Maya quickly realized the drawbacks of using Wind Whisper as the basis for all her modified spells: it had the most troublesome somatic components of any spell on her list. Requiring both hands plus her mouth made Wind Word, Flame Word, Flame Whisper, Frost Word, and Frost Whisper all very easy spells for any attacker to disrupt or prevent.

Spark, on the other hand, was significantly harder to prevent because it required only one hand, but it wasn’t as versatile. She could make it bigger, but it still remained a largely light-based spell and even pouring in the same amount of power as a Flame Word the oversized Spark did significantly less damage for the same cost.

Maya sighed. She remembered overhearing someone at the mage academy mention something about the increasing complexity of casting increasing power, but there had to be a way to do that without crippling her ability to multitask. None of her Wind Whisper based spells could be charged while carrying on a conversation. She couldn’t bluff for time, and it was very very obvious what she was doing.

She wanted spells that could be done quietly, at her side, in one hand, out of sight if possible. The Whisper-Word series, as she’d taken to calling them, would be very useful in ranged combat, but not at all covert.

Frost Bolt was a little better, requiring only hands, and it could be overcharged. Its overcharge seemed unimpressive, adding only a third of its base damage, but also stacked fast.

Magestrike seemed promising, since it was a targeted area attack that could easily be cast without drawing too much attention. But it was also incredibly finicky. Maya had yet to successfully duplicate it without using the ability system, which meant she couldn’t begin to modify it yet.

And she wasn’t even going to try working with the three top spells yet. They were exacting in their requirements, and she hadn’t had a chance to even start tracking their activation moves.

It was frustrating, feeling like she was trying to reverse-engineer the wheel when the mage academy probably had all the details about every default spell on file somewhere, but she just couldn’t bring herself to risk taking the trip back to Kalyx while Domitius’s people were after her. She would never forgive herself if she wasted this high-luck day.

What little remained of it.

Maben had returned with the money from selling Maya’s extra equipment, a surprisingly high amount which more than covered the price of hiring the team on for the day. She could almost justify rehiring them every day just to go out into the wilderness and kill stuff for the loot - which, she supposed, was basically what Sevard had been doing in the jungle zone but without the overhead of hiring NPCs.

Evening was falling, or had fallen, she wasn’t sure. Her luck boost from the night before and penalty for rolling had both worn off, leaving her with ‘only’ her base roll of +95.

Hara had called twice more to try cajoling Emma into heading back to Kalyx, clearly growing increasingly frustrated with her refusal to answer, but finally the calls had stopped.

Maben’s voice broke her concentration. “So, how about it, you going to re-up for another day, or am I heading home?”

Maya considered for a moment. "I think I'd like to keep you around. I don't need anyone for anything specific, but I'm somewhat short of trustworthy allies at present. So, sure, consider yourself rehired."

Maben grinned. "Standish. Would it be too much to assume that you'll be hiring the others on as well?"

"No, that's a reasonable assumption. I may not take all of you, but at least you and Lubon and. . ." She was having a hard time remembering the others at the moment. Oh, yeah, there was the fighter who might be handy to add to the team. “Riha too.”

"Ugh." Maya grumbled. Thinking about the people who were going to be potentially useful also made her consider what they may have to deal with, which was a much less encouraging list.

Maya realized she only had a half hour or so left until midnight, when she’d have to say goodbye to her spectacular good luck and return to the mundane reality of life. She didn’t regret ignoring everyone and spending the day on magic - she had so much more flexibility now and could finally live up to her fullest potential as a caster.

But she doubted Domitius would be very understanding of her position. She'd been putting off thinking about it all day, but she was going to have to face the music sooner or later. He had to be pretty upset that she'd been dodging her responsibilities to him for so long.

But it was worth it. She’d learned more about magic today than any other time since the beginning. She couldn’t imagine anything Domitius could do to her that would make the day not worth it.

Even if he dragged her back to his stupid prison, or forced her to make more binding promises? Well. Maybe not anything. The thought of either of those options terrified her on an almost visceral level, but she quickly forced her mind away from such dire possibilities.

“What’s wrong?” Maben asked.

“Oh, nothing. Just. . . everything.” She glanced at the rogue, but Maben just raised an eyebrow questioningly. “I wish every day could be like today. Things going well, nothing insurmountable, no pressing sense of doom. I guess it’s too much to ask for perpetual good luck, but it would be awfully nice.”

“From what I’ve heard, you don’t need to stay here,” Maben said cautiously. “Your type, you can move between worlds, or create your own and live by no rules but your own.”

“I know, but it wouldn’t be the same.” Maya sighed. “There’s a difference. If I had no obstacles to accomplishing everything I wanted. . . it would be like playing with cheats on, or running through a game in god mode. It’s fun. . . sometimes. But it’s not as satisfying. The nice thing here is that even with max luck, things can still go wrong. Just not terribly, dreadfully wrong. I mean, I’m still worried that not everyone will be able to respawn tonight, so it’s not safe, and we still barely survived, but we did and it mattered.”

She still hardly believed it. The whole thing had been crazy. If Domitius and company hadn’t been all away, it would never have worked. If she hadn’t just happened to have a max luck day, it would never have worked.

But they had, and she did, and it was awesome.

She sighed again, then shook herself and forced a smile. “But, tomorrow is tomorrow, and we’ll deal with it.”

“There’ll be a sandstorm tomorrow,” Maben commented.

“Oh?”

“Every eighteen days.”

“Hm.” That didn’t really change much. Maya should probably return to Kalyx anyway. See what she could do about the mage academy if things had settled, or spend some time leveling and grinding for those Kalyx faith tokens Domitius wanted. That might help assuage any annoyance he felt with her.

But at the same time, staying in Nirsym would be tempting. Could she just. . . blow off everyone for another day? Another week? However long it took? Just pretend all the players fighting each other didn’t matter, do her own thing until she was ready?

How had she managed to tangle herself into so many factions anyway?

“You know, I think I changed my mind. Sorry, but would you mind if I suspended your contract with me for a few more days? I have a lot of research to do and I’ll basically just be down here working on it for a while. I’ll come and get you when I’m ready to go out exploring again.”

Maben shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. You know where to find us.”

Maya nodded. “Thanks.”

She spent the remaining minutes of her best day ever in organizing her notes into something that would be clear and comprehensible even without the innate instinctive understanding that high luck brought, then copied everything into her journal as well as the physical copies spread everywhere.

She’d burned through most of one terrarium of magic in her research so far, but that still left a solid amount to experiment with in the coming days.

Then the day ended, and her +95 flipped over to -100, and she rolled her die for the new day.

-86. Typical. She rerolled. -52. And went to roll again, but stopped herself. Could she keep doing this? Last time. . . it hadn’t ended well. But there was no point researching magic with luck below -50! She’d probably end up messing it up dreadfully.

Today, or tomorrow?

She hesitated, rationalizations warring with her previous resolution. She might be able to make it up in the future. One more roll wouldn’t hurt, would it? Six hours into the next day, she could handle -15 to whatever she rolled tomorrow.

But if she rolled badly, it would just keep compounding. She’d been there before, and didn’t want to do it again. Not ever.

But to just accept a bad day now, now, coming down off the best and greatest success yet. Wouldn’t it be worth it to postpone the misfortune another day? She could make so much more progress, maintain her flow, unlock more secrets of magic. If she’d been able to create four new spells just studying her first two new ones, imagine the permutations she could find once she figured out Magestrike, or Heart of Magma!

Her hand trembled, wavering between giving in to the desire to make things better, or the promise she’d made herself not to roll more than twice in a day.

Just once more.

She clenched her beak. There was no right answer, no good solution. Either she gambled on today, or gambled on tomorrow. She could try, and still get worse and worse results. Or one more roll could make everything good again.

Once more. She’d just hold off until 6 in the morning the next day, instead of rerolling right at midnight. Six hours of -100 wouldn’t be so bad, she could live with that if it gave a chance for today to be better.

She nodded, and tossed the die.

-42. Guh. She couldn’t keep going. It was better, at least. Even with the -15, it only brought it to -57 as opposed to the previous -62.

Not a significant improvement, but not terrible enough that she regretted her decision.

Now she regretted sending Maben away. She stared at her barely-comprehensible notes on magic, and knew that she’d vastly underestimated how much of her progress had been due to luck’s innate instincts. Still, no harm in trying. She had copies and backups in case of disaster.

Maya then spent nearly two hours trying to write out the specific casting details for Magestrike before finally giving up in disgust. Now she knew what the other mages felt like, slowly trudging through the mechanics of the spell system with no guidance.

Looked like heading back to Kalyx was the only real option. Driving herself to frustration trying to recapture the flow of a project best left to high luck days wouldn’t benefit anything.

She piled her notes together neatly, stacked them beside her remaining terrariums of magic, then paused to consider what she should take with her. She’d want some magic, just in case. Maybe she could give it to Harold to gain reputation she could trade in. How much would it take to earn one of those tokens?

She settled on an amount roughly equivalent to what she’d been carrying around before, a thin layer on her forearms but not reaching must past her elbows. It wouldn’t do to flaunt too much wealth.

Then she paused again, double and triple checking that her mask persona was in place and her equipment matched her Emma persona. She knew her negative luck would be trying to nudge her into forgetting, to making stupid mistakes, but she could override it as long as she was careful. Luck could only suggest, not control her.

Maya left the basement, locked and checked the door behind her, and started toward the leypillar.

“Where have you been?”

Maya jumped and spun. She’d only just arrived at the Kalyx leypillar, and already someone was yelling at her.

An angry-looking lizardine woman stood with her arms crossed, glowering in Maya’s direction. Mint-green scales gradiated with pale yellow formed a shifting pattern across the stranger’s face and hands. The rest of her was concealed by very generic armor in the classic mismatch of a mid-level player with no particular specialty.

Maya frowned. “And who are you?”

“Hara. Limited. Do you have any idea how much of my time you’ve wasted?”

“About a day? Sorry, I got caught up in something and only just made it back.”

Hara grinned, looking much more sinister than before. “And I’m sure your luck has nothing to do with it.”

Maya shrugged. “It might. But what does that matter? I’m here now. Where’s Julios? I’m ready to get back to work.”

“Aha, no. Not at all. Julios has proven himself unsuitable as a companion for your assessment. Which, by the way, you’re not doing very well at. If it were up to me, I’d have you out as soon as possible.”

Maya didn’t know what to say, so she let the other woman rant without interrupting.

Hara seemed to realize she’d lost her temper, because she took a deep breath before nodding and continuing. “Anyway. The point is, you’re with me now. I know, pointless sending two tricksters on the same route, but you’re acting erratic and unreliable so maybe having someone else who knows how to navigate the ups and downs will help you stablize.”

“So, you’re here to keep me in line?”

“And provide any assistance or explanations you may require. You’re new, and it’s easy for these other guys to forget that just because they’ve been here so long everything feels instinctive, not everyone has that same depth of experience.”

Maya blinked. Of all the reactions to her impromptu vacation, being assigned a trickster mentor was not what she’d expected.

“Um, sounds great. I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long.”

“In future, instead of ignoring my calls, please respond. Even if you just have to say, ‘I’m busy and won’t be available until tomorrow’ then I won’t have to spend the whole day sitting here wondering if you’ll show up.”

Maya nodded guiltily. Being considerate of others was something she definitely didn’t do well. Not through any malice, but she did tend to forget that they existed.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I’ll try to do better in future.”

“That’s all I can ask. Mind telling me what was so important?”

Maya didn’t see any harm in telling her. “I was learning new spells. My main playstyle is mage, and since I’d finally gotten together enough for the spellbooks I spent the day working them out.”

She hastily swapped her active abilities to the defaults, not wanting to accidentally use one of her created spells. Those were not for public use. It was fine to display knowledge of any and all base spells, but all her new Whisper-Word series belonged to Mage Stader, not Emma Domitian.

“So, what are we doing now?”

Hara gestured out to the hills to the west, where a range of mountains separated player homes from the wilderness beyond. “You've hit tier two and the others have Kalyx covered. We’re heading to Zone Two.”