Chapter 26

My share of the loot: 2 bronze rings, hide armor, 400 copper pieces, dried fish on a tied line, and a mana crystal.

The guild hall was packed with celebrating adventurers. Rumor was that some adventurers had died, and one entire party had yet to return. Garmar and a few other trainers had gone searching for them.

“I hated standing on the sidelines,” Watt said after downing half a tankard of creamed ale. “It felt like I was useless!”

“Leaping off a cliff is a choice,” Lep said, rolling his eyes.

I was content to just listen as my companions went over our adventure with raucous volume. I just enjoyed my warm meal of scrambled eggs with roasted peppers and sundried tomatoes. We’d taken our meals from the bar and found a cozy table by an open hearth in one corner of the guild post.

“You alright Arris?” I asked the quiet ancienne.

He hadn’t yet touched his meal and his excitement was subdued.

“Yea, it’s just…”

I let him search for his expression. I don’t know what his eyes saw, but it felt to me as though he weren’t entirely present.

“When I saw my Garden Spider die, it was hard to watch,” he said. “I know that they’re always different every time I conjure one, but it doesn’t change the fact that they each have personalities, and it felt like I lost a good friend or something—I don’t know.”

I rested a hand upon his slumped shoulders. There were no words for him. The only thing I could do was be with him so that his sadness—whatever he was feeling—didn’t seem to fall on him alone.

I understood some of what he must be feeling. Every time I saw his spider’s health empty and covered with an X, my heart fell to my stomach.

I slid my tankard over to the ancienne’s and clinked the two together.

“To your Garden Spider,” I said.

The five of us drank a toast to the brave critter. The sentiment put a small smile on the ancienne’s face, though I know it would only be time that would do him some good.

I finished off my creamed ale and pushed up from my seat. I gathered my bag and slung my flagstaff to its holster along my back.

“Ready for more dungeons already?” Lep said, cracking half a smile.

“I’m gonna deal with my loot, then probably head to bed,” I said.

“Yea,” Erik said. “Bed sounds nice right about now.”

I had to go to several different booths to trade off all my loot. All except the dried fish, that is. When I’d tried some, I’d found it surprisingly good. Savory, well cured, and perfectly salted.

It was something I was looking forward to snacking on when I made my journey home for the winter. Autumn was in full swing and I would have the chance to travel and watch the foliage bring an end to the season.

I thought my bartering was successful. I was able to sell the hide armor for 4 silver, the rings for 10 copper each, and I was able to consolidate my abundance of copper to silver. Now I had 18 silver and 32 copper.

Exhaustion drove me to bed early and I woke at dawn the next day. For whatever reason, it felt as though I hadn’t seen my room in months. The early rising sun cast rays of orange and gold through our windows. The piles of potions glowed amber and red and lit the room in patterns of beautiful orbs.

Pelle was sound asleep. Her inventory and weapons were strewn about the floor at the base of her bed. Upon her desk lay her purple spellbook. If I had to guess, I’d say the cover was made from the hide of a thick skinned monster. Whether an illusion, or just a characteristic of spellbooks, it silently buzzed on the desk. The wrinkles in the hide—the cover—began to shift after looking at it for too long.

Enough of that though. I gathered myself together, equipped my flagstaff holster and flagstaff, then headed out onto guild grounds.

The day was crisp and leaves were streaming down from every tree at once. Yellows rained to the ground, maroons floated down on the sigh of a wind, reds twirled onto brickwork paths.

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I found a nice seat of roots to rest upon at the base of a tree. Leaves fell from the tree in abundance, with thick enough layers to curtain me from the rest of the world. Within that private canopy, I brought out the mana crystal I’d earned from battling the Monster Yeti.

Encased within the crystal were watery plumes of blue mana that swayed and bounced about. The mana within coalesced into opaque pools of dark blue, before navigating along the rest of the structure. The mana moved with ethereal beauty. In prisms of crystal and morning light—sheens of rainbows shimmered brightly.

I was calling mana from my body and flowing it out and into the air before my palms. Before me, my mana pool was coalescing into a sloshing bottleless sphere. I was stretching the ball to form my ring of mana, and my mana was wavering in a wide circle.

The falling leaves, the grass, my crossed legs, and the branches above me were being cast with reflections of gossamer blue light. The mana bar was spinning slowly and I was letting the mana crystal drop to its center. The crystal was floating and trembling in slow motion. I was focusing on claiming the mana from within the crystal.

The crystal was starting to adopt fissures along its surfaces. Blue tendrils of ethereal silk were traveling from mana crystal to mana bar, adding point after point after point to my mana pool. The crystal was lightening, losing its blue color, silently breaking in the process. Then it was imploding in a violent destruction of sparkling crystal dust. The implosion was occurring without volume, and I was feeling the impact in my chest and gut. Millions of glittering crystal particles were hovering within my mana bar, and then slowly blinking by the thousands into thin air.

My mana bar was wavering mirage-like beneath the canopy of the tree, and behind the curtains of falling leaves. I was withdrawing my mana back to my palms and returning the source to my body. I was feeling it course through me like a second blood.

“Arlight,” I muttered in a private celebration. “51 mana points. 700,000 is still just around the corner!”

The rest of my morning was spent daydreaming beneath that same tree. I didn’t really notice passersby, didn’t really listen to the conversations that floated by, and didn't worry too much about the time. Today was our last day at the guild this season. Thus I was in no hurry to do anything but simply exist. Tomorrow I would be enroute to Rimesteppe—my hometown—to see my family.

When I met up with Garmar, he said, “Rimesteppe. Beautiful little town up in the pines. Been there once in passing. As far as I can recall, there is no trading post there, right?”

“Right,” I said.

“Well, the closest city with a trading post would probably be Klayvale.”

“Yea, about two days away.”

“If the winter isn’t too harsh, I recommend traveling there for a visit and maybe some adventure. They’ve got a big trading post.”

“A real trading post,” I said with a grin.

“Yes,” said Garmar, “a real trading post. Although, the Magic & Lance guild post isn’t too far different from a real trading post you know.”

“Guess I’ll find out.”

“I have every confidence in you Tosin. Remember to be careful out there. Make sure you examine your party members before accepting a role alright? You never know how bad things can get with the wrong people at your side.”

We walked the guild grounds together and observed the climbing leaf-thinning vines that bore a shade of red. We stayed there and spoke for some time. He’d asked me how I was doing with my flagstaff and that’s when I opened up to him about how I couldn’t wait to level it up. I had the idea in my head to decorate it with a variety of flags and artifacts that could benefit me and the parties I join.

“Before you know it,” Garmar said, “you’ll have to deal with alignments. Divine and legendary alignments can greatly aid you in your healing.”

“Yea, I have no idea what that’s all about,” I said.

“Soon you will be forced to know what that’s all about. In the meantime, be careful subscribing to any legendary items, or divine items, or even deity and demi-deity items. Just—just be cautious what you choose to wield. Of all the classes, these alignments affect a healer’s capabilities and reputation the most.”

I asked why we didn’t go over this in class, but Garmar shrugged and said that those matters were unimportant in the early stages of adventuring.

“Perhaps we’ll explore these more in the spring,” he said.

I set off the next day, homeward bound. I paid for travel by horse and carriage. Magic & Lance covered the cost and I bid farewell to Pelle who was exuberant as always. She was a cool roommate to have, although we’d hardly seen each other over the past months.

I’d taken the time to bid farewell to Arris and Lep as well, and they all waved me off as my carriage lurched forward. Accompanying me for part of the way were a trio of rogues, cloaked in dark fabrics.

“Don’t worry,” one had said by way of introduction, “We won’t pickpocket you or anything. You’re safe with us,” to which I replied with a nervous chuckle.

They were a friendly bunch and I delighted in the stories they shared of their dungeon runs while at the guild.

Between their stories we watched the terrain go by, fell asleep to the sound of the horses gaits, shared delicious dried fish, stretched when the horses paused for respite, and shared curiosities of legendary heroes, dungeons, and items.

They were bound for Kalyvale and would descend from the carriage first. Another two days' travel would put me in my hometown Rimesteppe. That part of the ride I would experience alone.

“Perhaps we’ll see you at the trading post,” one of the rogues said.

“I’ll look out for you for sure,” I said, yawning at the beginning of another morning on the road.

“So Tosin,” another of the rogues said. “What’s your plan over the winter? You gonna hunker down? Dungeon dive?”

“Not too sure,” I said. “I think I wanna focus on cultivating my mana pool.”

“Mhm,” the third rogue said. “I’ve got a monthly goal of keeping a max of 3000, personally, although I’m far from it. What about you healer?”

“I want to get to 700,000.”

The rogues balked at the idea and shared a silent communication of doubt between each other.

“That’s legendary stuff,” they said.

“Perhaps,” I said. “Perhaps.”