“Oh my fucking goodness,” Sue shouted. “That must be one of those affinity revelations that Deklajan keeps on talking about. What the fuck, Daniel? You have been holding out on us! What level are you? Six? Seven? Or even higher than that?”

“Well, uhm, nine?” I responded hesitantly. It wasn’t information that I had necessarily wanted to divulge, but obviously, these affinity revelations were supposed to happen at a higher level. And despite my misgivings at spilling the beans on my skills and levels, I realized that I was even more afraid of losing the trust of these people.

I had met them only a couple of days ago and spent even less time with them than that, but I felt… close to them. Trusted them. And I needed that. It was weird for me to feel that needy, that insecure. But with Annie god knows where I had no one else. There was no one to call, to text, no Facebook postings to share experiences vicariously. So unless I wanted to be a hermit or the lone wolf hero that rejects all human interaction as a weakness, I needed this. And being caught hiding too much about myself, or outright lying to the others was the quickest way to destroy this budding relationship.

“What?” Sue shouted, sounding almost outraged. “You are at a higher level than all of us? That’s just not fair!”

“What she is trying to say,” Ben said with a smile, “is that we are quite impressed by your accomplishments. I think only a couple of the EFU members are higher level than you. And, of course, Chad and his group. Well done!”

“Now it also makes more sense that you managed to evade that weyr swarm and the gars,” Jimmy added. “There was no way that a level one or level two person would have enough mana to keep their camouflage up sufficiently long. We don’t have too many shadow mana users in Lake Placid, but I do know that much.”

“Well, I say that he is a liar!” Sue insisted with a pout on her lips. “He tried to fool me into thinking that he is a weakling.”

“Wait, what? I didn’t do anything of the sort,” I said somewhat defensively.

“No worries, Daniel. That is just Sue’s jealousy speaking,” Betsy chuckled. “She always wants to be on top.”

“No, that’s not true,” Sue immediately countered.

“Yes, it is!”

“No, it’s not!”

As things were descending into a childish squabble, I managed to relax. The reaction to my high level had been much more muted than I had been afraid of, except Sue’s outburst. Still, even that seemed more like a momentary outrage about me out-leveling her, than a permanent grudge.

For the next few minutes, I tried to explain to the others without much success what the affinity revelation had felt like. Eventually, I had to accept, though, that there simply was no good way for me to explain it. It had to be experienced. And, frankly, I wasn’t entirely sure what had happened or what impact it might have on me.

Maybe it somehow affected my shadow mana spells? Curious, I activated Shadow Skin for a brief moment. The black mana surged to my skin in something closer to a wave rather than the trickle I usually experienced and, it was hard to tell, but it felt as if the mana consumption of the spell had slightly decreased as well.

So this affinity stuff was some type of meta ability? Something like internal or external mana manipulation? What was the difference between those, though? Perhaps shadow affinity was only for shadow mana spells then? Easy enough to test. I pulled amber mana to a scrape on my skin and encountered about the same level of effort and time, as had been the case previously. So it stood to reason that mana manipulation was a general skill that allowed the user to perform ever more complex spells. Affinity then, perhaps, represented the ease with which one could manipulate a particular type of mana. The level of the individual spell was the narrowest gauge of proficiency, as it only targeted one specific magical effect.

I quickly checked my stats and confirmed that shadow affinity had appeared and currently sat at a level of 1. And, more importantly, it was a skill, not a spell. Down the road, when I was going to spend my skill points, it was going to be an interesting question on whether they should go into affinity or one of the mana manipulation skills. Generally, it seemed easier to level a manipulation skill by just train the heck out of it. Affinity, on the other hand,… how would you train something like that? That said, affinity was much more specialized, which wasn’t a concern for someone with only one core, but I had four of them and needed to balance things.

Something to think more about in the future.

I looked up from my musing and suddenly realized that the others were staring at me.

“Hello, Daniel? Anyone at home?” Sue asked somewhat sarcastically.

“Sorry, I was just lost in my thoughts, trying to figure out what affinity did and how that would affect my training.”

“You are such a nerd,” Sue groused. “Who thinks about training after such a breakthrough? We need to party! I wish we had some booze. I can’t believe that someone cleaned out all the fucking stores before I thought about it.”

“I have a couple of cans of beer left,” Tom said quietly. “I’m happy to share for such an occasion.”

“You have some booze?” Sue almost shouted again. “Tom, I fucking love you! Did I ever tell you that? Even if you’ve been holding out on us as well, you son of a gun! Now bring the beer, and let’s party!”

“Wait,” I raised my hand, “I actually have something better. Let me go get it. I… uhm,…”

Shit, I wanted to say that I had some booze in my room, but the others had carried me up there, including my backpack, and they would have surely noticed the clinking of bottles. And didn’t want to really disclose that I had a bag of holding… that was one of the aces I needed to keep back, just in case. Desperately, I tried to come up with something reasonable, but my mind completely blanked. In the end, I said somewhat lamely: “I hid a couple of bottles down in the lobby before trying to level up my stats.”

“Hah, why the fuck would you hide the bottles in the lobby, Daniel?” Sue laughed. “You’re such a weirdo… but no matter, go, get them! I want to get drunk asap! And a couple of cans of beer just won’t do that. No sir, not even close.”

Sometimes there are benefits to being considered somewhat strange, I supposed.

A few minutes later, we were all sitting companionably in the dark room, slowly sipping whiskey on the rocks, with ice generously created by a flash of blue mana from Jimmy.

Now that was a useful skill, I mused. Shooting icicles at opponents was nice, but being able to create ice for cooling was even better, in my opinion. For one, it was a comfort thing, being able to cool down drinks, but the other aspect, much more important, was that it would allow for some cold storage. I hadn’t really thought about it yet, but in the long term, we were going to run out of cans and other preserved food, and then we needed to figure out a way to keep food from spoiling. I had no idea how people had done that in the past… something about placing water in a way that it evaporated and cold night temperatures. Luckily, we didn’t have to revert back to that with people like Jimmy around.

Now I only needed to get my hands on some coke. Whiskey was…. overrated, I thought. Granted, it gave a good kick and a hot rush extending from the throat to the rest of the body. But I had expected a bit more.

“Why is everyone raving about whiskey?” I grumbled into my glass.

“What are you talking about?” Sue asked after happily downing a shot in one go. “Whiskey is the best… mind you, I do like wine as well, vodka, cocktails, beer. But whiskey has this special something.”

“I like Baileys or Irish cream,” Betsy confessed, slightly wheezing from the hard liquor.

“Really? Baileys? C’mon Betsy, that is such a girly drink!” Sue chortled.

“I like it too,” Sam said in an effort to defend Betsy.

“Too soft, too creamy,” Tom commented from the side, his rough face softly illuminated by the dim light of the stars and the moon.

“Well, I’d prefer Coke or Pepsi, to be honest,” I muttered.

“What the heck? Really?” Sue asked disbelievingly. “How old are you anyway, Daniel? Are you even legal drinking age? Can’t tell with your skinny appearance… you might be sixteen or thirty-five for all I know.”

“I am twenty-three!”

“Twenty fucking three, and you prefer coke?” Sue laughed. “When I was your age, I was drunk every weekend and sometimes during the week.”

“When I was your age?” Tom snorted. “That sounds as if you are old. Sue, I hate to break it to you, but you are only twenty-eight, hardly an old woman.”

“Fuck you, Tom,” Sue groused good-naturedly. “At least I am older than this skinny dude in our midst.”

“Midst? Who uses that word these days?” Jimmy chortled. “Are you trying to sound sophisticated? I have even more bad news for you, Sue… that train departed a long time ago. Right about when you first opened your mouth to ask the rest of us to group up.”

“Fuck you as well, Jimmy.”

After a minute of silence in which everyone was sipping on their drinks, Ben asked: “So, Daniel, you don’t like Whiskey… what alcohol do you like, if any?”

“Frankly… I don’t really know much about alcohol. I drank a few beers several years ago, but that is about it. Since then, I haven’t touched the stuff.”

“How come? You don’t like it?”

“Well, after I drank those beers, I tried climbing a cliff without a safety harness or ropes, and that didn’t end so well. Lesson learned, I guess.”

“Ouch, so I am guessing you fell…?”

“Right you are. I was in a wheelchair for the next four years. Hardly in the position to enjoy booze.”

“The perfect reason to get wasted, in my opinion,” Sue threw in. “But to each their own, I suppose. How did they fix you after four years? Some new medical advances?”

“Magic,” I responded without further elaborating.

“Magic?”

“Yup.”

“C’mon, Daniel, you can’t just dangle those juicy bits in front of our faces…”

“Wait,” Ben suddenly said. “No fucking way… don’t tell me… are you that Daniel? The one in the wheelchair? Of course, you are. Shit, I knew that you looked familiar. Why didn’t I recognize you before?”

“Yeah, that’s me. And I guess I look quite different. The healing took a lot out of me.”

“So, you didn’t screw with me when you said you had been to Lake Placid in the beginning, huh?” Sue said thoughtfully. “Well, I am glad to hear that things worked out. And it must be a great feeling to be walking again, after all those years!”

Sue raised her cup in the air. “Here is to magic healing!” She said, before quaffing her next shot.

“Magic can sure do some amazing things, right?” Ben wistfully said. “I just wish we would have had mana before.”

For a few moments, it was quiet, as everyone was contemplating that particular truth, and then Ben began to speak. “I guess I never told you guys about myself... I was driving through Lake Placid, deciding on a whim to make a stop, take a look at the town, and show my kids and wife the Olympic Ski Jumping Complex.”

Ben chuckled sadly before continuing. “She had cancer, stage four. It was…” he stopped talking for a moment, and I could hear him swallowing hard. “It was a bit of a goodbye tour if you know what I mean. She had decided to stop the treatment just a couple of weeks earlier. There was no point, she argued, claimed that it just made her feel bad and that she just wanted to spend quality time with the kids and me.”

Ben began to choke up a bit but continued. “They are, were, ten and eight, respectively. Sarah was the fierce one, always climbing on stuff, running around, screaming like a banshee for no good reason beyond her wanting to scream. John, he was quiet. Always came to hug his mom and me. They were so sweet and innocent, so full of life, so… fuck. I… sorry, I can’t.”

No one knew what to say, how to react to that kind of tragedy. Everyone had their story, their problems, but this was worse. Finally, as the silence stretched out, becoming uncomfortable, Tom reached over, patted Ben on his leg, and filled his glass with whiskey.

“It doesn’t make the pain go away… but it helps for a bit,” he said with a rough, gravely voice. “I should know.”

After a moment, he continued quietly, almost thoughtfully. “I can’t say that my experience compares to yours… but the love of my life, my high school sweetheart, my wife for twenty years, left me for another guy. Some bloke with a fancy car and too much money to fucking care about anyone. And she just… packed up and left, from one day to the next. It came out of fucking left field for me. About three weeks ago, I signed the divorce papers… I quit my job and decided to get out, be by myself somewhere in the wilderness. Just me and my bow. Get back my balance, or… or just, you know, end things. I hadn’t really decided one way or another.”

Sue leaned over and gave Tom a quick hug. “I am glad that you are here with us. And fuck that bitch!”

“Don’t call her a bitch,” Tom responded, sounding slightly upset.

“Fine,” Sue said. “Then she is a cunt. That is no way to treat you, Tom. You should stop longing for her. She treated you like shit, as far as I can tell.”

Tom sighed. “I know. But still, I can’t help it. Maybe you haven’t been in love yet, Sue. Not that love is a matter of age… but once you have found your love, you can’t just pack up and move on, you know?”

Sue harrumphed. “Fuck love, is what I say. Get some good-looking hunks for booty calls and live life to the fullest. That is my motto.”

“Nah, I disagree, Sue,” Betsy chimed in. “I want more than just sex. I am just off my latest Tinder hook-up, and, predictably, it was another disaster. He was just another guy that was too full of himself, not able to listen, to share, or empathize. He was merely gunning for my tits, I guess. So annoying. He is an academic and once he heard that my father is a hard-working blue-collar, with a nine-to-five job at an assembly line, and my mother runs a cleaning business, he was all arrogant and snobbish, despite me having an engineering degree which probably pays twice what he is earning.”

“Hah, which just proves my point,” Sue shouted. “Guys are useless!”

“Sue, you do know that four guys are sitting around you, right?” Jimmy chuckled.

“And?”

“Well, I mean,” Jimmy seemed to flounder for a moment at the blasé discounting of the men in the room. “Are we all that bad?”

“Oh, Jimmy…” Sue said with a giggle. “You are a sweet guy, but not exactly manly, you know?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Jimmy responded, almost sounding a bit hurt. “And even if your opinion about me is that low, what about the rest?”

“Ben? Sweet guy, just too… normal, I guess. Like, you know, a forty-year-old white suburban man. Nothing exciting. Too solid, really, to be interesting. A slight stomach pouch, receding hairline. Not a bad catch overall, but I am like twenty-eight.”

“Thanks for the glowing assessment,” Ben responded dryly while patting his tummy thoughtfully.

“What about Daniel and Tom,” Jimmy said exasperated.

“Hey, leave me out of that,” I protested, not interested in being eviscerated like that in front of the whole group. I knew my shortcomings and didn’t need to hear them pointed out by that nutty girl.

Totally ignoring me, Sue continued. “Daniel… too skinny, somewhat weird, awkward. Magnetic eyes, though. And I like that sinister, mysterious shadow aspect. But, if I was humping him, he would probably just die. So, no. And Tom, well, I Iike Tom. But as we just heard, he is totally mooning over his lost love. Did you know that he didn’t even once stare at my tits? What kind of guy doesn’t at least look?”

“Well, I like all of you,” Betsy chirped.

“Really?” Jimmy’s voice turned hopeful. “So, -“

“No.”

“Ok, I… I mean, I wasn’t going to really ask,” Jimmy said with a deflated voice.

“Jimmy, just because a woman likes you doesn’t mean that she wants to date you.”

I had to chuckle at all the, mostly, good-natured ribbing and back and forth. These people were clearly comfortable with each other, and Sue did obviously care about the rest, despite her crass language and rather frank assessment. It was certainly refreshing compared to most other people, who would hide their opinions, only to badmouth others behind their back. Perhaps I felt oddly cheerful because Sue hadn’t outright shredded me. I could live with being somewhat awkward or weird, and the skinny part I would work on soon enough. Not that I necessarily wanted to shag her… well, honestly, I guess I did. Which reminded me of Annie.

“So, Ben. I assume that you remember Annie… do you happen to know where she is? I stopped by the bed and breakfast, and there was no sign of anyone having been over there for a few days. Did she move to a different place?”

“Oh, Annie.”

There was a pause as Ben seemingly needed to collect his thoughts. “She… searched for you. A lot. She was quite frantic, to be honest. Running around the whole town, talking to people. She even went into the surrounding woods. And then, two days after you had disappeared, she went to Big Pete. She was going to ask about you. And… we never saw her again. We tried looking for her, even went to the bikers. But they claimed that she had never shown up. Eventually, we had to abandon the search, focus on our own survival. People were still disappearing all the time, random monsters and such, you know?”

I suddenly felt cold inside. It had to have been the bikers. They had done something to her. Maybe imprisoned her. Or worse.

I suddenly remembered what John had told me about the woman that had argued with the bikers and then had disappeared. At the time, I had mostly ignored it, treated it as just another side story of an overly loquacious guy. But my gut feeling now told me that the woman had been Annie.

I softly put down the glass with whiskey, got up, and moved toward my room without another word, while the rest of the group looked on in quiet commiseration.