Exhausted and in pain, Jason and the others struggled against the ever-increasing winds and dust in order to reach the cellar.

With the help of a still-enlarged Ceri and a distraught Kera, the three managed to drag Lumi inside, under the heavy, waterlogged flap of canvas that Pelk had rigged up as a door. As the hunters ducked in as well and Pelk began nailing the ‘door’ shut, Jason collapsed to his knees at Lumi’s side.

While their shared party screen didn't have a standard hit point bar per se, it did have a vague representation of how badly hurt someone in the party was, and it was telling Jason that the girl was in a bad way.

He dug through his coat pockets, bringing out one of his stronger healing potions. Very carefully he fed it to Lumi a little at a time; he knew it was easy to choke someone who was unconscious trying to give them liquids, but also that by giving them small, measured mouthfulls you could get them to swallow reflexively to clear their airway.

After a few moments the glow of the potion kicked in, and Jason saw her party status slowly returning to safe levels. It took Lumi only a few more moments to regain consciousness, with a cough and a splutter of half-drank potion.

She croaked out some unintelligible question, and Jason placed her hands around the vial, motioning for her to drink rest of the potion on her own, to wet her throat with and finish the healing.

“Ye gods, what the hell hit me?” she finally managed after drinking. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

“You got the full brunt of those Rockhound’s sonic beam,” Jason informed her. “Apparently at least some of your barriers don’t block certain kinds of attacks.”

Lumi coughed, and attempted to sit up. Jason assisted her, and she swayed for a minute, but managed to remain upright. She held one hand to her head.

“Ow. Remind me why I chose to be the front line again?” she groused.

Jason chuckled at her.

“You tell me,” he said. I’m happy to sit in the back and be support.”

Jason touched his arm, where the rockhound’s bite was scanned over, not yet fully healed by the slower-acting potion he’d taken. He grimaced; it was still tender, and tingled slightly.

“Less pain for me, that way,” he finished.

“Did everyone make it?” Lumi asked.

Kera walked over to the pair, limping a little as she favored her injured leg, which like Jason's bite wound, hadn’t healed entirely yet. Ceri padded along at her side, still giant-sized. Jason wasn’t sure if she was maintaining the effect somehow, or if it simply hadn’t worn off yet.

Ceri lay down near Lumi and Jason with a huff, and Kera sank down besides him, to lean against his bulk.

“Everyone’s good,” she declared, answering Lumi’s question before Jason could reply.

“Those silverwing needles don’t do much,” Kera said. “Aria and Belman will be right as rain shortly, since Jason dosed them already with his wand. Same for me; already on the mend, thanks to Jason.”

Kera pulled another one of the least heals Jason had given her from her bag and drank it down noisily. She held up the empty bottle and eyed it.

“You know, these don't actually taste all that bad,” Kera commented. She looked around to make sure no one was listening to them, and turned to Jason, keeping her voice low. “Maybe you could stand to spice em up a bit, though. Add some nice flavoring, like you did with the tea. Can you make them with stuff other than water?”

Jason scratched his head. “Maybe? Probably, anyway. I mean the whole tea thing you suggested worked fine, so I bet I could.”

“Why though?" he asked with a shrug. "I think they're fine as is.”

“Aww c’mon,” Kera replied with grin, “you don't like, want to have some fun with it? You could market it as ‘Cordelia’s Cordial of Curing!’, or ‘Manford’s Mead of Mending!’ or any number of other great ideas I could give you.”

“Manford?” Jason asked drily. “What kind of a name is that? It isn't even mine.”

“Bah, you could always change it, right? You’ve got two left.”

Lumi giggled them, then coughed. She winced and held her hand to her head again.

“Stop making me laugh, it hurts,” she grumbled with wry smile. “I think the point is to not advertise Jason’s skills, anyway, right?”

Jason rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Actually… once again, she might be on to something there. There’s that whole intention thing going on we've seen. What if I could hide what I was doing by claiming some kind of non-existent skill and rename the item? Cooks are always making up new dishes that they personally name. And I’m sure there’s methods to name your own creations. I should ask Jerrik or his wife about that, actually.”

He barked a short laugh.

“Can you imagine? I could set up the whole magic, portable garden thing, and an attached nano-brewery, and wander from city to city selling potion-beers and maybe nobody would be the wiser, and just think of it as some weird, eccentric, unique class.”

“Why not try?” Kera asked him, mildly serious, but smiling. “You still have that specialty to pick right? Could you pick something like brewing, or is it only magic stuff? I mean we have the respec thing, right?”

Jason blinked once, hard.

“You know, you’re right. I keep thinking there’s nothing stopping me from just trying things since we can just reset points we didn't want to spend. But I put the elixirs into my Vault for safekeeping so I have to wait til we get back.”

Jason stretched, rolling his shoulders and shifting position until he was seated on the floor, leaning against one of the support pillars that were scatter around the cellar.

“Speaking of points, I’m guessing you’ve gotten some new stuff, Lumi? I saw that shield of yours. What about you, Kera?

As Kera was currently distracted with hand-feeding Ceri a healing potion of his own, Lumi sat up, crossed her legs under her, and pulled up her status screen. She poked at several brand new notifications.

“I’ve leveled a huge amount from all this fighting,” she said. “I’ve got all sorts of new stuff since our session with Flora. Look at this, almost two levels each just from the fighting here the past two days. I’m up to level 9 [Spellblade], level 8 [Knight], and level 7 [Sunwarden], respectively in each of my classes.

“Lets see….,” Lumi said. “Got [Thundering Charge] from [Knight], which is really a mounted thing, for spears and lances. But it works a bit on foot, too.

“For [Sunwarden]… I’ve got the new [Sunlight Shield] you saw, which is effectively two different shields that I can use to guard my flanks, or to shield other people. It’s actually a buff spell, too, so I can toss that up while I use my bracer and hold a [Spell Shape] all at the same time.”

“Oh is that what you were doing?” Jason asked.

Lumi nodded.

“Right. Let’s see… what else?” She brightened and pointed to her list. “Oh! A new spell. Earned [Blur] just now, that looks neat. Makes me hard to see properly. Also got something called [Solar Flare] from Sunwarden… ah, that’s a lot like my flame Jet spell, but bigger and less controlled.

“Hmm… oh, and I need to make two choices for Arcanas, it looks like.” She browsed her list quickly for new choices while he others looked on.

“Perfect!” she said, clapping her hands and making a selection. “I'll take [Spell Disruption], which will let me use some of my own mana to suppress some else’s spell, and [Dimensional Slide], which will let me do a very short-range teleport. Those sound fun and useful.”

Lumi stood up and fiddled with her interface for a moment.

Her golden shield sprang up, and then to Jason’s eyes Lumi’s form fuzzed, until he couldnt make out her exact shape or features anymore. Then took a step, and was suddenly across the room. She stepped back, and dropped her spells.

She was holding one arm out to support herself against the pillar. Jason looked up at her.

“Whoa. That’s a bit of a rush.” she said, reeling a bit.

“Please dont throw up while you’re standing over me,” Jason said, giving her a stern look.

Lumi waved him off while Kera laughed at him. She sat down.

“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s a bit disorienting. I’ll need some practice, I think.”

Lumi checked her status again. “Thats all for new stuff, other than spending my points. I’ve decided to not pay for Life Wellspring for now. Though I’ve got another class point ready to pick up [Duskreaver] with. I’ll wait til we get back for that. How about you?”

Jason shrugged. “Nothing. I mean, I leveled yesterday, but you already know about the specialty choice thing. Some kind of level 10 milestone. But I havent leveled again. I think I’m close to hitting 10 in Artificer too though. How about you, Kera?”

“I hit 10 too, actually.”

“What, really?” Jason asked. “You’re ahead of Lumi now?”

“Yep,” Kera replied cheerfully. “Unlike you two, I get all my XP in one big lump sum instead of splitting it between classes, so I’m all caught up.”

“That’s great!” Jason said. “What new stuff have you got?”

“Well, aside from the two hundred mana milestone bonus, I guess I’ll start with my [Monster Magic],” she began, “since you guys saw that scream.”

Kera brought up her list of spells for then to see.

“So, I don’t think I mentioned it yet, but I actually got two things from that Sobek. The first is [Primal Scream], which you saw, and the other is [Bolstering Roar], which is an area buff I keep forgetting about.”

She peered closely at her notifications. “For today, looks like I got [Sonic Thrust] and [Manticore Tail] from those dogs, and I also learned something called [Shardstrike] from the bird… and a low-end magic resistance buff from, well, probably any number of stuff we’ve fought around here.”

Kera closed those windows, and moved on to her class notifications.

“Let’s see…” she murmured. “One earned skill... [Advanced Monster Lore]. I guess that’s from reading the books. Then two new spells on top of what Flora taught us. [Enfeeble]; I’m guessing that’s a Might debuff. And [Obsidian Flow], whatever that does. I’ll have to try it later.”

She closed those notifications too, and checked the last.

“Looks like I’ve got a Milestone choice too,” Kera said to Jason. “I wonder if that’s an every ten levels thing?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Jason replied with a shrug. “Might not specifically be every ten, but could be a regular pattern, too.”

Lumi poked at Kera’s screen, opening up further information. “So what exactly is this specialization thing..? Oh, neat. So you can choose to learn new branches of magic, or advance a skill up a tier, or pick up something related to a specific branch that you practice but don't actually have.”

Jason looked at Kera. “Any idea what you want to pick? I’m still totally waffling over mine, to be honest. I kind of want to wait til we get to town, use the respec potion to explore it. I mean, we may very well have the stuff to make a second batch, soon.”

Kera hummed to herself a bit, thinking. Ceri curled around her slightly, so that his tail flicked at her legs and he could put his massive head in her lap, while Kera herself still leaned against the bulk of his body.

She idly scratched his head.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” she said after a minute. “I mean, I’m enjoying the whole blue magic thing. I just… well, you know. I like the whole shapeshifting thing, and I adore Ceri, and I really want another bond, too. I actually kind of liked those birds. Learning how to fly is definitely on my bucket list for sure. Along with being a fish at least once.”

Jason gave her a grin and a half-hearted eye roll. He got where she was coming from, on an academic level. Itwould be kind of interesting to try out, he just wasn’t quite so…enthusiastic about it as she was.

“Well what about the Monster Lore thing?” he asked. “Or new classes. Have you even looked at any? You should have, what, two class points now?”

“Yeah, two,” Kera replied. “Why?”

“Well, it occurs to me… you could see if there was a druid class that has animal shape-changing. I mean, Lumi had stuff like that available, at least [Shaman], anyway. Or maybe you could see if you could specialize in an actual blue magic class, or advance your skill somehow. Then you could take all sorts of shapes, right?”

“Hmm, not a bad idea,” she said. “More respec food for thought, maybe?”

Lumi laughed. “Sounds to me like we’ll be having a regular science fair when we get back, huh?”

Jason grinned. “Seems like it.”

The storm struck twenty minutes later, and lasted for only one brief, harrowing hour. Thunder raged non-stop overhead, shaking the entire structure and causing dust and dirt to drift down from the ceiling. Pelk assured them if the structure was stable enough to stand for centuries, it would hold up. He looked a little stressed, though, and even ran some kind of wire along one side of the room and told everyone not to go anywhere near it, which did emphatically did not help Jason’s peace of mind.

It didn't help either that more than once, Lumi had to call up her [Shadow Curtain] spell to block off the storm while Pelk and the others scrambled madly to pin the canvas back down when a corner came free, filling the air in the room with dust and sand.

On the other hand, Jason was also incredibly grateful for Kera’s presence. If not for her repeated castings of [Calm Animals] in order to keep the horses together and relax them enough to nibble away at their potion-dosed feedbags, the animals surely would have panicked and injured or killed themselves.

When the storm finally blew itself out, everyone gave a quiet sigh of relief. No masonry had collapsed, nothing had tried to get in, and they’d managed to keep the worst of the dirt, dust, and sand out. Privately, Jason thought they’d also been very lucky that the few times the canvas came loose, no one had been struck by the electrical discharges filling the air outside. He supposed he didn’t really know how likely that would be to happen, but just from the sheer noise of it all, it must have been a frequent occurrence.

It didn’t take them terribly long to dig their way out. While Pelk didn't have enough shovels for everyone, Jason was able to conjure some up with [Basic Artifice]. By the time they’d dug a hole clear enough to get outside, it was early evening.

Jason took a quick look around once they’d managed to escape back out into the courtyard. Blackened scorch-marks marred the sandstone ruin in a great many places, with tiny cracks radiating out away from small, fused-sand craters. Loose dirt, sand, and crystals were piled up everywhere; they were going to have to do some serious work to clear the entrance to the grounds enough to get the horses out.

How the heck is this place still standing? Jason wondered. If storms like this are a normal occurrence, wouldn’t they have been ground to sand by now?

After a quick look around the general vicinity, Jason jogged over to Aria and Belman, who were looking around in a kind of hushed awe.

He asked them the question on his mind, but Aria shook her head.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this,” she stated firmly. “I always just sort of assumed it didnt rain here at all, because it was so dry.”

Belman simply nodded his agreement.

Jason frowned, concerned, but he had other things that took a higher priority than strange meteorological phenomena. Namely, they needed to finish digging out the entrances. Soon, he had completely forgotten the oddity.

The work of clearing all the sand out of the way was backbreaking to Jason, but at least they had Pelk’s wheelbarrow to help transport the debris out of the way. Jason, Serif, Lumi, and Kera worked diligently to clear space, while Pelk and the two hunters went back below to mine up the last of the iron.

It wasn’t until late evening that they’d managed to clear enough space to be able to leave in the morning. By then, the civilians down below had managed to not only finish the mining, but they'd broken up the earthheart, gathered up a fair amount of quartz and tourmaline, and managed to unearth the few of monster corpses that had been buried by the storm and harvest them for useable hide.

Lumi went ahead and lit up the courtyard with some mage-lights at Jason’s urging, seeing as any local wildlife was either gone to ground, or well, dead by now. He then set up a proper cook-fire with pot in the middle, and set a decent stew on to simmer for a bit so everyone could have a hot meal.

While he waited for it to finish, he toured around the ruins to see just what kind of damage had been done. Kera did the same, taking Ceri with her off in on her own explorations. Most of the others stayed near the fire, because as night fell it began to grow colder.

Jason's investigations didn't turn up much of interest to him, so having poked around for a brief while, he returned to his cook-fire only to see Pelk showing off some kind of dirty-looking, multi-hued, short length of what looked like rock from where Jason was standing.

The dwarf held it up to the light, and Jason could see as he approached that it was some kind of crystallized sand fused with other bits. It was only a half a foot long and had a few long, thin branchings.

“See that?” Pelk was asking the other. “That there’s fulgurite. Also known as lightning-glass, ‘cause it forms when lightning strikes and fuses sand and other silicates together. The Wastes out there is probably full of the stuff right now. It’s fragile, though. Wears down pretty quick. Look.”

He squeezed one of the branches with thumb and forefinger, and it snapped off. The fragment fell to the ground and shattered into several pieces.

“Ain't much use fer the stuff, but that’s what’s in all those craters there,” Pelk said, gesturing with one hand to the small craters of fused dirt scattered about. “Probably would break most of it trying to dig it up, its so fragile, but interesting, eh?”

Serif looked a bit glassy-eyed at the dwarf’s monologuing about mineral lore, but Jason was curious.

“Can I see it?” he asked Pelk.

The dwarf hand it to him with an admonishment to be gentle.

Jason simply held it lightly. “Analyze Item,” he commanded.

Fulgurite Trait Discovered: Storm, Glass

Jason looked at it, eyebrows raised. “Two traits?” he questioned.

“Traits?” Pelk asked.

“Uh, its an enchanting thing.” Jason lied quickly. He was starting to do that a lot, lately. “We should absolutely gather a bunch of this if we can. I don't think it will need to be terribly intact.”

Pelk scratched at his beard. “You sure? Stuff’s pretty worthless, just kind of a oddity.”

Jason nodded emphatically. “Absolutely sure. We should gather as much as we can, even. I know exactly what I can make to aid the town. Trust me, it’ll be worth the effort.”

Pell shrugged. “If you say so. If you dont care what kind of condition it’s in, we can just use my pick to mine the stuff outta the ground around here as we go. I’ll see what I can do.”

“That’s all I’m asking. Thanks.” Jason packed away the piece Pelk had handed him.

Jason then checked his stew. It would be ready in just a few more minutes. Some of the others were already snacking on bits of cheese or dried fruit, and were otherwise occupied. He noticed Kera wasn’t around, and went to look for her in order to let her know that dinner was about ready.

He found her crouched in the shadowed, open doorway of one of the more distant building. The only reason he even found her in the first place was that he distantly heard Ceri make some kind of protesting noise. When he arrived, Kera was quietly shushing him. She’d apparently activated her enhanced-senses morph to see, because he could see her crystal dreadlocks reflecting the distant light of the fire. She was holding what looked like a bunch of dried meat from her bag in one hand, and was tossing it into the building.

“Uhhh, what are you doing?” he asked, approaching,

Kera jumped, startled, and then relaxed when she saw him. Apparently he’d been quieter than he’d thought, or she was overly focused on whatever she was doing.

She held one finger to her lips and made a ‘come here’ motion with the fist-full of jerky strips.

“Just who I need,” she whispered to Jason. “Can I borrow your healing wand?”

“Uhhh, why…?” Jason asked. He started to look into the building, but Kera pulled him back.

“Shhh, not so loud,” she hissed at him. “You’ll ruin it.”

“Ruin what?”

“The rockhound.” Kera said. “One of them survived. I want to tame it.”

Jason clamped down hard on the urge to shout incredulously.

“Are you crazy?” he whispered. “You can’t just tame a feral monster by feeding it. You do realize that park wardens tell people not to feed the bears for a reason, right?”

“So you say,” she retorted quietly. “But people back home don’t have magic, or magically enforced contracts, now do they?”

“I will admit that’s fair, but don’t you think its more than a little dangerous to be doing this by yourself? You saw what one did to Lumi.”

“I’m not by myself, in case you haven’t noticed." Kera replied. "I’ve got Ceri, and you guys were one screech away. And I’ve already put it under [Calm Animals]. I know what I’m doing. I don't tell you how to handle alchemy explosives. Monsters are my thing.”

Jason sighed. She had a point, but he remained unconvinced. He still reached to his belt anyhow and handed Kera his healing wand.

“Just point and say ‘Cure Wounds’, he instructed, and hung back. Just in case, Jason drew his shadow wand and made sure he knew which pocket his last remaining [Salamander Stone] was in.

Kera murmured something Jason couldn’t quite hear and directed the wand into the darkness of the hall-buried building. He heard a soft whine from rockhound inside as she activated the wand.

Then she sat down, and put some of the dried meat in front of her. She motioned for Jason to seat himself out of view.

He hesitated.

“Is this going to take long?” he asked quietly. “I’ve got food almost ready.”

Kera shrugged. “Depends. If I miss it, I miss it. I’ll be fine. You don't have to stay. Or you could bring us all some.”

Jason considered for a moment. He supposed that meaty stew would probably be more enticing to the beast than dried jerky.

“I’ll bring you extra,” he said with a shrug.

Jason returned to the gathering about the fire. Aria gave him a wink.

“Having a private moment with your girl, finally?” she asked with a grin.

Jason rolled his eyes at the woman. “Hardly,” he said. “None of us are with each other. Or anyone, currently. No, she found one of those rockhounds still alive, but injured, and is going to see if she can contract it.”

The others looked surprised.

“What like the drake?” Serif asked gruffly. “Is that why he’s so well trained? I thought he was her familiar.”

Jason shook his head. “No, not a familiar. Kind of similar though. It’s a class thing. She opened up the chance to get a second companion beast, but we hadn't come across anything and she didn't know what to summon. Looks like she’s decided to at least try this one.”

Jason checked on the stew, which was finally ready. He gave it a stir, and ladled up three full bowls to take to Kera: one for himself, one for her, and one for Ceri or the hound. It was a little difficult for him to carry all at once

He returned to Kera, who seemed to still be trying to coax the rockhound out of wherever it was hiding. He handed her a bowl.

“Hey thanks,” she said, looking up and giving him a smile. “That smells pretty good.”

“There’s plenty more,” he said, handing her the second bowl and a spoon, and seating himself on a piece of fallen masonry off to one side.

Kera let Ceri have a few mouthfuls of stew before telling him to stay put on her shoulder. Then she leaned as far forward as she could, and placed the bowl down. Then she tossed a few pieces of jerky into the building.

Jason sat around trying to quietly eat his stew while Kera attempted to cajole the rockhound into approaching. It took two more casting of [Calm Animals] and three more wand charges to properly heal the animal, but eventually she got it investigate the food.

Jason sat as still as he could, but kept his wand at his side in case the rockhound shook off Kera’s spell, assuming that was possible for it to do. He needn’t have worried. Before too long, Kera had the enormous dog eating directly from the bowl, held in her hands, and was gently stroking its head and murmuring softly to it.

“Chalk and powder please,” she said to him quietly after a few minutes of this.

It took Jason a moment to understand what she was after; she wanted something to draw a ritual circle with, plus some arcane powder to power it. He didn’t have chalk, but he did have sticks of charcoal she could use. He retrieved one from his bag, and handed it to her along with two vials of powder from his belt.

Kera quietly scribed a runic circle around herself and the rockhound, always keeping one hand on it. She was constantly petting it, talking quietly to it, and making sure it was calm.

Eventually, she sprinkled the arcane powder onto several runes, and Jason remembered at the last second to active his [Analyze Spell] skill. He received some basic information about the fact that it was some kind of bonding ritual, but it was the second message that got his attention:

Skill Failure: Analyze Spell. Higher Engrave and Analysis rank required before learning more complex rune sequences from Analysis is possible.

Well that’s annoying, Jason thought to himself as Kera’s circle pulsed several times and the mana ran through it.

Kera waited for a moment, and then gave a happy squeal and hugged the beast around it’s neck. The rockhound meanwhile gave a short bark, and shook itself.

“I take it that’s a success then,” Jason commented from his seat. “How does that bond thing work, anyway? Do they have to accept? How do they even know what it means?”

Kera laughed. “What, you haven’t guessed? The system works for everything, of course. The Voice speaks dog just as much as English. To answer your question though, yes, they have to accept the contract. I don't really know how they know what it means, but they do.”

Jason just shook his head. “Well, I guess let’s go introduce the newest member of our little band. I hope you’re ready to keep the horses from freaking out.”

“They don’t mind Ceri,” Kera pointed out, before reaching to give the drake his own scratch on the top of his head. “It’ll be fine.”