Rowan was resting on a crystalline log, cleaning his blade when Ark approached him.

“When are we planning on leaving? It’s already been a week, and I need an actual shower!” She complained.

“My apologies. I sometimes forget that others aren’t as… singularly minded as I am. We can leave now if you wish.” Rowan said with an even tone. He had been trying to be more… himself lately, but when performing maintenance on his equipment, he entered a meditative state of mind similar to what he was taught by the CASF, or Continental Americas Special Forces.

It was them that had instilled in him the need for a clear mind, and while grateful, he wished they had been a little less thorough. He had absolutely needed the training back when he joined them. Hot-blooded and ready to take on the world as he was, he wouldn’t have lasted more than a couple of missions before he got himself and his squad killed.

Now that he was trying to break that conditioning, however, he finally noticed just how deep it went. Even when fighting that behemoth, he hadn’t fully let loose his emotions. He thought having a ‘handler’ would break the chains of rationality that he was bound with, but Vorn just loosened them.

Well, recovery or change took time, and he wouldn’t complain about having control of his faculties, but he still yearned to finally fully be himself again.

“-this instant, but sooner rather than later would be appreciated.” He tuned back into the conversation as Ark was finishing her statement.

“She was saying that we could raid another camp before we leave.”

“Thank you, Ark. I appreciate the generosity.” He said while getting up.

“Ah, don’t mention it. Friends should let friends massacre Orcs over a shower any day.” Ark said, half joking and half completely genuine.

“Thanks for the save.”

“No problem, but maybe pay attention next time? I’m supposed to be the distractible one, remember?” He said lightheartedly.

— — —

In their search for the next camp to raid, they came across several small outposts, but they ignored them. If this was their last raid in this dungeon, they were leaving with a bang.

Finally, they arrived at a truly gargantuan camp set up at the base of the Crystal Spire that illuminated the whole cavern.

“I know we said ‘leave with a bang’, but I’m not sure about this one!” Ark whisper-shouted at them.

“Are you sure? You could level quite a few more times from this, and the chances of us dying are much lower than last time.” Rowan said at normal volume, aware that there was no way that an Orc could hear them from over fifteen hundred feet away.

“... I can’t believe I might go along with this.” She muttered to herself.

“We already raided one large camp.” Rowan pointed out.

“Yeah, that one was large, this one is fucking gargantuan! It’s like three times the size!” Ark pointed out, incredulous.

“That may be true, but-” He focused on her for a moment to discern her level, “- you have leveled over twenty times since entering this dungeon, and I have leveled eleven. We are much stronger than when we first entered, and that’s not even mentioning Vorn unlocking his Path.”

“That’s… true. We are probably strong enough to handle this. I just… it was terrifying having to put my life in your hands. After I healed you, I was knocked unconscious, and I didn’t know if I would wake up. I thought it didn’t affect me much, but it must have if I’m being this big of a bitch about it.” She joked, hiding her fear.

“You're not being a ‘bitch’, it’s completely natural to fear-”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Thanks, but you're wrong. I was being a little bitch, but I’m fine now. It just took me a moment to recognize that. Thanks for the attempt at cheering me up, though!” Ark finished cheerily, but her smile seemed a little forced to them.

“Well, if you’re sure. You are allowed to be scared, though. You already know how dangerous delving is, I would consider you a fool if you weren’t terrified. So you're not a coward, a coward would have been running to save themselves and leaving us to die. You remained and quite possibly saved our lives.” Rowan calmly stated, as if he didn’t just send Ark to the verge of tears.

“Thanks! I… needed that.” There was a moment of silence before she continued, “Besides, not everyone can be a gremlin that runs directly into danger all the time!” Ark joked. She was many things, but emotionally vulnerable was not one of them! This was reaching levels of vulnerability she was not comfortable with!

Sensing her discomfort, Rowan simply said, “So, how are we approaching this?”

“Well, there are too many Orcs here to infect in one go like we did last time, so that’s out the window. I can still get most of them, maybe, but I’d be out of commission.”

Suddenly, the orange glow of Rowan’s eyes extinguished and was replaced with a shining silver.

“I have an idea! Last time you infected the animals around the camp to infect their food, that won’t work on a camp this large, but we don’t need to! You can create airborne pathogens, right?” Vorn said, practically bouncing.

“Right, but what does… oh my god, you're a genius!”

“Is there something I’m not getting?”

“Since infecting things naturally instead of magically is cheaper, but we can’t use our old strategy, I figured, why not just blow the plague in their general direction! Obviously, there’s no wind in a cavern, but a strong breeze isn’t exactly a Mana hungry spell. It’s not like the wind has to be strong enough to knock down an Orc, just strong enough to carry an airborne plague through their camp.” Vorn excitedly explained.

“And, since we won’t need to be near the camp to do it, I can make the plague take longer to incubate, and release it over a longer period of time! I won’t be completely wiped by the Mana cost this time!”

As silver turned back to orange, Rowan said, “I’m glad you’ll be able to function this raid, then. I still feel bad about how wiped you were after the first one.”

After a few minutes, in which Vorn and Ark prepared their spells, Rowan asked, “Time to get this show on the road, are both of you ready?”

“You fucking betcha!” Ark exclaimed.

Ark created an ‘O’ shape above her head with her arms. Rowan could see a slight shimmer within it.

Suddenly, he felt his arm move upwards without his control, and a strong breeze emerged from his palm.

Belatedly, Rowan realized that this was essentially a plague bubble blower, and he couldn’t hold in the slight chuckle that the thought caused.

“What’s so funny?”

Rowan tried thinking of a way to explain that wouldn’t sound like the ramblings of a madman, before attempting something new. He didn't know where the thought came from, but he figured it was worth a try.

–| Fifteen Years Ago |–

Rowan stood in the middle of a synthpark for his mandatory ‘relaxation’ hour. He didn’t quite remember when he first arrived at the orphanage, but he could remember the parks that his actual parents took him to when he was much younger. Just flashes, though, nothing truly substantial. Still, even with just those flashes, he could tell that this park could never compare to the real thing. It was similar to the ‘uncanny valley’ thing he had heard about online during his computer hour.

Still, it was better than rotting inside like the rest of his ‘siblings’, and the only other place to spend the relaxation hour was in the library.

His ‘brother’, Alec, came up to him and tried to make small talk, but Rowan just ignored him like he usually did. He was a persistent bastard, however.

“Come on, Rowan! You never have any fun! At least try this out?”

In his hand was a strange device. It was a bright pink bottle with a strangely shaped… stick? Like the outline of a spoon.

“What is that?”

“Come on, you’ve never blown bubbles?” Alec asked incredulously.

“Tsk. Not everyone spends their time frivolously. I’m going to get out of here.” Rowan snapped back.

“No need for animosity!” Alec shouted good-naturedly, “Just try it out? You need to lighten up eventually, right? The last time I saw you smile was when you were fighting that big kid that was picking on Joan!”

Sighing, he gave up and took the bottle.

He blew a couple bubbles and then handed the bottle back. He pointedly ignored the fact that the bubbles were actually pretty cool looking. He was not interested. No way. No sir.

“Happy?” He asked, frustrated. Why couldn’t people understand that he wanted to be left alone?!

Alec just smiled at him and walked away. He was always good at reading Rowan.

–|Present|–

What the hell was that!

“S-sorry. I just tried sending a memory of a bubble blower. I didn’t mean to send the… everything else part.”

“Okay, cool to know we can do that, but don’t spring that on me in the future. That was really strange.”

“What the hell did you guys just do? Your eyes went orange with a rainbow outline for a second.”

“We tried something new. I shared a memory.” Rowan stated simply.

“I wonder where the rainbow effect came from?”

“Hm, does everything you do have to be color coded? Is this some kind of divine prank on you two?” Ark asked more to herself than anyone else.

“How do you figure?” Rowan asked.

“Well, you're orange, right?”

“If you're referring to my eye color, then you would be correct.” He said, waiting for the point.

“And Vorn is silver, but… when he uses Mana his eyes go all rainbow.”

“They do!?” Vorn shouted, temporarily taking control.

“Yep, and when you do that memory thing, those colors overlap! You’re color coded!”

“Huh, that is strange.” Rowan said, just as deadpan as before.

“I wonder if it’s because I unlocked my Path? If the rainbow effect only shows up when using Mana, it makes sense that we wouldn’t have been able to do it until I unlocked it.”

“Makes sense to me.”

A few minutes of silence passed before Rowan asked, “You’re looking pretty tired. Are you ready for the first break?”

“Sure.” She said, sitting down.

“How many times are we going to do this?” He asked.

“Best ask your brain buddy up there, he would know better than me.” She said.

“Well?”

“Oh, preferably we would do about thirty cycles of this, but I think we can get away with just doing twelve or thirteen if you’re impatient.”

Ark saw the grimace on Rowan’s face and said, “That bad, huh?”