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Tristan had been walking for a few hours and was snacking on a handful of the berries from the Fey Realm. He held one up above his head, and Felicity nabbed it out of his hands before nibbling it. Her eating noises were kind of cute – a mix between a cat taking little nibbles, and a bunny rapidly chewing on a leaf.

The food filled him up despite only having a few berries. I never have to buy food again, he thought. Just go back to the Fey Realm and get more berries. He grinned at the knowledge that he wouldn’t have to spend coin in the future on that expense. “Are there any equivalents to alcohol in the Fey Realm?” he asked her.

“N-o-p-e,” she said between little nibbles, enunciating each letter between her bites.

“That’s a sham-”

“Hallucinogenic mushrooms? Yes. Better than being drunk, since you don’t get the hangover the next morning.” She giggled and patted his head, “Hand me another Starberry!” He did so, and she snagged it, muttered a quiet, “Thank you,” and then munched down on it. “Ehnd then,” she said with a full mouth, “we fumd furmuhnted frut to ut.”

So that’s what they’re called, he thought as he popped another one into his mouth. He almost instantly regretted the smaller-sized berry, as it was very sour; like he had bitten into a lime. “Are the small ones always like this?” he asked.

“Mhmm.” She finished hers, reached down to snag the smaller one, and scarfed it down. “Smaller means more sour, silly.”

A glint of light in the distance down the road caught his attention. Sunlight reflecting off of steel. Waving his hand over his face, he swirled his essence crucible in his chest and cast Disguise Form. “You’re invisible, right?”

“Been invisible this whole time!” she replied. “Let me go check it out.” She lifted off his head and flew forward. Tristan kept walking at the same place, and she returned within a minute, landing on his head again. “Ok. Wow. They’re u-g-l-y ugly. Yuck!”

“Who are they?”

“Beats me. Some guys with black, studded-leather armor.”

Tristan’s eyes narrowed and his hand went to his family’s ancestral blade, “Did they have a red emblem of an eye with a spike going down the middle?”

“Yeah! How’d you know?”

Tristan frowned, “The Black Company.” He moved his left hand to grab the crest of his noble house, and he slipped the chain around his neck as he kept walking. “They shouldn’t cause any problems, but just in case – how do items of artifice work?”

“Just spin your essence crucible and focus the energy into the items. You think you’re gonna fight?”

“Maybe,” Tristan replied. “They don’t really obey nobility.” The Black Company was a mercenary band that had been contracted by the kingdom of Bhant to help supplement the army. They were owned by the king’s cousin; a man named Richter Fresen. Tristan had seen him a handful of times at court.

“Well, if you end up fighting, I’m going to fly over and scratch them!” She put her claws in front of his face and he saw them grow into wickedly sharp blades.

Tristan saw the length of the blades, “Those won’t penetrate very deeply. Still, any help is good help.” He waved his hand as he got within shouting distance of the group. “Hail!”

The lead man in the studded leather raised his hand and returned the greeting. The group and Tristan approached at the same speed, and Tristan stopped in the road as the group of five men spread out to block the path. “Ah, a wandering knight.”

“Noble,” Tristan said as he tapped his crest around his neck.

“I ain’t seen that one before,” the lead man said. His voice was nasally and coarse, as if he had breathing problems and smoked heavily – one probably leading to the other. His face matched his voice; it was rough and looked like tanned leather. “Some noble house you must be.”

“House Anorox. The Dragonslayers.”

The man let out a hearty laugh from his stomach echoed by his allies, before he bent over and wheezed. One of his companions clapped him on the back and handed him a waterskin. Taking a long pull from it, he gasped and cleared his throat. “Anorox? Please. They aren’t a real noble house! Just some upstart storytellers!”

“Lies!” Tristan shouted. “My grandfather slew the Arch Dragon of the Elemental Realm of Fire! My father slew Valcranox the Render!”

The lead mercenary shook his head, “Sure. And I’m the king of the Sapphire Coast. Now look, little noble, this goes one of two ways. Either one, you give us that fancy suit of armor, that sword, and all your valuables – and we let you go on your way. Or…” he slowly moved his hand to the pommel of his mace slung on his hip. “We do this the hard way, and you probably die.”

Tristan felt a rage boil up in him. An anger that he had not experienced before. No one had dared shame his family before. No one had doubted his nobility before. This pathetic mercenary thought that their family were frauds, despite saving the kingdom twice. He did not need to spin his essence crucible – he felt it swirling in his chest and the light, silver icy-blue aura swirled out of him like a blizzard.

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Felicity flew off his head and went to circle behind the hostiles, “Go get them Tristan! Beat the crap out of them!”

Gladly, Tristan thought as he focused the essence swirling in his body into the sword in his grip. The normally, shining-grey blade ignited with the same icy blue as his essence’s manifestation. It grew lighter in his grip, and he saw ice crystals form in the air from the severe temperature drop. His armor felt lighter as well, and glancing down at his vambraces and gauntlets, he saw that the armor had taken on a cooler, blue appearance instead of its steel one.

“A mage! Rush him!” The mercenaries drew weapons and let out a roar as they charged forward, trying to rush Tristan.

I might not have trained against people much, but the leader is like the head, and each of the others is a claw. Tristan focused on the space behind the five men, trusting his peripheral vision to help him react more quickly. He knew well that focusing on the attacker meant that one would react much slower to incoming assaults.

Felicity dashed in from behind and above the lead mercenary, latching onto his scraggly-haired head with her hind claw-paws, and reached over with the front ones, gouging his eyes. He screamed and flailed as she lifted off and flew up.

One down, Tristan thought as he met the assault head-on. The far-left mercenary came at him first, and he swung his blade out at the man’s spiked mace. To his shock, his weapon sliced right through the mace, and the mercenary was left holding a metal stick. Tristan had no time to take advantage of the man’s stunned state, as the other three descended on him.

He backed away, pacing himself as he focused solely on defense. Parrying, blocking, riposting when possible. Their numbers were too much for him to make any headway against, but they were poorly trained. If I just got a big slice in, I could cut their weapons apart like that mace. Each time his blade intercepted their varying weapons, a burst of cool air cascaded from the sword.

His newly manifested Elven heritage seemed to grace him with improved speed, agility, and strength. But that was only allowing him to keep up with a three-on-one – no, four-on-one assault, as the man with the spit of spiked mace had run back, grabbed his blinded allies’ sword, and charged to join the attack against Tristan.

They’re just dragon claws, he thought as he envisioned the enormous creature above and behind the group of four, swinging its sword-length claws at him in the same arcs that these men’s swords and maces were coming at him. Visualizing the massive foe, and turning this into another training encounter, allowed Tristan to keep up with them.

If it were a real dragon, he would not have put forth the strength for full blocks, however, as it would just batter him aside. But their blows were not the same weight, did not carry the same might, as a swipe from those mighty beasts that the heavily weighted puppet-claws could replicate. And so, he was able to meet their weapons and repel them, rather than provide a slight angle for the blade to pass along as he shifted to the side.

Each time that burst of cool air cascaded from his blocks and parries; he could see a tiny layer of rime build up upon his foe’s skin. I wonder what happens if they hit the armor? He thought. Thus far he had not been hit. Right, maybe I let one blow through to the chest where the plates are heaviest. He intentionally let his guard waver, and the one with a broadsword took the opportunity to stab forward. Tristan made sure to tilt his body to make the blow glancing, and he felt a slight, dull pain. The armor did its job.

The effect that manifested from being struck was immediate. The air exploded in a flurry of razor-sharp ice and blisteringly cold snow that slammed into the men in front of him. They screamed in agony as they backed off, turned to the fields on either side of the road, and scattered from the unexpected, seemingly impossible-to-surpass defensive spell.

Tristan was sucking in breaths. He had trained for endurance fights with the dragon puppets, and each time he had ended up exhausted after two minutes. But he felt…pretty good, all things considered. He had not suffered any injury except a minor bruise from the stab to the torso – it didn’t go through the armor but would definitely be purple the next morning. But as for exertion…he could go another few minutes.

Felicity flew over and landed on his head again, scratching it with retracted paw-claws. “That was awesome! You really do know how to fight!”

Tristan sheathed his blade and let the flow of essence dissipate. “I got angry and then my essence came out and my crucible swirled on its own. Why did that happen?”

“Strong emotions can cause the essence crucible to ‘seep’ the magical energy. You must have been really pissed off. I’m talking p-i-s-s-e-d off.”

Yeah, well, they don’t even know my goddamn family name! Without grandfather, the kingdom would have been destroyed. And the entire capital would have been razed without father and him. He walked over to the blinded man and cleared his throat, “Now you know that I am a noble, and my family is legitimate.”

He whimpered and tried to push himself back with his feet, but Tristan put a foot on the man’s foot – gently, but forceful enough to keep him pinned. “Wh-what do you want?!” he screamed in pain.

“Well, I’m going to take your money, for one thing.” Tristan reached down and took the man’s coin pouch. Checking inside, he saw a decent amount of electrum, mostly silver, and some copper pieces. He held it up, “Felicity, mind putting this in your storage dimension?”

“Who?” the man asked in confusion.

“Yeah, one second.” Felicity grabbed the pouch, Tristan sensed the weird distortion of magic in the air just above him, and then she patted him on the head. “All done.”

Tristan grabbed the man by the shoulder, pulled him up, and walked him over to a waystone – a pile of rocks with a few etched directions. Sitting the man down next to it, he handed him a Starberry. “Eat that, and wait for your companions to come get you.”

The man simply whimpered and shivered in place – possibly going into shock. Tristan sighed. Why should I be nice to him? They attacked me. They deserve their fate.

Felicity must have been reading his mind, because she went, “Oooh! I’ve got an idea for an epic prank! Let’s take his clothes!”

Tristan chuckled, “Make him walk back to town in the nude? He’d die to exposure or embarrassment.”

“Aww, you’re no fun! Spoilsport!”

“We can just hide them nearby.”

“Oh, okay! Not as mean, but it works.”

Tristan ripped the clothes off of the man who just sat there in mute silence. He tossed the trousers on one side of the road, the shirt on the other, and left the boots in the muddy ground one step in front of the other – as if he was running away and had lost his shoes. He chuckled slightly at the prank as he resumed his journey.

Felicity glanced back down the road, “Neat little prank with the boots. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

“It just came to me,” Tristan replied with a grin, still giddy from using his artifice weapon and armor to their potential.