Level up! For protecting others with your combat abilities and reaching level 100 in an Anchorist-derived Skill, your Talent: Adept Anchorist has reached (22/50)!

Level up! For defending others with the use of your magic, your Talent: Adept Mage has reached (8/50)!

Level up! Cold resistance has reached (2/100)!

Level up! Piercing resistance has reached (3/100)!

Level up! Slash resistance has reached (4/100)!

Congratulations, Lucas Creo! By reaching level 100 with your Skill: Devastating Impact during an emotionally charged moment, your Skill has upgraded to the Skill: Decimating Impact!

Frostbite Wolves defeated (x43)! 6128 XP awarded!

Frostbite Wolves dropped: 82 Sparks, 36 Glints, 1 Gleam, Frostbite Wolf Teeth (x36), Frostbite Wolf Pelt (x12), Frostbite Wolf Hood.

‘Our group size really split the XP… I’ll look at this hood later, no sense scaring the kids with it if it looks like a frostbite wolf.’

Letting the kids out of my embrace after checking through my messages, I look them all in the eye. “You’re going to be okay. I’m not going to let another monster hurt any of you, okay?”

All I receive back is weak nods. The innocent spark in their eyes is dim at best, gone in the case of Daniel.

Fighting back my own tears, I sit with them amongst everyone else, whispering words of comfort to the children.

Becky quickly puts together some clothes for Daniel to change into. I note a significant amount of softness runes on the clothes. Even Becky’s normally placid look is gone, in its place is only concern and sadness.

Daniel barely acknowledges the clothes, simply equipping them through his menu and handing me the torn and blood-soiled remains of what he had on.

A few people in the group try some tricks with magic to brighten the kids’ moods, but they don’t seem interested.

Suddenly, Daniel looks toward Colt. “Will you do something for me?”

“Of course, buddy. Anything.” He smiles, kneeling down in front of Daniel.

“Make a frostbite wolf with that shimmery spell, please.” There’s a slight shake to his voice, but his eyes don’t betray his determination

Immediately, a few people in the group call out that it’s a bad idea. Colt meets Daniel’s eyes, however. “Are you sure about this?”

Daniel stands up, dusts himself off, and nods. His face is hard set, for a seven-year-old, and he looks ready.

A shimmer in the air appears for a moment, filling out into the form of a massive frostbite wolf. It dwarfs Daniel in size, towering over him.

His legs tremble under him for a moment but soon steady themselves. He takes out his cutting wire and clay rises up from the ground around him. He turns around. “Colt, can you please make it attack?”

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea…” Cassandra glances between the two of them.

“I think I have to agree with Cassandra on this one, buddy.” Colt frowns.

“Please.” Daniel’s eyes begin to well up with tears. “I need this.”

My heart shatters at the sight, Colt grimaces but nods to Daniel. “Okay, but only for a minute. I can mix in some Geomancy to make it physical if you want, but then you’ll only have about 30 seconds.”

“Do it.” Daniel turns back towards the image of the wolf as the shifting of earth indicates it gaining physical form.

The wolf lunges and Daniel bellows out, whipping his Artisan’s Muse toward it. It dodges to the side and a hint of earth shows as Colt struggles to adjust both the stone and the Glamour at the same time.

With a flick of his wrist, the sendite handle glows as mana turns on the sharpness toggle. It curves around in midair, turning back on the wolf.

Colt makes the wolf dodge once more, jumping at Daniel. He cries out slightly but stamps a foot on the ground. Clay spires jut out, hardening and turning into shrapnel as they shatter in the air.

Several stab into the wolf, disappearing behind the Glamour. Colt simulates it rearing back from the hit quite well, however.

With another whip of his Artisan’s Muse, the ground in front of Daniel cleaves open as he slices the wolf in half, ending it immediately. Colt sighs in relief as he drops control of the earth and the Glamour.

Daniel falls to the ground, switching between crying and laughing. Running over to him, I help him off the ground.

“I did it, Lucas. The wolf didn’t get me that time.” He breaks into a sob, pulling me close.

Maria runs over and joins in on the hug, so Charlie follows suit. They’re all crying again, but this time it seems to be in relief.

“I think you’ve earned this, Daniel.” Searching my hold, I pull out the Frostbite Wolf Cap.

Frostbite Wolf Cap

Quality: High

Traits: Chilling Sprint, Predatory Eyes

Description: This hat made from a wolf head retains the power of a wolf’s hunting instinct. When worn, mana can be input to coat oneself in frozen winds to boost their dashing speed. While wearing this cap, the wearer will find it easier to track their targets by sight.

He looks at it for a moment, sniffling slightly. He grabs the hat and equips it. It shifts from its previously large size that would have fit me to one appropriate for his head. A soft blue shimmer appears in his irises and his eyes dart around, tracking everything.

“Now you’re the one that will hunt them, huh?”

He feels at the wolf ears on top of the hat for a moment, then turns to me and grins for the first time in a while. “Yeah.”

“Daniel, are you… okay?” Maria steps closer, on the verge of tears once again.

“I’m okay, Maria. I’m sorry I scared you.” His eyes drop slightly but then widen in surprise as his sister hugs him once more. A few cracks and pops indicate she may be using more Strength than necessary.

“Can’t… breathe…”

Maria lets go quickly. “Sorry!”

But Daniel laughs again, breaking the tension between all of us. “It’ll take a lot more than a hug to beat me, Maria. I took on a frostbite wolf and won!” He grins at her and points to his hat.

“Guys… I’m sorry for bringing you both here.” Charlie stares at his feet, not meeting either of their eyes.

“We won though, Charlie! And I leveled up!” Maria points to herself with her thumb, smiling.

“Yeah, I did too! Those wolves won’t get us next time!” Daniel cracks his Artisan’s Muse like a whip for dramatic effect.

Picking up Argo, I return him to storage form on my ear. “Well, now that the excitement is over, I have a few questions. First, how did you guys even get out of that cave? Kayle and Vincent were supposed to keep you in there.”

Charlie raises his hand. “I did it. I pulled some holes out of my Hammerspace and put them on the walls. They take time to move through, so we couldn’t help you earlier.” He frowns.

“...You should have been staying in the cave but… you may have saved us, disrupting the battle like you did. But that doesn’t mean you should do it again, either. You’re still kids!”

“Kids with magic!” Maria splays her arms up toward the sky.

“Just… please don’t join more battles. My heart can’t take it and I don’t know what I’d say to your parents if anything happened to you. Explaining what happened to Daniel is going to be hard enough…”

“You’re going to tell my dad?!” Daniel rushes up to me. “You can’t do that!”

“I have to, buddy. I’m sorry. He has to know what happened to you in here. You’re acting tough now, but after we get out of here we’re going to have to find you an Adept Therapist or something… if any of those even exist.”

“Please, Lucas? It can be our secret.” He tugs on my northwing cloak.

“No, and that’s final.”

Daniel frowns but doesn’t fight it anymore.

“And Maria… how did you make your yarn… explode?”

She blushes fiercely, eyes averted from me. “I um, soaked it in an incendiary potion.”

“And where did you get this incendiary potion, Maria?” Lifting an eyebrow at her, she cows from my stare.

“We- we stole potions from your shop!”

“Ah. So that’s where all the healing and mana potions went.” Cassandra crosses her arms, staring critically at the three kids who are simultaneously shrinking away and giving Maria death glares for ratting them out.

“...We’ll discuss that later with your parents. I hope you didn’t gain a Fledgling Kleptomaniac Talent or anything.”

They shake their heads, relieving me that they haven’t set themselves on some Talent-guided path to a life of thievery.

“Okay, well for now, we need to get moving. We need to be out of this dungeon as soon as possible. I don’t want your parents joining some search party for you and getting hurt.”

“We left notes.” Charlie gives me a thumbs up and I glare at him.

“...Now there’s a chance one of your parents will come to this dungeon in a panic. Hopefully, someone will be smart enough to keep them in the city. For now, we need to get moving. And please spend this time thinking about what you did so you don’t make this decision again.”

Soon, while we’re walking, Daniel keeps pulling up his shirt and eventually walks up next to me. “Lucas, I don’t even get any cool scars from the wolf?” He frowns at me.

“Nope. The way health regen works, you perfectly recover from injuries. The most you’ll have is some paler skin. And stop pulling your shirt up, it’s cold out here!”

He frowns at me and pulls his shirt back down. It’s a long-sleeve style with plenty of heating runes to keep him toasty in this strange wintery dungeon.

My own sauna coat is keeping me perfectly warm despite my northwing cloak’s chilling effects. Soothing steam wafts off of me, staving off any tiredness in my body.

Several people in the group request use of the coat momentarily, which I’m more than happy to allow. We need to be in tip-top shape to take on the dungeon after all.

While we walk, Becky and Erika find more shimmergleams, which they pluck from the ground and turn into flower crowds for the kids.

Inspecting one myself, I’m a little jealous, admittedly.

Shimmergleam Flower Crown

Quality: Medium

Traits: Shimmer, Warmth, Comfort

Description: A crown made of the shimmergleam flower. This crown glimmers in darkness while also producing a comforting heat and instilling a sense of comfort in the wearer.

The crowns will have to be put away once night falls as they’ll make us stand out too much to the monsters, but they’re fine to wear in the daylight hours.

Besides, Daniel, Maria, and Charlie all seem to be in much better moods. The crown helps Daniel’s disposition immensely, even if he initially protested against wearing it until we found it still worked on top of his wolf cap, if to a lesser effect.

The closer we get to the dungeon proper, the harder it becomes to avoid monsters. They’re practically everywhere at this point, so we have to do a lot of hiding until they change locations, which makes our travel quite slow.

Daniel’s new equipment proves to be particularly helpful as he’s somewhat comparable to Erika’s own tracking Skills due to the predatory eyes ability of the wolf cap. He works as another pair of eyes to track subtle movements and help us avoid encounters.

An added side benefit is that he stays quiet with all his focus turned towards spotting monsters for us. The kids get chatty sometimes, the opposite of what we want when we’re trying to avoid a fight.

Everyone subtly practices different Skills while we walk. People with similar abilities help guide the children as well. Colt teaches more Geomancy abilities to Daniel, Becky and Maria have a talk about the use of fabrics in combat, and… no one really knows how Charlie’s abilities work but I talk with him in hushed voices about two-handed weapon use at the very least.

“...You see, Charlie. You need to keep your feet like this to really get the force out of a swing.” Moving through the motions Ilmarinen showed me, I keep pace with the group while doing it, similar to how I would move while approaching an enemy in combat.

He mimics me to some degree and takes a practice swing. His hammer hits a tree and it breaks with a perfectly flat cut in the trunk. Acting quickly, Colt and I use a mix of Aeromancy, Floramancy, and Telekinesis to stop the tree from falling and let it land softly.

“...Don’t hit the environment please, Charlie. How did your hammer make a perfect cut in a tree anyway?”

He shrugs. “That’s just how I figure it would happen in a cartoon.”

“Are your abilities really that imagination-based? How did you get them in the first place? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I put on this mask!” He gestures to the one he’s wearing. “Then I hit a big squirrel that was going after momma and it flattened!”

“Oh. Odd question but… do you think you could try hitting me with your hammer? Last time I was unprepared and I want to try something.”

He looks at me in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely, just… try to keep it quiet?”

“Alright then!” He winds up the hammer, shifting into the stance I just showed him.

Preparing myself for the hit, I focus with my will. When the hammer makes contact, I’m pushed back considerably and I feel a strange compressive force push against me, but I’m able to resist it.

‘Damn, how much Strength does this kid have?!’

“Hey! You didn’t flatten!” He glares at me.

“I think I figured out your weakness, kiddo. You’re always catching your enemies unaware with those portable holes from your Hammerspace. Once they expect the attack, it doesn’t work as easily.”

“I’ll just have to be sneakier then!” He starts to tiptoe around, making “stealth noises”.

“Woosh! Shoom! Fwew!”

“Charlie… you have to not make noise to be stealthy.”

“Oh, okay.” He makes his stealth noises, but quieter.

Facepalming, I give up for now. “He’ll figure it out when he can’t sneak up on anyone doing that.”

“Can’t sneak up on who?”

Nearly jumping out of my skin, I suppress a shout as Charlie hangs out of a portable hole in the air just behind me, grinning. “Fu- frick. Charlie! Be careful, I don’t want to attract any monsters.”

“You almost said fuck!” He laughs and jumps down from the portable hole.

“Hey! Don’t use that kind of language, you’re only eight. Wait a decade or I’ll tell your mom.”

His eyes widen. “No! You can’t tell her! She’ll take away my hammer.” He hugs said hammer protectively.

Ignoring the fact that she’s probably going to take it away when he gets back from the dungeon, I sigh. “How do those holes work anyway. Is it teleportation?”

He goes deep into consideration for a moment. “Maybe? It takes time to get from one end to the other. Here, look.”

Throwing a hole on the ground, he jumps into it and about the equivalent amount of time it would have taken him to move to the other side of me by jogging, he pops out of another hole that opens in the air.

Paying attention with Aetheric Supremacy, I can even feel a strange… something between the two points in space.

“Weird. I guess it’s almost more like a stealth Skill than a teleportation Skill then. No idea if you’re able to be hit by anything while in it and frankly, you’re a child, so I’m not going to try.”

“I can take it!” He shadowboxes at me, but I simply stop his fists with my hands.

“No.” Folding my arms, I try to give him my best parental-denial look.

“Awww…” He fake-sulks and walks off to rejoin Daniel and Maria who are still chatting away with Colt and Becky.

“Those kids are something else, aren’t they?.” Erika strides up next to me, looking at the three children.

“I know… I feel so guilty for what happened, but their mental tenacity is impressive. I wonder if Willpower has anything to do with it. I think I remember from a psychology class I took once that kids actually come back from trauma surprisingly well. They might have some nightmares or something though.”

“I hope they don’t have too many lasting effects from this. Those flower crowns are certainly helping though. It’s good to see Daniel in a better mood. I think it’s good he feels he has a purpose right now with tracking.”

Erika, seemingly reminded of the task herself, stops to check some tracks in the snow and runs her fingers across some plants. Only then do I note that the plants have clearly been run through as some are broken or otherwise disturbed.

‘Huh, she’s definitely better at tracking than I am.’

“What kind of Skills or Perks do you have, Erika? Sorry if that’s a rude question, I’m just curious.”

She looks up in thought for a moment, seeming to consider what to tell me. “I’ll share a Skill and a Perk of mine if you’ll do the same.”

“Sounds fair.”

“Alright, the Skill I’m using most is called Perimeter Cut, it helps me detect things that have been disturbed in the area around us, like this tree. See the scuff marks here? That’s probably a clawed creature of some kind.” She gestures to a tree where there’s a barely noticeable scratch in the bark.

“Oh, yeah, never would have noticed that myself. Those are some subtle marks. Do you want to know my detection-type Skills or something else? I don’t have many detection Skills if I’m honest.”

“Hmmm… I guess any Skill. I’m just curious what makes you so strong.”

“Well, I have this Skill called Storm’s Rage. It’s not my highest-level Skill or anything but probably one of the most interesting ones. It’s an aura Skill, so it lets me press my will on the world. As a side effect, it also creates a storm of wind and water around me, which can be kinda inconvenient at times…”

“How does the aura will thing work?”

“Oh, like… I can attack things with my mind I guess? I’d show you but then we’d be caught up in a snowstorm, which doesn’t exactly sound stealthy to me.”

She chuckles at that. “No, I guess it doesn’t. Well, my main tracking Perk is Nature’s Whispers. Don’t tell anyone but… I can commune with plants sorta. Not words or anything, but I can gain info on events happening around them based on their own sensory abilities.”

“That’s a cool one. What sensory feelings to plants have though?”

“Nothing crazy. Just stuff like air pressure shifts, something touches them, or even things like moisture in the ground. Some of the more magical plants have additional senses but those are always strange to tap into.”

“Huh. Weird stuff. Speaking of weird, I have a Perk that lets me enchant my body. It’s called Writeable Flesh.”

“Wait, really? That sounds powerful.” She scans across my body, seeming to look for any present enchantments.

“Yeah. It’s pretty nice for things like blacksmithing because I can make my arms heatproof. The enchantments don’t last long though, especially things like the heatproofing enchantment because its power is used up fast.”

“Oh, mind showing me what it- oh fuck. Everyone down!” Erika shouts at the top of her lungs and most are quick to respond as the next moment we hear a deafening roar once more.

The trees above us snap and crack as the ice dragon from earlier swoops down. It has a target, however, and snatches Adreanell up in its claws from the front of the group.

She shrieks in terror, reaching out for someone’s grasp.

“No!” Cassandra begins running toward the dragon. “Hex: Weakening! Hex: Slowness! Hex: Heavyweight!”

Sprinting after it as well, the dragon slows slightly but it’s already gaining significant distance on us. Lightning Cloak coats me and I chug a dose of flight potion. Taking off in the air after the dragon, I pour mana into speed.

It notices my pursuit and flicks its tail toward me. Air colder than anything I’ve ever experienced hits me and my body freezes over. Plummeting out of the air, something catches me, but my entire body is frozen so I have no ability to check who or what did.

The last thing I hear is another roar as the dragon disappears into a cloud of fog that must be the dungeon proper, Adreanell clutched in its talons.