From a combined exhausting previous day of hunting, and an exhausting night with Rubené, Logan awoke to the chirping of the birds beside the morning routines of the populace. A blaring System window was floating in front of his face, a warning of the timer for his main quest. While he was used to windows at this point, he had this strange nagging in the back of his head, like he had forgotten something or everything wasn’t right, that strange magical fog clouding his memory once more. Trapped in a cage, the thought didn’t reach the surface so he dug it deep until it popped out later.

Seeing he had woken up earlier than usual, Logan turned his System alarm off. Turning his head to the side he saw his sleeping companion. Ru’s hair covered her feather pillow, one arm underneath it to prop her head up a bit more. Not wanting to disturb the woman who often had a tired look to her, Logan got up, used Clean out of earshot, and got dressed.

Looking over his gear, Logan left his gobbo-ear necklace in his bag as he would exchange it for the periapt of mana later in the day, Logan left it unused until he needed it though could tell it would grant him 2 MP in a pinch. The obsidian glass and silver of the periapt were a sight better than the goblin ears, though would give a cold sensation as the new necklace hit his chest. Putting his earring back on, Logan found a small mirror on Ru’s set of wooden drawers, allowing the Spellthief to look at his face for the first time since he had come to Avanar.

A week of fighting, travelling, and general medieval life had hardened Logan’s face. His jade-green eyes that once were calm and accepting had a new hardened look to them, his complexion was more tanned though still quite white in comparison to the locals. Thanks to his diligent use of Clean he didn’t have any dirt or blemishes on his skin. One startling mark was that of a slightly diagonal but mostly vertical scar on his right cheek, where the knife that cut the rope went through his face.

“Was that knife special? These wounds don’t often leave scars”, Logan thought to himself as he ran his fingers over the new facial adornment. At his guess the scar was around 2 inches in length, starting just beneath his lips and going to nose height on his cheek. Logan wasn’t overly vain, but he would ask Marcus later if the scar could be healed.

As he placed the mirror onto the drawers Logan saw another interesting item, a smooth stone that had some red shining runes across the top reading the number “178”. Using Identification Logan saw that the stone replicated his Clean mick and was a general-use item for civilians to completely clean their body and clothing for a whole year. This explained why Rubené looked much cleaner than the general populace, though also led him to think how many other people used these kinds of items.

Making his way down the creaky steps, Logan made his way to the entrance room of the house, like all others it was a combination of dining, living, and kitchen. Using what knowledge he had, he went to cook up a breakfast meal for himself and Ru.

A few minutes passed, leading to Ru walking down the stairs to the entrance room. She saw on the table a plate of steaming food, fried eggs atop toast with a side of beans, at least that is what Logan would call them.

With a smile, Ru sat at the table, “Good morning, Logan. Doing work for me even off the clock I see.”

“Morning to you too, yeah, I haven’t had many opportunities to cook since I came- to Tinte”, Logan caught himself at the end, almost slipping his arrival to Avanar.

“Well, it looks delicious. I am not sure what this is, but you did learn from all types of magi”, Ru stated, pointing to the fried eggs on top of toast.

The couple ate their breakfast to the backdrop of a rising sun and daily market setup noises. Logan’s mind was still a bit of a mess over this situation, his plans still on leaving back to Earth. But, at that moment, as the sunlight from the opened window lit up Rubené’s face, he started to wonder why he wanted to go back. He thought to his widowed father whose age was showing, someone he would never leave if given the choice.

“Family, friends, fuck the career. It will come down to the quests given to me… There’s also that Magi’s Tower to deal with, if they still know about me I won’t be safe. Retreat to safety, that has to be the goal.”

Ru noticed the furrowed brow of a thinking Spellthief, tilting her head down to catch his gaze she spoke, “Tomorrow is your last day here, thinking on your ultimate plans?”

Snapping out of his train of thought, Logan responded, “Yeah, Marcus and I are going to be gathering supplies for the long trek. 10 days will require rations and camping gear, I will also look into getting a horse or some form of faster transportation.”

“You might be out of luck, this time of year all the merchants have the horses in service, none will be up for ferries. The best you could do is purchase a horse, but they often cost 15 or so silver.”

“Cheaper than most trinkets I’ve seen, though pricier than I would like. We’d need one each, so walking is probably the better option”, Logan replied, “I could make up that difference selling off spare items and components if the Movas could afford it”, he thought.

“I have to get ready for work, will I see you there later?”

“Possibly, I will make sure to see you before the day ends either way.”

Finishing off their meals and cleaning the utensils the two said their farewells, Rubené tiptoeing to Logan as she placed her lips to his and wrapped her arms around the back of his neck. Through their discussion, they both agreed they would not be a long-term couple but Ru asked that Logan would indulge her for the time they would spend together. Returning the embrace, Logan left to his other partner who was still at their inn.

Meeting with Marcus, the Devout had a knowing look to his face and stance, arms crossed with a smirk. “Good night was it, Logan?”

Returning a slightly embarrassed smile Logan replied, “Yeah, best night since I came to Tinte. Did you sort all of your loose ends?”

“All tied up, ready to leave at the drop of a sheath. There will be many that are not Wallace along our travels, though with your magi background you should know your way around new people.”

“If you don’t mind, who is Wallace?” Logan asked, checking over the communal loot bag.

“What? How far south do you hail from? It is just a common saying here, everyone knows Wallace, if you don’t know someone then they are not Wallace.”

“So, it’s like ‘I don’t know you from Adam’, I heard that a bit on Earth, though hardly anyone says it anymore”, Logan thought to himself.

Taking a look over his spell list, Logan was happy to see progress in his magic.

“Spell List:

1st: Aqua**, Flame****, Frost**, Gaia**, Infuse**, Lightning***, Necromantic***, Wind.

2nd: Dimensional Jaunt, Sleep, Summon _ Elemental, Zombify.

Alterations: Grasp, Shot, Wall.”

“Plenty of my spells gained a tier yesterday, Necromantic being at tier 3 is a major boon as it is the only way I can heal myself. Looks like I didn’t see enough of that Skystrike spell to learn that alteration, but I learnt Wall. I would say it was a blessing I fought an evil mage, but it still doesn’t feel right having killed 3 people already. Will this nagging ever go away?” Logan pondered on his future actions, preparing 2 casts of Flame and 1 Necromantic for the day to come.

“Are we ready? We’re selling off the loot from yesterday, checking the quest board, then hunting, right?” Marcus inquired.

“Yeah, right on all accounts.”

Making the rounds, the duo sold off the remnants of Darius’s gear and the gobbo-ear necklace. Left in their bags were 1 high-quality bastarn eye, 2 shoddy goblin ears, 2 common goblin ears, 10 shoddy wolf fangs, 2 common wolf fangs, 4 shoddy wolf pelts, and 2 common wolf pelts. With what they sold Logan gained 11 silver, Marcus took his 3 silver split.

They had discussed selling the previous trinkets, as Logan could reach his gold quest doing so, but Marcus informed Logan that not many merchants in Tinte would buy items of 1 gold value or more due to the customers not being able to purchase such. Considering the clasp would be bought from a merchant for 2 gold and the periapt would be bought for 6 gold. Logan did ask the Movas to which they confirmed the same.

Checking the quest board at the hall revealed a few more quests for goblins that were seemingly gathering in larger forces after the troll issues, towards the southern forests. Another painted a trail to the troll’s origin but was noted as a dangerous quest with a requirement of at least 20 adventurers of rank 3 or higher.

Landing on a quest that suited the partner’s direction, Logan and Marcus took up the quest to bring a high-quality bastarn eye for an alchemist, something they already had in their possession. Not wanting to raise suspicions, they would not hand it in immediately, the two had already planned to do some training back at that nightmarish cave before leaving Tinte. Logan made sure to wave to Ru before he left, the receptionist perking up as he did so.

The penultimate place before heading off to hunt was the stables, the one that Ru had suggested last night was on the northern side of town, facing towards the capital. Reaching the stables it had a metallic sign that swung in the wind of horseshoes and a sickle. Engraved in the sign was “Polan’s Mounts” as the name.

Entering through the large wooden stable doors, the two found themselves in a large barnlike establishment. The whole building was made of wood, with hay and straw messing with the dirt flooring. A few neighs could be heard in the distance, Logan spotting three horses stood in their pens.

An older woman quickly approached the two adventurers, she would have stood at 5’7” if she wasn’t bent over by a half foot. She wore brown overalls with black tall boots that were tarnished in brown dirt. A mass of grey hair was tied into a bun, making her wrinkled face easier to see though her sagging brow made it hard to make out her greying-red eyes. Possibly due to her work, her skin was a harsh tan, almost brown.

“Welcome, yer here for ferries, dropping off a ‘orse, or otherwise?” She spoke, her voice holding a bit of vibration to it as if her throat was full of phlegm.

“Hello, we were wondering about a potential two horses towards Gauntlet?” Logan asked, bending down a bit to the older lady.

“Tough luck laddy, all ferries are out 'n' bout at Gauntlet, won’t see 'em for possibly two weeks or more. If yer fetchin' to buy a 'orse it’s 15 silver each, got 2 on offer right now”, the lady replied, obviously excited to sell her wares as she started to move towards the equines.

“We’ll have to see about the purchasing, after our affairs are sorted for the day we’ll let you know if we can buy them or not.”

With an angry toss of her hands to the air, the lady started to walk away as she mumbled about being taken for a ride more than her horses. Looking to Marcus, Logan nodded to leave. Through conversations together, the Spellthief was informed that with feed and other expenses it’d be another 5 or so silver to get to Gauntlet, ending in a total of around 35 silver. Logan was close to that money, but with all the other purchases on the way, he wasn’t sure if it’d be enough.

“The main quest will reward me 1 gold, but I will have almost no way of explaining that if I tried to trade it to anyone here. 1 gold is 100 silver, or 1,000 copper, not going to happen. If my System gave it to me in silver I’d be fine, but I doubt it will cooperate”, Logan ruminated in his head.

Since levelling was a possibility for only Logan at this point, the Spellthief thought it best to spend some of their money ahead of time to properly equip the Devout of the party, Marcus. Selling off all of his previous gear, Marcus was treated to a whole new set of common-tier gear that in total took 4 silver from Logan with some change put in from Marcus. Logan also wanted his ally to have a dagger at hand in case his other weapons were taken away.

“Teda's Robes**: This set of robes were sewn by the seamstress Teda, noted by the etching on the collar's inside. Many spellcasters wear these as they move onto adolescent adventuring. +3 Defence Rating.”

“Teda's Staff**: Eloquently designed to go hand-in-hand with the robes sewn by the crafter known as Teda, this staff offers a good punch when foes get close. +1 Attack Rating, 2-4 damage.”

“Eyeline Crossbow**: Stepping up into the third stage of crossbows, the Eyeline Crossbow is an expensive yet effective 1-handed ranged option. +1 Attack Rating, 2-4 damage.”

“Lupine Tooth Dagger**: Not outstanding amongst the multitude of choices for daggers, this blade was crafted from a larger fang of a brown wolf. Easy enough to make and made from a commonplace material, this dagger stabs slightly better than normal. +1 Attack Rating, 3-6 damage.”

The jump in bonuses wasn’t amazing, but at lower levels it was a big jump nonetheless, especially considering Marcus wasn’t offensively focused aside from his high randomly selected Strength. This new set would last Marcus until he hit level 4, which would take some time if he didn’t gain any unforeseen bonuses to his experience.

With their purchases complete, the duo headed off due southeast with more of a focus on the east due to the mountain that houses the bastarns being north of the brown wolf forests.

Reaching the mountain the weather took a turn for the worse, dark clouds formed overhead with heavy rain beating down both adventurer and wildlife alike. Using their cloaks for protection, Logan and Marcus ran into the maw of the silver caverns. With two casts of Clean, the party was dry, their gazes falling to the remains of their encounter with Darius. Starting at the rocks they had moved, hidden burnt remains, and the desecrated shards of materials.

“We’re back sooner than I would have imagined”, Marcus remarked.

“Hopefully for the last time, this is the best place for my skills and we need both the money and training”, Logan replied.

Looking at his ally, Marcus smirked. “Just another day, hey? My final day in Tinte.”

Placing a comforting hand on Marcus’s shoulder, Logan smiled back. “It’ll be a great journey, I have plenty of plans ahead.”

Marcus nodded, though his thoughts would most likely drift onto the grand future rather than Logan’s estimations of returning to Earth. An opposed set of beliefs and expectations for the future was hidden in the camaraderie of the Spellthief and the Devout, though the one thing they knew for sure was that they were allies through and through. Turning to the inners of the cave, the duo pressed on.

Lighting up the cave with his Light Ally, Logan used his summon as an alert system against the bastarns deep within. Darting around, the light would bump into the bats and do a circling motion for Logan to prepare ahead of time. With a slight nick to his HP, Logan made sure to have Marcus use Healer’s Caress in combat to have his ally gain XP.

The first encounter beset the duo, a pair of bastarns who were biting at the Light Ally. With a yelled out “Force”, Logan made sure to get their attention, dealing a solid 7 damage with his improved stats. Bringing the first foe down to 9/16 HP. Ignoring the helpless summon, the bastarns darted towards the adventurers, sparking with electric energies that shot faster than their dive bomb.

“Spell Absorb! Spell Absorb!”, Logan thought over and over, his hands out in a grasping motion to the bolts of lightning. Darting across his limbs, the sparks dug into the Spellthief but relented as they absorbed into his core. Marcus quickly used his skill in anticipation.

“Spell Absorption successful. Spell Absorption successful. 2 Lightning charges stored”, the windows created a wall between Logan and his foes but he willed them away as his hands crashed through the text boxes.

“Lightning Shot! Lightning Shot!” Logan called out, returning the Lightning blasts with a greater degree of power and splendour. Dealing 17 damage to the left bastarn, and 19 to the injured right bastarn, the two demonic bats fell to the floor in smouldering black balls. Logan looked over his damage numbers, calculating the bonuses he had received in his short time. “Bastarns seem like they would die to any Lightning shot from me now, though my damage is still just over half of what Darius could do.”

“Level up! Gain: 8 HP, +1 Str, +1 Agi, +1 Con, +1 Int. You have 1 attribute point to spend”, the window appeared just like always, giving Logan the lower amount of boost over the times he gained +2 to some attributes. Placing his spare point into Intelligence, his spells continued to grow in strength. Reaching level 6 brought his HP up to 68/68 but had yet to grant him any more spells in a day.

Marcus again gained his usual 40 XP per kill, bringing him to 3,120/6,000. Logan had a much larger gap with 15,234/21,000 XP though he knew he’d still reach the next level faster than Marcus would hit his.

Looking ahead, Marcus spoke, “Great shots, Logan. We’re almost at the fork in the path, we heading much deeper?”

“Yeah, at least until we can spot a new foe.”

Logan quickly gathered up the materials from the bastarns, adding 2 more shoddy eyes to their collection. He checked over his Spell Absorption skill as he did so, seeing it was at 65% towards tier 2. “Close, hopefully, enough in here to rank that up. The 80% chance of absorbing level 1 spells is concerning.”

With their first fight done, the duo moved in deeper. They quickly found the fork in the path, any remains of Darius’s alchemy setup had either burnt or broken into an indescribable mess. Without much to go on, Logan flipped a coin to decide their direction, left.

Even with the Light Ally brightening up the dark cave, Logan could tell the darkness grew thicker and more resilient against his summoned sprite. As if fighting back against a light source, the sprite’s area of brightness became smaller and smaller, though thankfully still gave a good enough view of the ceiling. While they could see ahead, their immediate vicinity was in pitch-blackness, causing both Logan and Marcus to kick aside wayward rocks or stub their boots onto stalagmites.

One such kick into a rock alerted the enemies further ahead, the Light Ally darted closer to reveal them but was met with 4 arcs of Lightning that surged through the air. As the spells lit up the cave, Logan could just barely track the hasty spells to counter with his raised arms. “Spell Absorb!” he thought, four times over, the first two spells getting absorbed as easily as the others, however, the final two struck into and cracked open his skin as they damaged him badly for 9 and 11 respectively, bringing the shocked Spellthief down to 48/68.

An alert popped up twice, informing Logan he had reached the maximum number of spell charges. “Fuck, any spells after the 2 charge limit hurt me just like normal!” he cursed in his head.

Logan was surprised, he hadn’t thought the skill would not function whatsoever if his stock of absorbed spells hit their limit. Hoping to sort two issues at once, he thrust out his hands from the recoil of two Lightning strikes to unleash two back. “Lightning Shot! Lightning Shot!” he cried out, the blue streaks crackling across the cavern to the barely-lit foes. Hitting each of his targets once, he brought them both down with hearty hits of 18 and 22 damage.

“Orb of all I call to thee, Pondress heal your children. Heal Shot!” Marcus enspelled, moving to his still sparking ally to bring him back into the fight proper, healing Logan for 13. “Are you ok? That barrage would have killed anyone else without a doubt. Wha-” he continued, but was cut off by a focusing Logan.

“Not now!”

Keeping his eyes on his foes, Logan saw another volley of 2 more spells coming his way, anticipating and riposting with his own skills “Spell Absorb! Spell Absorb!” he thought, catching the first strike without worry but failing to absorb the second, receiving another hit worth 10 damage. Returning the Lightning, Logan hit the third bastarn for 22 damage as it was crushed against the ceiling by the electric might.

The final bastarn, whose eyes were more acclimated to the darkness, saw its fellows were no longer flying around and sought to flee. The Light Ally stuck close, allowing Logan to follow up with two quick casts of Force, hitting the bat twice for 8 damage each, the second pushing it down to a crash landing. A few anxious moments passed as Logan awaited more foes, but was put at ease as the experience started to fly.

Breathing out hard, Logan saw the white steam that exited his mouth as he felt his insides boiling up from the power of lightning. Checking over his windows he saw he was sitting at 51/68 HP, a Healer’s Caress bringing him to 54. It wasn’t long before his status took over the pain, leaving him feeling as if he had sat in a sauna for too long instead of getting hit by lightning. “I would have developed a heavy stutter back on Earth.”

Logan saw he had gained 1,296 XP from this match, Marcus still gaining his 40 per kill for a total of 160 XP. “Still no change to Marcus, I guess NPCs get the same for a lot longer than I do, does it ever change?”

As Logan harvested the creatures for 1 shoddy and 3 common eyes, Marcus continued his question. “As I was saying, you’ve taken hits time and time again that would have easily brought down rank 1 adventurers. Even as an oracle, you are much more durable than the others I have seen or read about. If you can see my capabilities, do you know what your current rank would be?”

Logan hesitated for a while, contemplating his answer. “He’s only going to keep asking, and I have already told him so much. He will know my level when we get to Gauntlet anyways when I get reassessed”, turning his head to Marcus, Logan decided on an answer.

“I’m rank 6.”

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