served himself some more soup from the pot and tore himself off some bread from the platter.
“I know it is, Sam,” said Dave, shaking his head and smiling. “Your sincerity was overwhelming.”
They continued eating and finished up dinner soon afterwards. They discussed ideas about the days to come, strategies, what to buy next, thoughts on the monsters they’d encounter, but eventually decided to take up Bell’s suggestion that they try out their new abilities and equipment in the stableyard.
“Just don’t upset the heidels,” she warned as they went out the back door into the straw strewn yard.
Dave summoned a dozen or so thick, cardboard targets and started testing his new wand. He immediately found that when holding a weapon with a firing arc like his new wand, the crosshair changed to the kind that put the projectile’s arc onto his HUD. Shooting a stationary target like this was pure easy mode and after a few tests, getting used to the system, Dave put a group of three shots in a tight grouping on three of the targets.
The icicles hit with real stopping power too from the looks of how they jumped the targets around. They were sharp but brittle as ice and couldn’t be expected to penetrate any armour but the icicles were a cone one metre long that ended about as thick as a wrist. Using Epistemology and a ‘mass’ query, Dave found out they were about half kilogram each. A bit of maths later and Dave had confirmed that these were basically small javelins that this wand was casually launching. This made a raised-eyebrows Dave very pleased with his purchase.
“Okay, Hugh, you have a go,” said Dave after leaving his last Stop And Think and raising his hand to the applause of the small crowd who’d piled out to watch the adventurers shoot some cardboard targets.
“Alright, I will but don’t laugh if it goes wrong, you promise?” said Hugh, self consciously.
“I won’t,” said Dave, clapping him on the shoulder. “It’s your ability now. It’ll just come to you, right?”
Hugh nodded, lacking confidence despite knowing Dave was right.
“Go Hugh!” yelled Sam from the sidelines, immediately covering her mouth with her hands and looking around.
A few other voices a general calls to action and encouraging whoops or whistles followed Sam’s cheer and, face ruddy, Hugh took to air form, stood about ten paces out, raised a hand and used Project Elements. WHUMP! The resultant stream of air could be seen in the firelight by the effect it had on the straw and dust in the yard that flew away from the source. The crowd shielded their eyes from the dust as the airblast threw the target backwards and over to slap heavily against the stableyard. The fence behind it all rattled dangerously.
“Cool,” said Dave, looking at the magic. He replayed the memory to check. “The air moved like a stable smoke ring. A round pulse that smacked into the target.”
“Sweet gods!” cried a whooping voice in the crowd. “How heavy are those targets?”
“About eighty kilos,” said Dave loudly. His voice was somewhat lost in the crowd but those who heard past it on and soon there were noises of awe and calls for him to do it again.
“Kneel down and see if you can give it some lift!” shouted one followed by cheers of agreement. Bell told Hugh he’d be paying for damages to the fence so a few rowdy fellows who wanted to see the lift-shot came and dragged the target away from the fence and stood back.
Hugh knelt down, angled his palm up at the target ten paces out and WHUMP! Went Project Elements again. This time the target lifted right off the ground, crashed back down and skidded a couple of metres. The crowd cheered for Hugh. They kept drinking, much to Bells pleasure, as Hugh tested it a few times to see how far away he could get before it wasn’t useful against the man-sized target anymore.
A few test shots later and Hugh had discovered that at about twenty-two or twenty-three paces it didn’t even knock over the target anymore.
“Hey, try something else!” came a voice from the crowd, that got a chorus of agreement. Clearly the people weren’t here for a patient test of limitations.
“They’re right, you’ll run out of mana if you try to be too exact tonight,” said Dave into Hugh’s ear over the din of the crowd. “Just have fun and get a feel for the shots.”
Hugh nodded and took to water form, pleasing the crowd, most of whom had already consumed an extra beer already.
“What happens if you piss, water man?” shouted one to a round of general laughter.
In response, Hugh shot a long range blast of water from twenty paces out that dipped and smacked wetly into the target with a thud. The noise elicited cheer from the crowd which moved up to general oohs and ahhs of appreciation as Hugh strode up to the target shooting water blasts the whole way. After a few steps forward he managed to adjust his aim up and hit the target well enough to knock it over. He kept a continual stream of water on the target, blasting it along the ground and, as he approached melee range, Dave could see the water stripping away the surface of the thick cardboard like a skin. The crowd whooped and clapped with appreciation at Hugh’s more dynamic approach.
Hugh waved in an embarrassed way, trying not to grin too wide and changed into earth form. He immediately turned on another target and pushed his hand out. A stream of gravel pelted the target, shoving it around. When the stream stopped, it was obvious that he’d pulverised and abraided the cardboard like it’d been dragged over rocks by a heidel. The crowd let out sympathetic oohs at the thought of being hit with it.
“Hang on, I can feel another way to do it,” said Hugh loudly and raised his hand again with a look of concentration. He looked like he was holding his breath until he suddenly pushed his arm forward and released his breath. A rock the size of a shotput and with the same kind of momentum flew out of his hand and whacked into the target, burying itself into the cardboard and staying there.
The crowd, easily on their second outside drink cheered loudly, pointing at the potentially body crushing rock. Hugh remained self consciously grinning, sometimes at the crowd, sometimes at the ground and occasionally waving.
He tried fire form next. It was visually spectacular so it held the crowd’s rapt attention. Hugh theatrically tried a test shot into the air which got some whoops from the crowd. Dave was impressed to see a line of fire shoot about thirty paces into the air.
Hugh looked at his targets, selected one and shot a beam of fire into it. The use of cardboard as a target made the fire beam particularly effective. The cardboard immediately burst into flames as the beam impacted, washing flames over the target while boring a hole through it. He was lucky that it didn’t damage any of Bell’s property after the sustained beam eventually burst out the other side of the cardboard target.
Experimentally, Hugh shot another beam of fire into a target and moved his hand to burn a circle into the front of it. He checked the depth of the hole the more temporary contact had made and came away satisfied. Up close, he tried again and this time, made a less concentrated beam that set the whole target ablaze triggering yet another series of cheers from the crowd.
Almost out of mana, Hugh returned to his own flesh.
“Alright folks, he’s about out of mana!” The crowd booed Dave who grinned back at them with good humour. “Hey, come on now! The running monk only has so much fire in him. Let the man go back inside and have a few drinks to recharge, hey?”
The crowd, varying between tipsy and drunk, bought into Dave’s idea that a man needed a drink and reluctantly accepted his words, filing back inside Orabelle’s at the direction of the staff.
“Thanks Dave,” said Hugh, who was huffing and sweating. “I didn’t want to do the transcendent beam in front of anybody anyway. I’ve got a feeling about it.”
Dave nodded. An intuitive feeling for essence abilities was pretty universal.
“What kind of feeling? You talking scary or just not fun to watch?”
“Like… like I’ll be channelling that feeling that some churches get in a crowd when they start talking about brimstone, divine wrath and martyrdom.”
Dave and Sam looked at each other. Sam’s strained smile was on display and Dave nodded at her.
“Yeah, I’d say that was a good call. A display of divine wrath might have killed the mood.” Dave slapped Hugh on the arm. “Get inside, mate. Have that drink. We’re waking up early tomorrow.”