Chapter Twenty-Two — A Long Talk Off a Short Pier
“Tell us everything you know about Threewells,” Leonard demanded.Up until that moment I had seen the dour samurai as a sort of... pompous and somewhat rude man that was in a bad mood. Just a normal person who had rolled off the wrong side of the bed that morning. He wasn’t a threat because he could talk, he could be reasoned with.Now he was in my face, hands gripped over my shoulders and holding on so tight that I couldn’t move. Something told me that bonking him on the head wouldn’t do anything to him. That, and there was a force pushing down on me.I could hardly hear Emeric’s protests over the roaring in my ears.Then I remembered that I was Broccoli Bunch, and Broccoli Bunch said nope to bullying. “I won’t tell you anything if you’re going to act like a bully,” I told him. “If you want, I could trade you some information, but with how rude you’re being I think I’ll just keep it to myself.” I crossed my arms. “So there.”Leonard let go of my shoulders but didn’t back away. He opened his mouth to say something, paused, then stroked his chin. “A trade would be acceptable,” he said. “What do you know of the Exploration Guild?”“Um. Nothing?” I said. “Nothing beyond what I can guess, at least.”“Oh boy,” Valerie said before she moved back to the cauldron and started scraping stew off the bottom.Leonard pulled the log he had been using as a seat closer with hardly any effort. “The Exploration Guild is an old and storied society. It transcends the boundaries of race and species and serves many. Kingdoms rely on it to find new lands and resources, merchants rely on us to find precious materials and to scout new roads. Most important of all, we are often the first to delve into new dungeons to discover the will of the world.”“That’s impressive,” I said. The feverish light in his eyes kind of disturbed me a little, but it did genuinely sound interesting.Leonard nodded. “It truly is. As impressive as we are, we still lose members. New Dungeons can be creative and dangerous, exploring faraway lands means being far from help, or encountering threats never seen before. Information is what we seek, and information is what keeps us alive. Like you learning about dryads and sombrals and knowing to avoid them.”It kind of clicked, not that there was much work needed for that. “That’s why you want to know about Threewells,” I said.“Yes, he replied simply. “You asked for trade. I do not know how valuable your information is. But some of it might be the difference between the life and death of this party of overconfident fools.”“Um, are they your responsibility?” I asked.He nodded. “They are. But I am but one grenoil, I cannot be everywhere at once.”“Well, okay then.” I wasn’t sure what to think of Leonard anymore. That was both annoying and kind of confusing. But he wanted to know what I knew and I wasn’t averse to sharing. “Let me just fetch something.” I opened my backpack and retrieved my map of Threewells. The map of the dungeon I left behind, maybe I could use it to bargain for something else. Maybe some food. “Here.”Leonard took my crude map and his eyes widened a little. “This is Threewells?” he asked.“Yup, I explored most of the town while I was there,” I said, a bit of pride sneaking into my voice.Emeric laughed. “Full of surprises zis one. We should keep her!”“Oh no,” Arianne said. “I’m not going to abide to ze party having a pet human.”The two bickered back and forth, but my focus was mostly on Leonard who was looking over the entirety of my map with more care than I thought it deserved.“This is shoddy work,” he said and my tiny kernel of pride deflated and died. “It’s not accurate to the maps of Threewells I have seen. The houses are all there, but their locations are slightly off. And the art is... questionable at best. These words, what language are they in?”“Um. English?” I said. “You can’t read?”“Of course I can read!” Leonard said over the laughter of Valerie and Emeric. Even Donat seemed to want to laugh. “I don’t speak this ‘Henglish’ of yours.”“But we’re speaking it now,” I said.Arianne looked at me curiously. “Do you have a translation skill?” she asked.I shook my head.“Any magical jewelry zat may be soul-bound?” she asked next, this time looking at my hand with the bronze ring.“Well, yes.” But unless my Insight skill was dead wrong there was no way that my ring was translating for me. Did that mean that I just... knew how to speak frog? I didn’t have much time to wonder about it.“You shouldn’t just put on strange jewelry,” Leonard said. “At this rate it is a miracle you’re not dead already. Donat, fetch me a paper and an inkwell!” The younger grenoil jumped to it. “Very well, for the map, if you help me recreate it in a less... childish hand, then I will give you one gold.”Emeric whistled. “Suddenly being generous,” he said.“A lesser gold,” Leonard added even as Donat returned with a small satchel. The samurai pulled out a wooden board with an inkwell built into it and then a long feather and some yellowish paper. “Do you accept?” he asked.“Um, okay, sure.” Gold was good. Maybe. Probably. Did I want my new friends to know that I had no idea how the money here worked?“Good.” Leonard reached to his belt and pulled at the drawstrings of a pouch. He flicked a coin at me that I caught out of the air. It was small, about the size of a dime but thicker, and it was heavy. I stuffed it into my backpack in a hurry. “Now, translate this.”The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.I did as he asked, translating all the little notes I had made for myself while he copied the map with quick, sure strokes of his plume. His notes were tiny little inscriptions in the margins and sides of the buildings and places I had marked.“I can tell you about the buildings I explored too,” I said.“Go on.”“In exchange for the right to spend the night here,” I added.The samurai looked up at me and narrowed his eyes. “Very well.”“Am I the only one zat expects her to slowly fleece him of everything he’s worth?” Emeric asked. He smiled at me then got up to his feet. “I’ll leave you to it. Donat, fetch some blankets and finish setting up ze second tent. Broccoli can sleep wiz ze girls. We’ll set up a watch and put up torches before ze sun sets.”That last comment had me looking up to a sky that was putting on its night time colours. “Ah, darn, the day’s almost over.”“Indeed. Now, tell me of these places,” Leonard demanded again.So I did, each home earning a small notation next to it as he moved across the town. “And that’s the main tower. The one I came in from,” I said. “Nothing on the third floor. You can only get to it by scaling the outside wall. Ah, but there are offices on the first floor, I found a lot of papers and stuffed them in a chest in the barracks.”“... good,” Leonard said. “Documents from a fallen city might interest some buyers at the guild.”“How much would you give for, say, the ledger of the guard captain? All the reports leading up to the fall of the town?”Leonard looked at me. He sighed. “I have misjudged you. For that, I would give a young fool... a letter of recommendation to the guild. As well as four lesser gold.”“Ask for more,” Arianne said.“Mind your own business,” Leonard grumped at her. To me he said. “What made you explore the town so much? At your level it’s an incredible risk.”“I needed stuff. Food and supplies. And I like exploring, it’s fun.” I grinned at the flummoxed look on the samurai’s face. It was as if he’d swallowed a fly. Only probably not, he would like swallowing flies, I suspected.He shook his head. “Perhaps the letter of recommendation would be too much. The amount of time spent beating the stupid out of you would cost our instructors far too much.”“No, no, I’ll take the letter,” I said. The guild sounded neat. “And the gold too. Oh, and some food. But nothing with bugs in it.”“Hey, nozing wrong with some crunch in your lunch,” Valerie said.Arianne shook her head. “Humans don’t usually like eating insects.The look of confused betrayal I received from Valerie had me holding back giggles. “Just enough food for the road, at least until I reach that outpost you mentioned. Unless you’d let me come with you?”“No,” Leonard said. “There is no chance of that happening.” He said it with enough conviction that I decided not to test him. “We can offer you some food, yes. But only after I see the books.”I pulled out the two binders filled with reports. It was going to be nice to not have that weight on my back. Or maybe just to replace it with proper food. I handed them over to Leonard who brushed a thumb across the cover, then leafed through the reports. Most, I knew, were exceptionally boring, but he seemed not to care.“Six lesser gold. I won’t have my honour besmirched by shortchanging even a fool.” He carefully set the binders aside. “Tell me more about the town.”“Ah, which parts?” I asked.“The so-called evil hole you mentioned,” he said. I sat up straighter and wondered what kind of goodies I could get for my dungeon map. “It sounds like the entrance to a young dungeon.”“We felt a mana surge,” Arianne mentioned.Leonard nodded at that. “We did. Someone might have destroyed the dungeon after you left. Not an easy feat.”“Is that bad?” I asked.I shrank back as all three still around the fire looked at me.“Destroying a dungeon is,” Arianne began. “A crime of ze highest order. One who breaks a core must in turn be broken, for it means going against ze world’s will.”“The world’s will?” I asked.“It’s a miracle you know how to read and write,” Leonard said. “With the pitiful education you’ve no doubt received. Typical of a human.”“What Leonard is trying to say,” Arianne said with some bite. “Is zat ze world needs mana to sustain itself. Not all of it. You can live in a mana-free area your entire life. But you will be made uncomfortable by it. Injuries will take longer to heal and you will no doubt die younger with fewer offspring. Dungeons, when zey appears, bring lots of clean mana to an area, and wiz zat comes the lure of ze dungeon boss.”“You mean... the class thing?”“Not completely clueless, then,” Leonard muttred.“Yes, killing a boss grants you a class. Zat’s why our group has zree fencers in it. Zere’s a boss zat grants ze fencing class near ze capital. A lower levelled one, at zat. It is farmed regularly.”“Oh,” I said. “Wait, three?”“Emeric was a fencer until his class evolved. Valerie also reached ze level for a class evolution, but she remained a fencer.”“So cool,” I said under my breath. “Do you know what Cinnamon Bun evolves into?”“No, I’ve never heard of ze class,” Arianne said. “Was it a natural one? That is, one you grew into?”“I guess so.”“Zen it being strange isn’t surprising in ze least. Uncommon, but not surprising.”“What can you tell us about the dungeon?” Leonard asked.I shook my head and smiled. “Nothing, nothing at all.”
Chapter Twenty-Three — Friendmaking
Emeric insisted that I didn’t need to help prepare for the night, though I did help a little anyway. The look on Donat’s face when I cleaned the cauldron with a tap of my fingers was worth the half dozen points of mana I spent.The tents weren’t the sort of tents I was used to. In fact, there were little more than canvas sheets with a few holes here and there that had flaps covering them. Ropes strung out between the nearest trees held them up, and little ties on the canvas allowed parts of it to be folded in to form walls around three sides.It would keep the rain off, if it rained, and the wind too, but that was about it. Still, no weird retractable sticks to deal with, so it wasn’t all bad. I was given a spot in the middle of Valerie and Arianne and a few extra blankets that were less than fresh until a couple of cleaning spells fixed them up.“Zat’s a handy little spell,” Arianne said as she watched me lay out a blanket to sleep on and another to cover myself. I had my own too, so I would be nice and snug all night. It was like a sleepover but outside and with strangers!“It’s great!” I said. “I never got to see much magic, so I was super excited when I got my own spell.”Arianne’s smile was at once demure and extremely amused. “Well zen, do you want to see some more?”“Yes!” I said before scrambling to my feet and following after her. Magic was awesome because it was magic. Even after using my cleaning spell a hundred times I couldn’t get over how cool it was. “Can you teach me about magic?”“I can, a little. But zen we must sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day. What do you know so far?”“Um. I can push magic into stuff, and then I lose some mana. Then things happen.”Arianne tittered. “I have my work cut out for me, zen.” She walked us over to the edge of the clearing. “Zere are two types of spells... no. zere are many many types of spells, but only two matter for you. You can worry about ze ozers later.”“So what are the two, then?” I asked. I was bouncing on the balls of my feet as the marsh wizard raised her staff and narrowed her eyes in focus.“Ze light of my soul illuminates,” she said while making a cupping gesture in the air under the end of her staff. A spark appeared, then formed into a baseball-sized ball of whitish light that began to fall. “Ze will of the world captures.” The light started to dim. “Ze weight of my will determines ze path.”And just like that the ball stopped falling and hovered in place, releasing a whitish light that was weaker than a torch, but that was pure and clear. “Cool,” I whispered.“Zat is for the sombrals. Zey dislike ze light,” Arianne explained. “Zat was one type of magic. A spell zat I cast using my own mana by controlling it, zen I tied it to zis place so zat it hovers.”“So if I chanted like that, would it do the same thing?” I asked. I was trying to memorize the chant just in case. I wanted light balls. I could hang them all over the place and people would comment on them and tell others of how cool Broccoli Bunch’s balls were.“No, ze chant is to help. Do you know what a... mnemonic is?”“Like a song to remember something?”“Yes, zat’s exactly right. Many practitioners use zem. Some have very misleading chants to trick opponents. Zey are just to help you remember and to help you move ze mana ze right way at ze right time. I can cast zis spell wizout because I have been practicing it a lot, but to demonstrate it is easier wiz ze chant.”“Okay, so you take your mana and then you make a light ball?”Arianne shook her head, then paused. “Yes. But zat is too simple. Zere is a specific shape ze mana must take. Zere is some leeway, but not too much. Ozerwise ze spell fails. Zat is where ze ozer kind of spel comes in. Skills.”Arianne tapped her staff to the ground and a clod of mud rose up, then twisted around itself until it took the shape of a small muddy frog person that barely came up to my shin. It wobbled around on unsteady legs, then collapsed into a heap of mud.“Zat is a golem spell. To cast it would take me a minute. Maybe two, if I want to avoid mistakes. But by using a skill like Earth Magic Manipulation it becomes trivial.” She smiled at me. “Do you understand?”Right, I knew that using magic skills came with an instinct for it. My cleaning magic was the same way. I didn’t really have to think too hard on it and the spell just kind of formed immediately and worked on the first try. Did that mean that someone without the cleaning skill could use my spell? Probably, but as Arianne said, it would be difficult. I could see why. The amount of mana used in each cleaning spell was slightly different, which probably meant that the spell was a tiny bit different too.So using skills to cast spells was like having a calculator do the math for you. Or maybe a computer solving your physics problems. Casting it yourself was like doing it by hand. But that meant that you could still do it by hand.“Wait, does that mean I can learn Fireball?”Arianne sighed. “Zey always want ze fireballs. No Arianne, don’t cover ze enemy in mud, light zem on fire. Always ze same.”“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. I might have touched on a sensitive topic. “I think mudballs are cool too. All magic is cool, and you’re a wizard, which means you’re cool by default.”Arianne shook her head from side to side, a strange swaying motion with the way her neck was made. “Go rest. You’re going to have a long walk tomorrow,” she said before placing a hand on my head and ruffling my hair like a big meanie.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
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I woke up with a jaw-shattering yawn, then stretched my arms and legs out every which way. It took a moment for me to realize where I was, but the strange croaking snores of the girls next to me helped a bunch. A glance out of the tent revealed that the sun was rising and that morning was here and the faint clinks of metal against metal and the crackle of a fire suggested that someone was up.I slid out of my blankets and searched for my armour and stuff. I had slept in it before but now, with a whole party of strong adventurers around, I felt safe enough to just sleep in my normal things.All dressed up and ready, I slid out of the tent and stood up tall to take in a deep lungfull of morning air.“Up already?”I finished my stretch with a few sways of my hip to get my lower back settled, then bounced on the spot a few times. “Yup!” I said.Emeric and Leonard were both sitting around the fire while a small metal pan was sitting with a slice of bread on it and a pot sat next to it with what looked like beans boiling merrily away.“Is that breakfast?” I asked.“Favourite meal of ze day?” Emeric asked as he stirred the beans.“I’ve been eating nothing but honey and berries for a while, any meal is my favourite if it’s got neither. Not that I dislike either, it’s just too much is too much.”Leonard made a croaky-snort. “Unprepared child,” he said.I sat next to them and waited, tummy growing fiercer by the minute, as breakfast was prepared. It was nice. Emeric filled three bowls up, mine almost to the brim, then he placed some toast atop the bowl and we got down to eating in quiet, only the morning birdsong to accompany my oms and noms.“We’ll be leaving soon enough,” Emeric said. “I got grumpy here to draw you a basic map and zere are supplies in zat sack over there.” He gestured to a bag off to the side. “Some canned goods, a few little things. Our last loaf of proper bread. Ah, and some hardtack. It tastes awful but it will keep you fed.”“I... can’t come with you?” I asked. I kept my eyes on my now-empty bowl.I saw Emeric shake his head from the corner of my eye. “No. We’re not just going to Threewells. The Dungeon there, if it’s still active, would be outrageously dangerous for someone at your level. And we have to move quickly.”“I can move quickly,” I said.He smiled. “Nope. You get yourself back to Rockstack. There are some nice folk over there, some will be willing to keep an eye on you, maybe even get you a job. Ask for Julliette, she runs the inn. She ought to have some work for you.”“If you are dead set on being a fool, then head over to Port Royal,” Leonard said. He handed over a folded piece of parchment with a red wax seal on the front. “My name has some weight there. The people at the headquarters of the Exploration Guild might see something in you if you don’t act like such a foo— don’t break the seal!”I froze, fingers caught fiddling with the seal before I let go of it and gave him a sheepish smile. “It’s still attached,” I said.“Idiot,” Leonard said. “I’m going to wake the others.”Emeric watched him go, then turned to me with a huge smile. “I think he really likes you.”“I do not!” Leonard roared, which probably helped in waking all the others more than anything else he did.“He’s nice under all that gruffness,” I said. “I kind of wish I could come with you, I hate making friends and then losing them right away.”“You’ll make good friends one day. No worries,” Emeric said. He rooted around in a bag and found another tin of beans which he opened with a casual flick of a knife across its top. “Maybe you’ll start your own party?”“That would be wonderful,” I said. It would be! Just me and some close friends, heading out on mysterious adventures to discover hidden things. We’d meet dragons and ride them into battle and it would be awesome.“Wait,” I said. “You have beans that come in tins?”“Yes?” Emeric said. “They’re good for travelling, which we do a lot of. You can buy them in most guild supply stores. They’re not meant for civilians but they’ll sell you some if you don’t mind the mark-up.”The others woke up one after the other, some with more alacrity than the rest. Arianne was not a morning person and kind of just flopped next to Emeric until he pushed a bowl into her hands. Valerie zeroed in on breakfast and scarfed it down, then bounced around while undoing the tents and gathering all of their things in a hyperactive hurry.And then it was time to go. Donat and Pierre, who had been sneaky all night, waited by the roadside. Leonard was deep in a map and Valerie was rubbing a tired Arianne’s back. Emeric reached a froggy hand out to me. “Good bye, Broccoli,” he said.“Bye Emeric,” I replied right back.We shook and I waved goodbye to the others as the party formed up and started walking and hopping away.I swallowed thickly, put on a smile, and got my stuff. I still had a ways to go. But maybe I would see them again. It would be neat to be part of the same group as them, maybe. Time would tell.Ding! For repeating a Special Action a sufficient number of times you have unlocked the general skill: FriendmakingI laughed as I set off into the unknown.
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