Gem sat on a bench in the large open area behind the Headhunter’s office. Abigail sat open next to her. Gem had been working on her aura while waiting for Rod to come outside.

“Good morning!” Gem chirped.

Good morning Rodrick.

“Good morning you two. We can begin whenever you are ready, now that I no longer have a pair of customers complaining about rotting corpses.”

“I’m ready.” Gem affirmed.

“Good. Now, what kind of training do you have?” He asked.

“None.” Gem answered.

“Ok. Let’s warm up, then I’ll teach you a few basic moves.”

“When are we going to spar?” Gem queried.

“Later, when you’re ready.”

Rod then moved into guiding Gem through a series of warm-up exercises. The warm-up then smoothly morphed into the actual instruction session. Gem and Rod moved on to practicing a few moves: nothing fancy, just a couple of blocks, strikes, and holds. They moved slowly, the focus on the actual mechanics of the moves. Speed would come later.

As the sun reached its zenith, Dani appeared with a set of large baskets full of food.

“Good afternoon! I figured you could use some lunch. Plus I wanted to see how Gem was getting on.” Dani greeted brightly.

“Hey Dani.” Gem returned the greeting.

The three sat in a patch of grass and dove into their lunch of fresh fruit, a couple pickled vegetables, and hard-boiled eggs.

“So Dani, how’s the inn going?” Rod asked.

“Business is good. Of course, Valerie keeps trying to clean out my alcohols, but that is nothing new. How’s the incident going?” Dani replied, adding a question of his own.

“We made our report and got a response almost immediately. The Lord Reagent is sending Sers Graham, Pearce, and Zamora. They’ll be here the day after tomorrow. We’ll probably be setting out after they’ve got a few hours of rest and we’ve all had a chance to put a plan of action together.”

“Zamora… Isn’t she one of Sam’s old protegees?”

“She is. We are definitely going to have our hands full keeping those two on mission. There are lots of nasty people in the Crimson Drakes, and while they certainly deserve to be stabbed in the face; or other regions; with five VIPs; two of which we know very little about; we really need their skills.”

So why would Zamora and Sam together be a handful, exactly?

“They have shared passions for knives, stabbing transphobes in the face, and stabbing rapists in the gonads.” Dani deadpanned.

Oh dear. That may actually be a serious issue. Sam gave me a copy of your guys’ report last night. They were very proud of the fact that there are now a half-dozen men who will never father offspring, and because several of them probably died.

“That does sound...troubling.” Gem pondered.

After lunch Rod went over the rules for their first spar.

“So now we’re gonna spar. The rules are pretty simple: don’t use killing blows or anything that can cause collateral damage. You can and should use magic, so long as you keep in mind the rules about collateral damage. Either of us can surrender at any time. Do not abuse surrender! We only start or restart a bout after we both agree and countdown. Are we clear?” Rod directed.

“Yes sir.” Gem agreed.

Understood. Gem will only be using Aether-balls for today. We’ll be spending some time with Sparky to teach Gem an actually effective offensive spell.

“Aether-balls are perfect. Enough oomph to feel the hits, but not enough to actually injure.” Rod nodded in approval.

Gem and Rod assumed their starting positions at a pair of marks in the dirt.

“So; Gem, Abigail; are you ready to begin?” Rod requested.

I am ready.

Gem checked Abigail before agreeing:

“We are ready.”

“As am I. We begin in five…”

Rember, The Plan.

“Four…” Rod continued.

“The Plan.” Gem confirmed in a whisper to Abigail.

“Three…two...one...MARK!” Gem joined Rod in the countdown.

Rod dropped into a combat stance and began a circling approach towards Gem. Gem focused on the spell formations on Abigail’s surface, while never taking her eyes off of Rodrick. The first spell to flare to life was a powerful alacrity spell. The increased speed made Gem look somewhat twitchy, but with supernatural precision.

The second spell to start up allowed Abigail to float around Gem through a pinned spell, which was massively more efficient than for the book to use her own hover spell. The final spell spawned a set of four dinner plate sized bucklers that hovered at the ends of Abigail’s tendrils.

Rod was impressed at the teamwork the new partners were already displaying. They had phenomenal potential, and he and his colleagues had the honor of being the first to shape such a duo.

But such ponderings belonged in the future, when Rod didn’t have to worry about dodging the pellets of energy that Gem hurled his way. He responded in kind by tossing some beanbags back at the Demoness. Abigail perfectly intercepted all of the projectiles with her shimmering shields.

Rod pulled out his sparring bow and nocked one of the specially crafted arrows. Each arrow was made of loosely packed sand and held together with a weak enchantment. They would survive being fired, but would fall apart upon hitting anything.

Despite the increased velocity, Abigail proved perfectly adept at blocking all of Rodricks shots, even when he used his skills to increase to a flurry of arrows.

With over half of his arrows spent, he admitted that Gem and Abigail held the advantage at range, at least without him resorting to a real bow and arrows. But those were not at all allowed in a spar, just like a powerful offensive spell from Abigail was not allowed. So he started to close in on the pair. Forcing Gem to move caused her rate of fire and accuracy to reduce substantially, but he still had to be careful.

Gem suddenly changed up her attack pattern. She would stop and concentrate, spawning a dozen Aether-balls before throwing them in a spread that forced Rodrick back.

“Taking a page from my book, aren’t you?” Rodrick admired.

Gem didn’t reply, as she was far too preoccupied.

Despite Gem and Abigail’s best efforts, Rod still got closer and closer. Finally, he was ready for the final push forward. Gem’s aura flared as he expected, but rather than send more Aether-balls his way, she put her all into her alacrity spell.

Then Gem surprised Rod as, rather than use her temporarily superior speed to engage him, she burst forth and quickly moved to the other side of their arena.

Rod was stunned for a moment, then started laughing. Of course they had planned this. Why would they let him get close when they could just run and put pressure back on him at range. Several Aether-balls bapped into the distracted Rod before he could hold up his hand.

“Enough, enough!” He managed to enunciate through his laughter.

Gem immediately stopped firing balls of energy, and also dropped her spells.

Dani, as it turned out, was actually laughing so hard that he had tears in his eyes.

“I wish you could have seen your face when they just ran away from you! It was priceless!” Dani guffawed.

Rod gave the elf the stink eye. “You had a hand in this, didn’t you?” He accused.

“I just reminded them that there is no shame in an expedient retreat. Actual implementation was left up to them.” The elf explained.

Rod just shook his head.

“Alright you two! Come on over here so we can debrief!” Rod shouted to the pair on the other side of the field.

After Gem and Abigail walked over, they took a seat on one of the benches.

“Ok. So, first and foremost, really great teamwork out there you two. Fantastic division of labor with flawless execution.”

Thank you.

“Thank you.” Gem accepted the praise.

“Fighting to keep me at range where you have the advantage was a great choice. Always play to your strengths and cover your weaknesses. With only a few hours of hand-to-hand training, you are correct that you stand no chance against someone with decades of actual life-and-death close combat experience. At range your aura gives you way more ammunition then me. The spread shots were also very good.”

“I thought of that after you tried to overwhelm Abigail.”

Rod nodded. “That’s what I thought. And I have a suggestion for the future: try using a lot of different velocities, as it’s much harder to dodge than a more consistent wave. Remember that combat takes place in a three dimensional space, and the more volume you cover, the harder of a time your enemies will have moving.”

We will definitely work on that, once Gem gets generating multiple spells at once down. I’ve also thought about a couple spells for her to use. I was thinking of having Sparky teach her a basic zapper sphere, and I’d teach her a force bolt. Zappers are quite visible and painful to get hit by, but don’t do much more than harass. The force bolt on the other hand, it’s nearly invisible and can do some serious damage when it hits. Thoughts?

Rod considered for a few moments. “Sounds good to me. When were you thinking about doing that?”

Gem? Tomorrow?

“Yeah, tomorrow. My aura’s pretty drained right now.” Gem replied.

Does close quarters training in the morning and magical training in the afternoon sound good?

“Sounds good.”

“Sounds like we have a plan. I only have one question left: Do you have the energy to do a quick hand-to-hand bout, or are we done for the day?” Rod asked.

“What do you think Abigail?” Gem deferred to the book.

I think we should be done for the day. Take some time and decompress. Maybe go see Valerie about some armor.

“You know what? I think I’ll come with you guys to see Valerie. It’s been a while, and It’ll be nice to see you again.”

By which you mean that you don’t want to spend the rest of the day scrubbing days-old dried blood and gore off of half the surfaces in your office, and it’s too early to go to Dani’s and get hammered.

Rodrick wanted to protest, but the book had him pegged.

I’m sure we have time for one drink while we rest before heading over to Valerie’s.

“Now you’re speaking my language.” Rod enthused.

Dani just shook his head. His old friend and colleague was definitely the type to shirk his duties when it suited him. He was always quite serious in the field, but their group’s dealings in towns and cities had always fallen to the other three members of their group, most often Dani himself. Sparky was a little too fond of his electricity, and Sam was, well, Sam.

“Come on then, alcohol ho!” Rod cried.

“Ugh. Fine.” Dani complained.