Kieran’s revelation brought the three young women to a halt.

“You what?” Rowena gasped.

Mattie’s eyes were wide as saucers and she began hammering him with questions. “How is that possible? Were you not asked? Did Manipulator come with preset Abilities? Though that’s usually only for the more basic OTHER classes–”

“Hush, Mattie,” Rowena held up her hands to silence the babbling Healer. “Give Kieran the chance to explain.”

They looked at him expectantly. He just shrugged, and started walking again. They followed.

“Kieran, come on,” Rowena said. “You can’t just say that and not say anything else.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Kieran shrugged. “I was as surprised as you are. Though I guess it’s not strictly speaking accurate to say I don’t have any Abilities. I have all of them. Or… access to all of them? I honestly don’t really know.”

Mattie held up a hand. “Wait wait wait. Can you just— start from the beginning?”

Kieran gave an exaggerated sigh, though Rowena knew he was almost certainly enjoying the attention. “You all were in the foggy mists, right? Heard the voices, the chorus?”

He waited until they had all nodded.

“Went through all that crap with the other lame Classes?”

“Get to the point, Kieran,” Rowena said impatiently.

“I thought you wanted the whole story!” He blinked innocently.

“You know what I meant.”

“Alright, alright. I went through WARRIOR, OTHER, and ROGUE as quickly as possible. I mean ROGUE was kinda interesting,” he nodded at Rowena supportively. “Anyway. I concentrated on MAGIC USER - Manipulator as hard as I could. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but the voices… they sounded amused. They asked me if I knew what I was getting into, and on and on. I thought I’d die of boredom, though of course they sounded like a cat who’d seen a mouse.

“But I… insisted, and when I woke up I hardly had time to register where I was before you came barging in,” he poked a finger at Rowena, but then had the decency to look a little ashamed. “I hadn’t selected any Abilities, so it was as surprising to me as to you when I used Influence Individual.”

Rowena bristled at the memory, but had to let go of her anger. After all, she herself had used Abilities on others unwittingly since then– and even willfully.

“So when you all– when you did the thing they tell you to do, to meditate on your Sigils and all that crap,” Kieran looked around at each of them with curiosity, “what happened?”

“I was given a number of options for Abilities and Proficiencies that are commonly taken by my Subclass,” Mattie explained promptly. She looked intrigued and troubled by Kieran’s story. “I already knew what I wanted. I had to purposefully think of Gravitas to pull it up, though. Which is why it’s good to go to your Selection Ceremony prepared,” she added knowingly.

“Yeah. I figured as much. So… I didn’t have to do that. They’re all just… there for me,” Kieran explained.

“You can use any Ability at any time?” Sorel asked, disturbed.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Kieran shrugged. “I think it’s probably smarter to pick a few to focus on and get better at using them, though.”

“So that’s what a Manipulator is,” Mattie gaped. “You just… manipulate the magic. However you want.”

“I guess so,” Kieran replied. “It’s like… I can just see the magic, the energy, the whatever you call it… it’s in everything. People, plants, stuff… I just kinda think about what I want to accomplish, and…” he snapped his fingers.

“No wonder they keep that one secret,” Mattie mused. She rubbed an index finger over her lips as she considered. “Though it’d be tempting to just try everything and end up not very good at anything.”

“What about Proficiencies?” Rowena asked. “Those aren’t magically driven, right? Did you pick specific ones for those?”

“Oh yeah. I picked Luck and Stamina,” Kieran said cheerfully. “I hate being uncomfortable and knew this was going to be a long trip.”

“Smart,” Sorel allowed.

Rowena reflected on Kieran’s story as they walked for the next few hours. Mattie was right– she’d never really heard about Manipulator as an option, but Mattie’s it was how she said it that brought up questions that had never occurred to Rowena before. ‘No wonder they keep that one secret,’ she’d said. Who were ‘they’? Was there a ‘they’? Rowena suddenly realized that she had no idea how or why the Class system worked or whether there were people or powers behind it.

Had there always been Classes? Or were they imposed? Was it natural, or simply the way some mysterious ‘they’ had chosen to organize the magical forces of their world? Rowena vaguely knew that the nature of Classes, or at least the popularity of certain ones, had changed over the years– there used to be far more of the Adventuring sorts, because there used to be far more magical creatures to fight. Or so ‘they’ said. Hmm. There seemed to be a lot of ‘theys’ in the world.

These issues were more than Rowena had wanted to consider, and she tamped down her questions. ‘They’ or no, the mysteries of the Class system and how it had or hadn’t changed had no bearing on the task ahead of her or the reality that, well, she and her friends were what they were now.

As the sun was just beginning its descent into the earliest part of dusk, they finally drew close to the forest. It was dark and foreboding, but the path through it seemed fairly well maintained, though a bit narrower than it was in the open hills. Rowena could hold out her arms and one and a half of her would fit between the treelines.

The others seemed a bit nervous to be entering the forest, but Rowena was relieved. Her Calm Person Ability was beginning to wear off, and she walked into the shade of the trees like it was a warm embrace. Without the frighteningly open sky above her, she immediately felt her own innate, natural calm return and took a deep, relieved breath. She kept using Calm Person, just in case, but at a much lower level. More of a trickle than the flood she’d needed before.

Still, the constant use of an Ability clearly was having some effect– she could feel herself rapidly gaining ground on achieving Level Three, which frightened her somewhat.

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They walked for another half an hour or so– frustratingly, their pace was slower as they had to be more careful of roots and rocks on the more uneven terrain. The light was far dimmer now, so Rowena stopped walking to ask Mattie and Sorel, “So… where would we set up a camp?”

Mattie glanced at Sorel, who shrugged. “We’re outside of my terrain of camping expertise now.”

Mattie looked around until she saw something that caught her eye. “I think I see maybe a clearing over there? The book about travel said something about getting off the road, but not so far that we can’t find it, and finding flat ground to put our bedrolls on.”

“That… makes sense,” Rowena agreed, though she didn’t care for the idea of leaving the road. What was relatively safe during the day, though, could be a different story at night, she supposed.

They carefully made their way off the path in the direction that Mattie indicated. Rowena’s breath caught as they lost sight of the road, but Sorel cut a little strip off of her cloak and tied it around a little branch.

“Smart,” Kieran said begrudgingly. Sorel just snorted.

“I think– this should be good?” Mattie looked around at a tiny spot that could hardly be called a clearing, but did have a bit of flat space.

Sorel kicked away a few fallen branches. “Looks good to me.”

They all looked at Rowena expectantly. She felt a little surprised, but she supposed she was the leader of this little quest. “Uh– yes. Good find, Mattie.”

In all honesty, nothing about a night on the road sounded good to Rowena. She’d never spent a night away from home before, and not just because she liked being at home. Camping had never appealed to her. It was so… dirty and disorganized.

She eyeballed the ground, made up of dirt and small greenish plants and sighed. She didn’t like crushing plants, either, but supposed there was nothing for it. “Do you think it’s going to rain?” she asked as she swung off her pack and hunted for her bedroll.

Sorel shook her head. “Maybe a little bit, but nothing that will get through the canopy of the trees, I don’t think.”

Kieran set his bedroll next to Rowena’s. “What an adventure, right?” he said excitedly.

“Can you get the bread out?” Rowena asked, suddenly gnawingly hungry.

“You okay?” Kieran asked as he reached into his pack and handed her the leftover bread from lunch.

She took a big bite and nodded.

“I’ll go dig a latrine,” Sorel volunteered and stalked a little further into the woods with a tiny hand shovel she must have brought from the farm. The rest of them looked at her gratefully.

Mattie was setting up a tiny campfire. “We don’t need anything big,” she explained. “But I figured I should practice more before we get further down the road.”

In her hands she held a little flint and steel. Rowena bit her lip– another thing she’d forgotten in her haste to leave. She had no idea what she was doing– how could they possibly look to her for leadership?

Mattie followed her gaze to the tools in her hands and shrugged. “Like I said, Sorel and I went camping. She gave me this, but I’ve never used it.”

Kieran rolled his eyes. “We don’t need that.”

Before anyone could say anything, the tiny pile of sticks erupted into massive flames that shot up almost to the trees. Fortunately, Mattie had put very little wood in place so the whole thing burned up almost immediately.

All three of them let out shouts of surprise that drew Sorel back at a run.

“What’s going on?” she asked, adopting a defensive position and looking around warily until her eyes met the charred ash that had been their campfire.

“Kieran, you idiot,” Rowena sighed. “That was unnecessarily terrifying. And you could have burned the forest down!”

“Woah,” Mattie said breathlessly, staring at the site of the minor explosion. Her face looked eager, but also afraid.

“Woah,” Kieran agreed, but Rowena thought she could hear fear in his voice, as well. “That was… lucky.”

“Can we all just agree to not use our Abilities until we have a better idea of how to control them?” Rowena said after a moment. “Even those of us who don’t have Abilities.”

Kieran nodded reluctantly. Mattie echoed him enthusiastically and Sorel just gave a single curt nod before sighing and moving closer to the campfire.

“Out of the way,” Sorel said, and picked up several branches of various sizes as she walked.

With Mattie assisting, she began to build up another little tower of sticks and show Mattie how to hold the flint. The tall young woman was surprisingly gentle, Rowena thought, with a calm, low voice and easy manner.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Kieran said cheerfully, and began digging around in his pack. “But I have yet another surprise for us!”

“Oh?” Rowena said, and frowned when Kieran pulled a wineskin out of his bag. “Did you steal that from the shop, too? You owe us… a lot of money. Don’t think I’m not going to squeeze it out of you eventually.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kieran snorted and waggled the wineskin at her.

Mattie let out a delighted cry as the kindling caught, and they quickly began to feed it larger branches.

“Where’d you even get wine?” Rowena asked suspiciously as she and Kieran sat down closer to the warmth of the flames.

“Eleanora!” Kieran replied in triumph.

That surprised Rowena. “I guess maybe she does like you. Even though she’s too old for you.”

Kieran just shrugged and offered her the first slug of wine, saying, “I told you. Ladies find me even more irresistible with the eyes.”

Rowena rolled her own eyes at her friend’s smugness. She hesitated for just a moment, and then accepted the wineskin. A few swallows couldn’t hurt, and might help her sleep despite the uncomfortable-looking ground..

All four of them took turns with the wineskin, enjoying the crackling of the small fire in a comfortable silence, each lost in their own world. Mattie hummed a little, a habit Rowena frequently found annoying and distracting but tonight felt comforting; Sorel carefully wrapped her hands in the salve Rowena had given her for the blisters sustained with her staff training; Kieran fiddled with his fingers and the necklace.

Rowena herself simply tried not to think, worried she’d feel completely overcome if she did. After a while, she held up her hand to refuse the wineskin when it came back around.

“You’re so right, fearless leader. May as well save some for tomorrow!” Kieran nodded cheerfully and closed the skin up. “No wine shops on the road, that’s for certain.”

He shook the wineskin and listened to the result with a concerned look on his face.

Later, as they settled in their bedrolls to sleep, Rowena was laying awake listening to the strange sounds of the forest and trying to find a comfortable position when she heard a whisper.

“Ro?” Kieran’s voice said hesitantly.

“Yes?” she replied.

“I just wanted to say that… the voices told me that the Manipulator path would be a lonely one, too.” He sounded a little sad, and maybe a little scared, she thought.

“Rare Subclasses often are,” she whispered back gruffly, trying to ignore the rustling from the bushes around her. She couldn’t believe how much noise there was in the forest at night. Bears? Had Mattie said there were bears?

“I don’t think mine will be, though,” he continued with an awkward pause. “Cause I’ve got you.”

Rowena smiled but reached over and shoved him lightly with the tips of her fingertips. “Don’t get too sentimental on me now, Kieran.”

Kieran tried rather unsuccessfully to stifle his laugh. “I just… I wanted you to know that I’m happy to be here. On the road with you. And Mattie and Sorel. Even though it sounds like Mattie snores.”

“Who would have thought?” Rowena said with her own snort. It was true– quite the racket was coming from the copper-haired young woman’s bedroll already. She shifted uncomfortably– laying on the ground was not at all pleasant. “Alright. Get some sleep. And that’s an order,” she added mockingly.

“G’night,” Kieran said with a yawn, and then turned so that he was facing away from her. Within moments, his measured breathing told her he was asleep.

How had he managed to fall asleep so easily?

“Night,” she whispered back, and then lay awake for a long time thinking about all of the things and people they’d left behind.