Chapter 49

I was the first to fall. Flint’s barrage of arrows was nonstop. His accuracy was inhuman, and those blasted training arrows hurt. When Lyn and I split up, we tried to spread to either side of him, hoping to slow his attacks. His obviously magical bow, and its ability to make floating copies which he could fire from, had negated that plan.

Which then left it to each of us, individually, to work on a plan to survive the assault. Lyn, by sheer luck, or perhaps it had been her intention all along, had managed to take shelter in the obstacle course. While none of the obstacles offered perfect protection from Flint’s arrows, which he was apparently able to shoot in such a way they could actually curve mid-flight to reach their target, it at least increased the time between shots.

My route, on the other hand, had been away from the obstacle course, leaving me in an open expanse with absolutely nothing to take cover behind. And while I was running and moving as fast as I could, Flint was obviously no stranger to hitting moving targets. Still, I didn’t give up. No, even though I was the first to fall, it had taken over an hour before I finally gave in to my countless injuries. When I could no longer run and dodge, I’d drawn my weapons, dagger and scimitar, and tried to cut down the arrows.

I’d actually managed to block a few that way, but Flint adapted, changing his shot pattern, attacking from all different angles, even though he had remained, somewhat stationary, in between Lyn and I. Once I’d fallen, it spelled the end for Lyn. With only one target to focus on, he doubled his efforts and shots, quickly overwhelming my poor teammate. As I lay on the ground, too sore to move, savoring the hard, cold stone of the massive training space, I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d gotten it worse than I in those final minutes. Part of me felt bad. The other part of me figured it was the least she could get, considering she’d had the luxury of hiding behind cover for so long.

“And just like that,” Flint called as I heard Lyn groaning on the ground, in a similar fashion to myself. I looked up, but from the ground, couldn’t see her. “You’re both dead.”

Flint’s floating bows combined back into a singular one, and he slung it back over his shoulders. “I must say though, not a bad showing. I’ll not be able to run you through dodging practice the rest of the time, but now you know how important mastering that skill is.”

Lyn said a few choice words towards Flint, though I couldn’t make out half of the stream of curses. From what I could hear, she was less than impressed with her fellow bow user.

“There’s a reason my dexterity is so high,” Flint replied with a laugh towards Lyn. “Getting hit sucks. I highly advise against it. If your enemy can’t hit you, well then, they can’t kill you.” More laughter. “Now then, let’s get the two of you back on your feet, and I’ll cover the rest of what you need to know to fight the Den Mother.”

I pushed against the ground, my arms shaking underneath me as I tried to stand. I got a foot under myself, before I collapsed back to the ground, groaning from the pain and effort.

“Did you two really use all your MP today?” Flint said. I saw him glance at me, and then in Lyn’s direction. “Seriously, rookie move.” He added. “Stay still, I’ll get the two of you up.”

I watched him grab his bow once more, and then he drew back a training arrow. He leveled the padded tip of the projectile at me. I flinched, my mind telling me to get out of the way, but I couldn’t. I was completely beat and exhausted.

The head of the arrow glowed faintly just as he released it. The projectile soared through the air and impacted into my back. I gasped at the momentary burst of sharp pain. Then I gasped as the tingling warmth of magic flowed over me. My bruises, all of my injuries I’d received during the dodge training session, magically healed.

I stood shakily to my feet, confused at how Flint had just done that, as I watched him shoot a glowing arrow towards Lyn. The arrow hit her on the forehead, and a light white gold light crossed over her body, chasing the curses from her lips as she let out a surprised moan while the magic pushed away all her injuries and pain. She stood, the same look of confusion and disbelief on her face as mine.

“How’d you do that?” she asked as we both walked toward Flint. He’d once again put his bow on his back and was now casually sitting on a stool he’d apparently summoned from his inventory. In his right hand he had a bottle of something that he was casually drinking from, a smirk on his face.

“It’s magic.” He said with a belch. Two more stools appeared around him, and he motioned for us to sit. Once we did, he handed me the bottle he’d been drinking from.

“No shit.” Lyn said. I remained silent as I took a drink from the bottle, curious as to what the man had been drinking.

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It was all I could do not to spit it out a moment later. The burn of liquor was strong. Intense. I was no stranger to drinking. It was a common thing to do at night, especially after a long day of training. But the intensity and strength of the alcohol caught me by surprise. I let out a surprised gasp, and Flint grinned and laughed. Then he made a tipping motion, encouraging me to take another drink.

“The Tower works in mysterious ways.” Flint explained as I took a few steadying breaths, preparing myself to try the drink once more. “The further your climb, the more you’ll notice it begins to give you tools that fit your chosen path. It’s as if the Tower recognizes what you’re working towards. Or maybe it encourages you? Either way, I gained a spell scroll that granted me a skill called ‘imbue arrow’. It allows me to add a magical spell to my arrows. And on impact, the arrow will release that spell.”

“Any spell?” Lyn asked, as I took another sip.

This time, having expected the strength of the drink, I was able to handle it. The burn of the liquor was still there, but nowhere near as potent and startling. The drink warmed my throat and stomach, as I sorted through the flavor. It was smokey yet lined with sweetness. Like burning wood mixed with vanilla, and hints of chocolate. It tasted wild, rough. I handed the bottle back to Flint, and he handed it off to Lyn, before he answered her question.

“Any spell,” Flint confirmed. “The spells take the same amount of MP too. Though I’m limited to one spell, per arrow.” He sighed. “I’d really been hoping I could combine spells, but nope, no luck there.” He glanced past us. I turned and looked in the direction and saw a blaze of fire. I’d completely forgotten Nyle was training with Ryker’s party’s mage. I’d not had the time to think of anything during Flint’s attacks. “Some lucky bastards like Eb got the ability to combine spells. Still holding out for the Tower to give me that skill.”

Lyn gasped, much as I had, when she tried her first taste of the drink. I couldn’t help but smirk, as she shot daggers in my direction. She’d laughed when I’d coughed, but apparently hadn’t been ready for it either. There was a warmth in my mind now, a fuzziness. I felt a peace, content. Another sign of just how strong that drink was. One gulp, and I was already feeling the buzz.

Lyn took a drink, swallowed it with a gasp, and handed the bottle back to Flint. He took another long drink, before the bottle disappeared.

“Any ways, it’s not like I can complain. I don’t use my MP for anything else save the occasional skill. And being able to heal my allies if we need is handy. Though, usually I’m just applying poison or ice to my arrows. It’s handy, being able to spread out damage types on later floors.”

“You have poison and ice spells?” I asked. “How’d you get them?”

“Purchased a spell called poison cloud in the Tower. Ice blast I got as a drop from a mini boss.” Flint looked back to Lyn. “I recommend getting your Arcane up to 10 if you plan to use spells. It’s the bare minimum for a lot of these handy spells. After, of course, you hit 11 dexterity. For now, that’s definitely the most important skill to level if you’re wanting to be an archer. Trust me, it’s going to feel like night and day when you hit 11.”

“That was the plan,” Lyn said with a smug smile. There was a faint red to her cheeks, showing the liquor was hitting her just as hard as it was hitting me.

“Good girl,” Flint said with a smile. “If you do want to be an archer, I’ll gladly take you under my wing.” He glanced back at me, “I was feeling a bit jealous of Ryker having a mentee to train after all.”

“Don’t you have a mentee?” I tried to remember if I’d seen Flint before. I hadn’t gotten to interact all that much with the older trainees. Just Ryker, really. The only reason I knew Thalia was because when we handled joint training sessions with our Mentors, Nyle and I always grouped up.

“Jaxon seemed uninterested in learning anything from me.” Flint said with a sigh, “then again, he’s always been like that. Can’t train prodigies you know.” He shook his head. “I bet you anything he’s probably going to try to be a solo climber anyways.”

“Your mentee was Jaxon?” I asked incredulously, “Jaxon Steele?” That was the member of my platoon who’d made it to the fourth floor during the Reaping.

“The one and only.” Flint said with a grin. “Though like I said, he’s done with me now.” He rubbed his mustache thoughtfully. “It probably doesn’t help that back when I was still a trainee, I’d been a bit… lazy.” He shrugged. “I’m guessing Jaxon felt I wasn’t going to take being his mentor seriously now that we were both Climbers.”

I didn’t want to say it, but Flint still gave off that carefree feeling. My respect for Ryker, combined with having just witnessed Flint’s impressive skills firsthand, were the only reason I was trying really hard to not pin him as someone who was easy going and lazy.

“His loss,” Lyn said, smiling at Flint. “I’ll gladly take you up on your offer.” She said, with a slight bow of her head.

“Sweet,” he grinned, and I watched the two look at each other. Judging by the mixture of emotions that crossed Lyn’s face, there was some sort of exchange happening. A trade, most likely. At least, that’s what I guessed. I had a feeling the expressions she was making, were the same as the one’s I’d been making when Ryker had been giving me the coin and materials needed to get Claw and Fang crafted.

A moment of silence later Flint clapped his hands happily, startling me from my thoughts of my gear being crafted.

“Back to the final task of the day,” he said happily, an obvious boost to his mood now that Lyn had accepted his offer to be his mentee. “I’ll tell you what else you need to know about the Den Mother, to prepare to fight her later this week. Obviously, you can test yourselves against her any time this week, to confirm what I’m telling you,” he looked at us, “but I highly recommend the three of you each get a stat above 11, at the very least, before you fight her for keeps. Oh, and also,” he looked at me this time, smirking, “probably don’t take on any risks or unknown dangers when you’ve got a lot of Tower Essence, yeah? It’s kind of counter-productive in the grand scheme of things.”

On second thought, I grumbled internally, maybe Flint wasn’t the most helpful mentor around.