Chapter 30

Inconceivable

“You mean Hashilli?” asked Janus.

“Yes. I spoke with him yesterday,” Devon replied.

“This is the guy then, Devon?” Pella said, eyeing Hashilli. “Good find. Might be the only [Enhancer] on the station.”

Pella seemed to realize her mistake almost as quickly as she made it. Janus stood behind Hashilli, awkwardly shuffling his feet.

“Wait, no! Janus. I’m sorry we would have asked you, but…” Pella sighed. “Well, I thought you were dead.”

What am I going to do, get mad about something I didn’t even know was happening? I basically did the same thing, anyway….

“Don’t worry about it. I, uh, I sort of have a team now, too,” said Janus. He glanced at both Rowan and Tara.

“Wait, are these your old teammates? Awkward,” said Rowan.

“Uh, sort of?” Pella took out a silver eagle and began rolling it over her knuckles. “We went to the same… school, I guess. What about you guys? [Trickster] and [Paladin], huh? Not exactly your run of the mill.”

Rowan quickly searched through his pocket, grinning in triumph when he produced his own silver eagle. He rolled it over his knuckles, and the coin shimmered slightly. Moments later, he was carefully maneuvering five coins at once.

“Right back at you [Phenom]. What is that even supposed to mean?”

“You know, like the root word for phenomenal.” Pella raised an eyebrow. “Can you even do a coin trick without relying on illusions?”

Tara pushed a sputtering Rowan out of her way. “Hey! I’m Tara. Nice to meet you, uh…”

“Pella.”

“Pella! I love your name.” Tara grinned.

“Likewise, Tara. We should all get together sometime. Devon can pay for the drinks.” Pella elbowed the scarred swordsman.

“Yes. Well, we must get going. We have a small job clearing out [Dust Elementals] in the Stacks,” said Devon.

“Oh, right. Well, don’t let me keep you.” Janus waved at the others.

He watched as they left the guild. Pella gave a small wave before stepping outside.

“Ah, let’s get somethin’ to drink!” Rowan exclaimed.

Tara folded her arms across her chest. “It’s noon, you dimwit.”

“I meant, like, juice! Or, or Tea! Coffee?”

The two continued to bicker as Janus took the lead in choosing a table for them to sit at.

“You should buy a hat,” said Rowan, pointing at Janus’ head.

“Why?”

Rowan grinned. “Do I really need to explain myself?”

“He just misses Hashilli,” said Tara.

“Bah, Hashilli and that grumpy looking guy with the scar look like they’ll get along just fine. But nobody thinks of me. Nobody thinks of little ol’ Rowan.”

“I think you’d be surprised,” said Janus.

“Oooh, drama about Hashilli? He a different man in private, aye?” cooed Rowan.

“Not really, I guess.” Janus thought about Hashilli confronting him the night before. “But that brings me to another point. I have to tell you guys about something.”

Tara gasped. “You have a dark and mysterious past?”

“Uh, what? No, sort of, I don’t know. The point is that I wasn’t being entirely truthful when you guys met me. I’ve never been on a delving team.”

“Wait what? What about the dungeon?” asked Tara.

“This sounds ridiculous, I know. I cleared the dungeon on my own.”

Rowan spit out his “tea,” and slammed his mug on the table. “You what?”

“Let me start with that skill I told you about, the one that can copy other spells.”

Janus was getting tired of explaining everything so many times over the past few days, but in this case, he had brought it upon himself. As he recounted his time in the tunnels and in the dungeon, Tara began looking more and more excited, while Rowan grew more and more disbelieving.

“You blew it up? You blew up a [Crystal Golem], at what, level 29?” asked Rowan.

“Actually, I think I was level 26.”

“That doesn’t make it more believable!”

“Hold on! I want to see it,” said Tara. “The explosion.”

“Sure, I guess. Is there a place to spar, or something?” asked Janus.

“Yeah, below the guild. You may have seen it yesterday.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what Tara was talking about, but the space below the guild had seemed very large. It made sense, the guild wouldn’t want delvers sparring in the middle of the station.

The group made their way out of the commons and down into the tunnel network. Janus was surprised to see a bunch of neatly arranged sparring platforms, just like Crow Station had. They were off to the side from the neatly arranged tunnel entrances.

I guess I wasn’t really focused when I got here.

Tara beckoned him towards the platforms and plopped down on the ground, crossing her legs.

No benches here? Well, at least the Crow Station guild had one thing on Bear Station.

Janus did his best to make the right size of mana pearl. Too much mana and he could catch others in the blast. He snatched the pearl out of the air, turning and showing it to the others.

Rowan began backpedaling. “Didn’t you say those things were volatile? Toss it! I don’t wanna get charred!”

As Rowan finished speaking, Janus tossed the marble onto the center of the sparring platform nearby. He had gotten used to the kickback from the explosion, but it was still difficult to keep his balance as the marble detonated.

As the flaring mana cleared out, Janus noticed that other delvers had stopped sparring to stare at him. He coughed awkwardly and turned back to his companions.

“See? That isn’t even the biggest explosion I can make.”

“Oh my stars. I think I’m in love,” said Tara.

Moments later, she noted the strange look that Janus was giving her.

“With the explosion! The explosion!” she exclaimed.

That makes a lot more sense….

Rowan simply stood there, agape. The diminutive redhead was speechless for the first time since Janus had met him.

“Well, that one hundred percent settles it! You are absolutely on the team,” said Tara.

“Wait, there was a chance that I wasn’t on the team?”

“Well,” Tara shifted on her feet. “We had to make sure you could actually handle yourself. I mean, no offense! It’s just, we have to rely on each other to get out of some of these places alive.”

Rowan finally broke himself from his stupor. “Are you serious? Of course he’s in! Think of the writs we could tackle with this guy! Stars, he’s walking treasure house!”

Janus wasn’t used to the praise. Back in Crow Station, he had always felt overshadowed by Pella and Devon. Even towards the end, he struggled to beat them in sparring matches.

Well, I haven’t sparred with them since the attack. Now… now might be a different story.

“Get your mind off the money, Rowan. Think of the high level dungeons we could hit. I want to kill a level 100 boss!” said Tara.

That was enough to bring Janus back to the conversation.

“What? Level 100? I, uh, I’m not sure about that,” said Janus.

“What he said, lass. I can’t spend money if I’m dead,” Rowan stated.

“Bah, if you guys are too scared, we’ll just level up a bit first.” To Janus’ surprise, Tara actually scowled.

There’s no way she was being serious about killing a level 100 boss, right? We’re, like, level 30 on average.

Tara’s mood seemed to recover quickly. “Anyway! Today is my day off. I wanted to show you around the station, Janus! Rowan will come, too.”

“I will?”

-

Janus tried to explain to Tara that he had been in the station before, many times, for classes. She insisted he did not get the real Bear Station experience, and it surprised Janus to find out that she was correct.

There were a series of shops further into the station that Janus had never even seen before. Tara even introduced him to a few of her friends along the way. She seemed to know every other person they passed. Rowan trudged behind them, looking bored.

Before long, his arms were loaded down with bags of clothes and other essentials. He hadn’t even gone out of his way to find things. Tara simply grabbed whatever she thought he might need, adding it to the pile. She insisted that if he couldn’t afford everything that she would cover the difference.

Even Rowan started to get into the tour, talking about his favorite places to go. He dragged the others along to a shop that sold enchanted items. Unfortunately, most of them were simple and not particularly useful for delving. Instead, the shop sold them as curiosities. It was no surprise that Rowan’s favorite items were the ones that could project small illusions. He even bought Janus a cube that projected an image of a [Crystal Golem].

Finally, the group started heading back towards the guild. Tara made sure to route through “the Stacks” on their return trip. Janus remembered Devon mentioning the region earlier that day, but had no idea what he was referring to.

The Stacks were a section of Bear Station, with structures reaching almost all the way to the top of the cavern. Janus had seen it from other parts of the city, but never knew what the structures were for. Close up, it was easy to tell that the stacks were a massive mushroom farm.

According to Tara and Rowan, Bear Station handled a lot of the food production for all the stations. Basically, any type of edible fungus could be found in the Stacks.

It was still a little overwhelming, being in Bear Station. Janus knew from experience that the crowds and noise tended to make him uncomfortable. But it was much easier to tolerate when he was with Rowan and Tara. The pair had a way of keeping him distracted throughout the discomfort.

Janus wasn’t certain how long they had been gone, but it must have been most of the day. By the time they finally returned to the guild, the lighting runes outside were dimming. The group found themselves where they had started the day, seated at a table in the commons.

“So, what do you think of Bear Station?” asked Tara.

“Uh, there’s a lot more here than I thought. I guess that makes sense, though. I always went straight from the rail line to my college.” Janus shrugged.

“Wait! I just remembered. You weren’t an official member of the guild, right? Don’t we need to get you signed up?” asked Rowan.

“Oh, right. I took care of that yesterday.” Janus fished around in his pockets, presenting his new delver ID. “See?”

“Awesome! We’ll have to show you the ropes. I forgot that you’re basically brand new to the guild,” said Tara.

The group exchanged their final pleasantries and split up for the night. Neither Tara nor Rowan lived in the guild like Hashilli, so Janus saw them off at the guild entrance.

Lugging all of his new stuff upstairs had been an extreme struggle and Janus sighed in relief when he finally reached door 314.