After a light lunch of fruit, cheese, and some sort of spicy sausage that Jason thought didn't quite taste like pork, the five adventurers headed down to the guardhouse.

The building itself was relatively small, as befitted what amounted to no more than a small barracks for a handful of guardsmen, a smaller jail, and a single pair of office rooms.

The training yard outside had clearly seen recent renovation. Originally an outdoor, fifty-foot square of hard packed dirt, the yard had been expanded to three times that size with a series of sturdy-looking stone barricades. While the expanded yard had been cleared of grass and other vegetation, the packed dirt of the original grounds left a clear line between old and new such that he would have been able to discern the difference even if it weren’t for the fancy new equipment: namely, training dummies designed for higher-strength adventurers and spellcasters.

Jason wasn’t aware of any spellcasters among the town guard. In fact, to the best of his knowledge, Flora was one of the few actual spell-users in the town. He supposed that many people probably knew a handful of spells good for everyday use, but nothing on par with your typical adventuring wizard, so it was a surprise to him to see that the guard had such sophisticated equipment on hand.

But here they were: training equipment made not of leather and straw and rusted armor, as Jason had expected, but rather made of oak and stone and steel, many engraved with runes of warding or reflection. Targets, pells, mock dummies… in one corner of the yard, there was even a trio of guild applicants aiming bolts of force at tiny floating metal spheres that swirled about in the air, seemingly engaged in some kind of competitive training exercise.

Jason wondered if the guild had brought them for the students. Certainly he knew that Arnvale didn’t have a local enchanter, other than himself anyway, so they hadn’t been made here.

Either way, the equipment was here now. Most of it was in use one way or another, but Lumi quickly lead him and the others to an unoccupied section that contained several of what Jason thought of as ‘standard’ mock dummies.

Sevani was there waiting for them, standing in the sunlight in her usual formal-looking attire. She adjusted her spectacles at they approached.

“Right on time, Lumi,” Sevani commented. “The previous group just left.”

“What’s with the scheduling thing, anyway?” Jason asked. “Isn’t everyone out escorting the farmer hands or something, or is that done with?”

“The planting is nearly complete, yes,” Sevani replied, “but the guild brought close to thirty members, and we’ve been training up a few townsfolk who’ve volunteered to join in on the defense should the town come under assault.”

She continued. “As such, the facility has been under constant use, sometimes even at night.”

“It’s also a good way for us adventuring types to blow off steam,” Aldin commented.

Sevani gave him a glare over the top of her glasses. “This time, do try not to break anything?”

Aldin gave her a nervous laugh and rubbed the back of his neck.

“You’ve got two hours scheduled,” Sevani said. “Use them well. Will you be joining me again in the morning, Lumi?”

“Sure thing.”

“Very well then.” Sevani adjusted her spectacles again, made a note on her ever-present notebook, and then turned to leave. She paused and turned back to Jason.

“I hope my advice to you has been of use?” she asked him. “I haven’t had a chance to ask.”

He nodded. “Absolutely. Already have it unlocked and hit level three, even.”

“Congratulations, then,” she told Jason with a small smile and a polite nod. Then she left, heading back into the guardhouse.

“Why is she the one managing the schedule?” Jason asked Lumi.

“I think it's really because she also sort of stands in for the Mayor’s personal assistant,” Lumi said. Then she cocked her head, considering. “Well, that’s not quite right. She mentioned something about how her job covers so much of the city infrastructure and depends on her that she’s kind of like… I don’t know… something like the town’s general manager. Basically though the short answer is that she’s super organized and the Mayor asked her to give Denaire a hand on making sure everything runs smoothly.”

“I think I understood that.” Jason said. “Anyway, lets get to work.”

Over the next hour, the others took turns demonstrating their skills to each other and asking questions, while Jason activated his [Arcane Sight] as often as he could. Each time he learned a new rune, he used a mental command to simply pin it to a combined list on the side; he’d check them all out at once afterwards.

Kera showed off her new spells, followed by Lumi demonstrating Icicle and Frost Armor, as well as some of her older Sunwarden spells Jason hadn’t yet seen, such as Solar Flare. The resulting arc of near-uncontrollable flames set fire to several of the wooden dummies at once, causing Kera to activate one of her own new spells: one that conjured up a giant, white beetle taller than Jason was, which doused the flames with a torrent of sleet, ice, and snow from its abdomen much like a bombardier beetle would spray heated, noxious chemicals.

“Please tell me you aren’t going to be doing things… like that,” Lumi said with a gesture to the beetle’s rear end.

Kera’s face flamed red while Aldin laughed uproariously at the implication.

“I, uh… no. I think I’m gonna pass on that one.” Kera said. “I don’t think my clothes would survive me growing a giant beetle-butt.”

“That reminds me…,” Jason started to say.

Ravs snorted at him, and Jason corrected the course of his statement.

“The clothes I mean,” he said hastily. “What did Nissette have to say?”

“Oh, right, that,” Kera replied as she dismissed the beetle. “She said that enchanted gear doesn’t change to fit the wearer by default, unfortunately. I’m going to need something with a specific kind of extra enchantment on it. I’m really hoping you can maybe learn those runes from watching me shapeshift. You’ve got something from my monster magic before, right?”

Jason nodded. “While I’ve not had time to scan most of your blue magic when you’ve put it to use, I did learn a Perception rune from that thing you do where you turn your hair all crystalline, using only Analyze Spell. Let’s give it a try?”

“Hang on, one second,” Lumi said. “I’ll be right back.”

Lumi quickly jogged over to the other side of the training yard, where she tapped an aging guardsman on the shoulder, interrupting whatever lecture he was giving to a handful of heavy-set, warrior-looking types. After what looked like a brief apology for the interruption and a short exchange, the man shrugged and nodded. Lumi reached into her pocket and handed over a fistful of coins, and returned with a pair of two vials filled with green liquid.

She held them up and addressed Kera. “Stamina potions, yeah?”

Jason looked at her with surprise.

“What, you think a training grounds wouldn’t have some minor potions on hand for accidents and demos and stuff?” Lumi said. “You aren’t the only one who makes them, you know.”

Ravs eyed Jason a bit speculatively. “He does potions too? Thats good news for us.”

“Potions, wands, armor, weapons… pretty much everything.” Kera commented.

Jason staggered slightly as she threw an arm around him; apparently changelings were more solid than they looked.

“He’s our walking armory,” Kera said, giving him a hug.

“Armory in training, maybe.” Jason replied.

“Ah, give yourself more credit,” Kera said. “You’ve already started enchanting our house with modern conveniences, for which I am very thankful, and you’ll have Machinist soon enough.”

She gave him a smile and another hug, then dropped her arm. “Now lets see if I can’t get you some more runes. Gotta keep up my end of things. I already feel kinda bad that we ask so much of you.”

Kera rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck. “Anyhow… ready when you are.”

Jason reactivated his [Arcane Sight] and Kera began with activating her changeling powers. It turned out she’d perhaps undersold the value of her morning’s practice session, because she managed to get through four forms before needing one of the stamina potions.

She ran through several different species. In addition to her previous kitsune and plains elf forms, she took the shape of an exceptionally tall dwarf (making her robe sag everywhere), a very petite minotaur (which stretched it to its limits), whatever elf species Ravs was, and then even made herself look like a Life-touched similar to Flora. On a whim, she even tried, and succeeded, in making herself into a life-touched version of a minotaur.

Jason learned more than one rune from her performance, so Kera took a break from her shapeshifting to demonstrate her [Monster Magic] spells. Afterwards, she drank the remaining stamina potion, and switched to activating Beastmorph.

First she attempted to copy Ceri. That resulted in the abrupt discovery that working out how to fly was a far different thing than slithering around on the floor or how to walk on four legs.

“I think I’m gonna need to invest some skill points before I can fly,” Kera complained, sprawled in a heap, tangled up by her own tail and lying on one wing at an awkward angle.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break anything,” Lumi admonished.

“Bah.”

Kera righted herself. Then she ran through mistwolf and rockhound, and finally, gorthek.

“Holy shit!” Aldin exclaimed, backpedaling, as Kera’s form exploded upwards in size. Across the grounds, heads turned as Kera grew first to the size of a horse, then the size of a small car as she took on her new form.

“You weren’t kidding when you said it was like a bizarre cross of lion, rhino, and buffalo,” Lumi commented to Jason as they both looked on.

Kera’s gorthek form was massive, with four thick, powerful legs and brown, leathery skin. A pair of massive horns grew down and forward from her bony forehead, then swept upwards, perfect for goring opponents and ramming fortifications. Long, razor-sharp fangs like that of a lion filled her mouth.

“This feels amazing,” Kera rumbled in a deep voice. She flexed her forelimbs, which much like a lion’s seemed to functions as part leg, part hand, though they lacked the lion’s claws. Then she turned, and with a roar she ducked low, then rammed her head forwards, slamming into one of the enchanted training dummies with the full weight of her bulk. As she did, she swung her forehead upwards straight into what served as the torso.

There was a flash of light as the dummy’s shield sprang into existence as she struck, but it didn’t hold. Fragments of light splintered away, and with a loud crack the dummy’s stone post shattered and it went flying backwards into the wall where it shattered, and that segment of barricade toppled.

“Woops.” Kera said sheepishly.

Jason caught sight of Sevani bursting out the door with an angry look on her face.

“Uh oh,” Aldin said, spotting her as well.

“Hang on, I got this,” Jason said.

He quickly strode up to to the broken post and faced towards the fallen barricade.

“Arcane Reconstruction,” he commanded.

The fragments of the dummy lifted into the air and drifted back towards the shattered stump, where they snapped back into place and merged. A second application of his skill repaired the barricade.

Jason realized the target dummy’s enchantment hadn’t reactivated. Quickly triggering his arcane sight, he saw that when the rune sequence was broken apart, it released all the stored mana into the surrounding area, where it was quickly dispersing.

With a sigh, and withdrew one of his vials of arcane powder, and reactivated the enchantment.

Sevani was standing a distance away, apparently having stopped in her tracks as soon as Jason activated his skill.

“All good!” he shouted cheerfully to her with a wave.

She frowned at him, but then turned and went back inside.

“Maybe a little less enthusiasm?” Jason asked a rather sheepish looking Kera.

“Yeah,” she rumbled.

“That was awesome,” Aldin said. You smashed apart that barrier spell like it wasn’t even there. What are you? It remind me of some of my mother’s pets, but way bigger.”

“A Gorthek,” Jason explained. “They’re a kind of siege beast used as mounts by…”

Jason almost said ‘by orcs’, but then recalled that he didn’t know anything about what orcs were actually like here. For all he knew, they could just be regular people instead of stereotyped, marauding savages.

“… some monster types back home,” he finished instead.

“Where’s home?” Ravs asked. She was leaning back against one of the pells, arms crossed.

“Really far away,” Lumi said sadly.

Ravs raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but didn’t push.

Kera changed the subject, to Jason’s relief. “Well that’s it for me right now. I could do the beetle too, but you’ve already seen that. I’ll change back.”

“Wait!” Aldin interrupted. “Could… could I maybe… get a ride? Just once?”

Ravs burst out laughing at him, and Aldin’s face turned beet red.

“It’s just, I always used to ride around with Mom’s, uh, friends, as a kid and I haven’t seen her in ages, so I haven’t been riding in so long and uh… I mean you don’t have to or anything and…and…”

He trailed off, stammering.

Ravs straightened, still laughing, and walked over to him. She poked him in the side with an amused look on her face.

“Where did this come from? Aldin the Unflappable realizing he’s really put his foot in his mouth? That’s new.”

His face was beet red, and he mumbled something.

“Ok,” Kera said in her current, deep base.

Jason looked over to Kera, surprised. She shrugged, rolling her massive fore-shoulders.

“I can’t promise you won’t fall off,” Kera continued. “I’m new at this, but I’m all for trying.”

“What?” she said, looking at the others. “Did you expect me to be all ‘oh no, he’s treating me like a beast of burden’ or something? He asked nicely. And you can’t tell me it might not come in handy someday for me to be able to fly Jason up into the sky to drop salamander stones on people or something. I might as well at least see what it's like.”

Lumi laughed. “I guess she does have a point.”

After that, their training session devolved largely into everyone taking turns riding atop Kera’s back l as she lumbered up and down the yard. Even Ravs had a go. Kera pronounced it both fun and worth the trouble; the workout she was getting felt great, and between her morning shifting practice, her earlier demonstration, and running laps around the yard carrying people, she had actually been rewarded with a minor stamina increase and a single point of endurance.

Jason was a bit surprised she got something after only one day of practice, but Ravs knew the answer as to why: it was because Kera was primarily a spellcaster, which generally translated into much lower strength and stamina than your average warrior. Essentially, she was working herself to the bone and had expended her entire stamina pool multiple times, which she had never done before. Much like exercising a long-disused muscle, she’d feel it in the morning, but would be the stronger for it.

The Voice rewarded effort, after all.

Their fun was interrupted though, just as Aldin was climbing up onto Kera’s back for a second go around. A shrill, distant whine sounded, and then a second, followed by a third. Ravs, Aldin, and several of the others present seemed to be familiar with sound — they immediately swiveled and looked up into the sky, where Jason could see three streamers of light shoot up into the sky in a cluster. They burst in a shower of sparks, two red, one white. The streamer that had burst into white sparks went off two more times, and then bloomed red.

The guardhouse turned into a kicked anthill almost instantaneously, as all the guild applicants began shouting, shucking off training gear, and taking up arms. It didn’t take Jason any time to guess what the lights meant: prearranged signal flares of some kind.

“Situation critical. Western banks, section two,” Aldin said, looking down from Kera’s back. “Ravs?”

“On it already,” she replied, She thrust out her hands to either side, and a white mist started pouring off her in waves as she began a long, complex chant.

Aldin grasped one of Kera’s horns in one hand, and leaned down towards her head. He started speaking to her, but Jason couldn’t hear over all the noise.

Kera seemed to hear just fine though, and she gave a deafening roar that silenced the yard.

“Anyone who’s ready, form up now!” Kera bellowed as Aldin gave her instruction. “Standard teleport formation! Link hands! You have thirty seconds!”

“I don’t know what that means.” Kera muttered to Aldin as the adventurers began to form up in a circle two-deep around Ravs. Aldin nudged Kera forwards, as close to Ravs as she could without touching the warlock, who continued to exude wave after wave of mist that was now pooling around their feet.

“Uh, I realize I’m the novice here,” Jason asked abruptly, “but shouldn’t Kera change back? And I thought normally you couldn’t teleport farther than you can see without huge effort.”

“Warlocks don’t do ‘normally’, really,” Aldin told Jason. Then he leaned to Kera again. “Do you want me to get down, Kera? Or I can buff you from up here if you want to stay shifted.”

“Stay,” She rumbled firmly. “Let’s see how it works. I won’t have the stamina to shift again if I change now, and I don’t have my staff with me anyway. But will you be able to hang on?”

Jason left them to work out whatever they needed. He didn’t have any kind of weapon on him, but he wouldn’t let that stop him. He seized a pair of small metal batons and thrust them into what were normally his wand holsters, and snatched up a quarterstaff as well before sprinting back to the circle, where he was quickly pulled in. He passed a pair of potions to Lumi.

A good dozen adventurers, plus Jason and the others, stood in two circles around Ravs by the time she raised her hands. He barely had enough time to activate [Arcane Sight] as her spell completed. The mist spun up from the ground, enveloping everyone in the two rings, joined hand to hand. Kera provided the link between the two circles, with Lumi grabbing her by the horn on one side, with Aldin grabbing the other while an unknown adventurer had a grip around his ankle.

The world turned white.

The mists dropped abruptly, and Jason found himself in the middle of a small cluster of farmhouses. The other adventurers immediately burst into action, some casting spells on themselves, others sprinting towards the riverbank where several other farmhouses now sat. Smoke was just beginning to rise from their rooftops, and Jason could see dark figures pouring out of the water nearby.

Kera quickly lumbered forwards under Aldin’s direction, and everyone quickly followed.

“Buffs out!” Lumi yelled. “Frost Armor. Dawnbreaker. Wrathful Mantle.” She was suddenly sheathed in glowing, gold-tinted ice, the cold rolling off her in waves. In contrast, her longsword lit up with light, half-visible flames flickering along the edges.

Ravs and Aldin began their own spells.

“Frightful Presence. Spiteful Glamour. Invisibility.” Ravs commanded as mist wrapped about her and she faded from view.

Aldin, for his part, pressed his hands flat onto Kera’s back. “Flametongue. Rockbiter. Lightning Shield.”

Sparks and swirls of elemental power began to run up an down Kera’s body.

Jason raised an eyebrow at the young shaman. Apparently riding Kera meant she counted as ‘his weapon’ as far as The Voice was concerned.

He saw more notifications springing up; [Arcane Sight] was still active, and spells were flying left and right. He’d check later. He had his own skills to put to use.

As the others began to move towards the shoreline, Jason lagged behind, tucking the quarterstaff under one shoulder and pulling out his crystal fang and several doses of arcane powder. Swiftly he began carving into one of the batons he’d grabbed, using a mixture of actual [Engraving] and [Improvise].

It didn’t take him long to do the work, since he stuck to carving the simple parts while he focused his mind on [Improvising] the more complex runes. The work wouldn’t hold long, but it would do for now.

He muttered under his breath as he worked furiously, relying in Improvise to speed him along.

“Absorption… Control… Fire… False Life… Barrier... Motive…Barrier….”

It took several doses of powder, but it worked. With a flare of mana, the runes on the baton lit up; he could see the mana flowing along ghostly, invisible runes where he’d used improvise instead of carving physical channels. He’d managed a more than a dozen different runes; his largest enchantment yet, even if it was probably going to fall apart after a few minutes’ use.

But he be damned if it wouldn’t be effective against a bunch of murklings.

He joined several of the guild applicant students, mages, who were standing at the back line. The rest of his group formed up in front as the murklings continued to pile out of the river, milling about on the banks. There had to be at least several dozen, an equal number of frogoids, and he could see three Sobeks standing in the water.

At some unseen signal Jason didn’t see, all the murklings roared a united battlecry, and surged forwards.

Spells began to fly, streaks of light launching outwards to strike the monsters as they rushed the adventurers. A dozen were cut down in an instant, and then the frogoid vanguard struck the front lines where Lumi, Kera, and Aldin awaited with a trio of heavily armored warriors with greatswords.

Kera bowled into the group, bellowing, her horns goring and crushing the frogoids while Aldin tossed miniature lighting bolts with one hand from her back, holding on for dear life with the other.

Jason released the baton, holding it down and forwards with one hand. It floated in the air, and a shimmering sphere of fire began to take shape around. It appeared first as a swirl of ordinary fire, but then rapidly began to condense into the sort of solid-looking, magical flames that Lumi’s bracer and sun shield were formed of. In fact, that’s what he had taken the idea from. Except in this case, it was a sphere formed of multiple, interlocking barriers.

The sphere split apart, opening at the bottom and folding an outer layer downwards, revealing multiple shield-like shapes that split once more, first forming four lower, flattened legs, then a pair of arms, and Jason’s mana drained swiftly down to levels low enough to make him a little light headed.

It will be enough, Jason thought.

“Animate Object.”

His creation jerked upright: a fiery, four-legged, sphere about which four addition barriers spun madly.

“Designated Foe: Murklings.” Jason commanded, and his creation turned, and began scuttling madly in the direction of the fish-creatures.

Jason downed one of his rejuvenation potions to restore a portion of his mana.

His creation rampaged its way through the murklings, who scattered in all directions, fleeing from its fiery, spinning form. Jason began carving the sequence for something that would draw on his own mana to throw projectiles of fire; ones hopefully stronger than the smaller shadowbolts his previous wand had produced.

Thank god for learning that fire rune from Lumi’s Flare, Jason thought to himself. Lets see those sobek shrug off these.

He downed a least mana potion, hoping it wouldn’t react badly with the other one. So far he hadn’t had any issues with the least ones, but there was always a first time. Maybe he would ask Aldin about it; the young shaman had mentioned he had some healing spells, so he would know doubt know how it all worked.

Banishing his distracting thoughts, Jason took aim at the sobeks in the back row, waiting for them to advance into range.

In front of him, he saw Lumi call out an order, and the front-liners formed up around Kera’s flanks as Aldin released some sort of area pulse of healing energy; Jason recognized the telltale glow of green that enveloped everyone around him. Then, with Jason’s construct still rampaging through the murklings’ formation, Lumi and Kera led the others on a charge directly into the ranks of the frogoids, laying about with swords and spells and bellowing roars.

The frogoids didn’t stand a chance. Then again, they weren’t really meant to; instead, they were clearly supposed to buy time for the murklings to advance in formation, where their spears would be put to good use.

Unfortunately, spears weren’t much use against a non-living thing composed entirely of fiery, spinning shields that would catch your spear, pull it out of your hands, and then incinerate you as it just kept on going.

Needless to say, the sobeks were forced to act. They lumbered up out of the water, aiming their sonic blasts at Jason’s creation while he and the mages began to open fire on the huge reptiles. Multiple fire spells converged on the leftmost sobek, who fell to its knees before being struck in the face by a single, massive stone that fell from the sky. Jason glanced quickly in Lumi’s direction, and sure enough, she had one arm outstretched; she’d had a brief window of opportunity in her own fight, and she’s taken it. He saw her down a potion; probably the rejuvenation one he’d given her.

The other two sobeks finally managed to land their sonic blasts Jason’s rapidly-moving construct, just giving up on trying to hit it directly, and instead aiming towards it’s legs, bringing down several of their own troops in the process.

The damage was done, though; Jason had bought enough time for Lumi, Kera, and Aldin to devastate the frogoid forces alongside the other warriors. Meanwhile, a handful of archers and rogue-types were harrying the murklings who’d fled too far away, picking them off one at a time.

Jason pulled his staff up abruptly, redirecting the firebolt he was launching as a thick swirl of pale mist launched itself away from a nearby tree towards the sobek he’d be aiming at.

With a burst of air, Ravs reappeared, clinging to the back of the sobek’s head with her feet wrapped its neck. With a roar he tried to scrape Ravs off, but her body turned wispy and insubstantial as the creature’s claws passed right through her. She grabbed the sobek’s head in both hands, and it shrieked with unearthly sound that Jason was sure he never wanted to hear again, but probably would.

It began to flail wildly, laying about with wild abandon as if fighting unseen foes, smashing hapless murklings left and right as they got in the way.

Jason turned, and alongside the other casters began to focus his fire upon the remaining sobek, while the front-liners engaged the remaining murklings, making sure to keep well away from the madly screaming sobek with the elven girl attached to his head.

The battle ended swiftly after that; with their leaders downed, their formation disrupted, and two thirds of their forces wiped out, the remaining murklings fled into the water, harried all the way as the archers put arrows into the backs of those who weren't fast enough.

Jason discarded his staff, pulled out his two remaining rejuvenation potions, and went in search of anyone in need of healing.

A few hours later found Jason and the others sitting at one of the tables in the Lodge, relaxing with mugs of ale, mead, and tea, depending on individual preference.

“You’re telling me that was only a minor skirmish?” Lumi was asking Aldin.

“Yeah that was nothing. I mean, the dungeon’s new and all, right?” he replied. “Probably a good four times that in monsters if they’re raiding. Worse, that might have just been a probing force.”

Lumi looked at him aghast. “After only three weeks!?”

“Depends.” Ravs said with a shrug. Surprisingly, she’d gone for the spiced mead, which she was oddly enough drinking out of a teacup. Jason wasn’t sure why.

She took a small sip. “If the dungeon has something enabling it to get lots of food really quickly,” she explained, “they can grow at a truly frightening rate. That’s why the Guild has to be so careful all the time. Aquatic dungeons are some of the worst. I’m willing to bet this town has… or well, had, a thriving fish population. I wouldn’t be shocked to hear if the murklings have been cutting down trees and hunting in the woods on top of herding any local water fauna into the dungeon entrance directly.”

“How bad is this raid likely to go?” Lumi asked. “I don’t even know how many people we’ve got.”

“A little over thirty, give or take,” Aldin said. “Probably more like forty, and we’ll be divided into ten-man teams, further split into five-man squads. Hence us being together.”

“But I wouldn’t worry too much,” Aldin said. “Aurion and the other Thorns know what they’re doing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they move the timetable up, though. Just after a raid is a good time to go in, before the dungeon can respawn what it’s lost and is still struggling to re-process the mana.”

“I guess I’d better get to work fast, then.” Jason said. “Still need to open up Machinist, and I need to get cracking on forging all sorts of magical gear for everyone.”

“Speaking of…..”

He pulled up his status screen.

Levels Gained: Alchemist 12, Artificer 11, Engineer 4, Golemist 2. Skill points awarded. Stat Points Awarded.

He whistled. “I gained a level in every class from that fight.”

“Me too,” Lumi said.

“More than one in Scion for me,” Kera confirmed.

“Wow, how low are you guys?” Aldin asked. “That was like a drop in the bucket for me and Ravs.”

“Uh… pretty low. Its a long story.” Jason said uncomfortably. “Short answer, we’ve got a wide range of class levels right now.”

“Yeah, and I’m kicking myself right now for not taking my other classes yet,” Lumi griped. “In fact…”

She started poking at the air. She paused. “Huh. Well I guess I won’t need…”

Lumi shook herself, then made a few selections. Her form actively wavered for a moment as she made her selections. Jason wondered if she’d received some sort of passive ability.

“There. Lightbringer, Gloomguard, Nightscourge…. and a Knight specialization for evolving into Pyre Knight. All unlocked”

Aldin coughed, spluttering his drink across the table. “What?!”

Ravs managed to maintain her composure much better than her companion, but Jason thought he saw the slightest of eye twitches.

“Who are you people?” Aldin asked. “I’ve never heard of any of those classes. How can you just so casually pick up four new classes from nowhere?”

“Yes Aldin,” Ravs drawled. “I’m sure you’re a font of knowledge about all classes, everywhere. You didn’t even know the difference between Sorceress and Wizard when we first met.”

“Obviously, she’s been working on an elemental theme build,” Ravs continued. “Though I’m greatly curious as to where she got the access to so many different ones.”

“It’s complicated, and we’ll fill you in assuming Aurion gives us an OK,” Jason said firmly. “Now, lets see what I got for new runes, besides fire….”

Runes Learned: Ice, Fire, Weapon, Reshape, Fox, Aspect, Defense, Light

Jason grinned. “Welp, looks like this was worth our time. I think I got what we wanted for your clothes, Kera, and I should have enough for basic weapon and armor too. Learned new elements, even.”

“Yessss…” Kera crowed.

Jason gave Ravs and Aldin a considering glance.

“Look,” he said. “Let’s go find Aurion. I don't want to have to keep tiptoeing around you two, and eventually it's going to bite me if I do. If Aurion gives the OK, I’ll let you in on a bit of what I actually do. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, and it might kill two birds with one stone while I get to it while you two teach the three of us dungeon lore. I can get a lot done on the alchemy side of things while I listen in.”

“Alchemy?” Aldin asked.

“You’ll see.” Jason replied.