Ryan felt his muscles tense as his bare feet pressed against the silver floor. He shifted his focus to the mana flowing in his legs, and tried to shift the sensations over as he cycled it.
More and more pressure, more and more force—the strain built and once it reached a peak, he pushed it into every fiber of his muscles and let go.
The spell flared for a few steps and each push sent him running quicker, but then it began to wobble, and faltered. The mana lost its affinity as if there were a leak somewhere and died.
He came to a stumbling stop and propped himself against his knees, heaving. Not that he had to breathe. This was all just make-believe. Inaccurate make-believe if the books were to be trusted: he only had a [Mage] Class, so any meditation he did for spells would be imperfect.
Still, it felt just like he had during the Sport’s Festival or when he trained. Then and now, he’d screwed up.
He wiped his mouth and looked up at the colorful stars around him, at the paintings in the distance, and thought it was enough for one day. He waddled over to the edge of the platform, sat, and let his legs dangle into the void.
Micah had leveled up yesterday and learned a new spell the day before. Saga had leveled, too, and Lang, and countless other people he’d heard talking in the halls.
He hadn’t. He hadn’t even learned a spell in the months since his last level up and he was pretty sure why: he had spread himself too thin, flip-flopping between different spells and schools of magic.
First blue magic, then fire spells, then physical enhancements for the festival, wards like Alex could cast, a little bit of healing in-between, some common [Rangers] spells, and more …
He already didn’t have as much time to practice spells as a pure [Mage] would and didn’t have a path to speed the process along. He was stabbing himself in his own foot.
Worse than that, none of it felt right. Or rather all of it did, just not … It was like he was holding his pen in the wrong hand or reading a book upside-down, but much subtler than that.
Something was wrong.
He sighed and rolled his head to the right, to where a bonfire burned in the distance, a smaller campfire near it. Ribbons of animals ran like pattern knots; moving constellations in the night sky.
He had come here for a purpose, to solve a problem, and the solution was much easier than he had made it out to be to his teammates. But the harder he said it was, the longer they would let him stay in here on his own while they talked out there without complaining too much.
He didn’t have all day, though, and he knew how it easy it was to lose track of time in here. He forced himself up and waddled along the argent path.
Darren sat at the campfire. Ryan ran his hands through the guy’s hair as he walked up behind him, sat next to him on the log, and felt like a pervert as he did it, naked as he was unlike them.
He looked around at the other smiling faces: his mom, dad, Gardener, Micah a little further away, Lang, Finn, Sol, and Lisa.
They smiled, laughed, and looked across the campfire with expressions that were slightly off, because he hadn’t meditated on the Skill often enough to refine them. Their mouths moved but no sounds came out, their eyes moved but they wouldn’t quite meet each other, and he could see them repeating the same gestures and motions over and over, here and there.
Darren bumped into him as he gestured with his arms, telling a story, and the others smiled or laughed, but Ryan reflexively huddled up.
He didn’t want to be here.
Without looking, he shoved his hand in Darren’s face. He could feel the skin twist around like a t-shirt, nose suddenly where his ear should have been, looked over, and groaned.
No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t what he had wanted. He’d wanted— Nevermind. He’d fix it himself.
He got up and knelt in front of him, his posture frozen all the sudden, and twisted the skin back around. The phantom colors that painted his— its face and expression were smudged then as if he had run his hand through a wet painting. It was too late to undo the damage.
He could try, but it would never be quite the same again.
Ryan swallowed past a lump in his throat and gripped its face with both hands. He moved the features around a little more like kneading wet clay until they resembled a normal face, smoothed out the smudges, and let his mind wander to make sure he wouldn’t think of anyone.
It was rare that he worked on any of his painting with his hands, and even now he did most of the work with his mind. His imagination. In just a few moments, the face looked right, but not necessarily cohesive. The mishmash of dissonant features marked this person as a stranger.
There. That was closer to what he had wanted.
He moved onto the hair and mentally twisted something so that the adjustments would keep on moving after he was done, shifting between different facial features, looks, and expressions.
He moved to the shoulders next and did the same, squeezing them together, pulling them apart, making them more muscular or thin, and kept on working until he felt physically sick groping it like this and backed off. Almost too far, he stumbled into the flames and jerked forward.
He used his imagination to fudge on the rest.
The heat of the campfire radiated against his back and calloused feet, and made his skin sting and itch. The person that sat in front of him now looked vague enough now that it could have been anyone.
That was the point.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and focused. When he opened them again, a second Anyone sat on the log next to the first.
Its features shifted between different expressions, different eye colors, different ears and eyebrows, different mouths, chins, hair colors, hair length and—
There. Stop.
One had grown a strand of hair down the back of its neck: a shitty-looking rattail. The other was a little taller than it had been a moment before, with tanned skin that looked like healed sunburn rather than anything healthy.
That was all he had come for.
Good enough. I can … I can improve on them later. He knew it was a lie and was fine with that.
He kept on staring for a few moments while the fire baked his skin and sweat began to trickle. He searched their faces, but there wasn’t a single hint of Darren in either of them now. He hesitated, then closed his eyes one last time and felt a barely-held connection slip away.
Then it was gone.
I’m sorry.
When he opened his eyes again, he sat at a table on the second floor of the foyer in the Guild building, where they hung out, did homework, or studied so often.
His other teammates sat around the table and one-by-one, exempting Micah, they noticed him being awake.
“Fucking finally,” Kyle groaned, plucking at the regret he felt.
“Did it work?” Jason asked, almost excited.
Ryan sighed and didn’t meet their eyes. “Yeah.”
They were supposed to be having a team meeting, but they hadn’t gotten much work done. This, their inclusion in [Pack Aura], hadn’t helped.
The moment they stopped acting like idiots to see if they could notice the difference, Ryan switched to [Hearth of Salamanders] without telling them. He didn’t trust their judgment … or his own.
“Micah? Are you with us?” Lisa asked.
The guy didn’t respond immediately. Ryan didn’t know if he was actually meditating or just doing something adjacent, but his eyes were closed and he had been doing that a lot lately.
He should have been glad Micah had learned throughout the school year, but he just didn’t feel it.
“Micah?” he joined in. Maybe he would respond to him?
He didn’t.
“Great,” Kyle said. “One of them doesn’t do his homework and meditate on his own time like we told him to”—he gave Ryan a dirty look—”and the other just does it whenever he wants.”
“Mhm. And have you been doing a lot of meditating lately then, Kyle?” Ryan asked him.
Before he could retort, Micah mumbled, “They moved.”
“What?” he asked, because he would rather switch topics than give Kyle the time of day.
He opened his eyes. “Huh?”
“They moved?”
“What moved?”
“You said, ‘They moved’.”
“Oh, yeah. My veins.”
“What?”
Lisa rapped her knuckles on the table. “Focus. We have stuff to get done and we haven’t got all day.”
“Sorry.”
Sorry, Ryan thought.
“So what’s on the agenda today?” Jason asked. “Touching base and strategizing for now?”
Lisa looked at him. They all sort of did.
Ryan hesitated for a moment and sighed, “Yeah. We need to check which boxes we tick, see what we can do, what loot we have, and then figure out what we want to do for the exam, if we have any individual needs, and what kind of sixth member we might need for that.”
“If we even need one,” Lisa said, and Ryan gave her questioning look. She shrugged. “Anne and us only had five members last time and we were assigned a higher floor than you lot. It was similar for other teams, I hear. I think the school values quality over quantity in the evaluations.”
“Why?” Kyle asked. “I mean, I’m not a fan of numbers, but you can’t argue that they are really fucking useful.”
“We couldn’t have pulled off that cart maneuver if we hadn’t been six people?” Micah offered.
Jason winced. “Maybe not the best example, seeing how it ended.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Kyle shrugged. “I don’t really care, one way or another. Five people means one less person to deal with and one less person to split the loot with.”
Micah nodded. Ryan agreed. Loot was an important issue for him, and Brent had a point: If they had invited him, securing something good for Micah would have been twice as hard.
“Does it matter?” Lisa asked. “I’m just saying that we won’t necessarily need a sixth person if we’re good enough.” She gave the others a meaningful glance, as if challenging them.
“Oh, I wrote my stuff down,” Micah said and rushed to fumble through his backpack for a sheet of paper. Of course, he had felt addressed.
“Everyone else?” Ryan asked and immediately snatched the paper up before one of them could.
One by one, they got their things out of backpacks, sacks, and duffel bags to fill the table. Theirs wasn’t the only one filled with loot and they’d seen others hold similar meetings.
He still felt a little uncomfortable about the public display. Kyle glancing around was a bit of a wake-up call.
Whatever.
[Essence Path]
[Skills: Essence Sight, Lens: Affinity Sight, Lens: Nature Sight]
[Of Warrior Path]
[Skills: Savagery, Winter Cleaning]
[Alchemist level 12]
[Skills: Infusion, Candle, Personalized Alchemy, Lesser Vibrancy, Knife Proficiency: I, Dissettle, Dissolve, Controlled Breathing, Kinetic Alchemy]
[Fighter level 5]
[Skills: Lesser Agility, Lesser Resilience, Lesser Constitution]
[Other: Condense Water, Chill, Freeze]
[Mana: 18?]
Ryan frowned at the last part. He’d gotten his mana checked out? He looked up to ask about it and saw the table had been covered in weapons already: a ram-headed staff, a sheathed sword, red ax, a golden necklace with a scaled ring on it, a seemingly normal glass bottle—
He sighed and reached down to grab his own gear with one hand and set it down, starting with the yellow rain jacket.
“Micah. Your mana?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. I asked Mrs. Burke about it and she did a check. I wrote it down because— Oh!” He leaned closer and lowered his voice, “She told me not to tell anyone because they’re going to announce it, but the school’s going to test mana before the next exam.”
“What? Why?” Kyle asked.
Lisa was frowning, too. “That’s stupid.”
Micah stared for a second, seemingly surprised by the backlash, and helplessly shrugged and leaned back.
Huh.
Well, Ryan had nothing to worry about there, but … Was eighteen average? For his age, he thought it might have been slightly above average, but he’d gotten his callings four to five years early and had twelve levels in a magic Class. He felt like there should’ve been more.
And of course, Kyle had admitted his mana was abysmal. Why was he on their team again?
He must have glared because the guy noticed him from across the table and asked, “What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, say it.”
“Are you going to share your paper with us?” He flapped Micah’s a little.
He leaned back with a shit-eating grin. “No.”
“Of course, not.”
Lisa was rummaging through her own backpack, but paused to look up and said, “I can vouch for him.”
Ryan blinked. He didn’t … know how to process that. Too many questions, he turned to Jason. “What’s your mana like? Not that it’s important, I’m just curious.”
He squinted. “Last I checked it was twenty …? But that was a while ago. ‘Not sure I like the whole spellcasting quantification movement thingy.”
Right. So Micah was definitely below average there. Considering everything else, it came as a surprise.
What even went into mana capacity? Why did he have so much and Micah so little? It was something he could look into … atop of everything else.
Or maybe not.
Ryan flicked the paper over to Jason and got the rest of his things out: a javelin, a spear with a ragged Garden sheep tassel, a single growing boot he hadn’t worn in ages, and his shield.
They had said to bring everything. Hence, why Micah had brought the glass bottle enchanted with durability.
Before he read the paper, Jason set it down, loosened his tie, and took off the school jacket.
Huh.
Across the table, Kyle gave him another dirty look. It looked genuinely offended for once, though. Had he caught on?
Ryan considered switching back to strength, then decided otherwise. Fuck him. He needed to be sure.
Lisa suddenly upended her backpack over the table between them and a collection of loose pens and pencils, crumbs, a few mana rings, crystals, and other knick-knacks bounced off the wood.
They scrambled to stop them all from falling off the edge and glared at her.
Jason stopped a red crystal with one hand that looked scratched and beaten up, but on the inside, and asked, “Is this a … summoning crystal?”
Lisa didn’t look. She was busy flicking her things back inside her backpack with one hand, holding it with the other. “Huh? Oh, yeah. That’s for Sam.”
He seemed to concentrate for a moment, without her permission, and Ryan was about to say something when an abomination of twisted limbs, organs, and fused maws shot out of the stone, heaving for air like a man on his deathbed.
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Jason shouted and flung the stone away from himself. It soared over the loot on the table.
Micah and Kyle scrambled back in their booths and the amalgamation of flesh hit the edge of the wood with a wet slap. One of six or so legs touched down and pushed it over the side.
“What the hell is that?” Kyle cried, staring down at the corner of the booth. Ryan shot up to see.
“Lisa?” Micah asked, a low panic in his voice.
“Oh, no—” She groaned. “That’s my practice crystal! Don’t throw it. How would you feel if I threw your things around?”
“Huh?” Jason looked lost.
She leaned over the table and waved. Micah hesitated but and gingerly picked up the … thing by one of its limbs. He held it out to her.
She grabbed it like a sack of potatoes and sat back down. “Aw, you summoned all at once? Great, now I have to rebalance all of the channels. Thanks, uh … Jason?”
He stared. “I’m Jason.”
“Right.” She fiddled for a moment and the monster disappeared into motes of red light.
The other two glanced at him as if to say something, but it was Micah who spoke up, “Uhm, Lisa?”
“Yeah?”
“What is that?”
“My practice crystal.”
“Right, right. Practice crystal?”
She stopped fiddling and looked up. “You know, for my Skill? I need to practice first before I can make any changes to Sam’s crystal, so I bought another one to try with first.”
She held it up. So that had been a normal summoning crystal once? Of … another Teacup Salamander? Was this even legal?
“And did you … make a mistake?” Jason asked.
“What? No. You’re just not supposed to summon it all at once. See, you do it like this—”
She did something and a single leg shot out of the crystal like a mushroom from the ground. It looked similar to a Teacup Salamander leg if small adjustments had been made.
The leg disappeared and a single organ shot out, hanging from twisting roots running around the crystal and pulsing with ever so dim red glow.
“Okay, okay, you don’t have to show—” Jason started.
A trail of innards fell out.
“Ew.”
“What about the mouths?” Kyle asked. “Those looked fucked up.”
“Huh? Oh, same base, different executions. I only have one crystal. I can’t afford to buy as many as I want, so I have to stuff everything in to save space. There are two versions of the jaw and teeth designs in there. This is number one—”
A head shot out of the crystal with pointed teeth and a sleek jaw. It snapped at the air a few times.
“—and this is two—”
The first disappeared. The next was broader and some of the teeth looked flatter. Almost … human? That was unnerving.
“Number one,” Ryan said.
“You think so? I have more. I just haven’t found a way to fit them in yet.” She turned the crystal over and squinted as if she could find a way to squeeze something inside it right now.
“So the …” Kyle started and gestured at his face.
“Mouths?” Micah offered.
“Yeah.”
“That happens when you use both exits instead of guiding the mana to one or the other.” The horrible twisted maw appeared again.
“Disgusting,” he whispered, but the look in his eyes and tone didn’t match the meaning of the word.
“Okay, okay,” Jason said. “Can you please stop?”
She glared but the abomination disappeared. “I’m designing a whole new life; it’s not going to be pretty. You’re worse than my roommate.”
Ryan suddenly felt very bad for Lisa’s roommate, whoever she was. Did she practice in there?
“I thought you were some hot-shot mage,” Kyle said. “Why can’t you just … copy your spells over?”
“No. Spells and summoning crystals work differently. There are some things I want to add that I can’t do in spell form, besides. I have to translate it all and make sure there are no mistakes.”
“A single one can have lasting consequences,” Micah said. “You want Sam to live, right?”
She pointed. “Exactly.”
“Live?” Jason asked.
“But you are making progress?”
She hesitated. “Yeah. I want to take my time and make sure everything is perfect, and there is some stuff I want to research in the samples Garen brought me, but … yeah. I’m making progress.”
Micah smiled. “Awesome.”
“Uhm, on the topic of progress,” Jason said, “can we get back to the meeting?”
“Right,” Ryan said, taking it from there. “Where were we? Which boxes do we tick; what equipment do we have?”
He could already see it before him and it … honestly wasn’t much. Other tables had had better loot, he’d seen.
The Rain Jacket—or Yellow Fleece—a single Growing Boot, a fire spear, anti-magic javelin, fire axe, Shepherd’s Staff, three mana rings, a first-floor summoning crystal, durable bottle, fire resistance ring, a durable sword, and a bark shield.
The others seemed to share the sentiment. The others really could use some better equipment.
“You should have taken the glove,” Micah mumbled, staring.
“I would have taken glove if I could have afforded the glove and wanted the glove,” Kyle grumbled, “which I didn’t.”
He shrugged. “Just saying.”
“Oh! And—” Jason suddenly said and got something from his backpack. He got a case out and added an ivory wand to the mix.
Ryan frowned. It looked familiar, but the connection didn’t immediately click until he added, “Wand of Protection.”
“Was that the kobold bone?” Micah asked. “It looks different.” He reached out but stopped himself at the last moment.
Jason gave him permission and in a moment, he had already enchanted his tie and slapped Kyle with it.
Ryan chuckled—a mistake. Because Micah stared, broke into a smile, and did it again. To make him chuckle? Kyle leaned away with a scowl. “Oh, fuck you, Payne. You think that’s funny?”
He shrugged helplessly. Of course, it was.
The guy grumbled something and when Micah stopped, he leaned back up, adjusted his clothes, and Ryan could see a faint sheen of sweat on him.
One more step.
He wanted to ask Jason something, but Micah got there first. “So what happened to it?”
“I brought it to one of our [Enchanters].”
Ryan sat upright.
“He told me only part of the bone was needed for the spell and he could probably make a wand out of it. So we made a deal, contract and everything, and I paid him to work on it with the stipulation that if he made a mistake, he would pay me back and reimburse its value.”
“Awesome. Which one did you go to? We have like, three of them studying at our school right?”
Yeah, Ryan thought. He couldn’t say anything or ask the questions he wanted to ask.
“Yeah, I went to Gian—”
And Ryan’s interested faded just like that. Gian. He didn’t even know who that was. He sighed. What had he wanted to ask again?
“It makes casting any protective spells, all in all, a little easier,” he was saying when Ryan interrupted.
“Jason. Could you do me a favor and cast a fire spell?”
“Huh? With the—” He began to gesture at the wand.
“No, no. Just in general.”
He frowned. “Any spell?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Humor me.”
He hesitated, but then brushed the side of his fist past the palm of his other hand, almost as if holding an invisible match, and fire burst to life hovering over it. He seemed almost surprised by the ease of it himself.
Ryan nodded. “Okay, so that definitely works then. I’ll switch back to strength now.”
“Wait, did you do something? Oh, did you— Your fire aura?”
Kyle was frowning. He thought he’d caught on already? Or had he just glared at him for fun?
“I was worried it was all just in our heads,” he admitted. “But now we know we have a strength aura or … it’s more of a heat aura, really.”
“Cool.”
“So are we going to move on to what we can do, then?” Lisa asked.
Ryan hesitated and glanced at the pile of loot, sans the wand that Micah and Jason were still horsing around with. “Unless we have anything more …?”
She joined him in looking at it, then said, “If we have any shortcomings, this is definitely one of them.”
“Yeah.”
He would have suggested that they look into buying something before the exam, but Ryan had great equipment. He wasn’t going to buy anything and it wasn’t like he could buy something for them.
And anyway, Micah and Kyle couldn’t afford anything, he got the sense Lisa didn’t want any magic items, so that only left Jason.
He glanced at the guy and hoped he would catch on. Hadn’t he suggested buying something last time?
“Okay then, but we have a strength or heat aura—”
“About that,” Kyle interrupted. “Is that permanent or …?”
“Temporary. I can meditate to add or remove you.”
“And you’re going to keep it up until the exam or what?”
“What? No. I’ll remove it when we’re done and add it before the exam, otherwise I would have to tell the teachers about it.”
“Or,” he said overly casually, “you just could not?”
Ryan stared at him. He almost laughed. “You’re seriously asking me to help you cheat?”
He shrugged, but it didn’t look quite right, and then he scowled and looked away. “Nevermind. You’re right. Forget it.”
Idiot.
“So strength aura,” he repeated and made some room on the table so he could take notes. “We have my enhanced senses and Lisa’s summons to scout for physical threats, Micah’s vision and Lisa’s awareness for magical threats, and Jason as a compass to point us in the right general direction.
We have myself and Lisa’s summons as durable front liners, me because of my Skills and equipment; her summons are expendable—”
“I’m resilient?” Micah raised a hand.
Ryan stared for a moment and considered saying something, but then just nodded. “Sure.” Part of him would still rather he fought with his slingshot from the back, but there was no sense in pigeonholing people into roles. At least, not this early before the exam.
“Me, three,” Kyle added.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Sure.” He could say whatever he wanted and they would have to ‘believe’ him.
“We’re also …” he started, but then faltered. He nodded at Kyle. “Do you know how to use that axe yet?”
It was enchanted with [Searing Strikes] and [Lesser Fire Mastery] if he remembered right.
Almost reluctantly, the guy said, “Some. I’ve practiced, but it’s rough work. And it’s only something I can do once or twice a day for a short time.”
“In that case, almost all of us also have some kind of defensive spellcasting abilities. Kyle against fire, which we expect to be our primary opposition, Micah with his breathing against everything else, me with my fire resistance and rain jacket, and Lisa in general.”
“Aw, couldn’t you have said ‘against everything’ or something like that?” she asked him.
“What?”
“It would have sounded cooler.”
“Fine. Lisa against everything.”
She smiled.
Ryan smiled back, then frowned, and looked over. “Almost all of us,” he caught his earlier thought, “except Jason.”
He made an awkward face. “Hi. Sorry.”
“He does have the protection wand, though,” Micah said, waving it around. “It makes us more durable.”
“I know. And that’s useful. I just mean against magic.”
“Oh, weren’t you listening? It helps him cast wards, too.”
“Wait, what?”
“I’ve been practicing the ward that Alex knows how to cast,” Jason said.
“Yeah, me, too,” Ryan admitted.
“Haven’t gotten very far, though.”
Me, neither.
“The wand helps a little.”
“Okay, then uh … we’re all pretty protective against magic … and in general, with the wand and everything else. We’re also all capable of casting magic to some degree, except—”
“Do you have to single people out all the time?” Kyle asked.
“Do you want to write the notes?” Ryan asked back, and moved on because the answer was obvious. “All of us are basically [Mages] to one degree or another. So … I don’t think we could gain anything from having a sixth member as a mage join us?”
“Nope,” Lisa said.
Of course, she would say that. Ryan was having a hard time thinking of any useful members who could join them. Healers and someone genuinely nimble, maybe.
And on the topic of healers—
“Then Micah can also make us alchemicals for the exam. More, now that Brent isn’t with us?”
“Oh, yeah. I have a list!” He searched through his backpack again for a moment and brought it out. “Four potions of surging strength, mainly for Jason and me, but also whoever might need them, standard and a half middle-grade healing potions for all of us except Kyle”—he checked with him—”who only gets the standard amount to follow the rules for the exam.”
Kyle hesitated, then smirked.
“Then climbing cookies for hunger during the day, climbing tablets for digestion, and vitality gummies to keep us fit.”
“Sure,” Ryan said, though he wouldn’t get to eat the gummies.
“Low-grade healing salve for sore muscles, bruises, and minor wounds. Two flasks of breeze potion in case we find the Fields—”
“Breeze what?” Kyle asked.
“We can use them to manipulate some wood golems in the absence of cold spells,” Micah explained. “You spray them and some stop being aggressive, then.”
“Huh.”
Ryan could use some of those now that the days were getting warmer again.
“Also, they just help against the heat. I probably should have made some for the last exam for the mines. It would have helped with our stamina.
Uhm, fire potion just because it can be useful. Alchemical ammunition for myself and maybe Jason …? Did you see me use them during the festival?”
“I saw you eat them? And then breathe a glue cloud at that guy. I doubt I can use the same trick.”
“Mm.” He nibbled on his pen for a moment. “How about I make some for next week and you can try them out? Then you can get back to me on that.”
“Sure.”
He made a note.
“Anything else?” Ryan asked, already a little daunted by the size of the list. Every item was money spent.
“And, uhm … either one good stamina potion in a bottle, or small amounts of stamina potion, like between a hundred and two hundred milliliters, in small bottles for all of us. For emergencies.”
Ryan took a deep breath. He wasn’t really a fan of the idea, but he couldn’t deny that they had needed stamina potions in almost every tight spot they had been in. It had probably saved their lives more than once.
Jason whistled. “That’s a lot.”
“Oh! And fire resistance potions for the two of you. Now that Brent isn’t with us anymore.”
Kyle grunted, “What Gale said.”
“Still cheaper than if we had to buy all of it,” Ryan mused. How did other teams do this?
“Yeah. Still.”
“I’ll try to save costs wherever I can and only make as much as we will need,” Micah assured him. “But I really think we need everything on this list. I mean, you’re not all going to have to pay for my ammo or anything. But if you have anything you want to be struck off, like the gummies or something—”
“No.” He sighed. “It’s fine. We can go climbing all we want after the exam. This is for our grades.”
Ryan was a little surprised to hear him say that. He hadn’t thought Kyle gave a fuck about his grades.
“Yeah, I kind of wanted to tell you not to make me the strength potions,” Jason said, “but he’s right. I can push myself during summer break. This is more important.”
“Alright then … Uhm—”
“You can strike, uh, some of that for me, if I’m being honest,” Lisa said.
“What?”
“I’m pretty good at keeping safe, so standard healing potion amount would work. I bring my own food, so I won’t need the cookies. Or the gummies. Everything else should be fine, though.”
“Oh. And the stamina potion?”
“Yeah.”
He finished up his notes and then got out a notepad, apparently to copy them over. For himself? Micah glanced up and over.
Ah. For me.
“We still have to figure out the prices for that, but knowing Micah that will probably take a few weeks as prices shift. Uh, then we need to figure out our objective.”
“Easy,” Kyle said. “Go in through the Kobold’s Mines. Find an entrance to the Fields. Find out where they get all their wood from. Earn a great grade and lots of loot on the way.”
“Do we even know if we can do that?” Ryan asked. “Did you check with the folder the Guild gave us—”
“Yep.”
“Huh.”
“I did all my homework, unlike you. Prick.”
Ryan sighed and shook his head. “Okay, then we write that down as our main goal on the forms. What about Plan B?”
“Hunting a giant monster,” Micah said.
“No—” Kyle started.
Ryan could see where he was going with that. “That can be Plan B for when we are inside the Tower, but I mean the forms.”
“Plan B is supporting Plan A,” Kyle said. “We write down a similar floor, or floor near the mines, and we do the same thing. If all three of our entries are some sort of Salamander Dens or Mines, they’ll have to send us there.”
“I already know that. I need to know if you would be fine with hunting a giant monster if that doesn’t pan out.”
“It will, though?”
“But what if doesn’t?”
“I’m saying it will.”
“Fucking hell.” Ryan groaned and just wrote down Plan B in his notes. There was no point in arguing with him and he would have no chance to argue with them if things went downhill.
“Right, then. Point before last—I just remembered: What do we need to work on until the exam to fulfill that goal? We still have a few weeks left. Maybe some of us can get a Skill or learn a spell in that time.”
“Tracking,” Lisa suggested. “Or studying maps of the area. Reading up on common difficulties.”
“Casting wards,” Jason said.
Ryan wrote the three down and continued down the line from him. Micah looked up once he noticed.
“Oh, uhm, uh … appraisals?”
“What?”
“I mean, I’ve been practicing with some of the school glasses, so maybe I could get something there if I try to do them with my Path alone … Probably not. Otherwise … [Shape Water]?”
Ryan wrote them down as well. Part of him still couldn’t believe that Micah was aiming for appraisals, though. He knew he had pointed him in that direction, but that was because he’d been desperate to find something to cheer him up while his leg had been broken.
He was fourteen. And level twelve. It boggled the mind. Especially since he didn’t seem to realize how ridiculously overleveled he was for his age.
If he focused on his Paths more … Then again, Micah said his [Lesser Constitution] ‘definitely’ had a strong influence from his Path, so maybe he would have gotten it eventually if he hadn’t leveled up.
It would have made sense if he hadn’t gotten any Skills at all from his most recent ones, considering.
“Kyle?”
He hesitated, clearly clueless, and then jerked his chin at Lisa. “What she said. Maps and stuff.”
“Any Skills, spells?”
“Yes, and no, and no I won’t tell you.”
“Well, fuck you too, then,” he whispered to his notes. “At least look into buying some decent gear.”
Kyle grunted.
Luckily, that was almost it. They were almost done here. “Alright then, ‘last thing: Do we invite someone else?”
“Who would we need?” Jason asked.
“Healers and agile fighters are all I can think of. Unless you have any suggestions, do any of us know any healers?”
They stared at nothing, all of them for a moment, and then shook their heads one by one.
Inviting an agile fighter probably wouldn’t be worth splitting the loot six ways, either. Ryan struck that out.
The moment he did, Kyle got up all the sudden, hands against the table, and said, “Great. Is that it, then? Can we go?”
“Hold on. No. We still need to settle on a time for our next meeting and team training sessions.”
“You said it was the last thing?”
“I don’t care what I said. Sit.”
He didn’t.
Lisa whistled like calling a dog and said, “Sit, boy.”
Kyle glared at her and stepped backward up onto the bench to sit on the divider between them instead.
Good enough.
“That still counts as sitting, you know,” Micah joked.
“Alright.” Ryan cut them off before it could get any worse. He looked around the table and readied his pen. “When can we meet up?”
They considered for a moment, and then all started speaking at once.
“I can’t on Thursdays, or in the mornings, but the weekend should work now that Ryan’s parents are gone—” Micah started.
“‘Can’t on the weekends. Got work,” Kyle said.
“Me, too.” Lisa raised a hand.
“Uhm, weekends would have worked for me. Except on Sunday. Maybe on Tuesday afternoon?” Jason tried.
“I might have workshop, then. I think. What about Monday or Wednesday, or like, in the evenings?”
“I work in the evenings,” Lisa said.
“Then noon?”
“You want to do this under the week?”
“You said you had work on the weekends.”
“Yeah, but what about Friday?”
“Friday is part of the weekend.”
“What. No?”
“I can’t on Friday—”
Ryan took a deep breath, let the pen drop, and tried not to cover his face in his hands or meditate to get away from all of them. So much for almost being done. He looked at the stairs and wished he could just walk away.
Maybe even hop over the railings or slide down them? The thought almost made him smile. Almost.
He remembered the wind whipping past his face in a dark tunnel, phantom shapes of monsters rushing by, jumping onto a giant blue slime. A version of himself looked up at flames in wonder. A lie, he knew. But still. The taste of beer was on his tongue, the smell of it filled his nose.
Why the fuck did he have to organize this again?
Just get it over with, a tired part of him said. Ryan slammed his hand on the table and shouted, “Enough!”
It must have been louder than he’d intended. The others stared at him in silence and he could feel a heat begin to rise up his ears and throat that he couldn't just push away like [Hot Skin].
He forced himself to ignore it anyway and kept his voice steady. “Now, from the top. When can you meet up on Mondays? Lisa, start.”