“Thanks again for this. I thought I would have to take Hope and get the request done alone.” Soleil had also hoped her mother would come find her, but Maeve ended up being just as good.

“Funny you should say that.” Maeve was wearing a cocky smile all of a sudden.

“What do you mean?” Soleil looked around frantically, worried someone else had been in the storage room without her catching it.

Maeve's grin only grew. “I distinctly recall a pair of rogues, a fretful knight, and an apologetic healer agreeing to help smuggle you out of the village.”

“Wait, what?” Soleil's attention snapped to the door. Another knock.

It was Fia. “Sorry, was that our cue?”

Metis and Aster were there too, along with a certain pink haired individual in a healer’s robe.

Aster pushed the healer to the front. They looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here. “I owe you an apology, even if I didn’t think they would send Paladins after you.”

“Hey Soleil.” Aster said, waving from her position towering over the healer. “Sorry for not having your back when you needed it. It was everything I could think of to hold off the Paladins.”

Soleil wasn’t sure what to say to any of this. "How long were you all standing outside the door?"

All but Aster looked between Soleil and Maeve in confusion. "Maeve had us meet here at the appointed time. We all assumed she needed time to find and bring you here." Aster's delivery came so naturally, Soleil could not tell if Aster was covering for Maeve or if that had genuinely been the plan all along.

For now, Soleil decided to accept it at face value. She allowed her gaze to settle on the healer, who looked like they weren't finished.

“I may have also stolen a bunch of implements while they were distracted. I never did hear what kind of mana you used so I just grabbed one of, well, everything.”

“Oh. You really shouldn't have. But I would be inclined to accept a Fire and Life mana casting implement." Soleil only hesitantly accepted a pair of wooden wands with red and white glass mana cores near their center. From the looks of it, the healer had stolen nearly a dozen wands. Surely that was more wands than there were elements? "Is this going to cause you trouble?"

The healer shook their head, quickly storing the others into a bag. “I was just working for them long enough to offer another party my assistance as a healer. I’m surprisingly okay with burning this bridge now that I know their immediate response to a girl displaying a weird skill is to send a bunch of armored paladins her way."

“Does that mean you’re tagging along?” Soleil asked, briefly curious if she could transition into just being a fire mage.

Again a shake of the head. “As delightful as roughing it out in the valley for a few days sounds, I will simply have to pass. I am rooting for you though. If you want to send one of the cats my way when you get back, I can let you know if the Healers have calmed down.”

“That means a lot.” Soleil said, finding herself pouring more meaning into the words than she expected. “Can I at least ask your name?”

The healer made a point to eye Soleil and Maeve both as if making a calculation. “You may call me Kismet. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have an investment to protect.” Kismet’s departing bow was overly formal. They turned to depart, stopping only to have a whispered conversation before pulling out a pair of glass vials and a wooden token to press into Metis’s hands.

“What was that about?” Soleil turned to find herself asking Maeve.

“If I had to guess, I would place their mannerisms as Northern Nobility,” Maeve said after a moment’s consideration. “Not any of the big ones or I would recognize the name. Could be a distant cousin of Caesar’s? I dunno, but I get the vibe that they ran away or something. Which makes sense.”

“Do I wanna know?” Soleil asked, trying very hard not to think of Kismet as another Caesar.

“There are a lot of families in the North who think there is no higher calling than preparing their children to single handedly save us all.” Maeve’s voice turned bitter near the end. “Nevermind what the kid wants.”

Soleil frowned at that. “Well, Kismet saw that I could manipulate Rot mana and still told me to run. I’m certainly not sending a letter to their parents anytime soon.”

“Kismet would probably appreciate that more than you know.” Maeve said. “We already cleared taking Hope out with your mother. Now take this cloak and hop on. They might eventually think to track down where your cart and Hope are stored.”

Soleil hurried to obey and don the ash gray cloak before joining Maeve in straddling the Magitech Armor’s seat at the top. Maeve operated the orb controls while Soleil held the knight from behind. She quite liked this arrangement.

“Oh.” Metis was the last to stride up to them, reaching up to press a handful of papers into Maeve’s reach. “You should probably look over this. I went to the trouble of writing you down a working explanation in Lillian’s stead. You probably won’t need the full explanation if you end up getting banned from fulfilling Guild Work. But for our purposes, it is good that you know everything you can.”

How sweet of Metis, Soleil thought. The first set of symbols that jumped out to her indicated difficulty and expected length of the Request. They would need to bring camping supplies for this trip, something the others seemed to have already prepared for.

Soleil would have to do without her own tent, seeing as she carried it along with most everything that could not fit into her bag all the way to her room in the House of Healing. Maybe she could share Maeve’s, or go without sleeping altogether. One or more of those was definitely feasible.

Soleil looked at the Bronze mark on the request denoting it as suitable for Soul Levels ranging between 1 to 99 as a beginner. That was a distressingly wide level range. Weren’t Soul Level ranges in the hundreds rare? Maybe that's why the North deployed so many Magitech Armors in a unit.

***

Maeve: 25/25 Vitality. Level 5 Guardian

Aster: 60/60 Vitality. Level 53 Blossom Knight

Fia: 35/35 Vitality. Level 21 Rogue

Metis: 30/30 Vitality. Level 23 Rogue

Soleil found if she just focused on the Life Mana orbiting each member of the party, she could get an idea for just their Vitality. At Rank 2, [Analyze] would only maintain the information for a few moments. But she hoped training it like this would get her to Rank 3.

Soleil: Level 5/14 Ash Demon

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

5/5 Vitality

26/30 Focus

Checking each member of the party’s health still used a considerable amount of Focus. She thankfully didn’t have to look at herself, nor could she unless she used the Lens or found a reflective surface in order to target herself.

Her Crystalline Magitech Lens was effectively a Soul Level 2 container. It could store a total of 10 in any attribute as if it had 2 skill points invested, but not naturally recover over time. Magitech needed to be built with a purpose to use skills, so her cheap lens would only be capable of using any stored mana to activate the [Analyze] skill. It wasn't much, but it did mean she could get an extra 10 mana worth of skill before dipping into the same reserves that her healing came from.

Soleil had been hoping a casting implement would do much the same for the [Heal] skill, but the wands in her hand held a different purpose. So long as she held the implement in her hand, any mana she drew into the wand would keep the skill active. A whole ten minutes passed after investing her Focus on the [Heal] skill and breaking concentration. The wand still held five motes of white healing light.

Effectively she had pre-casted 5 points of Focus into 5 [Heal] charges. With the wand holding the skill for her, she was free to recover her personal reserves of Focus to full and use other skills.

It was nice to have time to figure all of this out while they still had travel time on the way to their destination. Or at least, that had been the plan.

Maeve and Aster traveled along Hope’s flanks, swords drawn and shields at the ready.

Fia and Metis took up the forward and rear positions while Soleil only spent Focus on [Analyze] whenever her natural mana recovery topped off.

It was only natural that Fia be the first to catch sight of corruption. So it surprised everyone when Metis was the first to call the group to a stop.

“We have a problem.” Metis said with a start.

Soleil kept Hope facing forward while Maeve and Aster rotated back to investigate.

“Explain.” Maeve demanded. All of a sudden her communication became brief and efficient.

“It’s not the plants.” Metis said. “The seeds are smaller and harder to detect, but they are distinctly separate entities. I had been experimenting with investing more points into my skill. It was only with a five point investment that they even registered in my eyes.”

The rest of them exchanged worried glances. “I’ll take the hit to confirm.” Soleil volunteered. All around her life exploded into more vibrant color. She quickly narrowed her Focus to a few smaller plants. Sure enough, and just like the flower she fought to protect in the past, all the plants around them were fine. It was their seeds that had been meticulously corrupted and enclosed in some sort of pod that hid them from easy detection. “Worryingly, she’s right.”

Fia chimed in. “Ugh. I should have said something. I thought a lot of the plant life looked a little malnourished.”

Soleil shook her head. “I just assumed it was due to the lack of recent rain. But then again, I’m not exactly from here.”

“It’s okay.” Aster cut in. “We’ve caught onto it now. I’m not sure we can do much about this, not without slowing our pace considerably.”

“I agree.” Maeve added. “Better we report back and have all parties venturing out from this point forward make an effort to investigate and deal with the problem.”

The party slowly came to an agreement in deciding not to change their approach for now.

Soleil came away from the exchange frustrated, but there was no way of knowing just how widespread of a problem they had discovered. Her responsibility remained keeping everyone in her party whole and healthy.

They encountered more blatant signs of corruption not an hour later.

A thick field of spiked vines spread out from a trio of bushes and a young tree by the river’s edge.

It was not something Soleil would want to approach without armor, but the bushes did not look like they would be much of a threat to anyone else.

A number of thrown knives from Metis disappeared into the nearest bush. All three responded by beginning to claw their way through the dirt in order to close the distance.

Fia, Maeve, and Aster began to hack away at the attacking vines. Each thorned vine was severed easily enough. But each bush could bring almost a dozen to bear at once.

Fia seemed to be using her Dexterity to dodge and weave through the vines. When she did lash out with her daggers, she reached for grouped up bundles of vines.

Gnarled vines wrapped around Maeve’s shield, attempting to pry the protective barrier out of her grasp. She had to regularly halt her advance to focus on clearing away vines in order to maintain ownership over her shield, resulting in slower progress than the others.

“You’re not using mana.” Aster commented after effortlessly cleaving through twice as many vines as Fia or Maeve could manage.

Maeve grunted as she pried free the dead remains from equipment with gloved hands. “My reserves are deeper than my soul’s.”

“Maybe for now." Aster confidently stepped to the side of an approaching vine, crushing it under the weight of her boot. "But if you don’t regularly exercise your soul alongside your body, soon Soleil will be the one outlasting and fretting over you.”

No sooner had Aster spoken, a number of white lights pressed against tears in Maeve’s leather gloves, closing the scratches from thorns that slipped through. Maeve turned to give Soleil an appreciative nod. “Is there an optimal way to spend my mana?”

“Not really.” Aster closed the distance with her bush, cleaving the corrupted plant in half with a single swing. “These things go down easy enough. Pace yourself or you’ll become exhausted. The most important thing is maintaining a good pace and finding opportunities to use mana in different situations.”

Maeve grumbled, before letting the remaining vines succeed in stealing her shield. The Knight took that opportunity to bypass the vines entirely and [Smash] her sword right through the bush manipulating them.

“Oh no. Don’t help me or anything.” Fia’s complaints did not seem all that serious or desperate. “Just talk about your skills. I’ll manage.”

Before Maeve or Aster could rotate to flank the last bush, another three thrown knives dealt the finishing blow.

“Don’t mind her.” Metis cut in. “She could have gone straight for the bush at any point. She’s just farming for experience.”

“Hey!” Fia looked up from hacking away at the rapidly dying vines with a Dexterous-fueled blur of dagger slashes.

“Maybe attention too.” Metis sneered.

Sure enough, Fia crossed the distance between them in a flash. “I’ll leave the tree to you! Metis and I need to talk about our own strategy.”

“I got it.” Soleil said with a sigh. For their first fight, Soleil went ahead and spent half her Magitech Lens’s uses on monitoring mana use by her party. Fia burned the most mana, but her reserves were pretty deep.

With Maeve and Fia both using half of one soul attribute, Soleil was content to hedge her bets and just deploy Hope to finish the fight. A single [Fire Beam] was more than enough to destroy the corrupted tree. With nothing but dead and corrupted remains, there was precious little fuel for the fire to spread. It mostly just succeeded in clearing out the rotted remains.

“I know that this isn’t worth any experience for anyone.” Soleil said by way of apology. “But Maeve and I don’t have a great history with fighting trees.”

“No need to apologize.” Aster said. “Part of a healer’s job is knowing what we can and can’t handle. You’re the one paying the closest attention to how everyone is doing.”

Maeve offered Soleil a thankful smile as she pried her shield free of the dead vines. “Soul Level Six for me. I don’t have skill ranks to raise yet.”

"We aren't even halfway to our destination." Aster said bitterly. "If it is any consolation, opportunities to gain experience will likely increase dramatically from this point forward."

“I’m calling a rest here.” Maeve decided. “Best we top off our mana reserves, just in case.”

Soleil hopped off from Hope and began to stride confidently past the pair of knights. Stopping short of the remaining vines, Soleil willed fire mana to coalesce into the air above the rotten remains of dead vines. With a bit more Focus, she used [Mana Manipulation] so that just enough mana would spiral down and incinerate every last square inch of rotted remains. She turned to meet the questioning look from her party’s knights. “What? I know exactly how much mana Maeve and Fia have left. I can spend a little here.”

[Soleil gained a deeper understanding of [Mana Manipulation.] The skill can now be raised to Rank 2.]

“And would you look at that?” Soleil grinned. “Another skill rank and 5 more Focus in my reserves.”

The knights exchanged a look.

“What?” Aster said. “She’s your girlfriend.”

Maeve met Soleil’s eyes. “You have a way with fire mana is all. The way it kinda dances for you in a way it would not for others is kinda... hot.”