Hunter woke up one morning and realized he’d been a lazy bum for about a week straight. He did his exercises in the mornings and he kept his little brother out of everyone else’s hair in the afternoons, but little else. That was sorta fine, he decided, but it was probably time for a change. He rolled over in his too small bed, found a scrap of paper after rummaging in his nightstand for a while, took the nub of a pencil Trips had picked up from somewhere, and then wrote a list. He stuck it up on the wall when he was satisfied with it.

TO-DO

advance patron and affinity figure out opp/gambit ask Mom about onc storm stuff get certified (fight Gary?!)

He read it once more, hands on his hips, nodded to himself, and then went about the rest of his day like a slightly less lazy bum. After exercises, cleaning up, and breakfast, he went out to the fields with his dad to “do chores,” but mostly to hang out.

“Ok,” he grumbled, hacking with a pick at a particularly tough weed that had grown in between the rows, his third that morning, “what is the deal with this stuff?”

His dad looked over from a couple rows away, where he was directing a few of his translucent hands, and called out, “Essence vines. High mortal. Wait until you get to a tangler, they’re a trip.” He chuckled at his own tiny joke.

“But like,” Hunter grunted, digging away the dirt around the base of the vine before swinging at it again, “where did they come from? You got an infestation?”

“They just crop up,” his dad said oh he thinks he’s on a roll, “since I started getting higher up in levels. This is all my field,” he waved a hand around, and the man-sized ghostly replicas all waved in sync, “and so it draws up more essence than regular soil, which in turn has a chance to turn regular little nothing plants into big, weird ones.”

“So, are they good for anything?” he asked. He lifted the pick even higher and slammed it into the vine with a dull thunk, not chopping through, but lifting the whole thing out of the ground. Hunter grabbed it and threw it in his wheelbarrow before moving to the next one, narrowing his eyes as he saw it start to wiggle.

“Very minor explosives.”

“Wait, what?” Hunter turned to look at the wheelbarrow with three fat, brown vines the size of his arm in it that could apparently blow up, then felt a curious tugging at his ankle. He glanced down and saw the next weed in his row had reached out for him, from about ten feet away, and grabbed, leafy little tendrils wrapped around his left leg up to his knee. “Table that. Umm, are these tanglers toxic or anything?”

“Nah,” his dad said as he walked over, then bent down with his hands on his knees and took a look at the plant trying to pull Hunter down and eat me. “Usually they’re a lot stronger than that, though. Saw one once flip a grown man head over heels, or I guess the other way around.”

“I’m kinda hard to knock down? I mean, lately,” he mumbled, his gaze drifting back to the wheelbarrow. “So, about those explo-ow!”

[Animated Tangle Vine] has struck you for five (5) damage!

“You alright there, Hunter?” his dad asked.

“Yeah, I just, umm,” he shook his head and chuckled. “Just being dumb, that’s all. Hey, Trips! Go give that thing a Water Burst!” He cast the spell, but just held the feeling of his affinity building up in his palm, a wave compressed to the size of a marble, ready to scream out in a small but powerful torrent.

The bot scrambled over from the tree under which it had been relaxing, having already told him that its job was “help don’t farm,” and headed for the base of the vine. It slowed its pace slightly as it darted around another tendril that tried to grasp for it, then reached down and tapped the closest thing to a middle the plant had. There was a bang like a door being slammed as the affinity left Hunter’s hand and shot through Trips’ clamp, tearing through the weed and into the dirt underneath. Simultaneously, a gout of mud shot up about two feet in the air, which the nimble bot easily danced out of the way of.

“Ok, that was awesome,” Hunter breathed, as the grip on his leg loosened and then fell off, the remains of the plant floating in a small puddle of water. “That’s how I’m farming from now on.”

His dad just gave him a look barely a five out of ten I’m fine, and he grinned in return.

“Alright, I’ll clean it up. Now, tell me more about these explosives?”

“So then he says they got cold before they could haul it all home, and they made a bonfire, and when they tossed the first one in, boom!” Hunter threw his arms wide and fell back onto the riverbank, laughing.

“Huh,” Miracle said, a little garbled as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Sounds dangerous, yeah?”

“Well, I mean,” Hunter frowned as he went on, “it was a little explosion? Nobody got hurt.”

“I guess,” was the only reply for a little while, before Miracle continued. “But what if they hadn’t gotten cold? They could have brought it home, and then one of the old folks could have put it in their fireplace or something.”

“Ok, yeah,” Hunter mumbled, “that would have been bad. But this is a funny story? Where that didn’t happen.”

“I think it’s just kind of messed up, Schmidt. Everything, even the weeds you have to pull, has some nasty kind of surprise waiting.”

“Not everything,” Hunter said, arms folded, staring at the ground. “Most things don’t explode. Most things you can, umm, set on fire just fine. You’re just being a bummer today.”

“Look, I know you don’t get it. You’ve been doing this,” Miracle paused and waved a hand around, “whatever you’ve been doing. You’ve got no consequences from the stuff you do, Schmidt. You can set fire to anything you want, sure.”

“Huh,” Hunter just looked over at his oldest friend, feeling like he should argue with that but not entirely knowing how. “How is, umm, I mean, is that a bad thing? Really?”

“For you?” Miracle frowned. “For you, I guess it’s not. Just keep not doing anything, and you won’t have anything to screw up.”

“Hey? That’s not fair. I’ve been sorta doing stuff. What’s your deal, anyway?”

“My deal? Ugh, my deal, sure. My deal, Schmidt, is that I’ve met a lot of people in the last couple of years, and most of them come in two flavors. There are a lot of folks out there who are worried, all the time. They know the Pols gave the all clear, but they also know how things can pop up suddenly, and how if you don’t knock them back down, they get worse. They’re the kind of people who can’t go wandering out of the redoubt any time they’d like, because they’ve got families, and responsibilities, and there’s nowhere close that isn’t dangerous.”

“Oof,” mumbled Hunter, looking down. “What’s the other kind?”

“The rest of them just don’t get it. I mean, you said something in your dad’s field tried to kill you, and you did nothing? And there’s literal explosives growing out of the dirt, and you think it’s funny? Your dad grows an awful lot of the food for the redoubt, the food we eat, man, and the fact that it can all blow up, or he could get grabbed, at like a moment’s notice, doesn’t bother you?”

“Well, no,” Hunter just shrugged, “Dad’s pretty cool, for like, a dork. Plus like, sure that stuff might be trouble sometime, but that’s why we were weeding the field?”

“Ok, let me give you another example. Stillwater. Pretty big town now, kind of a trade hub, lot of redoubts around there. Absolutely full of the second kind of person.”

“I still don’t understand, like, what you think is wrong with them. Or me?”

“Right. So they got hit with the weird Slides, same as we did, when Plano happened. Some kind of crazy neon jungle frogs came pouring out, and they went out and killed them. Big town, plenty of fighters, even with the emergency going on. Except, the frogs brought their crazy neon jungle with them, apparently. Within the week, there’s all these bright green and orange plants and trees everywhere. Not good for anything, mind you. But pretty, so they just let the jungle grow as much as it wanted.”

“So like, there’s a jungle in Oklahoma? Sounds cool,” Hunter nodded, trying to follow Miracle’s story even though it was making him upset to tell it.

“Then it turns out, all those plants get to a certain level of growth, and they get dangerous. Weird, man-eating flowers, roots that dig out pitfalls, all sorts of scary stuff. Stillwater’s still fine, they’ve got those fighters, so they go chop down all the problem areas. Wasn’t much trouble for a bunch of ascendants and transcendents. They clear out the roads on either side, burn down the edges, and now they’ve got a garden jungle around the town. Put up a bounty every month or two to go weed out the problem plants and it’s basically free essence, right?”

“I mean, sure? Sounds good,” he said, figuring he’d just play along.

“But no one ever figured out where the jungle came from. They didn’t give the frogs any time to plant it or anything. There’s spores. Takes them a couple years to drift somewhere that’s got enough warm bodies, and now every redoubt in thirty miles, every little family farm someone started when SysPol said it was ok, every caravan stop, they’ve all got these neon deathtraps too. Those folks, they don’t have the manpower to deal with it like Stillwater.”

“Oh, so that’s why you were down there. I tried looking up the alerts, but I couldn’t find anything.”

“Yeah, they don’t really put up alerts for problems that haven’t happened yet. Even if they’re guaranteed to happen,” Miracle grumbled. “Anyway, you said you wanted to spar? I need the practice.”

They decided on a set of rules while they warmed up. Hunter was fine with basically anything, but Miracle wanted to go all out, something they didn’t really encourage for training in the defenders. While he didn’t have his armor or his channeling rod, Miracle wasn’t wearing armor either, so it seemed fair. He was going to suggest no actives be used, just because he remembered how fast Miracle could move with his, but the look on his friend’s face told him that no holding back meant exactly that.

While the counter approached zero, his focus fluttering to his left, Trips perched on the opposite shoulder, and his spells running through his affinity channels, Hunter saw that his friend still looked upset, and he asked, “Hey, so. What’s got you so bummed? Sounded like there was a problem and you guys fixed it. Cool story, right?”

Miracle just stood there, rocking from foot to foot, his shield raised up but the grip on his mace loose and down at his side, then shook his head. Hunter’s screen flashed to begin and Miracle immediately threw his hammer at him underhanded, which made the redhead laugh out loud in surprise. He spun out of the way, arms up slightly, his right shoulder pointing at his friend, and watched as the tumbling mace vanished right in front of his eyes.

“Wow!” Hunter said, “That’s so,” and then Miracle wasn’t ten feet away anymore, he was right there, having crossed the distance in an instant. Hunter slapped the edge of the shield about to slam into him with an open palm, keeping his balance as he backed up a step or two, and then finished softly, “cool.”

“Take this seriously, Schmidt,” his friend said, squared up with his mace back in his hand, while Hunter was still chuckling.

“I am, but,” Hunter mumbled and dodged to the side away from a downward hammer blow, then immediately had to retreat again when Miracle swung from his right and across his body that one had some oomph behind it. “But maybe, you could take it a little less seriously?”

“That’s,” Miracle said through gritted teeth, rushing forward, bashing with his shield which Hunter ducked, “how people,” slamming his mace down which Hunter avoided with a quick wrist to wrist flick as his arm descended, “get hurt,” and then swinging his shield again, this time not even close to hitting anything.

“Come on, man, what happened?” he asked as Miracle continued to attack him, various combinations of the moves Hunter had watched his friend drill hundreds of times before. Each swing seemed to come a little faster, cutting through the air with a bigger whoosh, but each also seemed to be a little less controlled than the last gotta be a talent, so he just concentrated on staying out of the way of Miracle’s deadly looking weapon. “Something had to have happened.”

“Kid got hurt,” Miracle said quietly, between panting, and then charged again. Hunter moved away another step, but then he felt his foot start to slip and realized how close to the river he’d moved while staying away from that hammer. Instead of falling into the water, he twisted, sliding one foot forward, yellow sneaker kicking away Miracle’s descending boot, and used the momentum of his turn to shove with both hands against the approaching shield.

“He’s ok, right?” Hunter asked after he tripped his friend and knocked him into the mud, watching the much bigger almost not a teen slide for almost a yard. “You go out, you adventure, sometimes you get hurt. I fell off a roof in the city.”

“No,” Miracle growled, then he just screamed, voice hoarse, and slammed his mace and shield into the wet soil, staying prone on the riverbank. “He lost a leg. Young kid. We go in to burn the plants out, third redoubt. Done it before, everything’s cool. This one, this neon, alien monstrosity, this one gets mad. Venomous spines just under the dirt. Falling trees that whip like snares, except they’re twenty feet long and as big around as a garbage can.”

“Wow,” Hunter murmured.

“Yeah, wow,” Miracle shook his head, still not getting up. “Some flower that shot out razor whips. Wasn’t fast enough to block it for him. Wasn’t my burn partner, his was stuck somewhere, but I tried. Just not fast enough. Not even fast enough to hit you, Schmidt.”

“That doesn’t, umm, mean much though.”

“I’m going to start in on peak soon, I can’t hit a level one, and that doesn’t mean much?”

“More like, level one with an asterisk? A little footnote, maybe.” Miracle was glaring at him while Hunter spoke, so we talked more quickly, “So, umm. You’re level seventy, yeah? Keeping your skills just high enough to fifty-fifty I bet, which is a problem I’ll explain later, but that means umm, strength every other level for a defender maybe? Round it off, fifty of that, leaves, what, a hundred and thirty on your style skills? Miracle, why?”

“What do you mean, why?” his friend asked, going from angry to sullen. “What’s wrong with fifty-fifty anyway?”

“Ok, umm,” Hunter sat down, right in the mud there’s a talk with Mom, and rubbed his temples as he continued to try to get the words out, “you’re not going into Sources, not often, not as a job. Fifty-fifty is a Source-clearer philosophy. You’re out in the wild, you can’t control how hard the stuff you fight is gonna be, so you gotta get out ahead of the curve. You got block, endure, mace, and some kinda shield bash skill, yeah? Probably a defender base I don’t know about, probably spent the mace talent on damage and the shield on a block efficacy synergy, probably going to run into a skill wall by the time you break through, ugh.”

“Schmidt, what are you even talking about?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, man, but,” he looked down, pausing a moment, “you’re levelling like an old person.”

Miracle laughed, short and sharp, but a laugh nonetheless, and sat up finally. “Explain,” he said.

“Well, alright,” he nodded, and reached up to his shoulder to set his robot on the ground before he continued, “Trips, act this out.”

“sure.”

“The year is two thousand and two. You’ve survived the beginning of the apocalypse. You have a sword, you kind of know how to use it, and you’re wandering the forest. You’re humming a song you remember from the radio, back from the good old days. You’re hungry, you’re tired, and none of this Infra stuff makes any sense, but you’re trying your best, and you’re level seventy.”

Trips walked back and forth on the riverbank as Hunter spoke, wobbling along on two legs, waving the third around.

“One of three things happens, inevitably. A goblin appears! Trips, the goblin is that little rock. It’s level ten. You barely remember being level ten anymore, it probably came and went when you were fighting those robot scorpions in Dallas. You stab the goblin and it dies, easy easy. Infra says, good job, that was a trivial combat feat, it’s been proven statistically that you should be fighting harder things, but if you really want, you can kill fifty more of these butts for half a level, you dingus.”

While he was telling the story, Trips walked over and kicked the rock a few feet into the river, then did a little victory dance, or maybe just a victory wiggle.

“Then there’s option two. Kevin, the hardworking but evil centaur barbarian prince appears! He’s level, I dunno, one hundred and fifty? He looks like that little bush over there. He either pops you like a grape, or you manage to run away, giggling, living to fight another day. Those are the two main things that happen in the wilderness. There’s thousands of marbles bouncing around, the big ones roll over the little ones and don’t even notice, and you’re just lucky you haven’t gotten rolled over yet.”

The helperbot approached the bush, waved it’s one limb menacingly at it, and then at the appropriate part of the monologue, turned and ran stumbling away.

“Then there’s option three. This is where the fifty-fifty came from. You meet, umm, a ghost. Who lives in a plastic, floating box. With guns on the sides. It’s level seventy, it looks like my sneaker, time for a real fight! You’re stabbing at it, hitting it every other time, it’s shooting at you, you’re getting shot. It really comes down to the wire, it’s a fight for your life, I’m already bored, and maybe you win. I dunno, maybe you lose and die. Point is, you went fifty-fifty with it.”

Trips and Hunter’s foot had a poorly choreographed fight, which ended with his formerly yellow shoe covered in even more mud, lying on the ground.

“And then you level! You should level, you got hurt by his ghost guns, you had to eat that favor cracker you bought off your priest friend, it was a tough time. Let’s say it’s a level you get a talent or a class thing. You look at your choices and think, ‘Gee, that fight was really hard! I bet if my sword was mystically sharper, I’d have gotten shot less because I stabbed way better. Plus, I could totally stab those goblins faster.’ So you pick quantum stabulator, or whatever the talent is called.”

Trips stood there for a moment, then must not have known how to act that part out, because it just wandered off before he’d finished talking.

“That’s old people thinking. You’re hardly ever going to fight another ghost box, unless you go find a Source that’s full of them. Most things you meet are going to be goblins or Kevins, and you’re already just fine at goblins. You oughtta pick whatever will help you not get graped when you fight Kevin, which yes I just heard how that sounds, ugh, and that will help if you ever fight a ghost box again, too. Then, you know what you do, even if it sucks? You go to the goblin’s house, and you stab goblins until your sword skill won’t go up anymore. Then you go to the goblin’s older brother’s house, and so on.

“Then, the next time you see Kevin, you stab him in both sets of his stupid guts, even if you’re not even half his level, and you wanna know why? Because Infra’s a liar.”

“Schmidt,” Miracle was grinning, just a little, in spite of himself, “you’re an idiot.”

“Ok, but umm, why?”

“What do you mean by Infra’s a liar?”

“Oh, that,” Hunter chuckled. “So, you’re level seventy. I’m level one. What’s that really mean?”

“How much raw essence we’ve gathered, and how much of it Infra decided to give us as a reward.”

“Right, for sure,” Hunter nodded, waggling a hand. “Goblins, ghost boxes, and Kevins aren’t on Infra, though. But they’ve got levels, what do those mean?”

“I’m guessing not the same thing, then,” Miracle said slowly as he worked it out. “It’s got to be an estimate, of what? Combat ability, how much they’re worth to harvest, something like that?”

“Something, who knows,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Kevin’s a weird dude, ok. He’s got a horse growing out of his butt because he ate too much raw essence. He’s strong and he’s fast, and he’s still got a ton of essence leaking out of him. But Infra didn’t make him, like the stuff in a Source, and Infra didn’t rebuild him, like you or me. He’s just a weird dude. Level a hundred and fifty doesn’t mean he’s twice as good as you and a hundred and fifty times as good as me. Infra’s a liar.”

“And?”

“And? Umm,” Hunter mumbled. “Most people aim for like two points of skill per level. It’s safe, it’s easy to fifty-fifty from there, it generally keeps you in the running against essence beasts and stuff. But why? Fight stuff for longer on purpose, hit three points a level. That’d take you to peak. Max your tiers, even. That’s half of breakthrough, yeah? Then boost it, hard as you can. Why not?”

“So, what you’re saying is that instead of going around and levelling up and taking the upgrades that would have helped me in past situations, or that I can see helping me in similar future situations, like an old person, I should be sitting around and trying to figure out how to fight way above my level, and bashing on things that probably even aren’t threats to fresh beginners just to practice.”

“Kind of?”

Miracle picked up his things and stood up, staring down at Hunter for a long time. “So, how far above your head can you punch, Schmidt?”

“Umm,” Hunter hesitated there’s gonna be no right answer, “breakthrough for sure, probably mid solid if I pushed it.”

“One hundred and seventy-five,” Miracle said, his voice flat. “Do you know how many people something that’s level one hundred and seventy-five can kill? Do you know how many there are just running around, because us old people haven’t bothered to game the system while we’re too busy trying to actually do things? You’re unbelievable, Schmidt. Not in a good way.”

Hunter sat in the mud, mouth open partially, as his friend turned and walked back home.

“That’s, umm, not how that was supposed to go.”

“Hey, Mom, Dad?” Hunter said quietly at breakfast, a couple days later. Miracle had left the redoubt the morning after their was it an argument, and he’d been worrying about it ever since. “Can I ask some, I dunno, I guess they’re ethical questions?”

They gave each other a look, obviously a quick message conversation over Infra I hate that, and then his mother nodded to him. “Of course you can, bump.”

“If there’s like, a rampaging essence beast nearby, and I have the ability to get rid of it, safely and easily, I should, right?”

“Well, sure,” his dad said, a little slowly. “If you can help, you can help. Should is a different thing.”

“So, umm, how far away is nearby? Like, as far away as Stillwater?”

“Oh, is that why you’ve been so down lately?” his mother asked, and he barely caught the flicker that passed between her and his dad. “I don’t know if there’s going to be any answer that makes you feel better, or is logically consistent, or even seems correct. In fact, I might be one of the very last people you would want to hear from about this, considering it’s something I could be accused of as well.”

“Yeah, huh,” Hunter mumbled. “I never thought about that, Mom.”

“Comic books,” his father said out of nowhere. Hunter and his mother exchanged a look, no Infra needed to have that silent conversation.

“Umm, what?” he asked.

“Alright, hear me out,” his dad said, patting the table. “Both of you. Almost everyone who talked about ethics and responsibility and all that back in the old days, they were talking about what one person could do. One person unit of effort. Does that sound right, Cat?”

“I see more of where you’re going now, and yes, hon.”

“So, if this were back then, obviously we wouldn’t be having this issue, but I think there’d be a pretty good argument that no, of course a kid shouldn’t have to go all the way down to Stillwater to absolve himself of moral responsibility. Honestly, a kid shouldn’t have to go out to his backyard to do it, either. There’s a framework that someone should be able to grow up in, safe and not having to worry about that sort of thing.”

“Like a tomato,” Hunter added helpfully.

“Right. However, no one really talked about if the values changed when someone could produce more than one person’s worth of effort, if they could generate a greater than average benefit to the world.”

“Except for comic books,” Hunter’s mother said. “So, which one do you think fits best here? I remember a few of those arguments, and I wouldn’t be happy with some of them being applied to our son.”

“Don’t worry, Cat. I don’t think being better at something makes you morally obligated to go out and do it. If we owned a gun, should we be forced to go out and shoot criminals with it? Same weird thing. I think, Hunter, we may have given you a complex talking about doing the most good. That leads to running across the country, every minute of every day, fixing every problem you can, and not letting yourself sleep because if you sleep, people are dying that wouldn’t be if you were awake.”

“Oof, Dad.”

“I think, son, that you should aim for the best good. That includes what’s good for you, and what’s best for you. Look, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you’d decided you wanted to be a farmer. You’d be growing food, and no one would think you’re not doing enough. If someone wanted me to go out and squish monsters with my Ghosts, I think I’d have a problem with that.”

“But,” Hunter mumbled, “I’m not growing food or medicine or whatever.”

“Sure, but if you were an, I don’t know, an artist or something? We wouldn’t be having this conversation either. You’re not a problem solving machine, you’re a person, and it’s ok to be a person. You’re allowed. You solve problems when you can, you go fight all the monsters in this world that you want, but you can take time for yourself. You’re only sixteen, son, and call me old-fashioned, but I don’t mind you still being a bit of a kid.”

“I’m,” Jack slapped the table, unable to stay quiet any longer, “gonna be a, umm, a manager.”

“Be an assistant manager, Jacky, the hours are better,” his dad said. “Also, Hunter, and I say this knowing your mother might not agree with me fully, but talk to your patron. It may seem silly, and they have incredibly alien views on how things work, but they’re entities of this world, and whatever opinion yours has on things is going to affect you one way or the other.”

“Oh, yeah I can do that. I got, umm, one more question. It’s not about any of that other stuff, though.”

“You can be an assistant manager with me, Hunter!”

“Thanks, buddy,” he mumbled. “So, umm, it’s about the death punch. Do you think it’s better if I can wind it up faster, or if I just hit harder in the meantime?”

Hunter sat on the roof of his house, eyes closed, body still, and meditated. He was close enough to finishing his Wisp skills that he figured a conversation with his patron was going to come to him naturally, and he could ask then. He spent the morning perched comfortably and casting his spells, relaxing and feeling the sun and slight breeze on his skin more immediately, acclimating to the flickering feel of being able to jump in any direction at a moment’s notice, until both sensations were as natural as anything else.

You have raised Guidance to one hundred (100).

You have one (1) talent available from maxing your guidance skill.

You have raised Protection to one hundred (100).

You have one (1) talent available from maxing your protection skill.

“Hey, umm,” he said under his breath. “No advancement. That’s weird. And no hi, hello, good job, either.”

You have one (1) talent available from maxing your guidance skill. Please pick from the following pool of guidance talents. [Augur] You have visions from your patron that border on fortune-telling. +ten percent (10%) to a semi-random skill for each guidance spell active (synergy) [Point of Reference] You can mark a person, place, or thing within your sight, and your patron will always let you know where it is. one (1) target, plus one (1) target/guidance spell known additional [Powerful Guide] You have a better than average connection with your patron. +ten percent (10%) efficacy, additive, to guidance spells for each patron spell active You have one (1) talent available from maxing your protection skill. Please pick from the following pool of protection talents. [Well-armored] You find yourself tougher with every connection you make to your patron. +ten percent (10%) to max resilience, additive, for each patron spell known [Directed Hands] Your patron helps you put things where they need to be. +ten percent (10%) additive to parry while protection spells are active (synergy) [Shield Bearer] You are particularly proficient at helping others. +twenty percent (20%) efficacy to protection spells cast on others

Hunter pulled out his notebook and looked at his math section, trying to figure out how much Augur would swing him, but then decided against it. One of the first rules he had was that random meant trap, no matter what, even if it sounded good. He took Powerful Guide for even better awareness, and Directed Hands because that one was an easy decision, and then he sat a while longer.

So, he thought, did I do something wrong? Why wouldn’t I advance?

Connecting… complete

I have been watching you. You are lost in the woods. I will try to lead you out.

[Hunter]: i kinda wondered. that’s good to know. how have i been doing?

I see what you have accomplished. I am displeased. I see what you have planned. I am pleased. I find myself of two minds. I am displeased about this, as well.

A feeble LIGHT is poor at leading.

A still LIGHT is poor at leading.

You have been working to be less FEEBLE, but have done nothing to be less STILL.

[Hunter]: yeah. that’s really the problem isn’t it

[Hunter]: what do you want me to do? or think i should do

There is a man in the woods. He wants to help. He wants to be stronger. He meets a hermit. The hermit is the strongest man in the woods. He meets a boy. The boy carries water for his family in a small bucket.

There is a wolf in the woods. The wolf ignores the hermit, he is too strong. The wolf menaces the boy, he is scared. The wolf meets the man.

[Hunter]: i’m sorry. i’m so sorry. i don’t get it

The man learns from the hermit to become strong. The man helps the boy to carry water. Does the man learn from the wolf? What does he LEARN?

[Hunter]: i’m not sure

The man is STRONG but SCARED. That is alright. The man learns that is alright. The next day he becomes stronger, and he carries a bucket. You are alright. Carry one bucket, small or large. You will know it when you see it.

[Hunter]: ok, i think, ok. i just have to do one at a time

The boy carries small buckets of water, unless there is a wolf, then he carries none. The hermit carries no water, no matter if there is a wolf. You know the BOY. You know the HERMIT. I would like YOU to carry MORE than either. Start with one, and I will no longer be displeased. There is a lot of water to carry, but a lot of time to do it.

[Hunter]: alright. thank you. i'll keep my eyes open

In the old days, Ernie had told Hunter often and repeatedly, Sources were free game to whoever found them. A dedicated adventurer group would often come upon the entrance to one, explore it, and if it was the appropriate level they’d clear it every time it reset until they found it too easy. Hunter wasn’t really too sure about the mechanics of the reset, but it let them go in, kill everything to gather essence, and then leave repeatedly. Then they’d share the knowledge they’d gained, most times, and others could come and try the Source for themselves.

The most dangerous part of the process was obviously the scouting. One could die on their first trip if the Source was immediately too dangerous, if there were tricks and traps, or even if they weren’t prepared for how they tended to ramp up in difficulty from the entrance to the exit. Of course, even if someone had read everything that the other adventurers had collected, if they familiarized themselves with the exact, if randomized, threats a Source could have, they could still go in and die. It could happen on their third or fourth trip, even. One thing people found out quickly, according to Ernie, was that Sources got a little more scary every time they went past their reset time and weren’t cleared.

Like most aspects of modern, post-apocalypse life, the Pols had a system to deal with these problems. First, and this was Ernie’s least favorite part, they took possession of every known Source in the areas they had a strong presence in, and banned random adventurers from going in. No one could enter a protected Source that wasn’t officially certified by SysPol for the level of danger it contained. Then, they scheduled the certified adventurers who were still interested, and made sure they kept clearing the Sources before problems cropped up.

“So, that’s why you have to fight Gary?”

“Basically,” Hunter told his little brother. “It’s either that or let him look at my full infosheet, and I don’t want them all to see everything on there.”

“But Gary’s nice,” Jack whined, tugging Hunter toward the Pol’s rented house. “Can’t you just tell him you’re, umm, good enough?”

“Yeah, I mean, I could do that. I don’t think he’d believe me, though.”

“Oh,” Jack frowned, “that’s not nice.”

“It is what it is, buddy,” Hunter mumbled as he knocked on the door.

“Hey,” Gary said as he opened the door, nice as ever. “So, it’s just the one of you looking for the cert today, right?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said with a shake of his head, Jack giggling next to him, “my brother just wanted to watch. Is that ok?”

“Sure, that’s fine,” Gary said as he grabbed the bag he usually carried around town and moved past the boys, “You think that weird yard where the northeast corner pinches in will have enough room for this?”

“Umm, don’t see why not,” Hunter nodded, and then followed the Pol, holding onto Jack’s hand. He took the length of the walk to look at Gary, not really remembering what he knew about the man. Average height so taller than me, kind of a lean build, dark hair in regulation short cut, just a nice guy that somehow made it through the sort of training that was so hard for Ellie.

“So,” the Pol said as they reached the triangle-shaped empty lot, too small and out of the way for a house, too shaded for a garden, “level one and you want to test for peak mortal, huh?”

“Umm, Mom says I should just go for full breakthrough ascendant, actually. I’m already skipping a couple steps, so why not. Jacky, go sit on the bench over there, ok?”

“I have to warn you,” Gary said as he set down his bag, then looked the teen up and down, “certification isn’t entirely about how hard and fast you can fight. It’s about if you can deal with the good majority of anything a Source can throw at you. So if you’re planning on just punching me through the wall like your mom would, that’s probably a failure, technically.”

“Got it,” Hunter nodded, then grinned. “It’s about recognizing which threats I can punch through which walls, then.”

“Close enough,” he replied. “I’ll give you an example. You’ve probably prepared for this fight, but you’re not wearing your armor or carrying that giant pole you drag around. You’re small, and you’re muscled, but leanly. Even if I didn’t know you were a little martial artist kid, that’s what I’d be able to tell from looking. You want to rely on speed to not get hit and probably make multiple attacks, from close range. Doctrine says pull the rifle and burn you down from at least two, three angles before you can approach. Try me.”

“Oh, ok,” Hunter mumbled before thinking about what his uncle’s encounter notebooks said about SysPol. “You’ve got a rifle and a sword, so you trained with the shock troops. No Chariot medallion, no tassle on either weapon, so you aren’t favored or a mage. I won’t have to worry about magic. Rifle looks pretty standard issue, so you’re either not a tech genius, or you’re so good that your modifications don’t look weird like everyone else’s. First one’s way more likely. But, they don’t put shock troops out in little redoubts, though, at least not ones in good standing.”

Gary just looked at him for a long moment, before nodding, “Go on.”

“Umm, well. It’s not a moral failure, because those folks go out to the bad areas, and Willard’s a good place to live. So it’s a, what do you call it, a tactical error. I bet you didn’t pick up whatever the shock troop style skill is, that weird hotswap sword and rifle thing. I’m thinking, you messed up somewhere, maybe got some kinda dragoon thing? Got too hooked on shoot first, stab later, then two years into the training you can’t fit into the formations anymore. So I guess, umm, I have to dictate the combat. I can’t let you lay down fire and then charge at your best opportunity. Hit you when the rifle’s out, retreat from the sword, basically.”

“That’s a pretty good guess, actually,” he said as he bent down, sliding the rifle off his shoulder and unzipping his bag. “Not a dragoon, though. I carry the rifle for regulations’ sake.” He slid the long gun into the bag and pulled out a belt with three shiny handguns tucked into holsters, buckling it around his waist so the pistols were all at his left hip. “It’s more of a corsair style I tripped into, but you couldn’t have known that.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Hunter mumbled wait is Gary cool? weird. “I bet doctrine says stay out of, oh, small yards with no cover when you’re fighting a corsair. Probably says they, umm, have total tactical control over a fifty foot radius.”

“Something like that. Are you ready to start?”

The fight went just about how Hunter expected it to. Gary was good, and probably would have won easily if he was fighting at his level, whatever that was stupid SysPol tricks, but limiting his skills put him at a fairly high disadvantage. He also only used one of his three guns, firing an orange beam that faded to nothing after about fifteen feet, but sure stung when it clipped Hunter, not having expected it to flare out so wide.

The teen made sure to miss a few Water Bursts, because Jack loved to see the misty spray shoot out uselessly when he cast it in the air, and because the little bit of cover they gave helped him with a miniscule amount of distraction. Mostly he just dodged and stayed well out of the way of those wide orange blasts, letting Gary herd him closer and closer to the narrow corner of the yard.

That’s when Trips dropped down from a nearby roof to the ground behind the Pol, not very sneakily, but close enough to matter. Hunter dodged Gary’s last shot of the fight and the robot tapped him in the back of the leg, combining the damage from Rising Tide, another Water Burst, and his newly upgraded Oncoming Storm A, not nearly enough to end the fight, but enough to hurt and stagger him.

After that, Hunter got in close, and none of Gary’s flowing, powerful swordwork could touch him, not limited as it was. A few more touches and he yielded, panting on the ground and laughing.

“Alright, so officially,” Gary said with a grin, “I’m going to pass you. Unofficially, at the speed you fight and how much those little nerve taps hurt, you took at least thirty seconds too long. I’m guessing you were trying something new?”

“Yeah,” mumbled Hunter, “but I was pretty sure it’d work. Plus, actually surprising you sounded like it might get bonus points.”

“Right, don’t ever do that again when you have anything on the line. Use what works, use what works best, and don’t use anything else. Got it?”

“Yessir. So, umm, Gary?”

“Yeah?” he looked up from repacking his bag.

“Do I get some kinda badge to wear around?”