Zoe was still reeling from the revelation that she could regain a path when Andric interjected. “Last night you didn’t just capture the three of us. Your archmage lieutenant also restrained several of your own men. Ones who were fighting against me.”

“Ah, yes,” the captain said, shifting slightly in his high-backed cane seat. “There is that.” He paused. “I’m sure you noticed the excessive degree of collateral damage?” Andric nodded. “Yes, well, while most of it was on your account, several of our newer recruits didn’t seem to have any concern about mitigating it.”

He stroked his beard. “And I’m sure you’re also aware that these same recruits attempted to kill you even after you had already stood down.”

Andric nodded. “Yes, you could say that I was, as you put it, aware.”

The captain sniffed. “Such behavior is inexcusable.” He shrugged. “I was going to leave it at that — just basic reprimands — until Zora discovered two of them preparing an ambush for you in the tent.”

Lily arched an eyebrow, and Andric frowned. “It sounds like they were after us specifically.”

Laughing, the captain shook his head. “Yes, it certainly does.” He sighed. “Zora is my archmage, by the way. Well anyway, we questioned them rather… sternly. It turns out that they were never interested in joining the Four Cannons long term. They had infiltrated us in order to prevent us from getting our hands on Greensworth.”

He sniffed. “Far too easily they did, I might add.”

The trio shared a glance. Zoe had to admit that at this point she wasn’t even surprised. So much that had happened to her seemed to revolve around this one man whom she had yet to even meet.

“So they were traitors,” Lily said.

Pushing away his now empty plate, the captain coughed. “Yeah no shit lady. And we don’t take kindly to traitors.” After he said that, he made sure to very obviously stare at each one of them for a few seconds. It was slightly uncomfortable, but Zoe couldn’t take it entirely seriously. It was such heavy handed intimidation that she almost had to stifle a laugh.

“Well, one of them survived at least.”

Snapping his fingers, the captain called over the same woman who had brought the three of them from their tent to breakfast. “Take these three to the armory. Let them each pick out one set of weapons for their initiation.”

“Yes Captain.”

“And by the gods, tell Milly she needs to boil the eggs longer. The yolks are practically liquid.”

“Yes Captain.”

As she stood up, she wondered how the captain even knew that. After all, it wasn’t like he even bothered to chew his food.

In any case, the trio all moved to follow the woman whose name Zoe had never managed to catch. As they left, Andric snagged a biscuit off the table. Zoe smirked. Looks like even the sourpuss can’t stick it out forever.

“Zoe.”

Freezing on the spot, Zoe slowly pivoted to face the captain. He had stood up as well, and was now buttoning up his coat.

“Yes?”

“Good luck in the pit. I want you to show us that traitors don’t stand a chance.”

Zoe frowned. “Okay.” She still wasn’t going to ever say ‘thank you’ to the beast tamer. At least not if she could help it. The captain nodded once, and she turned around to rejoin the others. As she did, she pondered what he had just said.

Show us that traitors don’t stand a chance.

Did that mean that she was going to fight the one surviving traitor? That was the only interpretation she could think of, but she was inclined to go back and ask for clarification. She had a feeling that the captain wouldn’t give her any more than that anyway.

They took a winding route along the canyon wall. Looking down into the river, Zoe watched as the shallow water glimmered in the morning sunlight. The path was steep and narrow, and she would be worried that she might slip if she were afraid of heights.

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She wasn’t, though, so she just took it as a moment to enjoy nature. And then they were back in a cave. Their guide lit several lanterns and then dragged the tarp coverings off of several racks and cabinets of weapons.

Looking around the room, Zoe saw that there were two other pirates, though both looked on with indifferent disinterest. Zoe didn’t even bother analyzing either of them, instead moving over to inspect the assorted weaponry.

One of the guards shifted slightly as she did so, but no one moved to actually stop her.

“You get one set of weapons each,” their guide said. “After that, you’ll have at least a little time before the initiation.”

Zoe nodded, turned back to the rack, and then turned back to the woman. “What’s your name by the way? I don’t think I ever caught it.”

“Doesn’t matter. Just go ahead and pick something.”

Shrugging, Zoe moved down the rack towards one of the cabinets. The rack had all kinds of things — spears, maces, swords, even a war scythe — but the common theme was that they were long and mostly straight melee weapons.

The nearest cabinet, on the other hand, was full of firearms. Zoe whistled. Some of them weren’t very impressive — like the small pistols which looked to only hold a single shot — but then there was the oversized rifle that was longer than she was tall. Granted, that seemed a bit impractical, but what did she know?

Actually, was it even a rifle? Zoe usually thought of a rifle as ‘a long-ish gun that you held up to your shoulder,’ but she knew that wasn’t exactly right. Wasn’t it technically defined by spiraling grooves in the barrel?

She nearly jumped as Andric tapped her on the shoulder. “I don’t recommend choosing any of those.”

Frowning, she turned to face him. “Why not? I mean, a gun is easy to use and you don’t have to even get close.”

Andric blinked. “What? No, it’s not easy.” He pointed at the cabinet. “You’ll either miss, do very little damage, or blow your hand clean off.”

It was Zoe’s turn to blink. “What?”

“You’re going to be fighting awakened. You won’t do much damage if you don’t empower it with your own mana, and if you do, you’re either going to miss horribly or blow it up.”

Zoe was only growing more confused. “Wait, why would I have to use mana?” Did they not have gunpowder? But Andric was an alchemist… “I mean, can’t you use mundane explosives?”

“Because by the point you’re getting an alchemist to make those strong enough, you might as well use mana — and as soon as you do, you’re going to do way more damage with way more precision anyway.”

Zoe was still confused, but she thought she might be starting to understand. She realized that magic and the ‘Grand Design’ might actually hamper progress in non-magical technology. Because if magic can do it way better than any early prototype, why would you keep going? The people in this world would never realize the potential of mundane technology because they would never get there… because the early stages of it couldn’t compare to magic.

Zoe briefly entertained the idea of introducing knowledge from Earth into this world, but she quickly realized it probably wouldn’t work. After all, she wasn’t some expert in science and engineering. And even if she was, how would she demonstrate anything more useful than magic in a reasonable time frame?

Shaking her head, Zoe returned to the other rack. “What about a spear?” Andric followed her, and she pointed at one. “A spear seems pretty good then.”

If Zoe were being honest, she was just picking it because she had tangentially heard people back on Earth talking about how a spear was actually one of the best melee weapons. Apparently a sword was really a flashy noble weapon and more suited for killing people who weren’t wearing good armor.

A spear had better range, was easy to use, could be used defensively, and so on and so forth. After all — how could you go wrong with a pointy stick?

“That’s honestly a pretty good choice right now,” Andric confirmed. “Good range, easy to use, easy to block with, and so on.”

Zoe laughed, and Andric tilted his head. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Shaking his head, the alchemist went to go look at some knives. Perusing the various spears, Zoe selected the most bog-standard looking one. The boring one is probably the most pragmatic, right? Right?

Making her choice, she brought it to the woman who refused to give her name. The pirate took it and set it aside. Looking around, Zoe saw Lily come up as well, carrying a colossal staff.

“Woah, is that a magic staff?”

Handing it to the pirate, Lily tilted her head. “What? No. It’s just a stick. I don’t think I need anything — you know, magic and all that — but I might as well take something just in case. I figured I could use it defensively and keep things from getting too close.”

Zoe nodded. That did make sense.

Andric soon made his selection as well, and then the trio just stood around awkwardly. The pirate woman rolled her eyes. “You can go practice or something, you know. I can give you blunt training weapons.”

Zoe nodded. “Yeah, I should probably figure out how to actually use a spear before I try to fight for real with it.”

“Do you have any training knifes?” Andric asked. The pirate nodded. “Good.” He turned to Zoe. “Ordinarily I would spend this time meditating, but you could probably use a real opponent.”

Zoe grinned. “You’re calling yourself a real opponent?”

The pirate tossed a bundle of wooden knives to Andric and he caught it. “Oh, it’s on then. You really shouldn’t have said that.”

Grinning wider, Zoe cocked her head to the side. “Good. I’ll be sure to win anyway.”

Unfortunately, she didn’t see the wooden stick arcing through the air until it bonked her on the head. Tripping over herself, She picked up the blunt training spear and attempted to get back to her feet with at least a scrap of dignity.

Lily snorted. “You were saying?”

“Go on, quit wasting time,” the pirate snapped at them. “Here, there’s a training area right back hear. Let me show you.”

The three of them followed her once more, Zoe gripping the stick tightly with anticipation. She may be practicing for a fight to the death, but the only thing she could feel was excitement.