It only took another minute to arrive at the area Bron and Ulric were holding out. As he scanned the area, his fears were coming to pass. Below Bron, the muscled level three teen, a pool of blood spooled outwards, growing visibly to the naked eye. Bron’s formerly sun-kissed skin was now pale from blood loss. His eyes flitted as he struggled to stay conscious, knowing that to close his eyes meant death.

The other boy, Ulric, had blood shot eyes as tears streamed down his face. He sat there, crumpled on the forest floor with the pungent smell of urine pooling underneath him.

Lee wasted no time flinging a Mend Wounds across the way toward Bron and Ulric as he scanned around the forest, looking out for other statues. “Eddy, keep a lookout while I help your friends.”

Eddy didn’t need to be told to watch out, as he was already scanning as if his life depended on it—which it did.

Once Lee’s Mend Wound landed on Bron, he let out a scream as the white hot pain of mending flesh and reconfiguring bones took root. In his haste, he’d forgotten to cast Anestheliosurge beforehand. He mentally berated himself as he stomped towards the downed duo, ignoring the statues mere inches away from them.

He bent down, coming into the eyeline of Ulric from beneath the knees of a statue. “Can you crawl out?”

Ulric, not even surprised or questioning his appearance, wordlessly wormed his way beneath the legs of the statue in front of him. Bron, who had heard Lee and was well aware of his presence by the fact he’d been healed, nodded hurriedly and scrambled just as fast to escape the encirclement.

While Bron was whispering his thanks, voice cracking from trying to keep up his facade of confidence, Ulric’s eyes were dead and bleeding. The lad hadn’t torn his gaze away from his would-be predators and hadn’t spoken a single word.

Lee grabbed Ulric’s shoulders and shoved him back into the arms of the confused and relief stricken Bron.

Lee rolled up his sleeves as they all backed up a solid ten feet. “Keep a look-out and be cautious of the noise.”

Bron and Eddy spoke at the same time. “The noise?”

Then, in front of their eyes, a crystalline, foggy cyan spear of frigid ice materialized in front of Lee. After a moment, another one joined the lineup. As they both inspected the beautiful weapons, they jerked. One second they were there, then in another, they were gone. The sudden sonic boom rattled their bones and nearly blew out their eardrums as stone shrapnel rained belted their bodies. When they both opened their eyes again, they watched as pieces of statue continued to rain down from the sky. Off in the distance, in the trajectory of the icy projectile, several trees creaked and groaned before toppling over. A sudden line, what must have been a hundred meters, was clear for all to see. The magical spear cutting a path.

Lee wiped his hands mid air, smiled, and then turned to face the grouped up teens with hands on his hips. “Well, then. Why don’t we get you back home?”

“What the fuck was that!” Eddy basically screamed as the other two stared at him with blank, astonished faces.

“A spell. Now, do we wanna keep standing around asking questions, or do you want to get back to safety? Talk and walk?” Lee asked, brow raised.

Bron gulped and nodded. “Talk and walk.”

“You guys lead the way. I’ll keep a lookout from behind.” Lee said, and then without another word, they began their small trek back towards Vargus.

Lee scanned his surroundings as they walked on in silence, letting the teens come to terms with their situation. As he knew they would, soon, one of them asked a question. Bron coughed to clear his throat, shifted his eyes over his shoulder to steal a glance at Lee, then looked forward again. “Who are you?”

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“A mage.” Lee answered. It was the truth, after all.

“No shit. I mean, what’s your name? Who are you? Are you an adventurer?”

“My name is Lee Barnes, and no, I’m not an adventurer. I am just a man who saw a group of kids hop over the safety of their village walls and decided to follow to make sure that they’d be okay. You’re lucky I did. Let me guess, you wanted levels?” He asked.

Eddy glared at the back of Bron’s head, but Ulric still made no signs of acknowledging the conversation. The poor kid was probably traumatized from this experience and would never leave the safety of his village again.

Bron nodded as he continued leading the way. “That was the plan… I came out here a few times by myself and killed some animals… I thought…”

“Yeah, things never go to plan. While I’m not too familiar with how it is in Thexis, I’m going to assume most teens get a hunger for getting a class. Am I right?” Lee asked as he looked behind him to make sure no statues were stalking.

Bron shrugged, but turned and gave Lee some suspicious narrowed eyes. “You from Bardum?” He asked tersely, and Lee realized his mistake.

“Oh, no. I’m from somewhere else entirely. I’ve been in Thexis for a few months now… Look, if you want my advice, find someone to help you get to level five. At that point, you’ll get some class quests and can work on those to level up. I’m not going to stand here and tell you levels aren’t worth it, because they are. I wouldn’t have been able to save you without levels or magic, but, don’t just run off by yourself to get killed with nobody to know. If you had died to those statues, you would have become one of them. If they attacked your village, and your parents saw you as a statue, what would that have done to them? I’m just a dude with no stakes in your life, but take this advice from someone who’s seen some shit. Don’t go at it alone. I would have died ninety-nine times out of one-hundred if I tried it alone.” Lee explained and offered.

Bron scoffed. “Yeah, let me go find someone with a class to take a labor boy to get a class. That’s not going to happen. You some noble or something? Only nobles get things handed to them on a silver platter.”

“No, but if you didn’t notice, I am a healer.” Lee pointed down at his healed leg, his pants in tatters from where his flesh had been torn asunder. “In your kingdom, I’m basically a noble. If you don’t mind me asking, why do you want classes so badly?”

Eddy spoke up instead of Bron. “Because life is pretty shit. If you get a class, you’re somebody in the world. If you don’t have one, you’re just… there. If we got classes, we could be rich, take care of our parents, and be strong. Without a class, nobody is going to bother with us. Even if I became a blacksmith tomorrow, those with the class would just be better.”

While that wasn’t a hundred percent true to his experiences, it made sense. Why go to someone without skills for a piece of equipment or an item when you could just… not? They would be faster, be of a better quality, and probably more expensive… but if you were getting weapons or armor made, then go for the best.

“Well, maybe when your kingdom has a healer in every town, village, and city, going out to level won’t be as dangerous.” Lee said as they exited the forest, finding himself a hundred meters from the gate to Vargus.

Bron scoffed. “Like that’ll ever happen.”

“You’d be surprised.” Lee said as he turned and walked away from the village.

Eddy noticed, yelling out, “Hey! Where’re you going?”

“On my way. You’re safe and my job is done. I got places to be. Good luck.” Lee waved over his shoulder without turning back, continuing on his travels.

—--------------------------------------------------------

With fingers crossed and her thumbs resting on the bridge of her nose, Fatalina Castana, General of the Thexian military, released a weary sigh as she sat in the quiet comfort of her office. She glanced over toward the newest correspondence she’d received from Jeremiah Blight, Lord of Felispar.

Even with her brilliance, she knew beforehand that the vast majority of the actions she’d taken recently weren’t as fool-proof as she thought. The first thing to know about all plans is that they crumble and require adaptation—Something she thought herself more than capable of.

Unless a dragon is involved.

Dendros, the normally hands off green dragon of the Evergrand mountain range was just that; hands off. She wasn’t a fool. She knew the dragon was involved in the Healer’s Sanctum, she just didn’t know that the fucking lizard owned it. It wasn’t like she wasn’t well-informed either. Even recently, those with classes naming Dendros popped up through the raids on the Sanctum’s bases. With her own two eyes, she’d seen those with the idiotic cult-like class names—Hossidius was one of them.

What’s worse is that Lee had left, and she couldn’t do anything about it. Did she have plans for him? Of course she did, but they were mutually beneficial. She thought she had acted in a fair, well deserved fashion. Apparently, that came off as suspicious.

Lee was heading right in the direction of a damn dragon who hated him with all of his being and he’d arrive in less than two months. She had little time to plan and prepare, but that was nothing new. It was just another day.

She let out a sigh as she resumed her duties, her pity party well overdue to end.

She had a war to win.