Chapter 246

The aftermath of a big fight was always a bit of a strange feeling Jay thought. Everyone was still riled up with adrenaline from the fight they had just finished but with nothing left to fight everyone was standing around with a ton of energy and no outlet to get rid of it.

That usually resulted in a lot of nervous fidgeting and milling about. Sometimes it proved too much and a person would end up throwing up after a fight. It had happened to Jay once. Thankfully that had gone away as he'd gotten more experienced.

Eventually however the adrenaline wore off, and the exhaustion from the fight took over.

They couldn't leave the tree right away of course, the mayor first had to inspect the tree as if he really couldn't believe that the group had fixed it. Not that his inspection discovered anything other than a now gleaming white tree – the real show was from its aura that extended out and surrounded the town and surrounding lands.

The mayor finally smiled, his face streaked with filth from the fight, and nodded once. He seemed satisfied with the final result – a healthy and healed Raintree, even if he was incredibly dissatisfied with how they had gotten there.

As the seconds ticked by the mayor seemed to realize that the fight really was over, and that it was now time to move on to the next problem at hand.

The mayor was silent as he led the group back through the greenery and towards the guarded gate that led in to the town proper.

There were guards there, and it was plain to Jay that they had seen combat. Everyone in town had fought, it seemed, and although the corpses of ticks had already gone up in to motes of light they tended to leave behind quite a mess.

The town might be a mess but the occupants were thrilled, even after the exhausting fight they had all just participated in. The town had been saved!

As the mayor led the group past the guards each guard nodded to them with far more respect than they had when they'd first met. The mayor tried to continue on but he was stopped by a guard with a rank insignia on his shoulder.

“Sir? Is it over? Is it... fixed?” the ranking guard asked hesitantly. While he was unsure if now was the right time to ask he was also absolutely positive that he might not get another chance to ask the mayor for quite some time if he didn't do so now. He had gotten the notification just like everyone else that the town was saved, but he almost couldn't believe it.

The mayor nodded tiredly and frowned as he remembered the awful fight he had to go through, pinned between ticks, Glimmerhides, and the tree itself – with only a hammer for a weapon. Still, it had worked, and that fact alone tugged the mayor's lips up in to a smile.

“It is. The Guild, and the Glimmerhides, came through for us after all,” the mayor said with a slow shake of his head.

As if in response to the mayor's words Jay could hear people mutter “Glimmerhides,” and touch the fingers of their right hand to their chest, where their heart would be. Others made similar gestures as the mayor turned away from the ranking guard and led the Guild group back in to town.

To Jay's group, it had just been a mission, something that they had to complete in order to graduate. Jay was beginning to realize however that to the town this had been life or death. The town would have failed and shut down had the Glimmerhides failed. People would have lost their businesses, livelihoods, homes, everything.

The Glimmerhides had stopped that from happening, and people were incredibly thankful.

A crowd had gathered in front of the white two story building that housed town hall and the mayor's offices. While normally word would take a little time to spread that the Glimmerhides had saved the town the current situation was a bit unique.

A town wide notification had gone out from the system, everyone had seen it, and everyone in town knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Guild group had succeeded in saving the town.

Not that they had done it alone. The entire town had been called upon to fight off the waves of ticks. Still, without the Guild, the tree still would have died.

“People! People! Quiet down!” the mayor called out loudly as he stood in front of the boisterous crowd. “The fight is over, the town is saved, the tick corpses have disappeared. What's the issue?” the mayor finally asked the gathered crowd.

The towns people quieted down and one of their group cautiously took a step forward while his hands held and fidgeted with a small colored box.

The box's surface was covered in illustrations, each brightly colored, and each side depicted a different scene. One side showed only the Raintree in incredible detail, sick and off white colored. Another showed the Raintree surrounded by Glimmerhides and the mayor, all fighting furiously. Still another showed the massive tree, gleaming white, glowing motes falling through the air, and surrounded by an even larger ruby red aura.

The illustrations weren't static, and moved. Each side had its own ten second loop of video that played over and over again. There was no accompanying sound but that was fine – it didn't need it. There was nothing quite like it in the day to day lives of most town folk, and they were all quite fascinated with the moving pictures on the boxes. They hadn't even opened them yet!

“Times have been, um, tough,” the man started and those around him tried to hurry him along but he refused to be rushed and continued, slowly. “Some of us don't have much, what with the Raintree slowly failing our crop yields have been awful. We were given these boxes though – we'd like you to have them, as a thank you,” the man finished, and some in the crowd nodded in agreement.

Some in the crowd shook their heads however in disagreement. For some of them, those boxes were the most magical things they had ever handled themselves. They were loathe to part with it.

M'redith looked surprised and unsure of what to say – an unusual occurrence in and of itself.

Jay spoke up in the intervening moment of silence.

“That is very kind of all of you, and while I appreciate the gesture, may I make an alternate suggestion?” Jay said in a tone of voice that he hoped mimicked the one that M'redith usually used for tense social situations.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The crowd hadn't expected a counter-offer and after a moment of consultation the crowd's spokesperson nodded and waved one hand as if to say 'proceed.'

Jay smiled, “We all got our own boxes. I'm pretty sure everyone in town did,” Jay said cheerfully.

“My little girl Bess got one and she's three!” yelled out a woman in the crowd and Jay smiled and nodded.

“Princess!” yelled out a tiny female voice from the little girl standing next to her.

“See? So everyone has one. Even Bess,” Jay said and the woman in the crowd smiled widely at the mention of her little girl while the little girl frowned. “We'd hate to take away whatever is in the boxes from any of you. We'd love to hear what you get though! If you really want to thank us, a thank you alone will do.” Jay finished. He hadn't stopped smiling once since he'd started speaking.

With the crowd not entirely on his side Jay tried something else.

“Why don't we get this place cleaned up, then we can all meet up, have dinner, and exchange stories on what we all got in our boxes?” Jay tried instead.

There was a susurration from the crowd as the idea was discussed and ultimately agreed to.

The crowd seemed to cheer up a bit as they all realized that they would be keeping their boxes. Although it would have been gracious to gift the boxes to the ones that had fixed their Raintree each of the town folk couldn't help but secretly desire the boxes for themselves.

With so much still to do to clean up the town though most people decided to wait to open their boxes until later.

Three year old Bess, however, had acquiesced to no such agreement. The tiny three year old with the brown hair and button nose pried open her box just as the crowd had begun to disperse. The box gave off a little magical fireworks display that appeared just above the container, now opened.

Bess wasn't about to be sidetracked by the colorful display, even as her eyes widened in delight at the light show. With one hand she reached inside the small box and withdrew a fat shining gem about four inches long and an inch across that Jay immediately recognized. He knew just by the look of it that it would feel warm to the touch.

It was an upgrade stone.

As the tiny girl's hand closed over the stone her eyes looked confused for a moment, as if someone was talking to her that she couldn't see. She paused and appeared to be having a conversation with herself when her mother finally realized what was in her daughter's hand.

Her mother reached out in shock to take it from the child but before she could do so the gem disappeared. The mother's hands swept through open air where the gem had been but a moment before. She looked at her daughter in horror.

“Bess! What did you just do!” Bess' mother demanded with a look that was part worry, part anger as a change swept over Bess.

-----

Princess Bess, as she preferred to refer to herself, had been having a wonderful time and was quite excited to open her box.

She called herself Princess because her mother did. And her father. All the time. Even those in town referred to her as Princess.

Bess really believed that she was a princess at the tender age of three, and her parents had yet to find the courage to break the news to her that she wasn't.

What harm could possibly come from constantly referring to one's three year old as a princess?

Princess Bess had been surprised at the light show when she had opened her box. Such a pretty box with moving pictures! The light show hadn't been enough to distract her from her true purpose though and she had pushed on and reached in to the box.

One side of her lips had tugged up in to a smile as she grasped the contents. It was polished smooth and was warm to the touch. She had no idea what it was, even once she had it out and in her hand, held out in front of her for a moment.

That was when the voice in her head had spoken up.

Subject illiterate, switching to audio.

Subject underage. Exception granted.

Bess didn't know what that meant but she went still in the hope that it might say more and clear up the situation a bit for her.

Congratulations Bess! You have been given an upgrade stone! With this stone you may choose a Class, or you may save the stone for one of its many other uses.

Princess Bess frowned at not being referred to as Princess but decided to let it go for the moment. She had heard stories of people with Classes all her tiny life. They were people with powers that could do incredible things – like save the Raintree. Princess Bess had always wanted to be able to be strong and powerful like people in the stories. People with classes.

Of course, the people in the stories sometimes fought. Many of them got hurt. Princess Bess wasn't too keen on that. Still, maybe there would be a class she could choose that didn't have to fight. Ooo! Princess Bess thought, she knew exactly what she wanted to be!

Bess told the voice in her head that she wanted to choose a class and it immediately responded.

You may now choose from the following options: (Fighter, Mage, Priest, Scout)

Error: subject does not qualify for listed classes, re-configuring...

Bess the voice began but she instantly cut it off.

“NO. Princess Bess.” she thought in her mind. Loudly.

The voice was quiet for a long moment and Bess began to worry that she had offended it. Had she ruined her chance at getting a class?

Class approved. Class set to Princess.

It was about that time that her mother had grabbed her and yelled at her.

Princess Bess didn't scowl however. She didn't whine or complain. She stood stock still, with her hands clasped primly in front of her while her tiny head tilted upwards to look at her mother with a serene face. She radiated a sense of almost magical calm and peace that had made even her mother stumble her words, mid-tirade.

That was when the Mayor had swept the mother, the Princess, and the Glimmerhides, Carly included, all in to the town hall.

The rest of the townsfolk went on about the business of cleaning up after the fight, none the wiser to what had just occurred.