Jerod woke up the next morning incredibly sore and it took him a few moments to remember why that was. Then the rush of memories flooded him and he audibly gasped in shock, sitting up in his bed in alarm.

He could hardly believe what the hell had taken over him to commit to such an idiotic action simply because he was upset at losing a game. Was this what drunken people felt like after a night of alcoholic debauchery? Minus the hangover of course, but that was probably similar to the whole body ache he was experiencing now, in particular his arms and hands where he smashed the wolf to death in blunt force trauma.

He should probably avoid playing that blasted game for a while if this was the effect losing a couple of matches had on him. It wouldn’t be the first time he had to uninstall the game for a few months to recover, but it certainly was the instance that had the most extreme reaction. What on earth was he thinking, using the priceless ancient armor set like it was a toy? Granted, it had probably saved his life by preventing the wolf from getting a hold of his tender neck, of which Jerod was immensely grateful, but still. Weren’t there equally effective and less priceless pieces in the armory he could have adorned instead?

If not for the half remembered sensations of bludgeoning the monster to death lingering in his arms, Jerod might have thought he had only dreamed of the entire experience.

Despite the insanity of last night, Jerod still had work today, the office would be expecting him within an hour. So with a groan at his soreness, Jerod got up and prepared for the day. First a shower in the ostentatiously large bathroom and then a breakfast of choice from the constantly restocked kitchen, oatmeal and raisins. Fresh coffee was provided for at the office.

Midway through Jerod’s meal though, his TAI phone rang, interrupting his morning routine. Glancing at the caller, Jerod froze seeing his mother’s name, Cara, listed.

Had she figured out what he did last night? No, that was impossible, nobody knew, and certainly nobody would know so soon.

Centering himself, Jerod took a deep breath and answered the device with as much normal cheer as he could muster, “Good morning Mother!”

“Ah Jerod, I am glad you answered, I wasn't sure if you were on your way to work yet.”

Jerod was certain that his mother knew he would be available at this time of day, but he let the obvious lie slide. “Not yet, just eating breakfast, what’s up?”

“Oh,” Jerod’s mother sighed dramatically, “I just had your sister on my mind, trying to think about how to help the girl. Especially after our disagreement from the weekend.” Jerod honestly felt the best thing for both his mother and sister would be for them both to take a solid month away from each other. “I just don’t know what to do sometimes. She’s such a strong willed woman.”

“Uh huh,” Jerod replied noncommittally, taking another bite of his oatmeal.

“So I had an idea, and I wanted to run it by you and see what you think.”

“Well, I'm listening.”

“What if we got uncle Jeff to offer Carl a job? You know, get some sort of position at Jeff’s company, a steady stable spot where Carl can start building a future, what do you think?”

Jerod straightened up in his chair and thought desperately for a diplomatic reply.

“Uhhhhhhh,” Jerod said succinctly.

“You don’t like it?” Cara asked.

No, Jerod did not like it, it would be a colossal mistake to offer that type of position to his sister’s husband, Carl. Not that Carl wasn’t smart enough for the kind of job his mother was describing, far from it, Jerod thought that his brother-in-law was one of the brightest people he knew.

“Wasn’t your argument with Rylie last weekend about you trying to interfere too much in her life?” Jerod finally got out, mentioning the large spat that had occurred that last weekend. “You know how much she value’s her and Carl’s independence, I doubt that kind of offer would be seen as anything less than patronizing and insulting. Its definitely not what she would want.”

Cara gave another large sigh, “your sister doesn’t know what she wants, that’s the problem, and then she blames all her problems on the family as if we haven’t given her all the tools she needs to succeed already. If she and Carl had a stable and steady income, all this childish nonsense and petty squabbles would go away.”

Jerod almost snorted his oatmeal at his mother’s last statement. If large amounts of money prevented people from being petty and cruel then Jerod’s extended family would all be one big happy family. Alas, Jerod thought wryly, he hadn’t seen a happy family reunion, in like, ever.

“Maybe,” Jerod lied smoothly, “But at this point, writing off their disagreement with you as childish nonsense is a bad move.” Jerod privately agreed with most of his sister’s complaints actually, but felt she went about handling her issues self destructively. “It will take time mother, I suggest holding off on any such action for now, at least until they’ve cooled down some.” Hopefully, she would never bring it up again.

“I suppose you are right, Jerod,” his mother conceded, “I just want what’s best for them, they make this so hard on themselves. This is why I call you, you are one of the few voices of reason in this family. You are such a good son, you know that?”

“Indeed I do,” Jerod replied dryly.

“You know,” his mother continued, “While I was talking to Uncle Jeff, I mentioned you too.”

“Ah,” Jerod replied, slumping down a little.

“There’s a position waiting there for you as well, Jerod. Uncle Jeff would be more than happy to have you on his team. I know I've said this before, but I just wanted to bring it up again.”

Jerod supposed this was the true reason that his mother called this morning, he really should have seen it coming. It's not like a job with Uncle Jeff would be all that bad, Jerod actually liked that particular uncle, more than the other aunts and uncles in his extended family at least, and the job itself would be guaranteed high pay and relatively easy. But there was a specific reason he had refused the offer before.

“I want to stay neutral, Mom, I don't want to get involved in the TAI privatization movement.”

“Oh honey, come now, it's not going to be like that.”

“It definitely will be, Mom. Uncle Jeff’s and his company is the spearhead for that movement for heaven’s sake! As soon as I accept a position with him, it will just be constant drama, drama, drama, half the family would probably stop speaking to me on the spot. I’d probably get kicked out of my home for that matter too.”

“You could always move back in with us?” Jerod’s mother replied hopefully. Jerod just sighed. “Alright, I get it. A mother has to try, you know. It's just such a waste where you are.”

“It's not a waste, I like it here, I actually enjoy my job and I like my boss. How many people do you know that can say that?”

“But they are taking advantage of you, you do so much for them.”

“It's a small company, all of us have to wear a few different hat’s now and then.”

“And they're not paying you enough,”

“I get paid plenty Mom. More than enough for everything I need. Plus I am getting free rent here. A ten or even fifteen percent pay increase simply isn’t worth the risk of getting a job that I hate. Like I said, I am happy Mom, I am happy where I am. I am happy with my life.”

Surprising himself, Jerod felt the truth and conviction in his words. It wasn’t something he would have said with such earnestness even yesterday.

“If you say so honey,” Jerod’s mother said with a smile on her words. “In the end, that’s what matters. If you are happy, then I won't bring it up again.”

“You mean you won't bring it up again for another year,” Jerod replied with good natured sarcasm.

Cara just laughed at the other end of the line. He looked at the clock and then down at his unfinished meal, “Hey Mom, it's been good talking with you, but-”

“Oh, of course dear,” Jerod’s mother interrupted, “I’ll let you go. Have a good day at work. I love you~.”

“I love you too,” Jerod replied, deactivating the device and returning to his meal, the oatmeal already lukewarm. He tried to not think about the problem in his family.

The issue with Rylie, his sister, was an ongoing one and Jerod honestly didn’t think there was a solution of any form available, in the foreseeable future at least. From Jerod's perspective, everybody just needed to be less high strung about everything. Getting into fights over issues where neither party was prepared for change seemed like a colossal waste of energy. And really, there was little that was actually worth bothering to make a stubborn stance on, from Jerod's perspective at least.

Jerod sister though, she felt that any impediment on what she felt was right was a fight worth battling over. Rylie resented the control and manipulations their mother tried to put on them, and, while Jerod just ignored it, Rylie seemed to take every word as an attack. Plus, Rylie always felt very strongly about everything and their mother was always a fair weather kind of woman, moving where the momentum of the times took her.

Rylie called their mother unprincipled. Their mother called Rylie stubborn. It was of no surprise that they had never been able to get along.

Jerod finished up his breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen, something he did every meal because he felt terribly guilty leaving dishes for the cleaning people to take care of. On his way out the main door, Jerod passed by the case that held the spirit armor, giving it a good once over.

Looking at it, Jerod could hardly believe the set had partook in the life and death struggle he had last night, it looked as perfect and heroic as ever. With a start, Jerod realized he never actually got a look at himself while he had it on. Did he wear it well, did it look good on him? Did it make him look like a dangerous and capable monster killer? Somehow, he doubted it.

Stolen story; please report.

With one last glance at the case, Jerod moved on, out the large manor doors and down the ancient steps, and out to the modern garage space that held his TAIcycle. In the city, there was no better mode of transportation than the TAIcycle, a single or two seater device on two to three wheels that ran off TAI mana for locomotion. The contraptions only worked inside the high density TAI areas like the cities, meaning any inter-city travel still depended on beasts of burden for power like horses or oxen, but in the city travel was best done with a TAIcycle.

Even in the far outskirts of downtown where Jerod lived, dozens of the TAIcycles littered the streets as the people of the city woke to the new day and commuted to their jobs.

Jerod’s TAicycle was a sleek silver machine, one of the most modern and most expensive examples available in the city, courtesy of his doting Uncle Jeff who had felt like it was an appropriate gift for the man who stayed so far away at the ancestral home. Jerod had wanted to refuse the gift at first, but his objections had died quickly upon seeing the bike. It was a work of art, and with the quality engine for speed and control. Jerod couldn’t find it in himself to say no.

So Jerod mounted the silver bike, clipped his matching helmet on, and began his morning commute, joining the hundreds of other TAIcycles on the roads that morning.

Red Stern City, the city Jerod resided in and named after the Red Stern fish that populated the mountain river that ran through it, was a very flat city, with only small hills and inclines to decorate the topography. It was built at the base of a mountain that opened up to broad plains beyond and controlled one of the main routes through the chain of mountains behind it. Traditionally it was a fortress city, protecting the plains land from some of the more powerful monsters that sometimes appeared in the mountains, but even with that threat mostly gone, inter-city transport and trade was still vitally important. Red Stern City was made semi-wealthy for its fortunate location and their family reaped many of the profits. Jerod knew that many of the products produced at the plant he worked at would make their way to some of the closer cities nearby.

Still, the half hour long commute completely across the city was made somewhat boring due to the lack of hills. Jerod liked to imagine what it might be like racing down the mountain roads in his TAIcycle should it ever become feasible. The bike was advertised with top quality speed and control abilities, but Jerod never had the opportunity to ever test them. It seemed a waste.

Jerod made it to the plant, the name of the business boldly printed on the front of the building in big blocky letters, “Joldeen Industries”. The business designed and manufactured many of the micro components of TAI products, Jerod wasn’t exactly sure what those components did, but he knew there was heavy demand for what they were making. One of the biggest issues their company faced was lack of capacity.

George Joldeen was the son of the owner of the company and one of Jerod’s friends there, but rather than get into the managerial side of the operation, George much preferred working on the product, the geek that he was. That was why Jerod found him exactly where he thought he would, reviewing some new set of blueprints at the conference table, his desk and chair long forgotten.

Lanky and balding, George stood hunched over the drawing tracing his fingers along one of the relays like a vulture over its meal. Jerod snorted at George’s intensity over the plans as he walked in.

“Isn’t it a little early to be pondering the mysteries of mana relays? Have you even had your coffee yet?”

“It's never too early to ponder the mysteries of mana relays,” George replied without sarcasm. “And yes, I had my coffee a couple of hours ago. ‘Could use another one though, heavens above.”

“Yikes,” Jerod replied sympathetically with a wince. He leaned against the door frame of the conference room and crossed his arms. “That bad, huh? What’s the problem?”

George gave a little laugh and roused himself from the maps to look over at Jerod. “The same as always, it's not working!” George rubbed his stress filled face and put on a good natured smile. “Just one of the joys of this job of course, every customer’s request for new designs or tweaks are marked as “extremely urgent” and they get mad at us for taking due diligence to make sure our product actually works as intended. So they tell us to skip several of our post-design stress tests in order to get the product out faster and then get mad at us when some of the designs have unforeseen complications.” George threw his hands out in a helpless gesture. “What do they want from me?”

“I assume your firstborn is already claimed by another customer?”

George chuckled and shook his head. “So, did you need something? It's no accident you dropped by, I know your office is on the other side of the building.”

“It's nothing important,” Jerod replied, stepping back. “It's just some personal curiosity, a question that’s starting bugging me on my commute in this today. But if you're busy, I can ask later.”

“Well, I could use a break and some more coffee,” George replied, standing up and heading to the break room. “What chu’ got?

“Well, I’ve got one, no, I guess, two questions, actually.” Jerod started, following behind George as they moved across the commercial halls. “I guess to start, what is the difference between “spirit” and mana. I know my grandparents called everything “spirit” this and “spirit” that when they were alive. I mean, there are those “spirit wolves'', those monsters that still exist outside the walls. But wasn’t it just a mana creature in the form of a wolf?”

“Huh,” George replied, entering the breakroom and grabbing himself a mug. Jerod followed suit. “Well, there’s the short answer and the long answer, which do you prefer?”

Jerod snorted as he poured himself his own cup of coffee. “Start with the short answer and if I don't feel it's enough, you can continue with the long one I suppose.”

“Fair enough,” George replied seriously, pushing his glasses up and considering his answer. “The short answer is that there is nothing different, at least in this context, there are just two words that mean the same thing. Hundreds of years ago, nobody knew what mana and magic was of course, they just understood supernatural things existed and for the most part, anything involving mana or magic was simply labeled “spirit” something or other. Hence the spirit wolves. Or spirit armor for the enchanted armor your family used to use. Your grandparents just hadn't caught up with the current vernacular or were too stubborn to change.”

“Probably the latter, knowing my family.” Jerod joked. George grinned back.

“Well that makes sense to me,” Jerod continued, “but now I'm curious what the longer answer would be.”

“Ah, well” George replied, brightening, “In that case, there actually is a real difference between “spirit” stuff and mana stuff. In the modern context, anything labeled “spirit” will have its roots in older tradition of course, but will also operate strictly under the “natural” mana state, which we've actually come to know is just a mix of all the different mana types. TAI mana you are most familiar with of course, it's what we use to power everything in our city from our coffee maker,” George said, pointing out the machine with his full mug, “to the equipment that make up our production line. But the truth is that there are actually dozens of different types of mana that exist naturally. And different geographical places across the continent can have different naturally occurring ratios of “natural mana”, hence why different places are known for having different kinds of monsters spawn. Our spirit wolves, for example, only spawn within a few miles of the mountain range here and nowhere else on the continent, due to the specific mixture of the different mana types that form our area’s natural ambient mana ecosystem. It's all really fascinating stuff, and we are all learning more about mana everyday. It's such a great time to be living in!”

“Ah,” Jerod replied, catching some of George’s enthusiasm. “That kind of answers my next question too, I think. I was wondering why most of the enchantments and enchanted gear around my family ancestral manor don’t work very well or at all any more. It's because… the TAI converters have changed the balance of the natural ambient mana too much for it to still operate.”

“Indeed,” George replied, now more solemnly. “Pros and cons of the new age, some of the ancient wonders fade in time. Hopefully the new wonders make up enough for it.”

“I certainly hope so,” Jerod laughed, “I can’t imagine doing my job without a computer.”

“I remember doing my job without a computer, you entitled youngster,” George teased, taking a long sip of his coffee. “Although,” he continued, “If you take some of your enchanted items further away from the city, or send them along with one of the trading caravans that pass through to another city and back, it should return with somewhere around full charge, depending on the quality of the item.”

“I’m not sure how useful it would be to do that, it's not like it really matters anyway.”

“True” George replied simply.

“But wait,” Jerod asked, “the armor that hangs in our lobby, it works just fine- I mean, it looks like it's still fully functional.”

George gave him a raised eyebrow. “You mean the Boedring Dragon Set, famously worn by your great great grandfather when he slew the thunder wyrm flock that had flown down from the mountain peaks?”

“Uh,” Jerod replied, trying not to think about his less than glorious experience with it. “Yeah, I think that’s the one.”

George whistled and stared down at his coffee contemplatively. “Well, somebody could be simply charging it manually, I think you can purchase monster crystal shards and let the armor absorb those, but that would be rather expensive and not something you would casually do just to keep a set of armor looking pretty, no matter how historically significant. I guess your family could afford it though.”

“No,” Jerod replied with a shake of his head, “I’ve been there for years now and have never seen or heard of anybody doing anything like that. How would that even work, anyway?.”

“Well, while describing ambient mana as a gas is an analogy I shudder to use it works well enough in this case. When the ambient mana gets dense enough or encounters some kind of catalyst, the mana can transform into a solid state. I’ve read about some people actually artificially creating some mana crystals by forcing mana into a certain level of density, but the most common form of mana dense enough to be tangible would be monsters, which are, by definition, solidified spirit. When killed, the dense ambient mana that made up the monster dissolves back into the manasphere, but sometimes the more powerful monsters leave behind actual crystal mana that had condensed even further inside their bodies at some point. There is probably a more efficient way of doing it, but if you just crush a monster mana crystal next to your enchantment, the enchanted item should just soak up the a lot of that mana before it can dissipate. Those old enchantments are designed to soak up the natural ambient mana after all, armor and weapons especially. That way every time a warrior killed a monster, the dissipating remains would refill the weapon’s or armor power level, marginally, at least.”

“Huh, that’s actually quite clever of them.” Jerod remarked.

“Careful there Jerod, that’s your own family you are referring to.”

Jerod rolled his eyes. “Well, that makes sense, but you are right, it sounds terribly expensive to buy mana crystals to charge up the armor, I really don’t think they are doing that to it. How come it's still fully powered then?”

George snorted and shook his head, “you really need to read up on your family lore some, Jerod. If you knew that lore better, you could probably answer it yourself.”

With a slight scowl, Jerod replied, “I know my family well enough as it is, I don't care to read up on the lies and propaganda on how great our family was.”

“I doubt it's all lies, a lot of exaggeration, sure, but, honestly, I feel that a little hero worship was a necessary aspect of life back then. Faith in the guardians and protectors of the city was a powerful motivator in times of trouble.” George glanced at Jerod’s scowling face and smiled placatingly, “But that aside, there were always rumors and stories about that set of armor, propagated by your family no doubt, but never confirmation on what it actually was. I think the name really gives it away though, and with what you have said to me now, I think there is some real truth in it. The Boedring Dragon Set probably has a dragon heart incorporated into the making of it. Dragons of course, were notorious for generating their own mana, it sounds like your ancestors managed to include some sort of mana production enchantment into the armor in order to keep it running. I can’t imagine how they did it,” George said wistfully, “back in the day, that armor must have been one of the most powerful artifacts on the continent.”

Feeling somewhat floored from the apparent obvious revelation, Jerod just kind of sat back and thought of all the ways he had disgraced his family’s legacy last night.

“If you ever feel like letting me take a quick peek at the armor’s enchantments…” George asked, leadingly.

Jerod gave a shake of his head, “The family would kill me if I let an outsider inspect it, that was grounded into when I first moved in. The case itself only opens for direct descendants as it is, it's got some really strong TAI enchantments to protect the case.”

“A shame,” George nodded, “but totally understandable. That armor set really is a national treasure, I would surely like to see it in a museum someday.”

Jerod could only numbly nod his head in reply.

“Well, if that’s all, I've got to get back to figuring out why my relays are not conducting properly. Say hi to Paul when you get to your office for me.”

Jerod left, acquiescing to the request and taking his coffee with him. He wondered about the ancient champion who slew the flock of thunder wyms, the man wearing the same dragon armor he had worn only last night. Would he have looked down in scorn at his descendent as he struggled with a spirit wolf, or looked on proudly at a man following his footsteps, if only as shallowly as possible?

Jerod didn’t get an answer by the time he made it to his desk, but probably the former he concluded. What he did figure out though, was that he probably could have just punched the stupid wolf to death in one hit with the quality of armor he was wearing and saved himself the trouble of that trauma. His arms still ached from the blows last night.