The next few hours were busy. Last night they had decided to set up camp a few meters away from the Node clearing. As the group returned now they found that to their surprise all signs of the confrontation yesterday were gone.

The motionless wooden bodies were gone, as were the craters in the ground. What was still there were the stones that Ryland had used to fight. Scattered all over the clearing were dozens of rocks in different sizes. It looked like a children’s room, but instead of legos all over the floor, there were improvised throwing weapons.

Looking around Dave wondered where they had even found so many rocks, especially because most of them were at least fist sized. Shrugging he put that thought away.

They had decided to create the Node Village right at the clearing around the Node. As Bixby had told them, a Village was usually created away from the Node, so that the inhabitants wouldn’t be subjected to the Nodes draw day in and out.

Indeed as soon as they stepped onto the clearing, Dave noticed how the Node whispered to him with faint promises of power. The draw was easier to ignore now since the Node was claimed though. Compared to before it was more like a television running in the background instead of having the front seat in the cinema.

It was still a bit annoying but for practical reasons it was best to keep the space they had to hide to a minimum.

While Max walked up to the Node to do his thing, the others waited. Dave took the time to finally dive into his status screens again. There hadn’t been much time for it recently, the last two days having always been busy. Even after they had claimed the Node, Dave had mostly checked his new messages and Skills before there was the next thing to do again. So now he pulled up his personal status screen.

*Dave Coleman

Rank: 1

Domains: Melee, Arcane

Skills: Spark Level 5, Soul Weapon Level 4, Soul Weapon Mastery Level 3

Blessings: Newly Initiated, Chosen Prodigy

Active Quests: 3

Alliances: None *

Now it hit him. He had totally forgotten about the blessings. After the Nodefox den, Dave remembered being confused by the blessings part not showing. He wanted to ask Bixby about it but had totally forgotten. Apparently finishing his attunement had helped in that regard.

Curious he opened his Blessings tab.

Blessings: Newly Initiated, Chosen Prodigy

Newly Initiated: Be in a race newly integrated into the Manaverse. Slightly increased chance at obtaining new Skills.

Chosen Prodigy: You have been gifted access to a Domain by a higher ranked being. Your Skills in the Domain of Arcane ignore Rank disparity.

That sounded interesting. At least the first one did. Increased chance at getting new Skills was exactly what Dave would want. Maybe it even was the reason that he had gotten his Soul Weapon Mastery.

The second blessing he couldn’t quite make sense of, as Dave didn’t know what rank disparity was. Usually he would just turn towards Bixby with those questions but the Nodefox had decided to accompany Max to the Node. Buying upgrades or buildings apparently could be quite the shock for a person new to the ways of Mana, so Bixby wanted to come along for safety reasons.

Coming out of his own head, Dave noticed that the others were engaged in lively small talk. He sat a few feet away from the rest of the group, close enough to participate if he wanted.

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“... I can’t believe that really happened to you.” MIra was laughing so hard, she barely got the words out.

Sarah was only slightly better off. “Yeah no that’s probably the worst thing about Thailand.”

“I can not believe you’ve really lived here for a year.” Sam said, also still shaking from laughter.

“Well I didn’t plan for it to be that long. But the teaching turned out quite fun.”

“I couldn’t imagine being away from home for that long. Don’t you miss your family.” Mira said, her Hungarian accent always intonating the first syllable of every word, giving her voice a rough edge.

Sarah sobered instantly. She seemed a bit uncomfortable with the question. Seeing where it could lead and not wanting to ruin the mood, she turned towards Dave instead of answering.

“What about you Dave? We know you and Max come from the US but you’ve never told us what you do for a living.”

“Uhh… I worked for a local company in the software engineering department. Mostly I was sitting around coding. It was honestly even more boring than it sounds.” Dave said. While traveling the question of what you did for a living came up a lot, so his answer was pretty tuned in by now. He had accepted a while ago that his job was boring, so he didn’t even bother to hide the fact anymore.

Sarah raised an eyebrow and looked him over. “I wouldn’t have expected that. No offense but you don’t seem the office type.”

Dave missed a beat before answering. “What do you mean?”

“Well it’s just… you don’t seem very mundane, that’s all.” Sarah shrugged.

“Ohh… Ahh… Thank you?” The conversation had definitely become a bit awkward. Mainly for two reasons. One was that Dave was always awkward with women. The other that Dave had never heard someone actually describe him with anything other than mundane.

By now Ryland had started chatting a bit with Sam and Mira, telling them about his life back home in Hawaii. Sarah still had his attention on him, although it was waning quickly. Dave wanted to keep it though.

Unsure what to say and seeing that Sarah had already turned halfway towards the rest of the group, Dave just blurted out what came first to mind. “What did you teach in Thailand?”

Sarah looked at him surprised and laughed. “You really didn’t listen before did you?” Seeing Dave’s sheepish look she only laughed a bit harder. “Well English of course. I might not be from the US but I still know my way around the language.”

With that the conversation seemed to flow a bit smoother again. Thankfully Sarah took over most of the talking, Dave appreciated that, since he was always afraid of boring other people and therefore didn’t talk very much about himself.

While Sarah retold an admittedly pretty funny story about a third grader who forgot to wear his pants to school, Dave noticed how pretty she was. Of course he had noticed before, but it was just such a long time since he had any sort of private conversation with a woman. He couldn’t deny to feel a certain type of attraction towards her.

He knew that was most likely only due to his isolation and the circumstances they were in, so he put that thought away. Besides he had seen how much time she and Max had spent together the last few days.

They continued to have a nice chat, but Dave had decided it was better to leave love to Max and focus on pressing matters at hand.

So it was a few hours later that Dave stood opposite of Max in the clearing. It was still before noon, not a cloud in the sky and even the heat seemed bearable. Yet Dave felt anxious as he watched his friends standing on the sidelines watching them with interest.

They had discussed at length how to best go about faking the attack on Max as a Node Controller. Bixby said it had to be a somewhat realistic fight, it couldn’t just be a simple spar. Of course that was pure speculation, Bixby had never even heard about that Node upgrade before they had mentioned it.

Maybe it would’ve been sensible to start with a slow spar and up the ante until they reached the point where the Node registered it as a serious enemy attack. But at the same time the text of After Attack Shield states that Max has to be “bested” in a fight over the Node.

So Dave would have to hurt Max eventually anyways, they might as well do it right from the beginning then.

There was no part in Dave that was looking forward to this. He didn’t want to see his lifelong friend hurt, much less be the one to cause it. His stomach was twisting in nervousness. He wasn’t even sure he would be able to really hurt Max. But he knew he had to.

Max probably knew how Dave felt, that’s why he had decided with a smile that they should use weapons. As grave as it sounded, but by increasing the inflicted damage, weapons would probably make their fight less violent.

Dave wanted to resist but the fact that they had a literal healer next to them, overrode all his arguments. Of course they wouldn’t go for killing blows and Dave would only use the blunt part of his spear, still it felt wrong.

“You’re ready?” Max said, pointing his weapon forward. Dave had to admit that Max had found a rather nice tree branch, it was thick and seemed sturdy. After some work on it, it even remotely resembled an actual spear.

Still it paled in comparison to the sleek beauty that Dave’s spear provided. Even though it was a rather plain weapon, no engravings or ornaments, to Dave’s eyes it held a certain elegance. Simplicity was king for Dave and his Soul Weapon reflected that.

Dave forced a grin and looked Max in the eyes. “Ready when you are.”

Max simply nodded and charged forward.