It was late. The tavern would be closing for the night in only a couple hours, and the remaining patrons were a rough mix of those peeling themselves away from their friends, and those who vied to squeeze as much fun out of the remaining time as they could. The noise reached something of a crescendo when a man got up on the small stage in a corner near the bar and pulled out, of all things, a fiddle.
The patrons – including Glory, who had stopped in to chat after the lobby closed – grew tense as he pulled his bow across the strings, their jaws tight in anticipation as the sudden shift in ambiance called the attention of the room; but the first few notes proved that he would make more music than ruckus, and they settled into the new atmosphere. The conversation resumed, the boisterous night owls showing a little restraint so as not to intrude on the man's playing. Glory stuck around for a few minutes longer to listen, but departed in short order.
Geon was still there, even this late into the night. Astria had taken off some time ago, and He was about to get up and coax Aron into pouring him another cup of wine – he was drinking on Glory's coin, after all – but instead someone sat down across from him. She was a young woman with black hair hacked short and skin like woody burnished bronze, who sat a large crossbow onto the table beside them and spoke quickly.
“Hi! Geon, right? I'm Deya.” She stuck her hand out in greeting. “I have a proposition for you.”
Geon reared back in his seat, initially put off, but reached forward anyway to shake. “Uh, sure. What do you have?”
She placed her hands down on the table. “Have you heard of an ice queen?”
Geon nodded. “Yeah. Forms when a dead royal, or a bog witch, wanders into a cold place, right?”
“Yup! There's a contract for one up now. I want to harvest it and make a new wand out of it's teeth. But, I'm an Ice Lancer, so Glory won't let me go.”
“Or, not alone.”
Deya nodded. “Right.”
Geon chuckled. He knew what that was like. But in this case, didn't that make a lot more sense? It would be ice against ice; that would be a slog of a fight, and a close one.
“I can see what you're thinking. But I wouldn't be using my Ice rune to kill it.” Deya placed a hand on the large crossbow. “I'd be using this. It's designed to inject ammo with rune power, and I found a way to use it that gets around the issue of shooting ice with ice.” She glanced suspiciously around the room. “I don't want to get into it here with so many people still around. I can probably show you tomorrow if you want, in the training yard.”
Geon rubbed his eyes. It felt like a lot, to be taking on another job so soon. but he would still have tomorrow off. That should be enough time to get recovered. “You know what. Ok. I'm willing to give it a shot. It's Fire on ice, how bad could it be? I'll try to stop by tomorrow before noon if you want to let Glory know that I'll go with you on the contract. I have a sneaking suspicion that she might still say no, but hey, we'll see what she says.”
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The day finally ended.
The last few people filed out of the side door, heading to homes or inns to sleep the drink away and recover their spent will. They joined the rest of Vane Gloria in their slumber, except for the guards on shift and the few midnight workers employed around town.
Corin was one of those. He was an older boy, sixteen years of age – only five months shy of seventeen, the age when you can take your first rune. For pocket money, and to help his laboring family, he cleaned up the guild overnight – the tavern in particular – and slept during the mornings.
It was a couple hours after closing, and Corin had gone outside to eat, and to sneak a smoke where his parents wouldn't find out. He sat on a long bench outside the front doors of the guild, watching the town sleep below him.
When people sleep, their runes will occasionally glow. Part of the human sleep cycle is also a mana cycle. Mana gets pushed out of your runes, if you have them; or much more slowly through your pores, if you're young or otherwise have no runes. Then, when enough 'space' is made in your core – and in the mana channels that connect your soul to the body's extremities – mana flows through the whole body and back to the core, all while the core is calling for mana to fill the empty space, then it flows back out again, lighting your runes.
Fortunately, magic requires conscious intent, so runic powers aren't triggered during this cycling, either by spasm or dream.
Corin always found it interesting that you could see runelight though clothes and walls. The effect lessened with distance – from his seat on the bench, you could see only faint shifts of hue if you looked closely enough. Corin had learned how to stare out and sense the slight change in color from his periphery instead of trying to focus on it directly; similar to how some groupings of stars are easier to see when you don't look right at them. Gazing out in this way, the pockets of breathing color made an interesting parallel to the stars far above.
When you walked down a residential street this late at night, however, the runes were bright enough to be seen from streets away, and rainbow lights would glow and vanish, like fireflies in the evening, as you passed. You could feel a light breeze on your core if you sought inward for the feeling, gently brushing past and through you, as you breathed their mana in a similar way to how you share the air.
Corin's break stretched long, into the area where it turned into 'slacking off'. He shook himself out of the reverie and tamped out the pungent cigarette, placing the remaining half in his pocket for later, or tomorrow. He made his way back inside to continue cleaning, trying to finish before the sun peeked around the horizon.
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Shortly before the sun reached it’s noontime zenith, Geon walked into the guild, his body still tired, but his brain was interested enough in Deya’s quest to keep alert. He scanned the lobby, and found Deya sitting by the contract booth, looking somewhat dejected. He was puzzled, until he saw Glory standing behind the booth, eyeing him as he entered. She beckoned him with a finger and a flat look.
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As Geon stepped up to the counter, Deya smiled slightly to see him following up on her offer, but the sliver of joy was clearly overpowered by the weight of Glory’s derision. Geon gave Glory a sheepish grin, standing next to Deya at the counter.
“Alright, alright, I can tell you have a bit of an issue with the job she’s planning?”
“Oh, you can tell, can you? I’ve been trying to budge her off that ice queen job for three days now and you had to up and agree to it in, what, ten minutes?”
He massaged his neck as he tried to think up a plan of escape from her ire. “Look, I only know the barest details about this job. If you think I shouldn't go, I won't. I just thought it was a job I might actually be a good fit for.”
“You told me to find a-” Deya tried to cut in.
“Yes! And it appears that you asked literally the first one that walked through that day. Did you even hear about the kind of shit he got himself into yesterday?”
Deya stammered. “Ah, n-no.”
“You saw a fire guy and thought, ‘That’s the one, sight unseen!’”
The girl seethed and glared back at Glory. “I picked the first one because I expect to kill it in one shot!”
Glory waved her explanation away. “Expectations are the death of too many young mercs. Have you actually fought one of these before?”
“Well, no.”
“Then how can you be sure it’ll die so quickly?”
“Guh, w-well I…” Her eyes bounced nervously between Glory, her crossbow, and Geon, before landing firmly on Glory. Her face was a bit harder.
“Let- Let’s just go to the training yard!” she almost yelled. Clearly, she hadn’t intended to show off her developing skill to Glory, but getting those rewards was certainly more important to her than the secrecy. She hefted her new crossbow and made her way out the front door and all the way around to the back the building. Geon smirked as he followed both of them out. Glory was usually good about keeping secrets, anyway.
The yard was a large expanse of mostly open field behind the guild that was used as a training ground for rune mages. It had its history as a military camp, back when the fight to take this area and build Vane/Gloria’s was first getting underway, and as such, was large enough to fit a couple thousand people, if pressed to do so. It kept that role for a decade afterwards, as Gloria’s mercenary corps pushed out of the forest and across the narrow stretch of plains between them and the torn-up crust of the Demon Lands.
Deya marched across the yard toward the shooting range, passing a number of people sparring with swords and staves, and approached a point on the firing line farthest from other people. She placed the front of the crossbow on the ground and placed a foot in its stirrup, then reached over to grab the line and yanked up, straining on the last inch before it locked behind the trigger notch. Glory grimaced as she strained but said nothing. Deya retrieved a long crystal-tipped bolt from the quiver hanging from her shoulder to her side and knelt down, placing the crossbow onto the embankment that served as the firing line.
“So,” she said to them with a low voice. “I explained a little bit of this to Geon already. The crossbow channels magic into the bolt that you're firing. In my case it would be my Ice magic, so the bolt would freeze the enemy, slowing it, or even shattering it if someone hits the frozen part hard enough. But, I also have a modification rune, for piercing. Usually, when you have a modification rune, you can only use mana through that rune once it has been modified. But, I found out that I have an interesting talent.”
Without explaining, she turned and laid down to aim the large crossbow downrange. At various ranges in the field beyond, several targets were set up, made of different materials so that you could test the impact of your weapons on each. She placed the bolt into the runner against the string and took aim.
From the grip where her hand rested by the trigger, a golden trim of metal ran up the barrel, to a crystal dish set into the end of the body, right below where the crystal tip rested. With a deep breath, she closed her eyes. The pale blue rune on the back of her hand illuminated as she focused power. Then, her hand started hissing steam that rolled over the embankment and pooled around her legs, as power followed the line of gold around the body to the tip of the bolt.
Glory narrowed her eyes. This looked very wasteful.
But then the bolt glowed with a soft yellow light, instead of the normal blue. Then Deya opened her eyes, sighted a metal plate in the middle distance, and pulled the trigger. With a twangggg, the bolt shot across the field in a yellow streak, puncturing through the armor-thick plate and ringing the metal, the sound traveling across the whole yard and turning heads.
Deya cringed. “Well, so much for secrecy.” She twisted on the ground to look up at Glory, finding her standing with her mouth slightly agape. Deya smirked. “Not bad, right?”
“Yeah,” she murmured, impressed,. “Not bad.” Then she set her jaw and glared down at her seriously. “How’s your core? How many of those can you do before you’re dry? It looked pretty inefficient.”
Deya nodded frowning a little in confirmation. “I have about two-thirds left. Technically enough for two shots like that, and a minute’s worth of recovery time for a third.”
“Hmm.” Glory pulled a wand from her right sleeve, and both her left hand and the wand glowed light blue. With a motion, she waved the armor plate forward, and it floated off its stand toward her. She dropped it into her hand when it came near, looking over the puncture. The metal curled back in a cone of ripped metal. It wasn't iced over, only slightly cold to the touch.
Glory sighed, then shook her head, remembering why they were here. “Alright, I’ll admit that this is impressive. But I don’t think you have the leeway in your core to rely on that as a plan.” She waved the damaged plate. “Neat trick, though.”
Deya opened her mouth to object, but Glory held her hand up and stopped her. “I’m not saying you can’t do the mission; but I want more reassurance than Geon alone can provide.”
“Wow, thanks,” Geon grumbled.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and thought, ignoring Geon’s indignation. After a moment, she dropped her hand and looked at Deya. “I can appreciate that you took me at my word and looked for a Fire mage. But you didn’t really take his power set into account. You are both single-target damage dealers.”
Deya turned at looked at Geon. “Wait, really?”
Geon raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Yeah, mostly.” He held his hand up and lit his Fire rune, then cast a stream of orange fire straight up. “I don't have a modified rune, I use a wand to specialize for range and precision. I like the flexibility of going without, if I need to.” His flame contorted into flicking shapes: a ball, a ring that hovered over his palm, a pillar, and a wide fan of roaring red and orange. “But my mana use is a lot less efficient without the wand's focus, or a modification rune. I don't like going without it. So, yeah, I'm mainly a sniper. All I heard was that we were going after an ice monster, and agreed based mostly on that. I’m fire; ice is a piece of cake.”
Glory sputtered, exasperated. “I have no idea how someone can get ambushed as often as you do and still fail to take the possibility into account. That imp camp job you were on was only a day away; the plateau is a two-day hike from where the morning cart will drop you off.” She calmed herself for a moment, then looked at Geon seriously.
“Geon, you should get, by now, that as Lancers, you need a support member. It's not enough to have a healing potion or two as backup. Maybe one day, if you take another rune that let's you diversify your skills, you'll be able to fly Rank 1's solo. But I can't let you do so before then.”
Geon frowned, dejected. He knew that what she was saying was only half-true; there were other Lancers that Glory would allow to fly solo. They just didn't include him. He was ready for Glory to reject the job altogether, and looked at Deya, still sitting on the ground by her crossbow, and looking as down as Geon felt.
But Glory had plans.
“Ok, I might have an idea that will let you both go on this mission. Let me talk to a guy and see if he’s available, and willing, to accompany you. If he agrees, you can set out tomorrow, or whenever he’s got the time.”
Deya's face broke with excitement. “Glory, thank you!”
Glory softened. “It's not like I reject you for no reason. I only want to make sure you aren't going to get yourself killed.”
Deya picked up her crossbow and other supplies, and followed Geon and Glory off the yard, back towards the guild. Geon and Deya, both looking relieved, agreed to meet back up later that day to follow up on Glory’s plan.
Glory walked up to her booth inside to look up an address.
Those kids are so lucky I have another project to work on. I just hope he's recovered enough to want it. And that this job doesn't go bad for him, too.