Seth woke up the next morning feeling refreshed, but absolutely unprepared to face the day. He still couldn’t figure out how he felt about the Bishop’s assignment. Many people saw Wanderers as Monster slaying heroes who valiantly protected people. While he had shared this view as a child, growing up with several teams constantly stationed in Lith had tempered his wonder. They were more like unusually powerful soldiers or mercenaries with commensurate responsibilities and dangers.

There was undoubtedly much more that he didn’t know about Wanderers, but that only made the fact he would be joining a team soon more concerning. Even as a kid, Seth’s plans for the future had involved being a Priest in a temple. Recently he had been batting around the idea of becoming a traveling Priest to better make use of his knowledge of ‘modern medicine’ from Landon, but that was a far cry from some sort of combat Healer.

Seth was finally persuaded to sit up and face the day when someone knocked on the main door to his room. He started to stretch, noticed the warm glow he felt, and unspooled some of his Virtue back out to his projection. This allowed him to notice that his dad wasn’t in the adjoining room, and that the person knocking on the door was a Priest. He was almost completely certain it wasn’t his dad, but their Virtue projection was at least slightly familiar. Probably.

“Hello?” Seth called out, unwilling to open the door in his underwear nor make the Priest wait for him to dress.

“Your father is still visiting merchants in the city,” a female voice replied, “I offered to make sure you were up and moving with enough time to go to the temple library.”

“Thank you, I’ll be ready in a minute,” he called back, swinging out of bed.

“The robes you brought are hanging on the front of the door,” she said, her voice beginning to move away. “I’ll be downstairs. One of the acolytes left you breakfast.”

Seth waited until her footsteps faded, then opened the door a crack and grabbed the two Priestly robes with red trim. He looked at them for a moment, conflicted. He didn’t want to waste time, but putting on his own clean robes while still a bit sticky with sweat didn’t appeal.

Twenty minutes later, Seth skittered down the stairs with damp hair clinging to his scalp. He reflected that he might need to cut it soon as a few strands got in his eye. Reaching the first floor, he saw Priest Andrea sitting at the table. The cinnamon-haired woman was absentmindedly incinerating a pine hashbrown, looking bored.

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“Sorry for making you wait,” Seth said as he sat down, wrinkling his nose at the smell of burnt wood and grease. “Do you like those extra crispy?”

She tossed the new lump of charcoal into a basket that thankfully contained another intact hashbrown.

“I just like the smell of things burning,” she said offhandedly. “Helps with understanding Flame essence. Anyway, eat quickly.”

Seth quickly wolfed down some fish and potato pasties and the hashbrown, then got up and grabbed the Loss backpack that had followed him downstairs. As the two left the guest housing and the smell of burnt food behind, Seth sniffed.

“Do I smell cinnamon?” He said quizzically.

“In my hair,” Priest Andrea said simply. “Library’s this way.”

Seth looked closer as they walked, and could see some kind of powder in her curls.

“Have you thought about what new essence you might want to study?” Andrea asked as they drew near the library.

“Kind of?” Seth replied. “Not that much. I thought I was just finding books and scrolls about working with a wanderer team anyway?”

“You should do that, yes,” Andrea said, stopping in front of the door. “But the Bishop has given you permission to look at some more esoteric materials. You should use the opportunity to learn about another essence that will help you as a wanderer. I’m partial to Flame obviously, and you have shown some insight into it. A more defensive essence like Gelid could also be useful. Maybe even Risk essence—it’s the most unusual one that I know we have information about.”

“That makes sense, but wouldn’t it take a while to learn to use a new essence?” Seth asked as he opened the door and held it for the other Priest.

“Yes, but with the personal accounts and insights in the restricted volumes, apparently it shouldn’t take more than a month or two.” Priest Andrea answered, gesturing for him to wait as she walked over to the Priest who was sitting in front of a book cart thumbing through catalog cards.

While she spoke with the older woman, Seth thought about various essences. He was interested in Flame essence, especially if it would be easier to learn, but the idea of using it to burn things to death was unsettling. Keeping himself and the other people on this wanderer team safe was more appealing, since he was supposed to keep them alive and well with healing anyway. He wasn’t sure what Risk essence did, but it didn’t sound particularly defensive.

He watched as Andrea and the other Priest walked off, Andrea again indicating for him to wait. Seth thought back to the shop that sold path rods in Arfeld. Immutable essence gave those people abilities that protected them, so using the essence itself had to be even better, right? Andrea had mentioned a Gelid essence as a defensive option as well, but he couldn’t remember if he’d heard of it before. There were dozens of essences, and he didn’t know them all off the top of his head.

“Alright, come with me lad,” the old Priest said, returning without Andrea. Her hair was completely white and her frame diminished with age, but she had few if any wrinkles. This was a hallmark of Virtue essence easing the aging process, which Seth was used to seeing on Priest Joe.