Shard

  A gnawing pain woke Niphru, fusing him for a moment since he was sure he wasn’t hurt. As his mind slowly caught up to being awake, he realized he had skipped dinner before he went to bed, and that eating robably a good idea. A quick look around showed that Dawn wasn’t present, so he stood and walked to the edge of the bed before dropping to the floor and leaving the bedroom.

  As he ehe main room, he saw her slouched over in a chair, clearly asleep, though in a very aosition. Thinking for a moment, he couldn’t decide if he wao wake her up or not. On one side, it must be unfortable sleeping like that, but oher, being woken up just to go back to sleep wasn’t very pleasaher. In the end, he decided he would just take a shower and make food, and if she woke or not would be decided by how tired she was.

  Making good on his pn, he quickly headed to go take his shower, feeling gd once again that he could operate things now that he had some experieh force magibsp; Upon finishing his shower and drying off, he headed toward the kit, spotting Dawn still asleep in her chair.

  With a few moments of sideration, Niphru decided on making some eggs, sausage, and ba for his breakfast. He kept his ears focused oher room and began pulling supplies out to begin cooking. About halfway through cooking, he heard Dawn stir iher room, followed by some quiet cursing. He quickly flicked an illusion into the other room and used it to ask if he should make her food too, getting back a ive response, so he just shrugged and resumed making a meal just for himself.

  He heard her stretg iher room before she spoke again, “I didn’t want to wake you up when you were asleep, so I just stayed out here. You kinda sprawled out across the middle of the bed. With how your day went, I didn’t want to bother you. I’ll just head back to finish sleeping in the bed. Hopefully today will be better thaerday.”

  As he heard her stand up and start shuffling across the room, he quit fog his ears in her dire aurned his full focus to the food. Once he finished, he decided to just eat i rather than going bad forth, quickly finishing up and going to work on ing the dishes.

  Heading out of their home and toward the gathering pce for their group, Niphru spotted Thomas and Miana sitting there talking to each other, though Viera and Richard were missing, as was Lisryn. He expected her to be missing for a few more days at least, however, sihey had been away from the city for quite some time.

  Approag Miana, he began to apologize again for yesterday before she shook her head and cut him off, saying, “It is fine, Niphru. Not all magic is safe to practice; I’ve burned myself with fire magid smashed myself with earth. Steam is just a little more likely for a mistake to occur.”

  Hearing this, Thomas tilted his head in fusion and began to question them, “What happened? You both seem fine, so it couldn’t have been too bad, right?”

  For this, Miana didn’t immediately respond, letting Niphru expin instead, “We were practig together, and I got some ideas from watg her, so I tried steam magic as well. I thought I could vert aire ball of water to steam all at once, and it exploded, throwing boiling water everywhere instead. I was able to avoid the worst of it, but Miana didn’t see it, so it caught her pretty badly. Luckily, I could immediately begin healing both of us, and the man watg over everything down there was able to get to us very quickly and join in the healing, so we were able to take care of it all before heading babsp; It did take several hours, though. I still don’t know why burns are so hard to heal pared to anything else.”

  As he spoke, Miana several points. Afterward, she added, “From everything I’ve read, steam magic is one of the most dangerous types to practice, and almost certain to include harmful acts when training, so it wasn’t too ued. I thought I’d be the oo screw up, though; Niphru was w with fire and I think wind before deg to try steam as well.”

  Niphru nodded, but before he could say anything, Miana turned back to face him again and asked, “Would you be up to more practice today? I know whoever is stationed down there is required to be a healer, but I would feel better with someone I know there as well. Again, I don’t bme you—something was bound to happen sooner or ter. And now we know better than to try that again.”

  Surprised, he froze up for a moment, not having expected her to be willing to practice with him again after what had happened yesterday. Once he recovered, however, he realized that it did make a lot of sense, even pared to her finding someone else. He wasn’t good with water, so he couldn’t manage a shield like the man had suggested. Despite that, however, he was getting pretty good with force magic, as well as wind, both of which could help, and he was a healer on top of that.

  After quickly thinking things through, Niphru agreed, remarking, “I guess it does make sense, doesn’t it? I’m willing tain as long as only one of us tries steam magic at a time, and the other focuses on prote. It sounds like good training for multi-tasking, too; fog on defense while also practig other spells with the rest of your focus.”

  Thomas then spoke up in the gap in versation, stating, “That sounds like it retty bad, but at least you could recover from it quickly. I agree with the idea of having one person focus oing another act while the other practices. That should keep either of yetting hurt again.”

  Gd that Thomas wasn’t upset, Niphru nodded as Miana responded, “That does sound good. Do you o do anything first, Niphru, or could we go get started now?”

  Finding that Niphru agreed immediately, she turned back to Thomas and apologized, “Sorry for cutting our talk short, but I really want to get this figured out better.”

  As she stood up, Thomas replied, “It is fine, Miana. It isn’t like we will never see each ain, silly girl. We just tinue when you get back, or tomorrow. I hope you learn more today and nothing goes wrong.”

  Quickly thanking him, Miana then turo lead Niphru down towards the training rooms. Along the way, they stopped by the guard post and found the same man from yesterday present, asking him to follow them for a moment in case anythi wrong and headed back to the same room as the day before.

  Under his watchful eyes, Miana told Niphru to go first and try to cause an explosion again before pulling a rge amount of water between them and the likely bomb. After a moment to be certain she had finished f the shield, Niphru repeated what he had tried before, resulting in a simir thump and spray of boiling water, this time most of it going to the side, though quite a lot clipped the wall of water.

  Miana’s trol held, however, only a small mist of cool water spraying out at them. A moment of thought ter, she requested for him tain, and maybe this time heat the far side of the water the most if he could. That did not seem too difficult, and the ry mostly exploded in their dire, the majority smming straight into the wall of water. This time, it didn’t fully hold, and a rge spray of warm water showered over them as the wall colpsed.

  Miana was quite pleased at the result, remarking that warm water wasn’t dangerous at all, and she was certain she could do better ime. Niphru nodded and a few seds of effort ter, said he was ready for her to try, having formed an invisible barrier of force curving a few feet around them.

  The guard, however, was quite obviously fused by the ck of anything visible, and quickly said that wind magic wasn’t good enough to stop all the water. Niphru, expining that he was using force magic, quickly turhat fusion into surprise before the man nodded and waved for them to tinue.

  After a moment of thought, Miana stated that she was going to try to do something simir to what he had done and see if she could get a gng hit first. As he had expected, given her skill, she was able to easily replicate it. The bst was quite a bit strohan he expected, but his wall easily held, water spshing off of it before falling to the floor and flowing away.

  Simir to Miana’s defense, however, the explosion being focused directly at them shattered his shield, though it did immensely slow the water, leading to it being quite simple to blow some air at it and cause it to simply fall to the floor before it could reach either of them.

  The movement of air was easily noticeable, though, leading to the man remarking that apparently the force magic wasn’t good enough to pletely stop it, but as long as he was ready and focused, it should be fine. Miana nodded and replied, “We should be good, only one of us will try at a time, while the other focuses on defense, as we just demonstrated. I just wanted you here in case somethi wrong in this initial testing.”

  With a quiod, the man stated, “That is good. I’ll still show up if anything explodes he ter here, but hopefully, it will be a pointless visit if that happens. I wish you the best of luck—I wish more people who attempted steam magic were willing t someone else to help protect them as they practiced.”

  After the ma, Niphru set up his barrier again before inf Miana, “I’m ready for you tain. I’ll see if I still practice a bit, but I’ll have most of my focus on your work.”