by Cale Plamann
“If”—Cornell pointed his flag at Micah—“you have access to portable cover, use it. Between Micah and Will, you had two combatants that could more or less shrug off Renee’s arrows. Sarah could have avoided disqualification by sticking close to either of them and quickly eliminated Meredith. After that, I think Renee would have been in trouble.
“Unfortunately”—he slapped the flag into his thigh for emphasis—“your team rushed into combat without a plan. You fought fairly well together, but you were outmatched and you should have known it. If you aren’t able to outfight your opponent, you’d damn well better outthink your opponent.
“At this point,” Cornell continued, nodding slowly, “I think you’re almost ready to try an actual dungeon. We just need to work on your teamwork. As you may be aware, Basil’s Cove is hosting a tournament.”
“So you want us to enter the grand melee.” Drekt nodded, grinning. “To learn to work together and win glory for Ankros. A spectacular plan.”
“By the Sixteen.” Cornell shook his head. “No. You’d get torn apart in seconds. Most of those fighters are over level 20, and fighting someone with a class specialization without one of your own is a terrible idea.
“You don’t work together well,” Cornell continued, chuckling lightly. “Right now, you fight like five individuals that happen to be stuck in the same room at the same time. I just want you to go to the tournament and have a good time. You need to bond as a team, and this is the best that Zoe and I could come up with on short notice.”
9
The Tournament
A cheer went up from the crowd as a great beast of fire rose up into the sky. Long like a snake with eight short legs and the head of a bear, it curled sinuously in the air. Opposite it, a shark made of water and ice, five times the size of any horse, materialized. It swam toward the fire serpent, snapping ice-dagger teeth the size of Micah’s forearm.
The crowd oohed and aahed, blessed and forgotten alike pointing at the colorful magical spectacle. The serpent exhaled a gout of flame at the shark, which spun horizontally, preventing the flames from evaporating too much of its body at once. With a hiss of steam, the ice fangs of the shark tore into the side of the serpent, eliciting even more clapping and hollering from the bystanders.
“So,” Jo said, elbowing Micah in the ribs as she nodded toward the magical display, “when do you think that you’ll be able to do that? A giant bear made out of fire would be a pretty big help on patrol.”
“He isn’t even a fire caster, Jo.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “He might be able to make a huge flower or something. I’m sure we could use a monstrous daisy to scare off all of the bandits on the road to Westmarch if need be.”
“Those spells are third tier,” Micah responded to Jo, trying to ignore Sarah’s sarcasm. “It’ll be a couple more levels before I can cast something like that, and even if I could, I doubt the guild would encourage it. Spells like that are for showing off. They aren’t terribly useful in combat. Casters learn them to get laid, not conquer dungeons.”
“Plus,” Drekt said, nodding his head sagely, “I don’t really know how useful your affinities would be for impressing the ladies and laddies. What are your options, a giant flower or a particularly dangerous-looking cloud?”
“Probably just the dangerous-looking cloud,” Micah sighed. “Wood magic is good for healing and making existing plants grow, but it’s incredibly inefficient if you’re trying to create something from nothing. Maybe I could grow a vine into an interesting shape, but there’s no way that I would have the mana to make a giant plant appear in the air.”
“I’m sure you will find another way to get laid,” Drekt responded, his mask of faux concern twitching as he tried to avoid laughing while patting Micah on the shoulder. “After all, it’s not about the tier of the spell; it’s about the skill mastery of the caster.”
“I don’t know.” Jo grinned cheekily. “Sometimes a high-tier spell is nice too.”
Micah opened his mouth to reply before closing it. Both Jo and Drekt struggled to avoid snickering at him. Really, he couldn’t think of a response that didn’t involve further ribbing from the two of them.
“Just out of curiosity,” Jo asked suggestively, “what’s the highest-tier spell you can cast anyway? We’ve all gotten a chance to see your proficiency with casting, but sometimes a girl likes to know what she’s working with.”
“Gross,” Sarah answered for Micah as his mouth slammed shut and he turned beet red. Meanwhile, Drekt doubled over laughing.
“What’s that wonderful smell?” Will asked, oblivious to the rest of his team's conversation. “It smells like they’re frying something divine in bacon fat.” He turned toward Sarah. “Will you go to that food stall with me? I need to have some of whatever that is.”
Sarah sighed and followed Will as he scurried off through the throng. Luckily, the portly man couldn’t move all that fast, but at the same time, it seemed like nothing was changing. Will was childish and impulsive, counting on the strength of his blessing to keep him safe from any threats, social or physical. Micah could understand why the Lancers would recruit the young man—his blessing had the potential to become extremely powerful—but at the same time, it seemed like the guild coddled him too much in an attempt to keep him happy.
“Isn’t he supposed to be on a diet?” Jo asked Drekt, a frown on her face. “I know the guild doesn’t usually get all that involved, but Will slacks off every time we do stamina training, and I seem to recall them limiting his food intake. Even if he has the most powerful blessing in the world, it isn’t going to do us much good if he can’t make it up a flight of stairs without needing a break.”
“Yes,” Drekt replied, the mirth gone from his voice. “The guild keeps giving me contradictory orders on Will. On one hand, they tell me that I’m ‘too severe’ and that I should ‘take it easy’ on him. On the other, I’m told that he isn’t making enough progress. I don’t know how they expect me to train him if I’m not allowed to yell at him when he slacks off. Especially considering how often he doesn’t give training his entire attention.”
“I don’t suppose anyone told you to go easy on me?” Micah asked hopefully, a playful note to his voice. “As much as I love jogging up the hill outside of town over and over again until I’m ready to puke, I’d prefer to, you know… not do that.”
“Well, your brother does drop in on me from time to time to talk about your training,” Drekt said, smiling at Micah. “Of course, he just tells me to work you harder. According to him, ‘no brother of mine is going to have a Body attribute below 6.’ You should be happy that your brother is proud of you and pushes you to greater heights. He is a blessing from Ankros if I have ever seen one.”
“Speaking about aggravating siblings,” Jo cut in, glancing at the heavy crowd around them, “we should probably catch up with Sarah. I don’t really want to watch Will stuff his face, but at a minimum, we should keep in contact with the two of them. Theoretically, this is a team-building exercise, and I suspect that Cornell is going to be annoyed with us if we lose half of the team barely an hour in.”
Micah nodded and followed the two of them through the crowd. Drekt earned his share of angry looks and more than one harsh comment whispered angrily behind cupped hands. A tall black man with the barest hints of tusks stood out anywhere, and the memories of the most recent Durgh attack ran hot, even if it had been almost a decade ago.
He understood the sentiment. The Durgh host had lain siege to Westmarch for almost a month before the Pereston army, led by a contingent of Royal Knights, arrived to drive the Durgh back into the Great Depths. In that time, a lot of good people died or were captured by the Durgh, disappearing into the dark caves of the Depths with the attacking forces.
Even if the people didn’t definitively know that Drekt was part Durgh, his size, skin, and “prominent teeth” hinted at his heritage. Micah didn’t put much weight on it. Drekt was a friend, and busybodies would always find a reason not to
like someone—their religion, heritage, or blessing. None of it really meant anything, but people used it as an excuse to justify being rotten.
On the other hand, Drekt seemed to have adapted to his status well. Micah might have politely put a hand on someone’s shoulder and tried to slip by them, but the massive man seemed to realize that he would be a target of scorn regardless of his manners. Instead of pandering to social niceties to no avail, he simply plowed through the crowd, using his great muscled bulk to push people aside in his quest to find the food stands.
“There she is!” Jo shouted, pointing out Sarah standing next to a picnic table where Will sat happily shoving fried bits of something into his mouth. A pair of young men tried to talk to her as she tapped her foot impatiently, a look of disgust on her face.
They approached, the throng of humanity flowing away from Drekt’s imposing form, and soon it was just the five teammates and the two oblivious interlopers.
“Come on, babe,” one of them whined at Sarah. “I know you said that you came here with the fatty, but that’s clearly a lie. If you don’t want to go and grab a beer with us, we at least deserve to be told that to our faces. There’s no need to insult us by saying you’re interested in that.”
The man pointed accusingly at Will, who had grease smeared all over his apple-red cheeks as he slid a full kebab of some unknown-but-deep-fried meat down his gullet. Happily, he reached for a pastry stuffed with sweet bean paste, not even paying the slightest bit of attention to the altercation behind him.
“Fine,” Sarah replied, her voice icy. “I don’t want to grab a beer with you. Now can you leave me alone?”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” the man grumbled as he and his friend turned to leave. His eyes widened as he saw Drekt, and they both quickened their gait to clear the area.
“Will,” Drekt sighed. “You aren’t supposed to abandon your team. We were literally sent here to have a good time with the thinnest excuse imaginable. All we had to do was spend time together as a team, and you couldn’t even manage that.”
“But, Drekt”—Will looked up at him from the table, confusion on his face—“I was so hungry, and the food smelled really good. Plus, I knew you’d follow me here, so it wasn’t really abandoning the team.”
“You’re hungry,” Drekt said, massaging his temples wearily, “because you’re on a diet. We’re trying to get you in better shape by giving you well-regulated portions of meat and vegetables. How are you going to be able to fight off monsters if you stay fat? We all saw how much you struggled sparring with Glenn. It’s not going to get any easier when you fight wild beasts, and their claws aren’t going to be blunted and wood.”
“It’s fine.” Will shrugged, his face shiny from grease and the mild heat. “Cornell keeps telling me that I’ll get better with time. I just plan on waiting until I become a great warrior. Once that happens, it will be me helping all of you out! How exciting will that be?”
For once, Drekt was absolutely speechless, his mouth hanging open as he tried to articulate a response to Will’s matter-of-fact idiocy. Micah raised an eyebrow in Jo’s direction. She shrugged back at him, a half-smile on her face, and sidled closer.
“He’s as pampered as a noble’s fourth child,” she whispered, shaking her head slightly. “Even with a Rare blessing, we’re going to be stuck carrying his dead weight once we start fighting things closer to our level.”
“That’s a lot of dead weight,” Micah observed, trying to keep his face calm. There was something about Jo standing this close to him that made the day even hotter than it already was. He didn’t know whether it was the conspiratorial and intimate tone of her voice, or the way her fingers rested gently on his arm, but his heart was hammering in his chest.
She laughed. The dull thud of his heartbeat was in his ears now as Micah smiled back awkwardly.
“Come on,” she whispered, “Drekt and Sarah are going to spend all day trying to keep Will out of trouble. I spotted some games of chance on the boulevard leading up to the arena for the grand melee. Let’s slip out of here and see if we can find some trouble of our own instead.”
Micah nodded, his mouth too dry to respond.
“Let’s make things interesting,” she said, winking at him. “The one that wins the fewest prize tokens has to donate them to the winner. I have my eyes on a new copper bracelet, but it’s over two hundred tokens. Your contributions would be greatly appreciated.”
With a tinkle of laughter, she was gone, slipping off into the crowd and leaving behind only the floral hint of her shampoo in the summer air.
10
Dungeoneering
“Are you sure it’s supposed to look like this?” Will huffed, his pudgy head swiveling about as he blinked at the stone walls of the dungeon. “It’s awfully dark in here. How are we supposed to see the monsters?”
Jo stared at him as she pulled a torch from her backpack and wordlessly lit it. Turning to Micah, she thrust it into his free hand. He squinted at her in confusion.
“Support caster carries the torch,” she said cheerfully before walking past him toward the tunnel. Micah turned to Drekt, a silent question in his eyes.
“Casters usually have a hand free to hold the torch,” the large man supplied as he walked past the large stone arch that marked the mouth of the dungeon. “I suppose that’s not really the case with you, given your insistence on using a spear, but most of the Time spellcasters only need one hand to cast spells so the other can be used for a light source. Most dungeons glow slightly on their own, so it’s never completely dark, but for pureblood humans, it’s still not a great environment to fight in.”
“What about Jo?” Micah cocked his head, looking down the tunnel where their scout had disappeared into the gloom. “There’s no way this torch is giving her any light.”
“She can see just fine,” Sarah cut in curtly as she walked past Micah, her bow strung and an arrow resting on the taut string. “Just worry about yourself, Silver. I don’t want anyone dying because you’re too busy gawking at your first dungeon to heal them in time.”
Drekt patted him on a shoulder awkwardly, his massive cleaver held in one hand. Each blow from the man’s massive paw staggered Micah slightly, causing shadows to skitter across the dungeon’s walls as he stumbled forward.
“Don’t worry, Micah,” Drekt rumbled sheepishly. “She’ll warm up to you eventually. Sarah can just be a little prickly to newcomers. I’m sure she’s happy to have a fully trained healer on the team. Most squads our level have to rely on potions, and those are both uncommon and expensive.”
“How am I a newcomer?” Micah inquired, cocking his head as he recovered from Drekt’s accidental blows. “I’ve been serving with the team for almost six months now.”
“Doesn’t the guild just pay for potions?” Will furrowed his brow in confusion, ignoring Micah’s question. “I don’t understand why we would have to pay for them. The guild has bought everything else I’m using.”
“Well,” Drekt chuckled, taking his hand off of Micah’s shoulder and switching to a double-handed grip on his cleaver, “not all of us have a Rare blessing. They fronted the attunement for me to buy my blade, but I have to pay them back in installments. Luckily, Ankros smiles upon dungeoneering and hands out Night attunement liberally for slaying new and powerful monsters. We have a lucrative profession, my friends—a good thing, given how blasted expensive all of our equipment is.”
“What about Micah?” Will’s tiny little eyes swiveled toward him. “He’s the group’s healer; doesn’t the guild give him something? Everyone keeps saying that we don’t have many full wizards and healers. Shouldn’t the guild help him too?”
“Just an Uncommon blessing,” Micah lied glibly, subduing his vague desire to confide in his team. “My dad’s a tailor, so I have a fairly stylish set of traveling clothes, and the spear is a hand-me-down from my brother. He has a spear combat class and trained me. When he leveled up enough to get his own weapon, I got his old on
e.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Will mumbled, mostly to himself, as he struggled to pull the giant hammer off his back. After months of training, he could lift and use the weapon when not transformed, but without any grace or fluidity. Any actual combat with it required his stone form. Really, despite his levels, Will was almost useless in his human form.
“How’s Trevor doing anyway?” Drekt asked, ignoring Will’s discontented muttering.
“I didn’t know that you and Trevor were friends.” Micah cocked his head at his commander. “He would always talk about friends from the Lancers, but he never mentioned any names around the house.”
Before Drekt could respond, Jo burst into the hallway, sprinting silently toward them with her face split in a manic grin.
“Good news, guys!” she shouted, borderline cackling with mirth. “I found the first encounter! Bad news; apparently, cave adders can see in the dark, and slinking through the shadows to avoid them is pointless.”
For a brief second, no one but Jo moved as the hiss of scales on stone filled the tunnel. Two dark gray snakes, each slightly longer than Drekt was tall, darted after Jo, pink tongues flicking out from their triangular heads as they tasted the air around them.
“Will,” Drekt shouted as one of Sarah’s arrows zipped past him, puncturing the hard scales of a snake, “transform and get into fucking position! Micah might be a healer, but I don’t want to test the effectiveness of his antivenom. Cave adders are bad news!”
With a shove from Drekt, the portly man stumbled toward the injured snake, his eyes wide and the hammer trembling in his meaty fists. Fear froze the Vanguard as he stared helplessly at the monster rearing up before him. The snake pulled back its head to strike and Micah began chanting the incantation to Air Knife, focusing his mana and will on the coiled reptile.