The next morning was a quiet one.

  The trio had wrapped reading their skill books late in the night, and Benji had stayed up even later reading the other one he had been working on the night after I met him. I saw Dane first, down in the clearing.

  He was concentrating heavily on something, so I didn’t bother him at first. I went about my morning routine… checking my gear, reading some of the glossary text, and trying in vain to plan out my next power.

  Some time had passed and I hadn’t seen the other two (or Trelain) that morning and I was way too curious for my own good. So, when I looked out the window and saw Dane sitting down to drink some water I made my way down the rope ladder and approached.

  “So, you never told me what you got. Was the title as ridiculous as Benji’s?"

  Dane put his water flask on the bench next to him and gave me a perplexed look, and then wiped his hands on his pants.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I guess you didn’t see it. His was “Is That a Flashlight or Are you Just Happy to See Me?”

  “I don’t understand what we’re doing right now,” Dane stood and slowly walked towards me offering the flask of water.

  I graciously accepted it and said, “We’re not doing anything…” I took a respectful, but big gulp, “At least I don’t think?”

  “So why are you—” Dane started

  “Asking about the title? Because I want to know yours. Sorry, is that too personal or something? Not trying to be weird. Just trying to understand more about this place,” I said, gesturing all around me, “You know, your world.”

  “I get that, but Greg…”

  “Yes Dane?”

  “There are no titles…”

  "Wait really?”

  “Really,” Dane insisted.

  “Must be my HUD… that snarky son-of-a—” I stopped myself as a thought popped into my head, “So how do you pick the right ones? You know… Make sure you’ve got the right Domain? Don’t accidentally try to read a repeat of one of your spells? That sort of thing.”

  “Uhh… honestly you’d have to ask Benji for a better explanation,” Dane said, frowning, and then continued, “But I guess I can try. Short answer is we can’t. You pick up a book, and you can either read it or not. Of course you can kind of tell if it’s the right domain by the appearance of the book, but it’s mostly just a feeling. Each book interacts with us on a personal level. If Trelain had thrown a Frost Domain book at any of us, the spell or passive or what-have-you would have been different for each of us. Or the same. It depends…”

  “On what?” I asked.

  “On what the magic within thinks we need,” Dane said.

  “Magic thinks?”

  “Not really. Er— I don’t know. Again, we should ask Benji. But he’d probably say something like magic wants to synergize but it also wants to make new and unique combinations. For… something. Some grand plan? Some say. Others just say magic has a mind of its own, and if left unchecked it just does… things. I don’t… Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Right. So, what about when you read it? You can tell what the spell is going to be once you start, yeah?”

  “Also no.”

  “You’re absolutely fucking with me, right? What were you guys doing for hours? Just staring into a book and hallucinating?” I asked, incredulously but also slightly amused.

  Dane laughed, “I mean… sort of? More like meditating. I’d show you what I mean, but I don’t have another book. But there aren’t… words… really. Diagrams, sometimes. Other symbols, some say. Though I don’t like to focus on it. It’s really very relaxing, so I just let it do its thing.”

  “So what about Benji? The other day he was, like, a third of the way through one. That sure looked like he was reading,” I said.

  “The meditation still takes time. You can pick it back up and chip away, little by little. Or, you can do what we did last night and just power through. It kind of depends on where you are. Safe place? Safe to consume the whole thing. Get it?” Dane asked.

  “Yeah, I guess. It’s a little weird I’m just hearing about this now.”

  “As opposed to when?”

  “Fair enough. Wait, do you think the Party Perk would let you guys see what I see? Finish a book in a few seconds like I can?”

  “You tell me.”

  I dug into the text revolving around the Party Interface. Finding nothing denoting any power acquisition perks in the party screen, I just shook my head at Dane.

  “Looks like no. Wonder why that is. Anyway, alright so you didn’t have a book title. You didn’t exactly read text telling you what the spell is. So how do you know what you got?” I asked.

  “The meditation is um… kind of like… what would Maleena call it? I like how she says it. Erm,” Dane tapped his hands on his legs and hunted around in his brain for the right words. After a minute he said, “A training montage? Yeah that’s it.”

  “So you hallucinate for hours while reading a book with no text all the while doing kung-foo in your head?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “I don’t know what that is,” Dane said.

  “Doesn’t matter. What was the montage?”

  Dane perked up for the first time and grinned at me, “I got Shield Wall from the Tactical Domain.”

  “Well, that sounds helpful, want to show me how it works?”

  Shield Wall [Active] [Defense Spell] [Domain: Tactician] Cast a large, indomitable shield blocking slashing, piercing, and blunt damage. Minor resistance to elemental spells. Deals blunt damage on hit if you have a physical shield equipped (Mana cost: low).

  We spent the next half an hour running drills with me throwing my hammer at Dane’s shield wall. He was using his uncommon shield, The Informant, that he got from the canary cave. Apparently, he didn’t have to use a physical shield, but it provided advanced alert for incoming threats so it gave him a bit of an edge of when he had to cast the spell.

  He could also just cast shield wall and wait for the hit. But Dane explained that simply just holding a shield up and letting an enemy batter it was far less useful than timing your blocks. If he waited until the very last moment and hit back with shield wall, he could knock away projectiles with equal and opposite force thereby turning a defensive spell into an offensive one.

  Shield Wall being a very finesse and timing reliant spell was not uncommon for the Tactician Domain. Dane explained that most of the powers that came from that Domain required a firm understanding of martial prowess and not an inherent one built in. Though, there was certainly a passive he hadn’t gotten yet that sped up the process… turning amateurs into Spartans.

  A little while later, a very sleepy Maleena came down with a trailing Benji. Benji brought sandwiches they had rustled up and we all ate in companiable silence.

  The sandwiches were good, but the bread was the real MVP.

  It was sort of homemade warm sourdough loaf with thick slices of bacon and what I thought were extremely tasty beefsteak tomatoes, but later found out they were something called a beetarge. After the food had settled a bit and I had taken another pull of water, I turned to Benji.

  “So, you don’t have a flashlight?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. What’d you get? Two more to your power suite, no?” I asked.

  “Ice Lance, like Dane and Maleena.”

  “Nice.”

  “Didn’t you get another one? Round you out to five, I think?” I asked.

  “I sure did, but I’ll save that for another time. The demonstration could be… disruptive…” Benji said.

  “He got ‘Blind’,” Maleena said.

  “Looks fine to me,” Dane mumbled.

  “Dane… was that a joke?” I mock narrowed my eyes at him and gave him a smirk.

  He just winked at me.

  “Blind, like emit a big flash of bright, blind. It’s from my Light Domain. Should be helpful… if I time it right,” Benji mumbled.

  Blind [Active] [Elemental Spell] [Domain: Light] Emit a large flash of bright light blinding all those within range. Effects enemies and allies (Mana cost: low).

  “You’ll get the hang of it,” Maleena encouraged.

  “What about you, Leens? You never said, last night,” Dane said from his spot on the bench.

  “I’d rather show you,” she said, winking.

  “Are you guys—” I started, waggling my eyebrows suggestively.

  “No,” Maleena said.

  “Sometimes.” Dane finished.

  “Come on, lets go for that wood, eh? Finish the quest and get to forging that key. After last night, I want to stay in Trelain’s good graces. I’ve never seen someone just hand out skill books like that. With more than a dozen to go, I could sure use a benefactor like him. Just saying…”

  “No, you’re right. Whatever his game is, I honestly don’t care,” Dane said.

  “The bird thing was a little annoying,” Benji added.

  “Okay, true,” I agreed, “But other than that, the guy has been nothing but good to me. So let’s keep it up, right?”

  “Right,” Maleena said.

  “I’m in,” Benji affirmed.

  “Yeah, alright,” Dane added.

  We set off for the last piece of the ingredient puzzle, trudging West through the moss covered forest floor. The circle on the mini map wasn’t too far away… maybe a mile or two. We walked and talked, excited to talk about our developing power suites.

  I filled them in on my mimic passive and they were theory crafting ways I could use it to my advantage the best.

  So far, the best ideas were finding a martial arts school and attending for a few days, attend a tricks performance (what I took to mean a circus), and go to the great bazar and see if the mimic passive would pick up on bartering techniques.

  I was skeptical of the last suggestion, but it was Dane’s and at least he was trying.

  But the text was very clear. I could replicate anything physical that I saw done and would only be as good as my example. Being around for people yelling prices back and forth at each other until one stuck didn’t seem like it would do much.

  Though, I supposed it would at least be beneficial monetarily if it did work.

  With less than a quarter mile to go, Dane spoke up again… insistent he had the perfect use-case this time.

  “Pleasure house. Multiple rounds. Greg, you could finally please your wife.”

  “What do you know about my wife?”

  Dane just laughed. I think that meant he liked me? I wasn’t sure yet, but light jabs were usually a good sign with his type.

  -

  The Elmstier Wood fetch sub quest turned out to be an extremely large tree. Like, Colonel Armstrong big. It was thick, powerful, and completely black. Limbs didn’t start until about a quarter mile up, and they were maroon red and slightly off putting.

  I couldn’t put my finger on why, though. They sort of looked like long, fanged, bristles with big pinkish yellow starfish type protrusions at the end. The bark let off a peculiar smell to it, as well. Not putrid, but not right either.

  It smelled a bit like the drain of a dish pit in the back of the house in a gourmet French restaurant…. not bad.

  Not good.

  Reminiscent of well prepared and dynamic food, but also… old.

  “Are you guys smelling this? I’ve never smelled anything quite like this… and I was a paramedic in the city,” I said.

  “A what now?” Benji asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Dane said, shaking his head.

  “Well, I am. Still not used to the enhanced smelling sense factor of being an Initiate. I swear, some of the things I used to love are absolutely foul to me now,” Maleena said, stepping up to the tree and taking a big whiff.

  “Whew!” That’s a stanky bi—” She started to exclaim.

  Dane cut her off with a raised hand and a grunt. He had dropped down to one knee and was looking at something on the ground. They had been together, in danger, enough times for her to know his signs. So she didn’t seem to mind the metaphorical gag order.

  “What is it?” Benji asked.

  Dane brought his hand up and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, something slick and black in between.

  “Something has been here… recently.”

  “Did you get a tracking skill too, or am I missing something?” I asked.

  “Dane’s family used to…” Maleena whispered.

  “Don’t,” Dane said, grimacing.

  With his last command, there was a loud and otherworldly low tone. It sounded like someone had mic’d up a moving a chair across a hardwood floor but with the reverb turned up to ten. Then there was cracking, like something sticky was coming undone.

  And then I was in the air, giant black bark covered branches grasping me like they were hands.

  I struggled hard against the grip and was about to cast Furnace. But something told me not to. I turned to see Dane in the air to my right, unharmed but perturbed.

  “Dane, what happened? I thought your shield was supposed to warn you if danger was coming?”

  “It does. This is something different,” he said.

  Benji, who had been caught upside-down was dangling in the air by a smaller curling branch shouted over, “Doesn’t feel different!”

  Maleena was to the left of me, sitting comfortably in what looked like the palm of a gigantic black, mossy hand. She looked over, smiling.

  “You boys alright?”

  And then a massive yellow eye opened in a significant patch of bark by Maleena, and she screamed.

  We all screamed.