Oliver started to raise his spear, but Cora calmly raised her hand behind her back, telling him that she had things in hand.

“Tell you what, boy,” she spoke loud and clear, drawing the words out with her drawl. “You pick any member of our little group and any one of yours. Winner takes all.”

The group of ex-frat boys murmured amongst themselves for a moment, smirking at Oliver’s group all the while. Finally, the blond leader pointed a finger straight at Silas with a wicked grin. “I’ll take on the black kid.”

Silas looked up from the ground to look his challenger in the eye. Oliver spoke down quietly out of the corner of his mouth. “You up for it, kid? Just say no if-”

“No,” Silas’s soft voice interrupted Oliver. “They are bullies, preying on the weak. Like Noah Claypool in my book. Like... others. I will stand up to him. I am stronger now.”

Oliver backed up and gave the bully a smile. “Then, he’s all yours, Silas.”

The rest of both groups backed up, forming a makeshift circle around Silas and the blond man. The man gave Silas a disturbing smile and quipped, “Don’t worry, kid. I’ll make it quick.”

The man moved, charging across the few meters between him and Silas. Silas stood his ground with his book held open on his palm, like a preacher delivering a sermon. The book crackled and glowed with electric arcs that spread around Silas’s body. His opponent threw a sloppy punch that had Rose muttering, “Amateur,” which connected with Silas’s chin. Silas’s head snapped to the side, but he remained standing straight, the boost to his constitution from the dungeon reward on full display. His attacker, however, twitched and fell to the ground after taking a hit from Silas’s [Minor Shock Armor].

A growl came from the man as he picked himself off the ground, but Silas just glared at him with contempt. Without warning, a lightning bolt blasted out from his book, dropping Silas’s opponent back to the ground where he writhed in pain. The bolt didn’t do enough damage for the Tutorial to consider it fatal, at least not immediately, but there was plenty of charge to feel like you were being attacked by an angry swarm of tasers.

After a few agonizing seconds, Silas stopped the lightning by snapping his book closed with one hand. Cora smirked as she leaned on her large shield. “That well enough, then?” she asked the other ruffians.

“Dirty tricks!” another of the thugs shouted. This one had the look of someone who’d just been put on a mandatory eating plan and was really jonesing for an entire pizza. For his clothing options, he’d chosen a pair of shorts and sandals that both looked a little worse for wear. “Kid’s got magic or something somehow! None of you have the guts to fight like a real man?”

“Nah, we’re done,” Oliver spoke up. “Take your friend and go.”

“What did you say?!” the thug screamed. “You wanna go, bro?”

Oliver just shook his head until he felt Rose’s hand on his arm. “I’ll handle this one,” she said with a pat.

Rose stepped forward and waved at the gathering crowd. “Hey everybody! Listen up! There are dungeons out there, outside this city. If you want gear like we have, then go! Head out on an adventure! You’ll find things that actually fit your own style, unlike trying to steal things from others that have grown with them! I know we all got mixed up in the tutorial, but at least we are all speaking the same language! There’s no reason you can’t find your own group of friends like I did and get stronger together!”

The shirtless thug in shorts and sandals stepped up and grabbed Rose’s shoulder. “Shut up! We don’t need a lecture from some... little...” He had tried shoving Rose out of the way, but the petite filipina didn’t budge. Instead, she just smiled up at him.

“I had nines in all of my physical stats when the tutorial started, being a flyweight boxer closing in on a world title. With the boosts from the dungeon we just did, I’m sitting at thirteen Strength, eleven Agility, ten Constitution, and nine Dexterity. That’s just seven points added to where I started, and you should have earned five for completing the Stages, but where did you start, huh? I’m willing to bet I had more hours in the gym than you.” Rose slowly put her hand over the thug’s hand on her shoulder, locking it in place. “Say, what’s your Constitution?”

Suddenly pale, the thug stammered out, “Th-thirteen.”

Rose’s eyes lit up, “Really? What was it to start?”

“Ei-eight.”

Confused, Nada interjected, “Eight? So you put every point into Constitution? Why?”

“Did-didn’t want to g-get hurt.”

Rose cocked her head, giving the thug a sweet smile. “Then this shouldn’t hurt you too much.” In a split-second of movement that could only be due to her now-superhuman Agility, Rose dropped into a fighting stance and shot her right fist forward in a cross shot to the thug’s torso, striking center-mass. There was a ‘whoomp’ as the air was forced from his lungs as his body folded over Rose's small fist. An instant later, her arm reached its full extension and the thug was flung back into the small crowd of goons behind him. Rose frowned as the group stumbled, but ultimately caught him, dropping him to the ground where he gasped for air like a landed fish.

“Aww,” Rose complained. “I was hoping to knock some of them over like bowling pins.”

“Listen up!” Oliver shouted over the murmers that had begun. “There is no way to take someone’s Bound gear! It won’t grow with you! Leave the city. Explore. There is more gear out there, as well as other ways to grow stronger.” He cast a withering glare at the thugs. “Being a bully won’t get you anything in the tutorial, you have to go get it for yourself.”

The crowd seemed a little energized by this revalation, throwing glances at their friends in the crowd. Oliver continued, “I’m not above throwing you out of the tutorial. Any single member of my party could do that at this point. There’s just no reason to. I have a feeling that humanity is going to need as many strong fighters as we can get at the end of this thing. Fighting amongst ourselves won’t help us later.”

He turned to his group and jerked his chin, “Let’s go.”

Rousing speech, the Ring spoke to him.

“You still paying attention? Haven’t heard much out of you,” Oliver murmed back to it.

Not been a need, you’ve been managing well enough.

“I take it you have a nugget of wisdom to share, then?”

I do. It’s time to split the party.

Oliver was taken aback. “That’s usually a bad idea, at least in-”

The stories you’ve read, I’m sure. If you haven’t figured it out, this is no story. Your group actually proved themselves in the Burrow. As much as it pains me to say it, you don’t have dead weight there. Green as an unkept swimming pool, but they’ll learn. Now is the time to go wild on these dungeons, though. There are very few in this Stage that will need your whole group to clear, and there are precious few who you have to worry about beating you to those. What you need now is to clear as many easy dungeons as you can, stack those bonuses up. Thing is, the easy dungeons don’t have enough loot to make it worth while for your whole group to clear it when two will do.”

“That... makes sense,” Oliver replied.

Of course it does, I know what the heck I’m talking about. I am the font of wisdom here.

“So, what teams, and where are we going?”

This is going to sound odd, so I’m gonna have to ask you to keep your big, stupid, dumb mouth shut until I’m finished. Cora and Rose in one group, Nada and the kid in the second, you with your pets.

“Why would-”

I knew, I KNEW you wouldn’t be able to keep quiet. Listen, turd: your bruisers need to learn to bruise. Cora’s a sitting wall right now, she needs to learn to be mobile and use those refrigerator doors offensively. Silas and Nada need to learn to work without a nice, cushy, safe spot to hide in. Be mobile, use that invisibility of his, get the healer used to doing some actual fighting. I built you as a one-man-killing-machine; if anybody is safe to go solo, it’s you.

Oliver was silent for a while as the group entered the inn, hailing a server for a meal. When he finally put his fork down on his empty plate, Oliver told the rest of the group the plan. The group was understandably concerned, even after Oliver explained the Ring’s reasoning.

“Cora, you and Rose are going to the East, to a Dungeon with fake bandits. Silas, Nada, Rose and Scooter will drop you guys off to a dungeon that’s on their way, it’s full of goblins, but I’m told they’re tougher than they were in Stage two. I’m headed to a dungeon under a church in town. Zombies, I’m told.”

Nada’s whole body sagged at the news. “Seriously, Oliver. Can’t we rest? Go in the morning?”

Oliver smiled. “Nope! No rest for the weary. Ring says that these dungeons are some of the first to get cleared, so if we want the rewards, we gotta be the early birds.”

Cora nodded, and Oliver couldn’t help but think that the bandana she now wore as headgear was giving her a piratical air. He wondered if new gear that she Bound would lean in to the pirate look or if she’d wind up looking like a hodgepodge biker. “Any advice? Tips?” she asked.

“Yeah, Ring says you need to work on movement and using your shields as weapons. Rose, punch stuff.”

The filipina broke into an ear-to-ear grin and nodded.

“Silas, you need to be more mobile, use your invisibility in combat. Nada, you’ve gotta get your hands dirty. You’ll spend ninety-nine percent of your time in combat healing, but you have to be capable of giving a beat down if the need arises. Next time somebody gives us a hard time, we need to let people know that even our healer is a better fighter than they are.”

Silas just nodded in understanding, while Nada looked like she really wanted to argue. When she finally spoke, what came out was, “Fine.”

“Fine, really?” Rose asked.

Nada huffed. “Yes. Those thugs were weak, but I realized that I wouldn’t have been able to do anything if you guys hadn’t been around. I don’t want anyone to be able to push me around.”

Cora clapped the younger woman on the shoulder. Hard. “Smart girl. You’ll be dropping idiots like that soon enough.”

The women all retreated to the inn’s bath to scrub off the day, but Oliver hung back with Silas. The large stone fireplace in the inn cradled a cozy bouquet of crackling logs.

Oliver and Silas sat in companionable silence for a while, Oliver cradling his drink, some kind of mead, while Silas sipped an apple cider.

Eventually, Oliver spoke. “Silas. I’m glad to have you with us. You’re really something, kid.”

Silas nodded to accept the compliment. “Thank you, Oliver,” he replied in a voice just loud enough for Oliver to hear over the low din of the smaller crowd in the inn’s common room.

“If... if there’s something you want, something you need, you just ask me, okay?”

Silas nodded.

“I’m not going to drag anything out of you that you don’t want to talk about, I’m just... worried. There isn’t a thing in the world wrong with being quiet, not a thing. It just makes it a little harder for the people who care about you to know if something’s wrong, you know?”

Silas finally raised his eyes from the low fire and met Oliver’s. “People who care about me?” he asked.

Oliver shrugged. “Yeah. We care. Even Nada, though she tries real hard to pretend not to. For better or worse, we’re in this together. I’m not going to say something cheesy like, ‘We’ll always be family’, like some bad movie line. We’re a team, a crew, a band of merry miscreants. Bottom line, you’re not just with us because you’re useful, which you dang well are, you’re here because we want you around. We plan on keeping you around, no matter what.”

Silas turned his eyes back to the fire, a ghost of a smile playing at the edge of his lips.

“I want to keep you all around, too.”