As they waited for Kuri to regain her strength, the two of them talked over their options.
“So unfortunately, we’re quite far from the school at this point,” Kuri said apologetically. “We’re just south of Buddington Town, and frankly, I’m not even sure I can get us safely back to the school today…are you opposed to resting for the night and then I take you back tomorrow?”
“I don’t think I’m in a position to have an opinion,” Aida confessed, shrugging weakly. “My mana pool has gotten larger, but just escaping from the spiders…I’m low on mana as well.”
“Ah, and you helped Heal me too.” Kuri grimaced, melting into a pitiful whimper as she covered her red face with her grimy hands. “You really must think poorly of me, huh? I convinced you to come on assignment with me, almost got you eaten, and then had to depend on you to help me escape…”
“No, please don’t think like that!” Aida said, panicking. “After all, you saved me! Twice, at least.”
“That’s not supposed to happen!” Kuri wailed, clutching her hands to her chest. “You were supposed to be safe, I wasn’t supposed to put you in a position that you had to be saved from. And twice, at least!”
“Ah, maybe it would be better if we don’t cry so loudly,” Aida said hastily, lowering her voice soothingly. She tried to channel Vanita’s calm, motherly aura. “Come on, let’s start walking.”
Reaching out, Aida gingerly took Kuri’s elbow and pulled her up. “Which way should we head towards Buddington?”
Kuri pointed dully, sniffling. “I’m really sorry, Aida. I used up all my potions to catch up to you and the Matriarch, so I’m out of supplies to help us get back to the school…”
“You don’t need to explain yourself, what’s important is that you got to me,” Aida said, trying to sound encouraging. Kuri was very nice and meant well, but she was acting more like a child than an adult. Which honestly, was making Aida more nervous. She hoped they were safe, but she wasn’t sure if Kuri could protect them if a charred zard decided to randomly show up.
Fortunately, Kuri seemed to rally and took up the mantle of detecting for danger, her mana spiking out in short, smaller bursts.
“If you don’t mind, can you explain to me why you use your mana that way?” Aida asked, after a few minutes of silence. Kuri tilted her head quizzically.
“Professor Bruce makes us circulate our mana in a perfect sphere around us,” Aida explained. “And I thought that was the norm.”
“Ah, I see. That is best practice,” Kuri nodded. “Spherical detection allows you to be aware of anything approaching. That’s ideally what you want when you’re in an unknown environment, but you’ll find most experienced Adventurers use their mana the way I do when they go on hunts - it’s a bit counterintuitive, but that’s because we are already expecting a certain type of danger.”
Kuri waved up at the sky. “Based on the locale, we know there aren’t too many aerial threats in these forests. And anyway, we’re likely to see them approach. So instead of wasting mana on thoroughly scanning our surroundings, we use our mana to check the more likely danger zones.” Kuri pointed up into the boughs of the nearby trees and behind bushes. “Incidentally, focusing on a specific direction also allows us to sense further than we normally would in a wider scan.”
Aida nodded, impressed. She supposed she had done something similar, when she and Caleb had first sensed something wrong. She had redirected her senses towards a specific direction, although not as sharply or quickly as Kuri.
“Anyway, since I feel flaming awful that you weren’t able to practice your Crit Up…do you want to see what you can sense on that bug?”
Aida looked at Kuri, who was thumbing at a perfectly placid bush. Poking her own mana curiously into the vegetation, she noticed a familiar outline.
“The beetle?”
“Yup. Those things are normally docile, so it won’t attack us. We can just observe it. So, what do you think? Where is it weak?” Kuri slipped her arm from around Aida’s shoulders and knelt down to peer under the bush at the giant beetle resting peacefully. Aida joined Kuri, kneeling on the ground.
“Um, the antenna?”
“That’s one! Anywhere else?” Kuri prompted.
“The joints?” Kuri slowly turned her head towards Aida, a look of wonder on her face.
“Are you guessing, or do you actually see those?” Kuri asked, her mouth in the shape of a small ‘o’.
“Well, when I was observing the Matriarch…” Aida shivered upon thinking back to her terrifying ordeal. “…that was the major thing I noticed. Because it’s bigger, the…cracks in its armor are also bigger. And once I saw it, I couldn’t not see it, even with the smaller spiders.”
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Kuri continued to gape at Aida, before snapping her mouth shut and tearing up. “Ashes, I’m so proud of you!” Flinging herself at Aida, Kuri wrapped her arms tightly around Aida’s neck, choking her. “I think that’s the best outcome we can get today, so let’s head to town! The next step is just accuracy - making sure your attacks hit at the right spot, but we can save that for another time…”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
“Well, we made it,” Kuri sighed after they passed through the gate’s security check. “Do you want to go home for tonight, see your parents? Good opportunity to, you know.”
Aida glanced around nervously. They had entered the town through a gate she was completely unfamiliar with, and she wasn’t even sure she could find her way to the Tulvers’, let alone her family’s home. This district was a lot more polished than the other entrance’s district, with wider streets, fewer independent storefronts, and no gaps in the road.
“Where do you live? I can drop you off there before I head back to the Gullbeaks’ headquarters,” Kuri said gently, seeing Aida’s deer in headlights look. “Or…is there a reason you don’t want to go back home?”
Aida chuckled nervously, running her fingers through the tangles in her hair. “I’m afraid my - parents - might get the wrong idea about what’s going on at school, and insist on me doing something else.” She focused on a particularly stubborn knot, taking the thing in both hands.
“I see,” Kuri finally said. Aida peeked up at her through her mussed bangs. Kuri’s face was carefully composed, though she smiled at Aida when their eyes met. “No worries! We have room at HQ, so you can stay with us for the night. This might also work out well, since you can meet the rest of the team and see what a typical day - um, night, I guess - will look like.”
“Thank you,” Aida said faintly, feeling her face flush at what must be running through Kuri’s head. Was she judging her for not getting along with her parents? Was she worried Aida would have problematic baggage that could spill over professionally? Or did she think Aida was just trying to eke out more time with an Affiliate? She shook her head, scolding herself for overthinking. She already knows I want to be a Healer.
“Come along! We’re not on this side of town - the rent’s too high, and we need more space than we can get here.” Kuri waved down a two-seater golem, the driver pulling forward eagerly when he recognized who she was. Aida detected a bit of trepidation in his voice as he inquired after their bedraggled state, but Kuri cheerfully reassured him there was nothing to worry about; all signs of the childlike remorse she had displayed out on the path had been neatly boxed away, and was instead replaced with her original cheerful competence.
“And we’re here! Home sweet home,” Kuri trilled, hopping off the golem. She turned back to the driver. “Sorry, I lost all my supplies on the hunt. Can you wait while I get someone to pay your fee?”
Aida stepped forward, looking up at the Gullbeaks’ Headquarters with wonder.
The neighborhood was a far cry from what Aida would have expected of a highly respected Adventuring company; it more closely resembled the district Tulvers’ Bathhouse was situated in, but not as tightly packed. The ground floor of the nearby buildings were all food stalls, though they had the luxury of offering seating areas inside the building behind the cooking stalls placed on the street. The floors above were windows, and also appeared to be the humble abodes of the proprietors on the ground floor.
The Gullbeaks’ building was the only one that didn’t have a commercial space on the ground floor. Instead, it had a heavy wooden door on the front, with single-paned windows on either side of the door. The Gullbeaks’ symbol was carved into the door: a motif of a bird with a sword-like beak cutting through clouds.
“I know our home base doesn’t look as impressive as some of the other companies,” Kuri said conversationally. “But we like this neighborhood a lot - the food is great, and we spent a lot of time putting down roots in the community so that we can get raw information on what the concerns of the people are. Moving ourselves to the Adventurers’ District would be such a waste, you know?”
All Aida could do was nod, overwhelmed by the sincerity in Kuri’s voice. She didn’t have a frame of reference for how regular Adventuring companies presented themselves, but just based on first impressions she felt like the Gullbeaks did have a mission deeper than just…making baen.
“Well, come on in!” Kuri grabbed the heavy iron pull handle on the door, dragging it to the side so that it slid slowly open. “Make yourself at home while I take care of our ride!”
Ushered in by Kuri’s energetic gestures, Aida stepped through the door to see a couple of figures seated at a long wooden table and benches in the middle of the room. On one side of the room was a tall bar counter, where a muscular young man wearing a bandana was glancing curiously at her.
“Kawa! Can you pay the golem transport for me outside?” Kuri called to the young man at the bar. “I lost all my equipment on the hunt today.”
“All of your equipment?” Kawa repeated disapprovingly. He had a warm baritone, a sharp contrast with Kuri’s bright voice, yet they seemed to complement each other very well.
“Not all,” Kuri whined. She slipped through the door behind Aida, letting the door slide slowly shut with a grind. “Just whatever I brought for the day.”
“Your shirt is ruined,” Kawa said flatly, coming around the bar with coins jingling in his hand. “You’re lucky you’re still covered.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Go on and take a seat with Tyda and Arryn over there,” Kuri said to Aida, gently pushing her towards the table. “I’m going to get changed. This is Kawa, by the way, my brother! And everybody, this is Aida from Maglica!” Kuri’s last words rang through what was clearly an old tavern, taken over by the Gullbeaks.
Aida smiled uncertainly as she raised a hesitant hand in greeting. “Hi, nice to meet you. I’m sorry for imposing on you.”
The young man with messy, sun-bleached hair raised a welcoming hand at her, reassuring her approach with a kind smile. “Welcome, Aida. Come take a seat. My name is Tyda Auyn, leader of the Gullbeaks.”