We left the tent and Sofia and Agnar went into the Inn to get us breakfast. I was banned from being in there, not from eating their food. There’s an outside table with chairs and the owner doesn’t come out and tell me to leave when we sit down. Brede stayed with me. “That was a nice thing you did for my wife. You coulda chosen Agnar and she would’ve understood.”

  “I always wanted a big sister,” I say. Which is true. And I still thought Sofia was really cool and strong. “Plus, as my big sister, I’m pretty sure she’s required to help me get into and out of trouble instead of stopping me from looking for it.”

  “Bahahahaha, that does sound about right. I hope you know, as my sister in law in blood, I still expect some help with the forge when we get to the city.”

  That reminds me of something I saw on one of my sitcoms. “Family does for family,” I say wisely.

  “That they do,” Brede replies. “You know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t think that pact will get you in the city. We take it seriously to be sure, but I don’t know about it meetin’ the standard of our laws.”

  “I kinda figured,” I say. “That’s ok, no way am I backing out of fighting that tatzelwurm thing now. Not after I had to fight with Sofia over it.”

  “Fair,” he says. “We probably oughta do some askin’ around to see if there’s been sightin’s. I think they’ll probably want to pick up a couple more bodies before fightin’ the thing, but gettin’ intelligence is always a good idea.”

  “Will you tell me about it?” I ask.

  “I ain’t an expert or anything. It’s a small dragon, or I guess small for a dragon. It’s about as tall as Agnar standin’ on its front legs. Course it only has front legs, it slithers around like a snake, or a wurm I suppose.”

  “A worm?” I ask.

  “Wurm, with a u. Sometimes a y. They’re a type of flightless dragon. Even when they have four legs or more they’re still called wyrms. That don’t make ‘em any less dangerous though. They’re fast and mean. Different ones have different breath attacks, I don’t know all of them but the tatzelwurm is poisonous. It’s got a long neck on it, with a face like a cat. You ask me dragons and cats are cut from the same cloth. Ornery, proud, and down right disastrous. In fact I heard anything you can call a group of cats you can call a group of dragons.”

  I waited for him to continue but he seemed to be waiting for something. “What do you call a group of dragons?” I ask.

  “A disaster,” he says. “If we’re gonna fight the thing we gotta keep it away from you. You can kill it I’m sure but I’m scared of seein’ it get a hold of you. Or my wife for that matter. We need someone that can get in its face or tie it down. I’d rather that not be Sofia.”

  “You think it’s faster than she is?” I ask.

  “I think I’d rather not find out,” he says.

  That’s about the time Agnar and Sofia come back out with plates of bacon and eggs and toast. I’m already making a sandwich in my head. This ends up being popular with everyone and we don’t say much while we’re eating. Agnar takes the plates back before we decide what to do next. I expect Sofia to take charge but it’s actually Agnar.

  “It seems like we need a few things to continue. Marie, your reaction time is great but we have to do something about your aura before we can fight the Tatzelwurm. Not being able to sense attacks quickly enough could be deadly, agreed?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I was planning on saying I would teach you on the grounds of self interest but your blood pact made that unnecessary. I don’t think any of us were expecting it to actually work like that. Not that I’m complaining mind you. Second, we need information. Brede you have the best contacts and are better with people than the rest of us. We need recent sightings, and anything we can use to track it. I believe this is one of those wyrms that shed scales, try and get us one.”

  “Do you know where I should start? This was your plan to begin with. Surely you got some idea where we can find the thing,” Brede says.

  “Try Tettrier, I’ve had someone tell me about running away from a wyrm about every time I’ve been there. If nothing else someone will give you a better destination. At absolute worst you can find a roaming Kingsguard along the road.”

  “Understood. You realize this is gonna take me at least a week to get done?”

  “I do, which gives me time to work with Marie and Sofia time to get reinforcements.”

  “Why do I have to go for reinforcements?” Sofia asks. “I could stay and train Marie.”

  “We need someone strong enough to fight the Tatzelwurm and crazy enough to fight with our group. I can think of maybe five people like that and three of them would demand I pay them up front. But if you go.” He stopped talking and looked at her.

  “You want me to get Hemenz,” she says.

  “Do you have a better idea?” He asks.

  “Dammit,” she replies after thinking for a second.

  “Get Kerri too,” he says. “I want at least those two, anyone else you get will just be extra. Actually Kerri is more important than Hemenz, between her and Marie I think we can lock this thing down enough for Marie to blast it to ashes. Any questions?”

  I raise my hand.

  “Yes, Marie?” He says, clearly amused. “This isn’t school you know.”

  “Yeah so, have we asked the people here about the tatzelwurm? Also, what can the people we’re getting to help do? Should I be trying to plan based on their skills?”

  “Sofia have you asked around?” Agnar asks.

  “No, I didn’t know we were looking for it until yesterday, but it’s a good idea. Brede and I can do that before we split up,” Sofia says.

  Brede just nods.

  “Marie, I'm going to hold off on your next question until we recruit. I don’t know who we’ll have yet, and Sofia may even find someone better than my two suggestions. We’ll plan the fight out as a team once we know where it is and who we’re bringing. Last thing, how are you two on supplies and money?”

  “I need to stock up, but I have the coin,” Sofia says. I’ve gotta get my bag out of my room before we go. Are you two going to be ok? I figured you were eating out of Brede’s pack.”

  “Nah, the young ‘un’s pretty good at butcherin’. We’ve been splittin’ food between us. I’ll gladly trade some of my cheese and bread for mushrooms though. I can leave you some coin if you want to just let me have some of that pig too,” Brede says.

  “There are mushrooms?” Sofia asks.

  “I still have some left,” I say. “We’re pretty low but you guys can split them. We’ll have to pick more when we go back. I didn’t take them all so they should grow back right? And can I get some kind of fruit, or more vegetables? I’ll trade meat for them. ”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. The food here is pretty cheap so Agnar can just keep the two of you fed. Sof, why don’t you get your bag and we can do some tradin’ in Marie’s tent. It occurs to me there’s a bit of information we forgot to share anyway,” Brede says

  A bit of information? Right, my godmother. I didn’t think about it when we were all in there earlier. I guess there’s a difference between not forgetting stuff and always remembering everything all the time. Brede and Sofia ran off to get their bags leaving me and Agnar at the table.

  “Are you completely sure you want to do this Marie?” He says. “I know it was my idea, and you’re pretty tough but this is going to be a dangerous fight. We can probably find another way to get you in the city. For that matter they might not fight us on it since you’re a kid.”

  “You don’t believe that,” I say. I know that voice. That’s the voice my mom would use when she thought she was being sneaky. ‘Are you sure you want to go to the haunted house? It’s awfully scary.’ I wasn’t even scared. Much.

  “You’re right, I don’t. If we were going to the Royal Court I think we’d be fine. Given your godmother there’s a good chance they’d let us in on principle. I doubt Titania is unaware of who you are at this point. Actually we might be able to get a royal decree but that’s months of travel. I think we all want to get back and deal with that snake sooner rather than later. Another option is you not entering the city at all. We wait outside and let them gather a party to come with us for your world. I don’t like that though, it’ll make whoever comes with us look at you differently. I mean they will already but I want them to respect you when we cross over.”

  “You keep thinking about stuff like that,” I say. “Who it will affect and how and why. I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about getting a level up from that cat dragon. I have to be close. And maybe you say we should hunt something else. OK let’s do that too. Every day I don’t fight I worry that snake is getting stronger and stronger. I feel like I’m falling behind. I didn’t agree to this because I want to go to the city. I want to fight it because it’s a monster and I don’t have to feel bad about killing it.”

  “Fair enough. I guess while they’re gone we can see if there’s anything for us to hunt while I help you with your aura. There’s always some dark thing lurking around in Fae.”

  We both stopped talking after that. I don’t know if there was anything else to say. Brede and Sofia came back pretty quick and we went into my tent. I still had a lot of meat left and they each took what they thought they would need for a week. They also split my mushrooms up, Brede looked pretty upset at how few were left but that was mostly his fault. We let Sofia in on the secret of my godmother. She was surprised but she didn’t react like Gerdie or anything. She joked that after seeing me fight, having a goddess queen of death as my godmother made perfect sense.

  They went around and asked about the tatzelwurm but no one had seen it near here in years. One guy said he had a brother in Tettrier that worked as a guard. Apparently he had seen it a few years ago. They also asked about nearby monsters for us. They gave Agnar a couple of possibilities. After that they were ready to go. I didn’t want them to leave. I didn’t say anything because I know it’ll just be a little while but I’m terrified of people leaving me. I guess that makes sense. I hugged them both goodbye and Sofia kissed the top of my head. It was kind of funny that she had to stand on her tip toes to do it. They both looked back once as they left.

  *****

  I get a point in strength and dexterity as we walked. I guess it was about time. Agnar was worried about people seeing our training so he wanted to find a good place to go. He finally decided the lake we fought the Nuckelavee at was perfect. I was curious about what the villagers thought of me. They saw me help drag the monster’s body back to the village and I knew I was supposed to get the reward at some point. They were still working out how much to give us, and collecting money. Brede said not to expect too much, they weren’t poor exactly but they didn’t use money as much as people in the city. Only the inn and the bakery really charged money and they used a lot of what they got to order supplies from somewhere else. I kind of stopped listening after a while because I didn’t recognize the places they were talking about.

  I don’t think they knew I killed it though. They just saw me as a level 12 kid. That’s probably still weird, but they probably didn’t know that either. The inn lady was the only one I really talked to and she didn’t say anything bad about me. Apparently Sofia had argued with her to unban me last night after I went to bed. Agnar said she got kinda mean about it but the lady said she couldn’t as she had made a vow that there were no exceptions years before. Apparently she had even worded it so it had to be a lot of damage. According to Agnar it didn’t even make sense to make sure kids wouldn’t get banned because there’s so few of them. I secretly think it’s funny. Maybe I wouldn’t if the lady was mad at me, but how many 8 year olds get banned from somewhere for destroying their furniture? I don’t tell Agnar that, I can already see him telling me not to destroy the place every time we go to an inn. I don’t want to make it worse.

  We listen to music on the way there, taking turns with songs. He says he doesn’t like metal that much but I catch him bobbing his head to Halestorm. I don’t mind the pop music either. I completely forgot to find out what kind of music Sofia likes. Agnar tells me it’s mostly hip hop like Brede. I use one of my turns on someone called Biggie, who he says Sofia likes. I can listen to this. I kinda like it.

  The lake is peaceful. My brain wants to find enemies everywhere but so far all I’ve seen are some low level weird bunnies with antlers. They don’t even pay attention to us. Agnar spends a little time picking out the right spot for us to train in. I’m not sure what exactly that means but he finds a clearing part way around the lake I’m not sure I would have found if I was looking for it. I guess he’s worried about someone finding us. He walks around looking at the ground for a few minutes before picking up a stick, then I guess it’s time to work.

  “Alright, I’ve seen your reaction time when you know something is coming. It’s good, I think you can be even faster, but for the amount of time you’ve been fighting it above average. My assumption is that your stats are letting you process things faster. Correct?” He asks.

  “Faster, yeah. Also different, like I can see stuff from more than one place or I can understand the same thing in different ways,” I reply.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, when I was fighting the Nuckelavee, I could see how it changed its behavior when I attacked. But it was more than that, like I knew what it would do depending on what I did? The first time I used Waterfall I knew I had messed up immediately. I should have known it would just move and shot some shells in front of it or something. When I actually killed it I was kind of running out of ideas other than trying to jump on its back and use Pyrrhic Circuit. But then I would have to deal with the gas. I’m still kind of mad that I couldn’t just blow the gas up, I think if I’d known it could make gas I could have done something.”

  “Interesting. I already noted you have a decent grasp of tactics. You try to put yourself out of reach of the target, lock them down so they can move and then pour damage on them. There are some issues with the simplicity of those plans sometimes but overall I think you’re going in the right direction. So I’m not going to waste time on that, I fully expect your help when we plan on how to take the Tatzelwurm down. Like I told you before we’re going to work on your aura and reflexive skill casting. I want to make sure when everything goes wrong you’re not killed or further disfigured.” He thinks for a moment, “Sorry, that came off as kind of harsh, I’m used to dealing with adults that think they know everything. I beg your pardon.”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “I’d prefer not to lose any more fingers. Or anything else.”

  “Good,” he says. “I know you’ve been working on your mana flow and aura, let’s see what you’ve got. Talk me through what you’re doing so I can try and help fix any flaws.”

  I concentrate on my aura. I’ve been messing with it here and there but it’s hard to do when walking. Actually it’s not that hard, I just don’t want to get caught and dragged through the jungle again. Finding and feeling my mana core gets easier every time. My aura looks like a candle flame, except it’s weak in the middle. I breathe in and out while I try to make the mana going into it more even. “When I started,” I say, “I tried to take all the mana that came out and turn it into a ball around me. Now I’m trying to make it come out in that shape. My core is like a little sun, but it’s not coming out even.”

  “I see,” he says. “You have a lot of blockages. It’s hard to see someone else’s mana flow but I can see your left shoulder is ‘brighter’ than your other chakra points. I guess that’s because you use your left arm the most?”

  “No. Well maybe that too, but I’ve been trying to fix it. I started with my shoulder because I use this arm so much,” I say.

  “Well there’s part of your issue. You do need to clear all the mana blockages you have but you’re doing it the hardest way possible,” he says.

  “I am? What am I supposed to do?”

  “Clear your mana core first. The pressure from it pushing and taking in more mana will make the other points in your body much easier to clear. I get why you started with your shoulder but if you do it that way it’s going to take forever to even get to your core.”

  “Stupid homework.”

  “What was that?”

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  “The homework that Hecate gave me all had people say that they had to their cores last. I get that it’s just stories and stuff but like all the stuff I’ve read so far make it out to be this long journey and you have to start with the little points,” I say.

  “Humans are weird,” Agnar replies. “I mean you can do it that way but it seems like the absolute worst way to do it to me. Now that we know what the issue is I suggest you start working to unblock your core. It’s not something you’re going to be able to do in a day or a week but we should be able to clear enough in the right spots to make your aura useable.” He drops the stick he’d picked up. “I won’t need this yet. For now just sit down, turn off all of your skills and focus on clearing your aura. I’ll keep a lookout and make sure we aren’t found or interrupted.”

  “OK,” I say, sitting down and crossing my legs. I’m not sure what to do with my hands do I just put them on my knees. I close my eyes and look at my mana core with Advanced Mana Sense. Now that it’s upgraded I can see that my aura has little bits and pieces coming out on the top but I don’t think I would have been able to see them before now. I start pushing on the top of my core with my mana looking for somewhere to start. It’s like when you have a scab on your knee and you pick around it with your fingernail to see if it’s ready to come off.

  There we go. Where the little particles are coming out there’s a place I can kind of make a little hole from the inside. It makes my stomach do something weird, my muscles there kind of bounce like I’m coughing. It’s not hard, or even painful but I can tell it’s going to make me sore. Well, this is what I signed up for. I really start pushing and pulling the blockage. It almost feels like someone is pulling me around on one of those square things with wheels in gym class. Like they’ve hooked a finger in a secret belly button above my stomach and are just jerking me all over the place. It’s a good thing my eyes are closed because I feel kind of dizzy. Like when you spin around and fall down and the world keeps spinning for a minute.

  Then the pain starts. That’s ok, I know pain now. I remember being so scared of a little pain, shots at the doctor. Those were the worst thing ever. Now it’s just like, ow that hurt, next. I know it’ll only last for a little bit. When I lost my fingers I got scared of pain again. Every once in a while I’ll get this weird feeling like hit my missing pinkie with something. Like it’s still there and I need to rub it until it feels better. I’ve caught myself shaking my whole hand out when I get that feeling a few times. It seems to help. On a scale from doctors shots to being on fire this is barely a needle. Plus I can stop for a second if I need to. I try to think about it like picking that scab. You’re not supposed to, but it just feels right. I’m going to keep picking the scab off my mana core, I just wish I could look at it when I’m done.

  All of a sudden my mana blasts a big hole where the blockage was. Well, bigger than what I was expecting. The dizziness gets worse and I can feel something rising in my stomach. Oh crap. I open my eyes and the world spins, I manage to get to my knees with my hand over my mouth before I can’t hold it back anymore. I vomit black and green. What’s worse is that it’s kind of glowing. The only thing I can think of is that it looks like rotting mana. The glow goes away after a minute but I’m still trying to throw up more. My breakfast is next. Even when there’s nothing left I’m still kind of heaving. I’m trying to get my breath back in big gulps when I feel Agnar is holding my hair back. He’s been there since I got up but I didn’t notice him at first.

  “Just breathe. Sorry I didn’t want you. I wasn’t expecting you to clear that much so quick. I should have though, mana damage builds up in layers and you’re so young the damage isn’t as thick as what I was expecting,” he says.

  I sit back up and kind of sway to the left. He holds me and lays me in his lap. “Just rest for a bit. Let me know when the world stops spinning and we’ll get you some water.” I lay in his lap for a while while he strokes my hair. I don’t tell him to stop but as soon as I’m ready I get up and drink some water. It’s a little while before I can try to do some more work, but he’s surprised I’m ready at all today.

  The secret is I am too. That wasn’t pain, it was a completely different kind of bad. Making myself do it again was hard. That’s why I had to. I can’t let fear get me again. I’m starting to think of fear as an animal. A cat of course. It follows me wherever I go but it’ll leave me alone as long as I know it’s there. I have to admit I can see it. Feel it. I didn’t see it coming this time and that’s on me. I’ll be ready next time.

  *****

  By the third day any thoughts that Agnar and I got the easiest job is long gone. Clearing the blockages evens out my aura. I’ve only done maybe a tenth of what’s there and that’s me only doing that for two days and feeling like I have the flu the entire time. When Agnar says that’s good enough I almost hug him. I would have but I was still kind of worried about throwing up again.

  Day three I find out what the stick is for. It starts off easy. My aura now covers my whole body, and even though it’s still kind of shaky it’s getting easier to feel stuff through it. The biggest problem is that it kind of sucks. I got it in a weird way, before I was ready and now we’re trying to force it to upgrade. How do you make a reactive skill upgrade? Agnar swings that damn stick at me while I have my eyes closed and I try to make a shield before it hits me. Actually closing my eyes wasn’t working because I couldn’t stop opening them so he blind folded me.

  The good thing is he’s going for speed and not really trying to hurt me. The bad thing is it still hurts. I keep saying pain doesn’t bother me, I keep getting up for more, but I understand something new now. I was bracing for that pain. He catches me behind the knees and I cry out. I had made the shield but it was too high. Literally trying to cover my butt. So much for being ready.

  “Take a break,” Agnar says. “You’re guessing instead of feeling the right place.”

  He’s right. I don’t want to get hit again. I barely bruise and when I do it goes away pretty fast thanks to the System. It doesn’t even hurt that much, but it just keeps coming. I can hear him swing, the stick whistles and I’m guessing where it is. That doesn’t work because I can’t cast another shield that fast.

  “I wish I had some headphones or something so I would stop hearing it,” I say.

  “Blindfolding you is necessary, that isn’t. An enemy isn’t going to wait for you to be ready or make sure their attack isn’t unfair. The only reason we’re stopping and resetting is so you don’t pick up bad habits. Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.”

  I wish that didn’t make any sense. I drink some water and try to let go of that feeling that makes me want to find somewhere safe to hide and never leave. Everything that’s happened and the stuff I still have to do just seems like so much more now. Without Brede and Sofia to distract me and Agnar in teacher mode I can’t get away from my thoughts. It seems like a lot to expect of me. Of myself.

  Breaks over and I’m back in position. My eyes are covered again and I’m trying to ignore everything that isn’t my aura. I hear the whistle and I ignore it. Not moving or jumping or putting up a shield is so hard. There, right by my hip. The stick makes a THUD sound off of my shield. I let the shield go, it’s wasting mana. The whistle comes again. On my right, aiming for my neck. I keep going. Something changed, it’s like I can’t lose. I know I can’t hold onto this feeling forever, I don’t even know what to call it. I used to play games on my mom’s phone. There was one where shapes fall and you have to change the way they’re facing and move them side to side. If you managed to make a line going sideways they would disappear. A few times when I played it I got this feeling. I would try to hold on to it for as long as I could because everything I did was right. It was perfect until that feeling slipped away and then I was back to being not all that good at it.

  Whistle. THUD. Whistle. THUD. Whistle, whistle. THUD, ow! Wait, now there are two sticks? I start to complain and reach for my blindfold but I stop. No, he expects me to say it’s not fair, he didn’t tell me, whine whine whine. No sir, not today. Whistle. THUD. Whistle, whistle. THUD THUD DING. Ding?

  “Hold on,” I say taking off my blindfold.”

  “Marie, you’re doing really well why are you taking a break now?”

  “System message,” I say.

  “Ah.”

  *DING*

  Poor Electromagic Aura Upgraded

  Basic Electromagic Aura

  Creates a solid aura around you. Mana Manipulation and recovery within the aura becomes easier.

  I kind of wanted to scream. All that work, all those times kit with the stick and now I could feel air move around me through the aura. I worked so hard to be able to feel my aura and now it’s just like ‘is this what you wanted?’ Whatever. Apparently that’s what skills do, and it’s exactly what I needed. I let Agnar know what happened and get back into place. Two hours later he’s only managed to hit me like a dozen times. And that wasn’t even me messing up, he found a way to hit me. Agnar started hitting me from two sides, if it was the same time I could handle it, not so much if they weren’t. I cant make two shields at the exact same time if I’m trying to. I can’t make half of one and then another. It seems like it wouldn’t matter right? I’m doing it so fast it’s blocking the stick like an inch from me. Which ends up making me guess again, so we take another break before I spend the rest of the day working on making my aura bigger.

  The next two days are spent fighting. The first thing we had to do was figure out how. This isn’t a sword fight so I can use all my magic but we don’t want me accidentally killing Agnar. He asks if I can’t just put empty shells in my blaster and I show him my fireworks. We fight for ten minutes then stop and talk about what we did right and what we did wrong. On the second day he has to stop me because of a system message. He got a movement skill from pushing himself with air magic Wind Rush. It’s pretty neat, he doesn’t become air like I become lightning but he brings a whole bunch of it with him. The first time he uses it on me I end up in the lake. I spend the rest of the day trying to trick him into throwing himself in the lake but he never falls for it. I’m winning every time, but it’s definitely because my class and stats are better. That kind of sucks, it means you could be the best fighter ever and get killed by someone who sucks with a better class. I guess that’s me right now.

  On the fourth day we take a job. The village wants to defeat a Slaugh. That’s a name for a whole bunch of skinny murdery black bird people who smell like they’re rotten. Unfortunately only some of them are even above level 20. Agnar says this is an issue I’m going to have to deal with when we go back to the other side of the portal. Great. The fight is basically the bats again except this time I stand on the ground and Agnar defends me from anything that flies at me. Agnar hits level 25 but no level for me. I don’t feel bad about the fight or anything, apparently they were killing people’s cows, but it was SO boring. Agnar says that was the best bet for a good fight so we go back to training and waiting on the others.

  *****

  Eight days. Eight days of seeing how much work I still have to do. My core is a little cleaner but I’ve done the easy parts. Every time I work on it now it’s harder and more painful. I make sure to work on it every night. My shield work makes me feel pretty good. That Lynx wouldn’t even be able to touch me now. Unless it leveled up a bunch. Agnar keeps reminding me that a lot of things are going to be faster and stronger. I reminded him of the two more dings I got for strength and dexterity. The last one came today, it’s taking me a little longer each time.

  In the evening I make Agnar help me with my writing. It doesn’t really take a lot of fighting since he seems to be pretty interested in everything that’s happened. We don’t listen to any books though, that’s something we all do together now. I have some good ones picked out for when they get back. I still read and do my homework. Agnar has added runes to my work, they’re easy to memorize with my stats but he says using them will be harder. I try to just work on that for a while since I’m running out of workbooks and tests. The tests I’ve been using bumped me up to ninth grade. Highschool. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

  That was the big news until we saw Brede and Sofia coming down the road before lunch. They had two people with them. Both of them were elves, one a man who was taller than Agnar. His skin was lighter than Agnar’s but still a shade of black. His hair stood out though, it was cut short and white, sticking up all over his head. He had a long scar going from his ear to under his chin and he looked like he probably got it fighting. He was dressed in black leather and had a really big tower shield on his back. He was using a long pole with an axe on it for a walking stick. The other one was a woman who looked like an elf from Lord Of The Rings. I assumed it was Hemenz and Kerri until Agnar said, “Who is this guy?”

  We waited for them at the wall where I met Sofia.

  “See honey, I told you that trouble would be waitin’ on us when we got back,” Brede says.

  I’m pretty sure Agnar and I both rolled our eyes at the same time. I can’t be sure though because I’m too busy rolling my eyes to check. There’s a huge smile on my face though. Not that spending time with Agnar is bad, but I’ve missed them. Missing Sofia was kind of weird since we just met, but since we’re going to be blood sisters forever it makes perfect sense. I don’t run up and hug them even though I want to, I’m waiting on Sofia to introduce the others.

  “Kerri, you remember my uncle Aggie,” She says.

  “Please don’t call me Aggie,” he says. “She tells people that to annoy me.”

  “Aye, I haven’t forgot. Yerself got pretty upset at me one night when you were in yer cups. I won’t pick on ye too much,” The new lady says. Her voice sounds like music.She looks down at me. “And you must be Marie, All of a pint and a half an’ ye got Sofia gushin’ gold about yer fightin’. You ken call me Kerri, it’s a pleasure.”

  I take her hand and shake it. I don’t squeeze hard like I did with Sofia, Agnar told me Kerri is a mage like me. When she lets go I take a real look.

  Level 0 Wood Elf

  Level 23 Advanced Mana Warrior

  HP: 208

  Hey! That’s the one of the classes I could have taken. The health seems high though. I guess like animals we all have different starting points. I wonder what kind of magic she uses? Oh boy am I going to ask her a million and one questions later.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I say.

  “Everyone,” Sofia says, “This gentleman is Liam. He’s going to be our defense.”

  “Tank,” Liam says. “I’ll be your Tank. That means anything that thinks it’ll be gettin’ to you will have to come through me first. And that ain’t no mean feat. Nice to meet you all”

  He sounds kind of like Brede, although the accent is heavier. Both of the new people seem pretty nice. I put out my hand and he takes it. He squeezes a little and I squeeze right back.

  “Damn girl, that’s a handshake you have there,” he says, moving to shake Agnar’s hand. Agnar shakes his hand and nods, “Glad to have you both on board. I assume no one else is interested.”

  “You’re going to be mad,” Sofia says.

  “Does this have to do with why Hemenz didn’t come?” Agnar asks.

  “He’s saying you cheated him out of his pay for that thing with the Kelpies. He convinced a few people not to listen to me based on that, the rest just thought we were insane.”

  “The kelpies? The job where he almost dies, lost all of the cargo and we had to get help drag him out of the ocean? His payment went to the Selkie who saved him from drowning!” Agnar was starting to get loud.

  “Calm down uncle,” Sofia says, “We know the truth and I told everyone there he was full of shit. Actually that’s the other reason we couldn’t get him. I probably could have given him some money upfront but he made me so mad going around starting rumors. I’d say that’s probably a burned bridge.”

  “You better tell him the rest of it,” Brede says.

  “Hey, I thought you were on my side,” Sofia replies.

  “You want him hearin’ it from someone else?” Brede asks.

  “I may also have beaten him bloody and told him if I see him again I’d be tempted to finish the job. But that was after he’d already gotten people to ignore me,” She says quickly.

  “So now we have to watch out for him trying to get vengeance on us? That’s almost the opposite of what your job was, Sof.”

  “I beat him extra for you,” she says.

  “I guess we’ll deal with that when we have to. Brede, how did your task go?” Agnar asks.

  “Well while my better half was busy beatin’ Hemenz into pulp I was makin’ friends with Liam here. I’ll let him tell you the good and the bad of it. It’s his story”

  Liam Nods, “What we have here seems to be a rare opportunity, so I’m willin’ to use a little bit of magic I have saved up. Or rather I’ve already started deployin’ it so I hope that we can use it. I was down by Inenburgspass, on the low side of the range when I saw it. I was workin’ guard with a couple fella’s I know when this thing streaked out from a tree. It’s a biggun I can tell you that. They’re only supposed to grow to be about a man’s size but this thing was damn near that and half more. One of the merchants got bit almost immediate like and I watched him rot away into nothin’. He was only level 11 so I wouldn’t expect that to be normal. We fought it off best we could but it breathed black gas right in the face of a friend of mine and he went down hard. Never did get back up.

  We managed to run the thing off after a minute. I got in front of it and stopped it with my shield but it scratched me up pretty good with those claws on its front arm. My buddy went to hittin’ on it with ice and it didn’t like that one bit. Took off like a shot and I barely had time to Identify it. Level 29. Lucky for us I picked up a skill when I took this class that lets me keep track of enemies. I can only do it to one at a time and I don’t think it was intended to be used like this. I know where that damn thing is all the time, and I ain’t lettin’ the skill down till we kill it. I owe my buddy and that merchant that. So you can imagine I was a mite surprised to run into Brede here lookin’ for information. Even better that he was willin’ to let me come along to take care of my business.”

  He sounds tough, I should probably check him out.

  Level 0 Dark Elf

  Level 25 Advanced Stalwart Defender

  HP: 1796

  Whoa, this guy has more health than anything I’ve seen. Not by a whole lot but still, that’s crazy.

  “I think that ought to cover it,” Brede says. “Ran into him, after two days of lookin’, decided I might as well see if I could get us some extra help too. No one I talked to was willing to fight it though.”

  “Aye, the lot of ‘em are cowards to a one,” Kerri says. “Good enough to see you all again, ye might be crazy but yer the kinda crazy I ken get behind. Now I’m not the one to rush a body, but I was thinkin’ some food would be good after a long road.”

  “Yeah, let’s get some lunch and we can work out what’s next. And if this party works well enough we might ask the two of you to come along for a bigger adventure in a couple of months,” Sofia says as she starts walking into town. We follow as the others answer her.

  “I don’t tend to stick any place for too long to be honest,” Liam says. “That bein’ said I ain’t never roamed with folk who were out pickin’ fights with tatzelwurms, I reckon I could at least consider it.”

  “Ye know I’m always up fer a scuffle,” Kerri says.

  I sit at the table outside when we get to the inn.

  “Ain’t we gunna eat inside?” Liam asks.

  “Oh, right I forgot about Marie. She’s banned from the inn for breaking their table,” Sofia says. “Come on, we can go order something and come back, I’ll tell you how my big mouth caused a mess. Marie, I'll get you something.”

  Agnar looks at me for a second and I just wave him to go on. Not being able to go into the inn stopped being funny and started being kind of hurtful days ago. The inn lady comes out and talks to me though, she’s not even mad but she can’t go back on her word. Her name is Lydia It is funny. Weird not laughing. I think she’s more upset about it than I am. At first I thought it was because we killed the Slaugh and Nuckelavee but I think she might just be a nice woman. She always asks if I’m getting enough to eat and whether I have somewhere to stay. I don’t tell her about the tent, that seems like kind of a secret. I just tell her I’m doing just fine and I’m still sorry for causing trouble. She just says “don’t worry, no trouble.” It’s like our little joke.

  Everyone comes back with salads, there’s grilled chicken on top of it and some kind of ginger dressing. Lydia has told me a little about what she makes. She also got me some apples. Agnar paid her for them but I’m still going to find a way to pay her back myself. We’re mostly quiet while we eat, except Brede and Liam start talking about Ardcarriag, a city they both lived in. Agnar had mentioned it before but I hadn’t asked much about their business. I hope that doesn’t make me a bad friend. I listen to them while I finish my salad. They're talking about some leathersmith who makes the best equipment they’ve ever seen. Liam stands up and shows off the sheath his sword is in. It’s dark and leather and looks well made but I don’t know enough about making stuff like that to know why it’s so special. Maybe I’ll learn.

  We finish eating and Brede runs all the plates back inside. When he comes back we all put on our serious faces. It’s finally time to make our plan and go kill the cat dragon.

  Agnar stands up, “First priority, I want to go around and discuss each of our abilities so everyone has an idea of what we’re working with. To make sure we’re on the same page I want us using the same language. Liam, if you don’t mind I want to start with you. You said you were a “tank”, I assume that’s referencing those huge steel vehicles humans use in war? Can you tell us about your role and your skills?”

  Liam stands up, “Sure enough. A tank is the person who draws aggro, that’s aggressive action, from the enemy. That’s also me. I got some skill in becomin’ an immovable object, if I stand on solid stone the stone’ll break afore I move. I can take a lot of damage and deal a little out myself. I got one last skill that lets me reflect magic damage but I gotta long cool down on that.

  It might sound silly but I used to watch these professional human gamers playin’ some kinda strategy game with different roles. You got your tank, who tries to keep the enemy attackin’ them. Then you got a healer, that’s self explanatory. Not a lot of those willin’ to go out fightin’. There’s the DPS, never sussed out what that stood for other than the ones who do all the damage. I reckon that’s gotta be Sofia and Marie. Then there’s support. That’s the ones who help herd the enemies into me, or trip ‘em up. They either help one of the other roles do their job, or make the enemy do what we want. I’d assume that’d be Agnar and Kerri.”

  “Tank, Support, DPS, we can work with that. We’ll break it down a little more. Marie is ranged, Sofia is melee. I’m melee and Kerri is. Hmm. Actually Kerri is sort of a tank too. Or at least when we worked together that’s what you were doing,” Agnar says.

  “Aye,” Kerri says, “I haven’t seen another fights like I do. I take a whole pile a dirt and rock and make myself a suit of armor. I can do some real damage with it if I ken grab ahold a somethin’. Sofia was sayin’ I ought to work with ye to lock down the beastie so her and Marie could go ta’ town on it. I’m thinkin’ me an’ Liam here go back to back and lure the thing in. Sofia you run in an’ knock it senseless and we’ll pin it. Then Marie lights it up.”

  “That could work,” Agnar says. “I have a couple of notes. I think I’m going to have to play bait here. Instead of you going back to back can you make some sort of cage for it to chase me into? I’d have to be able to get out. Then Liam steps around to stop it from getting out. We make it narrow enough that we can leave some holes for Sofia to punch through and maybe some kind of chimney for Marie to fire down on.”

  “Now hold on a minute,” Brede says. “Havin’ been bait myself, I don't think it’s a good idea. This thing is higher level than you and faster. Just like that redcap. How are you gonna keep away from it?”

  “Easy,” Agnar answers, “While you all were out starting fights and making friends Marie and I were training. She got a skill upgrade for her aura and I got a new wind movement skill. I also plan on picking our battlefield and littering it with runes. Don’t worry Brede, we won’t die on you.”

  Right, because we decided not to take Brede. I keep forgetting he’s supposed to be a blacksmith and a miner, not a fighter. Agnar says he ends up helping them fight a lot but he doesn’t like it that much. The only reason he’s as high level as he is now is because he gets experience for making things. I asked how come I never got any experience for making clothes and stuff? Agnar said they weren’t good enough. He gets experience when he makes runes sometimes. I thought my leather armor was pretty good for being made by an 8 year old in the woods with no tools but mana.

  I tell the new people what I can do. They seem impressed. Sofia and Brede congratulate me on upgrading my aura. Eventually we realize that talking about it isn’t enough and we head back to the lake. It’s a lot faster if everyone runs there, so it only takes a little over an hour instead of three. Agnar had already made that part of our training so I was used to it.

  We all show off when we get there. When Kerri said she made a suit of armor I thought it would be her size, instead it’s almost a giant rock robot. The only bad thing is it’s kind of slow. Not by pre-System standards I guess but she can’t hit any of us, even Brede if we move. What she can do is control the ground under our feet. She kind of pouts when she realizes I’m not actually walking on the ground and I can feel it when she tries to grab me with dirt. She’s a walking pit trap and tank and I love it.

  Liam isn’t kidding when he says he can’t be moved. We all try, I can’t do much on my own since most of my attacks are magic but I try making him lighter and he says that just makes his job easier. Sofia can’t move him running at full speed. She bounced off of him and cussed so much Brede blushed. The shield is really tough too. He let me try and damage it and I couldn’t even scratch it. He did stop me when I made a mana blow torch though, so I think it can be broken.

  Everyone is impressed with Agnar’s new movement skill, especially when he tells the story of knocking me in the lake. He apparently knew I was trying to trick him into landing in the lake after that too. By the end of the day we have a good idea of what we can do and the start of a plan. I’m ready for a real fight again.

  Here dragon kitty kitty kitty.