It isn't every day that you have to deal with the prospect of not being anything special. Getting a second chance in life was what made him stand out among the crowd. Now to find out there were people who through some means could do the exact same thing… Well, let’s say that it is not so comforting.

Pivoting his attention back to Soykan who tore the scroll in his hand, Magnus watched out for the next phenomenal. He did not have to wait long as right before his very eyes a giant ball of blazing fire appeared in mid-air and headed towards the small chunks of ice which was the Alpha creature.

Magnus had to take a few steps back as some of the flames capered of the ground when it struck the frozen remains of the Alpha creature.

It was only after the fire fizzled out, that he was able to get a good look at what was left of the hybrid.

The answer to that was nothing, the ice must have sublimated into steam with how hot the flames were. Plus, the small chunks of flesh must have smoldered into a pile of ash and taken by an updraft. Even his tomahawk which was already ruined thanks to all the spells it received was no more.

“There, it is as dead as it could be,” Soykan declared.

Magnus couldn’t agree more, the hybrid creature was dust in the wind.

“Ah, if you are wondering what that spell was, it was…”

“A Fireball,” Magnus completed for Soykan. How couldn’t he not know about the go to spell in all fantasies! The fireball.

“Alright then,” Soykan said as Magnus notice a hint of dejection on his face. “Let’s get out of here now.”

Magnus did not need to be told twice on that matter, this place was going to the dogs!

Still wanting to make Soykan feel a bit better and also having ulterior motives. “Come on Soykan there is no need to feel down,” he remarked as they went down the stairs by twos and threes.

“I have a better idea, why don’t you teach me how to make these Magical Scrolls?”

Soykan shook his head as he alighted on final landing, and then turned to face Magnus, “No can do that kid, sorry.”

“Why?” Magnus asked, trying to gain a clear understanding of his reasoning. He hoped the man was not like the Matron who refused to teach him because of personal reasons.

With a deep sigh, Soykan answered back, “First of all it is not so simple as you think. It will take years for you to get a basic understanding of the Art of making Magical Scrolls. Moreover, this art is a Profession, one that you pursue for your entire lifespan.

Anyways, I just literally can’t!

I signed a magical contract with Greybrows stating that I can not teach anyone the Art without their express permission. And let’s just say the Greybrows and I are not on speaking terms.”

Although Magnus was saddened with not being able to make those Magical Scrolls of tremendous power. Soykan had a reasonable justification for why he couldn’t teach him, and Magnus did not want the man to break his contract thanks to his own selfish reasons.

However, Magnus caught on to something, Soykan had a connection with The Guilds. Magnus always did think of him as a high born, the tutelage that the man gave him said it all. But who knew that he was actually part of the Guilds.

Also Magnus was curious about the other things that Soykan said, namely Art and Profession. The way he said, it was like they meant something and had a higher meaning.

But before Magnus could raise his question they were out the back entrance. Then they were greeted to the sight of a few survivors milling about and Bulut leaning over the carriage.

The relief on the survivors were palpable once they saw both thieves come out of the building. They came over and started to yammer away with dozens of questions; asking what held them up, are they okay, and so forth.

Magnus smiled as a twinge of contentment passed through him, it felt good to be the heroes once in a while, and be appreciated by the masses.

However, Soykan was having none of that, he held out his hand to silence the crowd and said to them.

“That will be enough!” he shouted to the survivors, then his voice took on a much warmer tone.

“I know this must have been a terrible night for every single one of you, plus you must be bone tired. Hence I would recommend that you all go home, see your loved ones, hug them, let them comfort you if you will, and rest.”

With that Soykan turned his back on the crowd and walked over to Bulut, who unlike the survivors had a tranquil expression. “I see that you took care of that hybrid monster!” Bulut stated once they closed the distance towards him.

“Yea, it was easy to handle once it did not have those faceless things as a back up,” Soykan replied.

“Shit,” Magnus swore out loud.

“Language, kid,” Soykan warned as he did his best to put on a strict face.

“Fuck that,” Magnus said as he ran back into the tavern.

“What do you think is up with him?” Bulut asked, “and where the hell is he running back to?”

“No idea,” Soykan replied with a shrug. “But I will tally that with the insubordination of tonight.”

“Could you fault the kid on that? We were gone for quite a while there, and he started to get worried.”

“He wasn’t ready for the field…”

“Ow, please,” Bulut said stopping Soykan right there. “If tonight proved anything then it is he is ready! He did superb, beyond superb, actually!

The way he thought quick on his feet and came up with all those bright ideas, how he saved those people and lead, how he stood his ground against me, and most importantly how he got rid of all those creatures!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Soykan said with a shake of his head. “He should have done as he was told and stayed back.”

“What did you expect, he got that from us. Do you see us obeying the laws?”

“If we let him off like that, then we are…”

“Soykan,” Bulut said, interrupting the man mid-sentence. “We all know what this is about.”

“What is it about?” Soykan asked as his schooled his face.

With a deep sigh, Bulut answered, “You are projecting your son upon him.”

Silence greeted the area around the two men, with each saying nothing at all.

“I am back,” Magnus shouted as he slammed the door open, breaking the oppressive silence. He did not come alone as slung over his shoulder was the middle-aged woman he ran into.

“What has you two in a dour mood?” Magnus asked as he looked at each man in turn.

“Nothing,” Bulut quickly answered back, too quickly in fact to be genuine at all.

“Well,” Magnus said waving off their weirdness. “Do you recognize this woman?”

The two men looked closely at her, then recognition blossomed on their faces and they both said, “Ahh!”

“Yes, ahh,” Magnus said in a sarcastic tone. “You were about to leave that poor woman behind in that fire.”

“Please,” Soykan said with an eye roll. “That woman was the gang leader’s wife.”

“And?” Magnus asked as he waved over one of the people still remaining, then tasked them with set down the woman down some were, away from the fire. He saw no reason to discriminant against the woman, what her husband did was all on him, not her.

“Plus, she is the left hand woman of the gang,” Soykan finished with.

“Well, I hope all of this was worth,” Magnus said, now feeling awfully tired as his adrenaline started to wear off.

“Of course it was,” Soykan declared as he held out the back of holding and shook it. “We cleaned the whole treasury from top to bottom.”

“Alright that is enough of that,” Bulut pronounced, “let head out.”

“Sure,” Magnus said, “but I have a question that has been bothering me.”

“Could we please do this, back in the hideout?” Soykan asked. “Even with the slow response time of the guards, they will be here at any moment, now.”

“Okay,” Magnus said as he hopped into the driver's seat. “I was just wondering about you said; you and that creature were at the same rank. Yet, you were able to handle it with ease and no difficulty. Why is that?”

Instead of Soykan answering, it was Bulut who replied, “Well the answer is simple; practitioners don’t have magic. They only focus on strengthening their body, mind, and spirit. While magic users do that and then some; which is control the elements and create items of magic.”

“Well then,” Magnus mused out loud while he whipped the horses, to move forward as everyone was inside and ready to leave. “If magic gives you that good of an edge, why doesn’t every practitioner learn a spell or two?”

Soykan snorted in amusement inside the carriage.

“What so funny?” Magnus asked. He thought, that he raised a good question. If his memories served him well, even that fanatic bozo of a priest was able to do a spell.

“If it only it was that easy,” Bulut said with a sad shake of his head as he pulled away the veil.

“What do you mean?” Magnus asked as he rushed over to the driver seat.

“What he means is that you have the wrong understanding of things. You just can’t learn a spell and start flinging it around. There are certain steps you need to take before that, which requires a formal education.”

“Formal education?” Magnus asked, he wondered what he needed to learn.

“Yes,” Soykan shouted out from his unveiled window. “And you can only get it from the Guilds.”

“Can’t you do it?”

“No,” Soykan replied. Magnus did not even want to ask why as the man’s expression started to darken like it always does when Magnus hits upon something from his past.

“Could we go now?” Soykan asked as schooled his expression. “We do not have all day before the guards come and Bulut’s hand looks pretty bad.”

“This is nothing,” Bulut said from inside the carriage, wanting them to stop worrying.

“Sure, and having a hole in your stomach is only a mosquito bite,” Soykan retorted.

“Alright, slow your horses, we are almost there,” Magnus said.

As the trio of thieves made their way down the stone steps, they were greeted to the sight of Shui and Taylan equipping themselves with weapons and gadgets.

“What are you guys up?” Soykan asked with a raised eyebrow as he and Magnus lugged Bulut between themselves.

The big man did his best to sheer through it but soon he broke down into a fervor. That is when Soykan and Magnus became aware of how bad his wounds were.

“We were about to come after you, that is what’s up,” Taylan replied as he put his hands up in the air, showing his frustration.

Then he saw the dreadful state they were in and his expression softened up, “What happened?”

“I could ask the same,” Shui voiced as he looked them up and down then saw all the soot, blood, sweat, gore, scratches, bruises covering them, and even faceless creature’s head attached to Bulut’s hand.

“Let’s just say we ran into some complications,” Soykan answered.

Magnus snorted and then remarked, “Now that the underestimation of the year.”

“What the hell is that?” Taylan shouted as he finally noticed the faceless creature chopping down on Bulut’s hand even in death.

“Well, they were part of the complication,” Soykan retorted.

Magnus shook his head and ignored Soykan’s antics, he and Taylan could be so similar at times. It was only thanks to the role of leadership that he carried which blunted his edges, that he was not confused as Taylan’s brother from another mother.

Getting to the matter at hand, Magnus turned to face Shui and got down to business, “I dared not to remove the creature’s head since it was the only thing stanching his wound, and keeping him from losing blood.”

“It was a good call,” Shui replied as he helped them carry Bulut to the treatment room which he so famously dubbed the medical bay and then stuck.

They laid Bulut on one of the three cots which took up the room and then Shui started to inspect him. “Magnus,” he said, not turning around.

“Yes?” Magnus asked as he stood to one side, ready to assist in any way possible.

“Go get me my bag in the next room over.”

Magnus nodded his head and run off to do as he was told.

“You two,” Shui said as he turned to face the two men milling about and trying to get a closer look. “Go outside and do whatever you wish but I need you two to be out of my way as I work.”

“If it is the healer’s orders, then we shall follow it to the letter,” Taylan said as he inclined his head and headed towards the door.

“Whatever he said,” as Soykan followed Taylan out of the room.

“So let me get this straight; all was going well. You and Bulut got into the tunnels with little to no resistance and you made your way over to the vault. Then blow the place wide open, clean it out, then you guys were about to head out, when you ran into these creatures.”

“Yep,” Soykan said with a nod of his head as leaned back in his chair. The two men sat outside the medical bay with drinks in hand as they shared tales of what went down tonight while they waited for Shui and Magnus to patch up Bulut.

“I got to say they were nothing I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of stuff in my days.”

“I can see that,” Taylan agreed. “That ugly mug of that thing on Bulut’s arm gave me the shivers like never before.”

“Well the rest was history from there,” Soykan said, carrying on with his tale.

“We tried to fight our way out but there were a lot of those things and they had an Alpha of sorts. We even got cornered for a while and were about to kiss our asses goodbye, when that Alpha creature created an opening for us.”

“Wait, this Alpha creature you are talking about, was it as ugly as those faceless things?”

“Oww, it did look hella ugly, but at least you could have stomached its ugly mug.”

“So it was only thanks to good looks on its part that it lead the rest, huh?”

“I guess so,” Soykan replied as he lightly snickered, “but also because it was the most powerful; 1st Circle practitioner.”

“Dang, you do not see a lot of people at that rank.”

“Indeed. Though don't sell yourself short. You guys are about to break into that stage any day now.”

“I guess,” Taylan said with a careless shrug. “So humor me, and paint me a picture of it. I do not want to ever run into one of it.”

“Well, the thing was a mix between those wolves you could find in the Golden Plains and those gorillas off in the jungles of the Myriad Temprates, I think.”

Soykan turned to face Taylan and say the confusion on his face, “Ohh, sorry, I forget that you have never left the Starry Mountains.”

“It is alright,” Taylan said as he waved off Soykan’s chagrin. “Tell me about those other lands.”

“Well, once you really get down to it, there might be some surface level differences, but it is the same old, same old. Individual, whatever they might call themselves, ruling the downtrodden.”

“So, tell me what happened next?” Taylan asked wanting to leave behind the depressing mood.

“Well, that thing was throwing boulders at us while its friends harassed us. Then one of the stones flew above and into the tavern common room. Bulut went ahead while I fought that thing and that must have been when he got injured.”

Once Bulut’s injury was brought up, both men went silent as they looked at the medical bay.

“Do you think he will be alright?” Taylan asked as he couldn’t help expressing his worry.

“Yea, he is a big man and a tough son of a bitch! Plus Shui knows his stuff and is the best physician there is,” Soykan replied, though he was as worried as the thief.

“So how did things go down on your end?” Soykan asked clearly trying to point Taylan’s attention to another side.

“Well, I think I might have caused a civil war in the streets.”

“What do you mean?” Soykan asked as he turned to face the man

“Well, I guess I was too good for my own sake,” Taylan replied as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head

“What did you do Taylan?” Soykan inquired, or more like demanded.

“Well one thing lead to another and then before I knew it, things got out of hand.”

“Details, Taylan!”

“Okay long story short, I really got the Jade Vipers riled up. They brought in their allies and big boss, which their rival responded in kind. Then it just got bigger and bigger from there, until it reached the point where nearly all the city’s gangs are fighting in the streets right now.”

Soykan had nothing to respond with as he simply just rubbed at temples trying to alleviate his throbbing headache.

Then suddenly, Magnus and Shui walked out of the medical bay, there was blood all over their clothing and Magnus looked very pale.

“So how did it go?” Taylan asked as he and Soykan were at rapt attention.

“Not so good,” Shui replied as he wearily sighed.