Plumes of flames descended from the sky, sparks drifted like fireflies, and the smell of smoke overshadowed the buffet.

A mammoth tree broke as a dragon leaned on it. There was an impossibly loud crack and the branches crackled as it fell, but there came no crash. Someone caught it.

A twisting tower of mycelium rose through the canopy and the myconid who’d made it reached out with a hundred hands to capture children.

Lisa sat on all fours, wings tucked back, and watched her parents read her notes.

“This,” her dad gestured, holding a small bundle of pages, “should be possible.” On the page, Lisa had arduously sketched a crystal that looked identical to Sam’s, along with annotations and texts that described its dimensions and functions.

The journal her mom held had no such sketch, and yet she inspected the two crystals Lisa had shown them—Sam’s and her practice crystal—and her design notes both.

“This is good work,” she said and looked far more intrigued than she had by Lisa’s fake project. Not even excited for her. Intrigued, as she might be by one of her sibling’s work.

Lisa didn’t know how to react to that. She might have teared up had she worn her human body—and if Muri hadn’t torn it to shreds. As it was, she lashed her tail, nearly tripping one of her siblings who was running from an animated cage of plant matter, and sat up.

“I have suggestions, of course.”

Lisa deflated. Only for a second before she remembered she wasn’t in Hadica, surrounded by squabbling children and statespeople, anymore. She had nothing to prove. To get feedback from her parents was an honor …

… so long as they didn’t try to take over her project or hold her hands too much. Watching their expressions though, she somehow doubted it. Not this time.

“The terminology and details are crude,” she went on, “it’s a shame you didn’t write it in draconic, though I understand you had to keep a guise.”

Lisa nodded. “Garen had to ask favors to smuggle me in with few questions asked. I got lucky one of the major families of Hadica didn’t pry out of respect for the Heswarens … and me.”

Navid could have pried in an informal manner, as children were wont to do, but he’d chosen to befriend her because she had impressed him.

“Heswaren.” A brief flash of irritation passed over her dad’s face and he looked west.

“Huh?”

“That woman wants to speak with us about the future of our family, ‘now that we have heirs,’” he grumbled, “as if that were any of her business.”

“Lady Heswaren was here?”

“Your uncle Aber heralded her word and coming,” he said with a disdainful note. “She is slowly making her way east across the continent to visit us and her kin to the south.”

“No doubt leaving a trail of corpses in her wake,” her mom murmured.

Lisa wondered if Anne’s family knew. Should she warn them?

She followed her parents’ eyes as they turned to watch a large, athletic man swoop down between the trees and laugh as he scooped up kids and put them in time-out.

Aber was one of Lisa’s favorite uncles. He was more easy-going than most, and he’d used to play hide and seek with her—and cheat. Yet, he was a minor controversial figure.

His mane looked like flowing sunlight. Golden veins trailed through his scales as if someone had dripped molten gold over him, and his pink eyes shimmered yellow every now and then.

He’d been apprenticed to a Heswaren branch family long ago and as a result, some of them treated him like a brother.

As another result, some of her family felt betrayed, Lisa got the sense, as if he’d turned his back on Mother by seeking out foreign powers.

While the Heswarens collectively were only a minor annoyance to them at best, their Lady was a peer of the family on her own. They were distantly related, as Diane had said. They came from the Allmother, she came from another of the Six, the Judge.

Her presence tended to linger. It was … discomforting, to say the least. Each of the Heswarens—as well as Lisa’s uncle—carried a bit of that scent.

She’d never minded the stink much, but she also felt a bit of sympathy for her uncle now as she thought of, and then repressed, another fear she kept hidden from her parents.

Almost to flee the thought, her eyes wandered until they settled on a human woman with light brown skin arguing with her uncle Ambrose from beneath his wing. Green light peeked out beneath the collar of her shirt as she moved in the shade—a glowing mark in her skin.

“Speaking of visitors …” Lisa smiled. “Who’s that?”

Her mom’s eyes found the woman with ease, as if she’d kept an eye on her the entire time, and she sighed. “That is Ambrose’s … friend.”

“Is she a Northern adventurer or something?” Lisa thought of Garen and how he had nearly stumbled upon their home before she had been born. The circumstances had been different then. They usually kept to themselves, but her family had reached out to Garen because they’d needed a pawn. An executioner.

She liked the idea of them making friends under better circumstances. Maybe then she could bring her own friends home someday …?

Her mom sounded impatient. “No, she writes music, I believe. They met in one of their little cities. He invited her into our home to meet us.”

“Oh.” How would he have befriended a musician? Although, Lisa supposed she had befriended an alchemist. She watched them. “They look like they’re fighting … Because of the kids?” She looked up. “Should I go apologize? Introduce myse—”

“No,” her mom stopped her.

“They’re always fighting,” her dad snapped.

“What about …?”

His eyes were distant and irritated. “Politics.”

Her mom began to lead them away. In a calmer tone, she repeated, “No. Don’t talk to her at all if you can, Lisa. She’s temporary.”

Lisa followed. Yet, her eyes lingered. Her parents were right; she didn’t look angry about the kids causing havoc at all. She gestured at the children and forest around them that now looked like a human battlefield and glared up at her uncle as if using them to prove a point.

Her uncle looked anxiously resigned. He held his wing to shield her from the chaos and moved, she was obscured by the smoke, and then Lisa couldn’t see her anymore.

Her parents had switched notes. They walked away from the chaos, and she knew why the moment she saw her mom’s conflicted expression.

“We can make this,” she impressed on her, “however, if you were to leave in the fall, I don’t believe we can make it in time. And if you stay, you would not need it at all.”

Lisa mulled it over. The crystal was meant to be a bag of holding. Sam wouldn’t need it, but it would help her avoid attention in the city, and it might open doors in the future.

Even though she could alter the dimensions of flesh—for example, to shape seven Teacup Salamanders into the size of one ring—she couldn’t alter space without access to another power her family cultivated here.

And they could only ‘shapeshift’ so freely by using the pocket dimensions inside their souls. Otherwise, they would have to abandon their dragon bodies or craft simulacra, which was possible, just convoluted.

Sam didn’t have a soul yet, but depending on what it wanted to be, a dimensional retreat could provide it with options. And security.

“Could you send it after me?” she voiced a half-formed idea and immediately rejected it herself. “No, that would be too dangerous. What if it was lost?”

Her mom sighed, and Lisa realized she’d given an answer without meaning to.

Before she could take it back, her mom said, “There is another way.” She looked west again. “Family reunions. We are overdue for correspondence with our uncle.”

‘Our.’ Lisa followed her eyes and connected the dots. “Hes?”

“No. Ara.”

The air itself seemed to quiet as she spoke the nickname, and her parents went still, but then her mom snapped back into action and the world moved on.

“We’ll have to consult with Rose and Faer, at least, to see if we can do it,” she spoke and moved as if organizing the ritual already, searching the crowds. “Rose should be …”

Her dad caught up. “Late. No doubt she is still in her lab, again.”

“That woman. She would starve to death if her body let her.”

“I will get her—”

“Can I do it?” Lisa asked.

Her dad looked at her with wide eyes, then slowly turned to look at the burning trees, rioting kids, and ruined preparations for a feast in her name, and then back to her.

“ … Please?” Lisa didn’t know if she’d ever had puppy-dog eyes. It hadn’t been a concept she was familiar with before she met Micah. She’d intentionally copied some of his body language over the last year—as she’d had with everyone to blend in—and she tried it now.

Miraculously, her dad threw his hands up. “Fine!” He relented. “Fine. Go. I guess we’ll take responsibility for your actions then. As your parents.”

That worked? Lisa spared a thanks for Micah and grinned. “Thank you! I’ll be right back—”

“‘We?’” her mom said behind her. Lisa was already off. “I have to read our daughter’s project notes again to annotate—”

“We have our other children to take care of now.”

Her mom dragged her feet with a low whine, pouting.

Lisa ran toward a larger, more decorative tree standing above a hollow. Its roots spread like a gazebo, and its branches stood out from the canopy. A waypoint.

A brown mouse with a flame burning on the tip of its tail clambered out from the decline onto the grass.

A drake ran toward to scoop it up in its maw— Flesh burst from the flame, scales flowing like waves. It wrapped around the mouse, cradling it, and a hand grabbed the drake before it could flee.

“What do we say about biting, huh?!” her aunt chastised the drake. She looked up as she noticed Lisa, then past her at the chaos around them. “What …?”

“I’m sorry!” Lisa yelled in passing.

Her aunt spun. “Did you do this?”

“I’m glad to see you again! See you at dinner!”

“Wait—”

Lisa ducked her head and folded her wings back as she slipped between the roots— and then she stood in a massive underground crossroads, large enough for her parents to stand tall and not touch the ceiling.

The ceiling itself was only forty or so meters below ground here, and this pathway was used and maintained on the daily. It was a far more comfortable trip.

She still needed a moment to orient herself. She had to step lightly as a human might on a bridge, lest she fall … out.

Packed dirt walls surrounded her, threaded with hair-thin roots and tears that looked into a void dotted with stars. Rays of artificial sunlight streamed in from cracks above but some measure of the void’s illumination affected this space.

The tears looked like black fabric, and the ceiling, walls, and floor felt thin to her senses in their presence, as if she’d stepped into a picture book where the pages were reality.

She crept over to a tear and peeked into the Sea of Dreams.

Something rang within her.

[Summoner level 15!]

Lisa jumped back in fright, checked her surroundings on instinct, then checked her spirit. For a second, she’d felt as if Annebeth—or maybe one of her parents from the strength of the effect—had blessed her, but from the inside, and now … nothing.

Why? Why now? She hadn’t done anything special between yesterday and today—

Oh. Because of her dragon body?

It didn’t really change a thing. None of her levels meant much to her, she hadn’t gotten a new spell like [Appraise Creature], and all of her other Skills and spells, Lisa could have taught herself in a matter of days or improvised.

She also hadn’t noticed a difference in her natural abilities: no boost in comprehension speed from her Paths or [Lesser Imagination], no changes to her body from her levels alone.

[Enhanced Permeability] was the exception. It increased her mana regeneration. She supposed that, mana, was the most valuable thing she’d gotten from her Class.

So the level didn’t matter, but the timing of it?

Suddenly, Lisa wished she had treated her project more seriously. She had just avoided thinking about this and it had reached her here, in her home, the safest place she knew of ... anywhere.

She looked back. She really needed to tell her parents but … not today.

The tears in space and blue crystalline doors flanked her as she hurried on, and she remembered the days she’d snuck down here to peek into the labs.

Even now, it eased some of her tension, and along with the mischief she had left behind, she felt a little like a kid again.

The excitement built as she placed a hand against a crystal door, and the material slid away in geometric bars to let her through. It shut behind her again.

Through the next crystalline wall, she saw a lab as large as a warehouse, filled with similar furniture to her room, and with far more in-built compartments in the walls.

Her aunt Rose was there, though she hadn’t noticed her. She looked distracted as she studied a … thing.

A cluster of fleshy grey spheres connected by thin tubes hovered in the air. They shrunk or expanded like chest falls, but to the size of cherries and the size of hot air balloons, some merging and overlapping in more than three dimensions.

Excited, Lisa hurried to fill the antechamber with living fire to disinfect herself, then placed a hand against the next wall, and rushed into the room.

Rose didn’t look much healthier next to her research subject. She was thin, and her scales were a drab pink with the occasional splotch of multicolored light like fire potion in a puddle.

Thin red threads extended from her arm and one side of her head to the spheres and pulsed with a traveling light.

She didn’t even notice when Lisa stood right next to her, peering up at her. Lisa took her time checking the area for wards before she tapped her aunt on the shoulder.

She blinked, turned to her, and jolted back, snapping the threads. “Lisa! You’re home? How? What day— Oh. Oh, no. I am late for something, aren’t I?”

“Almost.” Unless she had meant to join the welcome party.

“What’s that?“ Lisa was too curious to care.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“This?” Rose glanced up. “I am not quite sure myself. It bubbled up from the Sea of Dreams—not here, mind you. Near Teln.”

Her eyes went wide. “Teln? Why there?”

It was a tiny nation close to the center of Lin, the connected continent to the west. It was famous for its cooks and monks, the Dotties, but the most magical thing Teln had to offer was their access to the mountains and the people traveling through that brought their own magic.

How would something like this be there?

“Did someone try to smuggle it somewhere?” she guessed.

“I supposed you could say I smuggled it somewhere, but no. There is a weakness near Teln where the border between our world and the Sea of Dreams thins.”

“Really? How?”

“I’m not sure. I was investigating a rumor when I noticed this,” she waved at the thing. “And I had to race knights, adventurers, and agents from Monday hunting it to spirit it away under their noses.”

Rose smiled wistfully as if part of her was reliving the memory. It made her look healthier than she had a moment before. Reinvigorated.

Lisa wanted the full story but … She glanced at the door and felt a little guilty about how she had left things. Some of her family had no doubt dropped projects and traveled home to see her again.

“Can you tell me at dinner? Oh, why are you studying it at all?”

Rose gave her a blank look. “Ah, I should have mentioned: it’s related to us.”

“Huh?”

To explain, Rose waved a hand. With the motion, the spheres began to fold in on themselves like crust into lava, and the air warped as if under a great heat. The grey flesh gave way and revealed a twisted pink and white glow that illuminated it from within.

Oh.

“It has traces of life essence. And it bubbled up from the Sea of Dreams. It’s a lead.”

Oh no.

“Even we cannot survive the void for long. Yet, it did. Do you see its adaptations? It’s still alive inside of that shell … although somewhat weathered.

“This is what I’m studying. If I can replicate its adaptations, craft a suit for that space to let us weather the void, we can leave this world behind and search for Mother.”

Rose had lost her youthful excitement and her all-consuming focus both and instead, she shuddered as if under the pressure of a primal need, eyes distant. Practically gone already.

Was this how her mom felt about her leaving again?

Rose must have felt inspired. To her siblings, she might have seemed a visionary. To Lisa, she looked like she was hurting. Even two centuries later, so many of the adults did.

“I’m supposed to remind you to come to dinner,” Lisa said. “Also, my parents want to consult you on a ritual to correspond with Ara?”

Manipulating space was one of her aunt’s fields of expertise. She could use the rain more deftly than almost any other.

If her parents did decide to craft a pocket dimension by hand, there was a good chance they would consult her. And for rituals like this, she was one of the people to talk to.

Especially since she was the one who had discovered and refined this ritual in particular, giving her family the means to talk to one of their Mother’s siblings. A miracle. Not enough.

“Oh!” She blinked. “Is it time for more gifts already?”

She rushed to one of the stone drawers in the walls, and Lisa caught the misunderstanding and stopped her.

“Not today! There are probably preparations we have to make, right? Others to talk to about it? Warnings to give—”

“The Whisper Tree to check on,” Rose nodded with an urgent tone and placed an old, worn wineskin sized for a human back into the drawer before she shut it again.

“Right.” Lisa shuddered at the mention, but smiled in relief when Rose moved on. “I’m supposed to ask if you have everything you need?”

Lisa wasn’t even sure what they would need to contact their uncle. She had only ever attended the ritual once, when her parents had introduced her to their uncle, but they had brought her there while it was already underway. She hasn’t been privy to the details of it.

Rose moved to open another drawer lower in the wall that was full of—

Mana rings.

Lisa blinked and wondered if she was seeing it wrong, but her dragon eyes could see perfectly even in the low light.

They were mana rings. An entire drawer full of dark stone-like rings.

Fist-sized gemstones lay in appetizer bowls on the surface, Lisa knew her family was rich, but this was something she struggled with affording on her own.

Rose ran a hand through and the rings clattered like waves on the beach.

“Three hundred and ninety-three,” she counted instantly. “Good for one ritual, though I could use more. I wouldn’t want to tap my vault.”

Vault. She had more?

Lisa had read a statistics worksheet with an estimate on how many mana rings were broken in comparison to how many were found per year.

Suddenly, she wondered how much of that statistic her aunt was responsible for.

“You need mana rings for the ritual?”

“Mana …? Ah yes, that is what they call them.” She held a ring up. It looked tiny between her claws. “This is the most valuable resource those Towers have to offer and they peddle them to children.”

Lisa frowned. “Because they can hold mana?”

“Because of what they are made of. Do you think every material can just hold magic as well as this do?”

She crushed the ring so thoroughly it broke into a cloud of black smoke, leaned down to peer at it, and whispered, “I see you.” Her eyes turned pink.

The smoke turned pitch black. Where it met her claws, they began to wither. Rose flexed her essence, the smoke dispersed, and her hand looked as good as new.

Oh. Mana rings … So that was disconcerting, but her aunt wouldn’t keep them like spare change if they weren’t safe to handle, Lisa assumed. Hoped.

“Do you need many of them for the ritual?”

“Sadly. And it’s such a hassle to acquire them.” Rose closed the drawer again. “They aren’t expensive, but the process of buying them takes up much of my time.”

Lisa nodded. “I have … eight that I could give you?”

Her aunt paused, turned to her, and smiled.

“What?”

“Look at you! Contributing already.”

“It’s just eight measly—”

“Nonsense. Every little bit counts, Lisa. Your parents must be proud.”

Lisa squirmed and glanced back at the door for an entirely different reason. “Are you coming to dinner, then?”

Rose hesitated. “Is it ready yet?”

“ … Probably not.”

She looked back at her project, and Lisa saw another flash of aching in her eyes. “Go ahead then. I will catch up.”

Rose came to dinner an hour late.

Lisa hurriedly waved her over. She used her wing to shovel a gaggle of dozing children with pot bellies away and made room for her. They groaned and rolled, some burping up multi-colored flames.

Thick fireballs hovered the sky, illuminating the forest as the sky dimmed and turned orange around the edges. Lisa basked in the heat. Hadica seemed so cold in comparison.

Rose threw a shadow as she levitated her way over, greeting those of her siblings she hadn’t seen in a while.

Most of the food was eaten, thanks to the children, but the adults had stores nearby, and somebody periodically left to get more.

Lisa shoved what she could in Rose’s direction, urging her to eat. She’d already had too much and her stomachs were full.

She wanted to hear that story of how she had spirited the creature away, but she got no chance. Her family badgered her with questions of their own.

How was Garen? How was Hadica? How did her project go? Did she make any new discoveries? Did she make any new friends?

Many in her family had been through the Five Cities before, if only to use their ships. Their sailors were the second-best in the world after all. They wanted to know if things had changed, not just out of curiosity but so they could be better prepared for next time.

Oh, they were rebuilding the railroad? And an electrical grid? And the changes to the Towers, of course!

Despite herself, Lisa told them about school and her classmates.

Muri sat with her parents a few seats away and listened, so she made sure to mention all of her friends in equal part.

A diamond crunched between her teeth, her stomach digested its conceptual worth, and she told them of Micah and their standards of alchemy.

Her family dabbled in alchemy, though they did it differently. They could alter patterns directly so they surgically removed the parts they wanted, grafted them onto others, made tweaks, and smoothed over the final product.

Lisa could do that, in theory. [Mold Pattern]. It was the first Skill she had gotten from her Path, though she didn’t have the knowledge to apply it in potions. She had mostly learned it for flesh shaping.

Humans, on the other hand, smacked just the right patterns in just the right solutions together to create potions that could cure all, transmute the elements, and cause explosions.

It was a miracle, but one they’d created through hard work and perseverance … a lot like some of their more demanding projects.

She told them of mana, how the magic worked, and how Ryan and Myra used it to copy magical beings, a lot like them.

She told them about Navid and Anne, how their families had treated her, about the social landscape in Hadica, and how the Heswarens were doing.

A few notable names had died while promising new stars were rising, Anne among them.

She told them about Garen’s girlfriend, a hard-nosed retired adventurer who hunted demons with the Tors in her spare time.

She told them about how they had saved her from a … thing … they’d encountered on the road to Hadica.

Lisa still didn’t know what it had been, but her parents were concerned so she gave them a quick description so they could look into it.

She waved their concern off by talking about other adventures she’d had: their exams, her arena fights, the fight they’d had against the collector.

The more she talked about her family there, the more the last three years in Hadica felt like a vivid dream she had lived and woken up from.

She sunk into the warm embrace of her family here. She loved every one of these people around her, she’d missed them so much she could cry, and … it was hard to remember why she had left at all.

It was hard to imagine leaving again. With every second, she found more and more reasons to stay.

Lisa lifted another roast leg and dug in.

----------------------------------------

The apple crunched between his teeth. Ryan bit a crescent off, juggled it to avoid the juices, and fiddled with the strings of his tea as he lowered the bags into the kettle.

“Don’t,” Barry told him.

“Mm?”

“It’s magic, right? Only boil water in there. Had a friend who made soup in his all the time and it broke in a matter of weeks.”

Ryan glared at the kettle. Well, that considerably lowered its value. He shut the lid, turned it on, and leaned over to rummage through his pack for a metal travel mug.

The campfire crackled between them, a small, stinking thing they’d made mostly for the repellants and embers.

The forest was impossibly loud as the sun set, especially to him. Critters buzzed around the edges of the smell, grasshoppers and beetles chirped, the odd bird sung, and he could hear things rustling in the bushes far away.

Earlier on the day, he had led them in a wide circle around some snorts he had heard. He didn’t exactly want to get his leg ducked up by a wild boar.

The sound that stood out was the guitar.

“I still can’t believe you brought that thing along.” Ryan bit another chunk out of his apple.

“You could’ve given it to Gus,” Parker said, “he would’ve brought it to camp for you.”

Silas shifted his fingers as he strummed a note. “I’m still new. I have to practice.”

“What, do you think that will help you with the ladies?” Barry gave a teasing smile. “I got to say, you’ll need a lot more help than that to be a [Lover], dude.”

Silas made a face. “I won’t need any help with that at all.”

He opened his mouth to retort with a positive grin this time, hesitated, and gave him an odd look. “What?”

Something about the casual ease of his words. Ryan sat up. The others looked, too.

Silas shrugged and strummed another note.

“No shit!”

After two days of marching through the wilderness, Barry was surprisingly chipper, and this only made it worse. He leaned over to shove him, and Silas smiled as he swayed.

“You finally joined us in the multi-class league, huh? Congratulations!”

Us, he said but the rest of them around the campfire gave awkward smiles or stayed uncomfortably silent.

Barry noticed. “No. Kian?”

His classmate he’d brought along gave him a helpless smile.

“Ryan?” he turned on him.

Ryan looked away and mumbled something. He regretted the words the moment he said them, but when Barry said, “What was that?,” he repeated himself anyway.

“Waste of levels.”

They laughed at him, even Silas. It was a typical defense people gave when they were insecure about this sort of thing after all, like the kid who said alcohol rotted the brain. He should’ve kept his mouth shut, but they didn’t.

“Well, at least I’m not learning to play that same stupid song every lame guy learns to impress girls.”

“I’m not,” Silas said. Another chuckle interrupted him. “Really. It just fits my Class— both of my Classes now. And all the cool camp counselors know how to play instruments.”

“So you really want to be a [Scout Leader], huh?” Parker turned his nose up.

Ryan saw his chance to change topics. “Yeah, what’s up with that anyway?”

“What? I like it.”

“It seems pretty unrewarding, and the coaching business is tough,” Parker told him. “Everyone wants to be the one to raise up the next [Dragonslayer].”

“I don’t want to be a coach,” Silas said, “I just want … this. Good company, learning new skills, the wilderness. I enjoy it. It might not pay much in the lower levels, but nothing is worth doing if you don’t enjoy it.”

Parker gave a reluctant sigh and nodded as if he agreed with him and went back to washing himself off with a wet towel.

Ryan scowled. What?

“Bullshit. There are tons of things worth doing that you don’t enjoy.”

Silas creased his brow and looked up from the strings. “Like what?”

“Getting out of the bed in the morning to run five kilometers around the Tower?” Two laps, because one was barely a warm-up to him anymore.

“Yeah, but you enjoy working out on some level, don’t you?” Silas said. “If not for the practice, then the rewards.” He gestured vaguely at him as if pointing out an example.

“You can say the same for anything else. You don’t enjoy your work, but you enjoy the paycheck.”

“Not arguing that. I’m just saying, if you want to dedicate yourself to a Class or Path, you have to enjoy something about them. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Ryan made a face.

“You don’t enjoy your Class?” Kian spoke up, and his voice sounded groggy like he had just woken up. He’d barely said a word in two days and now he butted in? “What are you again?”

“I want to be a [Ranger]—”

He frowned. “What are you now?”

“[Fighter], [Scout], [Mage] mix. In descending order.”

“So yeah,” Silas spoke up again, “take you as an example. You have those Classes for a reason, right?”

“Bits and pieces— I want to be a [Ranger]—”

Barry rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh. And why?”

“It’s a good fit to consolidate into? It’s common, so I know what to expect, as do any potential employers, it’s reliable—”

“Yeah, that’s all rewards,” Silas said. “What do— or would you enjoy about it?”

“Running off on your own and screwing your team over when we were following the plan you made?” Parker gave him a bitter smile.

Ryan hesitated. Despite himself, he smiled. “Honestly? Yeah, I enjoyed that. Fighting an entire Kobold camp on my own was awesome.”

“You enjoyed the air drop, too,” Barry commented, “like an addict who got his fix. Are you an adrenaline junkie?”

“Nah, I know what he is. [Adventurer].”

Ryan scoffed, “No? [Adventurers] are short-sized idiots on an empty quest. Literally. They go out looking for adventure where there is none, level to ten or something, and then they all meet the same fate: they go home. Then what? They have to level something else, they probably can’t consolidate, and so they’re stuck with ten levels in a useless Class. No, I want to go home more than I want to go on an adventure.”

“Fuck you,” Kian told him, more annoyed than angry.

“Huh?”

“One of my best friends is an [Adventurer]. I love that guy. He’s not an idiot.”

Barry laughed. He probably knew whom he was talking about.

Ryan cringed but didn’t back down. “One of my friends is an [Adventurer], too, and he is an idiot.”

Jason. He was an idiot in more ways than one, being religious … though Ryan had some stuff he wanted to ask him about. The best place to start, if he wanted to start read some of that stuff at all.

“But you do want to go on an adventure?” Kian asked, in the hesitant way people talked to friends of friends.

“Huh?”

“You said you want to go home more than you want to go on an adventure, but you do want to go?”

“Well … yeah. Who wouldn’t?”

He nodded. “So yeah, then fuck you. You say they’re idiots for trying and failing but you’re not even trying yourself.”

“What?”

“Don’t get it? They’ll have ten levels in a ‘useless’ Class they once loved. You won’t a single level in a Class you love … Dumbass.”

He tacked the insult on and sounded friendlier by the end of it, but the others chuckled again so Ryan bristled … but the words felt right and he couldn't deny them. His frustration fled.

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t thought to himself before. It hit differently when someone else said it, instead of when his own thoughts spiraled down a drain. Somehow almost reassuring.

“Well, there is one homemaker Class you can get,” Barry gave him a consoling smile, “there’s no way you won’t get a level in that one, buddy.”

Ryan rubbed an eye with a sigh and let himself fall back into the grass, arms folded behind his head.

There was a pause. Barry tentatively said, “You okay …? Feeling a little sleepy, huh? Had to lay down—”

“Shut up,” Ryan said. He shrugged and waved a hand in Kian’s direction. “He’s right.”

Ryan had screwed up and this time, it wasn’t just an unwelcome thought screaming at him. It was the truth.

But his parents had told him it wasn’t too late. He could still fix this. He could try new things, see what he liked, change his mind.

He liked bits and pieces of his Classes. Every time, he had had a good reason for obtaining them. He could see versions of himself in each one—literally. All he had to do was close his eyes and he could walk along that Argent Path to look at a version of himself that could be.

And [Fighter], [Scout], [Mage]? They were the most basic Classes. They could consolidate into anything.

So if he could be whoever he wanted, the question was: Who did he want to be?

Sure as hell not another run-of-the-mill [Ranger].

The thought came to him, and Ryan smiled.

He loved adventure, excitement, and danger—anything that could pierce through that veil around his heart and actually make him feel again.

Even if he didn’t have that veil, he could remember loving the feeling of jumping off a bridge into the water of playing alleyball with his friends, of learning to fight—feeling alive.

But he did want to come home at the end of the day, or the week, assuming he had a home to come home to.

He thought of the picture book Micah had given him for his birthday, the legends of old depicted on the pages within.

[Essence Reaver]. [Wildhunt Harbringer]. [Deepsea Knight]. [Starscraper Astrologer].

[Dragonslayer].

As childish as it sounded, Ryan wanted to be …

… special …

The sun set. The stars alighted on the yawning sky. The critters buzzed in the corners of his hearing, the fire crackled until the embers burnt low, and Silas strummed his guitar.

Ryan gazed until the stardust clouds stretched across the vast night sky, among an endless curtain of silver points.

Whatever you do, don’t disappoint your mother.

Part of him wished this moment could last forever. This was exactly the type of scene he would love to paint. But he knew what he had to do, and to do it, he needed tomorrow.

So he closed his eyes and slept. And when he woke up, he heard:

[Scout level 5!]

Well, that was fine. It was just one step forward.

Time to take the next.