His desperate backward stumble opened up a pace between him and the other man.

Oliver had already moved his spreadsheet cursor to Second Wind and now spared a half-second of focus to activate it, cursing the situation that had forced him to spend his precious, precious mana.

As he backpedaled further into the crowd, the rush hit him and he felt his ribs shift unnaturally, and then the pain was fading quickly as the big guy shoved his way past a couple of people to get at Oliver.

Oliver backed up faster, deliberately knocked a couple of other folks aside in the crowded room. When they turned to look at him with angry exclamations, they saw the big cauliflower eared guy coming in hot. The big guy was significantly less judicious in his application of force to get at Oliver, so he drew most of the attention.

In a matter of moments Oliver was halfway through the room and there was a brawl erupting around him – and more importantly, between him and Cauliflower Ears. He took an elbow to the head and saw stars, then shrugged it off, the effects of Second Wind still flooding him. He shoved way through the crush, looking for the musician.

If he was still on the floor, then a bar fight could be just as fatal as the kick.

He found him on the floor, getting stepped on by another patron even as Oliver approached. The man had backed onto him, was holding a chair over his head and looking at somebody else. Oliver shouldered the man aside and bent down to help Tiro up.

Mercifully his eyes focused on Oliver as Oliver reached him, and he opened his mouth to say something, bloody drool spilling out. Oliver helped him into a standing position and the guy looked at him, unbelievably still grinning, then seemed to take in the chaos that the room was erupting into.

The smile dropped abruptly and he said something Oliver couldn't hear. Oliver ducked in to hear it and made out the words, "My fiddle – my fiddle –", and then pulled away, scanning the room.

The big guy that had started the fight was lost in a sea of thrashing bodies, arms and legs flying every which way as the room erupted into chaos.

The corner where the musician had been playing was more or less quiet still – the fighting hadn't quite spread and there were a mostly old-timers at the table where the stool had been – then he turned and saw that the musician's fiddle case was leaning at the bar beside his sword in its shoddy sheathe.

The fiddler could stand unsupported now, though he was wavering. Oliver leaned down and grabbed both, and with the musician in tow shoved his way to the wall. They made their way slowly through the crowd at the side of the room, avoiding most of the chaos.

They made it with just a few bruises and knocks, lucky enough to escape the majority of the struggle.

Although Oliver didn't feel lucky, as they stepped into the brisk night air. Lucky wasn't what you were when you needed good luck to escape the trouble your bad luck had gotten you into.

But they stepped out into the chill night, and the stars were shining overhead, and the last few passers by were walking quickly, coats wrapped around themselves. Their breath produced steam in the air. It was quiet and Oliver's ears were ringing.

"Th-that could have gone worse," said the musician, wiping at the blood and snot dripping from his chin. The grin was back. "Thanks, Grace."

"Was my fault anyway," said Grace, as they descended the stairs.

"Not really," said the musician, "I provoked you."

"I left you to get hit."

"I had it coming."

"Yeah, you did." They both chuckled at that, more from relief than anything. They leaned up against the tavern under the wide, shuttered window. Street lights had turned on at some point gloves of white light suspended in mid air over the raised sidewalks.

Once the mirth had subsided, Oliver unslung the fiddle case and passed it over to Tiro.

"You're not actually a deserter, are you, Grace?" asked Tiro, accepting it and setting it to rest on the ground.

"No, I'm not," said Oliver wearily, watching as Tiro produced a pipe and a tiny pouch from the folds of his worn, once-colorful overshirt.

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The fiddler stuffed some shredded leaves from the pouch into the pipe, then he tucked the pouch back into his overshirt and snapped his fingers over his pipe.

A tiny flame appeared and jumped to the bowl, lighting it in a matter of moments.

An idea wormed into his head. Magic. "And call me Oliver," he said slowly.

Tiro drew at the bowl. "Smoke, Oh-lee-ver?" he asked, holding it out to Oliver.

"What is it?" asked Oliver, accepting it. The smoke was sweet, didn't smell like anything he was familiar with.

"Pipe-weed," said Tiro. "It's light."

Oliver shrugged, took a tiny puff. It was sweet in the mouth. He handed it back, felt at his ribs. They were intact once more.

He opened his system, winced. Mana was down to thirty two.

"How'd you make that flame?" he asked after a companionable silence. Tiro handed him the pipe, exhaled a stream of smoke, responded after a moment while Oliver took a draw.

"It's a hand-me-down, not really my path, but sure does come in handy. You want it?"

What kind of question was that? Play it cool, he thought. "Yeah. Sure."

"Alright," said Tiro, reached out and touched him in the forehead. Oliver flinched to the side, breaking contact and catching Tiro's eyes.

"Oh," said Tiro, "Sorry. It's how I usually do it."

Oliver took a second to process this, then relaxed back against the way. "Right," he said, and Tiro put two fingers on his forehead, and then the system flared in his mind, a brief rush of lights, quicker this time, and images were flashing before his eyes.

The breath of a dragon. The flame started with a dragon, he began to know.

An old man, watching the sky as two dragons cavorted about in the air, great jets of flame issuing from their lungs. The same man, breathing flame.

Then a woman shooting a stream of fire into trees with a scream, a great expulsion of flame.

A great sea-battle – flame – the same flame, flickering, the images passing by so quickly now but always with the flame at the center, flickering like a stop-motion film, flickering, slowly growing smaller, but that same flame, until it was the same size as Tiro's – the last frame paused, hung in his vision, Tiro lighting his pipe with that spark –

His vision cleared from one second to the next. He was sitting on the ground, Tiro crouched beside him, frowning for once. He looked up at Tiro.

"Sorry," he tried to say, but it came out as a croak. He tried again. "Sorry, that was a bit – intense."

"Right, up you get," Tiro said, extending a hand.

Oliver took it and stood. Tiro held out the pipe. "Have another pull," he said. As if that was the solution to everything. Well, maybe to him, Oliver reflected, it was.

Oliver opened his System, checked the abilities column. Below Second Wind, which was already selected, was a new ability. "Spark," he mouthed. Was it really that simple?

"Does that always happen?" asked Tiro.

"Uh, not usually," said Oliver. Magic. It was passed on, from one person to the next, that's how you got access to other skills. Of course. But then how had he gotten access to his first skill?

"Right. Well, what are you waiting for?" asked Tiro, interrupting his ruminations. "Go on, try it."

Oliver raised his fingers, snapped. Nothing happened. He looked back at Tiro, who arched an eyebrow. He tried again, visualized the spark flickering into existence. Still nothing.

Hmm.

He dropped the cursor in his System down a row, left it hovering over the Spark cell. Paused for just a moment. Maybe he'd better try this in private –

Who was he kidding? Magic. His magic. He mentally hit enter, holding out his hand and snapping at the same time.

There was a bit of a delay after the snap, a good second where nothing happened, then suddenly they were both sitting on the ground and there was a singed smell, the smell of burnt hair.

A sound reached his ears. Laughing. Tiro was laughing, hugging himself as his face contorted in what appeared to be genuine mirth.

Memory slowly trickled back into him, the enormous fireball that had exploded before them, consuming the oxygen in the vicinity, sucking the mana out of him – he felt at his eyebrows. Gone. Beard was mostly singed off too. Skin felt a bit tender.

Then he checked his System. Mana: 0.

Oliver began to laugh as well, a chuckle that was soon full-throated gut laughter.

Well, and wasn't that fortunate. If he hadn't used the rest of his mana on Second Wind, there was a good chance they'd both be toast right now, since it seemed he didn't have any way to control the spell's intensity. Some spark, that. Maybe he was lucky after all.

On the other side of the street he saw a passerby jogging off into the distance with a fearful glance over her shoulder at them.

He pondered. Wait – maybe that was what was happening with Second Wind? Why it took so much of his mana? Maybe he was running it at full, er, volume, for lack of a better word, and didn't need to be. That was welcome news. And yet another mystery he'd have to add to his research column.

The door slammed open above them, disgorging a couple of drunken patrons, one of whom was bleeding from the head. Both were laughing uproariously and took no notice of them as they staggered off up the street. Sounds of chaos emanated from the inn until the door slowly closed on its own.

Eventually, Tiro's laughter trickled off. "Gods' blood, man, that was hysterical. The look on your face…"

Oliver said nothing, wasn't really sure what to say.

"That was fantastic," Tiro repeated. "What possessed you to drop so much mana on a spark?"

Finally Oliver's brain caught up to the situation. "I was just trying to, er, get the hang of it," he managed.

That set off Tiro again, and between laughs he wheezed, "'Just trying to get the hang of it', he says. Gods' blood, I like you, Oliver."

Oliver smiled uncertainly, then looked away, scanning the road to see if anybody else was looking at them while Tiro scrabbled around for his pipe, found it, and took another drag, frowning when he found it wasn't lit.

Oliver examined his system again as Tiro fiddled with his pipe, marveling at the new entry. Two abilities. Skills. Spells. And you got magic by passing it from one person to the next. His mind spun into the night.