Your skill in bluffing has improved!

  For secrecy’s sake, It was lucky that Dad had already gone out early when I’d finally woken up that morning because if I’d thought Mom had pressured me, Dad was like a dog with a bone.

  “Elite! My daughter! Hah! I’m just mad that Hadra already went and stole the thunder. Two girls, best friends both getting elite talents within a month of one another! Unbelievable!” he said, for what must’ve been the hundredth time.

  I beamed at him, delighted that he at least was giving me the raucous excitement I’d been hoping for. It was easier this way. The last thing I wanted was to see his happiness turn to worry like Mom’s had.

  Mom, for her part, probably had a better skill in bluffing than I did, because she was selling it.

  “Isn’t it!? When Hadra got elite, I assumed our luck was up, and that Mera would get rare at best!” she exclaimed, her excitement seemingly as genuine as his.

  Dad had popped back in to grab some lunch. He’d been as anxious to find out my talent as Mom had, and he’d left without breakfast.

  Farmers didn’t really get holidays. Even during the easy season, there was still weeding to be done, tools to sharpen, and chickens to feed. Spending his morning prowling around Akkiwa’s woods wouldn’t accomplish any of those things, but he was out doing it anyway. That was just the kind of person Dad was.

  His need, according to my talent, was surprisingly similar to Mom’s. Beneath his jovial exterior, he’d been as worried about the troll yesterday as Mom had, and his need showed that. I could never tell exactly what the need was, but I could get a feeling for it and a list of what I would need to create it. Dad needed a weapon to face war trolls. Lots of metal, – hopefully high quality – leather, and thread. A sword, maybe?

  That confirmed the need was based on their imagination of what would best fulfill their need rather than mine. I’d have made him a gun and ten thousand rounds. Then again… would that stop a troll? I didn’t know. They were supposed to have incredible regenerative capabilities… Did that mean yes, if I shot it somewhere vital, and no, if I hit an arm or a leg?

  Either way, the need was ridiculous. What was my farmer dad going to do with a sword? He didn’t have the slightest clue how to use it, other than to swing it and hope to slice something.

  I paused. There I went, making assumptions without any proof! And I called myself a mad scientist! I hadn’t known Mom’s highest crafting skill was her writing. For all I knew, maybe Dad was a secret blademaster!

  I doubted it. Joenal Farmer was a broad man but not nearly so much as Fedenat Smith. Lithe, but nothing like Korlotom Hunter. Working a farm without modern equipment—especially one as large as ours—didn’t forge a weak man. Still, Dad was… clumsy at times. I just couldn’t picture it. Even so, who was I to deny him if he needed a sword?

  It also made a good cover. Instant creation of a single weapon? Nifty, but not anything too grand. The smith could do something similar, though he admittedly used his talent for farming equipment most of the time.

  For him, all I needed was a few iron ingots, an open flame, water, and a stone hammer. I could get all of that in an afternoon! The somewhat simple need—at least compared to Mom’s pyromancer spellbook—would probably reinforce the elite status of the talent.

  The spellbook was hidden away, and no one could find out about it, but I was sure Mom was itching to spend time reading it. I knew I was!

  Dad was about to go out to the fields to get the weeding done when a meteor in the form of a young girl rocketed past him into the house and slammed into me with the force of a boulder.

  “Meeerra! What did you get!? Tellmetellmetellme!” squealed Eysee.

  “Ehem,” came a much calmer voice from the doorway. “What my sister meant to ask was, would you please tell me, tell me, tell me?”

  Eysee was a wild thing, filled with more energy than anyone knew what to do with. It was commonly joked that she and her sister had traded poise and energy in the womb because Elsee was always quiet and reserved.

  Some people let that fool them into thinking Eysee was the troublemaker, but it was actually the other way around. Elsee was just very quietly excited to make trouble. Eysee was more than willing to follow her younger sister’s lead. That appeared to have led them out to our farm this morning.

  Er… Afternoon.

  I beamed at the two of them and said one soft word. “Elite.”

  Their eyes widened. “No way!” Eysee exclaimed over Elsee’s quiet, “You, too?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Me too,” I confirmed. “What, did you think I’d let Haddy take all the glory? We’ll wear our crowns happily until you two get your Masterful Talents, I’m sure!”

  “Ilhadira hates when people call her that,” Elsee said softly.

  “Is that why you keep telling people to do it?”

  The girl smirked.

  “Who cares about Hadra? She’s old news! Mera’s the new elite in town! So… what can you do?” Eysee asked.

  I looked closely at the two of them, spotting the little bubbles floating over them that only I could see. Eysee needed… something that would make her faster? Made with leather, thread, lace, and more things. Oh! Shoes! She needed shoes! That made sense. A quick look downward revealed that her current ones were worn, and new ones would be the biggest aid to help her get away from… from war trolls.

  An uneasy feeling was starting to form in my gut. Coincidence? Was everyone just fixated on the attack from yesterday?

  Elsee’s was weird. It required metal and pins. Springs. A crossbow, maybe? She needed… whatever it was because she wanted to prove to Korlotom that she could become a hunter and because it was the best method she could think of to hurt… War Trolls.

  Hers was actually flip-flopping between that and a hazy need that wasn’t fully formed, but I recognized the ingredients. She wanted my Troll Spray because it had proven that it could impair the beasts.

  I was an alchemist and considered myself a scientist, at least by Tacurian standards. Well. Maybe more of a hedge-crafter than anything, but I had experiments and a lab! Those were all the credentials I needed! I could form a hypothesis and test it.

  “Say, Eysee, have you two been extra worried about the Troll attack?” I asked. They’d both patiently waited for me to scrutinize them and were slightly surprised by the question.

  “Uhm… not really?” she replied, taken aback by the odd question. “I mean, yes! It was super scary, and I’m glad you’re okay, but Tom and Reid handled it just fine, and those soldiers were here right after. Not much to worry about, right?”

  “What does that have to do with your talent?” Elsee asked.

  The uneasy feeling grew stronger. If they weren’t actively worrying about it… I opened my talent screen again, studiously ignoring the rank, as I reread the first effect.

  Effect 1: You know what item would best fulfill your companions’ most pressing need and what you need to craft it.

  It said ‘need.’ Not ‘want.’ Mom’s deepest desire certainly wasn’t a need to protect me, specifically from war trolls. Instead, it was a need. Her most pressing need. Just like Dad’s was a weapon, and Eysee’s was to escape from them.

  “J-just a second. I need to check something. I’ll be right back,” I said.

  “Mera?” Mom asked.

  “Wait, honey, I’ll go with you!” Dad exclaimed, but I was already out the door, leaving the flabbergasted twins and my parents scratching their heads.

  “Stay there! I’ll be back in just a minute!” I shouted.

  “Ugh. Second time she’s done this today,” Mom said as I left.

  We lived on the far edge of town but close enough to run to the bar in a few short minutes. Our fields stretch far into the east, but having the house close to town had proven to be a good choice more than once. It served me well now as I passed familiar faces all the way to the bar, retreading my steps from earlier, this time focusing more on the people I passed.

  Pemolar’s Hill was a small but growing village with about twenty different houses, a bar, a smithy, and tannery, a weavers shop, a general workshop, a small market, and about a million chickens that no one even bothered to differentiate ownership between. A fair number of people lived further into the country, like Reid and his dad or Akkiwa, who would regularly be seen in town.

  The town was nestled in a wide open plain with forests on all sides except the south. The plains all sloped very gently downward towards the Great Ophiscian, a massive lake that was probably surrounded by ten or twenty similar villages. Fields surrounded the village, mostly filled to the brim with wheat, but the village itself was on top of the tallest hill in the area. That allowed anyone to see the distant treelines of the woods that bordered us to the north, east, and west.

  There were three dirt roads leading out from the center of town. The one to the north wound up around small hills that eventually would reach the city of Denarla, while east and west would both eventually reach the neighboring villages of Mitoras, and Potato Gully. Why anyone would name their town ‘Potato Gully’ especially when they were famous for their carrots, not potatoes, I had no idea.

  Our house was on the east end of town, towards Mitoras.

  Uraleka was chatting with Sebinet Smith, though he hadn’t actually been a smith ever since they’d found the iron mine a few years ago. He’d been considering changing his name as it didn’t look like the iron deposits would be running out any time soon.

  I approached at a light jog, wanting to take in as many people with my talent as I could. I actually had to be a little bit close for the bubble to make sense to me when I focused on it, but ten feet away was clear enough.

  Sebinet needed something built with metal wood, and tracks. It’s requirements were absolutely enormous, and I didn’t think it was just because I wasn’t so close to him. I got the sense that it was a… mine cart? Something to make it easier to get iron from the mine to the smithy in order to prepare for the fucking…

  Uraleka needed… something with a bunch of metal, though not even close to as much as Sebinet. This one felt a lot like Dad’s need but I would’ve been surprised if Uraleka could lift something requiring that much metal. A hammer? A sledgehammer? She needed it to smash in the skulls of hostile…

  “No no no, this can’t be happening,” I murmured, as my jog increased to a run. I passed more people. Mularet, the twins' father, and his wife, Omoali. She needed something with a lot of iron, wood, reeds, and rope to stay safe from damn war trolls.

  I spotted Nemmikel, an old man who told almost as many stories as I did, making his morning walk to the bar. We were actually pretty close. We’d been in a friendly competition for years about who could tell the best stories, and it said something that he beat me on occasion.

  His need was pretty simple, only requiring a bit of wood and some leather. Oh shit. It was crutches. Something to help him walk faster because he’d need it to escape from…

  War trolls.

  I didn’t even reach the bar before seeing at least seven people with some sort of protection or weapon as their most pressing need. Even if every last one of them was plum terrified of the attack yesterday, protection from war trolls should not have been their most pressing need unless…!

  Unless something was coming.

  We were all in danger.