Conner sat underneath the large ash tree on Seeker’s Hill while the wind picked up around him. Drops of rain trickled down through the canopy, devoid of their momentum. Another cold April storm was billowing in the sky and colored the day in grey, though he couldn’t care less.

This morning, Mac had asked him when he would get his Class, and Conner had replied that he didn’t know yet, but that he hoped it would be [Worker] soon from the Chores he did.

What a big fat lie that had been.

[Smith Class obtained!]

[Smith level 1!]

[Skill — Basic Crafting obtained!]

[Skill — Lesser Strength obtained!]

Connor had gotten it three weeks ago after letting his frustrations out in the smithy. And after a first two weeks of excitement and making as many baubles and nails as he could, he had even gotten level two, which gave him the [Lesser Heat Resistance] Skill. It wasn’t the best Skill, he knew, but it was better than nothing. It would surely help in the summer.

Then … he'd realized none of that mattered because Mac already had three apprentices. He was an old-school blacksmith. He made and repaired things for climbers with his colleagues and worked in what would be considered a small forge by modern standards. He might have let Conner play around in the smithy growing up, but he …

Connor wasn’t the right type of person to become a [Smith]. Even if there had been space for him. And even with [Lesser Strength], he still felt scrawny. He doubted he would ever get [Lesser Brawn]. So there was no way Mac would take him on. Or if he did, it would only be as a favor to Miss Leah and everyone else on the street. He wouldn’t be happy about it.

Now Conner had a Class, but no Path forward. His best bet was probably trying to apply to work on the railroad systems the cities were finally reconnecting. Something new like that was bound to make the people working on it level quickly … or Connor would be stuck making nails and basic labor in some storage building for years on end, never even seeing construction.

If he wanted to go to school, he would have to do one or the other in the afternoons and evenings, if he was even in the city and if he got his Path by then. And that was no way to advance his callings. If Connor didn’t advance and get a lot of Skills, he wouldn’t be successful. He wouldn’t earn a lot of money.

Either way, he would have to move away from Nistar soon and he definitely didn’t want to do that.

The wind whipped against his hair as he huddled under the tree and tried to think of other things. Or nothing at all. The rain blew in with it, no longer having to bother with the leaves. The cold drops pattered against his skin and made it hard to shut off his brain. They only made him shiver.

He shifted to stay warm and peeked up, could see the city in the distance. He probably should have been heading home by now, before the storm picked up. If it started raining in earnest, he might get sick and he wouldn’t make it to work. Waiting tables was actually one of the better part-time jobs he had been given by the Chores office. He could sulk in his room instead, he decided, assuming nobody noticed him coming in.

But on the other hand, he just … couldn’t be bothered to stand up. He just wanted to keep sitting here for a while, on his own, where he’d used to play hide and seek with his friends. When he’d used to have friends, before he screwed everything up. Just because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.

Connor huddle a little closer.

Then the lightning struck.

He woke up from his dream with a start and rubbed his eyes awake. He had fallen asleep on his desk again. Too many long nights. It was late in the afternoon already and his neck and back ached. He wasn’t going to fall asleep early this night either, it seemed. Might as well get some more reading done.

Someone knocked on his door again, more forceful this time, and Connor sat up, remembered what had woken him in his first place. “Come in?” he called and made sure his desk was clean and tidy. He brushed some wood shavings to the ground and made a mental note to clean it up later.

Mac towered there, dark black hair styled back, a grey-tipped beard. He had a cloth slung over one shoulder and spoke in his grim voice, “I heard you got back, kid. How did the interview go? Did Ms. Denner find you alright?”

“Yes, sir,” Connor quickly said. “It only went on for half an hour or so, and seemed like she asked me questions to keep up appearances only. We had spoken about everything else before, after all.”

“Was it just she?”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, sir. The man from the Registry was there as well, Mr. Walker, and a former marine on the teaching staff who will be working with admissions, Mr. Sundberg. They seemed to defer to Ms. Denner in the interview. They didn’t have any questions for me.”

“Hrn.” He scratched his beard, clearly unhappy about that.

“You would have liked Mr. Sundberg,” Connor said quickly, “I mean, like, uh, you would have gotten along.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Keep up the good work then. You’ll do us proud at that school, won’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll remind them you’re more than just your Class?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You won’t … get up to any trouble again? You’ll stay safe?”

Connor looked away. “Yes, sir.”

“Good, good. And I’m supposed to mention, Leah started making dinner for the guests half an hour ago, if you want anything, she’ll put you a plate aside. Just say the word.”

“Thank you. I’ll be down in a minute.”

The man nodded and closed the door as he headed back down the stairs with steps that made the wood groan. As soon they stopped, Conner dropped his head back on the desk and groaned himself. He went through the conversation in his head again and regretted how uncomfortable it must have seemed. He wondered if he’d ever be able to have a normal conversation with the man again.

This new school was a second chance, though, Connor thought. Nobody would know him there, so he could be whoever he wanted to be. That just begged the question, though, who did he want to be?

He turned his head to rest on his other ear and eyed the middle drawer of his desk. Slowly, he opened it up and plucked a wristband off of the books Ms. Denner had gifted him. It burst into white light and Conner smiled a little.

It had been another gift. Just like all of the others, all of the favors, all the kindnesses, he intended to repay it someday. He was good for it, he promised himself, so he could promise it to others.

One such favor was how Miss Leah had asked a friend to inspect the wristband for them, though Connor had learned how to do basic appraisals for himself by now. Not nearly enough to get a Skill from it, of course, just enough to get a feeling from the object.

Apparently, this wristband was enchanted with [Dancing Lights]. Not only that, but it was of really good quality. It might have gone for a gold penny at an enchanted items shop, if not more.

Connor wondered what kind of person could just give an enchanted item away like that, without a second thought. It had been a polite thanks, just to help him find his way out of the Tower because his own wristband had been broken. That guy had been so casual about it, too, like he had done it a hundred times already.

He was probably some kind of noble, Connor bet. Someone who was used to wearing suits to fancy family dinners at the estate house, who had a drawer full of different accessories to pick from every morning while he got dressed, and who had trained since he was tall enough to hold a spear. He sure looked like it. His equipment had been brand new, his shield definitely enchanted, and the way he had moved and held himself, how he’d fought.

He’d saved his life like it was nothing, given him a fancy wristband, and hadn’t even wanted any of the crystals. Definitely a noble, Conner bet. Maybe a [Knight], or a knight-in-training.

Connor pulled his legs up onto the chair and settled into a meditative position, the wristband resting in the palms of his hands on his desk. He had been warned by his instructor not to bond to too many items. Especially not cheap trinkets he would find on the first floor. At least, not without knowing how to undo it yet. But Connor reckoned knowing a light spell would be useful if he went to a school for climbers. The item was fancy enough and anyway, he wondered what that guy would think when he saw him wearing the gift. Probably nothing, though.

Connor still regretted puking. He had done one cool thing with his lightning and promptly thrown up over his shoes. That was just great.

He had to shove that out of his mind for now. He needed clarity. He had a Skill with which he could do this, aptly named [Bind Item]. All he would have to do was focus on it for a minute, spend some mana, and let the Skill do all the work. It would be over without much of a hassle. He could do it with every magic item he came across, theoretically, and learn a ton of temporary Skills by meditating on them after, but it might not be wise or good for his health or advancement. Apparently, the more items you bound the slower you leveled, though it was only noticeable after ridiculous amounts.

Either way, he prefered to do it on his own, like he had back then. He closed his eyes and after a few minutes, the void welcomed him.

The lightning struck and Conner found himself on a walkway made of something almost invisible, like clear water, hovering in an unfamiliar space. It was dark all around him, or at least, it should have been. Light came from all sorts of places. But even without it, Connor suspected he would have been able to see.

There was something behind him, too, but he didn’t look back. It didn’t feel right to look back. The thought of doing it didn’t feel … natural, like trying to turn his head all the way around or walk with your eyes closed for more than a few steps.

He didn’t look back.

He did look forward. There were other things in this void with him. Massive chunks of bark and wood moving as quickly as grass grew. There were leaves, too, light green ash larger than he was tall. And beyond the flying debris and stray drops of rain, there was something much brighter.

Lightning.

It traveled like roots down through a massive tree that stood just outside the end of his domain and, surprisingly, up it as well. Why was there lightning coming from the ground? Connor wondered. That didn’t make any sense.

He shook the thought from his mind and focussed on just witnessing this. The sight was just too fascinating. He had never seen lightning move so slowly before. He doubted anyone had.

So like a moth to a flame, he walked towards it. He took one slow step into the void and the void held him aloft. Connor risked a look down and saw lightning far below where he stood as well. There were also small bits of color hovering around, like orbs painted onto the void. He wondered what those were.

He craned his neck up and saw lightning above him as well, stretching beyond his vision to where he had first stood a few moments ago. He idly wondered about that, why it was headed towards him, but it didn’t really matter, did it? None of this did. He was pretty sure he was in a dream. What else would it be?

So he just shuffled on to get a better look at those fascinating roots in the distance, one slow step at a time.

If he walked too quickly, Connor felt like he would slip and fall. He didn’t know what would happen. He’d probably wake up and have to go home, so it didn’t seem like a good idea to find out. Instead, he moved until he reached the first piece of wood flying past him and used it as a stepping block. Its textures were fascinating. All those dead things packed so tightly, like calluses.

He reached the leaf and it was taller than him, and wide enough to be used as a blanket. He reached another leaf and it shifted when he stepped on top, like a seesaw. He slowly zig-zagged between the chunks of debris and brushed his hands through a raindrop, watched it ripple. Then he reached the end of his domain.

The lightning was just a yard away from him now—or a centimeter, considering his height—and didn’t react to his presence. It didn’t seem so dangerous up close. It looked like a light potion might. Right now, Connor couldn’t remember why people were so afraid of it. Once, he and his friends had dumped light potions over themselves and run around naked like spirits at night. It had given them rashes, but it was fun.

Remembering that, Connor took a step forward and held his hands together. Like scooping a handful of water out of basin, he scooped himself some lightning from the root—

He remembered his body shivering violently. He remembered tipping forward ever so slowly, falling into the lightning tree. It filled him up from the inside out, more and more running through him like a raging river until he threatened to burst. It hurt so, so much. He would have like to forget, but he chose not to. There was no way he was going to let himself forget this experience.

He woke up in a hospital bed two days later.

[Enchanter Class obtained!]

[Enchanter level 2!]

[Skill — Bind Item obtained!]

[Skill — Lesser Electricity Resistance obtained!]

His sheets were white and clean. It was quiet. Everything smelled like medicine and soap. A twig with two ash leaves and a hint of dew lay on his chest and crackled with electricity.

He was lucky to be alive, the doctors had told him. They suspected his heat resistance Skill had helped save him in part, lessening one of the many, many injuries a lightning strike caused.

A couple had truly saved him, though. They had found him when they were running home from the storm and a ruined picnic, lying at the bottom of the hill, electrocuted, bleeding out from a dozen different wounds. The tree had exploded right next to him. Seeker’s Hill was no more, but then again, it had already been ruined before the lightning got to it either way.

In his hands, Connor had been clutching a twig. A doctor had realized it was bound to him and left it with him, because it shocked anyone who tried to touch it anyway. A shame, or Connor would have been able to sell it to pay for his hospital fees.

He regretted it, the week spent in bed, the people yelling at him for being so stupid as to stay out on a hill, under an ash tree, during a storm that day. He regretted the money they had to spend for him, the weakness he felt afterward, the scars that now covered his body like vines. He regretted the pain and healing process, the people trying to steal his relic by breaking into his room at night or pickpocketing him on the street and then ending up convulsing on the ground right next to him. But other than that, being struck by lightning was the best thing to ever have happened to him.

Connor had forged a magic item, somehow. He was an [Enchanter]. Somehow. He was level two. He wasn’t an idiot. Schools, nobles, companies, everybody would be fighting over him.

All he had to do was figure out to create other magic items on par with the lightning twig and he would earn enough money to send the whole street into retirement and repay everyone. It was a dream come true. And with that thought in mind, he had gotten the [Enchanter Path] the very same day.

Now, months later, he found himself in that void again and took slow steps towards the massive wristband made of light in the distance. He could sense his lightning twig to his side, electricity running to and from it, but didn’t dare look. He knew how fickle staying in this state of mind could be.

He reached the wristband after what felt like hours of shuffling and felt the texture of its fabric. It reminded him of birds and fish for some inexplicable reason. Scales and feathers. He wondered how often that guy had worn it, if maybe he had used it as a sweatband, and pushed those thoughts out of his mind.

Connor pressed a hand into the fabric and its enchantment and took a step forward, fell, then forced his body to wake up.

When he opened his eyes, he felt a part of himself within the wristband, bound to it but also to him. A permanent link. Using it now would be much more intuitive. But more than that, he could reach his senses out through the bond and use his [Enchanter Path] to learn its secrets.

Excitement filled him at the prospect of that and he closed his eyes again, but didn’t head for the void. The darkness of his closed eyelids just helped him think. A trickle of mana and Connor had all the access he needed.

He turned the wristband over in his hands, mapped the enchantment with his senses. He could feel that it was glowing, fed by both his mana and his mana regeneration. He couldn’t see either, sadly, but he could feel mana, at least. Especially when it was in an item. [Permeability], though, was beyond him. He had only seen drawings—invisible rings of influence pushing off of anyone who had magic flowing through their bodies, like an aura. Or magnets.

True cantrips used them to work, and Connor was surprised to confirm that the item was enchanted with a true cantrip after all. It didn’t actually consume any mana to work. It … filtered it.

Bridged to him by the small bit of mana he had paid, his rings of power passed through the item and its enchantment. Inside, they were tainted towards light, and Connor then pushed them outward again into the room.

With it, he pushed light outward. He opened his eyes and saw a tiny shape, about the sizes of a pea, hoving over his desk. It was rather blurry, and formless, and it winked out in just a few seconds, but it had worked. On his first try, no less.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Connor smiled. He still remembered when he had stubbornly learned how to use the firestarters and lamps in the inn. Sure, he’d been much younger then, but that had taken him a months of practice to get right. Now, he could use an item within seconds of bonding it, and even only in minutes if not.

He loved being an [Enchanter].

Now. What else could he do with the item? Could his bond with it act as a bridge to its enchantment, like it did to his lightning twig? He'd forged that item himself, though, so he wasn't sure. And Connor needed all the mana he could muster for its spells. How did this item's enchantment even work? Could he replicate the cantrip with a spellscript? On that note, what would his [Lesser Electrictity Affinity] Skill do to the item if he fueled it with tainted mana? He didn’t know if he should try. What if it broke—

“Conner!” Miss Leah called up the stairs and he jumped in his seat.

He almost fell off his chair and, looking through the window, saw the sky was darkening by now. He panicked. He had done it again. Minutes? He had been meditating for hours, apparently. He should have done this at night. It wasn’t like he was going to be able to sleep anyway. Now, he had wasted another evening.

He ruffled his hair. Argh!

“If you want to eat something, you’ll have to do it now or it’ll get cold!”

“Coming!” he called down and tried to stand up, but his legs had fallen asleep. He hit the ground shoulder-first with a thump and floundered for a minute, holding his shoulder and cursing. “Shit! Ah, I mean, drat. Ow. That hurts. Oh, that hurts. Pins and needles. Pins and needles.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing! I fell!”

“Again?”

“Sorry!”

As soon as his legs were working again, Connor turned his head to the wristband lying on the chair after he had dropped it. He would always know where it was now. Of course. He almost felt drawn to it. He slipped it on and ran down the stairs, intending to practice while he ate. He wanted to be able to show off by the time he went to that school.

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

Lisa sat at her candle-lit desk and traced letters. She repeated words and copied sentences as quickly as she could without going outside of the lines. The rows all had dots to remind her of the proper sizes. “Fun fact” boxes in the corners told her other things about punctuation. The final exercises would have her write a diary entrance, letter, essay.

The fact that the book was meant for children that hadn’t even reached the double digits in age did nothing to improve her mood.

But Ms. Denner had torn her apart over the quality of her essay. She’d said her arguments were fine—she even respected Lisa to a certain degree for not handing in her loot, unlike the other two interviewers—but the state they’d been presented in was unacceptable.

Mr. Walker had informed her they could and would continue to deduct points for sloppy handwriting in any future exams of the school.

So here Lisa was.

It was slow, it was annoying, and her fingers wouldn’t move quite the way she wanted them to, no matter how much she reinforced them with mana or dexterity potions, so she focussed on building a pattern, the literal form of muscle-memory, and did it with most of her mind elsewhere.

A soft knock on the door caught her attention and her hand slipped, giving the letter she was writing a curl it wasn’t supposed to have. She went for her eraser, but stopped herself before she tore the paper apart. Erasing stuff had to be done gently, she knew by now.

Garen poked his head in. “Keeping up the good work? Or concocting another abomination?”

Lisa scowled. He was referring to her latest attempt to “gift” functioning organs to a copy of Sam. It had ended … poorly. It hadn’t helped that Mave had walked in on her. For a man that could shatter them without much effort, he was pretty squeamish about seeing bones poking out of things. “Practicing my handwriting,” Lisa told him. “The school insisted on it.”

“Oh. I see.”

He stood there for a moment, looking lost in thought. Lisa was acutely aware of time passing and she still had half a practice book to work through. Her fingers tightened on the eraser. “Was there something you wanted?”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “I just—”

She made an eyebrow go up, like she’d seen others do. The gesture seemed pretty suave to her. “Yes?”

“How far out is the blade?”

She sighed and mumbled, “Give me a moment,” then closed her eyes and flickered through auras with her perception like channels on a radio. She’d fixed one over a summer once and spent weeks just lying around, doing nothing but listen to Overseas traffic and deciphering their language. Now, she found a faint trace of the blade through a lot of noise. It wasn’t getting closer. In storage somewhere? If she had to guess the distance—

“I’d say it’s still in Ostfeld in storage, getting ready to be mailed. It’ll probably be weeks before it gets here. Why?”

“Oh. No reason.”

Lisa frowned as she saw Garen’s body posture and expression, thinking back to other times she had seen him like that and the words that had accompanied those times, then to her other guides. He seemed … anxious? Was that the right word?

“Are you anxious?” Lisa simply asked. “Aren’t you looking forward to fighting it? You saw how large it was in its cavern. It’ll probably be a nice challenge for you.”

He sighed. “No. I’m not looking forward to fighting it. I’m an [Adventurer], not a [Fighter], kiddo.”

Based on her experiences with Garen, Lisa equated adventurer to weirdo, so she was having a hard time spotting the difference.

“Is fighting not an adventure?”

“To you, maybe. I think it’s a hassle. I’ll go into its cavern, wake it up, fight for a few hours, and go back out again with some loot that I will have to hand over to the Guild, whatever it is. Great. Big deal. And then some idiot is going to write a sequel, ‘Garen, the Dragonslayer fights the Titanic Salamander of Hadica,’ probably to save some child that got lost.”

“Lost and wound up on the thirteenth floor?”

He gave her a look. “It won’t be a smart child.”

Lisa chuckled and asked, “So don’t do it?”

“They’ll pressure me into doing it, since so many other teams have tried and failed by now. I might even lose my job if I don’t. I am a Guild employee.”

And what did that matter? Lisa thought. It wasn’t like Garen needed to work. He hardly spent any money anyway and if he really needed more, he could ask the Heswarens to pay him for all the hours he’d spent tutoring Anne. They paid handsomely. If he had gotten a private job like that in the first place, nobody would even know about the … Class. Getting fired from the Guild seemed like a good thing.

Plus, there was his other job that he got paid for by the city, even if most of the money went to Maverick.

“I’m just curious,” Lisa prefaced her statement, “but you do have a spine, right?”

He scowled. “It’s not that big a deal. I’ll just kill it and go back to my desk again.”

“Hey, you came to me.”

“I know, I know. Whatever. Have fun learning the alphabet,” he jibed as he turned to walk away.

Lisa hesitated for a second, but forced herself to call after him. “Hey, Chandler?”

“Hm?”

She took a deep breath. This had been weighing on her for two weeks, though she’d never pressed the issue. They argued all the time, after all. It wasn’t her place to pry. And she always come back, she knew. But still … she was her friend, and she was endorsing her for the school, and Lisa would have loved to talk with her about the exams and all the things she had discovered, so she had to ask—

“When is Allison coming back?”

Garen froze and answered without turning, “I don’t know.”

“Is she coming back?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't."

"That's not a good enough reason."

He sighed and hung his shoulders a little. "You have to understand, that fight we had … it got pretty bad, Lisa.”

Lisa remembered the beginning of it, before she’d warded the office against sound so Ryan couldn’t listen. She remembered the broken furniture Mave had stacked in the shed. She shifted in her seat and demanded, “Has she even apologized yet?”

He tensed and Lisa knew she was pushing too far.

“No.”

She still pressed on, “Are you going to go talk to her?”

It took a moment for him to answer and he thought he might walk away, but then he answered, “Yes.” He hesitated again, seemed to change his mind, and turned halfway back to her. “No. Listen, Lisa—”

“You have to go talk to her. Do it or I will.”

He stepped into the room and suddenly seemed so much older. “And you’ll say what? You can’t change her mind, you know that. She has her beliefs, just like anybody else. She’s stuck in her way and none of us can change that. We just have to wait for her to come back to us.”

Lisa thought about it for a moment before she reluctantly nodded. He was probably right. She had rarely met anyone as stubborn as Allison Reed. That didn’t mean Lisa had to like it. Maybe she should go to talk to her after all, just to see for herself. And maybe just to see her, and talk.

Garen went to leave again and she mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

“It is.”

“No. It isn't. Allison and I are very different people, Lisa. We have very different opinions. So when stuff like this happens, when we have to act on those opinions, of course we are going to get in each other’s way.”

“But if I hadn’t brought him—”

“It doesn’t matter!” he raised his voice. “Okay? It would have happened sooner or later. Especially when you go to that school. At least now, we got to fix the problem before it was too late. It’s better this way.”

That was true. “Will she tell someone?”

Garen froze for a moment and seemed to battle with himself. “I don’t think so.”

“Think or hope?”

“Both.”

Lisa nodded. That sounded about right. At least, they were prepared for it. But that still left one question left bugging her and she had to ask it. “But, even so, even if you fight and are so different … you still love each other, right?”

Garen went from looking serious and a conversation about persecution to blushing like a schoolboy in half a second and asked her, “Where did that come from?”

“Chandler—”

He headed off without reserves this time. “Nope. I am not having this conversation with you again.”

Lisa ran to the door and called after him, “Your time is almost up, old man!”

“Screw you!”

Mave must have heard, because he shouted from somewhere else on the property, “Shut up, you pervert! Not everybody wants to have kids!”

Lisa almost shouted back, but that would have started another discussion she couldn’t win. She shook her head and headed back inside. They were hopeless, the both of them—she spotted the book on her desk and sighed—just like her handwriting. She tried not to think about what her family would say to that and packed the book up again, then headed for the floorboards.

Her fingers brushing over the spines of the books stacked there and she searched for its proper place. How to Teach like ... , How to prepare a ... , How to Improve your Social ... , How to Care for a ... , Hoplites, History of the Five ... , History of the ... , Heswarens and ... , Harvest Time ... , Hadica, a City Guide. There. Lisa put it right after the beginning of “H,” Handwriting for the Classroom and ran her fingers over the next few spines to make sure everything was in place.

After slipping the wooden panel back on top and tidying up her desk a little, she looked around and sat on her bed with a sigh. For moment, she did nothing. Then she picked up the staff that lay right next to her and turned it over in her hands.

It was a mixture of a club and a walking stick, really. It had a ram motif carved into it, with large horns that twisted back into the wood. The base itself seemed slightly twisted, as if it been spun of two different woods that were only discernible by a millimeter in height. It was only visible up close.

Like everything from the tower, its wood had been subtly altered. Lisa could push mana through it so easily, it felt like someone had been doing it for decades. Possibly a spirit. The downside was that the pathways were very narrow. Like a water pipe, it wouldn’t support spells that needed higher amounts of mana without straining, since Lisa could only increase the water pressure so much.

The pipe quality was better than her current mage staff, but the pipe size was smaller. It would be a short-term improvement, she supposed. Aside from that, there was another reason why she wanted it.

Lisa had spotted the staff in the long treasure chest of a hollowed-out tree and kept it on a hunch. Now, after double-checking, she was sure. It was a type of Shepherd’s Staff, a mage staff that was ideal for [Summoners] and other Classes that had minions.

This one was enchanted with [Wind Sense] and its mana Paths could innately shape the spell, [Ping], a barebones messaging spell that would suffice for commanding summoned monsters, but had a tendency to not work with people. Their auras could interfere or the spell might be so weak, they would interpret it as just a tickle or any other sensation. It definitely hadn’t worked with Micah the few times she’d tried using it.

Theoretically, Lisa didn’t need the staff at all because she had her [Summoner’s Bond] with Sam. But lately …

Lisa had grown to doubt that bond. When she used it, it connected a part of her mental spirit with Sam’s pattern, down to the very foundations. Creepy mana roots, she remembered. She had been right when she told Ryan Sam was construct and didn’t want anything. It didn’t. It shouldn’t. And yet, it so clearly did.

It had felt hesitation when she had put it up against another Teacup Salamander, both in the arena and the Salamander’s Den. But that wasn’t its hesitation. It was hers, echoing into it through their bond. If she continued on this path and there was even a chance that it could, Sam wouldn’t develop its own spirit. It would become an extension of hers instead.

And that wasn’t right. If Lisa was going to make a sentient or even sapient being, it deserved its own life. It deserved a chance at autonomy. And more than that, it deserved a good life. It shouldn’t just be a tool to be used.

Lisa sighed and laid her club aside. She picked up Sam and waited until it stopped glancing at the window to look at her instead. A little over a month. That was how long she could keep it alive with some adjustments, she had calculated. By cutting the bond before it gained critical tension and remaking it, and shifting its structure a little bit, she could cut down on costs and increase stability.

The time limit for that had been two days ago. She’d missed it, because of her indecisiveness.

Now, Lisa made up her mind. She was not going to take the easy route, force Sam to do whatever she wanted it to do as an echo of herself. She was going to find another way, make it its own being.

So she looked into its eyes and made a promise she knew had felled empires, “Someday, I promise you, I will give you a soul, Sam.”

She thought she might have felt something similar to contentment coming through their bond, maybe even happiness. Then she snapped it and the taut string snapped back to hit Sam. Like a flick against the forehead, it burst into smoke and her hands were suddenly empty.

Its crystal plopped onto her blanket.

Lisa waited a moment to collect herself. Then she picked up the crystal and resummoned Sam again, doing it slowly, properly. She shifted her mana around a little while it flowed to make it smaller, slimmer, more agile. And this time, she suppressed [Summoner’s Bond] entirely so that there would be no trace of herself in the beast aside from her mana. When it was whole again, Lisa turned around and fell back onto her bed, holding it high above her with two hands, felt its warmth through her skin.

Its one leg twitched. She knew that it was simply an involuntary reaction by now. She was pressing down a nerve-equivalent and Sam automatically tried to find stable ground to perch on, so that was why it twitched.

It looked around for enemies, picked up on the movement of its own leg in the window reflection, and stared. Its enchantment wasn’t sophisticated enough to know what a reflection was, so it stared at itself as a possible enemy, the same as it would have at wind chimes blowing in the breeze.

When she spoke, its attention immediately snapped back to her, awaiting a command.

It didn’t think at all. It wasn’t alive at all.

It never had been.

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

Files. Files upon files upon files. Filled with names, addresses, numbers, reports. Late nights, four cups of coffee in an unfamiliar office, in an empty school building, an empty campus. Pushing children to get a good measure of them, so she could choose whether or not to reject them.

That was her life now.

Ameryth didn’t know if she would join in on the application process next year after all. She had enough work on her plate and weighing childrens’ flaws against their strengths was just a little bit soul-crushing. Every flaw that outweighed a strength, every strength that surpassed a peer meant a rejection letter sent.

Ameryth saw some kids who had fascinating Skills, some she had never even seen before … and little else. Then she saw the age-old [Fighters] and [Mages] with perfect levels, perfect Skills for those levels, and good performances, with long lists of experiences, hobbies, and the right kind of family name, and she found it hard to justify rejecting any of them, who could reasonably become anything, just so she could have an interesting kid attend instead.

This wasn’t a curiosity auction.

Fortunately, there were quotas they wanted to meet. They had to get enough children together to offer the various classes they had advertised, to create a healthy mixture in their school. But those quotas didn’t help as much as Ameryth had hoped. She was forced to meet them while there were better children, whose groups had already been met that she would rather pick up instead.

So yeah, the quotas didn’t help so much. Ameryth had half a mind to put her feet up and say nothing during the next committee meeting, to just catch up on some sleep and let the others handle everything. They were competent enough. But of course, she couldn’t do that.

That still didn’t mean she had to read through yet another file right now. She needed a break.

She ran a hand over her face, fitted a strand of hair behind her ear, and leaned back, looked around her office. At least it was nice enough. She considered rearranging the furniture slightly to make it more symmetrical, cleaning up a little, feeding Cal some more fire potion, making yet another pot of coffee so she could continue work—

She pushed herself up and and headed for her massive walk-in closet. Even her parents hadn’t had one this big back home. But hers wasn’t filled with clothes, it was filled with … more files.

Or rather, very large and wide file cabinets. And the occasional trinket on shelves. At least, those were nice.

Ameryth found the drawer she was looking for and breezed through the folders until she found the scroll she’d bought—or had had bought—on her only day off, when she had also managed to snag that Connor kid for her school. A level two [Enchanter]. That would look great on reports.

The scroll still seeped of passion when she brought it out, though it had been weeks since she got it. An empty table next to the door gave her room to lay it out and once again—it didn’t make any sense at all. It had been a sealed scroll by the Shepherd. Verified, of course. But for once, it wasn’t accurate.

The Shepherd filled treasure chests with all sorts of things. Drawings, maps, studies on monsters, plants, animals, and, of course, spellscripts. What every beginning [Mage] hoped to find when they saw his crest. But his information was never inaccurate.

The scroll showed a map, details so fine she needed a magnifying glass to catch some of them. It was a cross-section of the Tower that showed illustrations of a few select floors, interconnected and overlapping. The Fields wrapped around the Tower like a spiraling staircase.

The floors were also annotated with Dwarvish numbers and notes leading off to the side.

All the way at the bottom was an illustration of the Salamander’s Den … and then another … and then another, stacked onto one another. They showed tiny, stylized Teacup Salamanders clinging to walls like lizards alongside even tinier ones, the size of actually garden-variety lizards, scuttling around next to them, though there were none in the Salamander’s Den that she knew of.

There was a minecart on one floor, for some inexplicable reason, a cluster of crystals growing in a corner, and what looked like a bridge a small Kobold stood on. In a dark tunnel, only two glowing eyes were visible as something spewed fire.

The numbers read Floors I, II, and III. The floors on the map went all the way up to XXV that depicted the beginnings of grass and structures of the Gardens. But the Gardens were on the seventh floor. Not the twenty-fifth. If a person went into the Fields and down one floor, they would have to go up at least six times to get to the Gardens, not twenty-four times.

Hell, even Ameryth had never even been to any of the actual twenty-fifth floors. It was far too dangerous. There were things in there that could kill her as easily as she could step on an ant on the road. So what was the meaning of this?

Ameryth suspected she was either holding the first piece of inaccurate information from the Shepherd or it was accurate and she just didn’t know enough about the Tower to understand it. They called the various floors single floors, despite varying in their height. Were there actually three different Salamander's Dens with subtle differences nobody had noticed over scores of years? She doubted it.

As both the principal of a newly opened school for climbers and having two decades of climbing experience herself, Ameryth did not like it.

On the other hand … she wondered if any followers of the Shepherd she knew would pay for it, if only to destroy it—her eyes slowly shifted over to her desk full of files—but maybe that could wait until school had started and things calmed down. For now, the "map" went back in its drawer and Ameryth behind her desk. She had work to do.