The second unavoidable fight was with a pack of young blood-jackals, drawn by the scent of perceived weakness. Those, Ran and Jair fought and killed, though it took a concerted effort and resulted in significantly more damage to their clothing and armor alike.

Jair lingered long enough for a hasty butchering job to collect their most alchemically potent body parts. He may be only a nominal alchemist himself, but Aethron or his contacts would know how to put the valuable ingredients to good use.

They reached the first spot Jair wanted to check a bit after midday.

To an untrained eye, Aethron’s hideout looked very much like a fallen tree covered in vines over a running stream. The bramble grew thickly enough around it that you could not see the interior, and the running water ensured any sane person would stay far away.

Jair knew better. This particular stream was a manufactured and curated one which led to a vast reservoir which had never yet been flooded. How Aethron found and set up this particular hideout Jair did not know, nor did he need to. It was enough that he knew the results. Aethron had always been an enigmatic old man. Some secrets didn't need to be divulged.

Ran balked. Even Jair felt an instinctive reticence, his steps slowing as he neared the water. He knew it was safe, but that voice at the back of his head pressed, what if this time it’s not.

"Jair?” Ran’s voice was high and tense. "You know that’s water?”

Jair laughed and, oddly enough, it was Ran’s fear that made him relax. "Yeah, I know what water looks like. This happens to be safe water."

"That's an awful lot of water," Ran repeated, not moving from where he stood.

Jair’s steps became more confident. "Do you trust me?"

Ran growled something inarticulate, but tremulously followed.

Jair walked around the bramble until he was upstream of the hideout. He consciously suppressed the instinct to flinch away, stepping into the stream without visible effort.

Entering running water was always difficult. Still water, that was one thing. Moving water, that was a universal symbol for death.

He waded toward the bramble, ducked down beneath the fallen tree that crossed the stream, and exhaled in relief as he popped his head into the cozy interior.

It was unlikely that Aethron had built all his hideouts in the years between Jair’s initial looping and when he traditionally went to train with the old man, but there was a part of the back of his mind constantly questioning if he was leading them on a pointless chase.

Sooner or later, he’d lead them to an empty place without inhabitant, and be forced to admit that things had changed.

This place, though, was exactly as he remembered it.

The inner walls were flat, tight-sealed curving boards Aethron had probably crafted himself, seamlessly fitted together to form a complete watertight shell off which rain would flow without a single drop reaching inside.

Jair fondly recalled many a night sitting beside Aethron with the sound of rain echoing against the outside of their protective shell, debating or studying.

“There’s more to being a mageblade than casting spells and waving pointy metal around. Anyone can learn magic—don’t interrupt, yes, I said anyone—and anyone can learn the sword. It’s the resonance between that proves the artistry. The philosophy. Why does the class exist? What niche do we serve in the overall ecosystem of fighters and mages and healers and wardens? Why do we exist?”

As far as homes went, it was an austere one. Aethron’s bed, a single chair, if it could be called that, more a flat space at sitting height, something akin to a shelf built into the wall, with space enough for two people to sit side-by-side, or one person to sit with their plate of dinner beside them. Perhaps a book. Aethron didn't read much, but when he did he rarely paused for such things as dinner.

A fireplace of sorts dominated the center of the wall, a simple bracket set above it with a metal grate for cooking things. Several spell constructs were built into the wall above it to absorb smoke and prevent detection by that method.

The rest of the necessities of living, Aethron carried with him from hideout to hideout. He left behind nothing that could be damaging to him if it were discovered, and Jair saw none of the usual additional equipment that should be strewn about if Aethron were actively in the area but away for the moment.

Even without Aethron present, the hideout evoked a sense of security and home. Jair exhaled slow and long, tension easing.

Aethron had helped him push the boundaries of a Reforged blade, not to mention guiding him toward its ultimate Ascension. There was no one he could think of better suited to help him understand Maelstrom’s new capabilities.

"Jair?"

"It's all right, come on in. Looks like no one’s been here for weeks.”

A moment later Ran crawled in beside him, shivering and significantly wetter than Jair himself.

"I wasn't going to have us stay, but I’m basically out of mana at this point. I'm not sure I could handle another fight if it came to that. Let's rest here for a few hours."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Ran glanced down at the water visibly flowing beneath them, then up at the latticework of branches, vines, and bramble bushes that formed the floor of the hideout. Ran shivered uneasily.

"You expect us to rest with that right there?" He pointed down to the stream.

Jair wouldn't exactly call it soothing, he had as many negative associations with running water as anyone, probably more than most. But the visuals of the interior were sufficient to override any instinct for fear. The familiar ripple babble was already fading to background noise.

“Yeah, it’s nothing to worry about. If it weren’t this hot I’d say we should start a fire so you can dry off. You’re supposed to walk through the stream, not crawl in it. ”

Ran shuddered. “I wasn’t trying to, I slipped. Those rocks are slimy.”

“Well, wring out what water you can. It’s not good for the armor either. I’m going to lie down for a few hours, let my manabody recharge before we head back.”

Ran grunted acknowledgement, already beginning to strip off his armor to get to the drenched clothing beneath.

Jair had almost certainly tripped at least one of Aethron’s detection webs in their approach, but since the man used constructs for those, he wouldn’t be notified of Jair's presence until and unless he came back and checked them physically. From what Jair remembered, Aethron only checked the alerts when actively heading to the hideout, so apart from scaring him off if he happened to be coming for them right now, it wouldn't be particularly detrimental to have done so.

The chance to rest and recover his manabody was more valuable than worrying about the risk of Aethron coming for them in vengeance. Besides, Jair knew how to deal with an angry Aethron, just as well as he knew how to deal with a wary one or a happy one. In the decades they had trained together, he had come to know every one of his mentor’s moods quite intimately.

"What are you smiling about?" Ran demanded.

"Just thinking about how furious Aethron will be if he comes home and finds us sleeping in his room. It would be hilarious."

"This is a guy you're hoping to ask for a favor from, right? Why do you want to make him mad?"

Jair laughed. "It doesn't take much. He’s a right old grouch. I'd be more surprised if he isn’t grumpy when we meet him."

"Nothing you've said is helping me relax."

"Fair enough. You don’t need to be relaxed."

Ran growled irritably. "You're not helping."

Jair nodded and laid down in Aethron’s bed. It had no soft mattress or other luxurious accouterments, but it was stable and flat and comfortably smooth. Much less troublesome than it would be trying to fall asleep on the uneven texture of the interwoven floor. He knew that from experience.

Ran sat on the wall shelf and closed his eyes, hands folded in his lap as he tried to meditate. Jair had stopped using specific meditation poses a long time ago, keeping up a steady receptiveness at all times instead. If one could be said to need to cultivate the manabody, Jair did so even in his sleep.

Though neither of them did end up sleeping, they rested peacefully for several hours, until Jair once again felt up to the necessary strength to handle another few monster attacks if it came to that.

"Ready to go?"

"Yes." Ran jumped to his feet almost before Jair finished asking.

It was late afternoon now, as they emerged into the open jungle. The mist from the morning had burned off, leaving a muggy humidity in its wake.

“And you lived here?” Ran was already drenched with sweat, struggling in the damp heat.

“It does take some getting used to.” Jair wasn’t comfortable himself, his body not having yet adapted, but he wasn’t about to complain.

They headed back toward the mountain, hiking up to the transit platform while avoiding several potential fights with local wildlife. They reached the station without major incident.

Jair stood guard while Ran charged the crystal. These platforms were far from any city, so had no mana grid to connect to, and would lose their charge into the atmosphere rapidly.

“It’s late enough, we can go back to the town for the night, right?” Ran asked hopefully. “There’s no way we can make another trip like that and be back before night.”

Jair had been planning to continue straight through, checking each in turn, camping if necessary, but Ran’s words forced him to reconsider. This wasn’t Jair and Aethron, both powerful mages in the height of their strength. This was Ran and Jair, two students without a single imprint to their name, who’d already expended their strongest protective constructs.

“Yeah. We can make the town our home base, make trips out from there. But there are a few that’ll take more than a day to reach, so don’t expect a cozy hotel every time.”

“Anything to get me out of this sticky heat.”

Jair chuckled and typed in the destination code for Or’Levise, a little-known town that was safe from the average tourist but boasted surprisingly comfortable accommodations for surprisingly reasonable fees.

Not that Ran had much need to pinch nirei, now he had full access to the family fortune, but it would be better to save that for essential purchases rather than frivolously overspend on accommodations. Jair was still used to keeping a running tally in his head of what resources he had access to at any given time, and while the Serin family resources were extensive, they were not limitless. The lifestyle to which Jair could become accustomed in the middle years of this lifetime would run even the most affluent house out of its coffers.

The second trip out would be longer, requiring them to travel for most of the day and through significantly less safe environs.

Jair hired a local constructist to repair and recharge the construct that had saved his life; the rush job would be less effective than its original version, but still better than nothing.

The next day, they transited to a station deeper into the Oriad, requiring three relays to reach. “From here on, we’ll be spending more time away from civilization,” Jair explained as they descended into the morning haze. “Aethron likes to keep one or two hideaways within reach of transit stations but most of them are much further out.”

“I thought you said this would only take a few days?”

Jair grimaced. “I underestimated the difficulty increase of not having my imprints. Gravity spells make it a whole lot easier to move through the jungle. I could have covered what took us half the day yesterday in an hour and a half if I had Lift.”

“We could wait until I finish imprinting it,” Ran suggested.

“No. I need my class back as quickly as possible. If I’m going to have my full spell complement available in time to save Reskas from their flood, we can’t afford to wait around for weeks.”

“You think we can prevent a weather—”

Something rustled, just the wrong sort of rustle, and Jair whipped his mundane sword out, other hand coming up to stop Ran in his tracks.

"Hydra snakes," Jair snapped. "Be ready."

"I don’t know what that means!"

"It means watch in every direction, kill as many as you can as fast as you can, cut them into many tiny pieces--" Jair jumped to the side, slicing one snake out of the air as it dropped on him from above, “--and don't trust that the dead ones will stay dead!”

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