Seth watched the man through hooded eyes. “I thought you just said solo adventures are a quick way to die.”

“So is being what you are,” Jim replied casually. Then he turned to him and added: “Something must kill a soul mage someday.”

Seth didn’t like this. “Tell that to Barons,” he grumbled.

“Barons die, too, Seth. If only you knew.”

Behind him, his twin blades were short enough for him to sit with them in only a mild discomfort. For his katana, he kept them rested against the wall beside him. They were too long to sit with them strapped to his waist.

While Jim sat there, staring at the ceiling in silence, Seth grumbled to himself. Why did he have to go through all this? He knew it was a path to power. Strength came at a price; one he had had thrust upon him regardless of his opinion on the matter. To claim it had not warped him would be a lie. Last night he’d had more than enough chances to fulfill his daily quest but had not. Why? He was curious as to how powerful he had become. His curiosity had cost him an arm, again, during his participation in the consequence.

But Jabari was taking it too far with his influence over the seminary’s decisions for him. For the twin blades, he was grateful, mostly because they were weapons that did not come with much in the way of difficulties except their weight. But the seminary had taken his right—if he was to believe Jim—to choose what role he would play during his pastoral year. He could only imagine Jabari had influenced the choice to make him an adventurer because he, too, seemed to tread the same path.

But forcing him to solo adventures was a different thing entirely. This could kill him. This could cripple him. And fighting alongside silver magi was going to be a height of difficulty he could not even begin to fathom.

His mind was still filled with the chaos of his silent tantrums when his minds brought his attention to the door. At the same moment, it opened and a man entered clad in a robe of deep blue and white lines that reminded Seth of the ones that decorated the tiles beneath him.

He was a giant of a man. His height easily dwarfed Timi, which was saying a lot. The door knob looked like a child’s play marble in his grip and Seth wondered how it felt to be so huge. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him with a silence easily the envy of stealth.

“House fifty-eight,” he said with a voice deep from roars and cries in battle. However, the massive forest of beard that covered his lower face hid the movement of his mouth so that he seemed a talented ventriloquist.

Jim did not get up. He simply turned his head so that he looked at the massive man. “Guildmaster,” he greeted casually.

The guildmaster took a deep breath then let it out. “Rude, even now. I swear your veteran status should be revoked.”

“You can’t revoke a veteran, Luke.”

“It’s Lucas to you, Jim,” he said coldly. His attention swiveled to Seth before going back to the Reverend. “In the presence of adventurers and prospects, it remains guildmaster.”

Seth watched the altercation in silence. Something about it rubbed him wrong. Their disagreement had seemed inevitable from the moment the guildmaster, Lucas, walked it.

Jim nodded, then got up. At his full height he still had to tilt his head back to meet Lucas’ eyes despite the distance between them.

He was a man outclassed, yet a smirk touched his lips. “Barony suits you.”

“And you don’t look like a man who should have as much information as he always does. Why you would turn down the guild’s request to work for it continues to baffle me.”

Jim’s smirk left his face, replaced by a fond smile. “I’m not a spy, Luke. I don’t know how many times I can tell you that. The role doesn’t suit me.”

Seth almost chuckled at the irony, already on his feet. A spy, claiming he was not a spy.

“Perhaps so.” Lucas raised a hand large enough to cover Seth’s face and stroked his beard with it. “True veterans rarely ever have an appetite for sneaking around.”

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“That’s why I have people who do it for me. Now, to the business at hand.”

Lucas turned his attention to Seth again. “I guess so.” He stepped around Jim, his size filling the room with each step, and stopped in front of him. “Who are you?”

“Oden,” Seth replied. It drew a surprised look from Jim, one that he ignored.

Lucas leaned down as if an adult addressing a child barely eight years old. “And what brings you to my guild, Oden?”

Was this some sort of test? Asking questions and judging his character by the answers. It was as if every adult read some handbook that taught them all the same skill. He cocked his head to the side and studied the large man.

“You have quite the unique eyes, Oden,” Lucas said.

“Soul magi possess eyes different to what they bore when they were born,” he answered blandly.

“And what was the color of yours at birth?”

“I have no idea. I haven’t been alive long.”

Lucas brow’s furrowed and he looked back at Jim. “Is he rude or saying something in pretentious words?”

Seth got a good look at the back of Lucas head and found it as clean shaven as the rest of it, not a sign of hair having ever grown there was present. In fact, it was so bald it promised no hair would ever grow there.

“He has amnesia,” Jim replied. “He doesn’t remember much earlier than six months ago.”

“So what?” Lucas asked. “You’ve trained him back into civilization?”

Jim nodded. “He knows enough to pass as a person. The only thing he doesn’t know clearly is his own personal history.”

“And will that be—”

“Not going to be a problem,” Jim interrupted. “All he needs is a sword and a gun and you have a competent enough adventurer.”

“That’s the remedy to a competent hunter, Jim,” the large man said, attention returning to Seth. “A competent adventurer requires more. Retentive memory. Environmental awareness. Wisdom. Knowledge.” He looked Seth in the eye, ocean blue eyes fixing him in place. “Integrity.”

Seth met his gaze without worry. If this man was a Baron, he was either new to it or was simply nice. Seth could see a depth in his eyes, though, something present in the eyes of the Barons that raised him. But there were things the Barons of the seminary had that he did not.

For one, he had still not accepted the cruelty of the world. Where he and those of the seminary had a steeled resolve, it was in opposing directions. His resolve was built on hope; it was in the mildest softness in his eyes. The Reverends, however, had to resolved to accept the world as it was. They were soul magi who believed the world cruel and embraced it as such.

“Do you have integrity, Oden?” Lucas asked.

For the briefest moment, Oden fought back the urge to say something defiant, something against integrity and those that thought it enough. He was successful.

“I can only hope so,” he answered, instead.

Ha! A mind barked in amusement. We don’t have a single integral bone in our body.

Another mind sighed at the outburst. Integrity and integral are two entirely different things.

They are?

They are.

“You are distracted,” Lucas said. “Your attention is wandering.”

Seth kept an impassive face as he said, “Is there a reason we’re playing games about my person?”

“Games?” Lucas asked.

Seth nodded. “Games. You’ve come in, had a brief chat with my benefactor, and now you’re studying me, watching me like some bipedal for sale. Is there a reason for this, or are you trying to see what’s beneath my shawl?”

One side of Lucas’s lips tilted up in a wry smile and he rose back to his full height. “He’s a cheeky one,” he said to Jim before turning away from Seth. “What are his capabilities?”

“Iron rank. Skilled in the use of swords—”

“He has four of them on him, Jim. I already know that.”

“—and guns,” Jim continued as if never having been interrupted. “He has an acceptable talent in unarmed combat. Has a high and acute level of spacial awareness, and is a pure core mage.”

“At Iron all soul magi are pure core,” Lucas scoffed.

“Not as pure as him.”

Lucas returned his attention to Seth and studied him through narrowed lids. “Just how pure?” he asked.

“Take a look for yourself.”

It was a permission Seth had not given, but an Iron in the presence of a Baron had no permission to give. So he was not surprised when Lucas’s spirit washed over him like a thousand ants. He fought back his urge to squirm, isolated the action to a single hand and felt it seize, cramp up as his fingers twitched at odd angles.

When the sensation was gone, Lucas bore a look of deep surprise. “And you did not advise him against this?” he asked, turning to Jim with anger on his face.

Is it just us or was that more disturbing than when the Reverends do it? an irate mind asked.

His control isn’t as good as theirs, another answered.

Jim shrugged. “It is not my place to tell him what to do. But I’ve given him the advice, and he made his choice.”

“His core is purer than it has any right to be.” Lucas pointed a massive, angry finger at Seth. “This is intentional. And looking at his core you can tell he continues to purify it every day. With every breath he takes. He must be taught another cycling technique!”

“No!” Jim snapped. “I understand your repulsion to the path of pure reia, however, you overstep your boundaries, Lucas. I have had the boy in my care for near six months and have allowed him his path on the use of a pure core. To insist he change his path and begin leaning towards an affinity is not only an abuse of your power but an affront to me. It implies my decision to allow him his path is a mistake I have been making for six months.”

“It is wrong,” Lucas pressed, but his zeal was not the same.

“No. It is unacceptable. But it is not wrong.”

Lucas’ voice lost its luster and his next words came out as no more than a whisper, but Seth heard them clearer than any Iron mage should.

“He’ll die out there. Like the others.”

Jim smiled softly, then shrugged. “Maybe.”