The rain slammed in waves against the windows. Flashes of lightning revealed soaked newspapers, flower pots, and tents soaring over their city. Then the glass was black again and twenty blurred reflections moved about the workshop as alchemists emptied old stocks to reap double the harvest tomorrow.

Potions were being capped and cooled in an icebox. Crystal dust was swept from lockers and empty jars, rinsed, and added to cheap lures. Hollow pill capsules were filled and tablets pressed.

They’d been at it for a few hours, before the rain had begun and as the storm grew worse, and they had to hurry. Any second now, a teacher might storm in to shut them down.

“Are you sure about this …? Look, climb out of the potion for a moment and— Ah-ha! See? I ask you to climb in, you climb in. I ask you to climb out, you climb out! You don’t even know what you’re doing.

“ … You can nod all you want, you have no head. You’re good at collecting information, I’ll give you that, but can you process it? Are you just copying me?”

Micah stood in the middle of the hubbub, talking to a beaker filled with a simmering earthy liquid. He slowly shook his head no, paused, then slowly nodded yes.

He thrust his arms out and groaned. “Do you see how this isn’t helping me?”

Forester leaned over to him, “So he’s insane, is that it?”

Mason turned back to the fume hood, finished burning an ampule shut, and stamped it. He didn’t want to give a reaction, but he struggled not to come to the same conclusion.

Cutting off his [Blowtorch] spell, he said, “Vent.”

Forester hit the switch and the fume hood came to life. It would take a few seconds for the chamber to ventilate, so he shook his hands out and got the reinforced containers to put the ampules in.

These were some of the strongest lures they could make. They had to handle them with care. If one made contact with the air, his allergies would be the least of his worries. The stench would cling to him for weeks.

But as soon as his hands were free, his itching skin flared up again.

He hadn’t even eaten anything he shouldn’t have, but he was surrounded by bubbling fluids over burners and piles of nutritional powders, and the fumes were getting to him.

Two more months. He just had to get past the fall season. Sometimes, it felt like the middle of Winter was his only respite.

“Who’s that?” one of the first years on bottling duty asked. They must have overheard Foresters’ comment. To them, the grade skipper had to stand out.

“Micah Stranya,” Forester said. “He skipped two grades, is top of our class, and also cracked in the head.”

They aahed. “What is he doing?”

Forester smirked. “Isn’t it obvious? He’s talking to his potion.”

“Yeah, but … why?”

“I don’t care if you want to see what the insides of a potion look like!” Micah said. “You will die—be destroyed. Whatever. Here, move over to this glass for a moment.”

“Something about free divination potions for tomorrow?”

“He can interact with magic,” Mason spoke up. “Think druids.” He wanted to take the heat off him, but the rolling thunder drowned out his words.

It was half a blessing in disguise. A nasal drawl tinged his voice. He needed a tissue— Better yet, he needed a cold shower, a dark room, and some skin creams.

Magic in various colors lit up the distance as people wrestled the storm. A few sirens announced the first floods. He hoped his aunt would be alright. She was a firefighter.

When the noise let down, the first years cast a nervous glance outside and continued to gossip.

Delilah shushed them with a glare. She sat with a leg up on a workbench two rows over, taking notes against her knee. A bat ate fruit inside her hoodie. “It’s hard enough to listen with the rain hammering down on us. If you’d shut up, he’s describing his work.”

“—going to give you a test run to prove to you that this isn’t safe.” He took one of his gloves off and held a hand over the glass. An ethereal green gas flowed from his palm to fill it.

Mason was mostly finished with his work. He stayed to watch. A few basic herbs and water went into the glass, more a tea than a potion. A stamina pick-me-up, maybe?

Holding the glass to his eyes, Micah stirred it and spoke in a cautionary tone, “Last chance. If you get hurt, it’s not my fault.”

Nothing happened. After a moment, he infused the glass.

Then he froze. “Huh.”

He took a sip. “Huh.”

Mason counted the seconds to let him think before he prompted him, “What’s up? Did it work?”

Micah must have only then noticed them watching him. He nearly jumped and quickly lowered the glass, the ring on his neck staining itself a pocked red. “Yeah. Yeah! It worked.”

“What did you do?” Delilah leaned forward with a hungry expression, pen held to paper.

“I asked the uhm— the divination web, I think you call it? Yeah, I asked them if they can fuel the potion for me.”

“Asked … them?” She said it like two different questions.

“Asked them nicely? Sorry, one second.” He sounded distracted. “Listen up, folks! If we’re doing this, I’m going to need a lot more of you to help me out. Nope. Even more. Even more. Keep it coming—”

He waved toward the windows as if to direct people into a room. More and more of their classmates glanced at him now, in-between finishing up their projects and making trips to the trash.

Another flash of lightning lit up the distance, and Mason imagined a glistening arm made of spider webs trailing into the room—Micah had described it to him once before; his imagination filled in the blanks.

Rather than unsettle him, it left him … frustrated.

He had found his own opportunities over the summer. He was level ten, thanks to the changes and unrestrained practical experience he had access to.

But instead of getting [Restored Constitution] as he had been hoping for, he’d gotten a knock-off appraisal Skill that worked by sampling things. [Bill of Health].

His first five levels had been solid. Then, he had come here and … some of his Skills were decent. He hadn’t lagged on his Path.

The plan had been to do this for two years to get some practical experience, get the Skill he wanted, and move on. And sure, parts of that had changed but …

How far was he willing to go?

“Uh, Mason,” one of his classmates turned to him. “‘You want to check if whatever he did actually works? If not, that’s a perfectly good [Detect Grass] potion he’ll be wasting.”

At least, having an appraisal Skill gave him senior rank among his classmates, and the teachers trusted him more. But it had also made him into the resident guinea pig.

“Over here. Stay away from the other projects— Yes, they look interesting but you can’t— No! We only have so much time before Jung kicks us out, people!”

Micah sounded like he was herding cats. He didn’t even notice when Mason sipped his tea. [Bill of Health] told him what it did, how long it would take for the effects to kick in, and how long it would last …

… which was confusing, because the potion in and of itself informed him of his lung capacity and remaining endurance. Some sort of [Bill of Stamina] potion?

Wait, Micah could even copy his Skills on a whim?

He pointed at his original beaker again, waited one second, and stomped a leg. “Get in the damn potion, sheesh!”

Mason stared at him. He was cracked in the head, but if that was the price he had to pay to get ahead, he thought it would be worth it—not that there were any vendors selling talent around.

He thought of Forester’s snide comments. Rather than choose envy, he smiled. So what if he hadn’t been born with any advantages. He’d continue to work hard and leverage the ones he did have. Including his friends.

“You okay?”

Micah noticed him and gave an exhausted smile. “They’re worse than my cousins. One [Detect Life] potion, coming up?”

“One? If [Detect Life] potions grow on trees for you, there’s no way we are letting you make us just one. The goal is to make bank tomorrow.”

At that moment, Brent stepped back into the room, returning from the kitchens, and picked it up, “And on the day after that, to drink like it’s the last day of summer— Oh, wait.”

Someone chuckled. Mason could drink to that. At least, he had a healthy liver to ruin like everyone else.

The short guy introduced himself as Frederic. Apparently, he’d been in second place during the entrance exam? Ryan barely remembered him.

They asked Jason about what he’d been up to over summer break—”Ah, you know, adventuring mostly”—and as the rain picked up, they, everyone around them, and their grandmothers sought shelter in the guild.

Even huddling up in the far left corner didn’t spare them from the crowds. “I’ve seen you around. You’re always hanging out with that Heswaren girl,” Frederic was saying and snapped his fingers. “Uh … uh … uhh …”

“Annebeth?” Lisa asked.

“That’s it! So are you guys like, a team or what?”

“Sometimes?”

Ryan was shit at remembering names. He didn’t buy the act. But he didn’t want to engage with whatever the hell that awkwardness was.

Instead, he asked, “What’s this ‘quest’ about?,” and patted himself off with the spare towel he kept in his duffel.

No need to offer it to Lisa first. She’d been magically dry a minute after they stepped inside.

“Oh, here.” Frederic pulled an envelope from his bag and handed a document to Lisa rather than to him.

The guild was already beginning to smell like fresh rain and damp clothes. They stood near the doors into the office spaces. Not because they couldn’t get a booth—if it had been just Jason, he might have sat. His instincts made him wary of the two of them together.

Jason was at least familiar, but Frederic was trying too hard. It reminded him of those parents who weren’t quite separated yet, who put on smiles in public.

“Wait, like an actual quest?” Lisa asked.

“The guild is getting into them again,” Jason told them, and Ryan glanced at the nearest reception booth on reflex, sharing in his excitement.

That was stuff straight out of fiction: the guild being so swamped they brought in outside help; a plucky protagonist taking the opportunity and discovering a secret.

“It’s basically an internship.” Frederic’s sardonic smile might as well have let the rain in. “We literally had to pay them to get a hold of this.”

“Sixth floor, too …” Lisa mumbled. She looked up from the page. “What’s the point?”

“I know, right—”

“Loot. Civil service. Work experience,” Jason cut him off. “The guild has a problem that is threatening first years. A few teams have already been wounded. But they’re short-staffed even a year after the changes and this is below most of their teams’ paygrade—”

“So they spin it as a ‘quest’ to attract idiots like us.”

Jason glared. “It’s an opportunity. They already sorted through the witness reports to give us all the information we need, including a hint at something valuable—”

Lisa perked up when he mentioned that and started searching the page. Jason pulled it out of her hands before she could find it, and she leaned over to continue reading as long as she could.

He held it to his leg and went on, “They’re also tossing in a free ferryman service to get us as close to the camp as possible. We can be in and out in under a day. All we have to do is write a report and give a testimony afterward.”

“It’s practically a voluntary exam during summer break,” Frederic complained.

Ryan scowled. If he hated the idea this much, why was he here? Nothing was forcing him to do this … Unless, had they signed a contract or something?

Wait, why were they even teaming up in the first place? He’d never seen them hang out during the school year and they weren’t acting like friends … Were they roommates? Or maybe their parents knew each other.

“‘Camp?’” Lisa caught on the word.

“Yeah,” Jason winced, “on the topic of exams …”

A threat on the sixth floor. Camp. Ryan connected the dots. His eyes widened. “Oh no.”

“It’s not that bad—”

“Oh,” Lisa caught on and turned to him, “there might be Salamanders?”

“Nope.” Ryan stuffed his towel back in his duffel. “Not interested.”

“From the moment we discovered them, we knew someone would have to deal with them on a regular basis. Like exterminating pests.”

“‘Someone.’ Not me. I’m not getting peppered by itching darts and running through the mud for hours on end again.” The mosquitos at scout camp had been bad enough. They’d at least had ways to deal with those—alchemicals, Skills, even just nets.

This? Not worth it.

“Itching darts?” Frederic asked.

“The report doesn’t mention itching darts,” Jason reassured him, “maybe these don’t have earth-shaping pitons? There are other traps but this time, we can prepare. Micah can—”

Lisa sucked in a breath and mimed cutting her own throat.

Jason paused. “Uh?”

“Micah’s not coming,” Ryan told him.

He frowned. “Is he hurt?”

“No.”

“Okay …?”

Frederic jumped in, “Then maybe we can invite some of your other teammates.”

Ryan scowled, threw his duffel over one shoulder, and glanced him up and down. “Why did you two take the quest if you aren’t confident you can do it alone?”

“We were supposed to have a team,” Jason said, “but our scheduling delayed things and since it will fall on Friday now, his friends bailed on us—”

“At least I have friends.”

“Do you ever think before you speak?” Jason snapped and gestured at them. “Who are they supposed to be?”

“Your pity party?”

Yeesh. Ryan relaxed his posture again, suddenly feeling sorry for Jason. If Frederic could push him that far, he had to be worse than Kyle. Just with a charming smile.

“Adding more people to our team just means we have to split the reward more ways,” Lisa spoke in a low tone and glanced at the damp crowds around them.

Ryan could hear her fine, but the other two needed a moment to parse the question under the clamor of the crowds and rain. Then Jason shook his head. “Not an issue here.”

That got her attention. “Really? What treasure is worth suffering through another established Kobold camp?” She mouthed the last bit, Another hoard?

Ryan thought of the mountain of loot they’d sifted through. They’d had to split that one with a whole other team—he hadn’t even gotten to choose any of the items because of his punishment.

If they could split another one among the four of them, or five to six if they invited anyone else …

Jason eyed the group closest to them and whispered, “Better. But I can’t—”

A low rumble cut him off, and Lisa glared at the window. She kept the glare up for a moment as if to intimidate the brewing storm into submission.

“I need your word that you will consider it, at least, and that if you turn us down, you won’t tell anyone,” Jason spoke like a treasure hunter about to reveal a map to his crew.

Ryan went along with the bit. “Cross my heart and hope to die. Although, I am, of course, crossing my fingers behind my back to stab you in the back later.”

“Same,” Lisa said with a straight face.

Jason chuckled and brought the document up again.

Frederic looked at them in disgust.

“Okay, here …” He pointed to a paragraph near the bottom.

… witnessed a golden wall of light near the center of the camp through his familiar’s eyes. Due to the familiar in question, he was unable to determine if the wall was translucent, like the entrance to a guardian’s chamber would be, or fully gold.

We cannot confirm nor deny a possible entrance to the Theatre.

Ryan stared at the report. The Theatre.

Lisa became oddly intense. “How old is this report?”

“Huh? Uh, the camp has been harassing climbers for the last two weeks—”

“Not that. How many people know about this?”

“This quest has been public for the last three days,” Jason said, trying and failing to hide a smile.

“And you want to go tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I mean, we needed a team. I’m not even sure if the four of us can do it alone. And we still need to prepare our equipment.”

“I can ask people,” Lisa said like it wasn’t an issue. She glanced at the receptions and back to the brewing storm. “Right. Okay. We’re going. Tomorrow. As soon as possible.”

“Crack of dawn?” Ryan joked.

“Seven a.m.,” she told them. “We meet up so we can be here by half-past when the ferry offices open up.”

“Wait, seven in the morning?” Frederic asked. “On a Friday? During summer break?”

She glared at him. “Is that a problem?”

“Uh, no …?”

“Great, then we’ll make an appointment to be sure we get there on time.” She left for the reception booths. Frederic followed.

Ryan eyed him with concern, still unsure how to feel about him, but then he saw the genuine excitement on Jason’s face and had better things to think about.

“Hey, can I see that report again?” Jason handed it to him and Ryan skimmed it on the go.

He had wanted to take it easy for a bit. He had just leveled on Sunday and gotten two new Skills. And he didn’t want to get his expectations up just to be disappointed but … the Theatre was supposed to guarantee a level up. If you could beat its challenges.

What if he could be level twelve tomorrow?

Maybe that was why Lisa was so excited about this. “Kobolds …” he muttered. If only it weren’t for them.

“At least, we’ll get to pay them back for last time?”

Jason nudged him, and Ryan caught a glimmer of worry in his eye. ‘Last time,’ he had lied to him to get him off his back and ran off in a suicidal charge because he couldn’t control his emotions.

He gave a pained smile as the guilt wormed its way through him. “Yeah. It won’t be like last time. I promise.”