“I’m just saying, Jason, that she shouldn’t be making life-changing decisions while under the influence of mind-altering drugs. You can’t tell me your [Serenity Tonic] doesn’t count.”

Lumi was half-complaining about Kera’s sudden mood shift while sprawled once again across one of the chairs of the front room. Jason meanwhile stood over the table, processing some additional potions in preparation for crafting a second wand. He’d already made a pair of [Mana Perception] potions, on the off-chance it would help him or one of the girls learn new spells or runes.

Kera meanwhile had gone off to take a brief soak in the bath. After the girl’s emphatic declaration, she had requested some time alone to process her decision and had summoned Leska, wanting to make herself more presentable for meeting up with Flora in a short while.

“It’s her decision, Lumi,” Jason replied. “Besides, despite what she said, it’s not like Kera’s going to immediately transform herself into something radically nonhuman and run off on her own or something. She even said it herself: she wants to sit, relax, and process for a bit. That seems like the right way to do things. It’s not like she can’t change her mind if she wants. She was right about that too; as long as she’s with us and I can make more [Rebirth] potions, she can always revert any changes, if she even does go that route.”

“I really feel like it’s just not that simple.”

“I think it is, for her," Jason replied. "I can even relate, kind of. My relationship with my family has never been the best. Not actively hostile like hers, but, well, I suspect the only person in my family to truly miss me if I didn’t come back at all would be my sister.”

Lumi blew out a long a sigh, leaning her head back and staring up at the ceiling.

“It says something about our society, doesn’t it,” she said, “that it’s awfully tempting to just stay here, in a place that’s already tried to kill us, what, three times? Instead of going back home to lives of constant stress and drudgery.”

Jason gave a slightly bitter-sounding laugh.

“It does at that,” he said.

Immersing an iron rod into the mixture he’d been preparing, Jason infused his new wand. This time, the process gave off a red glow and a wisp of smoke as the magic was drawn in.

“There we go,” he said, holding up the wand. It was now reddish, with a half-melted look. “Inflict Fire. Not much of a weapon with only six shots, but it’ll do in a pinch alongside the grenades, if they turn out useful.”

“Analyze Item,” he commanded.

Wand of Flames - Ignites a distant target with magical flames. Basic Rune Learned - Projection.

Looking at the second notification with pleasant surprise, Jason suddenly remembered he’d gotten a whole slew of additional ones when he’d made the elixir. He’d pushed them away while he was making the tea for Kera, and then forgotten about it.

”Right, I needed to choose a discovery too.”

“Here," he said to Lumi. "Stop grumbling about Kera’s life choices and help me with some of mine instead. I should have a whole slew of new...”

He trailed off as he shared his notifications.

Lumi made a soft exclamation, sitting straight up. She leaned forwards to get a better look as Jason read through what he’d earned.

Levels Gained: Alchemist 8, 9. Artificer 7, 8. Skill Points gained Stat Points gained. You have acquired a new class skill, Improvise, Rank 1. Improvise: You’ve learned how to use your own mana to swiftly infuse the essence of a simple, short rune sequence into an object in a manner of moments, creating a temporary enchantment that fades quickly over time. Congratulations! Through your experimentation with rare alchemical substances, you have successfully uncovered a recipe for a potion of legendary power. You have been awarded the achievement, True Alchemy! Congratulations! For creating a legendary item, you have been granted the title, Legendary Craftsman! Achievement XP Granted: 5000. Cumulative level penalties applied.

Lumi whistled softly.

“Man, I would never have called a crafting class as being where the best XP was at. How many levels is that now today? What, seven across both classes? That’s insane.”

“Oh I dont know,” Jason replied. “There’s plenty of games out there where doing weird stuff like...oh, I don’t know, crafting ten thousand cloth hats or something is an efficient way to level if you’ve got the materials on hand. But it’s bound to taper off off after awhile.”

“I mean look here,” he said, pointing to his XP breakdown on his status screen. “I’ve been keeping track of these numbers, and there’s definitely a curve. It’s getting more and more expensive to gain each new level, but I’ve been getting the same amount of XP for every potion.”

“And the there’s this here...” Jason tapped a particular entry at the bottom of the screen. “Looks like we get a global penalty to XP based on our total class levels.”

“I noticed that too, last night,” Lumi said. “Forgot to mention it. I think it kicked in around level 10. It’s only two percent though.”

Jason hummed thoughtfully, looking at his screen. “Looks like the same for me. Might only go up every so many levels. Well, whatever.”

“So what did you want help with, anyway?” Lumi asked.

Jason navigated to his skill choices. “I have to choose a new Discovery ability every odd level it looks like, kind of like with your Arcana skill. Except there’s a lot of dangerous, mad science kind of stuff in there. The kind that in movies usually ends up turning someone into a half-insane villain, or accidentally creates monsters that get loose.”

“I don't want that kind of stuff. I want to pick abilities that have a lot of flexibility or combo potential,” Jason explained. He began scrolling slowly through the list. “I’m pretty much sold on the whole magical arsenal idea now. I’m giving some serious consideration to maybe picking up some kind of engineering skill or class to go with it all, too. Imagine modern, or even fictional, weapons, covered with enchantments, and equipped with infused ammunition types. I’m already halfway there, practically.”

“Won’t that get us in trouble?” Lumi asked, concerned.

Jason shrugged. “I doubt it, if we play it right and don't let people look too closely. It might raise some eyebrows, but I think by the time I get that far I’ll have worked up an excuse. Or, honestly, well..."

“We could drink the respec potions and see if we can't get rid of Outworlder.” He suggested with a shrug.

“Huh. I hadn’t thought of that,” Lumi replied.

“There’s also the whole 'joining a guild for protection' thing. I mean, human greed is a pretty strong motivator; if I show up at some Guild’s doorstep, offering incredible enchantments, I seriously doubt they’re going to turn me away. Especially if I can prove they can’t easilly reproduce the class, and they can’t just threaten me into revealing secrets.”

“Seems risky,” Lumi said.

“Well it’s that or take weird magical abilities that risk my sanity, so....”

“You may have a point there,” she replied.

Lumi hummed to herself, watching thoughtfully while Jason scrolled down his list of potential discoveries. Every so often, he selected one to look at its description.

Initially, he looked at different options relating to making variations on different kinds of explosives. But in the end, he decided to hold off there, until he’d had some time to test them out. Bigger explosions, for instance, might actually be detrimental to his allies if the [Salamander Stones] he made turned out to have a large radius to begin with. It wasn’t like you could just stand nearby a grenade when it went off and be fine; there was a lot of friendly fire potential, there.

Some of the other options, like the one-time Spirit and Intellect increase, Jason discarded as being a waste. He was planning on putting most of his points into those stats anyway, so two more in each wasn’t a huge increase. He’d rather have a wider array of unusual skills.

“Oh hey!” Lumi exclaimed after a few minutes of perusing the list.

“This looks promising,” she said, pointing to an entry labeled ‘Refinement’.

Refinement: You have gained a deeper understanding of the alchemical properties found throughout nature. By first refining ingredients through extensive processing, you are able to remove any impurities that would interfere with the absorption of mana, thus fashioning stable, condensed forms of most alchemical traits. Refined ingredients allow for more efficient use of your supplies, and the creation of more potent substances.

After a moment’s consideration, Jason purchased it. Such an ability would, from the sound of it, let him make extra potions with the same number of ingredients, which should be extremely useful, especially if it stacked with his current ability to dilute concentrated potions; if he could refine two units of ‘volatile’ and one of ‘fire’, and then could dilute that down into some kind of multi-batch of extra strong fire grenades....

Lumi poked him in the side, and he jumped.

“Going mad scientist already?” she teased him. “You were spacing out.”

“Sorry,” Jason coughed, embarrassed.

She rolled her eyes at him.

Turning back to the task at hand, Jason scrolled only a bit farther before coming across another useful-sounding skill; one that sounded like something that would work very well with [Artificer].

Synthesize - The world is vast, and full of wonders. Magic inks remain legible for centuries. The hides of beasts grow as hard as steel, and crystals form that contain the raw power of the elements. Exposure to the effects of mana create a nigh infinite variety of unique materials with special properties useful to all walks of life. By formulating appropriate conditions and through the use of alchemical processes, you have learned to synthesize many of these materials, magical or otherwise, for your own use.

“Whoa,” Lumi said simply.

Jason concurred. This was exactly the type of thing he was looking for.

Lumi grinned at him. “Please tell me you’re taking this and will make me some magic hair dye.”

“That’s your reasoning?” Jason asked with a raised eyebrow. By now he knew she was just being facetious on purpose, but he couldn’t resist teasing her anyway. “Not ‘could you make me some dragonhide armor, pretty please?’”

Lumi blew a raspberry at him. “Of course I want that, too. That goes without saying. The best gear should always go to the tank first, right? But a girl’s gotta keep up appearances.”

“Stereotyping much?” he asked teasingly.

“Better than letting it all go to shit and turning into a female neckbeard.”

“Fair,” he conceded.

Extending a hand, he selected [Synthesize], confirming his choice. A notification popped up.

Synergy Detected: Basic Transmutation. Additional Synthesize options are now available.

“I really need to figure out what that skill does.” Jason grumbled.

“Isn’t that like, just turning stuff from one thing into another?” Lumi asked.

“Yeah, but the description is completely unhelpful, unlike the alchemy stuff. I’m beginning to think it’s a little like Kera’s ritual magic - there’s other components, or processes, or tools needed before I can actually make it work. Alchemists traditionally have a lab of some kind, right? With beakers and alembics and all that stuff. I probably need something like that, if it’s got, er, synergies with [Synthesize].”

“Now there’s a tongue-twister,” Lumi commented.

“No kidding,” he replied.

“What’s a tongue-twister?” Kera’s voice came as the door opened.

Jason turned, and saw a damp-haired Kera entering the room. Ceri flew in over their heads, to land on the bed, as Kera closed the door behind her.

Jason addressed her. “Just some awkward wording from the system basically. You feeling better?”

Kera nodded. “Yeah. I’m not totally decided on what I’m gonna do with myself yet, but your tea really helped.”

She stepped forward and gave Jason a slightly awkward hug from behind.

“Thanks, by the way” she said, lingering for a moment.

“Um, anytime,” Jason replied, giving her arms, which were pressed up against his chest, a light hug in return.

Pulling back, Kera continued. “At the very least, I’ve decided I’ll stick with you guys; I'll still help you find a way back if you want. I like the whole adventuring thing anyway. I might join a guild in the long run, maybe.”

“Besides, I want to keep playing around with more transformation stuff. It’s fun. You can help me out with that, right Jason?”

He gave her a grin. “Sure. Lumi and I were just picking out some new crafting stuff for me, too. Makes me wish I’d held off on using the fire traits, but what can I say?"

He showed Kera his new choices, and explained how he hoped they’d further improve his capabilities.

Shortly after, Leska arrived with a towel and a brush, to assist Kera in drying and combing out her hair, apparently quite happy to play the role of maid, much to Jason’s surprise. Then again, he supposed they were kind of paying for her assistance; it just seemed a little above and beyond to him. But the two did seem to get along well.

Their conversation turned to more mundane things as Leska gossipped a bit about various goings on. Eventually, time came to leave and meet with Flora, and the three friends headed out to the edge of town. Before they left, Jason placed a number of the healing and mana potions into his bandolier, holstered his two wands, and placed the grenades he wanted to test into one of his interior pockets. He also brought along the two mana perception potions, which he attached to his belt, and he pocketed two bags of his enchanted soil. Everything else went into his pack.

They met Flora just outside the western gate. She’d apparently brought along a wheelbarrow full of dirt and some flower pots as well. Despite her relatively small frame, she appeared to have no problem at all pushing the heavy load about.

“Thanks for coming out on such short notice, Flora.” Jason said to her. “I’ve got a little something extra for you as a way of saying thank you.”

He presented her with one of the bags of enchanted dirt.

Flora gasped. “You did it? So soon? How!?”

“It’s stage one, anyway, and all thanks to your help. This works a bit like a potion for your plants. Just plant a seed in it, and it should accelerate its growth. I’m not sure by how much or how many seeds you could do at once. I brought some extra so we can test and compare it to your magic.”

“Still, that’s incredible,” she said.

“Is there a good place for us to practice spells anywhere near here?” He asked. “I asked you to meet us outside, because in addition to trying to learn some new spells, we’re trying to see if I can’t learn some runes from applying my skill to Lumi and Kera’s spellcasting. That’s partly why I asked if you’d be willing to teach them; I’m hoping to learn some stuff related to Life magic.”

“If you can produce results this fast, I’ll be happy to help.“ Flora replied.

She thought carefully for a moment. “Down the road a little ways there’s a cleared space by the river. It’s where a lot of the farm wives do their laundry, rather than come into town to draw from the well. It should be available by now. We’ll need some light though, it’ll be getting dark soon.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got that covered,” Lumi volunteered.

With Flora leading the way, and Lumiriel, being the strongest of them, pushing the wheelbarrow, they arrived at the clearing in short order. Lumi then used her cantrip skill to conjure a few floating mage-lights to illuminate the area while Jason, Kera, and Flora tested out one of his bags of enchanted soil.

Flora had brought along a number of wildflower seeds for them to use. They were able to plant up to three of the seeds in a single pot before Jason’s skill informed him that any more would cause the magic to be too spread out, causing it to fail. The overall effect was one similar to what he’d seen Flora do in her shop: plant the seeds, trigger the effect through your interface, and then watch as your seeds sprout into tiny, immature shoots.

“Pretty cool,” commented Kera.

“Well it’s not quite strong enough, yet,” Jason replied, “but it’s a definite start.”

Flora ran a hand over the pot, her hand glowing slightly. “There’s some kind of lingering effect here, too. These flowers are practically glowing with Life-mana; they should continue to grow at an accelerated rate, and turn out healthier too. How did you manage this?”

Jason shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “It’s a special skill. Sorry, it’s a bit of a trade secret. I’m sure you understand.”

Flora chuckled to herself. “I do indeed. Can’t say I’m not desperately curious though. I can’t wait to see what your final product will turn out like if this is only your first try.”

“Well that’s what we’re here for, yeah?” Jason said, moving over to help Kera, who was unsuccessfully attempting to roll a big log over for everyone to use as a seat.

With a grunt, the two of them managed to get it moving.

“How do you even teach someone new spells, anyway?” he asked Flora. “We’ve been a little...well, vague on that. Everything we’ve gotten came from our classes, stuff we’ve just picked up along the way. None of us has had any formal training. Kind of a long story that I won’t get into.”

“You mentioned something along those lines back at the shop,” Flora said. She gestured for the three of them to sit.

“Very well, I’ll start at the beginning,” she said.

The three of them arranged themselves on their log bench, and Flora began to explain to them the basics of how magic worked. Much of it was things Jason had already figured out for himself, such as how mana was produced by living things and natural phenomena, how it could come in ‘flavors’, so to speak, and that it needed to be shaped into specific structures to produce effects. He knew that runes were the main source of this; by inscribing a rune that acted as a sort of battery, an [Enchanter] could charge an object with mana, and then use additional runes to shape it that mana into a specific effect.

In a similar vein, [Wizards] used spells, that is to say proper spells, to channel mana into specific, pre-determined shapes to produce a specific effect. These shapes could, with a certain level of effort, be imparted to another person with the appropriate skill. It was, supposedly, a fairly difficult, time-consuming process to develop new spells, but it could be done.

As for the mages who didn’t use spells, those were few and far between, and nearly all of them were based on some form of elemental magic. Flora explained that some people, especially mana-touched like herself, found that they had a special talent for seeing and manipulating particular forms of mana, without the need to use pre-set spells. That didn’t mean they never used spells, just that they often had skills that meant they didn’t need them in order to perform magic.

Lumi demonstrated her cantrip skill for Flora, explaining that she could manage all sorts of different effects, but had been unable to produce stronger ones without first shaping them into an actual spell form.

The Life-touched woman was impressed with Lumi’s versatility.

“A unique generalist skill? Very unusual,” Flora commented.

“I suspect your inability to control greater effects might be due to your lack of mana sensing abilities,” she explained. “Your skill sounds like it operates more on instinct, a function of your interface, rather than directly shaping mana yourself. If you could somehow gain the ability to perceive how you are actively manipulating mana, you might be able to make some progress on that front. You might even be able to earn discounts on adding new elements to your repertoire; I’ve heard of great [Shamans] making long pilgrimages to treat with ancient elemental beings that live in remote places in order to seek out new teachers. Perhaps you could do something similar.”

Jason pulled out one of his potions.

“Would this help?” He asked. “It let’s you do exactly what you're talking about for about an hour. Brought it with me just in case it helped us learn new stuff. I’ve got two of them.”

“My, my, you are just full of surprises today, aren’t you?” Flora murmured, raising an eyebrow at him. It seemed that her ‘flirtatious’ mode was back on, and she was eyeing him speculatively again. Jason thought she looked a bit like a shark looking for a meal, which was a bit off-putting given that it was coming from a green-skinned woman who was only five feet tall, with vines coming out of her hair.

Kera coughed politely, drawing the woman’s attention.

“Would that work for Jason’s rune learning thing, too?” she asked.

“I’d think so,” Flora replied, “but I’m not an [Enchanter] so I couldn’t say for sure. But runes and spells are functionally similar at the end of it all, so it might be worth trying. But are you sure you want to use such a valuable thing for this?”

Jason nodded. “I do. It’s important to what we’re trying to learn.”

“If I really need to, I can request more through the vendors,” he lied.

“Well it’s your money,” Flora responded with a shrug. “Very well, let’s begin.”

With that, Lumi and Jason both downed a potion each. Jason stood off to one side, near the tree line, while Flora demonstrated her spells and Lumi and Kera tried to mimic them. He activated [Analyze Spell] each time one of the women cast a spell, and even tried analyzing Lumi and Flora’s elemental skills, on the off-chance they were sufficiently spell-like to get something out of it.

However, each time he tried to analyze one of their so-called ‘innate spells’, he received an error. Lumi’s [Spell Shapings] were valid, but skills like [Elemental Cantrips] turned out not to be, even though while under the effects of the potion he could see the ebb and flow of mana take shape every time the girl activated her skill.

He did, however, end up unlocking some additional Discovery choice options, a fact he mentally filed away for later in case it became relevant.

Lumi and Kera meanwhile had little trouble learning what Flora had to teach them. Under the effects of the potion, it was a simple matter for Flora to teach Lumi about Life-mana and it’s effects on living things; the girl was able to earn several new potential skills, plus a discount on choosing Life as one of her [Wellspring] elements. Actually selecting them would have to wait, however, until Lumi had some skill points available to spend.

Flora knew a number of useful buff spells related to living creatures, including one that temporarily caused Ceri to double in size and strength, which Flora called Giant Growth. Other spells she managed to teach them included Entangling Roots, Vine Whip, Thorn Wall, and even a new summoning spell for Kera called Guardian Wasps, which made Jason shudder a bit to think about.

Kera then demonstrated her new summon spells for them. First came an evil-looking, red-eyed crow that would fly above the fight, and then dive bomb enemies at an opportune moment, attempting to peck out their eyes. She could also conjure a tiny spider, which Kera could then share senses with and use as a spy; doing so nearly made the girl violently ill though, as the disorientation from seeing through multiple eyes at once turned out to be too much for her. Flora assured her she'd get used to it with practice.

Last of all, after dismissing her other two summons, Kera conjured up a wolf that seemed entirely made of mist, useful for distracting or harassing enemies’ flanks.

As for Lumi, through judicious use of Jason’s mana potions and repeated castings, she built up several large mounds of dirt to use as a sort of practice range, and then proceeded to run through her various [Spell Shaping] combinations so Jason could [Analyze] them. Then she demonstrated her own new spells. The first one caused objects she touched to be eaten away at by some sort of acidic discharge, and the second one, which Jason privately thought of as the ‘rocks fall, everyone dies’ spell, caused head-sized stones to pop into existence and rain down from above in a small area.

By the time the potions’ duration was up, Jason had learned several new runes from the whole process. It seemed that his ‘small chance’ was either greatly boosted by the potion he’d taken, or the Voice didn’t believe in grinding: to him, a ‘small chance’ would have meant maybe one in a hundred, or even a thousand.

He’d expected to come away with one, maybe two new runes. Instead, he learned the basic runes for Barrier, Shadow, Life, Growth, and Bolster. Overall, he counted it as a huge success.

“Whew, constant spellcasting takes a lot out of you,” Lumi commented, sitting down heavily. Sweat heavily beaded her forehead. Everyone else’s too, including Jason, who had still been using minute amounts of mana for every use of his Analyze skill.

He leaned heavily against one of the trees at the edge of the clearing.

“Gonna need to make some more mana potions at this rate. Good thing I brought some. I’m surprised you haven’t needed one, Flora.”

She flicked a hand in dismissal, despite looking a bit out of breath herself. “You young people have no stamina. This is nothing to an experienced spellcaster. Keep putting your stats in Spirit and soon enough you’ll have hundreds and hundreds of mana to spare. If you intend to keep on adventuring, you’d best do so. Enchanting takes a fair bit too, I hear.”

Jason stepped down to the stream and leaned down towards it to wash his face. They’d ended up scattering loose dirt all over the place once Lumi had started blasting away at her practice targets.

Crouched down at the water's edge, Jason falied to notice the dark form lurking under the suface. Too late, Jason felt his [Survivalist]’s danger sense go off, and a huge, bestial form suddenly lunged up out of the water towards him, releasing an deep, ear-shattering blast of sound that picked Jason up off his feet and threw him like a rag doll.

The next thing Jason knew, he was lying at the base of a tree, disoriented, in his own private world of pain. Around him, he could barely make out strangely muted sounds coming from all around him. It was like listening to something while underwater. Something wet ran down the side of his head from his ear.

He shifted his weight, and was rewarded with a fresh round of searing pain as his apparently broken ribs vociferously protested his attempt to move. He coughed as his body tried to clear his lungs, which hurt even more. The pain brought on a spike of fear, and the resulting burst of adrenaline helped to clear his head: he'd been attacked by something.

Struggling, breath hissing in pain, Jason fumbled at his side for a healing potion. He pulled forth one of the better ones, giving thanks that he’d made them right away instead of holding off. Popping the cork on the bottle, he drained it.

Jason groaned in agony as he felt his bones shift back into place. Lumi hadn’t been kidding when she’d said you could feel it working; he could barely think through the pain.

As his hearing returned slightly, Jason realized there was full-pitched battle commencing around him. Several of the frog monsters he and Lumi had fought before struggled on the ground, pinned in place by giant carpet thorns, while nearby Lumi engaged a number of what appeared to be frog-men armed with spears. An enraged Ceri, bolstered in size, was conducting flanking maneuvers against them as well, alongside Kera’s mistwolf.

The drake sparked with electricity and leaped onto unwary opponent who had been distracted by Lumi, savaging the fishman with teeth and claws. It lay unmoving on the ground, its corpse smoking slightly as the drake looked for another target.

Kera herself meanwhile stood in front of an exhausted-looking, terrifed Flora, and was sending out silvery bolts of force from her staff, striking down additional fishmen that were advancing from the river, where a huge, crocodilian monster with massive horns stood in the water on two legs, gnashing it’s teeth and grasping at the air with both claws.

Coughing in pain, Jason decided to worry about where they’d all come from later. He struggled to his feet just as one of the fishmen managed to reach him. Yanking at out his fire wand, he pointed it at the fishman, who promptly burst into flames. It shrieked and dove into the water, only to discover that the magically-induced flames weren’t extinguished upon contact with liquid.

Jason staggered his way over to Kera, breath wheezing. He took a risk and downed a mana potion in addition to the healing one he'd taken. Hopefully he wouldn't regret it later.

Kera shouted something, a relieved look on her face.

“What?” Jason yelled. His hearing wasn’t back to normal yet; one potion could only do so much. He hoped it wasn’t permanently damaged.

After releasing another bolt of energy from her staff, Kera tried to repeat herself, but he couldn't understand her. Instead, Jason just gestured to his ears and shook his head.

Fumbling at his vest, Jason pulled out a second mana potion and passed it to Flora, gesturing for her to take it. The woman didn’t even look at it, indead just downing it in one go with a surprised look on her face.

Jason then directed her to assist Lumi, while he turned his focus to the fish creatures advancing out of the water, igniting another one with his wand.

Between himself and Kera, they drove the fish men back into the water, where the giant crocodile monster still stood, observing the battle.

Then the great beast roared again, and Jason clutched his head as the sound swept through him painfully, and he saw a wave of energy pass over the creature’s piscine allies. They rallied as their wounds partially healed, and Jason’s fire was extinguished.

Now that’s just not fair, He thought to himself.

Well. Two can play at that game.

Pulling a [Salamander Stone] from an inside pocket with one hand, he threw it into the center of the advancing formation. With a roar of flame and a detonation that Jason felt more than he heard, the grenade exploded, igniting half a dozen fishmen and outright killing several of them. The rest went scrambling back into the water, madly trying to extinguish themselves.

Note to self, he thought. Do not use in confined spaces.

With a bellow of rage, the crocodile-thing began to slowly wade out of the water towards Jason and Kera. The girl launched a bolt of light at it, but the huge beast just shrugged it off.

Jason directed his wand towards it as well, but his attack was resisted, or so he thought: he triggered the wand's final charge, but nothing happened as the wand's magic last charge fizzled out.

Something else, then.

He decided now was the time to test his newest artificer skill. Quickly [Disenchanting] one of his least healing potions for a unit of arcane powder, he scattered it across the surface of the now-defunct wand, allowing his [Engrave] skill to guide his mind and hand has he used his slowly-regenerating mana to imbue runes for Absorption, Shadow, and Projection, resulting in a hastily-improvised, much smaller version of Kera's staff.

He pointed the wand at the creature, timing his bolt of shadow-mana to coincide with Kera's own blast of light.

Both bolts deflected harmlessly, merely pushing the beast back slightly, and Jason cursed inwardly.

It would take the creature a few seconds to reach them, so Jason instead turned his attention towards the others, prepared to render aid if necessary.

His concern was misplaced, for reinforced by Flora, Lumi, Ceri, and the wolf were finishing off the last of the fishmen who’d made it to shore. Flora drove the creatures into Ceri with occasional Vine Whips, while the wolf ran interference for Lumi, making swift work of the creatures, who seemed rather uncoordinated on land. Jason wondered if Kera was managing to mentally command both Ceri and the wolf while managing her own weapon, or if both creatures were just that smart. Judging from Kera’s only occasional glances over at the other group, it might have been a combination of the two.

Seeing they needed no aid, he directed his attacks to the trapped frogoid creatures, launching shadowbolts one after another as his mana dropped back down to nothing. Each one died as a single blast of shadow-magic struck them.

Finally the huge crocodilian reached the water’s edge. Jason faced it once again, dropping his wand and reaching into his coat with one hand, waiting for the right moment. He’d only have one chance at this; the beast was massive, easily eight feet tall, and he wasn’t at all confident of Lumi’s ability to fight such a creature. Not with her mana drained as it was; he hadnt seen the girl cast a single spell so far, and those least potions took a minute to really kick in.

He got his chance as the beast lumbered forwards, stopping in front of them. It reared back and opened its mouth wide, inhaling, no doubt intending to release another body-shattering roar like the one it had struck Jason with previously.

He didn't give it the chance.

Taking a cue from classic monster movies, he threw his grenade overhanded like a baseball as hard as he could, right into the monster’s mouth, relying on [Basic Throwing] to guide his aim.

The results weren’t pretty.

Jason would have lost his dinner as the sight, and smell, of charred monster assaulted his nose, except for the fact that he hadn’t eaten one yet.

With their backup, or perhaps leader, slain, the few remaining fishmen dived back into the river, fleeing with panicked, burbling cries.

“Everyone ok?” Jason started to shout, as the smoke cleared, but then remembered he couldn’t hear straight.

Lumi said something indistinct in reply.

“Er, sorry. Can’t hear you,” he said, touching a finger to his ear. “Had to take one of the stronger potions. Will be awhile til I can take another.”

Jason hoped he was making himself understood; sometimes damaged hearing made you slur your words a bit.

Instead of talking, he held up one of the better healing potions, clearly offering it in case anyone needed it.

No one did; Lumi had a small cut on one arm from one of the frogmen’s spears that she hadn’t managed to deflect with her shield, but she chose to use one of her [Least Healing] potions instead, as it was just a relatively minor flesh wound.

Jason moved to one of the now-dead frogoids, intending to harvest the creature for ingredients, but stepped back again as the creature melted down into glowing notes of light. The mana faded away, leaving behind some of the creature’s webbing as a reward.

“Uhhh, guys?” Jason called to the others, but there was no need. All across the clearing, the bodies of slain frog and fish creatures were bursting into light and fading away, leaving only loot rewards behind.

Flora stood stock still, trembling, her face ashen.

Jason didn’t need to be able to hear her to understand the single word she spoke.

“Dungeon,” she whispered.